(CAUTION: Today's entry reveals embarrassingly intimate details about the author's sex life. For those who would prefer not knowing such details, it's highly recommended that they skip the entire entry altogether.)

So first, some facts.

Fact 1: I'm very uncomfortable with the entire concept of pity, especially pity that is directed my way, which is why I'm so hesitant about writing today's entry (which I have started and then given up on three times already, before the draft you're now reading). I know that a certain amount of people will be tempted to feel pity for me after today's entry, and maybe even want to write an email and express so; but please believe me when I say that that is not only the last thing in the world that I want, but that the very letters themselves would make me deeply uncomfortable if they were to be sent. So.

Fact 2: It's been about three years now since I last had sex. Three years, in fact, since I last physically touched other people on a regular basis. I don't necessarily mind this so much. After all, before I hit my mid-twenties and became a writer and suddenly "quirkily attractive in a nerdy artistic way" in the eyes of many, my love life was much like the one I have now, marked more by the time I spent sexually inactive instead of active. And let's not forget, of course, that my last period of being sexually active was actually spent as a swinger and sex columnist, an experience I definitely enjoyed going through and found fascinating, but that definitely left me burnt out for awhile after it was all over on the entire concept of sex. And it's true that I'm mostly unemployed and broke these days, which puts a real crimp on one's dating life; and it's true that I'm about two-thirds of the way through some pretty major dental work these days, which makes me extremely self-conscious over the idea of kissing other people.

Anyway, my point is simply that it's been what I consider a long time since I've been physically intimate with someone, a situation that I don't want to have arouse any pity because there's actually been plenty of beneficial things to come out of it, and is a situation I'd call 75-percent voluntary to begin with. And in fact, as regular readers know, this has been coupled with a general receding from the public on my behalf in a number of other ways over the last half-decade as well; the way that I lost most of my former friends here in Chicago in the early 2000s, for example, the way that I now mostly do my professional work online instead of at an office. And again, this is neither good nor bad from an objective sense, but simply one more stage of an admittedly pretty complicated life that I've led, one more opportunity to learn and understand things about myself that I didn't before.

And I have been learning things about myself in these years of semi-solitude; but they're mostly bad things, frankly, the natural result of combining solitude with intense self-examination, and can very quickly start sounding like a pity party when discussed, which is why I rarely talk about the subject here at my journal. Over the last couple of years now, I've been forced to privately acknowledge things about my personality that various others have complained about in the past, but that up to recently I had been unable to see in myself -- my absolute mastery over the emotional manipulation of others, for example, or my innate lack of sympathy for the plight of most other people, a manageable trait when I'm in a good mood but that can swiftly explode into full-blown sociopathy when I'm not. Although to be truthful, I misspeak when I say I've been "forced" to come to these realizations, because the truth is that I've been deliberately seeking out such understandings over the last several years; ever since losing most of my friends earlier this decade, in fact, which is when I first acknowledged that there are bigger things going on with me than I understood, and that I really owed it to myself to figure these things out, if that is I ever wanted to have any friends again.

It's been a...productive process, I'll give you that, but not something I would ever call fun or pleasant; it's never fun to spend years in semi-seclusion, obsessively breaking down each and every bad personality trait one has, and trying to understand where they come from and how to gain a better control over them. And one of the strangest things about the process, I've discovered, is what I mentioned before; that in some ways I can feel myself reverting again to the same emotional state I was in back in my youth, back before my years as a big-city hipster-doofus nerdy sex symbol. That as I got more and more comfortable with that position in my twenties and early thirties, and more and more comfortable with casual sex, kinky sex, group sex and other activities, I lost sense of what it's like to be truly intimate with another person, and to have a truly intimate relationship with them. That many of my current problems, in fact, can be traced back to this, and that this period of semi-seclusion is ultimately good for me, this re-remembering of what actual intimacy is all about.

And again, again, none of this is being said to arouse pity; because believe me, I'm glad I went through the process in my twenties that I did (and will never ultimately complain about the amount of kinky sex with beautiful women I had, not once, not ever), and I'm infinitely glad about learning the things I learned from those experiences, just as I'm ultimately glad I'm learning what I'm learning now. This is the aspect that makes me worry a bit about the reversion process, in that I had a whole host of opposite issues concerning sex before my mid-twenties; a deep terror of most women, a deep confusion over the entire flirtation process, a disgust with my own body and a complete lack of understanding over how anyone could ever find it attractive. That's why I embraced casual sex so whole-heartedly in the first place, back when I first moved to Chicago and the opportunity first presented itself, for the same exact reasons I've been embracing semi-seclusion recently; because of not understanding certain things about myself, being frustrated over that lack of understanding, and determined to do the things needed to come to that understanding.

As ridiculous and cliched as it might sound, my years of serial dating and sexual swinging did teach me a lot of good things about myself, and did ultimately make me a better person. It wasn't until I started taking pictures of myself nude, for example, that I truly understood that I looked no better and no worse than anybody else around me at any given moment; that finally let me imagine a world where people could actually find Jason Pettus attractive, which then gave me the courage to finally start asking people out on a regular basis, without it having to be a big traumatic event each time. Because of a series of edgy, kinky fuck-buddies throughout my twenties (who I called "girlfriends" at the time, but now realize were never much more than extended flings), I came to a much better understanding of my sexuality, my orientation, my desires and my limits than I had ever had before, had even had the possibility of learning without all that crazy sex with all those crazy girls (and occasionally boys). I ultimately don't regret any of the things that happened to me in those years, or any of the decisions I made (well, okay, a couple of the decisions); I understand that those experiences are just as important as anything else as to making up the person I am today, and that I would be a worser person right now for not having had the experiences.

This is why I worry about seeing some of these old traits again in me, that I haven't seen since my youth; because frankly, I don't want to turn back into some mousy little wallflower who's afraid of even talking to women, who doesn't even understand his own desires and so of course can't explain them to a sexual partner (much less even think of a person as a "sexual partner" in the first place). But at the same time, I also now acknowledge that I eventually got too good at being this other way; that too much believing in yourself ultimately makes you a cocky little shit who no one wants to hang out with, that too much time not caring what others think ultimately makes you a manipulative little sociopath. Now that I've gone through these two very different periods of my life, and have seen both the good and bad things that come with them, I'm hoping that now as I enter middle age I'll be able to finally find a balance between them. That I'll be able to say, "I know the good things about being kinda shy and humble and thoughtful about situations, and I know the good things about being brash and confident and jumping into situations, and now I finally understand when it's appropriate to react in either way."

That's a big part, after all, of what led me to quitting creative writing when I did and trying to open this cursed arts center of mine; of just finally getting tired of taking all that manic energy I constantly have over things that get me excited, and expending it all on "me me me me me me me." I acknowledge that this manic energy is ultimately a good thing, a thing that a lot of other people don't have and that helps me to convince people to support the things I want them to support; I've just recently gotten to the point where I want to direct that energy towards the projects of people around me, not the projects I myself am creating, and to truly try to find a place of financial and emotional comfort for myself while doing so. And it's why I continue to live a celibate life these days as well, even while having more and more days right now where I think that I might just possibly freaking die if I don't get laid soon, because I understand that I'm still in the middle of some pretty major "processing" these days (to quote my friend Michelle Tea).

So why am I even bringing all of this up? Well because, see, I hung out with this person recently, and the situation brought up all of these issues and more, which I haven't really been able to get out of my head for the last several days, which is why I thought I'd sit and write about it, although like I said I'm usually deeply uncomfortable with discussing this aspect of my life. I don't want to dwell too much on the actual story, because it's a friend of mine (who reads this journal regularly on top of everything else), and the actual situation wasn't that big a deal, and I don't want her to feel embarrassed or awkward over it by me talking too much about it. But let's just say that sexual tension has always been a part of our relationship from the start, and that various different circumstances over the years have always prevented this tension from being resolved. And the other night we were hanging out for the first time in a long time, where she was explaining that something is coming soon that's going to change her life pretty profoundly, which made clear in an unspoken way that right now is pretty much the last time in our lives when we could theoretically have sex, that this big change coming soon is pretty much going to take even the possibility off the table for good. And not only that, but that in her own life my friend has been experiencing more casual sex than normal these last couple of years, bringing us for the first time on-par with each other as far as attitudes concerning one-night-stands.

This was all hashed out over many drinks at a bar in my neighborhood, in the middle of a Sunday afternoon getting all lit up over pitchers of mimosas (of course); and then eventually we ended up back at my place, smoking dope and showing each other on YouTube the various British television shows we've recently become obsessed with (Little Britain for her, The Friday Night Project for me). And it was there that I experienced something I hadn't in the longest time, just the longest time, which was a sense of sexual tension and sexual frustration so palpable that it seemed to almost exist as a physical object floating between us. A sense of horniness and desire and lust so bad, it was actually physically affecting my body -- making my heart race, making me breathe shallowly. And I came to realize right there in the moment, that it wasn't the idea of the sex itself that had worked me up to such a state, but rather the realization that this other person desired me in that way at that moment; this person who I find attractive and intelligent, who I both admire and enjoy spending time with, whose feelings matter to me because I've been deliberately making her feelings matter to me.

I hadn't experienced those kinds of feelings and sensations since I was literally 23 or so, and they turned out to be a little overwhelming; they've led to a series of highly erotic dreams the last several nights, for example, with the kind of five-sense detailed recollection I also haven't experienced in years. I've come to realize, in fact, that it's the first time in more than a decade that I've actually enjoyed a night of sexual tension that didn't lead to actual sex, that merely the flirtation involved and the sense of intimacy created is something to appreciate and savor, simply for it unto itself and not because such things are what lead to intercourse. That the unrealized possibilities of what might've happened are in fact probably more fun than whatever actual sex we might've ended up having -- sex that undoubtedly would've been at least partially awkward, given the longstanding platonic nature of our relationship, sex that was being both motivated and justified by copious amounts of drugs (never ultimately a good thing, although often a fun thing), sex that most likely would've complicated a situation that doesn't need any more complications.

When I was 27, 28, none of this would've mattered to me; in fact, you could safely bet money in those days that before that YouTube video was even over, that person and I would've been naked and on the floor and humping each other like a couple of animals. Like I said, it's a balance I'm trying to find for myself these days; a balance between simple horniness and knowing when a situation is right or wrong for me, a balance between what I want and what's best for the other person, and of doing the right thing when those two answers clash with each other. This night of sexual tension I recently experienced was ultimately a very good thing for me, for a variety of reasons at once: it reminded me firstly of simply what it feels like to have someone desire you, and also reminded me why this is so much more of an intense thing when you actually like that person back and care about their well-being, while also reminding me that a crucial part of the entire process is in caring what they think as well, and of stopping and spending some time putting yourself in their shoes, of understanding what the best options for any situation are from that viewpoint and not just your own. Well, and it gave me a boner too. A big giant fucking boner that didn't go away for three fucking days. I mean, pardon my French and all, but goddamn.

All of these things I mention today are ultimately good; they are external signs that things are working, that the goals I set at the beginning of the year for getting healthier, for reconnecting with humanity again, are ultimately succeeding. It can sometimes (er, many times) be a painful process, I don't deny that at all, certainly an unpleasant process a lot of the time, certainly a process where I sometimes find myself unbearably horny and heartbreakingly lonely, yet forced to say no to almost-guaranteed sex anyway. If I were a religious person, I'd be tempted to say that this is a form of penance that I'm paying right now, and thus not something anyone should feel particularly sorry that I'm going through; that for every bad day I have these days, every experience of being emotionally overwhelmed by my own inadequacies, it's yet one more day that makes up for me being an asshole to someone in my youth, for making a romantic partner cry, for ruining a friendship. If I were a religious person, I'd say that the balance is still fairly out of whack, that I can still expect a whole heaping pile of further shit to be flung at my head before things will finally start looking better for me. That this is yet one more reason not to feel pity for anything that's been said here today, that ultimately I deserve whatever bad things are happening in my life, and that the day they finally let up some is the day I'll know that I finally paid off that karmic debt. Thank God I'm not a religious person, I guess.