Gay sauna

Guy #212 – So who’s the woman?

So who’s the woman in your relationship?

According to quite a few gay people, it’s an offensive question for straight people to ask.

I never got why.

Of course it goes without saying that in a relationship between two men no women are present, but it doesn’t take a degree in abstract reasoning to understand that the question of who’s the woman merely asks what body part goes into what orifice.

I always thought of the question as a healthy dose of curiosity for the gay lifestyle. And I’m always happy to tell any straight person that arguably the biggest joy of being gay is that everything goes into everything.

When sex involves two penises and four workable orifices, the possibilities become endless.

Macho men can be raging bottoms as much as Guys with make-up can be dominant tops, so the question of what goes into whom often has a surprising answer.

Guy #212 was a Guy I met in this gay sauna this one night. He was a petite Asian of the shy type. To him I must have looked like a deliciously tall hump of white privilege. I gauged his appearance and thought to myself Sure, I can dominate you for a while.

I’m not the dominant type, but being so much taller than Guy #212 it seemed only natural I would assert some dominance, be in control and have him ‘be the woman’.

Guy #212 was indeed the woman of our relationship, for the first 30 seconds or so that is.

Being a bottom isn’t always easy or without pain. Guy #212’s facial expression shifted between pleasure and agony a few times, until it settled on agony and the words ‘Please stop!’ came out of his tiny mouth.

Sometimes you intuitively feel you can top a Guy if you’re gentle enough in your persuasion. I was about to go in a second time whilst reassuring how tenderly I’d go about it, when Guy #212 pushed me back.

From a top’s perspective, having a bottom shove you out that early is like going to church and being told god doesn’t exist. Liberating, but hardly satisfying.

After we exchanged some aimless cuddles, Guy #212 rose up. I assumed he was getting ready to leave, but instead he suggested to top me instead.

It struck me as silly.

At the same time I had paid €19.95 to be in a gay sauna. It’d be a waste not to bend over. And besides, literally everything about Guy #212 was petite, which meant little to no agony on my end.

To exchange my dominant mood for a submissive one was as easy as it was awkward. I imagine that sense of awkwardness was the common feeling that sealed our connection. I don’t care much about masculinity or femininity, but to switch sides halfway during sex felt, dare I say it, unnatural.

It wasn’t unnatural because I can’t go both ways. It was unnatural because both of us changed personalities halfway through. On the gender spectrum I’m limber enough to bend from attempted manly to reluctant feminine and everything in between, but to make the transition in a matter of seconds felt as weird as a Game of Thrones episode featuring a laugh track.

Guy #212 asked for my phone number after we were done. I hesitated, so he resigned to giving his to me. He rests quietly in my contact list under the name of Sauna 5 or 6 or 7.

Sauna 5 or 6 or 7 was a nice Guy and not at all unattractive, but being with him was just a little too odd to pursue it further.

I suppose I didn’t want to be the woman in this relationship.

He did make me feel like I hadn’t wasted €19.95 though.

Guy #210 and #211 – So you think you can choke my boyfriend…

“Put your hand there.”
“Grab his ass.”
“Turn him around.”
“Now choke him.”

These are things Guy #210 told me to do to his boyfriend, Guy #211, a few minutes after I met them.

This one night in a gay sauna Guy #210 and #211 came on to me in the most systematic of fashions. While it’s normal to be chased in a sauna, this was one of only a few times two Guys grouped together to get me.

It’s flattering to be chased, but arguably even nicer to be flanked by a pair of velociraptors. The apparent team work these clever girls applied in catching me indicated I was about to engage in a threesome with a couple.

When you engage in a threesome with a couple, you basically sign up as a guest star among a cast of main characters.

As with every television format, guest stars serve only for the glory of those that receive top billing.

But when you’re aching for sexual action you gladly accept the part of Bystander 1. It’s better than not being cast at all.

So when Guy #210 and #211 pushed me against a wall from two angles, I expected a threesome to which I more or less had to surrender, which I was fine with.

Like two actors in a main cast my two companions had clearly played together before, many times. Guy #210 knew exactly what #211 liked and vice versa.

Guy #210 quickly positioned me in front of him, with Guy #211 in front of me. And that’s when the instructions started:
“Grab his shoulders.”
“Grab them harder.”
“Spank him.”
“Now choke him.”

Guy #210 was the dominant one, and his goal was to dominate me into dominating Guy #211.

The thing is I’m about as dominant as Mike Pence on weed.

It was easy for me to submit myself to the instructions I was given, even kind of comfortable. I did fail miserably at being dominant though.

Being dominant on command is unnatural. Also, I’m mostly good at just being me, and that’s only when you catch me on a good day.

So like a guest star, I was allowed to join an episode, have a few lines, do a little routine and then get lost again.

Guy #210 and #211 were two American tourists celebrating Amsterdam in a gay sauna and they had picked me not so much to celebrate with, but to celebrate off.

I did everything I was asked, up until the point I was asked to choke Guy #211. I wrapped my hand around his neck, but couldn’t bring myself to exert any force. I’m not one to choke strangers.

My failure to properly suffocate Guy #211 signaled the end of our affair, some 5 minutes after it had started.

We politely exchanged names afterward and I wished my two companions a pleasant continuation of their vacation. They were already busy working their next target when we said goodbye.

Submissive Guys can be the most aggressive hunters. And dominant types sometimes don’t come out of their shell before third base.

It can get kinda weird when you made your home in the middle ground as I have.

Sex with Guy #210 and #211 was exactly that: a little weird. Expertly choreographed, neatly executed, perfectly adjusted to the format they were used to, but a little weird.

It was still better than not being cast at all though.

Guy #194 – The cutest Guy in the sauna…

In a gay sauna, there are three types of Guys:

The nontouchables, or people I don’t want to touch no matter how often they grab my balls. They account for about 90% of sauna guests, are often fat and hairy, not to mention high.
The touchables, 9% of Guys I could see myself doing, not the cream of the crop I pay my admission for but more than attractive enough to have a go on when I am high.
The untouchables, those 1% of Guys I would love to do, but am too shy for to try. Whenever I go to a gay sauna, I aim to score one of these, or rather to have an untouchable hit me up.

Cruising through a gay sauna, you try to avoid the nontouchables, attain a casually ambivalent attitude toward the touchables and follow the movement of the few untouchables like a hawk.

Catching an untouchable is a rare delight, like finding out ABBA is back together or not testing positive for gonorrhea even though your previous date did.

Given that my hunting strategy consists of passively waiting in a corner till an untouchable touches me, I usually settle for having sex with a touchable.

That’s not a complaint by the way. I’m way more at ease in the presence of someone I deem myself worthy of, making it fairly easy for me to suppress my issues. If touchables have taught me anything it’s that looks and chemistry only correlate when you let them.

Guy #194 on all accounts was a great touchable. He was attractive and made an effort by coming on to me. Although I was aware of the presence of some untouchables nearby, I forewent the ache of silently hoping for them to hit me up by enjoying the enthusiasm Guy #194 showed.

Sex with Guy #194 as it turned out correlated with his enthusiasm. Even though we had hardly spoken, the way we communicated our sexuality told us we were likeminded, two people who might have similar interests, a shared sense of humor or appreciation for ABBA music. The similarities weren’t acknowledged, but the sex made them feel very likely. And I wasn’t even that high!

Afterward we did speak a little. I told him I had recently written the fictional diary of Kim Jong-un as a novel. Guy #194 responded by giving me his phone number and asking for the link, so he could read it. I was flattered by his interest, which seemed sincere, especially considering I wasn’t all that high.

After lying next to each other for what may have been fifteen minutes or so, I told Guy #194 I was going to cruise some more. He seemed a tad disappointed, but also very accepting.
“I had a great time with you,” I said, hoping to make me walking away and looking for other people to have sex with less awkward.
“You too,” Guy #194 said, “I caught the cutest Guy in the sauna.”
“Really?” I asked, wanting to milk the compliment as best I could.
“Yeah, I saw you and said to myself That’s the Guy I want to hook up with tonight.”
“Wow, thank you!,” I said and walked away, making it all the more awkward I was doing so to have sex with other people.

I needed the compliment, badly.

Also present that night was Guy #168, whom I was very much in love with at the time. A week before I had invited him to this orgy where he never showed up. My intuition told me I had a decent chance of running into him at this particular sauna this night. My intuition had proven right.

It thrilled me Guy #168 was also there, allowing me to show off how much of a catch I was. At the same time it was a frustrating experience, as the good parts of me jumped off a cliff each time Guy #168 came near. There was definitely some chemistry between the two of us, but I was all but incapable of channeling it into something sexual. He was, as one might call it, an untouchable. So instead of trying to have sex with Guy #168, I wondered off, hooked up with Guy #194 and got labeled an untouchable myself.

Thank you, universe.

Yet instead of revelling in Guy #194’s adoration, I left him to find Guy #168 to tell him I just had awesome sex and that the Guy I’d gotten it from thought I was the cutest Guy in the sauna.
“Ow,” Guy #168 replied with a rather heartless ‘good-for-you’ inflection.
“Turns out I can be a good bottom to the right Guy,” I continued, trying way too hard to point Guy #168 to my finer qualities as a human being.

Guy #168 was probably the most dysfunctional crush I ever had: I met the wonderful Guy #194, he thought I was the cutest Guy around and even wanted to read my book. Had I bottomed for him another time, I might have actually sold a copy.

Instead I just wanted Guy #168 to know how awesome some random Guy thought I was. I never even got around to sending Guy #194 the link to my book.

I guess when someone labels me an untouchable, I really play the part, treating Guy #194 as Guy #168 treated me, getting my karma served to me instantly.

Thanks a lot, universe!

Guy #182 and #183 – 2 blowjobs, 0 memories…

I started 168guys.com, among other reasons, because I was convinced every Guy I ever had sex with is a story to be told.

After all, sex is special, intimate, animalistic and on and off rewarding. Sex is eventful.

Or at least, it had been eventful every time when I started this blog. That’s why I was able to retrieve every Guy I ever did from memory when I started writing.

These days, whenever I have sex with a Guy I make a note of it. I guess I always knew the more sex you have, the less eventful it becomes, the easier it gets for Guys to leave my brain well before I address them here.

Enter Guys #182 and #183.

I have no idea who they were, what they looked like or how rewarding it was. All I know is that I came back home one morning, opened my Excel sheet and wrote:

Guy #182/#183: Two Guys who gave me a blowjob in a steam room in Amsterdam’s gay sauna.

Then I closed my laptop and didn’t think of them until now, only to be confronted by an apparent hole in my memory.

I think it says a lot about this gay scene I cruise so often. You meet a lot of people who are unremarkable, or you meet the most amazing people in the most unremarkable of circumstances, or you simply can’t be bothered to be remarkable yourself. The word ‘cruising’ is apt if nothing else. It’s something you can do on autopilot, without thinking about it too much. It might even be a little boring sometimes.

Sure, getting a blowjob can easily be the highlight of my day. Getting two blowjobs might even count as a good day, but I’ve been out of the closet for a well over 4000 days now. That’s 4000 days of hunting, being hunted, dates, failed dates, hundreds of Grindr chats that went somewhere, thousands that went nowhere and more than 300 Guys I actually had sex with, two of whom gave me a blowjob this one time.

Mathematically it’s actually rather sound of me to forget a blowjob here and there. I’m a Guy, not Rain Man.

Drugs, orgies, gay saunas, all on and off rewarding experiences that apparently butchered one of the core beliefs that started this blog: that every Guy I ever had sex with is a story to be told.

So out of respect for my waived convictions, here’s the story of Guy #182 and #183:

Judging by the chronology of my Excel sheet, I entered this steam room one night in either July or August or September of 2016, where I assumedly sat down for no other reason than to be found. I was found, first by Guy #182 and then by Guy #183. They may have happened within minutes of each other or hours apart, but timing aside I allowed both to put my penis into their mouth for the explicit purpose of creating what I used to think of as an event. It can’t have lasted longer than a few minutes each and it can’t have been eventful. It could very well have been slightly enjoyable.
Afterward I went home, made a note of it, then forgot it ever happened.

The end.

Guy #172 and #173 – Quitting smoking is easy. I do it all the time…

Gay saunas.

A lot of my stories take place in a gay sauna, even though I consider myself a sensitive person who prefers an intimate hug over an anonymous quickie. So why the many, many quickies?

To me, sex with strangers is a bit like cigarettes: every month you go without them is a good month. Every day you deprive yourself of nicotine a month feels like an eternity. It’s not that I’m a sex addict, but I do lack the patience to let life run its course. Sex tends to find me every so often. But if I actively pursue sex, I get it more often and I live life under the assumption that more sex is more good, even if it’s bad sex.

Enter gay saunas, the quick fix of gay sex.
The fifth cigarette of the day is not that rewarding, but the first one in a month is pure oral glory. On average, I probably visit a gay sauna about once a month, when I haven’t had sex for that long. Or when I have a free night with nothing better to do. Or when I think my hair looks good and I feel like showing off. Or when I just feel like showing off. Or when I just want to feel something.

When I go to a gay sauna, I hope to find someone I can talk to, laugh with, cuddle and penetrate. Finding guys to penetrate is easy. Talking, laughing, cuddling are bigger hurdles.
In part this is due to my narcissism: I only talk, laugh and cuddle with people that fit my image of perfection.
The other part has to do with the very nature of gay saunas:

I first met Guy #172 in some dark corridor. We pursued each other for a few minutes, passed each other while semi-accidentally touching our bodies and pretended not to check each other out. Penetration was on the menu, that much was clear.

Sadly, the sauna we were in was packed, meaning every cabin was taken. If Guy #172 and I wanted to have sex, we would have to do it out in the open, in the very corridor we met.

This is not unusual for gay saunas. Whenever I’m there I see people having sex all the time. I prefer having sex where no one can see me, but gay saunas are an orgy of compromises. Guy #172 and I didn’t have the time or space to talk, laugh or cuddle, but darn it, I had captured him as my first prey of the evening and I wasn’t going to let him off without me giving it to him.
We had but a wall to lean against, so that’s what we did, in full view of everybody who was there.

Here’s the thing with having sex in a gay sauna where everybody can see you: everybody can touch you there as well. To some people this is seen as an invitation. And for some reason it’s always the fat sweaty hairy old nasty Danny DeVito lookalikes that pick up on it.

If you’re a Danny DeVito lookalike who frequents gay saunas and thinks it’s okay to grope people just because they’re engaged in sex, stop doing that! You are the Bill Cosby’s of gaytopia. Nothing is more annoying than putting on a condom while a pack of Danny DeVito’s disrupts your balance trying to get a sense of what your testicles feel like.

Because that’s what happened as I pushed Guy #172 up against our wall and rubbered up to do my thing to him: people started touching us, wanting in on the fun. Guy #172 and I were more engaged in shoving other people’s hands off our bodies than we were with each other. At one point we even had to shout at someone to leave us alone.

Okay, granted, you don’t go around raping people like Bill Cosby, so let me take it down a notch: you’re the gay sauna equivalent of crying babies on an airplane. Imagine sipping on your first cigarette in a month time. Now add Danny DeVito grabbing your balls to the picture. That’s you – and I know you know who you are.

Frustrated by the people around us, Guy #172 and I moved around a bit in hopes of finding an empty cabin, or at the very least to get away from our intruders. Yet everywhere we went, we were denied the joy of consensual penetration by the hands of people who were even more of a stranger to me than Guy #172.

The bond Guy #172 and I had was mostly the sentiment we shared toward the people around us. Eventually, we more or less gave up and went our own way.

It left me feeling empty inside, but not undeterred, as it wasn’t long before Guy #173 and I started pretending not to check each other out. Within minutes we were all over each other.

To my surprise we managed to find a cabin, a space where no one could impose on our little romance. I could freely penetrate, and if that went well maybe follow up on it with some nice talking, laughing and cuddling, something narcissist me is in the mood for about 10% of the time after climaxing with a stranger.

Guy #173 and I quickly worked through the three stages of gay foreplay (kissing, oral and tentative humping), and then I grabbed a condom.
“I have this allergy for rubber,” Guy #173 interrupted me.
“And I’m allergic to HIV,” I told him.
It’s not that I never take risks or that I don’t hate condoms as much as anyone who’s never had AIDS, but like any sensible gay Guy, I only take risks with extremely cute people. I simply wasn’t high enough to consider Guy #173 that cute. I knew that if I would bareback him, I would only feel regret afterward, and that I wouldn’t want to talk, laugh, let alone cuddle him.
“I’m clean though,” Guy #173 assured me.
“Sorry, I just never have unsafe sex,” I lied as if I was Bill Cosby offering a woman a drink.
Guy #173 reiterated just how clean he was. It was hard not to believe him, as I really wanted to get my fix.

That’s another thing with gay saunas these days: back in the 80s, Bill Cosby gave us a laugh and HIV was scary. How the tables have turned. As such, Guys in saunas dispense with condoms more often than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. Guy #173 only seemed concerned with convincing me he was clean. He didn’t even ask about my status. As we talked about him being so clean, I noticed the mattress we were on still contained the sweat of those who had used it before us. It made me realize I was pursuing a fix in the easiest, but far from the best place to do so.

Guy #173 took off after he realized barebacking was off the table.

I was left feeling frustrated, but nevertheless relieved. I was unsatisfied, but took comfort in the fact I wouldn’t have to spend the next month on the lookout for symptoms of acute HIV infection.

So I celebrated my little victory. With a well deserved cigarette. My first one in well over a month.

Guy #158 – Dumped by an angel…

It was January 1^st 2016, 4 a.m. I had spent the night before celebrating New Year at a party at a friend of a friend’s house, gobbling up the free wine as if there was no tomorrow. The place was Amsterdam, the city that never sleeps for a good two days a year, one of those being January 1^st.

Generally speaking I’m not a big fan of the holiday season. I mostly like New Year’s celebrations because they announce the cessation of the generically merry festivities December is known for. So when the party at my friend’s friend’s place was starting to die off, I decided to try my luck at the local gay sauna, because surely there’s no place to not celebrate the season than at a gay sauna, a sentiment felt by many gay people, as the place was packed.

This particular night the sauna was filled with so many cute Guys I instantly knew I would start the new year on a positive note, something I was in need of at the time. I had just finished writing my first novel entitled The Super Secret Diary of a Young Dictator and had already received a few rejection letters from publishers who didn’t consider it the War and Peace of our time. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I had no idea how I would go about selling myself as one.

As I scoured that night’s sauna looking for someone to up my ego through means of anal I enjoyed the many luscious looks I was getting. When I went to the bar to get a drink I found myself standing next to a somewhat cute looking Guy who at sight of me started caressing my chest with a heartwarming familiarity that won me over instantly. I knew this was far from the cutest Guy I could lay my hands on that night, but I reasoned having some fun with him could serve as a nice appetizer for other Guys to come.

And so it happened this Guy became Guy #158, my first lover of 2016. We secluded ourselves to the darker corners of our already secluded venue, where we had lovely sex that eventually flowed into lovely conversation. Guy #158 told me about himself. He was an American artist who was currently traveling the world, going from one exhibition to the next, selling his work, doing what he loves and getting laid in pretty much every time zone. It wasn’t long before I realized Guy #158 was living the life I wanted to live.

Hoping to get some valuable life lessons I told Guy #158 about my predicament. I specifically mentioned I considered it meaningful to start off the new year doing someone who was living my dream: writing, traveling and getting laid. Guy #158 told me about the importance of marketing myself and that I couldn’t reasonably expect to be successful if I didn’t put myself out there the way I usually only do when I’m at a gay sauna. It was at this point Guy #158 suggested I self publish my book. Up till then I had not considered the fact we live in a time where we can post anything we do online, including entire books.

Guy #158 and I had a great time together and I was very appreciative of his wisdom, so when he suggested we’d leave the sauna and finish the holiday season in his hotel room, I immediately said ‘Yes’, looking forward to spending the day in bed with someone I felt absolutely at ease with while at the same time getting valuable career advice.

The two of us quickly got dressed and met up at the sauna’s checkout counter. Guy #158 was the first one to walk through, followed by myself a few seconds later.

That’s when things turned eerie.

When I stepped outside Guy #158 was all but gone. I found myself in a small alley that stretched a good 50 meters in both directions, but couldn’t see Guy #158 anywhere. Feeling a bit stupid I asked the bouncer if he had seen anyone come out in front of me. He said he hadn’t, empathetically but also with little interest for my social life, almost as if ‘No’ was the only answer at his disposal, him being a bouncer and all.

I waited in said alley for about ten minutes, doubting everything that had just happened. Guy #158 seemed to have vanished into thin air. At first I figured that maybe he was still inside, which is why I waited for him to come out. Yet in my mind I had a very clear memory of him leaving the sauna mere seconds before I did. Did he suddenly change his mind and ran off? Surely no human being could cover 50 meters in mere seconds after receiving the amount of anal I had just given this one. And if the bouncer had seen someone running away wouldn’t he have told me? Besides, why would Guy #158 have disappeared on me? We’d been having a good time. He had even told me how good he felt in my company.

Nothing made sense.

I felt like a bit of a loser, standing in the cold at 6 a.m. on January 1^st, alone and completely at odds with everything that had just happened. Part of me questioned if Guy #158 had been real. The way he had disappeared lacked a rational explanation.
After enduring the cold for about ten minutes, not to mention the increasingly annoying stares of the bouncer who didn’t like me standing in front of his entrance as if I had no life to speak of, I made my way to the train station, disillusioned, disappointed and with less ego than the year before. The only thing offering solace was the career advice I had been given. While I’m usually not too keen on attributing the unexplainable to the paranormal, that’s what my whole affair with Guy #158 had come to feel like.

A few weeks later I published my book on Amazon and ventured into the ins and outs of book marketing. Guy #158 to me had become an apparition of sorts. I’m still not 100% sure he was real, that’s how unreal his disappearance had been. The theory best fitting my senses is that Guy #158 was an angel from above, sent to inspire me to get my life on track.

Since its publication The Super Secret Diary of a Young Dictator went on to sell a staggering 30 copies.

So yeah, I probably got stood up by a Guy at 6 a.m. on January 1^st.
Or, at best, I got stood up by an angel.

Guy #146 – Why do gay saunas have to be so dark?

Why do gay saunas have to be so dark?

Dimly lit hallways, faint beams of light at waist level, the air of horniness interwoven with the smell of poppers… It’s the perfect environment to show off one’s gym hours without having to truly reveal one’s self. In other words: Darkness carries both truth and lies further than light tends to.

Gay saunas are places people go to hide as much as they go to hunt. I suppose darkness facilitates both.
I for one go to gay saunas because I like to shine. Sure I aim to find someone porkable, but beneath that is a Guy who just wants to feel loved, something I believe is true for anyone who has pork on the menu. Wanting to shine is just my narcissistic translation for wanting to be loved.

Even though I am insecure about my looks as any pig would be, I know I’m generally considered attractive. The main reason Guys keep their distance is because they’re shy. Being shy myself, I pretend not to look at other people as much as people pretend not to look at me.
Darkness is a contributing factor in all of that and if I’m being completely honest, darkness is where I too shine the most, unhampered by the hassle of facial contact that often lies on the road to getting laid.

Still, if it were up to me I would prefer to meet people where I can see them.

Guy #146 taught me that.

I first saw Guy #146 as he entered the steam cabin I was just leaving. The very definition of cruising dictates one doesn’t make any sudden course adjustments. When you cruise, you cruise, always acting as if you have a destination to be at. Even though Guy #146 and I first saw each other going in opposite directions, me turning around and following him would have been too desperate. Even in a place where it’s just about sex, desire is best expressed in subtleties.

Guy #146 being hot looking in every sense of the word I positioned myself in a sauna that came with a view to the steam room my prey had just entered. There I sat, quietly waiting as one does at a bus stop, until Guy #146 left his steamy quarters. From there he disappeared into a dark alley full of hunters such as myself.

I went in pursuit.

‘Pursuit’ in this case meant navigating myself through a handful of crotch grabbing elderly men as quickly and quietly as I could, until I got Guy #146 in my sight again. My walking speed being well above the cruising limit I knew my intentions were now out in the open. If I wanted a chance with this Guy, I would have to sell my quick pace as an act of assertion, so I did. I stumbled toward Guy #146 and gently caressed his shoulder, not exactly a move befitting the top I wanted to be, but in that moment I was happy enough to have overcome my shyness.

My approach felt clumsier and more out of place than a 747 landing on an aircraft carrier. Assertive, sure, but far from gracious. As such, it came as a surprise Guy #146 replied to my improvisational assertiveness by grabbing my balls and kissing me. Having trouble believing my luck I immediately followed suit by pushing Guy #146 toward the nearest available cabin, kissing him all the way.

It wasn’t until Guy #146 and I had removed our towels and were lying next to each other on a sweaty mattress that I discovered Guy #146 had chest hair, something he didn’t have a few minutes before at that steam room. It took me about two seconds to do the math: The Guy I was sharing a cabin with was not Guy #146. I mean, technically this was the 146^th Guy I was having sex with, but not my intended target.

I had accidentally captured the wrong Guy. Somewhere in my pursuit the Guy I was chasing had eloped me, only to be replaced by someone whose hairdo, body, length and posture seemed similar in what little light we were granted.

Which begs the question: Why do gay saunas have to be so dark?

It’s the question that went through my mind as I halfheartedly had sex with Guy #146. Even though this Guy was nowhere near as cute the one I’d been chasing, I remember him being a good enough kisser. That at least made up for some of his chest hair.

However, I couldn’t shake the feeling of having failed, probably because that’s exactly what I had done as far as the hunt was concerned. Guy #146 and I ended up spending no more than five minutes together. Falling comfortably within the realm of courtesy in a gay sauna, I simply stopped having sex and left Guy #146 alone in his cabin, telling him I needed to be in a brighter place.

The day I accidentally fooled around with Guy #146 would mark the last time I exceeded the cruising speed limit. I also picked up the habit of checking out Guys at the bar before chasing them through dark corridors filled with the scent of poor judgment.

Darkness had allowed me to chase a Guy. Darkness had allowed me to make a move. Darkness got me intimate with someone. In turn, Guy #146 would never have gotten close to my testicles had it not been for darkness. Darkness goes hand in hand with intimacy. Darkness smoothes seduction. Darkness is social lubricant.

I guess darkness is part of the compromise inherent to the concept of a gay sauna. It’s a place where the things we don’t reveal about ourselves carry as much weight as the wrinkles that do show. I’d be lying if I said the darkness doesn’t make me feel safe and secure.

The cute Guy I had my eyes on at first? I ran into him later that night, as I sat down in a whirlpool, inches away from his personal space. I made a move, but my hand was shoved back the way it came.

That’s another thing. Rejection is very bearable under the cover of darkness. I look for darkness to shine, and when I don’t, when I turn dark inside, there’s no one to witness it.

Thank god gay saunas are so dark.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 5 minutes
FORMAT: Mistake
SEX SCORE (0 = Hair when you don’t expect it <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 4.5

Guy #32 and #33 – Stroke that ego…

There’s one very simple moral to every story here on 168guys.com: Love and sex are inseparable. If you’re looking for sex you’re looking for love.

While quite a few gay people told me they enjoy reading this blog, some have trouble accepting its message.

When I look around it’s as if people want to live in a world where love and sex can live apart.

Which is why gay saunas exist. They help maintain the illusion that sex can be a commodity.

Granted, we don’t have sex with total strangers because we want to love total strangers. We have sex with total strangers because we want to love ourselves, if only for a short while.

Gay guys visit gay saunas because we are lured by our egos.

I’m not judging by the way.

There’s nothing wrong with having someone stroke your ego every so often. It’s what it’s there for.

We say it’s just sex, so we may pretend hurt is off the menu.

But when you go to a place where people wear towels instead of clothes you expose your needy ego to the elements it craves the most. That can be a risky game.

I met Guy #32 in a whirlpool. As is so often the case in whirlpools, words were never part of our relationship. We looked at each other, got within lip range and started kissing.

Guy #32 was very cute in my opinion. My ego started salivating like a Pavlovian dog when he touched me at places my ego likes to be touched the most.

Guy #32 was also just the beginning, because a minute or so into our relationship, Guy #33 came out of nowhere and slid himself and his gorgeous body into the whirlpool. He sat down right next to me.

I found myself right smack in the middle of two beautiful naked guys that either kissed me, touched me or both. Sure it was just about sex, but I couldn’t help but feel like being one of the cool kids. I had never felt like a cool kid before.

I was finally at a place where my own sexuality had matured to the point reality was on par with my fantasies. My ego opened up and settled in for the trip to heaven.

That’s when Guy #32 and #33 got up and walked away, leaving me alone in my whirlpool.

They didn’t say anything. They just left. Together.

At first I figured I had fallen victim to a simple communication error, something easily remedied. So I got up and followed Guy #32 and #33. I found them making out in a steam room. As soon as they noticed my presence they got up and walked away.

It wasn’t a communication hiccup. It was a cold hearted rejection. Guy #32 and #33 wanted something that didn’t involve me. That was unfortunate, as I had just exposed my bare ego on the assumption I was one of the cool kids.

Maybe I was too sensitive to be satisfying my sexuality through sex instead of love. Maybe I should never have gone to gay saunas. Being shunned from a threesome hurts. I can’t pretend it didn’t. It may very well have been the first moment I ever realized there is no such thing as just sex.

At the time I didn’t quite understand why I felt hurt. My previous sexual encounters had already made me feel attractive and cute. I knew I had no reason for feeling insecure, but no rationalization could keep me from feeling the way I did: Like an unattractive and undoable outsider.

It felt like being a virgin again. It reminded me of that time I was convinced no one would ever see the beauty in me.

Gay saunas is where the umbilical cord between love and sex is stretched to its limit. But no matter how thin the cord is stretched, it never breaks.

It took me a good half hour to get over Guy #32 and #33. I allowed both to become a part of my past when I ran into Guy #34 later that night, but that’s another story.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 1-2 minutes
FORMAT: Foreplay followed up by exclusion
SEX SCORE BEFORE REJECTION (0 = What Hitler felt like when he was rejected from art school <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 9
SEX SCORE AFTER REJECTION: N/A (sadly)

Guy #17 – Not perfect enough…

I visited a gay sauna recently.

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept: A gay sauna is a facility where guys have sex with anonymous strangers in dimly lit conditions.

The first guy to hit on me was a chubby guy with a funny accent.
“Hi, you pretty boy,” he said as he sat down next to me and laid his arm around my neck.
“Thank you,” I said, as I pushed his arm back where it came from.
“Where you from?”
“I live in the Caribbean.”
“Ah, Asia.”
“Not quite.”
Silently, we sat next to each other for a moment. Not wanting to be impolite, I stretched our conversation somewhat: “Where are you from?”
“Eritrea.”
“Wow. What’s it like being gay over there?”
“I’m no gay. I have wife and kids. I’m bi.”
“So does your wife know you go to gay saunas?”
“No, she not know. I’m no gay. Only once a year I come here and fuck boy. You boy.”
I wished my Eritrean bisexual acquaintance good luck on his quest for a boy that was not me.

The second guy was clearly on drugs.
“Do you think my hair looks scruffy?” he asked.
“You mean curly?”
“No, I know it’s curly. It’s supposed to be curly. It just feels scruffy. Really scruffy.”
“I don’t think anyone will notice in this light.”
“How about my teeth?”
“What about your teeth?”
“Is there plaque on my teeth?”
The guy showed me his smoker’s teeth. I told him his teeth looked fine, though he reminded me I really ought to quit smoking.

The third guy had a job at airport security. He told me he sent off passengers for flight MH 17 last year, the one that got shot down over the Ukraine.
“There was this one man who arrived at the gate late, afraid he had missed his flight. I helped him get on board. I remember his relief for having made it.”
“It must be unreal to realize you saw so many people that were just hours away from their deaths.”
“Yes, it was. I needed some time to cope with it. So, are you a bottom?”
“I don’t think that’s relevant at this point.”

It’s nights like these that make me miss people like Guy #17.

Guy #17 could have been the real thing.

I believe every body goes through life aching for and because of that real thing. A gay sauna is a place where intimacy meets up with lust, the way a symphony orchestra could accompany a rock band. It’s a place where people can find love with minimal amounts of hurt. It’s also a place where people get high on poppers, XTC and roofies, or just plain weed in my case. I believe we take those drugs because they obliterate the hurt that comes with love, in each and every sense of the word.

Guy #17 was a nerd, living proof of the fact that the brain is by far the sexiest organ. Seriously, I get really turned on by a guy who can have a conversation about quantum physics during sex.
We ended up dating for a few months. I mostly remember how much I felt at home whenever we simply lay in bed together, against each other, not saying anything, exhausted from all the physics we’d done.

I think Guy #17 fell in love with me somewhat. I on the other hand wasn’t ready for that. I knew there was still so much I wanted to explore. If love were to find its way to me, I figured, it would have to be perfect in each and every way. And Guy #17 wasn’t perfect. For example, this one time he got a little drunk and I didn’t really like him that way.
So there was that.

Of course, the only place I ever met the perfect guy was at a gay sauna. And Guy #106 was only perfect because he never called me back, and because I was high at the time.

Guy #17 and I never broke up. We simply stopped seeing each other. I wasn’t ready to commit myself to someone with imperfections. The distance flowed naturally from there on out.

Still, in the dark corridors of a gay sauna, where complete strangers engage in a battle of lust, love, rejection and ostensible perfection, it’s easy to miss a guy who could explain relativity to me when it mattered the most: during sex.

Relationship summary:

LENGTH: 7 years and counting
FORMAT: A few months of dating, followed by friendship (mostly on Facebook) that lasts till this day
SEX SCORE (0 = A Twilight movie marathon <–> 10 = The best sex ever): 8.5