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Recreational
Or Emotional Sex Type
Over
the years I’ve become aware of two different perspectives gay men have on
sexual activity: recreational and emotional.
People with a totally recreational sexual perspective engage in sex for
physical pleasure and fun…nothing more and nothing less.
These men view sexual activity as playing and can usually be found in
popular cruising areas or back rooms. They
enjoy the physical contact associated with sex and are usually not interested in
conversation or emotional bonding with their playmates.
The bane of the totally recreational sex style is the possibility of
sexual compulsiveness and addiction. People
with a totally emotional sexual perspective engage in sex to fulfill their
emotional needs. These men view
sexual activity as a very personal “giving of oneself” emotionally and
lovingly. They enjoy the exchange
of deep emotional feelings that results in a strong and permanent bond with
another man. The physical contact
associated with sex is merely the conduit in which they transmit their feelings
to another person. The bane of the
totally emotional sex style is the possibility of emotional co-dependency or
depression stemming from never feeling emotionally fulfilled. Of course there are also several variations and blends of
these two extremes; however, most people tend to lean toward either recreational
or emotional. Similar to
bisexuality, few people are exactly in the middle.
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Totally
Recreational Mostly Recreational 50/50
Mostly Emotional Totally Emotional
It
is important to note that no particular type or blend of sexual perspectives is
any better than any other. However,
my personal experience has taught me that it is important for me to tune into a
person’s style to avoid the probability of inter-personal conflicts.
In other words, “when man meets man” and both have opposite
perspectives you can expect a conflict. For
example, Joey Playguy (totally recreational type) goes to the bar and meets up
with Jimmy Passionate (totally emotional type).
Here’s what happens: Joey sees Jimmy and his physical hormones
skyrocket…what a body, what a butt, what a bucket, I wanna get naked and play
with him so bad, etc. Jimmy sees
Joey and his heart glows with warm passion…what a nice guy, how friendly, how
caring, how kind, I wanna spend the rest of my life in love with him.
After some brief chitchat, Jimmy invites Joey back to his house before
someone else at the bar tries to steal his wonderful new lover to be.
Joey readily agrees and likes how quickly Jimmy wants to get down to the
business of playing. In bed they go at it like a couple of bunnies on speed.
Jimmy thinks: he is so passionate, he completely desires me, we are
making love together as one, and we are consummating our relationship together.
Joey thinks: he has a great body, he really knows how to take it, he
likes it hard, and he is so hot. Afterward,
Jimmy lays back with his head lovingly resting on Joey’s chest and Joey stares
up at the ceiling allowing his tired body to relax.
Jimmy begins a conversation consisting of personal “wanna get to know
you better questions” and Joey keeps talking about how much he enjoyed playing
together. After a few minutes Joey
jumps out of bed, gets dressed, thanks Jimmy for a fun time, and leaves.
Jimmy is emotionally crushed and confused, but he hides it behind a
contrived smile. He wonders what
went wrong, why didn’t Joey like him, why was he rejected, as feelings of
depression and anger consumes him. Joey
is oblivious to Jimmy’s thoughts and feels like a successful stud that just
made another great sex buddy. The
next time they meet at the bar Jimmy sneers at Joey like a rabid pit bull, and
Joey walks away in disgust. Neither
one of them realizes what really happened: their different sexual perspectives
caused them to have very different expectations from sex.
Unfortunately, the experience has made them enemies for life when neither
one of them did anything intentionally wrong. The moral of my story is that people should carefully tune
into sexual perspectives before bedding down together. Personally, I am an 80% recreational and 20% emotional type.
Usually I like sex for fun, but there are times when I meet somebody and
invest my emotions during sex because they are more than just physically
attractive to me…I feel a strong attraction to their mental and personality
characteristics as well. Consequently, I’ve been on both sides of the fence…the
recreational sex guy hated by a scorned emotional sex guy and the emotional sex
guy that got used by a recreational sex guy.
My worst experience was with a guy named Roger.
We met while cruising at the park and went back to my place.
I was about 33 at the time and he was 24.
After we had a great sexual workout, Roger looked into my eyes and said
“I hope you’re not like those guys who takes advantage of people for sex.”
Before he left we agreed to meet the following weekend.
All week I reflected on his words trying to understand.
Surely, he couldn’t love me…he didn’t even know me.
I never said anything to make him think I was in love.
I was just out cruising the park for fun and so was he…I think.
After a few dates I realized that Roger was madly in love with me, and I
tried to be madly in love with him, but the feelings just weren’t there.
Sexually he was a great playmate but our personalities and interests were
different…try as I did…I just couldn’t connect with him emotionally.
I took the cowardly way out and started avoiding him and not answering
his phone messages…hoping that he would forget about “us” and move on to
another guy. Weeks later some
people started coming up to me saying how bitter and angry Roger felt that I
dumped him. Living in a small city
this haunted me for years; every time we would see one another at a bar,
restaurant, or even in church. Five
years later, I again met Roger at a park cruising and we went to a restaurant
for coffee. We ended up talking for
hours and came to understand one another. My
heart went out to him as he described the dozens of guys he met, fell in love
with, but was later rejected. I
could feel that he was trying to connect to me emotionally and he even suggested
we go over to his place. Roger was
a good looking man and I wanted to have sex with him, but now understanding that
he needed more than physical contact I couldn’t hurt him again. So, I told him about my plans to move to Chicago and he
kindly withdrew his invitation…we parted friends.
Poor Roger was looking for love in all the wrong places: parks and back
bar rooms where only recreational sex guys could be found.
Another friend of mine named Dan, also an emotional sex guy, became so
scorned that he committed himself to a life of celibacy.
He was an extremely handsome and sensitive person who felt totally
violated by the gay men who tricked him into believing they loved him when they
only wanted recreational sex. My
friend John, a recreational sex guy, stopped dating completely because he felt
too many gay guys would try to force him into a relationship, when he made it
clear that he only wanted to play. Although
he would like to date, he considers it too risky and limits himself to anonymous
back room and glory hole encounters. That’s
why I am careful to tune into people’s sexual perspectives before engaging in
sex, and I try to be honest with them up front to avoid possible disappointments
and hard feelings. Sometimes it’s
difficult to refrain, but in the long run it makes life as a gay man easier.
Here are some ways to recognize sexual perspective types:
Recreational
Sex Types
- Usually found in
cruise areas of parks, bookstores, back rooms, cruise bars, etc.
- They visually
check out everybody in the arena.
- They avoid
conversations about relationships.
- They evade
questions about their personal lives.
- They often tend
to be reserved and quiet.
- They are quick to
make physical contact but hold back on emotional contact.
Emotional
Sex Types
- Usually found in
more mainstream gay areas and bars.
- They like to
engage in long conversation.
- They often ask
more personal “wanna get to know you” type questions.
- They talk about
former partners or lovers.
- They talk about
the non-physical qualities they like in a guy.
- They are quick to
disclose personal information about themselves.
- They try real
hard to make you like them.
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Men
of Chicago United 
Los hombres de Chicago unieron