Sex and language
Casual thoughts of a speech-sensitive gay man
You have sex and you don't talk much. Small exclamations, small comments, maybe some feedback on how you feel. There's more talking afterwards and often before too.
I remember travelling to Malaysia. In the Blue Boy Bar in Kuala Lumpur, I met a cuddly, muscular, attractive Malaysian who took me home with him. We spoke English to each other. He had studied in Los Angeles for several years and had a typical Californian dialect. At home, we undressed and enquired about each other. His body was pleasant, tasted and smelled good and I liked touching him. When things got a bit more physical, he suddenly started: "Yeah babe, that's great, shove your dick inside my ass, give it to me, babe, yeah." I suddenly felt like I was filming an American porn film and was completely confused. Using non-verbal methods, I managed to stop him from talking so that I could experience a satisfying ending. Afterwards we had a smoke, chatted and he called me a taxi. I don't remember his name or what he looked like. But I do remember that he spoke like a character from a Californian porn film.
"Yeah babe, that's great, shove your dick inside my ass, give it to me, babe, yeah."
Speaking is risky, because then it can turn out that the desired and fantasised seamless union of two bodies becomes unbalanced. Language and body and thought enter into a fragile liaison in sexuality, which is not without allure, but which also contains minefields. As always with language, differences in origin, class and the current life culture of those involved become apparent. Class differences, educational differences and projection differences can be attractive and you learn a lot in the process, but they can also be enervating, sometimes even disillusioning or, horribile dictu: de-sexualising.
Culture clash in the darkroom
In the years after 1989, the darkrooms gradually filled up with men from the former GDR. They tended to talk to their sex partners before or after. Just imagine: in the darkroom. A cultural behaviour that they probably brought with them "from over there", until finally a decadent, soulless Wessi, like me, shouted "Quiet in the darkroom!". In this intercultural clash, the West naturally prevailed again.
A favourable condition for good sex is that you are allowed to make the other person an object or be made an object by them. This is not always possible without language. It is the transition from the inside to the outside, a reality that needs to be used sparingly in sexual encounters, at least when they are spontaneous and non-verbal.
Especially when it comes to first contacts that have only been preceded by a very short social time. I'm thinking of: saunas, visits to the darkroom, off-site cruising, internet initiation but also, and this still exists, initiating conversations in public places, which after 20 lines of dialogue, without having unloaded large psychobiographical outpourings, ask the essential question: "To me or to you?"
Sometimes it can end well. We're back in Malaysia and again we end up in bed with a man. This time a Chinese man I met at a food stall in Penang. We undress each other. Suddenly he says: "You have a huge dick." This compliment was never paid to my cock in Europe. Here I am "M". Long live the culture clash!
Nevertheless, my experience is: the more language, the higher the disruption factor during sexual encounters. The ideal would be a maximum of three-word sentences and sounds that, if converted into characters, would make us sound like comic figures. "Groan! Groan! Pant! Arch! Sigh! Drool! Ahhhh !" (So much for the little homage to Erika Fuchs and Ralf König).
Elephant eggs and peach rosettes
It's just like that when you have sex for the first time: you get involved in something and don't know exactly whether it will really work. And that doesn't just depend on the bodies or a clever use of numerous camasutric contortions. The big question for me was -also- always: hopefully he hits the right note. I tend to favour less ornamentation. I can already hear the objection. "It doesn't matter, the main thing is that it's cool, looks good and does everything you like and does you good." Well, I would reply, but then please don't speak.
Metaphorical speech during sex can quickly throw me off balance. I either find it overly hysterical or unintentionally funny. Both are de-sexualising.
For example, excessive exaggeration. If someone refers to my testicles as "horny elephant eggs", I understand the intention: they want to pay me a compliment and enhance the whole situation. But I see the elephant in front of me. I almost always find animal comparisons funny or sometimes even completely off the mark. Occasionally it's cute. But who wants to fuck cute?
When someone says to me: "I want to lick your peach rosette", I immediately think of floral wallpaper and breakfast crockery with bunnies and sunflowers on it.
When someone says to me: "I want to lick your peach rosette", I immediately think of floral wallpaper and breakfast dishes with bunnies and sunflowers on them. These are not sexually stimulating associations. It's not the speaker's fault, but I can't choose my associations either.
Simplicity is the magic word
It can also be problematic if, in the heat of the moment, you come across someone who believes that they have to use language or a certain intonation to increase their excitement immeasurably. His voice becomes deeper and the choice of comparative words becomes excessive: "Stuff my face with your dirty spray" is an overkill of metaphor. "And the world begins to sing, if you only hit the magic word." Eichendorff says, only for me the world doesn't sing - anymore - but I think: "Man, can't it be a little smaller?" Modest as I am, it would excite me enough if I were asked to thrust my cock deep into his mouth.
Last example: We're at it and he, in a clenched voice: "I want to fuck your horny cunt sore!" My inner voice responds: "Well, I'm not that fluid, it's still an arsehole. Besides: cunt. Completely out of place. It's supposed to be vulgar and horny. Wannabe prolo." Then you come back to it.
