It's tricky to draw the line with technology, to accept a certain degree of gadgetry and gizmos in your life, while saying no at a certain point. For instance, I’m fine with facebook, but I’m terrified of the iphone. I’m okay with exchanging occasional text messages but cannot wear a Bluetooth device on my ear.  I’m scared of turning into a robot, giving over more and more of my silence to the frenetic and scrambled mania of compulsive email checking and internet surfing.

In the past ten years, as the internet has become more and more integrated into the way we meet sex partners, I think it’s useful to think about the various ways our interactions are shaped by technology. At a sex club or bar, we’ve got to be a little more on our toes about getting up the nerve to talk to someone. We’ve got to be a little more forceful when we want to get out of a conversation. And sometimes we take a chance and go home with someone because we’re aren’t up for saying no. There’s more anarchy in those live situations. Sometimes, someone can talk their way into your evening if they have charm or the guts to talk dirty.

It’s totally different on the internet, where you can just ignore someone’s message or make up a white lie excusing yourself from the electronic courtship. “I have to go to bed,” “I have to get up early,” “a friend just called and needs me to run an errand.” Have you heard these? Have you said them? I find more and more men online moving into the single line email as a means of communication. Essentially sending each other text messages, not wanting to waste a few sentences unless they felt it was a sure thing. I worry that we’re losing those mating muscles, the skills gay men have acquired over centuries to locate one another and connect.

The other night, completely sick of the internet and all of its newfangled diversions, I went out to the Powerhouse, a south of Market bar in San Francisco known for its playful backroom. I got a beer and had three different conversations with guys in the area between the bar and the back room. I was surprised at how good it felt to talk to other gay men in a bar. Had it been that long? In a few short years, had I really grown that accustomed to the internet hookup? I talked to one man about his tattoos, about a visual art retrospective he was planning to throw in his apartment for a departed friend. I talked to a man about nutrition and how he always put egg whites in his smoothies. How he’d finally quit smoking cigarettes after 24 years. I talked to a third man about Patti Smith and the light shows at the Fillmore. These are conversations I had not been having on the internet, where discussion generally remains limited to vital statistics, sexual acts and logistics of hosting and location. When did we start treating each other like Chinese takeout places?

I definitely encounter this as a sex worker, where people are fairly to the point about what they’re looking for and when they want it. Those conversations tend to last about 4 minutes before an address is exchanged. Which is fine. The conversations that go on past ten minutes tend to be guys jerking off. Once you steer the conversation back to the reality of actually connecting in real time, they hang up.  It’s annoying. It actually feels like someone is stealing from you… jerking you around for ten minutes, then retreating into the anonymity afforded by their restricted phone numbers. That’s why some escorts say “No Blocked Numbers” in their ads. It’s so they don’t spend twenty minutes on the phone with the guy from L.A. who says he wants to fly you down so you can stomp him with your boots. The guy who keeps saying he’ll call back to finalize the details about a very lucrative trip. The guy who doesn’t call again.

So the Powerhouse was a welcome break from all this mechanized communication. After two beers and a handfull of conversations, I decided to move into the back room. There were lots of guys back there smoking cigarettes, completely clothed. I always have a feeling of intimidation when I’m in a leather bar, like I’m not old enough or masculine enough, that I’m not the right type. It can be crippling. I’ve spent dozens of evenings in bars not talking to anyone, paralyzed into shy silence. But a backroom triggers a sort of abandon in me. All it takes is one party starter, one person who’s willing to take their shirt off or take their dick out. Then the entire room changes.

I’ve always been a proponent of sexual generosity, so instead of waiting for someone to initiate contact, I peeled off my shirt and put it behind me on the bench. It was a sleeveless Hole tee shirt from their 1994 tour. I got it at a thrift shop in Palm Springs. It only takes one person to get even semi-naked in a back room. People start touching you, unzipping their pants, stroking their cocks. It’s kind of an amazing study in sexual power. You can liberate people in a matter of seconds if you’re willing to be bold.

I was looking at this man in his 50s, silver bearded, glasses. He was leaning against the wall smoking a cigarette. I couldn’t get him to look at me and I was scared to keep staring at him in case he got irritated. Also, I recently quit smoking so watching a man I’m attracted to smoking does not make my life easier. He leaned over and kissed me awkwardly on the mouth. His beard smelled of Marlboro Lights and he had a twitch in one of his eyes. He said “I didn’t think you wanted me.” I replied “I thought the same thing.” And I kissed him back. God, are we all scared of each other or what? I said that out loud so the entire room could hear me: “God, are we all scared of each other or what?” People didn’t know what to say. They probably thought I was tweaking, since talking in a backroom is sort of frowned upon.

As more guys gathered around me, I got on my knees and went to work, moving from dick to dick. My knees were soaking up the beer on the floor. Guys were grabbing the back of my head and pushing their dicks down my throat. I was using the muscles in my throat to massage the heads of their cocks, one by one. They would shoot their loads, then straighten up and wipe their sweaty brows. They’d thank me, which I thought was pretty civilized since I immediately moved to the next guy. Across the room, there was another guy sucking dick, which was a relief.  When the second guy was on his knees sucking away, I knew I had really got the party started.  It can be boring when people don’t generate their own fun, when they just want to latch onto the single erotic scene that’s happening in the room.

I traded sucks with an Isreali man, got my nipples chewed on by a heavyset African American man, and swallowed loads from two daddies who used my throat like they were jerking off. A young crusty punk kid with a bright blue Mohawk sucked on me while he played with his half-hard dick. I suppose he might have been tweaking. He immediately asked me to leave with him, before we’d even had much of an interaction.

Online, I may have never met these men. Maybe I wasn’t their type. Maybe they weren’t mine. I’m not saying it was all perfect. There were a few guys who kept trying to shove their unlubed fingers in my butt without even making eye contact. There was the guy who said he wanted to fuck me bareback, and when I said I was HIV negative, he just said  “That’s cool.”

But it was refreshing to experience sexual democracy, the sort of ritual gay men can make together when our bodies guide us.

When I was getting dressed, I couldn’t find the Hole tee shirt. I looked all over the bench, then on the floor. No luck. The kid with the blue Mohawk said, “Things have a way of disappearing here.” So I chalked it up to a night out. At least it wasn’t my wallet. At least it wasn’t my cell phone. I went out and had a real live human interaction. No emails exchanged, no face pic required. A tee shirt is a small price to pay for such a night.  But if anyone in San Francisco sees a guy wearing a hole T-shirt, make sure he lives up to the name…