The Mormon Missionary of Beaver, Utah

Beaver, Utah, August 1980

August 6th, 1980, a Wednesday night.  I was in my 1974 Dodge Dart, chugging along the Interstate.

I was depressed. I had been planning to stay in Omaha with my minister boyfriend Fred forever, but it didn't work out.

Then I spent a week recuperating with my high school friend Tom in Los Angeles.

Now I was on my way back to Rock Island, where there were almost no gay people that I knew of, wondering what went wrong.

In Utah, near where the I-15 meets the I-70,  I decided to stop for the night in the quaintly named town of Beaver, at the Delano Hotel, one of those old-fashioned neon hotels that advertises "color tv" and "telephones," as if those amenities are noteworthy.

The desk clerk, Derek,  was college-aged, handsome, with short black hair, black eyes, and a muscular frame.  He had a rugged, leering look.  In a 1980s gay nerd movie, he would play the arrogant jock who is dating The Girl before the nerd comes along and wrests her away.

Somehow I mentioned that I visited Colombia last year, and Derek said, "I'll be in South America  in September.  Brazil. My church is sending me there to be a missionary."

This was unexpected!  I expected Derek to be a juvenile delinquent, maybe, but not a missionary. "What church?"

"The Latter-Day Saints," he said.  "Pretty much everyone around here is LDS."

Mormon!  Nazarenes hated Mormons almost as much as Catholics -- an idolatrous, polygamous cult.  Of course, Nazarenes were wrong about almost everything.

I remembered the incongruous sight of pairs of clean-scrubbed, grinning young men riding bicycles while wearing suits.  There was always something erotic about them, a sensuality hidden just beneath their feigned asexual wholesomeness.

"What do you do for fun around here?"  I asked.

He mentioned a bowling alley.

"No, I mean real fun." I stared at him suggestively.  "You know, guys only."

He grinned.  "Oh, you can find just about anything you're looking for down in St. George."

"That's a long way.  I passed it like two hours ago."

"In the countryside you learn to be patient.  Sooner or later, the fun comes to you."  He paused.  "I'll be here all night, in case you get lonely or want to talk -- you know, about God or anything."

I went to my room and lay down on the bed.  Anything you're looking for. In case you get lonely.  Could he be gay?   Maybe his missionary partner was his lover?  Riding on bicycles side by side through the streets of Rio de Janeiro, returning to their room every night to cuddle and kiss?

I want to say that I invited Derek to my room, and we spent the night together.  Or that he came out to me, and we talked all night about growing up gay and Mormon.

But what actually happened was: I fell asleep before I could muster the nerve to call.  And when I woke up in the morning, someone else was staffing the front desk.

I kicked myself all the way across Utah and Colorado.

And I wondered how many other gay men were stranded in small towns in the mountains, longing to reach out but never getting the nerve.  Or the chance.

Thirty years later, I ran into Derek again.

See also:

Lane and His Trophy Boy

West Hollywood, July 1989

You can easily tell whether heterosexual partners have broken up.  They begin going to social events alone, and no longer spend the night together.  Usually they never see each other again, period.

In gay communities, the boundaries are more fluid.

Romantic partners who have broken up continue to run into each other all the time (there aren't many gay places to hang out, after all).  They may still go to social events as a pair.  They may still spend the night together.

So the question "Are you still a couple?"  comes up often:
1. Should I ask about the other guy?
2. Should I invite them to things together?
3. Should I try to fix him up with someone else?
4. Is he free for me to date?

It's gauche to ask, or tell.  You're expected to just know.

My soon-to-be partner Lane met Danny at a gay Passover seder in April 1987.  He was an intensely hot Tropy Boy, 19 years old, newly out, with  a handsome male-model face, short blond hair, flawless pale skin, a smooth chest, and muscular legs.  Average beneath the belt gifts, cut.  Jewish, but not observant.

On their first date, three days later, Lane discovered that Danny was one of the few guys on Earth who didn't like receiving oral sex.  He put up with it to be polite, but his thing was giving.  He was very good at it.  Also into kissing, interfemeral, being spanked, and voyeurism -- he like watching other guys doing it.

That was all fine with Lane.  The bedroom activities were frequent and energetic.

After only three weeks, Danny moved from his parents' house in the San Fernando Valley into Lane's apartment.

Danny was so hot that Lane became the envy of West Hollywood.  Suddenly everybody at the Gold Coast, the gym, and the gay synagogue was his bosom buddy, and wanted to "share."

The problem was: Danny was so used to being a Trophy Boy that he didn't do anything, except drink milk right out of the carton and leave dirty dishes piled on the coffee table.

 He was ostensibly studying education at Cal State L.A., but he didn't go to class, and got straight D's (how do you get a D in an education class?).  Mostly he watched Duck Tales, went to lunch with his Cute Young Thing friends, and spent Lane's money on grooming products and clothes.

Lots of clothes.  55 shirts, 21 pairs of shoes, and 32 belts (he had something of a belt fetish).

The clencher came in May 1989, when Danny failed all of his classes and then cleared out the joint checking account on a Beverly Hills shopping spree.  Lane had to dip into his savings account to pay the rent.

He was furious!  There was crying.  There was yelling.

Danny's wardrobe was thrown, fancy belt by fancy belt, off the balcony.


By the end of the evening, Danny had packed up and moved back in with his parents.

Lane spent two days in his apartment, eating ice cream and listening to sad songs.  On the third day he went to the Zone, hoping to pick up a sleazy one-night stand.

He picked up me instead.  We were together for the next ten years.

But of course, Lane and Danny didn't cut off all contact.  About two weeks after the breakup, Danny came over for dinner and sharing.  He was, indeed, very energetic in the bedroom, fully aroused from the moment he took off his expensive designer pants to after he fell asleep.

But the change of boyfriends happened so quickly that Lane's friends were clueless.  He introduced me around, of course, but they seemed to think that I was just a new friend, or maybe a temporary fling, a mere setback in the Saga of Danny and Lane.

When Lane and I went to the gay synagogue, the usher tried to seat us separately.

His friend saw us at the Greenery, and asked, pointedly, "So, where's Danny?"

I ran into another of his friends at the Different Light Bookstore, and was asked "How are Lane and Danny?"

A full month after we started dating, a party invitation came in the mail, addressed to Lane and Danny. 

I was getting upset.  "You have to do something about this!" I told Lane.  "Let them know that Danny is history, you're with me now."

"They see me with you all the time.  They never see me with Danny," Lane said.  "What else can I do?  Obviously I can't make an announcement!"

I had an idea.  Danny was a trophy boy, so hot that no one could believe that Lane would break up with him willingly.  But Danny could break up with Lane.

On the night of the party, I drove to the Valley, picked up Danny at his parents' house, and came as his date.  Lane came by himself.

Danny and I stood with our arms around each other, flirted, kissed, brought each other drinks, sat together at the dinner table.

Lane said "hello" politely, but otherwise ignored us and sat by himself.

Heads turned.  Tongues wagged.


At the end of the evening, Danny and I opted to go cruising at Mugi instead of "sharing" with anyone.  Soon Lane joined us, effervescent.

"That was incredible!" he exclaimed.  "Everyone thought Danny dumped me for Boomer.  'How are you holding up?' 'He wasn't good enough for you!' Trying to fix me up with Cute Young Things!  Offers of sympathy sharing.  I never had so much fun in my life!"

Finally all of West Hollywood knew that Danny and Lane were no longer a couple.

And when Lane and I appeared together, no one commented on my sudden change in allegiances.  Obviously Danny was so hot that I couldn't handle him, so I latched onto Lane as the next best thing.

It's better than being Lane's "new friend" for the next 10 years.

See also: Sharing the Orthodox Cute Young Thing; and a New Lover Every Week

10 Pressing Questions about Hookup Apps

Hookup apps like Grinder, Scruff, and Adam4Adam are quick and easy; put up a profile, sit back, and wait for guys to message you (typically with "Hi").  A few minute's conversation, and he's on his way to your apartment.  Usually he's only a mile or two away, so time between logging on and the knock on your door: 30 minutes.

At least, that's optimal. More likely, the profiles are idiotic, the conversations are masterpieces of evasion, and when you cut through all the bs and get him to agree to show up, he notices someone mowing their lawn down the block and chickens out in a fit of "downlow" paranoia ("what if he recognizes me, and tells my wife?").

Here my top 10 questions to hookup app posters:

1. Why use a sunset, a mountain, fireworks, your pet dog. or anything other than your face and physique as a profile photo?  We want to see what you look like, not what a sunset looks like.

2. What's the point of the doggy ears and snout?  It blocks your face and looks gross.  Most guys on these apps are not into bestiality.

3. Why use a picture of you with your wife, girlfriend, or female bff?  To demonstrate that you're really heterosexual?  Believe me, that's not a point in your favor. 

4. Can't you think of any interests more specific than "I enjoy living life to its fullest" or "I like to have a good time"?

5. Where did you get the idea that saying "Hit me up.  I don't bite -- unless you ask nicely" is clever? Our reason for not approaching you has nothing to do with a fear of biting. 

6. Did you really think you would get a lot of responses by recounting detailed, specialized fetishes like "I want someone to tie me up with ladies' garters, put a bird cage on my head, and force me to sing the theme song to The Patty Duke Show.'"  Leave the fetishes to the fetish sites.

7. Do you think you will attract more guys with a long list of types that you find repulsive?  "No femmes, fats, queens, no one over 30, no one who belongs to a racial minority..."  Even the white Aryan gym rat twinks you are looking for will be turned off by your negativity.

8.  What makes you think that everyone is into anal?  People are into oral, anal, interfemoral, mutual masturbation, and who knows what else?

9. What makes you think that complaining about the men on this app will make you attractive to men on this app?  "You're all boring, superficial, shallow, sex-obsessed jerks.  Who wants to have sex with me?"

10.  Why bring up your (real or imagined) cock size?  No one cares.  An attractive face and physique can make up for the daintiest of members, and even a footlong cannot redeem a sleazoid.  Don't ask, don't tell.