Fists

Nowadays I settle for casual sex. You know, something reliable but meaningless -- a mutual convenience between the two of us. I'll get the call, or make one. A couple of hours, some passion, some relaxation -- we'll leave numbers out of it. I do the driving. It's the gentlemanly thing to do.

Who knows? Maybe I'm serious.

And gay marriage? Well that's just an impossibility. But civil unions? I hardly care anymore. It's almost impossible to respect anyone, if you think about what they do in private. So I don't think about it, not deeply. I've knowns lots of gays. We can be civil, we can be friendly, we can be fond of almost anyone, with almost any behavior. What care have I for someone's private life? Scripture assures us that the marriage bed is undefiled. People of my ilk take this to mean that the intimacies of a man with a woman are their own affair. I can see this extending to oral gratifications. I personally cannot see how it could involve anality -- really, I can't -- but private things are private. I don't want to know, and I don't think about it, not deeply. If we can extend this habit of mind not only to the normative practices of heterosexuality, but to the actions that occur between any two consenting adults, our own peace of mind, if not the righteousness of our society, will be increased. I think we're in a giving-up phase, in terms of social righteousness.

Who knows? Maybe I'm serious. But in any event, I, like God, understand.

There was a lot of frivolous talk tonight. I'm not against it. It's just hard for me to shift gears. One fellow said, "It's not gay unless you enjoy it." He'd made the mistake of letting some of his peers know that he'd applied sunscreen to a male friend's back. Gales of derisive laughter. Well, it's not uncalled for -- this is a fellow who drops the Gay-bomb with systolic regularity. He looked to me for support, but all I could say is that gay is a behavior -- enjoy doesn't have anything to do with it. I couldn't elaborate, because that would have required my shifting gears, and I wouldn't be comfortable with that. You can't let anyone know how you are. Everything that's precious and vulnerable has to be protected. As I intimated there, that's what fists are for -- a hand wrapped around something you're trying to protect. I expected a masturbation joke -- what's in that fist- - but thankfully it wasn't forthcoming. One young wag did extend a probing finger from his fist, with some apposite comment. I do not distress myself over other people's habits of mind. As with civil unions, I understand the mentality behind such gestures.

But that might be why I don't say as much as I could. I anticipate the perverse twist, and just don't want to follow down that path. I won't say it's tiresome. I won't say I've outgrown it. Maybe someday I'll fall back again into those patterns myself. Just as I might nowadays seek to relieve the hydraulic pressures of my masculinity in the tender embrace of someone who bears the burden of her humanity as disconsolately as I do, and clings to my broad chest in the hope that somehow the stillness after passion can touch deeper than only the flesh.

No, you don't have to enjoy it for it to be gay. Why would you do it at all, if you didn't enjoy it? Consider those in prison. It's called opportunistic homosexuality. Not their first choice, and not a choice at all, given access to women. But it is a choice. All volitional behaviour is a choice. Enjoyment? Superfluous. We are driven, and the satisfaction of instinct can be described as enjoyable only in the way that the marriage bed can be called undefiled: only if we don't think too deeply about it.


J