Domination

And again I sit to write some of my random thoughts. I stood at my window, secretly smoking a cigarette listening to the sound of barking dog, the pre-dawn chants, and a mysterious musical beat coming from a place I cannot recognize! Today has been quite a busy day. I had a lot of those lately. I wanted to write more about what goes on but failed to rise to my writing expectations…

I went out with my young Sagittarius friend and his new friend, a Virgo who is even younger than him. I think I’m better at gauging my ageism around him now. The interesting part was when I saw him being condescending and ageist towards the younger boy. It was both sweet and hilarious! Those young kids! They make me think of a lot of stuff. I partly felt sorry for myself. I marveled at their sexual liberation. When I was their age, I was just this sad, confused and repressed teenage, who was very much struggling with sexuality. One of them is already an atheist now! Both of them share this innate sexual hunger and they express it fully without complexities or confusions about it. Is this the way teenagers should be like?

Maybe I was just the ever too complex guy, combined with my shyness and overwhelmed by sex and sexual liberties. I know for a fact that my sexual emancipation and becoming guilt-free around sex came much later than theirs. I owe much of it to that erotic text that Raouf Mos’ad wrote. Ithaki. Thanks Mr. Mos’ad.

Today, I also experienced the sweet joy of sexual education. An activity very dear to my heart! I like to think that I make a difference in any person’s life and make their sex life better!

I also had my first chance on true kinky sex! Most of my experiences were quite vanilla. Being the desperate, frustrated mood I am in, I went for the first available guy I had. He explicitly voiced his interest in domination! I was wary and anxious, but hello I’m always anxious about sex even until now! S&M practices aside, the whole conduct of casual sex never fail to confuse me. Meeting someone and a few minutes later, you’re exchanging fluids and exposing your intimate Self! I fail to truly connect even when others can and want to do it. I can’t say I hated it. But I know I didn’t like the whole feel of the experience. It wasn’t the out of myself experience I was hoping for. I miss that kind of sex that makes me feel beautiful and serene. I only had that very rarely.

I was also struck by the gap between the two characters the guy exhibited. One was domineering and distant, the other was kind of sweet and kind! How could you have both in one person? How does he switch from one to another so easily? How did he grow to like domination anyway?

At the end, you smile, you nod and you affirm that you enjoyed his sex. A few words about meeting again that will never be fulfilled. Oh the dysfunction of casual encounters!

There will be other encounters of the sort as long as there are no alternatives.

Re-discovering morality?

“You’re in the mirage” said Khaled in a sarcastic, mean tone. It was another workshop, another hotel, another lousy lunch break. This break has taken a different turn obviously. I couldn’t help but trying to overhear what our fellows were discussing on the next table. I was quite sure it was religion, god, or something of the sort. The word “scepticism” could be heard more than once. A few minutes later, I was sitting at their table trying to make out what exactly they were talking about. The conversation went from questioning faith to a confession session. This only happened when MA joined us. After being harassed by Khaled and teased by the aforementioned phrase, MA started speaking of his psycho-religious development!

I had a strange feeling while MA was telling his story. It was nostalgia, mixed with sadness and yearning. As he was retelling how he lost his faith, I was recalling my very own story. I also felt sorry for the turmoil he had to suffer to get there. After all, I felt that my journey was much easier. And then I wondered, what role did my sexuality play in losing my religion? (I have to mention that although the word ‘lose’ is quite poetic; I like to think that I have no regrets over that loss). Did my being gay make it that much easier to renounce god?

What I am wondering about right now is a completely different thing. It’s the mirage concept. Although I loathed Khaled’s superficial judgement, now I feel that this truly needs examining. Being an atheist, I always maintained that one should not totally dispose of morality, and that it is necessary, or at least it is ingrained in our genetic makeup. I feel that I have reconciled with, normalized, or even main-streamized controversial moral issues. From suicide to masochism; and from drug use to commercial sex, and the list goes on. I can’t say I feel guilty about normalizing these. I have explored them, became sensitized to them, and was able to shift my understanding of such moral dilemmas. Lately, I have been pushing the limits of my sexuality. I have also been putting all the rights and wrongs to question.

It wasn’t until a couple of days ago that I started to question this stance. Where did my mind take me? I feel like I stand very far from my own surrounding community. What about “normal feelings”? What about ordinary human interaction? Can I still experience the ordinary, rewarding encounters? Did I become devoid of sound moral judgements? Am I in the mirage?

I don’t think I can ever go back to a simple dichotomous right-and-wrong mentality. However, I need to know if there are things in me that were lost in the process. I need to know if I have become jaded. What can surprise me or capture my emotions?

Questions that needs further investigation! I don’t know what to do about it, except for lighting another cigarette maybe!

Death

Death is the topic here. I told a friend I’m writing a piece on Death and he balked at the darkness of the topic. Typical. I’ve been contemplating the hold that death has over us. So powerful!

I’ve seen the photos of the Egyptian lynched in Lebanon. The link to the photos had a strict warning of explicitness and goriness. I didn’t feel particularly shocked by the photos. Have I become so jaded or is it my peculiar penchant for darkness? However, the responses were overwhelming. People seem to be particularly indignated by the things that the Lebanese crowd committed after the Egyptian’s death! I wonder which is crueler. Cutting a person while alive or while dead? Both are acts of ruthlessness. Torturing a living person seems far crueler to me though. I maintain to view these incidents in light of human capabilities; that is to say animal capabilities. Humans are somewhat evolved animals!

Death has been a theme for the last few days. My mother has expressed her feelings of impending mortality. A seminar on organ trafficking in Egypt touched upon the sacred, forceful hold of death over Egyptians; the things that impedes the notion of postmortem organ donation. What would it matter if someone cuts you up after your death? It’s just a corpse anyway.

Another incident showed how death alters people good sense. A young man died. He was allegedly brainy and courteous. Most importantly he was good looking. Very good looking. This is an important piece of information because the setting where the incident took place was on the virtual sphere; the internet. The handsome boy who died in a car accident was grieved online, by means of a facebook page. The response was too irrational for my bearing. The info bit of the page said it was dedicated to the best, sweetest, smartest and most beautiful man Egypt has ever known. Seriously?

I don’t know if it was the shock of death news or whatever else, but that was so disproportionate. Was it the death factor?

To be continued…