Devon Hunter

Okay, a little background about what’s going on lately. I’ve been pretty open about being an escort with just about everyone. I tend to treat it the way Madonna did when pictures of her came out in Penthouse way back in 1985. Her response was something on the order of, “Yeah. And?” It kinda killed that particular controversy.

I didn’t become an escort to shock people. In fact that has nothing to do with it at all. I embraced it knowing it would be controversial, but I didn’t make the choice for controversy’s sake. And it’s a good thing, too: No one I’ve met thus far has been particularly shocked. Not that I’m disappointed, but it’s rather surprising. Family, potential partners, friends, and readers all have the same response: “Okay, just be careful. I’m not gonna judge you.”

This is fabulous on the one hand, but it raises a question on the other: Have we, on some level at least, moved into the post-controversy era? Have so many people been exposed as adult video models and exotic dancers on American Idol that no one cares anymore? Did reality TV finally drive the first nail into the coffin of prudence/prurience? I certainly hope so.

As far as family goes: Mom knows. So does Gramma. My sister knows. I told Dad, and he took it as a compliment to himself that his son is a “stud” (even though I’m adopted, and it’s not his genes at work per se). I’ve not told Dad’s mother, because although she is probably a teensy bit more liberal than she pretends, she does still send me conservative political emails about what Rush Limbaugh “thinks,” so I just don’t wanna go there right now. I’ve not told my uncles, but I’m not close enough to most of them for it to matter, and Uncle Greg would probably just laugh and give me his rendition of the Celtic Warriors’ greeting (which is using the heel of the palm to rub quick circles in the center of the friend’s chest while grunting “AAAAAARGH!”).

My friends haven’t judged me negatively at all. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not a single one is anything but supportive.

In terms of personal relationships with other men: I didn’t escort until after breaking it off with Steve last summer, so there was no one to tell until Matt back in December. He didn’t care about that. He has other issues, but my escorting isn’t one of them. “J” (someone I’ve talked to on and off for nearly four years, but never dated) decided to finally pursue me right in the middle of this Matt situation, and he isn’t offended (in fact, he asked if I thought he could use escorting to pay off his house). “A” is another guy who has shown interest, both in me and in escorting. Shawn, a model in D.C., is definitely not put off by it. In short, while I’m trying to heal from Matt there are people pursuing me who aren’t allowing my being a courtesan to dissuade them in the least. How fucking irritating! OMG!

To put all this into context, a reader in Canada named Doug shows my blog to his mother. Doug is about Mom’s age, if not a few years older. His mother is thus older than Gramma. She said to Doug that I am “possessed of the refined sensibilities that demand a well-appointed house.” Aside from being utterly charming in an Old World Colonial manner, her comment shows that even Canadians of a certain age don’t care about all this (but they have a vastly different sexual culture north of the U.S. border). She went on to say that I “should marry a doctor.” Doug is going to ask her advice for me on finding a well-appointed man. She is concerned about my safety in escorting, to which I replied, “I meet worse men dating than I ever have escorting.” Doug’s father has said, “When men say they love you, remember that they also love Ketchup.” Mhm. Perhaps I should stop threatening to move to Canada and just do it?

So, all in all, I’ve been expecting a big hullabaloo, but society at large has given me the Madonna treatment: Yeah. And?

I think I’m completed elated by this.

PS

Don’t forget to place your vote for Best Escort Blog for the 2010 Hookies by visiting my ad on Rentboy! The check boxes are at the bottom of the righthand sidebar.

Dear Matt,

When I wrote this I wanted to make you into heaven-angel/landscape-garden, because of your blue eyes (sky), light hair (sun), fair skin (clouds/marble), and intoxicating sex (flowers/nectar). Do you see how beautiful you are to me?

The structure of the poem is this: I created three haiku. I don’t know if you know what a haiku is, but it is a strictly set form from Japan. The poem must have three lines, the first line having exactly five syllables, the second having exactly seven, and the third exactly five again. That’s hard to do, especially when you also have to say something metaphorical within those parameters!!

Anyway, I used the first haiku to make connections between you and heaven, the second to make you an angel (fitting for Valentine’s Day, since cupid is a winged god), and the third to connect you to flowers and their scents.

Something else to notice: The vowel patterns. Azure/hallowed/hand/dazzling/man/happy all have the same “a” sound in them, and they are all penultimate (next to the last) words on the first and second lines of each haiku. There is also a true rhyme with gates/radiates/opiates, and a false rhyme (same sound, difference spelling of sound) with rays/haze/bouquets. There is another true rhyme on the first word of the third line of each haiku with baring/daring/flaring.

Finally, and this was important, given that the other poem you said was written about you didn’t make sense, the three haiku can be read as one sentence that says exactly what I mean: You are a beautifully intoxicating man.

Heaven’s azure gates
open under hallowed rays,
baring an angel

whose hand radiates
prisms of dazzling haze,
daring me to hope

his man-opiates
will be, like happy bouquets,
flaring into bloom.

Thus:
Heaven’s azure gates open under hallowed rays, baring an angel whose hand radiates prisms of dazzling haze, daring me to hope his man-opiates will be, like happy bouquets, flaring into bloom.

PS

Don’t forget to place your vote for Best Escort Blog for the 2010 Hookies by visiting my ad on Rentboy! The check boxes are at the bottom of the righthand sidebar.

In my video interview I mentioned having clients who become friends. There are several with whom I speak on a regular basis, and a few who stick around enough to get the skinny on the stuff I don’t write here. Well, there is one in particular who said something very smart to me in an email the other day:

“In my experience, people of average emotional intelligence can clearly see what’s going on in other people’s relationships, but only people at the genius level can see what’s going on in their own.”

To put this in context: When I tried to say goodbye to Matt he suddenly made it very clear that this was not what he wanted at all, and he apologized for making it difficult to get to know him. Evidently he has defense mechanisms as complicated and weird as mine and anyone else’s. But I thanked Jackcali for some previous insights, and admitted that he was right and I was wrong (hence the quote above).

I wanted to look at his observation again, and to share it with others. It’s pretty common knowledge that people are often great at giving advice but not at accepting their own wisdom (*rolls eyes, whistles, and shuffles feet innocently). That is common enough; however, I really liked the eloquence in what Jackcali wrote. There aren’t any mirror metaphors. No Gump-isms about chocolate. There isn’t anything but gracious intelligence in it.

If you want to understand yourself, you really do have to go beyond being an observer. You have to inhabit the improvements you envision for others. That can be scary, since you have to first admit you can improve. But what is life, if not an extended chance at making yourself better?? This is why I not only prefer making friends of my connections, but really come to need it.

Thanks, Jackcali! xoxo

PS
Don’t forget to vote for my blog as Best Blog for the 2010 Hookies!

I suppose it’s about time you guys finally caught up to the New Year Us heathens had ours way back on November 1, so I would like to finally welcome you all to the “new” year. HA!

At any rate, I danced in Nashville, TN at a club called Play on the night of December 31, and I had a great time. It was very nice to be away from the troubles here at home, and to be floating in an ocean of people who were feeling happiness and excitement. I was baptised in their optimism, and it has helped me come into this entry with a lighter heart (though I am still prone to flashes of panic and sadness within a greater context of “pretty good”).

Something I am remembering is that we can be only who we are. And it really is that simple (and yet that complicated). I recognize that I am just as liable to wound as be wounded, and going forward I feel a bit more acceptance for myself. In placing “Randy and Matt” as an entry on my Favorites list I had to reread some that were already there, and “…in the end” has helped me, too. (Wait, you guys thought I wrote all these blogs for others?? Nooooo! I need to go back and see my own thoughts from time to time…)

Here is a little piece of brilliant pop confection by Natasha Bedingfield that I want to put out here right now, because it is exactly what it is. Please remember to speak and feel honestly in this “new” year, even if it makes you vulnerable. Oh, and keep it simple. As the lyrics of this song say: “These words are my own, from my heart flow: ‘I love you.’ There’s no other way to better say, ‘I love you.’” And that is the beauty of honesty - poetry can be a wonderful robe, but often it’s better to be naked.

Not all that long ago I was asked what I wanted in my connections with people. Well, J.C., I have an answer for you, and before I even write this (and I’m not so worried about whether or not I keep it to 500 words today) I sense it will end up in my Favorites list. This is one of those diamonds I sometimes birth after some painful struggle and terrifying introspection.

First, some background information. When I lived in Los Angeles from 1998 - 2002, I lived within a profoundly dysfunctional relationship with a man named Randy. Randy is wonderful in that he is financially generous and politically honest; however, he is one of the single most emotionally selfish, socially inept, intellectually insensitive, and grossly manipulative people I have ever met. His qualities cannot, for me, EVER counterbalance his negative attributes. And I have been tormented by his presence in my life for OVER TEN FUCKING YEARS… He drives me absolutely ape shit…

And last night he called me at 4:00 am to bitch me out.

I left my phone on, because Matt (whose story unfolds in “Honesty: It fucking sucks,” part 1, part 2, and part 3) reappeared 24 hours after I sent him a “good bye” text. He texted to let me know his phone had been dead for two days (which, for a variety of reasons I don’t care to explain here, I know to be a lie), and that he didn’t mean to come across as “shady.” He then immediately disappeared back into the mysterious labyrinth of his restaurant where time and communication skills are forever lost…

At any rate, I left my phone on in case Matt finally decided to call after all. He did not. But, lo and behold, rather than the person I most wanted a call from, I got a call from the person I least wanted a call from. I remember the phone ringing at 4:00 am, and I rolled over and I actually cursed outloud in indignation. I let it go to voicemail. I checked that voicemail a few hours later, unable to sleep.

And the diamond was forged from within me.

Randy WENT OFF on me. “I’m so disappointed in you as a person! You didn’t call for Thanksgiving or Christmas. You never answer when I call. You always let me go to voicemail, and you never call me back. How busy can you fucking be? This is a bunch of bullshit! I’m getting the message that you don’t want to talk to me or something, and I’m not going to call you anymore.”

Here is what I was yelling in response to him: “I don’t care if you’re disappointed, asshole! I didn’t even THINK to call you, and why would I?? Of course I don’t answer: You’re an asshole! And I don’t call back, because I don’t fucking want to! Too busy to talk TO YOU! What’s bullshit is that it’s taken you 10 years to figure all this out. Don’t do me any favors! GOD!” And I deleted his voicemail, feeling triumphant that I was FINALLY, after more than a decade, not going to allow him to guilt me into talking to him. I am finally rid of this person!

GOD!

And then… well… the moment his voicemail blinked out of existence, I realized something:

It is distinctly possible that I am Randy/Matt. Actually, I’m far worse than Randy/Matt. I have been sick with fretting over not hearing from Matt with any consistency for +10 days, but I have been doing this to Randy for +10 years. Why? Because I can’t bear the thought of the confrontation. I am heaped with guilt at the thought of telling Randy to leave me alone, and to keep his manipulative insanity to himself.

And here I am, sitting by with the audacity to cry over Matt? Oh, my fucking GOD! I don’t know that it’s true, but what if it is?? What if the only reason Matt responds to me (at all) is because he feels, from time to time, enough guilt or exasperation to text or call me just to shut me up, or to give me a dose of attention and leave me to my misery for a while? That’s the attitude I’ve taken with Randy for years and years: “Okay, I will talk to Randy for an hour today, since I’ve ignored him for months, and that’s good enough to get me through for a few more months.”

I’m a horrible person. And I’m a hypocrite. I don’t believe that Karma is a punishment: It is a lesson. And just when I was beginning to wallow in self-pity about how horrible Matt is treating me… the phone rings. That message from Randy was a message from the Universe. I have been accusing Matt of being too chicken shit to just tell me that he doesn’t want to talk to me, but I’m a thousand times more guilty of the same exact cowardice.

Now, the question is this: Do I break this cycle of cowardice, call Randy back, and FINALLY say “I got your message, and I prefer that you not contact me anymore?” Or do I break the cycle of guilt, avoiding the horrible argument Randy will try to start, in an attempt to not respond to yet another ploy?

Randy CONSCIOUSLY uses guilt to coerce people to talk to him. That is the only distinction between how he has treated me over the years, and how I have interacted with Matt over the weeks. Was I, in a more subtle manner, trying to guilt Matt into calling me or seeing me???

I don’t know.

But to answer C.J.’s question once and for all: What I want in my connections with people (friends, family, lovers, clients, and otherwise) is for people to keep their expectations of each other’s capacities reasonable; to consider both sides of a situation before deciding who, if anyone, is right/wrong or good/bad; and to allow everyone in a relationship the ability to evolve constantly, and to come/leave peacefully when needed. Whether honesty fucking sucks or not, THAT is what I want to give and get from my connections.