(Mostly about men’s bodies and mansex, flagrantly, in street language, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)
Every year, as a lead-up to Stonewall Day, June 28th, comes a much more specific — male and sex-drenched — observance, a celebration of fellatio by men in public places: June 25th, the feast day of St. George Michael of the Beverley Tearoom:
(#1)
While the topic might strike you as mere gratuitous raunchiness, or this take on it as mere flippant cleverness, and I’ll cop to both the sexual vulgarity and the ostentatious playfulness, I’m also serious about mansex in public places as a set of social practices worthy of both systematic study and a celebratory appreciation of its values for its practitioners.
From my 6/25/17 posting “The feast day of Saint George of the Beverley Tearoom”, about:
the birthday of Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou, known professionally as George Michael, born 6/25/63 — Saint George of the Beverly Tearoom, the patron saint of parks at night. Saint George of the BT (as he has become familiarly known) is also celebrated on his Day of Erection, April 7th, commemorating April 7th, 1998, when he was arrested and publicly shamed for his sexual activities in public places, but then, through his defiant music, rose from the dirt to become a King of the Queers.
Today we sing to Saint George, who went down on his knees for all of us and offered his body to all of us.
Mansex in public, specifically cocksucking. Public mansex is a system of sociosexual customs designed to facilitate brief mutually satisfying semi-anonymous sexual encounters between men. In principle, the participants can engage in any sexual act or fetish practice that’s mutually agreeable to them, but the encounters mostly involve just three practices: jacking a man off, fucking, and especially the central sex act for gay men, “everyday sex” for most of them: cocksucking.
Many of the locales are technically public, but are chosen because they are out of the way and the encounters can be arranged to be out of view of people not engaged in these practices. Others are legally private, but, within their confines, license the open performance of sex acts; in sex clubs for men, gay sex hotels and resorts, back rooms of gay bars, and gay baths, everyone understands that hooking up is the point.
In all of these locales, behavior is regulated, largely by implicit conditions specific to the setting.
Meanwhile, the acts themselves have values for the participants. The topic is vast, but here are a few observations on the psychological payoffs of cocksucking.
You might think that a guy would be delighted to have the services of an expert and enthusiastic cocksucker, and sure, but that’s just a small part of the exchange. Being served might bring with it feelings of power, dominance, and control — and for this nothing beats the standing blowjob, with the cocksucker on his knees worshiping his man’s dick. The classic encounter, from a web collection of illustrations of sex positions (with dicks scrupulously fuzzed out):
(#2) On his knees for sex: the classic scene
In a highly stylized symbol for the act (from the Spreadshirt.com site):
(#3)
Being served this way might also bolster the fellatee’s feelings of desirability (certainly a motive for several of the protagonists in John Rechy’s novels).
More important, a guy getting his cock sucked wants more than great oral technique; he wants a cocksucker who turns him on, someone he finds desirable — so he will reject potential cocksuckers who are, in his estimation, too old, too young, too thin, too fat, insufficiently butch, too pushy, too servile, too smooth, too hairy, too nerdy, too needy, too noisy, the wrong race or ethnicity, the wrong body type, the wrong hair color, dick too small, ass too flat, whatever might turn him off.
It’s a lot to ask that your partner for a brief sexual encounter be your fantasy man, but men will in fact often hold out for some time before bargaining down to what they can actually get in a cocksucker.
On the other side, a guy looking for cock to suck is likely to treat as paramount the symbolic values of taking a cock in his mouth, absorbing another man into himself, sharing his cock (the central anatomical feature of his masculinity), taking his cum (the physical essence of this masculinity). Not that cocksuckers don’t have preferences in the qualities of their sex partners, of course they do, but they’re much less likely to be choosy. It’s the dick, stupid, and anyway it’s an insertor’s market.
But only up to a point. Unless the insertor is actually face-fucking his partner, the cocksucker pretty much runs the event, milking that dick with his mouth, until his trick loses control completely. And then the cocksucker can go immediately on to blow a second guy, and a third, and so on, if he wants. If the first guy and his dick weren’t the stuff of the cocksucker’s fantasy, well, then, here are more choices, each one different.
The cocksucker then gets himself off while doing one of his tricks, or switches roles and (by then greatly aroused) shoots his load in another cocksucker’s mouth. In my experience, guys who think of themselves primarily as cocksuckers are likely to be generous about who they’ll offer their dicks to when they assume the insertor role; among other things, they understand keenly the desires of the other cocksuckers, many of whom have been turned away by choosy sucktops and will be grateful for a dick freely offered.
Much more to be said here. These are just notes.
The bodily position. Earlier postings on this blog have looked at the many social functions different sorts of kneeling positions can serve — a rich topic in which blow jobs are just one use among many. From my 4/27/19 posting “A standout in his shorts”, about the “one-knee kneel”, aka squatting-kneeling or squeeling, as an alternative to the full kneel (as in #2) for sexual purposes:
… giving a standing blow job. An alternative to two-knee kneeling when fellating a standing man. The standing blow job is usually understood as submissive for the cocksucker — it’s configured as a kind of worship — but it also has its utilitarian side, since the act requires no furniture and can easily be performed almost anywhere.
Usually, the cocksucker does a two-knee kneel, but the position is somewhat unsteady (a cocksucker will often steady themselves by holding onto their man’s hipbones [or a thigh, as in #2]) and can be tiring on the cocksucker’s thigh muscles. A squeel can alleviate both problems [a scene of a squeel during automotive fellatio in the great outdoors follows]
On your knees for sucking suck can, of course, be exploited for comic purposes, as in this item from the Huntley Homme company, which offers in-your-face clothing for (young) gay men:
(#4) The On Your Knees tank top, with a bubblegum blowjob on it (plus an armpit display by the model): to be young, gay, and outrageous
Finally, the male body in the full kneel position, totally without context, so that it’s socioculturally ambiguous in a great many ways:
(#5) Julian Voss-Andreae, Kneeling Man (stainless steel, 2015)
The actual George Michael’s “lewd act” at the Beverley Hills public restroom has never, so far as I know, been specified, but I assume he was jacking off for the benefit of the other man at the urinals in the (notorious) tearoom, as an initial move in a sexual encounter intended to play out as blowjob for at least one of them, following a script for such encounters — sideways glances held just a bit longer than expected beween strangers, hands on dicks that aren’t urinating but are then stroked when the glances lock successfully — that’s suppose to ensure that both men understand they are cruising for sex and they’re both into it, after which one of them will get down on his knees to suck off the other, either right there in the open or in a stall. But then the other guy turned out to be an undercover cop.
But when the actual George Michael refused to be shamed by the event and transformed it into defiant music celebrating lewd acts, he himself was transformed, so was eventually canonized as St. George Michael of the Beverley Tearoom, the patron saint of parks at night and of public cocksucking. Who smiles on strangers who offer each other a moment of sexual accommodation in a difficult world.
June 28, 2019 at 9:46 am |
I am Catholic and Queer, I study in Sydney where we go to a mass organized for LGBT. We had the Sacred Heart Mass, with a Homily about the healing power of the Sacred Heart, and no real mention of anything gay, though the mass is an LGBT-led one. We had a prayer for reconciliation of the Church towards LGBT people. I love your radical St George Michael. I would love to see this issue of Queer saints or icons who we think could be saints, discussed at that mass. But right now it is right too much in the politics of respectability. I would love to start a Queer Catholic group where we can discuss these issues.
Hugs
Pan, Namiibian/Bulgarian
June 28, 2019 at 9:53 am |
Reading the full post, I am in awe of your ability to write up this, in the style of an art historian, I guess. My critique is that no mention is made of STIs, which are an issue and second, no mention is made of the racial, class, gender. But wow, I would add the kneeling position and mouth open remind one of the traditional Latin mass, where we open our mouths and take Jesus whole. Ironically, the proponents of this Latin rite are most likely to also decry the activities of gay men as “immoral” or even “diabolical”.