I am moving my blog site

So as it goes, I started this out on blogger and moved here to WordPress. Since then Blogger has gotten better, so I am moving back.
http://freshlygay.blogspot.com

 

Thank you Mr. President, but…

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to sound ungrateful for what the president said. But what does it really accomplish. I get that positive attention about discrimination and human rights issues both here and abroad is helpful but there is still one great big unaddressed issue. Marriage. To me, and to my other gay friends it is something that needs to be addressed on the federal level. Not being able to legally marry in most states is what we are all fighting for. It’s good that the administration touts it’s win with repealing the ridiculous ” Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. This is along with it’s work on discrimination and equal opportunity employment. These are all no doubt positive small steps. But it is trumped by the fact that there has been no mention on the marriage issue. By not saying anything about marriage in his statement before Gay Pride month, again politics as usual.

Read the story here

 

On this Memorial Day

Today, let’s stop and think about how lucky we are. Not for the fact that it is a federal holiday and some of us have no work. Not for the family  BBQ’s pool openings and the beginning of the beach season. But for the country we live in and for the freedoms that we have. Not just from a homosexual perspective, but strictly an American one.

In some countries, especially in Africa and the Middle East, homosexuality is illegal. In the extreme cases, it is punishable by death. It boggles my mind that if I was writing this blog from one of those countries, I could be put to death. Our system is not perfect. Bigotry, hate and homophobia still exist. But we have the right to speak out about it, and in some cases correct these wrongs. I hope and pray that one day we will have the right to marry across this country, but I am grateful that I live in a country where I can not be put in jail for my sexual orientation.

The following link brings you to a wikipedia page that lists countries laws about homosexuality:LGBT laws

 

Fire Island anyone?

Everyone has that elusive thing that they want to experience. For some it’s rock climbing, bungee jumping, etc. For me, it’s Fire Island. I have no reason why I have never been there. Maybe a little fear. Fear of what I am not really sure. But it’s something that I need to do this summer. Geographically speaking, it is laughable that I live on Long Island, about half an hour from the Fire Island ferries. Yet. I am still a virgin of the Island. There have been several times that I have said that I was going to go. Many times when I had plans to hang out there. Mostly, this was before I was out. I am a researcher. I don’t  do anything spur of the moment. I have read many articles and even books on the subject. It is fascinating to me. Now that the weather is finally turning toward summer, and I actually have some vacation time that I need to burn. I think it’s time. Now its just a matter of doing it…

I have not been posting as much lately, mainly because my family life is a bit crazy. Spare time has been elusive. You see my mom and I are going through what I like to call a relationship blip. I’ll try to spare you the meaningless details, but it basically comes down to this.When I was growing up, there was a highly publicized tragedy in my life that tore our family apart. My 5 year old sister was murdered by my Aunt. As horrible as that was, what was also difficult was that our family did not talk about it and never received therapy. I was 12 years old at the time. As the years progressed, my family was more and more strained. At the age of 18, I acted out in a big way getting involved in things I shouldn’t have. As a result, I ended up getting the therapy that I needed and have dealt with it as best as I could. My mother never got that therapy. This has caused great strife in our relationship. In 2009, my Aunt was paroled by New York State and I went public with the story about how a child killer could be deemed fit for society. My mother was upset with me for doing that. She never wanted to talk about it and making it public made her feel like she had to think about it. Long story short, we never properly dealt with the issues between us. When I came out to her, she took it as a slap in the face. My mom is a devout Christian, and even though she pretended to support me, it destroyed her inside. More of this has been bubbling to the surface lately. I pray that this gets better for both our sake

 

In a moment of weakness…

When I first started this blog, it was much more for hookup stories. It has evolved into something that is much more diverse. I have slowed down on the NSA hookups because I am maturing as a gay man and am looking for more, but a man has his needs. Last night was an example of this.

I was feeling particuarly..umm..well..Ok..horny. I was checking my Manhunt account, just to see if anyone in the area was feeling he same.  I received a “wink” from a 25 year old top named “Sam” that was looking to hookup. We spoke back and forth for a little while about meaningless banter. He seemed real comfortable in his own skin and I got a good feeling about him. He had one of those faces that looked very boy next door. He revealed to me that he was graduating college tomorrow and that he was partnered. Although, my hear sunk a little, I was at least in complete understanding what this was. An NSA roll in the sheets. So my focus turned from his personality to his body. He was tall and lanky (which is not usually my type). But he had what appeared to be a rather nice looking cock. One of those that make you hard just by looking at it. I say what appeared to be, because pics can be deceiving. In my slut days, I had met guys that we hotter than their pictures and ones that were not nearly as hot as their pictures. Long story short, the conversation then turned to sexual compatibility and every thing seemed to mesh.

The most thrilling and scary moment for me occurs between when my doorbell rings and when I open the door. There are times when I open the door when I am utterly disappointed and there are times that I am pleasantly surprised. This time it was the latter. There he was, the boy in the picture who smiled back at me. It was awkward for only a second. He was a cat person and noticed mine. Without much conversation we went into hookup mode. At that point its almost like instinct takes over. We went into the bedroom and shut the door (to keep the cat out). I methodically began to undress him one layer at a time. After each layer, taking the time to kiss him some more. We were both clean and relaxed, which just makes it so much better. When we were both standing there in our underwear pressing our bodies together while making out, it just felt right. I dropped to my knees, pulled off his underwear and there it was. The amazing cock in the picture. I worshiped that monster for quite some time taking my time with it and his body in general. Eventually we ended up on the bed. It started slow, easy yet passionate. We both spent quite some time kissing, licking, sucking and touching each other from head to toe. It ended with him taking me from behind, very carefully in the beginning, until things started to loosen up and climaxed with bodies slapping, ass grabbing, hair pulling fucking.

We cuddled and caressed for a few. Then he had to leave to get up early…Ahhhh, I needed that.

 

The work debate

I have currently been at my job for 17 years. I manage a mid size office in the medical field not far from where I live. As in any office, there are politics, clicks and people that just don’t like each other. When I first started there and was a newbie, I had a habit of dating girls that worked there. Obviously, this was before I was wise enough to come to the conclusion that mixing work and pleasure was never a good thing. Skipping ahead quite a few years, the woman that was eventually going to be my ex wife was a co-worker. Even though we tried to keep work out of home, and vice versa, invariably it happened and it caused some tension. Especially since, by this time I was the boss.

We did the right thing at the time and I got her a new job, so as to get rid of that issue. I also made major changes in the way I dealt with people and kept my personal life out of work. But now skipping ahead to now..I am gay and out to my friends and family and divorcing. I still have people that talk to my ex wife since she developed some friends while she was there. Even though my personal life stays out of work, it is possible they know because my ex may have told some people. What I grapple with, is how do I handle that? There are still water cooler conversations with people talking in generalities. People talk about their families, kids, etc. But I am tight lipped about goings on, and even if I do strike up a conversation I still often change pronouns to avoid the questions. Am I not being true to myself by not telling anyone at work about my sexuality? I spend so much time at work, these things are bound to come up in normal office banter.

This is my new challenge. This is not to mention, that my bosses (the owners) are right wing, pro Bush type guys. I do not fear getting discriminated against, I just don’t want to be the topic of conversation in the gossip circles…

 

Don’t we all stereotype?

Now that I am an admitted homosexual I understand more of what its like to be stereotyped because I find myself in a minority group. This is not something that I was ever used to. Besides being gay, I am a white protestant male of European descent with blue eyes. I never experienced bigotry, racism or of course sexism. I have always followed the movement for equality for the GLBT community from afar. Obviously I had some idea that I was gay. It wasn’t like one morning I woke up and was attracted to men.

More recently, I am much more sensitive to stereotyping because I have now experienced it first hand. All of us at one time or another have fallen into the stereotyping trap. If we are flying, and we see someone of Muslim descent with a carry on bag sitting next to us, do we not get nervous? Are all Muslims terrorists? Of course not. But since 9/11 we stereotype and profile.

I had a recent conversation with an acquaintance of mine about homosexual men in general. We were talking about school teachers and he told me that he felt that his son’s teacher appeared gay (whatever that means) and that he was nervous about him being in his class. I took the opportunity to tell the acquaintance that I was gay and took great offense to that. He was extremely shocked and it shut him up about it. I told him that there are good teachers and bad teachers, just like in any profession. Their sexuality has no bearing on their performance as a teacher. He listened and apologized, but then the conversation continued on a different path. He said that he didn’t understand me being gay. He said I wasn’t feminine looking or acting in the least. This is part of what I am getting at. Whether you are a guy who carries himself in a feminine way or a masculine way it doesn’t matter. So, in the end it seems to this person that all gay men are feminine and shouldn’t be trusted with children.

Maybe one day some of these stereotypes will be but a distant memory, but not in my lifetime.

 

Why I came out

As posted on Magneticfire.com

It was finally starting to become obvious to myself that I was gay after my separation from my wife.

I had some sexual experience with some men as a twenty-something, but always chalked it up to exploration. Inevitably, after my marriage had fallen apart, I started to take stock and do some soul searching.

I wish I could say that there was some great epiphany, that I woke up one morning and said to myself “I’m gay.” It was a slow process for me. I had always had questions in my head, but tried my best to just ignore them.

On the lighter side of things, I had secret guy crushes on Justin Timberlake and Matthew McConaughey, amongst others. On the more serious side, there were all the relationships gone awry, all the times where history would repeat itself. It always started off well. But inevitably I would lose interest. The sex would slowly wind down to a crawl and my partners would become resentful of that.

With my marriage specifically, being gay did not end us, or so I thought. It was the baby issue that ended us. She understandably wanted kids, real bad. I often skirted the issue, never committing one way or the other. I finally sat her down and told her that I was not sure that I wanted to have kids with her and that’s what ended our marriage.

Even when I was telling her, I still did not equate that decision with my sexuality. She knew about my past with men and accepted it. I told myself and her that it was more of a sexual deviance thing, and it was a phase. It is only now that I realize that I successfully sabotaged these relationships because they were not what I wanted. I yearned for something else without realizing it.

Additionally, in my soul searching I thought about my close circle of friends. Most of my friends are women. I could relate to them. I could easily talk to women about my feelings, about my goals and aspirations. With men, I felt a strange obligation to act manly. This was not hard because I am a masculine man, who enjoys sports, cars and am a generally handy type of guy.

But there was never anything that went beyond that. I found it difficult to truly connect with men on a friendly level. When I was younger, I had guy friends, but there were times I caught myself fantasizing about these guys I started to become close with. This would make me uncomfortable and at that point, I would pull away from the relationship.

At the time, I thought it was just a matter of me being more compatible with women, and that may be true. I never thought at all that it had anything to do with my sexuality. True to form, after I finally did admit to myself that I am gay, before admitting it to anyone else, I sought the counsel of my best friend, a woman.

The decision to come out of the closet is not something that I took lightly, nor should it be for anyone. For me, I do not do anything in my life without careful research and planning. Spontaneity is not something that is a part of my personality.

I am the type that makes pros and cons lists. Here are some of the things I had on my list at the time.

Pros	Cons
Being honest with my loved ones	My family and friends will judge me
Stop hiding	I might be shunned by some of family
Not to have to change pronouns constantly	I might lose friends
Not having to worry about who finds out	I will be known as “the gay one”
Being more of myself
Being able to talk with some of my loved ones about it
Get the monkey off my back

There were others factors involved as well. After my separation from my wife, I started exploring myself. I jumped head first into the gay hookup world. The excitement of the random hookup with strange guys was exciting, almost to the point of addiction.

At the same time, because it was obviously a difficult time in my life, my family was trying to be ever present for me due to my marital situation. But as opposed to welcoming the attention, I started to withdraw. I was not there for them. One of the main reasons for this was that I was trying to hide. I was avoiding questions about what I did the night or the weekend before. It came to a point that my parents specifically were starting to worry. I was often not home and sometimes not reachable. This alarmed my parents because I had always been the “responsible one”

After months of making excuses about why I hadn’t been present much in any of their lives, I finally decided it was the time to tell them. An explanation was needed as to why I had disappeared, so they did not think there was something wrong with me. I did not want them to worry anymore.

I suddenly felt I must tell them so as to stop the worrying. It was at that moment when I called my mother and invited myself to dinner the next day. After dinner, in the living room, I told my parents and one of my sisters that I was gay. The reaction was measured support. They were honestly shocked and had no clue.

Bottom Line: I was not shunned or made to feel like I was judged. My family was glad I told them, so they had insight on why my life was so secluded lately. There are struggles at times with certain conversations, but they still love me and support me as much as they can. Best thing I ever did.

 

Same sex marriage in New York State? We have a long way to go

Times like these, I seem to go back to the same way of thinking. Gay equality is not something anyone will see in this lifetime. Instead, we hear catch phrases like gay tolerance. Like that is a good thing I often think about that. Gays are not to be treated equally, but tolerated. Think about that. Think about some of the things that you tolerate in your every day lives. Things like traffic, waiting in line, rude bosses. These are things that you put up with, annoyances. But it comes with the territory. Surely, as a society we have had to have gone farther than that. Not as long as there are hate groups, and yes I call them hate groups like the National Organization for Marriage that is pledging more than a million dollars to help defeat same sex marriage legislation in New York State.

I applaud the efforts of Daniel J. O’Donnell of Manhattan for yet again introducing the bill before the New York State Assembly. But without Mr. Cuomo introducing and backing a companion bill in the Senate, yet again it will surely be defeated.

Do you know one of the things that I refuse to tolerate? Lack of equality..

Read the story about the current state of the bill here

 

Today, my whining is insignificant

It doesn’t matter if you’re gay, straight or otherwise, today it does not matter. May 1st 2011 will live as the day we finally killed Osama Bin Laden. Everything else pales in comparison as far as importance goes. Of course, this does not mean that us as Americans should feel safer. He was the face of Al-Queda and the one that had to be killed. As we remember, all the people whos lives were sacrificed that day, along with the police, fire, EMS and scores of volunteers, one thing we can all agree with. More than ever, I am proud to be American

 

And the band plays on..

Ok, so I have not been around the gay community very long. If you have seen my previous posts, I was married and admitted to myself about a year ago that I was gay. So I am still a classified newbee. One thing keeps hitting me in the face again and again. I can find sex easily, but I have more of a chance of being struck by lightning than I do finding a guy that I would like to date. All the nice guys I found are either married or pretending to be nice guys. It would be nice if there were more gay single groups in my area, but it is what it is

 

More anti-gay ignorance

Not that I should be shocked, but as I get much more aware of the discrimination that goes on I am more appalled.

From the small blurbs like this one. Basically a 10 year employee of an LDS church was let go because he wouldn’t give up his gay friends. You can read the story here.

To the more tragic. Another teen commits suicide because of gay rumors. You can read the story here.

Gay tolerance and acceptance reminds me of my relationship with my mother. All warm and fuzzy on the outside until you really look.

 

Family Matters

As it goes, this is another one of those topics that thus far I have stayed away from. In previous posts, I have talked a little about my experience coming out to the family. The initial reaction was supportive, but as I have grown to understand its what happens after the fact that matters the most.

Although, the initial support has not completely gone away. The feeling of disappointment that I get from my mother is very real. On the surface, they support everything that I do. But, even still it’s the little comments that tends to chip away at that warm, fuzzy feeling. I recently went out to dinner with my Mom. After a couple drinks, the subject came up about how my new found sexuality is going. When I started talking about my difficulty to find an intelligent real guy, she was visibly shaken. Her inhibitions were down, and after me starting to explain my plight, she broke in with “I don’t really want to talk about this, because it breaks my heart” Its amazing. At 37, one little moment like that from my Mom, made me feel guilty that I was gay. She has since apologized for the comment, but there is no unringing that bell in my mind.

 

Don’t be too care free when it comes to STD

It seems that it has been forever since the AIDS epidemic. The invention of the most recent drug cocktails have made it less of a death sentence, but it is still dangerous. According to the CDC, since 2006, HIV infections in the gay or bisexual population has been increasing. Our group represents 53% of new infections of HIV. Read the article here.

Since I have been having sex with men, over the last year or so,I have seen a steady increase of guys that don’t want to wear or don’t want you to wear a condom. Obviously, I get that this increases pleasure and some guys really get off on “getting bred”. But is it worth it, really? I am always safe, and anyone that does not want to be safe simply does not touch me.

Besides HIV, Herpes, Gonorrhea, Syphilis and other nasty diseases. USE A CONDOM. There are much better condoms out there, more now than ever. There is no excuse. Don’t be a statistic

 

Living in the shadows

Some of it starts with Hollywood. Stereotypical gays on the big screen or on TV are generally wither either wildly feminine and/or drug users or used as fodder on sitcoms.Where are the leading gay men?

When is it going to be time that you will see movies that tell the real story. The stories that are not just about making fun of homosexuals or making it seem tragic or shameful.

But wait. Does it really start with Hollywood.  Don’t  gays have some responsibility for this. As is true in most subcultures, it is the loud obnoxious minority that speaks for the much more even keeled “normal” majority. The fact is, too many times, we are typecast because it’s true. We do live in the shadows, we do have more random sex, we do use more recreational drugs.

At some point there has to be a time where gay men and women can come out of the shadows and openly express our issues. Until then, unfortunately what speaks for us is the loud minority, which unfortunately Hollywood listens to.