Watch And Learn: Pete by Studio1x

'We disappoint, We leave a mess, We die but we don't...

We disappoint In turn, I guess. Forget, though, we won't...

Like father, like son.'

Even if we don't realize or understand it, and even if we try our best not to, we learn from our parents.  Whether you have a great father, even a bad or abusive one, we learn.  Even father's that are not around, either by choice or circumstance, teach us lessons on coping with loss and abandonment.   I remember in university studying the temperament of kittens.  Kittens who were nestled and nursed by their mother tended to be calmer and less skittish than those that were not.

Also interesting was that many breeders  believed that the sire greatly influenced the personality and temperament of their kittens. Even if they never had any interactions with, a good-tempered, friendly stud cat tendered to produce good tempered and friendly kittens.  When we moved on to study human temperament, we correlated a child's sense of safety and security not with their time in the womb, but with how mentally healthy their parents were at conception.  The degree to which a child was wanted, even months before they were born, played a role in how wanted and loved they felt in both childhood, as well as into adulthood. 

So even if we fight it, even if we don't really understand it, we learn.  We're impacted by things we don't even know about or have control over.  For those of us who grew up with a father in the house, the learning is more 'on the job' training.  Our fathers teach us who we want to be, or who we don't want to be, as men.  We watch how they treat others, we listen to how they speak to us, to their friends, their spouse and their own parents. 

For many of us, other than our owns, our father's bodies are the first male bodies we ever see.  We notice even if we don't look, through the crack in the bathroom door or when walking in the hall by their bedrooms.  My father wasn't someone I'd actually call an exhibitionist, but he also wasn't really great at shutting doors.  He'd pee with the door open, get dressed and undressed with his door ajar, and  run from the bathroom to his bedroom after a shower with nothing on.

I remember being fascinated with my father's body, especially his body hair.  Like many young boys, maybe especially those who are gay, I hated dark body hair, and didn't want it on my own body.  Maybe we saw it as a symbol of straight masculinity, but I think it was more about not wanting to grow up.  As a kid, my sexuality was a bit of a mystery.  Sure I look back now and realized I was always gay.  At the time though, it wasn't as simple.

What I think I did know however, was that I was safer being gay before puberty.  There were no pressures to date or to have sex.  It also seemed more 'normal' to have mostly girls as friends, something that was looked upon as differently once you were out of elementary school.  I remember being frightened when the darker hair began to grow in, and uses scissors to cut it off.

That phase didn't last too long though, pretty quickly I learned puberty couldn't be stopped even if I tried.  Puberty also came with many perks, wet dreams, almost non-stop erections and masturbation soon had me embracing the changes my body was going through.

I was also fortunate to have a great role model in my father.  My father was a kind man, gentle and non-judgemental.  He hated fighting and discourse, and avoided conflict.  Although I didn't realize it at the time, his temperament, made it easer to move into adulthood.  There were so many messages about what men should be like.  Men were often depicted as cocky and aggressive, but father taught me that being quieter and caring were also qualities men could embrace. 

I loved to watching both my parents do regular daily things.  I loved to watch my mother cook, my father shave, I especially loved watching them have fun and interact with both each other, and their friends and other relatives.  I especially loved watching, and making them laugh. 

I didn't really realize at the time that all that 'watching' was actually learning, and how much I was absorbing in the process.  I look back however and see that they knew, they saw me looking, watching even the smallest and mundane of activities and tasks.  I think my father enjoyed the lessons more than my mother, maybe because I tended to be quieter and more respectful during those life lesson moments. 

Whether at school, or at home, it helps to have great teachers.  A bad teacher can really fuck you up. It's the things we learn first that stick and if we're taught the wrong lessons when we're young, we can spend a life time trying to undo the damage.  I may not have had the best teachers, but I know how lucky I was to have teachers in it for the long haul.  I know very well, so many are not as fortunate.

Segueing back to Pete, since he's not my father, there are an entirely different set of lessons that I'd be up for him teaching me.  Like I discussed with my dad, Pete knows he's being watched.  Not by just one set of eyes though, as given he's being photographed, he'll be seen, and enjoyed, by many.  I don't know if is connected to my enjoyment of watching my parents, but I especially love that Jim (Studio1x) chose to capture Pete doing things we all engage in every day.   Sure we all love seeing naked men doing heroic things or in a powerful pose, but I find images of hot men doing mundane, everyday things uniquely compelling and uniquely erotic. 

Pete on Instagram

Studio1x

Studio1x on Instagram