November 1999: A Hookup with Barry and the Poz Boy

In the fall of 1999, Barry, the traditional Catholic who had been exorcised from the homophobic demon, invited me to "share" his friend Jared.

"You'll like him," Barry insisted.  "He's from the Midwest, like you.  And an intellectual.  He knows everything about world history.  Just ask!"

"What's he look like?"

He send me a picture -- not my usual type.  In his 20s, tall, thin, pale, with long scraggly hair and a pretty, androgynous face.

"I like my guys with a little more heft to them,  Sorry."

"Well...he's gigantic beneath the belt," Barry said.  "And he really needs this.  He hasn't been with anyone for months."

"Why, what's wrong with him?"  I asked suspiciously.

"Nothing.  He's just been going through some things.  Some health problems.  He can explain."

I was intrigued by the mystery, so I agreed.

On a Saturday in late November, I took the train out to Barry's apartment in Sayville (he had given up on the traditional Catholic community).

Jared was slim and fragile, sitting shyly on the couch.  He had a soft, limp handshake.  I put my arm around him, and he sank against my chest, as if he were cuddling with a lover.

This guy was the polar opposite of the dynamic, loquacious Barry!   I wondered how they had ever become friends.

"So, what do you do?" I asked.

"I work at the Fashion Barn.  But I want to get into design someday."  He held me tightly and nuzzled my chest.  "Sorry if I'm a little forward...it's been awhile."

"That's fine.  I like being the object of attention."

He disentangled himself for dinner at the Sayville Inn.  He ordered only a salad, no dressing.

"How did you guys meet?" I asked.

"At church," Jared said.  "I gave up on the church when I came out, but a few months ago I came back.  Barry got me involved in Dignity [the gay Catholic group], and sometimes I go to Mass with Andre at the Catholic brotherhood."

He returned to the church a few months ago?  And he hadn't been with a guy for a few months?  What happened?  

Back at the apartment, the three of us hugged.  I kissed Barry, and then tried to kiss Jared, but he pulled his head away.  "Before we go any farther, I have to tell you something.  I'm poz."

He meant positive for the HIV virus.

"No problem," I said.  Actually, I was a little curious about what poz guys do in bed.   I had never dated anyone who was poz before, that I knew of, or even had any poz friends.   A couple of guys at the church, who I knew vaguely, and that was about it.

You're probably wondering how I managed to live in West Hollywood at the height of the AIDS crisis and not meet anyone poz.  Literature and film of the period always describes losing most of your friends to AIDS, a dozen in just a few months.

I've wondered about that myself.  I think it was just by accident.

The most common way to transmit HIV is through unprotected anal sex.  I was simply not interested in that, so when I was asked, I refused, and usually didn't see the guy again.  Since we typically chose our friends from among our ex-boyfriends, I built up a social circle of guys who also were not interested in anal sex, and remained negative.  By accident.

I'm not blaming the guys who practiced anal sex -- they had no way of knowing that it was unsafe at the time.

Jared had a huge Mortadella+, but he doesn't get a place on my Sausage List, since I wasn't permitted to do anything except fondle it.

He had sex by hugging me tightly, rubbing things together while Barry fondled his rear, having an explosive orgasm, and then starting to cry because "it's been so long."

We spent the night, had a replay in the morning, and then went out to breakfast.

"I thought my sex life was over," Jared said.  "No one wants to be with a poz guy.  But last night was great."

I hoped he wasn't implying that he wanted to start dating!  Our evening together was nice, but he wasn't really my type physically, he was kind of weird, and what was up with the no kissing?

I can do without oral, but no kissing?  The virus isn't transmitted that way!

A few days later, Jared called.  "I'm coming into the City for my birthday. Free to get together?"

"Well...um...I'm a little busy, with finals coming up and all."

"I want to try something.  I've been too nervous before.  But it's my birthday, and I thought you could help."

"What is it?"

"You go to the New York Bondage Club, right?"

So on Sunday Jared took the train into Penn Station.  We dropped into a diner for a piece of cake, and then went to a meeting.  He asked me to tie him to a St. Andrew's Cross, blindfold and gag him, and leave him open to all comers.

I monitored the situation as he was fondled, prodded, kissed, licked, tickled, teased, edged, and spanked.

Later, I untied him so he could try his hand at topping.

He became a bondage club regular.

Soon I saw him at Ravi's Bear Parties, too, wandering around, fondling, teasing, edging, but no oral.

And still no kissing.

See also: The Homophobic Demon; an All-Nighter at the New York Bondage Club; and The Colonial Boy's First Time.

A Boy, a Man, and a Caribbean Island: Two Stories of Hookups Gone Wrong

Norfolk, Virginia, Summer 1993

"Ok, I'm going to tell you about the white boy who turned me into the fine, upstanding gay man you see today," Sandy says.

Alan the Pentecostal Porn Star, his partner Sandy, their friend Tarik, and I are swapping stories of funny or memorable dates and hookups.  I tell about my date with Michael J. Fox.  Tarik tells about the blue-eyed demon.  Now it's Sandy's turn.

Sandy grew up in Washington, DC., graduated from Howard University with a degree in international relations, and went to work in the foreign service.  He was stationed in Senegal, the Comoros Islands, and finally Barbados, where he became the Public Affairs Director at the American Embassy.

Barbados was black-friendly, but not at all gay-friendly.  There were no gay bars or gay organizations.  Gay men were criminals, and homophobic violence was commonplace.  The few guys he met were on the downlow.

So, five to ten times a year, Sandy flew home to Washington, to take a sex holiday in the bars, dark rooms, bathhouses, and sex clubs.  He did everything with everyone.


"But I wasn't into that blue-eyed devil nonsense,"  Sandy says.  "I loved white boys.  Especially the blonds  Fresh-scrubbed all-American jocks, like Ricky Schroder."

"I had a crush on him, too," Alan says.  "When you were dating the Celebrity, I kept hoping he would fix us up."

"Um...I think Rick Schroeder is straight."

But last summer Sandy met his own Rick, a Howard University pre-law major, white, with dark blond hair, a round androgynous face, a tight smooth chest, thick biceps, and a super-huge cut Kielbasa.

"But his best feature was his mouth," Sandy says.  "I could kiss him for hours.  And when he went down on me, man, I thought I died and went to heaven!"

They saw each other for three days, and then, on a whim, Sandy bought him a plane ticket back to Barbados.  They settled into Sandy's house on Back Ivy Road, and Sandy looked into getting him a job at the Embassy.

But Rick was not used to the closeted, downlow lifestyle of Barbados.  He started cruising in straight bars, picking up tourists on the beach.

"What a jerk!" I exclaim.  "Sharing is one thing, but public sex!  No matter how big he was beneath the belt, I'd show him the door."

After only 10 days, he was arrested for going down on a guy in the woods behind the Yellow Bird Hotel and deported.

And he named names, outing Sandy as his boyfriend.  The State Department didn't cotton to "homosexuals": Sandy was promptly fired  He returned to the States, and found a job in public relations in Norfolk.

"But it was worth it!" Sandy says.  "I hated being closeted, doing things on the downlow with married men.  Thanks to Rick, I got the courage to be true to myself.  And...I met my soulmate, Alan."

I sigh. This Rick guy still sounds like a jerk.



New York, November 1999

"Ok, I'm going to tell you about my weirdest hookup," Barry says.

Yuri is in the City, spending the weekend with me.  Barry and I have taken him to  dinner, and now we are in my apartment, swapping stories about good, bad, and ugly dates, boyfriends, and hookups.  Yuri tells about how he tricked Ravi the Bear into sharing his boy toy.  Now it's Barry's turn.

Barry grew up in a very conservative Catholic household in Williamsburg, Virginia, so when he went to college, he went wild, cruising guys right and left, sneaking into gay bars and bathhouses, tricking every night, but always hoping to meet The One, the Man of His Dreams.

And one night he did: Guy, a tourist from St. Lucia, in his 40s, black, muscular, huge beneath the belt.  Plus a wealthy, sophisticated world traveler.  He worked for the Ministry of External Affairs, so he was traveling all the time, throughout the Caribbean, to Europe, to Asia.  He had just been to China to negotiate a trade agreement.  Barry had never been outside the U.S.

After a courtship of just three days, Barry packed a suitcase, grabbed his passport, and flew back to St. Lucia with Guy.  They moved into his house on Pansy Drive.

At first it was great.  Castries was beautiful, colorful red and yellow houses  set against the white beaches and mountains.  The population was mostly black.  Gorgeous guys everywhere.

Many states in the U.S. criminalized gay people, but Barry wasn't prepared for the ferocity of the homophobia, the constant diatribes, the deep closets.  There were no gay bars or bathhouses. Guys met on the downlow, in back alleys and public restrooms.

One day when Barry got home, the police were waiting for him.  They told him that Guy had been arrested for "public indecency" for going down on a guy in the woods behind the Captain's Cellar Restaurant.  They arrested Barry, too, as an "accomplice," but dropped the charges and sent him home on the condition that he never return to St. Lucia, and never try to contact Guy again.

He didn't listen.  The moment he got home, he wrote to Guy.  No answer.  Three letters and a long-distance phone call.  No answer.

"What an idiot!" Yuri exclaims.  "He just leaves you when things get bad."

"Serves me right."  Barry takes a sip of his Coke.  "Serves me right for flying halfway across the world to be with a guy I just met."





Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, December 1999

I notice the parallels right away: college student and older man fly from Washington DC to a Caribbean island, where one of them is arrested.  The college student is white, and the older man is black. The two stories take place about the same year.

But: different islands, different names, different person getting arrested.  Barry is only average beneath the belt.  Sandy is slim and rather feminine, not muscular.

I show Barry a picture of Sandy.  "Nope, definitely not him!" he exclaims.  "My Guy was hot!"

I send a picture of Barry to Sandy.  "No, definitely not him!" he writes back.  "My guy was hot!"

Still not satisfied, I arrange for the two to meet.  Sandy and Alan have moved a few times since the last time I visited them: now they're in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, about two hours west of Manhattan.  We drive out for the weekend.

Barry and Sandy greet each other as strangers, but as they get to talking, sharing their memories, they realize that they were describing the same incident, perceived differently at the time, changed in the haze of years, and then changed again through the art of storytelling.

It was Barbados, although they did go to St. Lucia for a day.  Sandy was the one arrested.

Psychics tell us that we're surrounded by the same people in every lifetime.  They play different roles: our father in one life may be our sister in the next, our lover in a third, and a memorable hookup in the fourth.  But it's the same souls, over and over.

Maybe, in their next life, Barry and Sandy will be lovers.

See also: Barry and the Creepy Old Guy

The Pentecostal Porn Star's Top Boyfriends, Tricks, Scenes, and Hookups

I hope Alan isn't reading these stories in the afterlife, or I'm in for a major haunting.  He would hate being called a Pentecostal Porn Star.  He didn't like talking about his porn career.

Actually, he didn't like talking about his past at all.  Most guys in West Hollywood  loved swapping stories about coming out, seducing a straight man, or seeing a celebrity penis, but Alan generally kept mum:  "Who cares about the past?  It's dead and gone.  We're young, we're hot, we're in the greatest place in the world.  This is our time to LIVE!"

Still, when he was tired and loaded up on sugary snacks, he could tell a good story.  Here are his top 20 boyfriends, hookups, and back room exploits.

Alan was born two days before Halloween, 1956, under another name, in a small town near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  When he was ten years old, he began going to a Pentecostal church, got saved and filled with the Spirit, and began speaking in tongues.

1. The Pentecostal Boy.  His first sexual experience was at age 16, with one of his Pentecostal buddies.  Neither of them had any idea that gay people existed, but they fumbled around and discovered oral.

2. The Preacher at the Bathhouse.  After graduating from high school in 1974, Alan enrolled in the ultra-fundamentalist Waynesburg College.  He majored in either English or History, and played football to become more "macho."

There's an investigation of Waynesburg College on Small Town Beefcake

 He also began going to the bathhouses of Pittsburgh, where he ran into the minister of his hometown Pentecostal church.

After he got his degree in either English or history, he told his parents that he was gay.  They had a big blowup, and didn't speak to him for years.  He moved to Los Angeles, and got a job teaching ESL to new immigrants.

3. The Son of a Gilligan's Island Star.  One of his first boyfriends was David Johnson, son of Russell Johnson, the Professor on Gilligan's Island.

4. Will on Land of the Lost.  Alan made the rounds of closeted and semi-closeted celebrities, including Wesley Eure,  who played the teenage son on the Saturday morning live-action series Land of the Lost.

5. Porn Star Kip Noll.  He also began going to the bathhouses and bars of pre-AIDS Los Angeles.  One night he met someone who, impressed by his size, introduced him to porn director William Higgins, who cast him in a movie about a boy who wanders around West Hollywood picking up guys.  Kip Noll went down on him.  He refused to do anal.

6. The Football Coach.  Later that year Alan starred in a movie about a football player who gets blown by his teammates and tops his coach.  The exteriors were filmed at UCLA.  While doing research, he met and began dating the football coach of a L.A.-area university.  He wouldn't say which one, although I'm quite sure the name would mean nothing to us.

In all, Alan appeared in five porn movies, but his star potential was limited due to his reluctance to do anal, and by his lack of serious gym time -- he was getting a little chunky.

7. The High School Boy.  He got a job teaching English at a Catholic school, and began seeing one of his students -- after class, right in the classroom.

8. A Drag Queen Fairy Godmother.  After a series of crises in the early 1980s, including getting fired from his teaching job, the death of a close friend, and a sexual assault by a vice cop, Alan turned "ex gay," proclaimed that God had "cured" him, and joined Homosexuals Anonymous.  To prove to himself that he was really straight, he went to one of the dive bars in Hollywood and picked up a "woman" -- who turned out to be a drag queen.

That night he was an anal bottom for the first time.

In the morning he realized that God loves gay people after all.  He retired from porn, changed his name to Alan, turned blond, grew a beard, and joined the gay-positive Metropolitan Community Church. He became Student Clergy.

9. The Norwegian Con Artist.  Alan and I met in the fall of 1985.  We dated briefly, until he dumped me for a Norwegian con artist (the relationship didn't last long).  Then we became friends, and roommates for about a year.

10. The Bed-Hopping College Boy. In the summer of 1986, Alan returned to his old idea of becoming a missionary, with a gay twist: he moved to Japan to start a gay Pentecostal church, but returned  to West Hollywood at the end of the summer.  When I went to visit him, he picked up a college boy named Minoru, who kept switching between our beds all night.










11. My Celebrity Boyfriend.  In the spring of 1987, I dated the Celebrity, a still-closeted former teen idol.  Alan asked him out immediately after we broke up -- or maybe before -- and they dated twice.

12. The Kept Boy.  Alan found three in a bed distracting, so he didn't do much "sharing."  Our first "sharing" experience was accidental, with a kept boy who we didn't realize was drunk

13. The Parisian Cop.  In the fall of 1989, Alan moved to Paris to...well, start a gay Pentecostal church.  But soon he gave up that idea, and became a permanent Parisian.  When I came to visit, he picked up a Parisian cop.

14. The Father and Son. While in France, Alan took a trip to Hong Kong, and picked up a father and son -- a biological father and son!

15. The Lapp.  The nice thing about Paris is, everyone in the world eventually gets around to visiting, including a member of the Sami people, the nomads of northern Scandinavia.

16. The Hong Kong Hustler.  Alan loved Hong Kong, and visited as often as he could.  Unfortunately, it didn't have quite the sexual freedom as Paris.  In the summer of 1992, feeling deprived, he hired a hustler, and bottomed.  Without a condom.

A few months later, Alan discovered that he was HIV positive.  Deeply depressed, he moved in with his sister in Norfolk, Virginia, became "ex gay" again, and cut off all contact with his former "sinful associates."

17. Sandy.  Soon Alan changed his mind -- God loved gay people after all.  He started going to the Norfolk Metropolitan Community Church, where  he met Sandy: middle-aged, African-American, rather feminine, almost as big beneath the belt as he was, also a recovering Pentecostal.  They stayed together until the end of his life.

18. The Substitute.  I visited them twice in the early 1990s, once in Norfolk and once in DC.  Since becoming HIV positive, Alan insisted on monogamy -- no "sharing," not even with safe sex.  But when I spent the night with them, they brought in a substitute.  Ok, that's my scene, not Alan's.

19. The Colonial Williamsburg Boy.  In New York in 1998, I met Barry, who grew up in Colonial Williamsburg and went to Howard University in DC.  Turns out that he had dated Sandy!, Ok, that's Sandy's.

20. The Male Nurse.  We gradually lost contact in the 2000s, as friends who live across a continent from each other do.  But one day in 2005, Sandy called to tell me that Alan had died of AIDS-related cancer.  He was in good spirits during his last days, content with his life and certain of his place in heaven.  Almost his last words were "Isn't that male nurse hot?"

Alan LIVED until the end.

Barry and the Creepy Old Guy

You remember Barry, the shy, slim boy growing up in a conservative household in Colonial Williamsburg, who sought escape by getting drunk and experimenting with drugs?

How did he get from there to the health-conscious gym rat I knew in New York, who didn't drink or use drugs, who would never even set foot in a bar?

After his first sexual experience, when he was 16, Barry was angry and bitter over the Big Lie, the conspiracy to keep him from knowing that gay people exist, as well as the everyday heterosexism of "what girl do you like"?  So he continued his smoking and drinking, and moved from marijuana to prescription drugs.

He spent the next two years driving into Norfolk and using a fake id to get into the bars, where he would drink, dance, and hook up, usually for money.  Often with two or three guys in a night.

"Norfolk is 50% black," he said.  "Can't get much better odds than that."

"How did you find the time to go home with so many guys on the same night?"

"I didn't usually go home with them.  We did it in a parked car, or in an alley off Stockley Gardens."

By some miracle Barry managed to graduate from high school with a 3.5 GPA.  His search for black men led him to 80% black Howard University in Washington, DC, as a pre-law major.  Again, he spent most nights going to the bars on Dupont Circle with his fake id., dancing, drinking, trying Ecstasy, tricking, and hustling.


He was arrested twice, once for propositioning an undercover cop (DC had sodomy laws until 1995) and once for "indecent exposure" in a public restroom.

"I'm all for exploring masculinity in all its variety," I said, "But it sounds like you were obsessed."

"I thought that's what gay life was about.  Drinking, dancing, drugs, and hooking up."

He felt very guilty after his hookups, especially the anonymous encounters where a guy would go down on him without even a kiss first.  How degrading!  This wasn't what sex was supposed to be about.  What happened to the affection, the caring?  Sometimes he prayed afterwards to turn straight, so he could have a "normal," caring relationship.

"Did you date?"

"Just once."  During the summer of 1992, he fell in love with a tourist from St. Lucia -- his first romantic relationship, four years after coming out!  After a courtship of only a few days, he returned to St. Lucia with his new boyfriend.  But he soon grew bored, returned to DC, and resumed his life of drinking, dancing, tricking, and hustling (See A Boy, A Man, and a Caribbean Island for what really happened).

"Did you use condoms with your tricks?" I asked.

"Not usually. I didn't really care about HIV or hepatitis.  It's a miracle that I'm negative now."

He graduated from Howard University, with a C+ average.  Not good enough to get into a reputable law school.

So he moved to West Hollywood, got a clerical job, and spent his nights at Mickey's and the Rage, dancing, hooking up, drinking, and using drugs. He graduated from Ecstasy to cocaine and crystal meth.

The demon at his exorcism happened to disapprove of an evening where one of his tricks went down on him at the notorious hustler hangout, a donut shop on the corner of Highland and Santa Monica.

(It's under new management and not a hustler hangout anymore.)

"I loved West Hollywood," I said.  "The gym, the bookstores, the restaurants.  Did you go to the French Quarter?"

"Not really."

"Lots of spiritual activities, too.  The Metropolitan Community Church, Beth Chaim Chadashim Synagogue, Evangelicals Together."

"I didn't really join any groups."

"Not even gay Catholic groups?"

"ESPECIALLY not gay Catholic groups.  I wouldn't even trick with a guy if I knew he was Catholic.  Once a guy took off his shirt, and I saw a crucifix around his neck.  I ran away like a vampire."  He paused.  "Maybe I was a vampire."

Then, in the summer of 1998, a trick took him to a very nasty apartment complex near downtown.

Sagging, peeling wallpaper, threadbare carpets damp with mysterious stains, dim light from sickly yellow lamps, stultifying heat,  It was insufferably hot and damp.

As they were walking down the hallway, they passed a couple on the way out.

One was a creepy old guy in a business suit.

"What's wrong with old guys?  I'm 14 years older than you."

"Some of them are hot, but this guy was the worst: smelly, sweaty, with warts and claw-hands, slicked-back hair, and that creepy leer, you know, that they get when they won't take 'no' for an answer."

His companion was a blond guy in his 30s, but very worn and craggy, with bloodshot eyes and a scraggly beard, sweating in an old-fashioned leisure suit and gold chains.

As they passed, the blond guy locked eyes with Barry and mouthed the words "Help me!"

Barry noticed a crucifix around his neck.

"Do you think it was a kidnapping?  Or a hustler changing his mind about a trick?"

"I think it was a glimpse into my future.  I was seeing myself in ten years."

Barry was too freaked out to follow through with his own trick.  He ran back to his car and zoomed home, and said the Rosary for the first time since high school.

"I felt the presence of the Blessed Virgin, as if she had been watching over me all along, waiting for me to come home again." 

A week later, he was back in his parents' house in Williamsburg.

He gave up the bars, went to drug counseling, joined a gym, began practicing Zen meditation, and started going to Dignity, the gay Catholic group.

For the first time in his life, he had gay friends.

Maybe the Blessed Virgin had watched over him for a purpose.  He should become a monk.  But it had to be a pro-gay monastery.

Asking around Dignity, he discovered Andre's Traditional Catholic Community, and applied to join as a postulant.  That's when I met him, on the night of his exorcism.

Barry decided that he didn't have a monastic vocation, but he continued to go to Mass, say the rosary daily, and live a clean, almost monastic lifestyle. An hour of meditation and two hours at the gym every day.  No drinking, no smoking, no drugs, no bars.  No hookups, just dating and sharing with friends.

Today, thanks to the Blessed Virgin and a Creepy Old Guy, Barry is still DDF, still going to the gym and meditating daily.  He and his partner Daniel run a gay bed and breakfast on Long Island, near the Hamptons.

Daniel, by the way, is twenty years older than Barry.

See also: The Colonial Williamsburg Boy Finds Out What Gay Means; The Catholic Priest in my Bed; and The Homophobic Demon.

Barry Hooks Up with Luke Perry

Sayville, Long Island, November 1999

Yuri and I are in Sayville, visiting my friend Barry, the Colonial Williamsburg boy who escaped from his conservative, homophobic roots through drinking, drugs, and anonymous hookups, but has now been transformed into a health-conscious gym rat who practices Zen Buddhism and goes to gay Catholic Masses.

We're watching Beverly Hills 90210, about the angst-ridden lives of Southern California glitz kids.  I've never seen it -- why should I watch a program about the glitz and glamour of a mythical Beverly Hills, when I lived a mile away from the real one?

But tonight, one of the four subplots is about gay bashing: Dylan (Luke Perry) and his friend Andrew (Rob Derringer) are assaulted outside a gay community center in West Hollywood. Andrew doesn't want to report the incident, because if he is outed, he will lose his job.

"California has job protections for gay people!" I complain.  "And who gets bashed in West Hollywood?  I lived there for ten years, from 1985 to 1995 -- it was a small town, quiet, peaceful, where you knew your neighbors and everybody helped each other."

"That's funny," Barry says.  "I moved to West Hollywood in 1995, just as you were leaving, but I didn't find a small town at all.  It was cold and hard.  Everybody wanted to use you.  I didn't know anybody, for real.  I did a lot of drugs, mostly Ecstasy and crystal.  I danced all night, and hooked up a lot, and hustled."

"Hustled?" Yuri asks.

"Prostitute," I explain.

"You were prostitute?"

"Rent boy," Barry corrects me.  "I had a high class clientele.  They picked me up in limousines, took me to the best restaurants, kept me overnight in the best hotels, brought in the best drugs, but then always sent me home alone."


Barry wants to talk about how empty his life was before his transformation, a standard "I was lost but now I'm found" motif, but Yuri will have none of it.  He's been out for less than two years, he's never been to West Hollywood, and he wants everything there to be bright and shining and joyous.  "That is very exciting.  Do you meet any famous people?"

"A couple.  Him, for instance."  He points to Dylan Walsh, played by Luke Perry.

"Yuck!" I say instinctively.  "That long face, receding hairline, squinty eyes.  I'd go with Jason Priestly.  Much cuter, and we know that he has a big one from that photo of him on a nude beach that's been making the rounds of the internet [left]."

"No, Dylan is cute," Yuri protests.  "And I think he has a big one."

"Mega-gigantic!" Barry says.



West Hollywood, July 1997

Barry was not in the best frame of mind -- not much sleep last night, nothing to eat all day but some stale donuts for breakfast and leftover macaroni and cheese for dinner, no Ecstasy to be had from any of his usual sources.  He had been dancing for six hours on nothing but adrenaline and beer, and an occasional mojito sent over by a Creepy Old Guy hoping to get into his pants.

But his rent was coming due, and nobody was getting into his pants tonight unless he had $50, some primo crystal, or a pornstar-sized penis.

He tried all of the gay dance clubs in West Hollywood, and then he went up the hill to Sunset Boulevard, where young, hip, homophobic straights hung out.  Straight clubs were iffy -- you got cruised by women, you couldn't dance with men -- but if you played your cards right, you could go home with some superstud actor wannabes whose girlfriends were "out of town."

Tonight he hit the jackpot -- he had only just walked into Whiskey a Go Go, when he saw Luke Perry!  Sitting in a booth with an entourage of men.

Troubled loner Dylan Walsh on Beverly Hills 90210.

The outsider who resonated with Barry's life, growing up gay in conservative Colonial Williamsburg.

The glamorous world of Beverly Hills, 90210, where the sun was always shining and the guys were always hot.  Friendship.  Freedom.  Community.

An icon of Barry's childhood.  He even had a Dylan Walsh doll (no penis -- he checked).

There was no question about it -- he was going to trick with Luke Perry!

He walked up, started a conversation, got offered a beer but no crystal.  The entourage moved away, as if they knew the routine, as if Luke had done this before.

After some cruising, he followed Luke to the Parc Suites off La Cienega, and waited in the car while Luke paid for a room.

They kissed in the elevator -- a soft, warm "first date" kiss, not the aggressive, tongue-swallowing kiss of a trick.

Inside the hotel, they collapsed onto the bed, kissing and fondling. Luke's Mortadella+ became instantly aroused.  But Barry didn't.

"We don't have to do anything right away," Luke said with a frown.  "We can just cuddle."

"No, I'm into it.  I just need a few minutes.  I've never been with such a big star before -- or such a big penis -- I've got stage fright."

Luke didn't have stage fright -- he took off his pants and underwear and lay down on the bed with his legs spread.  Barry went down on him while Luke stroked his hair.

When he finished, Barry went to the bathroom to rinse out his mouth, and then returned to bed.  "Could we just cuddle now?"  he asked.  "I'm really tired."

"Sure, whatever you want."  Luke put his both arms around Barry and kissed him twice, once on the lips and once on the forehead.  Then he turned out the lights.

This is what gay life is supposed to be like, Barry thought.  Not endless nights of drugged-out dancing and tricking, wandering mean streets looking for yet another guy with a nice car and $50, then going home alone and empty.  It's supposed to be about caring for each other.  It's supposed to be about love.

Barry stayed awake all night, not wanting to miss a second of the warmth of Luke's arms, his soft breathing, his heartbeat.

He got up early in the morning, while it was still dark out, dressed, gave Luke one final kiss, and left.  You can't go home again, he thought.  It's too late.  Besides, he really wanted to score some crystal.

Sayville, Long Island, November 1999

 "It was nearly a year later when I encountered the Creepy Old Guy in a hotel corridor and started praying the rosary again," Barry tells us.  He went back home to Williamsburg, where his parents were delighted to reunite with him.  He gave up the bars, went to drug counseling, joined a gym, began practicing Zen meditation, and started going to Dignity, the gay Catholic group.

"Sad story," Yuri says.  "Does it mean that we won't share tonight?"

Barry laughs.  "Not until I get to know you a little better."


Was Barry telling the truth?

The guy Barry hooked up with never once said that he was in fact, Luke Perry the actor.

In July 1997, Luke Perry was married to Rachel Sharp.  Their first child, Jack Perry, was about a month old.  Luke has also dated Rene Zellweger, Kelly Preston, Shannon Doherty, and Yasmine Bleeth.

He's a gay ally who has played gay characters many times, including "himself" as gay on Family Guy.  One would think that, if he were gay or bisexual in real life, he would be open about it.

His penis, as we discovered on Oz in 2001, is not nearly as big as Barry claimed, but maybe he's a grower.

It seems odd that Barry would tell the Luke Perry story just as we were watching him on tv, as if he only just thought of it.

But why make up a story about that particular celebrity, when any icon of his childhood would do?

See also: Barry and the Creepy Old Guy

The Colonial Williamsburg Boy Finds Out What Gay Means

My friend Barry in New York, the short, blondish muscle guy who was exorcized from a homophobic demon, grew up in Colonial Williamsburg, the historical park in Virginia where people live full-time in 18th century houses, wear historic costumes, and pretend that they're living in the 18th century.

He went to a regular school, but had to sneak into his house through the back door afterwards.  The front of the house had to maintain the illusion in detail.  No modern appliances.  No window decals.  No air conditioners.

 And, whenever they went out onto Duke of Gloucester Street, he and his family had to put on wigs and tricorner hats and say "Aye" a lot while thousands of tourists gawked at them.

All heterosexual husbands and wives towing dozens of kids.

He never saw a same-sex couple.  This was his destiny.  No hope for the future.

To make matters worse, his parents were conservative Catholics who didn't want him to know that same-sex desire existed.  He was not permitted the minimal gay content on tv and in movies in the 1980s.  He never heard about gay people at school, at church, or among his friends, either.

"Wait -- you never heard about gay people, at the height of the AIDS crisis?  Not even in homophobic diatribes?"
"I heard that AIDS was God's punishment on 'bad people" for having sex outside of marriage.  I thought it meant heterosexuals."

No gay people existed.  Instead, he was told, over and over again, a hundred times a day,  "You will grow up, meet the Girl of Your Dreams, get married, and have kids.  Every boy does.  It is universal human experience."

His destiny.  No hope for the future.

Sounds like my childhood, only 14 years later.

I survived through the orchestra, running, and paradoxically, the church.

Barry played music, too, but he was too shy and awkward for sports (he bulked up later), and he hated church.  So he turned inside.

By the time he was 15, he was smoking cigarettes and getting drunk once or twice a week.  He was soon experimenting with marijuana and other drugs.  He got high while listening to Madonna and Duran Duran in the darkness of his room.

"Good choices -- Hungry Like a Wolf.,,"

But eventually he had to go downstairs again, to Prince George Street, where he wore a tricorner hat and got gawked at by the tourists, husbands, wives, and kids.

His destiny.  No hope for the future.

The story of how Barry got his life back on track begins with his first sexual experience.

One day in high school he was "on," marching down the Duke of Gloucester Street with the Fife and Drum Corps, when he noticed a tourist outside the Courthouse, watching him intently.

Older, probably in his 30s, dark haired, bearded, his yellow t-shirt revealing a muscular physique and a hairy chest.

Hot!  Barry smiled at him.

Why did he seem so out of place?  Suddenly Barry figured it out -- he was alone.  Tourists always came in groups of husbands, wives, and a bunch of kids.

Was his wife somewhere else, with the kids in tow?  Or was there a possibility that some men avoided the wife-and-kids trap, lived free?

They marched down three blocks, turned in formation, and marched back.  The older man was still there, watching him.  Barry smiled again.

When they finished their performance, the other guys scattered, to put on their street clothes and hit Rick's Diner, their hangout, but Barry walked back toward the Courthouse.  The tourist was walking east, toward the Raleigh Tavern.

Not really understanding why, Barry ran to catch up with him.

"Good morrow, sir," he said politely, tipping his hat.  "Did you enjoy our performance?"

The tourist turned and flashed a smile that made Barry melt inside.  "I liked it, but I'm not sure you did.  You looked kind of uncomfortable."

Stay in character!  "Perhaps I'm not accustomed to such a throng of spectators.  Although this is the capital of Virginia Colony, it has only about 1,000 residents."

"Do you want to study music in college?"

"Well, there are no music faculties in colonial universities, but indeed one day when I am married, I hope to play for my supper and thereby support my wife and children." 

The tourist frowned.  "You don't have to talk like that," he said, staring intently as if he could see into Barry's soul.  "You don't have to pretend."  

Surely he meant "You don't have to pretend to be a Colonial," but Barry heard "The adults are lying.  You can be who you are."

His whole world came crashing down around him.  His whole life was a lie, as empty as the Colonial facades, with nothing behind  it but darkness.

Horrified, Barry ran away -- not home, but to a secret place he knew, a little copse of trees behind the Public Gaol, where he went to hide from the world, from his heterosexual destiny.

He stopped, breathing heavily, overcome by sadness and rage.  He saw that the tourist had followed.

"What's wrong, kid?  You ok?"

Barry was most definitely not ok. 

"I'm...I'm..." he stammered.  Then he started to cry.

The tourist put his arms around him.  Barry had never been embraced by a man before, not even by his father.  He had never known that a chest could be so hard.

He clung to the tourist, running his hands over his chest and shoulders. Then they were kissing.

Men could kiss each other?

 They fell onto the soft summer ground, and the tourist undid the buttons of Barry's colonial breeches and went down on him.


He had never felt such an explosion of desire.

Afterwards they walked down Francis Street together.

"I didn't know there were other guys in the world who...you know...wanted to kiss."

The tourist laughed.  "Oh, there are thousands of gay people.   Maybe millions."

He had never heard the word "gay" before.

"There are bars for us down in Norfolk.  And whole neighborhoods where we can hold hands and kiss in public."

"I don't believe it!" Barry exclaimed.  "Where?"

"New York.  There's the East Village, Chelsea, Fire Island...."

They said goodbye somewhere around the campus of William and Mary.

It would take years, and a lot of work, to overcome his childhood of silence and despair.

But now, at least, he had a name.  And he had a future.

See also: A Hookup with Barry and the Poz Boy; David's First Sexual Experience.

Yuri and the Sausage-Size Contest

Long Island, June 2009

In June 2009, Yuri flies back to the States for a two-week visit. He hasn't been back since he moved to London in 2005, although I went out to visit him two years ago.

I want to see Yuri again, of course, but I also want to see some of my old friends and go to some of my old haunts in New York. Even though Upstate is only five hours away, I haven't gone back.

We meet at JFK, and then drive to a townhouse on Powers Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where we will stay with his ex-boyfriend Daniel, a history professor into Beat poetry and jazz.

Daniel is a buffed daddy in his 40s, balding, bearded, with thick hard muscles and a few piercings.

He has two roommates:

Brandon, a tall, slim twink with a round face, a bright smile, and olive skin, maybe Hispanic or Asian, a nurse at a hospital nearby.

Tighe (pronounced Teeg), a gym rat in his 30s, rather short with curly red hair and a short beard, who doesn't have a job but does all of the cooking and cleaning to cover his share of the rent.

   

On the first night, we're too tired from our trip to do anything more than go out to dinner, watch tv, and go to bed. We share with Daniel, but not much sharing goes on, just a little kissing and some oral without completion.

In the morning, Yuri and I take the subway into Manhattan to check out the Strand Bookstore, my old gym, Christopher Street, Central Park, and the Museum of Natural History. We return in time for some brief cruising at the Metropolitan before the dinner party.

Daniel and the two roommates are there, plus:

Liam, the boy who gave me a present on his 18th birthday back in 2000, still a cute blond twink, slim and a little swishy.

My friend Barry, the Colonial Williamsburg boy, in his 30s, with a slim compact frame and a square Eastern European face.

His boyfriend, another Daniel (sorry), in his 50s, short-haired, very buffed, with a hairy chest.

Dinner is a grilled eggplant salad, lamb curry, and a Mediterranean fruit soup, discussions of the new Star Trek movie, Ugly Betty, celebrity hookups, dates from hell, and bulge-watching.

"Bulges are nice," Yuri says. "But they lie.  Some big guys don't show, and some small guys look like they are showing.  You look at their hands and feet, talk to them, see their face."

"Face?" Barry repeats.  "What does that tell you?"

"Big guys have a look.  They are confident, fearless.  Small guys are shy.  They look down.  They are afraid.  That is how I always know if the guy is big or small."

"Then how do you end up on dates with small guys?" I ask. "Like the Unhung Hippie. Remember him?"

Yuri shrugs. "I always know if the guy is big or small, but sometimes the big ones aren't worthwhile.   In Russian we say luchsheye vrag khoroshego, if you look for the best, you miss out on the good."

"Well -- " Daniel begins, "If I'm counting right, there are five guys in the room that you haven't seen naked."

Yuri looks around.  "Right.  Just you and Boomer. I met Barry before, but we didn't share."

"How about a little game?  You guess the sizes of the other five guys, through their pants, without feeling them or seeing them aroused."

"Hum!  Easy!  What do I get if I win?"

"Every guy you guess right has to buy you lunch or dinner while you're in town."

"And if I lose?"

"You have to go down on each guy you are mistaken about.  Two minutes, orgasm not necessary.  Ok, guys?"

They nod their assent.

"Easy!  No problem.  The only guy I go down on tonight is Boomer!" 

He asks them to stand in a row with their hands behind their backs.

Can you figure out their sizes without looking?

Yuri looks at them each, face and crotch, shakes their hands, smiles, asks them a few questions, while they all try to appear confident and fearless.  He writes his size estimate down in a notebook, quickly changes the centimeters to inches, and announces:

Daniel 2:  9"

Brandon:  7.5"

Liam: 8"

Tighe: 10"

Barry:  6"

Next it's time to measure.  Yuri asks them, one at a time, to take it out and bring it to full arousal, with a fluffer if necessary.   I'm ready with a tape measure.  

Daniel 2: Wrong!  7"

Brandon: Wrong!  5"

Liam: Wrong! 6"

Tighe: Wrong!  7.5"

Barry: Wrong!  8"

"Oh, well.  I am having an off day," Yuri says with a shrug.  "Boomer, help me with these guys.  I cannot do them all myself."

I don't need to be asked twice.  I go down on Brandon and Liam, while Yuri works on Barry, Daniel 2, and then Tighe.

Before long Brandon, Liam, and I are off to one bedroom, Daniel, Daniel 2, and Barry to another, and Yuri and Tighe to a third.  But while Yuri and Tighe are kissing, I grab the notebook from his pocket.

He got every measurement right.

"Hey, you lost on purpose!"  I exclaim.

He shrugs, and his hand moves down to Tighe's crotch.  "Wouldn't you?"

16 Naked New Yorkers

I lived in New York from 1997 to 2001, while in graduate school at Long Island University: a year in a graduate student apartment on campus, and three years in the East Village, sharing an apartment with Edward the Art Appraiser.  It never felt like home, in the way that West Hollywood was home; I always felt like a visitor, dropping in on other people's lives.

But the hookup opportunities were enormous.  Maybe we knew so much about safe sex that anonymous encounters no longer seemed risky, or maybe  the East Village never developed the "date first, bedroom later" culture of West Hollywood, but cruising was constant, and intense.

Here are my top "bedroom first, dating later" stories from four years in New York.

Year 1

1. Conrad, who came to my room to fix my computer.

2. Dustin, who invited me to an all-nighter after a meeting of the New York Bondage Club.

3. The fireman who came by when my crazy roommate left an open can of tuna in his room during Christmas break.  We thought something died in there.

4. The Lebanese guy I met online, who asked "do you want to hang out?" by which he meant come to my room for oral.

Year 2

5. The older bear who lived only a few blocks from my parents' house in Indianapolis.  I dropped in for a "quickie" on the way to the bars.

6. The unhung hippie who Yuri and I shared after a conversation of about five minutes.

7. I was conducting a research project that required me to interview gay men.  Carl refused to be interviews, but agreed to show me his Kielbasa+.

8. Prasert, the chef in a Thai restaurant in Paris.  I ate there almost every night.  One night he invited me into the kitchen to show me a "new recipe."  In the stock room.

Year 3

9. Barry, on the night we exorcised the homophobic demon.

10. The Man in Black who cruised me on Christopher Street.

11. When Yuri came to Manhattan for the weekend, we went cruising at the Eagle, and he was approached by a Korean gym rat.  He was reluctant, having heard that Asians are small beneath the belt, but I talked him into it.

12. When I was visiting Zack in Providence, we went to a bar that had a little enclosed patio, the equivalent of dark rooms in European bars.  I went down on a guy while he was staring straight ahead, pretending to not even know I was there.  You can't get more anonymous than that!

Year 4

13. I broke every rule of cruising, and followed Jorge out into the cold, dark night with only an exchange of first names.

14. Shen the Chinese history major.  We spent the whole evening in his room, watching tv.

15. Carey, the Football Player Who Got Unstuck in Time.

16. The NYU undergrad who came to my apartment in the rain and refused to leave until the sun was out.  The next afternoon.