Relationships

I’m writing about Isabella, one of two women who taught me the most about my sexuality. She showed me my cock could be an object of desire, while the Secretary taught me my desire itself could be desired. I miss them both — not just for sex, but for the intimacy we shared.

I’m reflecting on how shame has shaped my life and my blog since 2010 — from the radical openness I once had in writing about my most uncomfortable impulses, to the self-judgment and contempt that have crept back in now that I’m less anonymous and less self-accepting.

I biked home from my 40th high school reunion feeling the same alienation I felt in high school — most of my actual friends weren’t there, and the crowd felt like a different world. I had a few genuinely connected conversations and skipped the after-party, choosing to bike in the night air, and my wife, and scotch, instead.

I’m depressed. Not TERRIBLY depressed. But depressed.

Meeting women has changed dramatically over the last 15 years — from mass-swiping Tinder to the blog attracting partners organically — and now all avenues have dried up.

I’m marking the 15th anniversary of my blog, a few months late. What began as exhibitionistic and therapeutic has become a memoir of my inner life through my fifties.

Fourteen years since climbing out of the wreckage, and I’ve never felt more alive—despite the limp, the pain, the aging. Death is a constant companion, sure, but so is desire, vitality, absurd good fortune, and the bittersweet weight of knowing I’m right at the peak.

TOO MUCH AUDIO! [And, relationship dynamics. And, thighs.]

Two principles I try to remember: it’s almost always more useful to ask what *we* did than what *you* did, and more useful to think about what *I* can change than what *you* should.