Spring is known as the season for love for good reason. Everything around us is thawing out and firing up, including our moods thanks to a springtime burst of dopamine scientists say often sets the stage for romance. But for every couple that begins a five-alarm love affair in the spring, experts say there are many more that find themselves in dry dock.

Call it libido gap, a dead bedroom, or the more clinical term “sexual desire discrepancy.” By any name, the shortfall between how much physical intimacy two partners want is one of the biggest sources of tension in relationships.

“It’s a lot more common than most people will discuss,” says Machel Hunt, an Atlanta psychosexual therapist and one of two experts who spoke to The Reckoning about getting back that lovin’ feelin’.

The cause of a libido gap can be physical, such as hormone imbalances or other conditions that lower desire. Other times the cause is mental, including stress and a history of subtle sexual trauma experts say can be particularly common among gay men.

These men are taking their pleasure into their own hands.

While this reality may not be revolutionary, especially considering the data from one study that suggests 92% of American men masturbate, these three Black gay men are doing two things the majority of the population refuse to do—they’re talking openly about their masturbatory practices, with two of the three men exclusively identifying as solosexual—individuals who prefer masturbation (or “bating” as it’s commonly called) over other forms of sexual activity. For these men, and perhaps, many more like them, getting off solo is not a substitution for “the real thing,” their sex lives are real and so are the mind-blowing orgasms they experience multiple times a day.

Passionate, sweaty, even reckless—the unbridled spontaneity of sex can be one of the things that makes it so damned fun. Now imagine that every sudden urge required a lengthy pause while you search for a bulky, hard-to-wear sexual aid that just might fall off mid-stroke.

It’s a mood killer, to say the least.

Yet for countless men and women whose sex lives revolve around so-called strap ons - artificial penises that attach to the body using a strappy harness - it’s a uniquely bitter pill they’ve learned to swallow.

Glenise Kinard-Moore aims to do something about it, turning a cocktail-napkin idea into a potential sex game-changer for LGBTQ+ people and the disabled alike.

I expected it to be really painful the first time I got fucked.

I was 20 years old. I had placed nothing bigger than my finger inside. Before this initiation, I enjoyed getting and giving head and frottage, but no penetration whatsoever. It was a college friend who did the honors. I was not only infatuated with him. I trusted him. I was so relaxed throughout it all that it stumped him. “You sure you haven't done this before?” I told him I really liked it and that I looked forward to getting better at it. Lighting a second post-sex Newport, he advised, “Well if you do that with someone, make sure you get yours back.”

Forget Gun Oil, Wet, or Vaseline—few substances lubricate relations between Black gay men as frequently as marijuana. Online interactions are as likely to begin with an invitation to “match”—where each party supplies a blunt to be shared—as with a greeting or compliment.

“I think smoking weed is probably the best icebreaker,” says Legend Richardson, 33, who began smoking when he was 15 and now consumes marijuana daily. “Ultimately, a 420-friendly hook-up is the best.”

There’s a three-day period in Lovell Lykaon’s life where he has no recollection of the events that transpired that caused him to be admitted into the hospital as a non-disabled person, only to leave with all of his limbs amputated. The 27-year-old Atlanta native, graphic designer, musician, and adult entertainer tells The Reckoning that his usual stroll in the park during the fall of 2019 turned out to be the beginning of a dramatic shift in his life within a matter of days.