Seems the debauchery is gone!

[Spida]

I was looking around and went to the street huslters forum. I am sort of sad and amazed wondering your opinion.. It seems as though so many cities have cleaned up their "Red Light District" I know here in Boston the Combat Zone is pretty much gone a few adult stores and I just realized my fav is gone!

 

It seems as though there isn't anymore Combat Zone's or Red Light District's like Time sq used to be I remember being a youngster walking through Time sq and seeing guys outside with tables of leather whips ect.. (Shows I was a perv then I was pretty young and I remember that fondly).. Are there any cities that have those area's left? I used to like the excitement of driving through that part of the city.. Or walking and being somewhat scared but also excited.. Maybe it is just me and this should be in the fetish section???

 

Anyone miss those days, and areas?? Any good cities that still have those areas? I was in Paris a few years ago and they had a pretty good red light district it was very safe there were even children walking with their parents at night.. It was totally straight though.

[bostonman]

>I was looking around and went to the street huslters forum.

>I am sort of sad and amazed wondering your opinion.. It seems

>as though so many cities have cleaned up their "Red Light

>District" I know here in Boston the Combat Zone is pretty

>much gone a few adult stores and I just realized my fav is

>gone!

>

>It seems as though there isn't anymore Combat Zone's or Red

>Light District's like Time sq used to be I remember being a

>youngster walking through Time sq and seeing guys outside with

>tables of leather whips ect.. (Shows I was a perv then I was

>pretty young and I remember that fondly).. Are there any

>cities that have those area's left? I used to like the

>excitement of driving through that part of the city.. Or

>walking and being somewhat scared but also excited.. Maybe it

>is just me and this should be in the fetish section???

>

>Anyone miss those days, and areas?? Any good cities that still

>have those areas? I was in Paris a few years ago and they had

>a pretty good red light district it was very safe there were

>even children walking with their parents at night.. It was

>totally straight though.

 

Ah...the Boston Combat Zone...when I came to Boston for college in the fall of '82, I think the Zone was just beginning to crumble. I didn't spend any time hanging out there, but I do remember walking through it, warily, on the way to Chinatown.

 

Then there was the time, as a sophomore, I think, that I tried the Fens...I wound up getting mugged!! (No, it wasn't too serious - a bloody nose and a loss of $20 from my wallet, I think - but it was my first "incident" of the underbelly of city life...)

 

But yeah - the Zone is gone, and it's also interesting to think back over the many changes in bars, etc, over the years - I remember my first trips to bars like Buddies, the 1270...ah, the good old days... ;-)

[raife]

Amen to that! I was just lamenting similarly [a href=/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=12&topic_id=1219&mode=full&page=#1233]here[/a].I've been hankering for a walk on the wild side, only there's no wild side anymore! In the 70's and 80's I traveled the country and there were several hustler haunts in all the major cities. NY, Boston, Pittsburgh, Houston, SF , LA, were hopping wild, in the right neighborhoods you had to fight the hustlers off with a stick!;-) My hometown Dallas had 5 good hustler bars back in the late 80s, but all have faded slowly away, same here in LA. I'm sure STDs have had a large effect, the Internet and ease of networking (cell phones, etc) have made it easier to hustle from home, but still that doesn't explain the disparity between the drought here in the U$ofA and the hustler happy goldmines of other countries, (eg Eastern Europe & Russia). Call me nuts, but damn, I miss the excitement of the old face-to-face meet markets... you never knew just who was going to come walking in... But then maybe I'm just looking back thru rose-colored glasses... Geez, we sound like a bunch of old-timers "ahhh, the good old days..."

[Rick Munroe]

It's all online now!

[Boston Guy]

>Then there was the time, as a sophomore, I think, that I tried

>the Fens...I wound up getting mugged!! (No, it wasn't too

>serious - a bloody nose and a loss of $20 from my wallet, I

>think - but it was my first "incident" of the underbelly of

>city life...)

 

I had completely forgotten about the Fens... oh, youth.. :-)

 

>

>But yeah - the Zone is gone, and it's also interesting to

>think back over the many changes in bars, etc, over the years

>- I remember my first trips to bars like Buddies, the

>1270...ah, the good old days... ;-)

 

Buddies... now there's a memory. Buddies was perhaps the best gay bar I've ever frequented, in any city, at any time. Buddies had a magic to it that hasn't often been duplicated. Certainly, there's never been a bar as good in Boston since Buddies burned.

 

BG

[Guest Gringo]

Unless there is some rock I have failed to turn, or some secret alley I don't know exists, debauchery is most definitely gone in America. But meet me sometime in Campo Santana in the morning, or the wooded places leading to the boulders of Arporador in the afternoon, or in front of the theaters in Cinelandia at night---and I will show you debauchery taken to an art form and transformed into a passion unique as the primal drumbeats of desire.:+

[+ Cock Eyed Optimist]

This has got to win the award for the best avatar image ever!!

(When you blow it up in size, it's even better!!)

Congrats, Gringo!!

[Guest Tristan]

The 1270 was quite a scene. I recall that they were always playing Gloria Gaynor's "I will survive" and, of course, Diana Ross. Now I bet you don't go all the way back to Sporters on Cambridge Street on Beacon Hill, which predates the 1270. The days of no sign out front. You just had to figure out which door was the entrance. It wasn't a dance bar, but it was one of the in spots.

[Guest Gringo]

Glad you like it!! The ability to do the "flying fuck" is absolute GOLD!!

[Boston Guy]

I remember Sporters. I didn't go often, because I preferred Buddies. But I did go occasionally. Sporters actually shows up in the novel The Best Little Boy in the World.

 

Do you remember Skippers, on Boylston Street?

 

BG

[Guest manreadyokc]

>(When you blow it up in size, it's even better!!)

 

I love it, too . . . but I don't how to blow it up. Help!

[JamesK840]

Click the user's name (Gringo) to see the avatar full size.

[gregkidman]

>Click the user's name (Gringo) to see the avatar full size.

 

I do believe that the 'bottom' is actually a woman -- when I saw the full size picture, I do think I am seeing pussy.

 

Cheers,

Greg

[Spida]

Gringo where?? I would love to see it! :-) When I was in high school we used to go down to the combat zone but only in groups to watch the hookers. I used to drive a truck in Boston and Harrison Ave over by Teradyne was a hangout for the early morning hookers. Everything was pretty much gone by the time I was old enough to frequent the bars around there, but I do remember hearing about the old bus station over on St. James street, according to legend you could pick up gay street huslters there.

[Guest Tristan]

Boston Guy, who wrote that novel? How old is it?

 

Sporters had some cute guys. Too bad I never met anyone there to take home with me. I was in the early stage of acting on my gay orientation and very shy.

[Guest Gringo]

Spida---those three places in mentioned are all in Rio de Janeiro. It's a long flight, and there is certainly an edge to Brasil that gives some people pause, but if its debauchery and passion you want, I don't think there's another place like it in all the world. Do a search of "Tails of Brasil" and you'll get a feeling for what I'm talking about.:+

[Boston Guy]

The Best Little Boy in the World was written by "John Reid", a name later revealed to be a pseudonym for Andrew Tobias, the well-known finance writer. It's a good read and very descriptive of Boston and Cambridge at the time. If you were spending time at Sporters, you'd most likely enjoy the book.

 

It's available at Amazon:

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/067960314X/104-0044589-5942300?v=glance

 

Here's some info from Amazon's book page:

 

 

Editorial Reviews

 

Amazon.com

When The Best Little Boy in the World was first published in 1973, Andrew Tobias could write about what it had felt like to begin to accept his homosexuality, but he couldn't bring himself to sign his own name to the book, for fear of embarrassing his parents. And so it was "John Reid" who became a hero to the thousands of gay males who found in this memoir a mirror for their own experiences.

 

Although the book appears rambling at times, Tobias always has a clear sense of where he wants to take readers with the story. He treats his closeted adolescence and college years, and his stumbling first attempts at "doing a thing" with other gay men, with a self-effacing humor that exposes his pain without descending into self-pity. And if his life seems fairly ordinary, apart from the sexual awakening ... well, that was the whole point. "You like and respect us when you don't realize we're gay," he writes in a new introduction, "so now please just continue to like and respect us once you do realize. It's not that big a deal."

 

 

Ingram

THE BEST LITTLE BOY IN THE WORLD--Andrew Tobias's bestselling memoir of growing up gay was published in 1973 under the pseudonym John Reid--is now reissued to tie-in to Tobias's new sequel, THE BEST LITTLE BOY IN THE WORLD GROWS UP. This touching chronicle tells of a conventional upper middle-class young man who moves through college to a high-level executive position while coming to terms with his homosexuality.

 

 

Book Description

 

 

When The Best Little Boy in the World was first published in 1973, The New York Times Book Review hailed this classic account of a young man's coming to terms with his sexuality as "uniquely frank . . . a splendid book." Yet the reviewer was also disturbed that a journal about owning up to one's true identity had to appear under a pen name because of "societal bigotry."

 

------Happily, times have changed. Today "John Reid" can be himself and is already known to millions of readers as the witty, bestselling financial writer Andrew Tobias. To commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of his intelligent work, the Modern Library is re-issuing The Best Little Boy in the World. Full of humor and free of guilt, it remains one of the most enduring memoirs of a generation.

 

------"An enlightening portrait of growing up gay in a straight world," said the Chicago Tribune. "John Reid comes out slowly, hilariously, brilliantly," wrote David Brudnoy in The New York Times Book Review. "One reads this utterly honest account with the shock of recognition."

 

------This Modern Library edition coincides with the publication of its sequel, The Best Little Boy in the World Grows Up, and includes a new Foreword by Andrew Tobias and a new Introduction by the writer and journalist Andrew Sullivan.

 

 

Enjoy!

BG

[Guest Tristan]

Boston Guy, thanks very much for the information. I will probably end up buying it. The book was written in 1973, right around the years I started going to Sporters.

 

- Tristan

[Boston Guy]

You're welcome. :-)

 

I hope you enjoy it.

 

BG