SO MANY MEN

    A young Italian man rushes into his village church, runs into the confessional, and, out of breath, blurts out his story:

    “Father, I have enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh three times today. I was working in the fields when a car broke down in the lane. In it were three beautiful identical triplets, tall and red-haired and perfect in every way. Well, I fixed their car, and, to thank me, all three of them offered me their bodies for an afternoon of delight.”

    “That is a very grievous sin, my son. You were right to come here to seek forgiveness.”

    “Oh, I don’t want forgiveness, father.”

    “Well if you don’t forgiveness, why are you here telling me?”

    “Father, when you have sex as good as that, you tell everybody!”

    It’s an old joke, but like many old jokes there’s a lot of truth to it. When you have great sex, part of the pleasure comes from re-living the experience later. And for some men (including me) the post-game analysis is part of the fun.

    Just as we all stand round the coffee machine on a Monday morning dissecting the latest big match, so we discuss sex – who did it with whom, who’s still doing it, and who might be doing it next. Not to mention positions, strategy and tactics.

    As you know, I spent a year having sex with a thousand men. Well, now I’m into the post-match analysis phase: the screens are showing slow-motion replays of what and how and who, and the commentators are doing their bit to camera…

    “Yes, Michael, the boy done good. He took things a bit slow at first, but it’s a game of two halves, and from August on he really fucked his socks off and gave 110%, and the results speak for themselves at the final whistle.” And, of course, the statisticians are there with their figures:

    Final Score: 1002 men

    Countries Played: England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, France, Germany, China, South Korea, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, Canada, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Colombia, Serbia, Singapore, Peru, Brazil, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Kenya, the Seychelles, Greece, Cyprus, Trinidad & Tobago, Russia, Bulgaria. Probably others that I didn’t get the details for – I’m pretty sure of Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Iceland, but I tended not to write down the European nationalities unless I got a name and we did something out-of-the-ordinary. My notes don’t seem to mention a single Australian, though.

    Tallest Player: 6’8”, from England.

    Shortest Player: about 5’4”, though I didn’t like to ask. Korean.

    Largest Cock: about 9” – I had to grin to get it in! Scottish. Obviously all that porridge and heather is good for something.

    Smallest Cock: smaller than my little finger.

    Longest Tongue: attached to a Brazilian, who really knew how to use it! So long and muscled he could stick it up his own nose (he showed me!). Very keen to stick it other places too…

    Positions Played: top, bottom, mid-field, left wing, right wing, scrum, pitcher, catcher, wicket keeper (for which I wore gloves!); all in the correct lubed and rubbered strip

    Flavours of Condoms Encountered: rubber, plastic, cherry, vanilla, chocolate (honestly), mint, strawberry, and something that claimed to be “passion fruit” but tasted more like raw potato.

    A friend of mine asked if I found it boring. Surely, he though, even fucking could get dull if you did it enough.

    Not at all: the most interesting thing about the year was probably the astonishing variety of ways that people like sex. I found every possible kink, from the plainest of vanilla to the rarest of hanky-codes.

    “The most interesting thing about the year was probably the astonishing variety of ways that people like sex. I found every possible kink, from the plainest of vanilla to the rarest of hanky-codes.”

    There really are as many different ways to have sex as there are people on the planet. Every single one of them was unique, and when you’re having sex with a guy you really do get to know his true character. There’s something about the primal instinct that strips away people’s façades.

    Those quiet respectable guys you see on the street sometimes turn into raving hyenas in bed, and those rough-looking leather men may be as gentle as a summer breeze. You never can tell.

    Was there a worst? Yes. An elderly queen called – well, let’s say “Bassanio” and leave it at that. I glimpsed the two little tattoos on his buttocks in the half-light of a sauna, and started in, only to discover that he was the most selfish partner of the year.

    Once I got him into the light it became clear why: he’d obviously been good-looking several decades ago, and evidently thought that the world still owed him a blow job. It doesn’t. I disliked him so much I didn’t count him towards my total.

    And was there a best? Now there’s a challenge. The problem is that for me “best” simply means “most recent”. And how do you compare? Is a great blowjob better or worse than a great fuck? Sometimes one works best, sometimes you want the other, or something else entirely.

    What works best, for me, is a guy who throws himself into the sex, and doesn’t worry what other people think. So maybe I’ll go for Rob.

    I suppose it would be more accurate to say “Rob and friends”, actually. It was about 3.00am in a dodgy south London club, and I was at the point where I was thinking that it was time to leave, when I noticed him looking at me.

    We did the whole “looking at him, looking at me, looking away, looking back” thing, then he grinned and came over. Would I like to come back with him and a few friends to chill out? Naturally, I said yes.

    Half an hour later I was in a flat in Clapham with a bunch of horny guys, mostly naked and all hard. There was a porno playing in the background, but I think everyone’s attention was more on reality than fiction. It was, I suppose, the perfect example of sex as a sport, but one where the players and the crowd are one and the same.

    It was a team working together, where each was a star player. There were moments when the crowd went quiet, and all eyes were on the new signing as he shot and scored, then shot and scored again, the crowd urging him on from hole to hole.

    And there was the long-serving goalie, taking in the net, over and over and over. There were crowd scenes, with cocks and fingers flicking through a quicksilver array of asses and mouths, and there were elegant solo efforts, as one guy flipped his legs over his head to suck his own cock.

    Eventually I worked my way through to Rob himself, who was bent over on the carpet, his crack slick and ready. I grabbed a bottle of lube, and slid inside, leaning forward to kiss him.

    “Thanks for inviting me.”

    “Anytime, mate. Nothing but fun here.”

    “Fuck, yeah.” And I was balls-deep, and heading for my career best.

    Sometimes you want a fuck, and sometimes you want to be fucked. Sometimes you want to know that you’re not alone in the cosmos, and other times you just want fun, the simple pleasure that only men can know. It’s all sex, and it’s all good.

    A thousand men. Who do I remember? Jorge, who made me late for Dr Who. Amos, whose boyfriend watched, then joined in. Mark, who is shaved all over. John, the drill sergeant. Abdul, who can deep-throat a cucumber. Johnny, the rent-boy who was so horny he offered me a freebie. Many, many, many more, named and nameless.

    I wake up sometimes, suddenly dreaming of the ones I thought I’d forgotten. So many men, and time enough for all of them.