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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UNDERSTANDING GAY SEX

 Hi Project,

I often read your forum posts, there are good stories but it seems to me that sex remains somehow a marginal topic, I don’t say avoided but treated as much as possible in a neutral way. Instead, I would like to make it clear that it is a very important thing. Maybe you are laughing now because I’m saying something obvious, but for me it has become a very important thing. It wasn’t always a very important thing or rather I didn’t understand its meaning and trivialized it. But perhaps it is better that I tell you the facts, otherwise I will waste time.

I am 32 years old and I no longer feel like a boy from any point of view. I have had my experiences, I think more or less similar to those that all gays have, with the basic idea that sex was after all a marginal and also risky thing, so when I happened to have a concrete experience, I experienced it badly, a bit like I was doing it unwillingly just because my partner at the time wanted it.

Let’s say that I always took it a bit as an imposition, then I never loved anal sex, which for some of my partners was instead a fixed idea, even if not for all, I have been with two guys of very different age, who told me that they didn’t like anal sex at all, but the two other guys I have been with were really obsessed with it and I couldn’t stand them because they insisted we had to do it anyway, because it was the very important for them. Among other things I have never endured the condom that bothered me, but on the other hand I’m a phobic hypochondriac and the idea of doing something like that without a condom doesn’t even pass through the anteroom of my brain. You can understand well in what spirit I used to have sexual intercourse, let’s say that in the end I have adapted quite reluctantly. I just didn’t understand what others were finding in having anal sex. I looked at them in amazement, they seemed to me completely out of their mind.

With my fourth boyfriend it all ended because I couldn’t bear that everything was reduced to have sex and nothing more. That is, at the limit I can also adapt to do what you want, but how can you think that for me that is the maximum enjoyment? It means that you don’t really realize how I feel and that you only think about yourself. If I caressed him he replied that it bothered him, when we had finished he would get dressed and leave without even saying hello … you can understand what level we were at!

And these stories went on for up to my 30 years! Then I meet Matthew, a guy more or less the same age that I like immediately, that is, he is my ideal type of guy, let’s say that I have never seen one that interested me more than him, I mean that he attracted me precisely on a physical level and very. I was intrigued by Matthew, we started chatting and he intrigued me a lot, he too had had his stories and he had one that still went on, but he was not satisfied at all. He was in love with his boyfriend but did not feel reciprocated, somehow he felt exploited only for sexual reasons, but he could not detach himself from that guy.

Matthew was the first guy with whom I managed to build a relationship of serious friendship. We talked a lot, he didn’t compliment me, he didn’t try to seduce me, he talked to me about himself and above all about the discomfort he felt with his boyfriend and the fact that he loved him anyway and this made me uncomfortable, because I was in love about him and he kept talking to me about the other guy, even though the things he said to me were obvious signs of unease. I would have wanted some physical intimacy with him, but there was no such thing.

I trusted Matthew, he was very serious, always a little sad but he was a true, faithful friend, I too began to talk to him about me and my discomfort with my last boyfriend, that I had already archived for a few months. Slowly, with Matthew, we also came to talk about sex, but he used to speak about it in a different way from the other guys I had known, he was very direct he didn’t sublimate speeches  but it was evident that sex for him had a strong emotional value. However, I realized that he had a different sexuality from mine, he too considered anal sex a very important thing and this made me uncomfortable because I thought that assuming that there could be sex between us, it would never be something of truly shared on the same level.

But time passed, we chatted a couple of times a week and several times even once, he had his life and I mine, he was very busy with work and often had to go out of town for work, and I in certain periods in practice I had no working hours and I had to work in the office as long as there were people and many times even at home in the evening, and nevertheless sometimes I have been waiting until late for his call, I avoided to call him because I would have risked calling him at a time when he was busy for work or maybe while she was with her boyfriend, because he kept having a boyfriend and feeling bad about it.

When we talked on the phone they were very special moments, very engaging, very real, something that had never happened to me with anyone before. I realized that I shared everything with him except sex. We talked for hours, he was often melancholy, even bordering on depressed. Our bond was strange, asymmetrical, at least in a certain sense, because I also wanted him sexually while he seemed essentially disinterested, however, slowly our relationship had become a very important thing both for him and for me, we were not just friends, it was evident that there was something more, we instinctively trusted each other, we were a real couple without sex.

I do not hide that for me it was a pain. He was the object of all my sexual fantasies and just hearing his voice on the phone caused me an erection and of course this lasted the entire time of the phone call long and afterwards I masturbated but with a background of melancholy, as for a wish that would never come true. And then I had never told him these things, I was afraid of influencing him or maybe letting him run away. We had talked a lot about sex, but about sex with others, while about sex between us, possible or not, we had never been talking and this made me very embarrassed, as if I were tricking him by trying to give him the idea that for me the fact that our relationship was without sex was somehow a quietly accepted fact. He treated me like a friend but to me he wasn’t just a friend.

Then came a time when he was very grumpy, I mean that anyway he was always respectful, he treated me as best he could but he was sad and spoke little. There were moments of embarrassment between us when I didn’t know what to say and once he gave me a caress and left without saying a word. I felt helpless, I loved him but obviously I couldn’t change his life, I couldn’t give him the serenity he needed.

Then he disappeared for 32 days, and disconnected his cell phone. I called his office and they told me he was on vacation and they didn’t know anything else. But on vacation he would have carried his cell phone. I did not know where his parents lived and I did not have their telephone number, because Matthew lived on his own and so, day after day, I became terribly anxious, I tried to call him, I left him messages on the answering machine but I was very scared.

On the 32nd day at half past midnight he called me on the phone and just said, “Would you like to have sex with me?” I told him: “Sure! Where are you?” At that moment my intercom rang. It was him and he went up to my house. When he entered the house he hugged me, something he had never done! But it was a hug that had nothing sexual at al. Then he said to me: “I’ll stay with you tonight … ok?” I told him that I had been very worried about him, and he said to me:

“I’m done with Silvio, I felt like a complete fool, he was only interested in having sex with me, but he didn’t care about me …”

We went into the kitchen, he sat on a low stool and I made him a cup of tea with some biscuits and then we went back to the living room to talk. In reality we talked very little, he only told me that the next afternoon he had to go back to work, not a single word about sex. He lay down on the sofa and fell asleep. I stayed close to him and slept in the armchair.

I say I slept, but I actually wondered why he asked me if I wanted to have sex with him. That was the first time he had ever mentioned such a hypothesis. I had all night to think about it, but then I started thinking about something else, about the fact that he was next to me and that sex or not sex, somehow he loved me and that I had passed from the deep anguish of a few hours before to such a love feeling in that so incredible but true way.

In the morning we woke up before seven, went down to the bar to have breakfast and then went home. I was supposed to be at work at 9.00 and we had to say goodbye. I wanted to ask him what that request to have sex with me meant but I pretended to  have forgotten it, he said to me: “We have to talk, I’ll come to you tonight around nine, if you like, make a little dinner to me , if you like.” I said yes to him and he greeted me by giving me a very light kiss on the mouth, something he had never done before. My working day literally flew in a whirlwind of thoughts that you can well imagine. After work, I ran to the supermarket and then immediately home to prepare some dinner. He arrives on time, finds dinner ready and the table set. We have a quick dinner then we start talking. I’ll quote here the speech on the basis of what I wrote down the next day in my diary:

“It’s over with Silvio. I told you. I was in love with him but he always said that there was only sex between us. I mean, I felt treated like shit and finally got rid of it. With him I had deluded myself that it could work and instead it ended exactly as had ended all my previous stories. I felt like a total moron. You must have wondered why when I called you I asked you if you wanted to have sex with me and there is a reason for this question: it was what I told Silvio when I needed him. It was always me who called him and always when I knew he was free, and he didn’t say no, but then I when we were together, we did what we had to do, and then it was automatic that I left immediately. When I last went there I asked him the same question, just as it had always happened, that is if he wanted to have sex with me, and he told me to go up but I didn’t want to have sex with him at all, I needed him to listen to me but he didn’t even try, he told me that if I ask him if he wants to have sex, then I can’t start with “pathological bullshit” (his words) and that if I don’t want to have sex I don’t have to break his balls (always his words) so I left and came to your house and I asked you to if you would like to have sex with me. You let me in and it was all very different and I expected it would all be very different. I know you love me and I too love you in a sense, but I’m not in love with you, you are not physically my type, but I think I could be fine with you anyway. I think I’m not indifferent to you. In conclusion, if you think we can be together, we can also try. I do not know how I will react, it may be that then I will feel uncomfortable, but if it happens I will tell you immediately, it could be an experiment … it seems absurd, I know, but we could try, however I do not promise anything, but now I think we might as well try … “.

“Matthew, I’m only interested in that you are fine, what hurts me is to see you sad, discouraged, unmotivated. If you are better off without sex, we can be very well even without it, you don’t have to feel forced into anything … “

” But you are saying this because it is fine for you as we have done so far and only this way? “

“No, certainly not! It’s fine for me if we try, but I wouldn’t want that if it doesn’t work, this was another reason for disappointment and frustration … “

“No, I don’t think there would be a risk of disappointment, I never felt exploited by you, but listen, first of all there is a very important fact to take account of, we need to get tested for HIV because with Silvio we also had risky behaviors and the idea of being able to infect you with a bad disease would destroy me … and I would also like you to do the test too, it would be a way to start from scratch together. It was precisely out of the fear of infecting you something that I kept away from you when I was with Silvio … “

” Well, I’m very attracted by you, sexually I mean, I masturbated dozens of times thinking about you but I didn’t tell you never because you were thinking of Silvio and I should not interfere … “

“Well, physically you are not my type but it just happened to me two days ago that I masturbated thinking about you and that’s exactly why I told you we can try. I used to think I could not have sexual desires on you but now I think it is possible, in practice it happened. But understand me, for me it is all new and everything in reverse compared to what I have always lived, in short, what will happen I do not know … but we can try. “

Dear Project, as you can understand, it was a very unusual start for a love story, but there was already a strong bond between us before and we didn’t get scared. We went together to take the test, he was a little anxious but only a little because with Silvio they “almost” always used a condom, but luckily the test was negative for both of us. In theory, the first major obstacle was over. We still had to go from words to deeds and here the embarrassment was enormous, not because of the sex itself, but because neither he nor I wanted to put in crisis our relationship due to inexperience, or due to too much haste or unavailability. I had also mentally accepted the idea of having anal intercourse with him, because for him they were important and after all they practiced them in a reciprocal way with Silvio and perhaps it would have been so with me too. The problem anyway did not arise precisely because knowing that those things were never in my fantasies, he had accepted the idea of doing without them. Basically each of us had accepted the idea of having to adapt to the other. But problems occurred much earlier. The very idea of attempting a physical contact was also a problem. Luckily it was he who made the first move.

One night in my house, he undressed completely and lay down on the bed. I too undressed and he said to me:
“You are such a beautiful guy!” and he said it with conviction, almost as if it were something he did not expect, a spontaneous smile came to me and he replied in the same way, then he gestured for me to approach … the rest you can imagine it. He was not at all clumsy and we understood each other on the fly. It didn’t even seem real to me that I was in such a situation, because I had dreamed of it for so long. We hugged naked, very tight and he kissed me tenderly. It was the height of summer and it was very hot, we went to the kitchen, naked as we were, and had two cold drinks. We looked like two Adams in the earthly Paradise. I didn’t know what would happen next, but we went back to making love in a very playful way and then we went to sleep hugging. I woke up long before him in the morning and went to prepare some breakfast, when I brought it to him, he stretched like a cat and smiled as he hardly ever did.

Then several days later we also got to anal sex, I didn’t tell him no, I put on a condom and then we went on, you could see that it was important for him, in the end he didn’t ask me to change roles and said that after all it is not what you do that counts but with whom you do it and added that now he knew that if he had asked me I would not have said no. In the following months we did it a few more times but in the end it was not a fixed idea even for him, it was not a taboo but it was not even an obligatory step and slowly the matter became less important for him and less problematic for me, now it is done every now and then but mostly as a demonstration that I do not say no.

What I like most about Matteo’s sexuality and that for him sex doesn’t have a precise beginning and end, is a bit of a general atmosphere of warmth and intimacy. We now also know each other well sexually, for example 

I know that he really likes that after sex I don’t get dressed and stay naked with him on the bed to chat and joke. The post-sex phase for him is fundamental because it gives him the feeling of being considered like a man and not like a sex toy, in practice that post-sex phase, with Silvio, did not exist at all and he felt uncomfortable. He likes to have sex with the light on because he tells me he wants to see me in all my splendor and I know this means that he begins to appreciate me also from a sexual point of view, and he repeats to me that I am beautiful because he knows that I like very much to hear such things from him.

In a sense, our being a couple should be fragile but when we are together we see that it is not so, now he is much less melancholy than before, sometimes he jokes and above all sends me very tender text messages. To be honest, I have fulfilled my deepest wishes. When you hold the one guy you truly loved in your arms and feel that he is happy to be with you, I don’t think you could want anything more.

I had Matthew read this email before sending it to you, since it also concerns him and he told me that I mythologized him, because he is not like that, but much worse! Publish the email, if you like, it’s fine with us!

A warm greeting.
Mark

______________________

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

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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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EXHAUSTED GAY RELATIONSHIPS AND FREE UNIONS

This post is divided into two distinct sections:

 

1) the first is dedicated to the distinction between the behaviors that that are indicator lights of exhausted gay relationships (that is, of the gay relationships that have lost the original momentum and the motivational drive of the early days but, despite everything, continue out of habit or out of reluctance to change perspectives) and the affective requests that can hide behind those behaviors;

 

2) and the second dedicated to the trend towards free relationships, that is, towards relationships without any legal constraint (without Marriage or Civil Union at the Municipalities' Registry Offices).

 

The two arguments may seem somewhat heterogeneous but are actually deeply connected.

 

 

SYMPTOMS OF EXHAUSTED GAY RELATIONSHIPS AND AFFECTIVE REQUESTS

 

 

Interpersonal relationships, even the most lasting ones, over the years, inevitably face wear and tear. Many times these relationships were from the beginning without solid foundations, that is, they were relationships upstream of which there was no instinctive and conscious and above all mutual choice, sometimes they are stories that began, then interrupted, then started again, that for both partners are not an instinctive, at least potentially definitive choice, but one of the possible hypotheses on which a perpetual indecision remains. But even when a story initially has all the necessary requirements to last, daily life, or rather the transcription of the story from the lyrical level of falling in love (assuming that there was a real falling in love at least at the beginning) to that of everyday life brings out weaknesses and critical issues.

 

Symptoms of attrition are generally small episodes in which each of the two partners manifests forms of intolerance towards the weaknesses of the other or shows judgmental attitudes systematically avoiding any effort of understanding, classic are the behaviors related to the idea that the partner is not quick enough to understand, he cannot do elementary things, he always falls back into the same mistakes. Often the request to have time for oneself is an indicator of the wear and tear of a relationship. Behaviors become standardized, everyone knows exactly what to expect, the speeches are always the same, the mutual reproaches, more or less veiled, are repeated in substantially similar situations, it is as if a script was repeated, the partner person is considered to be lackluster and unattractive, not up to the situation, the talks that could stray from the routine are stopped in the bud and there is room for unexpected reactions, which then can be followed by an internal repentance which, however, is not manifested to the partner for reasons of pride, the insistence on keeping the point, not giving in, not leaving room for the partner is quite evident.

 

Even sexual behaviors become more and more standardized, partners no longer try to find a balance that can be satisfactory for both and begin to think that there can certainly be better alternatives than the story that is being lived, even if, in practice, those alternatives do not exist at all. Sex becomes a hurried affair in which everyone relates only to himself, and it is no longer accompanied by an emotional atmosphere full of desire as in the times of falling in love. The interest in the sexuality of the partner gives way to sexual selfishness that reduces the other to an instrument, an object rather than a subject.

 

This description of the characteristic signals of a worn-out relationship is however only theoretical because it is objectively very difficult to distinguish between such signals and the requests for greater emotional involvement addressed to the partner, and the risk that a wrong interpretation of those behaviors could undermine an important relationship, conditioned only by a communication defect, it is quite concrete. Formal detachment is often not a detachment at all but an affective request. The difference between the two situations lies in the absence of final declarations, that is, in always leaving a door open to the partner, in the case of an emotional request. I give a typical example. Two partners can also go so far as to say big words and indulge in forms of intemperance, but if after the reproaches, for example contained in an email, the email ends with a ILY (I love you) it is evident that the dominant dimension is the emotional one. If after the sprint of pride and the request for autonomy there is an attempt to go back, it is clear that the sprint of pride and the request for autonomy were actually affective requests, they were ways to elicit a response from the partner.

 

Even in the context of strictly sexual behaviors it is possible and often easy to confuse the characteristic behaviors of a worn down relationship with the requests for greater involvement by the partner. A very typical behavior characteristic of worn out relationships is the sexual unavailability of one of the partners, declaring himself tired, little interested in sex, stressed, etc. etc., or even simply the reduction of the frequency of sexual intercourse. Stress and fatigue can be real and not being episodically available to sexual contact can certainly have objective reasons. Obviously, if saying no becomes systematic it is a sign of rejection, if instead the sexual contact, when it is realized , is truly experienced as a form of deep communication, then saying sometimes no it is not an indication of a worn relationship. In general, it is not a sign of wear and tear of the relationship to try to correct the partner's attitudes by demanding less artificial forms of communication from him. There are people who experience sexuality by mediating it with many words that can sound unnecessary and rhetorical to the partner, in cases of this kind, the request to avoid excessive words is not a refusal of the partner but an attempt to correct him.

 

Given these clarifications on the difficulty of discerning the signs of wear and tear of a relationship from emotional requests, we take another step forward. What do you do when you realize that the relationship "probably" is about to end? do you stop it immediately? Do you expect the other to do it? Or do you let the passage of time decide the end of the relationship? In any case, you have to think very well before taking action, because often creaking buildings, if properly renovated, withstand time and earthquakes, while new buildings poorly designed collapse at the slightest failure.

 

There are rare situations in which there are very few doubts and these situations are those in which we must move away from a violent partner or prone to emotional blackmail, or from a partner who identifies sex as a domain and as a reality completely detached from affectivity. But in all other cases, haste is often a bad adviser. It happens that, after instinctive and uncontrolled moments of reaction that lead to decisions that are as quick as they are little thought about, there are second thoughts and attempts to recover situations that are no longer recoverable. The one-minute outburst can lead to the immediate gratification due to the refusal of the other considered not up to situation but in the long run can trigger late and useless regrets. We should never forget that destroying is always much easier than building and that giving your partner one more chance is not a gesture of weakness but often exactly the opposite.

 

 

COUPLE PROBLEMS AND TREND TO FREE UNIONS

 

 

The following analysis refers to the Italian situation and the reported data come from ISTAT, the Italian Institute of Statistics, but the discussion has a much more general validity and certainly applies to all Western European countries and also to North American countries.

 

In the heterosexual world, when couples are stabilized by the bond of marriage, especially when there are children, the problems related to the crisis of the couple can be truly enormous even from a legal point of view, for the custody of the children and for the economic aspects related to communion of goods, when the marriage took place under the communion of goods regime, or when family relationships overlap with legal relationships related to the ownership of the family business or professional studies. For gays, complications of this type are absolutely exceptional. These problems that could have arisen even for gay couples united by a Civil Union pact, in reality did not arise, because Civil Unions have a much weaker bond regime than that of marriage, because the Civil Union can be dissolved at the simple request of only one of the two contracting parties, which, it was believed, would have made the Civil Union a reality very appreciated by the population. In reality, Civil Unions, despite the very light bond regime, have been and still are a very little widespread reality and this not so much for the fact that homosexual couples do not yet have the social approval that characterizes marriage, but because, both in the heterosexual context and in the gay sphere the model of free relationships is increasingly gaining ground, that is, of unions absolutely without legal sanctions.

 

I quote here below a ISTAT Report of November, 20, 2019.

 

"In 2018, 2,808 civil unions (between same-sex couples) were established at the registrars of Italian municipalities. These must be added to those already established during the second half of 2016 (2,336), the year of entry into force of the Law May,20, 2016, no. 76, and during the year 2017 (4,376). As expected, after the peak immediately following the entry into force of the new law, the phenomenon is now stabilizing. The prevalence of couples of men is also confirmed in 2018 (1,802 unions, 64.2% of the total), albeit gradually decreasing (73.6% in 2016, 67.7% in 2017). 37.2% of civil unions were established in the Northwest, followed by the Center (27.2%). Lombardy is in the lead with 25%, followed by Lazio (15.1%), Emilia-Romagna (10.0%) and Tuscany (9.4%).The civil unions established in Italy in 2018 are 4.6 per 100 thousand inhabitants: ranging from 7 in Lazio, Lombardy and Tuscany to about 0.5 per 100 thousand in Calabria, Basilicata and Molise. The attractive role of some metropolises emerges with particular evidence. In 2018, in fact, 32.7% of the civil unions occurred in Italy were concentrated in the big cities: at the top of the ranking are Rome (290 unions, 10.3%) and Milan (257 unions, 9.2%) ; the share of civil unions of couples of men is particularly high in Milan (equal to 75.5%) compared to Rome (66.9%). Considering the incidence of civil unions on the total resident population, in 2018 18.7 civil unions per 100 thousand inhabitants were established in Milan, in Rome 10.1. Among the cities of the South, only Naples and Palermo show values above 1 per 100 thousand inhabitants."

 

I would add that civilly united homosexual couples have an average age of 49.5 years if male and 45.9 years if female, that is, homosexual couples are non-young couples. If we consider that in 2018 there were 195,778 marriages celebrated in Italy and 2,808 civil unions, we immediately notice that the same-sex civil unions were just over 1,4% compared to marriages, even if in recent years the number of marriages has drastically decreased in favor of free unions, a phenomenon on which we must stop to reflect.

 

Also from ISTAT we know that:

 

"The comparison between the data from the 1991 population census and those from 2018 shows the profound changes that have taken place. Among individuals aged 15-64, in the face of a slight drop in the population (-309 thousand), married people decrease (3 million and 843 thousand less), especially for the benefit of single and unmarried people (+3 million and 90 thousand) and, to a much lesser extent, of the divorced (over 972 thousand more).

 

The decrease and postponement of marriage, in place for over forty years, partially offset by the growth of free partnerships, led between 1991 and 2018 to a sharp decline in married couples, especially in the 25-34 age group (from 51.5% to 19.1% men, from 69.5% to 34.3% women). Single people go from 48.1% to 80.6% and single girls from 29.2% to 64.9%. In the 45-54 age group, almost one in four men never married while almost 18% of women are unmarried. "

 

From the above data, it is clear that the model of the Free Union, that is, of the couple's union, straight or homosexual, without any legal sanction, is spreading very decisively among the Italian population. Marriage, as far as hetero people are concerned, and civil unions, as far as gays are concerned, are seen more as a useless or even harmful bond, than as a protection of the couple's relationship, whose existence can neither be protected nor favored by legal constraints of any kind.

 

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THE MEANING OF GAY SEX WITHOUT COMMITMENTS

This post is dedicated to the so-called “gay sex without commitments” or to those sexual contacts that do not take place within a stable couple relationship, that is, they are not part of a structured relationship.

Two elements appear in this definition: the “stable couple” and the “structured relationship”, which must be further clarified.

 

It is common practice to compare stable couples with unstable (short term) ones and structured relationships to unstructured ones, commonly called free relationships. The legacy of the traditional marriage concept is evident in these distinctions, marriage intends to structure and legitimize a couple’s relationship around the presumed indissoluble mutual fidelity which also implies a social meaning. In the case of marriage, the union is born indissoluble, or at least with the claim, more or less credible, of being indissoluble, but indissolubility is only a hypothesis that is taken for granted, because indissolubility manifests itself over time, in substance indissolubility, which in itself is by no means an obvious thing, is favored, if not actually induced and obliged by the structure that connotes the marriage bond.

 

The “social”, not “couple” dimension of marriage is clearly revealed in the celebration of the wedding ceremony which is a social ceremony. Structuring a couple’s reaction means conforming to a codified and socially recognized standard, that is, inserting one’s life as a couple partner in a legal-social structure that in theory protects it but which risks distorting it completely.

 

Today free relationships, even in the hetero field, are many, even in couples with children. This, in general, does not mean that one renounces inserting the couple life into a wider social structure, but simply that one intends to avoid legal constraints. Removing legal constraints from couple life means safeguard the freedom to interrupt couple life (without prejudice to the rights of children) without legal complications, should the need to do so be felt.

 

For a gay couple, for whom insertion into a wider social structure can be very problematic, it is certainly difficult if not impossible to accept even very weak legal formalizations, such as civil unions, but it is very often necessary or at least very appropriate to avoid the socialization of the relationship beyond a very limited and reliable circle of friends. In essence, the great majority of gays, and especially young gays, do not aspire to any legalization of the couple’s relationship and to the inclusion of the couple’s life in a social dimension with not well defined borders.

 

Many gays, after having dreamed of an almost matrimonial life as a couple and having collected a more or less long series of illusions and disillusions, begin to convince themselves that those who promise sublime things are generally unreliable and that the risk to get involved with individuals of this kind in very structured stories, that are or can became sometimes real traps, is concrete and also probable. Those who, on the other hand, do not promise anything and indeed point out that they do not promise anything and consequently do not require any kind of a priori commitments, can, in the long run, prove to be much more serious and reliable people than they seemed at the beginning. A weak bond, both in the sense of unstructured on a social level, and in the sense of light, partial and non-totalizing, can prove to be very stable, while maintaining its characteristics of absence of structure and lightness, precisely because it is in fact a pure couple relationship on which no pressure or expectation, by the social environment or bay partner, can be loaded.

 

Generally we tend to distinguish simple friendships (without sex) from sexualized friendships, in which some sexual contact can also occur. If it is true that not all friendships last over time, it is equally true that not all sexualized friendships last over time. What gives both the ability to last? And here the answer is immediate. With or without sex, lasting friendships are those in which there is a real emotional foundation. It should be stressed that the sexualization of affectivity aims to maintain the relationship, apparently, on a purely or essentially sexual level, because a contact purely sexual is or seems less demanding than an important affective relationship.

 

It should also be clarified that the sharing of sexuality inevitably leads to the sharing of several other aspects of emotional life and individual history: illusions, frustrations, moments of depression but also moments of joy. Those who are involved in a relationship of this kind do not fear it, they have no reason to run away, they know that no obligation, either social or towards the partner, will derive from it, they don’t feel forced,

don’t feel judged even by their friend, but rather they feel free and this is enough to make them feel deeply gratified.

 

Of course these relationships have nothing of the fusion of two lives, the partners are not two people who share every aspect of their life. Each of the two retains its full autonomy, there are no legal or economic constraints, there is no obligation of cohabitation, cohabitation can also exist but it is an absolutely free and revocable choice at any time. The circles of friends can very well remain completely separate, the relationships with the family of origin of the partner are a pure possibility which often is not followed up because a different behavior would authorize expectations and interferences that in a couple relationship should be avoided.

 

I do not intend to make the apology of free unions, which, as it is easy to deduce from the statistics on straight marriages and gay civil unions, are progressively gaining ground compared to legalized forms of union, in fact, sexual contacts without commitments are not even a free union, which however postulates some explicit assumption of commitments.

 

Sexual contacts without commitments very often are such only formally, because the expression “without any commitment” does not prevent that such a contact can at least involve the moral commitment of the partners to respect each other. Formally there are no constraints and there are no expectations on either side, but over time it is possible, not to say probable, that behind a purpose declared as only sexual and “without commitments” there is actually something more, that, under the protection of the clause “without commitment”, can have the possibility to develop spontaneously and without forcing. Those who consciously live this type of experiences, in general, do not tend to transform them into something else, that is, in stable and structured relationships, and for this reason they do not experience any sense of frustration. It often happens that sex, which had been taken as the basic postulate of the relationship, over time becomes only a possible option and leaves room for other content as well.

 

It should be clarified that, just as stable couple relationships are not a generalizable model of gay life, so are not a generalizable model the sexual contacts without commitments”. It is obvious that each has his own genetic and cultural predisposition to one or another type of relationship, but from what I see, now more and more often, the assumption that it is possible to realize one’s own affectivity-sexuality only in the context of a stable and structured couple is something that does not correspond to reality. Affective gratification derives neither from the presumed definitive nature of the relationship nor from its social or legal sanction, but exclusively from the presence of a real emotional contact which, when it exists, is spontaneous and whose duration cannot be guaranteed by any legal mechanism of protection.

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