U developed your gaydar pretty early in life didn't U? . . . i didn't lose my virginity to a guy until i was 20, but way before that i knew who i might approach for guidance in that area . . . like the hunky coach who did double duty as my freshman English teacher in high school . . . i was the only student he never paddled in class for disciplinary reasons and he was the only coach who encouraged me to pursue gymnastics when my lack of interest or ability in group sports became evident . . . nothing ever happened between us, but maybe something could have if i had been as aggressive as this kid i've seen for years at the Columbia gym . . . he must be a faculty or staff brat and from the moment his big brown eyes first carressed me, i knew he would grow up into a fageleh . . . which is why i resolutely avoided him at no great hardship since the only chicken i like is the kind u bake in the oven . . . still, i must confess that more than once i discreetly observed his behavior, admiring his ability to slip from rappin' white boy playing basketball with gangsta wanna-bes on the basketball court to horny homo cruising the locker room . . . i don't know exactly how old he is, but nobody who has sex with him could be accused of pedophilia . . . i don't think they even could be accused of what the shrinks are now calling ephebophila. . . but perhaps i'm rationalizing because of what happened yesterday . . . i saw him, now a big, strapping young man practically oozing testoserone, peek into the sauna as i sat there with a couple of other guys, including a father and his young son . . . he entered, fully clothed, and took a seat across from me . . . i avoided eye contact but as soon as we were alone, he grabbed the crotch of his baggy jeans . . . when i neither responded nor exited after a minute or two, he untied his sneakers, removed his pants and underwear, and began jerking off his large, slightly crooked dick and lifting his shirt so that he could expose his abs and pinch his left nipple . . . he barely bothered to hide what he was doing when another guy walked in which made me wonder if they knew one another, but my potential partner in pederasty left after doing a couple of stretches . . . no doubt about it, i was turned on and quickly seized the opportunity to spank my monkey, too, after a long dry spell . . . i ejaculated almost immediately, just as he moved over to join me . . . hot in here, isn't it? he asked, clearly hoping i would stick around until he got sticky too . . . i nodded yes, patted his knee lightly and got the hell out of there . . . now let's turn back the clock a couple of years and pretend i was a gay priest and that he did what he had done in a confession booth . . . and let's suppose that it pissed him off that i didn't respond or that i didn't wait for him to have an orgasm and that he decided to report me for molesting him . . . who, exactly, is the sexual predator? . . . prior to this incident, i would have argued that any priest found in a sexually compromising situation with an adolescent should be defrocked . . . today i'm not so sure . . . would U accuse me of "preying" on a very young man who obviously entered the sauna with seduction on his mind?

sex can be a lot like travelling and lately i've been spending a lot of time in the land of PNP, where dildos are as big as my forearm and nobody's dick seems to get really hard except mine . . . this may be the reason i get a temporary visa to begin with since i pretty much can take or leave the drugs that go with the territory . . . U see, i'm an atypical addict: sex, just sex, is my preferred high, as much for economic reasons (so far i've never had to pay for it, knock wood) as any objection to recreational drug use . . . but lately, helping D rearrange his furniture has become more satisfying than chasing rapture . . . i've always rationalized my promiscuity as a means to an end and if finding Mr. Right has eluded me, at least i've shot thousands of hot loads along the way . . . so what's the problem now? . . . why can't i cum anymore? . . . have i hit the sex addict's equivalent of rock bottom? . . . take yesterday, for instance . . . i didn't have high expectations . . . at least i'll get to see another apartment in Greenwich Village i thought en route, recalling last week's memorable but also orgasmless experience when a butch Irishman with a taste for foreskin had invited me to his place on the corner of Washington and Horatio . . . i nearly walked out when he turned out to be at least ten years older than his picture and the age he claimed in his profile, but boredom and candy colored light drew me inside to the rear of his darkened lair . . . do u party? he asked as i took a seat on the towel he had draped over his leather couch and he kneeled in front of me, tattooed and pierced . . . i shook my head but accepted his offer of poppers . . . u can grab me by the back of the neck or by the ears but please don't touch the top of my head he requested before he got down to his non-reciprocal labor of love . . . and labor he did, tho he seemed to enjoy sucking my cock for close to half an hour while my mind wandered, noticing the autographed Madonna poster on the exposed brick wall at about the same time that i realized he was wearing a toupee . . . so that explains his aversion to any head grabbing enthusiasm on my part! . . . meanwhile voices outside were marveling at his ground floor windows . . . it's like stained glass . . . curiosity killed my woody despite liberal applications of Eros and continued expert ministrations by his tongue, the kind that concentrate on the head, not the shaft . . . u know this Eros is like liquid gold, don't u? he asked . . . i buy it by the case in Amsterdam where everything is so much cheaper . . . they even put phony labels on the poppers for u so u can get them thru customs . . . u should see how i got a dozen mushrooms into the country, he added, obviously warming to his favorite topic . . . i opened teabags, emptied the tea, replaced it with the crushed mushrooms and voila! . . . his drug smuggling tips interested me less than finding out how he got the Madonna autograph (they share the same doctor) and learning about his unique windows . . . they're an unofficial Village landmark he boasted, explaining that he filled dozens of clear glass bottles in a variety of shapes with colored water and then glued them to horizontal shelving that also held hanging plants to achieve a jungle rainbow effect . . . u can't make a decent purplehe whined . . . fortunately a neighbor called for "help in writing a song" . . . it sounded like a drug deal to me but it did provide a convenient excuse to say goodbye to this sweet, but slightly deranged Martha Stewart wanna-be . . . yesterday's scene, however, was so sordid that i fled PNP land not long after arriving . . . the darkened apartment on MacDougal Street had no redeeming features tho the 30something Puerto Rican who responded to my knock at the door might have resembled his photo on a good day . . . he led me into an unkempt bedroom where he had just started a porno tape featuring some midwestern blond boy with a very big dick . . . i probably should have left when i spotted the open can of Crisco on his bed but i was attracted to his smooth lean body . . . he smoked some crystal before removing his dirty jeans and demanding that i open his undouched butt with one, two, three fingers while i sucked his thick, barely hard cock . . . poppers kept me going briefly despite his lack of interest in anything other than my hand or mouth . . . he must have sensed my disenchantment because when he suggested i change positions i found a flesh-colored dildo on the bed so enormous that i wondered if Godzilla was going to be joining us or if his prostate was missing in action . . . damn if he didn't take almost all 16 inches up his ass with a little Crisco, urging me to go easy, slower, deeper . . . when i couldn't quite get the hang of what he claimed was his brand new toy he took over and asked me to retrieve the black plate where he kept his pipe and instructed me to wipe up the remaining white powder with my finger . . . rub it around my hole, Papi, but be careful because it burns a little . . . then he offered me a bump of K . . . call me as vanilla as Dolly Madison but it suddenly dawned on me that the only way i could enjoy his level of depravity was to get as fucked up as he was . . . instead, i announced this isn't working for me and quickly began to dress . . . when he went into the bathroom i grabbed one of the towels that he had used to keep from soiling the sheets and wiped my hands as clean as i could before trying to bolt . . . he found me at his door, unable to release the locks for a quick exit . . . easy, Papi, easy.

"The moment a man starts to tell you about sex, he's telling you something about the two of you. Ninety per cent of the time it doesn't happen, and probably it's as well it doesn't, though if you can't get a level of candor on sex and you choose to behave instead as if this isn't ever on your mind, the male friendship is incomplete. Most men never find such a friend. It's not common. But when it does happen, when two men find themselves in agreement about this essential part of being a man, unafraid of being judged, shamed, envied, or outdone, confident of not having the confidence betrayed, their human connection can be very strong and an unexpected intimacy results." Philip Roth, The Human Stain, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000, p. 27.

"The contaminant of sex, the redeeming corruption that de-idealizes the species and keeps us everlastingly mindful of the matter that we are." Philip Roth, The Human Stain, p. 37.