The Pants Remain Optional

I have a video of my bare ass on my computer. And before anyone gets excited, it’s not porn. It’s worse. It’s a recording of a perfectly respectable professional Zoom meeting, and I’m the host. Apparently, I’m also the entertainment.

Yes, I kept the original. No, you can’t see it. Although, to be fair, if you’d seen the expression on my face when I realized what had happened, you’d probably be more interested in that than my ass.

I should explain something about how I work from home. I frequently don’t wear pants. I wear a shirt, of course, usually something with a collar, and from the waist up I look like any other professional on a video call. Below the desk, however, it’s Donald Duck territory. I like it that way. It’s comfortable, it’s convenient, and after years of working remotely, I honestly can’t think of a compelling reason to put on trousers just to sit in my own office.

Anyway, the meeting had ended, everyone else had disappeared from the screen, and I stood up to grab something from the printer beside my desk. Nothing unusual. Except when I sat back down, I noticed that little red recording indicator was still on.

Oh, fuck.

I checked the video. Sure enough, there I was, standing up with my bare ass on display, wandering off to the printer, and returning to sit down. Coming and going, I’d given the camera a view it had absolutely no business recording. And then came the best part: my face when I realized what I’d done.

Fortunately, I was the host, so I could edit the official recording before anyone else saw it. Nobody needed that particular addition to the meeting minutes. But the original stayed on my hard drive, because apparently I’m the sort of man who likes to preserve evidence against himself.

And no, before you suggest it, I am not going to start wearing pants to Zoom meetings. Absolutely fucking not.

The funny thing is, I’ve been going commando for years, and considering the opportunities I’ve given myself, I’ve had remarkably few problems. Although there was that presentation. Ugh, I’d almost forgotten about that one.

Years ago, I was giving a presentation to the entire staff of an association. I stood at the front of the conference room, walked around, answered questions, and did my usual professional thing. I thought it went rather well, actually. Nobody seemed confused, nobody looked particularly horrified, and I left feeling like I’d done a decent job.

Then I stopped at a fast-food restaurant for lunch, sat down, and felt a draft. A very specific draft. I looked down, and my fly was wide open. Not slightly unzipped. Wide open. And because I’d gone commando that morning, there was nothing behind it. No underwear, no second line of defense. Just skin, hair, and the rapidly diminishing possibility that nobody had noticed.

I zipped up under the table, trying to look casual, which is a ridiculous thing to worry about when you’re sitting alone in a fast-food restaurant. Then I started replaying the morning. Had somebody looked down? Had anyone smiled at an odd moment? Had I been walking around in front of a room full of people with my penis making an occasional guest appearance?

The worst part was that I didn’t know when the zipper had come open. It might have happened just before lunch. Or I might have spent an entire morning giving a professional presentation while inadvertently showing people something considerably less professional. I couldn’t exactly go back and ask. “By the way, did anybody happen to see my dick during the presentation?” Not a conversation I was eager to initiate.

Nobody ever mentioned it, which means I still don’t know. And I hate to admit how much time I spent wondering about it afterward.

That wasn’t the only time my body went off script in front of an audience.

I remember being on the 7:40 subway in New York one morning, packed in with everybody else, wearing khakis and carrying a backpack strapped across my front. And for no reason whatsoever, I got hard. Fully hard. I wasn’t looking at anyone, wasn’t thinking about sex, wasn’t even particularly awake yet. My penis apparently had its own plans for the morning.

Now, if you’ve ever had an unexpected erection in public, you know there’s a moment when you realize you’re going to have to do something about it, except there’s absolutely nothing useful you can do. You can’t exactly announce that you’re having a minor anatomical emergency and ask everyone to look away.

So I spent eleven minutes adjusting my backpack. I pulled it tight against me, and it covered the erection, but then I looked like I was hugging the damn thing. Turn toward the door, and the woman standing near the pole might get a side view. Turn the other way, and somebody else might notice. I was practically doing geometry in my head, all while trying to look like an ordinary commuter.

Eventually, it started going down. Not completely, of course. Just enough to leave me with a chubby, which can be nearly as inconvenient when you’re wearing khakis. And because I tend to produce precum when I’m hard, I had the added worry of whether I was going to end up with a damp spot on the front of my pants.

Fortunately, I was wearing underwear that morning. Thank goodness for small favors.

Nobody said a word. I got off the train, walked away, and spent the next several minutes convinced that half the car had been watching the whole thing. They probably hadn’t. They were New Yorkers on their way to work. I doubt a man clutching his backpack was the most interesting thing they’d seen that morning.

The damp-spot worry wasn’t entirely imaginary, by the way. I’ve had that happen too, although not from an erection.

You know how sometimes you finish peeing, shake, tuck everything away, and then forty seconds later a few more drops decide to make an appearance? Well, I once discovered several of those drops on my dark blue jeans while looking at my reflection in the office microwave door. Nine fifteen in the morning. An entire workday ahead of me, and there I was trying to figure out whether I could get away with walking around with my shirt untucked for the next five hours. I caught a couple of people glancing down, or at least I thought I did. By two o’clock everything had dried, which meant I’d spent most of the day guarding state secrets that had quietly declassified themselves sometime around lunch.

I’m beginning to realize how many of my embarrassing memories involve my crotch. I promise I do occasionally embarrass myself using other parts of my body. My hands, for example. Although that particular incident started with my eyes.

I was at a gay bar one Friday night when I spotted this really attractive younger guy sitting at the bar. A fitted black shirt, little tufts of chest hair showing at the collar, wonderfully hairy forearms, and a package that was hard not to notice in his tight jeans. I like hairy, younger men, and this fellow was checking all the boxes. And he was sitting in a gay bar, so naturally, I figured the odds were reasonably good.

I offered to buy him a drink. He accepted, and we started talking. Nice guy. Funny, friendly, easy to talk to, gorgeous bright green eyes. I was enjoying myself and, if I’m being honest, feeling pretty good about how things were going. At one point, I even reached over and ran a finger along his fuzzy forearm. I don’t normally touch strangers like that, but I’d already decided we were getting along like a champ.

Then he mentioned his girlfriend was in the bathroom, and how much she loved the place.

Well, shit.

I think I said, “Cool, cool.” Brilliant response, Tony. Really impressive work!

I finished my drink in what felt like a single gulp and made my way to the other end of the bar, where I could quietly reconsider every decision I’d made over the previous fifteen minutes. And the thing is, he was so damn nice about it. He didn’t pull away when I touched his arm, and he didn’t make me feel like some creepy old guy who’d gotten the wrong idea, even though I’d been flirting with him, and not particularly subtly. That almost made it worse. If he’d been an asshole, at least I could have walked away feeling justified. Instead, he was a gentleman, and I felt like an idiot.

Then his girlfriend came back and a moment later shot me a friendly little wave. Naturally, I assumed he’d told her everything. Maybe he had. Maybe she was just being friendly. Either way, I suddenly took a deep interest in where the exit sign was.

Here’s the part that probably says something about me. I’d do it again. Not necessarily the forearm stroking, although I make no promises. But I’d absolutely buy him a drink again. He was attractive, I was interested, and I took a chance. The odds were still pretty good. I just happened to lose that particular bet.

And honestly, I laugh harder about that encounter now than I do about most of the others. I managed to turn a friendly drink with a handsome man into a minor personal catastrophe, entirely inside my own head.

I wonder how many of these things anybody else even remembers. That guy at the bar probably forgot about me by dinner time. The people on the subway were likely thinking about getting to work. And I have absolutely no idea whether anyone at that presentation saw a damn thing. Meanwhile, I’ve been carrying these memories around for years, occasionally pulling one out and laughing at myself all over again.

The Zoom recording is different, of course. There’s no wondering what happened. I have the evidence, including that magnificent expression of horror on my face when I realized I’d just given my high-definition camera an unexpected tour of my bare ass (and then some).

I watched the original again after editing the official version. I couldn’t help myself. And I laughed. Really laughed. Because there I was, a grown man in a respectable collared shirt and nothing else, mortified by footage of his own ass.

You’d think that might have inspired some changes in my remote-work wardrobe. It has not.

I do pay considerably more attention to that little red recording indicator, though. Apparently, that’s the lesson I’m willing to learn.

The pants remain optional.

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