One of my blog readers is grappling with keeping is sex life private and sent this long and sometimes convoluted question. My answer is below.
Q: Hey man, this is kind of long. I am an intelligent brother but when i get excited I can be a little all over the place.
Discovered your blog about 2 years ago. Been off an on, between grad school and feelings of guilt. I just stopped by again and read a post about your words of wisdom for gay men. In it you said there is karma and it works more quickly in the gay world. That had me thinking.
How easy is it to have discreet encounters? I used to mess around with dudes about once a year during my teenage years. I used to meet up in parks or A4A. I mean literally like twice a year. After every encounter I would feel guilty. Also between being cold (from the north east)and being a student all the time, my encounters were limited to the summer. During my college years I got into a relationship with a woman and cheated once/ twice (a I kissed a dude) guilt (a good thing in this case) mad me tell her within in days of doing it. We broke up. I remained celibate from all sex for almost 5 years ago. Fast forward. I still love women, can’t see myself having a relationship with a dude but I still need to keep thing discreet.
I am far from paranoid as other dudes are and as I once was, However, don’t need people in my business. I went back on A4A and spoke to a few dudes here and there, met up with maybe 2 dudes but spoke to maybe 6-7. After I rejected one, one pointed out, the more you talk or meet up with people they less DL you become. I was like shit that is so true. He also said his pics got stolen and his friends told him. I was like how many discreet dudes has like 5 friends who are not only gay but on the sites/apps?
I am wondering can anyone really be discreet? Discovered craiglist last year and like it because it is straight to the point and there are less “bored” people on there. Well one guy hit up my ad and signed his name in his email. Well, I always google or facebook the name of the phone number or research any dude I meet up with if the information is available. This dude turns out to be married so indeed he was DL. However if your information is so easily available are you trying to be discreet.
I too now wonder if I have been sloppy. I have a DL name but other than that I tell the truth about everything. But just speaking to other dudes about other dudes (they have spoken with on A4A or CL (don’t have any of the apps) it seems that the gay world is sloppy. I was in program at a college this past year and there was on gay brother in the cohort. He was mad cool, and introduced me one day to his frat brother who was new to the school but straight. Well I went on CL, and responded to an ad for a DL brother. Well, he gave his number, so I looked him up on facebook. Boom it turns out to be my gay classmates’ frat brother. This frat brother had just moved here and he and my classmate were just frat brothers, I am sure of that. To make matters worse, I was going through this guys friends list and I saw that he knew a dude from the area who I had met up with a couple months back.. That dude is definitely DL, masculine, but, he has never been to college, and the other dude just moved here so there is now way they could have met up but are now friends on facebook. I assume after hooking up. What dl dudes befriends a guy they are sleeping with on facebook? That implies realy names, etc more were given out. It is interesting this frat dude asked me if I was in a frat first and while telling me which one he was in. He told me where he went to school but he lied about his concentration but told the truth about his frat. I am like damn people are sloppy or not consistent. I mean if you told me you were a black MBA student it may be hard to figure you out but if you tell me your frat that narrows the pool even more.
Now, I feel like I am back to being paranoid. And this is not from a cheating perspective, whether I consider myself gay or bi, not everyone needs to know who I am sleeping with. But even the “legit” dl dudes seem to either not care or are real sloppy.
My main question How does one have discreet encounters? I don’t have any DL friends, and don’t want to sleep with my friends. Married dudes tends to be “safer” but I have only met up with two dudes who were married in the past and I am trying to be a homewrecker. What are the different levels of Dl dudes? Anyway to spot them? I agree the most sane dudes on A4A are the ones who keep it simple in their posts but others I don’t know about. I was so proud that I am not paranoid like I was 6 years ago or like some 40 year olds I have spoken to online but these encounters in the past few months makes me feel like I am regressing.
A: Good morning:
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog. I hope my answers to your questions help.
So you want to be discreet? The best way is to develop a sexual, fuck buddy relationship with a person who is like minded.
Try advertising on Craigslist or Adam for something like that. Describe in detail that you are DL and want to keep it that way. There are others out there who feel the same way.
In DC there is a sex party club for DL mostly married guys. It is called The Circle and is advertised on A4a under that name. They are discreet guys who come together and freak and go back to the straight side. They even network outside of sex. There could be a similar group on your area.
Also if you want to be private as you wrote don’t associate with messy or crazy people, although this may be hard to ascertain through online ads.
Having said all this however I would like to urge you to seek a therapist and just talk and explore yourself. You seem to have extreme feelings of shame and guilt about your sexuality.
The fact you claimed to be celibate for five years sounded troubling. Did you really mean no sex, not with women, men or masturbation?
You dabbled with men and confessed to your girl? Did you do this as an excuse to be free? Because most guys I know with girls keep their dealings with men in secrecy.
And although bisexuality exists are you really gay and not ready to express it?
Also understand once you are having sex with men you are really not DL. Being DL to me sometimes is a form of self delusion for men who are ashamed of their sexuality and want to conform to hetero society. So they trick themselves mentally by saying I’m not gay I’m just DL and dabbling on the side.
I’ve also discovered some guys get off on the cloak and dagger aspect of the DL life. The secrecy and creeping adds to the excitement of the sex
So believe me there will always be people that know your tea. Some of your friends may already know or suspect and simply don’t care because being gay or bisexual now is far less of a big deal.
So please stop obsessing about who knows whom on social media. Relax and enjoy your life. I am out in my private life and with some family but not at work. Only a few close friends even know about my blog. As you grow older I hope you learn to balance your private and public life.
Good luck and peace and blessing to you.
P.S. I will share your letter on my blog. My readers are wise and may be able to offer you better advice.
Immanuel
