Topic of Cancer

I’ve got you under my scan: CT scans and X-rays confirmed a tumor growing on the left side of my neck.

This past holiday season brought an unexpected return of a gift I received five years ago, a gift only nature in her caprice could bestow: The gift of cancer. Cancer isn’t a gift anyone wants of course; but once you have it, you either deal with it or you die. Or, in the case of many terminal cancers, you deal with it and you die.

When my cancer first appeared many years ago, I was reassured by statistics that my cancer was not only treatable but curable. I had surgery and subsequent radiation treatments. I had regular CT scans for five years, after which I was expected to be pronounced forever cured. In fact, I was days away from getting my final CT scan when I noticed a lump on my neck. It was not to be my “blessing year” after all.

This time I chose to take more people into my confidence. Several friends already knew of my previous experience, so it made sense to update them. And I had a new partner, who understandably needed to process the issue with his friends.

The reactions were interesting. I received messages of sympathy, of course. Support, sure. But some went beyond either offering some almost metaphysical advice. “Fighting is important,” wrote one acquaintance. “Fighting doesn’t just mean medically. It means emotionally. It means lifestyle-wise. It means altering everything you do to fight the cancer. Everything. This is total war. Everything you do is going to be focused on fighting it.” Nor was this an isolated case; others reacted in a similar vein.

I’d heard this rhetoric before, mainly on television dramas and from friends coming to terms with AIDS. Fight, fight, fight! Some people go beyond metaphor, advocating meditations in which you visualize the cancer as an enemy and your medicine or immune system as an army battling back the foe.

Me, I’m not convinced.

I’m aware, of course, of the research showing that a patient’s attitude has a clear effect on disease. For example, scientists think stress can have a deleterious effect not just on one’s emotions and sense of well being but also on the immune system and may even be an important factor in “coronary artery disease, high blood pressure, chest pains or even irregular heart beats” (WebMD.com, October 2005).

But evidence of a mind-body connection and the importance of attitude hardly validate the all-out war approach advocated by some. For starters, it seems rooted in the Western male psyche, with its obsession on power, control, and aggression. I’m not sure how stirring myself up to thoughts of battle is going to reduce the anxiety of my cancer experience. Wouldn’t a more Buddha-like acceptance of the inevitable be just as likely (if not more so) to bring inner peace and reduce unhealthy stress for many cancer patients?

No doubt the emphasis on fighting one’s disease is intended to be empowering for those who may feel particularly helpless in the face of such an awful illness. Unfortunately, this approach can also have the opposite effect. Believing that an individual can cure her or his own cancer or prolong his life lays a heavy burden of responsibility and even guilt on the patient who doesn’t see the cancer responding as hoped. Such guilt and shame can quickly turn into stress that further demoralizes the cancer patient.

This downside is not lost on Dr. Jimmie Holland, physician and psychiatrist who has counseled cancer patients for well over two decades at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Holland is co-author (with Sheldon Lewis) of The Human Side of Cancer, Living with Hope, Coping with Uncertainty (HarperCollins, 2001). In a chapter titled “The Tyranny of Positive Thinking,” she dismisses as simplistic pop-psychology the notion that stress causes cancer. She also contends that “It is unrealistic that as you cope with nausea, fatigue, and worry and sadness, that you can be positive all the time. Yet, zealous believers in positive thinking may make you feel guilty when you find yourself crying sometimes.”

Moreover, science does not support the view of what Holland calls “positive attitude police.” “While stress does affect the immune system, there is no evidence that the blips produced are in the range of those that would affect tumor growth,” she writes. “We will know more in the future, but for now, the studies do not support the myths about psychological causes of cancer and the role of emotions in tumor growth.”

Since the publication of Holland’s book, other studies have made a similar point. In the November 2002 issue of the British Medical Journal, Mark Petticrew, PhD, and others reviewed 26 studies to see whether a particular psychological coping style had any effect on cancer. Some 11 of these studies specifically investigated the role of a “fighting spirit.” Their conclusion? “There is little consistent evidence that psychological coping styles play an important part in survival from or recurrence of cancer.”

Petticrew, a health researcher with the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences in Glasgow, Scotland, was of course not disparaging upbeat thinking. “We certainly aren't saying that a positive mental attitude is not beneficial,” he is quoted as saying to WebMD.com (November 2002). “I think the message here is that while it is good to think positively, it is also OK to feel bad. It is probably not going to influence your outcome.”

In my case, I feel no particular need for a “fighting spirit” or any other aggressive attitude. I am hopeful nonetheless. I’m lucky to have been struck with a cancer that has an impressive cure rate. Although the statistics aren’t quite as reassuring for those whose cancer has spread as far as mine, the five-year survival rate is still quite high.

Of course I would prefer not to have the cancer at all. I still may die from it. But any of us could die from so many causes any day. How sad it would be to get so caught up in fear and coping strategies that don’t fit our personalities that we end up killing our enjoyment of life before the end of life itself.

Steroids to Heaven

Thoroughly Modified Miller: Matthew Miller (far right) and Roberto Gonzalez (center) took the gold and silver medals, respectively, for the “modified” segment of the young men’s heavyweight division at the 2006 Gay Games.

No one will be surprised to learn that one of the most popular events at the Gay Games is the physique competition, with its promise of nearly naked men showing off perfect pecs, bulging biceps, and eight-pack abs. But on stage, as in life, not every contestant exhibited huge or well-defined muscles. And that, you might suppose in a competition like this, is what separates winners from losers.

But you’d be wrong.

The physique contest at the 2006 games in Chicago had so many entrants that the competition was spread over two nights, with contestants divided into numerous categories by weight and age. The audience snapped photos and looked on admiringly as each group of men filed on stage for introductions, then left and returned one by one to perform choreographed posing routines. But when it finally came time to hand out the silver, gold, and bronze medals for each group, the master of ceremonies announced they were giving awards in two categories — “standard” and “modified.” That is, the top three in the “modified” group would receive gold, silver, and bronze medals, as did the top three in the “standard” group. This further subdivision of competitors effectively doubled the number of medals for each group of contestants, many of which were already quite small. In some cases, a group consisting of six competitors all walked away with medals.

What was going on? Why the extra divisions? The only explanation given during the first evening was that organizers had created these categories because the Gay Games are contests of “inclusion rather than exclusion.” Whatever that means. The master of ceremonies was only slightly clearer on the second night of physique contests. The standard category, he explained, was for those who underwent drug testing while the modified category was designed for those who couldn’t arrive in time for the drug testing or who chose not to be tested.

It isn’t hard to guess why the presenter danced around this delicate topic or why the organizers chose such curious terms as “standard” and “modified.” Use of anabolic steroids to increase muscle mass is an open secret in bodybuilding competitions, many of which don’t bother to test competitors at all. The practice is only mildly controversial despite the fact that many of drugs in question are controlled substances used without a doctor’s prescription — an illegal act.

And again, no one is surprised to find such physique-enhancing chemicals among a certain segment of the gay community who see abnormally large muscles as the epitome of sexual attractiveness.

But it is here, at the intersection of “Gay” and “Games,” where the steroidal connection between sports and homosexuals takes an interesting turn. Because doctors often prescribe steroids for wasting conditions like those caused by HIV (still prevalent in the gay population), many gay bodybuilding competitors are actually using these substances legally.

To address this fact, the Federation of Gay Games sought a middle path between strict drug testing as practiced by the Olympics (the model for the Gay Games) and turning a blind eye to potential drug abuse. Fortunately, the Gay Games Web site articulates this position with far greater detail and eloquence than the announcer at the physique competition:

“The Federation of Gay Games and Chicago Games, Inc.,” the site states, “condemn doping practices and the use of banned substances to enhance performance in sport. The use of such banned substances is contrary to fair play, is potentially harmful to the health of athletes, is an increased safety risk and is, in some cases, unlawful.” But, they add, the “FGG also understands that ... many [athletes] participate under special circumstances (asthma, cancer, diabetes, HIV, etc.). The FGG recognizes that there are medical conditions for which there is the prescribed use of some banned substances and acknowledges a broad range of legitimate medical reasons that would cause an athlete to be on substances banned and often stigmatized.”

It appears the FGG has struck a harmonious balance between competing views. And perhaps they have.

But of course few controversies are so simple. For example, many HIV-positive gay men use steroids legally not because they suffer from a wasting condition, but because they have convinced sympathetic doctors to let them use substances that will give them an edge in their quest for sexual attractiveness. One medal winning contestant at the Games told a reporter that even though he had a medical reason for being “modified,” he would use steroids even if he didn’t.

It’s exactly that kind of candor that was lacking in the public presentation of the Gay Games physique contest. Why, for example, say so little to the audience about the two-tiered system? Why the confusing category names? It it simply because “modified” sounds better than “freakishly druggy looking”?

And what of the road less traveled? What if the FGG had decided to follow the path taken by the Olympics and required testing for everyone? Sure, many legal users of these substances would have had to bow out. But our society frequently asks people to make sacrifices for people’s safety and to set a good example. For example, we encourage pregnant women not to drink or ask HIV+ people not to donate blood. Wouldn’t the positive message of fair play and natural bodybuilding outweigh the recognition lost to a segment of the community?

Or consider a different solution: No one, including the judges, knew (in theory) which competitors were tested and which weren’t until the presentation of the awards. In other words, participants who never used any banned substances were forced to compete against steroidal muscle monsters as if on a level playing field, even though it was anything but. Only after the scoring were the members of the two groups separated to determine winners and losers.

But what if, instead, the two nights of bodybuilding competitions were separated by this very factor: The first night could be for only drug-tested competitors with the second night representing those who got no test. Would that not be a more level playing field, with like competing against like?

Apparently the FGG didn’t think so. They seemed to believe that keeping drug-testing status confidential until the last minute was somehow more fair and inclusive.

Personally, I don’t see it. But I guess I should be grateful that organizers offered testing at all. And that, in the end, the FGG revealed to everyone the truth of who used drugs and who did not.

Gaymes People Play

Darts Entertainment: Barroom pastime or Olympic-level feats?

When my partner and I traveled to Chicago last July, the purpose of our journey was to experience the world famous Gay Games. He had the honor of attending as an athlete contestant, while I tagged along as the proverbial athletic supporter. Although this was to be my first Gay Games (which many abbreviated simply to “Gaymes”), I was of course familiar with this event, with its parallels to the less gay-friendly but more well-known Olympic tradition. Unlike the conventional Olympics, however, the Gaymes seek to provide a setting where gay men and women can compete without the homophobia that so often characterizes the world of sports. Still, I figured that when it came to the athletic contests themselves, the Gay Games would resemble the Olympics pretty closely. And, true to those expectations, the Chicago competitions did include events like basketball, diving, swimming, track and field, triathlon, wrestling, powerlifting, and other traditional sports.

But the list of sporting events didn’t end there. This gay version of the Olympiad also featured competitions in ballroom dancing, country-western dancing, pool (billiards), and darts. (Yes, darts.) Since when did leisure barroom activities get elevated to the level of spectator sport? It’s as if it wasn’t enough just to have gay men and women compete in physical games. There had to be allowances for some really gay sports — or at least activities that seemed more at home in a gay bar than a sports stadium.

But if the Gay Games lineup seemed a little light in the loafers (or Nikes), consider the competing spinoff version of the games, World Outgames, which included not only country western dancing and choral competition, but also categories for the bear and leather set. For example, of the leather arena, the official web site states, “Recognising the importance of the leather culture as an integral part of the LGBT community, the Outgames … includes a competition with gold, silver and bronze medals for winners of the categories of Mr. Leather, Ms Leather and Slave.” I am not making this up.

The Outgames site tries to distance itself from calling these Olympic sports by listing traditional activities under “Sport Disciplines” and the more novel competitions as “Cultural Disciplines.” But the fact remains that the organization is still giving gold, silver, and bronze medals to people not just for fancy dancing but for being really good slaves. Not to mention bears, cubs, and bear chasers.

At first blush, the idea seemed to cheapen the whole enterprise, as though gay men and lesbians had to bring a little bit of the ghetto with them wherever they went. But a similar phenomenon goes on in many of the worlds that populate the universe of specialty Olympics. For example, my boyfriend’s parents just participated in a local version of the Senior Olympics, where they competed in such activities as golf, Canasta, and denture cleaning.

Okay, I made that up. In fact, I am hard pressed to find any examples in which specialty Olympics so radically adjust the lineup of acceptable sports to suit their subcultural niche.

But what the heck. Gay people have always been innovators, the creative crowd who puts their own special stamp on whatever they do. So why stop at darts and country dancing? If they want some truly gay games, how about a few of these:

Brunch press: Competitors vie for points by ordering the most elegant yet healthy of dishes, exhibiting flawless table manners, and drinking copious quantities of cocktails while exchanging the most intimate secrets of other people’s lives.

Standing and modeling: Participants put themselves in a social setting without appearing actually to socialize with anyone. Points are awarded for fashion sense and a look of studied indifference. Points are subtracted for furtive approval-seeking glances and unnecessary smiling.

100-yard cruise: Similar to the S&M competition, participants seek to lure naïve volunteers into approaching them using body language alone. Volunteers wear signs indicating their “hotness” level and attracting hot volunteers while blowing off or being invisible to troll-level volunteers earns the most points. Getting a hot volunteer to buy you a drink is usually a winning move, but points can also be earned for having the volunteer spontaneously approach with conversation and/or a phone number. Contestants who are caught actually staring are immediately disqualified.

Tearoom triathlon: This tripartite event tests the agility and stamina of even the most hardened barthlete. Events include blowjobs in toilet stalls, a masturbation marathon, and a creative collection of watersports.

I started to write this little ditty with the thought that maybe the Gay Games had gone a bit too far. But how can you come up with anything more ridiculous than giving Olympic medals for being a cub or slave? Perhaps once again, gay culture has become its own best parody.

Weathering Chicago

Baby it's hot outside. So why all the clothing?

As our plane touched down in Chicago’s Midway airport, the national weather service was issuing a heat advisory for the area, expected from Sunday afternoon through Tuesday evening, and possibly longer. Friends from the Windy City who knew my boyfriend and I would be visiting for the seventh quadrennial Gay Games warned us of searing temperatures, which reached around 100 the first day or two of our visit. Having grown up in the mountain West, I was no stranger to high temperatures. But as the saying goes, it’s not the heat--it’s the humidity.

I had never understood that expression before. The first time a high-school friend of mine visited Hawaii he described the experience as stepping off the plane and immediately being hit in the face by a wet wash rag. My own Hawaiian experience (which, granted, was at another time of year) was different. I found the warmth comforting, like the presence of a big, tropical blanket. I acclimated and felt no particular aversion to humidity in general throughout my two-month stay in Hawaii or my several month stay deeper in the South Pacific, in Western Samoa.

Now the tables were turned. The concentrated water vapor in the Chicago air (or, more specifically, Evanston, where we stayed for my partner’s sporting event) was stifling, oppressive. Breathing felt labored and difficult. I was instantly grumpy.

Weather, of course, affects different people in different ways. In fact, I’m starting to think regional reactions to weather may be one of the few ways in which America has not become completely homogenized. Take Seattle, for instance. At the first glimmers of spring sunlight in February, many Seattleites doff their long pants and sleeves and throw on a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt. This despite average temperatures for that month that range from 37 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. “Seattleites are crazy,” was one friend’s explanation.

But no crazier than the behavior I observed in Chicago. During the warmest days, my boyfriend and I peeled off our shirts and walked around the city bare chested. But after several hours, it became apparent to us that this was not a normal Chicago reaction. Most men kept their shirts firmly in place despite the heat. Downtown a few business men strolled through the streets in suits, complete with coat and tie. Sure, this was part of their required work attire. But it was after 6:00 p.m. and these suits didn’t even bother to remove the jacket, unbutton a few shirt buttons, or loosen the necktie.

I had expected to find a little less of this extreme (and, to my mind, irrational) modesty when we visited the gay neighborhood, Boystown. But it was the same story. Of the many hundreds of men walking the street, only one or two besides ourselves were stripped to the waist. This behavior could not be explained as a concern for skin cancer or sunburn, for the sun had dipped behind the skyline during our Boystown stroll. It didn’t make any sense to us, but at least we stood out and got some desirable attention with our extra display of flesh.

Thankfully, some dramatic thunderstorms rolled through the area after a few days, bringing temperatures down to something more tolerable. But the heat wave had lasted long enough to teach us something about the extent of Midwestern modesty, and, perhaps body shame.

A classic, if not particularly funny, joke observes that everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. Turns out the joke is about Chicago.

Giving Up the Ghost

“There it is again!” Buck exclaimed in the dark as we lay in bed one night.

“What!?” I asked, confused.

“That sound! Don’t you hear it?”

“It’s just the rain,” I shrugged. “This is Seattle. It happens a lot here. A lot.”

Then, as if to contradict me, the sound stopped — suddenly. More suddenly than any cloudburst could. And certainly more suddenly than any Seattle shower ever would. A quick check out the window confirmed that the sidewalk surrounding the house was dry.

“See!?” Buck retorted. “It is not the rain!”

We had replayed the scene of this debate a few times in recent days, but this time it was obvious something was up. The mysterious watery sound could not be attributed to nature. I had lived in the house for so long I should have known every sound from within and without. It defied explanation. If it was coming from outside, what was the source? It couldn’t be the neighbor’s laundry or shower (not long enough), sink (too regular in its length) or toilet (too infrequent). And anyway, at my age I should know what running water sounded like, especially the sound of a toilet. This was different, baffling. Could it be a haunting? Some sort of water spirit that would not rest?

Maybe. It was not the first relationship of mine to be troubled by ghosts. Ever since leaving Damon, my partner of well over a decade, I was haunted by the past. Regretful of mistakes (both his and mine), I was never entirely able to get beyond the grief and find the closure that all those self-help books talk about. The closer I came to sharing real intimacy with another man, the more I’d have a sense that I was just imitating the real thing that I had once shared with my lost love. It felt like mockery or betrayal. I couldn’t ever be completely in the most intimate of moments without his ghost reaching out and grabbing me by the heart.

I thought about the water sound that seemed to come out of nowhere when Buck and I were in the bedroom. That was when I remembered: Damon was born under the sign of Aquarius, the water bearer. Coincidence?

I had already tried the traditional approach for laying a dead relationship to rest, namely psychotherapy. But dozens of hours (and hundreds of dollars) later, Damon’s ghost was still hanging around. If past relationships can haunt us like ghosts, maybe an old-fashioned ghost cleansing was the answer.

Name calling: My research turned up a number of techniques designed to help with “entity contamination.” For example, some sources say that you can invoke a ghost by calling it by name. To avoid that, I have attempted to eradicate from my speech all pet names once used for my former lover. It’s something like a practice carried on in ancient Polynesia in which the name of a chieftain could never be spoken after he died. This meant not only refraining from giving the name to newborn children but from even using the name as an ordinary word. So for example if a leader named “Chief Water” passed on, an entirely new word for H₂O had to be invented.

Fortunately the task before me isn’t so enormous. And in fact, it seems to have helped. Developing unique verbal intimacies with a boyfriend makes that communication special only to our relationship and doesn’t bring to mind any past pillow talk. I just hope I don’t have many more boyfriends as there are only so many variations of “honey bunch” and “cutie pie” in the English language.

Crystal queer: A couple of mediums quoted online advocate bringing crystals into your home to cleanse it of unwanted spirits. Amethyst seems to be a popular stone in this regard, but the sources also mention rose quartz, blue lace agate, obsidian, black tourmaline, and smoky quartz. But in my case, none of these would do. No, what I needed were coffee crystals. That’s right, the freeze-dried kind. Damon was a connoisseur of coffee and would bristle at the suggestion that we keep instant coffee in the house. What better way to ward off his ghost from the home, or at least the kitchen? I immediately added Taster’s Choice^® to my shopping list.

Blind sage: Another popular method of casting out unwanted spirits is smudging, the practice of igniting a bundle of sage and carrying it from room to room to cleanse the space with the ritual smoke. I have to admit I never gave this one a try. Apart from setting off my smoke alarms, I was pretty sure that burning sage would do little more than invoke the ghosts of Thanksgiving meals past. Admittedly, those family memories might send me running out of the house screaming. But I was hoping for something that would work on the ghost of my ex instead.

Confront and center: One of the most common pieces of advice dispensed by ghost busters is to address the ghost directly. Firmly and unemotionally take charge and explain to the ghost that it no longer needs to hang around and indeed is not welcome to do so. Apparently few ghosts are really alpha souls, and many respond well to this kind of leadership. It was tempting to implement this strategy by dialing up my ex and asking him, for starters, to stop living in the same neighborhood as me.

Unfortunately, this advice is intended for exorcising ghosts, not real people. And therein lies my problem. My ex is not dead. He’s a living, breathing reminder of what never was and never would be. The ghost I need to purge is in my own brain. Hell, it isn’t in me. It is me. And no amount of crystals or smoking sage is going to make me forget what I refuse to release.

Sometimes, say the mediums, ghosts linger because we keep them around. They have, or feel they have, unfinished business. And in some cases that unfinished business is our own unwillingness to let them go. But if the last few years have taught me anything, it’s this: Letting go doesn’t happen in one or two acts of exorcism. It’s a gradual process that is carried on day by day over the long haul. And so I keep going, learning a little every day to live in the now and say goodbye to the past.

I’m seeing some progress. Last night as I lay awake I noticed something: Silence. I realized that it had actually been weeks since Buck and I heard the ghostly water sound. Was the spirit exorcised for good?

Probably not. But I'm more confident now that its days are numbered. In the meantime, I hate long goodbyes.

Needing To Know

A sudden impact occurred at my home today — the collision of two different ethics for telephone etiquette.

I was watching a DVD, waiting for my bf Buck to show up for dinner.  When he did appear, cell phone in hand, he parked himself in the same room as me and continued to chat on the phone while I was trying to watch a show already in progress.  Right away I saw a conflict:   I wanted to hear the television, not his phone call; he wants to hear his phone call, not the TV (presumably).  I was tempted to open the door to the room as a not-too-subtle hint that he take his call elsewhere.  Unfortunately, I was aware that his cell phone has very poor reception in most rooms of the house.  So I let him stay where the cell reception was apparently working for him.  Instead, terminally polite guy that I am, I opted for a technological compromise:   I muted the sound on the television, but turned on the subtitle option for the show so we both could continue our activities — me watching my disc and him continuing his conversation.

When he finally hung up, I asked him about it.  Turns out we had been operating from entirely different assumptions.  I have always believed that when you really need to interrupt others to take a call, the very least you can do is take the call in another room (where possible) so as not to extend the interruption any fur­ther into your company’s time or activ­i­ties.  And fur­ther, that you not expose them to prob­ably unneeded, poten­tially un­wanted, and com­pletely irrele­vant infor­ma­tion by making them listen to your half of a conversation with someone else.  Since they cannot (or are not expected to) participate in the conversation, you shouldn’t force them to be an unwilling audience.

Buck, however, was taught that to take a call away from present company is to slight them — to make them feel excluded or (worse) that they might be the object of your conversation.  In his family, one continues talking on the phone in the presence of others so everyone knows you are not gossiping about them behind their backs.  Personally, I still find this point of view bizarre:   If I choose to gossip about you, just staying in the room for one conversation is hardly going to spare you that ignominy.  All it does is force you to listen to unwanted noise.  But Buck would rather listen to my conversation (even if he only gets half of it), just so he can keep tabs on me.

In my ethical world, I am protecting Buck’s peace of mind whereas he is simply a busybody.  In his world, I am making him feel excluded whereas he is showing interest in my life and conversations.

(I still think I’m right.  Indeed, Info World columnist Dan Brody has listed something similar as number 1 on his Ten Commandments of Cell Phone Etiquette.  See also “Don’t” number 2 on Microsoft’s 10 rules of cell phone etiquette.)

But the suggestion that Buck and I should play audience for all of each other's phone conversations got me thinking:  In a relationship, how much privacy is allowed? And how much information is too much?

Some people assume that relationships mean sharing every little thought, feeling, and experience with one’s partner.  In reality, of course, few life stories go complete unedited.  And those who do insist on reporting each and every detail frequently leave us wishing for the Reader’s Digest version.

So where do you draw the line? The advice-dispensers over at AskMen.com suggest, reasonably, that there is no need to share information that has no bearing on the relationship.  True enough.  The problem comes when my idea of “need to know” conflicts with my partner’s.

And I guess that’s the point.  If there is one topic that should not be kept secret in a relationship, it’s the subject of secrets themselves.  In my view, each partner needs to explain the kind of information he feels is important to share (or have shared with him) as well as the kind of information that he feels falls in the realm of personal privacy.  For me, hypothetical examples are a good way of probing these areas (“If someone gropes me in the locker room, do you want to know about it?”).  And it’s safe to say that it’s easier to deal with hypothetical situations early on when they are truly hypothetical — and not a smokescreen for something that has actually happened.

This kind of meta-talk won’t cover every situation of course.  There may be times when I need to probe more or ask my partner to probe or volunteer less.  This, in fact, happened near the beginning of our relationship, when my new bf was using his cell to send me regular text messages about daily activities.  “I’m pooping,” beeped one message on my phone.  I’m not as skilled at text message as he, but in this case my reply was a simple three letters:

TMI.

Just my thoughts.

Which you didn’t ask for.

Anyway…

Deja Woo

Suppose you could pick one of your relationships and do it all over again — all of it. Would you?

When I was 33 (or thereabouts) I met a man. We dated and fell in love. Eventually we moved in together. We lived, or tried to, the American dream: We pursued careers that both interested and supported us. We spent weekends enjoying brunches, shopping, theatre, concerts. We figured out, or tried to, what it took to build a home, share responsibilities, and plan for the future while enjoying the present.

But of course life is never that simple. Things didn’t work out, and after ten years of living together we split up.

Flash forward three years. I am seeing another man, age 33 (or thereabouts). In many ways he is at the same stage of life that I was then. He has been staying at my home and many ways fitting into the role filled by my former companion (but, fortunately, with better communication).

Last weekend we went clothes shopping. It was a pretty routine shopping trip, I suppose. But when we got home and unpacked the spoils of our consumerism, I had a moment of deja vu. Buck, my beau, had bought his first pair of black motorcycle boots. (Yeah, yeah — how very gay. So sue me.) They were exactly like the ones my ex-partner and I had picked out for him a decade ago. And chances are these new ones would occupy the same place in the same closet.

That's when it hit me: I was starting the same life all over again. A similar companion, in the same home, sharing the same feelings, and doing the same things. Hell, we had even bought the same items!

But the problem is this. Although my new lover is 33, I have continued to age (51 and counting). So much of his life is still in the formative stages: His career; his understanding of mortgages, investments, home ownership, long-term commitments; his ability to balance work and love and art and social activities — all these things are part of an exciting life journey that for him is still on its first leg. To me, they are old news as I struggle with my own issues of retirement planning and relating to the world as a late middle ager.

A lot has been written about May-December relationships. Many therapists and authors say that differently aged partners have as good a chance as any couple of succeeding in the relationship game.

But what if I don't want to relive my thirties and forties — not even vicariously? This is the part of May-December romances you seldom hear about. The older partner is forced by circumstances either to play the role of the mentor or at the very least spectator to a life he or she has already lived. It's a state of permanent deja vu.

Mentoring is all well and fine for some people, especially parents, teachers, uncles, and even (some) lovers. But I'm not looking for a pupil. I don't want to be Ben Kenobi to his Luke Skywalker. Instead I was hoping to find a companion of the heart and the road, someone who was on the same path as me that we could explore and discover together. I don't want to be scouting out new territory alone, all the while looking over my shoulder as my mate follows behind at a distance of many years.

I'm sure that embedded in this viewpoint is a great deal of oversimplification, presumption, and arrogance. How do I know that his life will look anything like mine? Or that he can't help me sort out my own life as we move forward together? Clearly I don't have all the answers.

But I still have my concerns.

Which you didn't ask for.

Anyway...

Whither Nakedness?

We are here to be men and to be naked and to DANCE!” exclaimed “Nexus,” host of last night's Romp Naked, introducing an overture of tribal drumming and initiating the rhythmic pulsings of 70 odd naked men ranging in ages from their twenties to fifties. This was probably my fifth visit to these semi-annual dances, held in the art studios of Jeff Hengst underneath the Eastlake stretch of Interstate 5 in Seattle.

At previous events, I careened flirtatiously through the naked bodies, schmoozing and carousing the night away. But this time was different. Last night I came to the dance with a date, what organizers would call a Romp Virgin. Like most adults, Buck was no stranger to naked fun, but a nudist dance, one prohibiting clothing as thoroughly as it prohibited sex, was new for him.

But men will be men. At one point during the dance I couldn't help admire a certain playfulness going on in one corner of the dance floor. Two dancers were getting a rise out of a third gentleman, and my own body began to respond in kind, my strategic dance movements encouraging the onset of tumescence.

“You shouldn't be getting hard here,” Buck chided me. “People already have a lot of body shame. How are they supposed to feel good about themselves when you make yourself so much bigger than they?”

It wasn't our first conversation on the subject. In the run-up to the dance we had discussed the propriety of taking ED drugs like Viagra, Levitra, or Cialis to help encourage any physical reactions at the dance in the hopes of looking a little more, well, manly.

It got me thinking. Was Buck right? Was I celebrating the body or only satisfying a visceral itch? The more I thought about it, the more questions I discovered:

• Faerie host Nexus had alluded to letting go of body shame in his opening speech. But does a setting where everyone is naked actually encourage body acceptance? Or does it do the opposite by creating a setting where everyone can compare the parts they’re most insecure about?

• Is nudism trying to teach us to be less concerned about our personal appearances by shedding the clothes in which we invest so much time, energy, and money? If so, are drugs like Viagra an inappropriate way to “dress up”? Where does this lesson stop? Should I stop shaving or combing my hair?

• Why do so many American nudist organizations want to strip nudity of any erotic overtones (so to speak)? Why is nudity okay and sex bad?

• Does ignoring the erotic aspects of the nude body encourage acceptance of a clothes-free lifestyle? Or does it just take naked people out of one closet (literally the clothes closet) and put them into another (a metaphorical sex closet)?

• Not all nakedness is erotic and not all eroticism is about nakedness. (Indeed it’s generally accepted that a little covering is far more titillating.) But where do you draw the line between nudism and eroticism? Can such a line be drawn?

• The law certainly makes distinctions between nude and lewd. But what about between erotic and lewd? Is the distinction the same as that between thought and action?

Romp Naked does not address these questions. If anything, it revels in ambiguity. As the Web site states, the event “is not a sex party and definitely a sexy party.”

And perhaps that’s the point. Just as Romp proclaims itself “an event that ebbs and flows,” maybe the swirling interactions among body acceptance, shedding clothes, erotic perceptions, and sexual expressions are a series of moving targets as complex and idiosyncratic as the individuals who experience them.

And what better metaphor for that interplay than a dance?

Stopping by Martin's on a Sunny Afternoon

It’s a beautiful sunny, if cold, day in Seattle. I was on the way to the bank but wanted to make reservations at a neighborhood restaurant for Valentine’s Day.

And so it was that I stopped by the sad little Martin’s Off Madison. Martin’s, for those not up on Capitol Hill’s ever-changing food and beverage industry, is the latest incarnation of a building that has housed a series of gay bars, changing ownership several times in the last decade. The newest approach is to convert the bulk of it into a modestly upscale restaurant whose muted decor is so cutting edge that it was out of date by the time the remodel was completed. Three-quarters of the area that once housed a fireplace and pool tables is now a dining room whose centerpiece is a gas-jet flame rising up in a glass tube resembling a warp core reactor from a low-budget Federation starship. Midway up along the large east wall is a small moat hidden by plants but whose submerged spotlights cast a watery effect on the wall above. These touches of extravagance are rescued from excess by the open, airy size of the room and the simplicity of the remaining furnishings. All the elements are there: air, fire, water, and on a good day, the earthy clientele.

The remaining portion of the original bar is a bar still, small and separated from the dining room by a windowed wall, its exposed ceiling fixtures and dim lighting telling a story of renovation interruptus.

Which brings me to sad part.

Sad because when I dropped by, the entire restaurant was entirely empty except for the tiny bar, inexplicably chock full of men. Of course, it was 2:30 in the afternoon and you wouldn’t expect anyone to be in a restaurant at that time of day. (Personally, I think the owners might be able to extend those afternoon hours if they made it more of a coffee house atmosphere, offering pastries and free wi-fi between the normal meal times.) Was the dining room closed? Maybe. After all, some restaurants close the dining room between meals. But there were no signs to that effect and you have to pass through the dining room to get to the bar, so I doubt it.

I had to enter the bar area to speak to the bartender (the only help visible). I didn’t really look at the customers — hell the place is so small that even a glance could be misconstrued as cruising — but my peripheral vision detected manly men with facial hair. Maybe construction work is going on in the neighborhood? If so, isn’t it a little early to knock off? Or maybe it was a hardcore alky bunch like you’d expect to see in a bar at that time of day.

I dunno. I don’t want to judge. It was just the juxtaposition that was so strange: A big, welcoming room with tables, chairs, and a fire and lots of windows letting in February sunlight that is so rare in Seattle. But where were the customers? Huddled in the dark corner, walled off with a glass partition as if they weren’t good enough for the main dining room. Are bar stools really that comfortable? It was the exact opposite of behavior you see on a bus or in a movie theatre, in which people spread out, find their own unoccupied place to squat until space limitations force them to huddle closer together in the less desirable sections.

I can’t help seeing the whole thing as a metaphor. For so many things, really: The way the gay community has historically holed up in the darkest, cheapest part of a town instead of spreading out into the larger community, taking advantage of all the neighborhoods. Or the way many of us — for example unemployed people like me — stick to our own limited professions because they are familiar rather than risking moving out into the big empty world we’re not used to. Or the way cockroaches ... — just kidding. Not gonna go there.

Just my impressions.

Which you didn’t ask for.

Anyway...