Al fresco gay sex is great fun! (Disclaimer: legalities might be entailed; don’t scare the natives!) Sure, for some there’s the trundling around – sorry: cruising – the bushes of your local common – the name of which for others says it all. (And who said romance was dead?!) For the more loving among us, for ourselves and our partners, it’s just nice to get out somewhere, with the breeze and the scent of wild heather, and where we’re not quite almost confident we won’t be seen, and getting it on – feeling more naturally exposed than we ever will over the kitchen table, or in a bedroom.
There are two rules to remember: 1. Don’t get caught – the birds and the bees and watching, that’s enough. 2. Take condoms home with you.
If you’ve never tried gay sex al fresco, there can be a touch of nerves, which is part of the thrill. You might find you keep looking around, checking, and at the back of your mind there may continue to lurk a random geography teacher out hiking, a twitcher, every dog you’ve taken on a walk ever. Even small, furry woodland animals – perhaps by virtue of having seen too many Disney films – can take on a prohibitionary moral line approaching that of the Inquisition. (For the Catholics among us, a clear blue summer sky can give every reassurance God is watching… Sin well.)
So what’s so great about gay sex outside?
It’s elemental. It’s – just out there! It’s alive. It prickles. There’s skin, which looks different in unmediated daylight – perfection and flaws (which are a part of perfection) more visible. There’s sun and air against that skin – and a sound-surround which isn’t a ready-made track.
And it’s so romantic – in a non-gushy, non-chocolate-box way. (Okay, maybe a touch DH Lawrence, and shades of Wordsworth, but in their brighter and less philosophical interludes.) There is a sense of exposure, vulnerability… It’s like playing out as (gay) boys – naked plus. It is a big up-yours to a claustrophobic city life. It is beyond being marketed to – howsoever you’ve watched and now recreate however many porn films – with the rough farmer’s lad and the old, rusty tractor and the hay bales.
We could go on. Suffice it to say: it needs trying – in an isolated spot – and all legal. Take a pic-nic, invest in a large-scale map, wave at the passing planes. Oh, and one thing: watch out for ants.