ST 36A4

CASUAL SEX

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HIGH GEAR/AUGUST 1977 How

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By LEON STEVENS

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PAGE 13

No matter how "experienced" a gay man might be, he may still find new sexual encounters tense and trying events. Since there is no standard gay "HowTo," many gays are never sure. whether they are performing "correctly" and satisfying their partners. In casual sex, it is almost instinctive to try to please and impress the other participant. Some men absurdly fear a reputation as a "bad lay" and make desperate or even panicked attempts to arouse and. bring to orgasm their companions. Incidental tricking too often involves a come-test in which "keeping score" is confused with "scoring." Ejaculation is invariably perceived as conclusive evidence of satisfaction and success. If one is unable to bring his comrade to climax, he may feel guilty or inadequate for having improperly or insufficiently stimulated him. On the other hand, if one does not ejaculate, he may feel embarrassed at his momentary "impotence," or guilty for having made his partner seem inadequate, or he may feel incompetent himself. Consequently, the gay one-nighter often consists of a secretive, anxious, live-or-die struggle to get one's guest's "rocks off." Showmanship and sexual prowess are supposedly demonstrated by inducing the other man to come, and strength and virility by coming oneself. Quite a few men are willing to endure pain, hardship and inconvenience to satisfy an unfamiliar paramour.

For example, if one's counterpart is slow in responding to fellatio, one might fellate almost indefinitely, cramped jaws notwithstanding, until the other releases his "treasure." Some who are unaccustomed to anal intercourse may suffer it anyway to accommodate a new bedfellow. One might assume an awkward and strained posture for an extraordinary length of

time so as not to appear clumsy and ungraceful. In short, sex for fun, in many cases, deteriorates into an unnecessarily harrowing

competition.

The truth of the matter is, there is no such thing as a "good lay." Sexual responses are highly specialized and individualized. Everyone has his own unique erogenous zones, personalized fantasies, types and ranges of emotional stimuli, and preferred sequences of external physical stimuli. There is no ideal or universal set of "turn-ons." In fact, by the time the majority of gay men come out, masturbation is already a ritualized process in which patterns of arousal are assembled and coordinated for maximum subjective physical effect. Very unlikely, most men "get off" on activity which closely resembles their masturbatory behavior. Only after knowing a man over

an extended period of time can one learn to duplicate with a degree of accuracy his entire scheme of self-arousal. It is also possible that in a number of cases, if not the majority, sup-

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