We’ve all been there. Sometimes we look like this picture of Jonathan Groff's character Patrick in HBO's Looking.
No matter how high your sex drive, there are some nights when you’re just not in the mood. But, for one reason or another, you may find yourself having sex anyway—because you’re bored, or you didn’t want to cancel on a plan, or because you know your partner has had a rough day and you want to support without having to listen to complaints about their coworkers. At times like those, there’s no shame in letting your mind wander as you fool around. Hopefully, this guide will provide some fun things to think about to help pass the time during even the most boring bouts of bottoming!
10 Minutes In: Think about Food
There’s nothing like getting pounded to get you thinking about that pound cake! There’s nothing like hot dong to conjure up visions of hot dogs. There’s nothing like a hot twink to bring a hot Twinkie to mind. Eggplant. Corn-on-the-cob. The less-curvy variations of bananas. Popsicles. I think you get the idea.
If you choose to think about food during sex, it’s important not to get discouraged. I know that that bowl of mac and cheese in the fridge may seem impossibly far away. But rest assured that you and food will be reunited soon enough! Sex doesn’t last forever. And besides, you’re only getting started! So thank God for little mercies, my friend. And thank God for Little Debbie’s, too.
15 Minutes In: Think of England
Take a moment to be grateful for the modern day! Women in Victorian England were often sent off to their conjugal beds with little more sexual advice than to “lie back and think of England”—that is to say, transcend the unpleasantness of syphilis-ridden vanilla sex by reminding themselves how important it was for the U.K. to have new sons. While you, reader, are unlikely to contribute your children to the Empire for a number of reasons, it may reassure you to know that you are not alone in your coital indifference—women have been pretending to enjoy unwanted dick for centuries!
20 Minutes In: Consider Dogs
Now that you’re going to be trapped under the weight of your partner for the next 40 minutes, this is the perfect opportunity to decide what breed of dog you want! Be sure to consider exercise requirements and climate in addition to temperament and size. Go ahead and take this quiz—I matched with the Akita!
25 Minutes In: Delve into the Ocean
I have said it once and I will say it a thousand times: the ocean is a cool place to be! Instead of focusing on how your leg is cramping or how your partner’s breath stinks, focus instead on the beauty of anemones, the majesty of the barracuda and the poise of the porpoise, all of them drifting through the sun-drenched ocean while seas of kelp stretch out of sight all around you. Talk about calming!
30 Minutes In: Investigate The Nature of Love
If you agreed to have sex even though you weren’t really in the mood, then odds are, you want the other person to be happy. While your legs are wrapped around your lover, take the opportunity to ask yourself: do you feel confident that you know this person well enough to make an informed decision about whether you really love them? Or have you made peace with the fact that you will never truly know them? And then ask yourself: is there not something a little toxic in recognizing that you’re dating someone who you know you can’t fully love, and then letting him shove his entire dong into your rectum? Does being in love mean you can’t have any doubts? How much would have to “feel right” in order for this guilt to disappear? Are you really in love, reader? Or did you just do what felt best at the time, and are now trapped under the body of someone whose birthday you can barely remember, and to whom your true self remains a stranger?
Just another fun thing to think about!
35 Minutes In: Challenge Identity Politics
If you’re anything like me, having steamy, rough sex with one or more partners gets me hot and heavy. And by “hot and heavy,” I mean, “wondering about the limits of identity.” For example, I wonder whether our definition of race is more based on genetics or experience? And who gets to determine who is Black? Should we define race based on what makes sense or based off how people currently understand the issue? Does this also apply when it comes to sexual orientation? Gender? Ability? Class? Can human experience ever be accurately communicated, even if only in part? Isn’t identity politics another way of saying “only I could possibly understand this dimension of human experience”? What does this mean for artists who want to write about people of different identities than themselves? And how does this relate to your ability (or lack thereof) to communicate your selfhood with your current sexual partner?
40 Minutes In: Question Sex
40 minutes in! You’re doing great! Consider this: they say sex is good in theory and great in practice. But you, dear reader, are proof that sometimes the reverse of this is true. While the lights are dimmed and Rihanna croons from the speakers, now is a great opportunity to firm up your own theory of sex. Thanks to a string of highly unsatisfactory sexual encounters lasting from the moment I lost my virginity until this current moment now, I have had ample time to fine-tune my own tools of understanding the most mysterious of human interactions, best known under the technical term, “bumpin’ uglies.”
I believe that many people seek out sex as a means of relieving anxiety. For gay men, in particular, hook-ups can serve as an assurance that everything we grew up hearing is false: that there is nothing wrong with us after all, that we are desirable as individuals, that there are other people like us in the world, people who have shared the same childhood and who now want the same things as us: acceptance.
But I am dubious about the claim that “free love” should be a central tenet of the LGBT rights movements. The gay male ideal of a “healthy sexuality” is just as restrictive as Queen Victoria’s, or even Elisabeth’s. Whereas the Virgin Queen insisted that women physically cannot enjoy sex, modern gay men seem to agree that, if you don’t enjoy sex, then there is something lacking in your vitality, your manhood, and most importantly, your worldview.
You, dear reader, may have had to contend with the anxiety that you are not having enough sex, as if not having enough sex meant you were undesirable or less worthy than others. In fact, you may be currently having sex as a way to reassure yourself that you are valuable. We all have been there. Let me be clear in stating that sex does as much to define you as does your taste in music or the words you tend to mispronounce. There is nothing revolutionary in having a lot of sex—and the implication that your worth relates to your sex appeal is an idea peddled by fashion and fitness empires to keep your self-confidence low and your spending rate high. Before you seek out passionless sex again, be frank with yourself: does this horniness stem from insecurity? And if so, then who, in literal and fiscal terms, does your insecurity benefit?
42 Minutes In: Re-Examine Your Childhood
So, maybe the sex is going on a little longer than you were prepared for, or maybe there’s something in the way the light shines through the curtain that reminds you of something you once saw in a museum when you were a kid. Either way, you find yourself wondering about your old self. You have probably heard this question before - in your current state, are you the kind of person that you wanted to grow up to be? Not that your dream as a kid was “to get fisted by a 6’5” Berliner.” What I mean to say is, are you the type of person your younger self could look up to and could trust? Is it even a good idea to base your current life decisions off the worldview of someone who could barely read? Why privilege a child’s perspective when children know next to nothing? Is there something to be said for innocence?
And the person who is trying to orgasm inside of you—do you have the type of relationship with this person that you strove toward in your youth? Do you even think about your love life critically? Are you mindlessly re-enacting the dynamic between your all-suffering mother and your boor of a father for convenience’s sake, or because you literally cannot imagine a type of relationship where one person is not unhappy? How did your parents fail you? Didn’t they try their best? Yes? Then why do you still blame them for your own mistakes you make today, reader? Do you think you’re the only person with parental issues? You think you’re the only person on earth who has suffered?
43 Minutes In: Confront The Void
As your partner’s penis puts its pressure on your prostate, it is your obligation to submit your own soul to the same degree of pressure.
Start here. Are you happy?
Then: Is happiness a useful metric of you life’s worth?
Then: What does happiness feel like?
You are sure you have felt happiness before. Out with your friends, bent over laughing on the sidewalk on the way to a party. There was no work to be wary of, no parents to heed—just you, and your friends, and your youthful joy. But you suspect that even that was only an imitation of true happiness.
Even then, you were just pretending to be the same carefree 12-year-old who, in some distant suburb, is dressed up as a dinosaur on Halloween and is trawling the neighborhood with your friends. Your parents are in a group twenty yards behind you, carrying the bulk of your candy, careful not to get in your way, careful to give you the opportunity to enjoy yourself.
But even that isn’t quite right. Even then, you were conscious of the fact that that moment qualified as a happy one. Even then, you knew that this memory would be forced into a narrative, a story to be told. No, you weren’t happy then, no more than you are happy now, having some man you barely know whisper sexy things into your ear while you try to go back, back to a time when you were so happy you didn’t even know what being happy was.
There’s a flash of greenery—a picnic? A park? A playground?—and a tree with a swing, and then mulch—your grandma’s house! You’re running up to greet her. It is your 6th birthday and the sun is shining. You hug your grandma’s big floral dress. She smells like tobacco and mint. And you’re happy. For the first and last time, you are happy.
Your partner is still sweating on top of you as you try to make the numbers add up. But your grandma died when you were still a baby, you realize. And you weren’t old enough to walk, still, when her house was torn down and sold. You had only ever seen it in pictures. And her smell? That’s the smell that Lindsay Lohan uses to describe her own grandfather in The Parent Trap.
That’s it, then. You’ve spent your whole life believing your consciousness was firmly rooted in a deep, sturdy joy, all of which turns out to be imaginary, or too far beyond memory to access. Your identity is a self-referential loop with no source to ground it. A mirror facing a mirror with nothing in between them.
You realize that even babies are born screaming.
One Hour and 10 Minutes In: Think about RuPaul’s Drag Race: All-Stars
Your partner is somehow still on top of you and your mind has gone deeper than you expected. Good thing that the new cast of All-Stars had been Ru-vealed! Now the floodgates are open, and everyone and their grandma are betting on which queen will get to the top. Now is the perfect time to pick your favorites!
Personally, I think the Coco/Alyssa sparks will fizzle out too soon to justify their inclusion, while so many talented queens (*ahem!* Ivy Winters!) were passed over. I’m already over Tatiana, #sorrynotsorry. Adore will not go as far as she did in season 5, that’s for dang sure. And as far as the winner? My money’s on Katya. But really, it’s anyone’s game! For now, we have to wait and bide our time until August 25.
Until then, sit tight, relax, and enjoy these fun things to think about while bottoming!
