the good old days in NYC...

[+ Tom Isern]

--- In dock9@yahoogroups.com, "Mr. T a/k/a JD" <trashmagazine@...>

wrote:

>

> << One of the readers of TRASH Magazine lamented that

> he'd lived in Manhattan for over 50 years and there

> was action to be had almost anywhere, at any time, and

> that (as of his writing in 1997) Manhattan was as

> lack-luster as Cornhole, Kansas. Everything gay was

> gone, or had turned into drug haunts and "dancing

> queens" lounges. This is a preface from one of my

> one-handed books (described below. >>>>

>

> The love that previously dared not speak its name has

> now grown hoarse from screaming.

> — Robert Brustein

>

> This is the preface from ARDMORE STSTION, a book

> about action at a Victorian style railroad station at

> Ardmore, PA, a town on the "main-line"outside of

> Philadelphia back in the 50a when such places still

> existed. Yes, there were places like Ardmore Station

> and many hundred others just like it all over the U.

> S. A. Railroad stations, bus stations (Greyhound

> Stations were temples of Men's Room Sex) park johns

> and places too numerous to mention. Way back before

> Gay Liberation liberated gays from free, abundant

> cruising places by educating the entire public about

> these underground pleasures, men of all ages and

> persuasions found men's room just the place to go for

> a quickie. GONE ARE THE DAYS! It would seem that

> there are Liberals and Conservatives who decide what

> you may or may not have in your personal life.

> Liberals will allow anything as long as the government

> can control it and tax it. Conservatives will not

> allow you to have anything that might be enjoyable.

> One readers of T*R*A*S*H* Magazine and the

> one-handed Books sent a list of places that he grew up

> on during life in New York City and all are long gone.

> One can imagine that readers of this book can fondly

> remember many places like this in the large cities

> they grew up in or lived in years ago. Below is the

> NYC Roster:

>

> When I was young and humpy, I could:

> * Cruise hundreds of men's rooms in the NYC subway

> system, some of which were veritable 24-hour orgy

> scenes.

> * Go to the Everardt, the Mecca of gay promiscosex in

> NYC, and fuck an assistant conductor who had just led

> a matinee at the NYC Opera.

> * Get felt up in standing room at the old Metropolitan

> Opera House, and maybe stumble on an orgy scene

> elsewhere in the old building

> * Cruise the johns at NYU downtown. Four was

> especially good. Nonstop, nonstop.

> * For a cheap quickie, there was the Penn Post Hotel,

> a sleaze stop near Penn Station.

> * Play footsie in the men's room at Grand Central

> Station, or join the Busby Berkeley line of pecker

> checkers at the long line of urinals.

> * Cruise the balcony and men's rooms of any number of

> Times Square grind houses.

> * Go to the old St. Marks Baths and get it on with a

> "straight" Russian who had wandered upstairs from the

> lower floors.

> * Walk along Third Avenue between 50th and 64th

> streets and have my choice of sex partner.

> * Sell my ass or buy one on the entire block bounded

> by 53rd, 54th, Third and Second Aves.

> * Sit on a bench on Central Park West between 68th and

> 79th Streets and get picked up by a passerby or a

> cruising auto from New Jersey. I once picked up a guy

> who proved, by his mastery of the particulars of my

> family, that he had done my father and two of my

> uncles.

> * It was on CPW (Central Park West) that I learned how

> much Marines like to be fucked.

> * Screw my courage to the sticking point and make out

> in the bushes in the Rambles in Central Park.

> * Walk the paths of Riverside Park near the Soldiers &

> Sailors Monument to pick up a West Sider.

> * Visit the Metropolitan grind house on 14th St., the

> Variety Photoplays or the Venus if I was in the mood

> for absolute sleaze.

> * Hang out in the bushes of Carl Schurz Park near

> Gracie Mansion for some Upper East Side schwantz and

> tush.

> * Go, in more recent years, to the David Cinema on

> 54th St., the most democratic gay movie scene that

> ever was. I once did a Chassid with payes and tzitzes

> there.

> * Very recently, I could go to the Montauk Theatre in

> Passaic NJ, the last of old fashioned homosex movie

> palaces (recently raided and now crawling with the sex

> police).

> * When I was more middle-aged, there were the trucks

> near the West Side Highway and the abandoned piers at

> the foot of Christopher Street.

> * If I was in the mood for a danger trip, there were

> the scenes under the pedestrian bridge arches along

> the river walkway paralleling the East River Drive. I

> once did Robert Wagner III at one of these.

> * If I was near Macy's, there was the infamous men's

> room at the Martinique Hotel.

> * For more upscale trade, there were the men's rooms

> at Altmans and Bloomingdales.

> * If I was in the Village, there was the Meat Rack

> along the western edge of Washington Square Park.

> * If I was near 42nd and Fifth at night, there was a

> constant scene in Bryant Park behind the bushes near

> the rear wall of the library.

> * You could do an Italian construction worker in the

> water level men's room of a Staten Island Ferry.

> * In Coney Island, there was Stauch's Baths, where the

> Jewish pinochle players would wander back into the

> lockers to be sucked off by a faygale.

> * Under the boardwalk at Coney Island! (Today you

> can't get under the boardwalk.)

> * Way back, when I was jail bait, there were the old

> fashioned subway cars where things went on in the

> separate entrance alcoves (if you were never in one of

> these things, it's hard to describe)

> * Once upon a time, I could make a day of the Adult

> Fair in Queens, the best damned gay/bi movie house

> scene this city has ever seen. I once saw an

> eighteen-year-old cutie pie take 50 guys up his ass in

> an afternoon.

> * The Saint!

> * The Mine Shaft!

> * Kelly's Bar across the street from the Times Square

> area USO where sailors, marines and Gis in uniform

> could be had by the dozens. (this bar is the basis for

> Lefty's Starfish Lounge in the Coney Island Knights

> one-handed book.

> * Backrooms, backrooms, backrooms, backrooms.

> * All gone. All gone. All gone — Next month is the

> 30th anniversary of Stonewall. This is gay

> liberation?

> A young visitor once was given the tour of the City

> and I'm sure when the former hot spots were pointed

> out he really never believed that they existed. Free

> hangouts? Free hot spots? Cruising areas that were

> low key but very rewarding? Subway toilets that were

> active? It was all too unbelievable for the visitor

> and a few others who have recently paid a visit to

> Trash Interplanetary Headquarters.

> Like the writer of the above former hot spots asks:

> "The 30th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots is here

> and this is gay liberation?

> Well, my favorite comment on gay liberation was by

> Richard Locke, the porn star in a letter to Don

> "DOMINO" Merrick: "The sexual revolution came and sex

> lost."

> So-called gay liberation came, the frivolous

> faggots thought it was a rite to fuck on the lawn of

> city Hall at high noon and as a result gay life took a

> dismal downturn. All the secret pastimes of the gays

> in the know suddenly became plots for TV sit coms, and

> how can you have an underground culture when it's

> thrown in the face of the general population just to

> aggravate them?

> "Where are all these happy cruising spots?" the

> bored young gays ask?

> Answer: "The irresponsible, fanatical, extremist

> Gay Libbers stole it from you."

>

> UP DATE: The love that previously dared not speak its

> name has now grown hoarse from screaming. The

> screaming has frightened away the curious men who

> secretly wanted to experience the "forbidden" love.

> — Mister T, Editor, T*R*A*S*H* MAGAZINE.

>

[+ Charlie]

That's the first reference I've seen to Kelly's Bar on 45th St in almost half a century (but no mention of the Fawn or the Cherry Lane?).

[RockHard]

RE: the good old days in NYC...(tell that to the dead)

 

"> * The Saint!

> * The Mine Shaft!

> * Backrooms, backrooms, backrooms, backrooms.

> * All gone. All gone. All gone — Next month is the

> 30th anniversary of Stonewall. This is gay

> liberation?"

 

Maybe some gay men think disease and death is liberating. I guess it depends on how miserable you are. I no longer have friends who choose to seek happiness by having sex, sex, and more sex. They all died. (I wonder if this is the wrong venue for such serious contemplation.)

 

I don't feel less liberated because venues promoting the disease-filled underbelly of a certain gay subculture are gone. In fact, I feel more liberated because gay men have acquired more self-respect and are fighting hatred in a more productive way. For the first time in my life the words marriage and gay are appearing in the same sentence more often than ever before. And gay adoptions have never been greater in number and keep growing.

 

Loving and respecting oneself is the ONLY road to true liberation. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors.

[+ Tom Isern]

RE: the good old days in NYC...(tell that to the dead)

 

Eros and Thanatos, baby. Two separate drives. It must be tough when you get the two all confused and they blur together and sex starts to equal death. To be so encumbered with such self-hatred, internalized homophobia, and sex-negativity must be tough. No wonder you spend your time obsessing about what kind of underwear to buy and how to impress your friends (and even the strangers on this board) with your bank balance—fetishes are all you have left.

[Rick Munroe]

> "Where are all these happy cruising spots?" the

> bored young gays ask?

> Answer: "The irresponsible, fanatical, extremist

> Gay Libbers stole it from you."

 

Better answer: As we've discussed here before, the internet changed everything (escorting, cruising, etc) and once it became easy to get sex online, that's where everyone moved...

 

But it sure was fun reading about the glory days.

[RockHard]

RE: the good old days in NYC...(tell that to the dead)

 

Well, I didn't think my post was rude or a personal attack in any way. The quotes weren't yours and I merely responded to some stand out lines.

 

But, in true form, Tom, you delivered a response I've come to expect. I'll let the readers judge who's more miserable.

 

Enjoy your trip down memory lane, dear.

[Lookin]

RE: the good old days in NYC... - and elsewhere

 

I hit puberty in the mid-50’s and made my debut in the train station rest room thirty miles up the line from the Ardmore station. I’d park my bike a block away, and make sure no one saw me go in. On one of the marble slabs separating the stalls, someone had drawn a lovingly shaded picture of a fat twelve-inch dick, with smooth balls the size of lemons. It’s the one I've been looking for ever since. They hadn’t heard of glory holes in my small town, but there was plenty of room under the partitions to get personal.

 

I wasn’t really thinking about disease, death and destruction in those days. A good blow job was the only thing on my mind. And, at the time, there was no such thing as a bad blow job. (That hasn’t changed too much over the years. ;-))

 

There was a real sense of being underground, of sharing something that no one else knew about. We were part of a secret club, and we were connected as no one else was. It added a kind of excitement that I haven’t felt in the post-Stonewall days.

 

As much as I appreciate the liberation we enjoy today, I’m glad for my closeted experiences fifty years ago. If we ever go back underground, I’ll know just what to do.

 

Thanks for posting this, Tom.

[Guest carter07]

RE: the good old days in NYC...(tell that to the dead)

 

As someone who came of age in the early 1950s and has been in the closet since, I side with Rockhard on this one. We grew up closeted and ignorant in the Midwest. We're also still alive. And I agree, too, that it's the Internet that brought the current sense of liberation.

[Rick Munroe]

RE: the good old days in NYC... - and elsewhere

 

That was a sweet flashback, Lookin; thanks for sharing. And I must say you are really lucky if you have never had a bad blow job! :o

[Houston Bonfires]

RE: the good old days in NYC...(tell that to the dead)

 

Dear Miserable Self-hating Fearful Rockhead

 

HB

[+ Tom Isern]

I'm intrigued by this notion that the internet has helped with liberation, because I think it's a mixed bag.

 

For example, several years ago, before I had a boyfriend, before I started escorting, and when I had time for casual and extra-curricular sex, I went to a sex party at a friend's apartment. I met and played with a guy and the sex was over the top hot; I loved every minute of it. He gave me both his phone number and his online screenname, which I looked up as soon as I got home.

 

His profile said he was an exclusive top—not my thing. (Nor was it the way things worked out between us as the party—his ass got a thorough working over.) I didn't think his profile pics were at all attractive. If I'd seen him on the internet first, I wouldn't have given his profile more than a passing glance. Yet I had an incredible time with this guy.

 

It seems to me that the internet is good for getting information out, and it has allowed gay men in the closet to access it easily and discreetly. My boyfriend and I met on Manhunt 4 years ago. As for sex, though, it seems it has commoditized things—guys can sit at home and “order up” what they think they want, what they see on the screen, choosing between hundreds of available options. In all of that sitting in front of the screen, something of the spontaneous, something related to fun and growth and learning from the unpredictable, unknown, more experienced, different, and “other” is lost. We look for what we know, what we’ve found hot in the past, what we’ve experienced, what is safe. We avoid risk and vulnerability and openness and in the process diminish ourselves and our futures. We can become narrow and afraid.

 

Anybody else have any stories of things they learned or experienced in the good old days when sex was fun and free and everywhere?

 

Oh...and by the way...I moved to New York in 95, just as all of this was passing into history. I went to the piers once, in 93, on a visit before moving here, and loved it. I went to the Eros once. But I know about these things by reading "Times Square Red, Times Square Blue" and other books like it.

 

It's important to remember that people died because of a disease nobody knew how to control, not because they were having fun having sex. Sex does not equal death.

[Guest zipperzone]

I'm surprised that the original article didn't mention one of the more popular sex scenes....... THE TOILET (at least I don't think it did although I might have missed it in that long list)

 

It was just around the corner from the Mineshaft, if memory recalls.

[trilingual]

RE: the good old days in NYC... - and elsewhere

 

Sex, even anonymous sex in the places described does NOT equal death. I was in college in NY during the late 60s, when almost all of the places mentioned were still going and I frequented many of them. I still have hot flashbacks of memorable encounters from those long-ago days! }( And just to be clear, I partook of the available sex generously and I'm still HIV-negative.

 

Like many of us, I lost an entire generation of friends to AIDS. However, they didn't get AIDS because they were trashy or promiscuous. They got it because nobody knew about it. My friends weren't suicidal -- if they'd had the slightest idea that there was a deadly risk they would have changed their behavior. But until the first AIDS cases began showing up the worst consequences of a sexually active lifestyle, as far as any of us knew, were some easily treated STDs or the more serious risk of hepatitis.

 

My friends were a good-looking crowd; most of them had no problems finding partners and it was easy for them to have multiple encounters in a single evening. By the time anyone had an inkling about HIV, most of them had probably been exposed, unknowingly. The only reason I escaped, I think, is that I was not a stunning beauty (I was just ordinarily cute) so it wasn't as easy for me to find partners, and my predilection is for oral sex, which turns out to be a remarkably safe activity. Just luck, as it happens. But I deeply resent the implication that my friends (or anyone else) somehow deserved to die because they were enjoying all that gay life in the 70s had to offer, or that they were somehow depraved and deranged. That doesn't describe anyone I knew. As I said, none of my friends were stupid or suicidal, and they would have played safely if they had known there was any risk. Many of them had changed their sexual behavior to avoid catching hepatitis. By the time anyone knew about AIDS, though, it was too late. They were already exposed.

 

And that's what REALLY was happening in the years before anyone had a clue about HIV.

[uwsman2]

RE: the good old days in NYC... - and elsewhere

 

I think there is some selective memory going on here... And that's perfectly normal. I was coming out in the mid-1970s, and I distinctly remember that all kinds of health problems were circulating through the more sexually-active corners of the gay male community years before AIDS began to surface. Hepatitis was just the tip of the iceberg (and it's not always easily treated - I knew people who died from certain virulent strains of hepatitis). But there were all kinds of strange tropical intestinal diseases that were becoming endemic in the community, coincident with the emergence of rimming as a favorite passtime in some circles. I remember articles in the gay press bemoaning the terrible side effects of flagyl, a purgative medicine being given to men suffering from the notorious "gay bowel syndrome" that was generally associated with free-wheeling bathhouse and Fire Island dunes sex.

 

So to say that AIDS emerged in a totally unsuspecting community unaware that free-wheeling unprotected sex might have serious health consequences is revisionist history.

 

On the other hand, it is certainly true that AIDS was far worse than any of these other conditions, for which there were treatments. A fatal illness of unknown origin was not anticipated by the general gay male public at all, although certain public health officials, looking at the statistics from STD clinics, were indeed sounding the alarm in professional circles, and the prescient Larry Kramer was sounding the alarm in his widely-resented novel, Faggots. Just go back and read that, and notice the copyright date!

 

I'm not writing this to suggest that folks who contracted HIV infection "got what they deserved" - but just to suggest that we were not all such innocents. When I was tested for the first time, in around 1987, and came up negative, I was totally astonished, having assumed that I would be positive since I used to go to the baths in the late 1970s and have unprotected sex with total strangers in dark places.... (Yes, those were the days....) Coming up negative was all luck. Of course, I stopped having unprotected sex as soon as the newspapers started saying that AIDS was sexually transmitted, and so here I sit decades after AIDS began, still negative as of the last testing... but I'm not negative because of any moral superiority to those we became infected.

[BgMstr4u]

"As for sex, though, it seems it has commoditized things—guys can sit at home and “order up” what they think they want, what they see on the screen, choosing between hundreds of available options. In all of that sitting in front of the screen, something of the spontaneous, something related to fun and growth and learning from the unpredictable, unknown, more experienced, different, and “other” is lost. We look for what we know, what we’ve found hot in the past, what we’ve experienced, what is safe. We avoid risk and vulnerability and openness and in the process diminish ourselves and our futures. We can become narrow and afraid."

 

Great point, Tom!

[RockHard]

"We grew up closeted and ignorant in the Midwest. We're also still alive."

You'll never hear me say that ignorance is bliss but if it keeps you healthy, who can argue with that? You'll also never hear me encourage anyone to stay in the closet but I recognize there might be legitimate need and I respect a person's decision to remain silent.

 

"Sex, even anonymous sex in the places described does NOT equal death."

Maybe I missed a thread but nobody wrote, "sex equals death." And I don't believe it was ever implied (until you read Tom Isern's posts).

 

One of ACT UP's most famous slogans in 1987 was SILENCE=DEATH. It's always good to remind young, gay men that millions of people have died from unprotected sex in the last 20 years, because, it is a fact, sex can kill you.

 

"and so here I sit decades after AIDS began, still negative as of the last testing... but I'm not negative because of any moral superiority to those who became infected."

Moral responsibility is a far more interesting subject to me than moral superiority. I can't stomach Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell but I feel every gay man has a moral responsibility to himself and the men he loves.

 

Any sexually-active gay man, currently in his 40's and who remains negative, has already asked himself, why me? I think it's safe to say most of us are lucky because, chances are, we often behaved without knowledge and forethought, and let's face it, risk and the unknown can be a fervent aphrodisiac, fueling the erotic potency of any sexual encounter.

 

I find Tom Isern's nostalgia-longing posts somber. I just don't miss seedy sex and all those easy temptations that fueled the death of so many fun and loving friends. Frankly, I'm glad these places no longer exist. I feel better that the younger gay men in my life, whom I love as friends, have a more challenging time finding and executing anonymous sex. Of course, the gay men who live for ten orgasms a day, without speaking one word, won't stop for anything. I guess ManHunt is the solution for them.

 

I also find nostalgia-lovers sullen and morose. It's been challenging in the age of Bush, but I don't see yesterday as better than tomorrow because I love how I feel right now. Of course, if I suddenly fall ill or lose my eyesight and my dick ceases to rise again, my enjoyment of the "right now" could change. We all face these fears and prospects as we grow older. Let's see how I feel next week. :-)

[trilingual]

Wait till you're older and then tell us if nostalgia lovers are sullen and morose. We all have memories we cherish. Some of them are about hot sexual encounters. And it would be helpful if you were less judgmental about those who died from AIDS. You attribute their deaths to their lifestyles and disapprove of them. But they didn't get AIDS because of their lifestyles. They got it because they had unprotected sex at a time when nobody knew there was a lethal virus in our midst. As I recall, it was only in '82 or '83 that the first news articles about a "gay cancer" appeared in the press, and I remember the stir it caused in the San Francisco gay community (where I lived) because many of the cases were there. Once the means of transmission became clearer, it didn't take long for most gay men to start using condoms and having safer sex. But for many it was already too late, and there were few treatment alternatives available for those who developed AIDS in the early years of the epidemic.

 

BTW, the hepatitis threat was pretty well known by the end of the 70s, at least in San Francisco, and men were already changing their behavior because of it. But by then many had already been infected with HIV, as well. I don't think my memory is selective about this -- having lived through the worst of the epidemic and losing so many friends, the memories are remarkably vivid. The vast majority of my friends who died were infected long before anyone had an inkling that HIV existed and was spreading among us. And the risk then and today has nothing to do with the number of partners you have or where you choose to have sex. The risk is in what you do and how you do it with your partners. All it takes to catch HIV is one unprotected encounter. So even the "non-trashy" are at risk if they don't practice safe sex all the time. It's as simple as that.

[RockHard]

RE: Passing false judgments.

 

"Wait till you're older and then tell us if nostalgia lovers are sullen and morose."

Being nostalgic for energetic younger years is not the same thing as missing anonymous, unsafe action in bar backrooms and/or sucking cum from overly-fucked assoles at the Mine Shaft. I've seen what gay men do to themselves, and I have no yearnings to see history repeat itself.

 

"And it would be helpful if you were less judgmental about those who died from AIDS. You attribute their deaths to their lifestyles and disapprove of them."

 

This is absolutely a false characterization and I resent it. I have no clue how you arrived at your opinion. If you're a true gentleman, you'll apologize.

 

If you read my first post on this thread carefully, you will easily see my post refers to someone's view of "gay liberation." And I believe my reverence and respect for those who have died is quite evident.

 

How can those of us who lost ALL our friends to AIDS honestly revel in Tom Isern's "good old days" references? I can't, and this is how I show my respect for those who died.

[Houston Bonfires]

RE: Passing false judgments.

 

Dear Miserable Self-hating Fearful Rockhead

 

HB

[RockHard]

RE: Passing false judgments.

 

Quoting myself:

 

"Cynical people are that way for a reason and the reason has nothing to do with me. The same is true for the pessimists, the conspiracy theorists, and the folks who cling to negativity. They're all incredibly uninteresting and I pity them."

 

Rude assholes tend to be rude assholes forever. Nothing I say will ever change that.

[+ Charlie]

The Toilet was on the SW corner of 14th St and 9th Ave, and the Mineshaft was on the corner of Washington and Little W. 12th Sts.

[+ Charlie]

RE: the good old days in NYC... - and elsewhere

 

Anyone with more than a superficial familiarity with history and literature knows that sexual promiscuity has always been associated with STDs. Boswell's 18th century private journals are filled with many days spent trying to recover from bouts of gonorrhea. Many famous 19th century figures suffered from syphilis, which often led to a slow, painful physical disintegration. Even though such diseases were usually not curable before modern 20th century medicine, it didn't stop men from pursuing sexual pleasure.

 

I agree that the suggestion that AIDS was a health shock which came out of nowhere is selective memory. Almost everyone I knew who was sexually active in the 1960s and 70s, including myself, regularly came down with some sort of STD, whether clap, NSU, syphilis, hepatitis, intestinal parasites, anal warts, herpes, etc. Nevertheless, we kept going back for more because it seemed just the normal price to pay for our pleasure, and the price didn't seem exorbitant since they were generally curable. It wasn't until AIDS appeared that the price suddenly became much too high for most people.

[RockHard]

RE: the good old days in NYC... - and elsewhere

 

I portend that any self-indulgent wallowing in the nostalgia of the "good old days," specifically as your memory-lane-trip refers to backroom bar-sex and the notorious sex-clubs of the 70's, like the Mine Shaft, blatantly disrespects all those men who died of AIDS in the early, unknowing years. With absolute certainty I say, if most of those men had known what we know now, I sincerely believe they would have opted for a long, healthy life as opposed to any other reality or sexual fantasy they could achieve.

 

Tom Isern's moving here in 1995 doesn't excuse his ignorance or his continual insensitivity. But readers here are used to his MO. Maybe he would do better by soliciting edit opportunities for well-needed reviews at MER.

 

No matter how many times you read Randy Shilts', "And The Band Played On" (a not so coincidental metaphor referencing the sinking Titanic), it's NOT the same thing as having lived through the abysmal horror of the early 80's in NYC.

 

As Charlie nicely proffered, history has never made secret the life-threatening diseases that (infected sex) can generate, and, I say, the folks who can't get enough continue to wallow in denial. (There are plenty of gay men on ManHunt who long for anonymous men to enter a stranger's apartment and have a stranger "drop his load" up a recipient's ass, without any exchange of words. This is what some might call liberation? Maybe if your mind is warped and strung out on K. What more needs to be said about someone finding a "boyfriend" there?)

 

Yes, all the men who played in the so-called "gay liberated" hang-outs of the late 70's, like the Mine Shaft and The Piers, knew the potential risk of acquiring herpes, hepititis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, amoebas, and syphilis, (to name a few), and that knowledge didn't stop this potentially injurious activity. Many gay men were sucked into the self-hating vortex of enlightenment, believing that this self-destructive behavior, somehow, made homosexuals "liberated." While others may have foolishly thought medicine existed to cure all sex-related ills: denial.

 

The term "good old days," in light of all the serious, unabated pain and agony that many of us gay survivors have endured, since those dark days before AIDS had a name, can easily be viewed as yet one more stab in our collective heart. (And, "go fuck yourself" is what I say to anyone who tells me to relax and lighten up.)

 

I wish more gay men could find love and happiness beyond their overactive libidos.

[+ Tom Isern]

RE: the good old days in NYC... - and elsewhere

 

Let’s see…how many vapid, ignorant, and reactionary positions/implications can Rockhead pack into one post? Were I interested in deconstructing His Ridiculousness, I might start by suggesting that before he (self-proclaimed wordsmith that he is) throws around words like “portend,” he might want to look them up—especially if it’s going to be the second word in a post.

 

I won’t respond directly to his arrogant and aggressive discursive bullying. AIDS has been a tragedy. But that doesn’t mean everyone needs to rush to the shallow water of uninformed opinion. Group, anonymous, and/or public sex did not cause AIDS. A virus did. And we now know how to protect against it. End of story.

 

There is absolutely NOTHING immoral, wrong, or offensive in talking about the wonderful days in New York when sex was free and everywhere and available. There is NOTHING wrong with enjoying anonymous, group, or public sex (or shall I add hiring an escort?). We all lost friends to AIDS. That doesn’t give anyone the moral high ground to post arrogant, sanctimonious, frightened, condescending, self-righteous garbage of the type Rockhead does.

 

ROCKHEAD: If you don’t like posts about those times, DON’T READ THEM. Crawl back under your bridge where you belong and stay there. Your bitterness is a bit underwhelming.

 

As the website for Gay Sex in the 70s

 

http://www.gaysexinthe70s.com/

 

sums things up:

 

"Gay Sex in the 70s CELEBRATES a city and an era with the unbridled joy that characterized the decade, while at the same time offering a sobering reminder of the AIDS crisis that followed…"

 

If you haven’t seen the movie, I highly recommend it. We could use a little more celebration and a little less morose moralizing.

[Brianfix2002]

RE: the good old days in NYC... - and elsewhere

 

Ain't this a website for hookers and guys that want to hire them? This Rockhard guy is trippin.