NEW WAY OF SEEING IN THE AGE OF THE INTERNET

I have finally come into a state of grace, having made the pixel my own personal savior. Those millions of tiny squares of luminescence, streaming onto my computer screen, assembled in a kaleidescope of meaning, patterns that help me see, help me live, allow me finally to connect to all the other men out there, those who seek salvation, hope, healing, sex.

Of course I had heard for years the anguished confessions, the endless testimonials of torment and delight, the dirty little references to online porn and Internet dating, the endless cruising of the digital photos and encapsulated autobiographies of desire and intention. I heard, but kept my distance.

Oh, it was not for a lack of understanding —- my work has become defined by the digital and I share the world’s boundless obsession for gadgets and trends and coolness, so much so that I am embarrassed to admit it. Like the admission that I have no lover. Perhaps I am not loved, some days, even, am unloveable. I get only what I want. Or deserve. Had I wanted to meet people thru the Internet, I would have. And so it was that I crossed over the line, in my own way, in my own time. I bought the new computer, I boosted my broadband account, I mastered the digital camera. Fingers poised on the keyboard, heart at the portal of a new house, beating, throbbing, yearning, I was free to be whatever I wanted, to enter this new world. Frozen, those fingers, unable to find the words, unable to find the heart. Who am I, actually? Who am I to the world? Who do I want you to see? Whom do I want to want me?

The answers would come from my faith in the pixel, the pixels, the pixellated vision of reality I found already assembled on the websites of desire and lust. For weeks I lurked. Each night I would dive, clicking my way through the photos, men in every conceivable contortion and state of desire. Hot men, fat men, old men, boys; hairy men, leather men, people with every imaginable fetish, a yen for every body part, every single form of beseechment.

Self-chosen names signal the deepest yearnings for dominance or humiliation, friendship, love, adventure, entertainment. And, the little profiles and messages, littered with typos and inadvertent, class-based codes and cult messages --- one after another, the glowing communiqués from the LED temple of the pixel life, a new way to worship.

Then, a guy sent me a message asking for more photos of me, and another asking for stats… what are my stats? And so, I began my quest for connection. More and more men emerged from the vast ether before me, materializing as responses, woofing their way into securing a response in turn from me. Willing supplicants from Bratslava; eager twosomes from Kuala Lumpur…and, eventually, terrifyingly, a guy from across town, somebody whom I could actually meet, somebody who might administer my redemption, who might end my endless isolation. As a consequence of this conflation of electricity and desire, hope and courage, yearning and duplicity, a succession of three-dimensional human carbon-based life forms materialized before me. A new world of my own making, a gift of grace.

By now the novelty and addiction have worn off, the experience has become mine, it is not a new way of seeing. I still look at the pixels, I still read the words, on the surface and between the lines. And I offer, across the miles, a piece of my soul, on its own terms, a gift I may receive in return. The pixels have helped me see. Perhaps you become the dream I yearn for. Perhaps a disappointment. But manifest between us is the power of healing and connection made real by a transubstantiation of pixels into flesh. The consequence may be eternal love, or not, but in the moment of deciding, I know that I am real, I am alive, I am awake, I am sane, I am yours, for eternity.