I became a gym regular at the age of 16. I mean, I was a nearly five days a week regular. I loved lifting weights. Unlike most of my peers, I used my senior year’s “take an hour off school cuz you work fifteen hours a week” work consortium(?) credit on the first hour, not the seventh. I went to school late. What did I do before school? I went to the gym.

You ladies, especially you unfit ladies, may be surprised to know that gyms are a pretty well-known place for gay men to congregate en masse.

As I get going, a few factual anecdotes may prove salient here.

Back then, I had a buddy who was always more socially aware than I, and we were probably the only two 17 yr olds actively engaging in weight lifting for personal fitness, ie not football, while in high school. Despite my falling behind him in awareness, I was well-aware that one or two of the men at the gym we regularly chatted with were essentially sexual predators, and that my young friend and I were the prey.

Anecdote 1: The one man, 50ish in age—but no more than twenty in appearance (“Black don’t crack”)—offered my friend $200 to publicly shower at the gym. My friend accepted and told me that he figured, “I needed a shower anyhow.” He then told me, “So I shower, the dude walks in, (keep in mind this is a public men’s locker room) and I see him peer in, and then he leaves. Easy money.”

Anecdote 2: I never got an similar offer, but I was always a user of the one private shower, and one morning the door opened and this same gay man see me and says, “Oh, sorry about that,” and closes it. I shook my head. My predominant thought was, “I don’t know if I could stop myself from the same foolishness if an uber fit, attractive (and unconscionably funny and smart and charming…) young woman was showering in the men’s locker room right behind where I took a leak, either.” Or simply, my predominant thought was, “Meh.”

Unlike my buddy, I had more chats with another man that folks always told me was gay, but he never was anything but nice to me. Well, over time he accepted my invitation to watch me play roller hockey in a men’s intramural league. That was horribly awkward. Not sure why I did it.

Anecdote 3: And while he didn’t proposition me, he knew I was promoting a local Strongman Competition and he offered to have his company sponsor it. As I took him up on his offer, he paid me the $250 from his own checkbook—not Frito Lay’s. Lol. He must’ve wanted it real bad. I mean, I’ve been horny, but sheesh.

I could go on, believe me.

Nearly two decades later, life/poor judgment drops me off as an assistant manager at a gentleman’s club. Besides alcohol, their business is physical touch. Seriously. In a manager meeting they told us about studies which show that a waitress’s placing their hand on a patron increases tips and spending. They reminded us how some men come in to the club not having been touched ever during the preceding week or so. A handshake from the bouncer/doorman, or at least a fist-bump, is good for business, period. (Unless the gentlemen displays otherwise, naturally.)

Furthermore, at the club, I learned that Hollywood generally gets the lap dance concept wrong. I have witnessed—my own eyes—“regulars” who literally just want the “lady” to sit, cowgirl-style, on their lap, and chat. Or perhaps just sit like that and hug. Song after song after song, dollar after dollar after dollar. No dry humping, no gyrating, just body touching body. Like as much surface contact as humanly possible. Mind you, this was not every man. But many.

All the above builds to my climactic and tone-matched response to the notion that women will be hurt by the overturn of Roe.

The other day, I posted that the evidence and arguments of “women” claiming, “women will be hurt,” really mean that “children-not-yet-living-as-responsible-adults” are who will be hurt. I thought this would necessarily lead someone to ask me how to fix this “irresponsible children will be hurt”situation. But you didn’t bite. So before getting to that interesting question, I want to show another angle of how this “women will be hurt” claim is foolish. The other angle being, “Women will be hurt?? What about MEN!? What about ME!!??”

See, as above, I believe—as a man—that I need touch. I don’t mean “want”, I mean “need”. I mean, like, “can’t live without it” need. And the main touch that I want is unprotected vaginal sex—including orgasm—with a woman.

Before Roe was overturned, before last Friday, I had all sorts of ways to feel this touch, in all fifty states. I told women, “I love you.” I told women, “You can’t get pregnant if we stand/sit/you’re on top/I’m on bottom/sideways/doggy-style etc.” I told women, “I’m rich.” I told women, “My family’s rich.” I told women, “I’m smart.” I told women, “No matter what happens, I’ll make it work.” If none of those dead ringers would achieve my need, I’d dig deep and offer, “You’re so beautiful.” Finally, if fortune was not on my side, or, to be frank, if she was really dumb (“Geez, Pete!”—I know, I’m mean), sometimes, when I really, really needed that special touch, I would tell them, “Come on, baby. It’s not like first trimester abortion is illegal. Just. (Oh that’s it.) Let me. (Yes. More.) Finish in you.”

And now?

Damn you, Justice Alito!!

Nowhere, not in the United States nor in my pickup lines, did I ever have to worry about what State I was in.

Do you understand?

But now, since Friday, when all other winners fail me, when I have to resort to the classic, “It’s not like first trimester abortion is illegal,” line to spread my seed in a woman, I have to consider where in this great country I even am! (And as a Captain, I have a tendency to travel. So this overturn affects me particularly hard.)

I know what you’re thinking. And you’re right. It’s true, I could say, “Even if we’re in one of the states which has banned abortion, I can get you a comp’d flight to a state that has the pills at least.” Yes, that might be a winner. But she’d probably have to be ESL at the least to let that pass. (I’m seeing that in the throws of ecstasy created by yours truly, an immigrant might only recognize “pill” and think “birth control”—and while many women on the pill only take it as a secondary, passive method—still requiring the man to use a condom—some do not. So I may be able to get the touch I need with this line.)

In the end, I want to wrap up by saying, Justice Sotomayor et al’s argument that “abortion rights allow a woman to control her destiny” (paraphrase) is true only conditionally, that is, only with the addition of one word. To make it true, it must say, “Abortion rights allow a stupid woman to control her destiny.”