recreation

Anonymous Sex + Endless Lube: Welcome to the World of Gay Sex Clubs

clubpeek

I sat fireside with a portly, rosy cheeked man puffing a stogie while he regaled me with stories of yesteryore. We might have been models for Norman Rockwell but instead of a den in a small New England snowcapped cottage, we were just two of the many men at one of the west coast’s most hardcore gay sex clubs.

Slings, glory holes, jock straps, assless chaps–it’s all about easy access here unless you’re trying to talk to management. Due to the nature of their business, staff members of sex clubs are rarely willing to speak on the record. Most of these clubs were illegal operations in past lives, so there remains a nostalgic reticence to do anything in the public eye. Not to mention, the confidentiality of their customers is paramount to their prosperity. Although this Southern California club is legal, I have changed names to protect the anonymity of staff and patrons. This club is so legal, in fact, that the building it’s in was selected with the help of members of the Vice Squad and Building Safety Enforcement. Regulations for a legal “encounter establishment” include certain proximity from schools and residences.

With a Plexiglas partition between us, I told the cashier I was there to see Glen, the longtime manager of the club, who is a friend of a friend. “In the microphone,” the cashier gruffly ordered me. Crouching down I spoke carefully into the microphone, “Is Glen around,” I asked, tempted to order fries with that. “I’m Glen,” grumbled a burly man as he emerged from darkness. “I’m a friend of Rob’s from the bar next door,” I explained. “He said I might be able to talk to you about…” Glen interrupted me. “Step to the side,” he said looking annoyed. Speaking into my second microphone of the evening (“We’ve got a spill in Sling Two, spill in Sling Two,” I imagined), I carefully stated my intentions for seeking him out. To my surprise, he invited me right in. We sat on the patio, by a blazing fire pit, while other patrons refueled before their romp. Endurance, I would learn, is crucial.

As one might expect, the advent of Internet cruising has negatively affected revenues at encounter establishments over the past 15 years. In Southern California, Internet cruising for sex began with DELOS, a BBS (bulletin board system), and progressed like everywhere else to AOL chat rooms and now hook-up sites. So why pay a 15 or 20 dollar entry fee when you can get it for free on Craigslist? “The Internet,” Glen says ominously, “is dangerous. We give condoms and lube. We promote safe sex. We have on-site HIV testing. Online you could meet an axe murderer. We get people out of the parks, out of the alleys, and out of the restrooms. We give them a safe place to come.” Hooray for double entendres.

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After working in the sex club industry for almost 15 years, the way Glen views sex has changed. “I’ve become jaded,” he explains. I look at porn now and it’s like watching Oprah. There’s no stimulation.” Porn isn’t the only thing playing on the TVs, though. “We have HBO on by the coffee machine,” Glen boasts, explaining that there are regular patrons who come not for sex, but for what he refers to as the “congeniality” of the place. Suddenly I’m no longer at a sex club; I’m at Cheers. “Maybe they’re sober and they don’t want to go to a bar so they come here for eight or nine hours and sit and drink coffee and watch movies.” Glen says this cheerfully while I die a little inside for these guys. Keep in mind there are no comfy couches; there is no WiFi, Frank Sinatra albums for sale, or non-fat half-caf lattes. There is a hard black bench and Sanka in Styrofoam cups. I don’t know about you but if I pay a fifteen dollar entry fee, I’m gonna ejaculate somewhere.

But are these places really just about sex? Or is that–in between the scents of bleach and sweat–love in the air I smell? Glen gives me an emphatic, “Oh yes. I, for one, am an example of that and I know many people who met in sex clubs who have gone on to meaningful relationships.” Glen met his partner of fourteen years in the previous unlawful incarnation of this same sex club. Sounding a little like Mae West, he sassily recounts their meeting: “I was working behind the counter and he said you’re a little big in the hips but you’ll do. Then he hit me in the head with his head.” To clarify, his beau head-butted him and the rest is history.

I don’t get it, either.

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Glen sings the praises of sex club love. “Here you can connect instantly, you know if you’re compatible right away.” If by “compatible” he means establishing who is a top and who is a bottom, okay, but I think Glen and I have different ideas of what it means to connect with someone. There is a saying: If you think you want to fuck someone, just talk to them and you probably won’t want to fuck them anymore. People don’t talk much in sex clubs.

And Glen doesn’t like the ones that do. “That really pisses me off, the ones that come here in groups and chit chat in the back.” By the back, he means the place where the majority of the sex goes on. No chit chat in the back. No heavy cologne. No jacket and tie. This club is about hardcore, blue-collar, John Goodman-in-Roseanne masculinity. Stinky armpits and musky balls.

Men in drag are not allowed entry.

Glen explains: “I tell them we have a dress code. I do let one guy wear heels here because he’s a longtime customer. And he has a muscular body. He likes to wear high heels and daisy dukes. He rides a motorcycle here.” What about an F-to-M trans patron, I ask, fully expecting a transphobic response. “I had one last night,” Glen says as if talking about a Snickers bar. “He’s very muscular, covered in tattoos, looks like a man. We take it on a case by case basis.” One thing is for sure: women are never admitted; even the HIV-counselors have to be men. In a gay sex club, Glen informs me, “Women are dick killers.” Truer words …

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Perhaps Glen’s favorite aspect of the sex club experience is the absence of class — which is interesting, given he grew up in a wealthy Manhattan suburb. “You don’t know if the guy you’re sucking off is driving a Bentley or a Pinto. Everyone is pared down. There’s no stigma.”

Except when you leave the club, perhaps. While he seems very proud of what he does, when it comes to whom he reveals his occupation, he picks and chooses. “I tell everyone I work in a gay club but I don’t tell everyone it’s a sex club.” He insists it’s not about the shame of working here, but more about “keeping people calm, not giving them a bad view of gay life.” I ask Glen if there is such a thing as too much sex. “I don’t know,” he says, stumped. “I think there are definitely sex addicts who come here, people I see every night, but it’s not my place to judge them or turn them away.” Glen has had patrons request that he deny them admission to the club but he refuses.

The issue of HIV is always delicate and the minute I utter the acronym, Glen interrupts me with something he’s clearly said before. “I think everybody who comes to a club like this should assume everybody else is HIV-positive and if they don’t play that way then they’re foolish. I don’t want anyone getting sick on my watch but it’s their choice.” Patrons are required to sign a waiver saying they will only engage in safe sex but that’s simply not enforceable. At a meeting with owners of encounter establishments, a high ranking California official suggested that in an effort to reduce HIV transmission, HIV-positive patrons wear pink ribbons inside the club to identify themselves. “That’s like going back to the days of Hitler,” Glen says angrily.

After our conversation, Glen invites me to “stay and play” at the club. I am flattered and, like any good Jew, lured by the offer of something for nothing. I walked around the dark corridors, men’s stares piercing me, speaking the not-so-secret language of cruising. I wish this place was more like Cheers where everybody knows your name. I’d like to walk in and smell the rich mahogany of an old-time bar instead of the noxious fumes of industrial strength floor cleaner, poppers, and lube. Cheers had a little more character. And in his prime, I might have followed Ted Danson into a glory hole.

This piece from Matt Siegel, a Queerty contributor, was originally published on Advocate.com, but you might have recently read how those two parties aren’t exactly speaking these days, and the item was removed. Tune in for never-published Part 2, tomorrow.

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