On My Sexual Development

Because thinking people are very complex, the exploration and development of each such person's sexuality is a very unique journey.  We are on our own in many ways as we make this journey.  This can be very disturbing to many people, so it is not uncommon for them to simply fall back on the broad generalizations of sexual knowledge and the rules of their society.  Few are eager to develop their own understanding of sexuality and its role in human happiness by using their independent minds.  Many are not eager to formulate their own moral principles, especially those pertaining to sex and sexuality.  Rather, they accept the moral rules of the dominant local religion or the more practical, but rough, rules of the game as practiced by others of their locale and age.  In this game, many women try to play by one set of rules, while many men are trying to play by another set of rules altogether.  By and large, men often try to exercise their raging hormones and women try to take advantage of the men's raging hormones to gain control over the men for the security of monogamy.  Of course, some men and some women play by rules more of their own making, as I and my wife have.

My own sexual development has been a long time in evolving.  As a boy and teenager, I was pretty much asexual.  I came very late to sexual activity at age 25, when a considerably more experienced woman, later wonderfully to become my wife, introduced me to the incredible pleasures of sex and love-making.  I had had no clue what I had been missing and have spent most of my life since trying to make up for lost time.  It was startling that I had missed so much by virtue of a failure of imagination and more importantly by a failure to explore and develop my sexuality.  Being an independent thinker, I have made many exciting discoveries along the way.  As a scientist, I learned the critical importance of experimentation.  It is almost impossible to get things right on an entirely theoretical basis.  Reality is just too complicated.  Reality's complications certainly do not stop short of the human mind and body.

I had given some thought while serving in the late part of the war in Vietnam to the things in life that I had excluded from my attention in pursuing my studies.  I determined that I would learn more about the arts on my return to the States.  I would also spend more time with women.  As matters turned out, my wife got me started on my great adventure into exploring, developing, and realizing my own very unique sexuality.

My journey of development is not quite like anyone else' and is undoubtedly very different than that of most people.  But, everyone is short-changing their sexual potential if they do not think hard about their sexuality and if they are unwilling to do some real exploration of the many possibilities.  This is not to advocate anything like arbitrary and careless exploration.  No, our sexuality, our health, and our personal relationships are far too important not to proceed in a very thoughtful and rational manner.

David Roberts is a pen name.  This allows me to tell my story without hurting those I love and without causing professional problems.  Those who believe everyone should be out to suit their political purposes or to make life more convenient for them hold no sway over me.  I have responsibilities to fulfill and they are not best filled by subjecting myself and everyone around me to the prejudices of others.  Fortunately, those prejudices are becoming less prevalent, though they are still fairly prevalent among people my age.  The few friends I have talked to about my sexuality have proven just how much most of us differ in our sexuality and how prevalent the common attitudes toward sex and sexuality are, even though these friends are in many ways extraordinary people.  I have long argued openly on internet forums that gay and bisexual sex is no more immoral than is heterosexual sex, that marriage should be available to same-sex as well as heterosexual couples, and that gay and bisexual people should be free to serve in all government offices and in the military.

I am bisexual.  I was not meaningfully bisexual as a child or teenager.  I was only attracted to very nice and  intelligent people with interesting ideas as a teenager.  I was happy and generally self-confident.  I was actually quite comfortable as a teenager, though I was shy with the girls where sexual issues came into play, but because I had little interest in sex then, that was not very important to me.  There were a few girls I left frustrated because I did not have a sexual interest in them.  I was delighted to talk about ideas for hours with my male and female friends.  I also was delighted to play sports with my male friends and the rougher the better.  Whenever a girl was mistreated by a guy, I stood up to protect her, just as I always did for my younger sisters.  I am going to tell the story in more detail now of how I progressed from such a state to being a happily married bisexual man today.

As a young boy, I was interested in the physical and thinking differences between boys and girls, but once I understood something about the physical differences, I lost further interest in most of that.  Girls and women were still interesting as thinkers, but when I was young, not many of the girls I knew were as interesting as thinkers as were my male friends.  In either case, the kids I liked were the most intelligent, the most independent thinkers, creative and interesting, and nice individuals.  Most were boys and a few were girls.  But, my interest in them never seemed to have a sexual component.

As a teenager, I was pretty much asexual.  I did not think much about sex and I never even masturbated.  Life was all about thinking and sports.  I loved to read.  I enjoyed math and science.  I thought history, which I read extensively on my own, was at least as interesting as reading a mystery or science fiction novel, and more useful to me.  I liked learning about economics and business, which were so much about the practical living of life and opened endless possibilities for countless people to prosper and to enjoy a huge richness of choices and values tailored to their individual nature and dreams.

I was the oldest child in a large family and had many responsibilities as such.  I did not mind this, but took pride in helping out and taking care of my younger siblings.  Despite this, I had time for long bike rides, running, baseball, basketball, and football.  I especially enjoyed football and loved playing defense.  I usually had about twice the tackles of anyone else in our pick-up games.  On offense, I was usually a receiver.  Not because I was fast.  I just had great concentration on the ball and if I touched it, it was caught.  I never had any thought about being hit while laying out for a ball.  I was indestructible.  I really was.  I just bounced back from any hit and loved it.  But nothing was as good as a tackle.  Perhaps, though I had no sense at all that this was the case, I just loved the excuse of wrapping up a male friend.  Perhaps there was a deep seated desire there with some sexual component I was not self-sensitive enough to recognize.  Maybe, or maybe not.

This is not to say that I was insensitive.  I always thought it was beneath me to be unkind to people who were not in my usual group of the better students and guys interested in sports.  I tried to be nice and other students generally saw me that way.  I was often surprised to be elected to offices and honors I had not asked for.  It was never hard to treat others decently and I often helped people with concepts they had trouble understanding and was happy to suggest a few things they ought to know five minutes before a test began.  But from my perspective, I was often appalled that so many teenagers were very cliquish and too inclined to say unkind things about other kids.  I had no significant knowledge of gay or bisexual people.  There were a couple of boys who seemed very effeminate and I never had much in common with them so I spent little time with them.  I was nice to them and did not participate in making fun of them, though the ones I knew about were gossipers and too often not very nice to others.

I thought that exercise was very sensual.  Eating was also.  I loved the sensations of taking a shower and of sliding between the sheets at the end of a long day.  I enjoyed sitting in a tree and feeling the sun and breezes and listening to wildlife while reading for hours on a summer day.  I definitely had a sensual enjoyment of life, just one which was not sexual.

I grew up in various small towns around the country.  I graduated from a high school deep in what most Progressives, which most gay and bisexual people seem to think one ought to be, think of as flyover country.  I never liked it when guys made crude sexual jokes about girls.  I could not understand why many of my friends were eager to date girls who put out, but were not particularly bright or very interesting or very good looking.  When I needed a date for some event as a Senior in high school, I asked one of a few nice girls who were relatively intelligent and good looking, but they were always a bit to predictable and not very exciting.  Our conversations lacked zest.  The sex appeal simply was not there.  I was aware of the fact that sex appeal had to have a very significant mental stimulation to get me going.  At least, I hoped that was all that was lacking at that time.  I had at least some sexual attraction to a girl in the 10th grade while living in the East before moving to the Great Plains and there was a Senior girl who was intelligent, nice, and beautiful who was very attractive to me, but I was then a Junior, new to town, and too shy to ask an older girl out.

To this point in my life, I had been rather disappointed that my several male friends were not inclined to talk about meaningful dreams and closely held values and thoughts. I wondered whether this was all there was or if they were simply constant posers or con men trying to play a role.  It seemed they were all uncomfortable with a more intimate sharing of their personal desires.  There were definitely limits on how deep their friendships were capable of being.  I was disappointed that so many intelligent guys were rather superficial emotionally.  There was too much desire to be conventional and accepted. This is still a nearly universal failure of most people.  A deep and intimate friendship with a man is still very hard to establish and it has always been a great disappointment for me.

I went to an Ivy League college and majored in a hard science.  All of my main friends were guys.  Most of the girls at this college were sadly wrongheaded in their efforts to foster big government and deplete the freedom of association that only resides in the private sector.  There was a strong anti-male bias among many of them, though the childish and boorish behavior of many of the men at that highly esteemed college provided them some re-enforcement for such an evaluation.  Despite the fact that they were generally very intelligent, their failure to properly value individual rights showed them to be shallow thinkers and conformists given the trend of that time and place.  Many of the women actually tried to look unattractive.  This was anything but a sexual turn-on for me.  There were very few exceptions and those who were exceptions were not very good looking.  I frankly thought that was more important then than I now think it to be.  I likely missed at least one opportunity with a very nice and intelligent, thinking young lady that I came to regret later.  The experience would have been good for both of us.

I had several good male friends in college and we were all especially interested in learning and lacking in any interest in partying.  Two of my closest friends dated girls periodically, with whom they had sex.  They were also very close to one another and one of their girl friends once accused them of having sex with one another in front of me.  She was a bit crazy and very angry at the time, so I did not take her claims as substantial.  I told her that I had no reason to think they were and that it surely was not right for her to express such an angry opinion in front of me if they were.  It would have been private information she should not have been spouting.  Thinking about it later, neither of my friends ever denied her claim or discussed the matter later.  I realized that I really would not mind if they were.  After all, they were my friends.  I even thought briefly that with such intelligent and good friends, it was kind of nice if they could enjoy sexual pleasures with one another.  I wondered what that might be like, but never dwelled on it.  I did think it might be interesting to discuss male-male sex with them, but never followed up on the thought.  I wonder if I might have become bisexual much earlier if one of them had tried to persuade me to have sex with them.

While pursuing my Ph.D. at a mid-western university, I met a highly spirited, intelligent, and beautiful Junior in the school at the end of my first year of graduate school.  I asked her out, but I was a week from having to report for induction during the tail end of the Vietnam "conflict."  This young lady was a great conversationalist and how I wanted to know her better.  After my return to the university at the end of my time in the Army and Vietnam, I looked her up and dated her for several very exciting months.  While we developed a friendship, she could not get over my lack of belief in God.  I loved her, but I knew she was not the love of my life.  We were not right for one another as long time partners in life.  As bright as she was, she was too much of an emotional roller coaster ride for me.  I was too rational and calm for her.  I was also too honest.  We never had sex, yet she did stir a sexual interest, which had long been dormant.

A few months later, I met an intelligent woman whose values and ideas were more like mine.  I soon came to very much enjoy her company and to feel quite comfortable with her.  She was a beauty with the most outstanding and firm breasts, a very slender waist, and delightful legs.  Her ass was well-rounded and her thighs were strong.  She was well-practiced in a martial art.  She was also a very sexual woman with a good bit of experience.  She was just what I needed to awaken my own sexuality.  But, she had decided before we met that she had had sex with too many young men and needed to be more selective.  So we became friends and talked a lot for about 6 weeks.  Then I just had to make love to her and, fortunately, she was ready.  Making love to her was a revelation.  I was 25 and that first experience with sex awoke an incredible hunger and appetite.  She soon described my love of sex as an insatiable passion.  It was.  Having sex with her was amazing and heavenly.  A year later, I asked her to marry me and she said yes.  I love her to this day and cannot imagine life without her.  I still love making love to her and having sex with her.  This passion lives on. 

In fact, if we do not make love for four days, I start to feel bad.  It is fair to say that I am pretty much addicted to her love.  Her touch on almost any part of my body causes me to become intensely excited and aroused.  Who would have thought that a touch on the arm, the shoulder, a nibble on a nipple, a scratch on my back, a bite on my ass, her leg pressing against mine, her breasts pressed into my chest or back, her ass pressed back against me with my cock between her legs, a kiss on my neck, all create the most heavenly pleasure.  When we make love, it is a shame to come and bring these incredibly sensual pleasures to an end.

We used to go to an x-rated movie theater occasionally and some of the light-hearted sexual romps were definitely arousing and added some new wrinkles to our sex when we finally got home.  I enjoyed seeing the variety of women and found that some of the guys had nice cocks, but that was only of secondary interest.  We were having fun.

I enjoyed seeing beautiful women.  I very rarely remember thinking that a guy was good looking and thinking of that as anything like the equivalent of my interest in a good-looking woman.  That was especially true then and is largely true now.

Among our best friends were a married couple with whom we went hiking once and then we each slept as couples in the same van and made love.  It was exciting hearing the sounds of each of us as we made love.  He and my wife became very attracted to one another.  They began having an affair.  My wife told me about this after they had met a few times for sex.  Since I liked him and my wife was clearly enjoying herself, I was fine with this.  I am not a jealous person.  I have always thought that a low emotion.  We even met once later and he and I made love to my wife together.  That was a lot of fun.  To that time, I had only had sex with my wife, so when we and that couple got together later, I decided to see if his wife was interested in a night of sex with me, while her husband and my wife had sex.  Fortunately, it turned out she was a most enthusiastic lover and I had a great time.  It was really very hard to leave when we had to the next morning.  She gave me a kiss that caused my lips to tingle for a few hours after leaving.  Such passion was wonderful and I greatly regretted having to leave for a family commitment.

The sum of this experience helped to make it clear to me that enjoying sexual pleasures with good friends can be a very wonderful experience and need not interfere with the primary love of one's life.  Indeed, it should be possible and might well be heavenly to enjoy loving multiple people at one time.  The love of one need not preclude the love of another.  Every love is different and more than one may very well be better than just one when intelligent and understanding people are involved.  My wife and I shared these thoughts and even speculated that it would have been great if we had had a similar experience with another couple we knew.

About 5 years after we married, I gave a scientific talk at a meeting in San Francisco.  My wife came with me.  After my talk, we walked through the streets exploring and came across a few movie theaters that were showing all-male movies.  We looked at the posters and then decided it would be an adventure to watch a movie.  After about 20 minutes, we looked at one another and whispered that we were quite turned-on.  I really had not expected to be.  But I really got hard and clearly my wife was excited.  We talked afterward and we were both surprisingly comfortable with this.  My wife seemed to have a bit of a voyeuristic interest and seemed to like the idea that I was aroused by the idea of sex with a man for the first time.  There had been some few occasions on which I had thought briefly about it before, but there had never been any significant arousal.

Now, the idea of sex with a man became the subject of an occasional fantasy in which I wished I had a good friend with whom I could share sexual benefits.  It became clear to me that perhaps this was a key to overcoming some of the shallowness of almost all of my male friendships and besides a good cock was a powerful visual lure.  To couple sex with the pleasures of a friend with a more analytical and rational mind and a harder, male body was a most interesting thought.

Our sharing of fantasies led my wife to occasionally play with my ass.  The pleasure this brought me was quickly apparent with my moans and shudders.  Over and over my wife found new ways to excite me.  In time, she put a finger up my ass and then later a dildoe.  It was all good.  No, it was wonderful.  This prompted an increase of my fantasies about trying sex with a good man and we shared the fantasy.  We joked about my hungry ass and how insatiable it had become under my wife's ministrations.

After many years, when I was about 54, I came to exchange many e-mail notes with a bisexual engineer and we finally met.  He was nice and I went to his apartment and we talked about male sex and sex generally.  Finally, we sucked each others' cock and it was good.  But, this proved to be a one-time event.  Later I met a gay doctor after exchanging a number of notes with him.  He was well-experienced in male-male sex.  We met at an outside park and quickly felt comfortable with one another, but it began pouring rain and we were quickly drenched.  We went to his apartment where we undressed and he gave me a robe to put on.  We sat and talked for 20 or 30 minutes and then I got up and knelt down in front of his chair between his legs and moved his robe aside.  His cock was standing up and I had seen it peeking out of his robe from time to time before when we were talking.  It had become a categorical imperative that I touch his cock and put it in my mouth.  It was beautiful and I really wanted to give him pleasure.  He proved very appreciative.

He reciprocated my effort by sucking my cock and it was clear we each enjoyed both the sucking and the being sucked.  That was a turn-on and really made everything right.  We went to his bed and he kissed me and caressed me.  He played with my balls and then licked them.  Then he began rimming my ass and I was in heaven.  At that point, my ass was his to do with as he pleased and he pleased to fuck it.  He proved really good at it and I really loved it.  Then I fucked his ass and that was great also.  We continued to get together over the course the next several years, but only about once every few months since we did not live very close to one another and we were both very busy.  The company, our conversations, and our sex were always great.  Then we had an interruption of getting together for a few years when he moved and I lost contact.  About three years later he contacted me again and we got together a few times again and each time was great again, but then he moved away again.

I told my wife about him when she finally asked if I had ever acted on my bisexuality to have sex with a man.  This happened after my friend had moved away the first time.  In a way, I was surprised that my wife waited so long to ask me this, but I think she had waited until she thought she could handle my having had sex with a man.  I would have told her the truth at any time had she asked, but I also thought that she would ask when she wanted to know the truth.  She was a bit worried at first, but she soon got over that, as I made it clear that I very much loved her and had no desire to ever be without her.  Our love and our sex life became even better.  For my part, I was very appreciative that I had a love with my wife that was so strong that she wanted me to have the happiness that a sexual relationship with a good man could give me.  How can one not love a woman all the more who so much wants your happiness and is willing to share your love?  When the doctor reappeared, I told my wife about our getting together a few times again and how much I enjoyed it.  Her jokes about my insatiable ass and my joy in sucking a cock were now more real and she really began more regularly to play with my fantasies.  She has been incredibly wonderful in understanding my bisexuality and in just continuing to love me.  I have always loved her, but I can only love her more now.

I could have lived a happy life only having made love to her, but there is no question that I am living a still happier and more fulfilled life when I have a good male friend with sexual benefits.  Of course many will condemn me for not being monogamous, but I believe that is a small-minded idea.  Mind you, I do not claim that monogamy is the wrong choice for everyone, but it is surely not the right choice for everyone.  One would think the tendency of many to become serial monogamists would make that pretty apparent, but the assumption that such people simply suffer a character defect is apparently enough to protect the ideal of monogamy for most people.  The fact that many societies have not practiced monogamy also gives its advocates little pause for thought.  Finally, while most critics are Christians, they are ignorant that the early Christians very commonly did not marry and often were not monogamous.  Going back still earlier, the Bible itself had no problem with polygamy.  The claim that monogamy is moral and all else is wrong is without a rational foundation.  In the end, my concern is to pursue my personal happiness in accordance with my own knowledge and character and to allow my critics to pursue theirs.

I am hoping to find another good man for friendship and mutual benefits.  It would be good if we shared an interest in some of such things as hiking, biking, sailing, racquetball, handball, tennis, reading, libertarianism or a not-too-religious conservatism, history, business, economics, science, engineering, classical music, folk music, and romantic comedies or some adventure movies.  I am interested in many things and learning new things all the time that interest me.  It would be great to have an intimate friend to share all of this with, as well as his unique interests, which might join my many interests as new interests.  It would be good if this man is married or has been married so that we might share the interests and concerns that come with such a commitment.  I would hope there is such a man somewhere in the Baltimore-Washington area, about 55 to 70 years matured.  Please feel free to e-mail me to talk further.  See the side-bar for my e-mail address.