In Stark Contrast To Yesterday's Entry…

I'm thinking today about the nature of sexual attraction. Specifically, sexual attraction and me.
I have a lot of good sexual energy in my life. I have Max, whom I adore, and I have Mike, who is fabulous. But just lately I've sprouted a little tendril of attraction to another guy. A green and slender thing it is, not very sturdy. But there nonetheless.

There seems to be a fairly consistent pattern with my attractions. I become aware it, and then, I just sit with it for a while. This is Attraction: Stage One. It might last three months, six months, sometimes longer. It depends on how quickly I get to know the person – and what I want from them. I'll flirt, lightly, and allow myself to be flirted with. But no goal-directed forwardly progress will be attempted – or permitted. I'm merely observing and absorbing the person.

Then, one day, something in me shifts, and I move into Attraction: Stage Two. Now I get pro-active. Now is when the flirtations become less innocuous, more edged with real possibility. Now is when I ask you out for coffee, if you haven't already asked me, with a certain agenda on my mind.

Of course, it doesn't always work out. There was another guy, lately, with who I'd been in a Stage One level of attraction. After nearly a year, I felt ready to go to the next level, but then - in spite of every indication that he wanted that, too – he backed away. He told me I intimidated him – and he's actually not the first man to tell me that. You'd think it would teach me not to flirt with vanilla guys. C'est la vie.

And then there's my harem – excuse me, I mean my clients. I think doing what I do is one of the reasons it's easy for me to be a slow mover when it comes to my private-life attractions. Max gives me the stable, long-term love/sex/play relationship, Mike is the fun diversion, but my clients give me the type of gratification you only get from being lusted after and adored by relative strangers.

So what would I want from the new guy? Remains to be seen, doesn't it? That's really what Stage One is all about. I can become attracted to someone's smile or the set of their shoulders, their intellect, their humor, the way they talk about their passions, or what they seem to see in me. But those things may be mere islands of charm - pleasant in their way, but unconnected to the qualities I would require in someone if I'm going to go to Stage Two.

What are those qualities? Oh, that's a topic for another day…