|If My Penis Says So.|

I was looking at myself in the mirror this morning. I had gone to the gym, as I've been doing very regularly in the early AM, and I was relaxing with a bowl of oatmeal and some Sufjan Stevens.

The oddest thing happened as I was looking at myself in the mirror.

For a long time I could not do that. I cannot recall when it started, but for years, if not decades, I could not look myself in the mirror. I would only do it if I had to, such as when shaving or when trying on clothes. But even then it was only brief instants, and in those moments when I would be face to face with my own reflection, I would lamentably enumerate in my mind all of the things that I saw: gaping pores, blemishes, slightly lazy right eyelid, my too big and too flat nose, my receding hairline, ever chapped lips, the gap in my front teeth, razor bumps all over my neck, the hair on my shoulders and upperback, the hair on my lower back, the hair all over my chest and stomach, stretch marks on my arms standing forever as tell-tell signs of my overweight past, the potness of my belly (which I would very rarely ever let out -- I am never walking around and not super sucking in my gut), the non-muscle of my arms, the flab of my love handles, the acne all over my body that I've had come and go since I was 11 in certain places that to the untrained and suspicious eye looks like a sexually transmitted infection, the largesse of my hips, my bowed legs, my swayback that makes my ass look large, my fat ass, my uselessly thin calves, my feet that have an oversweating problem resulting in extreme dryness so that I will never, ever be able to wear thongs or sandals and primarily why I absolutely dread going to the beach, my chipped toe nails, stretch marks on my hips, me.

Even as recent as being in Paris, I've not been able to look at myself in the mirror. Being there, however, and realizing that guys can and do find me attractive, I did start to look at myself in the mirror and tried to do it without running through the laundry list of imperfections (not even imperfections, but irregularities and abnormalities, in my book, at least) of my body, of myself, but it was an uphill battle every time.

People are often quick to remind me that I've had a lot of sex. And that's true, I'd say I've had well over 1000 sexual partners, probably closer to 1500 at this point. But does that mean that guys find me attractive? I've never felt so. Of course, I'm not really objective. Or, I'm as objective as any scientist who sees his own biased and subjective rationale as not actually informing his objective research. Still, so many guys/people will have sex with someone who they don't find attractive. How many threesomes have I been in where it was clear I was either only wanted by the one of the two who invited me or was a third wheel? How much of my sex has been gotten at 2 or 3 in the morning when, more likely than not, the guy on the other side of the screen had probably been looking just as long as I would have been and was ready to take nearly anything at the point at which I chanced upon him in the chat room?

I still haven't ever really dated. The longest relationship I've had was 6 weeks, and the last 2 weeks of which we really weren't actually together. And that relationship stands as 33.3 (bar) % of my relationships. Yeah, just 3. All within the span of what I would say was an odd and schizophrenic 12 months. No one has ever asked me out and most guys I've ever asked out have said no. Of course, I speak in generalities of myself and perhaps that's not fair. I was once picked up by a rather hot (though drunk and high) guy on the subway, we exchanged numbers, and then he called me and invited me over not less than an hour after parting ways on the train. And I did once hookup with a guy in a bar, a friend of Adam's. Adam and I went to The Park, the guy was there, sans his friends, and then Adam abandoned us. Perhaps because he had to get up early the next day (well, early for Adam). Perhaps because I had previously met this friend of Adam's and had expressed an interest in him. Long story short, I did go home with him that night. And a good time was had. And he expressed an interest in seeing me again. And then never once returned a phone call, so what should I make of that?

The point of this diatribe is that I don't think I had any reason to look at myself in the mirror without being upset/frustrated/disappointed/disheartened/depressed/angered by what looked back at me.

But I've started to force myself to look at myself. And I've tried to quiet my thoughts. As the saying goes, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." More and more I've been looking at myself. And for the past 2 months I've been working out regularly, for the most part, eating healthily, for the most part, and realizing little by little how sweet (my) life is.

And then this morning, as I was eating my oatmeal, I got the notion to get undressed and go stand in front of my full-length mirror. I stared at my eyes, at my shaved head, at my lips and my chest and my stomach and my hair and my penis and my legs. I glided my hands over the cacao pasture of me, felt the valleys and knolls where muscles have ripened, never looking at myself but never taking my eyes off of my reflection, and I started to get erect.

I've said that I think I'm attractive, though I often qualify that or counter it in the next breath. While I've said it, and I try to only say what I mean, I think that, in this case, I've mostly only ever said it so that people wouldn't be brought down by what I was saying or feel pity for me, when what I was after was understanding.

But the thing about the male penis is that, when not riding on a bus or being physically stimulated in anyway, it does not rise to attention unless prompted by attraction.

I looked at myself in the mirror this morning and the person that I saw looking back at me was someone I found attractive. I was not thinking about my hair or my pores or my love handles, I was thinking about the whole of me and all that lay before me, the entire system of cells and pigments and follicles, turned me on. No, I did not become fully erect -- the moment I realized what was happening I lost my hard-on. But that does not diminish the gravity of the occurrence.

This still leaves the question, though, of confidence. If I find myself attractive, and the most definitive judge of attraction, my penis, says that I do, then why don't I have confidence? Because no matter how much I believe in myself, I have yet to grasp that others believe in me to the same (or any) extent. When you are growing up, teachers and parents and books and even traveling puppet shows espouse the importance of believing in yourself (::raps:: "I like myself, I'm worth a lot!"), but no one ever says to believe that others believe in you, but that really is what you need. You want the people who you encounter, the people around you, to think highly of you, to like and respect and enjoy you. I feel safe in saying that it's probably far easier to go from believing that others believe in you to believing in yourself than to go from believing in yourself to believing that others believe in you.

So where does this leave me?

I cannot escape the truism that people respond well to confidence. Unattractive people who think that they are attractive can come off as very attractive, though I would argue that perhaps they are helped by believing that others find them physically attractive, regardless of their own personal charsima.

In any case, maybe that's where I start. I do not know that I've ever had or achieved anything the easy way. It seems harmonious to my leitmotif that it is from believing in myself that I have to get to believing that others believe in me.

And at first glance, that seems somehow sad. Depressing, really. But it's a start. This square one was no where on the horizon weeks ago.

I guess, waxing "Field of Dreams" and no pun intended, "If your penis rises, they will come."