I’ve always had a high libido — a strong, alive, curious sexual energy.
I love sex. I always have, and yet, something about the way I desired was different.

I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on the past 30 years of being out and my recent world view changes as it pertains to attraction, connection, sex and relationships and finally everything makes sense for me.

I wasn’t drawn to novelty for novelty’s sake.
I wasn’t fed by surface-level encounters.
I didn’t feel turned on unless something deeper aligned — even if I couldn’t name what that “something” was.

Yet for years, I was searching and I was wondering:

• “Is there something wrong with me?”
• “Am I too sensitive?”
• “Do I expect too much?”
• “Am I too much?”

The reality is, there was nothing wrong:

• I’m demisexual.
• I’m hypersexual.
• I’m emotionally deep.
• I’m non-monogamous.

For the first time in my life, my desire finally makes sense.

Demisexuality is about what activates attraction.

For me, sexual energy is relational:

• It’s intuitive.
• It’s emotional.
• It’s energetic.

I can feel instant attraction, absolutely, and it’s happened several times — but only when someone radiates:

• Presence
• Depth
• Authenticity
• Emotional warmth
• Resonance

My desire doesn’t respond to aesthetics alone. It responds to alignment.

When I feel that alignment, my sexuality is intense.
When it’s not there, the desire disappears instantly.

Thinking back in recent years as I’ve explored this new world, it’s absolutely clear that emotional connection has always been super important to me.

While I do enjoy playful, casual, lighthearted encounters, my “fun” has an emotional compass and it’s been this way since I came out. I’m laughing to and at myself as I think back about different encounters, relationships, my feelings, how I respond – it all makes sense.

I need respect, sincerity, attunement, warmth and a sense that someone is present, not performing.

There have been many times where I thought there might be a connection, and then, suddenly, it vanished, and with it, so did my attraction. Sorry to those guys who have been wishing to get with me, but if it’s not there for me, I’m going to engage you in other ways.

It’s not because I’m fickle, not because I change my mind easily, but because my intuition said, “This isn’t aligned anymore.”

It’s this that I now listen to.

I’ve been looking for more social venues and ways to connect that isn’t a loud bar night.

Connecting with guys on the apps and cruising sites, I look for depth and how people connect. I’m not looking to just fuck, typically.

When I hit the bathhouses, I’ll happily wait and look for guys who have the right vibe, energy – you get the picture.

I turn down a lot of guys who just want to get their rocks off because I’m not looking to just get my rocks off.

One of the clearest examples of how my desire works was my attraction to my partner Sté. It totally threw me for a loop.

This is a man I had known online for 18-20 years. I thought he was handsome in pictures and we had common interests. When we finally met, I could not take my eyes off him and the energy he resonated – just wow. He shone bright!

He felt:

• Grounded
• Sensitive
• Open
• Authentic
• Sexually alive without ego
• Emotionally attuned
• Present in a way that felt rare

He didn’t hide his sexuality behind bravado. He didn’t perform masculinity — he inhabited it, he owns it.

There was a brightness to him, a kind of unapologetic authenticity, that struck something deep inside me – recognition.

The more I got to know him, the more something else emerged — something I hadn’t felt often in my life I felt safe, and I know others have said the same about him.

• I don’t have to defend who I am
• I don’t have to over-explain – although sometimes my anxiety leads me to over-explain
• my emotions won’t be twisted
• my vulnerability won’t be used against me
• I can be myself without shrinking

Through the early days, he didn’t flinch, he didn’t step back. He simply accepted me and it felt like grounding and stabilizing.

He mirrored something in me I often keep guarded — my depth, my sensitivity, and my desire for honest connection. He reflected something that had always been there.

Reflecting back on what I now know, I saw how my demisexuality and my sexuality align when I meet someone whose presence resonates with my own.

Before my triad with my boy John and Sté, my emotional needs weren’t fully met.
I was searching — not for sex, but for resonance. When you’re demisexual and emotionally unmet, desire can get messy, or it certainly did with me:

• You chase intensity instead of intimacy
• You seek connection through sex
• You override your intuition
• You confuse hunger with attraction
• You feel restless instead of aligned

After experiencing emotional safety — real safety — everything shifted.

In my triad, I found:

• Love
• Depth
• Presence
• Trust
• Stability
• Mirrors that reflect instead of distort
• Partners who see me and hold me as I am

Which then gave me capacity to find better connection with my husband, to become increasingly confident and more direct, though occasionally still hesitant with my Leathersons and other relationship dynamics I’m building. but with time comes confidence.

My sexual world grounded itself, desire stopped being hungry, attraction stopped being scattered and my libido became anchored instead of chaotic.

This is what demisexuality looks like when it’s supported.
This is what healing does.

Why openness + depth is my sweet spot?

For me, deep emotional connection and sexual freedom nourish each other.

I thrive on:

• Deep intimacy
• Secure attachment
• Emotional resonance
• Erotic exploration – I do consider myself a sex geek of sorts
• Playful curiosity
• Openness without fear
• Connection without scarcity

My partners – all of them -give me the depth I need. Openness gives me the freedom that feels true. Together, they form a relationship style that feels like home. I don’t explore because I’m searching for something anymore. I explore because I’m full.

My exploration — whether sexual, relational, playful, kink-related, or curiosity-driven — comes from:

• Joy
• Curiosity
• Fullness
• Alignment
• Desire
• Expression
• Expansion
• Abundance
• Confidence
• Freedom

Not from trying to soothe a wound.

It used to be

• Needing validation
• Craving attention
• Chasing emotional closeness
• Trying to fill loneliness
• Wanting distraction
• Trying to feel alive
• Trying to soothe abandonment wounds

For the first time, I understand why:

• Some men spark immediate desire
• Some leave me cold
• Attraction disappears the moment emotional alignment shifts
• My need to “search” vanished when my emotional needs were met
• Casual sex became fun instead of compensatory
• My libido is high but grounded
• My desire is selective but strong
• My sexuality finally feels coherent

I listen to myself now.
I trust myself now.
My desire follows my truth, not my wounds.

For the first time, I feel aligned in my sexuality.

Community is one of those words people throw around casually, but not everyone believes in it.

Years ago, when I was in my twenties, I crossed paths with someone older who insisted that “we didn’t really have a community” here, meaning the Bear community in Toronto. He said it often — sometimes directly, sometimes through cynicism dripping into every conversation. I never bought into his view, but because he’d spent so long as a community builder (tired, frustrated, burnt out), part of me wanted to understand him.

But honestly? He was a real downer.

The problem wasn’t the community — it was his mindset.

He saw only flaws: the drama, the differences, the politics, the personalities. I’m not sure what he expected — I’ve been out 29 years and I’ve seen plenty of change 

Back then, his cynicism hit me in a place I didn’t have language for yet. I felt talked down to, like believing in community made me naïve. For a while, it made me question myself — but the older I got, the more I understand that his bitterness wasn’t wisdom. It was burnout. And chose not carrying that forward.

I think he failed or refused to see what was directly in front of him — the humanity underneath. The connection. The small but meaningful networks of people looking out for each other. The subcultures within the subcultures that kept the heartbeat going.

His negativity didn’t inspire me — it drained me. It dimmed his own light.

It made me step back and observe for a while. What I eventually realized, though, is that I already knew what I believed:

We have community.
We will always have community.
Community doesn’t disappear just because someone can’t see it.

I’ve watched a lot of people move through queer spaces nitpicking, deconstructing, criticizing, pointing out what’s missing, what’s broken, what’s not “good enough” to count.

But here’s the thing: Community doesn’t arrive fully formed

We build it.
We shape it.
We choose it.

A handful of people in a bar is still a community.
A group of queers who only meet once a month is still a community.
A circle of kinksters with different viewpoints is still a community.
A messy, imperfect mix of humans trying to show up for each other — that’s community at its core.

Cynicism kills possibility..

It turns every room into a mirror of someone’s bitterness.
It pushes away the very connections people claim don’t exist.

It’s that’s something I refuse to participate in.

I’ve seen firsthand what negativity does — not just to the room, but to the person holding it.

It shrinks them.
It isolates them.
It colours everything they see.

His example showed me exactly what I don’t want.

I choose to see queer community — especially leather/kink community — for what it actually is:

A network of relationships, friendships, chosen families, and spaces that overlap, intersect, and support one another.

Clusters of people, spaces, and experiences that overlap and support one another.

Some tight-knit.
Some casual.
Some unexpected.
All real.

I’ve always tried to add something good to that network.

Something steady.
Something warm.
Something that contributes rather than corrodes.

I’ve had my frustrations like anyone does, and there have been moments I stepped back. But I’ve always found my way back to contributing something good to that network.

Community doesn’t appear out of nowhere.

We create it through how we show up.

I recently went on a three-day business trip, something I haven’t done much of since switching roles at work. The reduction in travel has been a blessing in some ways, but I also miss what it gives me: new places, new perspectives, new people, and the small jolts of life that come from being somewhere different.

Travel does feed me.

On the flip side, it also costs something that most people don’t see.

On social media, travel looks glamorous: the occasional upgrade, the nice hotel, the meals, the novelty of meeting people I’d never cross paths with otherwise.

What doesn’t show is the heaviness — the exhaustion, the dips in mood after long days, the loneliness of a hotel room when you’re too drained to be social but craving connection at the same time. And then the crash when you get home: wanting to go out, but feeling like your body and mind are tapped out.

It’s this experience that I want to focus on in this writing.

Before the pandemic, I spent a full year living in the UK — my most intense travel period since I started consulting in 2002. From March 2020 to October 2023, I hadn’t been away for work at all and since, only doing one trip a year.

In that time, something became clear to me: I never really put down roots in Toronto.

People know me. I have friends here. But there’s a difference between being known and being connected.

And for a long time, I wasn’t connected.

After COVID, connection became one of the most important things in my life. Not surface-level, small-talk connection — real connection. The kind that feels grounded, mutual, and meaningful. I know where that need comes from, and I choose to honour it now instead of minimizing it. I choose to honour and no longer minimize my need for real connection.

When I went to The Black Eagle here in Toronto, I realized I barely knew anyone. I stood there like a wallflower, and it didn’t feel good. I needed a space where I could meet people in a way that wasn’t superficial or transactional.

About a year ago, I found a group of guys who swim on Mondays. Honestly, it’s been the best thing I’ve discovered in this city. I love swimming — and I love the company. Being around like-minded people in a space that’s not loud, not chaotic, not overstimulating has been grounding in the best way.

And the bonus? When I do go to the Eagle for Bear nights, BLUF, or other events, I now see familiar faces. I feel at home. I feel part of the fabric instead of watching it from the outside.

Now I’m looking at the next step: Building my actual place in this city.

For years, I’ve been here physically, and at times, during my titleholder year, I even had a bit of a public persona. But underneath, I’d retreated. I’d hidden. I’d dimmed my light for reasons that were real at the time but no longer serve me.

I’m ready to be present again.
To show up.
To stop hiding and let myself be seen — in a way that feels grounded and authentic.

In short:
I’m ready to just be.