What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Saturday, November 10, 2007

   SEX IS PERVERTED AND SICK

That deadpan line from a Thrill Kill Kult song always made me laugh but "Sexplosion" is not what you'd call my weekend. It's a Saturday night and I'm staying in. I can't seem to muster up any desire to leave the house. This is not good.

It's strange because I did have a lot of fun last night. I went to Shane Percy's "Grapefruit" anniversary party at fly (80s pop, mixed crowd, zany drag shows -- what is not to love?) with Robert and Darcy. The latter was blue because he'd just broken up with his boyfriend and couldn't figure out why.
"Well, we broke up because you always got possessive and weird," I not-so-helpfully said.
"But I wasn't this time!" he whined, "I was trying a whole different tack!"
All this time and I still wonder: is he ridiculously adorable or adorably ridiculous?

So we danced together all night; me being guarded around him, fearing that we might end up sleeping together if not careful. Sex is the only thing that worked in our relationship (boy howdy) but I like to keep looking forward. Trouble is, I kept looking around the packed room at this wonderful crush of people -- tall, short, young, not-so-young, gorgeous, peculiar, you name it -- and feeling no pull toward any particular person whatsoever. Even the hot boys were just bland eye candy to me. I don't know what's going on.

I was waved over by Andrew, who I had a fling with once. He's brilliant and has that geeky-cute thing I love but way too young for me. Still, we were glad to see each other and I was chatting with Andrew until another young guy wearing similar chunky black glasses came over and stood beside him. I was introduced and said, "How do you know Andrew?" He gave me a bored look and said, "Uh....we're dating." His tone was enough to add the unspoken-but-obvious capper, "...idiot." It's moments like these when I really hate gay men. Does that make me homophobic? And if so, would I then get laid a lot more often? The answer to both questions is yes.

Later on, a really cute guy in jeans and a black T-shirt approached me and we danced for a bit. He said he liked my tattoo and he smelled really good. But I felt nothing. I couldn't think of anything to say that would intrigue him and didn't really want to anyway. A few years (hell, a few months) ago, I would have run off with him right then but last night? Nothing. Darcy walked me home, said he didn't want to come up and I was relieved.

I'm confused because my sex drive has vanished. It's not like I was ever a Love Machine exactly but I was happy with my Goldilocks status -- more slutty than a schoolmarm, more chaste than a porn star. Now, however, even the few times I have had sex in the last few months have been rather lacking on my part. Celibacy is fine, sometimes even restful, but having sex and being bad at it is an awful feeling. Not that I should ever admit that here on a blog. It's like the worst personal ad ever:

Clean-cut Irish guy seeks similar for feelings of apathy and occasional impotence. Likes thai food and long walks on the beach.

But so it goes. Was it the Baconator? At my nadir of paranoia, I start to fear I'm already turning into one of those fusty blank-faced old men you see walking their dogs at night. I've got the dog and yeah, I'm fusty but c'mon, I'm not even forty!

In rolling all this around in my head, I wrote a piece for the magazine about a couple of my dating travails this year (I'll post it later this week). I wrote it in hopes that people might look at their own search for love and think about what it is they want from it. Learn from my mistakes and all that. This here, however, is just me feeling confessional. It happens from time to time. I'm Catholic.

I'm a somewhat rare Catholic, however, in that I somehow grew up without much shame around sex. Whatever's going on with me right now is, at least, not rooted in that. At least I hope not. I've witnessed many an act of depravity (and occasionally joined in) without any judgments but I do admit I was rattled by a recent piece by Warren Ellis called "America Broke Sex" (rather horrifying and obviously NSFW so click if you dare):

This is how you know you're living in the future: when the pornography bears no earthly resemblance to sex as even the filthiest of us know it. You may as well be renting DVDs of aliens fucking. And America, as Martin Amis once said, is where they road-test the future.

Warren's piece makes me nervous because he's describing a world where the need for sensation (the type I'm desperately feeling right now) has escalated to the point of monstrousness. Clive Barker saw that coming -- it's what drives Hellraiser -- and, as a fellow Catholic, he always joked that he saw sex as horrific as well as sacred.

Excitement lies in the tension between both states. But what if you feel neither? Where's the enthusiasm gone? I don't know what I want anymore, except at least that I know I don't want any donkey punching.

Labels: homo-a-go-go, introspective, repair, writing