Devon Hunter

It was a glorious day: The colors were vibrant, but just past their prime, and there were icicles everywhere. There had been a snow storm the night before, so the symbolism was perfect. There was beauty everywhere, though it sometimes seemed a bit browbeaten.

The earth is going to sleep for a spell. And we are on the cusp of rest and temporary death.

The sky was incredible – the colors in the clouds were gorgeous. I trekked up to the top of Mount Mitchell (at +6,800 ft it’s the highest point in North America east of the Mississippi River), and it was really amazing. That night I did the ritual itself on KITTEH’s screened-in sniffing parlor at my apartment. Grampa liked Port, so I used that, rather than a simple wine. KITTEH helped (KITTEH has strong magick). Grampa loved cats – sometimes I think he preferred cats to people (and I can completely relate to that).

But yes, it was a beautiful Samhain, even it it was the first time I had to do a ritual for the dead. It gave me a better sense of closure, and (for my part) I sent Grampa off on his long journey with love, friendship, peace, and joy. Happy Belated New Year!

“Au fur et au mésure que je connais mieux les hommes, je préfère mon chat.” (The more I know men, the better I like my cat.)

“C’eux qui s’amusent aux chats peuvent pas maudire les giffres.”  (People who play with cats should not curse the claws.)

I don’t really know why I’m doing this, or why my first impulse is to come here and write it. I don’t know if it’s symptomatic of living in a Twitter/Facebook world, or if it’s because I think of my blog as a safe space where I can just get everything out of my head. Either way, it’s a mix of shame and shock I’m feeling for doing this here; however, I don’t know where or how else to contend with this.

I am one of the luckiest people on the planet: I knew all four of my grandparents. I didn’t lose my Grampa K until I was 12. I’ve had the other three ever since, and I’m 34. I’ve had them all with me my whole life. And it’s too fucking weird to understand how someone who is such a constant is now not. My Grampa V was a staggering genius. You have know idea. He was one of the top five engineers in the world in his field while he was working. He wrote the program to prevent a nuclear meltdown in GA/SC like the one that happened at Three Mile Island – the script for that program was given to President Carter as a present. He supported his wife and six kids, and he paid for my college education. He was one of the quietest, kindest men I have ever known. And I love him so much that I think my head is going to cave in now that he’s gone.

I was very calm with Mom just now. She’s already under enough pressure, and doesn’t need my crying. But the more I type the more I don’t feel good. I’m going to stop now. I just needed to get that out of my head. I don’t know anything about the way this is going to be arranged, so I don’t know if I will be going to Atlanta this weekend or not.

At any rate, Grampa V is not suffering anymore. Although I will miss him, I know that for the rest of my life I will have a firm memory of him as one of the nicest and most generous people I have ever known. He didn’t believe in any particular afterlife, given that his math and science were all he felt he needed to explain what he needed to know (and he was very satisfied in that, and expressed no fear); however, I know that… oh, shit. I don’t know what I know. I’m just glad he’s not sick anymore.

I am about to write this blog with the full knowledge that it could set off a series of conflicts later. I also want to preface what I’m about to say by admitting that I am in no way perfect in regards to safe sex. In fact, I’m not very good at being consistent with practicing it. I know the risks, I know the consequences, but (like a huge number of people) I have not completely embraced 100% safe sex (and I don’t believe other people when they say they have: I’ve hooked up with far too many people who claimed 100% and then fell short with me for me to buy into all their nonsense).

All of this stems from the following: 1) Most of the condoms I’ve tried have either desensitized me or hurt me (however, Pleasure Plus are almost awesome and Lifestyles SKYN are passable), 2) Condoms have been served to me (and the rest of the U.S.A.) with a hefty dose of guilt and fear, instead of eroticism and empathy, and 3) Gay + Artist + Middle Class + America = worthless (if I’m not rich, straight, and corporate then I don’t have any real value in this country anyway, right? Imagine the potential extra layers of burdensome self-loathing for people who are poor and/or non-White).

But I recognize that this is not good! I recognize that this needs an adjustment in behavior on my part. I own that I am making bad choices when I opt for natural, rather than safer, sex. I know I am valuable and deserve better, that I should be respecting my partners. I know this. It is one of the reasons I am so intent on helping with promoting the safer sex strategies Dr. Terry Gerace wants to implement on his website. It’s because I truly want to acclamate to taking better care of myself, my partners, and my community/world. I feel bad that I’m not there yet. But I definitely never advocate barebacking.

So, after acknowledging that I need to practice safe sex with better than 50% regularity, I am going to go out on a limb here and call Mason Wyler out as the single most irresponsible person I can think of in adult entertainment. I saw that he was wanting writers for his site/blog, and I submitted my name before I read his content. All I knew of him was that he is a bottom with a reputation for being a gutter slut. However, I’d not actually read his own words before…

Utterly irresponsible… It is bad enough that gay porn is reinforcing the notion for gay men that bareback sex is “better,” but the outright smut from Mason’s own pen breaks my heart a little for him. In his entry “I want Brock Armstrong” Mason Wyler writes that Armstrong is hot specifically because he does bareback sex videos. He then defends this outrageous statement by saying, “That’s right, I said it!” beaming with pride, as if he has liberated himself and his readers from the cold, dark abyss that is safe sex. BULLSHIT!

I’m sorry, but at what point do we start holding people accountable for the net they cast? Yes, everyone is free to make choices in their lives, but at what point does your personal life start affecting everyone else too? Thomas Jefferson said that one man’s rights end where the next man’s begin… okay… so… The porn industry works with people who, in their personal lives, make the choice to practice bareback sex. Fine. However, once the industry becomes saturated with this imagery/attitude, and once the public begins responding by imitating this behavior more and more (and then STD infections explode again), isn’t the industry responsible on some level? Yes, there is still a freedom of choice innate to the consumer, but underneath it all, wasn’t that free choice heavily weighted towards the self-destructive?

Tobacco companies are being held responsible for addicting people to their product and for the health consequences of the general public. Don’t be surprised when the same becomes true for restaurants that offer fat/salt/sugar-laden food. These foods are addictive. Don’t fool yourself – these chains train their customers to want only bad food, to the exclusion of more healthful options. There’s a push to hold these purveyors of toxic food responsible for the product they make. So then, why not adult entertainment too?

I offer this question for debate: Is a person who takes Mason’s opinion into himself, practices the same behavior as his dysfunctional role model (with Mason’s example specifically in his mind), and is consequently infected with a disease, not in a position to hold (himself and) Mason Wyler responsible?

If we as a culture could be gobsmacked by 0.03 seconds of Janet’s titty (which is so completely ridiculous on so many levels that I’m not even going to entertain addressing them), then why aren’t we outraged by Mason Wyler’s wholly chaotic attitude towards safe sex in the midst of a resurgence of HIV infections? I believe that people imitate what they see, and I don’t think it’s fair that gay men seem to see only bad examples. Where are the portrayals of healthy, compassionate, generous same-sex interactions?

Believe it or not, this is the response I got from three different people in D.C. last weekend. I’d asked three people if they’d like to be part of an advertising campaign to promote safe sex. All three rejected me. Two said, “Condoms are so 1985,” and the third said, “Condoms are so 1980′s.” A fourth person finally said “yes,” but I’ve not heard from him since. It had never occurred to me that safe sex was trendy, much less that condoms were connected in some way to fashion. This attitude may explain why D.C. has the highest rate of new HIV infection for 2008 in the United States. Perhaps condoms should be so 2009?

I am trying to help a doctor friend of mine in the capital to get free safe sex kits into various venues throughout the city. We are hoping to generate some new stategies for encouraging safe sex/safer sex alternatives. It is obvious that the standard American model for teaching anything sexual to anybody is a general failure, and I think it’s because the well-intended professionals in this country have done everything possible to make safe sex look like a sterile, dehumanized, anti/non-sexual hassle. Droning on and on about numbers, and threatening people with consequences isn’t working. (Of course it doesn’t help when medicines are advertised showing stunning models.) A different approach is definitely needed.

Dr. Terence Gerace, a medical professional in Washington, D.C., will be exploring options for eroticizing condoms, and will eventually be producing videos that allow users of his website, www.fc-kits.org, to interact in creative ways with the multimedia that will eventually be added to the site. (Just a head’s up: I plan to interview Dr. Gerace soon, so don’t be surprised when you see his name come up again). If you are interested in being part of this project, check out www.fc-kits.org and contact the site administrators.

There are going to be some changes to the blog in the coming weeks. I announce this here in this particular entry, because it is connected to what is happening behind the scenes in D.C. I may be exploring a new avenue of adult entertaiment. One that has, at its core, a philosophy that is not like any other I’ve heard of or seen. Not to be cryptic, but I may have some big announcements about the direction of my career by the end of this summer.

Before I begin, I want to first acknowledge (though not necessarily apologize) for the way in which my writing goes through some definite mood swings. There are times when I have a great many situations to discuss, and I can pick more variety of tone; however, I am having one of those weeks where everything blog-worthy is heavy… I’m writing this at 5:30 a.m., which seems to be more the norm than the exception lately. I do this, because some experiences are best described after some times passes, and others need immediate comment.

I know a patron who has always spoken to me in spiritual terms. The first time I ever met him he wanted to give me a massage and align my chakras. Such is the club: You meet people of all backgrounds and beliefs. This particular person is a mystical type, though I am not quite convinced his powers are attuned to the level he himself believes. At any rate, when he asks me to pray for something on his behalf I generally agree to the wish and send out a private moment of hope. I have done this, because his requests have always been constructive and/or productive (if not odd and eccentric).

This time, however, I am having difficulty…

He wants me to pray for his father to die. Dude, I just wanted to dance naked for you for like eight minutes. This is getting to be rather more than I bargained for. On the one hand I understand that he wants his father’s suffering to end (and by extension, his mother’s), but on the other hand how am I supposed to send out an earnest wish for this person to fall down dead?

“Well, when I had a prayer circle to ask for his recovery after his first surgery, that went well. So I figured if I could get enough people to pray for him to die during his second surgery, he’d finally just get on with it.”

Normally I would just smile and nod at a strange request without really doing anything about it, but something about the way this patron sincerely hopes his father dies struck me as something worth talking about, even if I’m not entirely sure how I feel about being asked to contribute in any way to someone’s demise. I have known friends and family members who have sickened, or been injured, and who have passed away. I have had many friends who have had this experience and talked about it with me. Of course I don’t want their deaths to be painful or protracted, yet do I dare to admit that I hoped for their passings? Maybe, but only as a reprieve from suffering. But I suppose the real question behind this post is this: How lonely (or insert other adjective here) does someone have to be to ask in the middle of a nude dance an exotic dancer he sees once or twice in a month to synergize with the others who are sending out a prayer for death?

What am I even supposed to pray, even if I agree to this (which I’m not sure I do)? “I ask for a peaceful resolution and transition for this person’s spirit.” That’s an eloquent way of saying “God, please kill this person.” What if this patron’s father goes into his operation praying for life? (This is a good example of how ridiculous it is when opposing armies of the same faith both intone God’s favor as justificiation for victory on the field of battle.)

Honestly, this may very well be the first post I’ve written on here for which I feel absolutely zero closure after describing what I’ve experienced. Jeez… I was just shaking my pecker at him… and he unloads this on me… I need to be charging more for VIP’s.