WHAT I LIKE AND WHAT I DISLIKE OF GAY SEX

Hi Project,

I had big fears before talking to you last night, then those fears have dissipated and I can only say that talking to you was really useful to put aside many unnecessary complexes. I had a very Catholic education, which I don’t consider totally negative, but which also created a lot of complexes about sexuality in me, and the fact that I’m gay has certainly not facilitated things. However, yesterday evening I had no problems, it’s true, but I still limited myself to very general speeches.

Today I would like to go into more specific issues on which I have no chance to compare myself with other guys and then, where I live, it would be not only difficult but also risky because homophobia is quite common here.

I can tell that I’m rather lucky because I attend university in a big city and I have my autonomy, at 22, almost 23, I have done my sexual experiences even if with very variable results. There are things that I don’t like at all, first of all the fact that dating a guy should only serve to have sex with him and then: goodbye, see you next time! It’s absurd to think of being with a guy just to have sex with him. I cannot stand the indecision, the fact that one depends on the decision of the other whether to have sex or not and the other pretends nothing, such an attitude seems hateful to me, sex should not be asked as a grace, but should come spontaneously, otherwise the relationship is not equal. But let’s go into the specific. I like guys who don’t make their partners pray them, who make the first step, who don’t play only in response, the ones who let understand that they are really involved.

Allow me to express myself freely, I don’t like guys who when they are getting ready to have sex (lowering their underpants) are not even in erection, if you don’t have it hard it means that you are not really sexually involved, if it is not my presence itself to make you get hard, what sense does it have to go on? Probably there are other people with whom you would react with a very quick and decisive hard-on, I say this because, if I’m really involved, I react immediately. I don’t like guys who are ashamed to be excited, guys who cover it with their hands, who want to turn off the light, who want to stay under the sheets. But what’s the point of having sex with a guy if I cannot even see him naked and excited? One told me that I’m a voyeur, but if I have sex with you and it’s okay with you, I don’t really understand what you have to be ashamed of.

Then there is the whole unmentionable series of complexes on the size of the penis, on the shape, on the length, on the thickness, on maintaining the erection, etc. etc., here maybe I can understand more the fears of so many guys and what you say, Project, it seems a bit simplistic. At least for me the fact that my partner is well endowed is not indifferent. I take my penis as a model, which is nothing special, but it suits me because I’m used to it. I like guys with a penis similar to mine, so to speak, normal size and straight.

I’ve never met guys with the penis curved in an accentuated way, but I found one with a narrow phimosis and he was a bit complexed by this thing, but I must say that, except for a little initial perplexity it did not create any problem, it reacted very well and in many ways (size and shape) was also well above normal standards and above mine in particular. With that guy I didn’t have any sexual problems of any kind, but the story is over because he went to live in Australia and I was very disappointed, because he was a very good and very intelligent guy. But let’s go on, I don’t like ritual, repetitive sex, sex made with a hard face, without smiling and without joking about what is being done.

Then there is a fundamental thing, even if I managed to achieve it only once, the sex must be safe, the risk must be reduced to zero, you do the test together before having sex, you wait the window period and repeat the test, if it came negative both times, then you can be much calmer and you can have sex without being devoured by doubts and concerns. If one does not want to do the double test, sex must be done only with condoms and there can be no discussion, certainly it is much less involving, but if you want to do it in a more involving way then you must adapt to the idea of the double test. But let’s go on.

During sex you have to talk at least a little, and avoid being always silent, A guy told me that before he met me he had been with another guy who told him that he had a ugly penis, here, I consider a thing of this kind hateful. Don’t you want to be with that guy? Okay, you can go somewhere else, but if you stay there you cannot despise the person you’re with. Among other things, the guy who was offended had a very normal and very reactive penis, when I told him it, he felt very gratified, because he didn’t expect it at all. I think that telling a guy that he has a nice penis is a compliment certainly very welcome, telling him that his penis is ugly is really offensive. There is a psychological attitude that I hate, and it is, after having sex with a guy, to say that you did it only for him but that you didn’t really care. So what have you been doing? A charity action? This is a reasoning of an unacceptable hypocrisy.

Another thing I don’t like at all is the lack of reciprocity, that is, the fact that when you did what you wanted to do, everything is over and goodbye, and your partner at most can masturbate on his own. Such a thing is terrible, I heard it but it never happened to me, I think I would have reacted badly. Another hateful thing is using for a guy a female term of endearment. If you want to be with a girl, go there, there are so many girls, there’s no reason to run after a gay guy. Another hateful question: to tell a guy how another guy has sex, especially if the two guys know each other. There is nothing more odious. Sex is done in two and is not told to others. Here I am talking about sex with Project who doesn’t know who I’m and certainly in telling some things I don’t write the name and surname of the people I’m talking about. Another thing that I cannot stand: attitudes of superiority, doing the part of the master of sex, of the guy who has understood everything and can teach others how to do it. People who take themselves too seriously only show off their stupidity. Another important thing: finished the sex, you don’t have immediately to say goodbye, you can have a coffee, a chocolate, go back to a dimension of ordinary life and then you say goodbye.

The spontaneous opportunities to have a little sex can be many, I think for example to take a shower together, which also has a playful meaning (and it happened to me), I think of laughing together. Project, one thing you said about sexual game impressed me: the game is a way to a less inhibited sexuality, it is true and I have experienced it directly.

And here there is the big chapter of sexual practices to be opened. Some may consider it strange but I love cuddles, and especially sexual cuddles, exchanging caresses even the intimate ones but without any specific sexual purpose, beyond sharing one’s intimacy, even physical, just like an exchange of emotional warmth. I really like the idea of falling asleep in the arms of my partner, I would say that this is one of the nicest things of gay sex, then there is mutual masturbation that I think everyone likes without exception and about oral sex the speech is more less the same, even if here there are problems related to the use of condoms, because here there is a risk and condoms should be used, even though many may consider them a completely unnatural and unpleasant thing, however, with the only guy who agreed to do the double test, we did it without a condom and it was very intimate and I would say very pleasant.

As for anal sex, I immediately say I’ve never done it but not only because it’s the most risky sexual practice, but because I’ve never had sexual fantasies of this kind. I thought I was a bit out of the norm for this, but I changed my mind. Out of the five guys I’ve been with, only one proposed to have anal sex and was disappointed when I told him no. With the others the topic was not even touched in the least, even when we had sex almost every day. Of course, common sense would like a couple to find its balance even in terms of sexual practices avoiding any attempt in this field to impose anything on those who don’t like it.

From everything I have written you can think that now I have no doubts and that I know how to behave on every occasion but it is not so. There is a guy I fell in love with and with whom I have never had the slightest contact I don’t say sexual but not even vaguely physical, I will call him Paul, well, I swear, Project, I have never felt so embarrassed as with him, I also desire him sexually, I would like everything of him, because I think he is a very good guy and I would like to spend all my life with him, if you didn’t understand, I am in love with him, like I have never been in love with anyone else, that’s why I never know what to do. I’ve come to a decision, next time I’ll tell him that I love him and when I hear him on the phone I feel happy, but I will not tell him that I also get a hard-on, because I’m afraid he might be scared, it seems stupid but it could also happen and I wouldn’t want to miss him for anything in the world.

I feel very shy, as if I was 14 years old and I was in my first story, but I’m probably in my most important story. My friends tell me that Paul is not beautiful and there is someone better and I should look around, but I spoke several times with Paul and I thought he was a great person, that one you can trust, the one that talks just a little (maybe I talk too much) but he does what he says. In short, Paul is not the beautiful doll to show to friends but he could be the real life partner. Tomorrow I will see him, Project, and I will make him my first declaration of love, I am very hesitant, but something tells me that everything will be fine. I will let you know.

B. G.

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If you want, you can participate in the discussion of this post open on the Gay Project Forum: 

http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-what-i-like-and-what-i-dislike-of-gay-sex

MARRIED GAY GUYS

This post is dedicated to married gays. I will leave aside all the considerations linked to sexual orientation related to guys who have a straight sex life at the couple level and have a typically gay sex life at the masturbation level, because these considerations have an important meaning only before getting married. I will start here from the situation of married gays, as it showed itself to me through the chats with people living this condition.

The totality (or almost totality) of married gays arrives at the wedding with the full awareness of being gay. These are guys who have been masturbating for years exclusively with gay fantasies, that is, thinking about guys, who often have lived sexual experiences with other guys even after 15/16 years of age and even in adulthood, after 20 years of age, and have considered these experiences as “something that everyone does” (including hetero guys) and therefore not indicative of a gay orientation, even if in reality the involvement of a gay guy in a group masturbation session is very different from that of a straight guy. All this, ignoring seemingly minor episodes, such as experiencing erection in the presence of certain guys or the desire to see them naked in the locker rooms of gyms or swimming pools.

The pressure towards heterosexuality (conscious or unconscious) exerted by the environment on these guys has been so strong as to bring them to stop their gay instincts at the level of masturbation and to orient themselves at the same time towards a couple heterosexual sex.

Generally when a guy who suffered a strong social pressure towards heterosexuality, despite his being gay, that is even though oriented in his free sexuality (which manifests itself in masturbation) towards other guys, experiences for the first time a sexual intercourse with a girl his reaction is not necessarily bad at all and, whatever the level of sexual involvement in the contact with the girl (even minimal) is, that sexual intercourse becomes the typical sign that “the gay problem is overcome”. A gay man is a gay man, not an impotent and, especially when he has lived for years in a situation of substantial sexual deprivation, if he is close to a girl in love with him, in a situation that pushes him to a heterosexual intercourse that has at least some features of intimacy and non-superficial warmth, can very well get to have a heterosexual intercourse somehow satisfying. It is clear that such a intercourse has nothing to do with the expression of the free sexuality of that guy who, even feeling terribly guilty, will continue “episodically” to masturbate thinking about guys, or will eventually completely repress his free sexuality forcing himself to put aside masturbation altogether in the belief that masturbation is the cause of the homosexuality.

The first straight intercourses of a gay guy lead him to the idea of having finally overcome the “gay phase” and to have found a “mature sexuality”. Often, for these guys, the fear that gay impulses will forcefully return to be felt is a push to intensify heterosexual intercourses and to go to marriage quickly. It’s the typical idea: “You saved me from homosexuality”, or: “If I get married and can have sex with her every day I will not think about masturbation and my gay impulses will disappear”. Often, therefore, gay guys who go to the marriage, experience periods of intense heterosexual activity, which however are characterized by a deep sense of ambiguity because in almost all cases, these guys, even making love every day with their girls (or with their young wives, if they have already married them) never talk with their mates about their sexual orientation problems. With wives, in principle, at least for some years after marriage, gay husbands do not even mention the problem of homosexuality, there is therefore no real interpersonal communication between husband and wife, who have daily sexual contacts but without an adequate level of trust and mutual communication.

In a percentage of cases around 10%, the guys talk to the girls openly about their doubts of being homosexuals, doubts that are automatically underestimated by girls, who having a straight sexuality are led to think that their boyfriends, by the simple fact that they have sex with them, can only be straight. Generally, a girl is more afraid of her boyfriend’s infidelity with another girl than of the fact that her boyfriend is gay. In some cases the girl thinks she can sexually reorient her boyfriend towards an exclusive heterosexuality by “sexually cuddling” her boyfriend exasperatedly, what results usually in a very quick and clear reaction of rejection. These attitudes as “Red Cross nurse of love” are lived by the guys as aggressive and not respectful towards them.

In the situations described above, the girl still remains convinced of the substantial heterosexuality of the guy but, in some cases at least (rare but not sporadic) the girl has instead full awareness of the fact that her partner is gay and she accepts him as such, that is, the girl, who is really in love with her boyfriend, consciously agrees to stay close to him without any sexual contact or with a sexual contact limited only to the purpose of conception of children, children who may also be explicitly desired by the guy. These attitudes that have something heroic (in a sense at least) are linked to the fact that the solitude of each of the two spouses with respect to the outside is so strong that they must bind each other with a kind of very close symbiosis in order to survive.

It should be emphasized that when a hug is too tight and too long-lasting it risks taking your breath away. In situations like the one described, mutual dependence is very strong and is felt as a bond that sooner or later ends up becoming constrictive. There are couples, and I have known some, who consciously married only to have children, and there are cases (and I have seen some examples) in which a heterosexual wife helps her gay husband to live like a gay man, an attitude in which the boundaries between pleasure and suffering are very fragile. In all these cases, however (about 15-20% of the total married gays) between husband and wife there is still a frank dialog and at least a relationship of friendship and mutual respect. When a gay guy marries a straight girl and they have no children the problems connected to the possible separation are above all of social and patrimonial nature.

Often a gay guy agrees to be with a girl by excluding in his mind the hypothesis of having children and when he realizes that this hypothesis for his wife is essential, the marriage becomes a kind of imposition for him. When there are children the problem of the relationship of a gay married with his homosexuality is extremely more delicate. The emergence of a homosexual tendency is experienced by a gay man who has children as something that can jeopardize the relationship with the children and the feelings of guilt can be very profound. I met a 49-year-old gentleman a few months ago, who had never had a conscious perception of his homosexuality (an exception in the field of married gays), he had a son more than 20 years old but nevertheless he realized that he had a sexual interest for a work colleague. When this gentleman contacted me in his words I felt a deep anguish, due to the fact that he had never suspected he could be gay and was scared of such idea, because his knowledge of gays derived only from reading newspapers and from attitudes typical of the mass media. This gentleman, whom I had the opportunity to hear several times, sincerely loved his wife and son and came to speak openly with both his wife and his son who accepted it and, paradoxically, this form of sincerity has strengthened family ties. That gentleman agreed to live his sexuality as a very private thing exclusively in terms of masturbation and fantasy, totally giving up the idea of looking for a mate and as people say in such situations of “making a new life”.

The solution may seem like a compromise solution to gays who have not been married and who have never had a heterosexual satisfactory family life, but for that gentleman radical choices would have involved a violent cut with the previous life and would have had very little prospect of leading to realization of a new life with another man.

In most cases, however, the family situations of married gays are quite different and much heavier. The lack of sincerity on the problem of homosexuality involves the establishment of a series of formal relationships and under them a series of conflicts, affective life becomes over time a sort of recitation or due act. With his wife, if she requires a frequent sexual intimacy, a married gay ends up pretending, which usually involves many problems, such as the lack of erection that can worry the wife but doesn’t worry her husband who knows that during masturbation with gay fantasies erection is all right. These problems touch the sphere of sexual intimacy of the couple and can be disruptive. Generally, at first a married gay guy tries to repress his homosexuality but over time this attempt is useless and the illusion of heterosexuality turns into a fiction of heterosexuality. The gay impulses are strengthened as the relationship with the wife deteriorates.

It is only right that I explicitly break a spear in favor of the wives who are often completely unaware of the true motivation of the deterioration of the relationship with their husbands and who live, also themselves, really difficult moments. Basically, even if their husbands acted in good faith or did not really realize what they would do with marriage, these women were misled about the true sexual identity of their husbands, who, moreover, were also confused about the matter. The fact remains that at a certain point, a woman who has married a gay man without being aware of it, understands that relations with her husband are substantially frozen, sexual intercourses are completely absent, dialogue is completely lacking, at least on important issues, and marriage is in crisis. When there are children the problem becomes difficult to manage, because in case of separation there is the problem of the entrustment that creates further conflicts between husband and wife which are often resolved in court.

How does he live his sexuality a gay married who has passed the phase (which in many cases doesn’t even exist) of the illusion of being heterosexual? Here the answers are the most varied:

1) The husband accustomed to sexual repression up to play the part of the heterosexual, limits himself to live a gay sexuality in terms of masturbation and porn sites found on the Internet. Such situations are, at most, compatible with the preservation of marriage, at least on a formal level, where there are children, because the external aspect of the family doesn’t change. Often this is the state of affairs to which things stop. The husbands can get to forums like Gay Project or other serious gay sites and simply look for friendships with other gays, often married too, in chat and at a distance. This solution allows a married gay to find a safety valve that puts him in a position to talk openly about his problems and also to find serious answers. It is obviously a compromise solution, but in situations such as those in which a gay married and with children lives it is a situation that is in many respects acceptable, since in most cases we are speaking about men who are no longer young and are totally lacking knowledge about the true life of gays. It should be borne in mind that for a non-young man the chances of finding a “serious” companion (that is, not the one-night experience [risk of aids!]) are not very high and moreover few gay men would be available to build an affective, stable and serious relationship with a man who has a family, has children and therefore has a number of other very strong emotional bonds.

2) If the husband thinks he has to regain lost time looking for a companion with whom to live his affectivity and his sexuality, and the husband is still thirty or so, he can experience situations similar to those of the so-called “frenetic phase” of sexuality of those who discover themselves gay or finally release their gay sexuality at a fully adult age. These guys are not content to masturbate looking at a porn site but sign up for erotic chats and dating sites, giving credit to the idea that the problem of finding a partner is actually a problem that can be solved easily “with a little effort”. Through the chat they get to sexual encounters, often even at risk of AIDS, because a user of dating sites can also have over 100 different partners in a year! Apart from the risk of AIDS, occasional sexual encounters generate feelings of disgust and frustration after the first times. However, it does not follow a rationalization of the behaviors but only the repetition of other attempts with other partners. I emphasize that in these situations the emotional dimension, which is essential in a gay’s emotional and sexual life, is practically completely absent. After a little practice of erotic chats and dating sites, a depressive phase takes place that depending on age can be more or less heavy.

3) There is however a third path followed by married gays towards their gay identity, and it is a path that can only be done in two. I state that the concrete realization of this third way, which is that of “loving friendship”, is not the result of an individual initiative, but is connected to the idea of being already really in two, that there is an “original affective couple reciprocity” and that a real relationship of affectionate friendship already exists, on which an explicit sexual dimension can also be inserted. Given that married gays who end up in a marriage crisis are not very young and are not only undeclared as gay but are declared as hetero, for them the idea of living their sexuality and their affectivity in a strictly private dimension is fundamental. In dating sites and erotic chats there are often people who don’t have too many problems to declare themselves gay, to go to gay clubs and to be seen around with mates clearly gay. Such things are very embarrassing for a married gay, for whom therefore the option of the amorous friendship remains substantially the most desirable. If that friendship is lived with great discretion, it allows the marriage to be maintained at least on a formal level and in some cases even the wives are not in principle opposed to such solutions that allow a stable relationship between the gay father and the children, avoiding putting their emotional growth at risk. I saw, in about 30% of cases, the development of a loving friendship between a married gay and a friend of his, also gay and undeclared. These relationships, even if they occur between fully adult men, have the freshness and genuineness of the first affective contacts between adolescents, allow the two partners to live a deep affective dimension and to integrate sexuality with moments of non-sexual intimacy, linked to totally sincere dialogue and openness and to mutual trust without restrictions, all things that have an enormous value and help not to trivialize sexual intercourse.

For the moment I stop here. I await further input from readers to be able to broaden and deepen the discussion. I would like to point out that the statistical sites show the constant presence of readers who use on the Google search engine keys to Gay Project as “married gays”. The problem exists and it is not statistically irrelevant as usually believed.

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If you want, you can participate in the discussion of this post open on the Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-married-gay-guys

A GAY GUY WHO FEELS LIKE A TOY BOY BOTH WITH GUYS AND GIRLS

Hi Project,

I found your site by chance and I’m spending there my nights, in practice it is the only gay site that says true things about the life of gay guys and I must say that I find myself perfectly at ease there, in several posts is as if read what I think and what I feel. I send you this mail because I feel a bit “disgusted” (I have to use this word) by the behaviors of so many gays I met so that entering your site makes me feel better. Thanks, I really needed it! I would like to know what you think of my story (publish it if you want) and maybe I’d like to meet you on msn. I thank you in advance. But let’s get to the facts.

I am 23 years old guy and, I don’t know whether to say for my luck or for my bad luck, I am a nice guy, I see myself just like a normal guy but the others (men and women) tell me that I’m beautiful and, what is worst, they fall in love with me easily, which, you can understand, puts me tremendously embarrassed. In practice when I was 16 years old, a girl who everyone considered beautiful and who was really (one of my classmates) started to court me, and I stupidly, as if it were a game, put myself with this girl and there for the first time I tried on the straight side what it means to be the object of sexual attention without experiencing the same for the other person.

At first I didn’t understand what was happening, it seemed only a serious friendship, with her I talked about everything except my sexual desires that were in a completely different direction (I’ve always been gay and I’ve never had any doubts about this), then she began to bother me, to touch me, first in a generic way and I pretended to laugh about it, but then in a more and more insinuating and clearly sexual way and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I told her I was not in love with her and I thought she understood, but it didn’t happen, she kept calling me every five minutes on the phone, she was sticking to me on msn and I didn’t know how to close the conversations, then she wanted to understand, she wanted to know, in short, she was really in love but I wasn’t.

She made hysterical scenes, cries, despair, because the accounts didn’t come back, she saw that I had no other girl and began to ask specific questions, for me it was a torment because I had to see her at school every day, in short this story has been going on for a year, then she found another guy and apparently the thing was over but she wanted to continue being at least my friend but I didn’t want to know of such things.

I’m very shy with guys, almost wimp, worse than ever with those I like. So, in practice, I was always in the middle of the girls, at the beginning of the fifth class I started a new story with another girl, and it seemed to be on the same road as the first, but now I knew what to expect and I literally burned her badly right away, at least she didn’t ask questions and then she was not a schoolmate of mine. At the time I felt very lonely, I had no friends and I had a desperate desire to talk to someone and here I made the biggest mistake of my life.

There was a girl who had a boyfriend and didn’t run after me and who seemed a very serious person, slowly a beautiful atmosphere has been created, we talked a lot, she talked to me about her romantic problems and I told her that I was always lonely and melancholy, then I told her the story of my two girls (let’s call them so) but in a straight version, and then one day after another I ended up believing that there could be a sincere talk with her. After many hesitations I told her I was gay. I felt free, on the seventh heaven because she had taken it very well, she called me even more often than before, a bit she had taken me under her wing and I was pleased.

Then one day she tells me that I was wrong to be alone and I should have found a guy and she proposes to go with her to a gay club for an evening, just to see what the environment is. What seemed to me an overwhelming news, in short I accepted and we went there, when I arrived at the appointment with her I saw that there were also two guys, one was her boyfriend but I didn’t know the other. It was obvious that those two guys knew about me. The embarrassment was terrible because I never thought she could talk to others about my business and at that moment I hated her.

The guy I didn’t know was a 24-year-old gay guy, James (let’s call him so), a guy not bad to see. I swallowed the frog just because James was a nice guy and we even exchanged cell phone numbers. We went the bar, I would have hidden under a brick, James was absolutely at ease, in short, the discomfort was such that I said I had to get away just for a moment and I left leaving them three in the bar, after a little they called me on the cell phone, my friend he was angry with me because I had abandoned them that way, James tried to do the cute guy to make me go back but I didn’t have the slightest intention.

From here started the story with James whom I liked only physically, and a lot, so much that in practice immediately he became the object of my sexual fantasies but I didn’t like him at all as a person. He was not a bad guy, but he had a mentality that I didn’t feel mine from any point of view. On one side I rejected him and for the other I wanted him and he understood it. He went after me in an asphyxiating way but with him it was not like with the girls, in some way I depended on him on a sexual level and I felt it very strong: I wanted him, I got excited when I heard his voice on the phone, I imagined talking to him and I tried to prepare in advance what I had to say.

I have also made of those days a minute-by-minute diary, which, to reread it now, makes me a strange effect, but then I was really in love with James. On the other hand I knew that I couldn’t expect anything good from him and I confirmed it every day, I was pampered a bit in words but, with the passage of time, always for a kind of bet with himself more than for a maybe even sexual interest towards me. I had more than once the clear feeling that in any case he only wanted me on a physical level, when he was talking to me he was playing or pretending and I always had the feeling that he didn’t really take me seriously.

With the strength of despair I tried to detach myself in every way, but I was very bad, in short, it lasted months and months of anguish and of being sick like a dog, then I saw him in a public garden while he was necking with another guy in a very explicit way for what can be done in a public garden. I thought this meant that the story with me would end, but it didn’t. He kept calling me as before, and sending me text messages like St. Valentin’s ones that really bothered me, let’s say he continued to court me in a way that seemed to me very stupid and superficial.

I wanted to talk seriously with him but when I tried he changed the subject. However, he never told me anything about the guy I had seen in the garden, so that I began to think I was wrong, but after a while, when I began not to bear it anymore I asked him explicitly about that guy and I saw he had a moment of embarrassment, then he admitted that the guy was a just friend of his, but with a friend, you don’t do at all the things he was doing. Since then, my interest in James has practically collapsed, even though I often fantasized about him, I dreamed of him in my own way as he would never have been.

Meanwhile, I had sent to the hell my friend or presumed such who had presented him to me, but the gossip about me had gone around, now practically everyone who knew me knew about me. It was a very unpleasant feeling, I felt naked in front of the people who knew all my business. I didn’t know how to behave and I was afraid of everyone, because they could embarrass me. In less than a year I was the subject of very suspicious attention by three men 30/40 years old men I barely knew before by sight. They approached me as I used to with girls, they told me that I was beautiful and then slowly they also widened to a few half-proposals accompanied by compliments that seemed to me the typical compliments that are done to a bitch.

To all these things I tried to react with detachment but they bothered me a lot. There was only one person who impressed me positively, a gentleman married, more or less 50/55 years old, I had met when I was going to bring packages for a shipping agency. I had met him more than once and there was a minimum of sympathy. He was a married man, with children, at least in theory he was not gay and with me he had a behavior very different from that of others. One day I didn’t know where to bump my head I met him by chance and I talked to him rather freely and he was listening to me carefully, then he gave me a lot of advice on what to do. I don’t say I fell in love with this man because I didn’t like him physically, but he inspired me tenderness, I had the impression that he was doing his best to behave with me, I liked his way of being, he was dignified, he was in practice the only one of the men I knew who didn’t court me but is probably the only one I think I could fall in love with. I know that it may seem strange but it is so.

I always thought he was gay, he never told me, and I never asked him about it. After all, I think it would not have changed anything. The last time I saw him, after almost five months, he told me that his wife was dead and that he was going to live in another city with his son, and we didn’t meet anymore.

In the meantime I had started working with a permanent contract in the shipping agency. I think that neither my work colleagues nor the customers knew about me, but sometimes someone tried to court me, let’s say so, more or less every month or every two months I received some more or less explicit proposal. This was the period when I felt the greatest disgust of being gay, I felt wrong even as a gay, a guy out of place who still dreams of a life with a little dignity. I came to think that with one of these guys or maybe with a guy who had courted me on a chat at the end I would have had sex at least to see what effect it does to do such a thing with a stranger and I went very close to it, but just when I was about to let me go I happened on Gay Project.

I don’t know whether to say that things have changed for me, maybe it’s too much, but I read the forum far and wide and almost didn’t believe my eyes, real gay guys who discuss seriously and who have created a kind of world apart, but in the positive sense of the term, let’s say an uncontaminated world where they talk seriously about gay life. But reading the forum I didn’t find any story really similar to mine. I’d like to know if there are any guys who felt unwanted attentions from other guys or even adult men and how they reacted and even if there are guys who were disgusted by the mentality of other gay guys, just like it happened to me. I would like to find only serious friends with whom I can talk freely and Project made me realize that all this is possible.

Geppo86

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If you want, you can participate in the discussion of this post open on the Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-a-gay-guy-who-feels-like-a-toy-boy-both-with-guys-and-girls

RISKS OF COMIG OUT WITH PARENTS

Dear Project,
I don’t know if you remember me, a few years have passed, but I still remember the strange effect that made me talk to you, because I realized that I didn’t know gay reality at all and that I had an infinite series of fears, practically almost all nonsense, and I didn’t realize what could be the real problems of being with a guy, then I was 25 (good times!), now I’m 31 and I must say that things have changed a lot. I don’t know if you remember, Project, but a few months after our first conversations, I sent you a picture with a dedication on msn, a picture that represented me and the one whom I was hoping, even with a thousand uncertainties, was my boyfriend. Well … we’ve been together for 5 years now, and we live together. Now I’m not a boy anymore but I see my dream come true, Project, I feel loved. Do you remember the night you were talking to me on the chat? When bad thoughts passed through my mind? You told me that my life could have made another guy’s happiness and it seemed impossible to me, but that’s exactly what happened.

I met Luke in a chat, not in an erotic chat, but in a chat where they talked about architecture. There was talk not only of architecture but also about how a young architect can look for and even find work. At that time I was not working yet, neither was he. In his answers I saw the tendency to leave space, to make me talk, he was never impositive or aggressive, but was conversational without falling in the banal. We continued to talk in that chat for several days, then we discovered that we lived in the same city and we decided to meet up to try to plan together the search for a job. When I saw him I was electrocuted, he was a beautiful guy. We spent the whole day together and it was just fine! We only talked about job opportunities and we decided to give ourselves to do as much as possible to look for work together because economic independence was our first desire. I didn’t know anything about him then.

He has come to my house many times, he met my parents and I met his, obviously we were just two friends looking for a job together but the atmosphere was very positive. At his house, in his room there were many photos of a girl and it was like a stab to me: Luke was beautiful but obviously he was straight! My mood collapsed from one minute to the next. He noticed it and immediately told me: “It’s my brother’s girlfriend!” And in saying so he smiled at me. I thought that his smile was his way to come out with me and I also answered him with a smile and a breath of relief. When we said goodbye, beyond the usual handshake there was also a hug that I didn’t expect and it was not a formality. Since then our relationship took a different way.

You know, Project, you always say that the real problem is knowing if the other is gay, but if he is, the problem remains to understand how he thinks, what he thinks, how he sees the situation, and it takes time to understand it. Note, Project, that we never declared ourselves explicitly and that starting a speech beyond work was really difficult. Then one evening, after going to get a pizza, we stopped to talk in the car. He asked me: “Do you think it would work?” I had no doubts about the interpretation of that phrase and I replied: “We have to do everything to make it work …” He told me: “All right! Then I start.” He told me about himself without reserve and told me that he felt happy next to me and that he thought of me a thousand times a day. I took his hand and kissed it. It started like this. I skip the details you can imagine. I was really good, sexual transport was very strong. His way of experiencing sex was practically identical to mine: enthusiasm, but also prudence: doing the test, absolute mutual loyalty and lots of cuddles. I always wanted to be with him, when the time came to part from him I felt really halved. When I saw him smile, in his eyes I saw heaven. He had beautiful, warm hands and when he was holding mine he inspired me so much trust. And then he was not neurotic like me, he was quiet and close to him I began to overcome all my neuroses.

But there was a huge problem: we could go and make love in my parents’ country cottage, especially in winter, because no one ever went there, it was cold, but we knew how to warm up: a double duvet and we didn’t need anything else, it was fine but we often wondered what our parents would say if they understood how things really were. In practice we did everything in secret. For all the rest, we met each other, either, at his house or at mime, but we had to be careful to talk only about work. Another underlying fear was related to the fact that one of us could find work in another city, because such a thing would have been shocking. We were looking for work hoping not to find it. And we even arrived to present ourselves together for job interviews, saying that we were very close and used to working together, even if it is not easy for two architects to be hired to work together.

After about six months of “cohabitation” we got a job offer for a six-month contract in Kazakhstan, which seemed very strange, but the proposal came from an important multinational for which we had already held job interviews, we thought about it a little and then we accepted. Our families were very worried, but the fact of going there together led us to accept. After two days we were on the plane. The work was in Astana, a very special city, without western-style buildings, but with huge neighborhoods made of small houses with small gardens, very well kept, even if the city is almost in the middle of the desert. We have been housed in a villa, with three bedrooms and a bathroom, with a delightful little garden. People were also a pleasant discovery for us, but our dialogue with the locals could only take place in English, and on the other hand any contact with our superiors (Canadians) was only in English. In Astana we were really good and our relationship become deeper. We have worked together and a lot but we got also great satisfaction.

After the six months in Astana, they told us that we would spend another six months in Vancouver to oversee the construction of a port building, of course we accepted. The city is incredibly multiethnic and between the mountains and the ocean it is spectacular, we have happened there in summer, a very mild summer, similar to the springs of southern Europe. We had an apartment with a wonderful view. In Vancouver, however, we experienced that our English was very rudimentary and we tried to improve it with a group of local friends, including a gay couple, but of gays over 60, something that is rare to see in Europe. In Canada, the work didn’t have the relaxed rhythms it had in Astana, and several times we had to work even at night to keep up with the demands of the construction sites. We have worked, we have gained well but the nostalgia of Italy was very strong. By the way, work had distracted us from our basic problem: “what to say to our parents and how to say it”. For our parents we were in effect only two work colleagues.

A month before departure from Vancouver our superiors let us know that they would send us back to Italy to Milan, which is far from our home, but it is still in Italy. The second of September we arrived in Milan, also this time they placed us in the same apartment, which however was not even the shadow of the one in Vancouver and had not the eastern grace of that of Astana. Once settled, we decided it was time to speak clearly with our families. We didn’t know what to expect or even if it was the case to speak first with my parents and then with his, or to create an opportunity to make a single speech that would be good for everyone, but we were determined.

We set a lunch at my house for September 6th. The day arrives, we do the usual compliments, then Luke immediately enters the topic: “Listen to me a little … so we got to know each other better by working together for a year and we understood that we want to spend our life together, because we love each other and it seemed right to let you know.” In our opinion, the most was done, but the reaction to the words of Luke was disconcerting. My father pretended not to have understood, just like that, Project, while he had understood very well, he made a perplexed face, followed by a strange smile. Luke preferred to immediately eliminate any possibility of misunderstanding: “We are gay … and we love each other.” His father and mother did not say anything, they were almost paralyzed and did not know what to say. It was evident that a completely unexpected atomic bomb had fallen on them. My mother tried to lighten the situation but in the wrong way: “Now it can be a difficult moment but then things can get settled …” Luke immediately stopped her: “There’s nothing to settle …”. The most radical silence fell, interrupted only by banalities, like “Now let’s think about eating … we’ll think about other problems later, a solution will be found …” Luke also tried to avoid misunderstandings: “Solution?” My father started the wrong way again: “These are things that can happen, maybe these are moments of fatigue …” Luke looked at me in a very questioning way and said to me: “What do we do?” I answered with one word: “Let’s go!” We got up from the table and left without saying goodbye, and on the other hand our parents didn’t even try to hold us back.

The feeling of bitterness was very unpleasant, we both realized that the relationship with our families was over. Fortunately we were economically independent and we were working permanently in Milan, so the relations with our parents were in fact already very reduced. We immediately returned to Milan, our parents did not even make a phone call for a whole week, then my mother called me to ask: “How are you?” I noticed immediately that that “you” was referred just to me, she had only asked how I was and had not asked anything about Luke like she was used to do before, because by now Luke was like the devil who had taken his son away from her. I answered her. “We’re fine! (underlining the “we”) And how are you?” The embarrassment was evident, after a few minutes of banality the call was over. In the evening Luke’s mother called him and the script was virtually identical. We were not shocked by this thing, after all “maybe” we expected it. Up to this point our story may seem like the story of a double family failure. Two gay guys who would have all the credentials to feel fulfilled, are on the contrary frozen by relationships with their homophobic families that end up radically disappointing their expectations, but in reality things have gone differently. My father sent me the e-mail that I transcribe here below:

“Hello, your mother and I realized that we behaved very badly with you (Leo and Luke) and this makes us deeply uncomfortable. Luke’s parents share this unease with us, we talked about it together several times and we realized that we had everything wrong. We cannot be without our guys, we are living days of bitterness, but I can swear that we understand that we have to change our attitude altogether. We were not in the least prepared to face a similar situation. If you and Luke agree, we could maybe come to Milan for a weekend, so we can stay a little together. And then, what can we do to get a little clearer ideas? Because we tried to search for news on the internet, but orienting ourselves is very difficult. We await your response by mail and we hope so much that it is positive.”

I read the email to Luke and we agreed the answer.

“Hello, I spoke with Luke and if you agree we can meet not the next Sunday, because we have work commitments, but the following Saturday and Sunday. To get a little clearer ideas you can read the Gay Project Forum, it is very easy to find it on Google and you could also talk with Project, with whom I had spoken several times, he is a very good person and knows the gay world from the inside. As for our relationships, well, we are very happy with your email. Now we must try to rebuild everything without hiding anything and without pretending anything. Problems, sometimes, exist only in our imagination. Common sense is needed, it is true, but we are not naive and our choices have been made with good reasoning.

We embrace you strongly.

Leo and Luke”

The recovery of relationships with our parents on the basis of clarity, was not so easy, but on both sides there was a willingness to understand each other and, after about a year, things really became normal. By now our parents consider us as a couple and have overcome all or almost all their resistance and their complexes.

Project, I told you my story and I would like to see it on the forum because I would like to tell all the guys who see their future gray, that for a gay guy life can be beautiful and that finding a serious partner is not at all an impossible thing, even if the difficulties are certainly not lacking. I’m attaching in my skype contact, I would like to talk with you again, maybe to meet you at the beginning of the summer.

We embrace you!

Leo and Luke

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If you want, you can participate in the discussion of this post open on the Gay Project Forum: http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-risks-of-comig-out-with-parents