• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Towleroad
  • Towleroad on Social Media
  • Privacy Policy

Towleroad Gay News

Gay Blog Towleroad: More than gay news | gay men

  • Travel
  • Sports
  • Law/Justice
  • Celebrities
  • Film/TV/Stream
  • Republicans
  • Madonna
  • Books
  • Men
  • Trans Rights
  • Tech/Science
  • Royals
  • Monkeypox
  • J&J to end global sales of talc-based baby powder
  • Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda slams unauthorised production
  • ‘It’s really irritating’: Madonna’s son David Banda wears her clothes ‘better’ than her

How Did A Boy From Rural Georgia Become the King of Kink?

Savas Abadsidis January 18, 2019 Leave a Comment

alex 6 copy 1

Alexander Cheves isn’t entirely comfortable being called a sex advisor because he lacks a formal clinical education or sex therapy certification. But for the thousands of young gay men who know him as The Beastly Ex-Boyfriend he’s a touchstone for understanding their kinks and desires from the explosion in popularity of “pup play” to, well, use your imagination.

Cheves started writing about his own experiences and everything has sprung from that. “A college class required me to start a blog and maintain it the entire semester. At the end of the class, I was graded on content, use of media, and so on. I loved it so much that I continued blogging. The blog was filled with personal confessions and stories about my sex life and my gay identity. People working at a digital queer magazine in Chicago found the blog and asked me to be a columnist, and the rest is history. That blog has morphed into a sex advice blog, and I still get questions every week from readers.”

Cheves’ advice is sage and de-stigmatizing for someone who’s only 26.

As a recent profile of Cheves in Plus magazine said, “The gay Georgia native dives deep into the role that sex and sexuality plays in LGBTQ history. An enthusiastic member of the kink and leather communities, Cheves also dispenses guides for newcomers that are helpful and humanizing for those in these subcultures. His pieces that address the hanky code, cruising grounds, or “public displays of affection that straight people take for granted,” educate readers about how queer people have been persecuted — and yet have managed to still find each other and maintain vibrant communities.”

Cheves confesses that he had some messy relationships in college, which was the catalyst for him writing about his own experiences. “I dated a guy who was pretty judgy and slut-shamed me for my past promiscuity. I cheated on him, of course, and lost all my friends, because they were his friends. He spread some rumors about me, or maybe his friends did, and that made me mad. I was proud of my sex. I decided I had to own the slut label.”

Cheves came to the realization that he couldn’t let someone shame him for something he wasn’t ashamed of himself.

That started Cheves on a journey of self discovery.

“Before that, my whole life was shame, particularly shame around sex, as it is for most queer men. I grew up on a farm in the middle of Georgia with very religious Southern Baptist parents. I’d memorized scripture and hated myself for my desires, and it took a bad breakup in college to reject all that shame, and I had to write about that. I began reading about non-monogamy and queer sex culture and worked through the great sex writers like Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, and that’s when I realized I wanted to be the Anaïs Nin of my generation.”

In the few years Cheves has been writing, queer media has changed and become somewhat less friendly to provocateurs and smut, and that makes him uncomfortable. “Early on, I knew I would have to wear the label of ‘sex educator’ before I could be a ‘smutty provocateur,’ but the reality is that I collect vintage dirty gay rags like Drummer and Honcho and STH and that’s the caliber of work I aspire to. When I really get in a rut, I remember something Cate Blanchett said in an interview a couple years ago in W Magazine, which is the closest thing to an “a-ha” moment I’ve had and one I have over and over: Art is meant to provoke, not instruct.”

Cheves hit his stride doing what he loves best working for the sex toy company Fort Troff.

A couple of years ago, he wrote a slideshow piece, 39 Sex Toys Every Gay Man Should Try, for Sexy Beast, his digital sex and relationships column on The Advocate. “Some of those toys I wrote about were Fort Troff toys. Someone at the company, which is based in Atlanta, noticed hits coming from the site, contacted my editor, and asked about me. Coincidentally, I had just moved back to Georgia from L.A. and was looking for a job. They took me on as copywriter and director of social media.”

The stigmas around kink and BDSM stem from the same place most stigmas do — shame, religion, and lack of education Cheves says. “I’m an anti-theist partly because religion has played such a devastating role throughout history in the development — or lack thereof — of human sexuality. The Abrahamic faiths generally consider sexual excess and sex outside specific religious confines to be among the greatest sins a person can commit. That unhealthy view of sex and pleasure pervades nearly every world culture and is a cornerstone of patriarchy. My work is intended to combat that. If sex and pleasure are relegated to sin and temptation, I’m the devil. “

Cheves adds “I saw Towleroad reported on the University of Michigan study that LGBTQ people are more likely to have problems with smoking and drinking. I have a problem with certain substances, and substance abuse is something I want to talk more about. I try hard not to pathologize queerness, and I don’t think being gay or lesbian or bisexual makes you inherently more problem-prone, but queer culture is pretty druggy. We’ve always had a drug culture and some awesome things — awesome music, designers, and artists — have come out of it. But some less-awesome things have come out of it too, and that’s something we need to talk about. If we’re going to popularize the fun parts of our culture, we also need to popularize the language of care and harm reduction and create a stigma-free zone in which anyone can ask for help without getting shamed.”

Lastly Cheves laughs when I ask why ‘pup play’ seems to have exploded in recent years.

“What you and I call puppy play is a mild, modern iteration of an older, more intense fetish practice — dog play — and it’s the most accessible scene to people discovering kink for the first time,” says Cheves, “If I was taking a beginner on a tour of kink, I’d start with puppy play. I started with punch fisting and it didn’t go so well.”

Topics: Music, News, Religion, towleroad More Posts About: BDSM, Pup Play, Sex, Sexual Health

Related Posts
  • New research from Finland suggests interest in BDSM is surprisingly common
  • Not All Straight People But … Playboy Mansion Secrets: ‘Drugs And Orgies The Norm’, ‘Not Safe Haven Some Women Thought’; Consent? Not So Much.
  • OnlyFans Pornography Ban Could Endanger LGBTQ Sex Workers; New Policy Comes After Investigation of Moderation, Pressure From Financial Institutions
  • Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda slams unauthorised production

    Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda slams unauthorised production

    Published by BANG Showbiz English ‘Hamilton’ creator Lin-Manuel Miranda is going to let the lawyers “do their work” over an allegedly unauthorised production of the show by a church in Texas. A production of the hit …Read More »
  • ‘It’s really irritating’: Madonna’s son David Banda wears her clothes ‘better’ than her

    ‘It’s really irritating’: Madonna’s son David Banda wears her clothes ‘better’ than her

    Published by BANG Showbiz English Madonna says her son David Banda looks better than her in his mother’s clothes. The Queen of Pop, 63, confessed that it’s “really irritating” that her 16-year-old son – whom she …Read More »
  • Analysis: U.S. move to negotiate drug prices a rare defeat for Big Pharma

    Analysis: U.S. move to negotiate drug prices a rare defeat for Big Pharma

    Published by Reuters By Ahmed Aboulenein WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Big Pharma spent more than any other industry to lobby Congress and federal agencies this year, a Reuters analysis shows, but is still on course for a …Read More »
  • Confirmed: Trump Legal Team Believes FBI Informant Is Ex-Trump White House Staffer Who Relocated To Mar-a-Lago Post Presidency

    Confirmed: Trump Legal Team Believes FBI Informant Is Ex-Trump White House Staffer Who Relocated To Mar-a-Lago Post Presidency

    Published by Radar Online Mega The Mar-a-Lago mole who was the FBI’s confidential source which led to the sensational raid on Donald Trump is a former administration staffer who had specific knowledge of his private residence …Read More »
Previous Post: « State Department Condemns New Wave of Anti-Gay Persecution, Murders in Chechnya
Next Post: Chris Pratt, Billy Porter, Wendy Williams, & Dreamer Gets Dressed: First Look at Supergirl’s Trans Super Friend, and More: HOT LINKS »

Primary Sidebar

Adjacent News

  • FBI sought nuclear documents in search of Trump’s home -Washington Post

    FBI sought nuclear documents in search of Trump’s home -Washington Post

  • FBI seized top secret documents at Trump’s home, U.S. government says

    FBI seized top secret documents at Trump’s home, U.S. government says

  • Salman Rushdie in surgery after being stabbed onstage

    Salman Rushdie in surgery after being stabbed onstage

Good Trash: Going to Read It Somewhere, Y’know

  • Ellen Has Not Contacted Ex-Lover Anne Heche Following Fiery Crash Into LA Home

    Ellen Has Not Contacted Ex-Lover Anne Heche Following Fiery Crash Into LA Home

  • Pete Davidson Proposed to Kim Kardashian Before Their Breakup

    Pete Davidson Proposed to Kim Kardashian Before Their Breakup

  • New bombshell book on Trump reveals he wanted to be treated like Hitler: ‘Totally loyal’

    New bombshell book on Trump reveals he wanted to be treated like Hitler: ‘Totally loyal’

RSS Partner Links

  • Saturday Round-Up: Anne Heche dies; Ellen reaction; “The Prom” couple; Greg Berlanti & more!
  • Saturday 'Stache
  • Howard Stern Announces His Father, Ben Stern, Has Died at 99
  • “Hilaria Baldwin responds to those fake-bump conspiracies” links
  • WaPo: Donald Trump apparently stole classified nuclear weapons documents
  • Megan Thee Stallion Explains Meaning of 'Traumazine' Album Title
  • Night Crumbs

Most Recent

  • J&J to end global sales of talc-based baby powder

    J&J to end global sales of talc-based baby powder

  • Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda slams unauthorised production

    Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda slams unauthorised production

  • ‘It’s really irritating’: Madonna’s son David Banda wears her clothes ‘better’ than her

    ‘It’s really irritating’: Madonna’s son David Banda wears her clothes ‘better’ than her

  • Analysis: U.S. move to negotiate drug prices a rare defeat for Big Pharma

    Analysis: U.S. move to negotiate drug prices a rare defeat for Big Pharma

  • Confirmed: Trump Legal Team Believes FBI Informant Is Ex-Trump White House Staffer Who Relocated To Mar-a-Lago Post Presidency

    Confirmed: Trump Legal Team Believes FBI Informant Is Ex-Trump White House Staffer Who Relocated To Mar-a-Lago Post Presidency

  • Madonna wears grills to hide her ‘ugly’ teeth

    Madonna wears grills to hide her ‘ugly’ teeth

  • Lady Gaga tells Americans to ‘speak up’ in fight for abortion rights

    Lady Gaga tells Americans to ‘speak up’ in fight for abortion rights

  • What’s in Biden’s big climate and health bill?

    What’s in Biden’s big climate and health bill?

Most Commented

Social

Twitter @tlrd | Facebook | Instagram @tlrd

Footer

Copyright © 2022 · Log in

×