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Recently in Salon Health & Body

Long and short of it
The search for the "inner penis" can involve botched surgery, dangling weights and pain.
By Michael Easterbrook
[08/02/99]

Urge
Episode 7: New business?
A call from a mysterious stranger drives her straight to Allison's secret book.
By Tracy Quan
[08/02/99]

Urge
Urge: Pinups & Playmates Comic
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Carol Lay
[07/31/99]

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Probed in space
Alien medical-exam waiting rooms don't even have magazines.  
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[07/30/99]

Triumph of the cure
Lance Armstrong beat testicular cancer and then won the Tour de France. Was it a miracle or is he a poster boy for the power of modern medicine?
By Arthur Allen
[07/29/99]

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This was out of nowhere, apropos of nothing. I swear, I did not know where to put my hands.

I know where I wanted to put them. This is a handsome, well-built man (not a Calvin Klein's Eternity model type, but a down-to-earth, attractive, masculine individual for whom I would enjoy suffering rug burns). But we were in the middle of our workplace and we were not alone. Another male co-worker received the same invitation. The co-worker is straight, my boss is straight, and I -- not to put too fine a point on it -- fall somewhere between a horny little queer and a dirty old man. Also, my boss is married: happily, faithfully. I don't think he would play around with a sexy, vibrant, delightfully female co-worker even if the opportunity arose. I also don't think he has even one toe in the closet. Nevertheless:

"Feel my guns," he insisted.

My short hairs tingled, my knees turned heavy as lead and it was all I could do not to drop on the spot. I wanted my hands on his thighs and on the high round temples of his ass and on those swing-low-sweet testicles of his.

I'll feel your guns, all right.

Back in reality, he wanted us to feel how solid his arms were ("Oh, OK, mmm, yeah, wow, geez!"), and I'm sure it had something to do with what we'd been talking about, but my synapses got so overheated I couldn't remember.

It was a powerhouse moment, but it did not happen in a vacuum. A few days later, he came over to me and, in front of several people, flicked my left nipple for about 15 seconds. I believe my face went through all seven colors of the rainbow.

"I'm not trying to be frisky," he said. "I'm just letting you know that your name tag is missing."

I may never wear it again.

Then there was the time he invited me into his office while he was changing shirts. There are also the inevitable dirty jokes, the references to his balls being hung out to dry or getting fucked by his boss without lube or pissing matches between him and another department manager.

He would never behave this way with a female employee. In fact, none of the straight men joke around with the women, or touch without absolute consent and obviously pure intentions.

But they play around with us fags.

Every year we add new young men to the mix: boys, really, 20-year-olds from the Philippines, from Colombia, from Alabama and from Nebraska. (For some reason, women tend to gravitate toward other shifts in this department.) A lot of these guys started with some serious homophobia around me. I've had more than one lecture about how I'm going to hell, about how disgusting gay men are in general. ("Nothin' against you, man, y'unnerstand, but the fags in this city are fucking sick, ya know?") Six months later, they're play-humping each other in front of God and everybody, and egging me on to feel their asses ("Go ahead, it's still virgin, prime meat, Dude, you know you want it, g'wan, stick it in, I'm juicy!").

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