a oodmenoreect.com How I Learned to Have Good Sex - aman Pare July 3, 2018 by Leave a Comm By Todd Clayton (My co-worker lives above her landlords on the third floor ofa single-family home in Astoria, The landlords are fram Spain, long-maried and newly-etired, and Vigna tld me last week that during the summer they host dinner partes inthe backyard that she ‘can see from her window. She says they're drawn-out, uttery- ‘Spanish afars with music, tapas, so much wine, and (I cant remember if she sai this said this of more intuted i) rice patio torches, They start at eight and unfur with effortless panache ‘i well past midnight, never obnoxiously, | told her that our downstairs neighbors also have dinner parties but they're unfortunately very un-Spanish, so much so that on Saturday right | heard someone drunkenly chant “Americaaaaal” through my ‘wide-open window. Itwas hot and I cout close it so there | was in my boxers watching Sense8 and smashing the volume-up button (onthe remote. IN ANY EVENT: she fold me about her landlords ‘and | sucked it right up because in less than a month, my fiancé ‘and | are fying to Madrid to vist his dad fortwo weeks [oy-crying ‘emoj' “party hom emo") | have been to Macid exactly once before, fora whitwind 22 hours (na layover during my fight back to San Diego fom Prague. The ttip to Prague (plus Berlin, Amsterdam, and London, before that) 199s absolutely unplanned, and happened only because | stumbled into a fee roundtrip ticket, Itwas a gif fom the president of my college and his wife after a helish,helish senior year (think Dean thers in Saved), They told me | could book a fight anywhere in the world, and | was on my way to Heathrow five days later. | quit iy job at Barnes & Noble to go. ‘Thank god | went because | had my frst one-night stand in London ‘ith this guy | met ata bar in Soho, Someone grabbed my arm while | was ordering a beer ancl iold me | was just her fienc’s type, ‘and would | come meet him? We danced, had dtnks, and kissed, {and | remember teling him | ‘wasnt that kind of guy” when he ‘asked me to come over. The words dribble out, ote, andi took me only afew minutes to realize they werent mine anymore. ‘Someone grabbed my arm while | was Before Europe, | was Crdering @ beer and tld me I was ust working through the her iene type, and would | come mountainous shame ‘meet him? We danced, had drinks, inherited about sex. From ‘and kissed, 28 eatly a8 | can remember, ‘sex was tied tothe marriage bed and became this tricky gremlin luring people into depravity in anyother context In one particularly troubling youth group exercise I, alongwith the ‘other ten boys siting ross-legged on the floor, was given a red cconstuction-paper heart. We were told a story about a boy who became a man, sleeping with women along the way. When the boy had sex in the story we had to ipa piece ofthe heart of, because “everytime you have sex, you give a piece of yourself away” By the time the boy inthe story met the woman who would become his Wife, all we had let was a jagged-edged scrap "ls this what you want o offer your bide? ‘You arent bocn fearing yourself, you have tobe taught. | was especially afraid of my own sexuality because it was the cardinal sin church folk had been warning me about for years. | Bought ‘myself purity rng just before I tured seventeen, which ‘symbolized my promise not to have sex until | was marie. In @ \Weirdass, self-nating move, | bought one that was astering siver Crown of thors that hurt fo take on and of, | mean come ON with the gu. thas taken years of therapy and healthy sex to unlearn, ‘and even silt creeps up. |As we were roling around his double bed in London, naked and ‘sweating and trying to remember each others names, | realized that | was entitled toa sexual fe on my own terms. The church has. ‘sacraments (ike baptism and communion) that we call ‘outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace” which i just a fancy way of saying “times when we see God." think back on that trip to Europe, almost five years ago now, and I™m able to see itfor the genesis that twas: a sacramental, holy time that taught me ‘shame and quit have no place in my sexual fe. One of my coreatest sadnesses is that | didnot lear tis sooner. “He's an investment analyst. 24. Beautiful accent." accoring to my Journal entry from the next day. On the walk to his apartment we kissed in the middle of Picacily Circus. "kindof ie the Times ‘Square of London," | wrote, “quite romantic." was feeling my way through the world wit all my guideposts smashed to bits. My mind \was tumbling, tying to make sense of tal and the next moming | Woke up beside him ater not really sleeping. | knew I was going to need to find new peopl to tust and a new God, to boot, but hada't the slightest idea how. He was snoring quietly and we had sex ‘again before | lef We're sil friends on Facebook This article originally appeared on Meclum for Human Parts. Folow Human Parts on Facebook and Twitor Photo credit: Getty Images Cres ety pees Premium Member Would you like to help us shater stereotypes about men? Receive ‘stores from The Good Men Project. delivered to your inbox daly or meek.