Thursday, October 27, 2016

Yuri Hooks Up at a Russian Orthodox Seminary

East Village, February 1999

Wednesday

"I don't visit you in Manhattan next weekend," Yuri said.  "I must go to Russian Orthodox seminary Upstate."

"A seminary?  Whatever for?"

"There is a weekend for sveštenik kandidata, guys who want to be priests."

"What?" I repeated, shocked.  "You want to be a priest?"  He had been out for less than two years.  Had he succumbed to religious fundamentalism? Was he trying to turn "ex-gay"?

"No, of course I don't really want to be a priest." Yuri said.  "It is to keep...closet.  So I don't tell them I am gay, and I can still go to services."

When I met Yuri, I never expected him to be religious.  He grew up in the Soviet Union, where religious belief was discouraged.  He grew up gay in the Russian Orthodox Church, one of the most brutally homophobic denominations in Christianity.  Plus he was a logical, empirical scientist.

But when he was a kid in Volgograd, his grandparents took him to Mass nearly every week.  He loved the candles, the incense, the droning liturgy in Old Slavonic, and especially the icons, visual images of the Saints, reaching out to him in friendship and love.

They were fully clothed, not as homoerotic as many artistic depictions of saints in Roman Catholicism, but still, they were an alternative to the "girls! girls! girls!" drone he heard everywhere else.

 When he went to graduate school in America, all the way across the ocean, thousands of miles from what he knew, he looked back with nostalgia on those hours in church.  Going to church was an anchor, a memory of home.

The only problem:  you absolutely, positively had to be closeted in the Russian Orthodox Church. If anyone found out, you would be kicked out the door -- after the screaming.

In Manhattan it was easy. Whenever he visited me for the weekend, he took the subway to the St. Nicholas Cathedral on 97th Street, where he could be anonymous, lost amid the milling crowds.

On Long Island, it was harder.  In a tiny congregation Yuri couldn't be anonymous.  Teenage girls flirted with him.  Middle-aged ladies tried to fix him up with their daughters.  Every guy he tried to cruise asked him to evaluate girls.  There were constant questions: "Are you married?" "Are you seeing anyone?"  "Why not?"

How else could he signal that he was not interested?

Then the idea came: he could say that he wanted to become a priest!

"Sorry, I am considering a priestly vocation.  I can't date."

That stopped the fix-ups altogether, and the other guys stopped asking him to rate girls.

Unfortunately, word got around to the parish priest, who started giving him smiles and gifts and hand-on-shoulder talks. and told him about a weekend for postulants (men thinking of the priesthood) at a seminary nearby.  And even offered him a ride up with two of the other pre-seminary boys.

There was no getting out of it -- Yuri was going to go on a postulant weekend.

"It might be fun," I said.  "I remember back when I was a Nazarene, they dragged us to pre-college weekends at Olivet.  Since everyone assumed that no Christian could be gay, I could cruise openly.  And I got some nice bulge sightings."

Friday

It was a four-hour drive to the seminary.  They arrived in time for a communal dinner, students and monks together, in the Refectory.  Then a service called the Compline, and into their dormitory for "study and contemplation."

The dormitory rooms were huge, twelve seminarians on narrow beds with desks between them, with a little tv lounge and a bathroom and shower room off to the side.

They walked naked to the shower. There was a lot of towel-snapping, butt grabbing, and leering, but no fondling.

Lights out at 10:00 pm, and the dorm room got quiet.

Then the stirring began.  After awhile, a guy stood and walked across the cold stone floor, presumably to the bathroom.

But he hadn't turned the light on, and there was no water was running.

Yuri got up and followed.  The seminarian was in one of the toilet stalls, with the door open.

His Bratwurst+ fully aroused, waiting.

Yuri followed him in, closed the door, knelt, and went down on him.

He finished quickly without a word or even a moan.  Then they both stood and returned to their beds.


Yuri waited.  Another got up.  And another.  Another.  For the next two hours, one guy after another went to the bathroom.  If the lights didn't go on, Yuri followed, or if he wasn't quick enough, one of the other seminarians.

He estimated that seven of the twelve guys went "to the bathroom that night" for oral sex, some more than once, while he and two other guys volunteered to be the bottoms.

Saturday

They got up at 5 am and dressed.  Of course, no one acknowledge what had happened last night.

The Divine Liturgy was at 6:00 am, followed by breakfast and chores.  There was a candle factory, a printshop, a museum, and a bookstore.

Saturday afternoon they had off.  Some of the seminarians took Yuri down to Cooperstown, about 20 miles away, to see the Baseball Hall of Fame.

He carefully introduced gay topics.

Saying "Look -- that guy is hot, isn't he?" got only cold stares.

Asking "What do you do when one of your friends tells you that he is gay?"  got a savage response: "Don't talk to him!  Don't associate with him!  He is possessed by a demon!"

They were back by dinner at 7:00, Compline at 8:00, and more study and contemplation.

And, after lights out, more guys making their way to the bathroom.  Tonight Yuri got bolder.  When he saw a guy tenting under the sheets, he went over and touched it.  The guy invariably pretended to be asleep while Yuri fondled him to completion.  Once he even stuck his head under the covers and went down on him (average sized, uncut).

Sunday

Again, no one acknowledged what happened last night.  They had breakfast and studied until the Divine Liturgy began at 9:00 am.  Then, after lunch, they drove back to Long Island.

"Sounds like a fun weekend," I said.  "More action than you'd get in the Village."

"Yes, sure," Yuri said.  "But it made me sad.  Everything was closed, closet.  The guys pretend it doesn't happen the next day, and they say homophobic things.  Not open.  And...the worst of everything... it was sex only.  Nothing warm, nothing happy, just trying to get it over."

He moved across the couch and knelt over me.  "We will kiss now."

See also: Sausage Sighting of a Baptist Boy

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

10 Upstate Vacation Hookups

I lived in Upstate New York for four years (2008-2012), twice as long as in San Francisco, but with far fewer dates and hookups.  It was a very small town, with a limited number of gay men, so you found a partner and held on.

Sharing and sex parties were unknown; I tried to introduce them, with little success.  There was a bath house about 2 hours away, but small and not very busy.

Gay men of an earlier generation fled from the oppressive homophobia of London, Paris, and New York for sex holidays in the Middle East, where same-sex desire was open and accepted, and nearly every man was available.  I fled to the Gay World as often as I could.

Here are my top 10 Upstate vacation hookups:



1. Indianapolis.  I visited once or twice a year to visit my parents and sister, who actually about a 45 minute drive away.  A full gay neighborhood with bars, restaurants, organizations, and two bath houses, lots of guys, but the most memorable was my ex-boyfriend Fred's son.

2. Cleveland.  A good stopping-off place between Upstate New York and Indianapolis, with the Flexx Club, one of the best sex clubs anywhere, a huge facility with two swimming pools, a disco, a restaurant, two saunas, several video rooms, and mazes of private rooms.  An an outdoor patio with a nice view of downtown.  In 2012, Troy and I hooked up with Lester the Shy Boy, whose friends told him that he couldn't leave until he had been with five guys, or one guy five times.



3. Dayton.  If you spend the night in Cleveland, you're in Dayton about noon, perfect for having lunch with old friends and "sharing" with their boyfriends du jour before taking th next two hours to Indianapolis.  And if I timed it right, I could go to Rode's M4M Party and hook up with Shawn, the winner of the Biggest Penis Contest.

4. New York.  Upstate was only about four hours from New York City, but that meant two hours through narrow, winding country roads in the Catskills and two hours of wall-to-wall traffic, so I only visited a few times.  My favorite visit was with Yuri; we reunited with Blake the Opera Buff, the ex-boyfriend of both of us, and I hooked up with his boyfriend, an opera singer.







5. West Hollywood.  Thomas Wolfe said you can't go home again, but whenever I made the six hour flight back to West Hollywood, it was warm, comfortable, and inviting.  As long as you skipped the twink bars: my friends, all in their 50s and 60s, disapproved of dating younger guys.  But what was a twink magnet to do?

6. Philadelphia.  There for a conference in November 2009, I hated it.  My hotel was shabby, the sightseeing was mediocre, and the hookup options were very limited.  How did my friend David from San Francisco have so much success there?  My only hookup was with a tourist from Omaha.












7. Washington, DC.  I love DC, with its gutsy Dupont Circle a stone's throw from the White House, but when I went there for a conference in November 2011, I was concerned.  My last visit was with my friend Alan, who died in 2005.  Would I be seeing his ghost everywhere?  Actually, I ended up channeling his enormous joie de vivre, and his uncanny ability to attract Asian guys.

8. Amsterdam,  I used to go every year, timing my visit for the weekend, and the Sunday night meeting of the Horseman's Club, for guys with 8" or more (and, recently, their admirers).  In June 2011 I took Yuri, and we hooked up with a guy who was actually rather small.









9. San Francisco.  Gay Heaven, the friendliest gay community in the world.  Every gay person should visit at least once.  I was lucky enough to live there for two years.  When I went back for a visit, I tried my hand at street cruising, and ended up on a date with a "mechanical man."

10. Montreal.  My favorite city in North America, and only a six-hour drive from Upstate.  Lots of good Montreal stories, but the best is in October 2009, I took Troy to his first video booth, and we hooked up with a buffed, hairy-chested French Canadian farmer.





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