Just when you thought that the LGBTQ community couldn’t be any more diverse, a book comes out called Solosexual: Portrait of a Masturbator. Yes, we know that most men masturbate, so how is this anything new? But the book is not at all what one would expect. It examines an entirely different way of being sexual with other guys and with oneself, characterizing solosexuality as something of a "brotherhood", and defining terminology to describe this "bate" culture.
The goal of most people who use dating apps or websites is to find someone to date, or at the very least meet in person for sex. But interestingly there is a site dedicated to guys who have the sole intention of masturbating to one another. The site is called Bateworld.com and it is unique in that guys post sexual photos of themselves, but strict guidelines are in place that forbid images of oral or anal insertion. The site focuses on the penis, masturbation and what guys do to get off. Also, profiles on this site aren’t a list of "no’s" to filter the men they are not interested in. Bateworld.com profiles are more geared toward talking about what excites them, stuff that they are experimenting with, and things that they use as "bate fuel", and more.
Many people treat the terms solosexual and autosexual as synonymous, but this book defines solosexuality as something different. Autosexual is about the person becoming only sexually interested in oneself and having no interest in dating or being sexual with others. In contrast, being solosexual means pleasuring oneself while sometimes making contact with others, either by chatting with them online or in masturbation clubs (which do exist in some cities) and also using fetishes and "bate fuel" to bring yourself to orgasm. You can still have a sexual preference for men, women or both, but you can enjoy pleasuring yourself using them as your "bate fuel". You can still be in a relationship and enjoy being part of the brotherhood – in fact, there are a good number of straight married men on the site, along with single guys as well.
The site Bateworld.com and the book Solosexual: Portrait of a Masturbator open your eyes to a world where guys actually can be positive and friendly towards one another. It is where your age, race, body shape, the amount of hair you have, and sexual preference creates a brotherhood of "baters". Guys even make positive comments on each other’s images - a refreshing change from the mean and judging comments on most dating/hookup sites. Guys do still hook up from Bateworld but it is mostly for masturbating with one another or being part of a group masturbation event.
GayCalgary chatted a bit with author Jason Armstrong to talk more about the world of solosexuality. The book does get pretty intense with chapters about how he masturbates and how he explores his sexuality, but there are also chapters that take a step back and help you understand who he is as a person.
GC: When you wrote your book about being solosexual, did you feel it more as a personal coming out process or a continuation of your coming out process as a gay man?
JA: It was a little bit of both. I unapologetically want to put the "sex" back in "homosexual". I feel that while being gay is accepted more and more in the West, the idea of being a sexual being (gay, bi or straight) is judged harshly. I would be rewarded socially if I married and adopted and moved to the suburbs and aped hetero-normative mores, but heaven forbid we should declare ourselves sexual beings. And yet, I know that for many, sexuality is a central part of life, not a peripheral part. I wanted to celebrate that, because where there is silence, there is unnecessary shame. Furthermore, solosexuality is a rather new notion in the sexual landscape – we don’t have a language for it in our vernacular. So to declare myself solosexual was a type of coming out – and involved a lot of explaining.
GC: Since you were an out gay man, how was coming out as a solosexual different?
JA: I recall telling men that I’d be intimate with that I didn’t necessarily want to continue with penetrative sex. I wanted a partner with whom I could masturbate instead. This was met with some confusion, but luckily, the men I’ve been intimate with lately are wise, warm men who wished me well on my sexual journey. But when one door closes, another opens: I found a community of men for whom masturbation is the best sex of their lives and sharing that with them has been exciting and at times, transcendent.
GC: Your masturbation session starts with GodSmack – Cryin’ Like A Bitch!! playing from YouTube, with shirtless MMA fighters (and same with the band in the end). Do you ever change it up or is it always ready to go when you are going to have a session?
JA: For a good year, the band Godsmack’s music was the soundtrack to my masturbation sessions – at least until the porn started rolling! I’m not sure if the band would be amused or horrified by this if they knew! But lately, I’ve been mixing it up. I do love hard rock at the start of a bate sesh (masturbation session, keep up with the lingo). Hard rock mirrors the aggressive sexuality that informs a messy, intense connection with my penis.
GC: As part of the session, you use a site called BateWorld.com, which is a lot different than other sites that guys are usually are on. What do you find different and interesting that makes it stand out for you?
JA: BateWorld.com is fascinating on multiple fronts. First, the men there are unabashedly proclaiming that masturbation is their favorite sexual outlet – still a rather taboo thing to say. Masturbation, when discussed, if discussed at all, is often couched in jokes. It’s considered a "snack" until the so-called real meal of partnered, penetrative sex comes along. Not so for these men. These men are having sex with themselves and sharing that experience with others doing the same. Which leads to the second marvelous quality about BateWorld: When a man isn’t trying to necessarily get into another man’s pants, but is encouraging that man to get into his OWN pants, a camaraderie develops. It’s not for nothing that men on BateWorld refer to themselves as part of a community, a brotherhood of men celebrating being men with cocks that they love.
GC: Also in the book, rather than publishing your twitter or Facebook information like some authors, you bring up your handle on Xtube.com and on Bateworld.com. Have you had a lot of guys check you out or contact you to discuss being solosexual?
JA: I’m not a typical author! Instead of a staid, conventional author photo, I offer up my x-rated videos. And I don’t mind sharing that my handle on Xtube.com is Wildhorse100. Many men have found the book by way of those videos of me masturbating, and I love it. But be warned, the videos are rather kinky!
GC: With doing a book that goes into details about how you bate and also your videos on xtube.com and your profiles online, do you think you are also a voyeur and an exhibitionist? Is there a difference from those to being solosexual or is it part of being solosexual?
JA: The hallmark of a solosexual is a love for masturbation above all other sexual outlets. That said, we humans love to connect. It might seem like a contradiction, but the internet has allowed men both privacy to go within, and also a community to share that with others who are doing the same thing. I think we are all voyeurs and exhibitionists in varying degrees. That the internet enables us to be both can fuel a masturbation session. The solitary act of masturbation made social.
GC: What I have found interesting is the whole "brotherhood of the bate", where guys check in on one another and discuss where they are at in their bate. How they discuss what they are doing, swap photos over email or texts to help each other bate, and unlike all the other sites, they are not looking to actually hook up during all of this. They can easily chat over Bateworld.com or apps like Skype or WhatsApp and interact with one another, make personal requests for bate fuel, and it can be all done over great distances and at any time of the day. Do you feel that this is like having a more personal experience where guys become each other’s amateur porn stars?
JA: Absolutely! If I may quote from my book to answer this one: "The heightened masturbatory experiences that men have achieved as solosexuals are largely possible because of the strange combination of privacy and social interaction that the Internet permits. It is hard to imagine men masturbating daily for three, four or five hours at a stretch without online porn, cam and chat to fuel their descent into the batehole." Masturbators are going on a journey within, but fueled by outside sources. Although, some solosexuals I know, need only their imaginations, or a mirror, and some men find that gooning (that point in the bate when you lose all sense of time and place except for the fact that you are a man with a hot cock in his hands) is best achieved without outside stimulus, reveling instead in the mad rush of horny ecstasy coursing through their bodies.
GC: You also bring up guilt, shame and religion when you were younger. I know that did connect with me as an experience too. Do you think lots of guys growing up went through something similar to what you did?
JA: Unfortunately, shame and sexuality are no strangers for many people. The irony is that our sexuality is, in my opinion, one of the greatest gifts that God ever gave us. My religious upbringing informed me and instilled shame, and to this day, there are remnants of that shame still to be dealt with. I wanted to connect with any reader who also struggled, like I had to, to reclaim his or her sexuality from forces either from without or within.
GC: As an adult, you also have a similar reaction to guilt and shame as when you were younger when you posted your first video on Xtube and then quickly removed it. Do you regret doing that or do you think it was part of the process of becoming more comfortable with yourself?
JA: Oh God, when I posted my first video of myself on Xtube, I had such a panic attack a few days later and took the video down. Why oh why, I asked myself, had I posted such a kinky video showing my face? I worried about the video getting into the wrong hands and wrecking my life. But I also believe in overcoming sexual shame. As a sex writer, if I was shamed by my sexuality being seen, how could I expect anyone else to be brave. And so I reposted the video, hoping that providence would provide me with a path. I like having that video up there now.
GC: Do you think that with the help of sites like Bateworld and your book, that awareness about solosexuality will increase to the point where more groups dedicated to being solosexual will be set up throughout North America? Maybe having booths or walking in gay pride parades like the Pro-Foreskin groups, Pups and so on?
JA: I think that would be amazing! Could we add "S" for solosexual to LGBT? This notion of solosexuality is getting out there – sites like BateWorld and Chaturbate exist, and the internet was a game changer. It allowed men to bate for hours, with limitless porn and social interaction. I see men now identifying as solosexual in their twenties, while it took me until I was forty to understand my sexual nature. I hope my book helps nourish this nascent idea of solosexuality. If I had read my own book at twenty, I think I might have saved myself numerous missteps in my dealings with men, sexually speaking.
GC: What sort of responses have you been getting? Have they been pretty positive, or have you been getting some negative ones too?
JC: The responses have moved me to tears, in the best way possible. Readers have written to me from all over the world wanting to share their feelings and I embrace it, honour it, love it. But I must tell you that it’s still very clear to me that masturbation as a subject makes many people very uncomfortable. Salon.com did a feature on the book, and the cyber trolls went ballistic in the comments section. Though they hadn’t read the book, they made all sorts of negative assumptions about me and bemoaned that the respected Salon.com would lower itself to writing anything about masturbation.
GC: This book took a couple years to write. Do you think you will do a sequel to it?
JA: The book took about two years to write, not because the writing itself took so long, but because I was still living it, if you know what I mean. I do think there will be a sequel because one never completely understands the concept of sexuality – it has too many twists and turns. We are ever growing and changing and never done learning about our sexuality.
GC: Anything you would like to say to the solosexuals out there or to the readers of GayCalgary Magazine?
JA: I lived in Alberta for over ten years! In Edmonton. I think back to those years as a time of sexual exploration and I met many men who taught me so much about myself. But living in Alberta also felt a little isolating as a gay man at times. We gay men know how to use our sexuality as a creative force, and I hope that if any men reading this might be turned on by this notion of solosexuality, that they would contact me, read the book, watch my Xtube videos, share! And I thank GayCalgary Magazine so much for indulging me and offering me this platform to share my work.
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