We were chatting about us checking on our ex-college buddies on the FB, etc.

Apparently, some of them are doing the same, too.

I have just got reconnected with a one my college day buddies who now lives in Melbourne, Australia.

Very few people used to be openly gay in those days. This did not stop boys from being boys even in the slightest possible manner. You did not go to college only to learn the dry stuff. There was so much more to it.

Few weeks after the orientation, I got pretty well connected with a few guys who were running on my schedule, either class wise or gym wise. A couple of my HS buddies attended the same University, so there was quite some variety of guys available for a private play.

Besides never using the big GAY word, and keeping it all very discrete, one way or the other we all accepted the basic rules of the play, probably without thinking much about them.

A 'bigger' dude would usually top the smaller dude. Having a flat of your own was a huge advantage. Your house - your rules. You kept your mouth shut, and never talked about what was going on behind the locked doors - the few good rules that everyone was happy to live with.

The top dudes (including myself) did not need much justification for what was going on. A dude needed an outlet to release his pent-up energies, and a wet hole to fuck was far superior to whatever your right or left hand could offer in those terms.

The bottom dudes have had a bit of a problem with their narrative. Sucking cock, and taking it up your tail did not really constitute the embodiment of masculinity we all tried to achieve. So, their narrative changed to anything ranging from 'I was kinda helping my best buddy in need' to 'I was doing it in exchange for some favor. You know, a guy has got to find his way around'.

Whatever the justification for their actions may have been, it was never a sexual pleasure they were deriving from it. That would have been totally wrong, in those days. (Dude, you must be a freak if you enjoy taking it up your ass!) But helping your best(est) bud at the moment was a bit of a noble task. Getting much needed help with your paper which was overdue was only a logical thing to do.

The tops took it upon themselves to initiate the private hook ups with their bottom dudes. We felt that showing initiative was really a top's business. The very few of us who also had an available flat to ourselves became pretty popular among the bottom dudes.

We used pretty non-suspicious phrases to get the thing going in those days. "Dude, I have got a new vid. (VHS in those days). And I also have some pizza and a sixpack. Wanna come over this evening?" We never came to watching any vid., and most guys took it pretty easy on the beer part, too. It was a figure of speech, so to say.

But the guys stuck to the rules of the play, and everything was running pretty smoothly. You wanted to fuck a dude, you invited him, you hosted him, and occasionally, you also made sure that there was some little reward for him.

Soon enough, the Christmas break came, and most guys left to spend it with their families back home. I managed to reconnect with my one of my HS buddies, so life was good, even in the country.

With the break being over, within a day or two, everyone returned to school, and the usual meet ups for some hot, private action restarted without much ado.

I was pretty much taken aback when I got a phone call from Victor.

"Dude, you have got to help me out, I have not had any in two weeks. I think, I am going to explode.", he blurted into the phone, probably without thinking much. Or the hormones must have taken over...

This would not have been anything out of ordinary if it were not for the fact that Victor was a super shy, down on the low, total bottom dude. There was a moment of silence, as this sentence set in, and both he and I must have been taken aback by the sudden realization of what it really meant.

Yup. I agreed to meet Victor that evening without any usual talk of the movies and beer.

Victor came 15 minutes earlier than planned, blushing like a girl, and pretty apologetic. He did not mean it that way. He was looking forward to seeing me, after the long break, and all but, you know, he was not kinda really that keen on raising his legs again.

With no one around, and behind my locked door, I looked him straight in eye, and said, "Dude, there is no problem here. It is sex. You are supposed to enjoy it as much as I do. So, don't sweat it."

You could see that he felt an instant relief. No one was going to know, and the pretense, while it ceased to work, was always only a pretense and we all had known this from the very beginning.

Victor took both the cock, and the fact that he has now become a butt of our private jokes about his sexual needs, like a champ that he has always been.

He now lives as an openly gay man, and says he is having quite some fun out there with the hot Aussie mates.

KD

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Yeah back in the days when almost no one was "out" (even Liberace talked about all his lady friends!) discretion was always the rule.

This was made much more difficult in college by the fact almost no one had private rooms - doubles or even quads were the norm. And if a roommate caught you with a girl or even a magazine it was cool - but back then you did not get caught with a guy.





For us the roles were not so defined - and anal was the exception not the rule. It was like making out and fucking were "real gay" sex but blowing each other - well that was ok - just guys getting off - etc etc....




VERY true - it was was ok to admit your were horny and needed sex, but taking it to the next step and wanting it with a guy - that seemed to be going to far. Like with kissing - we would sometimes kiss in the heat of passion - but the idea of just hanging around and making out with a guy never would have happened.





Yeah - there had to be a justification for the action - not just you wanted sex with a guy. Knew more than one that as long as there was some straight porn - well that proved they were straight so anything after that was beyond their control....



That was probably a real breakthrough for him - maybe the first time he actually admitted - out loud - that he was really into guys.

That was a big and unheard of step to acceptance -

When talking once with an old sex buddy we were discussing how much we were afraid to say it back then - how even though we had sex a LOT each time you got together there were a few moments of nervousness - while you assessed the moment and made sure he had not "out grown" the sex games.

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Yup. Most guys lived in the dorms, but at my school, the dorms were not mandatory. So, a few dudes rented rooms, and very few (myself included) were lucky enough to have their own flats. This was a very MAJOR advantage. Nope, in those days, you did NOT get caught messing around with another dude. I always thought that a lot of people must have known what was going on, but that was one thing. Getting caught was another thing... And that was a total 'no go'.


This is where cultural traits kicked in. A BJ was fine if you were terribly short of time. But most of my buddies thought that a BJ was more a HS thing than a college experience. So, 'sex' really meant anal sex.

Another cultural (Mediterranean) thing was that the tops topped, and the bottoms bottomed. You had a role to play, and basically, you stuck to it. The narrative was that bottoms did not want to bottom for other bottoms. If they were going to raise their legs, and have a guy pound their hole, that guy had to be a genuine top, otherwise, you were just wasting your time with him.

No doubt, the versatile guys had to be very discrete, and if it somehow became known that a top dude bottomed, he became the butt of the jokes, and the tops all wanted him to bottom for them to make sure that their ranks remained 'untainted'. Very few guys dared to challenge this. Other place other customs, I guess.


Yup. This was a real breakthrough for this dude. You could say that he made his and my life a bit easier

Practically, little changed, though. We would still meet, and have sex just like before. The real change was that we talked about it openly. "Dude, I need some." The pizza, movie and the beer part were dropped off from the convo. We needed sex, and that's why we were getting together.

Unlike John, I rarely experienced any nervousness about it at all. If a dude showed up at the door, he knew what he was up for. Our default was that everybody was free to change their mind, get a GF, or hook up with someone else and possibly his bunch of friends. No one really talked any obligation, monogamy, etc., in those days. And some dudes were shifting between their buddies and friends. I nailed a few dudes who were coming for more. After a while, some of them lost interest, and shifted somewhere else, or I lost interest and looked for someone whom I thought was hotter, and maybe more skilled. Strange enough, no one thought that this was wrong, inappropriate or whatever. After a while, some dudes showed up on my radars again, and some disappeared totally, only to be replaced by other guys.

Relatively few guys were judging. Though, we all took some care to stay within our own league or get someone who was deemed hotter than the rest of us to join the play.

KD

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A very big advantage - not so much for oral - we could sneak off and suck each other anywhere - but for anal we had bathrooms down the hall and open showers - no private place to prep or to clean up after. Although back then there was not as much attention to preping - it was more just go to the bathroom and shower.





Interesting - I wonder if there have been any studies on the cultural effects on gay sex. Here in the US, at least for me, the focus was MUCH more on oral sex - not sure how much was the way we were raised "the butt is dirty - yuck" - the fact that you could do blow jobs behind the garage while Mom was home - but with most of my buddies that was the activity. And even if we did fuck it was oral much more often - fucking was only on occasion.

And with fucking the roles were not as defined. With some guys you were top, some you were bottom and some you traded off - it seemed to depend more on what each person was into and what felt good for them.

As a top - was it acceptable for you to blow the bottom? Was there kissing or was it just pure sex?





I know what you mean. I remember the first time a friend and I stopped pretending we were just doing it because there were no girls around and basically admitted we liked cock - it was very liberating. Not like coming out - nothing was public - but at least in private we no longer were playing mind games.




The nervousness was mostly younger - I had 3 friends I fooled around with that I only saw in the summer - and each year we were all nervous - making jokes - etc - trying to figure out if the other guy was still into doing gay sex. Two of them eventually out grew it and got girlfriends and (at least as of when I last saw them many years ago) were totally straight. But at the beginning of each summer there would be talk about school and girls and we would sort of "dance around" the issue until eventually we got the message "he is still into it".

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Getting caught was really not an option. Sure, the guys did it everywhere, but having a flat to ourselves meant both safety and comfort. It also meant that a few guys figured out that they'd rather go with someone who flashed his house keys now and then than with someone who was suggesting a more daring scenario.





Being at college somehow meant that you were 'grown up', and beyond the HS habits. So, oral sex kinda did not count very much. Sure, it was sex. No one would deny that. But this was reserved for dudes who were scared, and still not really into the full play. Sex was meant to be somewhat 'dirty', otherwise it was not worth it. If you limited yourself to oral sex only, the rest of the guys would not take you seriously. You were really not worth their time. Relatively few tops would blow their bottoms. This sort of upset the balance of power. Most bttm dudes went on saying that if they were putting it out, they were doing it for 'real men' who would not go down on their knees to suck off another dude. On the other hand, everybody kissed a lot. This was part of the play.



The pretense in my (hi)story was really that the bttm dude was putting out to help a horny top. Sure thing, a horny top would have been happier (in theory) if he had a willing GF, but since this was not the case, his bttm friends were kinda helping him out. A bottom dude was not supposed to have enjoyed it/needed it. Once this pretext went out of the window, our lives became a lot easier.


A dude who grew up out of it simply disappeared from the radar. If they kept in touch with you that meant that they were still in for the play. So, I have never had this kind of nervousness. The drawback was that a few friendships perished in the process. But keeping in touch would have meant the repeat of the play, and that was really not an option for most. I believe that few men really ever grew up of it totally. Having someone around who used to fool around with you would have been a constant challenge not to fall back into the old habits. And that's what these guys were trying to avoid at all cost.

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Very much "not an option" - there was still a huge stigma to gay sex and being gay back when I was in school. There were no "gay - straight alliances" or support groups. You just made damn sure no one caught you fooling around.







Well living in the dorms oral was something you could do anywhere - anal took more time, preparation and clean up. Also we viewed oral sex as "less gay" - many guys try it at some point in their life so there is not as much stigma associated. But anal sex, top or bottom, was more like you were "really gay" and could not try and pass it off as two horny youths needing sex.


Interesting - I never fooled around with anyone where the roles were so defined. Many guys were at least partially versatile. I say partially because there were some who did try but just did not like it. One buddy who we had been blowing each other since we were kids when we tried anal he just did not like it. Maybe I was not a good top but he did not enjoy bottoming. So I would bottom for him when he wanted to - but he would always blow me to make sure I got off.



Again very different that what I found. Especially younger there was almost no kissing. That we viewed as romance and something to be done with girls (since we were all still trying to convince ourselves and each other we were straight)




This was more back in the junior high / high school years but there were guys who might fool around once and never again - and a few of the guys who we did it for awhile - but then he got to be a bit older - had a car - got a girlfriend - and then he would act as if it never had happened. One guy I tried to bring it up and he just sort of laughed it off as "kids". The friendship was never the same - but we did continue to be friends.

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Yup. Gay-Straight Alliance? No one thought of this possibility or indeed, I doubt that anyone would have understood the purpose of any gay-lib activism. Many of the dudes I was fooling around with did not see themselves as gay. They were just getting their rocks off.

The few guys who admitted to themselves (and possibly to the closest 2-3 buddies they were fooling around with) that they 'liked' it, viewed all sexual activity as something totally private. A notion that a degree of activism was needed in relation to anything that we deemed was purely sexual and private was entirely outlandish. Straight guys were having sex (or at least bragging about it) before marriage, and no one thought that we should have an activist entity supporting their activities.



The notion that some of us had our private dorm-unrelated housing at the gentle age of 18 must have favored the notion that oral sex (if indeed, 'practical') was not really worth our 'time and money' because we were able to get 'more' due to our upgraded housing/privacy arrangements.

Some of the experience must have had to do with the nature of the sexual act in itself. A sucker dude mostly controls the action. If you are being sucked, you are trying to lead him onto the right path, so that you would climax in your time, and we would call it quits.

Tops tend to dominate bttms when it comes to anal play. They tend to be in charge. This is where the power play is really tilted in favor of one of the players. The result is often an increased sense of passion. Even a somewhat average top can bring about a degree of ecstasy for the both players or at least for the bottom dude.

So, we basically shared the view that oral was a beginner's stuff, practical and easy to accomplish but nothing to write home about. Anal sex was the real thing, and if the bttm dude was begging for more, and shouting your name, you were doing it right, and so was he.


Eastern Med cultures are very hierarchical. You always needed to know your place in the pecking order. Big dude, big endowment, plus private housing? That could only read: top.

Small, new dude in town, in need of new friends, etc. That said clearly: bttm.

Naturally, this value system disadvantaged versatile guys, because they were simply not a part of the general equation.

The solution here was for the versatile guys to 'agree' to bottom for a demanding top, because he was going to give them something that they wanted: exam questions with ready-made answers; a weekend together, and sometimes it was only a pair of fancy sunglasses.

Essentially, giving away small gifts, buying meals or paying for a cab ride, movie tickets, etc., was the usual face-saving strategy for the guys who agreed to bottom. Small gifts (strange enough) did not suggest that they were pimping themselves out for peanuts but that their role was viewed as valuable, desirable, and worth a special consideration.


Sex, any sex without kissing was deemed, well, infantile. You reached legal age, and you started to recognize that whatever you were doing 'mattered' to some extent. So, you owned your sexual acts, too. If a dude even considered refusing to kiss, he would have been branded a scared 'chicken', 'girly' because he was not willing to put out, and he'd be out of your clique pretty soon.

Every club has its rules...


A specific sense of integrity is THE single most masculine trait in Mediterranean cultures. You did something - you owned it. The notion that you could come back, and hang around the guys acting as if you did not share some very intimate history whereas you did, was entirely unthinkable of. Everyone was willing to respect that you were having a GF, and that you were not looking to fool around anymore (if that was the case), but every one of your ole' time buddies expected to be recognized as such, in private, behind the closed doors, and all. You were supposed to stand your ground as a man, and the pretense that nothing ever happened would have been the worst betrayal of your manly status.

Naturally, a few men found the memories of their past exploits to be too haunting, and too difficult to cope with. If you wanted to start from a clean slate, no one was standing in your way. You stopped communicating with your 'old' buddies and moved on. No one thought that this was wrong or even unusual. Many of the college friendships were mostly sexual in nature, and if a dude found a more pleasing/desirable arrangement, he moved on as expected.

KD

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Very true about the "few guys who admitted it to themselves" - I know for years I kept waiting to outgrow it -

Thinking "I'm not gay - we are just horny" but yet as soon as we were alone "want to play cards?" "sure-how about poker" "strip poker?" and then we would just go for it.

There were no gay rights - I didn't realize it then but most states it was probably still illegal for 2 guys to have sex - and the idea of being open and accepting especially at that age - unheard of.

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