An Unconventional Sexuality

I was actually inspired to write this memoir after reading someone else's memoir. I have long believed I've had at least one memoir in me, probably more. I had ideas for three as I was starting out, but I decided to start on one about (my) sexuality because I figured as charged a subject as that was, the words would just come tumbling out more easily.

The issue, though, is ... it's a book about sexuality, or my sexual (mis)adventures, such as they were. It's the kind of story I wanted to tell if, for no other reason, for someone out there, struggling and thinking they're alone, to know - should they be lucky enough to find this volume - that they indeed are not alone, and that there's a good chance there's thousands of them (I reside in the United States) at least. The World Wide Web has made it much easier for any niche community to find its members.

However, putting one's own name on a sensitive work would require me to be any of: (1) foolhardy, (2) rash, or (3) sufficiently wealthy to survive any massive public, negative reaction. I can assure you, reader, that I am none of those three. So this work uses a "nom de sneaky" (as I cleverly heard it called once), as well as pseudonyms for various other individuals in this book. Besides, the real names won't matter to the vast majority of readers - but the stories, which are real, most certainly will.

This book almost didn't get written, for a variety of reasons. It contains sensitive material which I have conscientiously scrubbed free of identifying details about particular individuals and places, and I almost considered not proceeding with the project on that premise alone. But another thought was, who is going to read this? Who is my intended audience, and will they see it? And appreciate it?

So let me start with a brief description of who this work is primarily for, and who it is not for. This work is for anyone with an unusual sexual fetish. I am not referring to any of the sorts that could land someone in legal hot water, nor any that are morally reprehensible. While some folks consider anything of a sexual fetish nature to be criminal, theirs is a very narrow viewpoint that victimizes and hurts thousands if not millions of individuals every year all over the planet. We just happen to have more expressive freedoms here in the States so more such individuals are visible (and vocal).

More specifically, this is particularly for other gay men (like me) with a navel fetish (aka the bellybutton in more common speech).Why "gay" men? Consider: it's not a big deal in the States (and many Western nations) for a straight male to enjoy ogling female bellybuttons - pop stars, fashion and bikinis keep female bellybuttons in the eyes of males continuously and have done so for decades in modern times.

I state this up front for a very important reason: throughout this volume, I will be using the most common terms used to describe bellybuttons - "innies" (those that are concave and dip below the surface of a stomach) and "outies" (those that are like little fleshy knobs that often poke above the surface of a stomach).

It's my impression that the vast majority of people are somewhere in the middle regarding navels - they don't have any particularly strong feelings about them either way, because to them, they're a body part that's generally considered useless. But some people consider them to be patently dirty, gross, or other terms of disgust (especially outies for some reason) and may think anyone who finds any kind of appeal in them to be mentally deficient. I could pontificate about sexual response in general, and how there's many kinds of titillations out there, but that's probably been covered in other books by scientists in the psych field, and this isn't that kind of work.

More bluntly put, if bellybuttons gross you out, you can just stop reading now, because this book mentions many of them, and there are passages that are sexually explicit.

Guys salivating over those are in very good company (even if they never act on such interests) and have no reason to feel odd unless they grew up in a very strict religious household that vilified everything about the human body in any form in general. (I pity anyone who had such an upbringing, as undoing that programming is a mighty personal challenge.)

This work is also for those who are fascinated with the human condition, particularly when it comes to sex and sexuality. Sexuality as a discussion topic need not be limited to debates about legalities, cultures, and the like - it can be an interesting topic of discussion provided one is not overly sensitive, pious, or hypocritical.

So that leads to who this work is not for. It is not "ammunition" to be used for religious extremists of any kind, to lament about how far gone mankind is (believe me, we've heard such tired proclamations for decades and it's often little other than red meat for political campaigns). It is not intended to serve as "evidence" for the vilification of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, or any other sexual "minority." If any such person picked this book up for those purposes, rest assured - YOUR PRESENCE IS NOT WELCOME HERE. You have done enough damage to mankind on your own with your self-serving judgments and hypocrisies.

Why a memoir about sexuality? Well, think about it - it's the only thing as powerful as it is that we can experience with our bodies. When we leave our bodies at death, that is it for good. Never again will we experience orgasm or ejaculation.

My walk through sexuality - which spans several decades - has been a strange, unconventional walk (hence the title). I have struggled over the entirety of my life, trying to identify some grand theme, some lofty ideal for having experienced what I've uniquely experienced. After all this time, as of the publication of this text, I still have no clue, which frustrates me considerably. If someone is going to endure something that flies in the face of modern culture, one would like to believe it's going to have some usefulness for...somebody.

Perhaps that somebody will be you, reader. I can only hope you, anyone, can make some kind of sense out of the zillions of jigsaw puzzle pieces in my psyche. Maybe you'll even be reading this after my demise, so my story and present will all be past-tense. Whatever the case, I solemnly believe there's something in these pages for someone out there who's confused, conflicted, isolated...or maybe merely curious.

Finally, the recollections I present here are from my 18th birthday onward to the present at the time of publication, although my awareness started prior.

Names have been changed for privacy reasons.

1

At the time I wrote this, the approximate population of the USA was around 330 million individuals. Were it possible to query each and every adult in this nation, the stories of a sexual identity might have some patterns, but they would still, I think, be unique.

I know mine is. And it just seems like something "out there" writes our psychic blueprint for what it will be that ultimately "turns us on." Who we are sexually is not unlike the party game "Who Am I?" In this game, guests usually have a sheet of paper with the name of a famous person on their backs, and walk around asking others, doing the same thing, questions about one's own identity. We learn who we are from seeking answers, not just from others, but also from ourselves.

We don't create our sexualities so much as discover them. The stakes get pretty high over the course of a lifetime.

2

The late 1970's would be a time of change for many things - politics, music, and fashion. And one thing that would begin to emerge as a male fashion trend was what used to be known as the half-shirt - now more popularly known as a "crop-top".

The term "crop-top" means a "cropped" - or cut - "top", a half portion of a (usually) short-sleeve shirt of some kind. It might be an ordinary T-shirt, a sports practice jersey, or a shirt with some graphic design on the front of it (a logo, a trademark, etc.). Such a shirt was cut horizontally so that the lower portion of it intentionally revealed the abdomen area, including (if done right) the navel.

It is a mistake to think that such a garment is patently feminine in origin and that, interestingly, is where some of its controversy emanates from. Some research I conducted at some point revealed that the first guy to wear one was a football player at the University of Alabama back in the 1960's. I would hardly call Alabama a proving ground for gender-bending of any kind.

Whether it was masculine or feminine didn't matter to me. What mattered was that as more guys were starting to wear these new garments, their bellybuttons were beginning to be more visible in ways not seen before. And I would notice them, every chance I got.

I attended a state university, and lived on campus all four years. Never got an off-campus apartment. I wasn't that psychologically independent, and living in the dorms made so many things so easy.

My first dorm, though, was a bit unusual, at least for me. Growing up at home, I had a private bathroom with a door I could close for privacy. In the guys' dorm where I stayed my first three semesters, the showers were communal - meaning no stalls, no privacy, everything out in the open.

I recall one guy very well who was from a small town and was a bit of a rebel - as a freshman he, like many of the guys whose first time it was living on his own, decided to be wild and cut loose. His name was Randy, he was about 6-1, with cinnamon brown hair, typically masculine features in the face (thin brows, strong chin), but a slight bit of an effeminate streak in him. His navel was a large, oval outie-sticking one. I watched him from a distance but never tried to talk to him. His crazy nature didn't draw me in.

Then was another guy, Stan. He was a budding commercial artist, was pretty skinny, and had straight bangs of silver blond hair. With deep blue eyes and full lips, he was a handsome guy. I noticed what fetishists call a "ball and socket" bellybutton - a perfectly round outie (the size of a quarter coin or larger) in the middle of a circular "hole", all on a flat, hairless stomach.

And my first R.A.? He was a fairly short but beefy guy. He had nice, long blond hair and a face like a California surfer - could do no wrong, confident. I want to say his major was business. Several times I'd see him in the hallway and ogle his large, round outie.

That first residence hall experience had me jacking off in the stalls every chance I got.

I recall, during junior year, taking one particular course, partially because it would help boost my already decent GPA. It was a course in human sexuality (hooray for liberal-arts degree programs). Part of what was of interest to me - and the other students - was that the course was taught in the dorm. (No, not in the rooms.)

The class was taught by a rather petite Italian-American grad student named Diana. She had crinkly black hair, and a sort of a high, scraggly sounding voice - just the kind of voice you'd expect to hear talking about sex organs and human desire.

The first unit in the class was about simply getting comfortable with the idea of talking about body parts and the human body in general. So our class was split in three equal groups of maybe four or five each, and we were given a big sheet of rolling white paper and some markers. Our task: draw a human body.

And so we did. I had the strongest drawing chops in our group, so our guy was anatomically accurate which the instructor might have complimented.

Another unit, however, that wasn't as comfortable for me, was when it was announced that the gay student association would be visiting the class to answer questions. I strongly wanted to go, but it was that same thing again about thinking my mother would find out (sadly, I was 20 by this point), so I skipped out on that particular class, something I rarely did for any of my classes, especially at a rate of $50 per credit hour. Looking back now, I wish I'd gone, but not feeling emotionally independent of my folks yet, it was the only choice I felt I could make.

And stuff like that pretty much defined my four years at the university. I didn't do any sexual experimentation - a shame because if ever there was (at least in theory) a good time to learn more about yourself and your body, it would be college. All I ever did the majority of my time there was to ogle shirtless or naked guys - with bared navels - and shoot copious amounts of semen in any private place I could manage, mostly in the dorms, but maybe once or twice in a restroom in one of the low-traffic university buildings.

When I got my degree, I knew plenty about my major, but precious little about myself.

3

I had never lived anywhere outside my home state for most of my life. So, at 21, when I got the opportunity to do an internship at a tech company in another part of the country, it was an auspicious occasion. Traveling over 1,000 miles away was a switch.

I would share a short-term lease apartment for the summer with another intern from the East Coast. But the thing I remember most about that summer was when I snuck over to the convenience mart next to our apartment complex and bought a "dirty magazine" for the first time in my life. I had seen skin mags before, but had never opened one.

I think I bought one title which had a photo of a naked man from the rear - his buttocks and sturdy form facing the camera, his crotch facing away, inviting the viewer to imagine what was there. It's not that I couldn't imagine what was there - recall that by this point, I had been through four years of showering with other guys in the dorms - I had seen guys completely naked before. But not...like this.

I don't recall getting very sexual in private sharing the summer apartment. We had one bathroom in our 2-1. But I do recall one afternoon when my roommate wasn't around, pulling out the magazine I'd bought, and doing myself. The roommate and I never talked about sex - we didn't have that kind of rapport. Both of us were in the internship to earn some money and get a leg up on an offer of full-time employment.

I completed my senior year of college with an offer in my back pocket, conducted interviews (and got to travel some in the process), and would ship off sometime in July later that year, to the same place I'd done my internship. Only now I would be a full-timer.

And this time, I had my own apartment, all to myself.

My first apartment was at a relatively new complex in the suburbs - it was probably less than a decade old so everything was in good condition and even had a bit of "new" smell.

The complex was one of those large properties with 30 or more two-story buildings. Mine was probably about 600 square feet with a vaulted ceiling in the front room. White stucco walls and deep green pile carpet lay everywhere except the kitchen - even in the bathroom had pile carpeting, which I thought unusual.

The property had "luxury" in the name, but that was for marketing purposes. There were no luxuries at the apartment other than a swimming pool. No weight room, no built-in microwave, no built-in washer-dryers, none of that. Not even covered or reserved parking. But it was my first place, so I was happy to have what I had, and the price was reasonable for the time.

And, since the place was completely mine, I could jerk off anytime, as much as I wanted. I still had some hang-ups about sexuality in general, though, so I didn't do as much of it as I could. But a little curiosity would fix that.

VHS video tape was the main format for watching movies and pre-recorded TV series at home, long before digital distribution was a thing. And there was a corporate chain perhaps a mile or two from my apartment complex - nice, clean, brightly lit. What made this location useful for me was that they had something I didn't have at home - a video player. Having graduated from college fairly recently, and starting to pay back student loans as well as a new car I'd purchased, I was careful with my money. The thought of buying what was then known as a VCR (video cassette recorder) was not in my plans.

I wasn't even entirely sure I'd want one, so the safe thing for me to do would be to rent one along with some videos and try them out. So I visited this store where this rather tall, plump and fairly cheery middle-aged woman assisted me.

There was a section that I couldn't resist perusing while I was there - "adult". One had to be of a certain age to watch smut and I qualified, but I felt a bit of guilt as I brought my two selections to the counter along with the video machine. I'm not sure what I thought would happen, but it was probably some vague negative fantasy about being shamed or given a dirty look.

Neither of those happened. The woman matter-of-factly checked out my rental purchase, and took my payment and that was that. I left the store with video smut that I'd bought on my own, for the first time in my life. And I didn't even have to get a fake ID or have someone buy it for me.

The movie featured straight actors only - I didn't dare look for anything gay. That would be too scandalous for me, even though I had such longings and curiosity. But it was my first time looking at a guy's penis on video and, frankly, a naked woman's body as well. The closest I had come to seeing naked bodies on video was when a local TV channel had a scrambled pay service that showed explicit videos late at night. Like many other curious young men, I spent my time trying to see body parts through a blizzard of wavy lines, bars and discolorations.

I think I probably rented maybe five or six times from that store before figuring out that if I was going to be doing that on a regular basis, I could save some money by making the investment in a VCR of my own. So I went to the local mall in my area and found a regional electronics store that was selling them.

I did not get a top-of-the-line model - it was barely cable-ready but I wasn't a cable subscriber anyway. I just needed something I could watch videos on, as well as occasionally record some TV programs. I've always enjoyed personal electronics anyway, so it was a kick owning one of these for myself.

Some time after that purchase, I noticed another video store, which was closer to me. Much closer. My apartment complex sat behind an open-air strip center which had a major supermarket, several other stores and, most notably, an independent video rental store. Like many such stores of the time, it was small, decidedly bland looking, and had a conspicuous set of swinging doors that led to...the adult room.

The first time I ventured in to this place, I felt a bit anxious, once again. I didn't want anyone else to see me, even though none of my co-workers lived at my complex. I was a pretty jumpy kind of guy, always have been, partly because of how I was raised.

I looked at the titles on the shelves. There were more of them than at the other video rental place. I don't recall seeing any all-male titles - once again, all the titles were of heterosexual couples. But I rented several titles and took them home to watch anyway.

In addition to seeing guys naked, I also saw a sex practice I had not seen before, or even thought about or imagined. The inelegant mouthful to describe it is "intermammary intercourse." The street name for it was "titty-fucking" or giving a "tit job". The simplest way to describe it is, a guy inserts his shaft between a woman's breasts, in her cleavage ideally, and she masturbates him with her breasts until he ejaculates. One video I saw had two couples doing this with quick-cut camera shots going back and forth between them with the climaxes happening one after another. It was one of my favorite rentals, and I began to seek out other such videos with this particular act. I don't even think my navel fetish came into play so much here because there was so much other new stuff I was getting exposed to.