PrivateTim

The impeachment did not fail, Bill Clinton was impeached by the House. What failed was removal from office in the U.S. Senate, where you needed 67 votes for removal from office and they never got close to that. They couldn't get more than 50 votes for removal, even though Clinton was guilty, the majority didn't think lying to a grand jury was reason enough to remove a president from office. Matt was brave, but Matt was also holding a Royal Flush against a man with a pair of Jacks. I think part his dialogue was fueled by his own rage at his parents for how they had treated him. I'm sorry Beau didn't go to CA. He is a character I would have liked to see more of, but I understand there are already too many characters and Mary Ellen was the one more interesting for other storylines.

I don't remember what I thought the first time I read this book, but I did know there was a reason Wade was being controlled by his family. I wonder if JP or Brad or Stef will jump into the conversation with the Senator. I know Elizabeth has to know what is happening, will she be part of the conversation?

Dun duh duh! The plot thickens. Family traditions and family secrets are about to unravel. I am not surprised Matt's parents cut him off, but I think they would have threatened to do so first as a way to force him back to OH.

I am not sure if I've ever mentioned before what a douchebag I think Matt is and how much I dislike him. He doesn't want his parents to know he is gay, but he let JP invite them for Thanksgiving in CA to a dinner table where there is going to be 10-12 gay men and Matt has slept with all of them; 3 in the last 24 hours. The smart thing would have been to go home to Shaker Heights for three days (W-Fri) then fly back Saturday morning.

“Dude, I don't want to break your heart. I have a boyfriend. I just want to fuck you.” This is why I have disliked Matt for years. It remains to be seen if he settles down into fatherhood with Wade, but in his years at Stanford, his last few months at Shaker Heights, and the few he spent in Chicago, he has been totally self absorbed and hedonistic. My circle of friends as a young bi man gravitated with young guys like Wade and older guys (20+) who'd lived through the worst of AIDS and we eschewed the predators (which is what I few Matt as) and porn boys.

I really need to go back and read the earliest stories. I'd never consider Will to be the child of "hired help" since he was Brad's natural son and Brad was a Schluter. It doesn't really matter that Brad's mother had an affair, Brad was still a Schluter and raised at Escorial. He became a permanent member of the family March 13, 1968 when he was 6 and his mother committed suicide, leaving Brad in JP and Isidore's custody. Will was not one of these kids that popped up years later ala Marcel or Matt, he was acknowledged from Day 1 as the grandson of Stef and JP. Weirdly, even though Brad was a Schluter, he was raised by JP and Isidore, as their child with Claire, Billy and Ace as his siblings. I don't remember Janice's relation to JP, or if it was merely because Brad was Billy's son. "Uncle" Stef eventually morphed into Brad's other father, but by the time Will rolled around, Stef and JP were firmly established as the grandfathers.

This should be covered by a spoiler drop down. There may be new readers who are reading CAP in order. You know like this: **Spoiler Alert** Matt is a dickhead all four years. Will turns into a spoiled douche.

“I only want you,” I said honestly. “You're all I need.” 48 hours later. "Fuck yeah Carullo, drill me stud!" And people wonder why I don't like the Hayes boys.....

Wade is hardly the first gay man who figured he could remain in the closet forever. When I was a sophomore in college I started playing sand volleyball with some guys from the campus GLB club. One of the guys brought his grandfather one week. He had just come out of the closet a couple of months before. For 40+ years of marriage, 3 kids, 6 grandkids no one ever had a clue. He and his wife never divorced and continued to live together. I am sure there were lots of guys like him.

Yeah, that whole "Honesty is the best policy" thing only applies in certain situations. Matt is just a mess. He has no plan, no idea, no direction.

Matt is such a fucking loser. He has developed a sexual compulsion. Boy needs help. He had what, one gay lover in Ohio? Now six months later he is at what, a dozen? Two dozen? And not in healthy situations.

Matt is so stupid, how did he ever get into Stanford?

The trouble wit so many young people is that they don't think the whole thing through. Sometimes they are trying to hurt someone ("boy they'll feel guilty and really miss me"), but don't think through they won't be there to "enjoy" the pain they cause and all too soon, people will move on. The others who want their pain to stop don't think through that the pain is temporary and that "this too shall pass" is really true. Teen suicide rates dropped through 2007, then started to rise. The only proximate cause I can come up with is the rise of Social Media.

I don't know that Matt's mother meant that Matthew Shepard deserved to be beaten because he hit on a guy just that he set the chain of events in motion by not using discretion. I think Matt so far has demonstrated very poor judgment in some of his sexual situations, including when he was in Wyoming. In several instances he blundered ahead with sex where he could have been putting himself in danger. Matt during his time at Stanford will not be my favorite CAP character. Matt the Volcano is a very apt description. I am surprised he isn't in therapy already for anger issues. Surely they would have manifested themselves in his life in Shaker Heights. It was one thing to tell Cole that Amber had hit on him, not the other way round, but it was quite another to toss the Marc Holden card out there. I think about how differently Wade would have handled it if he were Cole's roommate and in a similar situation.

"JP has not acknowledged that Brad is his peer and not his subordinate.” A good time to note that Brad is 36 at this point. Will wanted to be a peer, not a subordinate at age 13. "But I really care about him, and sex with him just makes the earth move.” But that is the point, Matt doesn't really care about Cody, he cares about Matt. Love is willing the good of the other. Matt is not worried about what is good for Cody, or how he can help Cody, he only cares about himself. This will plague him the next four years and almost ruin his future.

“That boy worships his father,” I said. But Will couldn't have worshipped his father, because he would have listened to him more. A 13 year old who worshipped his father wouldn't have seeking emancipation just a year later. Brad was not being unreasonable in his parenting of a 13 year old. I thought he was quite lenient, all things considered.

“You don't love him enough to change that much,” I told him. He got pissed at that because I'd hit way too close to home. The most ironic line in CAP history from Matt.

Yeah..... this Danfield character might even turn out interesting 😆😁 Cody is someone else I never warmed up to. Matt is ahead of the game to be rid of him.

Where is the "flying pig" emoji when you need it? It is funny to read all the bad predictions from 2010-2011 in this thread. No one foresaw who might die on 9-11, Will moving to Menlo, Wade & Matt in Boston with JJ & Tiffany, the Granger crossover storyline, the drama of Black Window, etc. I still think Florida is flat and ugly, San Francisco is possibly the most European city in the U.S. and that the only legitimate reason to leave CA is financial. When you are uber wealthy, the expense of CA is merely an annoyance. It is the working wealthy and middle classes that get squeezed and are moving to FL, TX, NV and other low tax states.

No, it is based on the presumption that sex with a partner who has had two other partners is less likely to transmit a disease to you than one with 1,000. Are there not objective standards that could be used to judgment call that was not personal, but universal? Infection rates? Many states have laws that criminalize actions that spread communicable diseases, some are HIV/STD specific. Are those laws judgmental, or good public health policy?

I mean a general discussion of morals and judgment is a different topic than the specific one of sexual morality, especially as it relates to promiscuity. You said the world be a better place with less morals and judgment. I disagree, but that is a much broader topic than the question I posed. The point I am making is I am forced to have sex "with a 1,000 people", if you withhold your sexual history from me. The second point is, are people with 1,000+ sexual partners harming society and their own community? Again, we will disagree. I do think someone with 1,000+ partners is doing something bad to society, maybe even evil.

Morals and judgment are a somewhat different topic, but I think we need both. Should it not be wrong (immoral) for someone to slug you? Can we not judge someone who rapes someone? There are many areas where both morals and judgment are appropriate, others not so much. On the specifics of the topic, I suppose if you view sex as something special and involving emotions, vs is it merely something animals do, that is one thing, but the other is the spreading of disease that comes with promiscuous sex. One of the things I remember when I first became sexually active at the height of AIDS was that "when you sleep with someone, you sleep with everyone they've slept with". Logic dictates that the higher number of partners, the higher the risk to health.

I heard a noise and turned toward the door to see Turner, Gillespie, LeBrand, and Danfield standing there, staring at us, their mouths open in shock. You'd think a classy place like Escorial would have locks on the doors..... but how many people in 20 years of CAP have been walked in on having sex? PS not a chance Stanfurd would ever beat Cal in hockey.

So the question is, how many sex partners is "promiscuous"? Is promiscuous even an appropriate word to use, or is it too judgy? Okay, so shoot me I am judgy. I don't really want a partner who has been with more than 1,000 guys (as one of my friends has at age 51). But is 200 guys okay? Is 50 better? AIDS deaths in the U.S. peaked my freshman year of college (1995) so every one was aware of the danger, but as becoming HIV+ became no longer a death sentence, it seemed like so many guys, especially the guys who came after me, didn't take it seriously. I had a lot of older gay friends (20 years older and beyond) when I was 19 and everyone had horror stories about losing friends and partners. But that alone didn't make me averse to casual sex, my own moral beliefs did. I get that that is entirely personal and certainly no one needs to adhere to my hybrid set of morals, but are there any standards of behavior that a community should have?

As always, Matt's hyperactive libido gets him in trouble. He thinks he is having fun, while Cole is falling in love. Just a week ago he was "in love" with Cody, but now he finds it very easy to push Cody out of his mind. It also brings up my general issue with promiscuity at this age (18-30 or so). When you are young, 12-14, it is experimentation, no one is thinking about a life partner, maybe not even sure of orientation; 15-16, orientation is becoming clearer, but it still isn't about partnering as much as it is hormonally charged release. 17-18, but still in high school, it is getting more serious (like with Cam Heely) and your dick gets more attached to your heart. In college, if you go far away from your family, you are thinking more and more about life, what is happening and where you are going. Or at least the introspective, serious people like Danfield are. The wolfs like Matt are fucking anything that stands still long enough for sex and they can't understand the Coles or Danfields of the world who find sex between two people more than a recreational act, but as a bonding of two people. The ones like Matt, who just fuck, leave a trail of broken people behind. I think of one guy I knew when I was about 19. His name was Rich, but my friends and I all called him Wretch. He was probably 23 and when a "new guy" 15-20 showed up in the gay coffee shop we all hung out in, he'd gravitate to them like a moth to a flame. He'd make the poor new guy fall for him by saying all the right things, doing the shy touchings, being all sincere. It was revolting because he used the same lines, same tactics every time. And once he'd closed the deal (fucked them), he was done with them. It was a game to Wretch and about his pleasure. He saw nothing wrong with it, even when we all started to shun him, he thought we were the fucked up ones. I saw him destroy a dozen guys that way, most at the lower end of the 15-20 age range. Matt isn't quite that bad, but he has sex without ever thinking about consequences, and that makes him pretty douchey in my book. PS on a different topic... rimming. I thought that was the grossest, most disgusting thing I'd ever heard when a fraternity brother told me about it my junior year in college. I'd never even really heard of it until then. In the years since then, I haven't found many young guys who were into it. It seems to be a taste/skill acquired later in life.