Christopher Sherman

This newsletter is celebrating sexual diversity, differing desires, relationship structures, 
and individual choices based on consent. Sexuality is an important part of being human.

Have a horny day. 
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The Great Horny Book Rescue

Books have always been very important to me. Books have been a refugee through many times of turbulence; and always a vehicle of hope and wonder. When I am lost books have help me be found. Books have always been a gift to me. But books with pictures of nude men have always been my favourite books.

My parents raised two artistic children with minimal means - but we always had books. Most books were borrowed from the Orillia Public Library - meaning these beautiful magnificent books would come in to our home and adorn our dads homemade pre IKEA raw pine bookshelf to be returned 3 weeks later. Explaining why I am a fervent book collector.

The library in partnership with my parents taught me the joys of reading - but the library also exposed me to a kaleidoscope of media. For a small Canadian town/city it strangely had the hippest and often most European magazines and arthouse video rentals available free to anyone with a library card - inspiring me early to the joys of European cinematography, European men and European bush.

As incredible as all those things are the library still offered even more - it would be the place in which I saw my first nude male image - full penis. And I mean full. As an early 80’s baby there was a time before the internet. And it was called printed matter.  In this time, it was often hard to find the images of a dick let alone anything of gay interest. Search engines made it easy to find dick; And libraries were the first search engines.

It was in the fall of 1992 and I was officially nine - which I kept telling people was almost 10.  I discovered the book that would ask myself some big questions (example Are you gay?). On big metal shelves deep in the Reference Section was a selection of beautiful art books of photography, animation, art, fashion and soon to be discovered nude art life modeling.

There in a beige large cloth hardcover were the words - Anatomy Art Book: Now with Photography. The book broke down every part of the body and how a classically trained artist ‘should’ draw them using a combination of drawings and photography to demonstrate. The book began with basic traditional heteronormative male and female poses with clothing. The women appeared small blonde and polite. The man looked like he may have been a part time European harlequin romance book model with shimmering beard and body hair flowing. At the age of 9 I thought this was the greatest book ever made.

At the back of the book there were a small chapter called NUDES. In this chapter is where I officially knew I liked men - and the book would forever be known as the ‘dick book’ in my mind. The part time European harlequin romance book model was now nude. And showing the reader how to draw his beautiful body. From top to bottom in 30 poses. The first time I saw it I puked from excitement on the dark beige library carpet. I told my mother it must have been bad chocolate milk.

His body was meaty but fit. With a thick and hairy lower stomach creating an abstract ab outline. The bush only getting bigger around his dick which was big round and uncut. His balls were big and worthy of a paragraph of their own.

By winter I visited the book weekly. It created so many unanswered questions within myself that fear and excitement were interchangeable. I never got brave enough to take the book to the library 10 cent photocopier, conveniently next to the Liberian - but I spent many nights thinking about strategies to save my allowance to photograph each page.

Then something terribly horrible happened. That winter it snowed. It snowed a lot. More snow than any year in known history. There was so much snow the Orillia Public Library roof caved in. The main roof of the Carnegie section of the library collapsed under the weight of the snow at 5:00 A.M. on January 1992.

My family learned the news the next day. The headline on the PACKET AND TIMES local city newspaper was superbold - “LIBRARY ROOF COLLAPSES”. The newspaper staff had waited most of their careers for a story like this. My first thought was the dick book. How could I save it? It must have been cold. Thankfully the newspaper article called out for book lovers to volunteer to help collect and save the books that were now frozen. The article talked about how the books would be sent away to book professionals to be potentially saved. I told my family the library needed us – I needed to save the dick book.

Less than a week later as a family we were volunteering. The library felt like the set of a zombie apocalypse movie. There in the cold and dark library were collections of very badly damaged books. Some frozen into solid blocks of icicles – where others were barely touched. My family and I were assigned a few sections and we hurried to box up the books. After an hour I finally found myself close enough to the Reference Section. The area seemed thankfully untouched. There in it’s safe space was the Anatomy Art Book: Now with Photography - also known as the dick book.

I checked the book and made sure it was intact. The NUDE section was safe, and I once again saw the naked European harlequin romance book model showing me how to draw him in a plethora of hairy poses. I grabbed the book and hugged it tight. I saw a librarian I recognized because of her replica Barbara Streisand 90’s bob and offered her the book - saying “this book is very important and should be kept safe”.

She must have thought I was crazy, but the book was more than just nude images on a page - it was a question to my “self”.

I had felt good about helping the library. I felt even greater about saving the dick book. Although I never saw the book again it was an important tool in self discovery.

It would take many years for the library to be rebuilt and all the books to be reshelved; and by that time the World Wide Web was offering a whole lot of dick. But I never forget the power an image could have.

Have a horny day. x

Christopher Sherman
Instagram:@christophersherman_photo

FAVOURITE HORNY CITY | NEW YORK
WRITTEN BY TRISTAN ARCHIBALD

Those who know me, know that I am NOT a shy person. Fortunately, I was born with the gift of charisma and that’s just that. When I was younger (in my twenties) I used try to dumb it down depending on the environment. The world was constantly trying to tell me that they weren’t interested in a gay black men owing his own space, let alone his voice. So, out of fear of being ostracized, I would go against my nature and shrink myself to appease others.

I moved to New York on May 28th 2012. I was 24 years old and had just graduated college. I was still going through puberty. My body was beginning to fill out and I just started growing facial hair. My dick was still getting bigger and I finally had body hair. I could tell that people were taking notice by the reactions I would receive from men. 

I have never been more turned on in my life. All the things that I had hated about men in Montreal and Toronto (like slow walkers or guys who look great in gym clothes but terrible in street clothes) didn’t exist. Of course, the men looked great. Gays in New York take their appearance seriously, but it was more than the muscles mullets or tattoos; it was the fucking vibe. You don’t move to New York because you think you are average. You move there because you think that you can be the best at whatever you are trying to accomplish. That usually requires a level of confidence that you don’t see in other cities (at least I hadn’t), and I was hooked. I’m not turned on by self deprecation or meek men. In fact, I like quite the opposite. I like men who can stand in their truth and are comfortable in their own skin. And babyyyyy, New York boys serve up confidence on a platter.

The men in New York don’t pretend to be on their phone if you catch their eye. The city is too big and if you see someone you are interested in you better say hi, because there is a chance you may never see them again. I'll never forget the first time a man stopped in the street and introduced himself. I stepped onto 11th avenue in Chelsea just east of the high-line. It was hot and I was trying to look chic carrying multiple garments bags while wearing a suit. I got in the cab, and just when I was about to close the door, the right side opened. The man rushed into the vehicle, looked at me, took out his Amex card and said to the driver “take him wherever he needs to go”, then turned and looked at me and said ''as long as you’ll have dinner with me tonight”. He wasn’t the sexiest man I’d ever seen (probably a New York 6) but the confidence oozing out his his pores was intoxicating. That night I had tacos and cuban dick for dinner, and that was just the beginning. 

I gave myself permission to be desired, and boy did I get devoured.  That year was the only time in my adult life I didn’t have to rely on any app or club or bathhouse to get some dick. Men approached me in the gym, in the line for my morning coffee and in the change room at Barneys. Yes, the sex was good, but the lesson was even better. The lesson was “stop being afraid of rejection”. If someone isn't into you, they will say no. Even if they do say no it has nothing to do with you. You just aren’t their flavour. So boys, put your ego to the side, put your phone down and say hi. Who knows?

Tristan Archibald
@Tristan101

THE HORNY ABSTRACT:
THE OPEN ROAD WRITTEN BY JUAN MANUEL SALCITO

The Road, The Car
Inside the back bench of his double cab hauler, a roadside girl finishes him off onto the furry floor-mat. She could play the part, be sweet and smile —like she enjoys it somehow, but most likely, she only engages her face at him when she has to (that is, when he glances up at her every few seconds). He understands the trade. It’s over now and she’s already been paid. She gets the fuck out of there. Meanwhile, It’s 5:30 in the afternoon and I push through the glass doors and hear the familiar bell jangle that lets the gas station know another person walked in. I scan quickly for the bathroom. I walk in to hear the loud piss-moans and running water. A hive of Korean tourists swarm around washing and cleaning themselves. The force used by a man to blow snot from his nose is privy information to these particular settings— and seem exist no where else. For now, I piss and also get the fuck out of there, and like the cowboy I am I don’t even look in the mirror on my way out.

Back on the road and dusty sunshine hits my face. I run my right hand through my greasy hair while my left keeps direction. I’m leaving. I love leaving. This particular car doesn’t have air conditioning but it’s part of the trade off. I turn up an old Willie Nelson song as we rumble towards another state. The car functions as it should and I know that because I spent the last six months working on it myself. Learning the objective functionality of a motor vehicle has become a sort zen meditation for me. A lustful invitation of proportions I’ve never known. Willie cries sweetly and I drift in thought.

A vehicle, a body, a tool to get you through a place and time is only as good as you are ready to meet yourself in it.

The particular car I’m talking about is a 1987 Chrysler Town and Country. I had worked on this car for six months in the Florida heat. It was a conscious decision made to involve myself in something with immediate and tangible results. If you put (A) the right amount of attention and (B) things exactly as directions say, then (C) will function—and if you don’t then you will have extreme consequences within a few minutes. The sheer responsibility, the clarity, and ultimately romantic saga of knowing what’s in-between you and your demise makes everything else around you seem to disappear, like the road makes you disappear. It’s a love language, to listen for something wrong, or something working perfectly. To understand what amount of vibration is too much, or just right. Your hands— your feet— your fucking brain request of you to be aligned and ready to sweat and commit to this wholly functioning moment of time and space.

The Road, The Theory
The open road is not necessarily a safe place, nor a dangerous one at all. Friendly is definitely not the word as much as it just is. Society is never present and perhaps that’s why it is so beautiful, or even sexy. It removes you from yourself and at the same time, shows you to yourself, completely. Things here are all about trade offs, a simple analogy for the compromises of life itself. The beauty comes as a byproduct from the lack of its vanity— the open road is as much itself and unaware of its own existence as any other living organism—and we engage with it at our own discretion. It’s not what you want it to be, it’s whatever delusions you may have about it that you’d like to project onto it that defines it for you— and that gap between fantasy and fact is our horny goldmine, because at the end of the day, it’s a real mystery. A real one, not a marketed one. A mystery you and anyone else can’t possibly solve.

The horny in divine: the open road, a respite and a mirror.

Juan Manuel Salcito
@Juanmsalcito

FAVOURITE HORNY MUSIC | PORTISHEAD
WRITTEN BY JUDE CONNORS

Sex music is a tricky balancing act. You’re getting into it with whoever; maybe it feels more tender and intimate, so you want to set the mood right, or perhaps you know precisely how noisy and gruesome things are about to get, and you’d like to drown out the carnage from the ears of the straight couple in the unit over whom you don’t often exchange more than awkward glances with in the hallway while their annoying Pomeranian yips and barks at your heel.

Grab the Bluetooth speaker. Is it connected? I can never tell if it’s connected. Bleep-bloop. Ok, cool.

God, what the fuck do I play? Yeah, jerk yourself off a bit, haha, fuck yeah. My fingers fumble around the Spotify app, hovering over curated playlists called things like ‘SENSUAL VIBEZ’ filled with corny, middling R&B by a barrage of young crooners who would literally push their grandmother down a flight of stairs if it meant they got to be the next Frank Ocean.

Shit... FUCK... goddamn it... I’ve pressed play on ‘FAG BOPS 2022’ by accident, and now Bebe Rexha is wailing over an interpolation of Eiffel 65’s Blue. I look over. He’s flaccid.

To avoid situations like this, I keep one band’s music up my sleeve for carnal musical purposes at all times, electronica pioneers Portishead. I hardly need to sing their praises; three decades of critics and fans have already done that plenty. Beth Gibbons - a mousy and notoriously shy woman whose spellbinding voice effortlessly conveys intimacy and longing, all while smoking cigs mid-performance (MOTHER!!!, etc.), Geoff Barrows - a young DJ and certified qt, and Adrian Utley - an already veteran composer and guitarist, all unlikely came together to essentially invent the genre that came to be known as Trip-hop with their classic 1994 masterpiece debut album Dummy.

Dummy, for me, is the perfect go-to sex album. It is intimate and romantic (It’s A Fire, It Could Be Sweet), but harsh and provocative at other points (Sour Times, Numb). It’s both accessible and background music-able. Just alt enough that if you’re banging some EDM circuit party fag he’ll probably find you a bit clever.

I’ve tried out their 1997 self-titled follow-up as with my last boyfriend, but he objected to it being “too scary”. Fair enough. While also a fantastic album, sonically perhaps, things go a bit too bleak for schtupping. The 1998 Roseland NYC Live album is excellent if, like me, you can’t cum without hearing rapturous applause from an audience of adoring fans. I haven’t tried out 2008’s Third - my personal favourite Portishead album - in the sack just yet, however, I anticipate it may be a little too krautrock and esoteric for these purposes unless you find yourself with the right kind of chain-smoking, tattooed, art-school boy. Let me finally visit Berlin for the first time to do some field research, and I’ll get back to you on its effectiveness.

Sex music needs to elevate the experience but also melt away into nothing if you slip away into the ecstasy and bliss of being deeply connected with a worthy partner. Give me a reason to love you.

JUDE CONNORS
@Jude.connors
Twitter

WHAT MAKES ME HORNY, AN INCOMPLETE LIST
WRITTEN BY PABLO MUÑOZ

Let’s see, there are tight white tank tops, 
and gold necklaces draping on dark skin. 

There is that space behind a man’s ears, his neck, the hair on a guys’ abdomen, the gutters on either side of his stomach, his legs, his calves, his inner thighs. 

There are the glances you exchange in public. Or when you’re the last two people left in an elevator and you could swear it is about to go down. 

There are also those moments when he rests his head on my lap with his eyes closed,
and I stare at him psyching myself up before deciding, fuck, I'm going for it. 

There's that incredulous moment when I realize he's kissing me back. 
When you lock lips and breathe until the rise and fall of our chests sync. 

There's the way his skin looks at sunrise, and at sunset, and at 2 in the morning. 

Or how we give and steal power. How we ask for and share power.
Or when he surrenders.  And he surrenders. 

There are also the looks from the tough guys at the pull up bars at the beach.
And the way beads of sweat form across their backs and shoulders
amongst muscle,
and skin, 
tendons,
freckles. 

There's sharing a joint by the pool. 
Or laying shirtless in his bed listening to music. The distance between his elbow and mine.
 

Sexual tension exists everywhere. 
It is a parallel universe replete with energy. 
It is destruction and creation. 
It is a spectrum of intimacy. 
It is the warping of time and space. 
It is the reason we are all here. 

It is the reason he stands in my doorway ⁠— leaving ⁠— for over 10 minutes, before I shut the door again and pull him in, 'cause clearly we're not done. 

Pablo Muñoz
@diasporasour

FAVOURITE HORNY MOVIE | INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
WRITTEN BY FERNANDO G. CANTON

My Favourite Horny Movie, specially when I was a kid, is "Interview with the Vampire”. Based on the 1976 Novel by Anne Rice. 

Even though they say books are better than movies I doubt it would surpass the overwhelming feeling of a 7-year-old me watching how these two beautiful long haired young men from the 18th century engage in a very intense, passionate, intimate and close relationship, and how for the first time I identify myself with men.

I was obsessed with this movie, so much that my older brother concerned once asked me: -Why do you like it so much, isn’t it weird?- So, I guess it was weird, I AM WEIRD!, isn’t it queer = weird? Then I started watching it alone and in secret.

Lestat interpreted by Tom Cruise and Luois (Brad Pit) were my very first crush. I remember looking at Luois and thinking, there’s no-one in the world as beautiful as this man, he is so perfect. I was in love with him and at the same time, I wanted to be him. Wishing I was the one chosen to take an oath and become a Vampire, choosing eternal youth and power and being together forever. That’s HOT!

I love the beginning of the movie, the first bite when Lestat prays on Louis, he attacks him, holds him in the air while feeding off him, and letting him fall into the ocean. 

There's more to the transformation. Lestat meets Louis in the cemetery, he bites his neck a second time, Louis had nothing else to lose so he lets him suck his blood and then Louis finishes the transformation by feeding of Lestat’s wrist, even though it was painful, Louis wanted it! it was “consensual” and there’s a lot of pain and pleasure. But more than all this biting and sucking, I really loved their relationship, I loved  the way Lestat looked at Luois, the way he touched him, the way he cleaned up the blood from his lips with his thumb when he first feed on a human, the way they shared women, the way they both feed on people and the way they both will find their next pray.

Even though I wasn’t sure what homosexuality was, I knew that this movie was more me than the game of “Mom and Dad”. At seven, I knew this was more ME, This movie showed me that I could make my life with another man, that I could find a partner and learn from him, that maybe we would have to hide from society, that people will talk, that I could find my equal, that we could maybe even have a daughter and become a family, that being gay was like being a Vampire, and that even though it would hurt, I choose it and I would like it. And that makes me HORNY. XOXO happy hunt Vamps.

Fernando G. Canton
@fergcanton 
@house_of_fernando

I CHOOSE ME

It’s been four months since my last column. I want to tell you about so many things, but I’m scared. I like to tell stories here. Stories about my life. And usually I don’t care about what I write or who reads it. But a lot has changed. 

I was dating a guy from the end of February until the beginning of July. I don’t think I’d ever really been in love before him. There were times that I thought I was. But those were always pretty one sided. Unrequited love. I don’t think that’s real love. To be in love for real is mutual. And we were mutually in love. We exchanged those three special words to each other in June. It feels weird to even say everything in past tense because honestly I’m not sure that it’s over. We still talk so much. Every week, almost every day. Occasionally flirty. I even sent lingerie pics to him a few weeks ago. Are we getting back together? I don’t know. Our communication sucks. It’s one of the reasons why I broke up with him. 

He’s older, 22 years older to be exact. I’ve always wanted a May-December romance. I even put it on my vision board for my life. I made a little romance corner on my vision board and it had a picture of Blake and Krystle from the original Dynasty, a classic older man-younger woman couple. But I didn’t intentionally put them on there for that reason. I put them there because to me they represent “the love that lives forever”. I also put a photo of Adam Huber, an actor from the Dynasty reboot, because he’s so fucking hot and I love his huge nose. And through this vision board, I’m sure I manifested my old ass, dump truck nosed boyfriend, or ex-boyfriend right now, or whatever. I’m not sure that our love will live forever. But he’s definitely my first real love. 

I know I’m naive. I haven’t experienced enough in my 25 years to say he’s the one. It’s more like I’m three years old since I started my transition in 2019. Most cis girls my age are either enjoying being single or beginning to settle down. And they are afforded the luxury of choice. Being single wasn’t a choice for me. It’s like a curse put on me for being a tranny in a cis world. And I haven’t had many years to navigate my sex and relationships. I’m not Carrie Bradshaw. All I’ve ever dreamed of is settling down, being in a steady relationship. I didn’t want to be fetishized and hyper sexualized and feel the need to put a price tag on my sexual currency because men only ever treat me like a whore. I didn’t choose for my life to be this way. And maybe some cis people can relate to this. A lot of you feel like your singleness is not a choice. But that’s you at this moment. And it will change. But you can’t guarantee that change for a T girl. 

All’s that to say, he knows I haven’t experienced enough yet. He’s afraid of holding me back. He thinks that he’s stopping me from living my life. He said that at his age, his dreams are becoming smaller, just as mine are getting bigger. That I still have my whole life ahead of me. He’s not wrong. But I fucking love him. Right now I wanna spend the rest of my life being in love with him. It’s the greatest feeling in the world. It’s like that feeling people have during a near death experience when they get a glimpse into their afterlife. Like they could cry tears of joy because the secrets of life have been revealed to them. And they feel at peace. That’s how he makes me feel. 

It’s crazy to think that some people experience being in love multiple times in their lives. I can’t speak to that yet. But I know some people believe that love is rare. And of course I’m filled with the hopes and dreams of spending the rest of my life with this man because it’s my first time experiencing love this real. And I don’t have any other frame of reference of serious relationships to truly say that I have no expectations. I can’t play it by ear or chill. My mind and heart races at the thought of a future with him. And he’s probably feeling so uncomfortable reading this. Like I’ve said too much and now he’s embarrassed. Or, in my worst nightmare, he doesn’t feel the same way about me. And I’m a fool for thinking he could. He’s coming at the situation as a 46 year old man who is divorced and had his heart broken at least three times. There is a difference between us. Age difference does mean something. It’s like we can never really experience the same things in the same ways at the same time. The only experience we share is our love. Beyond the verbal exchange of it. I wish that was enough to transcend the differences between us. 

But I broke up with him last month. Because as much as I love him, I don’t think I was high on his list of priorities. All he does is work. He’s constantly having to fix things in his life, whether it’s his car or his divorce agreement. I can’t say I get it. I’m 25. I’ve never been married. All I have is the present moment. I don’t have a past life to clean up. I’m building my life, not rebuilding. He’s not ready to be serious with someone again. So even if our relationship was serious to me, it wasn’t to him. It’s painful for me to admit that to myself. It was also painful hearing that from him when we broke up. I don’t know who or what I am to him. I only know what he’s been to me. 

And I also know that I deserve better. That I deserve someone who can put everything down for a second and be still with me in this moment. Stop working and spend my birthday with me. Someone who can’t wait to spend time with me instead of being anxious about the work he has to get back to. He really didn’t have space for me in his life. Mentally, emotionally, literally. But that’s not to say he didn’t try to be there for me as much as he could. Maybe I’m too needy. Again maybe it’s the age difference. The thing is that I shouldn’t have to force anyone’s hand. I’m not getting enough of what I put into this relationship. And whether he can’t give me enough or he doesn’t want to, it doesn’t matter because the result is still the same for me. I don’t get what I need and I should probably look for it somewhere else.

I wish we could exist in a soap opera. Driven by plot and not logic. I wish the plot was our love story. And I wish things like his work or my neediness or our age difference would disappear because they aren’t relevant to the story. At least I wish they weren’t relevant. But life isn’t tv. The reality is that I’m a transsexual sex worker and I was dating a man twice my age. I don’t think I was chasing an ideal. I just want to experience a relationship like a cis woman. I wanna be in love and spend all my time with my partner. I wanna go through a honeymoon phase. I wanna go on trips together. I want good morning and good night texts. I wanna have disagreements that we work through. I wanna spend weeks and months and years being in each other’s beds. I want to be with someone who is passionate about being with me. Not someone who makes me feel like he doesn’t have space for me in his life. Or makes me feel like I’m not as important as his work. Like he’s only in love with me when it’s convenient to him. Or else I feel guilty for being another one of his obligations. That’s not part of the love I want. 

And even though I loved my boyfriend, and even though he loved me back, it wasn’t the same kind of love. My love is optimistic, his is skeptical. Careful. He can’t give me too much. Can’t make himself too vulnerable after all he’s been through. Even though I’d been vulnerable with him the entire time. So I’m still looking for that love. The kind of love that I deserve. Just because I’m trans doesn’t mean I’m going to settle for less. Yeah, it’s nice that he takes me out and isn’t afraid to be in public with me and doesn’t treat me like some fetish whore. But I’m tired of being grateful. 

When I transitioned, it was because all my life I dreamt of being just a normal girl. I didn’t dream of being a tranny or any of the baggage that comes with it. I wasn’t expecting Prince Charming, but my dream didn’t include the way men treat me now. And it didn’t include me being grateful just for men to have the guts to date and fall in love with trans women. That I’d settle for a kind of love I didn’t deserve because I couldn’t get anything better than that as a tranny. I have to keep searching, not just for any kind of love, but for a man who knows how to love me.

Sonny Josephine
@sonny.josephine

FAVOURITE HORNY CITY | NEW YORK
Eli

New York City has got to be the horniest city to me. I can’t speak to the experience of anyone else but for me NYC just does it. I’ve gotten some of the best head of my life in New York City. I think I’ve given the best head of my life in New York too. 

Cocky attitudes, hot fashion, and a marked history of seedy behavior NY is just one of those places that everyone has to experience at some point. Anytime that I think about New York I get this dizzy feeling in the pit of my stomach and again I’m alive with all of my horny crushes, all of my horny adventures, all of my embarrassingly horny missteps and silly late night trips I’ve taken to fulfill desire. Passionate nights in central park, steamy summer nights in the clubs, and unfortunate run-ins with the cops, NYC was my sexual awakening and there is nowhere like it.

Eli
@el.ija

Eli with Jesse/ Ponytron featured in video and images.

FAVOURITE HORNY CITY | MONTREAL
WRITTEN BY BRADEN ALEXANDER

Montreal makes me buzz. If Toronto is Sprite, then Montreal is kombucha—there's something organic and living about it. Something whimsical. Magic still reigns. You meet people by chance. Rather than responding to trends, everyone seems to feel really free to express their sexiness with their style. People dress to turn each other on. Plus, all the porn stars live here and the strip clubs are packed and throbbing.

Every Tuesday evening, I meet up with a bunch of faeries at this one elder's place for cake and tea and gossip, then we all wander over to the 100-year-old bathhouse a block over, Bain Colonial, and we get naked and wet together. It's a total scene. The faggy social energy of the tea crowd collides with the horny, masculine energy of the baths and the combination breeds something unexpected, an energy I've never seen in a bathhouse before.

In the same room you'll have guys showering, checking out each other's cocks on one end and a group of friends at the other, gabbing away, legs crossed, kiss-kiss, ca-va? And over by the massage tables the most beautiful orgy you've ever seen is unfolding, everybody taking care of each other in a really supportive way. Friendly blowjobs. Playful eye contact. No one's treating each other as disposable, because we're all going to see each other again next week. It feels like a whole new erotic culture is being born. It's a place to catch up, see your friends, make plans for the weekend, sweat together, and maybe get your cock sucked. It's a slightly different vibe each week, depending on the crowd.

And then there's the cruising spots. There's a whole semi-abandoned park, a huge green space where the plants are growing up through the pavement, with rolling hills and sumach trees and little groves of forest. On a warm weekend afternoon you'll find 12 or more queers just hanging out, biking around, tanning in their underwear, scoping each other out. Sometimes they'll lead each other into the bushes for a little fun. I love the relaxed vibe. There's no obligation to cruise, you can just go and hang on a blanket and smoke a joint and enjoy the horny energy floating through the air like pollen.

Every cruising spot has its own flavour. My favourite might be this little strip of beach along a breakwater, just a short bike ride outside of the city, where men walk naked up and down the sand, hanging out, trying to catch each other's eye. Everyone's there for the same thing: to get a little wild, feel free, relax, leave the city behind, connect to each other in a way that isn't possible anywhere else. It's a place where we can splash in the water and play like horny otters in the sun.

Montreal invites you to be wild. And I think if we're going to evolve as a species and save ourselves from the insanity of this culture that has us numbed out and disconnected and over-consuming to the point of self destruction, it's going to take a return to something ancient and trustworthy inside our bodies. Trusting our bodies as wild animals of the earth who know what they need—what to eat, when to stop eating, when to rest, who to trust, when to make love.

That's what I love to see. I want to see people who trust the noble beast of their body and ride it through their life like a beloved friend. Montreal is a city full of beautiful beasts.

Braden Alexander
@bradenalexander

FAVOURITE HORNY SONG | MASSIVE ATTACK’S ANGEL
WRITTEN BY WRONG NOTE RUSTY

When I think of a song that instantly makes me horny it's got to be Massive Attack's ANGEL, hands down. I just looked it up, it came out in 1998 and it's still got so much erotic energy that it feels dangerous to listen to, even now.

I remember hearing it every now and then when it came out and thinking it was the kind of music that you could fail to pay attention to until it was too late, like a frog in pot of boiling water. The way it drones and builds to almost a thunderous wave crashing over you until it ebbs away into the shadows. I think I really started giving the song a deeper listen when it came out on the soundtrack for the Guy Ritchie film Snatch, chock full of dynamo and masculine vibes and sexy danger. I understand the song's been used in a whole other host of media, but the way it pulses and throbs, it just always seemed like the ideal tune for pole dancing in a seedy club.

There were years when I was training on pole dancing and I always wanted to do a number to ANGEL but just felt like I couldn't do it justice. And then I was on tour at some burlesque festival, I can't remember when or where it was, but I saw this performer do a pole dance to it and he was incredible, like it blew my mind and it was the hottest thing I saw that night.

It sat in my vault of songs to dance to for more years after that, until the pandemic rolled around and we started doing livestream digital shows over zoom. I was really getting into it because as a photographer I could suddenly do all this technical lighting and cinematographic magic that I couldn't do on stage, cranking out some of the best and hottest artistic work I'd ever done as a performer, and I LOVED that it was the wild wild west in digital. Like anything goes, you could go full frontal, you could be sleazy, you could make the audience feel like they were watching a porno cam show on their laptop.

So eventually at the end of 2020, for a holiday/Xmas themed show actually, I decided to do this piece, to ANGEL, just a fixed angle camera facing my bed in my room, opening with some Irish choir singing O Holy Night and then going into Massive Attack, just me in the dark looking like jailbait in a white tank top, some white Hanes socks and white Y-front briefs with a lover's borrowed white thong underneath.

It was a classic exotic dance, just taking off my tank top and briefs and writhing around on the bed for six and a half minutes, with a lot of red and blue tube lighting, a smoke machine under the bed, and live candle fire. Imagining I was a queer visiting home for the holidays and staying in my childhood room and feeling trapped inside that familial danger, but also embracing this privacy, feeling yourself in all your raw sexy powerful energy when the door's closed.

I was a gay runaway so this scenario is a little more like an alternate universe than anything. I don't go home to see my family for the holidays. I'm a demon faggot every day of the year. But I think there's something to that feeling, of coming into your own kind of supernatural, catastrophic, earth-rendering queer erotic magic, and I think that's the vibe that ANGEL is packing underneath its beats. The song kind of stalks you in the bushes, corners you and lifts up its skirt, and then slips away. But in that flash, you're transformed by what you see. You can't go back.

Greg(he/him)
@wrongnoterusty
@theonetheycallgreg

FALLEN SAND (for horny)
WRITTEN BY SILVIO VALLATI

We’d meet between the sheets
Wrapped in each others nakedness
Exchanging tenderness
It took me higher—I guess.
But, that bed we used to bless
Is nothing but a bed again
So I replay it in my head again.

We’d sleep skin-to-skin
Near the place I let you in.
I can’t keep imagining what has been
Because now you’re just a phantom limb.
I sawed so hard to sever it
However, my senses remember it
The sweat—the scent—the spit
Your taste hasn’t left my tongue
Nor your smell my nose.
Only olfactory mementos
And sly innuendoes
Endure.

We’d sit around the smoke
The flight of clarity we spoke of.
A brief relief in nature—so vivid and venerated
But just as it left your lips
It evaded or disintegrated
Like sand between our fingertips.

It all came and went just like a dash
For we all just exist in the silent flash
The narrow throat of the hourglass
It all comes just to pass.

In the nowness of now
We go onward somehow
Even if we don’t know how.
It’s all just a story anyhow

One of fallen sand.

Silvio Vallati
@silviotonie

‘Silence of a Wildfire’ by Nicko Cecchini. Acrylic on Canvas. 24” x 36”. 2022.
See more of Nicko’s work here

“Here's my advice -
When you're feeling down and out
And you've got troubles on you mind
Love will save the day.”

WHITNEY HOUSTON. Love Will Save The Day. 1987

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