Sex

NOTE: This is another chapter in my autobiography, No Secrets.

In “State Trooper,” Bruce Springsteen sings, “The only thing I’ve got’s been bothering me my whole life.” I think I know what he means.

I’m not sure how my insecurity about my sexuality developed. It may have been when I would bathe in a tub in the living room when we lived on my grandfather’s farm (we had no bathroom). Perhaps during one of those baths my cousin or someone else made a disparaging remark about the size of my penis (it is very small). Perhaps my bed-wetting made me self-conscious (I even wet the bed once when I was in the seventh grade during one of my cousins’ visits).

Perhaps my anxiety was aggravated by the fact that as a child when I had a full bladder I’d often have trouble urinating and my mother would stand next to me trying to assure me, which only made matters worse. At times my difficulty may have been caused by an erection. Regardless, when I did piss, it would be a bit painful at first. And I did have a low threshold for pain. Throughout my childhood, I’d often faint when I hit my elbow or knee (probably because the muscles around my neck would tighten to minimize the feeling in the hypothalamus, which would cut off blood to the brain.)

Decades later while taking a Gestalt Practice workshop with Chris Price at the Esalen Institute, Mother’s effort to help me pee emerged from my subconscious. One day Chris suggested that right before going to sleep we ask our dreams, “What is love?” and then write down our dream when we wake up. My dream was vivid. I walked down a stairway with my mother into a basement and as I urinated, Mother stood next to me and watched. My definition of love!

When I reported this dream to Chris, her spontaneous reaction was, “Once again,” suggesting that she often heard clients dredge up similar instances of parental misconduct. What Mother did wasn’t classic sex abuse, but it feels very close to it. I believe it helped instill deep-seated discomfort about my genitalia that would take decades to purge.

Mother would also accompany me to public restrooms and embarrass me by standing guard outside. I believe she even did it once when I was in the 10th grade, for I recall such an incident at the drive-in theater and Daddy didn’t work there until I entered high school. She was probably worried about gay men, but this over-protectiveness probably engendered more angst about my sexuality.

When I was in the second grade a friend came over to my house with his boxing gloves and wanted us to strip down to our underwear so we could more properly box. The thought scared me and I refused.

During this period, I heard a joke I’ll never forget. Two young children, a boy and a girl, lived in a two-story house. They slid down the stairway banister. At the bottom, they rammed into a knob and fell on the floor. They got up and pulled down their pants to inspect the damage. “It sure has swollen up,” she said. He replied, “Good Lord, it knocked it clean off.” That joke was the sum total of my sex education.

In the sixth grade, I had to go to gym class and take showers with other boys. While I was naked in the locker room, other boys would make fun of my penis. Some would call it “peanut.” Almost every day one or more boys would harass me. The more they saw that I was disturbed, the more they did it.

And I had no one to talk to. If I had had a good relationship with my father, we probably could have talked about how he suffered the same insults, for he also had a relatively small penis. But we didn’t communicate about anything, much less sex. So I dreaded gym class.

These taunts so traumatized me that as an adult I sometimes thought that I didn’t want to have a son because he might inherit the same trait and suffer as I did. Rationally, I knew I could have nurtured him so it wouldn’t be an issue. Nevertheless, that irrational feeling occasionally crossed my mind.

It wasn’t until Masters and Johnson released Human Sexual Response in the late 60s that I learned that my penis was more than adequate for genital intercourse (as proved to be the case!). But knowing it intellectually is one thing. Dealing with it emotionally took time.

Once the morning after a one-night stand a Brazilian woman saw my penis, giggled, and made a comment. (Maybe Brazilian women are more transparent.) But she didn’t complain the night before!

Puberty was late arriving, which exacerbated my disquiet. Guys would talk and some would jack off in the shower competing to see who could ejaculate the farthest. It all mystified me. Then one day while showering, I got an erection and had an orgasm. It was marvelous. “So this is what they’ve been talking about,” I said to myself.

I proceeded to masturbate frequently, staining my underwear. Mother noticed and made a comment about “wet dreams” or some euphemism. I ignored her. She’d come to my bedside at night, spying on me. After I bought a Playboy, one night I heard her approaching and hid the magazine. She pulled back the covers, was scandalized, confiscated the magazine, and said something about me being a “bad boy.” Feeling guilt about masturbating was a problem for many years.

In high school, I’d sometimes go on long road trips with the debate team. I competed in the extemporaneous speech contests. Though I always finished last, I kept going. Once on the way back, in a crowded car, a girl sat in my lap. I was clearly uncomfortable and others joked about it, but I didn’t really understand their jokes.

In college, sometimes I’d masturbate multiple times a day, telling myself that the more I did it, the less I’d feel guilty. It took years, but it worked.

Once, after two or three reconnaissance missions, I went to the Tenderloin red-light district and followed a hooker to a hotel room. She gave me a blowjob, I came quickly, and she jumped up apparently angry and ran to the sink. I did not enjoy the experience.

When I finally had real sex years later with Judy in Greenwich Village and we began to engage in oral sex, I was clearly uncomfortable. She asked me why and I told her about that incident with the hooker. She assured me to forget it and I did.

As I mentioned in the “College” chapter, I was obsessed with sex. One reason I went alone to concerts in San Francisco is that I’d get up close to the stage where it was crowded and could have physical contact with women, which would arouse me. I was always careful not to impose myself. I would get close enough so the woman would make contact with me and if she stayed away thereafter, I accepted it. But they often clearly enjoyed it. (Now concerts are a different experience, for the younger women who go to concerts avoid contact with me because I’m an old man.)

One night at the Winterland concert hall, I was in constant contact with a woman to my right and a woman behind me, who was being embraced by a man. The man commented, “If it’s too hot in the kitchen, get out.” That seemed to be the dominant culture at those concerts. I assume it still is.

Shortly after the disastrous 1970 Altamont concert, the Rolling Stones wanted to compensate by playing several shows at the Winterland, a small venue for them. My friends and I camped out all night for tickets. During the show, so many people were crammed together I got behind a woman and spent almost the whole show with my groin pressed against her hips, with other people pressed against me on all sides. That was a unique experience. But then again, the Rolling Stones are unique.

At my first New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival I followed two women toward the stage for the Professor Longhair show and when we couldn’t get any closer, we would “dance” with stroking their butt as we moved. They once switched positions and we continued as before.

Twice at concerts I reached orgasm merely by dancing by myself, not touching anyone, just watching. I once came while riding a bus, just staring at a woman who was staring at me. Riding the Greyhound back and forth between Dallas and Berkeley involved a constant effort to sit next to a woman who wanted to have physical contact (the vibrations of the bus were very conducive to sexual arousal). Taking public transit in San Francisco was a similar sexual adventure, especially when the bus was packed and I had to stand up. Once I reached orgasm undulating on my stomach at the beach staring at a woman who was staring at me. I was a sex maniac.

In 1969, I was hired to serve as Intern Minister at Glide Church in San Francisco. I had two jobs. I helped run the psychedelic light show that we projected on the wall behind the ministers during Sunday morning celebrations. And I helped to operate the audio-visual equipment during workshops held by the National Sex and Drug Forum, a Glide project. Otherwise I was free to do whatever I wanted.

The workshops were for various kinds of helping professionals. During the sessions that focused on sex, we projected slides of erotic art as well as pornographic movies and erotic films that the Institute itself produced. We held these workshops in the Church basement in a carpeted room filled with those large pillows that were popular with hippies. The participants would lie on the pillows while bombarded with images that depicted all sorts of sex. The concept was to “desensitize” the participants to forms of sexuality about which they might initially feel judgmental.

Even for San Francisco in 1969, it was a controversial approach. One night the local Methodist Bishop got down on his hands and knees looking for semen on the carpet because he had been told that orgies happened there. He found none.

Working there for 15 months was an informative and liberating experience. I certainly overcame my ignorance concerning homosexuality!

Around 1970 I went camping in Mexico with a married woman who lived in San Diego. She was active in the New Adult Community, which was a sister community to our Alternative Futures Community in San Francisco. We settled on the Ensenada peninsula, a gorgeous setting, with many pelicans diving for fish. I took some LSD and we exchanged massages and were physical with one another, but she didn’t want to have sex. I was frustrated and stayed awake most of the night processing my feelings.

When the sun came up the next morning, I started reading Kate Millet’s Sexual Politics, which I had brought with me. It blew my mind. The book documents how we have been acculturated to relate to sex as a power struggle. Men objectify women and proceed to try to “conquer” them. The “missionary position” with the man on top and in control symbolizes this domination. Once the conquest has been achieved, men often drop the woman and move on to the next seduction. And women often collaborate, being passively seductive. Domination or submission is the name of the game.

Seduction, conquest, and domination had never been my game. Especially after reading I and Thou, mutuality inspired me. But Sexual Politics helped me understand how I too had been acculturated with some elements of those dynamics. Reading that book attuned me to those tendencies, which makes it easier to avoid allowing them to determine my behavior.

For those insights, I was deeply indebted to Kate Millet. Years later, when a friend tapped me on the shoulder at a small gathering and told me, “I’d like to introduce you to Kate Millet,” before turning to greet her, I almost screamed, “Kate Millet!” It was a warm encounter.

Some time after working at Glide, I got a job working as an orderly at the Laguna Honda convalescent hospital in the orthopedics ward. One of my patients was a retired Navy commander who had rheumatoid arthritis that required him to lie at all times on a large piece of sheepskin. We often had long conversations. Once he told me that he and his wife of many decades never had genital intercourse and never felt that they were missing anything. They had a glorious sex life and a great marriage.

That story often comes to mind. It certainly stands in sharp contrast to the conquering missionary position exposed by Kate Millet! And it makes me wonder why our society is so obsessed with penis size, for genital intercourse is not essential for great sex.

For twenty years I had a good bit of sex, sometimes one-night stands, sometimes short-term relationships, and a few longer-term involvements. On two occasions, with relationships that were particularly passionate and satisfying for both parties, we stopped seeing each other twice only to get back together for a third go.

Some special individual moments stand out. The woman who sharply bit my penis during orgasm. “So that’s why they say, ‘Bite me,’” I said to myself. The woman who rammed her finger into my anus during orgasm. “So that’s why gay men like anal sex,” I said to myself. The woman who had such control of her muscles she could massage my penis with her vagina. Having sex on the beach with a woman I picked up hitchhiking. Making love with my one true love in the grass at Strawberry Fields on the Mendocino Coast. Being seduced by the girl friend of my hash dealer in an Amsterdam houseboat when he left to go get the hash that I would smuggle into San Francisco. Making love on the kitchen floor with the school teacher who worked in the tree-house-populated enclave, Canyon. The Mexican woman whose husband scared me when he unexpectedly came into the apartment at 6am. My sister’s friend who seduced me by pretending to be taking a nap on my bed half-naked when I arrived home in the afternoon. The short-skirted woman at Esalen who walked up to me and said, “I’m attracted to you.” The women who at different times joined me on the dance floor when I was dancing alone. The women who walked away from me as the energy began flowing and stared out a window, inviting me to massage their back. The woman at Alternative Futures who wanted to shower first.

One encounter particularly amuses me, for it shocked the dormitory at the Pacific School of Religion where I lived while a student there. My roommate was out of town and loaned me his convertible sports car. Tooling around town, I noticed a woman in a car behind me. I turned left and right and she followed me. So we drove to the school’s parking lot and went up to my room. Dorm residents never had overnight guests and she was very loud, so I was informed the next day that my behavior was inappropriate.

Once, however, I was intimidated. Walking through Golden Gate Park, I found a very well tanned woman in a bikini lying on her stomach with the top off. I lit up some weed, which caught her attention when the wind carried it in her direction. We proceeded to play the typical voyeur-exhibitionist eye-contact game, but after an hour or two, I left. The next day, I returned to the same spot and she was there again, reading the Sunday paper. I asked her if I could join her and she said yes. We got stoned, lay in the sun for a couple of hours, and were clearly both aroused. Our sighs were almost orgasmic. When she left, I walked with her to her car and she gave me her name and number. But I never called her and don’t know why. I still often fantasize about her.

All in all, though, I had lots of great sex with lots of women who had lots of great sex with lots of men. Though the first time or two with a woman, I sometimes would come too quickly, once we got to know each other, that was less of an issue. I became very confident in my sexual abilities and my anxiety about the size of my penis largely disappeared.

Talking openly about the issue helped. Once, during a weekend Urban Plunge that dealt in part with sex education conducted by the Alternative Futures in the Ministry project, I stood up, took off my clothes, and walked around talking about my history of discomfort with my penis and how I had overcome it, thanks in large part to Masters and Johnson. Story of that incident circulated back to the Pacific School of Religion, a co-sponsor of the project.

Influenced by Bertrand Russell’s Marriage and Morals, the hippies who preached “free love,” and the feminists who challenged the notions of patriarchy and monogamy, I persisted with my commitment to open relationships. Having been a virgin until I was twenty-three, I was making up for lost time

The movie Kinsey addressed “free love” with some sophistication, pointing out that we were too casual about it, too indifferent concerning how others were reacting to our infidelity. Perhaps I still would have been non-monogamous, but I regret not listening more and discussing the feelings that were involved.

Once in the early 70s, I had just taken a half-tab of LSD when I learned that some acquaintances were having an orgy and the most famous anti-war activist in the country was going to be there. None of my friends wanted to go, but I jumped at the opportunity. The host was Betty Dodson, a famous feminist promoter of masturbation.

When I walked into the large rectangular room where the orgy was being held, I met a male friend, who was standing up, naked, talking with a tall woman, who was also naked. We chatted for a while and I said, “Well, I guess I should take off my clothes.” After I deposited my garments, I met another friend, a woman, with whom I had spent the night once. We started kissing and a male friend of hers joined us and he and I started kissing. His beard was rough but otherwise it was somewhat pleasant.

Then I noticed the first woman lying on the floor next to me receiving oral sex, nearing a loud orgasm. I reached over and touched her. She took my hand and I moved away from my threesome and became involved with her. I stayed with her all night, while other men came and went. We talked some. Her boyfriend was in Brazil and he approved.

After multiple orgasms over the course of several hours, the anti-war superstar, who had been on the other side of the room all night, came over, said something to her, and she joined him. After an hour or so, she returned to me and gave me great head. Being pretty much spent, it took a while, but eventually I reached a great orgasm while others watched.

All in all, it was a memorable night. I went to two more orgies at the same location, but never had sex with anyone. Weeks later I saw my partner from the first orgy on the bus. We chatted a bit and within hearing distance of others, she told me, “I only do one-on-one now.”

I wasn’t all that promiscuous, for I was always very involved in my community work. But I was ready to fuck at the drop of a hat.

After that orgy, I only had one other homosexual experience, with a friend in a threesome that did not involve intercourse between the man and me. It was ok, but not compelling. Though I was once sexually aroused in my taxi while giving a gay man a long ride, and I do sometimes find men somewhat sexually attractive, do believe that we are all “polymorphously perverse,” I feel no inclination to act on it.

In the mid-1980s, while living in the Tenderloin and working with our newspaper, The Tenderloin Times, I explored the notorious Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theater that is located in the Tenderloin. I had been there once before, with my one true love, Michelle Dayley. We went to see the innovative porn film, Behind the Green Door, and enjoyed it. (Later she did some nude sketches of me that were placed on exhibit at the Erotic Art Museum, a project of the National Sex and Drug Forum.)

On this visit, I learned that the theater was now offering several shows featuring naked women: an old-fashioned peep show, movies, a “shower show” with women making out, a dark room with men holding flashlights while naked women moved around provocatively, and a traditional strip show. Most of these shows also featured the lap dance. In exchange for a tip, the dancers would sit in the patron’s lap, and if they were so inclined (which usually meant a larger tip), bring him to orgasm by stroking his groin with their hips.

I soon discovered that if I gave the dancer a back rub, they would often stay for 10 or 15 minutes for only one one-dollar tip. Since I’m a very tactile person and give a good massage, I became a frequent visitor, usually stoned on marijuana. At the time, with my beard and long hair, people would sometimes come up to me and ask me if I was Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead. Some of these dancers may have had the same suspicion, for on occasion they’d be exceptionally affectionate. Or maybe they just loved my back rubs!

Whether due to guilt, shame, or some combination of the two, I’ve never told anyone about these expeditions, except for one letter to an old friend with whom I had re-established a connection. We were exchanging letters and for some reason, I felt the need to tell him about my O’Farrell Theater encounters. I wanted someone to know. Maybe I needed to confess. Regardless, I told him.

He never responded. Our correspondence came to an end. I’ve never heard from him since, despite some attempts on my part to contact him. I suspected he did not want me to be anywhere near his children!

Since then, I’ve only briefly mentioned to one friend that I used to go there, but I never told him any details and he never asked. Until now, no one else has known about my adventures at the O’Farrell Theater or some of the other stories I report here.

I shared this chapter with no one before posting it, so for all I know, more friends will disown me like that correspondent did. And any credibility that I have for my community work may be destroyed. Those fears may be the result of deep-seated guilt instilled by my mother. But they are real, nevertheless.

In the late 80s, I suffered a traumatic breakup of a relationship with a woman I cared about deeply, became depressed, gained a lot of weight, moved to a cabin in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and began to go through “male menopause” (a decline in my sex drive) without really realizing it. Also, the advent of AIDS led to a reduction in sexual activity among my peers.

Liberated from raging hormones, I got out of the sex habit and for more than 20 years now, I’ve been very inactive sexually. I did meet a woman several years ago and had some great sex with her (per her request we never engaged in sexual intercourse). But that relationship was short-lived.

Now, with the aid of marijuana and erotica, I “use it so I won’t lose it” by masturbating once a week and satisfy my hunger for physical contact by receiving frequent massages.

I’d welcome another long-lasting sexual relationship, especially with a woman who appreciates the many forms of sexual activity other than genital intercourse and accepts my body as it is. I would even be willing to commit to a monogamous relationship. But most of all I seek emotional intimacy. Good sex would be icing on the cake.

If I had been more mature as a youth and had settled down with a wife, been more self-disciplined, and less obsessed with sex, I could have achieved more with my life. I may even have become that professor of political theory.

But it is what it is. For every gain there is a loss and for every loss there is a gain. I struggled through it, have some good memories, am ready to enjoy life without being addicted to sex, and perhaps be more productive. Confessing my sins here may help. Only time will tell.