I have been kinda skirting around an issue here because I have never really gone into anything that is too “adult” here, and by that I mean “adult” in the sense that America seems to think of sex as being adult only, a subject not for discussion, a subject which merits X ratings and censorship while murder and mayhem do not.
That’s right, sex, and if Aphrodite has one aspect that is famous above all others, it is her role as slut, whore, and sexual being. The Goddess Aphrodite is Love, Beauty, Affection, Attraction, and the pure and unadulterated expression of Sex and all that implies. For me, this has meant coming to realizations and learning that deep within we are a great many things when it comes to sex, and which of those things I am, or if even defining it in any way is helpful, to incorporating them into my life in a way that is healthy to my spiritual life.
I will tell you that my, and most people’s, first encounter with sex is mental. It is chit chat with buddies and boisterous babbling of young boys who think they know what they’re talking about. The hormones raged, the talk was cheap, and, to be honest, I had no clue what any of it meant then. I was raised to be rather naive about sex, although my mother was not shy about talking about it, she was not one to make sex a topic of conversation with her 11 year old boy (or the girls that were his younger sisters). So, as with most of us, my first experience with sex was a lot of talk and bullshit from my little friends, none of whom knew anything more than I did. And along with such talk, there is the natural childish explorations, which hardly count as sex, really, but count as part of the whole continuum of activities that build our sexualities.
But, as with most of us again, my second experience with sex was, of course, with my dear friends lefty and righty. Let’s be adult about this, all human beings masturbate. Why we as a society pretend like it is something we need to hide away in closets (don’t get me started on closets) and make of it a sin is beyond me, except we, especially here in America, still can’t seem to deal with the fact that we have animal instincts, instinctive desires and needs, and so our culture has created all these horrid strictures around it all, forcing us to feel shame at the most natural of things.
But, as I made my way into my teens, I ran up against the sex thing in the worst possible ways. I was raped on a beach in Connecticut. I don’t normally talk about this, I have never told my family what happened to me because I feel that it was something I had to deal with on my own, and I have. It was an experience which, while I would hope no one ever has to experience it, did force me to see the negative side of sex. It forced me to see the violence and evil that can be funneled into the sex, and that sex was an act that could be used to hurt as well as pleasure a person.
I won’t dwell on this here, but I do want you to know that there is no sympathy needed for me here, I have long since moved on from this, and in many ways, later in life turned it around and made it not only a learning experience, but one that I feel made me a better person in the end (I can expand on this later if anyone feels they want me to) because I was willing to look at it and not wallow in the pain it caused me.
But, not more than two years later, I was faced with my first true sexual experience. This was not some quickie in the sand, or the horrors of rape, but the long lustful pleasure of love making.
I won’t lie, the relationship was completely inappropriate. But I fell in love with him. After the ordeal on the beach, I guess part of me needed to revisit it, to feel something other than anger and fear. I think part of me longed to understand something about sex that had not yet become apparent, and that was that it was not bad. It was not evil or shameful (or painful if done with my consent) and to that end I went back to those beaches late at night, watching people hang out, talk, make friends, but not able to really join them. I was all of 16 and they were people in their 20s and 30s. But one of these people, a 24 year old man, and a chick I thought might be his girlfriend, sort of pulled me in and made me their pet.
I kept staring at him and her, they seemed to be together, and I kept wondering about him. What did he look like under those clothes? How soft was his skin? What did his tongue taste like? Remember, hormonal but very confused and scared guy here, and if there is one thing a 16 year old boy thinks about constant;y, it’s sex, even if it was sometimes tinged with fear due to his only other experience with it. Add to that gay in the 80s, and there was just so much to feel fear about. I was at a point where I would either break free of that fear or become bound to it forever, and I chose to pursue a path that would lead me away from the fear. As it would turn out, she was not his girlfriend, though the two of them were sexual partners on occasion, and he became the first man to have true sex with me.
It was a beautiful experience, at least from my current perspective. But then it was a scary thing. William was gorgeous. A bit of a Punk type, you remember them from the 80s? And he was something of a free spirit. And he and I spent some time, one fine night, chit chatting about all kinds of bullshit that must have been very boring to him, because at 16, my interests were probably quite different from his, but he listened and made me feel comfortable (I really do not want anyone to write me and tell me he was a pedophile, I was 16, not 10, and we really need to stop infantilizing our young people in this country) and then he gave himself to me.
If that seems like a strange way to put it, it seems so to me too, but it really is the way it happened. He did not push me, he did not make a move, he just sort of made it clear to me that there was nothing he would judge me for, if I chose to do anything. That he would not judge me as bad, or sinful, or evil, for anything I was feeling or desiring. So, when I touched him, and my hand lingered, he did not move away, or question me, or ask me if I was sure. He accepted it and never once made me feel like a child for doing it.
He did not immediately jump out of his clothes and do me, but rather allowed me to guide his choices. When we kissed and touched each other, it was because I wanted to do it, and he was there to be the recipient of my desires. It was, for me, an experience that let me see that this was all very natural, all very kind and pleasing to the senses, and I was a little afraid.
Eventually, however, he understood that I didn’t really know what I was doing. Oh, I knew the mechanics of it, having talked so much about it, fantasized about it, and gotten my hands on plenty of images. But there is such a big difference between the fantasy and the reality, and once he understood where I wanted to go, he took over and showed me the rest of it.
continued...
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