Tag Archives: leather bar

Something Achingly Personal And Sexual In Nature

Personal Bits, Queer stuff

I tend not to deliver in bed.

I can hear SharkBoy’s spine compress and extend simultaneously as he reads that so I better explain myself.

On many occasion during my formative youth I had a tendency to attract guys who thought I would be something I completely wasn’t. I would often find myself stupefied at suggestion that would fall from my various date’s lips as the night progressed into the boozy, flirty time. Suggestions of violence or odd behaviour that would kill my desire just to cuddle or have plain, vanilla sex, of which, I’m utterly satisfied to have 90% of the time.

I’ve always dressed a bit rough. I’ve been told I have expressive eyes and combined with a shaved head and goatee since I was 21, I would often have to suggest to my date that discussing my next attack on their genitals while actually clothespinning various flaps of skin, probably wasn’t going to be as much fun for me as it would be for them.

While living in Ottawa, I purchased a motorcycle jacket at Costco. Yes. A full on, Marlon Brando bad ass motorcycle jacket that despite it’s purchasing origins, suggested that I rode a steel horse around town. I didn’t – In fact I was driving a 3 year old rusted out K car for the company I worked for. To add to this image of manlyman testosterone, I purchased a pair of engineer boots on sale at Filene’s Basement in Boston ($60!). Coupled with a tight tee and jeans, I looked pretty bad ass. One night I met a guy dressed similarly, but he was 6 foot, 2 inches, Germanic handsome, blond shock hair and muscular. When we got back to my place (I guess I looked good because he was blinded to the fact that we drove home in a K car) we discovered that we were essentially both wanting each other to do stuff to each other that we wanted each other to do to us each.

In short: we were both bottoms.

Discovering that you’re something you’re not while a god of a man stands before you is pretty tough on the self esteem. I did try, but I couldn’t be the guy he wanted me to be. We had a great friendship after that but I was still very attracted to him, which killed the whole friend thing eventually. I did learn about Bette Davis and Joan Crawford from him, for which I will be eternally thankful.

While working at a leather bar during Media School, these kinds of encounters were commonplace – I recall taking home one guy I thought was tall and handsome and clever but after we messed around a bit he stopped what we were doing (I thought it was going fine…) and said that we weren’t going to be compatible in bed and that the reason why was over in the corner of the room, in an old steamer trunk. I left shortly after that not knowing what was in that trunk. It haunts me to this day. Was I suppose to go open it? Was it full of dresses? Of knives? Weasels?

The weirdest was meeting someone who wanted me to physically abuse him (no surprise there, considering where we met. I was pretty open minded at that time and thought it wasn’t outside my realm of comfort) while talking about the sexiness of another bartender that I worked with (okay, first warning sign) and then crossing the conversation over to a fantasy where he is introduced to my actor brother in a professional, career building manner.

Seriously. He wanted me to twist his nipples off while fantasizing about my brother advancing his acting career.

After this incident I’ve come to believe that S&M and all that sub-culture paradigm was extremely reliant on damaging egos and breaking down self esteem. This was just weird. So as I lay there considering what he just told me I decided that one kidney punch wouldn’t hurt (me) and we were done.

Thing is, in this experience (and others) I’ve drawn from the experiences and molded myself. No, I’m not a bottom exclusively. No I can’t imagine inflicting extended amounts of pain on someone during sex. No I’m not going to introduce you to my brother. Or his agent.

The Lesson: Boil In Bag Bunny Not Included

Personal Bits

At 4 am, I startled awake after sensing a presence in my room, standing at the foot of my bed.

“JesusfuckingChrist!!! What the fuck, Javier?”

Javier (“Hav!” I would call him) and I had been dating about a month. I had given him a key the week before because I felt I could trust him. Plus the apartment I had was massive: it was a long flight and a half to get downstairs to open the front door. My legs are lazy, my heart, not so.

“I missed you. I wanted to be sure you were here,” Jav says, sitting on the corner of my bed. I turn on the light.

“Wait. You drove from Ajax to see if I was sleeping? You don’t trust me?”

Thus began the end of our emotionally charged whirlwind dating. Javier was a closeted Uruguayan, first gen Canadian, testing the gay waters for the first time in his early 30s while living in the basement of his deeply religious parent’s home. At the time I was working the odd bar shift at The Black Eagle while working at Rogers in their iMedia department (yes, Rogers jumped on the “iBandwagon” back in 1998-2001) and would come home on the weekend at odd hours. Needless to say our relationship was moving along at a slow pace, since I had very little free time. Because of my lack of enthusiasm in our love affair, early on in our relationship, Jav accused me of sleeping around and not finding him attractive and that I’d prefer to be with bigger, bearish type guys simply because I worked at a rough leather bar.

I did find Jav extremely attractive: he was one of those hairy Southern Latinos, slenderly well built, well groomed, and playful. He had beautiful eyes and the whitest teeth of anyone I’ve ever been with. And apparently had no sense of boundaries.

“I’ll go,” Jav says and rises off the bed. A switch-whipped puppy couldn’t look sadder

“Oh for Christssakes, Jav. You better stay.”

The above mentioned incursion happened early Saturday morning. Sunday we met up and I called it off. It was surprisingly swift and without incident – Jav accepted that he was being a bit smothering and we parted without drama. I was relieved that I dodged an emotionally crippling bullet.

Monday morning at the office, I get a call from reception as soon as I sit down at my desk saying I had a visitor.

Uh oh…

I come around the corner to find Jav in tears in the middle of the reception area. Like Jav’s tears, co-workers are streaming by us, offering odd sympathetic glances. The receptionist has her head down, ears wide open.

I drag Jav out into the hall for some privacy. He begs me to take him back, he can change, it will change, he’ll give me my space. I stand firm and say that we need to go our separate ways. After a long pause, he leaves.

The remainder of the day I am sent 40 to 50 emails from Javier’s gal pal telling me that I am a horrible person, god will punish me, I’ve ruined Jav’s life, his heart and subsequently his career. I am scheduled to rot in hell and be miserably alone for the rest of my life, according to her. I am a monster who cannot possibly love anyone. I have lost the ability to love when I cut Jav loose. I was scum.

I call IT to ask how to block an email.

My boss notices my distress and after listening to my story, tells me that sometimes our hearts are unbalanced. In both senses of the word.