technology, in a cheeky and extremely lewd sense, is more or less comparable with a dildo. doesn't matter whether it's a vibrating, rotating or electrical impulse-releasing one because it really does 'broaden' (hur hur!) one's horizons. just when you thought that the time when everything there has to be discovered has come to pass, a new bit of technology really gives one new inputs of perspective/pleasure. of course, one could come to embrace it or even reject it with ardent displeasure. for me, i welcome new technologies with a pinch of salt. especially that of mobile and communicative technologies.

you've got to admit that we've come a long way since the days of paging devices and chunky video cameras. i was actually one of those simpletons who thought that the video camera was the epitome of recording advances. of course, i was also an impressionable eleven years old at the point of time, primarily obsessed with Pokemon, Twinson's Odyssey and Rockman manga. i remember when my dad bought his first Sony Video Camera. it was big, accompanied in a big carrier, and came with an even bigger price tag. this basically encouraged him all the more to film practically every second of his life with the family. till today, we still keep DVs of birthdays, weddings, festive occasions and funerals. yes, my father actually has a one minute video still shot of my maternal grandfather in his coffin. that and the twenty-plus digital photos of the grandfather in seemingly artistic shots.

fast-forwarding a few years, today's mobile devices are compact, efficient and definitely more affordable for the average consumer. the typical teenager owns at least one mobile phone, MP3 player, camera and laptop. to think when i was a teenager, i didn't even have a Motorola MemoJazz which was all the rage back then. i relied mostly on coin-operated phones before proceeding on to become rather acquainted with phone cards. of course, all this also means well for the average homosexual.

from a 'you've come a long way, baby!' point of view, there are two things that technological advances have changed drastically for the gay man. back in the dark ages (and this is based solely on what i've gathered from mature forty-year old homo men that i'm acquainted with), the main way of getting laid would be cruising and clubbing. swimming pools were hot spots. toilets were smelly but good spots. and Sunday nights at the clubs are always packed... with men-loving men, that is. VCDs were the main form of media when it came to porn. i have yet to come across anyone who owns an intact copy of pornographic material on a VCR-playable tape. but i'm sure there were many circulating around in the early 90s.

these days we can practically get our rocks off without leaving the house, all thanks to 'The Big Connection' fondly known as the internet. come to think of it, the only instance i can think of whereby one has to leave would be fine examples such as 'crap, i've run out of rubber' and 'is your place available because my mother's at home'. as any gay man can attest to, being a homosexual is really an art form in itself. having to stay inconspicuously under the radar for the general straight public, yet at the same time letting out the homo vibes for the gay crowd - definitely not an easy feat. social mores and taboos within the gay community. the places to go to get to meet like-minded brethren. if one is lucky, one has someone to learn the tricks of the trade from (i make it sound like prostitution). i wasn't so lucky, apparently. i basically gleaned everything from the internet, followed by sexual encounters, followed by meeting actual gay people who weren't interested in meeting up just for sex. web cams, chat rooms, gay personals on the internet, downloadable porn, etc. one could be gay without even having sex with real gay men.

the other thing that has truly affected today's gay men is that of mobile recording technology. i'm thinking that back in the 70s or 80s, the thought of fitting a recording device on a mobile phone was totally preposterous. hell, the thought of a mobile phone was even ludicrous. today, just log on to any streaming porn site such as (insert random site that you frequent)tube.com and you can see supposedly real videos of Singaporean men and their sexual escapades. common titles include things like 'Me Waking Up in the Morning with a Hardon' or 'Cumshot at 30,000 feet' (this one is real! someone actually took a wanking video of himself in an airplane toilet! SQ some more!).

the modern video camera phone of course, bodes well for the narcissistic gay person who would rather have sex with the mirror. call me paranoid, but i've never been a fan of recording myself having sex with other men on mobile devices. well, at least not after the whole Tammy hoohah in Singapore. but hey, who am i to judge? everyone's entitled to get their rocks off in whatever way that helps. of course, the whole mobile recording device thing was thrown into perspective just a few days ago at a gathering of four men. two's company, three's a crowd and four is definitely an orgy. so yeah, it was an orgy of sorts. did i make it crystal clear? or do i need to calculate the meth?

there were three laptops at the gathering. three hard disc drives full of downloaded porn were also present with their laptop accompaniments. being a bit of a pornoissuer of sorts, i brought along my heavy duty Maxtor that had practically 360GB worth of media. suffice to say, someone showed me a rather scandalous porn of sorts. it was rather grainy as it recorded on a mobile device. but you could make out a computer screen with a shot of someone having webcam sex. my train of thoughts while watching the grainy recording were as followed: 'oooh... big', 'nice body', 'is that a gold necklace?', '*gasp* oh my god! isn't that (insert random high profile gay person in Singapore gay scene)?'

to which i asked my acquaintance who owned the recorded video, '*gasp* oh my god! isn't that (insert name of high-profile gay person in Singapore gay scene)?'

i left the gathering in the wee hours of the morning, grateful that i wasn't that big on web-camming. as in 'i don't like to have web-cam sex', not 'why does my penis look so small on the web-cam?'.

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