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Sometime in the early-aughts, I was at a Seattle Pride post-parade rally and noticed one particular chant getting a lot of play out there in Volunteer Park. “Safe Sex is Great Sex!!!” As they have been for years now, condoms were as plentiful as pollen at the Pride festivities. Indeed, condoms are a common presence at all gay locales and events in Seattle, although it is widely reported that barebacking has also been a popular “trend” in recent years, and that both HIV and syphilis have been rising among the man-loving men of the Pacific Northwest for some time. 

I have always wondered how many of them get used… They’re not like corn chips and salsa that you just naturally shovel down while waiting for your next Margherita. You don’t choose to eat those things. You have to choose to NOT eat them. Condoms don’t naturally find their way onto our penises with the proper fit and position and lube and timing… 

So when I heard the rousing cheer for safe sex, I was more than skeptical. I was downright cynical. I could easily imagine any of these hot, shirtless guys happily accepting suspect fraternal fluids into one or more of their bodily openings before the day’s festivities had run their course. I know that many of the men in the park that day did and do, in fact, practice safer sex as a rule, but too many of them fudge the edges of “safety” and rationalize riskier behavior all the time. What I thought to myself was, “That’s a nice slogan, but it’s mostly just lip service. All talk and no action…”

It was very soon after this that I launched the Rain City Jacks. I will admit that at the time, that chant was still lurking in the back of my mind and I was thinking with no small degree of smugness, “Chants are all well and good but we’re not chanting here, we’re actually doing great, safe sex.” I felt genuinely good about being part of the solution, encouraging safer behavior not by railing against recklessness, but by focusing on the erotic nature of the practice of non-penetrative sex itself. 

And in all honesty, I wasn’t doing it at all for the public good. I was doing it because I love jacking off with other guys, LOTS of other guys, and I missed the JO club I’d belonged to before I met my husband. I just wanted to do it. The safe aspect was a nice bonus…

Yes, it was lust—not altruism—that motivated me to become the JackDaddy of RCJ.

I do still believe that the key to safer sex is embracing the sex of it, not focusing on the safety of it, but a curious thing showed up after a couple of years of community building around massive circle jerks: Plentiful action… but no talk.

It turns out that generations of sexual shaming has left most of us zipper-lipped about sex, even when it’s happening. We’ve had some success in getting guys to just ask, “May I?” before they engage with each other, and we’ve gotten them to say, “I’m coming!” rather than just breathing hard before orgasm. I hear plenty of “Wow!” and “That was great!” and “Thank you” but there’s a whole lot of mouth action missing. Just following protocol is not actual talking about sex. The guys are connecting pretty easily physically, but there’s a lack of personal connection that seems conspicuous in its absence.

We have successfully achieved “Less talk. More action!” We are actively and responsibly practicing some of the safest group sex available, and we’re sustaining this for years.

We’ve freed our dicks and our love of them very nicely. I think it’s time we found ways to free our minds and our mouths a little more as well… to find opportunities to keep the action, and add back some of the talk. I am picking up a desire to be get friendlier, to share more, to ask questions of each other, to bring more of who we are outside the playspace into the playspace. It seems natural to me that some of the guys might eventually want to better integrate this ethic of good recreational sex among friendly men with the rest of who we are.

We’ve entered the teens of the 21st Century. I think we can stop pretending that thing we just indulged in that made us cum didn’t happen. Let’s keep jacking off together… and then let’s not be afraid to talk about it.

You know, Adam, I have two biases on this subject: My personal taste and my position as leader of a diverse sexual community. I think both positions agree with you.

The short answer is no, it doesn’t have to be so mean, but the individual who posted that pic has some energy about what specifically turns him on and off, and an unfortunately common interest in selling others on agreeing with his own personal taste. He’s not content to just take responsibility for his own opinions, but feels compelled to make the things he likes “right” and the things he doesn’t like “wrong.” Assholes like this show up all over our culture… including among our elected “leaders.” Drives me crazy…

I happen to share his taste for hirsute men and natural pubes. I find male body hair a specific and strong turn-on. Moreover I am actively turned off by shaved genitals. That’s my personal bias.

But I never attempt to instruct other people on what they should find hot. That’s as ludicrous as homophobes telling me I should be attracted to women. Well, I’m just not, but I would never put anyone else down for being heterosexual. There’s nothing wrong with straight and bi men getting off on pussy and tits, any more that there’s anything wrong with me getting off on a man’s hairy legs and crotch. Live and let live!

There’s nothing wrong with a guy who is turned on by naturally or unnaturally hairless bodies either. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with shaved pubes or unshaved pubes. It’s just a matter of taste.

RCJ has an official non-discrimination policy. We don’t care how a guy looks or the shape or age of his body or dick. Nobody has to submit a photo or win a beauty contest to join, just be legal, interested in what we do and play by our rules. A big reason for this is that if we did filter guys, who would make the “hot or not” decision? Who gets to decide what kind of guy is worthy of being attractive to others? It’s a losing proposition. Also mean-spirited. We would not want to filter out anyone that someone is going going to find attractive. It’s always better to let people make their own choices on the spot and not tell them what should be attractive to them.

My only disagreement with you is that masturbation is “all about the penis.” In my humble and considered opinion, masturbation is all about being alive and giving in to a desire to experience sexual pleasure. My masturbation is definitely very penile, but it involves my whole body and my mind, the reality of the moment and the infinite realm of fantasy as well. With others, it’s like any other kind of sex in that its quality is dependent upon willingness, openness, focus and attention to the moment. When I jack off with you, I am totally loving my own dick and your dick as well, but also your facial expressions, the curve of your hips, the sensation of your leg against mine, the smell of your body and the responsiveness of your breath. It’s all about the penis… PLUS everything else going on at that moment of sharing it.

My advise is to ignore assholes on the Internet. There’s an endless supply of them, you know. Stick with the guys you connect with and brush off the jerks.

The word, “connection” is a really subjective term with lots of meanings. What I mean by connection may differ from what you mean, and what we each mean now may change in different circumstances. 

It reminds me a little of the definition of “sobriety” in recovery circles. For some, abstinence alone equals sobriety. For others it means only total abstinence from all addictive supply (no cigarettes, no sugar, no sex). It could mean persistently working a recovery program, even if it includes lots of recidivism… Words often mean many different things.

So this is one of those, “for me” opinions… (as is any of my opinions were universal…)

I find it hard to imagine any kind of sex working without some sense of connecting, at the very least with one’s own body. I often say that sex is fundamentally about connection, that it’s almost as important a reason for humans to have sex as procreation. That’s certainly a big piece of the motivation for non-procreative activities like gay sex or masturbation.

I often associate a sense of connection with one of focus and presence. I approach sex this way (and this is a sex blog, after all) and always do my best to pay close attention, either to the specific body part I am involved with or my thoughts and sensations associated with the moment.  I “connect” when I’m not distracted, and when I’m both willing and compelled to experience a moment.

There’s an expression, “being in one’s head,” that I think generally means over-thinking and being distracted by internal monologues. I need to be in my mind without getting carried away by thinking in order to connect, either with myself or the natural world or an idea oran experience or a person or a group of people.

In a JO club there’s a temptation to be carried away by the presence of so many men experiencing intense sexual pleasure in the same place at the same time. There may be a temptation at any point to just look away from what’s happening right in front of you and within you and instead just indulge in drinking in the parade of visual stimulation. It’s not a bad thing, but it can take one out of the moment and it can be a rich distraction from the immediacy of one’s own bodily experience. It’s a specific challenge…

I do believe that connection is, first and foremost, the responsibility of the one who wants to experience it. For me, the seed of connection is presence and it’s incredibly difficult in a culture of distraction and obsession to focus one’s mind to be present, but for me, it’s mainly a matter of starting from the simple decision that I will be present. If I’m all there, I find connection with myself in the moment and I’m more easily aware of the connections to be made around me.

I’m really good with a starting point. Not so good with a blank page… I frequently think, “I really should write something in my blog today,” and then the moment passes and the blog continues to age and fade…

You can help. Please help. It’s very simple…

Click the link near the top of the left column of my blog—the one that says, “Ask me anything"—and do that. Ask me a question. I prefer really good questions but I will answer pretty much anything you ask, so please. Ask me a question and I will have one really good reason to write in my blog today.

Thank you!

Where the hell have I been? Well, among other things, I’ve spent the last couple of months of refocusing and redirecting my efforts on the book.

The Book… I’m calling it, “the book project.” It is most definitely a project and a half.

I was really excited at the prospect of writing the whole thing this year. Well, masturbation fans, that ain’t gonna happen… I really do want to do this right, and not just fast. The hard truth is, I’m a working stiff like all of you (I assume) and I have to work a day job to pay the mortgage, the bills, the IRS (oh, don’t get me started there) and to eat of course. I also have no disposable income to speak of.

And it turns out that writing a book costs money. At least, writing this book costs money. I had a rude awakening after coming home from my very first research trip to San Francisco last month. I went down for four days to interview the “Floundering Fathers” of SF Jacks, and attend one of their events. It was a great and successful trip in a dozen different ways.

But it was also something else. Something decisive and project-changing. It was a total drain on my meager finances.

So, I have gone back to the drawing board and spent the past month adjusting my battle plan. Here’s your own sneak preview:

1. Budget! I met with a good friend who is a financial advisor and project manager. He set me on the path toward actual responsibility with this project. He showed me how to draft a budget, how to make it better, and how to create a genuine project plan from it.

2. Fundraising! I began working with another friend who produces video and started work on a book trailer. I’ll be deploying a major fundraising push before the first day of Summer to raise at least half of my needed funds before the last day of Summer (and hopefully, all the money I will need to write the book)

3. Research! Not all of the research I want to do will come from face-to-face interviews and circle-jerks with new friends in far-flung places. There is actually a lot I can do right here at home. I’m working with a research assistant to help me create the definitive Jacks survey. That should come out this Summer as well.

4. Practice Interviews! I have started meeting with a select group of respected friends, people not already involved with JO clubs, to interview me on the subject. What this is doing is honing my message, sharpening my pitch and preparing me to be the spokesperson for social masturbators everywhere.

5. Writing! This is actually the number 1 priority, but I put it last for impact. I could have just gone back and reversed the numbering to go from 5 to 1, but to hell with it. I’m on a roll…

Writing needs to happen every day. It needs to be practice. I may even dare to call it “sacred” practice, although I am as irreligious a heathen as you’re likely to find.

So there are lots of “next steps” but the most crucial next step is writing today. Whatever day it is, regardless of how I feel, it is a day to write. About anything. I must set fingers to keys every day and put words together. So it’s a big dose of back to basics.

And I look forward to posting some of my dirtiest work right here. You may hold me to that. 

Thanks for your patience these past weeks. There is plenty to come.

As in “poking my nose into my own blog for a change so you won’t think I died or anything… ”

It’s an unfortunate tendency many bloggers have of starting things and then fading away. I don’t want to be that blogger. I love writing this thing…

But there are times I get busier than others. I’m working on a pile of projects right now, not the least of which is my book. I wish to God I could afford to take a six-month sabbatical and just work on that alone. It’s looking different from what I imagined. You’ll see…

I’ll be back. That’s a promise.

Thank you so much for sharing your experience here. I apologize if this is about a hundred times more response than you wanted… but here goes!

I live in an unusually progressive (read, “non-conservative”) city. Being gay here is about as close to a non-issue as anywhere I’ve ever lived, and I love it, but it’s important to remember that the rest of the country is not like this. Gay people have a hard, hard time just being honest with themselves, much less anyone else, about who they really are. Life becomes very heavy with the effort of hiding details large and small in virtually every situation. We who live on the islands of tolerance in the blue archipelago are the minority. We should not forget that our courage to live honestly affects others in harder places.

I encourage you to honor the truth in your life, just as you honor that you are gay, regardless of what you have done or not done. You accept and honor your own truth, which is more than most gay men in your situation.

But also honor your past and your conditioning, not its repressive nature, but the fact that you grew up in it. It is part of you, and you can’t ever shake it, only draw upon it as we all draw upon our experiences to make the best now we can create.

In other words, you get to have a hard time finding sexual relationships, and you get to figure out that part of life anyway. Let’s face it: A gay kid who grows up with parents who are truly happy with him being gay, and are mostly concerned about him just being healthy, safe, well-educated and connected with supportive communities, is going to have a much easier time finding his way through the world of interpersonal relationships than another gay kid whose parents would threaten him with death and damnation, ostracism and isolation if he merely admits he ever so much as thinks about “those things” much less claim to be gay.

We all have a puzzle to work out in life. That is life: We navigate our own challenges on the way to what we hope will be a satisfying, reasonably happy life. Your puzzle includes religious and cultural abuse regarding your one of your most fundamental impulses.

Meeting people, learning about dating, negotiating relationships and learning how to have sex (first bad sex and then better sex and hopefully really great sex) is tricky for everyone, and sex with the self is an important part of getting there. For a lot of men, a JO club is an excellent way of first experiencing sex with other men. It is direct, simple, controlled and friendly.

But make no mistake: jacking off with other guys is, literally, having sex with other men. If you have never touched another man’s hard penis for the purpose of pleasure, and visa versa, you’re practicing a purely solosexual existence. When you take the step to attending a JO club, and if you can muster the will to allow others to touch you, and allow yourself to touch others, you will have taken an important step. You will have broken through that first barrier.

And it will almost certainly not be easy getting to that point. You should just accept that. Your first sexual encounter with another man will be a big moment for you, so it’s 100% normal to be very nervous and very excited.

However it turns out—and you may feel really awkward and shy and you may not get off at all the first time—You should know that every man in the room has been there at that moment, or is even there at the same moment as you. First times are some of the best memories we have. I want you to know that I want you to be happy, to experience the same wonder I and countless others have experienced, and that we support you in being happy, because we recognize ourselves in you, even with all of our differences.

So please do get yourself to that moment. That is your job now: To bring yourself to the opportunity to experience for yourself what you have desired and denied for so long. It can be great or it can be tough but it makes possible every next experience in your life. That may not be in a JO club, but this is certainly one of your options.

Please let me know if there is any support you may need. Just click the “Contact” link on the top left column on this page and let me know if there’s anything I can tell you, other than the time, date and location of the next events.

And thanks again for sharing. I look forward to meeting you.

This is not a lengthy post. Sorry, my faithful minions… 

I just want to mention that movement on my book seems to have kicked into gear. The right people are falling into place, the right circumstances are appearing at the right times… It’s starting to look like this thing is really happening, and lots of new considerations are coming up.

For instance… Who will hate me and how will I handle that? I’m fairly certain that is going to happen, and I’m used to being pretty well-liked, if not treated civilly. I am hoping that I will find a hell of a lot more supporters than detractors, I just hope that the haters aren’t within the community of the Jacks. I think I’ll need to be prepared for that.

Another consideration is money. This would be a whole lot easier with a modest writer’s grant. I’m probably going to need to take a few unpaid days of leave to do the needed research. With or without an angel on my side, this is going to go forward… I would not mind meeting an angel, though. I am putting my mind to that one too.

It’s interesting to me how much information can not be found on the Internet. Quantitative research is one thing I need to leave home to find, but so is the human connection, the people whose stories I want to tell. I am really, really looking forward to the unplugged portion of this work.

I’m really excited. Almost giddy…

I’m really glad you read my blog, by the way. If you would like to help me with my work, click on the link in the top left corner that reads, “Ask me anything,” and ask me something interesting. It’s incredibly stimulating for my creative process to not just hold forth in this blog, but to engage in conversation.

More—much more—to come.

I see three specific meanings that we generally apply to the word, “masturbation.” One contextual, one an objective action, and one euphemism.

And of course there are many more. This is, after all, the most common sex our species practices, so there are myriad applications and twists on the word, but I have a theory that a good 90% of us think of these three general meanings when we refer to masturbation. Here’s my grand theory:

1. Solitary sexual stimulation in general, particularly of the genitals. The operative word is “solitary.” This definition of masturbation assumes that one is always alone with one’s own pleasure (or shame), specifically giving to oneself and receiving from oneself. No other person is physically involved in the act, although others may be virtually involved through imagination (fantasy), auditory (phone sex), visual (porn) or other surrogate means (voyeurism, fetish objects, etc.). This can include sex toys or any number of enhancements, and may or may not culminate in orgasm. To qualify as masturbation, it must be a solitary practice.
2. Stroking genitals with the hand. The focus is on the specific activity of genital stimulation without penetration, chiefly with the use of our most readily available manipulative tool, the hands and fingers. This idea of masturbation defines itself by what’s being done rather than who is doing it or what context it happens in. From this perspective, a partner or group of any size may masturbate together or masturbate each other, also employing the use of toys if desired, as long as no part of one body goes inside another. The moment of oral or anal contact to genitals is where the masturbation ends and penetrative sex begins. 
3. Wasting time. “Masturbation” works as a euphemism for spending time doing anything that is considered useless by someone. Unfortunately, this definition carries with it the stigma of sexual self-stimulation as “substitute sex” which is therefore not valid, not appropriate, not “good,” not “sex.” While it may relate to something that is entirely nonsexual (i.e. “mental masturbation”) it always assumes that intercourse is superior to masturbation, that masturbation is, literally, a waste of time. This is true if the only measure of value in a sex act is procreation, in which case everything less than penis-ejaculating-in-vagina intercourse is “less than” sex.

Whatever we mean when we talk about masturbating, I think it’s enormously valuable to think about the words we use and be intentional about them. What do we want masturbation to mean? How do we actually experience the act of masturbating in different situations? While we jack off alone, are we thinking it’s a waste of time, or does that thought ever occur after orgasm? If we’re masturbating with a friend or lover, or manually pleasuring them, is that a waste of time? Is talking about it a waste of time?

We all have a choice to express ourselves any way we please. I propose that it is worthwhile to commit to speaking of masturbation positively, to claim it as fundamentally healthy and good for a vast array of reasons. Our brains often follow our mouths.