Ask Adri: Don’t gay men ever use lube?
I feel as if I should write something profound this morning, and yet I’ve got nothing - and I’m out of Seagram’s. Anyone can be profound after a few shots of Seagram’s. It’s a pretty slow gay news day, there’s no point in spending more time hashing through the same recycled political points (just have the bloody election already; we’re damned either way) and the most interesting thing I’ve stumbled across lately has been some wanker in a local Iowa newspaper claiming that a barely-gay film on ABC ruined family TV on Christmas. The comments are priceless (and a little disjointed, but it’s Iowa, after all).
Yeah. Merry Christmas, we dragged your head out of the sand for you; no need to thank us. Gay people exist. We’re a part of the population, which means there’s going to be a percentage of representation on television - especially when television struggles to reflect real life. No one’s trying to force anything on anyone. You can’t close your eyes and wish your gay next-door-neighbor away. At least on TV you can change the channel, so stop your griping and use your thumb for more than a navel cork. Jerk.
Anyway. It’s been a little while since I’ve done an “Ask Adri” question, and I’d saved this one for a slow day when one might need some amusement. I certainly hope the person who wrote it isn’t serious, but either way, I’m going to take a stab at it.
hi Adri I really like your comic
I like to read yaoi slashfic
But its weird
No one uzes lube
Is that true
Do gays use lube
Sweet Pea
Kind of reads like a weird kind of haiku or tanka, doesn’t it?
Sweetie, here’s your first problem: you’re reading gay porn written by girls. Specifically by girls in their late teens and mid-twenties who’ve probably never taken it up the back door (or the front door, most likely) and thus have no idea how the mechanics of that work. I know there’s a huge craze in the female-dominated yaoi fandom; I used to help fuel it with a yaoi webcomic. (If you don’t know what yaoi is, have a gander here.) I know that porn written by girls is more appealing. It has plot, characterization, and descriptions of sex that don’t involve words like “sloppy”, “squishing”, “gaping”, “gushing”, and…well, I’ll spare you the rest.
But to dispel a few illusions created by yaoi fanfiction and slashfiction: the bum does not self-lubricate. It is not a magical transformative thing that instantly takes on properties of the vagina at convenient moments when the bumsexing is about to occur.
Water is not lube. Saliva is not lube. Blood is not lube. Cooking oil is not lube. And for all that’s holy, unholy, and somewhere in between, soap of any kind is not lube. Stuff a bar of soap up your nose until your mucosae rip, then give your nostrils a good swabbing with Palmolive before jamming a finger in and out of there a few dozen times at rapid speed. Tell me how good it feels, eh?
With that said, yes, real gay sex does involve lube (unless you’re dealing with an idiot or a masochist). There’s KY Jelly, Platinum Wet Glide, various body oils that do dual duty, pre-lubricated condoms, the list goes on. It’s not an option. It’s a necessity. He may say “oh, I like it rough” now, but he won’t be liking it so rough when his doctor is giving him a prostate exam and lecturing him about the damage done to his rectal tissue. Not to mention that penetration isn’t particularly easy without lubricant and preparation, and it’s not just uncomfortable for the recipient. Friction is a scabies-ridden b*tch.
Real gay sex is not as pretty as the fiction makes it seem. No sex is as pretty as fiction makes it seem. Sex is messy, crude, awkward, and funny as hell no matter the gender of those involved; human beings are some oddly-put-together things, and when you’re trying to cram two or more naked bodies together in certain ways the limbs start going everywhere like you’re doing the wild pony with a Gumby doll. Funny thing is if you keep a sense of humor about it and just relax…sometimes you find something even better than the fiction. It may still be messy, it may not be perfect, but there’ll be something there in that wild meeting of bodies and the hiss of skin on skin that makes it not matter anymore, because every touch is just right and it’s hard to care about how silly you both look when you can’t even manage to think for the distraction of each sensation.
I’d like to see any virgin-written fanfiction capture that.
Your 2.5mL of silicone-based lifesaver,
~Adri
Have a question you’d like to see answered on Ask Adri? E-mail your question to adrien-luc.sanders@451press.net with the subject “Ask Adri Question” or use the Contact Form to send your question in.
ask adri, gay advice column, gay sex, lubricant, yaoi fanfiction, slashfiction
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December 27th, 2007 at 10:35 am
It made my nose hurt just reading that little rant up there.
Also your Christmas dinner sounds really nice. We had chicken rather than the traditional turkey (which annoyed my brother who is incredibly conservative about xmas traditions for some reason) but other than that it was the whole seasonal hog (figuratively - we had the actual ham on boxing day). We somehow managed to grow a chicken that weighed the same as our neighbour’s turkey (for eight people). I personally belive it was some kind of mutant space chicken that was accidently abandoned on this planet and then purchased by my dad to live out its life in the peculiar earth-customs of our back garden.
December 27th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Good morning,
I’ve been reading your blog for some time and I really enjoy it. You’ve called my attention to issues that I didn’t know existed (though I probably should have).
I’m also a slash writer and have been for a solid decade. I am a twenty-something girl, but for the record I do have sex. There are many other slash writers who do propagate the sterotypes that you’ve mentioned on various occasions, including today.
I would like it to be known for the record, however, that many of us are not sex starved morons without the least idea of physical anatomy or how real live men function. Good fanfic, and there is quite a lot, acknowledges simple rules of reality like non-lubricating anus (ani? What is the plural of anus?).
I don’t know nearly as much about yaoi (as it is something of a branch off from slash), but I would venture to guess that there are some fine writers hiding amid the trash.
It’s quite easy to dismiss fangirls as the drooling masses, but please recall that some us are happy, functioning members of socitey that do purchase Wet from time to time.
Regards,
Vera
December 27th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Vera,
Nice to hear from you; you should comment more often, as I always enjoy hearing from my readers. In this case, though…I think there’s been a small misunderstanding. I didn’t mean to offend, nor did I say that all slashficcers or fangirls are drooling masses. I’m addressing the stories Sweet Pea spoke of and the widely-spread illusions created by bad fanfic, because while not all of you are like that, those people do exist and they’re rather widely-known.
I personally know some great fanfic and slashfic writers, both female and male. I’ve even written some myself. I wasn’t lumping them or you in with the people discussed in this rant, nor saying that all fan/slash/yaoi fic writers or readers are deluded virgins. I’m sorry if I didn’t make it clear that I wasn’t attacking the entire group, but thank you for taking the time to comment and speak on behalf of the slashfiction community to educate people like Sweet Pea, who apparently has been spending far too much time on AFF.
December 27th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Hahaha! That’s just too much! =P
I have a few classmates, in japanese lanaguage class*, that are your average raging-yaoi-fan-girl. The things I’ve witnessed… and I’m not talking about the cosplay.
“Omgwtfbbq! He’s gay! Kyaaah!”, “OMG! He looks just like Gackt!”- no, he doesn’t-, …
Hehe.
* I’m majoring in Japanese language and literature, and linguistics.
December 27th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Ah, sorry for my misunderstanding. There must have been some extra bitter in my coffee this morning. Let me put my soap box away and just say thanks for the fun reading. It’s a really good way to start the day.
December 27th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
The fact my nose was bleeding while I read this did not help me feel better…I’ll be sure to use lube next time I pick my nose, though!
I’ve always wondered how male’s arse’s secreted that wierd juice from
December 27th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
why did only part of my message come out?
December 27th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
I don’t know. WordPress does that sometimes. It seems to like to do it to you, Indikaze, and Amanda the most.
December 27th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
I’d like to know what networks he watches where homosexuality is “shoved down his throat” on a consistent basis. To me it seems they “gave us” LOGO and dropped any pretense of homosexual representation from major network television. The only show that consistently displays it now is Desperate Housewives, and even then they need to have the snarky queen to balance the seemingly mild-mannered and well adjusted partner.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
LOGO sucks, though. I can’t watch it for the plethora of stupid dating shows and movies all chopped up to take out swearing and sexual content. A friend of mine was going to work for them when it was first started up, but when she saw that it wasn’t going to be much different than a regular MTV season, she said to hell with it and went to work for CNN instead.
As for the lube question - there’s also the opposite end of things (no pun intended) where anything and everything is used from lube. Darlings, blood is not lube. Hair conditioner is not lube. Alcohol is not lube. (Ow…can you imagine how much that would sting?) Sadly, I have actually stumbled upon stories that included these things. There are just some things that were not invented to go up the down escalator. Although if I recall correctly, olive oil was used quite often in ancient Greece and Rome.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I’m a recovering yaoi/slash/however many other things to call it fangirl. And there is some even worse stuff out there than a self lubricating anus. And that’s not even getting into MPreg. *shudder* Also, we’ll leave the urethra out of it too. And fangirls are usually the drooling masses. I have yet to meet one that wasn’t.
December 27th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
The only thing I’ve ever watched consistently on LOGO was “Noah’s Arc” (what, I have a thing for Ricky) but even that drove me away. There were days I honestly though that all of the shows on LOGO were written and programmed by straight women with caricatured images of what gays and lesbians are really like.
And my favorite improvised lube was from a 13 year old girl who used Crisco for a kitchen sex scene. It was a week before I could go into mine without giggling.
December 27th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Bah, I resent the assertion that virgins don’t know how “mechanics” work. I’ll have you know, I got an “A” in high school physics.
…
A bit more seriously, omitting “realistic” stuff doesn’t always mean you don’t understand it. It does create certain problems and illusions, but such is the nature of fictional tropes. Fantasy can feel better than reality, after all.
Not that I have anything to be defensive about, mind you. I never write yaoi slashfic.
…Okay, okay. I write yaoi fic, and I write slashfic. I don’t do both at once. Stop looking at me like that.
December 27th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
…you had to mention the MPreg, didn’t you, Amanda? ~shudders~ One day I was mocking MPreg in a previous post, and thanks to that I now have people who land on DR looking for “Lance Bass MPreg fanfic” and “Vladimir Putin MPreg fanfic”. People scare me.
December 27th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
*actually likes the idea of MPreg* ….I get my gay friend pregnant in RP’s a lot! :3 Obviously it always comes out a boy! Then we have another one and force them to have incestuous affairs when tehy are older!
I love yaoi ^w^ *feels all warm and fuzzy thinking about it* Lube is never mentioned, since he says he doesn’t use it and his boyfriend(ex now) is like…10 inches…pow chica powow *nods*
December 28th, 2007 at 12:22 am
*dies laughing* Ah yes, the wonders of Yaoiland are infinite, where rape eventually spawns the best loving relationship in the universe, where condoms and STDs are non-existant and where Gay sex is aesthetically pleasing to the eye. No awkwardness and awesomeness galore!
*le sigh* If only the real world were so
pretty!
And Vera, I feel your pain on the fangirls/fanboys from Japanese class…The first week our Professor asked us is we knew some Japanese Names and les fangirls answered “Gackt!” “Ayumi Hamasaki!” “Honda” and “Mitsubishi”…I kid you not. While I am a fan of the yaoi genre, I am nor hope to ever become, a fangirl, blinded. Sex sounds gross
Peace, love and chocolate chip cookie dough!
December 28th, 2007 at 12:35 am
Holy shit, Hikaru. Crisco?! I can never bake a pie again without wondering if two boys snuck out of a manga and used my kitchen for wild monkey sex.
Lynn…please say you’re joking.
December 28th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Anji: That’s why you keep the uke-sized Havaharts (baited with pale blue popsicles) around. One can never be too prepared, I always say.
December 28th, 2007 at 1:41 am
Yes, Crisco. And 10 inches without lube? I..er..ow. Just ow. Not going to happen. First, he’d never get it in. Second, if he did, he’s not. Getting. Out.
December 28th, 2007 at 1:56 am
*shakes head* I kid you not! He told me he and boyfriend had a 32 hour sex marathon too, something I find hard to believe…
Once, though, he told me about this story of two guys, and one was like…14 inches, and he got it into his lover, broke through…whatever’s in there and ultimately killed the poor guy
December 28th, 2007 at 3:24 am
*laughs* oh this had to come right after I got my yaoi sim games XD I was in stitches during several scenes where the guys are self lubricating… they’re fun games… just gotta wonder about the people who write them half the time. Lucky for me in my younger days of yaoi fangirling I stumbled upon a site that actually went to the trouble of explaining the mechanics and ‘does and do nots’
December 28th, 2007 at 6:55 am
It’s always interesting to see just which topics get the most comments… =P
March 20th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Ah yes joys of yaoi.
Have to confess do read it from time to time. I go through phases in my fanfiction tastes.
I have to say that if they leave out the lube it doesnt always bother me. Sometimes being too realistic can ruin the atmosphere or flow of a story. So tho (as far as i’m aware) i always notice and a little bit of me goes “…ok…” it doesnt necessarily ruin the story for me.
This is possibly because although i have semirelated experience and a good imagination i’ve never exactly had it “up the back passage” so to speak ad therefore while i can easily guess it would be painful, maybe am not quite as appriciative of this pain as someone who’s done it. Tho even as i write this it makes me think “burning..ow.ow..OW” so i suppose its just more a case that i can ignore this reaction and still enjoy the fic while others who deal with the concept more reguarly may have more trouble.
But im sorry im rambling and seem to have lost my point. I suppose it was partially that as long a fic/sex scene is being well written generally i can at least overlook some things like this without losing total enjoyment of the story.
If on the otherhand, the rest of the fic/ scene is about as dodgy as the idea of sex (of any kind - cos lets face it, it may come with automatic faucets but that doesnt mean they’re always on) without lube/prepping then yeah its just awful and really makes me drop a story.
And yeah there really are too many of those fics out there.
And yeah way too many of them are written by virgins
But then (from what ive seen) most of them are also written by prepubesent girls.
And so we come to my second point (and a slight tho relevent topic change)
I am 20 years old. I am bi and I am a virgin.
I dont like to tell people that last bit cos iits quite embarrasing. Lets just say i develloped late and since then have had bad luck. I have had offers but either from people i’m not interested in or from randomers in clubs. And im just not that desperate yet, or frankly that interested in SSTDs.
I like to believe that most of my friends would be very shocked to discover this fact about me and in fact really believe they would even tho i have never outright said i had ever had sex to any of them. Its just at my age unless you act exceedingly strange about this kind of thing people assume you have.
And theres my problem, how people judge virgins, how they assume they really dont know how it all works. How naive they think we are. ANd well i suppose a lot of us are, but then most of us are under 15 as well.
I personally have done some very intimate things with people- i know its awkward and unless you are completely uberconfident you inevitably feel unsexy, awkward and vunerable. I also know that with the right person/situation that feeling doesn’t matter so much. Once i never even felt it. I also know alcohol helps a lot with this. I also know it generally makes things a lot worse in the end.
I know about feeling insecure and vunerable and how it can change everything between in a relationship. I know about feeling like you wanna rip someones cothes off right there. I know about 30 positions and i know that id have to be a gymnast to do half of them. i know people can be perfect for each other but have completly clashing sexual preferences and that this can be insurmontable in a relationship. I know how it feels to feel disgusted and ashamed of something you did the other night. I know the warm glow when you remember something that felt so right. I know how it feels to be penetrated and how it feels to orgasm.
I understand the mechanics and the hudge wide range of emotions invoved.
And what i havent done, ive heard about, read about, seen or can just plain imagine.
And im not an idiot, I know there are some things that i will not really truely be able to appriciate until i’ve done it.
And i know that when i do find the oppurtunity that person (if not completely drunk - which i also know would be a very bad thing) will realise. That the practice is very different from the theory and that i wil be inevitable too shy, too awkward, just too plain bad at it for them not too realise.
But while this may be the case I resent the image popularly believed that having never done it, i will not be able to understand or cope with the emotions, mechanics and ramifications invovled. And therefore would be ostrasised from this kind of talk treated as some kind of adult child.
Seriously im very open about my biness but only a very select few know this about me. I fing it ironic that in my situation (uni in a gayfriendly town) being a virgin is a much bigger social stigma than being gay. And in fact this prejudice is everywhere and much less recognised. Of course its not anywhere near as bad as antihomosexuel prejudice ( or anything of that kind) but there is still this persistant pitying patronising air towards virgins
Well im happy with who i am and my choices. I am also confident in my looks (by this i mean to say that i dont think i would fall into the ugly category in society nor i believe the freak category) so please dont think thats why im still a virgin.
Just as i’m not prepared to deny my attration to girls for the sake of convention. Neither am i prepared to jump in the sake with the first person who proposes it just cos society says i should have been this ready 5 years ago and now should just be doing everything possible to make up for lost time. And really i resent the conclusions made about me so often because of this decision.
It is a handicap, like a lack of experiance in any part of life is. But its really not that much of a thing as people make it out to be.
im sorry i dont mean to rant i really was just trying to make a point. Most people are fine, im sure you guys are all fine, just this article made me think about it. I hope you find it relevant, interesting and unoffensive. Thankyou for your time.
PS. I promise if i ever write a sex scene ill include lube
And absolutly no statements like:
“Oh YES! MY GOD! Please give it to me harder! MORE! MORE! ” etc.
The words ‘manhood’ and ‘lovepot’ will be banned.
Sarah out.