The Sticky Question of MAGA Dick

As our country faces the parallel crises of a raging pandemic and an increasingly violent right-wing insurrection, my thoughts naturally turn to dick. Maybe it’s the result of our COVID-era celibacy or a self-protective coping mechanism, but I’ve been thinking more and more about penises past. Specifically, my sole encounter with MAGA dick.

As a resident of Brooklyn’s liberal queer urban enclave, I don’t often find myself face-to-face with Trump enthusiasts. So I could probably be forgiven when, in early 2017, I didn’t immediately spot the signs at my late-night hook-up’s house. We’d met on Grindr and exchanged non-political pleasantries and pics, and by the time I found myself in his living room, the election outcome wasn’t the first thing on my mind. In retrospect, the “Hillary for Prison” mug he handed me should have been a clue, but I assumed it was ironic! 

The unfortunate part is that the sex was incredible. Without going too much into detail, I’ll just say that he was gifted at giving and receiving, with the biggest dick I’ve seen to this day. He talked to excess about being “a total top” but I wasn’t surprised when, shortly after his first orgasm, he started maneuvering my dick into his hole.  Also, in a major departure from what I’ve come to know as the usual hook-up routine, he was pretty affectionate, inviting me to sleep over. I kind of wish I hadn’t accepted because then I might not have awoken sticky and staring up at a wall-covering Trump flag that I hadn’t noticed the night before. A quick scan of the room revealed an excessive amount of Trump paraphernalia. Pennants, caps, flags, books–what is it about MAGA fans and merch? 

As a person who finds intense obsession with anything a little unsettling, this room-sized shrine to the President was not a thrilling discovery. He was sleeping in so I decided to slip out. My intention was to memory-hole the whole affair, but morbid curiosity got the best of me. It may seem quaint now, but in the early days of the Trump era, it was still pretty alien to encounter an uncloseted gay guy with those political leanings. Also…that dick. 

We continued to chat for a few weeks. Perhaps because he was more comfortable, he started to talk more openly about politics until it all but dominated the conversation. I was struck by how quickly he would pivot from cute animal memes to wishing violence on liberals and celebrities. His intensity would have been a turn-off no matter where it was directed, but this being the early days of the Trump era, I was particularly unsettled by how much he saw his rage reflected and validated in the President’s actions. 

After a few weeks, we lost contact. He disappeared from the grid (I’d never given him my phone number) only to resurface months later, bombarding my inbox with a wall-of-text story about how he’d been kicked out of his apartment. In his retelling, a roommate had committed some unspecified offense that prompted him to rip the roommate’s door from its hinges and destroy some of his possessions. This had led the roommate to flee the house, and after several days of “lying in wait for that fucker to come home” he had decamped for new accommodations in Washington Heights. He followed this up with several videos (via Scruff, this was by now a multi-platform relationship) of him jerking off to bisexual porn. The story had been unhinged (pun not intended, but welcome) enough for me to feel that staying in touch probably wasn’t a good idea. That was the last I heard from him, until this week. 

I’m not sure if it was more morbid curiosity or the dim glimmer of hope that lives inside every terminally single gay, but I sought him out on Facebook. I think part of me was hoping that something in the last four years had shaken him out of his MAGA fervor. Alas, as of this writing he’s frantically posting memes about which members of congress he wants to see executed and which are part of “the worldwide Jewish conspiracy.” 

I think, in part, I’m writing this to figure out how I feel about what was ultimately a fleeting encounter no more important than dozens of others we’ve all had on the apps or after long nights out. For whatever reason, the memory of this man has stayed with me even as I’ve totally forgotten others. If I’m honest, it’s partially because the sex was memorably good and partially because of the disconnect between the small snippet of his personality I initially encountered and what was later revealed. I also feel a lingering sense of guilt, not so much for fucking a fascist as for hooking up with someone who, based on his politics and behavior, was clearly experiencing some kind of mental distress. 

To the extent that I have a takeaway from all this, it’s that when all this is over I want to know people better before I know them in the biblical sense. If you want to fuck a Proud Boy or blow that guy with the horns who stormed the Capitol, that’s up to you. For me, the answer is no. That’s not because I think it makes a political statement, but because these seem like men with a lot of rage and poor decision-making skills. I know it’s not fashionable to link extremism to mental illness, but I think that fanaticism and emotional instability often walk hand in hand. As the Trump era recedes, it’s possible that some of these outward expressions are going to get quieter, so it’s up to the rest of us to be more alert to the signals. And by that I mean, make sure his cat Milo isn’t named after Milo Yiannopoulos before you get naked.