I have never been able to attend a New York Pride because my boss always made me work in the store, which is ironic because I was always the one who actively fought for equal rights between the two of us. Last year was even worse because we actually had a float for the first time in the parade which I specifically said I wanted to be on and I still had to work. This was the middle-finger equivalent of sticking a thousand dicks in my eye. Well this year was different because I was in charge, so I finally got to celebrate Pride, which is an annual event that is very important to me. Leading up to the march I found myself hearing people saying things that really surprised me when asked what they were doing for Pride. Stop the turnip truck, because when someone says “I don’t think Pride is necessary anymore,” I take issue!

For the sake of argument I am going to refer to this evening I spent with this one guy a “date”. This someone was, for all intents and purposes, a bad Joan Rivers act incarnate. He was from some hee-haw state that I didn’t commit to memory. He was the type of person who explains retail experiences with rude customers and how clever they were when they were rude back, in a show of “aren’t I a bad ass?!” chest-beating. His sense of humor was very angsty, he complained at one point that New Yorkers were “idiots” who didn’t think he was funny, but insisted that he was actually hilarious and stated “If my friend from back home was here we’d show everyone! We’d show everyone here that my jokes are actually funny!”

As my eyes were rolling across the floor he continued to make a fool of himself, but I was nice about it because it was clear that he had a very strong sense about himself based on a whole lot of nothing and it would have been mean to point it all out to him at once. Kinda like how you don’t wake up someone who’s sleep walking.

I had to interject, however, when I asked him what he was doing for Pride weekend and his response was:

“Oh, I don’t believe in Pride. I’m a proud person all the time, I don’t need it. And I am strong, and I feel like those people who are weak need Pride, but I don’t need it anymore.”

I like when people say things that are outlandishly stupid so nonchalantly.

I carry a fortune-cookie paper around in my wallet that reads “Only fools and dead men don’t change their minds. Fools won’t and dead men can’t.” I won’t say that it makes me mad when people take this stance against Pride, but I will say it is irritating, and furthermore frustrating at how many gays actually do hold this opinion and stick to it. I can only explain why it is important to me and hope that others take a moment to examine their own opinions.

When I was 16 my mom came to me and told me that my dad had been going through my sent e-mails on AOL (LOL @ AOL). He found what you would expect to find in any hot-blooded gay teen’s outbox (a whole lot of “Can we meet so you can stick it in my outbox?”). I went to my dad and simply said “I heard you were reading my e-mail.” Immediately he got angry and flustered and all he could say was “If you are gay, just don’t ever tell me” and left the room. It was then that I realized I would never be able to truly talk to my dad about my life because he couldn’t even discuss a factor of myself without completely shutting down. Being a huge loner as a kid I thus had nobody to talk to, and for a long time wondered if taking my own life would be the solution. Fortunately I am a pussy when it comes to pain so I never attempted anything, but the same couldn’t be said for my younger sister.

As I left first period in high school one morning I saw my sister’s friend carrying my sister in her arms towards my class. “She just showed up and collapsed!” she told me, and handed her over to me. My younger sister’s body was shockingly lifeless and light, it didn’t feel like there was anything inside her but air. I ran to the nurses office where we summoned an ambulance and left for the hospital.

They made her drink several large cups of charcoal to flush out her system. The nurses explained to me that it had been a suicide attempt and that my sister had taken a massive overdose of my mother’s anti-depressant medication. She was going to be ok though.

I sat by my sister’s hospital bed while she was slowly coming down off of the high. She was conscious now, but very stoned, and couldn’t stop telling me knock-knock jokes. I smiled and laughed because it’s what she needed, and frankly it’s what I needed too, but as she told me these jokes I looked at her and felt a tremendous amount of guilt. My sister was obviously a lesbian and was bullied at school on a daily basis like myself, but I had never reached out to her to talk about it. I had basically closed off to her the way my dad had to me, and worse I had taken a lot of my baggage out on her. I felt, for the first time ever, like a horrible person.

My sister survived and to date we have a very strong relationship. She is actually coming out to visit me in September from Los Angeles. She got her act together and now is a very strong person with a very nice job that she is great at and lives a very free lifestyle as an open lesbian.

Pride is a lot of things. It’s a celebration, a statement, a distraction. It is one of the only parties out there that is focused on being all-inclusive. You’ll see every type of person either in the march or watching it. People from all walks of life come together and line the streets, all supporting the same message; “We are proud.”

When someone tells me that they don’t think Pride is necessary, I can’t help but believe that they go through life with tunnel vision. I live in New York where for the most part I can walk around being a big ol’ queen and I’ll make it home alive, but there are people who live in places where they can’t. Even here in New York you’ll get called a faggot from time to time by passing cars or groups of punks, and even here in New York I hear stories of people getting the shit kicked out of them just because they were gay.

When I first started The INQUEERY I read two articles, two months apart, about two separate boys, both who had hung themselves because of anti-gay bullying. One was 11 years old.

The article revealed some very sad statistics:

Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT youth (86.2%) reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation, nearly half (44.1%) reported being physically harassed and about a quarter (22.1%) reported being physically assaulted, according to GLSEN’s 2007 National School Climate Survey of more than 6,000 LGBT students.

In most cases, the harassment is unreported. Nearly two-thirds of LGBT students (60.8%) who experience harassment or assault never reported the incident to the school. The most common reason given was that they didn’t believe anything would be done to address the situation. Of those who did report the incident, nearly a third (31.1%) said the school staff did nothing in response.

Pride represents people being comfortable in their own skin, what ever skin it is that they choose to wear. It is a symbol across the nation to people of all ages that it gets better, and that there are other people like you. Pride for many LGBTQ youth is a symbol of hope — a yearly event where they know they can go and walk around being themselves and not have to be afraid of the consequences. Pride is important, even for people who are strong and comfortable in their own skin, because for some people it’s all they have — your body in a crowd, your face in a photograph, your cheers on a TV screen.

So yes there are twinks walking around in their American Apparel briefs, and there are thousands of men in drag and make-up. You’ll see bears in chaps and dykes-on-bikes, but you’ll also see plain clothes persons of various colors, gender identifications, and ages. You’ll see straight allies, proud parents and siblings, couples with children in love who want to get married. You see people from all walks of life, walks that you may not interact with, who have all come together for this one day to fight oppression with celebration.If that symbol were to only nurture one person and save only one life, wouldn’t that still make it worth it?

When I go to Pride, I don’t see weak people. I see warriors.

What do you see?

*Several photos courtesy Krys Fox Photography

As I opened up the template to write this post, I looked to my left at the wall of the apartment that I’ve been in for 6 months now and noticed for the first time the clear outline of the bottom of a flip-flop on the wall and a smashed bug underneath it.  Further evidence that my apartment is too big for me.  How the hell do you miss this attractive relic from the last tenant?  And how many men have found their way back to my web of sin only to see this footprint homicide on my wall and think that it was me that did it and left it there, completely fine with a mosquito-corpse on my wall?  FML

Anyway…this revelation will either work for or against what I was meaning to post today.

I’ve tricked you all into thinking that I am this smooth smoldering temptress, and oh trick you I have!  The fact is that I am actually very OCD and particular about the most random shit, and this is most evident at work.  I know this as fact because my co-workers point it out to me all the time whereas the dead mosquito has not said a word to me about it.

Despite my OCDisms, I am a Supervisor and I need to demonstrate excellent customer service at all times and blah blah, and this can really cause a rift in some pretty internally tragic ways.

Here is a top five list of the pet peeves that send me into an OCD meltdown at work that I keep under wraps.  This is a therapeutic post, of sorts…

#5 — Vibration

Sometimes I think my life should be a sitcom because of all of the ways I seem to surround myself with precisely everything that drives me insane, but I don’t know that anyone would see the humor in it besides the self-loathing side of myself.  Of course the sound of vibration drives me crazy, and so of course I want to work in a store that sells vibrators.  This makes complete and total sense.  There’s something about the buzzing sound of vibration that just rings in my head, especially when a vibrator is going off against a surface, which is an interesting parallel to everyone that comes in to play with the toys, as they seem to love the sound.  I try my best to slowly, calmly, walk to every vibrating toy and turn them off as though it’s just a part of my job, but inside I am yelling at myself to “WALK FASTER! DON’T YOU HEAR THAT?! SILENCE THE GRRLTOYZ SILK EGG NOW!!, otherwise known as this cool cat:

#4 — Hair

I don’t really like “potty humor” (farts, etc) but I don’t really care about it.  I pick up garbage off the sidewalk outside the store all the time with my bare hands and throw it away and don’t give it a second thought.  Things that my co-workers attempt to sweep up, I just grab and throw away, I don’t care.  But HAIR. HAIR. Hair grosses out my every last shit! I wont touch it, and if I have to it’s with a napkin or something, and I always wash and then Purell my hands right after.  I don’t know how it happens but everyday I find long strands of human (I assume) hair stuck to our demo toys and it sends the creepy crawlies right up my spine. Some might be grossed out by the 9″ thick phallus laying on the table, but not me.  The thin brunette strand that has clung to it like a barnacle is what sends me packing.  The other day I had a primo spot on the J train and some short Cousin It decided to stand with her back to me in a way that made her nasty ponytail touch my arm, and I had to move.  I just couldn’t. I couldn’t.  Yuck.  YUCK.

#3 — TOUCHING ME

(p.s. how perfect is this picture?)

There are two and only two types of humans;  the type that think it’s ok to touch people they don’t know, and the type of people who know that the first type of people are barking mad.  It manifests in many forms.  Some people touch your shoulder as they say “Excuse me” when they have a question, others reach over and touch my hand or arm as a sweet gesture to say “Thank you”, and both are equally nerve-wracking to someone with as many socio-issues as I have come to realize that I have.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy human contact, but I am a selective germ freak (i.e. the trash on the floor that I don’t mind grabbing, vs the hand you just touched me with that may have been grabbing subway poles, picking noses, being coughed on, etc etc etc.  Etc x 1,000 billion).  DON’T TOUCH ME.

#2 — Close Talkers

This is probably the most comical situation I find myself in, because it really makes me nervous.  When people insist on being 3 inches from my face when they are talking to me my brain puts all bridges and tunnels inside my head on Orange Alert.  There are a lot of things that are going on here.  For starters I am always convinced I have food in my teeth, even if I’ve checked recently.  Secondly, I’m not prone to bad breath but I am certain the second I am a close-talker is going to get all up in my grill.  Thirdly, I am a hippie and can totally feel your crazy energy invading my aura and it rattles me.  It rattles my cage, baby.  Sometimes it’s really tough because you have these really sweet shy customers that just want to whisper their issues and questions to you because they don’t want the world to hear, and meanwhile every sky scraper inside of me is crumbling into dust.  It sometimes results in me just walking them around constantly and showing them every piece of merchandise in the store in an attempt to create some space if only for a moment.

In a perfect world…

#1 — Popping Gum

Y tu, Dietrich?

My dad never hit me, but the verbal abuse that I was on the receiving end of if I made any noise or opened my mouth when eating was pretty much the equivalent of a body slam.  Mind you he would eat breakfast unabashed in his white briefs, but I digress… After my brain washing regarding eating habits and manners as a child, it’s really difficult when people commit the ultimate crime in oral mastication: Popping their gum.  This should be considered a hate crime, because the people that do it around me must truly hate me if they can keep doing it despite the obvious sadness in my eyes.  I think it might have something to do with being raised in Los Angeles too.  The type of girl that chewed gum with her mouth open and then popped it loudly and then exclaimed “It’s FUN!” when people protested the sound… Yeah.  There is nothing positive about chewing your gum like that and then adding insult to injury by making a loud popping sound.  These are the same people that spend 20 minutes popping bubble wrap, as if anybody wants to hear that.

Well like I said, I really have to let these pet peeves slide when at work, but it does feel good to share.  Now that you all know me for the raging psychopath that I actually am, I feel very content. This is what a psycho-criminal feels like when he is first put into the straitjacket.  It’s real, it’s real…

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to bury a mosquito in the toilet.

People get really confused when I tell them that Valentine’s Day is my favorite holiday.  They assume that it’s because I like getting laid, and although that isn’t an untrue fact, that has nothing to do with what Valentine’s Day means to me.  This year was one of the best, and every year Valentine’s Day could be amazing for everyone if they just viewed it in the right light.

The Toy Store that I work in saw one of our most successful V-Days to date, at least since I’ve been there.  We shattered every record from the last several years.  Working this weekend was non-stop busy with a steady stream of people pouring in to the store to buy various instruments of pleasure for themselves and their partner(s).  I always love it when we are busy.  When we are busy, it means people are looking to have a good time, and that is always a great thing.  I also love the fact that my suggestions become widely more acceptable to more people.  I told one older lady that she should try bondage tape and my favorite plug, and after one small beat of silence she simply said “Alright, sure.”  Why can’t everyday be like that!

I recently left my second job which many people didn’t know I had.  I had been with that company since 2004 and was allowed to keep my position when I moved here from Los Angeles in 2006.  There comes a time when you just have to realize what you are doing vs. what you should be doing, and my passion has always been for the sex industry and it didn’t make sense to spend time doing anything else anymore.  I am going to miss them a lot, but I promised myself this would be the year that I focused on my career, and so with a heavy heart I said my goodbyes.  Any moment you spend not doing something that you want to do with your life, you are wasting your time.  Success requires a good attitude and strong work ethic, but also projects and tasks that support your dreams, not stifle them.

Valentine’s Day is a lot like that for me.  I don’t view it as a day of romance in the traditional sense, but as a day of romance for life.  I love my life, and I love myself, and I love the people in my life.  Men have come and gone, but at the end of the day you have to love yourself before you can love anyone else appropriately (RuPaul totally stole that from me, btw).  Valentine’s Day is my day to celebrate the relationships in my life with other people, but also with myself.  A large part of being sexy is simply feeling sexy, and for me that means being able to take care of myself and being proud of the work I do, and none of that is dependent on the person I’m fucking.

I did so this year by finally finishing my chest piece (thank you to my artist, su-houston.com).

Next year I’d like to be naked in bed with someone though.

Maybe I am a germ freak and maybe I am ok with that.  Nothing says you’re living the good life like Purelling your hands every five minutes like a maniac.  I typically look at people the same way that kid in The Sixth Sense does, more often than not because I see people do insane shit everyday and that leads me to believe that they are, thus, insane.  Not outright insane, but rather…oh how do I explain this.  “Exhibiting behavioral trends”?  “Practicing problem indicators”?  I’m sure there is an official term for the nonsense I encounter.  Here are my top 5 customer interactions that freak me out and will ultimately result in me giving up on mankind and getting the hell out of Dodge (“Dodge” in this case being “the planet Earth”) .  I’ll let you decide if I am the crazy one here or if these people are indeed psychotic.

5. The Person That Opens Merchandise

Ok, so you are comfortable enough to come into a sex toy store.  That’s great!  Ok, so you are fine with everyone seeing which section of the store most interests you.  Power to you!  But the moment you think that it is ok to open a packaged sex toy so you can squeeze and rub it, I put you on my freak list.  What kind of person would think that it would be ok to touch something with their subway-hands that they may not end up buying and thus will end up in someone else’s body?  This is how germs and infections are evolving into crazy incurable shit.  People keep touching shit to shit that shouldn’t ever meet.

Projected Future: Tragic end met by electric fence or third rail.

4. The Person That Playfully Uses Demo Toys on Private Parts

I remember growing up and hearing people say “Were you raised in a BARN!?” and never really getting it.  It’s tomfoolery like using demo toys on your crotch that made me understand exactly what that term meant.  I know you think it’s funny to stick the Hitachi Magic Wand on your dick in front of your friends because you aren’t clever enough to think of actual funny things, but to everyone else who doesn’t know you you’re just being a creep.

Projected Future: Pedophile clown

3. The Person That Doesn’t Want to Be Seen in a Sex Toy Store So They Stand Outside and Stare in the Window

Great job at not being creepy.  Standing outside of a sex toy store and peering in the window, ducking and tilting your head in different ways to see the merchandise behind the signage blocking your view, is TOTALLY fooling everyone into thinking you don’t want to go in.  Whenever I see someone doing this I wonder if they realize that they are acting like a crazy person.  Just come in to the store and have your social catharsis and be done with it.

Projected Future: Serial dine-and-dasher

2. The Person That Wants to Return Used Merchandise

Nothing makes me shake in my boots like the image of someone walking in to the store with an item wrapped in a newspaper.  There is no amount of coaxing or therapy that can heal these memories.  “But I washed it” is a trigger word, sending me into a mental spiral of WTFs.  It sometimes makes me think that I should start a sex toy rental store (Cockbuster! Anyone? Anyone??), because there are obviously people out there that think it is totally ok to use a vibrator and then bring it back to trade in for something else.

Projected Future: Creature that wakes you up during a nightmare

1. The Person That Puts Demo Toys on a Friend’s Face

I need to start having my first dates at sex toy stores, because there is a lot that can happen in one that are ultimate deal breakers.  For me, taking a dildo off of a public counter and then putting it on your friend’s face, mouth, ear, ANYTHING is grounds for extermination.  You are committing an act of treason against germ-fearing humanity.  All I can think about when someone does this is that article that said 1 in 10 New Yorkers has the Swine Flu.  If you poke my face with a dildo because you think it’s hysterical and I get N1H1 from said cock, FRIENDSHIP OVER.

Projected Future: The person whose dog keeps running away

Sex is something that is sadly too often treated as something that people can naturally do well.  Sex, like any other activity, requires everything that every other “talent” requires; practice, energy, experimentation and enthusiasm.  Too often do men default to the caveman-esque mindset of “I WILL PENETRATE YOU AND YOU WILL CUM”, when in fact that isn’t the case for most people.  Sure you may ejaculate, and sure there are naturals in every field, but they are viewed as genius for a good reason — they can do something naturally that most people have to work towards.

I had sex with someone semi-recently who acted like a wet fish gasping for breath as it lay on the sand of a deserted beach waiting for death.  It was all very bland — kiss kiss suck, kiss kiss lick, kiss kiss are we done yet? Granted chemistry plays a role as well, but at the end of the day you can chose to have fun with something you are doing or you can chose not to, and in this instance he chose the latter.  The problem here isn’t that he specifically chose not to, but rather that we as a society aren’t trained to think of sex as something that requires extra thought, much less that we can train ourselves to improve.

WHAT! Are you saying I am bad in bed?! No.

HEY NOW, just because I didn’t get your picky ass off doesn’t mean I am a boring lover!! Maybe so.

Well aren’t you the one that says that everyone is different and people like different things?! Absolutely.

But the problem is that people aren’t engaging their partner or themselves when they are in bed with someone.  That is a blanket statement of course and if you and your partner are having great sex then you are having great sex!  But so many people are wrought with thoughts and feelings that inhibit their ability to truly appreciate sex to the fullest — a lack of connection with their partner, no communication, insecurities, the list goes on.

A customer opened up to me last week while we were trying to figure out why he was having so much trouble bottoming and admitted that he couldn’t do the things that he sees in porn.  This is a common thought that many people share, and my response is always the same.  Porn is porn, not real life.  Porn is supposed to be a tool to entice your fantasies, and like any fantasy tool it is not always based on tangible situations.  Sure the guys in the flick look like they’re having a wonderful time, but they are also being paid a lot of money to contort their bodies in those often very uncomfortable positions.

There is a short checklist that I give people when they seem to have problems being happy in the bedroom.  It’s an easy checklist to remember and if you can answer the various points then you are on your way to improving your sex.

What do I want?

What does he want?

How do we get it?

You are in bed with somebody, not at somebody.  If you want to have as good a time as you can, it is your responsibility to be brave and speak up about what it is that makes you feel good.  It’s your partner’s job to do the same, but it also behooves you to ask “What can I do to make you feel good?”

Communicate with your partner.  It’s super important, and will yield nearly immediate results every time.  But most importantly, drop your baggage and communicate with yourself. 

What is holding you back?

What do you want to try?

Why have you waited this long to tell someone “I want you to make me smile”?

A swarm of elderly men and women have descended upon the toy store lately.  Mercury is in retrograde which usually means things get a little crazy, and if this is one of the crazy things that happens then it’s my kind of crazy!

Lately when I have been working the weather has been amazing.  I bitterly stand inside the store that always manages to feel too hot (our AC is the equivalent of a box fan blowing on a tray of ice cubes) and look out to the sunny blue sky.  Conversely, the weather on my days off has typically been overcast and rainy.  This is obviously God’s middle finger flung my direction; the consequences of running an immoral blog about immoral lifestyles.  Whatevs.

So on days when I am working and it’s slow I stand just outside the door and enjoy the weather.  Sometimes a cute gay will walk by and smile at me, and me being the polite little homo I am will smile back.  They typically see this as an invitation and walk into the store, which means I am forced to pull myself away from the nice weather in order to assist this customer who is obviously not going to buy anything nor make any moves.  #flirtfail

However three days ago an older man scooted over to the entrance while I was outside.  He was one of those frail looking older people with a cane and a very focused, almost permanently terrified look on his face.  He was dressed the part complete with Bob Hope style Hawaiian print and sun hat.  I really like elderly people in general so I was happy to see him.

He made his way to the door and so I went inside so I could be a good employee.  About four seconds after leaving the door frame I turned to greet him and saw one of the most terrifying images imaginable: his arms flailing wildly, his eyes wide as plates, his body falling backwards.

Usually I like to see people fall down because I am a mean person with a cold coal heart, but not old people.  It makes me sad when older folks fall, and the sight of this adorable guy falling backwards was heart wrenching.  My feet had no wings, my arms had no length, there was nothing I could do to save him.

Luckily there was another older gent outside that caught him.  I was relieved.  He was a handsome black man with features that resembled Morgan Freeman.  He had a great smile and wore big black shades.  I put my hand to my heart, thoroughly overwhelmed at what my sunbathing had turned into.

“Careful!” he told Old Friend #1 as he helped him get steady.  The face on Old Friend #1 was the exact same as it had been when he was shuffling down the sidewalk, absolute terror.  Now I knew why.  I had a feeling that this sort’ve thing must happen to him a lot.

“He must have been surprised by all the pretty girls in there!” said Old Friend #2 with a flash of a smile.  There were no girls in the store, so I am assuming he meant me.  I didn’t bother pointing that out.

With a dismissive hand-swat, Old Friend #1 climbed into the store and slid past me.  In an all too practiced hushed mutter he grumbled to himself “I don’t like girls..!”

If real life was Facebook, I would have Liked Liked Liked.

He was friendly and direct, he knew what he wanted.  I helped him pick out some lube.  He got the one that I said was my favorite, and as he paid he winked and said “If it works for you it’ll work for me.” I guess it’s obvious that I’m not a fan of sex with ladies either.

It made me wonder what I will be like when I am older.  I’ve met some of the older industry legends who have made something of themselves and although they have all been very nice, they all seem like characteurs of themselves.  It’s my dream to follow their paths to an extent, but I don’t ever want to become unreachable emotionally.  I don’t want to be “that dildo guy” to people, having to be ON at all times.  It’s even reached the point where now I try to delay telling people what I do for as long as possible, because the second they hear what I do you can see the switch in their eyes, as if I am about to start dancing for them.

Dolly Parton once said that she never leaves her house without her wigs and makeup and entire get up because she doesn’t want to disappoint her fans, and the same rites seem to be in place for these people.  I can barely dress myself up for one night out on the town, I can’t imagine having to do it daily.  How exhausting, and frankly boring.

This is all assuming that I continue down this path and make something of myself, but regardless either way — this new old friend made me pause and think about what it must be like to be old and gay.  You go through a lot in your day to day life, and I’m sure he had it a lot harder than I did, but here he is still scooting around the city looking for good lube, winking at strangers, throwing caution to the wind.  I wonder if older gay men worry about being gay bashed?  I don’t imagine that they do, not like me anyway.  This poor guy had a hard enough time not bashing himself, I don’t think he really cares what anyone else thinks anymore, which I think is my lesson to take away from him.

STOP CARING AND MASTURBATE TIL I DIE.

Sorry I’ve subjected you to this meaningless string of thought.  It’s my day off the it’s overcast.

For starters, this is the best picture in American history.  After the photo above was taken she posed for a photo with my co worker and grabbed his crotch.  My eyes burned wide with jealousy and I said “I didn’t get THAT kind of special treatment!”  She immediately ran back to me, grabbed my crotch and posed.  After a beat, she looked down to what she was holding (see: every inch of my dick and balls), and with a firm jiggle announced “Ooo, I like you!” Thus my look of euphoria mixed with utter embarrassment.  I don’t blush easily, but that managed to do it.

The first workshop was on oral sex.  The store was packed with men and women of all types, straight and gay.  It was a great workshop and personally very affirming, because everything she said is essentially what I try to echo here:  sex is about finding someone’s orgasm, not giving it to them.  The same rule applies to yourself.  Explore your sexuality, see what you respond to, not what you think you’re supposed to like.

The second workshop was about spanking.  Again, filled the store, and again it was a lot of fun.  I unfortunately had a massive migraine caused by the stress of my moving situation (which as of today is 95% over because I found out that I got the apartment that I was going for.  Moving to the Lower East Side at the end of the month, hooray!).  People were volunteering to bottom for Nina and I had planned to, but the thought of being slapped around when your head feels like there are two hippos attacking each other inside of it made me sit it out.  Bummer.

The third night was the night that caught me off guard.  It was about Threesomes, and I was sure that I wasn’t going to hear anything that really would affect me in any way.  I also assumed that given the nature of the workshop we wouldn’t fill the place, but sure enough we were packed to the door.

Listening to her talk about monogamy, swinging and polyamory was beyond interesting.  I myself have always been in monogamous relationships, but I realized several years ago after my last serious one ended that I had been ruled by that very concept.  Jealousy was very common in my life back then, and small things would set me off.  I think back to times when I was possessive and jealous without expressing to him why I was feeling the way I was, but most of all I look back and see myself not asking myself why I was feeling the way I was.  I basically let the concept of monogamy control my life and thus our relationship.  I realized after we broke up that that was my hang up and my insecurity causing that, and it really had nothing to do with my partner at all.

Communication is important for any healthy relationship, and three years ago I realized that my most solid relationship has to be the one I have with myself.  If a relationship with another person is a house and your relationship with yourself is half of the foundation, you’d better make sure you can support all of the lumber, floorboards and nails that a house requires.  It’s important before you enter any relationship outside of the one with yourself that you are confident with yourself and you know why you react the way you do to things that are ultimately out of your control.  No matter how much you love someone, you will never be able to control them (and nor should you be able to), so instead you should work on a partnership rich with communication and openness.

I was sad to see Nina go.  She is an amazing energy in this world.  I asked her to please come back and she told me that she’d be happy to.  I asked her what other workshops she’d like to do and without turning back she said “Anything!” and left the store.

I don’t know that I will necessarily start having threesomes.  It sounds fun to a point, but I really like to focus on making one person happy.  And although I don’t care if people are in open relationships, I am too busy to fuss with more than one person at a time.  On any given day I have a hundred things to do, the last thing I need is to be juggling boys.  But who knows.  I am now at least open to the conversation.

By the end of night three, I had an amazing internal conversation with myself.  Meeting someone as bold and confident and unabashedly human as Nina makes you look at yourself.  You think about everything you’ve done and everything you want to do and you start to wonder what those things are based in.  Why you do those things or why you think you want to do them.  It’s a very special person that can make you ask yourself a very important question that I think we should all ask ourselves more often:

“Who am I?”

Part of being a manager in any retail job is being able to deal with problem “customers.”  I loosely refer to them as customers because they aren’t actually human beings.  Or maybe they are, just in their crudest, most immature form (possibly still more monkey than man).  The main problem with them is that they aren’t in fact customers, for they aren’t in fact shopping.  Not even window shopping.  In fact they made the (to them) hysterical decision to come into my store specifically for two purposes;  to laugh at everything in the store and to demonstrate their stunted mental growth.

This is the first and only job I have ever had that actually makes me hate the sound of laughter.  Laughing in a sex toy store means that something just happened that I will have to clean up, and as funny as it must look for the sex toy store guy to be fishing dildos from underneath the counter where your gigantic purse clumsily flung them, it really only makes said sex toy store guy long for you to leave said sex toy store.

Sometimes I have to check myself because I just want to lose it and show them something ACTUALLY ridiculous.  “Yeah, that was really funny!  Look at this, isn’t this ALSO funny!” and then frantically shove as many dildos down my pants as I can, clearing tables aghast at the abominations my hands touch along the way, laughing maniacally the entire time.

Check yourself B. Just let them laugh, and let them get it out of their system.

This is the ultimate crime to someone like me, because you are essentially making my job everything I am working against.

When I first started working in the sex industry it was because I myself was curious about sex products and improving my sex life.  Shortly after entering the industry though, I found a new purpose that made my job an amazing experience — helping other people improve their sex lives.

My first experience with this was back in 2006 in Los Angeles.  An elderly couple came in to the store and I smiled and said hello.  They smiled back, in that “Oh crap someone noticed us” way and then meandered over to the overbearing wall of condoms and lubrication.  I let them whisper to each other for a little while before making my way over to see if they needed any help.

“Is there anything in particular you are looking for?”

You would have thought I asked them both to show me their genitals.  And in a sense I did;  they were clearly in there for a reason and it was clearly embarrassing for them, and I thought How sad to be in your Golden years and still feeling sheepish and insecure about sex.

After some hemming and hawing and making them laugh a little bit, the woman felt emboldened and pulled me aside, instructing her hubby to stay where he was.  She hooked my arm the same way she had been hooking his as if she was bracing herself on me and she told me her secret.  She suffered from vaginal dryness.

The way she resigned this information hit me hard.  I would’ve cried in a cathartic stooper right there if I didn’t have work to do.  Here was a woman in her 70s who was obviously embarrassed by her own body, and where I would have taken a bold quick step in the direction of improving myself had I been in the same situation, she took a very tentative, nervous, almost shameful step.  Ashamed of our bodies for not being perfect?  Will we ever stop worrying about such inevitable and meaningless things in our lives?

I was very sweet, and I smiled a lot.  I was helping someones grandma, or someones mom, or this guys wife, but mostly what I realized was that I am helping someone.  In a very personal way, I am changing this woman’s life — right now — and she is so nervous that if I make one wrong move she will get the hell out of Dodge and most likely never try to approach this problem again.  My job became more than just work in those 20 minutes, it became a dedication to helping people in one of the most personal aspects of their lives.

I got her everything that seemed right for her and they paid.  As they left they were both smiling smiles, but they were different smiles than the ones they wore when they shyly came scooting into the store.  A “That was so much easier than I thought” smile, a “Why didn’t we do this sooner?” smile.  But my favorite was when she gave me a kiss on the cheek and then, with tears in her eyes, flashed me a “Thank you” smile.

So when terrors come into the store (and they are terrors!), I feel a little protective of what the store represents for me.  You aren’t laughing at the funniest dildo in the world, you are laughing at something that might be just what somebody needs or — DARE I SAY IT — wants.  We host tour buses of women that come in from middle America to laugh and judge, and we are told that it is our opportunity to reach out to these people and teach them sex positivity.  We really can’t though.  There are too many of them and they aren’t interested, so instead they just squirm around the store, destroying displays, waving dildos over their heads to impress their friends.

It makes me frustrated sometimes, and other times just downright angry and I have to step off the salesfloor.  All I want to do is my job, not cater to people treating this like a carnival of sexual abnormality.

Still every once in a while someone walks in the door, eyes to the floor, trying to go unnoticed…

That’s the customer I want to help.  If you have ever been too shy to ask, come in and ask me.

I want you to smile.

Keep reading for my Open Letter to the Fat Republican Trio Giving Me the Ol’ Stink Eye on the L Train Today.

What?

What?! What are you looking at?

Oh, I see. I can tell. You see a skinny white boy who is gay and you don’t like it. You see a skinny white boy who is gay and on his way to the sex toy store that he works in and you don’t like what you see. Your eyes are as red as your swollen faces and they examine with a heated default judgment a specimen that you feel is morally wrong.

I am on my way to my job where I clearly make less money than you. You are all dressed in suits and you have money and you don’t like what you see.

Well here is something you don’t see; my mommy is brown. She has brown skin and black hair and she isn’t white. That’s because she is not white, but rather is Native American. She was born of one Hopi parent and one Cahuilla parent, and chances are you don’t know what that means so I will elaborate.

Before your heritage came to this land, there was a people here. They are commonly referred to as Indians, and my mommy is one of them. I am of my mother, and that makes me a whole half Indian.

Here is something you can’t see anymore; before your heritage came to this land, there was an expanse of trees and earth and there were people who lived upon it, but then your heritage came – fat white republicans – and they took away their land. Well, not their land. My ancestors didn’t invent possession, yours did.

So now here is what you are looking at: a skinny white-looking gay boy who is actually half Indian on his way to work in a store where he sells toys to closeted fat white Republicans who cheat on their wives with male escorts and then rage against things like same-sex marriage. You hate this. You hate, and I am too confident to bother displaying my confidence.

Here’s what I’ll do then, since you want to arm wrestle me with your eyes. Let’s assume you are right. Gay marriage is wrong and immoral and land can be possessed. My ancestors were here first, and that makes the land theirs, and thus 50% of this land – since I am half Indian – is now mine. It is mine to govern and mine to control, and I make 50% of the rules and laws upon which those who trespass must abide by.

I am going to follow you off this train and collect half of your footsteps and demand that you respect my laws on half of the land that you touch. I am going to tell you what is right and what is wrong, and I wont even entertain your notions. I am a half Indian skinny white-looking gay boy who is 50% your boss. I decide what is morally fit upon my land. I will scoop the pavement of the streets and the cement of the sidewalks from under your feet and demand compliance! I will sift the sand between your toes and impose. Half of the land you use is mine. I own it, and you are half wrong.

Of course, I wont do this. Because I can’t do this. And really, I shouldn’t do this, obviously.

Obviously.

Keeping reading to read my soap box about dating in this industry.

I can’t remember the last date I went on where my job wasn’t the main topic of the evening. I always try to let that information come out later on in the night, but it’s usually one of the first things that is asked and from there people typically run with it. “So that must be fun!” “I bet you get a lot of freaks there!” “Do you have a lot of toys?”

Yes, not really and yes. Now what do you do?

I understand the reaction, so I don’t dismiss it in a mean way. It’s not your average job, and it’s even less common to find someone who is as passionate about the industry as I am. It’s just frustrating that it provides so much fodder, and yet really says nothing about me. And that’s what a date is for — getting to know me, not my industry — right?

As excited as people are about this type of information, they can also be very judgmental with it. I can’t count the times that I have seen a shift in someone’s eyes once it’s revealed what I do, from “Ok I am going to get to know this person” to “Passive social polite distance; I would NEVER date someone who slings dildos in a lowly sex shop!” Frankly it’s both good and bad. It’s bad because it’s a little uncomfortable and annoying for me to feel like I have to defend myself on a date, but it’s also good to know that information right off the bat, because if what I do is CRAZY to you, then lord knows how incompatible we are in other ways.

Then there are those that come into my store and flirt with me. I understand the impulse. Here is an attractive man who sells sex toys. Obviously he likes sex. I will try to sex him.

I am also on the clock. And a manager. I have things to do and employees below me to set a good example for. It really doesn’t reflect well on me to stand there on the clock and flirt with a stranger while ignoring my projects. That’s not to say that there aren’t people that I would love to flirt with from time to time. We do get some babes that come in, of course. But I am on the clock and working for the company, not working it.

I got a Missed Connection once from someone who I thought was cute that came in. I wrote him and said hi, and he very shyly responded saying that he never thought I’d see it. I responded and never heard back from him. Now what the hell is that?

Probably the most unsettling is the fact that people assume that all you are into is hooking up. I like sex, yes. But I have goals that I am working towards and priorities in place. I really don’t mind romps, but in all honesty I am and always have been more of a one man man.  Not because I am really after a boyfriend, I just work a lot and don’t have enormous amounts of time to spend going on first dates.  And let’s be honest — hooking up with strangers is just plain boring for the most part.   I prefer connecting with someone and having good sex, not just a quick nut here and there.

I’ll still fuck them though, but I will also complain about it later (et voilà.).