If I honestly look at my life currently and the topic for this week I’ve got nothing! Perhaps this is due in part to the ease of access to the volumes of free Internet porn full of fantasy on demand with no effort beyond my left hand and some Vaseline. For someone with HIV, though well controlled on meds, and more importantly perhaps my advancing age the effort in conjuring up a sexual fantasy that I might actually act on seems to take a backseat to turning on the computer and visiting PornHub.
I could I suppose resort to an App like Grindr and try to solicit a sexual partner that would fulfill a sexual fantasy but really I have so little to offer in exchange these days. The fear of almost certain rejection again keeps me firmly seated in front of my computer.
My taste in men sexually has changed very little over the decades. I like them seasoned, experienced, well fed, as old or older than me and hairy. Men under forty rarely have any sexual appeal and if under thirty definitely not worth the effort.
With my seventieth birthday approaching in a few short months I seem to be well on my way to being obsolete on the sexual market. Men several decades older than myself have always been appealing but these days when I do that math I am looking at the ninety+ older set. Though I would not rule out a sexual liaison with a man a couple decades older than me lets face it the herd is pretty thin when it comes to that age group especially in my generation so decimated by HIV.
I have been fortunate in my life to have had two long-term relationships that involved cohabitation, one lasting 12 years and the other 15 years. There were many very satisfying aspects to both of these relationships and the sex was good. Throughout those years though the sexual fantasy that would always get me going was about a man that could crudely be called an intermittent fuck-buddy though actually so much more. Our relationship began one night in the fall of 1978 at the Empire Bathes on east Colfax and has persisted now for 40 years.
Though not all very legitimate fuck-buddy relationships involve love this one has to this day. He is now 80 years old lives in another state and is still happily married to the same woman he was when we met those 40 years ago.
He fit my sexual fantasy requirements to a “T”. He was when we first met a bear like man though that term had yet to come into the gay male parlance back in 1978. I have never been a size-queen but he was no slouch in that department. An erect penis I suppose fits into my sexual fantasies and for me has always been an indicator of genuine interest and intent. Our sexual play since the mid1980’s has been only mutual masturbation respecting his HIV negative status and his marriage!
It is with great sadness that I have to relate that he has been diagnosed with metastatic cancer and is undergoing very toxic chemotherapy and the prognosis is not good. He has though gotten some respite with the chemo and a recent PET scan shows some tumor shrinkage.
I am very consciously not using his name because there has always been a complicating closet aspect to out relationship. He is in a lifelong heterosexual marriage and they are a very loving couple. Life is just complicated some times.
Though I doubt very much that the SAGE blog or my web site are read by anyone in rural fly-over states and though I do not understand his closet I do feel I owe it to him to honor his wishes in this matter. Just as I have been able to work around his crazy-ass Republican politics all of these decades I am maintaining a certain amount of distance around getting involved in his current illness.
I am not a secret to his wife but I am not certain as to the extent of her knowledge of our relationship. He calls me or I check in with him now every few days and was happy to learn the good news about his recent PET scan and that he finally has some good pain meds.
I suppose this entire relationship could be fodder for endless psychotherapy around the complexities and perhaps even toxicities of some gay male alliances. Well fuck that. I have done plenty for the gay agenda and appreciate this relationship for all its wonderful aspects and will miss him terribly when he is gone.
I am not sure how I will know about his death so I check the local obituaries every few days and wonder if I will get a call from his wife when he does die.
Perhaps one life lesson here is that not all sexual fantasies have a happy ending.
Update: I did get a call from his wife the day after his death.