Just Another Slut — But With TSA PreCheck
I don’t keep a little black book, but I do have a passport. The stamps mark entries and exits, reminding me of where I’ve come and gone — and also of who has come and gone.
Sydney 2019 was the sly Aussie who blew me on his balcony the night that I landed, sat on my face until three in the morning, and had me over again at nine. London 2016 was the British daddy with a husband and a grand piano, fingers most dextrous and diction most posh: “Very well then, shall we get naked?” Paris 2018 was the French airman who kissed me at my first party on the Left Bank, translated for me when I couldn’t keep up, and kept his hand on my calf as he put his cigarette to my lips.
And that’s just on my US passport. I’m not saying I’m particularly notable for being a Slut Without Borders. I’m just another gay guy with TSA PreCheck.
Over the past decade, I’ve found steadiness not in a partner, but in a global roster of lovers. I’m in touch with most of them. They are, dare I say, friends. Sometimes, we sext. Sometimes, we meet up again. Though we’ve only met in person twice or thrice, we’ve shared intimacies beyond the carnal — regrets, dreams, and private jokes. We don’t always speak each other’s language, at least not well — but touch, the universal language, helps, and I especially cherish the way vulnerability flourishes when words fail. You can’t put up walls when your German is broken, your Italian too passionate, your English simpler, and your French hard-won. When I compare them to the onerous relationships I’ve had at home, my simple connections with the players on my roster are no less special. For me, they’re just enough.
I’ve organically cultivated this network of men because, more often than not, I travel alone. I like it that way. I linger at historical sites until guides have to shoo me away from the exhibits. I can go to any restaurant I want, without worrying about someone else’s dietary restrictions or budget. I worry about only myself. I walk wherever and rest whenever. My days are mine. And so I’m comfortable keeping it casual with men I meet on the road. When they make themselves useful, it’s all the better. One gave me a recommendation for the best Wienerschnitzel in Vienna. Another sent me directions to the most pristine beach in Barcelona. And there was the man who introduced me to kaya toast, a perfect breakfast in Singapore. I don’t need more than that. They have their lives, and I have mine. After all, I’m only a guest in their cities — and in their beds.
But back home in New York, I was different. For much of my 20s, I always wanted a partner, a single man to love — and I came close. There was the art aficionado who took me to museums, who kissed me in front of Basquiat and Kandinsky, who grew distant when I told him that I didn’t want children. There was the funnyman who almost became my best friend, who wished to see the world with me, who left Brooklyn when he felt he was sinking. And there was the guy who literally built homes, who made me feel safe, but who ended things by telling me “there’s no spark” when I was grieving my mother’s death and he couldn’t see the light in my eyes.
I used to want the world from the men I tried to love. To share a life with someone would’ve meant being freed from the burden of flying solo, of being untethered and unrooted in the United States. I first arrived on these shores as an 11-year-old Filipino gay immigrant and thought I had to seek validation from white men. As I got older and came out, I internalized the racism and homophobia around me in a way that negatively impacted my dating life. I learned to see myself the way my bullies and some suitors saw me: doubly feminized for being Asian and queer, feared and fetishized for the very same reasons — even in the progressive queer community of New York. I felt adrift, uprooted, and alone.
In order to fit in, I thought the solution would be to marry a white man. I wanted to literally give up my name, to trade in the foreign “Ortile” for a more legible “Ford”, a more common “Jones.” An easy solution, I thought, given the societal expectations to build a family, to achieve the American Dream, and put a white picket fence around it. But the more I read and wrote and traveled in the States and abroad, the more I met other queer people of color like me, who each loved and built families in their own ways. I discovered that this contentious body of mine, this battle-scarred thing, could know and give pleasure too. Whether in the old steam rooms on Astor Place or the queer clubs of Milan, I slowly but surely leaned into celebrating my body and myself — as I am, not as some others wanted me to be.
These days, particularly in the pandemic, I’ve only myself to keep me company. In the past, I would have hated my episodic singledom, scrambled to get myself on Hinge and hunt for a husband. But I’m doing all right, honestly. I’m making soufflés for one (and eating for two), going to the gym when I can, and writing all the time. I recently hooked up with a neighbor via Grindr; hooked up with him and his friend when they invited me to dance. I told a friend about the threesome, and she asked me if I would see him — or them both — again. Maybe, maybe not. One has a partner; the other has a cat, and I’m allergic. Besides, I’m no longer in a rush.
In the past, though I was eager to be a groom at home, I welcomed opportunities to be a free slut abroad. When I was traveling, on vacation, apart from my “real life”, I reveled in being sexually promiscuous, in having many sexual partners whom I may or may not meet again; it was an adventure, a temporary escape, because I believed that this kind of behavior wasn’t “really me.”
But what if it is? I’ve come, of late, to embrace the single condition. I’m not sure when the switch flipped. I have a hunch it’s because I’ve recently had the privilege to travel alone again — my first international trip since the pandemic began. I got to roll with the punches once more, to witness someone else’s quotidian bustle with a novel-to-me sparkle, to kiss and joke and say goodbye in yet another language. As a souvenir, I brought home the joy of designing my itinerary, of living life for myself.
During the pandemic, one of the men on my roster sent me a message on WhatsApp: “My first book in English! :)” Underneath his text was a photo of my book, shipped in from the UK. Another sent me his condolences on Instagram when he learned that my mother died. And there was the man who checked in during the election because he was concerned for my welfare in the US, a country on fire. My network of lovers and their small kindnesses have been a pleasant surprise. I found care and friendship in brief, yet sincere, connections. Isolated as I was, they made me feel less alone in the world.
Of course, I don’t intend to permanently replace my desire for reliable companionship with my global roster. After all, just consider the image: a bunch of men who are nothing alike, all stacked on top of each other under a trenchcoat, pretending to be my boyfriend. The joys of partnership with one or more people, I am told, are different, and unique in their own ways, and as much as I cherish the infinite variety and multiple connections of my many worldwide companions, I still hope to find that one-on-one bond that fulfills me. But while I continue the search, I do so a little less desperately. I no longer lie awake in bed, hyper-aware of the empty space beside me. I sleep easier now, whether I’m home or elsewhere, in someone else’s bed or my own.
Published Apr 19, 2022
Updated Sep 2, 2024
Published in Issue XI: Slut
