What's Your Price?

Last month, I was let go from my part-time grant writing job due to budgetary constraints, and at least half of my freelance work due to corporate nonsense. Between the remaining freelance work, teaching tennis, and selling a few personal belongings, I was able to squeeze by.

It should be noted that I do have savings from holding down a big-boy job last year, but my jewish upbringing has caused me to be needlessly frugal and penny-pinching. You don't touch savings unless you absolutely have to. Not having a steady income has led to admittedly neurotic behavior over the last several weeks. Examples include making weekly budget charts several times a week, subsisting off pasta and cereal for days at a time, and feeling the need to prostitute myself (sans sex) off a dating website.

What's Your Price? This is the question that I was left to ponder after stumbling upon a dating website of the same name. The concept is pretty self-explanatory. You register as an "attractive" or a "generous." If you're a generous, you contact the attractives and throw out monetary offers for dates. The numbers vary, but the average on the site is about $100.

The site takes great pains to make it clear they are not an escort service, in the same way escort sites go to great lengths to make it clear they are not encouraging prostitution. They are, but use legal loopholes to cover themselves. You're paying for the person's "time," and what two individuals choose to do with that time has nothing to do with the site.

At this stage, the idea of being paid to go out on a date seemed pretty ideal though. Working almost every night, combined with a lack of interest, caused my love life (and life in general) to be placed on the backburner. Getting to leave the apartment and make money? Sweet.

I placed an ad on the site and went to bed. Within 12 hours, someone responded with a $125 offer for a date.

"Rob" was in his late 40s, with a massive gut that would shield me from seeing his penis if things got weird. We arranged to meet on a Saturday night.

"I'm taking you to a phat dinner at Morton's Steakhouse," Rob texted me. This was absurd for two reason. Firstly, Rob is white and a hedge fund manager. He was trying to woo me by using colloquial slang that was 15 years off, and race-inappropriate. Secondly, Morton's is a five-star restaurant. The entrees average more than $50, and the wines require a mortgage to be taken out. It was absurd to take a first date off the internet there.

We met at the restaurant bar and surprisingly, Rob seemed normal and the conversation went smoothly. I wouldn't be there without a monetary arrangement, but no longer felt that being raped or murdered was a possibility.

We were escorted by a waiter to the top floor of the steakhouse, where a bottle of wine was already chilling in a bucket of ice.

"I have a wine locker here," said Rob. "They just put it on my credit line for this restaurant."

"I have to go to the bathroom," I mumbled, racing down the stairs and bursting into laughter. This was the first of three such trips.

Because Rob ate here several nights a week and the staff knew him by name, there was a level of ass-kissing that could only be found in a five star restaurant. It was either abruptly leave the table or burst out into inappropriate laughter in front of him.

Rob was doing a good job of holding it together, but as the wine flowed, his true motives began to show. Finally, he began talking about his sexual desires. I was hoping he would bring this up once I was dead, but unfortunately, it happened around dessert.

"I love sucking dick," Rob informed me. "I could suck dick 24/7."

Check, please!

"I'll pay you $100 to come back to my place and let me blow you."

Without ever having prostituted, this seemed like a really low number. I was trying hard to not be so insulted that I would come back with a higher number and haggle over this.

"I can't do anything on this date that's illegal," I said. Truthfully, if he had added a couple of zeros to it, I was probably drunk enough to at least have a conversation about it. But $100? No thanks.

In actuality, the date ended up being a relief in some ways. While I might be willing to let go of certain luxuries for now, my dignity (or the sliver that's left of it) is not one of them. And with my leftover petite filet and half bottle of vintage port, I went home.

Yes, I had them cork the bottle, despite how gauche that is to do in a fine restaurant. Once a jew, always a jew.

Sperm Banks Will Reject You Because You're Gay. Seriously.

I'm hardly a gay rights activist. I think the National Day of Silence is ridiculous and that pride parades, or at least the one in NYC, are just an excuse for queens to have a daytime circuit party. That being said, once I discovered that I wouldn't be allowed to donate my sperm because I'm gay, it was incredibly offensive, even more so because nobody seems to be either aware of this or willing to address it.

The premise of donating to a sperm bank is simple. You walk into your local bank, head into a private room full of porn, and masturbate into a cup. The process of being selected to do that isn't so simple. It's a several month procedure that involves full-blown physical examinations, a mental evaluation, drug testing, blood work, obtaining the medical history of all immediate family members, and a lengthy interview process. Once you're selected, you are usually still required to do monthly blood work to test for illicit drug use or STD's.

After getting past all of that, the pay is pretty decent. You're paid $100 for each sample, and typically come in three times per week. An extra $15,000 over the course of a year to do something I'd be doing anyway sounded pretty nice.

I logged on to the websites for a few of these sperm banks and was immediately rebuffed by one. In addition to being over 5'9", between the ages of 19-40, and having a college degree or currently working towards getting one, California Cryobank lists one of its basic requirements for donors as exclusively female sexual partners.

Second try. Filled out the online application for Repro Lab Inc. and was rejected by e-mail. They said that I did not meet FDA regulation requirements, but because of their company policy, could not disclose the specific ways that I did not meet these requirements. The New York Sperm Bank also sent me an e-mail saying the same thing.

This seemed bizarre. I'm in perfect health, have a college degree, and apart from my grandmother developing dementia when she was in her early 80s, have no unsettling illnesses in my immediate family. To be fair, I also lied about not smoking pot on the application (although if they selected me, I would be willing to quit). The only part of my application which I responded "yes" to was if my sexual partners in the last 5 years were male.

After a little more digging, it turns out that the FDA has actually implemented these rules, recommending that any man who has engaged in gay sex within the last 5 years be barred from serving as an anonymous sperm donor. Even if you don't have HIV or any other STD and meet all the other requirements. They insist that gay men have a higher than average risk of carrying the AIDS virus. They also haven't publicly commented on the matter since saying that.

Even though these are recommendations from the FDA and not laws, sperm banks generally adhere to them. Although a woman who wants a sperm sample from a gay man can still request and obtain it, and it's not considered a felony to lie about your sexual history during the interview process, donors can be flat out rejected because they've had gay sex.

This is offensive to me for a variety of reasons. It's insane that a straight man who has sex with HIV-positive prostitutes could qualify as a sperm donor, but a gay man in a monogamous relationship would not. Secondly, this is a decision that has no scientific basis. Thirdly, even if you've had gay sex, they test you constantly for HIV and other diseases while you're donating, after you've passed the rigorous initial screening, which makes the chances of a positive sample basically zero.

Shouldn't the screening process be based on sexual behavior and not sexual orientation? Disqualify people who have used drugs intravenously, or have had unprotected sex with an HIV positive person/someone who doesn't know their status.

The notion that you protect people by putting gay men out of the pool is quite bothersome to me. It's basically saying that we're something to fear, or that all of us engage in risky, unsafe sex.

So since I can't donate my sperm, does anybody reading this want it? I offer a reduced rate.

Koala Bears and Sperm Donors

The accompanying photo is of the individual that I dated for most of this year.

No, I didn't actually date a koala. (And before anyone says anything, I know that koalas are marsupials and not bears. It was a pet name. Fuck off). However, he pretty much resembles one. He looks incredibly cute and cuddly, but in reality, is an aggressive, moody little fucker that sleeps for 20 hours a day.

We first dated in the summer of 2009. Things were going well, but he abruptly ended the relationship. Several months later, he was in a better head-space and we gave it a second try this spring.

It was exciting for a bunch of reasons. In addition to being my first relationship in well over five years, the second go-round was far better than the first one, a rare event for couples who decide to give it another try. He even met my family, who loved him (although privately urged me to convince him to remove the Dennis Rodman style nosering that he sports).

Alas, the relationship ultimately fizzled last month, through no fault of our own and about as well as it could have. We have always been extremely affectionate towards each other, but somewhere along the way, the passionate part of the relationship subsided. It was like cuddling with your best friend. This was confusing for both of us since we always enjoy spending time together and still found each other physically appealing. The fact that I find someone who is 5'4" and socially awkward (by his own admission) to be sexually attractive is probably something that I should be on a couch for anyway, but that's neither here nor there.

In the end, we mutually decided that the parts of our relationship we enjoyed the most could still be done as friends, but that it didn't necessarily translate into a romance. This would be fine if we were in our 70s, or lesbians, but we're both too young to settle for that. So he still comes over and spends the night. We still roll out of bed at noon, grab a slice of pizza and watch the Golden Girls. We just don't have sex. And somehow, it works. Not only does it work, but it actually makes more sense for now.

Since then, I've gone on a couple of one-and-done dates, but the idea of starting something up again isn't very appealing right now. And after experiencing the highs of the relationship, the idea of whoring around Brooklyn isn't very appealing either (give it a couple of weeks, though).

The plan for now is just to be alone. But if I'm not spreading my seed, it certainly shouldn't go to waste. In the interest of extra cash (and frankly, just good blog entries), I recently applied to be a sperm donor. I'll be sure to keep you posted on how that process goes.

Let's Talk About Sex...With My Parents?!?

I had a great discussion on dating and sex with my parents the other day. Our relationship has become extremely close in recent times and over the last year, I’ve begun to see them as an invaluable resource on this topic, more so than my friends. They’ve each been divorced once before, and have now been married together for over 30 years. They’ve been through the worst elements of a relationship, as well as the best. They’ve experienced firsthand why a relationship fails, and why it succeeds. The idea of discussing personal issues with your parents is an uncomfortable thought for a lot of people, but simply based on an extra 40-45 years of life experience, they’ve been around the dating block more than anyone else I know. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of that?

I’ve been dating someone for a little over a month and while it’s going quite well for the most part, we move at two different speeds. He gets into the cold pool feet first, then knees, then legs. I just dive in. When he told most of his long-term relationships usually involved 4-6 months of dating first before getting to that point, my stomach dropped. It already felt like I was moving at a crawl. You mean to tell me I’ve now got to move slower than this?

By nature, I’m an extremely driven person. I know what I want and go after it. It’s this quality that has been invaluable in my career, but a hindrance in my personal life. If I see the potential that a dating scenario has or how it might not work out, I inevitably think two steps ahead and play out those best case/worst case scenarios, rather than remain present and focus on where we are now.

Either way, this still felt like it was too slow. Wouldn’t you just know after a couple of months whether or not something was going to work out?

My dad listened calmly, taking this all in. He falls under the talks the least/says the most category, while my mom just blurts out whatever comes to her head. (Clearly, you can see which side I take after).

“What are you rushing to?” my dad asked.

A simple enough question, but one I didn’t have a straight answer to. Silence. I picked up my beer.

“The difference between a couple of months versus four or five months is, in the big picture, not important,” my dad said. “You’re both young enough to take the time to let this build up. You’re obviously looking for something of substance. Wouldn’t you rather take the extra time to make absolutely sure you’re going to get that, rather than jump into something and live through it after?”

Ultimately, he’s right. As easy as it is to blame a bad dating history on the city you live in or the people you’re involved with, sometimes you have to look at your own patterns. My last relationship was as a freshman in college, and if I knew then what I know now, it would have never even entered that point. Either way, freshman year of college was a lifetime ago. Apart from this current situation, I haven’t dated anybody else for longer than a month since then. Maybe I’m the idiot.

If I want to have the adult relationship that I so crave, perhaps it’s time to approach dating in a more adult manner and look more inward.

First Date Etiquette

In the infamous words of Chris Rock, "When you're dating somebody early on, you're not dating them. You're dating their representative."

For the most part, we all put our best foot forward in the initial stages of a dating situation. I certainly don't mention this blog or my past sexual escapades to a potential suitor, figuring it will all come out in the wash if it needs to. There's also the simple fact that if you throw all your cards on the table too quickly, eventually you run out of things to talk about.

Then, there are the situations where it feels mutually appropriate to become revealing, and the other person takes it WAY too far, to the point where you never quite look at that person the same way again.

I dated somebody this winter, who, well-intentioned as they may be, committed that ultimate cardinal sin. We had been going out for a couple of weeks when, after a night of drinking, he asked me what the worst thing I had done to somebody in retaliation was.

It's not in my nature to lie, but I also didn't want to scare this guy off. In the end, I decided that honesty was the best policy and to tell him.

I lived with a guy who I had been dating for about a year, and eventually we broke it off. He started bringing a new boyfriend to the apartment shortly after, who was a total asshole to me despite the fact that this was clearly not a competition. After moving out of the apartment, I got drunk one night and decided to take action. I got a box, went into the bathroom, shat in it, and mailed it (with a fake return address) to this individual. Inside the box was a note from me that said, "I heard you have an eating disorder. Eat this."

Luckily, he thought this was funny. Unfortunately, his story wasn't quite as amusing. As nervous as I was about telling my story, his vindictiveness trumped mine by a long shot.

"I dated a guy for three years and he dumped me by fax," he said. "CBS letterhead fax. And then I found out he had been cheating on me with more than one person for the last six months of our relationship."

"That's horrible," I said. "So what did you do?"

"I got him deported out of the country," he said with a straight face.

"WHAT?!"

"My uncle is a judge," he explained. "I had him look over his papers and he had been in the country for a year longer than he was supposed to without renewing his paperwork, so I had him kicked out."

I sat there incredulously as he took his drink off the table.

"It's the only way these faggots are gonna learn," he said, taking a swig of his beer.

If a friend were telling me this story, it would be the funniest thing ever. However, when a potential boyfriend tells you this, it's slightly more horrifying. I have no desire to be booted from the States. Needless to say, it eventually fizzled from there.

The Naked Tennis Instructor Does Dallas (And Your Windows)

“So, who do you think is going to win the election this year,” a voice called out next to me.

My boss sat in a chair, calmly observing me. I had never discussed politics with an employer before, but this was the first day at my new job and I didn’t want to risk offending him by not offering an opinion.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I think Obama has far more redeeming qualities though.”

He gave me a condescending smirk before getting up from his chair. He was shirtless, with a beer gut that likely protected him from seeing his penis within the last decade.

I was on my knees scrubbing his kitchen floor, completely naked. Shortly after returning from a post college trip to Australia, I moved into a dilapidated two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn that my roommate referred to as, “the last cheap shithole in Williamsburg.” After being rejected from a series of low-paying temp jobs and running dangerously short on cash, I soon found myself scouring the “Adult Gigs” section on Craigslist for any job that didn’t involve a video camera or anal beads.

Eventually, I interviewed for a now defunct agency called Your Nude Maid, which offered erotic cleaning services. They screened the clients beforehand and, for a cut of your salary, gave you the option of showing up with an armed bodyguard. I had never worked as a houseboy before, but figured that having my ass in the air in front of a complete stranger couldn’t possibly be any more degrading than moving back in with my parents.

The interview took place at a run-down building in downtown Manhattan that also shared space with The Sex Herald, a monthly publication whose content was self-explanatory. Interns who were clearly being taken advantage of in the name of college credit sat in their cubicles, frantically typing away their reviews on the latest butt plug. I wondered if they were allowed to test these products at home, or if all their “work” was done on-site.

A strikingly beautiful woman appeared out of an open room, wearing a short black skirt and black boots that rode up to her knees. She was at least six feet tall, with pale skin and her brown hair tightly pulled back in a ponytail. She was also holding the largest dildo I had ever seen in my entire life.

“Company meeting,” she said, continuously smacking the dildo against her palm with a startling lack of emotion.

That would be the cue for most people to run to the nearest exit, but the whole situation was so absurd that I found myself unable to get up from the chair. If nothing else, this was going to make a great happy hour story for later.

“I’m Olga,” she said, extending her hand out. “Are you here for the agency?”

“Uh, yeah,” I stammered, shaking her hand as I looked around for the nearest bottle of Purell. I didn’t want to know where that dildo had been, or when it had last been washed.

She led me into a room that most closely resembled an FBI interrogation chamber. It was barren save for a desk and computer, and two hard folding chairs. The walls were painted white and a small lamp dangled from the ceiling with a fluorescent light that made fully opening your eyes almost impossible. She sat down at the desk and pulled out a pen.

“First question,” she asked. “Are you straight or gay?”

“I don’t think that question is legal,” I said.

“Neither is this agency,” she replied.

Touche.

It turned out, unsurprisingly, that many of the cleaners that the agency hired were also prostitutes. Olga had nothing to do with that part of the deal, but many times the client and the person they hired would work out some sort of arrangement on their own. I made it clear to the agency that my services would strictly start and end at fantasy, and was comfortable with receiving less work as a result. Watching Oz as a small child instilled a crippling fear of being ass-slammed in prison, and I didn’t want to even entertain the option of doing something which would cause that to happen.

The rest of the interview went smoothly and Your Nude Maid offered me a job. To the shock of no one, the people who signed up for this service were total freak shows. I opted to go without a bodyguard the first time, only to realize this was a terrible idea when the guy whose house I cleaned reached out to give me a good-bye hug at the end of the session. This was no mere hug. He charged towards me like a pole vaulter, wearing only multi-colored boxer briefs, leapt onto my midsection, and wrapped his legs around my hips as though he were a koala clinging onto a tree branch. I felt tufts of back hair in my hands and didn’t like it one bit.

“Don’t go!” he yelled.

“What?”

“I’ve never had that kind of connection with anyone else,” he said. Considering that only minutes earlier, I unclogged the sink in his bathroom as he sat on the edge of the shower, with my penis dangling inches away from his mouth, I was willing to take his word.

“This is ridiculous,” I said. “You need to let go.” He clung on tighter.

“My body, my choice!” I yelled, pushing the orangutan off me as he crumpled to the ground.

Central Park Zoo wasn’t hiring at that time, so if I wanted to continue working with animals in their natural habitat, a bodyguard was going to be necessary. My second session with the agency took place at a swanky Midtown location, and I was accompanied by a gigantic black man. His name was Terrell, and he was scary. He was about 6’6,” with tree trunks for legs, wearing a t-shirt that could have sheltered multiple Vietnamese families which read, ‘Guns don’t kill people, I do.” Although he was carrying a gun, I felt confident that Terrell would be able to protect me even without a weapon. If anybody shot him, it would probably just make him mad.

We walked to the apartment and he knocked on the door in appeared to be normal manner for him, but which resulted in the second coming of the Kobe earthquakes. I fell back a couple of steps, now questioning whether to be more afraid of the client or the bodyguard. We waited for a few seconds with no answer.

“Do you get to kick the door down?” I asked.

“No,” he said in a booming baritone.

“Would you consider wearing a gold chain and periodically saying, ‘I pity the fool?’”

“No.”

“Great,” I said. “Let’s get this party started.”

That session went smoothly and surprisingly, the handful I did after that went without incident as well. What caused me to quit was the lack of work from the agency. I naively assumed that my clients would continue to hire me weekly, in the same way that one would hire a traditional housekeeper. This proved to not be the case. The bottom line was that not putting out was killing my chances at more clients, and waiting weeks at a time for a normal gig just wasn’t satisfying. If I was going to be a whore, I wanted to be a well paid one and do it on my terms-- which means that I really didn't want to be a whore at all.

Lance Bass Found Me A Fuck Buddy

Apart from coming out of the closet in a desperate publicity ploy, Lance Bass has disappeared off the face of the earth for the better part of a decade. Like most of the free world, you probably lie awake at night, wondering where this man has been and what he does with his days.

Well, my friend, I’m here to tell you that he’s been spending his days infiltrating my sex life. That’s right. I’m living every teenage girl’s dream from ten years ago.

I had sex in his apartment (although not with him), and my newly acquired fuck buddy is a result of a six degrees of separation scenario.

Cue to last August, working at the US Open in the media center. In addition to the wonderful absurdity of being paid to drink beer and watch tennis in courtside seats, the US Open has resulted in some of my most memorable sexual encounters. Shagging the USA Today reporter in the empty interview room, 20 minutes after Federer was done with his press conference, has left a permanent smile on my face whenever the 7 train pulls up to the stadium from Manhattan.
A guy named Ryan who worked for Adidas started talking to me in the middle of one of the matches and we hit it off. He invited me to a player party later that night, which ended up not being my scene.

“I’d love to grab a drink somewhere, but just need to drop my suitcase off at my friend Lance’s place,” Ryan said.

“Does Lance work for Adidas,” I asked.

“No. Lance Bass.”

I snarfed my wine and burst out laughing. Seriously? This was going to be a good night.

We took a cab to Lance’s apartment, and needless to say, I wasn’t going back out for a drink. This situation had to be taken advantage of. After a great roll in the hay in Mr. N’Sync’s bed, I walked out of the apartment into the morning sun, promptly threw up the remains of the previous night’s sake all over the sidewalk, and proceeded to text everyone I knew about what just happened.

Cue to three months later: I met a guy named Ward at a bar and he asked me out on a date. On the night we were supposed to meet up, I texted him to see where he was.

“I’m at the Standard Hotel having a drink with Lance Bass,” he wrote back. “Care to join me?”

This was too good to be true. Even though the hotel was just a 20 minute walk from my apartment, I jumped in a cab because every minute saved by not walking was going to be totally worth it.

I met Lance and Ward for a few drinks, and then Lance invited us back to an impromptu party at his apartment. As we walked there, Lance regaled us with how wonderful his new pad was.

“You guys are gonna love this place,” he drawled in a hint of a Southern accent. “I just bought the place five months ago and the building is amazing!”

It took every ounce of self-control to not burst out into uncontrollable laughter, and it proved damn near impossible to do so when Lance proceeded to give us a guided tour of the apartment.

“Seriously Connor, sit on this bed,” he urged. “Isn’t this the comfiest mattress ever?” Clearly, he had no idea that I was all too familiar with the comfort of it.

Ward proved to be an absolutely ridiculous human being. In addition to being so drunk that he could barely stand when we first met, he disappeared into an empty room at Lance’s place with a group of people, and popped back out 20 minutes later, clearly on coke.

If this wasn’t an indication that Ward was full of redeeming qualities, having him invite me over to watch a movie at his apartment for our 2nd date showed this obviously wasn’t going anywhere. When I complimented him for being uninhibited in bed, he told me he wasn’t because he used condoms. He thought uninhibited meant barebacking! Clearly, Ward may or may not have been retarded. What can I say? I always had a thing for Corky from Life Goes On…

A casual sex relationship would have been fine, but Ward kept insisting that he was looking for something serious. I wasn’t sure if this was his method for trying to get me into bed, or if he really was that absurd. Either way, I didn’t have to time decipher this, and walked away from the situation.

Clearly, the universe was listening to my requests for a fuck buddy (Thanks, Big Man!). Recently, after a four month period of silence, Ward texted me and asked if I would be an interested in a casual sex scenario.

This couldn’t be more ideal. Ward has a gorgeous body, is an animal in the sack, and I have absolutely no respect for him as a human being. Perfect! Having this scenario in place also allows me to jump back into the dating pool a little more freely. If something of substance comes along, then obviously a fuck buddy will be kicked to the curb. Until then, though, I’m a happy camper.