Battlefield Awareness: Finding Focus in Sexual Playgrounds

“I blink, and you’re hooked up with someone!” My husband says with his testosterone-fueled competitive voice.

I get a wonderful turn-on when I see this side of my normally deferential, even-mannered, Vulcan-like boy. It’s dangerously delicious. His full 42-year-old, tall, masculine body radiates primal testosterone. Men turn me on, so seeing him charged with desire and vexed sexual frustration is intoxicating. It makes him sexually vibrant and desirable. I feel like a badass. And he confirms, with his horny, competitive frustration, that we’re still on the same page regarding our sexual desires and agreements. 

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He’s an ambitious high achiever, a man who pursues measurable, quantifiable tools and protocols for reaching success. So my success, as he frames it, must be a simple matter of following some sort of playbook of which he is unaware. 

He doesn’t want me to change my behavior. He doesn’t want me to stop hooking up. He just wants to be better at it than me. 

So, for him and all the other high achievers out there looking to sharpen their “game,” here’s what I know. Your mileage may vary. 

Hone your Battlefield Awareness. 

That’s a term we used in my day job when I was a Special Events Coordinator for the City of West Hollywood. While babysitting gatherings like WeHo Gay Pride, Halloween, and the collection of Oscar Parties held by Elton John, Vanity Fair, and HBO (all on the same night), we needed to know where to focus our attention. 

The same situational awareness translates into navigating crowded sexual playgrounds. It’s the ability to focus an endless aggregate of variables into a small, actionable list of choices.

As an aside, I am uneasy applying the term “Battlefield Awareness” to our sexual playgrounds because I want our unique spaces to be collaborative spiritual playgrounds. Not a place where there are winners and losers. 

However, for the uninitiated, these gatherings may feel like battlegrounds because of incursions on their personal space, an internalized sex-negative worldview that says one sexual partner forever means “good” & many sexual partners mean “bad,” or the newness of the social sexual culture for which they have yet to find a vocabulary. And, although relatively rare (compared to the number of good players), we have bad players among us. For whatever reason, self-shame, a truly toxic “force it” idea of masculinity, or some other reason, they feel they need to grab what they want instead of negotiating it like a Sensitive Slut.

My husband’s remark got me reflecting on how I handle myself in social sexual environments.

What follows is a deconstruction of my modus operandi that has evolved over nearly four decades and countless visits to these places. The venues are public (buy a ticket) play parties, dance parties, kink events, and, to some degree, public hunting grounds designed for non-sexual purposes, like gym steam rooms, or the dick deck on a gay cruise.

Reconnoiter: Get the lay of the land. 

Even when I’m familiar with a venue, I like to walk the perimeter to get a feel for how many rooms there are, how big they are, how they are set up, ingress and egress (getting in and out), and how they’re being used. 

If it’s a new venue, I will do this before visiting the clothes check. I may not want to stay. 

Guest inventory: Who’s there? 

I put people into boxes. Yep. I make up stuff about the guys based on what I see and what my intuition tells me so that the mob is more comprehensible. A dozen categories are easier to organize in my head than 200 to 2,000 individuals. 

Daddies, twinks, jacked muscle guys, athletic guys, porn stars, influencers, glitter divas, ethnic clumps, full fetish & gear guys, sexual tourists (new or non-identified with sexual spaces), it’s all about the music guys, look-at-me players, and mystery men. 

Party favorites: Identify and name potential playmates. 

During the reconnoiter, I mentally tag my favorites. These are guys I plan on cruising to determine if we are both on each other’s “yes” list. Nicknames are an easy and fun way to keep track of a few men in a sea of potential partners. 

Bandana Boy, Trucker Jesus, Equinox Jesus, Brillo Boy, Slutty Swarthy Guys (couple), Black Ken, White Ken, Mr. Floppy, Almost Asian, Greyhound Boy, Gold Chain White Boy, Dog Catcher, Faded Dreds, Swarthy Baseball Hat, and Well-Preserved Daddy, are some of the monikers I’ve assigned. 

With a clear vibe, guest, and fashion assessment, it’s easier to decide if I’m staying, if I’m going to dose, and if I’m wearing my booty shorts or going ass out right away. 

Now, armed with information and dressed for success, it’s time to dive into the part