Advice on safety

Hi

I need some advice on how to fulfill a bucket list item- safely. I am going through a mid life crises. I am definitely straight, and have never felt any attraction to men at all, but recently been thinking about an encounter I had when growing up. While a teen, my best bud and I did most guy things guy friends do. We hung out and talked a lot about girls. A few times, we talked about masturbation, and once after looking at a porn magazine, we showed each other our erections. We were both so horny, and discussed lending each other a helping hand, but we were to ashamed to follow through with it. We both resorted to self service while in the same room, but neither witnessed the other climax. Now days, I regret passing on the opportunity. That aside, I’m not really interested in any kind of relationship, but often wish I could be in that situation again...just once, to lend a hand and if I felt really comfortable and brave would provide oral. I’m not looking for anything in return. I’d like discretion, trust and safety. Any ideas on how to best approach this?

Hi celticlonghouse,

My English is not very good so please excuse me if I cannot express myself well.

I understand and empathize with what you wrote but am not quite sure what specifically you mean by "safety." Perhaps I am just obtuse.

Are you referring to health safety or physical safety or some other kind or about all of this?

In your country are there not many bars and nightclubs where gay people meet and facilitate brief encounters? I think there are online hookup sites too.

There are things on the market to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases. As to physical safety I am clueless. It seems there is always some element of risk. Perhaps I am wrong.

Although I am not in your exact situation, I have certainly had regrets about lost opportunities for relationships I had when I was a teenager.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to those times when I was that age but with the knowledge and experience I have now and "re-write" what happened or didn't happen.

Even now I have memories of a certain friend.

Maybe I am mistaken, but I imagine the number of people who experience this kind of regret is large. I imagine this group contains members of every race, religion, ethnic group, socioeconomic group and so on.

Hopefully others here will have better knowledge, experience and insight than I do and will be able to be more helpful to you.

I wish you only good things! -- Yaowen

Thanks for your post. Ya know... I have a "few thoughts" with regard to this. I should say I've never had the kind of desire you have. But, in my own way, I think I understand something of it. (I'll spare you the details!)

You mentioned, in your introductory post, that you've been married for 30+ years as I recall. I don't know if you're thinking you would tell your wife about what you want to do, or what you do do, if in fact you find a way to do it. I would presume perhaps not? I guess I'm from the old school. And I realize the world is a much different place today than it was when I was younger. But my gut tells me that if you were to fulfill the desire you have you may well regret it.

I understand (believe me I do) the power a desire such as the one you have can have. It can be almost overwhelming. But at least my experience suggests to me that that power does not necessarily carry over to the act itself. If you do find a way to bring it to fruition, you may find yourself scratching your head & wondering why you wanted to do it so badly because it ended up just being flat except that, at that point, you will in fact have done it & you'll have to live with the fact that you did it. And if it's something you've hidden from your wife, it may become a burden you will have to drag around with you day-in & day-out for weeks, months or perhaps years to come.

Of course the other possibility, I suppose, is that you may awaken something in yourself that will become nothing less than a compulsion. And in that case you may have to decide whether or not to end your 30+ year marriage in order to continue to pursue same-sex experiences or you'll have to continue to sneak off (assuming your wife doesn't know about your liaison) to seek out additional same-sex experiences, again perhaps loading you up with additional guilt & shame you'll have to carry around. (This is something I'm on intimate terms with as well.)

All of that written, what you actually asked for were ideas on how to approach this with discretion, trust & safety. And I guess my personal opinion would be you likely cannot. I would presume there are websites you could go to where you could make arrangements for such a hook-up. You could, I suppose, spend some time hanging out in bars where there might be a likelihood of finding someone who would be interested in such hook-up. And if you were lucky it all might work out just as you imagine. But what my gut tells me is the more likely scenario is you'd open a can of worms you could never seal back up entirely. My personal opinion is that the kind of experience you want to have is one that has to evolve over time if it is to have any chance of being discrete, trusting & safe. And even then there's no guarantee. In the end it's like tossing a deck of cards in the air & hoping they all come to rest as you would most like them to. Is it possible that could happen? Sure anything's possible. But what's the likelihood that will occur?

So if you don't go ahead with trying to find the type of hook-up you're looking for what do you do with the fantasy you have swirling around in your head? I wish I knew what to tell you about that. I don't. Delving into it with the help of a therapist might help... or it might not. I don't know. I've never had a lot of positive experiences with therapists myself although I did spend a bit of time with one & found it relieving to talk about things I had never spoken about to anyone. However at least based on my own experience I'd have to say that, ultimately, one just has to make up one's mind about what one is & is not willing to allow oneself do & stick with it. It can be tough I know because making that kind of decision doesn't make the desire go away. But in the end, it seems to me, that is the bottom line so to speak. As my father used to like to say many years ago: "you're not required to like it, you're just required to do it." My best wishes to you.