I had my first sexual experience with a male at 18 and hated it. It ended with him calling me a whore. I come from an incest background (female perpetrator) and it confirmed my feelings of unloveableness. Subsequent experiences were much more positive, and terrified me — the men really cared about me, were genuinely loving as well as sexual with me, and I didn't know how to handle it. I spent most of my 20's and 30's having one night stands with strangers who just wanted to get off (as I claimed I did), but privately I was just enduring the sex for the brief hug at the end. I realized that my ideal fantasy was deep repeated affection with a man who cared nothing for me nor I for him. Totally safe (or so I fantasized). Trouble is, I couldn't "fall in love" with any man who did care for me. I kept falling in love with rejecting narcissists who proved ultimately incapable of affection, guys just like my father. Eventually I decided love would never happen to me, and tried to content myself with intense S/M sex experiences, experiences the intensity of which matched the rage I felt toward my father and the gay men who reminded me of him. Then I got scared I might die, so I got really, really fat, and became invisible to gay men. Whew. Safe at last, from my sexuality and other people's and from intimacy.

Screwy? You betcha, as Sarah Palin might say.

Your concern for the wounds gay men carry is admirable. But I wonder how many fat guys would feel welcomed and safe in your tantra workshops?