The gimp arm is the WORST! It’s so awkward, and it’s always just there. When cutting it off isn’t an option, what do you do?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re a top.

The gimp arm just sucks. You lay down to cuddle, while one of your arms wraps freely around your girl, the other imposes itself uncomfortably beneath and/or between you. And then it’s just awkward…

Getting advice from a Dom? Be careful what you wish for.

Some people like to moan, others like dirty talk. Some like verbal abuse while others shower their partners with compliments. Then there are those who prefer total silence. I used to be the latter. Until I slept with a woman. The first time I heard her moan I practically came on the spot. Hearing my partner was so sensual, it sent goosebumps rippling down my spine. I decided I had to let go and reciprocate…

The broad-shouldered, salt-and-peppered thirty-something stranger I recognized vaguely from an evening on U Street commanded me to open my mouth and stick out my tongue. More quickly than I’d come to expect in these situations, there was wrinkled plaid on the floor and firm, warm hand around my neck. A few minutes and fewer words later I found myself laying shirtless on a raised platform with a needle in my arm, cringing at the sound of a safety razor clearing hard-won chest hair off my torso in irregular patches like a Brazilian subsistence farmer at the edge of an especially musky tract of Amazon. The pain of submission would have been unbearable, were it not for the pills this same man had supplied me with a week before. Thirty unmentionable minutes later I was headed home, more relaxed and confident than I’d been in months and beaming an exhausted smile at the prospect of my next session.

I’ve gotten nearly every man I’ve wanted — as long as he wasn’t gay. To write my life story using names and places would send a battalion of straight men running out of state with their tales between their legs and their girlfriends’ scratching their heads. Luckily for them, I do not kiss and tell. I don’t fuck and tell either.

The seduction of the straight man is an art form. It is like good comedy. It’s about nuance and timing and knowing when to deliver the punch line. But after nineteen years in this sexual arena, I fear the time has come for me to turn in my resignation. I am still interested in the sport but no longer interested in the game.

I think back on the list of straight men I have seduced. A parking garage tryst with the dishwasher from work while his girlfriend waited to pick him up outside. The Christian boy who let me feel down his pants in the locker room. The basketball player from school who years later closed down the gas station he owned an hour early just to avoid talking to me. And the list goes on. I don’t think of myself as a whore. I don’t believe in sin and I do not believe that sex is a bad thing. I think of myself as an adventurer hell bent on conquering forbidden land. There is a certain empowerment knowing that while mainstream society may reject homosexuality, I am still able to seduce those who have rejected me in public. I have heard it said that it is every gay man’s dream to seduce a straight man. I can attest that momentarily the rush is extreme and the sense of power is great. But it fades…

for the past month, I’ve been using a picture of my faceless torso for my profile. A friend took a particularly flattering one and I figured it would be a good way to test my eternal question about online dating/dick shopping: Are guys on the hunt for a person, or for an act? My previous opinion used to be that the person behind a profile didn’t matter. You could be nice, well read, handsome, intelligent, gym-toned, whatever, and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference. They’ve got a brand new pair of rollerskates, you’ve got a brand new key, and since you both happened to be on the same website at the same time you try’ em out. See?

There was a time in my life when I took part in an immature, selfish, and destructive lifestyle. It cost me in friends, it cost me in youth, and it cost me dearly in prostate health. The memories are as vivid as they are desperate: brightly-lit Friday evenings spent alone with German homework and hot chocolate. Marathon coffeehouse reading sessions passed with eyes that never strayed off book pages. Hard drives full of illegally downloaded 30 Rock episodes instead of illegally downloaded porn. The half-frustrated, half-pitying expressions of dozens of beautiful young men who, after hours of gin-drenched dance-floor loin-grinding, never got their hands around anything firmer than a tangible sense of inadequacy. Only now can I say that it was a dark time.

Though he may come off modestly in the below interview, 33 year-old Joel Simkhai is responsible for the biggest change in gay hookups since the hanky code. His iPhone application Grindr functions as a sort of real-life gaydar, where a user can see a list of gay men in his area, how far away they are (to the foot!) and what they look like. Couple that with a chat function and you have a sort of gay sci-fi future where men can plug in anywhere and at any time to see if their next date, mate, or cum-drenched illicit gang bang is just around the literal corner.

Joel was nice enough to give me some time on the phone with him. Check out his opinions on sex, friendship, lesbian Grindr and much more in the paragraphs below.

The Crew Club was almost an urban legend of my gay DC. For years I had heard about the last remaining bathhouse but never met anyone who had actually been inside. While I visited bathhouses in other cities, my gay adolescence in DC consisted of nothing more than trips to Apex and Nation. Finally, after years of procrastinating (and an excruciating dry spell) I had attempted to visit several months earlier – which resulted in me entering the lobby, then immediately turning around and running away. To be fair, the sight of workout equipment behind the receptionist led me to believe that I had made a huge mistake and stumbled upon an actual 24-hour gym. But having been laughed at and corrected by Leo and all of my friends, I was confident in my newfound knowledge of what went on behind closed doors. So I entered the club and joined the queue of late-night revelers.

Last Saturday, I got really drunk and really stoned and went to Town, DC’s preeminent megadisco gay club. I took shots there, and made out with a bunch of people, and ended up going home with someone. I can no longer say my gay life is that different than anyone else’s.