Porn.
How I used to love it.
Because if sex is enjoyable, watching people you kind of wish you’d look like having sex is a pleasant alternative.
I was about 18 years old when I got internet. It’s safe to say I reached maturity to the tune of Pshhhkkrrkakingkakingkakingtshchchding!ding!ding!
When I first went online I searched this internet, or Altavista as I called it, for pictures of airplanes. They took a minute to download. If I was lucky, I would find a three second clip of an airplane taking off, angering my mother who didn’t want me to occupy the phone line for an hour and a half.
I intuitively liked the internet. It didn’t have a lot of cat videos at the time, but I couldn’t imagine ever being in need of pussy. Instead, it wasn’t long before the following thought occurred to me: If Altavista has pictures of planes flying, does it also have pictures of boys riding?
It was that tiny era of human history when credit cards stood in the way of watching full-fledged porn movies, so I settled for the excitement of tiny thumbnails. Still, Altavista had pictures of boys riding alright. Sure the phone bill got a little higher, but for the first time I saw how my own sexuality was in fact quite common and not particularly unpleasant to look at.
To those who tried to call me during this time of my life, getting a busy signal probably meant I was busy masturbating.
This one time I landed on a site that had three videos a few minutes each. It was the first time I got my hands on a bit of actual porn, not just a tiny thumbnail, but actual moving imagery, video of lots of Guys engaged in lots of sex! I felt like Columbus setting foot in The New World. The videos took about an hour to download. I wanted to download more when I read a little disclaimer on the bottom of the site I was visiting. It said it cost seventy cents a minute. That sparked a bit of a panic.
I went offline and closed every window. I removed every bit of digital history I could possibly find. It was the day I first learned about cookies. And having just seen porn it was as if my cookie bin was filled with skeletons that weren’t ready to come out of their closet.
I erased every trace of my porn past. And trust me, I learned a lot about computers that night: Cookies are just the beginning.
The one thing I couldn’t erase was the phone bill.
My mother wasn’t the frugal type, but 40 Euros on a phone bill sparks interest. It even inspired her to call the phone company and ask them about it. I wonder what went through her mind when a helpdesk employee told her someone in her house had been downloading porn.
Curiosity killed the cat, but we didn’t have cats, so I was next in line to have my curiosity reprimanded.
Or so I thought, because my mother actually took it quite well. While I was engulfed in shame, she explained how having a healthy sex drive is only natural, about as natural as paying one’s mother the 40 Euros you owe her due to a self expedition campaign that went over budget.
I’d like to think she enjoyed being a mum in that moment, when she comforted me by saying a high sex drive kind of runs in our family. I think she was relieved at least I was sexual, having never brought home a girlfriend or something that could make her a grandmother someday. Porn gave her that moment, with a little help from the phone company.
It was probably the most embarrassing moment of my life, but porn has never been as exciting as that night I learned where cookies come from.
It was worth every cookie. Those few minutes of gay porn opened up a whole new realm of fantasies…or rather they confirmed those fantasies for me.
Eventually, I would come to chase two things, both of which I was chasing the night I saw my first porn scene: Sex and excitement.
At first, the pursuit of sex went hand in hand with the thrill. It was true the first time I had sex, the first time I had good sex, the first time I had sex with more than one Guy, not to mention that time I did porn myself.
As we all know, obtaining porn these days is easier than ordering a pizza. As for the internet, it has since given birth to Grindr, Hornet and a dozen or so apps that tell me where sex can be found. The more boundaries you break, the more difficult it becomes to find new ones.
As such, the more sex you have the less exciting it becomes…with a few notable exceptions.
One of those exceptions was the first time I attended a gay orgy.
At 33 years of age I got thrust into a bit of gay subculture I hadn’t yet explored. While I was familiar with sex dating, the vast majority of my sexual experiences had been with one Guy at the time. I had experienced this one massive gay orgy some years before, but found it didn’t entice me. The reason a 150 Guy-sexfest didn’t do anything for me was because it had been anonymous, way too crowded, uninspired and lacking all forms of intimacy.
This time however I found myself in the seclusion of a living room at a friend’s house, along with about eight other Guys, all of them horny, all of them aching for sex and excitement and all of them high as a kite. It’s the kind of setting that allows you to bond with total strangers in a heartbeat. Look someone in the eye at an orgy and you’re connecting with someone who’ll bear your secret as you bear it for him. Add some XTC to that and a blowjob becomes a way of saying ‘hi’, a way of sealing the unspoken bond you automatically share at such a gathering.
Being in a room with eight naked Guys was more exciting than anything I’d ever done before, sexually speaking. It was as if the seed that had planted itself the moment Altavista produced its first tiny thumbnail had finally come to fruition. And like that very first time I watched porn, it felt deliciously bad, naughty and consequently rewarding.
Only this time I was able to share the experience with other people. I quickly learned that, to me, it wasn’t sex, it wasn’t the excitement, it was the connection I felt with total strangers that got me high more than anything. Well, that and the XTC of course.
Actually, of all the Guys only two or three were what I would consider hot. The others weren’t really my type, but I was glad to be sharing the experience with them regardless. Really, one shouldn’t underestimate just how potent XTC is.
Even though I had eight naked Guys at my disposal, I mostly focused on Guy #154, whom I had sex with in full view and at times admiration of those present. Guy #154 and I both got high by our mutual attraction to each other, notwithstanding the fact ‘high’ had been the altitude where we first met. We had a great evening as we celebrated our sexual prime on each other. We would later become friends and meet up at numerous parties. Guy #154 would eventually tell me the night of our first meeting had been his first orgy as well. We’ve probably been feeding off each other’s excitement from the day we met.
In fact, I’m glad my first partner at an orgy was someone like Guy #154. At the time I had no way of knowing, but he was the kind of Guy that could empathize with my former self, hopelessly downloading some snippets of gay porn and being caught by my mother in the process. Guy #154 was someone to whom secrecy was an integral part of his existence as, in many ways, it had been for me.
Apart from Guy #154 I also more or less had sex with Guys #155, #156 and #157 that night, albeit briefly. Guy #155 decided he liked my penis so much he wanted to ride it. I would have told him not to, were it not for the fact I was so busy with Guy #154 I hardly noticed him being my bottom bitch for a few minutes. Guys #156 and #157 both did some oral stuff, but nothing spectacular. I had in fact reached a point where the sex itself had become mundane. It was the setting that made it spectacular, like watching porn for the first time. I was finally living a fantasy I had always deemed unrealistic, above me even.
That 18 year old teenager who got hard at the sound of a dial-up modem had set himself on a path of exploration. Thumbnails led to porn, porn led to quietly experimenting with Guys, which in turn had led to all sorts of meaningful experiences, like falling in love, getting hurt and gonorrhea and somehow gaining confidence from all of it. With each sexual experience my confidence had grown somewhat. The more excitement I conquered, the more I culminated into the Guy I wanted to be when Altavista showed me pictures of boys riding.
And here I was, 15 years later, celebrating my sexuality like a champion.
The first time you experience a drug induced gathering where nakedness is the dress code you can’t help but be overwhelmed. It’s one of those Now I’ve seen it all-moments, where you witness four Guys engaged in acrobatics no one would dare tell their mother about, as a fifth Guy casually helps himself to some GHB that’s freely available in the kitchen, while Guy #154 and I enjoy the poppers that scatter the coffee table like biscuits at a high tea. For a few hours time stands still and Earth might just as easily be a completely different planet than the living room you’re in, comfortably stuck in a world where intimacy and sex flow like the drugs that precede them.
It was one of the happiest days of my life, that’s for sure.
Of course, back when Altavista presented me with its first tiny thumbnail I had no idea thumbnails would ever grow to bore me. When I first watched porn, I had not yet experienced a world where internet has more free porn than anyone could watch in a lifetime. Likewise, when I had my first gay orgy, I couldn’t fathom ever being jaded by that much sex.
I would quickly learn it’s not uncommon for gay Guys to get together every so often to share sex and drugs. It’s a wonderful concept, but truth be told the drugs prevented me from seeing the dark side of that much nakedness. It’s something I would grow to experience in the year that followed.
To me, the unexpected highlight of my first orgy (and perhaps every orgy that followed), was the downtime that followed afterward, when the drugs subside and basic underwear replaces all the naked. It’s a time when sex makes place for conversation. It’s like waking up from a journey and being able to ride your sense of wonder together. Being the bearer of each other’s secrets, the air is one of trust and empathy, people get stripped of their defenses and tend to open up completely, as did Guy #154 and me. The afterhours of an orgy are a time of reflection, taking place in a cocoon that shields attendees from the outside world on account of what they’ve just shared with each other. It’s like being that 18 year old kid who sees his first porn movie and getting sucked into that reality right then and there.
At 33 years of age I had my most exciting sexual experience (up till that point that is), 15 years after I discovered it as a possibility. Sex is a journey, a continuous obstacle course with occasional highlights and a never ending string of lessons.
My first orgy taught me two things:
People at orgies always have the most fascinating backstories.
One shouldn’t underestimate the power of XTC.
DO WHAT I DID: START WITH GUY #1!
168guys.com 