The online diary of a gay courtesan.

C-Money’s turn to scold me about not blogging enough… SAWWY!!

Okay, in my young gay life I have managed to achieve orgasm while wearing a condom only two times. I use condoms with increasing frequency (I have definitely improved DRASTICALLY since I last blogged about this), approaching, I’d guess, 95% now. I am very proud of this. It has taken me years to develop the discipline, self-esteem, and hope/optimism to invest in this practice. I’m not perfect by any means, but I am so much better than I was that I wanted to brag a little.

At any rate, something happened about an hour ago that I have never experienced before: I was able to achieve an orgasm while wearing a condom WHILE I WAS MASTURBATING.

I bought some Durex Avanti BARE, because the SKYN and Pleasure Plus were out at the local drug store. I like SKYN and Pleasure Plus, because they don’t have latex in them (and I think that has made a world of difference for me personally: I think the latex hurts/irritates me). I bought a 3-pack of the Durex Avanti BARE, because I wasn’t sure I’d like them and didn’t want to buy a dozen. Inside, one was free and the other two were attached to each other. When I tried to separate the two, the packaging ripped open for one of them.

Damn.

So I decided to see what I might expect once I use them. I got myself hard, put it on, and started to stroke myself. I could actually feel the warmth of my hand! I am not going to say that it was like wearing nothing, but I’d never been able to achieve that degree of sensation before in a condom. So I decided to see how far I could get. I had to stop and start a few times, gradually building towards an orgasm, but then I actually made myself cum!

OMG! This is so exciting!!

I have always loathed condoms. Their texture, scent, and nearly debilitating squeeze made sex feel like nothing, when I could maintain an erection at all. I started using the SKYN and the Pleasure Plus, and they were marked improvements (I even came once while being the insertive partner while wearing a Pleasure Plus – never yet with SKYN); however, I wasn’t all that excited about them. But now? OMG! I almost wanna get on Manhunt now, just so I can test drive one of these bad boys with a real person…

So: I highly recommend Durex Avanti BARE, especially used in conjunction with Astroglide Natural lubrication and moisturizer (a new product I bought today with the consistency of Platinum Wet that contains aloe, vitamin C, vitamin E, and plant/fruit/flower extracts, but no glycerin, alchohol, fragrance, flavoring, or hormones). The two together are not exactly like nothing, but the combination sure as hell beats anything else I’ve ever tried!

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.