PhoenixGeoff

It's possible you have an STD like gonorrhea or chlamydia in your ass. Infections there are frequently asymptomatic. I'd suggest having an STD check done just to be sure.

I drove a truck over the road for a couple years. When I did that, almost all of the sex I had was in the sleeper berth. I'd usually hook up with guys on growlr or scruff (the guys on grindr typically aren't my type). I hooked up with a few other drivers that way, as well as locals. These days, I'm driving a tow truck. Most of our calls come from the police. I've never hooked up with an officer (most of them are too clean cut for my tastes anyways) or a client (every once in a while there's a hot one, but when I meet them professionally, they are not in the mood for sex). Some of the other drivers and mechanics are hot, but I haven't hooked up with any of them either (I will not hit on anyone who identifies as straight; it's a respect thing. If they hit on me, it's another matter, but that hasn't happened). What I have done is meet up once or twice with guys I find online. On our slow nights, we have a lot of time where we're just sitting in the truck waiting on a call, and I've had someone drop by and give me some head in the cab (there's not really any room to fuck). To be honest, I kinda get off on helping other guys' lives imitate porn a bit. I figure my next job should be as a pool boy LOL

Interesting topic. I can see a number of approaches to the question. On the one hand, why should I be proud to be a bottom? Or gay for that matter? I might as well be proud of liking the color blue or of being Caucasian. If being gay truly is something I'm born with and something morally neutral (which I believe it is) then being proud of that is kind of silly. On the other hand, if other people think being gay is wrong or being a bottom makes me less of a man, I can understand the desire to vehemently reject that by going to the opposite extreme and asserting pride in that rather than shame. But hopefully, as acceptance increases, it becomes less necessary to make such a big deal about it and just get on with our lives. I prefer taking pride in things I do well and accomplishments I achieve. Sometimes those accomplishments are sexual in nature. Looking at the face of a guy after I've just blown his mind gives me a certain sense of satisfaction. Putting on a good show that gets onlookers blowing a load from just watching me fuck does the same. But ultimately, I don't think I take pride in my sexual orientation or preferences. Enjoyment? Yes. Bonding? Sure. Satisfaction of those animal urges reaching up into my head from my brainstem? Absolutely. But pride? That comes more from acting like, becoming, being the man I want to be. Sex is part of that, but only a part. Hell, it's the easiest part. We've all got a lot more than that to be proud of.

Team sounds silly to me. Gives me flashbacks to phys ed class in high school with overly earnest, over-enthusiastic teachers trying to motivate utterly uninterested teenagers. Technically, anyone over 18 is a man. I know there are guys who identify as boys who are older than that (some even in their 40s, which strikes me as a rather severe case of arrested development, but never mind), but part of the problem I have with that particular dynamic is the overtones of pedophilia and ephebophilia, which is probably something any hookup site ought to steer well clear of.

Lots of good advice so far. Let me add my $0.02. First off, there are much worse things in life than not getting laid! I've gone through periods in my life when it happened rarely and I've gone through periods in my life when things were happening for me a bit more. Having seen both extremes and all over the middle ground, I can tell you that lots of sex ≠ happiness. One of the happiest times in my life happened to coincide with a fairly long (18 month+) dry spell. On the other hand, I have been absolutely miserable when getting laid a fair bit (in part because I was so hung up on chasing after cock. I found that kind of sex life to be highly unfulfilling). So my first suggestion is to concentrate not so much on the pursuit of dick as the pursuit of happiness, which are not necessarily the same things. Second, I like how people have been keying in on your shyness. I went through a time, in my 20s, when I would go out to a bar and stand with my back up against the wall and scowl at people, while hoping they would approach me and take me home. The fact that I got laid at all during that time, I attribute to being in the Army and using my uniform shamelessly to lure attention. But other than that, that strategy did not yield much success. My other strategy to overcome my shyness was to drink enough beer to overcome my inhibitions and work up the courage to approach someone. That, too, was not a good strategy. I tended to overdo it a bit on the drinking (and while a light buzz can be pleasant, anything more than that gets rather unattractive), or I'd have performance issues as a result, or I'd end up with someone I'd really rather not be with. Again, not a good strategy. So here's what I recommend: pursue a strategy of building your self-confidence. For me, a big part of that was: (1) Getting an exercise program (I like lifting weights, but it doesn't really matter what you do). The fact that this will make you look better is only incidental; exercise actually makes you feel better, both overall and especially in terms of confidence. You'll stand up taller and project better energy when you enter a room. (2) If you don't have it, get some purpose in life. That might be the work you do, but doesn't have to be. What are you building your life around? Having sex? Drugs? Money? Pleasure? Service to others? Religion? Knowledge? Figure out what's important to you (hint: the first three, possibly four items on that list are particularly boring) and pursue them. Get enthusiastic about what you're building your life around and that enthusiasm will translate into confidence and attractiveness. (3) Finally, put yourself out there. People relate to faces, so put your face on your profile. Learn how to approach someone, say hello and initiate a conversation. And then learn how to take rejection and bounce back from it. Remember people's names and something about them (their work, their partner, their dog), so next time you can say hello and ask them about something in their life (people love talking about themselves). Maybe you'll get laid, maybe you'll make a friend. Either way, you're better off than you were before. And even if they blow you off completely, well, do you really want someone like that in your life? They've done you a favor! Finally, if you are hitting events like Cumunion, I find it hard to believe that you're not having sex there, unless you're really hanging back for some reason. If nothing else, you could lie in your room with your ass up and face down and get someone to breed you. That tells me something in your head is telling you that kind of sex isn't right for you. Listen to that voice. Not everyone is cut out to be a sex pig, and that's fine. You're better off not being that way, in many ways actually. Find out what kind of sexual relationships are right for you (and don't be afraid to go against the mainstream) and pursue those.

Once it's cleared, it's cleared. Count yourself very lucky. You can contract it again, so if you need some extra incentive to never go back to those habits that landed you with it, there it is.

So here are a few more observations: First, if you travel a lot, you're going to have more luck. The new meat in town always does, especially if you're only there for a short time. Second, if you top, you're going to have more luck. Simple matter of numbers: there are a hell of a lot more bottoms out there than tops, and while a bottom can be pretty insatiable, there are only so many loads I can shoot before I'm pretty much done (especially at my age). Third, as you grow older, there's a certain nostalgia for the past that starts creeping in. Bars used to be better back when I was in my 20s. The baths used to rock! Now they're boring. The hookup sites were awesome! Part of this is younger guys can always get more action, part is everything was fresher and newer and more exciting, part of this is looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses. Welcome to adulthood

My bad...I misunderstood (though you did say you thought all men ought to try sex with other men). There are people out there who would suggest that straight men should get into fucking other guys as an alternative to fucking women for fun, in order to avoid potential emotional entanglements and the potential for pregnancy. That's the sort of person I think we do well to leave alone in his straightness. As for men like the OP, regardless of how he identifies, I'd very gently suggest that if he's feeling sexually attracted to other men, then he's not straight. He may be bi, he may be gay, and he may or may not choose to act on those attractions. But straight men by definition aren't attracted to other men in that way.

Another thing to add: I'm not sure about Grindr, but on some apps, you can turn off the feature that gives your exact distance away. Now, people are listed in order on the app, from nearest to farthest, so someone fairly close by will still have some sense of how near you are, but you can still get a little more privacy that way. Be aware that unless you explicitly log out (which is often surprisingly difficult to do), your presence on the app will be shown for up to a day or so after the last time you used it. I don't think it's enough to just close the app. This also makes hooking up sometimes a little annoying since you'll see a guy you like and then notice he hasn't been active in several hours. This kind of puts a crimp in using the app in a public place like a bar, where you're not really interested in who was there a couple hours ago but who's there now. Obviously, if you sign in again, it will update your location to the new one and adjust accordingly, but you should be aware that these things are designed so that your presence lingers. I think this is to make you think there are more potential guys out there than there actually are at any given time. That keeps you using the app. I noticed on your message that you like furry otter guys. In that case, you may want to check out Scruff instead, or in addition. It's pitched a bit more towards that subgroup. For men who are more into bears, there's also Growlr. Scruff and Growlr are the two I've used the most. I've tried Grindr in the past, and the platform itself is fine, but the guys on it tend to be more on the young and twinkie side, which isn't really my thing. Finally, Adam4Adam has its own Radar app. The one annoying thing that all of these mobile phone apps have in common is that they must conform to Google and (especially) Apple's rather restrictive policies. That means that profiles on these apps can't have any sexually explicit photos or text, and overt mention of drugs is usually a no-no too. People can and do find ways to get around these restrictions, of course (all of these apps have ways of sending pics from within a chat, and most are OK with nudity if it's only in private pictures), but it does lead to the rather odd situation of a hook-up app forbidding you to solicit sex in your profile. I used Growlr and Scruff a lot when I was driving a truck over the road. Mostly, they were hugely frustrating, because I'd only have a short window of time to meet up with someone and then I'd be gone. I'd message guys I saw in the app and I wouldn't get a response from them until I was 300 miles down the road the next day. But if you're visiting a place and staying for a few days, it probably works a lot better.

Let me turn that around: What do you think of this guy? His Church certainly approves of his decision and would rather have the rest of us do the same. Are you comfortable with that? Either orientation is something we respect or it isn't. If we don't like society telling us to conform to heterosexual norms regardless of our orientation, then we shouldn't be out there trying to recruit straight men.

See, this is the kind of bisexual guy that really turns me on. He's into fucking both, but appreciates the differences between the two. He's not looking for an ersatz female to fuck until the real thing comes along. He gets off on knowing his cock is sliding into a man's ass and knowing he's gonna breed that man with his load. That's the kinda guy who's cock and load I'd gladly take.

So let me tell you a story about my first (real) time. I was a young kid of about 19 living in Toronto. I was very shy. I was just coming to terms with my sexuality and really had no-one to talk to about it. I'd tried dating a few women, but really simply couldn't muster up the interest in carrying on. I was attracted to men, but I figured that everyone kinda felt the same way I did and no-one else really spoke about it. I remember when I first attached the label "gay" to myself (I never went through a bi phase like a lot of guys do because the big thing that pushed me into accepting my sexuality was my lack of interest in women). So I knew I was gay. And I had no clue how to proceed. Although the gay ghetto in Toronto was just a few blocks away from where I lived, I was terrified if I even walked through the neighborhood, someone would see me and find out. Plus, this was around 1990, and the only thing I really knew about gay men is that they were all dying (I led a pretty sheltered life as a teenager). I'd noticed those phone-chat lines in the back of an alternative paper, and gave them a try. I went so far as to write out what my ad was going to say so I could sound as good as possible on the phone. I spoke to a few guys, but was always too scared to actually pull the trigger and meet up. Now back in those days, while the Internet was a thing, it wasn't used very much by everyday people. However, if you were a computer geek, and you had a modem, there were a lot of things called BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems) which were basically a computer attached to at least one (usually only one) phone line where people could dial in and post public messages and send each other email (rather like here, but imagine a system where only one person could log into the site at a time. And nothing but text). In the back of the local computer paper (there were a lot more newspapers around back then), there was a listing of all the local BBSs you could dial into. And as it turned out, in Toronto, there were two of them. So this was how I got my start: online. That's very common these days, but 25 years ago, I was precocious. And I posted a profile and emailed back and forth with a few guys and struck up a conversation with one. So he knew I was young and closeted and didn't know anyone. And he helped set my mind at ease and did something that was just right. He took me out to dinner. And we went to fairly nice place in the Church & Wellesley neighborhood, but not a place that was overtly gay. And over dinner we talked things over and I got more comfortable. And then he suggested visiting my first gay bar. So we walked across the street to Woody's and had a beer. Now I never would have dared set foot in a bar by myself, but with someone else, it was fine. And, as it turned out, he suggested going back to his place, which we did. And again, he set me at my ease...we watched some TV (Fawlty Towers, as I recall), and by then I was ready for sex, though we mostly just stuck to oral for that first time. I remember telling him that he had helped me remove all my doubts about being gay. He was also careful to tell me about condoms and why they were important. Remember, at that time, we knew HIV caused AIDS and we knew it was sexually transmitted, but there was no effective treatment yet. I bring this up on a bareback site because it shows how concerned he was for my well-being and how much he respected me being new. I could not possibly have had a better first experience. So my suggestion to you is to try to do something similar. Look for someone online who lives nearby. Strike up a conversation. You want someone who's going to go slowly. You want someone who will set your mind at ease and respect your lack of experience. You want someone who will show concern for your health and your well-being. You want someone who'll be a friend. My advice is not to jump head-first into bars or baths or what-have-you. There will be more than enough time for that later, if you want. And you should know right now that, while most of the guys on this site are very sexually active, you don't have to be that way if it's not right for you. There are lots of gay men who follow a much more conventional path: dating, monogamy, these days even marriage. So don't let yourself be overly influenced by what others are doing. My other piece of advice is to research your options for protecting yourself from HIV and other STDs right now, before you start. Hopefully the guy you choose to meet up with will also go over this with you. Even though this is a bareback site, for right now, if you want to try fucking (as a top or a bottom), I really strongly suggest that you use a condom, until you have time to sort through the risks and the available alternatives (like PrEP). You can always choose to start barebacking later, once you're better educated and have a better idea of what kind of life you want to lead.

Yeah, I see a lot of this in myself. I've had, maybe, 3 serious long-term relationships in my life. And I always found it really hard to give myself over to those men completely...to open up and have any kind of true emotional intimacy, to feel comfortable with having them know me. Hell, it can be hard for me to open up about minor surface things like the kind of music I like or the kind of restaurant I want to go to, let alone anything truly significant. I tend to take "still waters run deep" to a ridiculous extreme. The other interesting, somewhat distressing observation I have about all of those relationships is that they all evolved towards not being sexual. I'm not sure why that is. Part of that has to do with simply being used to moving from partner to partner more or less at will. If I didn't have to pay a price for sex in the form for intimacy, well then, why should I? So I'm just used to approaching sex from the position of one-time hook-ups, not to be repeated. Part of that stems from my time in the Army, when I kept my "gay life" and my "army life" rigorously separated, for obvious reasons. Among other things, that reinforced the danger of carrying on relationships, encouraged me to develop sneaky habits, and discouraged fully sharing my entire life with anyone. And, no doubt, there are other things going on there as well. So I find myself most comfortable dealing with those anonymous, "no strings" hook ups, where no-one has to get too close for comfort. And that's not healthy. I'm not sure how to fix that, though I think part of the solution may be to develop bonds with a potential guy before I jump into bed with him. You, know, the old fashioned dating/no sex before marriage thing. Hold out from having sex until I've gotten to the point where we have been able to air our deep dark secrets. Trouble is, no-one else really does that, although I do have one potential candidate right now that might eventually lead in that direction. Then there is the cultivation of the FWBs. I'm working on that with another specific guy, who's in an open relationship. We have excellent sexual chemistry, and he's a really great guy to hang out with too. We'll see how things proceed as that relationship moves along. Then third, there's the cultivation of non-sexual friendships, going for intimacy with other men (straight or gay) in non-sexual ways. I've got a couple good candidates for that too (all straight, which really helps, as it takes the sexual dimension right off the table). Plus, the internet helps with this too...somehow it's easier to type all of this stuff into a computer than it is to sit down and discuss face-to-face, even if I am spreading my own neuroses across the world-wide web LOL. I dunno...I'd say at least being aware of the problem as a problem is a kind of step towards a solution in itself. Because I would really like to move past the point where my next casual hookup with the next random guy is all there is to my sex life. Not that casual sex ain't great, but it's probably not enough.

This really struck me. Obviously the two of you had some kind of chemistry going on both sides. But you really felt that you couldn't acknowledge that. The word "love" has many different meanings. We love our parents and (if we have them) our children. We love our friends, though typically we don't use that word. But real friendship is another kind of love; Cicero thought it was the best kind. We're drawn to people we're attracted to sexually, something we might call lust or desire (that's what that guy Cupid is all about...desire, hence cupidity, meaning greed). One step up from that is the hormonal experience that we often call romantic love but that is still, I think, kinda rooted in desire, just desire for the whole person, not just the appearance. Or perhaps desire for children and family. And then Christians talk about agape love, unconditional, God-like love (C.S. Lewis is the man to read about that). But all of these kinds of love are really about different ways that people form bonds between themselves. I find it really curious that you resisted expressing the reality of that bond (regardless of how one-dimensional the relationship may have been). The whole anonymous sex thing is curious too: it strikes me as a total rejection of any kind of bonding between people, in the extreme form (darkrooms, blindfolds, gloryholes) even of the kind of lust that's entirely based on appearance. Sex completely and totally divorced from love of any kind whatsoever. I wonder what it is about those bonds that we fear so much.

I'd be more concerned about a dry socket than HIV. Seriously man...drinking and snorting coke with a trans girl the day you got a tooth pulled? That's pretty hardcore.... Anyways, HIV requires exchange of bodily fluids (semen, blood, etc.) in a pretty narrow chemical and temperature range for transmission. Spit is not a good vehicle for HIV, so kissing is fine. If you were sucking her cock, and there was some precum, then yes, there is a remote chance of transmission. But your mouth is actually pretty well protected against infection (which is why we have an instinctual response of putting a cut in our mouth when we bleed), as you would expect for a part of our body where we're constantly introducing all kinds of things from the outside world. Have you seen what a toddler will put in his mouth? Your trans girl's balls are nothing compared with that... But yes, by all means, get tested. And given what you've told us of your lifestyle, I'd suggest routine HIV (and STD) tests every three or four months.

There's a difference between appearance and how tight you are (or can get). Appearance is pretty much locked in. Tightness, you can improve. Kegel exercises were already suggested. Beyond that, any exercise that works your gluteal muscles will also help you improve how much you can tighten your ass voluntarily. Squats and lunges are good all-around lower body and core exercises, as are deadlifts. There are machines that will target the glutes specifically too. Incidentally, by nature, the anus isn't circle shaped. There's a reason you have a butt crack. I'd try not to get too hung up on the vanity of your asshole (how disappointed will you be if you ever get a hemorrhoid? LOL). If you've reached the point where a guy can see your asshole, you've probably got him landed already.

Once you're into the healthy range, there's really no ideal number. It's going to naturally fluctuate with any number of factors, including your current state of health, nutrition, exercise, sleep and all that, your genetics, your nadir CD4 count (i.e. how low it got before you went on meds), etc. My CD4 counts tend to be a bit on the low side of normal, around 600 or so. But that's just how I am. My immune system is fine...I don't get sick much at all (my last cold was a couple years ago). So as long as you're in that range, you're fine.

So I'm curious: what would you think if either your daughter or son decided to follow in your footsteps and go into making porn (with or without knowing about your past)? Or if they started leading a promiscuous lifestyle like most of us here have done? I will gladly cop to a total and complete double standard when it comes to sexual morality for gay men vs. straight men and women. Behavior that seems normal to me in gay men seems creepy to me with straight guys. And downright wrong for straight women. Yeah I've got a double standard when it comes to men and women too... I find it fascinating that you've led the life you have with two kids in the house. I'm not sure I could do that; I'd probably feel obliged to set my own desires aside for their benefit. Maybe that's where the double standard comes in for me...having kids (actually or potentially) really changes the calculus when it comes to sex. At some point, they're probably going to find out what you've been up to. Is that something you dread? If not, why are you hiding it?

I feel really bad for straight people who contract HIV. Sure, us poz gay guys do face some discrimination, but it's mostly in the form of guys not wanting to have sex, or wanting to use a condom. Big whoop. Most straight people, on the other hand, are still really clueless about HIV. And it's still assumed to be a gay disease, meaning you end up feeling doubly stigmatized. Plus a lot of the support services are built up more around provided gay men with support. Dating must be damn near impossible. I can't really imagine just how alone someone in that position must feel.

It's the Internet. Online sites promise so much and deliver so little. I've talked about it elsewhere, but basically, the issues are: (1) People will run conversations with multiple guys expecting them not to pan out (because online sites suck). So even if you're ready to pull the trigger and make something happen, he's probably still shopping. (2) A lot of guys surf these sites with the cock in their hand. If they happen to cum, then often that's it. (3) There's a low bar to enter a site but a high bar to follow through on actually fucking. In other words, you can be in the middle of doing some work at home and idly check out BBRT. But if you actually agree to meet up, then you have to stop whatever else you were doing, shower, get dressed, head to his place (or get your own ready). It's the opposite of a bathhouse. All the effort there is up front. Once you've shown up, there's nothing holding you back from having sex with whoever catches your eye. (4) Depending on where you live, a certain proportion of the men online (especially late at night) are going to be high, especially if you're looking for bottoms. Getting partiers to stop tweaking on the computer and actually do something can be notoriously difficult. Moral of the story: go out, hit the bars, hit the baths, hit the bookstores. Cultivate the ancient art of real life cruising.

Mack is one hell of a hot, sexy man. But Steve Hurley a.k.a. Titpig has long been my absolute favorite pornstar (though I don't think he's been in anything in a while). Proof that the best men only get better with age. I'm glad he's embraced his looks as he's aged. Too many gay men try so desperately to chase after their youthful looks. It just gets pathetic. Not so with this man. I've never met him, but have had a crush on him for decades now. And back in the day...

It's not my cup of tea, but I do know of lots of guys around my age who really appreciate a younger guy. I'm sure if you put yourself out there you can find someone. Depending on the kind of guy you want, you might consider trying craigslist too. More likely to find closeted/bi/married guys that way, which most likely translates into a purely sexual/hook-up type thing, but that may be what you're looking for.

I'm finding you have to pay for your privacy, but not too much. Typical costs for email range from about $35 to $50 a year, which is less than the annual subscription at BBRT.

See, this is just me, but I find this kind of an attitude to be a real turn-off. Top, bottom or both, I really love my men to be MEN. Not women (bitches, cunts, pussies), not boys (or bois). I'm also not a fan of demeaning guys by calling them a faggot or whatever. After all, I'm a faggot too, so why are you going to make me play into some self-hating role playing? Even if you don't respect yourself (and that's a big turn off in and of itself), I still do respect myself, and it's disrespectful towards MY sexuality to imply that any of the sex acts we enjoy make us less than "real" men. Personally, nothing turns me on more than a big hairy muscled up deep voiced manly man who fucking loves my cock (or my ass or both). And I would never in a million years fail to acknowledge and respect his masculinity. I find as I get older, I get bothered more and more by men who don't seem to love and respect themselves the way they should. It's internalized homophobia and it's not cool.

You want to be careful about this. Douching flushes away a lot of healthy stuff in your gut, like beneficial bacteria and the layer of mucus that keeps things moving properly and keeps the walls of the colon from drying out. I certainly wouldn't be douching every day. You're probably better off just cleaning out before you have sex