Wednesday Morning is the New Tuesday Night

When I got to B Bar, Justin was being harassed by some drunken moron named Steve.

"My good friend is friends with Sandra Bernhard. They do Kabbaaaaaaalah together. She was like, 'You have to hire Saaaaaaandra.'"

Steve was rattling on and on about his column in some sort of automotive magazine, his book deal, the book party he wanted to throw at Bungalow 8, his small airline.

"So Saaaaaaandra and I reeeeeeally hit it off. If you want tickets to her show just caaaaaaall me."

I had no intention of ever calling Steve, and I was more than a little worried, after he bought me and Justin a round of drinks, that he might follow us to Happy Valley. Thankfully, he went home before I finished my first lychee martini.

It was almost empty when we got to Happy Valley a little after midnight. Apparently, Tuesday night doesn’t start until Wednesday morning.

"Give it an hour," Justin said. Sure enough, everyone arrived at once, and by 1:30 it was packed. It makes you wonder what the hell these people do before going out.

My favorite go-go boy is back in town. I’d heard he’d moved away, but I’ve been seeing him everywhere lately.

Formika was there, in boy drag, looking fab in a pair of pink suede cowboy boots. I think I need me a pair of those. Sophia Lamar brushed past me, caught my eye, and muttered something bitchy about the gay boys. I love her so. And I know Musto said something brilliant and eminently quotable to me, but I forgot it almost immediately.

Kenny Kenny was working this wig that looked like a big blonde penis. Kenny, baby, is that hair new or have I just not been out in a month? Susanne Bartsch, on the other hand, seems to only have one look. And she's still walking around with that mountain man cane. Isn't that foot healed yet?

"She's in heels," Justin pointed out, "so it must be on the mend."

Oh, and by the way, Linda Simpson is the new Linda Perry. She did this acoustic cover of Blondie’s "Maria" that made me want someone to play it at my wedding. My mother had "Ave Maria" at her wedding, I’m having this.

A word about attire: I know there isn't a dress code at Happy Valley, but I thought it was the kinda place where you were supposed to, I don’t know, make an effort. Justin and I counted somewhere between five and seven boys wearing shorts. Unacceptable. And while being scantily clad and gloriously accessorized is sort of the point of going out, simply dancing around shirtless in a pair of Deisel jeans is so tacky/boring.

"I guess they must think this is Heaven," Justin said.

A good rule of thumb: If the bartender is wearing a shirt, keep yours on.

MoFo

I got pictures from Motherfucker...

It was my first. The sixth anniversary. The theme was Truman Capote's Black and White ball. It was kinda like a great big scenester prom.

My Wes Borland look and the always demure Acid Betty. She said I looked scary.

Peppermint Gummybear and Mistress Formika


Holy, holy, holy!

For much better photos than mine check out Ambrel and LastNightsParty.

X-Men 3

Just got back from a midnight show of X-Men: The Last Stand. Yes, I geeked out and saw it early...

It wasn’t as bad as I had feared, but it was nowhere near as good as it could have been, which in the end amounted to a tremendous cocktease. Compared to other superhero movies, the X-Men films are, for my money, the best there are. But compared to the X-Men and X2, The Last Stand is amazingly lame.

The thing is, there’s good stuff here. The story could have been really powerful, with socio-political themes that resonate deeply today. And the treatment of the comic book storylines is surprisingly good – anyone who thought they couldn’t incorporate Phoenix realistically enough to makes sense in these movies should eat their words.

Yes, this could have been a really great movie…if only Bryan Singer had directed it. The style, wit, and substance Singer brought to the first two X-Men films is gone, replaced by Brett Ratner’s ham-handed, money-shot ethos. Worse still, all the drama surrounding the film’s pre-production is apparent throughout. Certain characters’ speedy disposal or absence from significant portions of the film screams of scheduling conflicts and contract difficulties. The Last Stand is the shortest of the X movies, and as such crams scene on top of scene with virtually no subtlety or character development. Angel barely interacts with any of the other mutants; it’s impossible to figure out exactly what connection Beast had to the X-Men; and Colossus is just a glorified extra. The first half of the movie plunges you right into the action, like watching part two of a TV miniseries when you haven’t seen part one. It rushes toward the spectacular climax of Act I, Xavier and Magneto’s confrontation with Phoenix. But nothing in Act II manages to top that single thrilling, heartbreaking moment.

And that’s where The Last Stand really disappoints. The ending is so astoundingly anti-climactic. I could have forgiven – and probably would have forgotten – all of those flaws if only the ending had been worth it.

Night of a Thousand Stevies

Last night every damn drag queen in New York – and more than a few out of towners – got all gussied up in chiffon and lace and ribbons for the 16th annual Night of a Thousand Stevies at the Knitting Factory. Once a year all the queens and fags and a bunch of straight girls dress up like Stevie Nicks and lip sync and do covers and performances.

I know, it’s weird, right? Not Cher, not Bette Midler, not Barbara Streisand, not Madge. Stevie Nicks. "Dreams" singin', coke snortin', slept with every rock star of the 70s and 80s, gained a ton of weight in the 90s Stevie Nicks. Uh-huh, you see your gypsy.

Just a random sampling of Stevies...
...And other beautiful freaks.
My friend Blue was dressed as Mick Fleetwood from the cover of Rumours, complete with dangling balls. I managed to pull together a Mirage era Lindey Buckingham look at literally the last minute.

It was so corny, so campy, it was brilliant. I saw Cyndi Lauper, fresh from a performance of The Threepenny Opera, watching the show from the balcony. She tripped and stumbled into an unsuspecting gay boy who got all smiley and glowy when he realized he'd broken the fall of an 80s pop star. Musto was there, looking kinda awkward. Miss Guy and Sherry Vine performed. The legendary Chi Chi Valenti emceed. Downstairs the DJ spun Stevie songs all night long. Everytime a new song came on everyone cheered like they were surprised to hear Stevie. I must have heard "Stand Back" seven times. And everyone sang along.

PREF: Stealing Boyfriends

Here's the latest PREF piece from the May/June issue. It's available in New York now, so go out a buy a copy and improve your French. Oh, and the website got a facelift. Check it out.

How to Steal a Boyfriend

New Yorkers have a long history of infidelity. Donald Trump cheated on Ivana. Anna Wintour stole someone’s husband. Even Sara Jessica Parker’s saccharine sweet Carrie Bradshaw had that nasty little affair with the married Mr. Big. Trying to steal someone’s boyfriend? That’s so New York.

Ryland
It was summer and my friend Charlie’s apartment felt like a sauna. He was having a party and the heat and the close quarters had whipped everyone into a froth of sexual energy. It was tangible. You could run your fingers through it; you could smell it on people. We were all swimming in a sticky sea of pheromones and getting sort of wild-eyed. You could tell something was going to happen.

I saw Ryland and reacted to him immediately.

“Who’s that?”

“He used to live with Charlie.”

“Is he gay?”

“I think they slept together once.”

“I think I’m in love.”

“He has a boyfriend.”

The boyfriend – Jeff – was a few years younger than Ryland, blond, and by all accounts completely innocent to the ways of the world.

“He just came out. Ryland’s the only guys he’s ever been with. He’s really sweet.”

“I’m going to steal his boyfriend,” I said.

So I cornered Ryland in the kitchen and introduced myself. He told me he was an actor and I told him that I was going to flirt with him shamelessly.

“I know you have a boyfriend and I just don’t care,” I said.

“One point for you,” he said.

“What happens when I get five points?”

“I’ll run naked to my boyfriend.”

I felt sort of lawless and amoral, like a predator or a mercenary. I could do anything and people would pretend to be appalled, but really they’d be jealous, maybe even inspired.

I left that party with a renewed sense of purpose. On the subway, I listened to Stevie Nicks songs from the 80’s on my iPod and thought, “Ryland will be mine!” I had a goal, a quest. It was like waking up and realizing that everything has secret functions and hidden compartments that you never knew about. Life seemed fresh and full of possibilities.

I didn’t see Ryland again for a month. I called him and left messages and sometimes he would call me back. Then, one night he called me up and invited me to a fashion party at Quo. Just me and him. I don’t know why Jeff didn’t come with us. I don’t really care.

Quo was one of those really pretty, really awful West Chelsea clubs where everyone is gorgeous and no one is actually famous. I’m not sure why Ryland even wanted to go to that party. He didn’t seem to know anyone. Of course, that meant that I got his full attention. His full attention, however, meant that I had to listen to him talk endlessly about some play he was in, something about flight attendants in the ‘60s. That’s what you get for trying to fuck an actor.

I tried to lean in close to him as much as possible. It was loud, so we had to shout into each others’ ears to be heard. I would lean in, let my cheek brush his, put my lips close to his ear, breath on his neck. I tried to kiss him when we were settling out bar bill. He pulled away.

Outside, walking up Ninth Avenue, Ryland grabbed me, pulled me close and kissed me as garbage trucks drove by blowing their horns. He pulled me into a doorway and put his hand down my pants.

“Let’s go to your place,” he said. But as we walked to the subway, Ryland must have sobered up a little. “Would you hate me if I said I was having second thoughts?”

I told him no, I wouldn’t hate him. I told him I understood, all the while kissing his neck and pressing myself against him, trying to get him to change his mind again. But when my train came, Ryland didn’t get on with me.

Clark
The first time I met Clark, I didn’t think much of him. He seemed nice, smart. I liked him. But I barely looked at him twice. He was wearing his glasses.

The second time I met Clark, his glasses were off, and it was like he’d turned into Superman. Who’d have thought something as small as a pair of spectacles could mask such astounding cuteness. The second time I met Clark was when I started scheming.

I don’t think Clark gets along very well with his boyfriend, Darrin. They don’t seem to have much chemistry. When they’re out together, they barely talk, and when they do they always seem to be at odds with each other. So when I told Clark that I was going to steal him, I actually meant that I was going to rescue him.

We were at Area 10018, Mistress Formika’s infamous Friday night party. I waited for Darrin to disappear into the crowd, and then crept up behind Clark.

“Want to know a secret?” I said. “I’m going to steal you.” Clark looked at me and smiled, his eyes literally sparkling.

That night we danced, grinding our hips into each other, groping, getting hard right there on the dance floor. We snuck away upstairs to the VIP lounge and made out in a shadowy banquette and then left the club and walked all the way from Bryant Park to Chelsea, stopping in a porno shop along the way.

Since that night I’ve been sending Clark text messages and emails, some of them dirty. He tells me he’s been working really long hours, leaving work at 3 a.m. most nights and coming into work on Sundays.

“You know, God cries when people work on Sunday.” I write. “He would much rather us be getting blowjobs.”

“So would I!” he writes back.

Another night, I’m drunk and leaving a bar. “Are you working late? I could sneak into your office and you could have your way with me on your desk or in the supplies closet.” He never answered that message.

On Valentine’s Day I wrote him a love letter, but never sent it. “There’s a look in your eyes sometimes,” I wrote, “like something is waking up. Inside you, certain things are starting to move again that maybe haven’t moved in a long time. I think they’ve been waiting to move. I think they’re sorry they slept in so late.”

I see Darrin more than I see Clark. I always run into him at clubs and bars and parties. He’s always drunk and flirting with other guys. I’m pretty sure he knows what’s going on, but he always says hello to me, and he’s always really friendly. I think Clark wants to be stolen. And sometimes I think Darrin wants me to steal him.

The Bold and the Bony

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Drawing Restraint 9

Just saw Drawing Restraint 9 and here's what I think:

Matthew Barney naked: hot. Björk naked: not so hot.

Actually, I really enjoyed DR9, despite the fact that it's a two and a half hour art film without much of a plot or dialogue. Björk and Barney are guests on a Japanese whaling ship, and...well, that's about it. The rest is just visual. I'm sure there are significant themes here that I'm totally missing. Some of the reviews I've read say the film is an exploration of Japanese culture; the official site says something about "self-imposed resistance and creativity." Whatever. There are definitely some stunning images in the second half - the guests calmly hacking each other up with knives under water is pretty intensely erotic - if you can make it through the first hour without nodding off.

Björk's soundtrack blows Barney's art installation smegma out of the water, though. Her sonic landscapes are just so much more vivid and evocative and emotional than any of his pretty little seashell bowls and giant gelatin sculptures. It's funny to me that these two are actually lovers in real life. His stuff is so cold and restrained, while hers is a vital vibrant cacophony.

Dita

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PREF in NYC

Ok all you Francophiles, it looks like PREF, the French magazine I write for, is coming to the US. It's about damn time too, considering all the lovely press we've been getting lately. PREF is like a French version of Blue Magazine. Lots of gorgeous photography of gorgeous gay boys. Plus, of course, my NYC sex column. Check out what people are saying about us here and here. Hot right? Well if you're in New York you can not get your very own copy and hold it in your own two hands.

Click here to see where PREF is available.

The Legend Lives On

My friend Gretchen was having dinner at a restaurant in Greensboro, NC, where I went to college. Her waiter said he recognized her.

“I think we met at a party.”

“Um. I don’t really go to parties.”

“Yeah, it was one of John Russell’s parties.”

“Oooooooh. Oh yeah.”

A week later I found this on her boyfriend’s blog:

Funny story. I had a friend who worked at a local Adam & Eve for about a year before moving to NYC, where he now works in a sex shop and is a sex writer.

He said that whenever married men came into the store alone the conversation went something like this:

"Hey...I need a giant dildo/vibrator."

"Um...okay."

"It's not for me! It's for my wife. She's...well, I think she's frigid."

"Really? Well...um...maybe I could interest you in a book..."

"No, no ...just show me your biggest toy."

At which point my friend's head would nearly explode. As he wrapped up the 14'' sex toy and handed it to the guy with a smile he'd think: "She's not frigid, pal. She just doesn't want to do it with you..."

It's nice to know the legend lives on.

North Carolina

Tonight I am sober, sunburnt, and half crazed. I don’t think I’ve been this horny since I was 14 years old, and the only words I can find are hacked-up, tired clichés. Desire frustrated is a mean, nasty thing; a shaking, violent, cage-rattling ape, rabid and beautiful and angry.

But I don’t really feel angry or violent. Actually, I feel pretty elated. It’s like there’s a live bird in my chest, not an ape, light and fluttering, flapping it’s wings, making gusts of air that catch in my throat.

Being in North Carolina always does this to me. It’s Pavlovian; I was 14 here, this is where sex exploded into my mind – taut, wiry muscled marines; guys with sunburns, shaved heads, driving around shirtless in outdated cars that smell like roses and cigarettes; smell of sand, salt, sea, heat; bushy, unkempt pubic hair – so whenever I’m here, it’s like I am 14. My cock stirs and it’s like the first time, like it’s never been touched. Every inch of my body is awake, my skin crawling, grasping. It’s heavy and light at the same time, alive all around me, surrounding me, swallowing me, gliding over my skin, licking me like flames (see what I mean about clichés?), heavy between my legs. A soft, thick ache, a pulling in the center of me. And I’m out of breath and anxious, itching, squirming. After hours in the sun, I’m warmed, ignited, ready. I loosen, eyes roll, heart jumps...

Bathroom Interview: Tommy Hottpants

Tommy Hottpants is one of my favorite NYC DJs, partly because of his penchant for playing Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Cure and Romeo Void, and partly because I really really really want to make out with him. Seriously. I think I had a boner during this whole interview.

John: So Tommy Hottpants, where are your hot pants?
Tommy Hottpants: My hot pants…well, I’m not wearing anything under my jeans, so they’re not there, but they may be in my suitcase which is packed up and ready to go to San Francisco in like 2 hours.

J: So these aren’t you’re hot pants?
TH: No. No these are not my hot pants.

J: If you had to DJ a porno, what would your porno soundtrack be?
TH: Probably something along the lines of a remix of this Faint song, a little bit of Manson, a little bit of Mötley Crüe. And perhaps…Def Leopard? It’s all about the metal stripper thing, you know? For me at least. You’ve gotta be wild and sexy in bed or else it’s not gonna happen, you know? Nothing pussy like Björk.

J: You think Björk is a pussy?
TH: She’s great. I want to meet her. I totally would like to hang out with Björk. But, for sex music…No. You know, none of that lovey dovey, like tweeky, creeky coo coo coo…none of that.

J: So if you’re going to be having sex tonight, what song will you be having sex too?
TH: Well, I will be having sex in an airplane. High above the skies.

J: Where are you going?
TH: San Francisco. My flight’s at six o’clock in the morning. And there will most definitely be sex in the Mile High Club. Already a member. Yeah, it’s gonna be hot. And in San Francisco it’s just gonna continue.

J: Umm…I think I’m out of questions. What would you ask me if you were doing this interview?
TH: Top or bottom?

J: Oooh. Both, definitely.
TH: Versitile! Oh that’s nice. Um, if you were locked in a bathroom and you could be with anyone, name four people.

J: I don’t know.
TH: I’ll answer my own question. It’s gonna be Pierre Fitch. Look him up online. He’s the hottest porn star ever. You’re gonna fall in love with him. It’s gonna be Pierre Fitch, Nikki Six, Henry Rollins, maybe, because you need one muscle guy. And probably Heath Ledger, but a la Ten Things I Hate About You, but without the hair. So that’s the bathroom party.

10:45

10:45 Sunday night, I call Dave.

Me: Should I go out?

Dave: I’m in. At home I mean.

Me: Why?

Dave: Do you want to go to Hiro?

Me: I don’t know. Maybe.

Dave: I can be ready in 20 minutes.

Me: Twenty minutes?

Dave: Oh, come on! Like we don’t go out this late on Tuesday nights!

Me: No. I should stay in.

Dave: Why?

Me: I’m behind on, like, two writing assignments.

Dave: Do you really think you’ll get any work done tonight?

Me: I’m feeling restless.

[silence]

Dave: You still there?

Me: I’m looking at myself in the mirror to see if I feel sexy.

Dave: Yeah?

Me: I feel sexy.

Dave: Ok?

Me: Ok. Lets go.

Dave: Really?

Me: I’m committed.

Meeting of the Minds

I was almost an hour late to meet Chuck and Musto at B Bar Tuesday night.

“You just missed Debbie Harry,” Chuck said. I guess that’s what I get.

In the cab on the way to Happy Valley Chuck was talking about how he wants to find a new place for him and Musto to go on Wednesday nights.

“You and Musto?”

“Yeah, he’s my new partner in crime.”

I kinda thought I was Chuck’s partner in crime.

“Fine, you can take Musto back to your hotel tonight.”

We got to Happy Valley just in time to grab a drink and squirm our way through the crowd, up to the balcony to watch Dita Von Teese do her boom-boom champagne glass burlesque strip tease thing. I don’t know what’s up with Happy Valley and all the burlesque acts they hire – Dita, Dirty Martini, Amanda – but I think I kinda like it.

I finally got to meet Rob Roth, the video artist who’s been emailing me ever since he read something I wrote on my MySpace page about Matthew Barney and gay porn.

“I love this song,” he said. “It’s perfect for seducing someone.” Then he tried to demonstrate his seduction method – sort of dancing close and putting his thigh between my legs like he was going to knee me in the groin – and was not entirely unsuccessful.

Upstairs, we were joined by an effusive drunken older gentleman who turned out to be Patrick McMullan. He kept asking if Chuck and the boy Chuck was flirting with and I were boyfriends. Then he grabbed me and shoved my face into Rob’s and took pictures while we made out.

“I kinda thought this would be a meeting of the minds,” I said.

“Well, there’s mind and body and spirit…” Rob said. I gave him my number.

Of course, I went home with Chuck and had blurry, four o’clock in the morning sex, which is a pattern neither of us seems capable of breaking.

Career Porn Stars

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The Heart is Deceitful

Asia Argento’s film adaptation of JT LeRoy’s The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things opened in New York last weekend. I saw it last night. It wasn’t bad. Actually, it was better than I expected. The only glaringly awful aspect of the film were all the celebrity cameos. It’s not that the actors themselves (all friends of LeRoy, all of whom now look like fools) did a bad job. It’s just that their presence in the film is incredibly distracting. People actually laughed at Marilyn Manson, Wynona Ryder, and Michael Pitt. Laughed at a film based on one of the most gut-wrenchingly depressing books of the past decade. Still, I’m actually pretty eager to see Argento’s other film, the semi-autobiographical Scarlet Diva. But that’s not what I was thinking about as I left the theater.

It’s only been a few months since articles in New York Magazine and The New York Times exposed LeRoy as a fraud. People have reacted in various ways, but the general consensus, as far as I can tell, is that the books should stand for themselves. I found this quote from the London Guardian on LeRoy’s own blog:

“But nothing has been taken from us. The books remain: as startling and disturbingly beautiful as they ever were. There is nothing that has sullied the New York Times's assertion that 'his language is always fresh, his soul never corrupt'. And what strikes me more than anything is that in this age of overblown celebrity, where people such as Paris Hilton can be famous purely for being Paris Hilton, mightn't JT LeRoy represent the precise inversion of this? The work is all. The identity is irrelevant.”

I disagree. The fact that JT LeRoy doesn’t exist actually does affect the work.

As a memoir, The Heart is Deceitful made sense. It was about catharsis, bloodletting. As a work of fiction, it’s just grotesque and more than a little absurd.

“JT LeRoy” was never a survivor’s story in the Oprah sense. It wasn’t about raising awareness or preventing the sort of abuses depicted in the stories. LeRoy never founded an organization or crisis hotline. He was more concerned with telling his story – over and over again – as a way to come to terms with the events of his past. It was about getting the poison out, examining it, dealing with it, and creating something beautiful and raw and honest out of it.

But now that we know it was all made up, that none of it ever happened, that JT LeRoy is a fiction, a mere character in these stories rather than someone who actually experienced the horrors they describe, it all just feels dirty. You have to wonder what kind of person imagines these sort of things. It’s not that I don’t realize that horrible things happen to children in this world. I’m not so naïve that I think there aren’t supremely fucked up people out there who torture their own kids. It happens. It’s awful, but it happens. What bothers me is that whoever has been writing as JT LeRoy – it’s now generally accepted that the real author is a 40-something woman named Laura Albert – has been exploiting these sort of tragedies in the name of fame, wealth, and the most obscene star-fucking in recent memory.

What’s worse is that we, the reading public, just lapped it up. It’s like Albert tapped into a sick voyeurism in all of us. Something in us wants to hear these kinds of stories. It’s the same thing that makes us salivate over the sensationalist evening news, the same thing that makes us lick our chops watching Judge Judy and Jerry Springer...only much, much worse.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to read JT LeRoy the same way I used to. The stories are still beautifully, disturbingly written. But what used to be so emotionally searing now seems callous and perverse.

PRÉF: Other People's Sex Lives

My piece from the March/April issue of PRÉF. Names have been changed, 'cause I learned my lesson ages ago.

Other People's Sex Lives

Lately I’ve been irrationally afraid that everyone in the world is having better sex than me. The last few times I’ve done it have been amusing at best; the kind of sex I imagine people twice my age have when they’ve been married for 20 years and have run out of ideas. I’m not having bad sex, but I just cannot help feeling that it could be better, that I must be getting lazy or uninspired. Especially when compared with my friends’ tales of their sexual exploits.

I. James’s Thumb-Fuck
James and I dated in college. We had a terrible breakup, thought we’d never speak to each other again, and then, a few years later, became really good friends. I guess there’s the tiniest bit of sexual tension left between us, but that’s normal.

James, like every other gay guy in New York, likes to talk about sex over cocktails in the middle of the week. It was a Tuesday night, we were at Therapy in Hell’s Kitchen, and James was telling a bunch of friends about the date he’d been on the previous weekend.

The guy – Tom or Jack or Sam or something…we’ll just call him Fernando – was apparently loaded. He had an enormous ground floor apartment that opened onto a garden somewhere in Greenwich Village. He was also gorgeous, according to James. Washboard abs, great arms, tight butt. I don’t remember what they did on their date; that wasn’t the interesting part. Maybe they went to a movie or dinner or just took a romantic walk around the Village. Who cares, really? The part James wanted to tell us about, and the part we all wanted to hear, was what happened once they got back to Fernando’s fabulous apartment.

The way James described it, the sex was like something out of a steamy gay romance novel. He threw Fernando onto the bed and ripped off his shirt. Then they kissed, hard, and James began working his way down to Fernando’s chest, kissing his smooth tan skin as he went. He licked and suckled Fernando’s nipples, teasing them with his tongue and lightly biting them. He unbuckled Fernando’s belt and pulled off his jeans. Then he rolled him over onto his stomach and started fingering his ass.

Fernando was on his knees, his face buried in fluffy down pillows as James slipped his thumb into his ass. He let out a long, deep moan. James slid his thumb in and out slowly, working the muscles between Fernando’s ass and balls with his other fingers. Fernando started to rock back and forth on James’s thumb, moaning and stroking his cock. James pressed in deep and pulled out over and over. He spat in his free hand and grabbed Fernando’s cock and started stroking it. Fernando was gasping and moaning through clenched teeth, moving his ass around on James’s thumb.

“He came right in my hand,” James said. “He was so loud I had to cover his mouth with my hand. I got his own cum all over his face.”

“So, you just fucked him with your thumb?” I asked

“It was like I was holding his whole pelvis in my hand,” he said. “It was so hot.”

As we were finishing our drinks, James got a text message from Fernando. “If you’re that good with just your thumb, I can’t wait to see what your dick feels like.”

II. Neil’s Threesome
I’m not fond of Neil. He’s a sweetheart. He’s boyish and optimistic and completely guileless. Everyone loves him. But I can’t stand him. He annoys me for reasons even I don’t really understand. Maybe it’s the bully in me, but whenever he’s around, I tend to pick on him like you’d pick on a younger brother or the geeky kid in high school.

Neil looks like the geeky kid in a teen movie and he is possibly the world’s worst dancer. But somehow, he always manages to hook up with really hot guys. Maybe it’s because he’s so damned nice; maybe it’s his complete lack of self-consciousness. Whatever it is, it drives me crazy with jealousy. Guys like Neil are not supposed to get the hot guys. They’re not supposed to be having hot sex. They’re supposed to look on longingly as cuter, meaner, wilder guys do things they’re too scared to do.

Recently, I heard, from mutual friends, that Neil had had a threesome. It came as quite a shock to all of us. Neil is 22 and only started having sex a few months ago. He’s afraid of his own butt hole. How can such a person have had a threesome? Here I am trying to be the hard, sexy, cynical guy hanging out with DJs and porn stars, and this sugary sweet little twerp is showing me up. If my life were an 18th century French novel, I’d probably come up with some sort of twisted scheme to bring about Neil’s ruin. Alas, I am not the Vicomte de Valmont. I’m just a selfish, sexually frustrated boy who is far too concerned with other people’s sex lives.

III. My Own Business
I know I should mind my own business. I shouldn’t care so much what other people are doing. I shouldn’t try to compare their sex lives to mine. There are times, however, when the dirty stories my friends tell me about themselves and their lovers keep me up at night. It could be that they are exaggerating; that they really aren’t having better sex than me, or anyone else. That’s beside the point, really. Because once I’ve heard what they’ve done, or what they think they should have done, it takes on a life of its own. There’s a constant porno loop in my head at any given time. Lying in bed at night; at work; on the subway. I have a very dirty mind and quite often my friends and their stories are just fodder for it. When I slip my hands down my pants and grab my cock, I’m just as likely thinking of someone I know as some random porn star.

I think my friends secretly want me – and anyone else they talk to about sex – to fantasize about them. Maybe they get off on the idea that people are thinking about them, embellishing the scenarios they’ve discussed and creating new ones. It’s kind of like a perverted form of celebrity or even immortality. That amazing sex they had last month lives on in the dirty minds of others. Or maybe just my dirty mind.

Bathroom Interview: Tristan Taormino

Tristan Taormino should be the patron saint of anal sex. Seriously, someone call the pope. She’s built her own little empire – including her Village Voice sex column, several books, and two pornos – on the premise that more people should be taking it up the ass. She just released the newly revised second edition of her first book, The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women, and has returned to the world of porn with her new DVD, Tristan Taormino’s House of Ass. I found Taormino in the bathroom of Crash Mansion where we were celebrating the release of both the book and DVD.

John: It's been five years since The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women 2. Why so long between DVDs?
Tristan Taormino: The thing is, truthfully, there’s so much that I do. Things just come into focus. There are some years where the focus is on teaching and some years where the focus is on writing. And I just felt this year, in 2005, newly inspired to make cool porn. I’m not a fulltime pornographer and I don’t want to just do it to do it, or do it to cash the check. I only want to do it when I feel really jazzed about it.

J: How is House of Ass different from every other porno out there?
TT: Well, my whole thing is that I want to see a different kind of gonzo. Gonzo is porn without a plot, where the camera is acknowledged. Like cinema verite, sort of. I want to see gonzo where there isn’t stupid degradation, of both women and men. And I want to see porn where there’s no circus stunts. Cause that’s the thing. There are great things about gonzo, but then a lot of the stuff in gonzo is crappy. So, can you capture the spirit of gonzo, which is spontaneity and just raw hot sex? But can you take out some of these things that sort of dominate the genre?

J: Did you get to sample any of the talent before filming?
TT: (laughs) No.

J: During filming?
TT: Yes. In the video, you’ll see, Justine [Jolie] played with my boobs a little bit and pinched my nipples. There may be some lost footage, not on the DVD, of me with Mr. Marcus’s cock in my mouth. Enough said!

J: What is the best soundtrack for anal sex?
TT: The best soundtrack for anal sex…See that’s the thing. There is no one soundtrack. People make these assumptions, like it has to be rough and down and dirty. You can have anal sex to “fuck me like and animal” or you can have anal sex to, like, Everything But the Girl. It can be sweet and tender and intimate and really nice, or it can be rough and dirty and nasty and raunchy, and everything in between.

J: So what’s your favorite song to have anal sex to?
TT: I’m gonna go with anything on “Disintegration” by the Cure.

J: Who do you think is having anal sex tonight?
TT: I think that Rachel Kramer Bussel is gonna have anal sex tonight. I think that Bridget Everett is gonna have anal sex tonight. There were just so many couples who I don’t even really know, but who came up to me and were like, “You changed our sex life.” Which, you know, is my favorite thing in the whole world. So all those people, whose names I probably can’t even remember now, all those people are gonna have anal sex.

Aaron's Dream

Last night Aaron called to tell me that he’d had a sex dream about me the night before. We were in a house, but it wasn’t his house and it wasn’t my apartment. I was lying on my stomach and he was on top of me, with his hand wrapped around me, gripping my cock, which, according to him, was “really, really wide.”

That made me smile and I felt all warm and glowy, like there were Christmas lights all curled up in my stomach.

I like being dreamed about in the same way that I like it when I find out people have been talking about me behind my back. It makes me feel important, like the fact that someone has taken the time to actually discuss me means that I matter, that my legend is beginning to spread. It feels a little like immortality. The fact that Aaron had a dream about me means that I have entered his subconscious, and once you’re there you’re permanent. You’re with them forever, even if you have a falling out and you never speak to or see each other again. Someone can’t kick you out of their subconscious.

Years from now, Aaron might dream about something, a bank robbery, and someone will be telling him that he can’t set his watch at a time like this. And he’ll know that there’s someone out in the getaway car with video tapes that need to be returned, and that he loves this person very much, but he has no idea who it is, and that will be me. He’ll wake up feeling sort of embarassed and hopeful, like he has a crush on someone, and wondering who it was waiting out in the car.

I feel like a virus. I’m inside, which is something I don’t think I’ve ever been before. I’m in there, in Aaron, and I’m gestating.

Love Letters

Last year the Village Voice printed love letters for their annual “Sex in the First Person” Valentine’s Day issue. I found myself absolutely in love with Valentine’s Day, for the first time in my life. It seemed like something more than just a greeting card capitalist holiday. It seemed like a celebration of love, a day when just about everyone in New York stopped to appreciate how simple and precious and rare love really is. It seemed like a day of solemn respect. I didn’t feel cynical at all. When the waitress at an Italian coffee shop gave me a long stemmed red rose with my spiked hot chocolate, the words “Viva l’amore,” sprang to mind, and that became my mantra for the rest of the day.

This year, I find that I have several love letters to write, and I’m unsure of all of them. Each one sort of blends into the next and I’m not even sure who I’m writing to. These sentiments are like deep water colors that bleed into fuzzy shapes with indistinct borders. I’m not sure where they begin and where they end, but they are undeniably, frustratingly present.
_______________

Dear J.,

What I feel for you is a mystery to me. Initially, indifference, but muddled with something like kinship or the recognition of something in you that harmonized quietly with something in me. Then later, attraction. Unexpected, but undeniable attraction. Every physical part of you is perfect: your sweet guileless face; your surprisingly beautiful body. Your sexiness snuck up behind me and pounced when I wasn't even looking.

Now, what I feel for you is a sort of playful, mischievous interest. I’m curious. I want to run around with you and explore. I want to creep inside and push buttons and pull strings. I want to take you away from everyone you know and wander the streets with you at 4 a.m. I want to stop in a porn shop and see how you react. I want to hold your hand when we leave.

There’s a look in your eyes sometimes like something is waking up. Inside you, certain things are starting to move again that maybe haven’t moved in a long time. I think they’ve been waiting to move. I think they’re sorry they slept in so late.

John
_______________

Dear A.,

That mix CD I sent you for Christmas was somewhat restrained, I know. At the time, what I felt was so big, so intense, I thought it might freak you out. It sort of freaked me out. Our time together – those two weekends bashing around New York, that amazing night in your hotel – was still so fresh in my mind. It filled me, bolstered me, inflated my heart so much. For the first time in a long time I had a sense of the future, not as a dark empty corridor you stumble through blindly, but as an open terrain filled with possibility. And the thought came, unbidden, into my head: “I’d have kids with him.”

It was strange and shocking and unsettling.

I have been so imprudent with such feelings in the past, stupidly declaring my adoration for the most fleeting of suitors and calling it love. I don’t offer my heart; I throw it, wet and beating, at men, and when it hits them and falls to the dusty ground, or misses them altogether, I am devastated. These are the actions of a child, a silly boy who doesn’t really know what he wants and so hurls himself, full speed, towards what doesn’t want him.

And so when I see in you the possibility of reciprocation, of something real, it chills me to my core. I’m afraid that the nasty, rotten bits of me will eat you alive. I’m afraid that my misanthropy, my dissatisfaction, my temper tantrums, my willingness to indulge in my worst possible impulses, will drive you away. And it’s not even that I’m afraid of losing you. I’m afraid of doing to you what I’ve done to others. I can’t stand the thought of exposing you to the muck and mire in my soul, of shoving you face first into it, and then seeing it reflected back every time you look at me.

So I didn’t put the sweet, sad songs on your CD. I left off the songs about love and longing, the ones so bitterly beautiful they make heartbreak seem sweet. And I kept my heart to myself.

John
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Image: Cupid by Chuck Jones.