The Sexual Inventory: not as dirty as it sounds.

As the new year commences I've been taking stock of what I've achieved over 2011. Although I didn't find a boyfriend or out myself, I did manage to realise some smaller milestones. I had sex in my own bed for the first time. I acquired my first Friend with Benefits. I had my first gay dinner party. I had bareback sex for the first time (a milestone of dubious worth, but it exists nevertheless). I had a drink at my first gay bar. I bought my first tube of lube. I started seeing my first gay-friendly therapist.

True, some of those milestones are, not to put too fine a point on it, dumb. But there they are anyway.

As part of this reflection I've realised that I've also reached the stage of being unable to keep track of all of the guys I've seen over the last few years since I first decided to venture outside my closet. So I decided to sit down and do a Sexual Inventory.

Sexual partners is the easiest one... at least according to my definition of "sex". If you take my definition (sex = one or more partners achieving orgasm), then I have had seven partners. If you take another popular but looser definition (sex = nudity and indecent fondling), then the number bounces up to thirteen. But I find that definition unsatisfying: if that equalled sex, then logically every time a straight guy got a lap dance from a stripper, he'd technically be having sex with her... and I don't think many people would argue that.

Beyond sex, if I'm simply counting guys with whom I've gone on at least one physical date, then we're talking a group of twenty nine... twenty five of whom were in the last four years, and fourteen of whom were in the last twelve months.

Here's the breakdown of the stats:

2011

Had sex (by my definition) on roughly eleven occasions with four men: The Virtuoso, Mr Singular, Guy One and another guy I never mentioned in this blog. Interestingly, the two best lays (The Virtuoso and Mr Singular) and the one worst (the unnamed guy) of my life were this year.

I got hot and naked with two other guys, but as we stopped short of actual sex (by my definition) I've not included them. In addition I dated another eight at least once without it leading to anything more lewd than a hug or a handshake.

2010

Had sex on four occasions with two men: FHBG and this guy. I got hot and naked with one other. This was also the year that I met and became friends with KCG and The Human Dynamo. I went on one date with one other guy that I can recall.

2009

Nothing. No sex, no kissing, no dating. Zilch. It's a wonder I didn't kill myself.

2008

I had sex on around six occasions with one man: BN2. He was my first. I got hot and naked with two others (BN1 and this guy), and I dated two more.

But here's the irritating thing. Three of the seven sexual partners were one-offs. Two of them were three-offs, and the remaining two were, as far as I can recall, six-offs. This means that I have had sex on 21 occasions. Furthermore, only five of the seven were ever penetrative sex partners, and two of those five were among the one-offs. So long story short, I worked out that I've only had penetrative sex on 13 occasions... in my entire life.

No wonder I feel uncertain of my appeal and abilities in bed. I've been to the dentist for a filling more often that I've been to a horny naked guy for one.

While my number of partners is edging out of freakish demi-virgin territory, my number of actual sexual encounters remains infinitesimal. By contrast, The Human Dynamo was in a committed relationship for eight years, and KCG was in what was basically a gay marriage in all but the eyes of the law for two years. Over those respective periods, I'm guessing they both had sex more than 21 times. Hell, they might have covered that in a better than average month.

Leaving that aside, it's interesting how much I'd forgotten over the last few years. Names, dates, even entire existences had fallen by the wayside. It took a thorough audit of my email folders, Gaydar and Manhunt message bins, my phone's memory and the archives of this blog to get it all. But now it's stored here for posterity, so it'll make an interesting resource for future reference.

Here's hoping that 2012 continues the onward and upward trend!