Touched: Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

The gay bar goer then awaits for the first comfortable breaking of personal space. He has been visually aroused by the performances by the manly eye candy on stage, and is already eager to elevate this with the sense of touch.

But the gay man needs to wait. Especially if with the boy of his choice.

He can start feeling up the dime a dozen (or P100 each) all-the-way dancers as much as he wants to. The bigger gay bars openly release them to the customers who are eager to get close to the rock hard dicks of these less-than-quality men. In the smaller gay bars, these men in the nude go directly beside the customer (an act the bar terms as "area"), where, for a tip, they allow themselves and their rock-hard thingies to be tapped, squeezed, fondled, grasped, and even shockingly stroked repeatedly. But to do that with his preferred macho dancer may take more than a hundred pesos and a one-time visit.

Those who can’t wait are just eager to cop a feel. While the customer and dancer are seated right beside each other, tabled inside a gay bar, the gay man's fingers would start at the dancer's thighs, then inch its way towards the guy's most sensitive body part. Not wanting to be violated, the tabled dancer can subtly grasp the gay man's hands before it reaches his treasures, or shift his position to cover that area with his leg or arm. Or if the customer persists, the tabled dancer can inform his guest that he can swap with another guy who's more willing to do the dirty deed. That annoys the slightly intoxicated and visually aroused gay customer, who's thinking that men in this business should yield to physical advances made by the paying customer. Too bad for those who can’t wait -- what the want the most to grab actually flees, like a scared little birdie.

Those who are patient and wait for the right time treat going to the gay bar as going to a date. And as with first dates, their first “table” can start from the getting-to-know you stage, without any physical contact yet. Then as the customer returns as a regular guest, their desire for one-on-one intimacy increases, and the bodily contact lengthens. The macho dancer starts to trust, becomes comfortable, and lays his arms over his customer’s shoulder, from minutes to hours. The next few visits, the regular guest can find himself interlocking fingers with the man he or she has gotten to know more, possibly during the entire night. With that sense of trust, the macho dancer’s head presses against the shoulder of his customer, like a pillow on a bed’s head board. Later on, the customer can then experience the only body contact that tingles the most sensory nerve endings of both bodies – the kiss. What happens next in this set-up is what also usually happens at the end of every date – paying the bill.

I guess that two people can only freely break from personal boundaries once they have become more personal with each other.

And as a gay man, I feel that there’s just a deep longing for us gays to be touched. We’ve been raised not to hold hands with our male relatives when we’re scared. We’ve been avoiding a too-close embrace with guy friends to avoid being called harsh names in school. We’re even deprived to walk hand-in-hand with boyfriends inside family-friendly malls. The lack of open male physical touch in our society can lead to the gays' longing to be touched. Maybe that’s the reason for the prevalence of these gay-centric sex shops opening at night and acting as spas or massage centers. Aside from the cheap sex and so-called relaxation, we’re just yearning for the intimacy brought by the skin contact with another man’s body. Sha-shas (masseurs) get paid to touch our entire body. An extra fee allows us to touch them as well.

Hence, I am not surprised to constantly hear about the preference of gay men for the smaller seedy gay bars rather than the unwritten and unspoken no-touch rule of the bigger gay bars.

And this so-called one-on-one intimacy is what amateur macho dancers try to imitate. Notice how you would suddenly feel a gentle squeeze on your thigh when your tabled macho dancer asks for a little favor, like another drink or some cellphone load. And how you’d notice fingers running back and forth on your back and nape while you’re reaching out for your wallet as you pay your bill in the gay bar. And when the both of you part ways, you’d feel a dry kiss on your cheek. These men may perceive that the only thing a customer wants is to be touched, and that they can get away with anything they want just with seemingly unnoticeable physical contact here and there.  

Can we say that we really that sensitive to touch? We may tend to misread, or even over-read, how a simple gesture in a gay bar can mean so many things. The casual pressing of palms on the other’s upper thigh can lead to either intimacy or misunderstanding. The tapping of index fingers on the other’s hands can either lead to a higher after-bar tip or an untoward rejection.

Or I might just be over-thinking. I guess that weekend night, I was just craving for a man’s meaty hands to slide through my arms, shoulders, and back, while being visually stimulated by the half-naked dancer on-stage that I can’t touch.

GB Goer
Learn more: Lessons from Gay Bars in Manila
http://machosandhostos.blogspot.com/
email: char.affairs@gmail.com
twitter: @gbgoer

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Photo credits: http://www.polyvore.com/getty_images_naked_woman_lying/thing?id=14255195