Getting back into SEX.
How a holiday romance reminded me that I HADN'T gone off sex.
Would you believe me if I told you that there was a 5-year period where I didn’t think I liked anal sex?
Working in the sex industry means you’re instantly stamped with a certain label in people’s minds, mostly judgement and assumptions. It’s quite rare for people to see you as anything beyond a sex-toy obsessive, an “OnlyFans-promoting, fuck-it-bucket with a lack of integrity and social decorum.” And, look, there’s absolutely no argument that I can be a vulgar attention-seeker… but with my job comes a very particular kind of pressure.
I’m expected to be amazing in bed. I’m expected to be super-sexual and love everything. And truthfully, I am confident in my sexual abilities, and I really love sex, but I haven’t always been sure if I felt that way.
I always loved the idea of sex, but I haven’t always had the amazing relationship with sex that I do today.
I was 24 years old when I was suddenly flung back into singledom after the slow, soul-sucking end of a five-year relationship in which I’d been unhappy throughout. It was my first time on the dating market as an actual adult; I’d stumbled into that relationship at 19 and basically skipped the whole “fuck around, have fun” phase that most people experience in those formative years.
A lot of people assume that I was very sexually active from a young age. But the truth is - I held out before having sex with a man. I wanted to wait for my first boyfriend. I was one of those young and impressionable people who’d been sold the problematic idea of ‘losing your virginity’ and ‘saving it for the right one’.
So, at 19, I finally did it. And… I didn’t actually enjoy it.
Throughout the relationship, our sex life felt completely uninspiring to me, and I had to push myself to engage with it. On top of that, he gradually changed so much from the person I’d first met - both in personality and, at the risk of sounding shallow, on the surface - that everything started to feel like a performance. I wasn’t attracted, but I was loyal.
After all… I’d lost my virginity to this guy, right?
It was a chaotic time in my head. I’d gone from being the stereotypical loser gay kid at school to an internet celebrity on Myspace, then into a relationship that felt like it had stripped away all the magic Myspace had given me. I didn’t recognise myself, but something in me knew there was still a worthy, desirable person underneath it all. It had been dragged out of me before, and I was convinced it could happen again.
On November 13th, 2013, I suddenly upped and left him - cat Cleo in tow. There were several reasons, but his attitude and the now-obvious infidelity were the final push.
Trust me to get cheated on by someone I didn’t even want to fuck.
Being around him made me feel like I’d become deeply undesirable, even though I was still getting regular attention from men. He’d throw out these harsh and offhand comments about my body shape, my body fat, my style. Little things that, over time, chipped away at me, until I genuinely believed I’d lost the charm and sex appeal I’d had when we first met.
After I left him, distraught at all the time and ‘youth’ I felt I’d lost, I pushed myself to remember who I was and threw myself into all kinds of fun and self-exploration. A lot of my confidence was performative, but I figured I’d fake it till I made it. I wanted to learn everything about sex and about my own sexual identity, because I didn’t have much experience at all. I’d only slept with one man - and, to be honest, I really didn’t enjoy it. Which was weird, because I really was convinced that I would.
I experimented with a few women and tried every dating app under the sun, I had oral-only flings with closeted men who would regularly DM and approach me, and I had a fling with a semi-celebrity… but I didn’t have anal sex.
Something wasn’t ready yet.
And then, somewhere amidst my post-break-up haze, I booked a 2-week-long trip to Los Angeles to visit friends there and explore this mysterious city that I’d seen in movies. The mystique of Hollywoodland was intoxicating to someone who grew up obsessed with the golden age of Hollywood. I was going to stay with my friend Becca in Boyle Heights and finally get the “real” LA experience from a local. The whole trip felt shrouded in magic - like a dream about to come true.
So, in November 2014, I got my ass on a plane.
Landed, unpacked, and rested, my friend suggested I download Tinder. In 2014, Tinder was the leading dating app - so I could explore the possibilities of an American lover-boy.
I swiped through hundreds of clone-like stereotypical LA-type guys with six packs, white teeth, and corny displays of wealth and fame. I’ve always been a terrible sugar baby, so that didn’t appeal to me.
Amidst the sea of clones, a ‘like’ popped up from a gorgeous tattooist with slick black hair, golden skin, tattoos, and a stupidly handsome face. He was classically beautiful. His photos showed him tattooing clients, sitting on a vintage Harley Davidson, and smiling behind the wheel of a Cadillac. I liked him back, and he immediately messaged to ask if we could video call instead of doing the usual back-and-forth. I said yes, as I was a little concerned that he was a catfish.
I was actually doing a tourist day at the time - wandering around every tourist trap the Hollywood strip and surrounding area had to offer - so he guided me around on the call, told me what to look out for, and asked if he could take me out. I said yes, obviously.
I learned a lot about him on that video call: he’d immigrated to LA from Armenia, he’d built a successful tattoo business entirely by himself, and when we connected on Instagram, I saw he had a huge following for his tattoo work. Impressive.
He asked to take me out that evening, but I already had plans with my friends from East LA to go to The Abbey - the famous queer bar in WeHo. I told him we’d have to do another day, and he was fine with that. The evening rolled around and the margaritas hit HARD; my body wasn’t prepared for the way American bartenders free-pour liquor instead of measuring like we do in the UK.
At some point that night, he called me, and a very tipsy me was thrilled to hear from him. I’d somehow managed to lose my friends in the haze (they were still in the same bar; I was just too tipsy to locate them), and he said he’d come and get me if I felt comfortable with that. I downed a couple of glasses of water and went to wait out front, fully ready for this man to come to my rescue. In retrospect, this was very dangerous behaviour in a new city, and I insist readers do not try this at home - or away.
He arrived in his Cadillac and was somehow even more attractive in person, which felt too good to be true. I asked if we could go for a drive instead of going straight home, and he took me past nightlife hotspots and the Hollywood sign, weaving in and out of the notorious Los Angeles traffic. We talked, we made out, and things got a little more… heated, to say the least.
After driving around, we ended up back at his place, which was a tattoo studio and duplex apartment in a popular Los Angeles neighbourhood. As we arrived, I could hear the entire building hauntingly echoing with Elvis Presley songs on repeat all night. It had this eerie, ghost-town echo, like it was about to turn into an AHS-style snuff scene - but thankfully, it didn’t.
We spoke for a bit about life, London, and him not having been with a guy before - something I was slowly getting used to.
We then swiftly jumped into it. I’d had the foresight to predict that “under-the-influence” Topher might end up in contact with him, so I’d douched before leaving for the evening. Clever me because luckily, he reached out to me first and justified my efforts.
His dick was much bigger than I’d expected - and was used to - so it took some training and patience, but we got there in the end. He was extremely patient and understanding, and I think seeing his beautiful, tattooed body arching over mine helped me relax.
It was there that I had my eureka moment. It felt amazing - not just physically, but psychologically. It was the first time in my life I’d had sex with someone I was genuinely attracted to, who I knew was genuinely attracted to me, and who treated my body with real adoration and respect.
The sex felt like something happening with me rather than to me. If that makes sense?
He didn’t just appreciate my body - he worshipped it. All the parts the twink stereotype, the emo stereotype, my ex, had made me insecure about: my fuller thighs, the softness of my bum, the way that certain parts jiggled and dimpled. He touched me like those were the very things that turned him on. It felt like he was fucking the insecurity straight out of me.
I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience for most of it. I genuinely couldn’t get enough of this man or his body. It was that film-level sex where you’re so into each other you’re practically clawing the skin off one another.
He hadn’t had much experience with men before, and he was actually scared to let me go down on him because he told me he’d never had a blowjob that didn’t hurt - thanks to his girth and size. I thought, I’ll show him. And I did. When it didn’t hurt with me, he kept complimenting me, which only made me work harder to find every point on his body he loved. I guess I got off on impressing him.
There were a couple of funny moments and awkward parts, though - it wasn’t all cinematic flawlessness. He only had orange-flavoured condoms, which had this aggressively fake orange smell. At one point, he accidentally grabbed a mini hotel soap bottle to use as lube, and at another, I smacked my head on his side table. He kissed it better, though.
We seemed to have sex for hours, and I woke up with his heavy, muscular arms draped over me, Elvis still playing somewhere in the background. He told me he loved me. I obviously didn’t believe him, but the moment was perfect - the whole situation was. It was exactly what I needed, this strange Hollywood-holiday fever dream come to life. I’m not sure if it was a gift from the universe, or what, but it was perfectly surreal.
Some of the magic evaporated when I checked my iPhone and saw hundreds of missed calls and texts from the friends I’d abandoned at The Abbey. Sorry, Becca, Raquel, and Omar. I’m not proud of that - I still cringe about it to this day - but I think I needed that selfish, slightly reckless, potentially dangerous moment to jolt something back into me and remind me who I was.
I didn’t make a pattern of it.
As he was driving me back to my friend’s place in East LA, I glanced at my phone again and realised it was November 14th, 2014. Exactly 365 days - to the day - since I’d left my ex.
And I swear that’s the truth. Whether it had any meaning or not, I didn’t care; it was just another surreal moment in this whole experience in Los Angeles that made it feel like magic… and reminded me that, actually, I love sex. I just need to have sex with people I am comfortable with and am compatible with. Men who, I believe, desire me and my body, as it is. Funny that. Who knew compatibility mattered?
Something was healed and ignited in that experience, and from there, a floodgate opened - not just in my sex life, but in my confidence and curiosity within my career. It gave me a new understanding of pleasure, desire, and what sex could feel like when it was shared, not endured.
Was this the first and last time he and I met? Oh, no. I took advantage of any of the time I’ve been in Los Angeles.
Oh, and by the way, writing this in 2025… he and I still speak. And sext, every now and then.