A Sexual Awakening at a Gay Men’s Retreat

 

“A Sexual Awakening at a Gay Men’s Retreat”

a Girl Boner podcast transcript

Mike:  So suddenly it gets like very touchy feely, like hands are everywhere. It’s super dim. We can’t really see what’s going on. I’m like panting. I’m delirious. And I just sit there and like do absolutely nothing. And it’s like almost like every long-held fantasy I have coming true.

August/narration:

Mike De Socio is an independent writer and journalist. A couple years ago, after a bold, and honestly heartbreaking decision, he attended a gay men’s retreat. Little did he realize just how much he’d signed up for.

We’ll get to that. First, let’s go back.

His early days

Mike’s sex education early on was rather lacking.

Mike: I didn’t learn a ton, I will say explicitly. I think I got a very brief, “Use a condom if you ever have sex,” kind of comment from my parents at one point as a teenager.

August/narration:

One moment really stands out in his memory. He was around 13, 14 years old.

Mike: I have an older brother who also happens to be gay, and one night when I was already upstairs in my room with the door closed, trying to go to sleep, I heard him having a conversation with my parents downstairs. I couldn’t make out all of it, but I heard enough to realize that my brother was in the process of coming out to my parents, telling them that he was gay.

It was kind of distressing to hear this on a number of levels, one of which was that my, parents weren’t reacting super well. They were sort of questioning him and pushing back on, his, newly claimed identity and really not taking it super well. I was kind of tossing and turning in bed thinking like, number one, like, “Oh my God, they’re having a fight. This is bad.” And also because I had so much internalized homophobia thinking, “Oh, I can’t believe my brother is gay,” and I was also upset about that. And the kind of crazy thing about it was, no one talked about it or told me anything. Like, I had heard it just because it was loud in the house.

But for a year or two after that, I didn’t technically know that my brother was gay. I just was like, “Oh, was that a dream? Did that actually happen?” And I was working through all my own shame about this. So kind of like my very first confrontation with you know, being gay in the family was quite negative. And in a way almost kind of reinforced some of my internalized homophobia.

August: Oh my goodness. That’s so much to carry. Was there like a code of silence sort of, like an unspoken we don’t talk about sexuality? – Did you feel uncomfortable asking about what you heard?

Mike: Exactly, yeah. I don’t think I even really thought to ask about it for a while. And it, it didn’t ever come up until I became a freshman in high school, and I had this prompt to write an essay in English class, and I wrote an essay about this.

August/narration:

The essay detailed the night his brother came out: Mike upstairs hearing bits and pieces of the conversation, struggling to believe it was true. And how he eventually realized there’s nothing wrong with his brother’s gayness.

Mike:

and I later shared it with my mom. And that was the first time we ever talked about it, and like we both broke down crying, and it was very emotional.

And I think by that point, you know, my parents had evolved a lot, and we had this conversation of just like, “Oh, wow, yeah, like this was difficult for both of us. Like we’re both coming to terms with this information about my brother.” And at this point I still think I’m straight.

August/narration:

Mike told me he sort of sailed through high school believing that.

Mike: I dated a few different girls, and I actually left high school, like, dating my, quote-unquote, “high school sweetheart,” a relationship that carried over into my freshman year of college. And it really wasn’t until then that I started to seriously question my own sexuality.

An epiphany

August/narration:

One thing that helped bring clarity? Some time in a canoe.

Mike: I had this two-week long canoe trip that I went on the summer after my freshman year of college, and something about that trip and the mental space it gave me, it didn’t quite make me realize I was gay, but I just had this realization of like, “Oh, I’m not being truthful about myself in some way,” which prompted me to very abruptly break up with my girlfriend immediately after that trip.

When I returned to college campus in my sophomore year, I was suddenly like, “Oh yeah, I’m definitely attracted to guys.” I was seeing them all over campus and in the gym and whatever and now I finally had the space to explore that. And I felt like I was in Boston, in a big city, like, this is a safe place to explore it.

August/narration:

Not that it was easy.

Mike: Rather terrifying, but I jumped in feet first with Grindr and started kind of skulking around campus, at night, in between classes and things like that to have a series of mostly pretty disappointing Grindr hookups. I think me and my interlocutors were always just, like, really nervous and awkward, and we were all trying to figure it out. So I don’t blame anyone, but, they weren’t exactly sexually satisfying experiences.

However, I felt like they were enough to at least allow myself to claim a label and to be like, “Okay, I’m definitely queer in some way.” And I actually credit my brother for this kind of period because he was one of the first people I came to, and he was like, “Don’t put any pressure on yourself to come out. Just explore. Give yourself some time.”

August/narration:

So that’s what he did for a while that year during college.

Mike: And then once I felt like, “Okay, yeah, this is definitely part of who I am,” I started coming out to some friends on campus and eventually my parents I think a year later, who were at that point really great and supportive.

So it was kind of this rapid experimentation, discovery, and claiming a label all very quickly.

A beautiful relationship

August/narration:

After college, Mike moved to Albany for a job. About a year after that, he met someone.

Mike: I met this really sweet guy on Tinder and we started dating.

August/narration:

A couple of months into dating, Mike went on his own to Provincetown.

Mike: …which as we know is like a gay utopia. I went to this underwear party and had like a very drunk and fun night and I went back to someone’s room and had a one-night stand you might call it, and just had a really good time as one does in P-town.

August/narration:

Then he went home and told the guy he’d been dating about his adventure.

Mike: And he kind of looked at me blankly and was like, “What do you mean you hooked up with someone in Provincetown?”

And I was like, “Well, you know, that’s, that’s what you do in Provincetown.” He was like, “Oh no, like I thought we were boyfriends.” And I was like, “Oh, sure I guess.” But we hadn’t really agreed on monogamy. So it was a very, very awkward conversation that ended up being like the moment that we decided to be like, “Okay, from now on…” He gave me the benefit of the doubt. He was like, “From now on we’re gonna be monogamous.”

I was like, “Okay, well now it’s all on the table. if you wanna be monogamous, that’s something I’m interested in trying. I’ve never had a monogamous boyfriend before. Let’s give it a go.” And that is literally the day that became like our anniversary date that we would celebrate every year.

August/narration:

He said it turned into a “really beautiful relationship.”

Mike: We moved in together early in the pandemic. We had this really gorgeous home together. We became deeply integrated into each other’s families. It really was, in a lot of ways, what you would want from like the modern gay domestic relationship. And it worked really well for a long time and I was really happy.

When things started to change

August/narration:

They were approaching five years together when that started to change.

Mike: I started to have this itch.

August/narration:

An itch for something more or different.

Mike: Because I really didn’t explore a ton before this. I had some shadowy Grindr hookups. I had like a situationship with a coworker, but I had not gone to a lot of gay venues. I didn’t really have a slutty phase in my early gay years. And so I started to be like, “Well, what about going to a bathhouse? Or what about having a threesome and being open?” I was really grabbing at, like, what are some of the other things I could try? And I really, really wanted to try to have that in my relationship.

And I really, really tried. But at the end, it just wasn’t something my partner was interested in doing.

August/narration:

So Mike made the heartbreaking decision to leave that relationship.

Mike: …which truly shattered me. I’ve never cried as much in my life as I did after that breakup. But it kinda felt like a necessary thing I needed to do to myself for myself, because I just didn’t feel like I could deny a lot of my desires anymore. And so I was like, “I gave this monogamy thing a try for five years. I gotta try this other stuff and see if it’s the right thing for me.”

August: I can imagine how galvanizing that would feel. It’s already difficult if you are feeling like you’re breaking someone else’s heart, but it sounds like you broke your heart, too.

Mike: Exactly… ‘Cause it was like, I feel like a monster for breaking his heart, and then I was incredibly sad, and I was grieving, and I was like, wait, what if I’m giving up this beautiful thing. And then what I find on the other side actually isn’t so great?

It felt really uncertain to me because I had not done so many of the things that I was fantasizing about. I was like, what if I don’t like it? And then I’m single and sad, and I left this beautiful person behind. So yeah, it was really brutal.

August/narration:

For better or worse, he said, he did the grieving and the exploring simultaneously. He was scrolling Instagram when he saw a post about a gay men’s retreat.

Mike: One of the first things I did was sign up for it, which might sound kind of crass, but I think I felt like because it was so painful, I needed to immediately do something that would show me it was worth it.

August/narration:

It wasn’t far from where he was living and had a kind of clothing optional vibe.

Mike: It was “open to GBTQ men” was how they phrased it. It seemed sexual for sure, but also kind of wholesome in the sense that they were workshops and things. And I was like, all right, I’ve never done something like this before, but it seems pretty cool and why not give it a try? So I was like, this gay retreat seems to be something that checks a lot of my boxes. I gotta do it for myself.

The gay men’s retreat

August/narration:

He arrived to the retreat on a Thursday afternoon.

Mike: It’s this really beautiful place. I think it used to be a ski lodge. So there’s this big, older lodge building, and there’s a couple other smaller buildings scattered around, and rolling green hills and a pond, and it’s really kind of out in nature. It was springtime, so all these flowers were blooming.

August/narration:

Mike found his room and wandered around the property. Then there was a big group orientation.

Mike: …which I actually think was super important because they really like set the tone for the space, talked a lot about consent, about kind of the expectations for the weekend, what spaces would or wouldn’t be sexual.

They decided that the best way to kind of open the weekend was to have the first night be platonic. So they were like, you know, “The next nights there are gonna be play spaces, but tonight there’s one activity, it’s platonic, and we’re just gonna ease our way in that way.”

August/narration:

And he had butterflies.

Mike: It’s hard not to be nervous just because I was meeting all these new people. I was preparing to do things I’d never done before. But I think they also made me feel at home, like rather quickly.

August/narration:

Largely thanks to the first night’s activity, a platonic event.

Mike: It was what they called a cuddle puddle, which was actually very sweet. So we were in this big room, and there were like mats on the floor, and they were like, “All right. This, this activity is not about sexual arousal. We’re just gonna offer comforting touch, platonic, and we’re gonna be fully clothed.”

So like everybody just lay down on the mats. You can kind of like intertwine your limbs if it feels comfortable, like rest a head on someone’s stomach, kind of whatever you want.” And then for whatever it was, like 15 minutes, there was some like kind of gentle music playing in the background, and we were all just kind of like letting our hands wander, and it was kind of awkward, and, I was even nervous doing that at first.

But by the end of it, and we did a couple of rotations, like it really did feel quite calming to just like accept loving touch that was not sexual and to just kind of start to feel at home with this like total group of strangers in a very tactile way.

August/narration:

A couple more sexual experiences stand out in Mike’s memory.

Mike: So one of the first things I did that was quite vulnerable was a two-hour sensation exchange, but we were blindfolded. So the way it worked was basically we all got in this room, we all got naked, we all put on blindfolds, and maybe there was like 10 or 12 of us. And this facilitator kind of like, once we’re all standing there blindfolded, is like pushing us around into like pairs.

And so in each pair we get a few minutes to just let our hands wander and give each other a touch. And this one was not explicitly platonic. They just were like,”Do whatever you want. You’re not only there to be touching someone else’s genitals, but you can do that if you want.” It was a lot more open-ended.

August/narration:

He kept it pretty tame at first.

Mike: …but then even blindfolded, I start to realize as it goes on, it’s getting pretty horny. Like you can just kind of tell from the sounds and the vibe in the room kind of changes. And so the last couple rotations I just fully give myself over to it, and I’m like making out with my partners, basically only touching each other’s dicks. We’re stroking and doing all that you would wanna do to give someone else pleasure, and like that’s all I do basically in the last few rotations.

And I don’t orgasm. I don’t think anyone else did in that session. But it was really funny because at the end of it, we finally took the blindfolds off, and we’re all just standing there still naked, pretty much all of us really hard, just kind of looking at each other, like giggling. Like what exactly did we just do? But it was also kinda sweet because it was just like, well, yeah, like why not? And there was like no shame about it.

So that was like kind of the jumping into the deep end of like, let’s see how vulnerable this weekend is gonna get.

August: I love that ’cause you used the word wholesome earlier, and I feel like that was a wholesome experience, and we don’t often hear wholesome tied in with, like, naked massages and, you know.

Mike: Right, like it still felt kind of cozy, yeah.

A steamy fantasy coming true

August/narration:

Another standout experience was literally steamy.

Mike: So there was a sauna on the property that was really, really gorgeous. It was this custom built thing with like candles and everything. The vibes were immaculate. And we were specifically told at the beginning of the retreat that it was not a sexual space. Like there were play spaces. You could also play in your rooms, but the sauna was not a sexual space.

Okay, like fair enough. I also just love a sauna. I love being naked. It was nice just to hang out and chat in there. But one of the nights that I was in there, the crowd was a bit thinner. There was maybe like four or five of us. We’re just kind of making small talk. And there was a little window that we had cracked open to get in some cool air.

We were all just kind of like huddled under the window getting nice and cozy. And bodies start to touch a little and hands start to wander a little. And I did initiate it, but once it started, I was kind of like, okay, I’m not gonna stop it either because one of my biggest fantasies for all these years was to hook up in a sauna, which I’d never done.

I was like, okay, well this is technically against the rules, but like one of the retreats coordinators was with us and like he wasn’t stopping it either. So I was like everyone here is enjoying it—no harm, no foul. So suddenly it gets very touchy feely, like hands are everywhere.

It’s super dim. We can’t really see what’s going on. I can’t really keep track of like who’s touching me, who exactly I’m touching. Like I don’t necessarily really care either. Like everyone’s just getting like really carried away with it. So that’s going on for like, I don’t know, maybe ten minutes and I start to get really, really close and I’m like, okay, I’m gonna let everybody know it.

So I tell everyone I’m getting close and then all of a sudden all the attention shifts. Like more of the hands are coming to me. Everyone’s trying to stroke me. Everyone’s trying to get me toward my climax. And I’m moaning and writhing and tilting my head back and I’m just letting their hands do all the work at this point until I finally do come like all over my stomach.

I’m like panting. I’m delirious. And I just sit there and do absolutely nothing. And they’re like licking me and caressing me and I’m just letting my body loosen. And it’s almost every long-held fantasy I have coming true and it comes at the end of this like glorious weekend that was already really slutty. And I had this taboo in my head of like this naughty sauna moment built up in my mind for so long.

And then here I was with this audience of hungry men all too happy to make me do it. It just felt like this perfect culmination of the entire experience.

His sexual awakening

August/narration:

Given that Mike’s biggest fantasies played out as the climax of the whole retreat, it’s probably no surprise that a sexual awakening was unfolding for him.

Mike: The gears definitely started moving during that weekend. Because it actually wasn’t even the first slutty thing I did after my breakup. Even sooner I went to a bathhouse and had that also really energizing experience, and that was really cool and that was also a fantasy.

But it was like a little dark and dingy, and it still felt like a little tinged with shame. I think what really shifted for me at the retreat was, that the entire experience was free of shame. And like from the very first moment, the facilitators and the entire community there were like: Hey, this is a space where, like, you can be sexy if you want, and you can be naked wherever you want.

That’s not only okay, it’s like affirmed, it’s encouraged even, and no one is gonna shame you for that. That’s what we’re all here to do. It was actually just the whole point. And so it was this really interesting combination of that weekend showed me not only that my fantasies were possible but also that like it didn’t have to be this shameful thing.

It didn’t have to be this thing where I was skulking around to do it and I had to be secretive about it. It was like, no, actually, there’s this whole beautiful community of people that see it as a actually a quite beautiful thing. So that was a really powerful shift that started for me during that weekend.

August/narration:

The retreat experience also did something important for Mike’s heartache.

Mike: I think it was the best thing possible thing I could have done because, I was so destroyed by the end of my relationship, partially because of that uncertainty of not knowing if I would find something better on the other side, and this was like, okay, I found something good on the other side.

It was just this huge affirmation of like, okay, it’s still sad… You know, I got home from the retreat and my boyfriend had all of his things in boxes and I cried. It was still sad for a long time after that. But it was evidence to me that this world that I have been dreaming of does actually exist, and I can get to the other side of the heartbreak and there is something good there.

Ongoing discovery

August/narration:

A couple years later, the discoveries are still going—much thanks to the retreat.

Mike: It’s continued to shape my life in a lot of ways where, like, since then have just not really held back from enacting, like, any of my sexual fantasies. I had a very triumphant return to Provincetown one summer, where I went to the gay beach, and I cruised the dunes, and I did all these things that I didn’t do on previous trips to Provincetown.

I eventually moved to a different city, and when I moved to the new city, I was, like, very much exploring the nightlife, going to some of the gay clubs, and going to the underwear parties. These were all things that I had just never really experienced as, like, a gay adult, and were things that I was all really curious about.

So it just kind of became this momentum where it was like anytime I had a curiosity about something, as long as it felt, you know, like relatively safe and whatever, I was like, I’m gonna go try it. Like, why not? So I really just was progressively, letting go of shame, letting go of obstacles, and just trying these things, and that’s kind of still how I live my life.

August/narration:

Today Mike considers himself a “proud slut.”

Mike: I see sexual pleasure as a really important part of my life and a part of it that I am not gonna shy away from. It’s okay if it makes other people uncomfortable, I guess, but it doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I’m gonna pursue the relationships I want and the experiences I want and enter them feeling grounded and really excited.

I’m also gonna share those experiences when it makes sense, whether with a friend or in my writing or whatever. I think the pride just comes from feeling like I know that, I am creating and seeking these beautiful experiences with other people and that, we’re all coming away from it with pleasure and joy, and that feels so important to me. There’s no reason for me to feel ashamed about that.

His top related wisdom

August/narration:

If, like Mike, you have desires you haven’t tapped into, he wanted you to hear this.

Mike: You really can’t bury your desires. They’re gonna find their way out I think sooner or later. I don’t necessarily regret my relationship that I had for five years. It was really beautiful, and I’m very grateful for it—but at the same time, I knew I couldn’t do it forever because those desires were always gonna be there.

If my partner wasn’t going to allow space for that, I had to leave, right? I just think you really can’t silence that little voice in your head. It’s probably right, and it might be really painful and scary to listen to it, but I think usually you’re gonna have to listen to it sooner or later.

Even if you’re already single, I can understand if there’s some fear just around, health or safety or all those things. And I think on the health side, I would at least encourage people, like, there has never been a better time to be a slut, especially if you’re a queer man.

We are in a golden age of, like, PrEP exists, doxy PEP exists. It’s never been easier to protect yourself from STIs. We can be really free. Our queer ancestors fought really hard for that. And I kind of think we should take advantage of it.

At least if you want to, you should. We’re finally in this place where it’s possible to have that really beautiful sexual life and not have to fear about your health all the time.

Mike’s writing

August/narration:

Mike’s sexual discovery has also really influenced his life as a writer.

Mike: When I got into writing, it did not look anything really like it looks now. So my background is in journalism. I have a degree in journalism. I still do journalism, actually, as a freelancer. In the beginning, I was doing very buttoned-up business journalism. It’s ever so slowly gotten more queer and more interesting and I wrote a whole book about queer history.

Now I write this very, I call it a wholesome and horny newsletter. It’s called Finocchio, which is like Pinocchio, but with an F. It’s like a reclamation of an Italian slur. I kind of reclaimed it because I’m living here in Italy. It’s a word that I would like to imbue with pride and it really describes the joyfully queer life that I am living in Italy, which is often very slutty, but often also very heartfelt and sappy.

August/narration:

Every week in Finocchio, he shares stories and personal experiences.

Mike: Whether it’s adjusting to life in a new country and dealing with language and bureaucracy and all that. And also like, oh, I went to the naked dance party in Milan the other night. It’s just that mix of all of it.

So, my readers get to just get all that juicy storytelling and then I’ve also got like a private community where we have a spicy little group chat and everything. So I’m really just trying to build this world where like we can all be proud sluts together essentially, regardless of where we are in the world or what we’re doing in our lives.

Learn more

August/narration:

Learn more about Mike De Socio or sign up for his newsletter here.

For an exclusive bonus series featuring Mike, head to patreon.com/girlboner. There, you’ll get more from the show’s storytellers, behind the scenes updates from me, and support the show at the same time. Find direct links in the show notes.

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