The Adventures of Merlin

My new favorite show!

The Adventures of Merlin is premised on the idea that Merlin and Arthur were young men filled with the energy, drive, and love of adventure typical of all young men before they became the aged and wise adults everyone is familiar with.

Now, being the non-TV watcher that I am, I completely missed all of the episodes that have already aired on NBC. Thanks to the magic of Hulu, however, I just watched episodes 3-7 and loved them all.

The special effects aren't the greatest, especially considering what is capable by CGI artists today (consider shows like Battlestar Gallactica), but I am willing to overlook them simply because the stories are great.

The Merlin in this series does not yet have mastery over his gift of magic and is having to learn to use it in a society that has outlawed all sorcery as evil. He is being raised by and mentored by the court physician Gaius who is a wonderfully wise character who seems to having a passing knowledge of magic himself. There is a very overbearing Uther Pendragon who for lack of a better description, is portrayed as a hardened and uncaring bastard who is doing his best to pound his son Arthur into his likeness. Arthur, however, shows a streak of compassion for his fellow man, though he does his best to hide that under a veneer of snobbery.

The main antagonist so far in the series is a witch named Nimueh who continuously plots against Camelot in an attempt to kill either the young Arthur or the young Merlin.

The sets and costumes are great. The actors do a very good job. There is even a recurring role of a wise dragon who is voiced by the wonderful John Hurt.

And, in case I have not yet mentioned it, Colin Morgan, the twenty-something Merlin is very good looking, has a great smile, and beautiful eyes. And, of course, I love his accent. My only complaint in all of this is that his costumes are always too darn loose for me to get a good look at his posterior. Well, that's not the point of the series, I suppose. ;)

Are You Ready for Some Football!

I can honestly say I hate sports. I hate playing sports, watching sports, listening to people talk about sports, and the heterosexual male bastion, the sports bar. The only thing related to sports I like are the players themselves. And the most luscious of these are the football gear clad jocks. Mmmm. The lycra shorts, the stretchy pants, the bare bellies. Holy moly, it's gay fetish Heaven!

The Art of Joe Phillips

Joe Phillips is a gay artist who has illustrated everything from mainstream comic books, to ads for Bud Light beer, to X rated animated porn. I really enjoy his Joeboys artwork because his subjects are always smiling, laughing, and absorbing all that life has to offer. They are representations of what gay love could be in a tolerant and accepting society.

You can see more of his fabulous artwork and read his biography at his website: www.joephillips.com

I suggest you go. You won't be sorry.

The Pool's Closed

Confession time again!

I think I have made it abundantly clear that I have a serious fetish for men in tight underwear. Well, going hand in hand with that, I also love looking at men in tight swimwear. However, I don't think that necessarily goes hand in hand with the undies thing because I have distinct memories of looking at and being fascinated by guys in swim shorts.

When I was still a child, my family and I would drive to Corpus Christi each year during summer vacation. grandfather and dad would go either pier fishing or deep sea fishing. I would be invited along, but being the squeamish wimp that I was, I couldn't stand the sight of the dead fish, so always stayed behind. But that doesn't mean I didn't have fun.

We stayed every year at a place called Lynn's Motor Inn that was situated feet away from the beach. We could leave the Inn, immediately cross a two lane road, and be standing in the sand, it was that close. Well, being the nonswimmer that I am, I would mainly hang around the pool at the Inn and just splash around.

Anyway, when I was there for vacation after 5th grade, I have two very strong memories connected to guys. The first involves my meeting another boy about my age and becoming friends with him. When I would see him in the pool, I would go out also just to be able to watch him swim. He was very cute and used to wear some very small, tight swim trunks, as did I. Just watching him would make me feel excited in a way that I couldn't explain. I just liked looking at him. I realize now that I was feeling an attraction for him.

The second memory is my becoming friends with some high school boys who were staying there also. There were two of them who used to goof around in the pool with two girls, I'm assuming girlfriends, though I'm not sure. Well, for whatever reason, they liked having me with them and would call me over to be with them whenever we were in the pool together. Needless to say, my sitting around with two handsome high schoolers wearing nothing but swimsuits was very exciting for me, again, though I didn't know why.

Lynn's Motor Inn is closed now; we went to find it on a lark a couple years ago when we were in Corpus for a baseball tournament. It's abandoned, run down, and a hang out for the homeless. I know this because a couple of them chased me and threw empty beer bottles at me as I was poking around the place. The pool is nowhere near as large as I remember it being. In fact, the whole place looked rather small and sad.

Well, anyway, here are some nice looking fellows in swim gear, though none of them come close to the beauty I remember being around at the end of my 5th grade year.

The Eye of Odin

There are very few items of Power left in the world. Most have been destroyed across the ages in defense of one Cause or another, the people wielding them not knowing how to properly use what they had. The Great Staff of Ra, once carried by Egyptian Pharoahs is one of these, smashed into a thousand pieces by the Roman legions that swarmed over the once great empire. A few of them have been lost through cataclysmic events like earthquakes or underwater tectonic shifts that cause great rents in the earth. One such shift caused the flooding of the Greek city of Joppa; the ensuing tsunami destroyed much of the city, taking the Winged Sandals of Hermes along with it. But a few, a very scant few, items have survived the vagaries of war and the clumsiness of mankind.

And I happen to hold three of them.

Perhaps the oddest one of all is Odin's Eye. I think everyone knows the story, yes? Odin the Wanderer went into Jotunheimer, the Land of the Giants, to seek out the Well of Wisdom. He thought that having foresight would help him prepare for the final battle, or Ragnarok, and give him an edge over the Midgard Serpent. In order to drink from the Well, however, Odin had to sacrifice an eye by plucking it from his skull and dropping it into the water. Only then was he allowed to drink the magical water and thereby gain knowledge of the past, present, and future.

What people don't realize is the Well had no use for Odin's eye floating around in its pure waters. It only demanded the sacrifice to make sure Odin was serious about his request. Now, it just so happened that I was walking past the Well on my way to study Fire Magic with the Jotuns. The spirit of Mimir, guardian of the Well, appeared and asked me to remove the eye from the water before it began to rot. Once I managed to remove the eye and held it in my hands, I noticed that it no longer looked like an eyeball at all. Rather, it looked like a round piece of glass. Mimir informed me that the eye, after being submerged in the Water of Wisdom, had been transformed into crystal and could now see a small distance into the future as well as see the truth of all things in the present. I thanked Mimir for the gift, put the round crystal in my satchel, and forgot about it while I was studying with the Jotuns.

A few years passed and I had quite forgotten about the Eye of Odin when I received an urgent summons from the Asgard to attend Odin himself in his residence at Valaskjalf. Apparently Odin's son, a very young Thor, had accepted a challenge from the King of the Mountain Giants, and I was requested to travel with the teen God of Thunder to provide whatever wisdom or assistance I saw fit. Now, I at that point in my career, I had already lived through multiple encounters with the Greek deities and really had no desire to become involved with the Asgard. However, when the God of War and Magic stares at you with his luminous remaining eye, twenty Valkyrie looking down at you from the battlements, it's hard to say no.

And so, I found myself traveling with a handsome young Thor, his blonde hair shoulder length, his shoulders covered in magical steel mail, along the road to Ulfgrimmrstead, the ancestral home of the Mountain Giants. I have to interject here that I was amazed at the youth's strength and stamina. I realized he was an Asgard deity, but even so, the Greek gods and goddesses I knew all had the constitutions of a physically fit man. If Thor was typical, then the Asgard were physically far superior to any mortal hero.

Once we reached the Halls of the Mountain King, I was made aware of the nature of the boy's challenge. King Utgaroa had devised four challenges for the young Thor. Should he be able to beat all four, Thor would be awarded a great object of Power, a hammer imbued with several magical abilities that the giants had crafted in preparation for Ragnarok. By the look on Utgaroa's face, it was clear to me that the old King had no intention of allowing Thor to win.

The first challenge Thor faced was an eating contest. He was pitted against a wisp of a man named Logi who barely came to Thor's waist. I predicted the outcome to be "no contest". Well, I was right, but not quite in the way I had imagined. You see, despite the fact that Thor ate with the speed and gusto of a typical teenaged boy, Logi ate even faster; I watched in disbelief as he even ate into the wooden platters the food was placed upon. As Thor became more panicked and tried to eat even more, I realized that something was not quite right here. Reaching into my satchel, I brought out my Eye of Odin to see what was actually going on. It the depths of the glass, I could see Thor eating away like a horse. But sitting next to him was not a man, but rather a fire elemental. Utgaroa had paced an illusion upon a creature of fire so that it appeared to be a man, and as everyone knows, fire can consume a great deal. There was no way Thor would be able to consume more food than Logi, and so, I took matters into my own hands.

As unobtrusively as I could I raised my hand and cast a minor spell, causing several tankards of ale to topple and spill all over Logi the Fire Elemental. In the Eye, I saw his flame shrink and wither; at the table, I saw the small illusory man stop eating all together. At the end of the appointed time, Thor had eaten more than Logi and was declared the winner.

At the second contest, it was announced that should Thor be able to completely drain the contents of King Utgaroa's chalice, Thor would be the winner. Well, seeing how that boy could eat and drink, I didn't think this was out of reach for Thor and, so, sat back to watch the proceedings. However, I watched in disbelief as Thor brought the cup to his lips and began to drink and drink and drink without the contents of the chalice changing at all. No matter how much Thor swallowed, the chalice remained full. I quickly brought out my crystal Eye to see what was going on this time. What I saw astonished me.

Through the magical glass, I could see that the cup was normal, but what was contained within it was not, for the cup had been magicked to hold the enormity of the world's oceans. What Thor was trying to drain was all of the water in the world. I thought as fast as I could. I could feel that the enchantment on the chalice was too strong for me to break on the fly. Besides, the release of energy would probably kill most of the spectators and Thor, and I didn't fancy telling Odin I had accidentally killed his kid. So, I did the next best thing.

I quickly placed upon Thor an enchantment that was similar to what was on the chalice. If the contents of the chalice could represent the world's oceans, I made Thor represent the one thing that could hold that much water: the ocean floors. Within moments, Thor had drained the chalice completely to the great surprise of King Utgaroa and to the shouts and cheers of the giants.

When Thor's third challenge was announced, I knew immediately that something was up. His challenge was to lift the King's cat off of the floor and place it on the King's throne. Now, it was obvious to me that the task as described was too simple and that there was probably magic involved yet again. And so, as Thor walked over to lift the orange feline, I took a quick look within my glass. Sitting there curled up on the floor was an image that turned my soul to ice. It was the Midgard Serpent, the creature of Chaos and Evil that was destined to destroy the world in the Great Battle at the end of time. I knew that the Midgard Serpent was so large that it was wrapped around the entire world several times. There was no way Thor was going to be able to move it.

I watched, though, as the valiant young man planted himself, legs spread apart, and tried his best to lift what he thought was a cat. To my great surprise, Thor actually managed to lift one of the cat's paws off of the floor, though he wasn't able to keep it up for long. I began to feel the cold grasp of despair upon my chest, for I knew that no magic in the world would be able to lift that great and evil serpent against his will. But then I got an idea. I could not make the Serpent move, but perhaps I could get the Serpent to move on its own.

Making certain that no one was watching me, I conjured an illusion into the mind of the sleeping snake which made it believe that the time of Ragnarok had arrived. I made it dream that Odin himself was standing at the edge of Valhalla, waiting for their battle to begin. Rousing itself from its dreams, the snake, loosed its hold upon the earth in preparation of going to Valhalla. As soon as it did, Thor was able to get his hands underneath the creature's belly and lift it onto the King's throne. The King's countenance this time was not one of amazement, but rather was one filled with hate, hate that was directed to Thor. I was very glad that my meddling had not yet been detected.

Thor's final challenge was to wrestle a champion of the King's choosing. I almost laughed when I saw who this person was. From a corner of the room, out walked a old woman named Elli. She was so thin and so brittle looking, I thought she looked more like an ambulatory broom than a female wrestler. At the sounding of the bell, though, the old woman struck out like lightening, grabbing Thor and lifting him in the air as if he was a rag doll and threw him down onto the stone floor. I heard a definite crack as his head hit the paving stones. Thor stood up obviously dazed, but before he could move in defense, the old woman had slammed into his stomach, driving the teenaged God onto his knees.

It was clear this was another of Utgaroa's magic tricks. Looking into my glass, I could see why Thor was overwhelmed. The old woman Elli was no woman at all, but rather was the incarnation of Old Age, the one thing that no man or god is able to defeat. To counter Old Age's power, I summoned up a cloak of Youth and wrapped it around Thor, thereby canceling Elli's edge against my young charge. The contest was quickly finished after that.

Once all of the congratulations were taken care of, Thor was begrudgingly awarded by King Utgaroa a beautiful war hammer called Mjolner, a hammer Thor became known for carrying once he matured enough to begin adventuring on his own. Those adventures, however, were not documented by me; by that time I had returned to the mainland and took up the mantle of The Merlin, a post that is generally passed down father to son. In my case, though, due to the seriousness of the times, I was called in to assist the Druids as The Merlin, but that is another story for another time.

Excerpt from The Memoirs of Dr Mandragora: From the Maudlin to the Macabre

And I Thought Oedipus Had It Rough

Well, I knew it had to happen sooner or later; I was just hoping that I would have had some sort of warning, an inkling that the forces of the world were arranged against me. You would think that after having spent lifetimes in service to, and in protection of, others, I would have been spared some amount of pain, allowed some amount of recompense.

But no. No matter how hard you work to defend the weak, to assist Mother Earth against the forces of Chaos, you discover that you are owed nothing. Calamities will still tumble from the sky and make your life a living Hell. As I am sure you can guess by now, I have just received some terrible news.

My mother is coming to visit.

Now, don't get me wrong. I love my momma. What gay boy doesn't love his mother or isn't loved in return? We are like a son and the perfect daughter all rolled into one. We can play sports, have offspring and continue the family name, love to shop, have great taste in clothes and accessories, love to gossip, and all without the drama during the PMS. Yes, it's the best of both worlds.

The reason I am not happy about her visit is that she doesn't know I am gay. I know I should have said something ages ago, but the time never seemed quite right. And, if that isn't enough, the last time I spoke to her, I may have accidentally suggested that I have a girlfriend, two children born out of wedlock, and a dog named Nathaniel. And now, Mom is on her way to meet them all.

I know, I know, you don't have to tell me what you are thinking because I am already thinking it myself. Mandragora, where on earth are you going to find a dog that answers to Nathaniel on such short notice?

Well, focus people, that is the least of my worries! I need to figure out what I am going to do about finding someone to play a wife for a few days. It obviously needs to be a woman; my mother won't be fooled by anything less. That in itself is sticky in that I don't have any women friends, unless you count Kandy Kane, my dear transgendered housekeeper. But I couldn't ask her to play the role of wife, not with that trashy shade of lipstick she insists upon wearing.

Of course, all of this subterfuge could be avoided if my mother simply didn't insist on coming. Why did she have to come? Why couldn't she just believe my story about have a wife and family without her having to come in person to meet everyone. It's like she thinks I am lying or something. Like she doesn't trust me to tell her the truth about myself. That is what upsets me the most. Where is the trust?

It reminds me of the time when I was still a young man and had told her I was practicing every night at my friend Jacob's place for an upcoming Wizards Tournament. Well, there wasn't actually a tournament scheduled and I wasn't really at Jacob's place. I was actually heading off to the Coliseum to watch the very handsome gladiators perform in the arenas. I had recently discovered my love for athletics (and my love for the athletes), and was obsessed with attending the nightly games.

Well, Mother was a Master class Elemental Magician herself, specializing in Fire and Ice magic and was interested in attending the tournament. After asking around the Wizard circles for information, she discovered there was no tournament, I wasn't at Jacob's, but rather was sitting with the masses in the Coliseum stands. At least she didn't find out that I was sitting on the massive gladiators afterwards, if you know what I mean.

Do you see, now, how there is no trust between us? Instead of just asking me for tournament details, she goes around to other people and then accuses me of lying to her when she discovers I had made up the whole tournament story. Really, Mother, somebody obviously has trust issues.

Well, the more I ponder my latest dilemma, the more I think the time has arrived for me to come clean. Instead of continuing to pretend I have a dog named Nathaniel, I should just tell her the truth. I need to let her know who I am and what I stand for. I am the foremost expert in the Ars Magicka. I have friends in powerful places. I have traveled the world, met the ancient gods and goddesses, and am respected by many. I have nothing to be ashamed of and many things to be proud of, and if that isn't good enough for her, then that's her problem.

Yes. The truth. It shall set you free, or so I've heard.

Oh my God, was that a knock at the door? Excuse me, I need to let you go now. I have to put up an illusion around my home to redecorate it with the Martha Stewart collection. I told mother Martha had decorated my home as a personal favor. Mother loves Martha.

Excerpt from The Memoirs of Mandragora: From the Maudlin to the Macabre

Rejoice!

I have a friend who receives messages from time to time from beyond. There are a couple of spirits, she tells me, who hang around her and deliver news, encouragements, and hints of the future. Just a little over a year ago, she began to receive messages from who she believes to be God.

It started when I lost my job and was hit with some very serious problems. I was very scared and anxious ( and still am) and despondent. She would come by where I was staying to keep me company, deliver messages from friends, and to pray with me. One day as I was silently asking God questions, she grabbed a pen and paper and started to write something down. I could see that she seemed to be listening to something and would write down a few words, then a few words more, and so on.

When she finished, she handed me the paper and said that she had received that message on my behalf and that it wasn't from her usual spirits. She said it was from God.

I really didn't know what to make of her assertion. My friend is not the joking sort, and neither is she one to make up stuff. After I read the message, I realized it was obviously a response to my questions, the ones I had been asking God just a few moments ago, questions she did not hear me say aloud. There was no way she had invented this response to make me feel better.

Because of this, and several other messages I've been given, I am convinced she hears the words of God. Why I am worthy of His attention, I have no idea, except to say that, ultimately, none of us are worthy of God's attention. We receive it anyway, though, by His grace, in His time, for His purpose.

I've posted a couple of the messages already here on the blog. It seems to me that His words shouldn't be hoarded by me, but should be read by anyone in need of encouragement. And here is another.

_______________________________________________________________________

Be patient, My son, for I am always with you. I delivered you from evil. Find shelter in my arms; my embrace will protect you in times of desperation and despair. Seek only Me and I will show you a new way to find peace, joy, and love. Ask of Me what you will for it has already been granted.

Be calm, be still, and be quiet, and you will find Me in the sound of every breath you take and every beat of your heart. Don't you know, My son, we are one, and My love for you is much greater than the universe I created just for you.

So do not fear the unknown for it is already known to Me. Rejoice in Me as I rejoice in you!

The Word of God as delivered to me by a prophet

The Beauty of Nature

Back in the days when I still had money, I used to maintain a 1oo gallon saltwater aquarium. The tank was only 5 feet long, but it was very wide, meaning I could have layers of background coral and such to make it look interesting. The bottom of the tank was covered in puka shell which is crushed pieces of cone snail shells found naturally on beaches, especially in Hawaii. My absolute favorite type of marine fish that I kept in the tank were tangs. There were so many varieties and colors of tangs available for the tank that my aquarium always looked so colorful and bright. I was never able to keep live coral, though, which adds a great deal of beauty and color because tangs are grazers. They graze around rocks and coral eating the green algae that they find. I was not aware of that until the day I discovered my $75 piece of coral was dead and/or dying. Oops.

I loved maintaining the aquarium even though it was a fairly costly hobby. The tangs could run anywhere from $25 each to $100, depending on its color and popularity at that particular store. However, my den smelled of briny ocean water and the splashing of the pumps was very relaxing. At night I would turn on the aquarium lights and turn off the lights in the house. The tank would glow with a soft brilliance, and I would sit and watch the beautiful tangs swim around in their new home. I could sit for an hour or more just watching. It was almost exactly what I had imagined as a child it would have been like to look out a porthole of Captain Nemo's Nautilus, watching the sea pass by as we traveled from place to place.

Well, my aquarium is now gone. As is my house. But at night when I have difficulty sleeping due to anxiety and nerves, I close my eyes and remember my beautiful fish and try to imagine myself as a child again, standing next to Captain Nemo, watching the fish pass by.

The Agony (and Ecstasy) of De-Feet

In case there are any readers who visit Sine Logicum that I don't talk to through emails or through traded blog comments, I think it is important for you to know that I am an adult gay man who is still in the closet. Deep in the closet. So deep, that if I feel around, I can touch my dad's old polyester leisure suit. The problem lies, though, not in the fact that I've never told my family. I mean, come on, you don't reach my age without being married and never having a girlfriend and still claim to be looking for the right girl. You and I both know they suspect/realize I'm gay; we just don't talk about it.

No, the problem lies in the fact that I've hidden in the closet from myself all these years, refusing to accept who I am, and shoving the fact that I am attracted to other males deep down inside myself. This has caused some issues, which I will not go into here because no one comes to visit a blog to hear someone else's sob story. We all have issues, right?

I'm telling you this because there will be posts where I describe something from my youth, a first crush, an obsession with butts that I had to hide to fit in. I guess I am using this blog to finally tell someone, even if it is anonymous readers, about who I am, about who I love, about what makes me tick. It's somehow liberating to finally talk about cute and sexy guys after such a long time. Hetero boys get to laugh and joke and talk amongst themselves about the pretty girls they see all around them. They can talk to their parents about relationships. Most gay teen boys can't openly talk about how they find the football quarterback sexy. They have to keep all that inside, as I have done for years. And now, I'm letting some of that out.

So, with that in mind, I have decided to continue with my little "confessions" and tell another one of my turn-ons. Socks.

No, not the smelly, dirty, eww socks that straight single men keep shoved under the bed.

Gross.

I'm talking about seeing men's feet in tight and sexy socks. There is something very erotic, to me, about seeing a man in socks. Socks give a shape and curvature and feel to a man's foot. Now don't get me wrong. I don't have a foot fetish.

In fact, I can't stand to look at anyone's bare feet. Hot guys, beautiful women, kids, whatever, feet are nasty. In fact, I can't understand people licking and sucking on each other's feet and toes.

Gross part dos!

But once they are in socks, that is a different story. I think it's similar to my love of underwear. I'd rather see a nice butt in undies than a bare ass. I'll look at socked feet but not bare ones. Perhaps the clothing adds mystery. You don't know what is underneath the silky fabric, but you can see the flesh shift and move as the object of your desire walks around, his round bottom accentuated by the tight underwear, his feet wrapped in socks. Yum!

I've included some photos, as per usual, to illustrate my point.

By the way, the last picture is my Holy Grail. Tight undies, ankle socks, nice legs.

I declare!

We Represent the Lollipop Guild.......

I'm not really sure if anyone is interested in my camwhoring escapades, but too bad. It's my blog and I'll spy if I want to. Lol.

So, as I was scanning the channels today, what do I come across but a camming midget. Yes, that's right, a friend of Dorothy midget. His screen name was Horny Midget and he listed his age at 30 years old. Now, somebody, please tell me that you wouldn't have been intrigued as well. Right?

So, I click on in to his channel and, once again, became mesmerized by the scene unfolding before me. The cammer, Mr. H-M shall we call him, was seated in a wheelchair with his gnarled legs propped up straight in front of him. Well, actually now that I think about it, it could have been that his legs weren't long enough to drape over the edge of the seat. It's all a blur.

He was completely naked. He had a pot belly that would have rivaled Santa's, quite frankly, and would really have distracted me if it weren't for his equipment. And I don't mean his wheelchair.

He was fricken huge, as were his two accessories. It really was amazing. And Mr. H-M was working it for all it was worth. The comments people were posting were also very funny. One lady was going on and on about how she would love to be with him, have him perform with her, etc. The whole while I was thinking, "Lady, are you kidding? Do you see his lower half? His penis is longer than his legs, for Cripes sake!"

Well, Mr. H-M never responded to anyone's comments, either because his hands were busy squeezing toothpaste from his tube, or because his arms couldn't reach the keyboard. I'm not really sure which.

He did finally come to a happy ending and even had a towel all ready to go to catch his stuff. You know the midget creed: Always be Prepared. And Follow the Yellow Brick Road.

It really was just the most compelling and nauseating performance I've ever witnessed. Afterwards, I clicked over to see a 19 year old Brazilian lad but though he was gorgeous, I just couldn't get the jerkin' midget out of my head. I felt like Aughra, the one-eyed astronomer from The Dark Crystal who lost her eye while staring at the Great Conjunction. The sight of the Great Conjunction was so awesome, it destroyed the eye that witnessed it. This was kind of like that, only without the muppets. And I don't have a cute elf chasing after me trying to get his hands on my "shard" either, more's the pity.

(I would post pictures for people to see, but I don't know how to take captures from a live video stream. Besides, stills wouldn't do the whole experience justice.)

Not Harass! His Ass!

I have to say that I have always found a male's rear end to be his most compelling feature. When I was in Junior High School and just beginning to find the other guys attractive, it was almost always their butts that my eyes went to first. And last.

There were two guys in particular that I remember following behind (or following their behinds?) in the hallways between classes. One was Joseph, when I was in the 7th grade and the other was a beautiful Hispanic guy named Ignacio a few years later.

I had both of these guys' schedules memorized so that I could follow along as they went to their next class, my eyes glued to their butts as I stalked them a few feet away. I think I've mentioned before that at the beginning, I didn't realize that I was attracted to the other boys. All I knew was that I liked looking at their rears, their legs, their eyes. It wasn't until high school that I consciously realized I liked other guys, a realization that scared the Hell out of me. And I suppose still does, so many years later.

My obsession with a guy's bottom is what has lead me, I think, to my fetish for men's underwear. In my mind, there is no more erotic piece of clothing for a man than tight undies. Yum.

I know each of us has something unique that we find attractive in a man. Seth over at sethboyardee.blogspot.com often posts pictures he finds attractive, smooth bare chests seeming to be the theme. He will occasionally put a picture up of a guy with funky hair that he says is a gift to one of his younger readers (whose name escapes me at the moment) who has a thing for "nice" hair.

Each of us has been molded and shaped based on our own life experiences, making us into the people we are today. The bottom line is that as gay men, we each find other men attractive, there is no shame in that, and if the moral majority doesn't like that, then they can all board a ship with Pat Robertson and hide on an island where everyone thinks the same thoughts and everyone lives in a fantasy world.

Though there may be men in small swimsuits on the beaches. Hmm. I may have to tag along, just to help them keep things real, mind you.