Charlie

My late spouse was one of four brothers, born in the 1930s and 40s to parents in a conservative Midwestern town, where they were sent to the local Catholic high school where their aunt was the principal. Two of the boys were straight and two were gay. The two older boys were small and not interested in sports, while the two younger brothers were big muscular football players. An outsider who was asked to guess which brothers were gay would probably go with the stereotypes and guess it was the older brothers--and they would be right! All of them went to college and were reasonably successful in very different careers: an architect, a lawyer, a co-owner of a construction company, and a vice-president of a major auto manufacturer. All of them had happy marriages, the older two of them to men and the younger two to women. Three of them eventually left their hometown, the gay brothers to major eastern cities and the youngest to a couple of major cities in the mid-west and southwest. Only the oldest had no children or step-children. How did their parents react to their sons' expressed orientations? Well, their father died before the gay older brothers officially came out, but he certainly must have suspected something; however, he never openly expressed his feelings to them about the fact that they never had girlfriends, and he was obviously not happy about one of the straight brother's choice of a wife. Their mother outlived their father for many years, and interestingly, she often seemed to have warmer relationships with her gay sons-in-law than with her daughters-in-law. The gay and straight brothers remained as close as they had been when they were kids, and their spouses were civil to one another, although one of the wives was rather stand-offish (she had a fundamentalist Christian background and didn't really approve of legalized gay marriages). If you have wondered why I have laid all of this out, it's because I am fascinated by the possibilities in the dynamics of coming out, especially now that gays have the same legal rights to marry that straight people have. I was an only child. When I came out to my parents in 1962, I never imagined that I could eventually have a husband, mother-in-law, gay and straight brothers-in-law, straight sisters-in-law, nieces and nephews, step-niece and nephew, etc., and all the complications that come with those relationships.

Re-reading this long thread, I have to say that Lucky's final comment is a nice summation, but as usual I hate to drop a subject that really interests me. Lucky and I happen to live in a physical community (Palm Springs) where it is easy to be openly--even vociferously--gay to all our neighbors, but I am sure that there are plenty of people on this site who don't have that kind of outside support. As one of the elders here (ahem!), I came out in an era when that kind of community didn't exist anywhere in the US, so I am glad that we have an online community here where we can all reveal ourselves and our experiences to one another, even if we need to do it under pseudonyms. (Full confession: no one actually knows me as "Charlie" except for the members of Company of Men.) Please feel free to keep adding your comments to this or related topics.

He looks younger than his 30s. I wonder if the photos may be old.

When I was 22, I couldn't imagine a day when I wouldn't get a hard-on at the sight of an attractive male. At 52, I worried about whether an attractive male could get a hard-on at the sight of me, At 82, I had trouble remembering how to get a hard-on.

Having read farther in the Brookhiser book, I discovered that after Andrew Jackson had defeated Quincey Adams' attempt to be re-elected President, Adams' respect for Jackson turned to hatred. He got himself elected to Congress from Massachusetts, became active in the anti-slavery movement, and even proposed that the free and slave states should be disunited into two separate countries, so that Jackson could not be President of the United States (and presumably so that Adams could run again to become President of the northern states).

I never minded listening to a provider talk about his personal life, as long as he did it after I had cum. Until then, I wanted him to be a sex object onto which I could project whatever I wanted. If I got too chummy with a provider, I lost interest in the sexual gratification that I was paying for. If I got to know a provider too well, I usually lost sexual interest in him; if I wanted a lover, I had a husband for that.

Christmas Eve was cold and very wet in Palm Springs, but this morning we have blue sky and bright sunshine. Happy holidays!

Interestingly, Adams' son. President John Quincy Adams, privately admired his greatest political rivals, John Calhoun and Andrew Jackson, who defeated him for re-election.

I am reading America's First Dynasty: The Adamses, 1735-1918 by Richard Brookhiser. I was surprised to learn how much John Adams detested Ben Franklin personally, despite the fact that they were political allies.

My local message board is also called "Next Door," but I didn't see this photo on there.

If you showed me those photos and asked me to guess his age and weight, I certainly wouldn't come up with the figures in the ad.

Go, Zeta Beta Tau!!

When I was young, the only persons who would have asked me, "Are you gay?" would have been people who were actively gay themselves. because straight people didn't know what it meant. The first time someone asked me that, I said "Yes," because I thought he wanted to know how I felt about going home with him.

Probably never--I haven't had sex with a young man in years.

Since I don't have children, I am tempted to call him "Sonny" if he calls me "Daddy."

I don't think there is anything on my phone that would be a problem--or even surprising--for anyone, but I did have a strange experience recently. When an old friend died suddenly, I didn't delete her from my contacts, and her husband inherited her cellphone. I had only met him once. Several weeks later,, I was out walking my dog with my phone in my pocket, and somehow I accidentally face-timed her number, and he answered. I didn't recognize him and he didn't understand who I was, so we had a very strange conversation before I figured out what had happened. (Somehow I have face-timed other contacts unintentionally with my phone in my pocket.) The only thing on my browser that might be a problem would be this site, and everyone of my friends and family knows that I am gay, but whoever gets my computer and iPad would have to understand that I was "Charlie," and I doubt that they would bother to try to read 20+ years of my posts and messages.

The photos look like they were taken over a long period of time, and in a few of them he looks a lot older than 45.

Why does he need arms?

Before my potential husband and I started living together, the first subject I broached was the issue of sexual exclusivity: we both were accustomed to being sexually promiscuous, and I didn't want that to end. We agreed that having sex with other people was OK as long as we didn't keep it a secret from one another. He has already let you know that sex with other people is his job, but does it/will it ever go beyond a "job" with someone else? Will you be comfortable hearing about his work? Will he expect to "work" at home, and how do you feel about that? Will his need to "work" take precedence over your personal plans together? How would you feel if a client wanted a threesome? How do you plan to explain your relationship to other people? If either of you is uncomfortable discussing these issues in advance, or if you are uncomfortable with his answers, then you need to go slowly with any kind of commitment.

But I draw the line at "Gramps."😒

Thanks for the advice, but I learned how to do that 75 years ago, and never thought there was anything wrong with it.

BTW, I found a pile of old written porn that I didn't know he had, and I put it in the recycling bin. I don't know what to do with the videos.

Sorry--all I have are plastic cards.

I am resolving to stop saving everything--I have become a hoarder. My house is overflowing with things that should be thrown or given away. My late spouse could never bring himself to throw away any kind of paper--printed, written, a drawing, or even blank sheets, and I have been setting aside at least an hour per day to go through them and save only those that would be of real interest to someone else or of some kind of use in the future. So long, airline ticket receipts from 1975 and train schedules for the Swiss railway system in 1981! Farewell, hand-drawn birthday card from a 7 year old niece who is now 53! Into the trash for alumni magazines from 2010 for schools I graduated from 60 years ago. Do I really need to save bank statements from ten years ago? (I know: I should shred them rather than put them in the recycling bin). My spouse was an architect and painter, so he had large supplies of blank drawing paper; it seems wrong to throw it away, but I can't find anyone to give it to. What do I do with his old medications and those I haven't used in years? Why do I save clothes I will probably never wear again? What do I do with all that equipment for dinner parties now that I no longer entertain? I pity the family members who will have to deal with all of it when I expire, so I resolve to get rid of as much as possible, and try to stop accumulating more.

Luckily, I never had any problem distinguishing between someone I was emotionally attracted to as a person and someone I was attracted to solely as a sex object. A provider was always the latter. That was probably why I was able to be happily married for 56 years and still enjoy the occasional sex with a paid provider. But I still needed to believe that the provider was enjoying the sexual experience just as I was, not that he was attracted to me for any other reason. If I thought that the only pleasure he derived from the sexual interaction was being paid for it, it diminished my pleasure in it.