Jock Jam

DISCLAIMER: The party scene described in this story does not take place in south Louisiana. Let's just go ahead and say that it takes place in — I don't know — Georgia. Also, some names and details have been altered in order to protect everyone's feelings. Enjoy.

Right now, I'm wearing a large pair of boys’ briefs that were purchased in a four-pack from the Super Target across town. Like the other three, this pair was packaged into a clear plastic bag after being tightly rolled and secured with a sliver of long, clear tape. This is an actual pair of underwear that I own and frequently wear. It’s cheaply-made, unsexy, and economical. They are the exact opposite of a designer jock strap. But I own both.

I am, for the most part, a practical person. And I don’t really own anything luxurious. My most expensive possession is my Jeep, and I bought that for $2,300 on Craigslist from a nineteen-year-old criminal justice major named Lorenzo. His girlfriend at the time was named Kayla. I remember this because her orange Hooters nametag is still pinned to the passenger-side visor. I used to look at the nametag and hope that Hooters didn’t get in the way of their relationship. I hoped that Lorenzo didn’t fuck with her too much when she returned home from work, and that she kept her flirting within reason; batted eyes, bitten bottom lips, and the tops of hands graced only when the customer was close to ordering Daytona Beach Style Wings — which is technically an up-sell anyway, right?

Now valued at what I’m guessing is the price of a really nice Fossil watch, my Jeep barely serves its purpose. But like my pair of colorful, child-sized skivvies, it does what I need it to do. I'm not cheap, just simple. Nothing but the basics for little ol’ me.

So what do I need a jock strap for? I'm clearly a no-frills kinda 'mo. I think cock rings are frivolous and gladiator sandals are overwhelming. Plus, the idea of a high-end jock strap doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Your ass crack is completely exposed, making your pants subject to smearing. It's basically just an anxiety attack on a string. God forbid you gamble and lose in one of those.

Last week, John, Nick, and I went to an underwear party at a men's boutique [in Georgia]. Which is an extremely gay sentence in itself. The store was introducing its new inventory of Andrew Christian underwear and celebrating with a DJ, open bar, and tables of food that no one would be caught dead eating. Under the classroom-quality florescent lighting, the three of us migrated to the bar, exchanging panicked eye contact with the other herds of homosexuals along the way. This place was my nightmare: bad lighting, house music, exboyfriends, pointy dress shoes, one-uping, beautiful models, air kisses, and an entire wall of impractical underwear. When we weren't shotgunning vodka, we were outside chain-smoking and making each other laugh.

Somewhere between the first cigarette and the seventy-five times I said, "Girl, I love your scarf," I got really drunk. And then I stumbled over to the underwear wall and I bought myself a jock strap. This jock strap:

Fear the smear!

Behold: The Almost Naked Infinity Brief Jock with Anatomically Correct Pouch. Right now, mine is snuggled in a nest of fully manufactured underwear in my closet. So far, I've worn it once, and that was only to try it on the morning after buying it. I stretched the waistband and adjusted the butt straps before spinning to face the mirror. Upon seeing my reflection, I thought, "This label might say 'small,' but this Anatomically Correct Pouch was definitely designed for a professional basketball player." Disappointing, yet expected.

I may be the type of guy that strips in Mexican gay bars and screws cruise ship dancers, but I'm not the jock-strapping type. I have simple taste. Probably because I'm so complicated. The guy with the baggage, and the imagination, and the anxiety finds comfort in the plain things. I'll keep spinning and you stay still.

Besides, I don’t need assless underwear to feel sexy. I have alcohol for that.

Love Handles

I don’t need a sassy fruit to tell me what I already know: I’m gay fat.

I should support this statement with quantitative data – like my weight – but I won’t. Because I can’t. Because I haven’t stepped on a scale in years. In fact, the last time my ass saw a scale was in 2009 when I was a lifeguard at the university’s Student Aquatic Center. I was also a swim instructor, and the dual titles were enough to entice any potential bar trade. I’d quickly follow “I’m a lifeguard,” with “But I also teach kids to swim,” and be balls deep by the time I said “swim.” It also helped that I was in the best shape of my life, and had somehow found a way to tan my ginger skin. Since birth, my skin has maintained a nice “newborn mouse” tint, but after years of burning my flesh while cutting the front yard, I miraculously turned brown after prolonged exposed to the July sun on the lifeguard stand. I was golden, full of energy, and best of all, skinny.

I should also mention that this was the summer of Extreme Body Reshape. I forget exactly how I found out about the mystical weight loss pill, but my source had led me to Korean nail shop on the south end of town. I paid the woman wearing a bird flu mask 75 dollars for a box of 30, and popped the first one before pulling out of the parking lot.

The little bit of fat that was on me had fallen off within the first week, but my relationship with my boyfriend at the time, Wit’s End, had been stretched like a rubber band. Extreme Body Reshape caused violent mood swings, and I would go from belly laughing to chair throwing within seconds, and Wit’s End got the full force of my manic outbursts. One day, I came home from a shift at the pool to find him sitting Indian-style on the floor of my living room, eating chicken off of a styrofoam plate.

“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Eatin. I got me some barbecue from that Rupaul place by Albertson’s,” he said without taking his eyes off of Judge Mathis.
And then something inside me shattered like an ice sculpture.
“The restaurant is called 2Paul’s, you fucking hick!” I yelled.
“Stop hollerin at me! Wait, who’s Rupaul, then?”
“SERIOUSLY? GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT!”

I threw Wit’s End out of my apartment three more times that month. Soon after, I finished the pack of Extreme Body Reshape and I went back to my anxious, ambivalent personality – only skinnier. And following several new boyfriends and three years, I’d still managed to maintain the approximate weight. And then I started dating Heath.

From the day I met Heath, I've lived in a thick culture of comfort – the kind that fills the room when we're together. I mean culture in the tangible sense; the kind that ferments. We'd lounge on his bed or sit across from each other at dinner, and I'd feel steeped in satisfaction and content. It wasn't long after we started dating that my happiness began to breed something else. Fat.

Across my first few months as Heath's boyfriend, I ate like Kelly Clarkson. My daily 5K runs had turned into eating marathons. I wanted to spend every free moment with him, and since neither of us cook, most meals were served to us by someone wearing a name tag. One morning, I caught myself in the mirror and noticed a visible difference in my side profile. I was suddenly a victim of the boyfriend layer.

Let me be clear: although my new torso looks like it's being tortured in a pair of skinny jeans, I wouldn't call myself fat. Just gay fat.

My people's culture (not fermented) conditions many of us to work towards being muscular, skinny, lean, or at the very least, toned. Any body that veers away from the American gay male archetype is fat. So I guess that's me now: straight skinny/gay fat/human happy.

For the moment, I like the extra poundage. Actually, my gut and love handles are the least frightening of my excess baggage. But who knows? Maybe tomorrow I'll find myself face down in a plate of barbecued chicken and realize that I need to get back on the weight loss wagon. Thankfully, I know better than to shoot for that image of a plucky, skeletal, bipolar lifeguard again. Instead, I'll shoot for something closer to home. And if it means I get to stay with Heath, I'd be willing to keep the love handles.

I mean, they're technically the first gifts he ever gave me.

Meanwhile, During A Blowjob

“There’s no way I'm getting fully hard. It’s too cold in here. Why the fuck did I leave the fan on? I should’ve kept my socks on at least. That’d be weird, though. Not really for him, but for me. A body clothed in only socks looks incomplete. I think straight guys like that look on girls, right? A chick wearing nothing but knee-high socks? I bet straight guys are all over that shit. Okay, push the image of sockwhore out of my head. No room for that at the moment. Focus on getting hard, Ryan.

I have to, right? I can’t just not get hard. This guy has the courage to put his mouth on my junk, the least I can do is meat him halfway. Meat him halfway. I should write that down before I forget. I’ll use that in a blog entry about this. But maybe it’s not courage that allows him to imbibe m’dong. What does, then? Want drives anyone to folate? I know why I do it: straight-up gratification. Sucking dick is intimate – more intimate than sex can be. You could face a wall or a TV during sex, but you can’t really look at anything beyond stubble with a mouthful of ding-a-ling. Giving head is like kissing; it can be clumsy and sloppy, but it happens on your face. Not down there. A level of personal investment is required. McBougie made fun of me when I explained my stance on the intimacy of smoking poll. Fuck him, though, right? He’s not getting head from a 20-year-old, closeted, dairy department manag—FUCK, TEETH! C’MON, GUY!

Was he just gnawing on it?! So far, he doesn’t seem to know his way around a wiener. But at least I’m hard - well, not super hard - it’s slightly bigger - nothing embarrassing. Oh God, he’s looking right in my eyes. Smile? No, close my eyes and roll my head back. I won’t moan, though. I don’t want to inflate his ego.

Why am I feeling so much pressure to react? Maybe because I’d want the same from him. Although my brand of 'semi-engaged, aloof sex partner' is making him try harder, I should throw him a bone every now and then so that he doesn’t feel like a failure. Throw him a bone. I really should be writing this down. I’m on a roll today.

Eventually, I’m going to have to cum. This could go on for hours. I wish he’d use his hand more, but I don’t think we’re at a place in our relationship where I can art direct his blowjobs. I mean, we’ve been texting for a few days now and I haven’t even saved his number. He seems like a nice guy, but nice is the bare minimum of what a guy should be. Calling a guy 'nice' is the same as calling a sandwich 'edible.' He’s in school, right? For computer animation, or health information systems, or something. I’m sure I’ll see him around. I won’t make this weird. I’m hungry. I want a sandwich.

Okay. Focus, Ryan. Eye on the prize. Let’s make this happen. Zac Efron. Mike from the wrestling team. Chris Hemsworth with short hair. Channing Tatum dancing. Brodie. Prince Harry. Brodie again. Reed from Facebook. Brady Jensen. Evan Peters. Derek Miller. The music of Phantogram. Matt Damon’s thighs in Invictuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuus."

Thanks guys. You did it again.

The Ex In Xmas

Dear MB,

As you may or may not have noticed, we only had sex one time in 2012. And that is a Christmas Fucking Miracle (CFM).

Bruh. We almost went an entire calendar year without doing it. Fucking A, right?! If you think I’m patronizing you, I’m not. I just never thought this would happen. I legitimately believed we were doomed to a perpetual cycle of hating and screwing one another until we died mid-fornication at the hands of a scorned boyfriend who one of us was cheating on. It was not the life I wanted, but it was the life I was prepared for. Now look at us! We haven’t seen each other’s ding-a-lings since February. I might even call my mama and tell her the good news.

Given our – let’s save some adjectives and just say rocky – relationship, I can’t believe we still live in the same city, let alone treat each other with conviviality when we bump into one another somewhere humiliating like Mel’s Diner or the tire department at Walmart. Maybe we’re growing up, and maybe we’re at a point where we can laugh about our shared past. Go on, laugh with me, bitchtits.

Yeah, we slipped. But Jesus Jet Skiing Christ, it was one time – the same number of times Amber D'Alessio made out with a hot dog! And if I’m being completely honest, I’m not 100 percent certain we even had sex-sex. I was blackout shattered. I vaguely remember shouting at you when you tried to introduce a cock ring into the mix, but I don’t remember explicit D in A. And if that’s true, then we definitely deserve a trophy or at least a gift card to Subway.

I’m proud of us, regardless. And like the enamel on my teeth, the pressure to practice self-control around you is gone. We don’t have to get into any “language of letting go” hoopla, but let’s instead just celebrate this little victory. Let’s drink to restraint, and progress, and maturity. We’re doing okay, kiddo, and although we still have couple weeks left in 2012, I think it's safe to label this The Year Of Barely Any Penetration.

And if I don’t see you again in 2013, I guess I’ll see you in hell.

Merry Christmas,
RR

A Surplus Of Cobalt Sweaters

I suffer from buyer's remorse.

I'll pull the cobalt Banana Republic sweater out of its bag, spread it across my bed, take a step back, and press my fingers against my lips. "It's too small. I need to try it on," I say to myself. So I slip it over my head and spin to face the mirror. "Fuck! It actually looks okay. Especially if I roll my shoulders back and look really bored. Arch one eyebrow and scowl. Right there." I'm almost at peace with my decision until the next thought trickles down my skull like a cracked egg: "You just paid $75 dollars for this." That's when I start to panic. "You don't have $75, remember? You still owe Joey for October utilities and Rhett's parking ticket you promised to pay because you made him park at a meter on Frenchman Street on a Saturday. Do you have any idea what you could have bought yourself with $75? Plus, it's not even that cute. You have too much blue in your closet and it will never get cold enough in South Louisiana to wear this. See if there's some daily app you can use to work on your self control. WHY ARE YOU STILL WEARING IT?! TAKE IT OFF!"

It's like this with everything. From groceries to gas, I reevaluate my decision until I'm convinced I made the wrong one. And it's all because I habitually act on impulse. I impulse buy, I impulse eat, and I impulse fuck. It's that last one that gets me into the most trouble. Mostly because there's no return policy for the people you sleep with. Instead, I'll look at my own list and take inventory of the cobalt sweaters that should've been overlooked when I was browsing:

The guy from my high school wrestling team.

Two of the three Ryans.

The Australian.

The guy on the Zuiderdam. Not the dancer. The one who worked in customer service.

The LSU theatre major.

The waiter at that hibachi place.
The Brit.
The guy who I didn't know had aspergers, but when I met him in person I realized that he did have aspergers, but I still did it anyway.

The guy who was released from prison (Not jail. Prison.) the day before it happened.

The guy with the lip ring who I met at the Rabbit Hole.
The hairdresser from Baton Rouge.

The guy from Michigan who was wearing sweatpants in June.

The white rapper.
Ron. Not Ronnie.

The guy who has Hollister bags stapled to the walls of his bedroom. 

Vinny from Italy.
The strip club bouncer who worked at Barely Legal somewhere in North Louisiana.

The guy who slept with his pants on and keys in his pocket.

The guy who brought me home to meet his parents in New Roads.

My friend's ex-fiance.

The ballet dancer.
The guy who I used to work with at that Italian restaurant.

The guy whose parents were Christian Fundamentalists.
The guy with the insulin pump in his stomach.

One of my best friends.
The guy who stopped by on his way home from Austin City Limits.
Andrew. Not Andy.
The guy that I met at my Festival International After Party when I was on house arrest.
Every guy from Lake Charles. All of them. Without exception.

The first time I felt buyer's remorse after having sex with someone was the first time I realized I can't exchange every bad decision I make. And since I'm stuck with them, I'll label them as "takesies backsies" and hide them in a bag on the top shelf of my closet. And every now and then, I'll look inside and laugh my ass off, and cringe, and punch myself in the dick.

Because let's be honest. This is all my wiener's fault anyway.

Picture This

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my first date. Several hours after I posted it, the girl with whom I went on the date sent me a direct message on Facebook. And she attached this:

And, yes. Those cargo pants convert to cargo shorts.

Scents & Sensibility

When I was 13 years old, I stole a bottle of Bath & Body Work’s Warm Vanilla Sugar body lotion from my little sister’s vanity because I thought it smelled like sex.

Being a pre-pubescent micro homo (micro’mo?) with overprotective parents and no vision of the world outside of Cow & Chicken and Dexter’s Laboratory, I couldn’t grasp the concept of porking another human, let alone describe the scent it would give off. But I decided that warm vanilla sugar had to be in the ballpark. It was romantic and intoxicating and made my underwear tighter. So I took the bottle when Rachel wasn’t around, and hid it in my tin X-men lunch box between an unwrapped Ring Pop and several pictures of Erik von Detten that I’d printed out at school. Every now and then, when I was waiting for the bathroom to fill up with steam, I’d take the bottle out, hold it up to my nose and think, “This must be what falling in love smells like.” It smelled like that scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy opens the front door of her house in Munchkinland and everything goes gaytechnicolorfiesta. “Ahhhhh, this is lovely.”

Although the bottle of lotion would eventual play a major role in my sex life, my relationship with it never veered into self-gratification territory. Sure it smelled like an Aimee Mann song, but I certainly wasn’t going to rub it on my dick. This was captive romance – the sex we envision when we’re too young to understand it. Candles, and rose petals, and chocolate-dipped strawberries. No, no. This was not for jerking off. This was special. Sacred, almost.

On the evening of Brother Martin High School’s Eighth Grade Dance, I laced up my Doc Martens, walked through a cloud of Axe Body Spray, and smeared a tiny puddle of Warm Vanilla Sugar across my neck. Monica Carlisle’s parents were dropping her off at my house around 6:00, but I’d been ready since 4:30. This was going to be my first date, and Warm Vanilla Sugar was decidedly part of my A-game. I had zero interest in kissing this poor girl, but Monica was one of the prettier girls from my elementary school, and I knew that she would definitely elicit looks from the popular guys at my new high school. This makes me sound like I was using her, but trust me: gay guys and the girls who befriend them mutually benefit from the bond. Girls get a shopping buddy, gays get straight bait.

Needless to say, neither dinner at Bennigan's nor the hormonal, American Eagle-soaked fuckpit of my eighth grade dance resulted in a handy jay for either of us. But my sister’s lotion was now part of who I was when I braved the world.

From then on, I’d wear just a little bit whenever I went on a date. I thought of it as my secret weapon – the one thing you can’t put your finger on. I wasn’t wearing it the night I met my first girlfriend, but every time we hung out after that, I was. And when I graduated high school and moved to Lafayette, it came with me. 

Today, the same bottle of Warm Vanilla Sugar body lotion sits in my shaving kit among a handful of unused LifeStyles Tuxedo Black condoms and a lighter that reads, “Tease.” It only has about two ounces left in it, but I’ll make it lasts as long as possible. Sure I can go out and buy another (and eventually I will), but it’s got good juju attached to it, and it’s seen me through some weird and horny times. And if you’re wondering if I still wear it, I do. But only on first dates or when I’m 100-percent certain of penetration.

Looking back, it's charming how I used to confuse sex with love. Even more so that I believed either could be reduced to a song, or a scene from a movie, or a scent. But when we're young, and primed for fucking up, we see purity and we deserve it. We'll lose our virginity on prom night to the person we'll eventually marry, and then we'll see the world differently. In the mean time, we hold on to the items that will take us there. Some of us even hold on to them long after the fantasy is over; a reminder. A relic. As for me, I wouldn't even trade my secret bottle of lotion for a pair of ruby slippers.

Ruby combat boots? Let me think about it.