The longer I went to the arcade, the more it felt like a study in rejection. It certainly wasn’t a place one went to forget one’s shortcomings.

I could have something like an encounter out there – a vicarious experience completely free of any fears of infection or the face-to-face intimacy I didn’t know how to process.

They were looking at videos, and the woman was giggling quietly, as they often do in porn stores, unable to believe what they’re seeing, the monuments men have built to vaginas and to the very notion of sex.

I am sometimes in awe of all that I have been exposed to culturally that I never would have discovered if not for the pursuit of sex or sexual gratification. I think of all the movies I watched when I was young simply because I thought I might glimpse a nude body.

The guys who appeared to have a genuine interest in the videos and products at the arcade confounded everyone. You couldn’t be sure who was actually looking to fool around. It was even more disconcerting when a straight couple came in to check out dildos and cheap negligees, as if taking a shot at spicing up their sex life or beginning in earnest their earliest dalliances into swinging.

It bothered me that we behaved differently when other people were at the arcade. It bothered me that we had to be different at different times. I wished we could always be ourselves.