Daddyhunt Blog Posts from January 2009

Any gay man who has ever dared give his heart to another man in a loving relationship has likely had his heart broken at one time or another. Breaking up with a lover has been one of the most painful experiences of my adult life. As I have aged (I'm now 55) the experience seems to get more painful each time. In this article I want to share one method of emotional healing a friend shared with me when I was in the throes of breakup blues.

One feature of suffering is morbid rumination about what you have lost. Grief can become paralyzing, sapping your energy and draining the pleasure from activities that you used to enjoy. You might isolate yourself, sleep or eat more or less than usual, become fearful of loving again, resort to alcohol or other drugs, engage in emotionally empty casual sex, and perhaps even entertain thoughts of suicide.

When I was nearly immobilized with grief after the breakup of a fifteen-month relationship, an Internet friend mailed me his well-worn copy of a book entitled Water Bears No Scars, by David K. Reynolds, Ph.D. The book describes a form of psychotherapy developed by a Japanese psychologist named Morita combining some features of Western psychotherapy with principles of Zen Buddhism. As in many Western therapies Morita Therapy encourages clients to be aware of their feelings. The key difference in Morita Therapy from many Western modalities is using feelings as indicators of constructive action rather than as ends in themselves. An essential principle in this therapeutic model is that when you mindfully engage in constructive...

Kirk,

I have always had to envision a scene from a porn flick in my head to get off, with every guy I've ever been with. I've talked to therapists about why I can't get off just on the present situation and the person I'm with.

A lot of times, I'm with someone who isn't physically attractive to me, but some aspect of their personality, or their voice, or their touch turns me on. So I watch a hot scene I've pulled up while we're having sex to get off. I thought it would be helpful to have porn going while having sex with someone- not to distract me from the sex I'm having, but more of a focusing tool, (a little ADD here,) and a mood setter. But I'm always afraid to ask for fear of insulting a sex partner.

Sadly, I've barely had the opportunity to be with a guy with whom I find really physically hot. This would be the bodybuilder, muscle boy types, And while I am muscular, and attractive and hot to many non-muscle types -  the muscle men I like don't find me attractive. There's probably some esteem issues mixed in there to.

Any advice? Is it OK to be fantasizing about porn while I'm having sex with a guy. Would you be insulted if I turned on porn while we were having sex?
 
Dear Porno King,

Sorry to start off with a crass, potentially offensive generalization, but my experience of therapists is that when it comes to sexual advice, you’re...

Every so often I think about sexual health and how, as gay men, we have become so focused on STDs that we forget that as we age other things happen to our bodies, and specifically our dicks, unrelated to STDs.

A few that I’ve spent some time looking into recently are Peyronie's disease and Priapism, both of which affect our dicks and can be a rather uncomfortable and perhaps embarrassing conditions. Yet I rarely hear about them, so until I started reading up on it at the request of a pal I was pretty much in the dark as well.

Since I’m not a medically trained professional, I certainly can’t diagnose and these are just my personal thoughts  but I figured I’d share some highlights that I found and a few links to that I thought useful.

Peyronie's disease

Peyronie's is essentially a tissue condition that involves an abnormal curve upwards in the penis. Now, before you all start looking at your dicks, many of us have some slight curve in one direction or the other as a normal condition. What is distinguishing for Peyronie’s is that it can cause pain, and an extreme abnormal curve when erect. In some cases a shortening of the length can occur. During the early stages of Peyronie's, pain is...

Dear Kirk,

I’m an older, average-looking bear who’s attracted to young, beautiful muscle studs. I haven’t had sex in a long time, because there just aren’t any guys that turn me on that are into me. I wish my standards weren’t so high, but I just can’t bring myself to be more attracted to other types of men. I had a sweet, decent looking skinny young guy come onto me recently and I really wanted to try and pick him up, but I was afraid that it just wouldn’t work for me. How can I open up my attraction to younger men that are just average, like me?

Dear Average Joe,

You have the kind of cooties that a lot of people have. Not just gay men, either. Tons of people are fixated on unrealistic standards of beauty. You’re not alone in this. There’s no harm in being attracted to muscled young hunks, but if it’s to the exclusion of everyone else, you’re writing yourself a prescription for misery.

I think we are disturbing our capacity for sexual attraction by constantly immersing ourselves in porn that features only guys with the kinds of bodies that we find exhilarating. Whether our trip is hairy bodies, masculine guys, muscle guys, skinny twinks, blondes, Asian men, African American men, Latino men…it’s great to have things we like. It’s not so great to be confined by our narrow checklists.