Comments disabled

These days, the only comments on this blog are spam, so for now at I've disabled the ability for readers to leave comments. However, if anyone wants to say anything to me, my email address still works :-).

GB xxx

Retirement as a blogger

Dear Readers,

I started this blog in 2005, and writing here has been great fun over the years :-). However, at the moment I'm finding it difficult to make the time for this blog, even though I've only been posting once a month. So for now at least, I'm not going to be doing any more postings. However, I'm still going to keep my domain name gaybanker.com, so for the foreseeable future I should still be contactable by email.

Hugs and kisses to everyone!

GB xxx

Are you a victim of revenge porn?

In connection with my post about revenge porn, a documentary producer sent me an email. He asked me whether any revenge porn victims had contacted me. When I told him that no one had contacted me, he asked me to post the following:

Are you a man? Have you been a victim of revenge porn? I want to hear from you to tell our celebrity presenter your story! It can be anonymous but we want to hear from any men who have been victims. Get in touch finn.conduct@octoberfilms.co.uk

Please respond if you can :-).

New UK laws against "revenge porn"

Back in January, I was contacted by the UK's Ministry of Justice to ask me whether I could support their campaign against revenge porn on this blog.

In case anyone hasn't heard of it, a good definition of revenge porn is "the sharing of intimate, sexual images of a person without their consent and with the intention of causing them distress". A typical scenario would be when a couple take intimate pictures or videos for fun during their relationship, but then when the relationship comes to an end, one of the couple take revenge on the other by making the images public.

However in the near future, making those kinds of images public is going to be an offence under UK law, punishable by up to two years in prison. The Ministry of Justice is also running a campaign Be Aware B4 You Share with hashtag #NoToRevengePorn to try and make everyone aware of the new offence and corresponding punishments.

Thinking about the issues here, although I have a few intimate pictures of my ex-boyfriends, there's nothing that might cause me to make them public. For me it would be like discussing the sexual preferences of an ex-partner in order to make fun of them, which is similarly a very nasty thing to do. People don't tend to discuss their ex-partner's preferences, so keeping images or videos private should fall into the same category of behaviour. What happens in the bedroom should stay there!

Looking back, ex-boyfriend R (a.k.a. boyfriend number 3) was very shy about allowing me to have ANY electronic image of him. He always said that with electronic images, one could never be certain where they might end up on the internet, so he didn’t let anyone have any. Similarly, although I've got lots of photos of ex-boyfriend T with clothes on, I don't have any intimate images of him. I always remember the trip to Paris with him before we became boyfriends. I took a picture of his naked buttocks while he was getting undressed but unfortunately he forced me to delete it! I guess he was scared where such images might end up as well. However, I've still got some slightly naughty pics of ex-boyfriend S (a.k.a. boyfriend number 1), although I keep them well guarded :-).

Regarding images of me, I seem to recall that ex-boyfriend R (a.k.a. boyfriend number 3) might have an intimate video of me taken on his mobile phone a few years ago. However when I asked him about it last year, he said that he couldn't remember. He's probably telling the truth, because he's a slightly dis-organised person, so if it did ever exist it's almost certainly been lost as he's upgraded his phone over the years.

When I was contacted by the UK's Ministry of Justice back in January, one of the things they said is that they'd be interested to hear from people who'd been the victim of revenge porn. It may be that they're not interested anymore, because it's been about two months since I received the original email, and it looks like their campaign may be over. Nonetheless, in case they are still interested, please send me an email if you've been affected by revenge porn and I'll forward it on to them. Alternatively, all comments on this post are welcome (as usual), especially it's done in such a way that it's possible to contact the commenter to follow up :-).

GB featured in Evening Standard Magazine :-)

A few years ago, I did a phone interview for a journalist who worked for London's Time Out Magazine. The result was that I was one of the bloggers who was featured in an article called "The Sex Diaries".

History has now repeated itself, but this time it's the turn of London's Evening Standard Magazine! Today's issue contains an article called "Sex on file" and one of the bloggers who gets a mention is me :-). They've taken an extract from quite an old article (Black tie), and although it might have been better if they'd used something a bit more recent, it's nice to get a mention :-).

Dinner with Kenski

Between 2007 and 2010, I occasionally met up with other bloggers for dinner on a one-to-one basis. For each blogger that I met I did a blog post, and there's an index of all these posts under the title "Bloggers that I've met" in this blog's right-hand side bar. I always find it interesting meeting new people like this, so I was very happy when a few days ago an opportunity arose to go out for dinner with Kenski :-). Over the years, Kenski has had more than one blog, but occasionally he moves on and deletes his old blogs. So the fact that his current blog only has postings from September 2010 doesn't do justice to his blogging output.

Kenski first left a comment on this blog back in August 2008, and he's been a regular commenter ever since. In general, I've always found his comments to be very insightful, and so I'd been interested in meeting up with him for quite a while. But we're both busy guys, with the result that for a long time it hadn't been possible. However, early in January we agreed to make time to meet up, so after a bit of negotiation a date and a restaurant were chosen so we were all set.

The day arrives and I'm in a taxi on the way to the restaurant when I get a txt msg from Kenski to let me know that he's already there:

Hi, arrived. Having a martini at the bar ;) I would appear to be the only one at the front of the bar with something of a beard who isn't a lesbian

Immediately I know that it's going to be a good evening :-).

Just like meeting guys for activities, one never really knows what someone's going to look like or what their personality will be like until you actually meet them. So the first face-to-face contact with someone is always an interesting moment.

"Hi, Kenski I presume :-)?" I say to, presenting myself to the only person who fits the description that he sent me in the txt msg.

"Errr, yes :-), hi!" says Kenski looking slightly nervous.

"So are the martinis any good?" I ask, trying to break the ice.

"OK I guess …"

"Actually, I can see that they've got my favourite gin, so perhaps I'll just have a G 'n' T :-)" I say decisively.

A waitress interrupts us to ask whether we'd like to go to our table immediately, but with Kenski's glass still almost full and with my gin and tonic on the way, we decide to start the evening sitting at the bar.

"Sorry that I dragged you over to this restaurant …" starts Kenski.

"No problem," I interrupt, "I've never been here and it looks great, a perfect venue for a meeting like this :-)."

"Well there's this gig that I told you about that I'd really like to go to that starts around 10pm," explains Kenski, "but now that we're here I don't need to worry because it's just round the corner :-)."

A lot of Kenski's blogging has been about his music hobby, and as the evening unfolds it becomes even clearer to me how important this is to him.

The conversation gradually becomes easier as we start getting to know each other, and once we've finished our aperitifs, we move to our table to get something to eat.

"Thanks so much for all the comments that you've left on my blog over the years," I say, "you've always got some useful points to make on those Dear GB posts that I do :-)."

"Well, I think I've made just about all the relationship mistakes that it's possible to make, and more besides," laughs Kenski, "so I guess that gives me a useful perspective for some of those readers that write in to you!"

We look at the menu and before too long we've ordered our food, together with a bottle of red wine. During the course of the evening, we talk about many things, but one subject that we keep returning to is our current and past relationships. It turns out that we're both on our fourth boyfriend.

"The first three guys that I was with only lasted for a year or two, but it's now been well over ten years with the fourth guy," says Kenski, smiling, "and I think, I hope, we're pretty solid :-)."

"Whereas I've only been with boyfriend K for a little over ten weeks!" I say, shaking my head at my own relationship failures, "But I really hope that boyfriend K will be The One :-). I was with my first boyfriend, boyfriend number 1, for about eighteen years, but since then things haven't lasted nearly so long :-(."

"Do you ever see boyfriend number 1?" asks Kenski.

"Yes, actually he's still got a key to my house!" I reply, "Obviously we went through a difficult patch, otherwise we'd still be boyfriends. But these days he's like a brother to me :-). I don't think I could be boyfriends with a guy if he didn’t get on well with boyfriend number 1."

"Anyway," I continue, "seems like you're a little less busy at work at the moment, given that we've finally managed to arrange to meet each other :-)."

"Thankfully my current project will be finished in a couple of months or so," replies Kenski, "and after that I think I'm going to take a bit of a break. I can't help thinking that I need a career change."

"I get the impression that you don't really enjoy your work," I tell him, thinking back to some for the things that he'd told me in emails that he'd sent me last year.

"My job pays the bills nicely, but my heart isn't in it. But I don't know what else I could do which would give me a similar level of income."

"Have you heard about the 10,000 hours that you need to become good at something?" he continues.

"Actually yes," I reply, "a friend of mine told me about it. The way he phrased it was, you need to spend 10,000 hours doing something to become world class at it."

"I'd love to turn my music hobby into a career, but I don't think I've spent nearly enough time on it to be good enough :-|."

We talk a bit about more about his career and I get the impression that if Kenski has any problems in his life, it's trying to find a way of doing something he enjoys and believes in, and which also gives him a decent income.

The time passes quickly and before we know it, it's time to go.

"Do you mind if we pay the bill now," says Kenski suddenly, looking at his watch, "I've just noticed the time and if I don't go soon, I'll miss this gig after all!"

It took well over a year to arrange this dinner but it's been a great evening, every bit as enjoyable as I hoped it would be :-). Maybe we'll be able to meet up again, perhaps when Kenski's current project finally finishes. In any case, hopefully it won't take another year to arrange our next meeting!

Might I be able to find a boyfriend via this blog?

When I got up this morning, I discovered that someone had left a comment on my most recent post which asks a very interesting question:

GB, now that you're single again, how do we start applying to be your boyfriend?

Ages ago I did a couple of posts (1, 2) about meeting up with people who find me through this blog. Those posts suggest that I almost never do that, mainly because if someone has read my blog, they know so much more about me than I know about them. However, the truth is that I wrote those posts quite a long time ago, and recently I've increasingly been ignoring them!

The original exception that I made was for guys that also have blogs, so that I'm able to level the playing field by reading their blog. But in fact, I've also now met a few guys who first got in contact with me when they sent me requests for advice that I answered in "Dear GB" posts.

Although I don't think it makes sense to "apply" to my boyfriend, asking to meet up to see whether there's any basis for a friendship *might* be all right. The reason for my caution is that the original problem still exists, namely that anyone who's read my blog has effectively read my private diary, so something needs to be done to make things more even.

Regarding the guys that I met who had originally sent me requests for advice, I got to know them as a result of extended email conversations over a period of many months or even years. But it strikes me that it doesn't need to take that long. For example, these days a lot of people have facebook timelines, and that is a kind of blog. People also have dating profiles on sites like e.g. gaydar and all the others, and those profiles also give a lot of information about people.

Anyway, in summary, I guess the answer to the question is that these days I am prepared to meet people that have found me through this blog :-). Start by sending me an email. However, if anyone does want to meet me, please have a good idea about what you're going to do so that I can find out a lot about you in advance of any meeting!

Online dating

All of a sudden, having split up with ex-boyfriend T, there seem to be quite a few things going on in my life. The result is that there are several posts in my mind that are waiting to be written, as well as a couple of "Dear GB" posts waiting in my right-hand side-bar. Apologies to the two guys who are waiting for the "Dear GB" posts. In my current state of mind, I find it hard to summon up the focus that I need to do a good job for them, but I promise to get round to it at some point in the not too distant future.

Anyway, this morning I've decided to ignore completely the list of pending posts in my mind and mention something that I spotted while reading the news just now. I'm a big fan of The Economist Magazine, and this morning I spotted this article about online dating. It's written from an entirely straight point of view, but it's interesting nonetheless. And it mentions one app that works for all sexualities, namely:

"Bang with Friends (BWF) [which] allows users to specify which of their Facebook friends they would like to bed. If both parties feel the same way, BWF notifies them. If not, no one is any the wiser."

In fact, that app presumably allows *straight* guys to suggest hook-ups with their male friends (*straight* or gay), as well as allowing gay guys to register interest in their *straight* mates :-). What will they think of next, LOL!

Email hacked :-(

Apologies to everyone who ever sent me an email. It looks like a spam email has somehow been sent from my yahoo email address to anyone who's ever sent me an email :-(. No idea how it happened, but please ignore. GB xxx

GB's twitter account

Back in 2010, I blogged that I wasn't going to be able to spend much time blogging any more due to pressure at work. Since then, I've still been able to find time to post something around once a month, but it's obviously much less than the two or three times a week that I used to manage. Unfortunately, it's still true that in general, I don't have much time for blogging.

Over the last year, various people have asked me why GB doesn't have a Twitter account. My response has always been that because I don't have enough time for blogging, then I'm unlikely to have much time for Twitter either. However, I've now accepted that it doesn't hurt to have an account, so I've set one up :-). Please feel free to follow me on Twitter. I may even manage more than one Tweet a month!

GB xxx

Follow @Gay_Banker

WikiLeaks have devalued their brand

Although I'm not blogging much at the moment, I feel I have to comment on the recent wikiLeaks 'disclosures'. Having an outlet for real whistle blowing, for things that really matter, would be a real asset to the everyone. However, finding out that US diplomats make frank assessments about the world at large is a million miles away from that. It's almost embarrassing that Julian Assange thinks that this is newsworthy, because all it means is that the US diplomats are doing their jobs. In my opinion, WikiLeaks has seriously devalued its brand.

Ultrasurf, a solution to Internet censorship?

I received the following email from a reader today which surprised me:

Heya GB,

Hope this email find you in good spirits! I remember there was a post on your blog mentioned the issue accessing your blog in China. I am currently in Shanghai doing for a research trip and I can confirm that your blog is not accessible here. Such a shame!

However, if readers can use some software that allow connection through proxy (e.g. ultrasurf) then they will have no prob to read your blog. Maybe it is worthwhile to suggest.

Cheers,

The thing that amazed me is that it's possible to bypass the so called Great Firewall of China. Surely the Chinese authorities know that this is happening. If anyone can explain why they can't stop it, I'd be fascinated to know the answer!

An anatomy of my blog

A few days ago, a London based gay reader who also works in finance sent me an email in which he told me that he'd read my entire blog. Part of the email conversation that followed included the following analysis of what I'd been writing about for the past five years or so:

Your blog is a kind of therapy during a trauma or crisis in your late 30s (you don't say this but I am reading between the lines) when the two sides of you came into conflict with each other. One side of you is the guy who visited the saunas and gyms, the gaydar/gay.com personals looking for no strings fun. This guy existed mainly outside the relationship with S. The other side is the guy who was asexual at college, wants stable relationships, likes family orientated Asian men, lived with S for 16 years. There is a third side perhaps, the guy who is a judge, enforces fair play and correct behaviour (we can call thus conscience).

This third guy is the one who is troubled by the impact of the first guy's behaviour on the second guy's values and identity and is concerned about the first guy betraying the second guy. The judge is the one that compel the first guy to tell the truth to the second guy via the blog and eventually S. The revelations lead to stress and trauma for both the second guy and S and leads eventually to a judgment in which the first guy is condemned and punished for betraying S, S leaves the second guy's life and the second guy too shares the blame for having impossible expectations of gay relationships. The climax is the Dear GB letter in which the judge himself is giving the verdict (the relationship is over, S must be housed etc) and the philosophical reflection on the nature of gay love.

Thereafter we hear very little about the first guy in the blog. I presume he is still there but having served his punishment he is left alone and the blog is taken over by the second guy as an agony uncle column. This phase of the blog is less interesting than the first and even you can't find the time to keep it up.

The reader is really a voyeur in all this. The early blog is not at all aimed at third parties but at the second guy. Most of this is now ancient history and in any case is stuff that virtually all gay men can relate to. What makes the blog interesting is the raw honesty that the judge in you demands and the quality of the writing.

You actually reveal very little about yourself that is important. What do you like reading? What did you do your Doctorate in? What do you do in your work? Do you play sports, listen to music? Your politics? The newspapers you read? What do you like to wear? Your favourite wines? Your food? I guess you are now in your mid 40s so you will sometimes think about retirement and death. But what?

I felt that the analysis was accurate in many ways.

These days, boyfriend T often jokingly refers to the behaviour that 'the first guy' would enjoy, especially when we're out in London and he spots men that 'the first guy' would find attractive. However, for now at least, 'the second guy' must be firmly in control because I feel no inclination for fun with anyone except boyfriend T. I don't know if this will last, but one thing is for sure. With boyfriend T by my side, I feel very happy :-).

Work pressure :-(

When I started blogging back in 2005, I'd managed to find a wonderful little niche at the bank that I work for. I'd found a role which paid me reasonably well for relatively little work, compared to what my workload had been previously. As a result, I've almost always been able to post something to this blog every 3 or 4 days, if not much more frequently than that.

I had thought that I was gradually heading towards a nice redundancy package, but instead, my responsibilities have slowly been growing again. As a result, I think that the quality of my blog posts has suffered this year. So I think it's time to admit that, for now at least, I'm not going to be able to keep up with regular posts to this blog :-(. Posting to this blog twice a week has been part of my life for so long that I've been finding it hard to come to terms with all this.

Please note that even though I'm not going to be posting regularly, I'm still happy to do postings for any Dear GB emails that readers may care to send me. And I'm still contactable at my email address in the right-hand side bar :-).

Thanks to all my readers for following me so far.

GB xxx

At last: gaybanker.com :-)

Back in early 2007, I blogged that someone was cybersquatting the natural domain name for this blog. A company had paid $200 for gaybanker.com, so no doubt if I'd wanted to acquire it they'd have wanted to charge me at least that much.

In fact, I didn't even bother to contact them. Instead I waited. The credit crunch and the sub-prime crisis probably helped by making bankers unpopular, because eventually the domain name registration of gaybanker.com expired. So just over a week ago I decided to buy it, for the standard low price of a new domain name. If you now go to gaybanker.com, you get forwarded to this blog, and similarly I've now got a gaybanker.com email address too. So what my grandmother told me is true after all, patience is a virtue, even in fast-moving cyberspace!

An imposter!

A couple of days ago, I went out for supper to catch up with Close Encounters. I hadn't seen him since April, so last Friday we agreed to have supper together in a smart restaurant with a good wine list in central London :-).

"So how were your holidays?" I ask him, once we've handed our bags and umbrellas to the cute cloakroom attendant.

I get an answer to the question once we've made our way to the bar for a little pre-prandial cocktail, and given our order to the bartender.

"My holiday was pretty good :-), although I was only able to get away for a week," he replies, making himself comfy on the bar stool, and with a tone in his voice that suggests he wishes that he could have been away for longer.

"And what about men?" I giggle, keeping my voice down so that the bartender can't hear, "What were the natives like!"

"Actually I did manage to hook up while I was away :-)," he says with a cheeky grin on his face.

We talk a bit about the country that he visited, and end up chatting so much that the maître d' invites us to move to our table for dinner before we've finished our cocktails.

Later in the evening, the conversation inevitably wanders back towards our favourite subject.

"You're not on Grindr yet are you, GB?" asks Close Encounters.

"No, that's only available on the iPhone isn't it?" I answer swiftly, "I don't use the iPhone because I hate Apple! Anyway, why do you ask?"

"So it's not you then," replies Close Encounters, "I didn't think so!"

"What's not me?"

"There's a guy on Grindr who called himself 'The Gay Banker'," answers Close Encounters, "so I contacted him online to ask him if he knew that there was a blog of that name."

"Really? What did he say??"

"He said he knew about it, and even read it sometimes! And now I think the same guy has renamed his profile to 'Gay Banker', just like your blog!!"

"What a cheek!" I laugh, "If there's going to be someone known as 'Gay Banker' in cyberspace it should be ME, after all, I've had my blog for years now."

"Never mind, I'm sure that the imposter isn't as good at, um, activities as the real GB!"

The following day, Close Encounters sends me a pic of the 'Gay Banker' Grindr profile, which can be seen above. It seems strange that he hasn't posted a photo of himself like most Grindr users do, so he does seem to be associating himself with me because I keep my identity private as well. Now that I've thought about the situation a bit more, I've decided that it's a good thing. It's a well worn phrase, but I think it's true, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" :-).

Time Out

A few weeks ago, I received a request from London's Time Out Magazine for an interview. They wanted a face to face meeting with blogger GB, and a photoshoot too, but I'm far too shy to go along with those ideas! However, Time Out is a well respected publication, so I found the concept of doing an interview for them hard to resist. Following an exchange of emails, I eventually agree to talk to one of their editors anonymously on the telephone. And a couple of weeks later, this blog ends up being one of five blogs featured in an article titled "The London Sex Diaries" :-).

In the article, they call me "The anonymous sexed-up city worker", and print an excerpt from my post about visiting a guy for fun wearing Black Tie. After that comes the interview:

Tell us a little about yourself ...
I've been working in banking since the late 1980's. I had a long term boyfriend from 1989 to 2007. Since then I've had three boyfriends.

Why did you start the blog?
I thought that I had a few stories that I could tell. I liked the concept that someone could write about all this naughty stuff and remain anonymous. It's very cathartic.

As well as writing about your sex life, you've branched out into relationship advice. Why?
The sex stuff became repetitive so I was getting bored of it. People started to write to me for advice and that seemed to get quite popular.

Have any former partners realised it's you?
My ex-boyfriend had no idea. But another boyfriend I had briefly did. We were on holiday and he saw the words "Gay Banker" on my computer. He ended up finding it online before I was able to explain.

What won't you write about?
A lot of people put a lot more detail in about who did what to whom. I shy away from that. For me, it's more about the conversations. There's a bit of soft stuff about kissing and touching but I don't go any further than that, rather than including all that "I put my cock in his arse" sort of stuff.

I'm always a bit wary of any contact with the media, because some journalists and publications seem to make a living out of writing nasty things about people and wrecking their lives! However Time Out doesn't seem to be like that, and indeed, from my point of view they wrote a good article :-).

If any London based readers are interested in seeing the full article, it's in the current Time Out magazine (July 1-7 2010). However, readers elsewhere won't be able to get a copy, so in case anyone's interested the other four featured bloggers are:

• Girl with a One Track Mind: she's the famous blogger who was outed just as the book about her sex life was published. A perfect example of the media wrecking someone's life!
• Men I wish I hadn't slept with: what a great title :-). But it's by a straight woman rather than a gay man!
• Naïve London Girl: A kinky American woman on the loose in London.
• MonMouth: The bondage-loving guy who likes to try anything. Although as far as I can tell from glancing briefly at his blog, he's straight!

Did any readers of this blog see this article in print?

Comments

I like to think that I sometimes write interesting posts for this blog, and when I think I've done a reasonable post, I'm always keen to see whether it'll get any comments. I was thinking about this tonight, so I had a look at my blog's statistics to work out how many comments my posts get. The answer is shown in the picture below.



Examining the statistics, if a post gets comments, the average number of comments is around 8. So I'm shocked to discover that one of the posts with the highest number of comments is last Saturday's post about how often I change my underwear! Ahh well, given the number of responses to that post, perhaps I should pay serious attention and change my habits!!

Happy Birthday to this blog!

Today, it's exactly five years since I did my first post. A lot has changed for me since then, particularly in my private life. Five years ago I was living with the guy that I now refer to as ex-boyfriend S. But we split up back in 2008 and now I'm living with boyfriend T. The guy P that I blogged about in my first post became boyfriend P for a while, but we ended up splitting up at the start of 2009.

Since I started this blog I've done 722 posts. I've almost always managed to do a post once very 4 days, if not much more frequently as the chart below shows :-). As part of this blog, I've also become an occasional agony uncle. I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to keep it all up, but without doubt, I've got no regrets about having become a blogger!

Belle de Jour, anonymous no more

Part of my original inspiration for becoming a blogger was the infamous blog Belle de Jour, the Diary of a London Call Girl. I hadn't heard of her when she stopped blogging back in September 2004, however a couple of days afterwards I spotted an article on the BBC web site which was reporting the fact that she had given up. When I looked at her blog, it occurred to me that it might be fun to become a blogger, but it wasn't until five months later that I wrote my first post.

For years, the true identity of Belle was a mystery. Another woman who blogged about her sex life was outed as a film assistant Zoe Margolis in August 2006, but still no one knew who Belle was. Today however, I get a txt msg from LWW telling me to go and look at a web site, and when I go to the site it turns out to be a story about who Belle really is. Finally, Belle herself has decided to reveal her identity through an interview in the Sunday Times.

It turns out that we have one thing in common. When I wrote a post titled Things I'm glad that I did in my life so far last year, one of the things that I said was that I was glad that I did a PhD. It turns out that Belle's real name is Dr Brooke Magnanti, because she also has a PhD, in informatics, epidemiology and forensic science in her case.

Belle's blog about being a call girl was only active for about a year, but it's now been over four and a half years since I wrote my first post, and I'm still posting about two times a week :-). I still enjoy it, so for now at least, I have no plans to retire!

Update 19-Nov-2009: An interesting footnote to this story in The Guardian