W: 2/28/03

Work Diary, 2/28/03

I lost my virginity to both sexes at the age of seventeen. The first -
female - was in the front seat of my aunt's 1983 Honda Accord.
Fortunately my friend and I were a lot skinnier then and able to fit on
one of the fold-down bucket seats. What a mess. The car was parked in
the middle of a field in Houston on a hot summer night. All of the
windows fogged up and the air inside the car was thick with pheromones
and the smell of bubble gum. Afterwards, I drove back to my aunt's and
cried into the phone to my best friend, who was really the one I
wanted. So much grief for forty-seven seconds of sticky fun.

My best friend didn't make the cut, however, so my second time - male -
was again in a car, only in Denver and on the far more comfortable
bench seat of a 1975 Plymouth Valiant. The Valiant was white with green
interior and had the extra advantage of vinyl upholstery. You could
hose out this car after a bout of nude mud wrestling and it would look
good as new. This time I grinned like an idiot all the way home and
shared the news with all of my friends. They didn't necessarily like it
but bisexuality was becoming fashionable so I managed to ride the trend
right into college. Thank you, Boy George, even if you were lying
through your teeth the whole time.

I didn't use a condom for either of my firsts, though they were readily
available and came in a variety of colors that appealed to my
burgeoning sense of aesthetics (the red and purple ones left their
mark, however, making the user's tool resemble one of those frozen Bomb
Pops you could buy from the ice cream truck). The girl and I had a
brief scare during which she sorta-kinda-maybe thought she might be
pregnant, but apparently it was due to her being underweight and not
our rutting stupidity. Also she was sleeping with her boss, a man in
his mid-thirties who picked her up for dates by driving his truck onto
her lawn and honking the horn until she came running out. His truck was
their love nest and though preferable to my aunt's Honda, my friend let
me know that I would have been a much better father.

For my male first, I was too caught up in the moment and terrified that
we would be caught. The car was parked in one of those horrible
subdivisions full of identical condominiums and townhomes, every lawn
perfect and a cop at every corner. I didn't know how to French kiss and
was embarrassed by my lack of skill, not to mention being embarrassed
about my hair, my breath, my clothes, my shoes, my freckles?you name
it. I was seventeen, after all. A condom was the last thing on my mind,
and totally absent from the head that was doing most of the
thinking.

Coming out and coming of age in the eighties gave me a panicky,
irrational fear of contracting HIV. The fear typically comes
afterwards, a kind of post-traumatic sex disorder, in which I try to
remember exactly what happened, what went where, and for how long.
Instead of fond memories, I run a blow-by-blow account of the
proceedings, from initial contact to the final act, when the fat lady
sings and everybody can go home. I resent this - another irrational
emotion - because although I was conceived during the era of free love,
I grew up believing sex was costly, an investment that overrides
passion in favor of careful thought and consideration. Instinct was
replaced by sexual financial advisers in the form of leaflets,
clinicians, and hip posters featuring gloved penises on dark
backgrounds. Out of necessity, sexuality came spilling out of the comfy
confines of the bedroom and into a cold, cold world. The result is a
generation that thinks sex is a complicated recipe, meant to be
followed step by step lest everything go up in flames.

My friend summed up my HIV hysteria with the following: "It just goes
to show you how heterosexuals/religious freaks/stupid media/Reaganisms
have made gay people (or anyone who has sex) feel that sex is bad." He
may be right - particularly about that fool, Ronald Reagan - but his
statement is also ironic. Sex that leads to illness and possibly death
is bad. It's certainly not good. That's where my hysteria comes into
play, as a reaction to the complete, utter unfairness of it all. I
can't fix it, and it drives me crazy. I respond the same way to a
broken dishwasher or a leaky faucet, so at least I'm consistent, if
somewhat lacking in priorities.

What form does my hysteria take? Before my last HIV test, I had night
sweats - a symptom of HIV infection - every night for a week. For years
I used only products containing antiviral non-oxynol 9, despite being
allergic to the stuff and causing myself considerable pain and
discomfort. At bars, I take half a dozen condoms from the free basket.
One can ever be too sure. And just today I shelled out forty bucks to a
company in Holland for a home HIV test. They promise next-day shipping
and one-minute results, which is far better than waiting an eternity
(i.e., a week) for results at the free clinic.

I'm not worried / I am worried. Take your pick. In the great scheme of
things, an HIV diagnosis would not mean the end of life as I know it.
That's beside the point, anyway. You know what I miss? That worry-free
spark of a first kiss that leaves you feeling every happy clich? you
are capable of feeling. That fumbling rhythm that starts on the outside
and eventually finds its way into every pore. That natural, animalistic
impulse that ignores consequences in its quest to complete the puzzle,
whether the pieces fit together or not.

I miss all of that, and then some, even though I've never really had
it. Now, how is that?