From: amz@iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu (Arnold M Zwicky)
Subject: sex with gay and bi men (part 2)
Followup-To: soc.motss
Summary: another round with gabe and biff (more to come)
Organization: WE DON'T TALK ABOUT THE PODS
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 02:24:27 GMT

what struck me in jojo's original posting about sex with gay vs. bi
men was the observation that there are some characteristics of these
guys that go together often enough to be instantly recognizable to
some of us; these are the packages i fleshed out some as gabe and
biff.  gabe, who looks only for men, is energetically restless,
fiercely hungry in sex, competitive, wary and rather closed in the way
he approaches his dealings with people, including his sexual partners.
biff, the nearly balanced bisexual, is relaxed, easy-going in sex,
cooperative, open and exploratory in the way he approaches his
dealings with people, sex included.

some of the gabes of this world might strike some people as screaming
queens, but in their own paradoxical way they realize most of the
qualities that our society views as the core of masculine identity
(there is that problem with other guys' cocks, of course).  in
contrast, the biffs of this world might with some justification be
described as woman-identified, though scarcely feminine.

hmm, scratch a type and get a stereotype. but not necessarily the
one you expected.  in this case, neatly reversed.

a gabe in my life: a guy i'll call matt (he actually managed not to
provide a name; now *that* is wary), who appeared, streams of sexual
lightning playing around his face, at the baths in palo alto
(incredibly, there once was one in appolonian palo alto, but on the
wrong side of the freeway, of course).  [this was a *long* time ago.]
i was standing around biff-like, displaying my ass, and he picked me
up and *carried* me into the most public spot available.  (swept away
by tarzan, with an audience.)  he then supplied the second-most
athletic fuck i have ever had in my life; the most athletic fuck of my
life came along about forty minutes later, in a re-match with matt.  i
can't possibly ever have been noisier than this during sex; it felt
like he was all around me and everywhere inside me, and i simply gave
over my being to him.  for about twenty minutes he produced this
firestorm of desire and i incandesced in it.  i believe we did a lot
of those things that look so unlikely in sex manuals.

in the interval, having noticed that he'd clearly had a few drinks,
i asked him where he'd been before.  "up and down the peninsula, checking
out the baths from san francisco to san jose.  but i didn't find anything
i liked."  (ooh, he chose *me*!)  then he kissed me, very hard, and
knelt down and took my cock with such hunger that he got me off almost
immediately.  stood back up, took me in his arms and said, "don't wanna
talk right now; just stay with me".  i rested against his chest, enjoying
the tingles, but his eyes were checking out everything that was
happening around us and his muscles never really relaxed.  in about
fifteen minutes his cock popped back up like a missile going into
launch mode and he said "get your ass up in the air, man" and we were
into round 2.  which ended like round 1, and then he kissed me again,
lightly, punched my shoulder buddy-fashion, said "see ya, man", and
strode off.


a biff: michael, of one night in brighton (england), while he was on
assignment to cover a story there.  our eyes met across a gay pub.
[this too was a very long time ago, back when cigarette smoke didn't
make me drastically sick and i could go to pubs and bars.]  he smiled
at me, and i raised my brandy to him.  he came over, shook my hand,
and did a full introduction, including the name of his newspaper
(so that he got my full introduction back, including the names of my
various universities).  "hope you don't mind my being so direct, but
i find you very attractive; i'm not usually so forward, but i have
very little time here.  can we go outside and talk?"  he was trim and
tweedy and slightly self-mocking.  i had been very very lonely in
brighton - this was before john, who will appear in good time - and
i started to fall in love with michael on the spot.  (the idea of falling
in love with matt from the palo alto baths would have been absurd.)

we talked for hours, about everything in our lives.  (of course he was
married, like me.  almost everyone who spontaneously found me
attractive was married, like me.  but i had a husband as well as a
wife, a situation michael was profoundly envious of.  in fact i wrote
ann and jacques about michael, in some detail, and told michael i was
going to, which he found incredible but heartening.)  we found a bench
to sit on that was sheltered from view and from the sea wind, and
kissed easily and freely.  he had the most delightful laugh.  we both
talked about our work and how much we loved it.  he unzipped my fly
and slid his hand into my briefs and began to jack me off very slowly
and elegantly, asking if the rhythm was good for me.  fine, i gasped,
and reciprocated with his cock.  he asked me for a somewhat faster
pace, and i obliged.  we said we loved one another, and then i came
and then he did, in our respective briefs, but not really messily.  he
nuzzled me and told me i was sweet.  he smelled great.  i was hooked.
[my god, how silly sexual connection sounds in retrospect!]

we chatted some more, about british politics (his beat) and
linguistics (mine).  we tried to arrange to meet again in london, a
tricky business since his wife was not prepared to cope with the idea
of actual specific other men (rather than a sort of noncorporeal or
theoretical bisexuality on michael's part).  it never worked out.  i
missed him a lot.  that was over fifteen years ago, and i would still
be pleased to see him again.


i've presented these guys as more-or-less perfect gabe and biff, but
then there's a lot i didn't get to know about them.  probably they
were as far off the marks as the lovers i really do know well (more to
come on this).  the fact is that there are vast numbers of "types" out
there, stunningly large numbers of combinations of characteristics,
histories, desires, sexual imaginations.

in fact, the terms we use to talk about these matters are blunt
instruments, not even anywhere close to serving our needs or to
recognizing the complexity of our lives.  yes, we need terms that
distinguish women's experiences from men's, and also terms that put
the sexes together (that recognize, for example, the shared
experiences of coming out and of homophobia).  and yes, we need terms
that distinguish the experiences of people who desire only members of
their sex from those of people who feel strong desire for people of
both sexes (the textures of these lives are almost surely different),
but also terms that put them together (coming out and homophobia
again).  but there is so much more.

to start with, there are not two crude classes, but at least three:
there are also straight people who have gay sex.  straight, meaning
they are focused on motos in their minds; their desires are
heterosexual.  this doesn't mean you can't find pleasure in gay sex.
and not just gay sex in which you play the "standard" roles (women
take it, men give it), but other kinds too.  a long time ago jess
anderson posted about straight guys who enjoy being fucked on occasion
(i can relate to this, totally, though i haven't met these guys -
which, when you think of it, makes sense; we have competing shops in
different streets, so to speak).  

i myself know straight guys who enjoy sucking cock.  one in
particular, who stumbles upon an appropriate occasion only every four
or five years, but then is really interested only in this (he jacks
himself off).  he reports that it provides the same sort of pleasure
as going down on a woman, only more intense...bigger.  i haven't asked
him about it, but i'll bet that if he plays any movies in his head
while he's sucking cock, they star women, big time.  (yes, he's very
good at it.  *not* being expected to take care of the other guy takes
a little getting used to for a gay man like me, but it has its own
subtle charms.)

that was item 1.  item 2 is the celebrated continuum from the
exclusive homosexual to the exclusive heterosexual.  i'm going to want
to say that this isn't really a single continuum - rather, several
"points of accumulation" along a dimension, and in fact along several
different dimensions.  but for the moment it's enough to point out
that an awful lot of "exclusive homosexuals" fall off the truck every
so often (most of the gabes i know, including *all* the ones who have
been my lovers, have made "exceptions" on occasion).  and that the
content of people's sexual imaginations can't be predicted from what
they do (some guys "feel like women" when they're being fucked, and
they really like that feeling; this is not me, though i love to be
fucked, but why should everybody interpret similar experiences in the
same way?).  and that people change over time, in a way that shouldn't
invalidate their perceptions (there was a time when i was a straight
guy with some surprising tricks in his mind-sex bag, then there was
a time when i was a bisexual, now i am a gay man with the potential
for loving certain women; all of these were accurate perceptions,
but in these ways as in so many others i am not the person i used to
be).

[more to come]

arnold (who originally thought this was going to be a short
          chatty thing, and who worries how long it will go on)
  [irreverent echoes of the shape-note song here:
     "how long, dear savior, oh how long
      will this bright hour delay?"]