Moments after the door to my condo closed behind us, the stranger I’d cruised on the subway locked his mouth on mine. I eagerly accepted. The tension of 30+ minutes of eyeing each other in the train car, up the escalators, down Sunset Blvd., to this moment, piqued our primal need to engage. He pulled at the bottom of his shirt.  I leaned away from kissing his scruffy face and said, “Hold on, can I get that for you?” and I slowly pulled his shirt up, revealing his bare skin, happy trail, belly button, chest, nipples, and finally, his masculine shoulders. The inside-out collar of thin cotton material moved up his throat while the bulk of the shirt acted as a temporary blindfold. As the shirt released from his head, I looked into his eager eyes – the t-shirt hanging relaxed in my hand. “Your turn,” I said. “Take your time.” Rather than ignoring all this erotic energy and racing towards orgasm with the intensity of an Olympic sprinter, I’ve learned to lean into erotic tension and savor its rare pleasures. This is a departure from the avid Sport Fucker practice I once thought was the height of sexual pleasure and liberation. Sport Fucking is about having sex for its own sake. Keeping a score sheet (even if it’s just in one’s head) of the numbers, variety, and status of sex partners is what it’s all about. Commitment and emotional depth are not part of the practice. An ass up, no talking, jackhammer fuck n’ go is its hallmark protocol. It allows us to protest against the heteronormative standard narrative: All sex outside of a monogamous relationship is bad. It also satisfies our need to seed, and be seeded by, as many individuals as possible. Sperm competition, as outlined in the book Sex At Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá, provides evidence that our genes are programmed to both give and receive as much sperm as possible. The one who gives or receives the most wins the genetic prize. Sport Fucking is still in my sexual repertoire, but it is only one musical genre with which to play the music. Sometimes, I want a nasty two-minute country tune by Dixon Dallas: “No strings attached, I’ll arch my back and let you do what you want.” At other times, I want an hour-long Deep House Anjunadeep Edition 434 with Marsh DJ session: “Reach inside me. Gonna take my love in,” that transports us on a multilayered sensory/emotional/spiritual journey. Each encounter is usually a variation that mixes a bit from each style, depending on my partner’s proclivities and how our energies mix.If I’d taken this guy to a stairwell to seal the deal, a long, drawn-out connection wouldn’t have been practical. But we were in my place, and I had more than two minutes. Until the moment his shirt came off, and I felt the heat radiating from his torso, my attraction to this guy was almost entirely visual. It was tied to what he was wearing, especially his grey sweatpants and the shape of the underwear seams framing his butt cheeks as he shifted his weight, side to side, only one escalator step ahead of me on the long ride up and out of the deep Sunset-Vermont subway station, my heart pounding all the way. I was returning home from my workout, where I’d seen lots of Hollywood hotties dressed in their best gym gear hugging all the right places oh so coyly, never to be touched. (Well, not never, but that’s another post.) This was an opportunity to actually touch, smell, and taste the tantalizing essence that is usually off-limits. Why throw all that on the floor? Both shirtless, we moved to the playroom.It had become clear to me during our makeout session, while my hands massaged the raised underwear seams through his sweats, that he preferred to let me take charge. I didn’t let that stop me from dropping to my knees to explore the cause of a raging boner still inside my jeans. As an aside, for a long time, I lived with a made-up rule that tops don’t kneel for their partners – that maintaining dominance requires insertive, taking energy only. I was wrong about that, especially the kneeling part. Down on my knees, there is a lot of pleasure to give by actively taking what he generously allowed. Undressing a man slowly, like the beautifully wrapped gift that he is, moves that spark of erotic energy up and into every power zone of your body. Without an immediate release (a quick orgasm), the energy expands its way from that space between your balls and your butthole, through your gut, your heart, your throat, your mind, and out into the Universe. The vibrational energies of your whole self, the energies that the Great Yoga Sages called the seven chakras, become available mojo for your eventual climax. Dipping my fingers between the cotton waistband of his sweatpants and the formfitting elastic of his briefs, nuzzling the swollen mound straining the fabric beneath his sweatpants, looking up to see how this is being received via his eyes, expressing gratitude in mine, inching the sweats down to reveal his previously hidden tight undies, feeling the heat of his contained junk that had been walking down the street with me, now pressing on my nose and cheeks, smelling the epicenter of his pheromone production, allowing the sweatpants to gather at his feet, fanning anticipation by leaving his underwear on, overtly looking him up and down, from his bright brown eyes to his pants that are now a heap around his ankles. Pro Tip: To remove his pants with just two sweeping motions, I find the leg opening behind one heel, allow him to shift his weight to the other foot, and pull on the seam of the leg opening. Most pants will easily slide off one leg at a time. This avoids the struggle of pulling the pants at the waist and having them turn inside out, causing awkward logistics that break the sultry trance. “Your turn,” I said.  Whatever we do next will be charged with intimacy and understanding, which clears a path to mind-bending release.While undressing each other, we transmit and receive information about what turns the other guy on, what doesn’t, and what’s meh. We just need to look, listen, and feel for it. It also builds erotic tension. Cum denial, as it’s called in parts of the fetish community, or semen retention, as it’s called in various eastern spiritual communities, leads to an altered state of consciousness. Senses are heightened, and the mind focuses. Done in a community of men, it fosters heart-centered connections and a willingness to be vulnerable. I first experienced this state with Tantra 4 Gay Men during a weeklong retreat near Joshua Tree, California, where I went nearly two weeks without ejaculation. The point is that building erotic heat without release creates a heightened mental state. Invest in that state, and you’ll have an insanely intense orgasm—a frighteningly powerful full-body release. It’s a rollercoaster ride that’s worth the wait in line. The undressing ritual gives you a tiny glimpse into that euphoria, that connection to Everything, to the Divine. You just need to be emotionally brave enough to speak your truth. Communicate what you want. Probably non-verbally. Say and accept “no” as helpful information so that everyone can lean into their erotic and emotional desires and needs, sometimes called fantasies. The jackhammering may still happen, but if it does, it becomes a well-timed crescendo rather than the entire piece of music. It’s a dynamic highpoint, igniting the root charka, blasting energy up through the now energized spiritual centers, including the crown chakra where it’s possible to touch Divine wisdom, imbuing your cum shot with a melding of primal and sacred certainty. We know joy. We know peace. Strangers we meet on the train leave happy.  This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikegerle.substack.com/subscribe