Friday Open Forum: The Micromanager

Taking a six to eight weeks hiatus from my sex life—rather unwillingly, I might add—does a couple of things to a guy. For one, I was feeling so decidedly unsexy during the whole sick spell that I didn’t so much as masturbate the entire time. (To be honest, I was feeling so poorly that I didn’t even miss it.) After a month and a half-ish of abstinence, when my health roared back, my erection roared with it; I almost needed a bucket and a mop to clean up the load from that first orgasm. Whew.

For another, it gave me a little distance and perspective on some issues I’d been taking for granted, over the last few years. Some of those I’m still thinking about. I’d like to address one of them, though, and get some reader feedback as well.

Every online site that I know (not to imply that I sniff haughtily and turn up my nose at others) has some kind of function that allows a member to control who sees his photo. At the most basic, it allows him to set some photos to public, and some to private. Usually—unless there are explicit instructions on the website detailing that certain types of photos should not be visible to everyone—I leave all my photos open. Anybody can see them. Face, dick, the whole thing. In part I do so because I have a philosophy that I’m not really ashamed of who I am as a person, including my, shall we say, rather vibrant libido.

I think I mentioned that when I first moved to the tri-state area I got a lecture from someone online—I think it was on Manhunt—who was absolutely appalled that I would allow a shot of my erect dick to appear next to my smiling mug. “That’s just not the way we do things here!” he shuddered, in what was the online Manhunt equivalent of fanning himself, reaching for his smelling salts, and groping delicately for a fainting couch.

Fuck that. I think most grown adults are capable of imagining that other adult men not only have dicks of their own, but that sometimes they get erect and need attention. A dick is nothing of which to be ashamed. It’s a body part, like an elbow. I’m not ashamed of my face, of my nose, or of my junk. I’m not ashamed of being a sexual person. Besides, anyone who’s cruising Manhunt or any sex site isn’t there to exchange Christmas cookie recipes or talk about comparative religion. Anyone protesting about seeing a hard penis doth protest too much.

The primary reason I went to all open photos a few years back, though, is because managing that dance of who unlocks first and when and why is just so tiring. One of the guys has to say unlock plz. Then the other has to say u first. Then there’s no u and i dont go 1st!! Sometimes there’s a standoff of epic proportions, a electronic peen-fight of chicken in which the loser has to unlock first and face the possibility of the other guy finding him unattractive . . . and the subsequent empty moment in which he realizes that the guy has blocked him, rejected him, and moved on to someone else. I figure that by letting guys see all of my photos, face, body, and dick alike, they can figure out on their own whether they want to make a further move. I’m spared having to exert my psychic powers and the services of the Delphic oracle to augur when might be the best strategic moment to unlock for the guy.

Here’s the thing I’ve noticed since I began looking around online again, though. I have absolutely no patience for men who micromanage their photos.

You probably know the type. They’re the ones on Manhunt who write long paragraphs in their profiles that in effect say, No offense but I lock my photos every time before I log off, so if you want to see them again, you will have to ask me. On BBRT and Adam4Adam in particular they have an annoying habit of unlocking and then locking again on some kind of accelerated internal time clock that seems to be connected to how quickly they want me to respond.

Yesterday, for example, I was doing some legitimate work in another window of my laptop and tabbed over to my browser, where on A4A a guy had unlocked his photos for me. I looked at his profile. All the photos were locked. A minute later, I got another blinking note that the same guy had unlocked his photos for me. Now, my response time wasn’t sluggardly; I clicked on his profile in less than thirty seconds after I received the email. But there they were, locked again. I know it wasn’t a server error, either, because I wrote the guy the note that read Why do you keep locking your photos immediately after unlocking them? and got back the answer maybe u aren’t looking quick enough.

Fuck that, too. I blocked the guy.

I can speculate endlessly on the reasons guys micromanage their photos—who can see them, who can’t, for how long they allow the photos to be visible. A lot of the men, however, seem really to get off on the notion that guys are begging them to unlock—as if the number of requests they generate through denial is directly proportional to their virility and desirability. And some seem to be genuinely paranoid about what I might do with those photos, which in itself shows a mistrust I find borderline offensive.

Look. Your photos are your photos, on these website. I fully support a guy’s right to set his own pictures to private. I encourage anyone to show online only what he’s comfortable sharing. That’s totally his right, and his business. But I swear to god, when a guy starts toinking around with viewing privileges and letting me see only the one out-of-focus shot of his upper thigh in a murky bathroom in the middle of the night in a February winter when he’s got seven other locked photos of which I might’ve gotten a brief glance before he snapped them shut again . . . well, I’ve discovered in the last couple of weeks that I’ve just lost the patience for that kind of gamesmanship.

So I’m asking those of you guys who are confident to post photos online. What do you think about those who keep a tight rein on unlocking and relocking photos? Or if you’re one of the folk who relock frequently, what’re your reasons for doing so? And if all your photos are open and visible, why haven’t you shared the link with me yet? Sound off in the comments for today’s open forum!

Open Forum Friday: Online Hookup Turn-Offs

Online is how men find each other for sex these days. Sure, it’s still possible to cruise public parks or restrooms to find some occasional dick. One can still head to the bar and pick someone up. Okay, I suppose it’s still possible to meet people at places like the job or while doing things like volunteer work or attending church, but let’s face it. Going online, whether on one of the many sex cruising websites, or Craigslist, or a phone app like Grindr, is these days the fastest and most expedient way for most horny guys looking for man-on-man action to get laid.

That’s one of the reasons I do it. But it’s also so ripe for the mocking that I can’t resist going at it, on occasion.

Which is basically my set-up for saying, I was going to write today about a fuck I had this week that was less than stellar, but then I decided to be an old curmudgeon instead, as if I were starring as a sexed-up Mr. Wilson in a reboot of the Hank Ketcham comic strip called ‘Dennis the Leather Menace.’

So. Without further ado, I present:

4 Things I Wish You Wouldn’t Write Me in Your Hookup Notes


1. UNLOCK

It’s usually a one-word note. Not even that. Just a subject line in an online email, on a site like Manhunt or Adam4Adam. UNLOCK.

What it means is that the guy wants you to flip the switch that permits him to see any private photos you might have that aren’t on view to the general public. Simple enough, right? Sure, there might be more polite ways to ask such a thing. Hey, I find you attractive. May I see your locked pics? comes to mind.


Unlock strikes me as abrupt and imperative, but hey. At least it’s not coy, right?

The thing is that I don’t lock my photos. They’re all out there in the open, X-rated and G-rated alike, shots of my goofy face rubbing up next to photos of my nuts and dick on proud display. (Not in the same single photo. I don't do that any more.)

I know that most guys, particularly in my area, don’t do such a thing. They have either their faces and torsos on display and their gonads behind the lock, or the reverse. Not me. I’ve received email lectures about doing it from local guys who are shocked that I’d be so trashy. Screw ‘em.

Don’t ask me to unlock. I don’t have anything to unlock. You look like a dumbass, saying it. It’s like walking up to a naked man and yelling at him, Take it off!

Note: I do have locked pics on my BBRT profile—but only because the site asks that users lock penetration shots. It’s also the one site where I don’t have people sending me UNLOCK emails.


2. Picture Inequity

I suppose I shouldn’t really complain about notes with twice the number of words as UNLOCK. But I’m gonna complain about this one: MORE PICS?

I do have more pics. I have a lot more pics. I have a decade’s worth of digital shots, dating back to the days when I had a Sony Mavica that recorded photos on floppy disks.

But see, sir, the thing is that while I have—oh, I don’t know—eight or ten photos on my profile, you’ve got exactly zero. Or maybe one. And if you do have one, that one is a particularly small and grainy shot of what could be your chest, or might be your elbow. Again, I don’t know. It’s tough to tell when it’s so blurry and out of focus that it seems to have been shot through a field of dirty beer mugs.

With my old Mavica.

So here’s the thing, guys. If you really want someone to send you more pics, why not make the first and more generous move? Say, I really like your pics. What’s your email so I can send you a few more? Do you have any others to trade, too? Not only does it make you sound as if you’re trying to do the right thing, but it tells the guy that you’re willing to give a little to get a little.

That’s a good thing, because MORE PICS? always gives me the impression that you don’t think my existing pics are good enough for your blurry ass.


3. Are you still interested?

There’s a certain type of personality online that needs constant reassurance. I find that type of personal fucking exhausting.

There’s always a good initial fit, it seems. Mutual interest on both sides. But there’s something that keeps us from getting together right away. That something is usually distance—I’m where I am, and they’re in Pennsylvania, or Boston. Or it could be scheduling—he’s in Manhattan, but he’s only available weekends, and I usually only go into the city on weekdays.

So then will come the barrage of emails. Hi, I thought we were a good match the other day but I need to know if you’re interested in getting together sometime. There still aren’t any concrete suggestions of what to do, on his end. Just a general need to know if I’m interested.

Nothing wrong with that. Once.

But the more extreme types of this personality require constant reassurance. Usually within about ten seconds of me logging on. Are you still interested in meeting sometime? I need to know. Or, I really need to know if you still want to meet.

Dude, listen. I’ve told you I’m interested. I’ve given you ways to contact me. I’ve given you my schedule and probable best days to hook up. The ball’s in your court. We’re not a Victorian relationship with a decade-long engagement; it’s not my responsibility daily to assure you that my intentions have not changed, or that I don’t have my eye on that saucy minx who shows a bit of ankle from under her bustle.

If propping up your fragile ego is becoming a bit of a full-time job, chances are that you’re going to be put on my block list real soon.


4. Lookin

Another one-word note. LOOKING. Or sometimes, LOOKIN. Sometimes with a question mark, often without.

Yeah, I might be lookin’. I might even have found you attractive under other circumstances. But for some reason, those one-word notes, usually no more than a subject line, I find really off-putting.

Or off-puttin’.

If you can’t be bothered to write even a simple note like, I can host and I’m horny, want to come over?, chances are that I really don’t want to meet you. You’re just telling me you’re a lazy fuck, basically. And who wants to labor over a lazy fuck?


Man, apparently I am Mr. Wilson.

So readers, tell me. What’re the notes you dread getting online? Is it the ‘sups, or the UNLOCKS? Is it the constant requests for you to top when you’ve plainly stated you’re a bottom? I declare this Open Forum Friday. Gentlemen, start your engines. And may the best griper win!

A Teaser

I’m not sure if what we’re watching is rugby or soccer, to be honest. There’s a field, and there’s a ball, and there’s a bunch of guys running around in shorts. It’s a cold Saturday morning; whenever I breathe, tendrils of vapor curl from my nostrils. My toes are frozen inside my boots, and I’m chilly in my jeans and thick sweater and scarf.

The players don’t seem at all chilly, though. They run around like it’s a May afternoon, chasing after the ball and filling the borrowed high school field with their laughter and high-pitched shouts. Beyond them, the sun catches the shapes of cars as they speed by on the freeway. I’ve driven into Westchester to meet the guy on the bench beside me. He’s a hulking shape because of the puffy vest he’s wearing. Bright orange, the color of danger and hazards. A Yankees cap hangs low on his forehead, just above a thick black pair of eyebrows flecked with gray. He’s got his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his sweatpants. We've talked online before, a few times. Cammed once. But this is our first meeting in the flesh, to check each other out. “So,” he says. “You like what you see?”

He’s not talking about himself—though if he had been, my answer would’ve been in the affirmative. He’s got the stocky, masculine build that a lot of the Latin men in the area have. I’d definitely be interested in him. But it’s his younger boyfriend he means. One of the players on the field, a latte-skinned youth, lean, who stops from time to time to lift up his striped shirt to mop off his face and short, spiky hair. He’s got lanky legs with a light coat of fur, and a grin that rarely flags, even when he’s concentrating. He’s made for this game.

He’s hardly ever not been in motion, since I’ve arrived. Those legs fly in the air every time he sprints after the other players, and seem to flex to impossible angles whenever he suddenly changes direction. His hips are narrow, his stomach flat. He’s got dark eyebrows like his older boyfriend, though they point upward in the middle, giving him a look of perpetual astonishment. I haven’t spoken to him, haven’t seen him close up. Still, over the previous few silent minutes, I’ve seen enough of him to know that I found him attractive. “Yeah,” I say. “I like a lot.”

The man seems satisfied at that. “Practice’ll be over soon. Thought I’d go inside and piss,” he said. “Want to come? Check stuff out?”

“You know it.”

We walk across the bleachers together, just two guys taking a break from watching a long morning’s practice (soccer or rugby, I still didn’t know which). He descends to the ground with an ungainly hop; I follow, a little more gracefully. I don’t realize exactly how chilly it is outside until I’m indoors and my nose is running. He seems to know where we’re going, along the back corridor of the high school. There’s a boy’s room not too far from the door. No one’s inside.

We stand close to each other at the urinals. He doesn’t have to piss. He pulls down the elastic band of his sweatpants beneath a pair of heavy balls. His dick is fat and uncut, and rock hard. He’s been hard a while, it seems. Precum oozes from the tip in a glistening bead. Dried trails of its predecessor frost the top of his head and foreskin.

When I pull mine out, he instantly reaches for it. “Damn, it’s big,” he tells me. “As advertised, huh?” He’s making a joke, but I’m not laughing. I reach for his meat; it throbs when I get it in my hand. “You want to fuck him?”

He means his boyfriend. That’s why he wants to meet me. He’s been looking for his first three-way with the younger guy, and he’s thinking I might suit them both. “Yeah,” I said. My voice was husky and congested. “I really want to fuck him. You want to see me in him?”

He’s staring at my dick. “Fuck yeah. Fuck.” For a second he drops to a knee and takes me in his mouth. It’s unexpected. I hadn’t known he was going to attempt it. “Can barely get my own mouth around it,” he says, pulling off. Then he opens and belies his words by taking it almost to the root. He’s up on his feet again, and pulling up his sweatpants before anyone comes in. “That’ll look good in him.”

“He likes getting fucked?”

He looks me dead in the eye. “Oh yeah. Fuck yeah! Loves his hole played with. That thing though.” He shakes his head as I put it away. “That’ll do some damage.”

I don’t tell him the thought that image brought to mind. Namely, that I certainly hoped so.

At his invitation we go outside again. The practice is nearly over. A couple of the players are already straggling off the field. Men and women spectating from the bleachers join them one by one. “Wait here,” the man instructs, pointing vaguely at the area between field and parking lot. I take a seat on the bleachers as he heads toward his car. I stay there as the players jog off the field in pairs and singles, scratching their heads and collecting their bags from the ground. I sit there in the sun and the chill and watch the boyfriend say goodbye to his buddies and sally out into the lot, looking for his car.

Just about everyone’s gone when, near the gate, an older-model SUV pulls up and stops. The window rolls down. “Get in the back,” says the man, nodding me over.

I don’t wait for another invitation.

The boyfriend’s in the back, knees spread wide, his lean legs seeming to go on forever. He nods at me as I join him in the back seat. I start to pull on my seatbelt, but the man says, “You don’t need that, buddy.” He drives us to a spot at the back, close to the freeway, where no other cars are lurking. Then he shuts off the ignition.

There’s the briefest of introductions. First names only. “This is the man who’s gonna fuck you,” says the older of the two.

The boyfriend looks me up and down. He’s cute. Damned cute. His hair is wet from sweat and exercise, but other than that, he looks like he’s barely broken stride that morning. His legs scissor in and out. Then he cracks a grin, and those eyebrows go up. “Cool,” he says.

From the front seat, the man says, “Why don’t you show him what you’ve got, hon?”

The younger guy doesn’t need another invitation, either. He thrusts his hips in the air and shucks down his shorts. His legs spread as he shows me his dick. It’s and long, and narrow, and uncut, and grows from soft to rock hard before my eyes. He grabs it in his right hand and plays with it, a little self-consciously. He’s staring at me the entire time.

“Just a little taste,” says the man in the front seat. “A teaser. Just to show you what he’s got.”

“I can see what he’s got,” I say, drily.

“Make out with him a little,” says the man to his boyfriend.

The younger guy’s got gum in his mouth, but he considerately removes it before he slides forward on the back seat. My mouth covers his; he thrusts his mint-flavored tongue forward, and mumbles a little bit when I replace my hand on his dick with my own. He’s a hungry kisser, one of the kind who’s almost too eager for it to be good. There’s a lot of pressure from his upper teeth against my own, through our lips. When my fingers travel from his dick down between his legs, into the warm, moist area between them, the man in the front seat grunts out his approval. I let my thumb press against the younger guy’s butthole. He exhales heavily and sweetly, and obediently spread his legs farther apart.

I’ve got my thumb in there, with almost no more lube than a quick lick. He’s tight. Real tight. A little twist, and he’s moaning. A turn in the other direction, a crook of my thumb joint, and he’s acting like he’s getting close. His dick is like fire against my forearm.

“Just a teaser,” says the man again. “Not too much.”

I take the warning for what it is. We’re in a parking lot on a bright morning. Even with a lookout like the older guy, it’s a risky proposition to take to the next level. The younger guy looks at me with heavy, lidded eyes when I remove my digit from his hole. He doesn’t want it to stop. “Pack it away,” the man tells him. The younger guy takes a moment to collect his thoughts before slowly reaching down to the car floor to pull his shorts back onto his legs, and then up the length of them to cover that rock-hard dick and those narrow hips and thighs.

“I think this can work,” I tell the man.

“Might be difficult to connect before Christmas at this point,” he says. “We don’t do this real often, but I want to see you fuck him real good.”

The younger guy and I are staring at each other now. He’s grinning at me. He doesn’t have to say much. I can tell he wants it too. “I will,” I promise.

Then I’m out the door, and walking back across the lot to my own car, legs wobbly and my thumb smelling like the younger guy’s hole. He waves at me from the back seat as they drive from the school lot, and over the dust of their passing the two of us study each other for a last time before that day comes when I meet him naked, and prepped, and ready to be drilled.

An open letter to local online cruisers

Dear gay and/or bisexual men of the tri-state area with online profiles,

I am a visually-oriented person.

Now, I know what you think that means. You’re assuming I’m telling you I need porn to get off. A hot movie playing on the TV, or a magazine with sticky pages sitting on the side of the bed. Maybe some good old-fashioned homemade nasty photos waiting to be flicked through on your iPhone. Yeah, that. Well, no. Not that at all.

What it really means is that my memory is shot. If you want me to keep track of who you are, I kind of need to know what you look like. That’s it.

I know you’ve got a really memorable profile name fashioned from letters and numbers that may seem random to me—like cbtg432—but make perfect sense to you. Or maybe you’ve chosen a name like nybottom123 to distinguish yourself from the hundred and twenty-two New York bottoms who boldly tread before. You’ve made a lot of effort to keep your profile cryptic, with all your Ask Mes and Not Answereds. I get it. You like that veil of mystery that lures the guys in. You really, really want them to ask you. It’s not just that you overlooked the questions. I understand.

But you know, there’s something about those profiles in which they all start really to run together, somehow. It’s not that after a while all the names start to look like a big ol’ steamin’ bowl of Campbell’s Pornographic Alphabet Soup. It’s not simply that all the Ask Mes begin to mesmerize me into a hypnotic trance. It’s the fact that you’ve left your photos blank—or that you have uploaded them, but locked them all and never offer to unlock them—that drives me around the bend.

I'm old. I'm really old. I'm practically senile. I need a little help here, and you're not giving it to me.

Case in point: the guy with the minimal profile who, by way of seductive technique, unlocks his photos for him in lieu of saying hello. It might be true that I viewed your photos and said, Hey, thanks for unlocking. You’re a handsome dude. And it might be true that I replied in the affirmative when you suggested we get together some time in the future. But when you immediately relock those photos and email me two weeks later to ask if we are ever going to get together, I’m sorry. I’m not going to remember you by your profile name of ctbottom001. I’m not going to clue in on what words we might’ve exchanged from your minimal profile. If you showed me your photos again—ah, yes. Then I would remember. If you left them displayed all the time, certainly I would. I am a visually-oriented person. I need that photo of your face to associate all your Ask Mes with a real person.

Hell, even that blurry photo of your hip that you flashed me might trigger some kind of recall. Because your sorry profile isn’t doing the trick.

Case number two: Mr. BBRT profile without an unlocked photo or description, thanks for informing me that you and I talked on Manhunt. Helpful! Except it’s not, because apparently your cryptic name on BBRT is different from whatever name you chose on Manhunt. If you’d told me the other site’s profile name, or unlocked your photo so I’d recognize it, or given me some kind of clue as to whom you might be, maybe I’d have more patience and actually reply to your emails after you didn’t seem to pick up on the hint I gave you when I responded, I have no idea what you look like. Why would I meet?


Of course, after I ignore you for a solid three weeks, when you finally unlock your photos and I discover you’re the asshole from Manhunt who stood me up not once, but twice, making me wait over an hour each time before I found out you were going to be a no-show, I can kind of understand why you were reluctant to identify yourself.

So gentlemen. Let’s recap. Want me to remember you? Have some kind of photo in your profile—something visible. Don’t make me ask you to unlock, every time. Even a picture of your fucking kneecap is going to be more memorable than a standard icon of a lock. I’m not going to meet you because of that kneecap alone, but at least instead of thinking Huh? Who dat? I’ll think, Well hey, it’s that weirdo who doesn’t show anything more than a kneecap. Howdy, stranger.


And also, if you stand me up twice, don’t be surprised I’m not all that anxious to give you a shot at doing it a third time.

But that’s ancillary to my point. Which is: I am a visually-oriented person.

Yours truly.

Getting It All Online

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.