5 The Beholders Eye!

Now where was I? Oh yes….last time I was going to talk about dealing with being beheld. Because we’ve all somewhat reluctantly accepted the idea that beauty may be in the eye of the beholder but we do still like to believe there is some absolute essence of beauty and we’ve all been given varying amounts resulting in an internationally accepted pecking order with Brads and Angelinas at the Top Table and the mingers hanging around outside. And then of course there’s the ‘Ravages of Time’ effect where stunners like David Essex and Adam Ant and David Cassidy become grey and baggy eyed. Bucking the trend of all this is the situation where we are perceived as more beautiful than we feel ourselves to be. If someone believes we are beautiful we’ve got a few options. We could accept their view as valid and enjoy basking in their appreciation of our beauty. We could attempt to change the situation by invalidating their view- persuading them through what we did or said that they are in fact wrong, that their view is inaccurate, a misapprehension, a misperception or that maybe they are just plain warped! Or we can choose to move away from the discomfort. Move towards people and situations that will reflect more accurately the view we hold of ourselves. So take your pick on that one. Though I guarantee it’s likely to feel nicer in the company of those who recognise your beauty than to be hanging around with people who are happy to reflect with you on your perceived shortcomings! And it’s certainly less effort than arguing the toss over whether you’re beautiful or not!!

More commonly we are valued as less beautiful than we actually feel. Now, as a Gay Man Having Self Esteem Issues [and bring me the Gay Man who doesn’t], I’m a bit prone to accepting a more negative view of myself than is probably the case. But we can all tell when we are being underrated. Now I would hold that this underrating happens as a mass effect in our society right now towards ageing. It’s a bit complicated but I think it’s something to do with how people generally appreciate and categorise the world. So there’s the majority of people who dichotomise- who see the world as full of good and bad things, situations and people. And of course whatever it is that a society chooses to see as “bad” is  beheld that way by the majority. My Spanish teacher tells me that in Spain it is considered Bad Luck to meet a person with a squint. So if you’re born with a squint you spend your life having people crossing roads to avoid your gaze. And people move into or out of these zones of positive and negative behodenment [if that can be a word]. The ugly duckling grows to be a very fine swan indeed! But ageing is the opposite process. So for thousands and billions of people worldwide, as you become old, you enter this zone of being negatively beheld. More or less so depending on the relative store put by the individual person on the unattractiveness of the aged state [usually in direct relationship to the degree  of fear they themselves have of not being accepted for whatever reason but more often than not it’s to do with a fear of loosing their sense of how beautiful they’re perceived to be] I said it was a bit complicated!!

I’m just trying to step outside the process a bit to understand why people increasingly either look right through me as if I don’t exist or actually scowl at me as if I’ve brought a bad smell into the room!

4 A Steamy Sunday in Rainy Madrid

Ok-I'm tucked up in bed-It's 2.30 in the afternoon and I'm just recovering from a mammoth almighty sleep. Gone are the days when I might have squeezed the last dregs out of a holiday weekend by going out on a Sunday night. So instead I treated myself to a night in with Spanish TV with Spanish subtitles courtesy of teletext page 888!! A vain attempt at improving my Spanish but at least I got the chance to catch a few phrases and expressions. So it was 'Cat Woman' and '8MM' -en Espana until 1 am and then lights out and off to sleep for a solid 12 hours-Lovely! Well, I think I had over-exerted myself somewhat. After all the exertions of Saturday morning I awoke at 9 am after just 5 hours and decided that I was going to have a lazy Sunday. Spent the morning reading and writing. Then had the bright idea of taking myself off to a sauna. How easy is it for me to sly off to a sauna when I'm at home? So checked out the local guide to see which might be the biggest, brightest, cleanest-difficult because they sort of claim that they all are in their ads. Plumped for Sauna Center along Gran Via 'one of the biggest male saunas in Europe'. What it doesn't say is that it's old, moldy, and a bit dingy which I discovered 16 Euros later [£12-80 with the current poor exchange rate!]. Never mind , I was here at least ostensibly to have a thorough sauna and steam experience which, if you do it properly, can leave you feeling naturally high and exhilarated. So even though the showers were mainly cold-apart from one highly sought-after one-and one was broken: you get the picture, the steam room was extremely large and steamy and the sauna was extremely hot and dry. So I proceeded to get on with the business of getting myself so hot I could hardly bear it and then throwing myself under icy showers-accepting that this would do nothing for my sauna credibility as the process resulted in the shrinking of my already compromised assets! But hey-ho, I was there for a sauna -so there!

However, I was increasingly struck, as the afternoon wore on, that even though there was an ever changing number of faces and bodies in the shower room, no one seemed to be using the sauna or steam rooms. I nonchalantly wandered around a bit to find out where everyone was going but no-all I could find was room after room of changing room cubicles, a toilet area,shower area and bar. Ah well, I thought, I'm here for a sauna so off I went until I was dazed and spaced out with it all -flopped into a sofa in the bar really appreciating the laid back space, relaxed music and faded retro atmosphere and then I fell asleep for a bit. 

When I awoke I was still troubled because I couldn't figure out how just a few rooms could be described as 'one of the largest saunas in Europe'. Needed to do more of an assertive explore, I thought! Then, on this circuit, I realized I'd managed to overlook a massive stairway right by the entrance which led down to one of the most spacious sets of dark rooms, cubicles, porn cinemas and wet areas I've ever come across. Hmm! Well, I'd done my sauna-ing, now was the time for a little R and R. Trouble with very large places, they can feel a little forlorn even when there are quite a few people around. I decided that I couldn't be fussed with all the thrill of the chase and opted for a completely anonymous dark room orgasm. Lay down, started myself off, and in no time at all I was being slowly and surely helped to one of the most leisurely orgasms I've had in years-Lovely! That felt like a no-blame encounter if ever there was one. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere?

Oh-I was going to talk about how you are beheld! Ok -maybe do that next time.
 

3 Let Beauty be in the Eye of the Beholder

OK! So what's my day thrown up? I suppose it's mainly to do with how it never ceases to amaze me that no matter how old and past-it I seem to look to myself in the mirror as I prepare to go out there's always at least one or two in an evening out who get drawn towards me!

So Saturday Night out in Madrid. It's a ridiculously late scene which doesn't get started 'til way past 2 am. I got an early start at 1.30 and I decided that I'd do a round of the bars that kind of appealed from their description in the travel guide. One drink in the fist and then on to the next. My challenge was to do this alcohol-free! Well it's one thing being out in a strange city, on an unfamiliar scene, and lubricating oneself into it with liberal volumes of booze- it's quite another to be doing it all stone cold sober. However I had decided a few weeks ago to go teetotal for a few months. So here I was at the first major hurdle and I really didn't want to crack! So how did it go?

Well, alright, actually! The first bar was a bit daunting. Asking for 'un agua con gas' and being presented with a half litre bottle and a glass that looked like an oversized champagne goblet! Talk about sticking out like a sore thumb! So I quickly learned and subsequently asked for 'una tonica' so I could blend in anyone else drinking G or V&T. Once the problem of blending in had been dealt with, I found the initial nervousness I'd felt just getting myself into the place, gradually melted away. And it got easier and easier with each bar. So the blousy Black and White Bar was the worst with my Sundae glass and water bottle but then the Bear Bar 2 followed by Bear Bar 1 was a lot easier to survive. By then I'd summoned up the ganners to brave the Eagle Bar. From the description in the guide it seemed like it could be fairly heavy-duty since this was apparently the nerve-centre of the fetish scene in Madrid. Would my reasonably tailored combats, G-Star paratrooper shoes and hoodie cut it with the dress code fascist bouncer on the door? Sadly not! It was decided that the hoodie would have to be left at the door but then it was business as usual-Una Tonica in hand, propped against the bar though in this bar the porn wasn't just on the telly screens- just a glance to the left and there's some full-on live acts of man-on-man action taking place in the raised scaffolded back area. Both guys stark bollock naked apart from a few leather and metal accessories!! Meanwhile next to me at the bar- as is often the case in these sorts of places-there was a huge Booted, Thonged, Rubber-Leotard-clad, Pierced and Tattoed Queen chatting merrily away about quiche recipies and knitting patterns! 

So, onward and upward, I hurried on to the Leather Bar which, as the guide promised had nothing to do with leather with its brightly lit chic upstairs bar playing Erasure and Abba videos.

That's when I clocked Ismailie. Nice looking Spanish guy in his late 20's maybe early 30's- young to me (ie. the age a son of mine would have been if I'd gone and got married and had kids when I left school). Next thing I'm downstairs checking out the cruising area and who's there beside me reaching out to touch me, kissing me, caressing me? Yep, you guessed it! Next thing we're in a cubicle semi-naked just doing it!? 

Now how hypocritical is that? Yesterday I'm preaching the virtues of marital fidelity and today I've got the morals of an alley cat. Hmm! I can't quite put my finger on the distinction but it's something to do with beauty, integrity, gentleness and dignity. Sex last night was all of these things- even though it happened in a scuzzy cabin in a sleazy dark room. Sex at the Strong Centre the night before would have been none of them. Honest!

2 You are what you eat!

Flushed with the success of having completed my first assignment of the holiday - last week's missive - I was full of ideas about what was to come next. The big problem is how to present my argument in a way which will not be dismissed as - oh that's just the twitterings of some old has-been who's become all prissy in his dotage. And what qualifies me, anyway, for dispensing advice to the young, wild and free? Well I'll keep going, and see where it leaves me. Reflecting back on what was most enjoyable about my first holiday day here in Madrid, I came up with a few high spots. The most memorable bit was as I was tucking into a tomatoe and chorizo salad with gazpacho, thrown together with my own fair hands and consumed in the quiet tranquility of my tiny studio appartment. There's something about the tomatoes and chorizo that you get in Spain that bears no resemblance to the flavourless produce churned out of Sainsbury's and Waitrose. Sweet and fragrant - delicious! Then the next best bit was the feeling of achievment having written my first my first 550 words of my own personal column!! After those two high spots - and even though the rest of the day was fairly packed with checking out the streets around Chueka, doing some sight seeing in the old part of the city, dining at a local resteraunt and visiting one of Madrid's largest cruising clubs in the early hours of the morning - the remaining highs were simply meditative moments -one at the start of the day when I was getting set for how to balance what I was planning to do and also at the end of the day when I was able to take stock of how well I'd actually managed to balance things, to think about what I might have over-done, what I might have under-done and also a little oasis around about 4 pm when I took the time to stop doing everything and just lie still and BE! No thinking. No planning. No becoming. No reflecting. Just emptying my head and existing in each moment. Lovely. Now that's the nice thing about being away on your own. You can just do that sort of thing at any point and there's no-one to blame for not doing it - except yourself.So anyway, what was my 'thought for the day'? Well, I suppose as time goes by I get more and more interested in what I put in my mouth, or more to the point what I don't put in my mouth. There's something about today's fast-food-instantly microwave-able-essential-fatty-acid-free junk we shovel into our mouths which seems - and probably is - lacking in a lot. Aside from the fact that it's often made without love - that most essential ingredient in our mother's cooking - it doesn't have fibre and it doesn't have fish oils. So piece of advice number 2 is .... If you must persist with fast-food - get some fibre [like muesli and fruit] and take an essential fatty acid supplement. Funny because while I was cruising around the Strong Centre, taking in the hundreds of men it might have been possible to have a close encounter with, it struck me that this pickiness when it comes to dietary concerns has also affected my sexual tastes. I suppose the rule is if it isn't going to nourish you then don't put it in your mouth! I came to the conclusion that my sexual and fantasy life would be better served by my own hand and my own mind in the comfort of my holiday home rather than by being sullied by a frantic public hand job in a labyrinthine, vomit scented dark room! So I withdrew from the possibility of a cheap thrill from a clandestine fumble. Instead I left the club feeling dignified and wholesome! 

1 If only I knew then what I know now!

I'm lounging around on my sofa-bed in my tiny little apartment in Madrid. Just arrived yesterday and settling into a six-day-very-long-weekend break. There are a number of reasons why I'm out here in a cheap studio apartment in the centre of Madrid's gay area (it's called Chueka) the main one being that I just needed to get away from everyone and everything in my life back in Brighton. You might think "Gay man living in Brighton -the UK's Gay Mecca -what on earth could there be to get away from? Hmm! There are times when you can just get too much of something and so it just makes sense to withdraw. The reason I gave for public consumption was that, since I'm currently learning Spanish, I need to get away on my own to somewhere Spanish speaking and get some practice at the conversational side of things. Sounds reasonable enough I thought. And of course there are elements of truth in there but frankly I'm not in the mood for having a conversation with anyone anywhere in any language right now! I just want to slob around and do nothing for a few days. Well- not nothing exactly!

I really just want space to think and re-create myself I suppose. Writing this is my first faltering step towards that goal.

So who am I? What am I doing writing about my life and my experiences? I'm reminded of that line in Baz Luhrman's  'Wear Sunscreen' monologue about being careful about dispensing advice. It went something like '...advice is a form of nostalgia-you take bits from the past, dust them off, and try to sell them for much more than they're worth!'

My intention is not to advise but to expose myself to scrutiny in as honest a way as I'm able in the hope that an older gay man might be more than a caricature featuring on a Brighton postcard. More than a Catherine Tate closeted 'How very dare you' type or one of the lisping 'Suit you sir' mens outfitters or one of the sibilant ever smiling Four Puffs and a Piano on the Jonathon Ross Show. Is it possible to exist culturally as a gay man without being submerged and drowned in the morass of stereotypes which abound in our dumbed down UK media?

OK enough of the ranting -time to get a move on. It's already 2 pm and I need to get going. Haven't even thought about what I'm going to do with my time here so need to get my travel guide out and do some planning. Oh yes and there's a bit of Spanish grammar to catch up on too!

But what about a bit of what I'm talking about?

I'm now approaching the age of 50 and with retirement being a tangible prospect in just 5 years I'm feeling a second career coming on. Most people I know who have retired simply rapidly return to work again on a part-time basis doing the same old stuff until they either peg it or they get too old and infirm to carry on. Hence the Spanish lessons. At least it's a move away from what would seem an inevitable draw back to the familiar. I'm figuring that if I'm able to have a reasonable stab at communicating in Spanish, it opens up an entire Spanish speaking world for me to explore in my dotage. So here is my first bit of advice for what it's worth. Don't bother learning French-it's a tradition in the UK that's long past it's sell by date. Learn a language that you might stand a chance of using at some stage in your life!