Hey, Faggot: I am a 23-year-old gay man living with my 30-year-old boyfriend. We have been together for the past 14 months, almost immediately living together, and definitely in love. I am having a horrible time dealing with a few problems that have gradually grown way out of proportion. He seems to have no sex drive, or any desire to make love, have sex, foreplay, pet -- never mind the things that I would like to do. I'm talking not even the basics. When I get upset and ask him when he last masturbated, he tells me, "Seven days a week"! I've found myself going to bed every night upset, angry, and depressed.
Horrible as this sounds, we cuddle, snuggle, profess how wonderful our lives will be, and are talking about getting married. I plan to be with him for the rest of my life. We talked about going to see someone about this, but it hasn't happened. He's not trying to work on it, or even interested. Everything else between us is wonderful, but the sex thing is such a huge problem. It's starting to make me regret all the things I never did before I met him. I was a virgin coming into our relationship.
Missing Out
Hey, MO: You were a virgin coming into this relationship, and from the sound of things, you're not going to be much worse for wear coming out. Pardon me for being blunt, but you're not in love with this guy, and he's definitely not in love with you. In the past 14 months, you two may have become quite close, and developed a sort of friendly bond that in your inexperience and naivete you mistake for love, but you are not in love with him.
So if you're not in love, what's going on? You -- inexperienced, and a virgin -- fell in love with the idea of being in love. Your boyfriend, on the other hand, briefly dated a much younger man who fell wildly in love with him. He made some promises early on that he now regrets, and he sees no way to extract himself from this relationship short of breaking your heart, which he can't bring himself to do. So he withdraws, cuts you off sexually, and waits for you to end it. It's either that or he suffers from sexual hang-ups of enormous proportions, in which case you need out regardless. I'm reading a lot into the very few details you've provided me, but your tale o' woe is not unique. I've seen it again and again, and I've done it myself: Young gay men rush into a commitment too early in a relationship, a commitment they're not mature enough to make. Why? Well, I think it's so much overcompensation. The world tells us that gay desire is immoral, and that gay love is anything but love (or is only so much butt love); to prove to ourselves -- and the Pat Buchanans, Pat Robertsons, and Cardinal Ratzingers -- that the world is wrong, that we can love, that what we feel is real, we latch onto the first guy who looks at us funny, declare him the love of our lives, and make big plans for a future together. We move in right away, and talk about "getting married" at 23.
When ill-advised, overly hasty commitments come to shit -- as most of them do -- we think to ourselves, "Well, maybe Pat Robertson was right: Maybe we gay men are incapable of love." And then we slowly begin to turn into bitter and twisted old queens. Nothing is less attractive than B&T. Turning B&T makes it harder to attract good gay guys, guys who aren't themselves B&T; so you wind up dating fucked-up assholes who confirm your belief that, yes indeed, gay men are hateful scumbags; which makes you even more B&T, which in turn makes you even less attractive to guys who aren't also B&T, which invites even more rejection, which makes you even more B&T -- do see where this is going?
Here's my suggested game plan: Move out. Get your own place, spend some quality time working on yourself, and leave off working on this relationship. Keep seeing this guy if you want -- try dating him before you marry him. Still, I predict this relationship will end shortly after you move out: The lease is probably all that's keeping you together at this point. The next time you meet someone and fall in love, don't lose your head. Hold on to your own place, literally and figuratively. Moving in right away is not a sign of true love; it's a sign of true immaturity. A good rule of thumb is to date someone for at least a year and a half before you start to even talk about moving in together. Good luck, grasshopper.
Hey, Faggot: For all your readers who wrote n regarding self-fellatio, there's a how-to book available, called The Art of Auto Fellatio, by Gary Griffin (Added Dimensions Publishing, Dept. Net, Box 12733, Raleigh, NC 27605). Though I sport an 8-inch dick, I couldn't blow myself until I practiced the techniques in the book. And they paid off -- literally. I hustle part time, and many repeat clients get off watching me demonstrate this ability.
