In this day and age where social media is pervasive, OnlyFans is a thing, and anyone can upload to an amateur porn site, online exhibitionism has become commonplace. From ubiquitous selfies to hardcore sex acts, it is routine for people to put themselves out there on the internet. Back when this web site first went online in the fall of 1995, it was essentially unheard of. I was doing something that most people hadn't seen before.

Back then when I used to hear from my viewers, there was a contingent who were very critical of what I was doing. They thought my site was very self-indulgent. I couldn't really argue with that. It was filled with self-portraiture and autobiographical essays. It was all about me. But what got me was how they judged me for it. They labeled me as an "egomaniac" and/or accused me of having a "big ego." Those who interacted with me in the real world knew that it was not at all how I came off in person. I was demure if not downright shy. But it made me think more deeply about the duality in the way I presented myself.

This duality ran deep. When I was in adolescence I lacked confidence in myself and my appearance. I was very thin, I was awkward and uncoordinated physically, and I was not very popular socially. No one was interested in me romantically. Because I was a closeted gay boy who was pretending to be heterosexual, I lacked the innate drive to pursue the ladies, and none of them were pursuing me. It all added up to give me a self-image of someone who was not particularly attractive or desirable.

Because this was my self-image during my formative years, it became ingrained in my psyche. Fortunately I was emotionally healthy and had reasonably good self-esteem. I was okay with being an unattractive, shy, socially awkward person. It was just who I was. But it affected how I saw myself and how I interacted with others. That followed me through college and into adulthood. Even when I got out on my own, I didn't have a lot of confidence in myself socially, and didn't see myself as desirable sexually.

This all changed when I finally inched my way out of the closet in my late 20's and early 30's. The more gay men I met and interacted with, the more compliments I got. Initially I assumed they were just flattering me so they could get in my pants, but I started hearing it more and more consistently. I began to wonder if maybe they were being sincere, and that I might be better looking than I had been giving myself credit for.

Then one day after I hooked up with a FWB we were cleaning ourselves up in the mirror when he said to me, "You know you're a really handsome guy." It kind of caught me by surprise. He went on to say, "But I guess you get that a lot." I didn't get that a lot. He was the first one to use the word "handsome." And I knew he wasn't just trying to get me into bed because we had already hooked up. It was the point when I finally started believing what people were telling me.

This put me in an awkward position. I was redefining my self-image at this later stage in life. I was in a constant struggle between my emerging perception as being an attractive person, and the contrary notion that had been locked in during puberty and reinforced all the years since. This manifested itself in the need for constant reinforcement in an unending attempt to quell the inner voice that continued to be skeptical. It goes a long way to explain why I started this web site. Seeing myself in pictures helped to convince me, and getting consistent positive feedback was the persuasion I craved.

Now a new issue emerged. I was concerned that I was becoming vain. Vanity was never something I had to deal with before. When I was younger I had absolutely no sense of it. I got a hard lesson the one time I had a girlfriend in high school. When we were on our way out and I wanted to avoid the delays of her getting all primped up I made the mistake of saying, "I don't care what you look like." She got all pissed off and wouldn't go out. I was later informed that I had insulted her female vanity. It was an eye-opener for me. Since I didn't really consider myself to be presentable it basically never occurred to me to be concerned with how I presented myself, so I didn't consider that others might think differently.

Another clue came during my early college days. One of the guys in my friend group was accused of being vain because he was constantly glancing at his own reflection. Now, all these years later, I found myself doing the same thing. I had developed a tendency to look at myself in every reflective surface I passed. Objective criteria suggested that it was a vain act.

This made me start to question what vanity really was. Webster defined it as an inflated pride in oneself or one's appearance. It was a clear indication that there was an element of conceit. Vain people were conceited. That tracked with the comments I was getting on my web site from people who accused me of being an egomaniac, but I still didn't think that it described me.

I was looking at my reflection not because I loved seeing myself but because I was constantly trying to reevaluate whether I should be listening to the critical voice in my head or the compliments I was getting from others. I engaged in self-portraiture not because I thought that I was beautiful but simply because I was my own convenient model. I wrote about myself not because I thought I was great, but because it was easy, and I didn't have much else to write about. I predominantly appeared in my own videos because I couldn't find any other cast or crew who would participate in my productions.

I eventually came to the conclusion that I wasn't vain, but had to concede that I was self-involved. I think everyone is self-involved to a degree, but I was taking it to the next level. Anyone who engages in autobiographical expression would be considered self-involved by definition. The fact that I was doing it in so many ways and in so many media elevated it. I don't think that's a bad thing. It's just how I express myself artistically.

The flip side of this coin is exhibitionism. Websters also has a negative definition of that term, equating it with perversion and indecent exposure. While that might apply to flashers and others who foist their nakedness onto unsuspecting and unwilling bystanders, there's more to it than that.

Ultimately I define an exhibitionist, in this context, as someone who experiences sexual arousal from exposing himself. Said another way, it's people who get off on being seen naked. It doesn't have to be criminal in nature. Particularly in the kink scene, and throughout the gay community, there is a healthy and robust relationship between exhibitionists and voyeurs. There are many settings and situations in which exhibitionists are encouraged to show it all off.

I clearly fit this definition of an exhibitionist. Being seen naked always made me hard. This dated back to early pubescence. One day in 7th grade all the kids in my class were being given physical exams. Us boys were made to strip down to our underwear and wait to be seen by the doctor. As I sat there in my white briefs side by side with other boys in my class also waiting in their underwear, it took all my strength and concentration to avoid the erection that yearned to burst forth.

When I joined the swim team and had to wear a Speedo I knew immediately that it would give me wood. I remember trying one on beforehand to see if it would be noticeable. It was. When I had to wear one in front of other people it once again took all my concentration to keep from getting hard.

This was all at the height of the 70's. Back then streaking became a thing. It was a novel activity to strip naked and run through some public scene. I was fascinated by this trend, and would have loved to do it myself, but I knew that it would instantly give me a boner. Even in that context it would have been a social faux pas. Other guys were able to go streaking without having an erection. For me that would have been an impossibility. It was my first indication that my body reacted differently, even from other teenage boys who had the same hormone levels I did.

The problem extended into early adulthood. When I first went off to college my dorm only had gang showers. I had gotten morning wood in the shower each and every morning from the day I hit puberty, even though there was no one there to see me. This would not change now that I was away at college. Every morning it was a constant struggle to fight against my body's natural response to become erect while I showered next to my naked classmates. It was stress on a daily basis.

It took a long time before I would learn to embrace it. It changed on a dime. When I was working my first job and sharing a house with some other people, we got randy one night and decided to play strip poker. I knew it was going to give me a boner. For the first time I decided not to care and just go with it. Sure enough, as soon as my clothes started coming off my dick got hard. When I lost that final hand and became fully naked, my stiff cock was out there for everyone to see. I didn't try to hide it. I just let everyone see. I even got up and walked across the room to change the record album with my dick sticking right out while everyone watched.

That moment unlocked something in me. It was the most liberating thing I had ever experienced. All those years of stress and anxiety over keeping my boner under control were out the window. From that point on I allowed myself to be free to have erections in front of other people without caring. I began to seek out situations where I could be naked and people could see my boner. When I came out of the closet and spent more time in the company of other gay men, the opportunities increased exponentially. They were all too happy to see me showing off my stiff cock, and they encouraged me enthusiastically.

I loved this. I absolutely loved it. Because I had suffered so much trauma on so many occasions over so much time, it made it all the more enjoyable to let myself be exposed. I was already aroused by people seeing me naked, but allowing that arousal to be witnessed by others intensified it greatly. Knowing that people were seeing my stiff cock made it all the more stiff. For me it was better than sex. Just standing there out in the open with my dick hard and pointing up to the sky while others saw it gave me a sexual gratification that I couldn't feel any other way. It became a way of life for me.

This, too, goes a long way to explain what motivated me to do this web site. Pointing the camera at myself knowing that other people are going to see the images I capture is arousing in and of itself. Publishing the images on the internet just broadens my exposure to a worldwide audience. To me that's the ultimate dream of an exhibitionist.

The fact that my photography, my writing, and my videos are all about me does make me come off as a self-involved, vain, egomaniac. I have to accept the fact that this is how a lot of people will perceive me. They are seeing my online persona. I am not my work. The person that people meet in real life is still the timid, shy, insecure person I was in adolescence. The real me lies somewhere in between.

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