Before I get into it today, I want to make it clear that this is not going to be me feeling bad about having sex. I, quite frankly, don’t understand the American penchant for disgust in anything sexual. It is part of the Puritanical tradition of the U.S.A. that things sexual are so shameful. That the same conservative elements in our society that are screaming about how good torture is also have a heart attack at the idea of the word Penis being said in public. I just don’t get it.
This is about me trying to explore the motivations behind some of the things I have done in my life in the domain of Aphrodite and why some of those things have been bad decisions, and why some of them have lead me to further explore my own feelings and how they affect the way I treat people with whom I have sexual relations.
First, I am a man. I make no apologies for the inherently sexual nature of my being. I make no apologies for being horny or having sexual thoughts or dreams of an erotic nature. It is perfectly natural.
Second, I identify almost exclusively as gay, and I make no apologies for that either. Not to man or god. I like the male gender, I long for it, I lust for it, and I long for the love between men that is such a basic foundation of who I am as a human being.
Third, I am a strong believer in sexual freedom. There are restraints, of course, all things must be handled with both body and mind, and we must all be willing to take responsibility for our health. But I am also not a paranoid person, at least not when it comes to my health. I am not going to become a neurotic mess worried about every little germ when the truth is that it is impossible to avoid disease 100% of the time. Common sense must, however, be applied in all things, and when the Apollonian saying “Nothing to excess” comes to mind, I try to apply it in my life to all things, except maybe food, and I am working on that one.
So, what is it that I have done in my life, with relation to Aphrodite, that I have regrets about?
Nothing, really. I don’t regret having met, loved, or fucked anyone, not in the sense that I wish I had never met them, rather I feel that there have been situations that I seriously wish I had handled differently, or perhaps gotten into with more of my head leading the way.
I have been in several relationships. In the last ten years I have had two serious ones, and one which almost got off the ground but somehow fizzled, and before that I have, as I mentioned before, fallen in love a few times. The falling in love has never been an issue for me. If it happens, I welcome it and am willing to enjoy it, but I have a hard time dealing with people in many ways. I am a somewhat stubborn man, OK, way stubborn sometimes, and I am too often unwilling to give way in a relationship, which causes a wall to form that can, in time, become too tall to climb over.
With William, there was no wall. With Tony, we always had certain issues between us that caused us to build barriers between us. Some of these were physical, his HIV status demanded it, but some were cultural. I am Puertorican, he was Guatemalan, and I am much more Americanized than he ever was, and often our differences of opinion left us with walls to tear down.
With Steve, our relationship was always a little dysfunctional. We had an open relationship, which is not a problem for me, and he was just a little too immature. I had a hard time dealing with a man who still looked at life too much like a kid. He did not work, did not see his own fault in anything he did, and I eventually had to remove myself from that. The sex was hot, though. HOT.
And, finally, my relationship with Jim. That one was a bit rough because I never quite figured out where I fit in with him. He was in the closet and it became a real issue with me. I am a believer in being me. If people like it, cool, if not, too bad. He could not move in a direction that would take him out of the closet, and I could not move in a direction that would put me in a closet.
So, so far it sounds pretty normal. People have relationships, they succeed or fail on different levels, for different reasons, and I don’t regret any of them.
But then there are the things I do, and have done, while single. I have fucked and been fucked by men, in groups, singly, known there names, haven’t, and in the end it has rendered me, maybe, a little jaded to with whole experience. Sex is a wonderful thing. playful and exciting, it can be as helpful to us as adults as playing is to children, but there are also a lot of times when we use sex as a way to escape things in our lives that trouble us.
After William died, I threw myself into all kinds of sex with all kinds of people who, to be honest, I could never name. I simply never knew their names. But if I am to be perfectly honest, it was not that I was suffering over william, but that I was still very much reacting to being raped. Part of me needed to have sex and feel that it was me who was in control, me who was using them, me who was seeking it out and doing it. It never occurred to me that in doing so I was allowing myself to be used. When raped, it was forced upon me. He took me and used me, and I had no choice, and now I was allowing myself to be used. While I don’t regret the sex, I do wish I had taken the time to think about why I was doing it and had come to realize what I was doing to myself. Rather than dealing with my feelings, I was burying them in sex. That is almost always a mistake.
When I moved to Ohio and Steve and I were trying to make a go of it, I should have been more clear with him about what I expected out of the relationship. I gave myself over to the love I felt for him, and the lust, but I did not allow myself the luxury of allowing the mindful part of Aphrodite to look after my heart. I never allowed Ourania in, I simply gave in to Eros and Porne, and was slapped in the face as a return.
And, perhaps, that has always been my failing. I have given myself over to the lust and eroticism that is Aphrodite, but not the higher levels of love, at least not since Tony, and it is causing me to lose sight of a greater reality.
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