nature bugs

For us who live in cities Nature is not natural.
Nature is supernatural. 

G.K. Chesterton



rock stacks on the beautiful U.S. northwest beaches last summer

Nature is supernatural to many of us, so unaccustomed we are to it.

Funny: at times a new friend will camp or hike with us, and comment, for example, on how many bugs there are. Yes, it's a part of the great wild outdoors.

mosquito bite

Yup, insects are a part of nature. As well as temperature extremes, unexpected changes in rain, sun, and wind patterns, scratchy leaves, and tiredness from hiking, sweating, finding a place to relieve yourself. It's a rude shock sometimes to people not used to these un-cushioned ways.

But along with all that also comes the awe-inspiring vistas, the serene grounding effect, the energy moving everywhere, the camaraderie, the opportunity to take a risk, feel wild, adapt, take it in.

There's an opportunity to accept everything as it is.

campfire relaxing
- the smoke keeps spring bugs away

couple help

Two guy friends of ours are having marital troubles. They've been together for as long as I've known them, which is several years, and are still in their 20's. They used to be among the most connected people I know. I attended their wedding - amazing, call my own honey sweet things that I heard them say first, and have enjoyed their company and exemplary intimacy.

I'd hoped that they'd be together forever, but now that's looking doubtful. For the last couple years there's been this jealousy and moodiness that wasn't there before. They were pioneering (for me) in polyamory, intentional community, and several other things. And now they're sleeping in separate rooms.

If I could tell them anything in the world, from my perspective, knowing them, it would be this:

1. keep flirting!
2. bless him!

Let me explain:

1. Keep flirting with your husband. You flirt with others, so you can with him. What I mean by this is keep saying sweet things, texting him, taking him out on dates, being excited to see him. If you don't feel it, do it, and the feeling will likely come. If you feel all lovey, well show it to him too. Be creative, keep winning him over, not taking him for granted. Just because you've been together for years doesn't mean you still don't try to be your best for him.

If he says, "sweets, I feel like you don't want to have sex with me anymore," for hell's sake don't respond, "well I don't"! Take the bigger picture. He's vulnerable and expressing a very intimate feeling of inadequacy. Ask him instead, "what can I do to let you know I want to have sex with you?" or "the feeling changes from time to time, I think that's natural, but I do love you and want you." Reassure him.

A lot of people say nasty shit behind the veneer of "honesty." You don't have to be so "honest" sometimes that you're rude and unsophisticated. Words are hard to take back. Keep judgments minimal, and talk more about feelings and wants.

This leads to the second:

2. Bless him. Be the bigger one. Put on some grandfather archetypal energy. (Even the toddler, from his high-chair, sometimes reaches out and hugs his weeping mother, for example.) Support him and don't react sometimes.

If he's hurting, hold him for a few minutes. If you're both hurting, support yourself as best as you can, then shelf it for a bit, and be there for him. Somebody's got to start it. Then later he can reciprocate.

• Say the words he needs to hear.
• Do the things he really wants done.
• Connect in the way he wants to connect.
• Bless him in the ways that mean the most to him.

(For me, some of them are:

• touching me on the head,
• using a couple of sweet pet-names that we have [I can't believe I'm disclosing this, lol],
• putting both hands on my shoulders and saying, "hey, I'm here for you,"
• holding me from above me - not below me,
• coming and sitting next to me - touching lightly).

No amount of anger, withdrawnness, feeling butt-hurt, can't be eventually worked through. Nearly everyone needs reassured. When it comes to partners, usually frequently.

engage and dis-engage

to connect or to separate

At times I go over-board on social websites. Sex websites. Too much time, and I notice my energy changing. Then I have to pull back.

I heard on a radio interview that life can be a balancing act between going outward to connect, and then going inward to re-connect. Neither energy is wrong. Both are desirable.

One cannot always be in a constant state of connection with others. At one point, frequently, one has to dis-engage and re-coup. Be with oneself.

I found myself feeling high-strung and hyper-sexual in a way that felt ungrounded. This after higher-than-normal-for-me online presence on sex sites. Knowing that various other activities ground me, like playing my newfound ukulele, I decided to make a goal that I would practice my ukulele for an hour before viewing - for 10 minutes only. A goal I could stick with for one week.

The bonus of improving on the uke also had the intended calming effect. I felt more present to some of the other things and beings that are important.

Goals are written on a phone app (my current command center). I peruse it several times a day for lists and communications.

This week the goals are yoga stretches for 20 min and self-love poetry. Other weeks they've been gratitude recollections and what I call emotional blue-printing. Little course corrections.

enjoying a lake not far away

plowing

canadian guytop on dudes nude, with permission

There's something innately hot about plowing, or topping someone. They are giving up one of the most vulnerable parts of them to you. You are experiencing them at their very center.

Aaargghh! A picture like this gets me going. It's grainy character only adds to the curiosity, giving it a pseudo-clandestine-activity feeling. Thanks for posting. Woof!

wedding ideas

The man of my dreams just returned from a male-male wedding in New Mexico. We'll be attending another ceremony of two good friends shortly, which has me thinking about weddings.

How would I do the details? This article from MSN got me thinking about some specifics.

Among my highlights:

• personalize the I do's
• cool location - preferably outside with a great view
• plan the music precisely - from live classical to dance for everyone
• gift something for our guests - personalized

• seats in a circle - surrounded by love
• pot a tree together in the ceremony
• toast to each other
• parade-style procession with band to altar - with everyone
• inner ceremony, then outer ceremony

One day soon I want to marry my man. It's legal now in Washington!

sex, boredom,& lovers

 

I recently chatted with a couple of men who I met through this blog who again confirmed what I have been finding: that many longer-term partners, regardless of love, have less sex after a few years together. That's less often and less involved (for example, less intercourse than before). Usually radically less often.

Frankly, it's a concept I'm having difficulty wrapping my mind around. Usually I hear one partner wishing for more, and the other resisting. It's not a trend I want to follow, not if I can do anything about it.

One man, I'll call him beautiful eyes dual-continent skyper, says it's been less than a handful of times in the last five years with his partner. I asked him when it had slowed. He held up his hand with the wedding band on it, "when this came on."

Another man, I'll call him masturbation ritual champion, told me that he and his man don't have much intercourse anymore. They used to fuck nearly every day, now it's about monthly. Mostly it's jacking off and cuddling. He mentioned how connected he feels in intercourse.

Both of these men adore their partners and have no intention of leaving them. They were very clear on this.

The second guy referenced the book The Male Couple, which based on interviews, found that after 6 years none of the couples were monogamous, reportedly evidence for the "boredom factor" - which then supposedly leads to seeking sexual contact with new guys, as both of my new friends (and I) do. He also said he thought it's part of a declining-sex-with-partners-phenomena. "There's no expectation of learning anything new..."

I admit that there is a certain familiarity with a partner, okay, sometimes boredom might creep in. But this is no excuse for not changing it up, learning to communicate, and learning to give to each other. I also reject, for me, that I won't be learning or doing anything new with my partner. There are a million ways to get creative, to learn new things. Communication especially. And non-monogamy has been my ideal since I was 15, not tied to boredom.

From talking to the yearning partners, it seems to me that it is more a break-down in communication - on something that is really important - physical intimacy between partners - than anything else.

In my ideal world the bulk of my "sex diet" would be with my partner(s). Yes, I love sex with others. The newness is exciting, it's a different experience. In fact, in the last little while it's been from 2-4 times a month with someone else in person. Still it's exactly the familiarity and love with my partner that makes physical union with him - the man I've chosen to spend my life with - something pretty damn special. At times a whole different level of magic.

I refuse to let him off the hook at this point :). No pun intended, but it certainly fits here. I need that connection with him. Like I've said before, it doesn't have to be ejaculation or penetration, but it does have to be closeness, for me at least.

To many couples I thought were indestructible, no sex between them eventually became a red flag for one or both of them. Some have separated.

Other couples we know get by on less. Still, one partner usually cites this as less than ideal. And I suspect if you asked them each, they might agree.

A common statistic does not have to be pre-destiny!

sex centrality

Some of us yearn for more intimacy than is usually available in modern routine lives. We are often separated by suburbs, spread-out neighborhoods requiring cars, prosperous multi-room houses, jobs in cubicles. Intimacy comes because of physical proximity, conversation, working together on projects, being vulnerable, taking a risk. Sexual intimacy is just one of many intimacies - a very central one.

Sex is at the heart of humanity.

Many of the world’s problems could be resolved by increasing our sexual introspective awareness and skill.

We’d communicate better.
We’d feel confident.
We’d be aware of our power.

We respect and honor others and ourselves.
We feel sexier (wild, alive!).
We have amazing connections.

A while ago I read The Sex Diaries Project by Adrianne Cohen, which inspired me to share some of my world of inner taboos. Much of society shrouds the subject of sex with silence. Worse yet, censorship, shame, judgment, or words like “dirty” and “nasty.”

I believe that pleasure is good. Beauty is to be celebrated. Our bodies and our own experiences are a source of truth.

This blog is somewhat like a journal, wild, uncensored, true, sacred, messy, brilliant, weird, exploratory, self mentor-like, and hopefully provides value.

I don’t yet fully identify myself here, but hope to do so at some time. Identifying details of other individuals are omitted or changed, unless someone wishes otherwise, in a world still opening up. Wouldn’t it be nice if we lived on a planet where people talked about the things that are central to them openly, without fear of backlash, hearing the experiences of others too and gaining insight?

new york naked blogger

This sexy nude new yorker has a fun blog of some of his adventures. He’s pretty daring and okay with showing himself and his activities. That is what I admire about his blog. I’m not necessarily into all of his activities, but they sure are hot!

there's something great about being outside

cute!

pretty daring :)

suppression of sexuality

“In his lectures to young communists in Germany during the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, psychologist Wilhelm Reich theorized that the suppression of sexuality was essential to an authoritarian government. Without the imposition of anti-sexual morality, he believed,
people would be free from shame and would trust their own sense of right and wrong.

They would be unlikely to march to war against their wishes, or to operate death camps. Perhaps if we were raised without shame and guilt about our desires, we might be a freer people in more ways than simply the sexual.”


from Dossie and Janet's book Ethical Sluts

two shadows

I have two default behaviors which I sometimes do unconsciously. Sometimes they are destructive. Other times they are creative. I've recently become more aware of them. Being in a relationship provides an excellent mirror to see them (these "shadow" behaviors).

1. The corrector and tidy-upper guy.

2. The let's-pack-the-day-with-as-much-as-we-possibly-can guy.

The first one demonstrates by a generally clean house, laundry done impeccably, and attention to detail. As a nurse this is great, I remember the medications, the million details and orders involved in care, the teaching, etc. But as a partner especially I can be a word-monger, taking exception to poorly-worded responses, coming off as over-critical and judgmental. This energy also dislikes loose ends in conversations.

See the problem? This guy can alienate the people he loves most - among them his darling partner. This energy has its place, and I honor it. But it's best if I'm conscious about it, and sometimes put it away.


The second energy is obviously useful from a get-things-done perspective. But where it bites me in the butt the most with my partner is coming late or just on time to an event. It stresses him out tremendously. His default behavior is to arrive early to everything to mitigate anxiety. I contribute to him feeling frazzled. (Meanwhile, in my reality, I'm glorying in the fact that I squeezed in one more to-do, but aware that I stressed my man.) So I try to adapt. Drop a to-do item and get there early. Even if it means sitting there for me.

It's my new and chosen reality.

A shadow, in this reference, is a behavior that is often done unconsciously. Better to try to become conscious of it.

solosexual?

Hairy sensual friendly yogi came over socially. I enjoyed meeting him for several reasons. Frankly he's quite unique - as many people are, and I liked finding out a bit about his life journey.

First off it intrigued me that he considered himself a solosexual at some point. The urban dictionary online defines this as someone who likes to masturbate a lot, but has no desire to have sex with others. It's interesting that many of us experience sexuality across a spectrum. Our sexual tastes often change with time.

It seems that this was the case with our yogi solosexual. Now he's interested in some play with other guys. Despite his intense sexual presence and experience with himself, he's had limited mutual experience with others.

So I felt it quite a privilege to be a part of this unfolding. I enjoyed how he lightly kissed, his hairy legs and tummy, his perpetual hard cock, kind words, and him cumming repeatedly. Masturbating mutually. I'd love to see him again, whether sensually or not.

We also talked about a possible future HUMP video. Hump is a local amateur porn festival. I've attended the last two years and been amused by the wide variety and creativity of the selected participating short clips.



from an solo masturbator blog
called masturbation and cum denial,
another variation
- on excitement and non-ejaculation

nude star wars

out on a hike camping a couple of weeks ago

We searched for the beautiful spot that we'd found last year by the lake. Fortunately it was easy to find. The sun was shining and clothes came off quickly - it being a secluded spot.

The mask I saw at a local store and just had to get it. Three of them in fact. I'll be going to Burning Man this year again and they should make for some fun pictures with the guys out there.

I thought also if a guy doesn't want to show his face, but likes being naked, and pictured, here's the perfect solution :). And people often act a bit different imbued with the energy of a mask. More fun sometimes.

Quirky but amusing.

crossing over

 

every night

I cross over

to where motorcycles rev
vroom vrrrooooom

wild men in tubs
faces peering up
out of water

purple baby hippos
walk dainty
under river's edge

here nothing makes sense
carrots big as people

but it is free
colors alive
free from rules
unenslaved to imagine
just be

just because
it's pretty
just because
it's been on my mind
in the day

my subconscious
or the great conscious
ness

manifests its wild erratic
reeling
sensual
emotional
self

here it's okay
to dream
and not make sense

or make a lot of sense

connect with mystery
unexplained
motifs and wisdoms
some recurring

still hidden meaning when I awake
somehow better

homeostasis
achieved
churned and stirred
freshened

perhaps this daily crossing over
prepares me
for that night
I make
my final crossing over
(at least
that's how it's framed
here)

no effort of my own
common journey

today at work
I talked to a family
about dying
planning
looking to

then on break
went to my car
to mini-slumber
crossed over
and back again

then at home
in my tub
too

a few times
reveling in that in-between space
every time magic

conscious of the images
delights
no conjuring of my own

under water
above water

awake world
dream reality

man I love to cross over

 

like a child

I want to learn to rebound from an argument more like a child or a puppy: as soon as the grievance is removed, I am that happy connected being again. My tendency as an adult is to hold on to reserve for a while after.

While this may have served me well up until now, and protected me as a child in the unique circumstances of my upbringing, it no longer serves me with my partner. It may serve me for an occasional tyrant boss, but not for most co-workers and friends. I see that most people rebound quickly. I want to do the same. Energetically let go. Resume the ease of friendship. Smile easily - sincerely.

connection communication

The quality of our connection with others
depends on the quality of communication.

from Ph86 on dudes nude, with his permission

In my relationship I am often reminded of my inadequacy in communicating. At times I have skill, other times I'm at rope's end, feeling flustered and skill-less. My latest resource is the movement around non-violent communication - empathy specifically. I got the above written gem this morning looking at local nvc workshops.

sex bucket list

Shiva-like goddess with phalluses

Have some things you'd like to try sexually?
Some of mine:

1. have sex with a woman - preferably a friend
2. use chest harnesses (for us guys) in intercourse

3. give a sex workshop - actually doing it, with learners experientially involved
4. submit a video for the local amateur porn festival

5. produce some outdoors group scenes
6. have a threesome with a hot male-female couple

7. live with at least one additional husband - successfully

beautiful pics

I saw this picture long before I knew who Adam Levine is. Then I heard him sing. Wow. Though he's straight and dates women, you can look up on youtube and find him speaking in support of gay kids in the "It get's better" campaign. I just had to post this picture, just because. This picture is a bit of a social break-through because a handsome confident heterosexual man is being okay with his body, and by example, showing others how to be okay with their body too.

Another random picture I had to post. I think it breaks the stereotype of men who love men not being masculine, or streets-smart. There's a certain sweetness in hardness (as long as it's not posturing).

blowin'

Every one seems to have their favorite sexual acts. Whether it's blow jobs giving, receiving, making out, mutual masturbation, getting topped, or the more niche - pressure to the throat, harnesses, furry-wear, leashes, or sexy feet.

There are many other factors too, like general age preferences, body types, hair, general racial preferences, etc. I do have my preferences and favorites, but I try to branch out regularly and experience new dimensions. At least on principle, I also try not to judge each person by a category or label. I try to sense our mutual attraction, how I'm feeling, and so on, individual by individual. I find myself being attracted to some really cool people, case by case.

Wouldn't you prefer to be seen for who you are as a person rather than some category?

Recently I hooked up with a beautiful guy that comes racially from a group that I have less sexual experience with. In a new place. He seemed to be really into giving blow jobs. Long smooth and splendid.

Most people tire after a few minutes, but he kept enjoying his virtuosity. A professional. Having had a conversation recently with another friend who loves giving too, I consciously let go of my usual dance - more reciprocal play - and surrendered to the sensations. Wow it was amazing. Extended. And we got into all sorts of hot grabs.

He also had mixed a little bit of olive oil with the silicone lube we used later. I only registered the light smell after. Kinky and new.

Why do they call it a blow job, when there's actually more bobbing than either blowing or sucking?

Randomly, I find that in my new state of Washington there is a slight preference for hairier men. In my previous state - Utah - there seemed to be a general preference for smoother men. It is interesting to experiences the "discrimination" on both sides of the fence, in different locales. I'm naturally not very hairy, and it doesn't matter that much to me.

It's a complex thing, this attraction thing, and the many things we do with it. I revel in its many facets and opportunities. What a privilege to connect.



northwest U.S. island coast sunny moments on a hike

gay prom

Adorable prom picture in New York City 2013.

 

From the blog Scottblog, who saw this on Humans of New York.

define me - video

The powerful video shows Ryan Amador and Jo Lampert stripping down to their underwear to reveal gay slurs and negative stereotypes written across their bodies - then washing them off - singing beautifully.

Another cool picture of Ryan Amador:

 

What gets me in the video, besides the gorgeous voices, is the washing off of the slurs on their bodies. Like an ancient primitive ritual - archetypal in the depth of its reach. 

maori love song

Want to cry a bit?
New Zealand lawmakers burst into song as they legalize gay marriage. Click here to see the article and video link.

Watch initially as those who voted 'yes' stand, and those who voted 'no' stay seated. Then at 1:15 minutes in the crowd spontaneously sings. Man! Chills up my spine. I have hope for the human family.

new zealand parliament gay speech

New Zealand recently passed gay marriage! Here's a speech by one of the parliament members - with several funnies. The fact that he has to clarify some of these things in a way still makes me mad, but someone's got to address them, since much of the world still holds on to these thoughts.

furry

Recently a guy messaged me that said he was a furry, and also a cuddly pup. I looked it up online and got some fun definitions and images.

It seems that there are conventions, events, sexual fetishes of all sorts, and just a fun (and sometimes creepy) activities and interest groups.

 

 

The part that seems fun to me, beside the opportunity to be sexy in different ways, is the dressing up, and the different energy that comes on to someone when they are masked or costumed. Sometimes a shy person will become an animal :-). 

I can relate to a person becoming an animal - in a way.

savage climb

it started

innocently thinking

I'd follow google-maps

to remote a hot spring

 

off the trail I went

up steep mountain slant

bathed in moss

alone

with my backpack

and my cell

one jug of water

 

up up up

great fall

avoiding

grasping all four limbs

emerald ground cover

rock ascending

 

holding roots

grabbing trees

 

eagle

snake

bear

 

just over this next cliff

 

 

horse-flies biting

swatting

alert eyes scanning  

 

 

no sign of it

one more precipice

 

animal-like

adrenaline moving

panting

listening

planning

spreading

 

 

scratched

eyes fierce

ready

monkey

squatting

 

this could be the day

I join

all the way

fear's lost its bite

 

hours later

return back down

having grasped

soil

and plant

 

I feel powerful

earthed

low

alive

sexy

and animal

 

 

grimacing

hissing

ready