Come with our Sexy Beast Alex Cheves to Eden and bite the apple. Read more below.
If we are to entertain the word of the Judeo-Christian God, on the sixth day he made us. The rib of Adam plucked from his bones -- then, what? The skin of her body weaving around it, the tissues gently pressing together. You know the rest: Original Sin, the serpent snaking itself down through the branches with an apple in its mouth, then we, humans, get sentenced to lives of labor and childbirth and death. And for the entire remainder of the Bible, sex is written as something we should be wary of, something that leads us outside God's will, a temptation used by the devil.
Several thousand years ago, the idea birthed that sex was something to fear. A million scholars have proposed sociocultural reasons for this -- the subjugation of women as property, a disease preventative, and so on -- and ever since then, "sex people" like me have been attempting to spread a different Word: Sex is good for you, something to love, and far from evil.
If you're at a sexual crossroads, it's time to wake up. Newly single -- what next? Divorced at 40 -- what now? You've never learned what sex you really like, just did as you were told -- too late to learn? You want to come out of the closet, but you're scared of what your family will think. You want more sex, but you're convinced no one will like your body. You're 60 and horny -- is there any fun left?
Come with me to Eden. Here are 24 ways to plunge back into the joys of gay sex.
A word of warning from Alex Cheves.
My name is Alexander Cheves, and I am known by friends in the kink and leather community as Beastly. I am a sex-positive writer and blogger. The views in this slideshow do not reflect those of The Advocate and are based solely off of my own experiences. Like everything I write, the intent of this piece is to break down the stigmas surrounding the sex lives of gay men.
Those who are sensitive to frank discussions about sex are invited to click elsewhere, but consider this: If you are outraged by content that address sex openly and honestly, I invite you to examine this outrage and ask yourself whether it should instead be directed at those who oppress us by policing our sexuality.
For all others, enjoy the slideshow. And feel free to leave your own suggestions of sex and dating topics in the comments.
Hungry for more? Follow me on Twitter @BadAlexCheves and visit my blog, The Beastly Ex-Boyfriend. Photo by Jon Dean.
1. Find really good porn.
When I was about 16, I found one. One video passed undetected through my parents' adult content blocker on our family internet.
A muscle boy wearing a black blindfold is straddling a guy lying on his back, reverse-cowboy style. He gets tired and pulls off. The guy on the bed stands up and swings a massive dick across the screen. "That's going to hurt him," I remember thinking in horror. "He's going to bleed."
He pushes the muscle bottom onto his back, pulls his ankles up, and slams his cock in the poor man's hole -- one long, hard, flat thrust. The poor guy getting gutted sounds halfway to tears. His moans are muffled -- he seems to be yelling into the pillow, but I can't tell. I can't see over the top's shoulders. I'm standing behind them in the room, barefoot on the beige carpet, smelling their sweat, listening to the squeak of the shaking bed, studying the dusty cream-colored lampshade on the night table, watching him slam thrust after thrust of raw, nine-inch cock in some man's stretched pink asshole. I'm there, gasping in wonder, watching my first good porn.
The clip lasted less than three minutes. It was a preview trailer for a paid site I couldn't access (blocked). But it taught me fear, desire, and the purity of need. For nearly two years, I waited till the house was silent, snuck to the computer, and watched it over and over.
2. Get outside.
We first fucked under the stars. Later, we would discover agriculture and war, build cities and burn them, and sex would become what it is now: a pastime, an industry, a sport, a ritual, a taboo, a tool of empire, a system of oppression, and a good night out.
Go back to our roots. Place yourself in our ancient setting. If you can get to a nude beach or clothing-optional campground, do it. Spend time with yourself in the woods. Think about where you've been -- about the partners who hurt you, the relationships that never took off, the things you wish you'd done, the things you wish you hadn't done -- and think about where you want to go.
3. Come out.
If you're in Chechnya, stay in the closet. If you're in one of several countries in the Middle East and Africa with harsh antihomosexuality laws, stay in the closet. If you fear for your life, stay in the closet.
The rest of you: Come out. "Waiting until you're ready" is an apology for lying by omission. It doesn't work in 2017. We come out because our brothers and sisters can't. We come out because it's healthy and life-affirming to do so. We come out because it's the greatest gift we can bring to LGBT youth. They need us to be here, active and present in the world.
Coming out is political. Harvey Milk understood this. It impacts people -- your friends and neighbors, the people you work with, the people you see at the grocery store. It changes things.
Coming out is the first step to discovering your sexual self -- a self that needs tending with the same care and devotion as your health does, as your marriage does, as your job does. You can't do anything with a sex life that you refuse to acknowledge.
4. Get a blank book and start writing in it.
Don't call it a diary or a journal. These labels tend to determine what we write. Diaries are for rants; journals are nonfiction accounts of happenings in your life -- travel journals, food journals, etc.
My teenage notebooks were scribbled confessionals, blips of poems, bulleted story ideas, fantasies, and love rants. Those hours of late-night scribbling were practice to say my most important words: "I'm gay."
5. Get mad.
People have been telling you what you to do -- what you "should" do -- all your life. Don't act like a sissy. Man up. Be tough. Our culture tells women: Close your legs, lose weight, wear makeup, smile.
Women are taught the great double standard of sex more brutally than men, but we've all heard it: Have sex, but not too much. If you have too much, you're a slut -- used, busted, ruined, untrustworthy, unfaithful, cheap, dangerous, and undesirable.
The reason women get this more harshly than men is that we live in a patriarchal culture that both shames and commodifies female sexuality. But gay men are guilty of it among our own. Gay bottoms get more jokes, mockery, and slut-shaming than tops, because we still hold to the harmful idea that the penetrated partner equates to "the woman."
How many jokes have you heard among gay men about bottoms who "haven't been tight in years," bottoms with who "can't even feel it." I heard the same jokes from straight guys on my high school football team about vaginas. Someone bragged when their girlfriend was tight. They cruelly mocked a woman in school they considered a "slut" for being "too loose." This imagery -- loose, open holes -- is shamed by the same culture that idolizes virgins ("Hail Mary, full of grace..."). It comes from the same centuries-old lie: "Have sex, but not too much."
This lie has been carried on the back of organized religion and its accompanying patriarchies, systems designed to keep women docile and subservient by stifling and shaming their sex. It extends into gay male culture.
I don't believe there is such thing as "too much" sex. Getting angry is more than acceptable -- it is a necessary response from anyone ready to think for themselves.
6. Let go of toxic people.
Friends who put you down, relatives who don't support you, family members who judge you, exes who keep calling, and all the people who see you as means to an end: Let them go. There are more (and better) people to meet.
7. Read The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy.
Hardy writes under the nom de plume Catherine A. Liszt for the first edition of The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities, first published in 1997. Grab the second edition. It's a guidebook to all the sex/dating structures we have that exist outside two-person, monogamous pictures of happiness you were taught to see as "ideal."
Not only does this wonderful, essential little book help us expand our ideas of relationships -- it challenges our cultural notions of sex and speaks to everyone: gay, straight, queer, and trans.
8. Try making your own erotic art.
Drawing pictures makes you think about your fantasies in some detail and claim possession of them long enough to produce them. It's awesome (and important) to claim a fantasy and carry it with you. This doesn't mean you have to literally carry your art around with you, although folding up a naughty drawing and putting it in your wallet is a fabulous idea.
When we meet someone new and ask them "What's your favorite color?" or "What's you're favorite movie?" over a first or second date, many people would not follow the question with "What's the nastiest, most depraved sexual fantasy you have?" (I would, but that's me.) Just as you have a favorite color and favorite movie, you have a fantasy -- or, hopefully, many fantasies -- worth attention. They're part of you.
9. Plan a trip.
After a bad breakup (or being with an abusive partner), go on a trip. Don't plan a big itinerary. Go to a new city (or a new country) for a week with no schedule.
You're free to get drunk and take guys home at 3 a.m. You're free to go to a sex club where no one will recognize you. You're free to explore.
My hope is that you realize you were always this free. A change of scenery gives us a change of perspective that can be applied anywhere -- at your job, in your town, and among your true friends. If you can be anyone, why not be the person you'd be if no one was judging and no exes were lurking around every corner? You can be.
10. Write your own porn.
Start writing. Don't stop until you're turned on. Don't worry about sentence structure, narrative, or spelling. Let it flow, and when it's done you don't have to show anybody. Again, this is an exercise in discovering your sexuality, not anyone else's. Some say a picture says a thousand words, but I disagree. You can do an awful lot with a thousand words.
11. Enjoy sensory experiences — good food, good music, good sights.
Many religious folks believe in an afterlife. They believe that, depending on their beliefs and behavior here, this life is followed by a kingdom or a pit, heaven or hell. By extension, the present world is a "test" -- a lesser, dirtier, tarnished state. A trial before the "real thing."
I'd argue that this is the basic thinking behind "conservatism." Many people bristle at pleasure and excess on a fundamental level. They refuse to enjoy the sensual world.
Here's a different view: The world is not a test. The world is one of delight -- offered to you for a very brief time. Enjoy it.
12. Take a hard look at your faith.
You don't need to lose your religion -- nobody does -- but you do need to ask some questions.
I know many people who struggle to reconcile their desires with the beliefs they were taught as children. When they act out, so many of them get shamed and punished by their families and spiritual communities. How many gay youth have committed suicide after being told their desires are "evil" and that they're going to hell?
I have little patience for any institution that shames people for sex, but I can also point to countless spiritualities and pagan faiths -- as well as liberal branches of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam -- that welcome and embrace "sex people" like me.
These progressive religious bodies and nature faiths show us that you don't have to abandon faith -- and if it's a beautiful part of your life, you shouldn't. But you need to reconcile God and desire. You need to find a way to love both. Your desires are not evil, your body is not evil, and you're allowed to enjoy sex. Anyone who tells you differently is not someone you want to put your trust in.
13. Read Sex Outside the Lines by Chris Donaghue.
Chris's book is a difficult polemic at times, but if you're in an argumentative mood, it's delicious. If you're married and willing to dissect some of your relationship problems before throwing in the towel, read it with your partner. If you're looking to expand your ideas about sex and are open to a complete takedown of the social structures that influence human sexuality, read it.
14. Take some sexy selfies.
You don't have to share them with anyone. Keep them somewhere (in a private photo storing app like Vault on your phone) where you can see them on bad days.
You're going to have bad days -- days when you sit in front of the mirror staring at yourself and feeling terrible about how you look. We all have days like that. I certainly do.
When those days come, pull out your sexy pics, try to remember how you felt when you took them, and use any strength you can muster to pull yourself up and say, "I've felt good before. I'll feel good again."
15. Buy sexy underwear and wear it to work under your clothes.
It's important to feel sexy. For some, this may mean wearing Calvin Klein briefs. Other guys may bust out a jockstrap. Get those lacy panties you always fantasized about. Try rubber. Feel good.
16. Read about sexual outlaws.
There are so many. Anais Nin. The Marquis de Sade (from whom the term "sadism" is derived). Alfred Kinsey. Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (from whom the term "masochism" is derived -- read his work Venus in Furs). Samuel Steward (above right), also known as Phil Andros, Phil Sparrow, and other pseudonyms. John Rechy (above left) wrote the book The Sexual Outlaw and coined a phrase. Sidonie Gabrielle Colette -- known by her pen name, simply "Colette." Harry Hay. These people changed the conversation on sex. Nin is credited by many literary experts with creating erotica as a genre. Harry Hay may be the reason we have the word/concept "gay."
17. Learn the reality of STIs.
You're probably going to get a sexually transmitted infection, or STI. This was one of my "gay sex ed" points for queer youth (read "23 Gay Sex Ed Lessons I Wish I Had Learned in High School.") STIs are not a value judgment. They are an inevitable occurrence from being a sexually active adult. Knowledge is power, so learn everything you can from a doctor about sexual health. Use condoms if you like, and if you're HIV-negative, get on PrEP.
Herpes (oral and genital) is one of the most common STIs in the world. Most sexually active people have HPV. STIs are not worth the paralyzing fear so many people feel for them, mainly because they're so common that it's pointless living that way. Enjoy sex, do everything you can to protect yourself, and be ready. The pros of a happy, active sex life outweigh the risks.
18. Take a second look at your “racial tastes.”
There's much discussion about gay men who write "no blacks, no Asians" on Grindr profiles. What if you legitimately don't feel attracted to people who look a certain way?
You have a taste for banana pudding because you had some as a kid and have loved it ever since. You hate olives because you ate one thinking it was a grape. Now you find them disgusting.
Similarly, someone introduced to you the idea when you were young that black people all behave a certain way, and that way wasn't desirable. Maybe it was your racist aunt. Maybe it was a slur you heard your brother say. Someone said a mean joke about Asians when you were 10, and you laughed because you didn't know better -- because you were supposed to laugh, because they were laughing.
This is how a Holocaust happens. The seed of racism starts with the quiet, evil notion that white people are better. It goes unchecked through puberty, gets reinforced by the racist culture we live in, until one day you're marching in the street chanting "blood and soil."
Dig to the root of what you find "attractive." Challenge your "tastes."
19. Question everything you believe about gender.
It's liberating when you let go of the idea that "male" equals "masculine" and "female" equals "feminine." When I stopped being so protective of masculinity, my sex skyrocketed. Challenge what you think about gender and see what happens in bed.
20. Ritualize masturbation.
Don't make it something you do quickly before sleep. Make it an event, something you set up and take down. Something you light candles for and put on music for. Use toys. Use mirrors. Your pleasure is worth planning in advance.
21. Go to a busy place and watch people.
I go to shopping malls, which are palaces of sex. Every storefront is carefully curated to sell its own form of branded sex appeal. It's hot and furious and wonderful. Everyone feels it. I like to guess what people's favorite parts of themselves are, what their insecurities might be, what their lives are like. Spend a few hours just being an observer.
22. Have sex with people who don’t look like you.
People in the United States are taught to see weight as unhealthy and unattractive. Many guys completely reject this idea, particularly in the gay bear scene and in kink, but it can still be crushing to be reminded what our beauty standards are for men and women every time you open GQ or Vogue.
You may have heard jokes about fat people growing up and assume that sex with them isn't good. You may be fat yourself and feel unable to have sex with someone who has a gym body or a thin body for fear that your body warrants an automatic refusal.
I know refusal hurts, and I know hurt is real, but I'm asking you -- and everyone -- to be brave and be open. Have sex with people who look different from you. You can always get refused, you can always get hurt, but you might also surprise yourself. You're fuckable. You're sexy.
23. Invest in good sex toys.
Good means "not cheap." You don't want cheap toys going in your body. Buy anal toys and dildos made of premium silicone, not TPR or some harmful, hard plastic concoction. Don't raid your nearby junk sex store. Order online. Most online sex toy retailers offer discreet shipping and packaging. Invest in good electronics -- vibrating butt plugs, fuck machines, and so on.
Toys aren't made to "replace" experiences with people. If you see them that way, you're kind of missing the point. Sex toys deliver sensations and experiences other people can't, and when you use them on yourself, they give you a degree of intimacy with your own body that is beautiful.
Want to push your ass limits? Give yourself a few hours to stretch out your hole -- I recommend doing this in front of a mirror to see your work. Congratulate yourself. Become proud of your skills. When you cum, it's a prayer to yourself, a celebration of what you can do.
24. Share your experience.
At the end of college, I was stuck. I was newly HIV-positive, newly single, and new to BDSM.
I started a blog. I wanted to write about sex from the perspective of someone who loves promiscuity but was still learning how to do it well. I had many questions, many doubts to work through. Today it's The Beastly Ex-Boyfriend.
Not everyone enjoys disclosure, but ask those who've experienced trauma and sexual assault what happened when they told their stories. Many report a freedom -- even sexual gratification -- from exposing the monster under the bed.
Maybe you're at the end of a long marriage. All dating tricks you once knew feel stupid and distant. Or you're insatiably horny, and dating is for the birds. You see others living conventional lives with flower boxes and family dinners. You don't want conventional, but what else is there?
There's no guidebook for life as a sexually liberated person, but countless blogs, books, and biographies come pretty close. Find them. If nothing speaks to you, write your own. Share your experience with us. We're here. We're listening.
