FREE GAY LOVE SEEN FROM THE OTHER SIDE

Hi Project,

I’m 34 years old and for the first time I fell in love with a guy. I've been with several guys and had sex with them but I wasn't really in love with them, but a little over a year ago I fell in love with a guy and it's a completely different thing. Before my first and real falling in love I used to think about what I could have from those guys, while now I think about what I can do for the guy I’m in love with, I’m not looking for a reciprocation from him also because that reciprocation already exists, and is also superabundant, without my asking, at least for the moment, however I'm really happy that there is someone like him. He’s not a saint, he has his faults, sometimes he treats me roughly but with love, at least I think so. He doesn’t make calculations on feelings, he isn’t hypocritical, I found him close to me every time I needed him, he took me seriously right away, three things about him won me over, intelligence, respect for others and immediacy.

 

He’s a handsome guy, but that is not the note that characterizes him, there are many beautiful guys. He had a difficult life and has a singular ability to penetrate the human soul, to read the feelings of his interlocutor. He doesn’t judge, he doesn’t condemn, he needs to understand, he’s capable of loving in an adult way which for me means in a non-possessive way, he has always left me completely free, he has never forced me, not even in the most light od adulatory way. He doesn’t try to put into practice a code of behavior learned from pornography, but pays attention to his boyfriend, or rather to the guy he is with at that moment and tries to understand him, to go in his direction.

 

He knows that I’m in love with him and he isn’t afraid or seems not to be afraid that my love for him could be a brake for him. He knows that he is loved for who he is and not for what he does or could do, that there are no conditions of any kind. He knows that I only expect spontaneity from him, without obligations of any kind, and that is why we love each other, it is our choice from moment to moment. The choice of being together as a couple is always reversible, that of loving and respecting each other is absolutely irreversible. He’s the type of man I like, and I’m not just talking about the physical, a guy like him is a model to follow, yet he’s a person who has his frailties, his insecurities. He is not a model of courage or fortitude or even of consistency, but he is a model of balance, in him I find everything I need, or almost: the compliance and the ability to stop me and say no, the common sense in decisions, the patience but up to a certain point, and above all the sweetness, the total absence of aggression, which is something that I appreciate very much.

 

He told me that he wasn't like that before, that he used to snap, that he reacted very badly but then he changed when we started being together because he saw that I never got angry with him, and then he says that now he is not aggressive because he feels pacified inside. We have never actually quarreled, we have never raised our voices. He wanted me and I didn't even understand why, he really wanted me, or rather me too, not just me, but neither of us ever thought of abandoning the other, at least that's what I think.

There is an unwritten rule between us: neither of us asks the other about questions concerning his sex life beyond our relationship, this doesn't mean we don't talk about other relationships, if we can to call them so, that we have or have had, we talk about such things spontaneously if we like, but if we want to keep our private we can also keep it for ourselves and nothing will collapse. In reality we talk or rather we have talked a lot about such things and there have never been jealousies either on his part or on my part. I know that he has had and perhaps has other guys as well, he has never hidden it from me. The only problems (and they are not small problems) arise for the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases but on his honesty on this point I would put my hand on the fire. When he had some doubts he told me and we didn't see each other until he took the test, currently he doesn't talk about other guys anymore, I don't know if there are still other guys in his life, but I would be inclined to think that there are none. He knows that I've only had no other guys than him for four years now, and he's okay with that.

 

I had never desired the presence of a guy as I desire his, perhaps it's for sex, I don’t deny it, but more than anything it’s also for that form of wordless complicity that grows up on the sexual ground, for that immediate and reciprocal understanding, for that knowing each other thoroughly and trust each other. When we meet, which, after all, still happens  a single day a week now, we dedicate a lot of time to sex and the bare minimum to sleep and eat. Generally we are unable to talk seriously in those situations, it is as if sex was an automatic thing and talking to each other was much less so, when we separate it is the worst moment, but not in the sense that we are sorry to separate, because we got used to it, but in the sense that we never fix an appointment for the next time and not because it’s something obvious, but precisely because it is not at all. An appointment is a constraint, a point of reference, let's say a limit to freedom, and we must mutually guarantee our freedom, today we are together, but it is not taken for granted that we will be together again next weekend.

 

If there is one thing I lack in my contact with him, it is precisely the fact of speaking without fear, I mean fear of breaking the rule of freedom. If I told him "I love you!" somehow I would give the impression of wanting to tie him to the fact that I love him, demanding something in return. I miss his daily presence, the conversation about banalities. We hardly ever talk to each other during the week and we only see each other on Saturday nights. I would also like to do trivial things with him, I would like to share everyday life, but I don’t miss it for objective and external reasons, I miss it because I’m afraid that trying to share all aspects of everyday life could shift the axis of our relationship a little from sex, which now is the very center of it, and I don't know if he really wants such a thing.

 

When I'm with him a reflection comes to my mind, the statements made in words have a general value, they are like theorems, on the contrary sex is a physical, concrete thing, it is the application of some of those theorems to a particular case, this means that exceptions matter more than rules. Sex doesn’t obey general rules, it’s absolutely subjective, it concerns our relationship with a single person and in a precise moment, it’s not repeatable, it’s not generalizable, it’s not predictable. The variables are so numerous and so little known that in the end one has to put aside all projections and predictions.

 

Many consider sex as a way to understand another person, but in reality when you truly experience sex with another person, you realize the complexity of sexuality and its substantially incomprehensible dimension. In the end, I don't even know what pushes me to live my sexuality with him, how can I understand what pushes him to be with me? With me and not with another guy, at least at that moment. And even if I can say that there is real sharing and reciprocal transport, spontaneity is anyway held back. It is never possible to truly understand your partner's desires and limitations. Hence the uncertainty, the tendency to slow down not to rush too much, the sense of limit, and this could be one of the reasons that makes our relationship stable anyway.

 

It is beautiful when we meet on Saturday, they are moments of enthusiasm, sexual harmony is there, but it is very difficult to go further, and then when we separate, the days of waiting begin every time, days that are of real solitude, in practice long pauses between two days of life, empty days, in which a thousand thoughts come to the surface, days in which I think that what I want is something else, that I would like to see him happy to be with me every day, I wish I could wake up and find him next to me, I would like to prepare breakfast for him, I would like - it seems a paradox - even to argue with him in a strong and aggressive way and then make peace, and instead there is the fear of making mistakes, of exceeding our own rules, and so nothing is said, because there is always the doubt: would or wouldn’t he be willing to build a different relationship, more affective, I don't say less sexual, but just more affective?

 

I feel the detachment between the moments of sexual participation in which he is totally involved and the much colder after-sex moments, in which we never joke and talk very little, almost as if we thought "both of us" that we have done something that basically we shouldn't have done. I have observed over the months that there have been changes in our sexual relations. At the beginning the limits were very tight: no pampering that tastes too much like affectivity, but only sex and nothing else, he didn't want me to run my hands through his hair or touch his beard, then slowly he overcame these things, now he allows me to caress him, but he doesn't do the same with me, if the caresses are explicitly sexual then he accepts them, but if they are simple gestures of affection, I have to be careful not to insist too much because it might bother him.

 

It's not that we don't love each other, but I think he's not used to affectionate gestures, that those things somehow frighten him, that he feels them as something aggressive, too free, not codified, that he feels them as an attempt to create an obligation, a close bond, capable of taking away or restricting his freedom. The small changes I've noticed in the way we have sex make me think that something is really changing, but I don't deny, Project, that I'm not at all sure things will move forward in this direction. He can't bear to be told that he is a handsome guy, he is almost annoyed by it, he considers these speeches a parody of the speeches a guy uses to seduce a girl. When he talks about us he never uses the word love but only the word sex. But one thing I wonder, but if he is really just looking for sex, why did he choose me? He could have found so many guys better than me, who wouldn’t have created problems of any kind and would have easily adapted to his way of seeing things. And it's not even a problem of exclusive choice, he knows very well that he’s free to go with another guy too, but if he doesn't, as I believe, even if he claims the freedom to be able to do it, in the end he must have a serious motivation.

 

He tells me that I stimulate him a lot sexually, but in my opinion it's something that doesn't really have any foundation. In sex it’s me the one who follows him and not the opposite. I thought he might really like me because I hardly ever say no to him, and try to understand him. When I see him sad or distant I feel really bad and I think he has noticed it. When we have sex, he’s completely involved. I had never seen guys so involved in sex. In those situations he totally trusts me and seems absolutely and deeply participatory, but after sex he looks like another person, he gets dark, becomes more aggressive in his ways, more ironic, but with a bitter ironic, not towards me but towards himself.

 

I have a fundamental doubt, now things are like this and I think that the problem lies in the distance and in the fact that we see each other one day a week, the solution, in theory, would be to try to change jobs and to be able to really live with him. For him it is undoubtedly more difficult than for me, then I could also try to change jobs and move to his city, but I would have to sell my house, for which I still have to pay several years of mortgage, and move to his house, but he proposed it to me only in a very vague and probably unconvinced way, and I don't know if it is really what he would like, but I wonder if this living together, instead of making things improve by sharing everyday life, it cannot actually undermine that relationship that now exists and that maybe is based right on the fact that we are 150 km away and that we are both free anyway. Honestly, I don't know how to make a decision, going on as has happened up to now is an unsatisfactory option, but the other option, that is to bet everything on coexistence, I fear it could even be destructive. What do you think about?

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

http://gayprojectforum.altervista.org/T-free-gay-love-seen-from-the-other-side

STORY OF A GAY BULLY

 Hi Project, 

I’m a guy 25 year old who already feels worn out by life and I’m writing to you on a leaden and slightly cold day. It’s all wet on the ground, the leaves on the sidewalks are reduced to mush, it’s after nine in the evening and I’ve just come home from work, in my little house where the total confusion reigns. 

I’m the rebellious only child, or rather the strange only child, of an ordinary family. My parents, like me, are nothing exceptional, they are not bad, but they are not good, they have no feelings of their own, they do what they have learned to do and they don’t care about anything else. With me as a child they were obsessive, overprotective, then from 15-16 years onwards, I began to not stand them anymore, to face them with a bad face and they let themselves be put under by me, I got completely free and loose and I began to do everything I wanted: to screw up the school, because they promoted everyone and tolerated everything; I used to stay away from home until late in the evening and my parents didn’t say anything to me, they were almost afraid of me, I was a brawler, rude not only to them but to everyone and nobody dared to stop me, they feared me. I had no friends, because they didn’t tolerate me, I raised my voice, I threatened them screaming and they didn’t show up anymore and I felt strong this way. I started bullying a classmate of mine, I enjoyed terrifying him and he put up with everything. I felt strong, dominant. Instead of sex I liked better being the boss, the one that keeps others under. The guy I used to terrify was called Jake, known as Redhead, and I got to slap him in public just for fun. Now I realize that only a moron behaves like this, but at that time I felt strong, the one who can do anything. I scared Redhead so much that he thought it was better for him to change schools to feel comfortable and so he went away before Christmas. 

Those days, if you had asked me whether I was straight or gay I would have answered I was straight, do you realize it, Project? In the fourth year I had sex with three girls, who were fascinated by me, at least until they knew me, but once they realized what type of guy I was they all left, they just disappeared. Every time, I concluded that they were stupid like chickens and started looking for another girl, not to fall in love but just to have sex, to have a harem to show and feel like the sultan, I didn’t give a damn about them. 

The last year of school things changed, Mario arrived in class, and as for girls he wanted to be the rooster in the hen house and he wanted to do what I had always done, that is, he wanted to impose his law, and obviously I couldn’t allow him. But Mario was worse than me: he used to give orders and everyone obeyed him, he asked everyone for money and they gave money to him, he asked someone to go and get him a snack at the internal store, obviously also paying out of his own pocket, and if the guy made a fuss he used to hit him in the face until his teeth broke or so and once he went so far as to reduce a boy’s face to a mask of blood. 

Of course no one ever said anything. The teachers pretended not to see and the thing was officially non-existent. My classmates were afraid and so was I, but between Mario, who was a real criminal and me, they preferred me and it didn’t take long for my role to change, I was no longer the boss of the class but became the protector of my classmates, or at least they saw me that way. Mario came from a family known in the neighborhood for bad stories and I was really scared. He wasn’t a stupid bully like me, but he was inside an organization that was really criminal. 

One day there was a training session at school and one of my classmates had brought his computer from home in agreement with the teacher. Mario made it disappear, that is, he stole it from him, and I saw that he had stolen it but he said that I had stolen it. We started arguing and we ended up in the principal’s office, who, if he could, he would have pretended nothing happened, but he couldn’t. The principal said that if the computer had come out the matter would have ended there, but otherwise he would have informed the Police. The next day the computer didn’t come out and we ended up in the Police barracks. The complaint was against unknown thieves, but I stated that I had seen Mario stealing the computer and Mario declared that he had seen me, obviously one of us was lying. The day after, Mario stopped coming to school and we haven’t heard from him anymore. A week later I was called to the barracks and they told me that I had been completely cleared. I went to the principal to ask what had happened, he just told me that he was very happy that I was cleared but he didn’t add a single word about Mario. I didn’t insist and went back to class and told my classmates that they had completely cleared me. They welcomed me like a hero because I had freed them from Mario. I didn’t expect anything like this. By now the relationships with my mates had changed, they joked with me, they were no longer afraid of me, or maybe I had changed at least a little, they smiled at me, invited me to their house and we spent Sundays together. 

At this point the second part of my story begins. The first part had been about my changing from bully to patron saint and the second you will immediately understand what is about. One of my prettiest classmates (Mary) starts to lose her mind for me, but the music here is totally different from the stories with the three girls I had before, she had really lost her mind, she was in love and she really suffered from it, but I wasn’t in love with her and I felt terribly embarrassed to say no to a girl who was really in love with me, I didn’t know how to behave, I didn’t want to disappoint her but I couldn’t delude her. 

One day she asks me to go out with her and I accept, we take a long walk and she confesses that she fell in love with me. I tell her that I have noticed it but that I have not encouraged her because I’m not in love with her. She starts to cry, but then she wipes her eyes and tells me: “But I will love you anyway! You are a very good guy! ” and gives me a very light kiss on the mouth. In the evening we talk for a long time on the phone, but we don’t talk about us as a couple. Basically we left each other like this without rancor. 

Before Easter we go on a school trip and I happen to be in the room with Steven, a taciturn guy who doesn’t like to show up too much of sight. You know how it happens, we talk a bit and at one point he asks me how things are going with Mary. I’m amazed that Steven noticed that there was something between me and Mary, because I thought I was the only one who noticed it. I explain to him how things went and he tells me: “Too bad! Because Mary is a very good girl!” but he says it in a tone that makes me suspect that Steven is in love with Mary, anyway I don’t tell him anything because I don’t want to put him in embarrassment. Then he asks me: “But have you had other girls?” and I tell him about the three previous girls and I see that he remains frozen and tries to change the subject and then I block him and ask him: “And you? Stories with girls?” He opens his arms and smiles as if to say zero! Then we change the subject. But after that evening I begin to wonder why Steven asked me those questions and gave me those answers and I begin to observe him. 

One day, just before the end of school, I see a group of thugs, the worst thugs in my school, who have put Steven in the middle and who make fun of him with homophobic jokes, I didn’t even think about it and I threw myself on those guys, four or five guys at least, and I beat them badly, and I also broke the glasses on the nose of one of them. We ended up with to the principal’s office. The guy with the broken glasses said I had nothing to do with his broken glasses, that had fell off his face because he had made a sudden move. Those guys weren’t suspended from lessons because this would have weighed heavily on the admission to the exams, and the matter ended like this, but the principal looked at me straight in the eyes as if to say: “You did well!” 

When I returned to class they applauded me but Steven wasn’t there. I asked the teacher for permission and went to look for him. He was alone in a corner of the courtyard, under a tree. I sat next to him and he didn’t say a word, I had prepared my speech but then it seemed stupid and I too remained silent, then I said to him: “Let’s go to class, come on!” And since he didn’t get up I gave him my hand to help him get up, he held it for a few more seconds almost caressing itand I did the same. This was our coming out, let’s say, but I still had very rough ideas about these things at the time. At the exit I accompanied Steven to the bus, but then I too took that bus, instead of taking mine, we got off together and I accompanied him to the door of his house. Before letting him go I told him: “I’ll be waiting for you at my house this afternoon. Don’t worry, we will be alone!” Thinking about it now, this message might imply who knows what sexual meanings, but for me such things were still to come. 

In the afternoon, he arrived at my house, he was really upset, I don’t know how he had interpreted the fact that in the morning we had held hands for a few seconds, but at that time I gave that fact a very generic weight, it certainly had an emotional value, of course, and also vaguely sexual, but I wasn’t still fully aware of all this. He was probably expecting something explicitly sexual, but I didn’t understand it, in the end he confessed to me that he was gay and that he fell in love with me and asked me if I was gay. I remember exactly what I told him, because then I wrote it down in a kind of diary in which I write about the most important events. I told him: “I’m not 100% sure but I think it could be” He asked me: “But is it the truth?” I replied: “It’s probably less than the truth!” Then I told him a little about me but without embarrassment, as if I wastalking to myself, he was very impressed that I trusted him up to that level, but I felt totally at ease. 

With Mary I understood that it wouldn’t work, with Steven I had the certainty of the opposite but for this very reason I didn’t want any misunderstanding to arise for any reason. We had an ice cream, then we went out. Before leaving there was just a very tight hug and I said: “Now I have no more doubts!” He was happy! I told him: “Let’s not let Mary see us!” and he replied: “This morning when Mary saw you throw yourself at those morons she told me: it’s you the one he wants, you’re lucky, because he’s a good guy!” I didn’t believe those words! 

Now, Project, you can tell me: “So where does all the melancholy you talk about at the beginning come from?” Well, it comes from the fact that I’m a moron and I don’t understand the value of what I have. I got to distress Steven to the point that we broke up and he had tears in his eyes and I was so stupid that I wanted to be right at all costs. He told me he couldn’t take it anymore and that he wanted to be alone, I haven’t heard from him for a week now. This morning I sent him this diary page and I hope he will reply:

“I continually think back to when I tried to look you in the eyes for the last time and you looked away, it was clear that you couldn’t take it anymore, that you would have preferred to be alone rather than be with me. It all started when we were in bed making love and I asked you to do that thing and you told me you didn’t want to. You had never said no to me, and there the spring of my stupidity trigged and the bully I was and had remained inside came out despite everything. If I had been able to really love you I should have said, okay, no problem. But I had to feel like the boss and I couldn’t tolerate you saying no, and I started to insist and I screwed it up. You understood that inside I have not really changed and the balance between us broke up. Then you tried to put the pieces back together, to pass over it, as if nothing had happened, but I began to harass and scold you, reminding you of many little disrespectful behavior towards me because I really thought you had behaved disrespectfully towards me, but you seemed more and more stunned. The next day, you made another attempt at conciliation because evidently you cared a lot, but above all I wanted you to agree with me, that you yield to my will, that you submit. I wanted you to give in without reservation, to admit your faults, the ones I had imagined, and to beg me on your knees, only under those conditions I would have been willing to go back, but in no case I would allowed you to tell me no, and that had to be clear. In my brain I considered you weak while I was strong, I thought you would tolerate everything and you would never leave, and instead you left. Right after that I thought that I would see you come back after a few minutes, or that you would text me or call me on the phone crying, but none of this happened. I told myself that if it hadn’t happened that same evening, it would certainly happen the next day and instead it didn’t. And now I’m terrified of having destroyed everything with my stupidity. I know very well that you are right, and I’m not telling you so to try to get you back. After all, you couldn’t accept becoming the victim of an imbecile like me. I just ask you not to hate me if the bully’s soul I still carry it inside me. Over time I will regain some serenity and I will never forget you because you have given me a life lesson that will be fundamental for me too. Forgive me for all the harm I have done to you by destroying your happiness along with as mine.” 

That’s how I feel, Project, I feel like a moron who has not been able to grow and then I feel alone, I miss Steven, I miss him damn but now he’s gone and I know he won’t come back. I feel awful. 

p.s. Use this e-mail as you like better but please change the names.

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

GAYS AND SEXUAL MORAL

 Hello Project!Come on, I don’t tell you the usual things, if I send this email to you it means that I expect an answer and I think there will be. I’m 33 years old, I like Project, but I feel very, or at least quite different from the Project guys, in the sense that I’m much freer, I think at least, then I don’t know, but in practice, let’s say from the age of twenty onwards, I have had so many experiences, of all kinds, that you cannot even imagine, but never with girls who don’t exist for me at all, but let’s say that in the gay field I have passed all possible experience, from those with peers to those with men much older than me, I have been very often on the most famous gay sex chats and I have played a lot with those famous aps. I got so many depressing experiences, frustrations, sometimes moments of real desperation seeing guys I was in love with who weren’t involved with me. At the beginning sometimes I behaved in a risky way almost to make a Russian roulette with death, then I happened to know that one of those with whom I had had unprotected sex was positive and I experienced moments of deep anguish and so I understood how a defiant behavior like mine was an idiot behavior and so I started having sex always in a safe way. Fear makes you more cautious than speeches and sermons I’ve never endured. In addition to ALWAYS having safe sex, I also learned other things: first of all, that you can only evaluate people by behavior and not by words. Those who talk too much from the first meeting and who use big words and excessive praise are the most devious and the most false, because they lie knowing they are lying, they tell you that they are in love with you and, after having sex with you, they disappear and you don’t hear them anymore. I looked for guys everywhere, especially when I was worse off, I like sex, but I also see something else in having sex, that is my affectivity, however frustrated and in a sense pathological, exists, and that’s why I felt bad when things didn’t work out. But I have often found, especially among those over 40 and even worse over 50, a total lack of affectivity. For them, hunting for guys was a kind of zero affectivity collecting, and they were also married men. But it is not a matter of age or categories because I also found sixty-year-olds who had sex with me but in another way, not as a boss but as a But it is not a matter of age or categories because I also found sixty-year-olds who had sex with me but in another way, not as a boss but as a friend of common sense, willing to step aside, without disappearing, when I fell in love with a peer. There is more competition between peers and with them I have experienced the worst disappointments, because they often see sex not as something that is done in two in private, but as something to flaunt with friends, a bit like what happens to heterosexual guys who brag about having seduced a nice pussy, it’s the same with gays. I look for a guy in order to be with him, certainly not to spend the evenings with his friends in clubs of various kinds. I have few friends and among my friends there are basically all my ex-boyfriends who have not disappeared. I no longer go to bed with these guys, or maybe just sometimes but very rarely, but I have a relationship with them, that is, we are friends, every now and then we meet, that is, in my life they are a real presence. Now slowly I’m starting to realize that sex, for me, is a way of expressing an emotional need, if there is not at least a little respect and a minimum of emotional contact I kick guys out, it has happened several times. I once went with a guy I liked to a motel, but he started behaving like a moron in such an irritating way that I got dressed and left, but he was convinced that I was in love with him and he wanted to be the boss! I generally like men, but not those who like me, this sentence I think I have read it somewhere in the forum, but I would say that it clarifies well what happens to me. By now I’m so used to the classic script of the gay seducer that as I see one who starts on those tones I send him soundly to the hell. On a human level, I only like those who speak clearly. If you just wanna have some sex just say it first, then if I like it and if there is no better I can also accept but without deluding myself, that is, just to do something. I can’t stand braggarts, those who show up with a nice car borrowed from someone else, those who think in terms of their wallet and want to feel like masters. Then there is a good percentage of obsessed people, of people who can only swear and blaspheme and are unable to put three words of common sense one after the other. You can understand what it means to sleep with someone like that, and it happened to me, you don’t send him to the hell just because you feel sorry for him. In short, Project, I made all kinds of experiences. I have even had sex with a guy in a wheelchair. I didn’t think I would succeed, I told him first that I was not in love with him but he said that he knew it and he wanted to do it anyway and we did it, he was a very smart guy, then he told me that for him it had been a very important thing, a way to feel truly accepted. Three years later we have remained friends. What I don’t tolerate is being treated like the whore on duty. If you want to have sex with me, if that’s okay with me, no problem, otherwise you go away, and moreover some married men want to have sex without a condom and I tell him: Look, I love your wife more than you! And they look at me weird and I tell them: Because I don’t put your wife at risk and I don’t even put myself at risk, of course, I’m not stupid and without a condom there is nothing to do. I can’t stand married men who look for gays as if to confess to cheating on their wives, because they need someone to encourage them to continue cheating on their wives and keeping a single foot in both shoes. I really put one of them in crisis, I told him: If you don’t feel like being with your wife, you must separate! But don’t cheat her, because that’s exactly what you’re doing! He was very bad and started to cry, probably it was his first betrayal, and I took him back to his house. Then there are the hypocrites who “after” having had sex with you, tell you that they didn’t want to but you in a way brought them to it in a slippery and insinuating way. I say: But, beautiful guy, no one forced you! People don’t want couple relationships, long-lasting things with the inevitable coexistence, no! Nobody likes long-term commitments. Sex, but without other things, without “other complications” as they say. I met one who considered himself a master of sex! Yes, you got it right, he thought he could teach others what sex is, but it was a laughing matter, It happened that I asked him questions about a lot of some absurd topics, pretending that I was in love with a girl, and he answered me that he had immediately understood that I was bisexual (I BISEXUAL? NEVER !!), I kept going on with such questions and he kept answering with big words and speeches, all in the language of a refined psychologist; but he didn’t even realize that I was making fun of him. Then I told him to show me something sexual “in concrete” and he immediately changed the subject and started saying that it was late and that he had to go. Another story even better, I broke the face of a man, we were in a motel and he wanted me to do something that I didn’t like at all. I told him: No! This no! And he first began to threaten me and I was already about to lose my self-control, then he tried to force me, because he was bigger than me. I kicked him in the testicles not too much violently but anyhow this must have hurt him quite badly and I would have beaten him badly but I didn’t because my phone rang, so I left him there. Perhaps the most slippery of all was a man who approached in a devious way, I suspect he was a priest, but objectively I don’t know, certainly he was not a gay at his first experience on dating sites. We did what we had to do and he behaved like a friend and I trusted him and introduced him to my friends. He told me that he was in love with me, then one of my ex asks me: But who is that man? Because, look, he’s hitting on everyone and says you’re a poor asshole who doesn’t understand shit. So the first night we went out with friends I confronted him directly in front of everyone and I said: Is it true that you are hitting on everyone? He thought it was a joke, but the others cornered him and made him feel like a piece ofshit! And they repeated in face of him all the slander he had said about me. In the end he said that we were a pack of dogs that jump at the first one who comes by, but afterwards he disappeared and never showed up again. In these situations, you understand that you have real friends. And now I come to the point, I think that one of my friends, an ex-boyfriend of mine, is really falling in love with me. He never jokes, he’s always on his own, he listens to me, smiles and doesn’t chat too much, sometimes I talk to him even an hour long and I feel at ease. He knows very well what kind of life I live and he doesn’t come forward with me, but anyway he respects me. In reality when we were together he had somehow a double role for me, a bit he was my boyfriend and a bit he was the brother I never had, there was complicity between us, then we broke up because I thought he wasn’t in love with me, but I probably wasn’t able to really understand such things at the time. I would get back with him but I don’t know if he would like to be with someone like me. What should I do, Project? I think I’ll speak clearly to it tonight. I talked to him! He wasn’t expecting it but he was visibly happy, he just said to me: I’d be very happy, but let’s see how it goes, but anyhow I will love you forever.

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COUPLE GAY SEX AND FEAR OF DISEASES

Hi Project,

I’m writing to you because in these days I’m having a thousand problems regarding sex with my partner. I’m 34 years old, he is 32, it must be said immediately that unfortunately we don’t live together because we work and live in cities about 200 km away, however, for years now, we have met in practice every weekend, once I go to him and once he comes to me. The fact of not living together is unfortunately a big limitation, we tried to look for a solution, somehow to change job or company, but it’s a very problematic thing and moving is practically impossible, we both know it, as we know that most likely such a situation will last for at least a few years. Between us there are no complaints about this fact because it is not anyone’s fault and neither of us can give up his job, but of course being a couple of Sunday commuters, as you can easily understand, destabilizes a little.

 

Since I met him I found him basically quiet. He had had his stories and even complicated, but only mental and one-sided, he calls them “mental blowjobs”, and probably he faced them by throwing himself in with his shoes on and finally getting nothing more than a series of cold showers. Before we met, he had only had sex with other guys on cam but never in person. So he had built pseudo-stories, all rigorously lasting no more than a month, but for him such stories were very important, probably because they were the first ones. It was never he the one who left a guy, but it was always his current boyfriend (let’s call him so) who left him because guys felt him a little strange, let’s say a little humoral, a little willing to do anything when he was in a good mood and a little depressed, and quite a lot, when he slipped in a bad mood, and above all because he wanted to feel free. Note, Project, that he only knew those guys through chats and some sex on cam. I don’t know how he managed to give credit to such things, but for him they must have been anyhow very involving, and every time those stories ended he used to feel very bad, at least so he told me.

 

He has never been able to endure standard things, that is traditional couples, messages, birthday presents and things like that, and also with me the fact of having to make a trip every 15 days and seeing each other only on Saturdays and Sundays it’s something that he feels forced to accept, he says to me: “If I want to make love with you on Tuesday I have to wait until Saturday, but it’s absurd!” If he is a little strange and humoral, and he really is, I have my shortcomings: I don’t like unexpected program changes, I have to be able to plan my week, I’m a guy used to following my rhythms and habits and frankly I don’t have much creative spirit. He’s a genius, he’s much more intelligent than me (and I’m happy that he is!) so much so that sometimes he puts me in crisis, but many times he underestimates himself a lot, he always thinks he’s below the others, he sees the other guys more beautiful, more smart, more confident, never depressed, never in a black mood, and all this puts him in a situation of discomfort. He has never considered himself a handsome guy and when I tell him that he is (and really he is), he looks at me with a puzzled and a little annoyed air, as if I were giving him a fake compliment. We love each other, but without constraints, obviously, otherwise he wouldn’t be with me, I know he wants to be free and I never ask him questions. In the past he would tell me of the stories he had with certain guys, of course stories that were real just in his brain, now he doesn’t tell me anything anymore and I believe he has no more stories. A few years ago he considered his job to be beyond his ability, now he is very busy in his job and he’s also highly esteemed, because his bosses begin to understand that, if they let him free, he is able to do things that few others would be able to realize or even think of. In short, I think that now his job takes up a lot of his time, after his job for him there is me, Saturday and Sunday in person and the other days for an hour via Skype. He is brusque with me, also a little aggressive, but only when he’s tired or stressed by work problems, it’s true that sometimes he treats me like a rag but then he regrets it and apologizes.

 

But now I come to the reason why I’m writing you this email. When we met he was 26 years old, he was the one to court me, I liked him very much, I considered him the most beautiful guy I had known, but I thought that a guy like him could not find anything interesting in me. At the beginning we talked a lot on the phone, even several hours in the day, then it was he who took the sexual initiative, something that I would have never expected, I certainly wanted it, but I didn’t think it possible. It was the first time for him and for me. I was full of complexes, and in practice he did everything, he was patient, he put me at ease and slowly made me understand many things about sex. The best thing, when we had sex, was to see him play, joke, feel totally free, I cannot deny that all this dragged me into an environment of sexual spontaneity that I would never have thought possible before, but that with him was an absolutely natural thing. We used to speak and behave with each other with the utmost freedom and there was a practically perfect understanding, I can’t say that there was total symmetry, because we had different ways of living sex but we were happy to be together, we needed nothing else. If I think about me, well, he really changed my life, he took me to another highly engaging dimension. At the time we weren’t even afraid of HIV because neither he nor I had ever had relationships with anyone, and sex was really a way to let loose, more on his part than on my part, but he knew he was making me discover a new world and he respected my times, he tried to follow my rhythms, or at least to involve me in his, but in a very sweet and respectful way, yes “respectful” is the right adjective. I was very well with him, a few months before I thought that I would never have sex with anyone, and a few months later, in practice our meetings were centered on sex and I certainly don’t say so to diminish or devalue, because it was not stupid sex at all, we were in love and used to tell each other that we loved each other through sex above all. In short, the first times (even two or three years) we never had sexual problems of any kind. Little by little, a deeper mutual trust was added to sexual intercourse and he told me many things about himself, even of a very private and embarrassing type, in essence he trusted me and he thought of letting me enter his very private world. I think at first he expected a reaction from me similar to what other guys had in front of those speeches, then he realized that there was nothing to fear from my part. Once, a year ago, he told me something that upset me a lot, it sounded more or less like this: “I stay with you because you are a good person, because you respect me, you allow me to feel free, you don’t judge me, I know that you love me, I don’t know how, but you love me, I’m not in love with you but I’m fine with you, I feel safe, precisely because you love me. For you I have never had that very strong physical involvement that I have had for some other guys, it is a different thing, something quiet, you are not my lover, but you are a good man, and I trust you and until now I never regretted it. Maybe I’ll fall in love with other guys and maybe I’ll go with them, but I have to know that you are there and that if I needed you, you wouldn’t leave me alone.”

 

But let’s get to the specific problem. A couple of years ago he had sexual relations with other guys, safe and protected sex only, as he told me, but, you know how it is, in short, after he told me it (we hadn’t had sex for a couple of months) he asked me to make love to him and I told him that I didn’t feel like having sex, but only because of the HIV risk. He initially didn’t take it well, he acted like I was rejecting him, then he understood and agreed to take the test, which resulted negative, according to common sense I should have felt calm and reassured but nevertheless I had the same fear because he could have gone with another guys without telling me anything. I actually don’t think he would have put me at risk, but, you know, these ideas are a bit like a worm that doesn’t go out anymore when it enters your brain. He saw my embarrassment but tried to make me overcome my fears, while in the same time I was trying to reduce our sexual contacts to something that was just at minimal risk, if not zero. From this mechanism began the strange trend of our sexuality. He felt annoyed and somehow upset by my attitude, because, after all, he had done the test and it had resulted negative, and to think that he could have put me at risk without telling me it, was somehow a deep lack of trust in him, because, I’m convinced, he would never do such a thing. In short, an asymmetry started from there, let’s call it so, he could do certain things to me that I didn’t reciprocate on him and other things were not done at all, he tended to involve me more and more and I tended to keep myself within the boundaries of a very low risk. Then slowly he began to think that I had sex with him not for me but for him, as if it were an altruistic gesture, as if I did it out of pity for him. Such an idea is completely absurd, because I think of him very often in sexual terms and, during the week, when he is not there, I masturbate thinking about him. Note, Project, that since we started our relationship I have never fantasized about other guys. But he’s convinced that the fear of HIV is not the real reason for some of my reluctances. Before, when I went to him or he came to me, the first thing that happened was to go to the bedroom. Lunch could very well wait and so did all the rest and even the speeches, but it was obvious that sex, after a week that we had been apart, could not be postponed at all. Now it’s not like that anymore, when we meet we start talking about this and that and even about stupid things, as if we were trying to waste time, I don’t take the initiative neither does he, and he gets angry, he tells me that I’m a hypocrite, that I want him to always take the initiative, so that I can then give my consent like a grace, he tells me that this thing is making him angry because this script is repeated exactly in the same way too many times. I swear to you, Project, that I don’t take the initiative just because I’m embarrassed and I don’t have the slightest intention giving my consent like a grace, because in any case my consent is obvious. For the whole week I say to myself and I repeat that I have to take the initiative, then, when we are together I stop, I’m afraid that he will say no, that he will get angry because it is not the right time or for some other reason, or simply because maybe he’s stressed and would prefer to speak. He complains that I talk too much, that I act like a young girl full of complexes, that I use a too flirtatious and feminine language. He would like me to be at his level, very determined and above all much more interested in sex. In a way he doesn’t understand that I’m interested, but essentially because he is there, because if he were not there, sex for me would be a strictly individual thing and made above all, and perhaps completely, of fantasy and of much or more frustrated desires, as it was before I knew him.

 

Our problems are almost all in the starting phase of sex, which can be ruined by talking too much. I often try to bite my tongue and avoid speeches because I know he doesn’t like them and I try to adopt adequate language and behavior. In practice I try to imitate his language and his behavior. He tells me that I look like an 18th-century valet and that he would like me to be “more man”, an expression that I don’t like at all. He tells me that with him I have to be spontaneous, I must take the liberty of doing anything, that I don’t have to be “obsequious and clumsy” but that I have to wake up. More or less since Christmas, last year, every now and then, let’s say more or less 30% of the time, it was possible to reach a mutual understanding like that of the early times, and it was a very beautiful thing, apart from sex, because he stopped attacking me with the usual speeches and with the usual emphasis and I was actually able to feel again that respect for me that had been the rule in the early years.

 

Then the story of the virus intervened which interrupted our travels on Saturdays and Sundays, and I could say that perhaps, at least until now, it was a positive thing because abstinence stimulates desire and then we tried to equip ourselves to do at least a bit of sex on cam, but something unexpected happened, we started talking a lot and it was fine, I mean it was fine for him too. Sex on cam wasn’t a stupid thing at all because he was there. I can say that we had found a stable balance much more solid and less problematic than that of the Sunday trips.

 

In days, they say, we will probably be able to resume our travels and I don’t know what to do, because resuming the meetings on Saturday and Sunday would probably take away from our relationship the strength of daily dialogue, and, let’s face it, this would let emerge many sexual problems which are currently hidden or temporarily removed. I would like to propose him to interrupt our meetings, but be careful, interrupting our meetings does not mean diminishing or devaluating the relationship but exactly the opposite, anyhow I don’t know how he could react to a similar proposal. I really don’t want him to take it as a rejection of him as a person. I’m afraid that the mutual clarifications and embarrassments will start again and that the level of communication that had been reached in the period of social isolation will be lost. I think I will let him make all the choices he likes better and then I will adapt anyway, because if he didn’t feel free he would be uncomfortable. He told me that he can’t wait to see me, and I too really can’t wait to embrace him again … In short, I think we will go back to the previous standards and I like it because the real physical contact is another thing, but I fear that our beautiful hours of chat conversation will end up in nothing at all, I’m afraid he can start getting angry at me again, that he may misunderstand the fear of HIV, and now also of the covid; in short I’m afraid everything can go into crisis again. It is a very concrete danger or at least I feel it very concrete, until now the limits of our relationship came from the fact that it was not possible to circulate, but afterwards there will be limits that will be attributed only to me. He will try to make me go beyond those limits, I won’t do it and things will fall apart again. I’m almost afraid to start again, I’m almost afraid of him and the fact that he will be disappointed, I come up to think that I made him lose the best years of his life and that basically I’m not able to love him. Sometimes I think that without sex everything would be better and that spontaneity fades over the years, I speak just for myself of course. What do you think about, Project?

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GAY SEXUAL CONDITIONING AND COUPLE DIALOGUE

I often hear people speaking about gay sexuality, I myself have used and still use this concept and I do it by adapting to a widespread and radical simplification of the concept of sexuality. Descartes begins his “Discourse on the method” by stating that, as for “common sense”, “everyone thinks they are so well endowed with it, that even those who are more difficult to satisfy with regard to any other good do not want or desire more common sense than they have. ” The same could be said for the “knowledge of sexuality”, to whoever I ask for an answer I find people who are convinced that they have a very clear concept of sexuality. However, gathering these answers I do not find that variety that one would be legitimate to expect given the plurality of individual and social conditions, I’m instead faced with rather homogeneous answers, far from individual experience and inspired above all by mass media, television, cinema, readings and, to a large extent, by the use of internet pornography. In essence, the common concept of sexuality represents an abstraction, radically simplifying and trivializing, capable, precisely because of its generality, of being acceptable to the great majority of people.

 

Individual sexuality, which is not an abstract concept but a reality that permeates the whole individual, is linked to many factors, first of all to personal experience, which is absolutely unique and unrepeatable even if it can be studied with standard sociological categories based on age and social conditions. Among the fundamental factors that condition personal experience, family education and sometimes even religion must be placed at the top. The intertwining of the various lines of development of the individual experience is extremely complex and, beyond the abstract or theoretical concepts, leads the individual people to “live sexuality” in very different ways.

 

Here then appears a first substantial distinction: the concept of sexuality of an individual is not what is stated in response to a specific question, but what is embodied in that individual’s behavior. Sexuality is not an abstract concept but a reality that lives in individual experience. Which means that knowing and understanding the sexuality of another person is an objectively very difficult thing, because to share these contents you need an atmosphere of deep intimacy and mutual trust that allows you to overcome the blocks that normally make it impossible a serious dialogue on these topics. Why is it so difficult to speak seriously not of sexuality in general but of one’s own sexuality? The fear of being judged, of being classified, marginalized and rejected, is the basis of any resistance to true dialogue on these issues and is generally a well-motivated fear.

 

There are two prerequisites for any serious dialogue not about sexuality in general but about one’s own individual sexuality. The first prerequisite is the radical elimination of any judgmental attitude, that is, of any preconception, but this prerequisite is still formal and almost professional, in the sense that any psychologist assumes or should assume a non-judgmental attitude. The second assumption is substantive and completely different and consists in accepting reciprocity as a fundamental rule of dialogue on individual sexuality. Accepting reciprocity means understanding that at these levels there can be no roles, there cannot be a professional detachment but an equal dialogue must be accepted. If the dialogue is not perceived as equal, it will never reach the deepest contents of consciousness and their manifestations in sexuality. A level of communication such as that described can be reached sometimes, but not as a rule, between lovers who are now well beyond the phase of sexual experimentation and who have a very strong mutual affection, but can also be reached sometimes in the context of very close friendly relationships (without involvement of sexuality).

 

It should be noted that the depth of a relationship is measured by the quantity and quality of information about ourselves that we are available to provide to the other. In a relationship of superficial friendship we never talk about affective life or we talk about it with very general and, so to speak, common sense categories, in a relationship of close friendship, emotional and even sexual confidences become frequent, in long friendships supported by concrete evidence of mutual reliability, emotional and sexual confidence can become total, that is, it can lead two friends to have no secrets from each other. Obviously all this happens very rarely but sometimes it happens.

 

What does it emerge from the comparison of individual sexualities? What emerges is essentially the category of complexity. What we consider simple and spontaneous manifestation of the sexual instinct, in reality is not at all simple or spontaneous, but is the result of the interaction of an extremely specific genetic-epigenetic substrate with the experience of the person as a whole, that is, with a plot of infinite correlations, for which it is difficult to identify even very general taxonomic categories.

 

I will try to limit the discussion to the gay area only. If there is truly something common in the experience of all homosexuals, this common element is nothing else than becoming and then being aware that the ways of living the affectivity and sexuality of two gay people can be radically different. More or less all gays identify being gay with falling in love with guys rather than girls, or more generally with having sex with guys rather than girls. At this level, in reality extremely general if not generic, it is easy to find consensus, when however we try to understand what it means for every single person to fall in love and have sex with a guy, that is when we move from abstract to concrete, abstract categories lose their meaning and individual stories come into play, stories strictly individual although often similar to those of other gays who find themselves in similar personal and social situations. Thus the importance of the only true instrument of knowledge of the other emerges, which is his individual story, I’m speaking exactly of the individual story, that is, of a real experience, just as it is perceived by the individual who has lived that story and  brings deep traces of it in his memory, I’m non speaking of the story told to other people and more or less unconsciously reinterpreted by the one who lived it. 

 

One of the intrinsic limitations of any psychotherapy consists in the fact that in a professional relationship, if the therapist can guarantee non-judgmental attitudes or, better, behaviors, he certainly cannot in any case open up to a substantial reciprocity, which, alone, could lead to the emergence of the profound contents of consciousness. The therapist, therefore, starts not from the knowledge of the individual story of his patient just as the patient experiences it, but from the representation that the patient gives of that story to the outside, in a communication in which the guarantee of professional secrecy can in no way to make up for the absence of reciprocity. In a sense, we offer a deeper knowledge of ourselves to our lover or our dearest friend than to the psychotherapist because with the lover or dearest friend the condition of reciprocity can really exist.

 

In the early 1900s, Havelock Ellis was already fully aware of the complexity of the homosexual reality and of the substantial impossibility of building a theory of homosexuality that could have a minimum of concrete utility, therefore he preferred to abandon traditional attitudes and organize his book as a collection of 39 real cases, told in the words of the protagonists themselves. The 39 stories, which make up about half of the book, allow the reader to understand the complexity of the homosexual world and then to acquire, even if through a book, a little real experience not of what “homosexuality” is at the theoretical level but of what can be the life of 39 homosexual people with different personalities and experiences. In this sense, more than a book or a scientific article, a novel or a story can help to understand the reality of the life of gays as individuals, which is what matters, and not as a category.

 

In the 21st century, the role of novels and short stories is largely taken on by films, short films and videos, which use a different  language but convey similar contents. In recent years, more or less for ten years now, there has been a noticeable flowering of gay videos, which generally deal with the major issues of gay life in a substantially serious and correct way. Obviously you cannot ask a video of an average length of twenty minutes what you can ask a novel or a feature film, but some of these videos, even if short, are small masterpieces. Generally these videos are quite well made, one feels the hand of expert directors and one understands that the production is not of a reductive amateurish type.

 

These videos can constitute and sometimes really constitute a true form of affective-sexual education, capable of counteracting the models spread by pornography, because in gay themed videos the emotional and psychological dimension is present in a serious way. Unfortunately, gay-themed videos are still produced, at a substantially professional level, providing very particular gay reality models that risk favoring deviant associations in the mind of the viewer, such as the association homosexuality-drug or homosexuality-violence or homosexuality-depression or worse homosexuality-mental pathology or homosexuality-crime. These associations are the result of preconceptions and suggest that the authors of the stories, the producers and directors are not themselves homosexuals and limit themselves to making videos following common prejudices.

 

Gay themed videos written and made by homosexuals are generally short glimpses of homosexual life and are extremely varied, they are therefore a very powerful educational tool, easy to access and capable of highlighting the most classic themes of gay affectivity and sexuality and the gay point of view, in its most complex and varied articulation, on many issues that affect family relationships, homophobia, dialogue among gays and couple life.

 

Let’s go back, however, to the complexity of gay sexuality. A deep emotional relationship with your partner allows not only verbally, but also through the sharing of sexuality, a fair comparison of experiences and the emergence of all the contents of individual memory, even the most hidden. This means that a good gay couple relationship can be more useful than psychotherapy because it allows, in a context of reciprocity, to speak freely about one’s own sexuality and above all to live it without taboos.

 

We need to clarify a concept, as simple as it is forgotten: sexuality can be lived and is often lived in a completely mechanical way, without deep affective involvement, and the sincerity between the partners may become something optional. The lack of sincerity reaches the point of legitimizing the betrayal and to hide from the partner some elements that would radically change his opinion on us. Even in situations where there is no betrayal and it is not a question of hiding “behaviors” that could change the judgment of the partner on us, there are other elements that can be and are often kept silent, these are the non-standard sexual fantasies that may not be accepted or understood by the partner, this is the case of pedophile fantasies even if they have never been put in practice, but it is also the case of incestuous sexual fantasies, or intergenerational, but the listing could also extend to other sexual fantasies, less alarming but quite uncommon.

Another category of experiences is almost always kept silent, even if it is facts that should in no case undermine the relationship with the partner, I refer to having suffered sexual violence or harassment in childhood or in early adolescence. The episodes of violence or sexual abuse of minors, almost always in the family environment or by regular visitors of the family environment, are unfortunately much more common than you can imagine. All these elements and many others can have a profound influence on an individual’s sexual behavior and on many other aspects of his personality. The couple relationship, if it is really a love relationship, can be the best way to achieve a substantial serenity of life.

 

Sharing sexuality, sexual freedom in intimacy with your partner, feeling accepted for what you are, after showing yourself for what you are, is a unique opportunity for gratification and emotional exchange, which is truly able to change the life of an individual, provided that couple sexuality is truly an exchange of love and not a substantially selfish rite to exorcise solitude.

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