My Sex Geek Golden Rule

Posted by on May 13, 2013 in Individual, Sex Geekdom | 2 comments


keep-calm-grab-some-tarpaulin-and-read-on

OK, first things first: To explain my particular brand of Sex Geekdom, I’m going to have to start with a story about piss play.

Specifically, a story about someone whose own adult version of Disneyland happens to involves a public urinal. My first paid Sex Geek gig was working for a local AIDS council on a community project around cruising.

Now, usually when I say cruising, people picture hanky codes or the Al Pacino film. They should, however, picture a line at a Post Office, a line of people with no discernible commonality in age, race or ethnicity. A beat, like a line at a Post Office is a place people go to pick up a package, but that’s probably the only thing they have in common. That, and they’re most likely dudes.

Hanky

As a side note, if my simile above has in fact just confused you more; I can only hope that the next time someone says cruising you imagine Al Pacino waiting in a line at a Post Office.

So, back to those beats.

Stage one of the project was a systematic headcount of the punters: how many, who cruised and how often. Our job was to find out when peak hour was at each particular toilet block or park. After work, on weekends before going out, and early mornings on the way home were referred to as cock o’clock. Stage two was outreach, where we moved from our voyeuristic role to one of passive engagement, dishing out safe sex packs and referrals. It was a budding Sex Geek’s dream come true.

As for the watersports, I’m getting to it.

During stage one, we would park a little distance away from each hotspot and take notes on the traffic. On this particular day a punter drove up, parked and entered the toilet block.

This was nothing out of the ordinary, as most punters would start in the car pack, do a quick check of the toilet, and then head back to their car to wait it out. Troughboy (not his real name), didn’t come out for some time. Finally his head peered out of the toilet block door, and while trying to keep most of his completely naked body hidden, he surveyed the car park.

This isn’t how it usually goes down; most punters would keep their clothes on and wait patiently for potential hook-ups to arrive. He reappeared some 45 mins later, clothed and seemingly despondent. He then proceeded to go car to car, friendly and casual at first with generally good responses. However each time there was a point when the other punters would react to something Ricky Martin (not his real name) said, and either give him the brush off or simply drive away.

It took me a long time to piece together what was happening, the nakedness, the anticipation, the rejection. It wasn’t until we were relaying the story to our supervisor that he nonchalantly explained, ‘Oh, he just wanted to be pissed on’, and my Sex Geek heart went out to him. In the grand scheme of things, his request was on the vanilla side, yet the other punters couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

Apparently having anonymous sex in public toilets does not affect your ability to doll out some old fashioned judgement. If I told friends about the beats, they too would be fast to judge, because in their minds it is totally OK to send dick pics over the internet, but cruising is ‘gross’.

I learnt a lot during that project. In stage two, I had so many enlightening and educational conversations with punters, but that’s not what made me a Sex Geek, nor did it really inform my Sex Geek philosophy. I’ve never been able to get the image of Mr Sprinkle (not his real name) out of my head: just a guy standing in front of other guys, asking them to pee on him. For me it was realising that normal is an arbitrary distinction.

The closer something is to the way you do it, the more ‘normal’ it feels. Be they gay, straight, MSM, or ‘just like getting their dick sucked’, there will always be those that find the act of cruising itself the real turn on. If you’re into public sex, chance, unexpected and anonymous encounters (I’ve read my John Rechy) – if that’s who you are, then you’ll see the guy wanting to share your bathroom stall with you as completely normal. Sadly, that might also mean you see the guy waiting patiently next to the urinal as anything but normal.

The problem is, normal is less about facts and more about feelings, and we usually see ourselves as the starting point. A dick is only big if it’s bigger than yours, and horny is anyone with a higher libido than you.

We don’t have a lot of control over how ‘normal’ people think we are, but we have full control over how we behave. It’s far more interesting to focus on what we like, how we feel and what we want, rather than what’s normal – which brings me to my Sex Geek golden rule.

Pee on to others as you would have them pee on to you.

I wish more of our sex and pleasure was defined by honest exchanges, polite requests and negotiation. I think we can all learn something from the man and his ‘midas trough,’ and remember that it doesn’t matter what the topic is, the word ‘no’ or even the words ‘no, thanks’ are perfectly effective on their own, without the added judgement.

What’s your Sex Geek golden rule?