8 Taboos of West Hollywood

After growing up in the repressive wilderness of Middle America, you finally manage to escape to West Hollywood.  You expect perfect freedom, the freedom to be open about who you are and what you feel, the freedom to fulfill your dreams and desires.   Instead, you find dozens of social rules, conventions, norms, and flat-out taboos that can get you ostracized. 

Here are the top ten taboos of West Hollywood in the 1980s and 1990s:

1. Never mention any woman's physical traits.  This is understandable: after hearing "You like girls!  You like girls!  You like girls!" over and over throughout your childhood and adolescences, having a friend say "That woman is attractive" will pull up old traumas. So you never mention women at all if you can help it, and if you must, you use neutral terms like "The woman with the black hair."

2. No friendships with women. You have to overcome the myth that gay men are really women, so they hang out with women.  So you never speak to a woman if you can help it, not even lesbians.

3. Never ask anyone what they do for a living.   It is standard small talk among straight people, of course, but you came to West Hollywood for spiritual and social fulfillment, not for anything as mundane as money. Conversations should be about art, music, literature, and sex, the things that mattered in life.

4. Never go home with someone on the first meeting.  This was a response to the AIDS epidemic, where sex with strangers was risky.  Only sleazoids hooked up; you got his phone number, called two to three days later, and made a date for two to three days after that.  At the end of the date, sex was obligatory.

5. After the date, you must spend the night.  And have breakfast with him the next morning. To leave after sex, or before at least toast and coffee, was an unforgiveable offense.

6. Never refuse to share a friend's boyfriend. One of the permitted ways to have sex with strangers was the custom of "sharing": a friend's partners. No matter if they were not your type, or even repulsive, it was a major affront to refuse.  Just close your eyes and go down on him.

7. Never have sex with a friend, except when sharing or at a sex party.  The boundary between friend and lover was very loose: we often lived with friends and did not live with lovers, went to social events with friends and left lovers at home.But one-on-one sex was going too far.  You can still go down on him, but only at a party where everyone is doing it.

8. Do not have a small penis.  Every penis must be described as "big" or "huge." If you happen to have a small one, lie.  If you happen to date someone with a small one, pretend that you don't notice, and when your friends ask later, say "it was huge."