Continuing the photo shoot that has provided material for our last few Sinful Sunday posts, here is Jill looking sexy on a hotel bed.

See who else is being sinful at Molly’s Daily Kiss!

It’s Prompt Week! As the prompt for this week’s Sinful Sunday is “Letter M”, I have desaturated this image of Jill lounging on a hotel bed, rendering it monochromatic.

See who else is being sinful at Molly’s Daily Kiss!

She’s not as shy as she’s pretending to be here.

See who else is being sinful at Molly’s Daily Kiss!

Here’s Jill adopting a familiar pose during a hotel stay in October 2021. It was the first time we stayed in a hotel since the pandemic began.

See who else is being sinful at Molly’s Daily Kiss!

It wouldn’t be Christmas without the annual shot of Jill being sexy in front of the Christmas tree! Wishing you all the best this holiday season.

The title of this post refers to the brand of boxer briefs that have been discarded so hastily on the bathroom floor along with the rest of my clothing. It also refers to the fact that if masturbating in the shower was an Olympic event, I’ve had so much practice I’d surely take the gold.

See who else is being sinful at Molly’s Daily Kiss!

Conclusion

Wherein I Finally Wrap This Whole Thing Up

2020 was a disaster on a lot of levels. Many of the really awful things about the year weren’t necessarily surprising, especially the continuing corruption and toxicity of the Trump administration. And anyone who knows anything about U.S. Politics knows that the U.S. election cycle is as mean-spirited and corrosive as just about anything else in this country; even though I had high hopes for the presidential election, and in fact the result was the one I’d been hoping for, I wasn’t so naive as to believe my anxiety would ebb until Biden was sworn in. Still, I’d be lying if I said that I foresaw constantly wearing PPE, hunting for toilet paper like I was in some kind of scatalogical doomsday scenario, and not being able to see loved ones face to face. Oh well; hindsight is 2020.

As vaccines become increasingly available (at least in the United States) and my life begins to approach a state closer to normalcy than I’ve experienced in fifteen months, I’m guardedly optimistic. However, I’m not optimistic that things will suddenly be the way they used to be; as the pandemic raged across the world I was witness to the unequivocal, unrepentant selfishness of so many of my fellow Americans, and I question whether I’ll ever feel safe living among people who would probably push an elderly grandmother in front of a bus to avoid minor inconvenience. I don’t feel kinship with people like that. I don’t want to feel kinship with them.

However, I do feel hopeful that when I am once again able to do the things I took for granted and in some cases didn’t even bother doing because I assumed I’d have the chance later, I do them. Whether it’s going to a spontaneous movie on my day off, attending a new meetup, having a leisurely lunch and beers at a favorite brewpub, shaking hands, giving a hug to a consenting person, or even being able to smile with my mouth as opposed to just my eyes, I’m going to try and make sure I never again have cause to regret something I didn’t do.

That goes for dating, too. I don’t know if I’m a casual sex guy anymore; while I’d probably engage in it if the opportunity arose, I don’t really think it’s my style these days. Granted, a large part of the reason is that I can’t in good conscience have sex with someone who thinks Coronavirus is a hoax, has ever used the expression “All lives matter”, or votes Republican. On the other hand, I would really love to sit across a table from someone at a coffee shop or a bar and get to know them over the space of a couple hours as that unique sensation of anticipation and excitement hopefully consumes us. That way, if it doesn’t and the person says some stupid shit like “The Affordable Care Act is slavery”, I can get the fuck out of there. But it doesn’t seem like kind of a date is going to happen anytime soon.

For more than thirty years my validation came primarily from sex, or even the possibility thereof. As I’ve stated elsewhere on this blog, many of the decisions I’ve made throughout my life, from choosing a college course schedule to choosing an outfit to wear, were based on how likely I was to get laid as a result. Generally speaking, making my decisions involved determining how appealing to women I might seem as a result, i.e. “Does this pair of jeans make my ass look good?” However, in some cases my thought process was more along the lines of “How many available women am I likely to encounter during this particular pursuit?” Ultimately, though indirectly, it all came down to “How likely is it that sex will result?”

I realize this sounds problematic, if not actually predatory, but despite the fact that I was a younger, less enlightened man back then, I never really expected women to just give me sex. I knew that wasn’t how it worked. I was handsome, even sexy, and not always as awkward as I probably come off now. I had style. I was good at making conversation. But I wasn’t the kind of guy who walked into a social situation and expected to leave with one or more available women. When it happened, I enjoyed it and it surely boosted my confidence. But it didn’t always happen, I didn’t expect it to, and that probably kept me humble.

So if for three-fourths of my life I got my validation from sex and suddenly I find myself unable to do so – hell, these days I generally go unnoticed even on Twitter – where does that leave me? I am not unlike the rōnin of feudal Japan: masterless, wandering the Earth without purpose. And yes, I acknowledge that comparing a middle-aged man who finds himself suddenly less sexually desirable than he once was to an honest-to-god samurai is patently absurd, and frankly probably an insult to all the masterless samurai who eventually overcame their shame and became soldiers or bodyguards. So perhaps a better comparison is to the Fleetwood Mac song “Landslide”, found on their eponymous 1975 album and covered by artists such as Smashing Pumpkins and The Chicks:

Well I’ve been afraid of changin’
‘Cause I built my life around you

I get validation from my family to an extent. It’s not the same as the validation I feel when someone likes a sexy picture I’ve tweeted, but it’s validation nonetheless and I know I should be grateful for it. And at any rate, I can’t expect external validation anymore. It may come, or it may not, but counting on it for my sense of self-worth is a mistake.

At this point in my life it’s clear that I must find the affirmation I need within myself. This is not something to which I am really accustomed, but I’m actually finding it easier than expected. The modest pride I felt in the past upon creating art, cooking a delicious meal, or a professional accomplishment has increased exponentially, apparently out of necessity.

It works on a physical level, too. After years of balancing healthy confidence in my looks with humility, I’m pleased to report that I see less reason for the latter. Which is not to say that I’ve become a raging egomaniac, but I do see clearly what it is about me that many people have found, and likely continue to find, attractive. It’s rare, in fact, that I pass by a mirror and don’t like what I see.

Needless to say, I look forward to not having to wear a mask anymore.

I Have No Title For This Chapter

Wherein I revisit a short-lived relationship.

(You can read the first two parts here and here.)

In early summer, while reflecting on my faltering long-distance relationship, I reached out to somebody I knew from Twitter. It was a relatively innocuous greeting along with an attractive – arguably sexy – picture of myself lounging by my parents’ pool on a hot June day. My message wasn’t intended as anything beyond an innocent hello; though she and I did occasionally flirt, and exchanging pictures was not unheard of, it was no secret that she was in a monogamous long-distance relationship. If anything, I had intended to share a friendly face and let her know I was thinking of her. I considered her a friend, after all.

She appreciated my message and my picture, and told me that her relationship had recently ended. I was admittedly shocked; tweets about her relationship with her overseas Dom – including frequent daily countdowns each time she looked forward to getting on a plane to see him – were a regular feature of my Twitter feed. I expressed sympathy, and she explained the factors behind the breakup. I’d be lying if I neglected to say that on some level my undeveloped primate brain was excited to hear that she was now single, but I was there to offer friendship and emotional support, not try and inflict myself on a vulnerable woman, and in doing so possibly harm a valued friendship. Besides, I told myself, just because I find her attractive, that doesn’t mean she feels the same about me. Ironically, she later told me that she once told herself the same thing about me.

We began talking more often, and over time the nature of our conversation grew more sexual, and even romantic. As we got to know each other, I could see that there were clear feelings on her part; she identified as demisexual, meaning that she needs an emotional connection with someone in order to experience sexual feelings for them. It was exciting to realize that she evidently felt that with me. I made her feel safe enough to entrust me with control of her Lovense Lush, a bluetooth-enabled vibrator that can be controlled using a smartphone app. It was the first time I’d gotten someone other than my wife off in nearly a year.

Over time, she and I built an intense long-distance relationship. She wasn’t local, but she was in the same state. We made plans to meet eventually, once travel was safer. She let me know in no uncertain terms that when it happened – not if, but when – sex would definitely be on her agenda. But she didn’t say it in an overly confident way; she was anything but dominant, and in addition she was vulnerable. She’d been hurt recently, and her self-esteem wasn’t what it might have been. She likely feared rejection. So she wasn’t saying that she intended to have sex with me when we met. Rather, she was saying that she found me sexually attractive, and wanted sex with me if that’s what I wanted. And I did.

Suddenly, for the first time since the pandemic began, I had something tangible to look forward to. I thought fondly about the anticipation I’d feel as I eventually sat in the window seat of an airplane on its way to her city. I imagined lying in a hotel bed with her, naked and covered with sweat, eating room service and watching TV while looking forward to more sex. I hadn’t had an escape like that in a very long time. Although vaccine trials were still ongoing and unbeknownst to me it it would be six months or more before I would be vaccinated, it felt like the light was visible at the end of the tunnel. It was still a long way off, but I could see it.

We continued to connect on levels beyond romance and sex. She told me about her family, and heard about my own. In the evenings it was not unusual for us to converse about things that happened that day. She sent me pictures that she took: Beautiful sunsets, the sights in the area where she lived, elements of her daily life, meals she cooked. And she told me that she had an adorable nickname for me that she’d use in conversation with her mother.

Sometime in November things changed. It was shortly after Biden was announced as the winner of the presidential election. Her withdrawal was something one might expect of someone whose candidate lost, but she was as vocally pro-Biden (or at least anti-Trump) as I am. Clearly it wasn’t that. But I don’t pry, and I didn’t know her well enough to ask what was going on her life that precipitated the change. But as always I made myself available if she needed to talk to me. And we did continue to talk, but now conversation was sporadic, and not as deep as it once was. There was no longer anything in the sexual or romantic realms. According to my Lovense app, the last time I was invited to control her Lush was November 8. It was clear that the emotional connection she once felt, which allowed her to feel secure enough to be sexual with me, had faded.

Around the same time, she deactivated her Twitter account. Though we continued talking using other messaging apps, I missed seeing her in my timeline. I had enjoyed her geeky, funny, and often sexy Twitter musings for years, and I know others did as well. I hoped it wasn’t my fault that she left Twitter before checking my ego and realizing not everything is about me. And I felt lucky to still have access to her, to be granted her continued friendship, even if platonic; I knew others on Twitter were missing her and acknowledged that under different circumstances I might not have been so fortunate.

In March, however, the messaging stopped altogether. The last contact between her and I was a message wherein I checked in, expressing hope that she was okay in light of some personal setbacks she mentioned the previous time we talked. I’ve noticed a few random social media posts from her, so I assume she’s safe. But I’m not the sort to keep contacting someone who hasn’t responded to a previous message; even with the best of intentions, I’m cautious about doing anything that could possibly be construed as manipulation. She has the right to change her feelings without being pestered, just as does everybody. In my last message I wished her well. And I continue to wish her well.

To be concluded.

The State of My Sexual and Romantic Life

Wherein I examine the state of my relationships.

(If you haven’t read Part 1, it can be found here.)

2019 was the first year in recent memory in which I didn’t have sex with another person for the first time. And I understand that much of that was due to logistics, money, and a desire to focus on my marriage (and to a lesser extent my existing relationships) over anything new. It wasn’t a lack of opportunity; overtures were made by at least one Twitter friend to take things offline. And 2020 was the first year in more than a decade in which I didn’t have sex with someone who was not my wife. Obviously the pandemic was to blame, but by the end of the year I was left with the thought that I might as well be monogamous.

In the weeks leading to the enactment of the shelter-in-place order I had been trying to cultivate an ongoing friends-with-benefits thing with someone who was certainly interested in me as much as I was interested in her. She identified as polyamorous but wasn’t looking for anything serious. Plus she was local, which is uncommon for me. We flirted via text and even saw each other socially. I looked forward to seeing where it went, as it had been a long time since I’d had a local partner. I have no reason to believe she wasn’t thinking along the same lines. But then the quarantine began and she stopped returning my messages. There was no “Sucks we can’t hang out but hopefully soon”. No “Thinking of you as I charge my vibrator”. No “Wish we’d gotten to fuck before lockdown started”. Hey, that’s cool. Maybe she isn’t into mind-blowing G-spot orgasms and the kind of oral sex that leaves you lying in a puddle.

As our county went into lockdown in mid-March, our friend M told me that she had invited a onetime friend-with-benefits who lived in a different state to fly down and quarantine with her at her apartment. At the time we were told the lockdown portion of the pandemic would be only a couple weeks, and while I thought it risky I said nothing beyond reminding her she’d have to stay away from her elderly mother. She was excited by the prospect of rekindling this old romance; she was working from home, and the guy was doing the same. There was no reason why he couldn’t do so from her place.

The arrangement seemed fine for about a week. Though she reported no sex, they had fun cooking together, watching TV, and essentially being roommates. When sex finally did occur, she initiated it; he was not as proactive or enthusiastic as she had expected. Though I didn’t say so, it was clear to me that he was disinterested, but M was still optimistic. She had feelings. Every day she would message me to tell me of some new positive development, but reading between the lines I could see that things weren’t great. Simply put, her pandemic roomie wasn’t into her. Maybe he just wanted her company during lockdown. Maybe he found himself less physically attracted once he arrived than he thought he’d be. Either way, the writing was on the wall but she couldn’t see it. Or maybe she could see it – because it was obvious from where I was standing – and just didn’t want to acknowledge reality.

After about two and a half weeks, he had to go back home and take care of some things. Which makes sense; the shelter-in-place order had extended beyond the initial two-week estimate. The plan was for him to go home, tend to whatever needed tending to for a week or so, maybe pack some things he hadn’t packed the first time around, and fly back to spend the rest of the lockdown with her. Or at least, that’s what he told her. But given his disinterest, I figured he wasn’t coming back. And I believe, at least on a subconscious level, M had the same thought. She waited, hoping for the best. But as communication between her and him broke down she acknowledged she was losing hope. She realized she had been played before she saw him hanging out with another woman on social media, but that’s when she finally voiced it. And I acknowledged that I was glad I was not her.

As the months wore on I began to feel not unlike M. My non-local longtime partner grew distant; her entire family was now home all day every day, and as alone time evaded her she became sexually unresponsive. At the same time, without the possibility of an in-person meeting she was seemingly less emotionally invested in me. There was no intimacy of any kind. There was no sense that she was still interested, nor was there reassurance that she would want to see me when the pandemic was over. There was no validation that our relationship was still a thing.

We continued to talk. It seemed like we were still close friends. But we were not where we had been the last few years, and it seemed like we never would be. It still does seem that way, actually. And that’s okay; no one is entitled to a relationship with another person. But it’s hard when an ongoing situation to which one has grown accustomed changes dramatically without any acknowledgment of the change.

She wasn’t the only one, of course. As I said in my previous post, the connections I used to be able to count on, the relationships I’d nurtured and enjoyed, have changed or ended outright, some even before the pandemic began. Feelings change. Needs change. Circumstances change. In some cases the romantic and flirty aspects drop off while remaining friendly. But I’ve found that when someone tires of the sexual component of your friendship, they don’t tell you “I don’t want to be sexual anymore.” They just stop doing it and hope you don’t bring it up.

And that’s fine. I am not owed an explanation from anybody. Still, I like – and arguably deserve – to know where I stand. If I know sex talk with someone who used to enjoy it is now off the table, I want to make sure I don’t ignorantly attempt to steer a conversation in that direction, especially if doing so might inadvertently cause the other person anxiety or otherwise put a strain on the friendship if one exists.

That being said, I understand why it’s such a difficult conversation for a woman to have with a man she knows well, much less a relative stranger on the internet. Obviously I know I’m not entitled to sex, but the average woman doesn’t know I know it. And given that a large portion of men would be inclined to viciously lash out in response to such a conversation, it is not unreasonable that the average woman would rather avoid it

Post-script: In January, my non-local longtime partner floated the idea of us spending time together once we were both vaccinated. No concrete plans were made, but I felt excited to know it was something she was still thinking about. There was no further mention of such a reunion until earlier this month, when she told me she was not interested – whether permanently or temporarily she could not say – in meeting for sex. I wasn’t particularly surprised, though I was surprised she actually told me. And I was surprised to find that in the wake of this conversation we are closer than we’ve been in more than a year. I’d rather have renewed friendship and no sex than emotional distance and no sex.

To be continued.

COVID-19 and Me

Wherein I examine how my life has changed during the ongoing pandemic.

It’s been fourteen months since COVID-19 turned my life – and everyone’s – upside down. It was mid-March 2020 when we went into lockdown, and everything about day-to-day life changed. I think I felt the change more than most; for more than six months, I had gotten used to having as much as nine or ten hours of solitude a day while my family was at work and school.

Sure, I went to a weekly writing meetup, and my regular Tuesday afternoon therapy session. I went grocery shopping, and sometimes sat and read while eating lunch at a local eatery or drinking lunch at a local bar. Once in awhile I took in a movie on opening day. But I’ve been self-employed for more than fifteen years; I don’t have co-workers and I don’t fraternize with my clients. Beyond that, with the exception of my wife none of my regular romantic and/or sexual partners are local, nor do I have friends who I see in person more than once or twice a year. Prior to the pandemic, my wife and daughter usually left for school by seven and were home by five o’clock. I knew social isolation very well.

Suddenly virtually everything shut down. Movie theaters, coffee shops, restaurants and other businesses were shuttered, and despite the assurance that this societal cessation would be over in a matter of a couple weeks, there was uncertainty as to the short- and long-term consequences of this hiatus. While grocery stores remained open, they had reduced hours, long lines even just to enter, and new protocols intended to mitigate the spread of the virus. Suddenly we were wearing masks, spacing out more than six feet as we shopped, scrubbing our produce with hydrogen peroxide, and trading our children’s college funds for toilet paper.

Teachers taught and students attended school virtually, through webcams and on computer screens. In the space of a day I went from having more solitude than I wanted or knew what to do with – which usually involved tending to my business, doing laundry and general household chores, writing, grocery shopping, dinner prep, masturbating, and if I was feeling particularly self-indulgent, a couple hours spent watching television or playing Xbox – to being able to expect none of the solitude and solo decompression I needed for my own mental health, while somehow simultaneously experiencing even more social isolation than I could stand.

It turns out that I’m much more of an extrovert than I thought. Being a stay-at-home parent for almost a decade put that side of me to sleep and, aided and abetted by rising social anxiety, brought my introversion to the forefront. While my tweets suggest that introversion is my dominant quality, I wasn’t always this way.

Throughout my life I have thrived on in-person social interaction, while still requiring alone time to recharge. But suddenly being unable to hang out with friends and hug loved ones who don’t live with me was painful. Knowing it could be a long time until I could see these people and in fact some of these people might not be alive when it was once again safe to see them – over time that became nearly unbearable. I didn’t know when I could once again warm a barstool while enjoying a craft beer. I didn’t know when I’d have a spur-of-the-moment trip to the public library. I didn’t know if these places would still exist when things returned to normal.

COVID-19 wasn’t the only source of darkness in 2020. The U.S. was not only suffering through the most corrupt presidential administration, but dealing with an increasing portion of the population so completely duped by right-wing con artistry that they gleefully embraced (and continued to embrace) their own subjugation. We saw no abatement of police violence against people of color in this country, and despite widespread public demand of systemic change during summer 2020 I do not feel optimistic.

At the same time, I was coping with my own (largely self-imposed) feelings of guilt, shame, and failure and the associated strain it put on my marriage. I had largely cut out carbs and sugar. None of these things made life wonderful under the best of circumstances, but throw a pandemic into the mix and stronger people than I are sure to feel unhealthy levels of stress. We were living in a dystopia. We arguably still are.

As I said before, I was used to some measure of isolation. My social circle, to the extent that I’ve ever actually had one, has always been pretty small. Pre-COVID, the typical day saw my in-person social interaction beyond immediate family limited to waitstaff and cashiers. For years I was used to conducting most of my social activity online or otherwise in a virtual capacity while spending much of my time alone. But no longer having the option of attending a friend’s birthday party or eating a meal at a restaurant sucked, and as the months passed it really affected me. It has been a long, lonely, anxiety-filled year.

My pandemic experience has been marked by a lack of intimacy. There is a woeful dearth of physical intimacy in my life, but I’m feeling the lack of emotional intimacy as well. My relationships have slowed down, dried up, and generally died off. Some of the people who have been my partners have lost interest. The single people have gotten into other relationships, while the polyamorous people have gotten into monogamous relationships. Some have succumbed to feelings of depression and withdrawn. Some have just disappeared. Whereas the majority of the last decade there was someone I could talk to, flirt with, to get off with, and maybe even to look forward to seeing in person, there is none of that. Essentially, there is virtually nothing to look forward to.

That’s understandable, though. Life is bound to change, moreso during a plague. Things get put on hold – or end – for a number of possible reasons. But now it’s May 2021 and I’m completely vaccinated. And while I understand it’s not necessarily feasible or advisable to get on a plane for a few hours and then hole up in a hotel room with someone you know well (much less a casual acquaintance or relative stranger), thoughts of doing exactly that, and the hope that I’d be able to do so again once COVID-19 was no longer as big a threat to public health as it was in the beginning, kept me going to some extent. But even when it is once again safe, my options are limited.

To be continued.