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Sadly, PDX Jacks folded after just one year of operation. It fell victim to the same flaw that has brought down dozens of JO clubs over the past three decades: Overdependence on a single individual who could not, for whatever reason, keep the project going.

It’s really no different than any other kind of aborted effort. The fewer people support it, the more vulnerable it is to failure.

And I want to state without reservation that PDX Jacks was not a failure. It was just a short-lived club. It was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had at a Jacks club anywhere.

Jacks parties are unique and satisfying experiences. It’s difficult to convey their true nature because it is similar to other group sex experiences but also critically unique in other ways. Everyone has their ideas and fantasies of what a Jacks club will be like but only experience tells the whole story.

From inside the management of a club, and having met and interviewed many Jacks organisers, I know that it is far more difficult to host than to attend as a member. Nobody else appreciates it, but I want very much to see a new renaissance of Jacks in the coming years so I am willing to do what I can to facilitate that.

I applaud your intent to help start a new club in Portland. Portland men can and will support it if the organization is sustainable. I know a few things about making a club work over the long haul and would be grateful for the opportunity to assist you. I’m close enough to actually come down there to help. If you are serious, contact me again and I will respond privately.

I am sharing this publicly because I want anyone else reading it who has been motivated to help form a Jacks club in their own community to know that it is possible, and that there are people who will help you if you are willing to accept help.

The young black man sat in my new member orientation session last night. His eyes did not connect very much. He was nervous, like everyone is at their first Jacks visit. He looked around frequently, not paying full attention, but I could tell he was listening. He was getting the message… I just don’t think he was ready.

My club does a 10-minute new member orientation session for any guy who’s never been to RCJ before. We just want to make sure the rules are crystal clear and more important, we want to introduce first-timers to the culture of this particular JO club, even if they’ve been to lots of other Jacks clubs.

Not everyone likes the session, though most do. Some guys arrive full of themselves, full of their expertise in Jacks clubs, or just not ready to follow somebody else’s rules. It’s okay if those guys just turn around and walk out. I prefer it, in fact. I would like the guys in the playspace to all be into it, all buying in on the vision of friendly, social dick play. If it’s not for them, it’s better for everyone if they just bail out.

I’ll call the young black man “Mark.”

Mark interrupted me to ask a clarifying question as I was explaining that the required minimum participation was stripping to underwear, that if a guy is not willing to strip to his underwear, he’s in the wrong place.

Mark asks, “Is it okay if I wear a shirt? It’s kind of cold.”

I say, “Yes, it’s okay,” reassuring him that it was much warmer inside the playspace.

So we wrap up orientation and a few minutes later, I see Mark in the entryway to the playspace, wearing underwear and a T-shirt. Also a hoody and a hat. He is, essentially, dressed. I can tell that he dressed not to stay warm, but to feel safer.

It seemed to me like he was armored up; protecting himself from becoming vulnerable, naked, by hanging on to these clothes that not only kept him from getting a chill, but were invested with meaning and identity. 

And for two hours, I saw him observing from afar, separated from everyone else, not engaging in any way with anyone else and giving off a strong “don’t touch me” vibe.

I felt bad for him. He was there for some reason, obviously. One assumes it was because he was at least a little interested in jacking with other guys! But his clothing armored him and anchored him in another reality. It kept him from trusting, giving himself to the experience and attempting any kind of interaction.

For all I know, He may have been just as shy and standoffish if he’d worn only the underwear, or nothing at all, and I learned that attempting to protect himself with clothes is indeed an indication that a guy is in the wrong place, that he’s just not ready for the Jacks and perhaps never will be.

For my part, I learned that we should enforce the minimum participation rule and not allow guys to wimp out. It’s better they those guys not be in the club at all than be in the room while hiding uneasily behind their armor.

I want to experiment more with abstinence, at least for more than 24 hours. I don’t just mean neglecting to masturbate, but deliberately, mindfully choosing not to masturbate.

Currently, I average once a day, often showing up as two orgasms every other day. What I notice is I am less horny overall and I don’t ejaculate as much when I keep up my regular frequency. I would like to experience more desire and less release.

I am not into hardcore solo edging, though. I am too easily distracted and have too many conflicting priorities. I like to do a lot of different things and that means I don’t have more than a half hour to focus on masturbating. The fact is, I’ve got shit to do… Just like Dan Savage says.

My ambition to abstain from masturbating now and then is not about wanting to control myself, or about cum denial. It is about wanting to experience what horny feels like more intensely. I want to want more. I desire more desire.

I am clear on many things, among them is my sexual orientation. I am homosexual, actively attracted to men and male bodies and utterly indifferent to women’s bodies. I am also clear that I do not feel satisfied with solosex alone. I get my greatest sexual pleasure in sharing with other men, sharing my experience and my body.

I am also clear that the excitement of novelty is necessary for me to reach my peak excitement. No mater how much someone turns me on, there will come a point that I will only be able to experience the most intense pleasure with a different, entirely new playmate.

That said, I don’t need to always experience peak excitement. I am happiest, regardless of the situation, when I can just be fully present with another person. Naturally, that almost always ends up being my husband, since there is nobody I love more or whose company I desire more.

I think I will spend the next couple of days mindfully abstinent. I won’t suppress sexual thoughts, but I will pass up the opportunities to masturbate until I feel more desire…

This has been an unedited rambling in the absence of an intentional subject to blog about. Feel free to chime in.

I’m sorry it took me so long to respond. This question actually got me spinning for a while. I wasn’t sure how to respond and I wrote a few different responses, all of which I have abandoned. Here’s my short answer:

Your query seems incomplete. You understate your interest in butt play as “slightly intrigued,” which I assume means you are slightly intrigued.

“Butt play” can mean so very, very many different things to different people. It’s really general.

In the context of jacking off with a buddy, I love light butt play myself. It’s not allowed in pretty much any JO club, but privately, it gets me off big time.

While you’re enjoying one of your “very satisfying mutual hand jobs,” just play with his nuts while you or he strokes his cock, and move back gradually under his scrotum to the area of the perineum between his balls and his butthole, and just brush your fingers over the buthole. Try just gently stroking the whole area of the perineum without pushing a finger inside and see how he likes it.

You can ask him to reciprocate or see if he does so without asking.

That’s literally playing with the butt. If what you’re talking about involves fingering his or your own hole and exploring prostate massage, start by getting to know your own hot buttons during solo play. You can use your finger or try a toy. There are lots to choose from.

I also heartily recommend a little self-education from this most excellent book written by really smart, sex-positive people.

Bottom line (all puns intended), bring it up to your buddy and talk about it. Find out what he’s interested in if anything more. Moving along this path has to be consensual. Jacking off requires very little prep or experience. All guys know how to do it, even though some basic protocol is worth setting to make the sessions satisfying. Butt play is different because of the very present risks of A) transmitting diseases and B) poo.

So my advice is to play with your own butt and become an expert at stimulating your own prostate, educate yourself on how to prepare for and share the pleasure and most of all, don’t be afraid to talk about it.

Thanks, Fuzz!

I too had an amazing time and I really enjoyed running the new member orientation sessions, so I believe we met before the event even started. I had my eye on all of you new guys, as I always do and it looked like most of you were pretty well engaged in the festivities, so I didn’t interrupt, except to ask one shy-looking guy if he was having a good time… I got an enthusiastic head-nod.

This was a note I found in our suggestion box at that event, verbatim and in its entirety:

This place is by far the best entertainment value in Seattle.

That brought a big smile to my face. I couldn’t agree more, whether we do a theme or just get naked and bate.

I’m looking forward to seeing you again next time. Be sure to say hi!

Not that I need an excuse for slacking on my blog, but I’ve got a good one. For the last couple of months, I’ve been working on my wedding. In just nine days from the date of this post, I’ll be getting legally hitched to the guy I’ve been calling my husband for 19 years.

…and we’ve been a couple for 22 years. This has been a long engagement.

So I beg your forgiveness while I put all my energy there. The project this wedding has become is almost complete and if you know me or have read my blog for any amount of time, you should know that I will be just as much of a happy slut after we “tie the knot.”

Being sexually open and emotionally honest has not hampered my ability to have an amazing and loving and completely committed relationship with this brilliant guy who is so perfect for me. I can not express how lucky I feel to have my life. I’m so grateful to have survived my stupider years.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back after the wedding.

Paul (not Jack)

Hi Jerry,

I love my club and I love my members of all ages. I’ve also seen a number of guys connect with others at the club and become partners, some disappearing from the events for months or years. It is possible to make more meaningful connections there, as it is anywhere, but I really believe it is up to each of us. When a man is not finding meaningful relationships, it’s most likely because he is somehow not available for them. That is one of my core beliefs.

And… relationships are difficult. That goes for friends as well as lovers. Finding a good relationship—except in vanishingly rare circumstances—requires working through a lot of bad ones first. The main problem with getting older is not that we are older, but that our tastes and tolerances often narrow. We get more “set in our ways.” We generally need fewer friends and have decreasing energy over time to put out the effort required to take risks, get to know others and be vulnerable.

Sex, which is the purpose of all JO clubs, is actually easy. Virtually anyone can have sex, contrary to the fears of adolescence. Some kinds of sex are harder to negotiate than others, but by and large, sex has never been more available than it is now.

In the context of RCJ, I suggest you try volunteering. Put yourself in a cooperative activity separate from the sex and get to know some of the other guys who volunteer. Also, I suggest taking frequent breaks during the events and stepping into the locker area. Relax for a bit. Have some refreshments or a drink of water and strike up some casual conversations in there.

Also, try other activities where guys are: join a chorus or a bowling league or a church. Seek out groups of guys doing stuff you’re already interested in even a little. Just be yourself and start making more contact with people.

In my 40 years of gay sex and relationships, only one boyfriend came from a bar, and he only lasted a couple of months before we went our separate ways. Every meaningful relationship I’ve ever had started in a workplace, avocational or non-gay-specific social situation. If you’re out of the closet and okay with yourself as a gay man, you don’t need to go to gay bars.

But you do need to network, and by that I mean you need to be out where people are. A jack-off club, as much as I love them, is not necessarily the best place to find a boyfriend. It may be a more positive and more social situation than a bathhouse, but it is still a private club that exists for the ascendant purpose of helping men be sexual together.

We occasionally do have non-sexual events, but with the day jobs and hobbies and relationships and life that all the volunteers have, we can comfortably host jackoff parties but not a whole lot more. If we had more time, we’d probably host more JO events.

I love that you love the club, but it sounds like you may be looking in the wrong place for what you need. Regardless of the kind of “connecting with guys” that you’re talking about, I urge you to let go of the “grays” concern and consider that it may be a distraction. There are other options for connecting in a meaningful way than in a JO club.

And yes, it could happen at the Jacks. It does happen there from time to time… I just don’t think you should limit yourself.

Your penis is with you all day. Forgotten, waiting, stuffed inside your pants while you go about the business of daily life and important matters. If you find some time for yourself, you might remember your penis and how much you like it. You might spend anywhere from 30 seconds to several hours giving it your focused attention.

But those of us with “normal” lives in the covered-up world of clothes and commerce and public decency and propriety go about our daily routines as if the penis were only a convenient appendage to piss with, and then only briefly before you put it away and get back to work. The framework of puritan culture that we bury our sexual vitality beneath is so pervasive, so common to our lives, we almost never perceive consciously just how stifled, how desexualized our lives have become.

Sure, you jack off… You love jacking off! But how often do you spend more than 20 or 30 minutes giving your full attention to your penis? And when you do, how often are you not hidden away somewhere? Even in those moments of self-connection we are steeped in the repression that dims the natural light of our sexual souls.

What you need, what we all need, regardless of the nature of our sex lives, is Quality Penis Time (QPT)…

QPT is that rare stretch of timeless time when you have nowhere better to be than fully with your penis, be it in solitude, with a friend or partner or with multiple companions. While solosex is the easiest way to have QPT, the presence of others adds other dimensions to the experience and can actually deepen it.

QPT is time when you are undistracted, with nothing more important to do than be in the moment, and you consciously invest that time in experiencing the vibrant life of your own cock, all the physical, emotional and mental intensity it can generate and all the life it connects to.

“Jacks” is the community of men grounded by QPT. We understand the innate value of sharing QPT with our fellow men, the multiplier effect of experiencing and exploring the penis in the presence of others, affirming its fundamental goodness by the very act of exposing it openly instead of hiding it in any way. We allow ourselves to sink into sexual ecstasy together while looking openly into our brothers’ eyes, witnessing and being witnessed in this deep, natural and primordial human practice.

Be fully human, fully primate, fully in your body and with your penis.