R.P. Andrews's Blog, page 35

Total Tops, Total Bottoms

I know, I know, I should talk. I’m a top who never gets fucked. But to my credit I also dig oral sex and have no problem draining a top’s tool dry or serving a bottom’s cock before I fuck the shit out of them.

But then you got those purists of the male gay animal, the total tops who only want to fuck, period, and total bottoms who only want to get fucked, period. Nothing else.

Time and time again, tops, humpy tops are looking at my profile on just about any of the half dozen or so hook-up sites I’m on, but while a few may give me a “You’re hot, man” shout-out, few, very few respond when I reach out to them with a “I know were both tops but I do have the East Coast Cocksucker Award if you want me to take care of you …” Very, very few.

Some will ask, “You bottom?” and when I reply, “Do you?” they get all indignant like I told them the truth about their button dick.

They’re what I label the myopic top who can see no further than a guy’s butthole. And they’re also the ones who I eventually block after they keep revisiting my profile endless times for only one reason. Don’t want the real me? Well, then, you ain’t getting the virtual me.

Then we’ve got the other end of the spectrum, the total insatiable bottom. They describe exactly what they want from you in their opening text: “My side door will be unlocked. I want you to walk in, and without saying a word, come into my bedroom where I’ll be laying on my bed ass up and I want you to stick your dick in my ass and fuck me til you breed me and then you can leave.”

No foreplay, no sucking dick, no playing with my tits which are hardwired to my dick, nothing to turn me on except your hole. And a lot of these insatiable bottoms, methed up to the rafters, could lie there all night getting screwed til your dick fell off and still want more.

In fact one only wanted to be fisted – just my fist, not my dick – til my hand went numb. OK, sure.

Kinda sad, ain’t it? I mean, I realize guys and gals do a lot of things in bed, the human animal being a creative creature, but nothing can beat the diversity between two men. Tits, pits, rimming, fisting, sucking, getting sucked, stroking, bondage, pumping, toys – oh, and did I mention fucking?

Total tops and total bottoms also speak to a greater problem in this wonderful sub-culture of ours – meism. All I care about is my pleasure, not yours.

So, to the myopic total tops, all I can say is, you’re passing up a lot of hot guys who would give you a ton of sexual satisfaction.

And to the insatiable total bottoms, my only advice is:

Get a broomstick.

Gay Society’s One Percent

Gay Society’s One Percent

Last Saturday night, I was prancing around in my black jump suit,, unbuttoned down as far as the law would allow, at the monthly Pig Dance at my favorite watering hole, the Ramrod in Lauderdale, where the median age is 43, watching all those fellow aging leather men, some hot, some just delusional, shake their steroided bods like they were 20, while the physically less blessed ogled. Wondering when we were all going to finally grow up, and wondering whether these creatures were among our culture’s one percent. The guys who some, or maybe many of us revere or place on a pedestal at the very pinnacle of our gay sub-culture:

The incredibly handsome who forget they got their looks by a roll of the genes dice.

The incredibly wealthy, some earned, others born into it, who make sure everyone knows they’ve got it, from their quarterly visits to the cosmetic surgeon they boast about, to their beachfront condos in Lauderdale and Fire Island, and, oh, yea, the young hottie (a new one each season) by their side.

The massive muscle men who spend four hours a day in the gym or every discretionary dollar on steroids because they either have mindless jobs or no job at all and live on the dole – disability check, 78 year old lover – take your pick.

The cute guys with the fifty dollar haircuts, 22 inch waists, washboard abs they were born with and, when they aren’t prancing around near naked on the beach, sport the latest overpriced GQ outfit. Or flick around on Pig Dance Saturdays in those low cut singlets with their ass cheeks hanging out that go for sixty five bucks a pop.  All on a Macy’s clerk’s salary.

Humpy porn stars, responsible for thousands of dirty cum rags every day, but who can’t or won’t work at much of anything else and whose nine inch dicks are worth selling replicas of – to use as paperweights of course.

The hot numbers cruising in those hot sports car convertibles, courtesy of Daddy.

The guys who live, breathe and shit The Life from RSVP cruises to the latest Leather Fest, but don’t know or care where this country is headed.

Look, I’m not saying that it’s bad to look your best, take care of your body, or have some fun. But after awhile, doesn’t ego for ego’s sake and deifying male perfection become just a little tired?

I mean, shouldn’t our one percent include or even be dominated by:

Couples who lead quiet, unassuming lives, work hard, spend sensibly, with the only difference between them and the rest of the world is that they’re two men?

The white middle class gay man who adopts a black 17 year foster kid with autism because he wants to?

The guy who has nothing to monetarily gain from caring for a dying parent or partner but knowing he did right?

The guys who don’t make much in education or health care but do it because they want to actually help somebody else – people they don’t even know?

The lovers who grow old together without caring about their crows feet or other men? Or care for one another to the end when one of them can no longer wipe his ass?

So who’s your one percent?

You decide.

I know who mine is.

The Results of the Men’s Grooming Trends Polls: The Old Guard Vs. the Millennials

The Results of the Men’s Grooming Trends Polls: The Old Guard Vs. the Millennials

This is a follow-up to Friday’s poll.

As expected, those of you who follow my babblings tend to be a more seasoned crowd vs. the readers of Lauderdale’s Next magazine, which judging by its content tend to be a younger demographic. It was that mag’s grooming trends poll that inspired me to do my own. Bottom line: there’s a definite generational divide when it comes to hirsute tastes.

On the topic, Facial Hair, the Next readers were almost evenly divided when it came to preferring beards (53%) vs. clean-shaven (47%). My fans weighed heavily in on beards by a substantial 73% vs. only 27% for the clean-shaven look.

Two out of three Millennials didn’t care about body hair while there was a small majority of my guys who wanted ’em the hairier the better (52%) vs. those who had no preference (43%). Nine percent of Next readers voted for the waxed look, only 5% in my poll.

When it came to back hair, though, the preferences between generations couldn’t be more opposite. Ninety percent of my guys loved back hair while 88% of the younger crowd wanted it all gone.

The results on Bush Hair were also again almost opposite. Only 32% of Next readers liked bush hair vs. 64 % or double that of my followers.

About the only results that kinda matched were on the topic of “Touch-ups.” Both the Old Guard and the Millennials favored a natural look by an overwhelming 85% and 82% respectively.

Me? I dig facial, body, bush and back hair (except maybe in the summer) big time and l have no problems with botox, dysport or fillers now and again to keep Father Time at bay.

In fact, l like the hirsute look so much l have instructions to the funeral home to make sure to touch up the gray in my beard with Just for Men, light medium brown, before they ship me to my mausoleum.

Grooming Trends: What Do YOU Think?

Men’s Grooming Trends: What Do YOU Think?

 

One of the gay rags down here in Fort Lauderdale recently ran the results of a poll of its readers on current men’s grooming trends. Well, I’ve decided to run a poll  of my own and in a future blog compare what you said to what their readers liked.

Take Our Poll



Take Our Poll



Take Our Poll



Take Our Poll



Take Our Poll



Take Our Poll

 

The Res-erection of Barebacking

No judgment calls here –perish the thought – just some observations about what I see as a res-erection of barebacking. And make no mistake, guys, raw dick is making a comeback, a big comeback. And not just in porn. Even when guys say they’re into safe sex, and say or think they’re negative, they don’t walk the talk when passion and testosterone takes over. Hell, there’s even sites like bbrts that cater exclusively in raw dick sex and its devotees, and promote not just one-to-one sex but multiple “dump” parties.

So why this retro move in the bedroom department after decades of preaching by our own community and even porn producers being criticized if they depicted naked pensises in their fucking scenes?

Maybe like all those decades of campaigns against smoking that have gone nowhere, a lot of gay guys are zoning out all those sermons of doom and gloom from those partypoopers among us.
A lot of guys think the AIDS crisis is over – not if you’ve checked the Health Department stats lately – or have way in the backs of their minds pharms will do the trick if they get burnt. After all, all those ads for the newest pill on the block depict smiling, healthy looking gaypozboys, don’t they? Well, pharms aren’t helping an AIDS infected friend of mine, age 49, and still a hunk, from suffering from early dementia, like forgetting what day of the week it is.
Guys who already got burnt and have that evil virus under control – what’s the word they use, oh, yea, “undetectable” – feel what could harm them now? (Like maybe a new strain, you think?)
Poz guys only playing with poz guys. See above.
Neg guys who only play with neg guys – at least guys who claim they’re neg and look the part. Shit, some poz guys, thanks to HGH and steroids, look healthier than a lot of average HIV- Joes, so how can you even tell anymore? (You can if you look good.)
Guys under 40 who feel it’s an old fag’s disease, and after all aren’t most of them dead by now anyway?
Guys under 30, like the 21 year poz boy that hit me up on Manhunt.
The “not me –I’m immune” syndrome.
The “I’m a top – only bottoms take risks” syndrome.
Putting on a rubber breaks the spontaneity of the moment and when you’re over 40, can also kill your hard-won hard-on even if you’re Viagraed up.
Nothing beats skin against skin when it comes to pumping your stiff tool up a nice warm, wet butthole. Nothing.

Like I told a “naive heterosexual woman” as she described herself on one of the gay literary  blog sites who asked if BB porn was responsible for the return of BB for real, “No honey, it’s all about lust and hormones.”

On the other end of the gay sex rainbow are those guys who have become overly cautious and still think you can get AIDS from toilet seats. For them, man-to-man sex is yanking on a guy’s tool like he was pulling weeds up in his yard, no kissing, no foreplay, no titwork, no pit licking, and God forbid no sucking, just jerking a guy’s dick so hard, the last thing you want to do is cum. Or better just do it virtually: cam, Skype, dirty ta;k, trade pics and off you go.

Ah, well, no happy medium, huh? No wonder more and more of us are skipping the “Real Thing” for seven minutes of our favorite canned porn, or live porn if we like being a voyeur groupie at the local bath house or sex club.

Hell, it’s just easier.

 

The Good, the Bad and The Ugly

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Good ….

Even my super conservative Republican neurosurgeon who did my back said, “l can’t stand Hillary but I’m going to vote for her. Trump is a nut job.” Let’s hope there’s more of him out there.

The Bad …

Some Sanders diehards may swing their votes to the Green Party’s super liberal candidate Jill Stein, M.D., which could mean a loss of votes to Hillary and a winning of the White House by Trump by default.

And the Ugly …

Evangelical Christian and Trump running mate Michael Pence, while Governor of Indiana, banned school kids from wearing “gay colored” clothing, and wanted to divert HIV funding to conversion therapy camps. His reasoning: you get rid of gays and HIV will go away. (Duh.)

It seems like Trump, who some argue committed treason when he edged Putin on to hack more Hillary emails, wants to punch out every person that disagrees with or criticizes him, like “little” billionaire Mike Bloomberg who tore him apart at the Democratic Convention.

Let Trump piss on Equal Crazy North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and the megalomanic will press the button on one of his nuclear missile toys. Bye bye San Francisco!

And The Real Ugly …

Log Cabin Republicans! Yea they ran an ad tearing apart the Republican Party’s anti LGBT platform and have not yet endorsed Trump but with a running mate like Pence, being gay and a Republican is an oxymoron.

What Would YOU Do? The Big Question

What Would YOU Do? The Big Question

I was the model P.T. patient for my very young, very cute female therapist who again was surprised l didn’t need the walker. She re-instructed me on getting in and out of bed, how to get in and out of a dummy car they had in the PT gym across the hall on my floor, even how to navigate in a shower As l played the attentive pupil l scanned the gym for my fellow classmates. Either they were frail and old or Jennie Craig failures.

“So what’s BLT?” asked my pretty therapist at the conclusion of my session.

“No bending, no lifting, no twisting.” Then l added, “l’ll never eat another BLT again.”

By Day # 3, Saturday, l was itching to get out. Frank, who had stopped in on Friday to let me know he had contacted George who would in turn call my sister, was on standby to come over and get me as soon as l gave him the high sign. Thankfully my miracle worker, Dr. C, who was flying down to Columbia to visit family that Memorial Day weekend, agreed l was ready after my nurse removed the incision drainage bottle and redressed my wound. (A wound care nurse would be visiting me at home daily until my followup visit with Dr. C.) I felt for my roommate Carlos who was still at pain level 9, and l had about had it with his wailings.

But l think the happiest moment of that morning came around 5 when l realized l had a woodie. After months of putting off the surgery for fear l’d be left with a piece of dead meat between my legs, l thought to myself, “Hallelujah!”

When famous movie actor Clark Gable came back from active service in World War Il to star with another famous actress of the day Greer Garson, MGM’s publicity department proclaimed, “Gable’s Back and Garson’s Got Him!”

Well, lying in that hospital bed, feeling my stiff cock with my hand beneath the sheets, l shouted to myself, “Mr. Peter’s Back and Ray’s Got Him!”

It’s been almost two months now since my surgery and after that first week of discomfort ( l relied on my pain pills only a few days) l have almost forgotten l had the operation. While l can’t do any bending or heavy lifting until Labor Day, l can drive and get around and do the treadmill at the gym and have fun with my fuck buddies and any other gentlemen callers with no problem.

So what can l attribute my good fortune? Good genes? Maybe. The fact l had never abused my body with heavy drinking or smoking or drugging? Perhaps. To the magic mineral vitamin IV drip my testosterone regeneration doc gave me before and after surgery which supposedly promotes healing? Could be. Or the fact l was not overweight, in fact slightly underweight, and in decent shape for an otherwise old fart?

Most definitely.

My only regret was that l hadn’t done it sooner.

 

 

 

What Would YOU Do? My Day of Reckoning

What Would You Do? My Day of Reckoning

My friend Frank and l arrived at the hospital admitting office around 5:30 that morning, and after some necessary paperwork which included submitting a new health care proxy naming Frank as the lead party since  he was here and George was in PA, we were whisked upstairs with half a dozen other patients and their accomplices to Pre-Op where l was assigned cubicle thirteen, always a lucky number for me.

There I stripped down to nothing, put on my flimsy dishcloth gown and lay on the stretcher as a seemingly endless caravan of health professionals, all jovial and light- hearted, obviously to calm the anxieties of those of us headed for our respective carving boards, stopped to fill in their piece of the puzzle that awaited me.

My neurosurgeon, Dr. C, an American trained Columbian who at 42, had the boyish face of a twenty year old, went over once again what he would be doing to hopefully alleviate my crippling leg and ankle pain. Two three inch incisions in the center of my lower back just above the crack of my butt, where he would shave down the bone spurs that were impinging on and pinching my spine, then implanting titanium wedges to keep the spinal tube open.

From my days as a healthcare administrator, l knew that even more important than your surgeon was your anesthesiologist. After all, he or she was not only the one responsible for putting you under and keeping you there. They were also the one to bring you back from the abyss.

Dr. Happy actually came by twice. The first time he explained how after he had put me under in the OR, they would be flipping me over like a pancake since after all my procedure involved my back, so that my arms and shoulders would be outstretched the entire operation like Jesus hanging from the cross.

His second visit was much briefer. He nodded to my friend Frank who had been good enough to sit with me throughout this time that he could leave now. Doc then held up what appeared to be two small metal canisters.

“Ready for your double tequila?”

“Actually l prefer a vodka cranberry,” l replied.

Those were the last words l remember saying before l opened my eyes over seven hours later at about 3:30 that afternoon as they wheeled me out of recovery to my room on the orthopedic floor.

The first conscious act l did was to wiggle my toes. It was at that same instant that l started to silently cry. The terrible pain l had endured for almost a year in both my legs and ankles was gone.

Gone!

My roommate was a tall heavy-set Latin who had received a knee replacement several days before and who was employed as an exec in some international company serving most of Latin America. It was comparing his burly frame with my slim trim body that l learned first hand the importance of being in shape for surgery. While pain relief was just a button away by intravenous infusion, l used it sparingly and from the beginning of my stay that Thursday afternoon till that Saturday when l was discharged, l experienced more of a soreness than actual penetrating pain. My surgeon who came in the following morning to see me and check my reflexes remarked several times how strong l was. I gave him a quixotic look as if to say what kind of pansies do you deal with. His raised eyebrows told the whole story. My roommate Carlos’ pain level, meanwhile, never dropped below 9.

“This is like giving birth,” he cried out as the nurse shot him up.

“Oh no it’s not,” she replied curtly back.

That first night l peed in a bag, and although the Foley catheter wasn’t irritating, it was uncomfortable. So early in the wee hours of the morning, l guess with an OK from my surgeon, the nurse came in to remove it. Aside from the slight embarrassment of a strange woman holding your shriveled up dick in her hand, its removal didn’t bother me much at all. Ah, but when she pulled off some surgical tape that had been holding it in place on my very, very furry thigh, the pain was worse than my incision. And throughout the night either she or a tech kept coming in to reattach my EKG leads that kept popping off my furry chest and abs.

“I’m your ultimate challenge,” l joked. At least they didn’t shave me. My fur at that point was about the only smidgen of self-esteem l had left.

But having the Foley catheter removed later proved to be a mistake, because by 10 the following morning l had to take the most wicked piss in my life. I had found it strange but l had been left to lay on the stretcher for over 24 hours from the time l was in Pre-Op the previously morning to Friday a.m., just after my surgeon’s visit. I kept pressing the nurse button several times though l realized it must be tough for two people, the R.N. and his or her associate L.P.N. to handle a dozen or more snivelling helpless cry babies, but l had to go bad.

Finally a small army of nurses including my day nurse, an incredibly handsome Haitian who with his short slim body reminded me of Prince (why the fuck hadn’t he been the one to pull out my Foley?), appeared at my bed side complete with a walker.

Now , remember l had been lying there virtually immobile forever. I had no idea what to expect. Would l be woozy? Would my legs give out from under me? The physical therapist had not yet visited me to instruct me how to get out of bed without fucking up my incision, but my new Haitian crush slowly rolled me on my side and as I leaned the weight of my entire upper body on my upright right arm, he helped me to lift myself up onto the bed My arms grasped the walker as l ever so slowly rose, but a moment later l realized l wouldn’t need it. I stood without assistance to the amazement of my piss team with no feeling of weakness and slowly gaited to the bathroom a few yards away, a plastic bottle in which excess fluid from my incision was draining safety pinned to my gown, and the plastic box holding my cardiac leads in my hand, and took what seemed the longest and most celebrated piss in my life. The reality that l had not wet myself before l got to the toilet meant that one of my fears, post-surgical incontinence, had not materialized.

A few minutes later the female nurses aide, damn it, came in, and stripping me of my flimsy patient gown, gave me a quick sponge bath.

“I guess you’ve seen it all,” l quipped, to which she replied, “You leave your modesty at the door when you enter a hospital.”

Friday: The Big Question

So What Would YOU Do?

So What Would YOU Do?

 

For a seasoned but still desirable gay man, I’ve got nothing fucken wrong with me health-wise. No cholesterol, no high blood pressure, no diabetes, HIV neg, still in decent shape, and younger looking than my momma would have admitted.

Except for one thing …

I have stenosis of the spine, a narrowing of the spinal column, which since last fall left me with excruciating, almost crippling pain shooting down the back of my legs and ankles whenever I sat or lay around too long and then got up. I had scoliosis as a teen, curvature of the spine, and at that time the treatment was wearing a brace and sleeping on a board. Now I wonder whether what I suffered at fourteen was a precursor of the hell I was living now. Epidural steroid shots, physical therapy (my gym regimen is a sane one) even laser therapy,  I tried everything, but about the only relief I got was from popping Advils and a prescription pain reliever, Tramadol which doped me up.

Somedays, if it weren’t for my dogs, I felt like doing myself in. Only I wouldn’t do it quietly with pills or a gun. No, I’d park my Honda Element on the railroad tracks and wait for the next commuter train to come through. That way at least I’d be guaranteed front page on website news, papers across the country, and maybe be at the top of TV’s six o’clock news shows, that is, if I timed it right. (The 3:35 p.m. Tri-Rail coming in from Miami would work.) Though with my luck, that would be the day some nut tried to assassinate Obama and I’d end up on page 21. A terrible waste of a seven year old car with a book value of ten grand.

Okay, now there’s surgery, a less invasive variety which leaves connective, supportive issue in place, while opening the spinal column and relieving the pressure, with only a six week recovery which I discussed with two orthopedic surgeons and two other neurosurgeons. I was all scheduled to take the plunge thinking I understood and accepted all the possible risks when a comment a gym bud of mine in the same boat as I was made a few months ago started coming back to me: “When the surgeon told me I wouldn’t be able to have sex anymore, I said, fuck no.”

So I goggled and uncovered a National Institutes of Health study which looked at men who had had the same kind of surgery – decompression spinal surgery for stenosis – and concluded that there was a “significant increase” in erectile dysfunction among those where other factors for their ED were ruled out. It made sense when you consider you’re fucking around with the nerves in the lower part of the spine. Now Viagra can always help with circulation but there ain’t no pill out there to restore loss of sensation. What’s the point of getting hard if you don’t feel nothing?

So, did I try to find relief from my pain and give up sex FOREVER – or put up with my pain for the sake of my dick? I’ve always been a sexual creature, in spite of my nerdy demeanor, and I couldn’t envision a life where I had a piece of dead meat between my legs. Hey, it’s like somebody cutting your balls off.

One ortho surgeon agreed it might happen, along with a shitload of other problems; another neurosurgeon felt my risk factors with minimally invasive surgery for such consequences were low, and that study was probably focusing on men with more extensive back surgery which all four of the surgeons I consulted felt I didn’t need.

A recent issue of Men’s Fitness had a story about Dave Wright, one of  the New York Mets’ star players, who, only in his thirties, is suffering from spinal stenosis due to a congenital problem. He was born with a spinal tube narrower than normal and I guess the stress on  his body as an athlete accelerated its appearance. Admitting he was always in pain, Wright did the same shit as me, except for a far more demanding exercise regimen because of his profession. But one thing the story didn’t mention was surgery. Obviously, the Mets would have had the  best surgeon in the world work on their money machine, but I wonder if Wright chose not to do it for the same  reason as me.

Meanwhile my pain was getting worse and living on pills was not my idea of living. Plus one of the constrictions was so narrow I was increasingly fearful I might wake one morning and find I couldn’t walk at all.

So faced with my Solomon-like decision, what would YOU do?

I ended up picking the youngest (and cutest) and most progressive neurosurgeon of the lot and go under the knife. Date for my surgery: the Thursday of Memorial Day Weekend.

And since George was technically no longer in my life and had admitted that he couldn’t fly or drive down here if I had a problem (unlike me holding his hand), I was to face the most vulnerable moment of life, with the exception of a few friends, pretty much alone.

Wednesday: My Day of Reckoning

The Downside of PrEP

The Downside of PrEP

I’ve  mentioned a few of the negatives about taking PrEP before: the fact PrEP was originally a HIV med which means it can be toxic to your liver, and complete compliance by you and the person you fuck around with, meaning taking the pill without fail every day, is absolute for its effectiveness.

Hell, I understand how many younger and not so young guys have decided to go with the program to protect themselves against Big Bad Wolf, AIDS. And If I were 25 again – and believe me, with the way the world’s going, I don’t envy today’s youth one bit – I probably would consider it too.

But surprise, surprise, being on PrEP will NOT protect you from other nasty STD’s, like syph or gon which are becoming increasing antibiotic resistant.

Now here in South Florida, Gay Partyland for the rest of the country, cases of syphilis have gone through the roof. Eighty percent of syphilis cases here in 2015 involved gay men. Which means guys who vacation here from Chicago or LA or NYC can take back the ugly bug to the four corners of this great nation.

Wonderful.

Again, a lot of guys who are condom shy – which according to stats are at least four out of every ten gay men – figure just pop the pill and I’ll be fine.

Well, now you know that ain’t necessarily so.