A Good Ol' Fashion Cock Ring Story

In February, my exboyfriend asked me if I'd like to have drinks with him after work. We met at Marley's around sunset and drank our way through a bottle of Absolut over the course of several hours. Sometime after one a.m., Miranda Kellen, a girl from my undergrad advertising class who was still in college at the time, stumbled over, swung her arms around me, and vomited into my lap.

Outside in the street, my ex and I walked hand-in-hand and laughed about happier, less vomit-covered times, and he drove us back to his place. His apartment hadn't changed at all. On the wall near his bed, the frames that used to host pictures of us were empty. It had been one year and several new boyfriends since we broke up, but he still hadn't replace our pictures with anything.

"You should take a shower," he said. "You smell like Dina Lohan." I climbed into the shower, he followed, and then the theme music from Oz came on.

At some point, he slipped on a cock ring. I didn't even notice until I saw something shiny around his balls. I jumped out of bed, flicked on the lamp, and stood there staring at it, naked and panting. This was not your normal, run-of-the-mill cock ring. It was metal, and thick, and heavy, and looked like it could've been engraved with a Latin prayer. In all seriousness, one could seriously injure a person by throwing it at them.

Me: "THE FUCK IS THAT?!"
Him: "This? What does it look like?"
Me: "When did you start...using those?"
Him: "Stop freaking out. It's no big deal."
Me: "Why? Why do you need that?"
Him: "Fucking chill. It just helps me go longer."
Me: "You're 22! Why do you need help going longer?!"
Him: "Do you want to wear it?"
Me: "You've lost your fucking marbles. Is sex not enough for you anymore? I saw this coming when you left for study abroad in Paris. You're desensitized to normal sex!"
Him: "You're crazy."
Me: "I feel sorry for you. Toss me my underwear, please."

We fell asleep shortly after. And in the morning, we barely spoke on the ride home. I couldn't look at him. He used to be my boyfriend. Now he's a guy who wears cock rings.

A few months later, I dated a guy who aggressively liked for his nuts to be pulled. The first couple of times, it wasn't that weird. Then he started breaking out the toys – something that looked like a Koosh ball on a stick and an aluminum lobster cracker. The last thing I said to him was, "I'm just having a hard time accepting you as a person. It has everything to do with the ball-yanking thing."

Part of me feels like my role as a gay man should include advocating tolerance if not acceptance of personal sexual practices. But I still get skittish and uneasy when I discover that someone I like is into device-assisted sex. It's not for me. And looking back on my ex and his cock ring, I feel like I unfairly wigged out on him. He wasn't hurting anyone if you don't count his poor scrotum. Maybe I didn't like the cock ring because of what it stood for; discomfort and defiance. Or maybe it's something more metaphoric like the dichotomy of release by constriction.

Or maybe I'm a judgmental bitch who thinks rings and vices and butt plugs and Koosh balls are silly. And that my whore exboyfriend and the guy who likes his nuts crushed are craving something that clearly no human alone can fulfill and they're just begging for an ER visit.

Perhaps one day, I'll be walking down the utensil aisle at Target and come upon a lobster cracker. I might smile and think to myself, "Well hello, mister. You'd look good around my scrote."

No! Pick me! I tickle!

But for now, I'll stick with my child-size underwear and skinny jeans. My sperm aren't going to kill themselves. 

The Rash In Irrational

Most things give me anxiety, but fewer things actually scare me.

I've never had a fear of danger, or failure, or dying alone. Instead, most of my fears are completely irrational and involve dudes screwing with me.

For starters, I'm afraid that my date isn't going to return from the restroom. Whoever he is, wherever we are, when he wipes his mouth and excuses himself, I distract myself with texting and nail biting until he sits back down. Being abandoned in the middle of somewhere miserable like Texas Roadhouse is the most mortifying thing I can think of.

I'm afraid that someone I banged might try to frame me. Even in the movies, clearing your name after someone sets you up for a crime seems really difficult. I wouldn't have the wherewithal to turn the tables and I certainly don't have the moxie of Harrison Ford or Ashley Judd. Plus, I'm an aggressive arguer and I feel like the SVU cops would bash my head against the two-way mirror after five seconds of my screeching "this is a fucking crucifixion!" And like everyone, I'm petrified of jail. Not just the obvious rape angst, but the isolation. I was on house arrest for nearly two weeks after my DUI, and being tethered by law begets overwhelming hopelessness. I don't want that again on any scale, please.

Extortion also scares me. I have this vision of a guy tossing an envelope full of naked pictures of me across a table and demanding good or favors in exchange for their destruction. That scenario wigs me out mostly because I think I'd tell him to get bent. My impulses tend to get me into long-term problems, and hastily denying negations in a blackmailing situation seems like something I'd do.

One of my biggest fears is seeing someone I've dated doing porn. I think it's okay for everyone to be paranoid about this one. If I date or sleep with you, please don't let someone film you fucking. Because once I see the video, I will struggle of what to do next. Do I finish? Do I post it on Facebook? Do I finish and then posit it on Facebook? I just feel like it would present a moral dilemma that I'm not sure I could handle. Given my dating history, this scenario is by far the most likely. It hasn’t happened yet, but it probably will. But at the end of the day, I just want to go about my business and watch a bunch of people doing it without having to worry about seeing my ex getting plowed by a guy in a harness. Is that so much to ask?

So if you're thinking about framing me, or blackmailing me, or taking that nice gentleman from CockyBoys.com up on his offer, or ditching me at Texas Roadhouse with all those potato skins that I will finish in your absence, please don't.

I know I'm an asshole. But I'm an asshole to everyone. You weren't treated any differently.

A One-Way Conversation With My Ex's Facebook

Hey, stud. 

It's been a few months since we've talked; the last time being on your birthday when I sent you that special birthday text that said "Hope you're dead. See you in hell."

But that wasn't really talking. That was more like me texting bitchy things from a safe distance. Talking would require an exchange. You were absent. Or better yet — dead.

I just wanted to drop by and tell you some good news. Turns out, I can creep your Facebook and not feel anything for you. I can see that you've been around the world, and that you've gotten your teeth fixed, and that you look happy. And I feel nothing for you. Truly. You look good. Your new boyfriend looks normal. He's got a super cute hunchback. Apparently, ringing those bells is doing wonders for his traps.

It's been a while since I could look at you and not see all those guys from London and San Francisco and Dallas taking turns on you in an imaginary bathhouse. A hellish host of the men you slept with before, during, and after me just hammering you into submission while the smaller guys watched from darker corners, waiting their turns. It's all I could see when I looked at you after we broke up — an orgy of not me.

But that's in the past. 

Now, I scan your Facebook likes and see that you're a fan of Jason Mraz and Modern Family and you almost seem, well, vanilla. Gone are your days as the horny frat boy who posts shirtless pictures of himself with captions like, "Dinosaur go RAWR ;-}." Today, your most recent pictures show you cuddled between a curtain of nicely processed gays in sensible, work appropriate polos. You look...elevated. I picture you at home with the Hunchback; him nestled on the couch and you peering through the kitchen's serving hatch into the living room. You're chopping something (probably celery because you're trying to take care of those new bitchtits), and you both chuckle at how hysterical Cam and Mitchell are. "Uh-oh! Those two have NO IDEA how to boogie board, do they?!"

Your status updates are still riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors. You never could form a sentence in person or on the page. It was endearing at first, but after months of this, I wanted to hit you with my car. I thought you were stupider than Dina Lohan. But right now, at this juncture, it doesn't bother me at all. That's who you are. Less educated homos might even think it's cute. But sweetie, please stop using conversate for fuck's sake.

The point is, I'm proud of both of us.

I won't say that I'm happy for you, but I will say that your perceived success doesn't annoy me. Scratch that. I am happy for you. If I were to run into you on the street, I'd hug you and I'd mean it. And I'm confident that I wouldn't hit you in the face. 

Because I've matured.

I can't promise that I wouldn't get semi, though.

Good talk, champ.