Sex

This is a first for me to ever write about sex and why it seems to be an issue with me. You see, I'm insecure about the whole topic of sex and I think it’s time I actually dealt with it. I don’t understand it, I never want to think about it and if I can avoid it, I will. This is not usually the approach any guy has to sex, but somehow I have got into the rut of doing this for as long as I can remember and it’s hurting every relationship because I can’t deal with it.

When I was growing up and the idea of sex was brought up into a conversation, I had one approach: if I don’t think about it, it doesn’t exist. A rather immature way of thinking, I managed to get out of many awkward moments. I remember the first time I had to deal with it was in grade eight. It was the day of my last year at elementary school when we would take a trip for a day to high school to get used to how life would be for the next four years. At the end of the day, a student named Jamie Wiebe came up to me in the hallway before I was about to leave for the bus and said, "so have you ever had sex before?" I was so stunned by his question that I couldn’t answer and I left for the day thinking that I’m going to be asked this for the next four years.

So for the next four years, sex didn’t exist. Oh it showed its head from time to time in conversation, but the thought of the act was ignored and rejected. I didn’t fantasize about sex or for that matter, masturbate like all the other kids seemed to be doing. I just held it in thinking that eventually it would just go away. Lori was the only person I ever really talked to and everybody construed it that I wanted to be with her and I think I let myself believe it. I imagined that we would hold hands and cuddle and that’s all we would have to do because I never imagined that there was anything more than that. Even sex education class was a blur to me because all I saw was diagrams and again sex didn’t have to exist for me.

When I was in my first year of university, I used to go over to this girl’s house and we would play videogames. In the afternoon, we would murder each other at Mortal Combat and I actually thought we were dating. We weren’t and I think I realized that we hung out together because I was completely no threatening to her because I never thought of her as a sexual creature. The next year, I began dating Susan and I tried to be more romantic with trying to hold hands at the performance of Crazy For You. I didn’t and it ended at the end of the week. We had had our family cross paths often that I thought it would work purely because we had common interests. Of course, because I didn’t see her as a sexual creature either, I know it wouldn’t have worked even if it had lasted longer than a week.

When I moved to Regina to start the film degree, I met this girl named Tiffany who I thought was attractive. I never imagined having any relation with her except the close friendship with her and even when I asked her what would happen if I kissed her, she said that she would probably just laugh. I don’t think I wanted to kiss her, I just wanted some sense of normal that would have happened if I had kissed her, thinking that would have solved my insecurity.

Then I met Jennifer. She was my roommate’s girlfriend whom he treated horribly, like a housewife with no other choice of what to do with her life. She dumped him because she liked me, because I was this sweet guy who seemed to really care for her. The most we ever did was kiss four times and wrestle once, she interpreting sexual chemistry, me trying to beat her and kick her off the bed. I opened her eyes to a bigger world and I will have that consolation to the relationship.

The last woman I dated was Marie and she rocked the boat to say the least. I only kissed more because she seemed to like it, but I was never convinced I did. We had a lot in common, but I never saw her as anything more than a friend, even though I interpreted it as a relationship because I thought that this was all I needed. It wasn’t what she needed though and she saw me differently. One night she tried to push a little further and I tried to follow. Suddenly a gong went off in my head and I heard the voice that changed my life: "you’re not supposed to be here". I didn’t know what it meant by any means, but I did know that where I was going was not where I was supposed to and this frightened me. I dumped under a cloud of suspicion and left on my own journey to figure myself out.

For the next two months, I really looked at what I really wanted and I realized that I didn’t even see women in my dreams . . . ever. I just realized that the only reason I went out with women was because I thought it was the right thing to do without thinking that there was any other choice I had. I had the dream of having children and a house and a job, the one that everyone has I thought and realized that the only missing was a woman. I thought about what my dreams had held all my life and I realized that I really thought about men. I thought only about friendships with men because I never thought there could anything more. I had never had many friendships with men before in high school, but what I did know was that I always wanted more out of them, a sense of intimacy, that never existed with the men and something I never looked for with women.

I came out as gay on January 27^th, 1999 and I made my way through friends, family and work in roughly three months. This helped answer so many of my inner dilemmas, but when it came to relationships, I was still dead in the water. I may have dreamed about guys, but that doesn’t mean I dreamed about having sex with them. Sexuality was a great starting point for me to start learning about myself, but I was still insecure about sex. The first guy I ever went out with was Sheldon, who liked me because I was mature about life and amazingly the same age as him. Only problem was that I was so obsessed with sex after marriage that he knew he wasn’t going to getting anything out of me soon. He dumped me and that was that. I move on and hope for something more.

Then I met Jason. There is nothing like dating a self-deprecating drag queen with a mean sense of putting down others for his insecurities. Sex came up again as I knew it would and we ended up fighting more over it because I didn't see its importance and he saw it as more important than most things. He performed oral sex on me once and I seemed okay, but I didn’t want to move at the same pace as him. He made me ashamed of who I was on many occasions and I refused to listen after a while and dumped him. No one was going to tell me I was mistaken.

Then there was Pete. For six months, we were comfortable. He was more inclined to wait and I was happy about this. Sex came up from time to time, but somehow I managed to shelve it away and soon I found that neither of us was moving with life, just stuck where we were. I’m sure sex was a part of that for him, but I needed more out of my life. I needed to follow my career path and it wasn’t there.

Four months later, at the end of April 2001, I moved to Toronto and hopefully experiences where I could make movies and write theatre. I didn’t move for the opportunity of men, but I knew there was more opportunity for that there. My first experience was with a guy named Rick, which was a disaster. He did a little oral on me and a week later, he thought we were just friends where I didn’t think it was that at all. I thought it was something more and it really didn’t matter to him at all.

I met Dan after that and we dated for over two months with little amount of sexual activity. He dumped me and I knew in so many ways that was a major part. No that sex was the main issue, but how I dealt with sex was a problem as much I felt how he dealt with emotions was a problem for me.

So here I am now. I am a single man with absolutely no concept of sex. I uneasy about sex and I am uncertain. I do believe still in the idea of sex after marriage, but somehow it’s becoming more of a philosophy than a reality. I’m stuck between the idea that it’s something that most people take to easily and something that has to happen as part of a relationship to work. I’m stuck between the physical parameters and the symbolic emotions of the act. I’m feeling pressured by a society that puts too much weight into it and my own repression that maybe I’m putting too much weight into its sacredness. One part of me thinks I should just go do it and get it over with. The other part of me thinks that’s not the answer, that I have a right to choose when I do it and if I don’t want to do it, then go crap yourself because I’m waiting. Part of me thinks it’s my choice and part of me has to consider the other person. I’m afraid of the feelings it might create, the diseases that are running around like crazy, the fear that I might be rejected because in all honesty, I might not be that good at it. I try to brace myself with reading books and it really doesn’t help much except give me a good description with its words and scare me more with their pictures. When I watch porn, all it does it make me cringe because all I see is an act without any sense of emotions except the need to get the end result. The most turned on I get is from erotic books because at least I don’t have to watch it, I can read it and see it for myself. I like to touch another man’s body and feel every muscle in his body, every ripple of skin. I love the feel of the warmth of his kiss, but when I think of fucking someone, all I see is the back of their head and they can only see the back of mine when they are behind me. Straight couples have it great because they can do it with looking at each other. I don’t even know if it’s possible to have that connection with a guy, I don’t even know if the human body can move in that way.

And through all these thoughts, all I can keep thinking is that you would think someone who has an old soul like I do would have passed a few of these bits of information on the past life. I keep thinking that someone who is about to turn 25 years old would be able to know about some of this. I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime in so many ways, but just because I have no concept of sex that I feel stupid like I can possibly know everything about everything in the world. It feels like absolute torture and I think that if I keep avoiding it, it will go away.

"If I don’t think about it, it doesn’t exist."