“There are creams you can use to get yours to look like that if you want.”Īs an enthusiastic and long-standing homosexual, I have seen my fair share of asses, and yet I had never encountered this preference before. It fluoresced and glistened in that dank bar like a halo in the fog, and I felt my sleeping member stir. And there I saw it: a flawless, clean-shaven, even-toned manhole. He told me he preferred an even-toned ass – black, white, Asian, whatever, just even-toned. I told him how boring it was to look through profiles on dating sites that read “Caucasians only” and, as if it were any consolation, the condescending codicil “Sorry, just my preference.” But that wasn’t what he meant at all. I launched into a tirade on how as a black man in South Africa I had issues with dating white South African men. My eyes narrowed, and I took this as my cue to grind an axe for which I’d long sought a grindstone. Then he asked me if I liked dark or light asses.
Preferences: cut or uncut, long and thin or long and thick, clean or hairy, top or bottom. Once my guard was lowered, we gravitated to more pressing matters. I was impressed by the fact that he collected works by young contemporary artists, whose names he carefully recited, taking care to pronounce the ones with Xhosa or Shona names just right. He told me he was an investment banker from Sunninghill and an art collector. I’m glad he did, because he turned out to be rather charming. He bought me my next beer and sidled closer. I fixed my focus on a television screen and made quite a ceremony of watching the night’s episode of Generations, demurely avoiding the other screens, where assorted men indulged in more vigorous exertions than the inane batting of Queen Moroka’s eyelids. He soldiered on with the small talk and I tried to deflect it. I thanked him politely, and carried on drinking my beer. He introduced himself as Paul, and told me I had a nice body. He sported a studded leather jockstrap, of course, under which I guessed lay a cockring and what looked to be an impressive set of balls. My companion, the one who broke the news to me, was a handsome middle-aged white man with a tuft of grey fur poking proudly over an unbuttoned leather vest. There I was, on the outer reaches of conventional morality, without a clue as to what could be done to the inner reaches of the human body. A place furnished with leather slings and lit by television monitors beaming porn like flashing strobes, with the smells of lubricant and cum commingling in a heavy, sweaty mix. The first time I ever heard of anal bleaching was in a seedy leather bar in the depths of inner-city Johannesburg. How far would you go to have the best butt in town? In 21st century South Africa, Fumi May wonders why anyone would care about being fair down there.
Each of them will lighten your skin and also leave you with inflammation or ochronosis or worse. Hydroquinine, bleach, lime juice: take your pick.