At Burning Man I watched Dominic and Reynaldo call men out of the street, fine, shirtless young men, and command, “Flex for us.” The men would oblige. Calling out to women, “Show us your tits,” never works quite as well.

Another gay friend of mine tells tales of his raucous orgies in high school.

High School!

With girls!

And he’s gay!

I have to say gay men seem to have much more straight sex in high school than straight men. I was never privy to such delights.

I can remember taking a liking to the one girl on Fire Island. She worked in a store in the harbor. I was a shy, retiring young boy and spent two hours in the store pretending to make up my mind about what birthday card to buy. All the while the men were checking me out, happy to take the initiative. It would have been so easy.

Alas, it was not to be. The reason is rather simple. I love women. To be even more to the point, I adore women’s bodies.

The straight lines of men, the hard of our muscles, the square of the jaw, I have no innate appreciation for them. I can look at a beautiful man and think to myself he is beautiful.

I can follow the pelvic lines with my eyes, see well-proportioned arms, overlook the dangling aesthetic absurdity of the penis, I can think about it, but I don’t feel it. Nothing stirs. It is like gazing upon a placid lake.

But show me a woman and there come the waves. I am ignited by the flow of a woman’s body. Plumb lines give way to curves, hard gives way to soft, dry becomes wet…

(If you take your time and don’t rush things and make sure there’s open communication and she’s made comfortable and there’s plenty of lead up and you don’t trust the Internet porn you grew up on as how-to videos. Your mother should have taught you this but she probably didn’t because she has her own issues so I’ll be publishing a manual shortly.)

I love to lay my head down beside a woman’s naked hip. My eyes wander her landscape, up over her hip, across the curve of her leg then down the slope to the soft crease of flesh where her thigh meets her sex. When laying back her pussy arches above a woman’s thighs like a balcony, a place for a lover to stand and beckon you. My eye lingers, imagining the folds inside, the arabesque of flesh as one writer put it. And then down again and up along the other thigh.

I’ll return my gaze along the soft belly, the part women are always trying to make hard and flat like a man. Even higher lie the breasts, laid out like pools of liquid on endowed women, standing proud with nipples high for small busted ladies.

When they’re on their stomachs I love to run my hands down the gentle slopes of their shoulders. To wrap my fingers round their smaller arms, trace the line down the center of the back to relish the ripe round retort of the ass.

There are lines like these all along the side of Mt. Tam facing the ocean. The land curves and folds and dips into itself tracing the outlines of the female form, thighs, hips and asses writ large on a mountain side. From what I have seen it is mostly women lying on their sides.

But perhaps my favorite view is when a woman is on her hands and knees before me. From here I can understand why some women say the back is their favorite part of their bodies. From here I follow the flow of a woman’s sides, curving in at the waist before suddenly flaring out at the hips.

That brilliant flow is so alluring, so erotic in its symmetry, I have been known to gaze at in silence so long women have felt compelled to pull me forward by my most sensitive part.

It is then that I place my hands in a woman’s waist and I could swear that’s what it was made for. It is my favorite landscape.

Another set of definitions for your reading pleasure.

Mercury in Retrograde, phrase. An astrological term denoting the four times a year when everything is going to hell but it’s not your fault; it’s because Mercury is going backwards. The relief one feels at this news lightens the heart and makes one happy to pay the bearer of the news.

Dispensary, n. A place white people go to buy their drugs.

Intention, n. Your purpose, stated at the beginning of any endeavor, in order to free yourself from the responsibility of the consequences.

Example in conversation:

“I let you crash on my couch and you went and slept with my boyfriend and my therapist.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

Listening, v. The practice of pretending to look deeply concerned while someone else is talking. A misnomer in popular use as almost all people who claim to practice listening are in fact talkers in-waiting.

Present, n.

1. To be with me, and not fantasizing about her.
2. To be here and not there.
3. A state of being invoked when one is not in the space to practice Listening. Note there is an element of shame involved in not being present.

Example in conversation:

“I’m worried about us. Where do you see this relationship going?”

“I’m just trying to be present.”

Weekend Buddhist, n. An ambitious capitalist who meditates on the weekend to better clear the mind in preparation to aggregate more wealth in the coming week. They consider the state of being Present to be really top tier, the Cartier of states of being.

Energy, n.

1. Something people read in lieu of character judgment.
2. A term used to tell someone you don’t like them without having to get specific.

Workshop, n. A class of dubious origin. Most often offered by people who have forgotten they don’t know anything for people who know they don’t know anything. Commonly offered workshops are:

• Whatever’s Wrong With Your Life Is Your Fault
• Cry Now, Cry Later
• Authentic Penis, Authentic Vagina
• Cum Bucket: A Path to Enlightenment

I dj, phrase. Said by nincompoops and nabobs who like to fiddle with knobs, press an earphone to the side of their head and have people watch them as they jump up and down.

Almond, n. A bourgeois peanut.

Nature, n.

1. Any place one hour in any direction without indoor plumbing.
2. A place whose resources one seeks to protect. But only after one has already taken the resources one needs for one’s own comfortable life. These people tend to eat almonds.

Sacred, adj. An attribute often ascribed to a mountain or a meadow where one has:

1. Experienced a particularly awesome acid trip.
2. Completely lost their shit but it turned out OK in the end.

Juicy, adj. Sexy, sexual, sexified, sex-o-rama, sex-sensual. Overt sexuality of a most feminine nature, denoting soft, warm and moist. This word is most often cited by women, usually as they rub their yoni’s up against someone else’s thigh. While rubbing they will say, “I feel juicy.” Or, “Your so juicy.” Or, “This party is so juicy.” The world is split between those who find it a good thing and those who want to send the people who say juicy to Fresno.

Holding Space, phrase.

1. The art of doing nothing and getting credit for it while someone else is having a hard time.
2. The art of pretending that you care, by paradoxically doing nothing and getting credit for it, while someone else is having a hard time.

It should be noted that it is impossible to tell the difference between these two.

Boundaries, n. What you claim you have when you just don’t want to do something.

It all began when I swung my leg over my bike. I heard a small tear happen in the crotch of my very thin, very favorite pants. Whatev, it’s Burning Man. So when Dominic and Reynaldo yanked me from my slumber for our first evening out I put on my slightly torn, very favorite pants.

First we stumbled upon an empty 80’s/90’s dance party. Not a soul. Sensing opportunity, Dominic strutted into the middle of the dance floor clothed in nothing but his signature blue fur shrug, boy shorts, and ankle boots. He struck his best John Travolta pose and within minutes had ignited the dance floor – pure animal magnetism.

We moved on to an art piece made up of large glowing dots arranged in concentric circles. The dots changed colors when you jumped on them. So we jumped, going from one to the other trying not to touch the playa.

As I stretched my legs wide to jump from dot to dot, the tear grew larger and larger. By the time I was done jumping and laughing and bumping into Reynaldo and hearing Dominic exclaim, “Oh God,” the tear ran the entire length of my leg, crotch to ankle.

I was swinging free, open to the world. Oh, what wonder and joy it is to feel the night air on your cock. It was as though the playa was reminding me, or as though I had a large rip in my pants.

The next day Reynaldo borrowed my pants. He stood on the street holding the pants closed waiting for people to pass by. When they looked over Reynaldo would throw the pants open and smile.

At night the air was warm and easy and with nothing better to do I dropped my pants. That’s one of the beauties of Burning Man; often there is nothing better to do than exactly what you are doing.

To be clear, I was not shirt cocking. I took my shirt off as well.  I did, however, have my moccasins on. Thus I invented moccasin cocking. I highly recommend it.

Reynaldo dropped his pants as well. He was straight up boot cocking. Side by side we walked through the desert night, a couple of cocked up angels. Dominic declined to join because he’s self-conscious about his small balls. But our friend Millstein dropped trou with us. Reynaldo complimented him on his large package.

I must admit, I do not know how to tell how big a penis will become when it is in it’s flaccid state. I know there are growers and show-ers. But how much will a grower grow, and how much does a show-er show? I honestly do not know.

When we came to crowds or lights we put our pants back on. That way we could talk to people and hear all the craziness. If we had kept our pants off we would have been the crazies.

At the tripper trap, an art piece of little balls that light up different colors in different patterns thus trapping people who are tripping balls, we appeared normal enough to meet a woman named Wendy. She told us about her two kids, aged 18 and 20.

“I was the cool Mom,” she said. “I let them have the parties at my house. I was the local MILF. My kid’s friends would come over and, you know, I started sleeping with some of the 18-year-olds. They were energetic. That was fun.”

Reynaldo, Dominic, Millstein and I all checked in to be sure we heard right.

Later, on an art car, I passed as normal to have a conversation with a girl done up in a white Grecian dress and sandals. “Oh my god, I’m so high,” she said.

“On what?”

“On life… And a little bit of e.”

She was in love but it was a love that couldn’t be. Why’s that? Because he was in jail. What for? Rape.

“It’s doomed love,” she said. “But it’s romantic.” She was from Sacramento.

We walked past one couple without our pants on but it was dark enough that they didn’t notice. We got to hear them say, “Aren’t we amazing? We are so amazing. I mean, look at all this. None of this would exist without us. We are so amazing. I love being amazing.”

We walked on, Reynaldo and I swinging sexy. Then our drugs went intense and we launched ourselves into the overwrought sexy dancing dome. Millstein was there feeling the buzz. Poor Dominic was on acid and had a look of horror on his face.

High on G Reynaldo and I went and danced in the shadow boxes, projecting as perfect silhouettes. We kept our pants on. It would have a looked a little funny with them down, a silhouette of our bouncing dongs. But with our pants on it was, as Reynaldo put it, like dancing as an idealized self.

With the two of us in the shadow boxes we took our pants-down-cock-out energy and gave it to the dome. At Burning Man that’s a public service.

That night I fell into my tent and tried to fall asleep but my stomach hurt. A while later I was on all fours, head against the bumper of a cargo van, pants on, trying to empty my stomach while listening to the gaiety going on all around me.

I was remembering every loss I’d experienced, feeling lonely, sick, raw, tired, miserable. The Playa had broken me down and spit me out.  And Misty had stayed home this year. I had playa dust under my nails.

The next morning Dominic and Reynaldo listened to me as I talked about all I felt I had lost, about my shadow of loneliness, about trying to survive the night in the dark of the desert. They listened to my tears and how, when I dance at dawn, all of those feelings disappear. I rise with the sun.

And so Dominic and Reynaldo determined to stay awake with me till dawn on our last night. To that end they took copious amounts of drugs. I was still wobbly. It was windy and the night was full of dust. Everywhere we went seemed less than inspired. We couldn’t even take off our pants.

We ended up back at the sexy dance dome. Dancing felt good. Dominic and Reynaldo were chilling on a lounge, watching me. I told them they should go to Comfort and Joy for the party that was happening that night. That’s why were such good Playa mates, no need to stick. I stayed and danced alone. I felt the freedom of moving in all that space and felt alive.

I walked back to camp to get some water. The wind had died down and the night was beautiful. I took down my pants and swung in the air. Walking alone in the desert with my cock out, protected from the revelry by the darkness, it felt peaceful.

I moved across the desert to my favorite dawn spot at Opulent Temple and began to dance. And there was Millstein. We had agreed to meet here but this was the first plan all week that had actually happened. Millstein and I danced through the dawn.

Then we wandered out into the desert, faced the rising sun, and one last time we pulled down our pants. I swear you could feel love at that moment as easily as gravity. Sometimes, the cock saves.

Let us take a moment to praise, nay, to give thanks, for sweet Alyssa.

Ahhhhhhh, Alyssa, your two S’s leave my tongue to linger, to slip and slide over the thought of you, the most beautiful thing to ever leave the shores of Brooklyn.

It’s the name of a girl with loose morals, the kind of girl who does things on the hood of a car, in your best friend’s parent’s shower.

How fortunate we are you were a child star; for only then could you have gone through your I’m-18-and-I’ve-Developed phase, The phase that gave us Poison Ivy 2 and, praise Jesus hallowed be thy name, Embrace of the Vampire.

Some beautiful girls have elegance. They wear gowns. You fear your truth is too dirty for them.

Then here comes this tiny girl with this face, these boobs, this ass; and there are no bell jars to be found, no desire to be polite. Those full, fertile lips, those big eyes, a set of cheekbones that seem to point straight to her pussy, she’s the most beautiful trashy girl I’ve ever seen.

Here’s a beautiful girl you wouldn’t think twice about asking to bend over in a parking lot. Here’s a beautiful girl who would sound good banging up against the trunk of your car, a girl who might even like the feel of the keys in your pocket.

That’s why she’s my favorite hottie, the one I click on first. Alyssa Milano is touchable, the exquisite hoochie, the beautiful girl you’re pretty sure you could make laugh, the belle of the ball whose tattoos let you know she’s no stranger to being on her knees.

She sits on the edge of a sink in her underwear for a Candies ad pretty as any model. But you know a model’s underwear will never slip off while Alyssa’s…just might.

And while a model’s expression is inscrutable, aloof even, sweet Alyssa seems to be saying, “you can put it anywhere.”

She’s not a movie star. She’s a girl for your living room. So thank goodness for the TV show “Charmed”. More to the point thank goodness for “Charmed” being a big hit in France. There is nothing quite like getting to watch Alyssa without having to hear her. The adorable French voice that dubs her only adds to her allure.

I hope I never meet her, never have to deal with however it is she conceives of herself. I don’t want Alyssa’s version of Alyssa. She is a real life projection of a young boy’s fantasy.

The kind of girl you always wished would be your babysitter, the kind of girl you dreamed about losing your virginity too.

She’s the secretary you hope winks at you, the waitress you order coffee from just to watch her pour, the girl you always keep an eye out for after you saw her one day on the BART.

She’s the girl the homeless man compliments you on when she has her arm through yours, the girl your friends always remind you about, the girl you hope sits next to you on the plane.

She’s the girl you hope is in your class, the one who is sexy before you know what that is, the one you go to dinner with and notice all the guys looking, even the ones with pretty dates.

She’s the kind of girl boy shorts were made for.

Alyssa does commercials and acts in her TV show and appears in movies but they are all just excuses, attempts to give us a legitimate reason to watch her. Alyssa Milano’s acting career is the thespian equivalent of purposefully dropping her pencil in front of us so she can bend over to pick it up.

We don’t care. Because she’s the kind of girl we hope will drop her pencil.
We imagine watching her breasts fall forward to rest against the bolero top she has on, her boy shorts rising to reveal the tippity-top of her thighs.

Then she looks up and we realize she’s the prettiest girl we’ve ever seen in that outfit. She has a face of privilege, of one who doesn’t have to give it up, but she does anyway.

She’s a cashmere sweater in the five-dollar bin.

I do not mean this in a negative way, though if you are reading this magazine I understand why you might take it that way. Most popular music has a sexual component. There is a continuum. It looks like this.

Penis ——————-||——————-Vagina

Prince is on the left, right below penis. (The P in Prince actually stands for penis.) I saw him at Madison Square Garden once. He spent two hours teasing the audience with the opening piano bars of Darling Nikki before actually playing it: one man, 20,000 people, two hours of foreplay and the world’s largest simultaneous orgasm.

On the right, just below vagina, is Cat Power. The kitty grown into a pussy, her voice slinky and dark, a life lived in alleys and sex with strays.

What’s that space in the center you may ask? That’s the space carved out by U2.

U2 strives for a kind of holy eros. It’s a, I-look-good-and-god-is-in-the-house-and-ain’t-that-grand kind of thing. But you don’t really want to get it on to U2. Ever try to have sex to “Pride”? Or “Sunday, Bloody Sunday”? It feels blasphemous.

Phish resides on another plane all together. I would liken it to this model.

~~Phish~~

Prince’s Penis————| U2 |————-Cat Power’s Vagina

Phish, those shaggy boys from Vermont, are not testosterone in song. They are not the tear-stained tunes of a woman opening her heart. Nor are they attempting to be rock and roll evangelicals.

The members of Phish do not try on new personas with every tour. 20 years later Trey Anastasio is still sporting a denim button down shirt and a bowl cut and John Fishman is still wearing a dress.

Phish, as “Almost Famous” as this may sound, love music. And it is that word love that has them floating above the pop-sex continuum.

Between any act and their audience there is a relationship. And when it comes to musical acts we almost always just dating.

Most acts create a kind of aural lust. You first hear their song and lust for it. You want to hear the music over and over again. It’s like the sex is great. But then you grow sated. You want something more. The second album comes out and it’s just more of the same. There’s nothing more there. Kind of like when you realize that girl you met last month unloaded every interesting thought she had on that very first night.

With the death of the aural lust we break up with the band. You occasionally listen to their album out of nostalgia, but you move on.

This is not the pattern with Phish. Phish fans are committed to a long-term relationship with their band. For years the band and the fans traveled together, getting to know one another intimately. Phish never seemed to run out of things to say and the audience never tired of listening. Even when the band played an old song they played it in a new way reigniting the love.

This relationship isn’t about the short-term fling of sex but rather about the long-term gain of a loving relationship. The audience communes through the band, they love the band for being the band.

Phish did not utter a single word to the audience the other night. There was no crowd banter, no foreplay mediated by a microphone. Many of their songs lack words except for a phrase or two. In one song they simply repeat the name David Bowie. In another, Divided Sky the wind blows high.

My sister-in-law Katja believes these songs are as zen koans. The band is not trying to say anything but rather put you in a state to simply hear the music and stop all that thinking. And at the end of each set as they bowed deeply and smiled wide, it was easy to see Katja’s point. They were being themselves, no persona, no gamesmanship, no working it.

Phish loves the music they create. Their audience loves the music. And they love Phish for the music. The fans smile at one another and hug and do that kind of silly bouncy sort-of-dance-thing, which is all you can really do once a band has reached the thirty-fifth minute of a jam. (Of course you can always tell the people on drugs because they’re the only ones still dancing at that point.)

Katja has had a profound and loving relationship with Phish for years. She loves the way the communal love of the band brings the whole crowd into harmony. As a wise man once said, a mark of our social evolution is how many people can we bring together and still feel safe? At a Phish show that’s a lot of people.

Yes, there are lots of hippies and white people with dreadlocks and skirts with bells on them and the post-show parking lot scene of veggie burritos and crystals for sale is enough to turn anyone into a Republican.

But the experience of transcending the simple sexual relationship to come to a place where you can catch a glimpse of the world in harmony because of the music of Phish is quite something.

It’s inspired Katja to make a pair of pants for Trey. So Trey, if you see this, please send your measurements to me. Katja has a great vision. It came to her while dancing at Shoreline while not trying to figure out the meaning behind David Bowie.

There you are right in the heat of it, hand thrashing, dog licking… No, wait, that’s for a different website.

So there you are right in the heat of it, hand thrashing, toes curling, and you can tell this is going to be a good one; especially if you give it that extra little push. So you dig your heels into the back of the BART seat… Wait, that one’s for The Lonely Planet Guide to San Francisco.

So there you are right in the heat of it, hand thrashing, toes curling, giving it that extra little push to be memorable. You dig your heels into the mattress, stretch your shoulders back, pay no mind to the odd way your head is curving against your headboard. You’re almost there; you just need the right image cause orgasming to the wrong image sucks.

No, not that girl! No, not her grandma! Now you wish you had prepared better. It’s always best to go into masturbating with a plan. You’re starting to lose it, that roaring momentum, and that’s no good, you’re going to be off kilter for the rest of the teacher-parent conferences that day.

Ah, there it is, the image of the girl who let you into The Gap dressing room three years ago, random but perfect. You push on, pressing your head sickeningly askew from your body. A passerby could be forgiven for thinking you had broken your neck. But you don’t care. You have returned from the brink. You tense all the muscles in your back in preparation.

And that’s when you here it, the pop. Something, somewhere, usually in the upper middle part of your back, has come undone. A very important muscle has unraveled. But you keep on, breathing through the pain.

We developed this ability so as to keep running across the Savannah away from the saber-toothed tiger even when injured. In a modern twist on this evolutionary advantage you are able to keep masturbating although your back has just come in two.

Hand thrashing, breath held, the roaring in your head crests and breaks open in a wide, beautiful arc. The tension releases and all is good. That is until you try to move.

No one knows why masturbatory injuries are always so centrally located. But the moment you try and right your head you feel it, the searing pain shooting through your back. Oh god, you think, I am going to be trapped here with my pants down forever. Somehow you manage to get up, your head to one side, your arms held as still as possible.

Whatever muscle it is, it’s the one involved in every single movement you make, holding up your head, moving your arms, walking, turning, sitting, pooping. Oh lord, you’re not going to be able to push anything out for weeks.

You better get one of those Toto spray toilets cause you can just forget about reaching around. And now your girlfriend won’t have any interest in having sex with you… Wait, that was for a Japanese scat site.

At work the next day everyone asks what happened. You scroll through the possible responses in your head.

“I was building a rock wall.”
“I saved a nun from drowning.”
“I was yanking my wang so hard it pulled my back out.”

You can’t say that. It’s too ridiculous. You’ve already told your partner and now every time you wince she laughs at you. It’s the sympathy-less injury. There’s something about seeking pleasure to the point of hurting yourself that reeks of indulgence. That popped muscle is a Puritan punishment.

Pulling a muscle is certainly not the only masturbatory hazard. Misty pointed out that you can get jizz in a paper cut. Then you really are rubbing salt in your wound. Misty also said you can fall off the bed which sometimes entails hitting your head. I’m not sure how you would explain that black eye? But Misty certainly seems a vigorous maturbater. Go Misty go.

Once you have healed you tend to masturbate gingerly for a while. That’s never that fun. You have to feel free to really get into it for the full effect. As a preemptive I’ve taken to stretching before masturbating. Below is my list of best practices, in no particular order.

Yanking your wang? Bikram Yoga.
Smothering your schmekel? Try Kundalini Yoga.
Choking the chicken? Ashtanga Yoga!
Head-in-the-pillow-ass-in-the-air-squirting? Come over to my place Yoga

There were girls exposing the stars painted on their breasts. There were buff beefcakes, hairless and shiny, wearing bright blue boy shirts to show off the bulge.

Then there was the sculpted boytoy with surfer shorts hanging halfway down his bubble-toned ass; all of it accompanied by a ubiquitous electronic thump, the unofficial sound of the gay national anthem.

It was Pride in San Francisco, a day when you can climb out of the Civic Center BART station to the sight of a man in nothing but Calvin Klein underwear and ankle boots, yes, ankle boots.

What did I feel as I stared at that Calvin Klein clad bulge? Nostalgia.

It’s true, Pride reminds me of childhood. It also brings on a strong desire to sleep with an older woman. Allow me to explain.

In the early eighties my father, a lawyer, was representing a client who was accused of importing 30,000 tons of marijuana. For those of you with lesser math skills that’s 60,000 pounds.

For those of you used to buying an eighth of an ounce – times 8 by 16 ounces to get a pound and then times that by 60,000. That’s 7,680,000 eighths. This man was my hero.

The client owned homes all along the Atlantic coast that he used to off load the drugs. One of those homes was on Fire Island. When he ran out of money he deeded that house to my father as part of my father’s fee. Suddenly, we owned a mansion twenty feet from the ocean.

The mansion was in The Pines. The Pines is a beautiful community full of large wooden weathered beach homes with huge plate glass picture windows and swimming pools and a gourmet market. It is also 99.999% gay. The Pines is queer as a three-dollar bill.

There are things you don’t often see as an 11-year-old boy. A man wearing see-through pants and a ring piercing the tip of his penis is one of them. I was a short 11-year-old and I can still see the image from about eye level. It looked painful. I kind of wanted to reach out and touch it, but that didn’t seem right.

Then there were the neighbors behind us. They were naked all the time. One of them had a tattoo of a snake that started as his ankle and wrapped around his leg until the head appeared on his inner thigh reaching it’s forked tongue out towards his sack. He had a series of brass balls studding the length of his penis.

His partner had rings in each nipple and liked to wear a bar across his chest connecting the two. They would take walks on the beach. The one with pierced nipples holding a leash connected to the collar around the neck of his partner. The tattooed neighbor in turn holding the leash for their dog.

None of this is particularly shocking when you are young. It just doesn’t make any sense. Why anyone would want to do any of these things is a mystery. Rumor had it the neighbors also had a sound proof dungeon.

My young mind spent years pondering the use of this dungeon. What on earth would you want with a dungeon? If you’re going to go with the castle motif why not a turret or a drawbridge and moat, or a throne room, but a dungeon? And why sound proof it?

The Pines’ harbor was home to the Botel; a hotel with a huge outdoor bar that served colored drinks called Blue Whales and hosted High Tea.

Since there are no cars on the island everyone uses little red wagons. How often I would walk by the Botel pulling my little red wagon looking at all the beefcake in their leather boy shorts and Freddy Mercury mustaches and ball hugging speedos with blue drinks in their hands and poppers in their pockets.

That was an average weekend. Then there was the weekend of the invasion. That was the day that 200 men got on the ferry in the neighboring, wilder community of Cherry Grove. Every single one of them was dressed in drag. The ferry would dock and the invasion would begin.

And wouldn’t you know it I happened to be in the harbor, pulling my little red wagon, when the invasion began. 200 drunk and beautiful drag queens swarming all around me as I tried to get to the market. They just thought I was the cutest thing in the whole wide world.

So you can understand how encountering Pride would make me nostalgic for my youth. Walking by City Hall I could feel the little red wagon’s handle in my hand.

But why, you may ask, the desire to sleep with an older woman?

Being a mecca for gay men The Pines was a very safe beach for women. More to the point it was a safe beach for women to go topless. When you’re 12-years-old this is amazing.

When you’re 35-years-old this is amazing.

My brother and I got a hold of a pair of binoculars and would sit on the deck of the house and wait. Bird watching can kiss my ass. While this was awesome there was a downside. There were no girls. It was a gay community.

I was left to ogle grown naked women and ponder the way their breasts fell flat when they laid down on their beach blankets and then gathered round and full when they sat up.

I was left to wait for one of them to take pity on me when I, oops, just happened to be right next to them as they lay naked on the beach. I was banished to a summer of fantasizing about older women illicitly taking me into their bedrooms and showing me the way.

This was the origin of my theory that we should have a cultural tradition of older women initiating young men.

Alas, it never happened. Years later, I found a girl my own age. I didn’t like her all that much but was kind of digging her mom.

(If you’d like to see what a ferry full of queens looks like go here – at one minute 45 seconds.)

Related at Good Vibrations:
Shopping Guide for Gay Men
LGBT/Queer Erotica Books

A good session usually begins for me earlier in the day, often on the street. Not masturbating on the street mind you, as that would be vulgar. It’s also illegal; maybe not in San Francisco but in most other places.

What I meant to say was that a good masturbation session for me usually begins when I see something worth masturbating too. Most often it is a person though certain orchids, the right pair of shoes, or a naked mannequin can help me set sail.

Yes, a naked mannequin can arouse my senses. Perhaps it is because of a young Kim Cattrell coming to life in the movie “Mannequin” making a young, shy boy wish that he too would get trapped inside a department store at night and find love. Perhaps it is because I am an abstract thinker and so the mere suggestion of the female nude is enough.

In any event, even if I do see one of those sexed up mannequins it only serves to heighten my vigilance to seek out a live beautiful woman, the erotic in the everyday. Living in the Bay Area, this might be why I have trouble masturbating.

I grew up in New York City where the streets are awash in feminine beauty. I’d see a pair of sculpted calves rise out of sharp heels, an asymmetrical hem slicing the air with every step. That woman would follow me home in my fantasy; or the slinky purple off shoulder number at 9 a.m., or the Ibiza girls falling out of a car on their way into a club.

People in the Bay Area don’t place such a premium on physical beauty. In Berkeley a woman is more likely to brush her aura than her hair. In San Francisco a woman is more likely to work her freak factor as sexy than have stepped out of the pages of a magazine. Even the Heights social set looks like a casting call for New York castoffs.

Even the architecture in New York has a sex appeal. Who wouldn’t mind tapping the Guggenheim’s ass? But do you really want to do anything more than cuddle with a Victorian?

The advantage to the Bay Area is people are more likely to actually find out who you are – and care. They are more likely to be on a journey towards understanding and to want to talk about it. Sometimes they want to talk about it ad nauseum, but communicate they will.

In New York you are more likely to find attitude, a refusal to admit uncertainty or weakness of any kind. But wow will they be beautiful. Which brings me back to my trouble masturbating last night.

The Bay Area is not a particularly good place for generating masturbatory fantasies for heterosexuals. If you’re a hetero woman you had better love really soft men or the fantasy of being licked all over by a posse of gays. If you’re a hetero man, well, you had better really love off center women or the fantasy of being licked all over by a posse of gays.

For both sets of heteros there is the occasional yoga toned body strutting by. But then you’re dealing with New York attitude.

When I first arrived on these shores I notice that my masturbating was a less intense experience. It took me a while to realize that I was resorting to old fantasies. I was having trouble generating new fantasies. And fantasies are kind of like gravity, the further away they get the less powerful they become.

So there I was last night, in bed, shaft in hand and what a soft shaft it was. There was no lift off. But I really wanted it. The old fantasies just weren’t cutting it. I tried to remember someone I had seen on the street of late, but girl’s who use hemp deodorant don’t do it for me, girls with big glasses and bad jeans don’t do it for me, girls in nice shoes, nicer dresses and blank faces don’t do it for me. What was I to do?

Then I remembered going to the water park in Concord the other day. On the other side of the Oakland hills lies another world, a world where women paint themselves for men; a world where looking hot is a full time job. Things began to perk up. I guess sometimes it’s important to leave the Bay behind you for a little bit.

I’m not saying any of what happens in Concord is good for the liberation of women. But it can be good for a fantasy or two. It may not be right, but it is true.

There’s no single answer. My relationship with my dangling self, like all healthy relationships, has evolved over time. We have grown and changed together, staying up late, swapping stories.

I must say it is undeniably fun to have a penis. It’s like walking around with your own amusement park ride.

But the relationship is not entirely fluid. Having survived 34 years so far I can attest to three distinct phases; and so, three distinct rides.

The first phase is from birth to puberty. It is like the bumper cars. For something supposedly pleasurable it seems to hurt more than it should. And you often get stuck just banging yourself into the corner.

When you’re young you tend to hurt your penis. A lot. In fact, the penis will never be in as much danger as it is during the early years.

Bicycle seats, swinging your legs over the top of a fence, sitting down with too much enthusiasm, all of these daily activities leave one’s testicles in mortal peril. I fell split leg on a tree limb once. Then there are the various hard balls thrown or hit at tremendous velocities in supposed “games” which inevitably find their way to your little schmekel. And, of course, there’s the sheer unadulterated terror of learning to use a zipper.

It’s why all little boys wear tighty whities. Boxers are too careless.

Now there doesn’t seem to be much point to the bumper cars after you’ve smashed into a few people. In the early years masturbating is a similar exercise in futility.

It consists of a certain number of rubbings, hands, pillows, mattress’, carpets, couches, deck chairs, anything really. It feels good and it’s neat to watch a part of yourself get bigger.

But it always ends the same way, a sort of convulsive overload of too much pleasure with no outlet. You stop rubbing and try and catch your breath. But there’s no pay off. Imagine never getting to see the end of a movie and you get the idea.

The best part of having a penis in the first phase is far and away the long distance pee. The ability to make a leaf move, to watch the stream arc through the air, to fill the toilet with bubbles, these are the earliest manifestations of a man’s will.

The second phase, from puberty till around 27-years-old, is like the ride Free Fall.

It is a chaotic phase. It begins one random day with the typical rubbing. But suddenly you go higher then ever before, nearly six stories. There’s a moment of weightlessness, then the amazing rush of falling straight to the earth. The ride lasts six seconds. And the first thought in your head is, “Again!”

For the next 15 years this is pretty much the state of things for young men. We spend all day thinking about how to go up six stories just to feel the thrill of a six second drop. And then we want to do it all over again.

It’s the again part that has given this phase it’s golden hue. How older viagra-dependent men wax nostalgic for the days when they needed just a few minutes to recharge. But the golden hue is a myth.

The second phase is a horrible time. His penis enslaves the young man. I was a Hebrew slave making straw and mud bricks while my Egyptian penis sat fanned by a palm frond, eating dates, and cracking its whip.

Imagine someone always demanding you fast forward to watch the end of the movie and you get the idea.

Ladies, imagine if your breasts suddenly jumped two-cup sizes busting out of your bra and the only way to appease them was to go somewhere and rather violently rub your nipples. Imagine that happening five times a day. And imagine it happening heedless of social context.

“It’s lovely to meet you Mrs. Mother of my Girlfriend. Please excuse me while I slip my penis under my waistband so I don’t poke you with it.”

Yes, somehow you have managed to get a girlfriend. You think it’s a season pass, that you can ride Free Fall whenever you want. But it’s not.

First she’s upset about the six-second drop. She wants to start out on the carousel, maybe make her way over to a gentle rollercoaster, finally ending up at Free Fall. And man, the rails on that rollercoaster are dry. And, this phase is best handled by three or four women. The demands are too much for one girl, much less a teenage girl.

So you’re always convincing and she’s always appeasing.

Unfortunately, men tend to marry the most appeasing girl they can find. They have little idea this phase is coming to an end.

One day, magically, you are set free. The third phase has begun, the age of the Flume.

It’s a beautiful phase. You have gained mastery of your penis. You tell it when to rise up and when to lie down. Your penis has become a glorious flume ride.

You rest comfortably in your log, sometimes alone, sometimes with one other person, sometimes with two or three, were all adults now.

You rise high above the park, but there’s no immediate drop. No dryness here, there’s plenty of water and you slip and slide along the path, sometimes rising up a bit, sometimes enjoying small drops.

You happily bang against the sides. And then, only after a lovely ride, you come crashing down in a burst of white foam. You rock gently in the water, panting, musing. If there’s anyone else in the log you take a moment to ask if they need to ride again. The circle catches you and you take your time stepping out of the log. You check out who else is riding the flume. You stretch and decide what ride to go on next.

Ah, the third phase. Still young enough to scoff at Cialis ads, but old enough to hold back when your baby needs that extra minute. Your physical feats are long past but you play a smarter game with feints and passes and teamwork.

I don’t know how long this phase lasts. I’m hoping at least another 10 years. But each phase seems wonderful at the time. That’s the beauty of having a penis. Even when it’s torturing you, you’d swear he was your best pal.

What else can I say about my penis? Some girls think he’s a dick, but I always have my best times with him.

Manifest, v. To ask the universe (and everyone around you) for something over and over again until you get it.

Open Relationship, phrase. An agreement whereby couples remain open to experiencing the full range of human emotions, these most often being: jealousy, petty jealousy, insecurity, rage, and finally exhaustion. They play out like the five stages of death.

Hula Hoop, n.

1. A hollow hoop made of plastic designed to be spun around one’s midsection.
2. A veil worn in public allowing the bearer to move in ways otherwise considered obscene.
3. A means for unattractive people to gain attention.

Hot, adj. Someone who wants to sleep with you.

Crazy, adj. Someone who calls you on your shit.

Issues, n. Whatever it is that happened in childhood that will make you turn a perfectly normal situation into a dramatic moment of crises.

Yoni, n. A vagina served on a bed of arugula. (Knoll farms local organic arugula)

Bougie, adj. (pronounced Boo-soft G-Eee) Short for bourgeois, most often used to denote cool or alternative things being done in an upper class style. Said things are often wasteful or unnecessary. Examples of modern Bougie might be:

• Saturday afternoon reservations to take ayahuasca followed by Sunday evening reservations at Boulevard.
• Using your car’s GPS Navigation system to find a rave
• An RV at Burning Man
• Marin County

Contact Improv, v. A style of public foreplay wherein one of the participants takes the roll of a tree blowing in the wind while the other participant attempts to climb said tree. In the wild this mating dance most often takes place in the center of a dance floor causing other dancers to be kicked repeatedly in the shins and back. To spot a participant look for a self satisfied grin and a sleeveless shirt.

Non-Violent Communication (NVC), v.

1. A style of communicating designed to lower tempers during conflict. Using NVC involves expressing your love and respect for your adversary as a means to soften your expression of hate and contempt.
2. A rigorous, structured form of passive aggressive language.

Example: I understand your point and appreciate your being willing to express it. But this doesn’t change the fact that you are an idiot, both of your parents must be idiots, and in fact you must come from a long line of idiots to actually believe what you’re saying. You are wrong and I will not apologize for that. I hope you can feel the intention from my heart and that I say this with love. Nameste.Nameste, n. A traditional Bay Area greeting roughly translated as, “The place within me where god dwells says what’s up to the place within you where god dwells.” Used to bastardize Buddhist philosophy as a means of escaping responsibility for one’s actions.

The logic is as follows: If god is in you and god is in me then we are all one, the same. Therefore if I offended you by sleeping with your boyfriend and then lying about it I offended me too. But as I have forgiven myself, and we are all one, you must forgive me too. Nameste.

Yoga Pants, n. Worn by women who tend to bend over a lot in public spaces. Often black and wide at the bottom they become tighter around the thighs only to end in a perfect suction grip around one’s buttocks. The buttocks are usually very firm from doing yoga.

One does not have to be doing yoga to wear yoga pants, however. They are wonderful for going to the store, climbing in and out of an SUV, preening, prancing, and making other women feel bad about themselves.

Chill Space, n. A room or area at a party designed as a sanctuary for

a) When your drugs overwhelm you

Or

b) It has become clear that the deep, spiritual conversation you are engaged in would be heightened by lying down on pillows and stroking one another.