Alrighty then... Look who showed up at the mention of that!
Thanks to Scott and Scott for starting something interesting that isn't about meth or AIDS for once. Discussions about monogamy are certainly ones worth having. Indeed it seems that plenty of you dear readers have plenty to say about monogamy-most of it in private emails...You're so dang Chicken. All of y'all.
So just let me take all the fire. See how you are.
Anyway, I know these days its not very patriotic to admit that _ _ _ happens. I understand all the hush hush. But, as everyone is whispering all scared like they mean it, let's just get this said right now-because I've gotten more than a few emails offering all sorts of interesting perspectives on why I'm so pro-monogamy.
For the record, I am not a coward, I'm not afraid of dating, or calculated risk and I am certainly not living a miserable life up here on some new millennium version of Walton's Mountain. Trust me on this one. John Boy didn't do half the living I have. Without getting all graphic and ruining my reputation as the Trucker's Patron Saint or the Mary Tyler Moore of Trucking, I'll offer that yep sports fans, I too have a past.
Duh.
I'm not ashamed of those cowboying years, I was responsible. I at least got their first name. I made sure to set the brakes on the tractor before playing round up at the OH! Kay! Sleeper Corral. And, at the end of the wild west, be my freak daddy, tonight show, I always remembered to tip my hat and promise to call real soon. But that time in my life where cowboy up, trucker up, and no way, its still up? ruled, is long over.
These days I am not looking for a hook up, a test drive or a trial balloon. And the current round of celibacy is not about fear-
and I mean fear in all its ramifications...
~fear of dating
~fear of intimacy
~fear of falling in love
~fear of sex...
~fear of not getting considered for the Dr Laura Sexual Saint of the Year Award...
(Like that was ever going to happen anyway. I think in order to receive consideration for such a prestigious award you must have sat for a portfolio of centerfold photographs. And then claim Virgin Mary status.)
I don't live my life in fear. This is not about Tim embracing some sort of puritanical, missionary position only perspective. But I also don't live my life embracing stupidity.
Safer sex these days is hardly a cure all. Herpes and HPV Virus are rampant and condoms offer little protection against such STD's. HPV is the leading cause of Cervical Cancer in Women. Research is only beginning to explore the cancer ramifications for men. The old standbys of gonorrhea, chlamyd, and syphilis all have drug resistant varieties, and let's be brutally honest. Admit it. Very few people, like exactly ten on the whole planet, use condoms for oral sex. Its simply not much fun to taste the splendor of a latex tarp, or dental dam. Oh yeah, and many times the three bad guys I just mentioned above can infect someone and they won't know it because the symptoms are asymptomatic. You can get or give all three gems through oral sex. If you're infected with them, its far easier to get infected with HIV.
Then there are other STD's. Don't forget the A,B,C's of Hepatitis and the 1,2,3's of HIV. Everytime you sleep with someone, you are indirectly sleeping with everyone they've slept with.
Visualize that for a moment.
Because of that, its seems just plain smart to minimize the risks. Since when is self preservation only limited to fundamentalist whacko's living in Colorado Springs?
Many years ago it just seemed smarter to limit exposure and thus, I quit the sex scene. If I am not seeing someone, I've been celibate. But "I" am only part of the equation. Then there's the other guy.
Let me tell ya a story that directly relates to all of this. I swear it does.
Earlier this spring noted journalist Jay Blotcher took me on a long virtual walk, for a strong talking -to, via his woodshed. Aka he made an example of me through his "ToughLoveTessie Advice Column". A column which is published in some upstate New York Gay Rag. A column which thank God most of you never found and even more thankfully, it's no longer available online.
I'd just discovered that the guy I'd been seeing for the last seven months was moonlighting as a the ultimate gay.com player (Sounds like a certain local mayor eh?). I found myself in the middle of a really bad done me wrong country western song. For several weeks Jay was among the few who knew about my wreck and brutal bucking off.
After I'd healed some, in a short and sweeet unauthorized biography, Blotcher made it all public via his advice column. In the form of a fictional letter, one that he'd drafted, and then published, signed by a "Timbo" that read a lot like me. Reading my trainwreck, posted on his Tough Love Tessie Column, "my" letter was so poorly veiled anyone that knew me, immediately recognized who it supposedly came from. Based upon things Jay and I had written back and forth, to protect the really guilty ex, the content of these discussions were sorta modified.
OK a lot modified.
The boyfriend looked way better than he was. I was portrayed as simple, naive, and inexperienced. Dumb country fuck meets way to fast for his britches city slicker.
At first, I admit I was really pissed at dear Jayboy for taking our very personal discussions I'd engaged in via email as the basis for his column. After reading my life in print, as interruptive by Tessie, I was even further mortified when I received letters from inquiring minds wondering if "it was really you", this mysterious logger trucker Timbo dude, who seemed like such a fool for love. And why was I writing for help to some fag hag in NY?
Its not my place to comment on the accuracy of what is or isn't true in the restless world of Tough Love Tessie. I'm mostly over that. But that bitch did have some wise words of wisdom.
Here's more or less what she counseled me in her column:
Relationships are what we make of them. No one is forced into anything. And according to that ho Tessie, in her well traveled life, she's learned a few things. In her view, damaged people will usually tell you they're offering more faults than fun. If you're listening.
Tessie advocates if pursuing a relationship (or while being pursued) make a list. Check it twice. Decide what you want that's Naughty. Decide what you want that's nice. List your can't live without's. Your can take it, or leave its. Your better not haves. Stick to those standards. Communicate them. And if they aren't happening for you, ask dispatch for a load that goes anywhere but back to that loading dock.
So in Tessie's honor, here's my short list.
I want a monogamous, one man, last stand.
Until then, the view from Walton's Mountain ain't that bad. On a clear day you can see some mighty inspiring wood. And if that enough, there's always gay romance, as penned by Scott and Scott, reminding you to love like you mean it.
And seriously, what's so bad about that?
Here is the link to Scott and Scott's new blog-fresh out today.
http://www.romentics.com/test/UblogAccess
Prayer stuff...
We are sad to report that Nola passed away on Sunday. Please keep her son's Jay, Kevin and Grant in your prayers. Also her former husband Paul.
Please pray for Kevin's baby who was born several months premature..
Please pray for all the Panaroma Rodeo participants who will be competing this weekend in Colville. And for the Bullarama Cowboys competing on friday night. Last year we lost several bullriders in various fatalities over the course of the season.
Information highway rest areas....
...Simply brilliant writing, Got Divinci Code?... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/opinion/15schiff.html?th&emc=th
...A questionable Heritage Foundation funded interpretation of sexual abstinence data has everyone asking "Where's the Virginity?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/health/15pledge.html?th&emc=th
...Pressure mounts on Bush Administration to call for hero's release...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/opinion/15wed1.html?th&emc=th
...Just enough troops to lose...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/opinion/15friedman.html?th&emc=th
...Republicans move to eliminate all funding of National Public Radio and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting...
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/15/opinion/15wed2.html?th&emc=th
...Religious whacko's call for warning labels on gay folk...
http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/06/061305pride.htm
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