Nude Photos of TV Doctor Vince Edwards

Baby Boomer kids are familiar with Vince Edwards from Ben Casey (1961-1966), and their parents, with his many beefcake roles of the 1950s, such as Mr. Universe (1951) and Hiawatha (1952).

There's no evidence that he posed for gay physique magazines like Physique Pictorial, but there are nude photos of a young Vince Edwards floating around the internet.





He's around 20 here, so it's about 1948, when Vince was studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts   A classical Greek pose like you would see in physique magazines,  but there was no full nudity in print at the time.  This must have been a private photo shoot.














Older here, and bulked up, probably early 1950s, after he moved to Los Angeles.

Was he a member or hanger-on of the Hollywood gay scene?

The full post is on Boomer Beefcake and Bonding.

Cruising in the Navajo Nation

Window Rock, Arizona

I grew up around Native Americans, at the annual pow wow and through visiting relatives (my Cousin Joe is half Potawatomie).  But I was never with a Native American guy, through all my years in college and in West Hollywood, except for the Inuit that Lane and I hooked up with.

When I visited my friend  Larry in New Mexico, I was determined to find a Native American guy.

Cruising in Santa Fe proved fruitless -- well, I brought home a cute college boy, but he was Anglo.

Albuquerque, Tucumcari, Roswell, Alamogordo, the same.  Lots of Hispanic guys, but not a lot of Native Americans.

So I decided to go to the heartland -- the Navajo Nation.

Semi-autonomous, 27,000 miles in parts of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah, population 300,000, of whom 170,000 speak the Navajo language.  Capital Window Rock, Arizona, population 2,700.

I got a hotel room at the Quality Inn in Window Rock and set out.

Then I realized that I had no idea how to go about it.

I had been planning on cruising in straight bars, but there weren't any in Window Rock.

Not a lot of street cruising, either.  No one on the streets.  People drove cars and trucks.

There was a string of fast-food restaurants, but I didn't think much cruising went on at McDonald's and Church's Chicken.

The Window Rock itself was a very scenic natural formation, and the Navajo National Museum was interesting, but....Navajo men?

I found a locally-owned Mexican restaurant, but when I went inside, all eyes turned toward me with hostile stares.

In desperation, I asked at the front desk what "activities" there were around.  I got a list of dull things like camping, hunting, fishing, the Navajo Nation Zoo, and buying arts and crafts.

Was I being too blatant?  Or too desperate?

I spent the evening in online chatrooms.

Nothing.

In the morning I went jogging, early, before the sun got too hot.  I passed a group of high schoolers on the jogging trail.

In three hours I would be leaving for the airport.  And Indian country would be gone forever.

Suddenly I saw a man jogging by himself.   In his 20s, tanned, hairy chest.  

Good enough. I caught up to him and poured on the erotic energy.  "Hot one today, isn't it?" I began, an inane but effective way to start a conversation.

Instead of the usual hostile stare, he smiled.

His name was Ricky, and he worked in human services.  I spent four years in human resources, so we talked a bit about the problems of personnel.  Then about the problems of meeting people in the Navajo Nation.

"It's all close-knit family groups.  You don't get to be friends unless your great-grandparents knew each other.  And dating -- forget it -- drive down to Albuquerque."

"So -- you don't have a girlfriend or boyfriend at home?" I asked.

"Just me and my cat."

"I love cats!" I exclaimed,  pretending to be excited.

He glanced over and smiled.  "You want to drop by and meet her?"

You know what followed.  Briefly petting the cat, followed by a shower and a bedroom.  Nice physique, average beneath the belt gifts.

 Then Ricky drove me back to my hotel, so I could check out and drive to the airport.

A nice, unexpected hookup.  With only one problem.  Ricky was Anglo, too.

See also: Kyle Hawk: Gay or gay-ally wrestler, with a nude Native American bonus

In Search of Sex and Languages in Tijuana

I'm running low on Alan stories, but I hate to let him go. so here's the story of me, Alan, and the bathhouse in Tijuana.

Tijuana, August 1987

It's a sedate cultural center now, but in the 1980s, it was synonymous with sleaze.

Watch your wallet.
Drink only bottled water
Be careful of the bathrooms.
Don't walk too close to alleys.

"We should go," Alan the Pentecostal Porn Star said one day in 1987.  "You speak Spanish, so you can impress all the locals.  And the bathhouses are still open.  Have you been to one?"

"Just once, four years ago in Chicago.  My friend Viju took me.  I didn't like it."

"They're great!" Alan exclaimed.  "Darn homophobic Department of Health closed them down here, thinking we're all having unsafe sex and getting AIDS in them, but you can have unsafe sex anywhere.  You just have to be careful, stick to French.  That won't be a problem for us, right?"

Alan rarely topped anyone, and I never knew him to bottom.  Interfemoral, oral, and sometimes 69, although he was a little too big to do that comfortably.

"Sex with strangers?"  I said, dubious.  Even casual hookups were frowned upon in West Hollywood.

"It's a foreign country.  Our rules don't apply.  And we're both single, right?"  He paused.  "Besides, I know a place where you can meet Indios."

Mexico is a racially segregated society.  The elites are white, of Spanish ancestry only.  The middle class is usually Mestizo, of mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry.  And the working class and poor are primarily Indio, from about 60 different language groups:

Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, like nothing else I have ever seen:
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year: Cualli netlācatilizpan īhuān yancuic xihuitl

Mayan, the language of the ancient Mayan civilization of the Yucatan, nothing like Nahuatl:
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year: Ki'imak Navidad yéetel ki'imak ja'aba' túumben

Mixtec, Zapotec, Otomi, Mazatec, Tlapenec

The prospect of hearing Indio languages convinced me.

So one Saturday in the summer of 1987, we drove down to Tijuana, skipped over the usual tourist haunts, and drove directly to a crazy galleria on the south side of town, where, Alan told me, the Banos Vica catered to Indios.

Talk about sleazy!  You undressed, dumped your clothes in a bag, and went upstairs through a dirty shower room, then wandered through creaking corridors, dimly lit by bare bulbs, paint chipping on the walls, trash on the floors, sleazy looking naked guys in the shadows.

There were steam rooms and showers, but mostly you just did things right there in the shadows.


"Oh, boy," I thought.  "Indios!  I'm going to meet some Nahuatl and Mayan speakers!"

The only question was, how did I actually meet them?

Alan stood in the shadows.  He only had to wait a few moments before a slim, smooth guy with a bubble butt knelt to go down on his porn star-sized Kielbasa.

I could hardly say "Hola!  Hablas Nahuatl o Mayan?"

I waited.  Another slim, smooth guy with a thin moustache went down on my smaller but still respectable Bratwurst+.

After a few moments, I drew him to his feet and tried to kiss him, but he turned his face away.  "Quenin timotōcā?" I said, one of the Nahuatl phrases I memorized.

He shrugged and moved on.

Idiot! I told myself.  There are 60 native languages.  He could speak any of them, or none!


I went down on another guy, short, with a round face,  a sly smile, and an uncut Bratwurst.  After a few minutes, someone else roughly pushed me out of the way to go down on him, so I stood and drew him into a kiss.  The on-his-knees guy worked on both of us for a few moments, then stood and left.

"Hablas Nahuatl?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

The third guy was dark, muscular, with average beneath the belt gifts.  I went down on him until he finished with a moan.

"Hablas algo lengua India?" I asked. Do you speak any Indian language?

"Como?"

Frustrated, I said loudly, "Hay alguien que hablan una lengua Indio?"  The men standing in shadows glared at me.

I sought out Alan, and we shared a light-skinned, curly-haired guy.  He went down on Alan while I went down on him.

Afterwards, I had almost given up, but I still managed to ask, "Hablas Mayan o Nahuatl?"

"Are you the one who was yelling earlier?" he asked in English.

"I wasn't yelling, I was just talking loudly."

He laughed.  "Got a Indio thing, huh?  Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm from San Antonio."

We left after a couple of hours.

"Well, that was fruitless," I said.

"You were with about five guys," Alan said. "How is that fruitless?"

"I didn't meet anyone who spoke any Indian languages."

"Were you there for sex or languages?"

"Well, languages, mainly," I admitted sheepishly.

"Why didn't you say so?  No one talks in a bathhouse.  But I know a place we can go."

On the way out of town, we stopped at the Club Habanero, a gay bar on the Calle Benito Juarez that specialized in Indios.  We met Alejandro, a slim guy from Veracruz who spoke no English, just Spanish -- and Nahuatl!

By the way, the Nahuatl word for penis is huiloti, or "dove," but when it is aroused, it's a moquauhquetza.

Alan wasn't happy with my ability to monopolize the conversation.

And even less happy when I failed to seal the deal and get an invitation back to Alejandro's apartment.

Apparently you can learn the Nahuatl word for penis, or you can go down on a Nahuatl penis, but you can't do both.

See also: My First Bathhouse; In Search of Sex and Languages in South Africa

A Naked Indian God at the Pow Wow

Rock Island, September 1970

Every summer the Sauk and Fox Indians, who used to live on the site of Rock Island, returned for a Pow Wow at Black Hawk State Park.  On the Fourth of July weekend in 1970, just after fourth grade, Bill's big brother Mike and his girlfriend took us to see it.

We wandered the booths where Sauk/Fox  ladies sold beadwork, moccasins, feathered headdresses, little toy drums, fried bread, and ice cream sandwiches. For some reason, the phallic Weinermobile was there, selling hot dogs.

Mike bought me a small green-plastic statue of a Sauk with a round face, long flowing hair, and bulging muscles.


The lady at the booth said that he was Wisakeha, a beautiful youth who created all of the world's rivers.  He fell asleep on the day the White-Eyes first bridged the Mississippi, but someday he would awaken and banish war from the world forever.

Mike got quiet after that, maybe thinking of Vietnam.

The show came later: Fancy Dancers fluttering with fringed shirts and enormous feathered headdresses, Medicine Dancers in animal masks, Eagle Dancers with red and green streamers fringing from their pants. A "Wild Indian" blew cigarette smoke through his nose and scared the little kids with his tomahawk. Sauk women marched single-file across the dirt, chanting to the corn spirits.   Teenage boys wearing only buckskin pants marched across the dirt, pounding on drums and screaming. They invited the kids to scream as loud as we could to awaken Wisakeha.

When a white-haired old man in a red-beaded headdress began to screech in the old Sauk language, Bill and I decided to look for Indian arrowheads in the hickory-oak woods. We walked up a steep trail that led away from the Pow Wow until we could no longer hear the shrill song or the murmuring voices. Sometimes we caught a glimpse of the river through the foliage, glinting down past a white-brick dam.

Suddenly the woods became very quiet. We saw a figure standing a little down from the path, facing the river.  An Indian! One of the teenage performers, I thought, still in costume, except his buckskin pants were down around his ankles, leaving him naked. I saw the side of his thigh, the curve of his clenched buttocks, his thin striated belly, his massive chest painted green like the forest. He was peeing, I realized with a start -- and he had a garden hose between his legs!  It took two hands to direct the stream of urine into the undergrowth.

I had only seen a few penises before, or what the grownups called "shames": my brother's, my cousin Joe's, and my Uncle Paul's.   (I didn't count the Naked Man in the Peat Bog, because I thought he was a monster.)

He couldn’t be a real Indian boy! I thought. He was too muscular, too alien, too beautiful. His chest was green, but the rest of his body was dark gold, like a statue. He must be Wisakeha, the god that the Sauk and Fox worshipped, who would soon banish war from the world. We watched in utter silence, afraid to move or breathe.

Suddenly the boy noticed that we were watching. He turned, his muscles taut, his eyes pools of black. And he screamed. It wasn’t angry, like the screams of wild Indians on tv, or the preacher at church – he was screaming with joy.  He wanted to be seen.

But we were too terrified to stick around.  We ran back to the Pow Wow as fast as we could, and collapsed yelling into Mike’s arms.

Maybe we did awaken a sleeping god that day.

Sausage Sighting of an Indian God in Tennessee

When I was a kid, my Dad got a 2-week vacation every year.  We would always spend the first week visiting our relatives in Indiana, and the second camping up north,  usually in Minnesota.

But in 1973, just after seventh grade, for some reason we spent the first week visiting my Kentucky Kinfolk and the second in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, about sixty miles south on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina.

A whole week of nothing to do but sleep outside, fish, hike, and ride horses.

Gross! Where were all the historic sites? Where was all the beefcake?

Then Mom and Dad announced that we were going to spend a day at the Cherokee Indian Reservation.  We would see the Cherokee Museum, the Oconaluftee Indian Village (a replica of an 18th century Cherokee village), and Unto These Hills, a drama about Cherokee history performed in a gigantic outdoor theater.

The play (written by Kermit Hunter in 1950) was big on "noble savage" myths and short on historical accuracy (a new, more accurate version was introduced in 2006).

But it had lots of white-Indian buddy-bonding: future President Andrew Jackson befriended Chief Junaluska, and William Holland Thomas, a white boy adopted by the Cherokee, befriended Chief Yonaguska.

And lots of semi-nude male dancers.  I especially liked the head Eagle Dancer, a super-muscular teenager whose bare hard chest glimmered in the firelight.  I kept waiting for his white loincloth to flip up so I could see what was underneath.

He reminded me of the Naked Indian God at the Pow Wow in Rock Island three years ago, but I was just a little kid then, and didn't know how to handle the situation.  Now, a 12 year old grown-up, I knew exactly what I wanted -- to meet the Teenage Indian God, and hopefully see him naked.

 After the performance, I asked my parents if I could go get his autograph. They said ok, but hurry.

I pushed my way through the crowds to the little staging area behind the amphitheater, where the performers were wiping off their makeup.  I found the Teenage Indian God, surprisingly, alone.  He had already exchanged his loincloth for a pair of jeans, but his chest was still bare, smooth and hard, his pecs outlined in blue paint, and, as he was pulling them up, I got a sausage sighting -- dark, thick, uncut!

"Hi!  You were great!"  I said breathlessly, trying to memorize his physique and penis. "Can I have your autograph?"

"Sure."  He signed my program.  Our hands touched as he passed it back.

What could I say to get him interested?  "Um...I want to be a dancer, too, but the Mean Boys at school say it's just for girls."

"Don't let Mean Boys push you around," the Teenage Indian God told me.  "Do what makes you happy.  I'm the only boy in my ballet class -- one boy and twenty girls!  Nice odds, huh?"

Wait -- was he studying dance just to get girls?  What about the muscular male bodies?  What about the buddy-bonding?

"Gross!" I exclaimed.

He laughed. "Just wait a few years -- let me tell you, there's nothing like holding a foxy chick in your arms..."

"Don't you ever dance with boys?"

"If you're going to be a dancer, you have to dance with girls," he said, looking at me oddly.  "They're always going to be your partners, for the rest of your life."

They're always going to be your partners.  What a bleak future!

Blinking back tears of outrage, I rushed off, forgetting to thank him for the autograph.

When we got back to the camper, I looked at my program.  Kevin Martin.  

He wasn't even a real Indian.

I took it out into the woods and threw it away.

Researching this post, I found out more about Kevin Martin.  After high school, he studied dance in New York, and then spent twenty years performing for dance companies in Cincinnati, Louisville, and Washington.  Today he is the director of the men's dance division of the Nutmeg Conservatory for the Arts in Connecticut.

Hopefully he hasn't done it all just to get girls.

My First Indian Sausage Sighting and BDSM Scene

Dowagiac, Michigan, March, 1971

Dad always claimed that he was half Indian, from the Potawatomi tribe of southern Michigan.   But he didn't mean by blood: when his big sister Nora married a Potawatomi man (my Uncle Henry), he was sort of adopted by the family.  When I was a kid, we occasionally drove to Dowagiac, Michigan, about four hours from Rock Island, to visit Grandma Rani, a small, brown, wrinkled woman who always said "You've grown as big as a beanstalk!"

One day in fifth grade, Dad told me "We're going out to Michigan for your Grandma Rani's 90th birthday.  All of your uncles and aunts and cousins are throwing her a big party."

Cousins?  Potawatomi boys my own age?

I remembered the naked Indian boy that Bill and I saw at the Pow Wow last summer -- huge beneath the belt.

And Cousin Joe, half Indian -- huge.

Suddenly I was very interested in meeting my Indian cousins.

When we visited before, Grandma Rani lived in a farmhouse in the wild birch woods, but this time she was living with her daughter and her family in a rather rundown gray house on a side street in Dowagiac

There were a lot of people.  Some I knew, like my Aunt Nora and Cousin Joe.  Most I didn't.  We ate cake or pie (not both), leafed through photo albums, and helped the now wheelchair-bound Grandma Rani unwrap presents.

Indian parties turned out to be like every other grownup party, except that you got a piece of cake with a lit candle on it, and an old guy gave a long speech about how "Rani has honored our people," accompanied by a slow, steady drum.

A very long speech.  I asked Mom if I could go out and play.

I wasn't the only one.  There were a dozen kids in the back yard.  I walked up to a couple of guys about my age and one older, almost a teenager.  They had black hair and dark eyes and smooth coppery skin. My Indian cousins were cute!  But were they big?

"Do you like Daniel Boone?" I asked, to break the ice. Then I kicked myself -- I only thought of it because the theme song said "Daniel Boone was a big man."  But it was a Western, about   wild, savage Indians!  Of course they wouldn't watch that!

"It's pretty cool," the older one said.  "I dig his coonskin cap.  I'd like to make one myself, if I can hunt down a coon."

I relaxed.  One faux pas over. Soon the guys -- Javon (13), his brother Rodney (10), and their cousin Mike (9) were showing me around.  Downtown was only a three block walk away -- it had an ice cream store and a newsstand where you could get comic books.

I was full of cake from the party, and I had just spent my allowance on comic books at Schneider's on Monday, but I pretended enthusiasm.  I really wanted my Indian cousins to like me.

I squirmed when I saw Turok, Son of Stone among the comics -- it was about two Indians with feathered headdresses and loincloths trapped in a prehistoric land.  But my Indian cousins didn't seem to notice.

When we finished looking at (but not buying) comic books, Javon said "Come on, let's play in Mill Pond Park"

  My heart sank.  I didn't like playing outside, and I didn't really know how.  "Um...what do you like to play?" I asked.  "Hide and seek?  King of the hill?  Cowboys and..no..."

Javon grinned.  "Those are baby games.  Let's play Green Berets.  It will get us ready for the army when we grow up."

The game was basically Cowboys and Indians combined with Hide and Seek.  set in Vietnam.  The Viet Cong (our enemy) capture an American G.I., tie him up, and torture him for information.  Two or more Green Berets (an elite military group) have to find him, subdue the Viet Cong and rescue him.


We ran back to the house, got some rope and toy guns, and set to work.

As the oldest, Javan got the pivotal role, the G.I.  I volunteered to be the Viet Cong officer.

While Rodney and Mike waited, I put a t-shirt on Javon's head as a hood and led him into the woods.  We turned a few times to make it more difficult to find us.  Then I tied his hands behind a tree. He was still wearing a hood.

"So you won't talk!" I exclaimed.

"Not so loud!" Javon said  "They'll find us too soon."

"We'll make you talk."  I whispered.  I carefully unbuttoned his shirt and ran my hand over his smooth, hard chest.  "You won't be able to stand this torture for long."


"You won't get anything out of me!"

"Oh, no?  Not even if we hit you on the wiener?"  I undid his belt, unbuttoned his pants, and slid them down.  I heard a sharp intake of breath.

A little disappointing -- much smaller than my Cousin Joe's.  But I didn't get to see many wieners, let alone touch them.

"We'll see how brave you are when we're hitting you on the wiener!"

I reached out and grabbed it: soft and warm to the touch, with a rubbery foreskin.  Then Rodney and Mike came war-whooping out of the bushes.   Rodney pushed me away with a fake karate move, and Mike shot me with his toy gun.  I collapsed onto the ground, "dead."

In the next iteration, Rodney was the G.I., and Mike the Viet Cong officer.  Then we had to pack up and go home.

I saw my Indian cousins only once after that, at Grandma Rani's funeral.  We haven't stayed in contact.  I wonder if Javon still likes getting tied up.  And by who.

See also:The First Boy I Tied Up; An All-Nighter at the New York Bondage Club; and Cruising in the Navajo Nation.

The Boy Who Ran Away to Manitowoc

My father was adopted by the Davis family when he was five years old.  He remembered almost nothing about his biological mother, and even less about his grandparents, only that they lived in Howe, Indiana, and his grandfather was named Nils.

Like The Wonderful Adventure of Nils, the Swedish children's book that everybody in Rock Island had to read?  Was my biological great-grandfather Swedish?

I always felt left out with a generic American heritage, among the Belgians, Greeks, Swedes, Germans, Jews, and Estonians in my class.  Maybe I had a heritage after all!

 A few more, conflicting details from my father's older sisters, and from a elderly woman at Christmas dinner one year who said she was Aunt Nora's aunt.

1. My great-grandfather was Nilsson, not Nils.  He was only 16, a cadet at the Howe Military Academy, when he met my great-grandmother Ida.  She was 17 years old, living on the Potawatomi Reservation.   Her parents disapproved of the match, and told them to break it off.  But they refused, and on day in 1897 Ida left the reservation forever.

2. Or his name was Stephens, he was 27, and Ida was 23 years old, a "spinster."  When she became pregnant in 1897, he ran away, but sent her money from Manitoba.  Ida returned to the reservation to raise her daughter.

3. Or his name was Nels. When Ida became pregnant, her father thought that she had been dishonored, and paid some thugs to get revenge.  Nels was never seen again.  Maybe he left town.  Maybe he was murdered: every year on March 3rd, the day Nel disappeared, Ida took a bouquet of flowers out into the woods.

Whatever his name was, everyone agreed that he was as as beautiful as the day, with dark wavy hair like Valentino, a voice like Caruso, and the physique of a Charles Atlas.  Most of the girls in town were in love with him, and he was in love with most of them.

I didn't see much of a gay connection in this story, but the "forbidden romance" angle is always queer -- white-Indian relations were a criminal offense in some states in the 1890s.  And I was interested in the "beautiful as the day" Nilson/Stephen.

Besides, he was my biological great-grandfather.

But when I started researching family genealogy, I came to a dead end.

First, there is no Potawatomie reservation near Howe, Indiana (it turns out that my Indian "grandmother" was one of Aunt Nora's relatives by marriage.) 

Second, I found great-grandmother Ida and her parents on census rolls and gedcoms, but no combination of Nils, Nilson, Nelson, Neal, or Stephen first and last names.

Which makes sense, I suppose.  If he was a student at the military academy, his home would have been somewhere else, maybe out of state.

And I couldn't search his final destination, the entire province of Manitoba.  Dead end.

A few days ago, I decided to try again, and keyed in various combinations of Nilson, Nelson, Stephenson, and so on into Google Books, along with Manitoba.

I found  someone named Nels Stephenson building an opera house in Manitiwoc, Wisconsin in 1899, two years after my great-grandfather left town or was murdered.  The right time period, and the names are close enough to match. His business partner was William Brandt.

Could that be a gay connection?

William Brandt doesn't appear in Manitiwoc census records, or in the newspaper before 1899.  Not a Wisconsin native.

But when I checked the records of Howe, Indiana, there he was!  William Brandt, born in Lagrange County, about ten miles away, in 1870.

 William Brandt and great-grandfather Nels left town together.  Nels may not even have known that Ida was pregnant.

Imagine what happened that night in 1897:

"They're coming for you, Nels."

"Why, Billy, what do you mean?"

"Ida's father found out about your romance, and he paid some thugs to kill you.  I have a carriage waiting-- we have to run away, tonight."

"We?"

"Well, of course.  You don't think I'd let you go out to the Wild West by yourself?  And miss out on all that fun?"

"But your job at the opera house?"

"There will be other opera houses.  Now get packed -- we have to go!"

There's a guide to LaGrange County on A Gay Guide to Small-Town America

A Sausage Sighting in Fairbanks, Alaska

Fairbanks, Alaska, February 2008

In the spring of 2008, when my temporary visiting position at the University of Dayton was winding down, I applied for about 50 academic jobs.  Most were in or near gay neighborhoods, but I also applied to some in places that would be interesting to visit.

A free trip to some exotic locale, a guided tour of the city, free meals in the best restaurants. And who knows?  Maybe I would like it so much that I would take the job.

So I applied to the University of Alaska at Fairbanks,

I always keep a scorecard of pros and cons, to decide whether to take the job, if I get the offer.

Fairbanks Pros

You can see the aurora borealis. 5 points

The University has a gay student group. 5 points

The Museum of the North. 5 points.

My office would have a window. 10 points (you'd be surprised how important this is).

The University offers classes in Yupik, Inupiaq, and Tlingit. 10 points

10% of the population is Native American, and 10% Hispanic. 10 points


There are 14 Thai restaurants. 10 points

Total Pros: 50

Fairbanks Cons

It's low and flat, and very spread out, 32,000 people in 32 square miles  -5 points.

It was 10 below zero degrees outside.   -5 points.

In the 2004 presidential election, 61.5% of Fairbanks voted Republican. -10 points.

The governor of Alaska was wack job Sarah Palin. -10 points

The university had no wrestling or male swim teams. -10 points.

No gay bars, although I heard that the Palace Saloon was "gay" after 11:00 pm. -20 point.

The nearest gay neighborhood was in Seattle, 3 1/2 hours away by plane.   -20 points

Total cons: -80.


Grand total: -30.  Not interested in that job.


I was on my own for dinner the second night.  I tried to find a place within walking distance of the downtown Marriott (which, in 10 below zero weather, means two blocks).

All I could find was Soapy Smith's Old Tyme Restaurant and the Cafe de Paris.

Ok, the Cafe de Paris.

When I got there, I found an ugly yellow space decorated by case after case of wine bottles.

I hate alcohol!  I almost went to Soapy Smith's Old Tyme Restaurant instead, but it was too cold to trudge through downtown Fairbanks again.

So I sat down and looked at the menu.

Lobster, steak, chops.  Nothing of interest.  Did I go through a time warp into the 1950s?

No -- the cheapest item on the menu was $30.

I ordered two appetizers and a Diet Coke, which came watered down in a bar glass, with one of those little red straws and a cherry.

Figures.

It was quite early, so there were only a few people around.  Hetero couples mostly.  I felt out of place.

After finishing, I said "no" to an expensive dessert and went to the restroom.

It had two urinals, very close togethr, with no barrier between them.  The far one was in use: a tall, husky, dark-skinned guy, probably Native, in his 20s, with a round face and prominent cheekbones.  I couldn't judge his physique under his sweater and heavy coat, but I got a good view of his penis.

Huge!  He could barely wrap his hand around that garden hose, soft!  It had to be a Kovbasa++++,  a footlong, aroused!

I stood, trying not to stare, imagining going down on that monster.  Were all Native men hung?

He finished, shook it a little, and turned to me, smiling, Kovbasa still in full view.  He somehow managed to cram his penis back into his pants, zipped up, and squeezed past me to the sink to wash his hands.

"Not much room in here, is there?" Footlong said.

"No, not much room," I stammered.

Was he referring to the bathroom or to his pants?

When I finished and returned to the main room, Footlong was standing by a table, helping a young lady put her coat on.  Our eyes met as they walked out into the night.

She was in for a surprise later!  If Footlong was too much for her, I'd be happy to give it a try.

Pro: Sausage sighting of a huge Native guy: 100 points!

The travel-guide version of this story is on Small Town Beefcake

Meeting Six Guys at Freshman Orientation

Plains, June 2016

I never do anything erotic in my office.  It's down a narrow corridor, with six other offices right there, and thin walls so everyone can hear everything.

But earlier this week I made an exception. I figured it was safe enough, during a tornado.

It was Freshman Orientation:hundreds of newly-admitted students and their families were getting tours of the campus, going to advising meetings, checking out the gym, and talking to me, starstruck over meeting a Real College Professor..

Here are the six guys I met.  You have to decide which one I hooked up with

1. The Tan Dad

8:30 am:  As I am walking across campus from the parking lot, I see a family standing around a map, looking confused: teenage girl, mom, and the dad: in his mid 30s, deeply tanned and heavily muscled.

I stop, introduce myself, and give them directions to the library.  Turns out that Tan Dad and company have come all the way from California: daughter had some kind of sports scholarship.

"I lived in West Hollywood for ten years," I tell them.  "It's been quite a culture shock."

2. The Tenting Texter

8:45: There is a boy sitting in the lounge area of my department, texting on his cell phone.  Rather thin, androgynous, tenting in his short pants.  He sees me and quickly covers up.

"The secretary is out today.  Can I help you?"

He's planning to major in one of the sciences or social sciences, but he doesn't know which.  I give him some brochures.

"Our program is all about diversity," I tell him.  "Injustice based on race, religion, social class...and sexual orientation."

The sexual orientation always makes them nervous if they're straight.  The Tenting Texter grins at me: "Well, I'm all about diversity."

3. The Bear Dad

10:00: a group of faculty sit on stage in the big auditorium, talking to the parents of the newly admitted freshmen and answering questions. Mostly husband-wife pairs, sometimes with a kid tagging along.  But the Bear Dad is sitting alone; either the wife couldn't make it, or he's single.

He's in his 40s, tanned, slightly graying, muscular, his pecs swelling against his white dress shirt.  Unbuttoned three buttons, revealing a nice hairy chest.

He asks about online courses.

"I teach online all the time," I tell him.  "It's anonymous, you don't get to know the students, and they don't get to know you.  I much prefer on-site courses, or a hybrid."

.




4.  The Surfer

10:45.  Now it's time to meet in small groups with the students, and answer any of their questions.

My group consists of five girls and four guys, one a blond beach boy in a white muscle shirt with a surfing logo.

"Um...sorry, we don't have a surfing team here," I say.  He laughs.

Then he asks about "what ticks off professors."  I want to say something like "coming to class with your shirt on," but of course I play it cool.

5. The Big Brother

12:00: The faculty all get a free lunch in the cafeteria, so we can eat freshmen and their families and answer questions.  I wave at the Tan Dad and Surfer from before, but they're already sitting with someone.  I choose two guys, both in their teens or twenties.  One is probably Hispanic, with dark skin and black hair.  The other is a ruddy blond Anglo.

"Which of you is the father?" I ask.

The Hispanic guy laughs.  "We've been getting that all day.  I'm the Big Brother."

"My mom and stepdad couldn't be here," the Anglo says, "So he gets the job of keeping me out of trouble."

"Or getting you into trouble," Big Brother adds.  "So, what's the craziest thing that ever happened in one of your classes?"

6. The Volleyball Player

2:00.  It's raining outside, so I head for the campus gym and jog around the indoor track.  Downstairs there's a volleyball game going on.  Mostly girls, but two boys, one white, one Asian, who don't seem to mind playing a "girl's sport."

As I circle the track, he looks up.  Our eyes meet.  Twice.

Then he's gone.

Then suddenly he's jogging alongside me.

"Hi, are you a professor?" he asks.  "I have a couple of questions."

Turns out he's a transfer student from a college out east, here to play volleyball and major in Native American Studies, with a minor in Gender Studies.

The Tornado

3:00: I return to my office.  Occasionally freshmen or their families or both drop by to ask more questions or get some brochures.  They're wet -- it's raining hard.

4:00 I'm having a very nice, nearly cruisy conversation with one of #1-6, above, when a loud buzzer goes off and a voice says "Tornado Warning.  A tornado has been sighted near our city.  Take shelter immediately."

The guy looks around in alarm.  "Where is the shelter?" he asks.

"Well, there's a shelter in the basement of this building, but my office is in a corridor inside another corridor, so you can't get much safer.  You might as well sit it out here.  I have snacks and sodas, and I can get you on the wi-fi."

We sit on the couch.  He texts his family to tell them where he is, and then starts watching a movie.  I put my arm around him to see better.  Soon we're kissing and fondling.

The tornado warning is extended three times -- we can't leave until about 5:30.  By that time he's gone down on me once, and I've gone down on his impressively thick Bratwurst+ twice.

Ok, ready to guess who it was?

1. The Tan Dad
2. The Tenting Texter
3. The Bear Dad
4. The Surfer
5. The Big Brothr
6. The Volleyball Player

Answer after the break

Our Hookup with an Eskimo

Yuri bringing a guy home for me was not unprecedented.  In West Hollywood in the 1990s, Lane and I used to cruise separately.  He went to the Faultline, and I went to Mugi or Basgos.

We arranged to meet up at 11:00 pm.  If one of us struck out, the other would "share" his hookup.  If we both met someone, we played mix-and-match in the bedroom.

Since the Faultline was for older guys, bears and daddies, and Mugi specialized in Asian twinks, it made for some diverse evenings.

One night I struck out at Mugi, but when I got home, Lane was sitting on the couch with an Asian guy.  At least I thought he was Asian.  Short, bronze skin, round face, military hair cut, shirtless, wearing a leather vest and nipple rings.

"This is Arnie," Lane said. "He's up for sharing."

"Boomer.  Pleased to meet you."  I took my place on the couch next to him.

"My legal name is Joseph, but when I came out, I took the name Arnie, short for Arnauyq,  It means 'gay,' in my language, or really 'man who imitates woman.'"

"What language?"

"Inupiaq.  What you call Eskimo."

"Great," Lane complained.  "Boomer is a language nut. Now you're never going to get him off that couch and into the bedroom."

"No, no."  I reached over fondled Arnie's hard, smooth chest.  He smiled and moved my hand to his crotch.  "But...I thought there were only a few native speakers of Inupiaq outside of Greenland."

"Well, it's not my native language.  Even my grandparents don't speak it well.  But I took lessons at the Community Center.  I figured, it's part of my heritage, I should learn it."

"I love Inuit words.  They seem to go on forever."

"Yes, you can keep adding suffixes forever. Do you speak Inupiaq? is one word, Inupiaqtituuhuunguvin."

Lane started playing with his nipple rings.  "I went to Hebrew school," he announced.  "Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam, asher kidshanu b'mitzvotav, l'hadlik ner shel Shabbat."

That was probably the first time anyone said the Sabbath prayer while playing with someone's nipple rings.

Arnie was very hot, very muscular, and when I groped him, I felt impressive beneath-the-belt gifts.    But I wanted to hear about Inupiaq.

So we did some minor groping and neck-nuzzling while Arnie told us about growing up in Kotzebue, Alaska, a small town of 3000 people north of Nome.  Much of his childhood sounded familiar: church, school, comic books, Star Wars toys, hanging out with friends at Little Louie's on 3rd.

He was on his high school wrestling team.

But there were also dog sled races, spearing fish from a kayak, hunting on the ice, the polar bears walking through downtown, and Inupiaq lessons at the Community Center.

Who wouldn't want to hear these stories instead of jumping into the bedroom right away, regardless of the size of the guy's package?

Lane, apparently.  "Shouldn't we be starting the sharing?" he asked.

"Sure, let's go," Arnie said.

"Oh, your butt will keep.  It's not even midnight yet.  Tell me about the Yupik."

So Arnie kept talking.  Eventually, tiring of kissing and fondling his chest, Lane unzipped him and started going down on him.

But Arnie had the most amazing capacity to keep on talking in the midst of erotic activity.

Defeated, Lane said "I'll be in the bedroom if anybody needs me," and vanished.

"Um...I think we're being summoned," Arnie said.  "We should get in there.  He's my hookup, after all."

"Lane likes to read for awhile before bed anyhow.  We have plenty of time."

Fortunately, Arnie liked to talk.

But eventually he got tired and lay his head back against the couch.  "Ok," he said, eyes closed.  "Now we have to get in that bedroom, before I get too tired to care about hooking up."

We walked into the bedroom, where Lane was lying naked in bed, reading Rendezvous with Rama.  "Have we met?" he said sarcastically.  "You look almost like some guys I used to know, a long time ago."

"Sorry.  We were just talking."  Arnie leaned over the bed, took the book out of his hand, and kissed him.

And kept on kissing him.

He spent the rest of the night exploring every inch of Lane's body and all but ignoring me.

I guess I deserved it.

But let's face it -- you meet hot guys every day in West Hollywood.  How often do you meet an Eskimo?

See also: Our date with the teenage beachboy; cruising in the Navajo Nation

Picked Up by the Museum Guard

Indianapolis, July 2015

Instead of going to Europe every year, I now drive from the Plains to the East Coast.  Two weeks, 15 friends and relatives, 9 hotels, 8 museums, 5 guest passes at the YMCA, 4  horrible hotel gyms, 2 state parks, 2 bath houses, 1 baseball game.

And a hookup with a museum guard.

After pizza and Chinese food delivery guys, my biggest fantasy hookup is probably a museum guard.  Maybe because they follow you around with an eagle-eye, suspicious stare that  looks a lot like cruising.

And, though they come in all sizes and shapes, a surprising number are stunningly handsome.

If you live in town and can be a regular, it's possible.  My friend Alan picked up a guard at the L.A. County Museum of Art just by showing up every day until he got a phone number.

But I usually visit museums when I'm leaving town forever in a few hours, so there's no time to make contact. The sheer inaccessibility makes the museum guard the stuff of erotic fantasy.

But one Saturday in the summer of 2015, out of nowhere, it happened!

Troy and I arrived in Indianapolis around noon, planned to have lunch and do some sightseeing, then dinner with my parents and sister, overnight at a hotel, and on to Rock Island on Sunday.

Troy is doing research on the Iroquois, so he wanted to spend a lot of time at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indian Art.  As we walked through the gallery devoted to Edward S. Curtis, who photographed many Native Americans at the turn of the twentieth century, we got a cruisy smile from a guard: in his 20s, tall, broad-shouldered, stunningly handsome, with a square face, bronze skin, and straight black hair, probably Native American himself.

Later, I returned to the gallery on my own.  The guard approached.

"Is your boyfriend writing a book?"  he asked with the same cruisy smile.

Obviously gay, to catch on so fast!  "He's working on a term paper," I said.  "These pieces are marvelous.  I'm Boomer."

"Ryan." We shook hands.

"Curtis was an expert at drawing complex emotions from his subjects.  I'm studying art at IUPUI, and I often come here for inspiration."

"He picked very handsome models, too.  I think he had a thing for Native Americans."

"You think these are hot, you should see some of the stuff that's not on display.  Come with me..."

Ryan led me downstairs.  "I got a special access," he announced to an older guard before unlocking a door that read "Archive."  It was a vast, empty room with statues under tarps and shelves of old books, and on one wall six more Edward S. Curtis photographs, including some very muscular Native American men.

"They don't put these out.  Too risque for the kiddies."

Suddenly I realized that we were alone.  It was very warm in the room, and a stunningly handsome guy was standing very, very close to me.  "Sitting Eagle, Crow Indian, 1905," I read.

"His lover.  Well, one of his lovers.  He slept with most of his male models."  Ryan wrapped his arm around my shoulders.  "Do you and your boyfriend have an open relationship?"

"We're sort of broken up..."  I said.  And then we were kissing and groping.

Then, suddenly he pulled away.  "Wait -- wait.  This isn't exactly private.  Can we get together later?  I work until 6:00."

"Well...we're having dinner with my parents tonight.  We're free afterwards, maybe at 9:00. but our hotel is in Franklin, about 30 miles south of here."

"Perfect!"

"You don't mind driving 30 miles?"

"Babe, I'd drive a thousand miles to get my hands on those pecs."  He brushed his hand against my chest.  "What's the hotel?"

At exactly 9:00 pm, Ryan knocked on the door of our hotel room, carrying a bottle of wine (I neglected to mention that I don't drink).

He didn't look Native American at all -- it must have been the power of suggestion.

And, in a t-shirt and short pants instead of a museum guard uniform, he wasn't stunningly handsome anymore -- cute, with a smooth, solid chest, and nice beneath the belt gifts.  But rather ordinary, not much different from the twinks who cruise me every day at home.

I shouldn't complain.  I fulfilled a fantasy and met a nice guy, who offered to get together again when we go back to Indianapolis at Christmastime.

Still...

See also: A Good Old-Fashioned Trick; My Big, Flashy, Flamboyant Cousin; and Topped by a Vietnamese Twink