Coming out, murder, and faking orgasms

Egerton Chang, Contributor

On April 29, Jason Collins, of NBA team Washington Wizards and soon-to-be free agent, became the first active male professional athlete in a major North American team sport to publicly come out as gay. He got positive endorsements from a number of prominent persons, including a congratulatory telephone call from President Barack Obama and a positive tweet from Michelle Obama.

Some have even likened him to Jackie Robinson, who is renowned for breaking the colour barrier in professional sports. Robinson became the first black to play in Major League Baseball in North America in 1947. (Coincidentally, the movie 42, which showed recently at Carib, was principally about Robinson).

Collins' girlfriend, Carolyn Moos, admits that she was just as surprised as everyone else when he told the world he was gay. She appeared on Access Hollywood on May 1 and revealed how Jason told her he was gay and what was her immediate reaction. Carolyn was engaged to Jason and the two called it off in 2009 but remained friendly.

Moos says that she never suspected he was gay during their eight-year relationship. She said that when they were together, he was very romantic.

Well, what about me?

I demand equal treatment with the tremendous publicity accorded Jason. For all I know, I maybe the first Jamaican man in my profession to come out of the closet and to publicly declare my sexual preference.

I also demand similar messages of support and congratulations from the prime minister and other prominent persons, perhaps even one or two churchmen. And I want interviews on TV, radio and in the press.

MIGHT HAVE BEEN SUSPECTED

I must say that both my wives, the current one I have known for almost 33 years, may have suspected it but was never 100 per cent sure. After all, I, too, have been known to be romantic, more than occasionally.

Nor have any of my eight children or close acquaintances known for sure. They, like my wives, may have wondered about it but were never certain.

You see, I am STRAIGHT. Straight as an arrow, as they say.

I have never even wondered about any other way. Just as I was raised a Roman Catholic, I don't know the ways of a Seventh-day Adventist, or most other denominations or religions, for that matter. As it normally is, my parents (read: mother) had a 95 per cent influence on this.

Mark you, if I had the choice of, say, seven religions and had been provided with the pros and cons of each before selecting, maybe I would have chosen otherwise (or be so confused as to not make any decision at all).

Nor do I go about asking which religion someone belongs to before I start to do business with him/her or to begin a friendship.

I certainly would not kill someone because of which god they worship, even if I thought they were worshipping the wrong god. Who is to say, perhaps it is I who am worshipping the wrong One.

So it is with someone's sexual preference. Even though I might not think that theirs is right, that is their business. I just prefer my sexual persuasion. Theirs is not my way.

I remember an older co-worker saying to me when I was quite young, "Paulie (my pet name), there is one reason why mi no try it, yuh kno. Mi might go like it."

I must admit that if I were born a girl, I would be more willing to try another girl. It just seems easier and less 'unnatural' to do. So I have different feelings about two women having sex as opposed to two men. I think most of us do have this ambivalent feeling about this matter.

Murder, murder, murder

Last week, my wife's office was invaded by a large group of young men. They were of a different sexual persuasion than I. Still called 'b-man' in most of Jamaica, they were being chased by a man brandishing a gun shouting out repeatedly that said colloquialism.

He claimed that they had damaged his car and he was so enraged that he wanted to kill one or more of them. They ran through the office shouting, "Murder! Murder! Murder!" My wife had to hide one of them in the bathroom, even as the man was insisting that one, the one he particularly wanted to kill, was still in the building.

Fearing for her own life, she had to call the police. What she described as "the most police she had ever seen", almost 15 cars, descended on the location. They quickly took the infuriated man and as many of the young men as they could carry into custody and left the scene.

I can only hope that if, for any reason, the situation was reversed, they would similarly save me from being murdered by one of their own.

That may not be as far-fetched as it might seem. For perhaps sometime in the future, the straight people might become the minority and the group that is then discriminated against.

I wonder.

Faking orgasms

In an article published April 15, 2013 in Mail Online, Rachel Reilly writes:

Men DO fake orgasms - because they care more about their partner's feelings than their own.

A third of men have admitted faking orgasms.

They do it out of love, kindness and sexual insecurity, according to Dr Abraham Morgentaler, a urologist.

He says that once men are in committed relationships, they care about their partners more than themselves.

It has long been known that women can be guilty of faking the throes of passion in the bedroom, but a surprising number of men feign orgasms too, according to research carried out by a Harvard academic.

In his new book Why Men Fake It: The Totally Unexpected Truth, clinical professor of urology, Dr Abraham Morgentaler, recounts numerous stories of men confessing that they pretend to climax. But the biggest shock was their reasoning.

"The big surprise to me when I started doing this work 25 years ago is that once a man is in a relationship, he seems to care more about his partner than himself," said Dr Morgentaler.

Reilly continues:

A recent study from the University of Kansas found that 70 per cent of women and 30 per cent of men admitted faking orgasms. In the study, both sexes gave the same reasons for pretending - a partner's orgasm was imminent, so they felt under pressure to climax.

The report said: "The emphasis on men's ability to give their partners 'earth-shaking orgasms' sometimes leads both women and men to pretend orgasm to meet these expectations."

Dr Morgentaler adds that until around 60 years ago, having sex was understood as a woman's duty rather than something she should enjoy. But now women expect to be pleasured.

And men are becoming more attuned to their women's needs.

All this is not surprising to me as I believe that men, Jamaican men even, have been given a bum rap as to being sexually selfish. Why else would more and more Jamaican men perform cunnilingus on their partners? So much so that I would venture to say that in Jamaica, more men now do cunnilingus than women do fellatio.

I, myself, have faked orgasm. More than once. Have you?

Egerton Chang is a businessman. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and e_rider69@hotmail.com.