When Desperation Sinks In
Many men have different reasons for going to a bathhouse. While most men go for easy and quick sex, a few go for different reasons. You may be one of those men who go to relax, unwind, and escape from the world. However, after an hour or so at the baths, something happens to a man’s body – they get horny. You may start just wanting relaxation with the attitude of, “If it’s meant to be, it will come to me.” But after a few hours of seeing naked bodies and public sex, you get horny as hell wanting that body-to-body contact. With the hormones and the serotonin in your brain kicking around, the desperation sinks in.
It has happened to all of us at one time or another, this overwhelming need to physically connect with someone. That is when your standards decline immensely. What it boils down to is self-esteem, which a lot of gay men lack. If you are confident and secure in yourself, you don’t need to get laid that badly. However, since so many gay men are insecure, the constant need for sex is a desperate sign to connect with someone, thus achieving that feeling of security.
It’s especially true with many ethnic men, mainly Asian and Middle-Eastern Males. I am finding that many of these ethnic guys cannot take ‘no’ for an answer at the baths. As gay men brought up in ‘the gay culture,’ we understand who is in our league and who is not. If a Brad Pitt look-a-like is around and you look like Don Knotts, the chances of a hook-up are slim. But these ethnic guys don’t understand these unwritten rules and become aggressive. I believe a visible minority, born and raised in America, is more attuned to the necessary social and coping skills for interacting within the gay or straight world. They were brought up in Western society.
The visible minorities who immigrate to the U.S. have been brought up in their culture and environment. It’s especially true for many Asian cultures where the upbringing is very oppressive and irrational, the “only-focus-on-education” environment, and the “only-make-money” mentality. So when these gay men arrive in America, they lack the basic social and coping skills necessary in life, thus having no self-esteem and being very insecure.
So you have all of these guys (whether white or ethnic) desperately chasing after someone to get off. It is usually one of those ethnic guys I just wrote about. I see a lot of good-looking Asian men performing blowjobs on sixty-year-old men at the baths all the time. That statement alone says it all.
How does the desperation sink in? The classic example is seeing someone pique your interest as you pass them by in the halls. You did not get a chance to make eye contact, so you are unsure if the feeling is mutual. You go down the same hallway looking for him. Fighting through crowds of men, you are frustrated that you may have lost him as you get horny – heavy dance music blasts in the hallways, which makes you even more heightened. Then you see him, and your eyes meet for a split second before he looks away, ducking his head.
You are crushed. But there are dozens of other men roaming the hallways of the bathhouse. The loud tempo of dance music fills the hallways, intensifying the chase for you to find someone. All the while, you get hornier and hornier. But as the night wears on, you find no one is interested in you. The desperation seems to sink in deeper and deeper. Your raging hormones and the serotonin in your brain affect how you reason. Everything gets thrown out the window because you want one thing – to get laid. You refuse to give up, hanging on to hope. You are naked in a towel, hoping, thinking, praying, and wishing that the next great lay is around the corner. All the while, your hormones escalate higher and higher. You want to jerk off so you can get out of there. But you cling to the hope that someone will come. He may be just around the corner. An hour passes by, then another. You say to yourself, just five more minutes. Then those five minutes turn into a half-an-hour and then an hour. When you last looked at your watch, it said 11 PM. Then the next time you look, it is 1 AM, and still nothing.
You think, “If only I can get off, then I can go home.” The hormones and serotonin continue to affect your mind. Finally, your standards start to decline. Guys you would not even glance at are starting to look attractive so that you can get off. You find yourself going into the porn room looking for someone. You find a middle-aged, overweight guy with a receding hairline sitting in the room. You sit near him and start stroking yourself. The middle-aged guy does not divert his eyes from the screen. He knows he is being hit on but is not interested. Seconds later, he gets up and leaves. Humiliated that you sank this low, you check your watch. Another hour has passed. It has now been three hours since you initially thought of leaving. Your hope diminishes that you will find anyone to get off with. You start jerking off right then and there in the porn room, and then bang! EJACULATION in less than one minute. That is how horny you have been. You have been so sex-deprived that the amount of cum is enormous. You sit there catching your breath as cum slides off your legs. Your hormones and the serotonin level in your brain are back to normal after that instant gratification you desperately sought. You can now think clearly. Soon you start to berate yourself for wasting three hours and wonder why you did not leave sooner. But you realize that it all has to do with hormones.
Any average rational person would have been long gone by this time. But the raging hormones affect the mind and body, causing you not to think straight. All the naked bodies, porn movies, and orgies get you all sexed up in a bathhouse. Desperation has sunk in, and even thoughts of purchasing a hustler start entering your mind.
The only solution is to jerk off within the first five minutes of arriving at the baths. Once you ejaculate, the pressure and the anxiety are off. Then you can have the attitude of “if it happens, it happens.” Then you can enjoy the steam or sauna without the pressure of needing to get off. But the only drawback is that you may not be able to ejaculate a second time if you meet someone during your stay at the baths. Many men over 40 can only cum once a day. If you were secure within yourself, you wouldn’t feel the need to chase anyone that desperately. You would have left the baths hours ago. However, not all gay men are that secure. So you save yourself, hoping to find someone – but you never do.
That is when the desperation sinks in, and this frustrating vicious cycle happens repeatedly.
Wow, I’ve been there and done that. I even turned a couple of guys down and then it got late and most of the guys had gone and there I set, with a raging hard on and my balls aching to let their juice fly. Like the guy in the porn room, I just jacked off my load and headed home. Next time, I didn’t wait around, but I found a really hot guy and he wanted my cock as bad as I wanted his, mmmmmmmmmmm
So agism is fine, but racism is bad. Nasty.
As a middle aged white guy it is quite amusing to see attitudes of all different races and age brackets of gay men in a “grass is greener” mode.
If you want sex then act like a slut, and don’t complain about being treated as such.
If you want to date/meet/befriend or find an LTR with decent guys then don’t run off to the saunas and bath houses every weekend to get your rocks off.
Oh and I have dated and/or had sex with Asians, Blacks, Latinos and Whites.
As open-minded as I am I currently don’t date or hook up because gay attitudes are presently well beyond annoying.
Very interesting and useful website; I’ve been going to bathhouses for 30 years now and have a lot more experience than you all over the world. Started going as a married man, and now as a gay partnered man. Yes, there is an addictive side but sex itself is an essential human drive. I love bathhouses for many of the reasons you mention. They are just pure fun and I know I have to do it to be happy. Sometimes I am unlucky and leave without meeting anyone to have sex with but mostly I find there are always men to enjoy sex with if I am a little bit patient. I am often amazed to find that guys who seem uninterested or inactive get wild when stimulated by seeing something that excites them. Yesterday there was a guy who initially gave me a mild brush-off but when he started sucking another guy’s dick he wanted me to play with him too and then he started to suck me too until he had a big orgasm turned on by the threesome. I am 64 but in better shapes than many younger men and although I realize I must be prepared for rejection I never have any trouble finding super sex with men of all ages, races and colors. I am a good passionate lover and have a big dick that stays hard for hours. I feel that you have a lot of personal problems with racism and ageism which you should address before you get older like everyone will. You sound like a nice guy though but it would be better if you re-wrote all the silly racist and ageist stuff in your stories. Better to spend a bit more space on why very fat guys should lose weight – they are a huge turn off for me. The main thing is that bathhouses are great fun for men who just love gay male sex in all its forms. Every visit is a celebration that becomes more fun if you lose all the hang-ups about rejection, racism and ageism. There’s a goose for every gander and the miracle is that you can never tell who will find you attractive and want to have great sex with you. Your derogatory remarks about old guys with younger guys are just plain wrong – many young guys love the maturity and experience of older men and maybe even seek a little subtle fathering care to excite them. The worst men in bathhouses are young pretty boys who haven’t a clue about what it takes to be a good lover and are still stuck in their selfish narcissist stage. They walk around for hours doing very little. Keep up the great website. Thanks!
The God-honest truth! This scenario used to happen to me many times during my visits to a San Diego bathhouse. That feeling of desperation combined with being horned up and just wanting to get off is so intense that, like you describe, you can think of nothing else.
It literally consumes your every thought. It is only once you have gotten that release do you feel, what I say, is that feeling of emptiness that you went through all of that when I could’ve stayed at home, watched some of my own porn and had a wank and still kept the 20 bucks that I just spent to get out of the comforts of my house to go and wack off somewhere else!
You are so dead on!
Your bathhouse diaries is the most honest portrait of being gay I have ever encountered. Usually, I had to look into women’s sites to get some honesty, but I really wanted to find it from a man’s point of view. I have limited experience with the gay side of me so I am naive about the ‘culture’. I have always liked men with no body hair and smooth skin, so it came as a surprise to me when you said that Asian men were generally not desired by white men. Well, I am not white, but I desire them, & would love to fuck my Burmese friend for starters. Please continue writing of your experiences, as it is very insightful.
I do not know what you look like but I think your low self-esteem keeps young from scoring more often. I am 5’5′, 130 lbs. balding, older, and very hairy everywhere. I also get rejected often. Maybe other guy’s preferences are not short, hairy guys, who are not extremely hung. But I can usually score a couple of times a night if I’m patient. Personally I like guys close to my own height. Size does not matter. I am white, but find Asian, Latino, and other darker skin tones a real turn on. Someone my age or close is preferred. Many short Asian or Latinos have rejected me and later I see them with some six-footer, 250 lbs. I don’t take this personally. Their preference and turn on just happens to be a larger guy. There are always more guys at the bathhouse. Your observations about the baths are otherwise right on and very interesting. So lighten up, change your attitude and enjoy!