Daddyhunt Blog Posts from January 2009

Any gay man who has ever dared give his heart to another man in a loving relationship has likely had his heart broken at one time or another. Breaking up with a lover has been one of the most painful experiences of my adult life. As I have aged (I'm now 55) the experience seems to get more painful each time. In this article I want to share one method of emotional healing a friend shared with me when I was in the throes of breakup blues.

One feature of suffering is morbid rumination about what you have lost. Grief can become paralyzing, sapping your energy and draining the pleasure from activities that you used to enjoy. You might isolate yourself, sleep or eat more or less than usual, become fearful of loving again, resort to alcohol or other drugs, engage in emotionally empty casual sex, and perhaps even entertain thoughts of suicide.

When I was nearly immobilized with grief after the breakup of a fifteen-month relationship, an Internet friend mailed me his well-worn copy of a book entitled Water Bears No Scars, by David K. Reynolds, Ph.D. The book describes a form of psychotherapy developed by a Japanese psychologist named Morita combining some features of Western psychotherapy with principles of Zen Buddhism. As in many Western therapies Morita Therapy encourages clients to be aware of their feelings. The key difference in Morita Therapy from many Western modalities is using feelings as indicators of constructive action rather than as ends in themselves. An essential principle in this therapeutic model is that when you mindfully engage in constructive action, you are for the duration of the activity free from neurosis and, therefore, psychologically healthy.

For example, when I was feeling lonely after my breakup, I learned to listen to the message the loneliness was conveying to me and consider what constructive action to take in response. Instead of isolating myself, as depression can tend to make one want to do, I reached out to a close friend for companionship and comfort. It might be as simple as sharing a meal and some conversation about our days, but while I was constructively engaged with my friend, I was free from grief for the time being. At other times, when I found myself playing sadness tapes over and over in my head, the most I could manage would be to wash dishes or sweep the floor, putting all my attention into each activity while performing the tasks. When I held a coffee mug in my hand, I focused on the sensation of the smooth, hard porcelain, its weight, and on the motions needed to wash and dry it thoroughly. To the extent that my mind engaged fully in the constructive activity, it became free from suffering for the duration of the action. I had to return to this practice repeatedly when dark moods overwhelmed me, but, as Morita Therapy teaches, hurt feelings heal with time. If you look back several years at experiences that seemed unbearable at the time, you often find you can recall them now with a detached perspective and often even with humor.

In Morita Therapy one shifts from a “feeling-based life” to a “purpose-oriented life.” Constantly focusing on your feelings is like building a house on shifting sand. Feelings are always changing, and living in moment-to-moment awareness of your feeling states guarantees a life of relative instability. When we act with a positive purpose, however, whether attending to household chores, responding to the needs of loved ones, serving the community, or acquiring knowledge and skills, just to list a few examples, we increase our opportunities to experience positive feelings regardless of the specific outcomes of our actions. The idea is that positive, constructive actions themselves engender emotional stability just as negative, destructive actions perpetuate painful emotional states. After a breakup, for example, posting or revising your personal profile on a site like DaddyHunt.com to reflect what your feelings around the breakup have taught you about yourself—what you now more clearly want in a relationship—can be a constructive action that transforms hurt feelings into a positive purpose.

Obviously, I cannot cover the many applications of this therapeutic model in a short blog article, but I encourage anyone who may be experiencing emotional suffering to read the book and see how you can apply the simple principles in your own life. I invite readers to contribute their own strategies for coping with negative feelings after a painful breakup.

Kirk,

I have always had to envision a scene from a porn flick in my head to get off, with every guy I've ever been with. I've talked to therapists about why I can't get off just on the present situation and the person I'm with.

A lot of times, I'm with someone who isn't physically attractive to me, but some aspect of their personality, or their voice, or their touch turns me on. So I watch a hot scene I've pulled up while we're having sex to get off. I thought it would be helpful to have porn going while having sex with someone- not to distract me from the sex I'm having, but more of a focusing tool, (a little ADD here,) and a mood setter. But I'm always afraid to ask for fear of insulting a sex partner.

Sadly, I've barely had the opportunity to be with a guy with whom I find really physically hot. This would be the bodybuilder, muscle boy types, And while I am muscular, and attractive and hot to many non-muscle types -  the muscle men I like don't find me attractive. There's probably some esteem issues mixed in there to.

Any advice? Is it OK to be fantasizing about porn while I'm having sex with a guy. Would you be insulted if I turned on porn while we were having sex?
 
Dear Porno King,

Sorry to start off with a crass, potentially offensive generalization, but my experience of therapists is that when it comes to sexual advice, you’re often better off asking a hooker. So you’ve knocked on the right door.

Lots of gay men are neck-deep in porn, so you’re not alone. I love porn and think it can be a really valuable tool. But it sounds like porn has you by the throat. It’s powerful information that you’ve never (really? not once?) been able to get off with a man unless you were imagining a porn scene you’d watched. As much as I love porn, I think you should do some radical sex experiments to try and shake up that paradigm. Not because porn is bad, but because interacting fully with the man in front of you can melt the walls and change your life. I don’t want you to miss out on those experiences, and it sounds like you’re craving a new dynamic.

I’ll be honest here and say that when I get into a sex vibe with a man who seems determined to have porn playing, it can be a turnoff. Unless it’s REALLY interesting porn. Otherwise I end up wondering if the man I’m with is insecure about connecting with me. We are so inundated with ringing phones, moving images, television and computer screens. Sex should be like theater and church – one of the rare times when people actually turn their devices off and have a blood and guts interaction with another human. You mention that you have ADD. Overloading on porn, while it may feel “focusing” in the short term, just crams more quick cut imagery into your poor brain, which is trying to keep up.

I have a couple of ideas for things you might try.

First, try giving your porn a breather. Clear your head of that imagery. Try jerking off to something lower wattage – like a movie with actors you find hot. It might sensitize you a bit to subtler types of eroticism. It sounds like you’ve built up a tolerance to porn. Try having a solo sex session with no porn whatsoever. Play with yourself in front of the mirror. Use toys, nipple clamps, wear leather, jock straps or weightlifting belts -- anything that has erotic charge for you.

Second, try making a sex video of you playing with yourself and jerk off while watching it. Indulge in the crazy narcissism of it all. Then try making a sex video of you playing with one of your play buddies. Feel out the situation to see how much you want to reveal to him about your project. Understandably, most guys don’t want to hear that they’re not muscular enough for you to be turned on by them. Just tell them you want to make a video. In some respects, men truly are as simple as dogs – jingle the leash and we’re ready to go. Make a video with someone and then watch it together while you jerk off together and continue playing. Even if it’s playing in the background while you guys are having sex, it’s a closer approximation to having a direct human experience. Most guys love the idea of seeing themselves having sex. If video is not an option, due to modesty or lack of a camera, try having sex in front of some full-length mirrors. It allows you to fixate on a visual image outside of your bodies while you stay connected to the person you’re with.

Another thing you could try is jerking off in a dark room. Say out loud what goes through your head. Describe it. Recreate the dialogue. Instead of resisting the idea of having these porn scenes going through your head, embrace it. Engage with the images in an active way by narrating what you see. When you find someone you’ve had sex with a few times and trust, try doing this exercise with them. You don’t even have to tell them you’re narrating porn loops. You could just make it sound like storytelling. Everybody loves a good dirty story. Maybe you’re a dirty talker! If you can develop an agility for dirty talk, people will fall at your feet.

Not to get all technical on you, since it sounds like you have therapists for that, but it seems like your pleasure center has gotten intertwined with porn and muscles. This isn’t a problem unless nothing else will get you off. That seems to be the case. Check out the amazing book “The Erotic Mind” by Jack Morin. He covers some of this territory in more detail than my column’s space allotment can address.

I’ve known a lot of guys who stop doing crystal meth and have a horrible time learning to have sex again. The ringing, twitching peak sexual experiences they had on crystal are impossible to recreate without crystal. They have to learn how to reorient their pleasure center so it’s not dependent on one single factor. This single factor can be all sorts of things: drugs, porn, a certain type of guy, sex in public places, a particular fetish. The thing that turns us on most can end up being a prison.

One of the glorious things about being gay is that so many gay men have incredible sexual gifts. It’s our legacy — a collective sexual knowledge that has been passed from hand to hand over centuries. At the risk of sounding jingoistic, gay men have better sex than anyone. People envy us the freedom and variety that we take for granted.

I have a longstanding belief that when I’m in a sex space, the man I’m least attracted to will end up being the best sex I have all night. It’s been proven time and again. Always take a chance on the ugly guy with gumption. He knows things you don’t. But it requires letting go of the porn loops in your head and being in the moment. That’s your challenge, as you know. Good luck.

Kirk

Kirk Read can be contacted at kirk@daddyhunt.com and welcomes letters seeking advice for this blog.

Every so often I think about sexual health and how, as gay men, we have become so focused on STDs that we forget that as we age other things happen to our bodies, and specifically our dicks, unrelated to STDs.

A few that I’ve spent some time looking into recently are Peyronie's disease and Priapism, both of which affect our dicks and can be a rather uncomfortable and perhaps embarrassing conditions. Yet I rarely hear about them, so until I started reading up on it at the request of a pal I was pretty much in the dark as well.

Since I’m not a medically trained professional, I certainly can’t diagnose and these are just my personal thoughts  but I figured I’d share some highlights that I found and a few links to that I thought useful.

Peyronie's disease

Peyronie's is essentially a tissue condition that involves an abnormal curve upwards in the penis. Now, before you all start looking at your dicks, many of us have some slight curve in one direction or the other as a normal condition. What is distinguishing for Peyronie’s is that it can cause pain, and an extreme abnormal curve when erect. In some cases a shortening of the length can occur. During the early stages of Peyronie's, pain is often reported, some erectile dysfunction can occur as well. For most men, the ability to have sex can be maintained with Peyronie's.

Unfortunately, not a lot is known about its causes, but it seems to occur after an injury to the penis, often times during sexual intercourse…ouch!.. and many of us know that rare time when during insertion, we aim wrong or bang-n-bend ourselves when a particularly aggressive man is bouncing on our dick.

As for treatment, some medications have been studied with various results as well as a surgery option for extreme cases.

One particularly interesting item I found repeated a few times online was the idea that stretching techniques can help... Hmmm, maybe that’s why we aren’t seeing more of this in the gay men’s community – perhaps that nightly “jerk off” is paying off!

Priapism

Priapism has always fascinated me since a sex partner I had years ago shared with me that he suffered from it. Of course at that time I thought “how cool” it would be to able to stay hard even after cumming with out the use of drugs. Of course maturity and a more enlightened outlook on sexual health and my body has dampened that idea some.

Clinically speaking Priapism is a condition that occurs when the penis is unable to “go soft” once stimulation has been taken out of the picture. As a matter of fact, after four – six hours of an erection, most medical providers consider it an urgent medical condition and recommend that the guy see a doctor.

It would seem that Priapism, can be caused by both physical and chemical factors and includes damage to the blood vessels of the penis that may result in erectile impairment and/or impotence.

Some local MD’s I spoke with who treat gay male patients also mentioned that the use of too-tight fitting cockrings that are solid and do not unsnap combined with some erectile medications can also lead to Priapism. Another reminded me that overuse of some medications and recreational substances can also lead to Priapism.

Treatment for Prisprism, isn’t pretty and can be pretty scary as it involves a needle and getting trapped blood out of the penis. Fortunately it can be done under a local anesthetic.

So what did I get from all the reading?

- Not too take my dick for granted.

- Pay attention to how it feels and if I notice any pain or discomfort see my provider! Natural hard-ons aren’t supposed to last over 4 hours.

- My dick shouldn’t be pointing to the sky when I am standing.

- Most importantly – see my doctor if something doesn’t feel or look right!

Here are a few resources for more information:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peyronie's_disease

http://www.ucsfhealth.org/adult/medical_services/urology/male_sexual/con...

http://www.peyroniesdisease.org/

http://www.urologychannel.com/peyronies/treatment.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapism

http://www.ucsfhealth.org/adult/medical_services/urology/male_sexual/con...

http://www.urologychannel.com/emergencies/priapism.shtml

http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/1133.html
 

Dear Kirk,

I’m an older, average-looking bear who’s attracted to young, beautiful muscle studs. I haven’t had sex in a long time, because there just aren’t any guys that turn me on that are into me. I wish my standards weren’t so high, but I just can’t bring myself to be more attracted to other types of men. I had a sweet, decent looking skinny young guy come onto me recently and I really wanted to try and pick him up, but I was afraid that it just wouldn’t work for me. How can I open up my attraction to younger men that are just average, like me?

Dear Average Joe,

You have the kind of cooties that a lot of people have. Not just gay men, either. Tons of people are fixated on unrealistic standards of beauty. You’re not alone in this. There’s no harm in being attracted to muscled young hunks, but if it’s to the exclusion of everyone else, you’re writing yourself a prescription for misery.

I think we are disturbing our capacity for sexual attraction by constantly immersing ourselves in porn that features only guys with the kinds of bodies that we find exhilarating. Whether our trip is hairy bodies, masculine guys, muscle guys, skinny twinks, blondes, Asian men, African American men, Latino men…it’s great to have things we like. It’s not so great to be confined by our narrow checklists.

You say you haven’t had sex in a while because you can’t find a guy you’re attracted to who fits your standards. You have some choices. You can wait it out, seeing if you can find someone who will come along who fits your criteria and is also attracted to you. Darwin would probably argue that you need to adapt to your situation. It’s wishful thinking that there’s going to be a stream of beautiful young muscle studs who have no hangups about having sex with you. If you have strict standards, these younger guys who spend lots of time working on their bodies are likely to have some of their own.

You could hire an escort who conforms to your standards. You could hire an escort who’s outside your normal range of attraction and, if he’s intuitive and smart, he might be able to help you work through some of these issues.

Clearly, you need to work on loosening your standards to include a wider array of men so that you have a bigger pool of potential partners. Let’s look at your best case scenario — you wind up in a wonderful relationship with your perfect dream Adonis. Inevitably, he’s going to get older and eventually he’ll lose some of his muscle tone.

I know it feels hopeless, but you can be proactive about this.

Porn could be a good tool for you so that you can do your exploration in private without performance anxiety. This way, you won’t risk embarrassing yourself or hurting anyone’s feelings. Watch some porn that features men outside your normal range. Ideally, rent a few movies as opposed to watching them online. It’s easier to stay focused without all the clicking around that happens on the internet. Also, the act of renting porn can be empowering, especially if you’re having to take responsibility for some porn outside your typical repertoire.

Since you like younger men, start with porn that features younger guys who aren’t muscled. Commit to spending thirty minutes with yourself exploring these guys. Put down a towel, lube up, make the room comfortable and really let yourself play with your body while you’re watching these guys. We are not much different than dogs and mice — we’re easily trained! Use a dildo if that turns you on. If you don’t get hard, don’t worry about it. Keep touching yourself in a way that’s sensual. Go the entire thirty minutes — don’t just jerk off quickly. After you’ve successfully been aroused by the skinny younger guys, move a step further outside your type. Maybe move to a slightly older age group. Try thirtysomething guys with muscles. Try muscle bears. Try — gasp! — a movie that features average-looking bears like you.  Check out PantheonMen.com.  They've got great porn featuring a wide variety of real men.

Try talking to the guys in the movie as if you’re having sex with them. It sounds strange but it really works.

Try trading the porn you like with a friend who has totally different tastes. Once you’ve watched it, have a conversation with your friend about what he likes about it and try to express what you liked and didn’t like about it.

You’ve spent years developing your patterns and wiring, so be patient with yourself. It will take time to broaden your sense of what’s appealing. Eventually, you will move from porn into the real world. Maybe you go to a sex club environment, where it’s easier to move from partner to partner without feeling so self-conscious. Maybe you try activities where you don’t need to get an erection, like sucking someone’s cock or making out.

With older or less muscled sex partners, you may never experience the ringing euphoria that you feel when you’re with your ideal body beautiful young fantasy guy. But you owe it to yourself to try and grow past this limitation. This is our community’s version of the straight man who’s only interested in teenage Catholic school girls. I think there’s something developmentally arrested about it. It takes commitment, focus and courage to trust that we can get inspired to 
have rock hard erections by guys outside our erotic comfort zones.

Finally, I would say this: You wouldn’t be attracted to yourself if you met your twin somewhere. What if you were attracted to someone like yourself? What if you found your own body hot? What if you got excited about the idea of having sex with yourself? Do you think that would impact the way you felt about yourself? I hate this phrase with a passion, but it kind of fits: you might have a different kind of self-esteem.

Hell, it’s worth a try.

Kirk Read can be contacted at kirk@daddyhunt.com and welcomes letters seeking advice for this blog.

Kirk