Let’s face it, sometimes we all put our “foot in it” and say the wrong thing. But the real skill I figured out is how to recognize what was said and then work to reduce the times we say it…
A pal of mine and I were grabbing coffee the other day and we brainstormed our top 10 – communication pitfalls.
It was just shy of three months from when I finally admitted to myself that I was gay from when I moved to New York City. So not only was I coming to the city to start my big time career ambitions, but also my big new gay life. Knowing little about what to expect, I came to just accept that, based on the scene I fell into, I wouldn’t feel cute enough, wouldn’t have the right clothes, and could only hope that I would get an invite to visit a Fire Island Pines house as I surely couldn’t afford it. (Which never happened.) But after unsuccessfully fitting in with mainstream gay culture, I met the love of my life and stopped caring what other boys thought of me.
About two years into our being together I suggested we go to Provincetown, Massachusetts for the weekend. I had spent summers on the Cape during school but never stayed overnight in the “gay town” at the end of the earth. We went, and by coincidence it turned out it was the end of something called “Bear Week”. At the time, we thought a bear was simply an animal that well… shit in the woods. Let’s just say that despite living in New York, I hadn’t yet realized that not everything from our culture had in fact ended up in an episode of Queer as Folk. Bear culture… what’s that?
So in this weekend of firsts I met not just bears, but cubs, muscle bears, and daddy bears. I found out that there was a bear flag, a bear themed magazine, and that you can sexualize chest hair. (Woof!) And on day two one particularly friendly “bear tracker” (a skinny hairless guy that none-the-less had a penchant for pelt) said to me quite seriously:
“You know what you are?”
“Ah… what’s that?” I replied warily.
“You’re an Otter.”
“I’m sorry?”
Dear Kirk,
Years ago I suffered from a extremely severe hereditary case of acne (almost all my family members have suffered it). Fortunately and after many years I took control of this but still have terrible scars on part of my back and chest and ironically not on my face. In order to boost up my confidence I started to work out, now I'm athletic and in excellent shape but I've grown very conscious of these scars. I'm very clean and always groomed and have an excellent appearance till I have to take my shirt off and show my scars. What I usually do when I hook up is just turn off the lights but there are cases where this is impossible. And sometimes I have to give explanations of why I have these scars. I've been celibate the past few months because I feel embarrassed about this.
I'm sorry you had acne – it can really do a number on your self-image. I had it all over my back as a teenager and felt like a total leper.
There are plenty of guys who think scars are sexy. Acne is one of those experiences that many of us have endured, or at least we had friends in high school who went through it. So I'm sure lots of guys understand. When you have sex with guys with scars from burns or surgeries or self-inflicted wounds, it's difficult sometimes to know what to do. Do you risk making your partner self-conscious by asking him to tell you the story of that part of his body? Do you ignore it? I find myself intrigued, even turned on, by scars.
