Is there such a thing as a healthy open relationship? I can only go on my own experiences, which were mixed.
I met Adam in the early 2000s. He was six foot two, tattooed, broad and masculine and counterbalanced my more twinky look. He was hairy and I was smooth, lean and blond with boyish looks. We were smitten in no time at all and entered a really passionate relationship. I was less experienced than him and in my late twenties. He was in his mid thirties and had been around the block a fair bit, trying things that I never had but which turned me on at the very thought of them. He’d had scores of anonymous one night stands, attended an orgy or two and engaged in numerous threesomes. The very thought of this made me squirm with lust.

The sex was brilliant and we were very compatible. One minor problem was that we were both quite insecure about our looks and both a little bit possessive. I resented his friendship with an ex; he mistrusted me with my gay friends. The usual things. We’d been together a couple of years and were on holiday when we ended up in a bar with a back room. The combination of drink and holiday atmosphere led to us entering into a mass fumbling session and both ending up with sticky hands, hangovers and regrets the next day.
It sparked something off though and we started to fantasise together about threesomes and about group sex. The next holiday we went on we entered another gay bar and this time ended up taking a hot young Swedish bloke back to our hotel room. It was a pretty good experience. This started the bizarre pattern we followed for the next few years.

Both of us were incredibly tempted by the array of horny blokes on offer on the gay scene. Both of us disapproved of infidelity. We came to a dangerous compromise. We would have a semi-open relationship. We could both sleep with other people of our choice but the other partner had to be present, either watching or joining in.

We set ground rules: safer sex only, we both had the right to say we didn’t want to pursue someone and we both had to agree. This worked for a while. We met a variety of blokes, some sexier than others, some duller and weirder and some more wildly exciting than we could have hoped for. We trawled the internet, saunas, back rooms and bars and managed to pull a fair bit.

Naturally the problems soon set in. Firstly: I fancied big, manly blokes who were slightly older. He fancied younger blokes who were more effeminate. Who did we choose? The ideal was another couple like us but that wasn’t always so readily available.

Nearly half of gay men questioned felt there was a stigma attached to bottoming or being the receptive partner.

In a poll run by TheGayUK sixty per cent of readers thought that there was or weren't sure if there was a stigma attached by bottoming or being the receiving partner during penetrative sex. Only 40 per cent said no there wasn't a stigma.

ALSO READ: BIG BROTHER's Aaron Shows How to Twerk Whilst Bottoming

However when questioned men who considered themselves more of a receiver said that bottoming meant that they felt they were in control.

One reader said,

'Being a bottom does not imply a position of weakness. I usually control what happens"

MANHOOD QUESTIONED?

The question of manliness and gender roles was raised with those polled pointing out that others' expectations often put gay, bisexual and MSMs (men who have sex with men) into a gender role according to which position they took during sex. Some suggesting that being a bottom meant being 'less of a man'.

David said,

"As a bear type, it's an almost inevitable look of shock and confusion when guys hit on me then find out I'm a bottom! It's almost like they think I'm pretending to be someone I'm not!?!? It's usually little twinklets that get all snotty and look at me like I'm less of a man!"

Young love is one of the most beautiful things a person will ever experience.

The moment your lips first touch those of your partner’s is the forming of a period in your life you’ll remember forever. There’s something magical about the way a gentle kiss makes the body tingle with electricity. And how the stomach, in its surprised state, begins to knot, churn and bounce. The mind, so overwhelmed by all the glorious dopamine, begins to pity anybody who’s not standing in your shoes, holding hands with their dearly beloved.

It’s nothing short of mind-blowing.

But, everything evolves. It changes. Given time, the booming choir of angels singing ‘Hallelujah!’ every time you meet Mr. Right becomes more of a white-noise than a tear-jerker.

Young Love Soon Becomes Old Love

It’d be unfair to say love is only beautiful in its infancy. It isn’t. It just has fewer obstacles in its way. The newness and the intensity serve as rose-tinted goggles that block out anything that would compromise such a feeling. (These are the things that cause problems later on.) But one thing remains despite the emergence of imperfections and the reduction in infatuation: they’re still your soul-mate.

Relationships After 40

40 is an odd age. It really is. It’s young enough to feel optimistic, yet old enough to realize life isn’t the glamorous fairytale we believed it to be when we were 20. Some may say that’s depressing, but it isn’t. It’s this wisdom that makes us more successful in business and in love. A man’s peak, according to Oxford University in bonny England, is 45-years-old. Everything you were doing before you joined the over-40 club, was, essentially, practice.

What changes

Psychologists believe there are several stages to a relationship:

• First contact
• Romantic realization
• Courtship
• Honeymoon period
• Reality
• Dissatisfaction/Contentment

By the time you’re 40, assuming you’ve been in a long-term relationship for some time, you’ve reached either the Reality phase, the Dissatisfaction phase, or the Contentment phase. (Hopefully it’s not the middle one.) The two phases on either side of the dissatisfied one above differ drastically from their predecessors. Mainly because of habit, life consciousness, and self-permission to work towards singular objectives, rather than relationship ones.

Statistics can be tricky.  On the one hand, you may have seen some of the studies that say “Gays are better with money” (Prudential, Census Bureau, Experian). On the other, there are polls that show that the LGBT community has lower income and lower levels of education (Gallup). Who is right? And can these studies even draw a useful conclusion from the data?

Yesterday we did a small overview of basic gay male sex information for any male wanting to experience their first gay sexual relationship. Now we are about to get serious and talk like real adults. Gay male sex is immersed in labels and roles. The first basic sex question any gay male want to ask themselves is “ Am I top, bottom or versatile?”

With this new breed of gay male coming out, the realization that there is more than sexual positions involved in gay sex is slowly seeping into the gay male community but old sexual habits are very hard to break. When you get online with sites like Adam4Adam or BBRT, gay men are going to ask you are you top or bottom. If you decide you are a bottom, which means you like to be penetrated, here are some good starting tips.

Cleaning yourself out is very important. Unfortunately, being a gay man means that these concepts are not going to be taught to you by your parents but here is the skinny. You want to find some douching products preferably a vinegar product and also enema products to help get as much bowl waste out of you as possible. 

It is going to take more than one time for a thorough cleaning so hopefully you know you can fill the bottle with warm water to repeat the steps over and over again. Now a days shower heads come with the extra hookups and line so all you have to do is flip a switch to have an effective cleaning device. 

Again, you keep repeating the steps over and over. Sometimes it takes fives time maybe it takes twenty. It all depends on the individual. Just don't clean to the point where you hurt yourself because it is possible to do damage with over-douching.

Remember, the anus and rectum was designed for things to come out of it, not for things to be plunged into it with full force right off the bat. No matter how many times you clean yourself, some waste may come out but no man should be embarrassed about that. For a lot of top guys it maybe a turn off but if they can’t understand that accidents will happen and make a big hopping deal about it, then those are not the type of guys you want to deal with in the first place.

We surveyed 3,141 gay and bisexual men:

- 44% of HIV-negative men would not have sex with an openly HIV-positive man.

- Up to 49% did not know what HIV-undetectable means.

- 31% did not know what PrEP is.

- When we explained what PrEP is, 71% of gay men said they would use it.

- 51% were worried about becoming HIV-positive.

Of the 3,141 men who completed this FS survey, 67% said they were definitely HIV-negative, 17% probably HIV-negative, 6% didn’t know, 1% probably HIV-positive, and 9% definitely HIV-positive.

84% of those with HIV said they have an undetectable viral load.

I used to think there were only two kinds of sex: good and bad.
But after years of having a lot of it (and I mean a lot), I’ve realized there is an endless amount of sex experiences, including quick kind.
It’s rare for a quickie to be hot as hell, but sometimes it is. For anonymous escapades or come ‘n go scenarios to be enjoyable depends on whether you yourself are willing to limit the possibilities.

Personally I like to take time with my man, but every once in a while, when time isn’t on our side, a quickie is all we have—we might as well make it worth our while.