Human nature
1. “Maliit ka pala,” he tells me. Then I realize, thankfully, that he was referring to my lanky frame and not my *ahem* you know what.
I arrive in his apartment around midnight, his room strewn with clothes, toiletries, and more clothes, all illuminated by a dim “sexy time” light. His bed had a black silk sheet that I traced with my fingers as he proceeded to type on his phone. I assumed he was talking to another guy he’d meet up with that night. He was already topless, wearing just his gym shorts and an imposing swagger that I get whenever guys see they’re bigger than me. He was skinnier in the photos that he sent me. Of course, I won’t complain about it. “Mukha kang malaki sa photos mo,” he tells me later. The deceit is all part of the game, I almost tell him. But it wasn’t false advertising. He just wasn’t bright enough to notice my skinny arms giving away my build in that photo.
After everything else, he asks me, “May babaeng friends ka na vain?” I tell him I mostly have guy friends. I was relieved that he didn’t end up talking to me about his business. I would have died right then and there.
2. In the raunchy trading floors of hook-up apps, the innocuous “send me pics” could yield a number of possibilities. First, there’s the regular photo, a selfie that gives the other user a general overview of what the other party looks like. It’s usually a selfie taken at the best possible angle. Some people wear shades to hype up their [otherwise ordinary] look or use photo filters on their faces. The second is the more titillating kind, the topless selfie. Mostly sent by people who bear the legit license to flaunt their sculpted torsos. These can range from the regular I-spend-seven-days-in-the-gym selfie, the conservative but slutty (lifting the shirt to reveal a particular body part, etc.) to the seductive “below-the-sex-cuts-and-abs” flavor, the kind which sets hormones on fire, much like when you’re watching a Sean Cody video. Finally, there’s the nude selfie, which should be a third-base kind of exchange but in this age of rapid-fire communication, it’s a currency that’s sent to participating parties to facilitate the swift decision to hook-up or not. You’d have to admit that in these apps, it’s all about your look — twink, stud, discreet, gymfit, or whatever term they’ve invented. We’re all being judged and rated by the way we look.
Taking a photo of you in the nude is particularly easy these days. We’ve come a long way from the grainy quality of early 2000s scandals to the Camera 360-fied mugs. It’s as if these innovations have enabled us to engage in some of our most erotic fantasies. One quick snap and you’re fuelling someone else’s fap engine. And by hitting send, the private aspect of the conversation dissolves. Your photo becomes someone else’s possession now and you just hope that they are trustworthy enough.
So I click send. I imagine my photo swimming in the cloud. It’s a discomforting thought; that someone might uncover it and think of it as blackmail material — am I that worthy of blackmailing anyway? But the thrill of receiving a wink and a follow-up question right after is almost priceless.
3. “Have you done it with a security guard?” my friend asks. Nope, I haven’t, I answer back. They all giggle and then share their own “sekyu” stories. I was never one to be “adventurous.” I stay in my comfort zone. The most “risky” thing I’ve probably done is to send incriminating photos — but never one with my face in it. I’m not stupid enough to do that.
They share more of their sexcapades. In the bus, with a married man, inside the cinema, with a former teacher — each story riskier than the next. They mentally tally all these “achievements” in a leaderboard, ranking the sluttiest among our group of friends. I land somewhere in the bottom rankings.
“Facebook suggested I join ‘SILAHIS Daddies’,” a friend later tells us. More giggling ensues.
4. “Slut,” “Puta,” and “Man-whore.” I’ve been called all those things. At first, it kind of stung. But I got used to it, the way some gay men use “bakla” as a term to call close friends, stripping it of its derisive power. I guess it’s kind of wired in me. Can I say “I was born this way”? But it provokes some kind of creationist and sexual arguments that I don’t even want to be engaged in.
I keep hoping my slutty phase will end with my disinterest in meeting people, but all this bedroom talk reveals something more to the person than any conversation you will ever have with them. Their fetishes, fears, and frustrations are all released the moment you take off each other’s clothes and proceed to consume each other with passion — whether both of you are just hooking-up or committed in a relationship. Sex unravels so much information about the other person that it’s almost embarrassing. Even your O face can say a lot about you.
In more conservative terms, it’s something that we can only share with a person whom we are comfortable with. But in an era where hooking-up can be as quick as ordering in a fast-food joint, all the notions that we associate with it are thrown out the window. It’s a casual transaction: nothing more, nothing less. By the time it ends, both parties move on with their lives, maybe reconnect if the night was memorable enough, whether it’s for another booty call or something more serious.
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