I left the clinic feeling ridiculous and shamefully ignorant. The nurse must have thought I was nuts when she reassured me that sexually inactive people were very unlikely to contract any kind of STI.
Once, I developed an itchy rash and high-tailed it to a Soho sexual health clinic, convinced that I'd somehow picked up HIV-despite never having sex. Only, I did make myself look stupid on occasion. I knew what went where, and what I fantasized about, but without any kind of information from school (I wish so much that I'd learned some of the basics there), TV, friends, or, god forbid, my parents, I was in the dark and too scared to look into it, or ask, for fear of looking stupid.
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But I was completely clueless about it all-I'd had no education about the risks of gay sex, or, more importantly, how to do it and enjoy it safely.
The fear of catching chlamydia, gonorrhoea, or HIV scared the fuck out of me. What does a young man do when he knows he's gay but is starved of any kind of visual reference points-or any conversation-for how he's feeling and what he's thinking about?ĭuring those formative years when the idea of sex with another man suddenly became a tangible reality, I also grew scared shitless of catching an STI. I found myself further disconnecting from the entire idea of intimacy. Yes, that's what hook-up apps are for, but I couldn't help but feel demoralized by such casualness. But it was when I started to receive address coordinates on Grindr for quickie meet-up sessions while "the boyf is out" that it all became a bit too much. Also, my geeky, Asian image tends to only attract much older, white, and generally rough-looking men. The obsession with body image, the cliquey-ness, and the various whispers of substance abuse on the scene became very claustrophobic.
Over time, though, I became jaded by the superficiality of it all. I found my feet in the gay scene and was, for a few years, dazzled. It makes you flee the suburbs for London at a rate of knots. It makes you believe that sexual activity is something restricted to heterosexual marriage. What does that do to a young man who knows he's gay and is starved of any kind of visual reference points-or any conversation-for how he's feeling and what he's thinking about? In my case, it renders an already fragile self-esteem non-existent. If it was a gay kiss, their disgust would be voiced with some volume.
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I remember watching TV growing up and, at the slightest whiff of two people engaging in even the most innocuous act of intimacy-a kiss, a doe-eyed look that might lead to a kiss-the channel would be changed huffily by my parents. I am from a very conservative Indian family where relationships-let alone sexuality-were seldom discussed. Obviously, it all stems from a lack of confidence. But the base, primal need for human intimacy, at other times, leaves me crying. There are moments where I think, I don't care, I'll happily die a virgin, and find fulfillment elsewhere. I'm quite up and down about the reality of the situation.