Straight Jacket by Matthew Todd

Author:Matthew Todd [Todd, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448111107
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2016-06-15T22:00:00+00:00

13

Looking for Warmth in Cold Places: the Sex Issue

‘I am a total bottom who is always horny. To make sure I am satisfied on a daily basis I make it a rule to LET ANYONE WHO WANTS TO FUCK ME! I really mean this. Think of me as a whore who does it for free. I am a slut – I hope this is OK for u’

Gaydar profile, 2014

‘There’s always a fitter, hotter bloke’

Vince, in Russell T. Davies’s Queer As Folk, 1999

JAKE CANNOT STOP checking Grindr. It’s the first thing he looks at when he wakes up, then when he’s making a cup of tea, while he’s waiting for the train, as he starts work, in his lunch break, and on it goes throughout the day. He has deleted the app from his phone many times, but always goes back. It’s not just Grindr; he has all the gay social media apps: Scruff, Hornet, Recon, Gaydar. He checks them all, then goes back to the beginning.

I heard him speak at a ‘Let’s Talk About Gay Sex and Drugs’ event in Soho and we shared a pot of tea in Patisserie Valerie in Old Compton Street on a sunny summer’s day. He is lovely – handsome, young, funny. He told me the only reason he uses the apps is because he thinks he might find a boyfriend on them. ‘Once in a blue moon you meet someone interesting,’ he said. ‘There is the potential for meeting someone really amazing and falling in love, because it’s happened to other people. [But] most of the time I’m just getting contacted by guys who want a cock pic or a fuck or whatever.’

Jake said he has a problem with compulsive behaviour. He got into the habit of going to sex parties via Grindr after he left Vauxhall clubs high, something he did about twice a month. For some this might be an ideal way to spend a weekend, but Jake never felt very good about himself afterwards.

‘Oh God, I always feel ashamed afterwards,’ he said. ‘Guilty and ashamed, always, always.’ On one occasion he spent three days without sleep, at five different parties, where he had sex with fifteen men. He’s been on PEP treatment four times.

At one regular sex party he used to go to Jake met a handsome young man, also in his twenties with a good job, with whom he felt he connected on a deeper level. They swapped numbers and talked about going on a date. Jake texted him and waited to hear back but no reply came. He felt a bit down about it, wondered what he was doing wrong if the first guy he had really liked in a while wasn’t interested in taking it any further. But then a few weeks later he went to another party and learned he hadn’t been rejected at all – in fact, a few days after they’d met the other man had overdosed on G and died. Jake was shaken. ‘It felt like that could be me .

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