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9/11 was sexy for me

Rating: NNNNN


ever thought of sex at a funeral?Ever popped a boner while consoling a buddy during some personal crisis? Suspect you’re just a bit of a sickie? If so, you’ve got company. Read on.Shortly after the World Trade Center catastrophe last year, a local gay mag was criticized by some of its readers for running a photograph of a sexy New York firefighter. Readers seemed incensed that a terrible tragedy should be exploited to move magazines.

Maybe they were right, but the magazine was onto something — something many of us have undoubtedly felt when it comes it sex but might not care to think too deeply about. Something the therapizing community might call inappropriate urges.

Like what happened when I was watching television recently. There were these two French guys, brothers, and I fantasized as I watched the show what fun it would be to give them both blow jobs, preferably together, and while I blew his brother one would hang back playing with himself, really getting off on watching his brother shoot his load into my mouth. And then stepping up to take his turn. And getting off on the fact that his own brother is now watching him get sucked off.

They happened to be the two French cinematographers who made a documentary that was broadcast last month about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the heroic efforts made by New York City firefighters to cope with the catastrophe and save lives.

I suppose I wondered vaguely at the time whether lust was an entirely appropriate response to a film about a real event that took thousands of lives. It crossed my mind again when my ever-fickle sex sensors began to pick up on the fact that several of the firemen were on the luscious side, and one imaginative way of thanking them might be for me to get down on my knees.

Those thoughts went away when the cameras were filming inside the foyer of the building and you could hear the sickening thud of bodies hitting the ground outside. But the thoughts always came back.

They came back again recently when friends were discussing another television documentary, this time one featuring rare colour film clips from inside Hitler’s Germany. One thing everyone noticed, of course, was how sexy many of the Nazi soldiers were, an observation that might be followed moments later by a shocked recounting of the almost unbelievable miseries some of those soldiers inflicted on their fellow humans.

Now, it could just be that my friends and I are sickies. But I don’t think so. The thing I noticed most in the wake of September 11 was the sudden, dramatic increase in my prostitution business. At a time when everyone was supposed to be numb, to be grieving, to be in a state of shock, to be terrified that World War III might be just around the corner, I was deluged by phone calls from guys who wanted sex. I thought at first that it might just be a weird statistical anomaly, until I began reading newspaper stories reporting that sex workers both male and female in Europe and America were reporting the same phenomenon. Thousands die as two pillars of capitalism collapse in flames. And guess what? Guys want blow jobs. (Women? Don’t know. Would love to hear.)

Did these guys feel guilty? Again, don’t know. Did I? No. Surprised, sometimes — though one recalls that bit of poetry about the grave being a fine and private place, “but none, I think, do there embrace.”

When the grave appears to yawn before one in the shape of a huge pit where two buildings once stood, it’s perhaps not so odd that one might deem it time to concentrate on a little embracing. Besides, I’ve long known that desire is no respecter of boundaries, that the fact that it blurs and elides boundaries is the liveliest, most seductive aspect of eros.

Class differences, age disparities, racial inequities won’t vanish — but they may be made negligible for as long as you’re in the hands of eros. There are no inappropriate urges as far as eros is concerned — it will whisper to you that there is no time, no place, no person wrong for lust. It is a whisper we should listen to, as we should listen to any voice that leads us astray. It’s how you act as you wander astray that establishes your credentials as a moral agent. Not the “appropriateness” of your urges.

So the call’s out to all you New York firefighters. I respect your heroism, your hard work, your selflessness immensely. And I’m on my knees, ready to give thanks. gerald.hannon@sympatico.ca

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