Quote:
Originally Posted by jonn3
Here in the US in my younger days all of us that were fooling around were "straight" we either just "needed to get off" or were "helping a buddy out".
Back then we assumed all gay people acted and sounded like Liberace - who despite claiming to be straight everyone knew...
The rest just acted like "regular guys" until we were alone...
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Yup. This is where our experiences, though coming from different cultures converge. A dude needed to get off, you needed to get off, so you got together and helped each other out.
Every guy out there used to have his group of friends. The guys you would hang out together with. Naturally, a few people mixed with several crowds, and it soon turned out that you and your buddies were not alone in this.
Besides, we have all heard the stories of similar exploits by our elder brothers, uncles, soph students, etc.. The big thing here was that hardly anyone suffered from the 'am I alone in this?' syndrome.
By the time we reached the soph year, we all reached a quiet understanding that having sex with other guys did not make you less straight. It certainly did not make you gay. With so many guys doing it, we all silently agreed that this was kinda 'normal'. Especially, with a few guys who were mentioning that they were going to get married, have children and start families once they graduated, etc.
The stories of our elder brothers, uncles and 'older' friends who did all of the above supported this view. Life was here and then, you were making the best of it, because soon enough, kids, dental bills and mortgage payments were going to be the story of your life anyway.
Very few guys chose to be openly gay. True, we liked to believe that they were all Liberace kind of fems, so no one seriously thought that there was any good in going openly gay. Besides, we were getting pretty much all the sex we needed anyway, so why would you take additional risks and trouble for?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jonn3
Here, at least in my experience, it was not so much the giving of gifts as the helping a friend out.
Oral was and is the primary activity - with the guys where it went to anal it usually started with trading off - "you fucked me last time so today I get to fuck you". There were a couple of buddies where they had done it but I knew they did not like bottoming so sometimes I would bottom for them with no reciprocation needed. The funny part is they would have to ask - like that made it less gay for me than if I offered.
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This is the profoundly different bit in our experiences.
First off, oral alone was deemed to be a HS thing, not worthy of college guys. If in a great hurry, oral was fine. 'Dude, we are going to be late for the movies, classes or similar'. So, you went for oral, being your best contingency plan.
Friday night sleepover and oral only? Nope. That would be a waste of your time.
East Med cultures have been highly stratified and not egalitarian for a very long time now. Everyone needed to know his place in the pecking order. Basically, a 'bigger' dude would claim his natural right to top. A better off dude with his own digs would get to set the rules of the game, too. A more popular dude, with a bigger number of friends would also claim his right to top, because he had so 'much' choice, etc.
With the default based on the narrative, 'we are all str8' so we have got to top', both the bottom and the top dudes needed a face-saving strategy that would kinda internally justify a dude's decision to bottom. A new, smaller, inexperienced guy in town needed to make friends. So, he kinda 'owed you'. Hazing as such was virtually unknown, or deemed deviant. But a lonely, young dude with a smaller endowment got to pay his 'entrance' into the established crowd.
None of this was written in stone, and a few bottoms started topping, too. Equally so, a less determined top would agree to bottom for a more 'spectacular' guy who was deemed out of his league, and whom he really wanted badly.
But the 'roles system' functioned pretty well, nonetheless.
If another top dude owed you a favor, he'd introduce you to his bottom friend(s), and it was really up to you to charm him/them into raising their legs up for you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jonn3
It was mind games we all played. In our heads we knew it was gay sex - we knew we enjoyed it - but somehow if we were "helping a buddy out" it was not gay it was just getting off.
With the publicity about AIDS anal sex became more and more uncommon. That was no longer just getting off - that was serious.
Now I think that anal has grown in popularity again. Condoms make it safer and medicine means less people are dying from it and it is such a major part of gay porn (I remember old gay porn where they never fucked - the whole video would be oral) - where as the generation growing up early in the days of AIDS were scared off it I think now it is considered "required".
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No doubt that we all knew that the m2m sex we were practicing was a hushed down, if wide-spread affair. Silently, or under the conditions of strict discretion, we all agreed that this WAS gay sex. But hardly anyone would want to say this, or even think about it in those terms. It was a passing thing, enjoyable as it was... And there was really no need to dwell on it too much. It made our lives so much easier, and no one felt a hostage to the dictate of their often demanding and at times, blackmailing girlfriends.
True, the AIDS outbreak sent a few guys running for the hills, and they swore 'the never again' oath. In most cases, this 'never again' lasted for more than several days, until the next party, sleepover, or similar showed up on the horizon. Everyone I knew embraced the condoms, probably because it also reinforced the idea that you were being 'normal'. You would not go bare on your GF either because you would not want to knock her down into an unwanted, premature pregnancy. So, being 'str8' soon entailed the total use of condoms. A few guys also agreed that this helped avoid messy incidents with less, ehm, sophisticated bottom guys.
I'd say that anal sex remains a default. But with so many guys out there hooking up for sex with ease, dudes who are into oral only, frottage only, etc., also have a fair chance of hooking up with someone who is sharing their preferences.
SC