Email from a family man about gay pleasure

Around the start of August, a reader sent me an email with the title "Gay pleasure". The text of the email was as follows:

Dear GB,

I've only just discovered your blog. It's impressive. I had googled "oriental gay sauna story" and there it was - a link to your friends Amsterdam experience. Then I read the rest of your writing. I envy you.

I was promiscuously gay at school. Then followed about 30 years of being straight after which during the last 10 or so years I have returned to being increasingly gay again.

I'm still in the closet - with a family to be otherwise is difficult - but I adore particularly slim smooth Asian/oriental guys. I have a special friend who is a Chinese tgirl and who is completely uninhibitedly sexy!!

But I'm keen to learn and do more. Where to go and how to do it?

I'm mature and tall with dark hair and a short greying beard but my body is fairly smooth. I'm not obese but not skeletal either!! I have yet to try a sauna as I am not yet confident enough. Will my age, size and small penis put guys off?

What I really like to slow soft tender kissing and undressing and being naked in bed with a like-minded guy. It's the returned affection that excites me.

I'd love to know how/when you began and also any advice you might have.

Please do reply. Yours,

Within a few days I'd sent him a reply, and in my email I'd included the following paragraph:

My interpretation of your phrase "family man" is that you're married with a wife and children, and if so I have the impression that there are quite a few married guys like you who realise in their middle age that they enjoy gay *activities* with other guys. Although I had problems accepting my sexuality, I was in my 20's when I came out so my situation is very different to yours because I never even had a girlfriend, let alone got married.

After a couple of days I received his reply:

Dear GB,

How sweet of you to reply!! I'll look forward to reading your advice/comments!!

I'm hopeless at Gaydar and so am searching for other ways to meet guys. The old Philbeach Hotel was great but sadly has closed. If you know of any cute oriental guys who are looking for a shy sensitive affectionate older man for fun then please introduce me!!

Yours,

I'd never heard of the old Philbeach Hotel, so we exchanged another couple of emails in which he told me it had been a huge gay friendly hotel in Philbeach Gardens near Earls Court. He said that on Monday nights they used to have an open bar for tgirls and their admirers, and that there's now a raunchier version called Sweet Wednesday at Central Station behind Kings Cross. I'd never heard of either event because as an ordinary gay man I'm interested in men, and not at all interested in men that look like women.

Long-time readers of the blog will be aware that boyfriend K and my previous two boyfriends are Asian, so I do know something about gay Asian guys. The younger Asian guys that I know, actually all the younger guys that I know, are very internet literate and big users of smartphones etc. So when the reader says that he's "hopeless at Gaydar", it's not very helpful. It means that he's avoiding inhabiting the kind of places where he's likely to find gay guys that he's interested in. Perhaps more importantly, it also means that he's likely to seem like a complete dinosaur to the younger generation, and dinosaurs aren't very attractive creatures.

However, if this reader does want to try and become a little more tech-savvy, Gaydar may not be the best place to start. I'm always amazed by my friend Close Encounters, who admitted to me a few months ago that he's got at least 14 different gay cruising apps on his smartphone. These days, smartphone apps rather than web-sites is the way to go! The most famous mobile gay cruising app is of course Grindr, but the one that I'd recommend for this reader is Jack'd because Jack'd seems to be slightly more popular with Asian guys than Grindr.

Another thought is that the reader should go on holiday to Asia. The bank robber Willie Sutton is quoted as saying that he robbed banks "because that's where the money is" (although apparently he never actually said it)! So if someone is interested in Asian guys then they should visit Asia. The most gay friendly tourist destination in Asia is probably Thailand, so that would be a good place to start. Indeed, one gay friend of mine visited Phuket and fell in love with one of the younger Thai guys that he met there. So my friend kept on visiting this guy in Phuket, and eventually the two of them became boyfriends.

Thailand would also be a good choice given that the reader is interested in tgirls because the country is famous for its ladyboys (กะเทย in Thai). I don't know how much TV the reader watches, but a year or two ago the UK TV channel Sky Living did a series of documentaries about ladyboys. The documentary featured some British guys who had moved to Thailand to make a new life for themselves living with ladyboy partners. One guy was called Scott, and he helped his partner set up a ladyboy bar in Pattaya. I also recall that there was also another British guy who had previously been married to a woman in the UK. I can't remember the name of the other guy, but I do remember seeing one episode where the guy's son went to Thailand to visit his father and meet his father's new partner.

The reader asks whether his "… age, size and small penis [will] put guys off" in a sauna situation. I'm sure it's true that young, lean, well-endowed guys will be more popular. However, it's generally true that somewhere there will be guys who would be interested in someone like the reader, although as discussed in the previous paragraph if it's Asian guys that the reader is interested in then it'll be much easier to find such guys in Asia. If he does manage to visit Thailand then I would recommend that the reader visits the Babylon sauna complex in Bangkok. As far as I know, Babylon is still the best gay sauna to be found anywhere in the world, and nowhere that I've ever visited comes close.

Nearer home, if the reader wants to visit a standard gay bar in London then I'd suggest Ku bar in Chinatown near Leicester Square. Ku bar and the Yard are the favourite gay bars in Soho for the younger Asian gay guys that I know.

Lastly, I can't help thinking that at some point the reader should try and be more honest with his family about his sexual preferences. I'm sure that we all understand why he feels the need for secrecy, but over long periods of time, living a lie with his family is likely to have a very corrosive effect on his happiness. It's very sad to hear of a middle aged man who can't be honest about what he wants with people that are close to him in his life. If he doesn’t try and sort it out at some stage, then my best guess is that he'll end up as a bitter and closeted old queen :-|.

Do any other readers have any thoughts on this subject?