Straight Guys Never Figure It Out

Wilton Manors, October 2003

When I was living in Florida, newcomers from the small towns (or big cities) of the vast homophobic Straight World often went crazy with joy: "You can be open here!  You can be free!"  They found a job in a gay venue, read only gay books, went only to gay movies, and never ventured beyond the magic square bounded by Oakland Park Blvd., Powerline Road, NW 13th Street, and the Atlantic Ocean.

"Oh, you live on NW 12th Street?  Isn't that a little...iffy?"

Most residents of Wilton Manors weren't quite so insular.  But all of our friends were gay.  So were our neighbors.  And, as far as we know, so was the guy on the next treadmill at Barney's Gym, the guy sorting coupons in the check out line at the Publix Supermarket, and the woman browsing among the humorous cards at To the Moon.  We avoided heterosexuals as much as possible.  They were the enemy, screaming "God hates you!" from behind security fences at Gay Pride, or asking simpering, insulting questions, like "What do they think causes it now?"

So my house mates were surprised, and not entirely sympathetic when I befriended a heterosexual.

In the fall of 2003, when I was working at Florida Atlantic University, I saw Josh (not his real name) in the locker room of the campus gym, stripping out of a plaid shirt, suspenders, and a ridiculous red bowtie. I concluded that he was heterosexual almost immediately, through the gleaming, new-looking ring on his finger and his casual references to his wife. Surely Josh concluded that I was gay almost immediately, from my answer to the question " What are you working on now?” (media images of gay teenagers), or from the shelves of gay books, rainbow flag mouse pad, and gay pride poster in my office.

But no, when an attractive girl passed, Josh nudged me so I could look.  "I only look at guys," I said.

That didn't do it.

"He will never figure it out," my housemate Yuri told me.  "Stupid straight guys can never see anything but straights."

"Anyway, why would you want to tell a breeder?" my other housemate, Barney, said with an accusatory glare, as if I was planning some act of treason.  "When he finds out, he'll start screaming that you're trying to molest him."

"He's not a friend, really.  He just comes to my office to chat.  Besides, it's a challenge.  Somehow or other I'm going to get him to figure it out!"

"Impossible!"  Barney exclaimed.  "But why don't we make it interesting?  I'll bet you $20 that you can't get him to figure it out during the next week.  You can say anything you want except 'I'm gay.'"

"I want in on this thing too," Yuri said.  "But you can't cruise him.  Or talk about your old boyfriends."

I spent the next week dropping all of the hints I could think of.

"I can't get married in this state.  It's illegal."
"Oh...still married to the wife back home, huh?"
No, you nitwit, gay people can't get married!

"I can't donate blood.  It's illegal."
"I hear you.  Get a venereal disease just once, it haunts you for the rest of your life."
No, you idiot, gay men can't donate blood!

"My childhood church was totally homophobic.  It blamed gays for everything from child molestation to 9/11."
"That's ridiculous!  Gays are just people, like you and me."
Are you in on the bet?  Did my housemates pay you to pretend ignorance?

Finally in desperation I invited Josh over for dinner with Barney and Yuri.

"Oh, a guys' night!  Leave the girlfriends at home!  Sounds great!"

During dinner, I brought up Wilton Manors' reputation as a gay mecca.
"Yeah, gentrifying neighborhoods often have gay guys fixing things up."

Barney's job managing a gym with a mostly gay clientele.
"It's great that you're so secure in your masculinity that you aren't worried about them seeing you naked in the locker room."

Yuri's quest for the World's Biggest Penis in the Basque country of Spain four years ago.
"Wow, are they really that big?  They must really impress the ladies!"

My housemates grinned at me.

After dinner I invited Josh to select a movie to watch from our collection of 200-odd DVDS. Other than a few classics, they all had gay characters, gay subtexts, or covers displaying muscular guys with their shirts off. Without a word or even an odd look, he selected Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, which has none.

Josh sat on the couch, directly behind a coffee table containing a pile of gay magazines. On top was an issue of The Advocate, selected deliberately because the word “Gay” was written on the cover three times, along with photos of the gay icons Harvey Milk and Chad Allen. Surely that would be enough.

It wasn't.

After the movie, we were channel surfing, when an attractive man appeared on the screen. “Wait – go back,” I exclaimed. “That guy was totally hot!”

"What for?"  Josh asked.  "It was a guy."

Finally in desperation, I pulled out my wallet, handed $20 bills to Yuri and Barney, and said, in a loud, clear voice, "I am gay."

"Yeah, right.  Don't be funny."  He turned to Yuri.  "Does Boomer always joke around like this?"

"Yes, all the time," he said, barely restraining his laughter.  "Except when he wants to impress a girl."

I hit him on the head with a pillow.

When they finally assured Josh that I wasn't joking, he was shocked.  "I had no idea.  You hide it so well!"

Hide it?

Then: "I think it's great that you guys are so secure in your masculinity that you don't mind having a gay roommate."

Yuri and I Go to Amsterdam to Visit the Horsemen's Club

Amsterdam, June 2017

June has been a month for visiting old friends, or having them visit me -- first David, then Lane, and now Yuri, who I met in grad school in New York in 1997.  He's an atmospheric scientist, 43 years old, short and rather buffed, smooth chest, bright open face, thick brown hair.  No wrinkles, no grey hair, could easily pass for 30.  He must have a picture in an attic somewhere.

He lives in London, but I usually arrange to meet him somewhere else in Europe: Minsk in 2009, Paris and Amsterdam in 2011, Iceland last October.  And now Amsterdam again.

Except this year we'll be in town for the Horsemen's Club!

It used to meet every Sunday afternoon at the Argos Bar on Warmoesstraat: a club for men with at least 20 centimeters (about 8 inches) -- they measured you at the door. No sex, but a lot of groping, fondling, and cruising.

Then they changed it to big men and their admirers.  Everyone was welcome, but 20+ centimeters got in free.  And they allowed safe sex.

I used to go every year, but now that it only meets on the third Sunday of the month, it's hard to arrange trips to coincide with it.  This year, though, I arrange my vacation with Yuri to be in Amsterdam on June 18th.

Thursday

My flight to Amsterdam arrives at 8:15 am.  I take the train to the Central Station  and go cruising at Drake's Boutique on Damrak, near the Oude Kirk.    I go down on three guys: older, wearing a business suit; a burly truck-driver type; and a tall, slim Asian guy.

If it's this busy in the morning, what's it like at 9:00 pm?

Yuri arrives at 11:30.  We have lunch and then take the train to Utrecht, an hour away, to visit my Suriname friend Eli: 29 years old, very dark skin, handsome face, average penis.

He takes us on a city tour, and to dinner at Djakarta, an Indonesian restaurant, then back to his apartment for "sharing."  He's into kissing and cuddling, but also an anal top.  After I go down on him, he tops Yuri.

I'm too jetlagged to pay much attention.

Friday

 After breakfast, we take the train back to Amsterdam and check into our hotel, which is right next door to the Nieuwe Kirke.  We visit the Rijksmuseum and the Stedelijk Museum of Modern Art, work out at Health City, and then go to PRIK and Dirty Dicks.

We "share" a tall, thin twink from Germany who has a Mortadella+: Yuri and I take turns kissing him and going down on him, and then he goes down on us at the same time.

Afterwards we go to The Eagle, a leather cruise bar, and pick up Eser, a Turkish bear in his 30s with a hairy chest, hairy arms, a small belly, and a cut Kielbasa.  He lets me go down on him while he's kissing Yuri, and then he tops Yuri while he's going down on me (try it).

Saturday

We go to the Rembrandt House, the Museum Van Loon, and the Tropenmuseum, and go jogging at Ooster Park.

Eser meets us for dinner at Montmatre, and takes us cruising at Spijker and the Web.  Yuri and I go to the dark room and kiss while guys we can't see are going down on us.  

Then Eser invites us both back to his apartment to "share" his hookup: Paul, a French otter (slim with a hairy chest), in his 20s, with a long face and a Bratwurst+.

I go down on Paul while Yuri is going down on Eser, and then we switch positions.  Surprisingly, Paul turns out to be into anal, so he tops Yuri (with a condom, of course).  Eser asks to top me, but I refuse; instead, I talk him into interfemoral.

Afterwards we return to our hotel.

Sunday

I go to services at the Old Lutheran Church while Yuri works out, and then we meet for lunch at a Thai place.

"The Horsemen's Club open at 3:00," I tell him.  "I can't wait -- it's been too long!"

Yuri looks down at his plate.  "Maybe you will go alone.  I will go to the Bijbels Museum and meet you later."

Huh?  "But the Horsemen's Club is the reason we came to Amsterdam!"  I'm not a big fan of the city overall -- it's dirty, rundown, a little rough, very sleazy, and there are entirely too many drunk and high foreigners making fools of themselves.

"The reason you came, maybe.  I came here to see you."

"But...you're totally into bigger guys!  If it's under 8 inches, you throw it back!"

"Yes, but..."

"Is it because of your size?  I don't measure up either, but I always got in, even when it was 20 centimeters only.  Now it's open to all big guys and their admirers."

"My size is good, thanks."

"Your age?  So you're in your 40s.  I'm 56 years.  Being older is only a problem if you don't like twinks cruising you all the time."

"My age is good, too.  But...since we came here, I am topped four times.  That is more than usually for me in a month.  My butt is sore, and I am tired.  It is too much cruising.  On our last day in Amsterdam.  I want to do quiet, peaceful things."

So we go to Vondel Park and look at the cute guys running shirtless through the grass.

We go to a street market, where I buy a 19th century ex libris plate.

We stop for ice cream.

We browse in the Book Exchange.

In the evening we stay in our hotel room and watch tv.

Best day in Amsterdam ever.

See also: I Become a Birthday Present at the Horseman's Club

The Gay Painting in My Grandmother's Room

Garrett, Indiana

The cold, snowy day after Christmas.  Cousin Buster and I have already played with our toys, and we're tired of sitting around the living room of Grandpa Prater's farmhouse, listening to the adults complain about hippies and laugh about things that happened a thousand years ago.  So we go exploring, hoping to find a secret stash of comic books.

The kitchen
The furnace room
A little room used as as a pantry.
A room with a pump in it.
Some bedrooms.
Grandma Prater's Room.  Locked.  Off-Limits.

Grandma Prater died in 1966, when I was five years, old, so I have only a few random memories of her:  a short, fat, brown woman carrying bags of groceries, frying chicken, telling me a story about a mouse, giving me the nickname Boomer.  She had a thick Kentucky accent.

In a small farmhouse, they could use an extra bed, but after she died, no one ever slept in her bedroom again.  The adults went in to clean, or to look around, but kids weren't allowed: we might "break something."

The door was always locked, but when we played in the house, we always tried it anyway, just in case.

Today the knob turns, and the door stands ajar!  Cousin Buster and I glance at each other in surprise, then push the door open and look inside.

It is a very bright, airy room, not at all stuffy, with two windows and blue wallpaper.  A four-poster bed with a blue comforter,  the covers turned down, a Bible opened to the Psalms, as if Grandma Prater has just stepped out and would return at any moment.

A wooden dresser with photos of Kentucky kinfolk.  A bureau.  Clothes on hangers visible in the open closet door.  A rocking chair with knitting stuff on it.


And a painting: in a lush green forest, a boy is leaning against a tree, playing a flute.  He is wild, savage, naked except for an animal skin. A round red sack hangs from his side.

I stare in awe.  I am looking through a gateway into a "good place," where boys can hold hands and kiss without anyone asking "what girl do you like?"  The boy is a fairy, a mystical sprite, beckoning me, offering a way to the secret world.

After that, on most Christmas and summertime visits, I asked to see Grandma Prater's room.  I became familiar with the bed, dresser, bureau, and rocking chair.  I picked up her Bible, read the annotations, examined her sewing, turned the photos around to see who the subjects were.

But my favorite part of the tour was the painting.

Who was the boy?  Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream?  A boy Hercules (was that a lion skin?).  I thought of the Piper at the Gates of Dawn in The Wind in the Willows, the painting that led to Narnia, the Road to Elfland in heroic fantasy.

And, as I learned more about my grandmother, the painting seemed more and more out of place.

She was born in 1900 in the desolate hills of Eastern Kentucky.  Although she graduated from high school, a rarity at the time, she lived in isolation and poverty.  During the Great Depression, they survived by making moonshine.  She lost four of her eleven children.  During World War II, she moved to Indiana, to another isolated farmhouse.

She believed in ghosts, haints, witches, and premonitions.  A few weeks before she died, she heard her mother calling her from beyond the grave.

She never read fantasy or mythology, or, as far as I could tell, any book but the Bible.  There was no other art in the house except for a picture of Christ on the Cross and a souvenir from Indiana Dunes.

I asked my mother where the painting came from, but she didn't know -- it had been there as long as she could remember, even back in Kentucky.

Were there art galleries in the Kentucky hills?

Et in Arcadia ego.

Grandpa Prater died in 1978, but Uncle Edd continued to live in the farmhouse until 1998, and, I assume, kept up the blue room and the painting.

 After I moved to West Hollywood, I visited my parents twice a year, first in Rock Island and then in Indianapolis, with little time leftover to visit my elderly aunts and uncles in northern Indiana.

Before I knew it, ten, twenty, thirty years had passed since I last went into Grandma Prater's room.

Indianapolis, December 2000

Yuri and I are spending Christmas with my parents.  We go into the room that they've turned into a home gym: two exercise bikes, some free weights...and hanging on the wall beside a towel rack, The Painting!

I stand speechless, staring, as memories rush back.

How did it get here?  Maybe when Uncle Edd moved out of the farmhouse, Mom claimed it.

Yuri touches my shoulder.  "Are you ok?"

"Sure...I mean...this is one of my favorite childhood memories, a picture from my grandmother's bedroom.  I thought it was a hint that gay people exist."

"Your grandmother had the Pastyr Devid?"

"You know it?"

Turns out that it was one of the illustrations in a book of Bible stories that Yuri's grandmother read to him.

"I ask for the story of David the Sheep Boy..." Yuri began.

"Shepherd?"

"Ok, David the Sheepherd.  I asked Baba to read me that story many times.  I thought he was beautiful.  Maybe this is where I know I am gay?"

A continent apart, both our grandmothers inadvertently showed us a sign of gay potential.


I looked up the painting on the internet:  it's Shepherd Boy Playing the Flute, by Polish painter Henryk Siemiradzski (1843-1902), who specialized in Biblical and classical scenes.

Leaving two questions:

1. Was Siemiradzski gay?  I don't find a lot of beefcake in his works.  There's a couple of cute guys on the curtain he painted for the Juliusz Slowacki Theater.

2. How did my grandmother get a print of a work by a minor Polish painter in the hills of Eastern Kentucky?

My Date with the Estonian Mountain Climber

Long Island, September 1997

I was very busy in the fall of 1997, my first semester on Long Island.  I was taking  three graduate seminars in sociology; teaching an adjunct class at Hofstra University, 2 hours away by train; going into Manhattan every weekend; and being swarmed by undergrads.

Every twink, Cute Young Thing, and newly-out prettyboy on Long Island wanted my phone number, including Yuri, the Russian "teenager", and Jaan the Estonian mountain climber.

Jaan was a graduate student in physics who Yuri brought as a "date" to my 37th birthday party in November 1997: tall and blond, two turn-offs, but very, very muscular, with intense black eyes, and very persistent -- he kept following me around the room, staring shyly.

I hadn'd met anyone from Estonia, the Baltic country with the language similar to Finnish, since 9th grade, when George and Kristjan taught me Graeco-Roman wrestling. Jaan didn't speak English very well, but I managed to get him to tell me about growing up in Johvi, near Narva, on the Russian border (only two hours from St. Petersburg by car), mountain climbing in Scotland, and especially his best friend Arvi.

Eventually I disentangled myself and found Yuri.  "Do you mind if I ask Jaan for a date?"

He frowned.  "You mean like...um, a boyfriend?  No, why do I care?  I don't like guys."  He wouldn't admit to being gay until the Christmas party next month.

"Ok, thanks.  Oh -- by the way, he is gay, right?"

"You know, I didn't ask, but maybe he is.  Here in America, you are always careful.  Anybody might be gay."  He leaned in close.  "If you date him, tell me how big he is, ok?"

"Sure, no problem."

So I made a date to take Jaan to see Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet, followed by dinner at the Curry Club, a very nice Indian restaurant in East Setauket.

I talked about how cute Brad Pitt is; how I always thought of Tibet as a "good place" where same-sex desire was open and free; and about Lee back in West Hollywood.

Jaan agreed that Brad Pitt was very handsome, and talked about how he and his best friend always wanted to go to Tibet to climb Mount Everest.  Our legs brushed together. Then he stared intently into my eyes and said "Do you want to come back to my room?"

Score!  New York was much more conservative than West Hollywood.  Inviting someone home on the first date was practically unheard-of!

Turns out that Jaan lived in a graduate student apartment, and shared his bedroom with a guy named Erik, who was watching tv out in the living room.

After the introductions, I put my arm around Jaan's waist, and led him into the bedroom.  Jaan got me a soda out of the mini-fridge and invited me to sit down on the bed.

At that moment Erik came tromping in. "Sorry, I need this book," he explained.

We sat on the bed side by side.  I took a few sips of my soda to be polite, then put it aside and leaned over to kiss Jann.  Then Erik came tromping in again.  "Sorry, I need a pen."

"He's trying to get a glimpse of us making out!" I exclaimed.  "Can you tell him we'd like some privacy?"

"He has as much right to be here as I do."

I shrugged.  Ok, if Jaan didn't mind, then I didn't either. Maybe Erik was gay and wanted to join in, as was the custom in West Hollywood.

I reached over, put my arm around Jaan, drew him close, and kissed him on the mouth.


Or tried to.  Before I got there, he leapt to his feet and ran to the other side of the room.  His face was ashen-pale.  "Mida sa teed?" he exclaimed "Mida sa teed?" (What are you doing? in Estonian.)

"Um...I was....um...going to kiss you," I said, shocked.

He stared.  "Why?"

"Are you nervous because of your roommate?  Because we can go to my apartment -- I have my own place, where we can be alone."

He stared.

"Um..because, you know, it's the end of our date.  You invited me to your room. That means you want to..."

He stared.

"Maybe I'd better be going."

The next day Yuri called.  "Hey, you really freaked out Jaan.  He doesn't know you are gay, and then suddenly you try to have sex with him!

"He didn't know?" I repeated, rather angry.  "How could he not know? It was a date, we talked about ex-boyfriends, and then he invited me back to his room.  That's a major tease!"

"Estonia is...what do you say...old fashioned."

"But... All during the date, talking about my boyfriends? Same-sex desire being open and free?  How could he be so oblivious?"

 "He didn't even know that there were gays until last night.  I had to explain it to him."  He paused.  "So anyway, he wants to know if you will date him again next Friday."

Blake and His Boyfriend: Are All Opera Singers Gigantic Beneath the Belt?

Manhattan, June 2009

A few weeks after I moved to the East Village in 1998, I started dating Blake, who lived in my building.  Seemingly an ideal boyfriend: in his 30s, black, muscular, religious (devout Episcopalian), with a Mortadella beneath the belt.  BUT he was pretentious, elitist, an opera buff, and always had a glass of wine in his hand.  Eventually I pawned him off onto Yuri, and they dated for about three months.

He and Yuri stayed friends.  Sometimes when Yuri came to Manhattan for the weekend, he got all of us tickets to Broadway shows and operas.  I generally dislike operas, but the performers often wore bulgeworthy tights, and afterwards we often went to parties with big name celebrities in attendance, like Andrew Lloyd Weber.

Apparently Yuri stayed in contact.  When we came back to New York for a visit in June 2009, he suggested that we spend a day with Blake.

"And the night.  He's the ex-boyfriend for both of us, so it's polite to ask him to share."

"But he'll invite us to the opera!" I protested.

Yuri shrugged.  "You can live through an opera, if you look at the bulges."

Fact: all opera singers are huge beneath the belt. 

"Ok, I'll call him."

We met Blake and his new boyfriend, Kris, just after lunchtime on the Saturday of our visit.

After living in the straight world for four years, I was anxious to immerse myself in the gay world of the Village, pay my respects to Christopher Street and the Oscar Wilde Bookstore, go cruising at Boxers, with its outdoor patio, and so on.

Instead, after dropping our stuff off at Blake's apartment, we went to the Guggenheim and the Frick Museum.

Yuri and I had already been there!

Instead of dinner at a gay restaurant in the East Village, they took us to a place on 45th Street, near the New York Public Library.

Godawful, pretentious, all light and glass, with tiny $35 "plates" of broche cavatappia roule.  Lots of cocktails on the menu.  $5 for a Diet Coke.

And all female servers.  Half the fun of going out to eat is gawking at the hot waiters!

I wasn't in a good mood.

I nudged Yuri.  "Hot dogs later.  And cruising."

In the 8 years since I'd seen him last, Blake had gotten a little gray around the temples and chunky around the belly, but he was still quite attractive.

His boyfriend Kris wasn't bad, either.  A chubby twink, late 20s, with deep-set blue eyes, a short beard, and a hairy chest.  Except he outdid Blake in pretentious snark.

"Upstate New York?  All cow tipping and tractor pulls!"

"Television?  I watched that once.  It was dreadful."

"No, I don't work out.  Who wants to spend an hour sweating to narcissistic gym bunnies?  You know they're all swishy queens anyway!"

His only good quality:  he was an opera singer.

Fact: all opera singers are huge beneath the belt.

After dinner, I suggested going to a cruise bar, but Blake said he had a surprise for us.

Please, not the opera! I thought.

Fortunately, the New York opera season was over.  Instead, Blake took us to Blithe Spirit, a Noel Coward comedy, starring gay actor Rupert Everett, Angela Lansbury, and Christine Ebersole.

A gay playwright, a gay star -- you can't go wrong with that!

Except the play was entirely heterosexist.  It's about a man being haunted by the ghost of his ex-wife, which causes problems with his current wife.  Not a hint of beefcake or buddy bonding.

Afterwards, "drinks" -- another $5 Diet Coke -- at a straight bar.  With Rupert Everett, who proved even more pretentious than Kris, and borderline homophobic, bashing:


Gay subtexts: "Don't you hate dreary queens who think everything should be about them?"

Gay marriage: "A dreadful idea!"

Gay sex: "Be honest, doesn't it seem just a little silly to put your penis down a man's throat?"

I hoped Rupert wasn't planning to spend the night with us -- I was tired, hungry, upset, and not at all in the mood to put anyone's penis down my throat.

Thankfully, the evening soon came to an "early" end, around 1:00 am, and we stumbled back to Blake's apartment for a "nightcap."

My fifth Diet Coke of the day.  I anticipated getting up every hour all night.

"Now, about the bedroom arrangements," Blake said.  "There certainly isn't room for four of us in our bed, but I'm anxious to see -- and feel -- my ex-boyfriend again.  So, if you're amenable to it, I'll take Yuri into the master bedroom, and Boomer, you and Kris can have the guest room."

"Is it ok?" Yuri asked.

Kris leered at me.

Well, maybe I was up for having a man's penis down my throat after all.

"Sounds great," I said.  We gathered for a group hug and fondle, and then Kris took my hand and led me to the guest room.

Where I discovered three things:

1. Not all opera singers are huge beneath the belt.  Kris logged out at 5".

2. Plus he was an anal bottom.

3. Who didn't like cuddling.

See also: The Opera Buff and The Roommate Switch; Yuri and the Sausage Size Contest

The Police Cadets of South Florida

Fort Lauderdale, September 2001

In August 2001, after completing my Ph.D. in sociology I moved to Florida, on the invitation of my friend Yuri.  I immediately felt at home. It was like I had gone back in time 16 years, to when I first arrived in West Hollywood.

Yuri shared a small ranch house in Wilton Manors (the gay suburb of Fort Lauderdale) with Barney, an older guy who owned a gym in Oakland Park.  He reminded me of Derek, the fitness instructor-turned-insurance agent, my housemate in West Hollywood in 1987.

I had the choice of sharing Yuri's bed or moving into the small room off the kitchen that used to be the study of Barney's deceased lover.  I picked the study, although I ended up in Yuri's bed quite often anyhow: in Fort Lauderdale, like in West Hollywood: good manners required that you invite your roommate to "share" your dates.

We lived only two blocks from Wilton Drive, the Santa Monica Boulevard of Fort Lauderdale, with the Florida equivalents of everything I missed in West Hollywood:

New Age Books and Things (the Bodhi Tree)
Bill's Filling Station (the Hamburger Habit).
The Sunshine Cathedral (The Metropolitan Community Church)
The Ramrod (The Faultline)

The Courtyard Cafe (the French Quarter)

Plus the Clubhouse II Bath House, about 2 miles away, constantly packed with locals and tourists.

We went there quite often, until I started a monogamous relationship with Matt the Security Guard.

Even my jobs seemed to mirror those of West Hollywood .

1. From copy writer for Muscle and Fitness to fitness trainer at Barney's gym.  I taught the new members how to use the machines, and walked around to see if anyone needed help.  

2. From adjunct English instructor at Loyola Marymount to adjunct Communications instructor at Florida Atlantic University.  I taught "Introduction to Communication Studies" and "Popular Culture."

3. From juvenile probation officer to instructor at the Broward County Police Academy. I taught "Spanish for Police Officers" and "Juvenile Offenders."

There was only one problem: outside of gay neighborhoods, Florida was very, very, very conservative and very, very, very homophobic.

Especially my students at Florida Atlantic and the Police Academy, 18 year olds drawn from such redneck cities as Sunrise, Delray Beach, and Pahokee.

The morning of September 11, I was just getting ready for my class, when news of the World Trade Center collapse hit.  Their attitude toward 9/11: "Let's drop some A-bombs on Iraq!"

Their attitude toward gay people: "Let's drop some A-bombs on Wilton Manors."


After being out in grad school I found myself closeted again.

But, on the bright side, I saw a lot of beefcake.

Yuri and I Share the Boy Toy and His Daddy

Wilton Manors, February 2004

The main rule about sharing boyfriends and hookups was: a couple brought in a third person.

During the 1980s, it was always romantic partners bringing in a close friend or roommate.

By the 1990s, the couple could also be a pair of close friends, and the third person a stranger, as long as there was a date first.

But you never shared with four.  I can remember only a few times when that happened.  It was always a little weird, and made me feel uncomfortable afterwards.

1. The multiracial four way with Lane.
2. The live sex show that we put on for Alan.
3. Victor and his Sleazoid Daddy

During the winter, hundreds of wealthy snowbirds from New York invade Wilton Manors, clogging the streets, crowding the bars and restaurants, throwing money around -- and prowling for beach boys.  Suddenly Daddies have some Sugar Daddy competition, so if you're over 40, and you don't have a boyfriend by Thanksgiving, you're likely to go dateless through Valentine's Day.

It was Valentine's Day 2004, I was 43 years old, and I hadn't had a date since Thanksgiving.  An occasional hookup, some afternoons at the Club, and not much else.

So when Victor at Barney's Gym stopped me in the locker room and asked me for a date, I consented, even though he wasn't exactly my type.  He was in his 20s, muscular, with a smooth chest and a nice uncut Bratwurst, but his long, narrow face, tattooed biceps, and rings were a turnoff.

Over dinner at a Thai place in Oakland Park, Victor told me that he was Cuban-American, from Miami.  He moved to Wilton Manors two years ago, had a job as some kind of juice distributor -- and had a boyfriend, Jauvier.

"He's a snowbird.  He lives in New York, and only flies down to Florida in the winter.  So we're allowed to date other guys, but when he's in town, we have to share."

Ok -- Lane and I engaged in that sort of dating quite often back in West Hollywood.  What does this Jauvier look like?


"Oh, he's very hot.  An older guy -- a Daddy, like you.  Shorter than me, very muscular, blond, a short beard, super hung."

Blond?  "Isn't he Hispanic?"

"Well, more of a redhead.   In Spanish, rubio could mean either."

It seems that there are a lot of redheads in Peru, mostly of Irish, German, and Scandinavian ancestry.  They tend to live in Lima and the other large cities of the north, and in racist Peruvian society they tend to be middle and upper class, so they rarely immigrate to the U.S,

"There aren't a lot of blond Hispanic guys around," Victor said.  "Jauvier really stands out in a crowd."

Victor wanted to take me home that night to "share" his boyfriend, but I wanted to at least meet him first.  We weren't as trusting in the 2000s as we were in the 1990s -- being alone with two guys you didn't know was a bit risky.  So I invited Victor and Jauvier over for dinner a few days later, with Yuri and Barney.

Yuri was also in the middle of a dating slump, so he peppered me with questions about Jauvier.  Is he a bodybuilder?  How big is he?  Does he like Russian guys?

"The four of us won't share," I warned him.  "Lane and I tried that a couple of times in West Hollywood, and it was just weird."

"There won't be four tonight, naturally.  But if we are friends, Victor and Jauvier will ask me to share on many other nights."  

Yuri usually specialized in Middle Eastern dishes, but Victor asked for "Russian," so he made vareniki (vegetable dumplings), chicken tabaka, and cold borscht.

Victor and Jauvier arrived at 6:00, carrying a bottle of wine (I forgot to warn them that I didn't drink).

My first impression: ugh.  Jauvier was shorter than me, with a substantial v-shaped torso and a hairy chest. When we hugged, I felt thick, heavy pecs and an impressive beneath-the-belt package.  But he stank of cologne, he was wearing rings, and his face -- not so much ugly as sinister, balding, with gray hair that used to be red, and a villain goatee.

Ugh.

But I had to go through with it -- at this point it would be impolite not to share.  Besides, when you're going down on a guy, who cares about his face?

Then the sleaziness began.  Jauvier used feminine pronouns, made sexual double-entendres out of everything, and made crass references to telephone poles, enemas. and tampons during dinner.

Sample:  "Oh, please, she spreads her legs so wide, you could fit the Queen Mary inside and have room left over for six maxi-pads."

About his ex-boyfriend!

Victor laughed uproariously at his boyfriend's so-called "humor."

After dinner, we gathered in the living room for coffee and baked apples, and Jauvier said "So, I never been in a gang bang with five guys before.  Who goes first?"

Barney glared at him, came down with a sudden "headache," and retreated to his room.

"I must meet my friend at the Manor," Yuri began, heading for the door.


I grabbed his arm.  "No -- stay!"  I mouthed the words "share."

Yuri shook his head.

"Please," I whispered.

He shrugged.

The four of us went into Yuri's bedroom and stripped.  I immediately dropped to my knees and went down on Jauvier's impressive Bratwurst, while Victor went down on Yuri, and Yuri studiously avoided kissing Victor.

Jauvier pointed his penis at Yuri, who shrugged and went down on him.  Then Jauvier tried to throw his legs in the air, but Yuri refused.  He turned to me. I refused.

"Come on, girls," he said.  "Somebody has to be up for anal tonight!"

Yuri and I got into the 69 position, leaving no orifice available for Jauvier, so Victor mounted him for anal.

After sharing, spending the night is mandatory, but when Victor finished, we claimed an early day and pushed them both out the door.

Yuri glared at me.  "I do you a favor, so now you must share a guy that I want.  Anybody I want, ok?"

And I didn't even get a chance to do anything with Victor.

See also: Yuri's Revenge: the Cowboy with the Kovbasa+; and Lane and I have a Multiracial Four-way.

We Search for the World's Biggest Penis

Vittoria-Gasteiz. Spain, July 1999

The Basque language, spoken in northeastern Spain and southeastern France,  is not related to any other language on the face of the Earth.  It is the original language of the people who occupied the Iberian Peninsula, so old that some of its words come from the Stone Age:
Knife is labana, stone-that-cuts
Roof is teilatu, top-of-the-cave

I find that fascinating.  Who wouldn't find that fascinating?

My friend Yuri didn't.

Ok, how about this: the penises of Basque men are among the biggest in the world, topping the already-impressive 13.5 cm average of the rest of Spain.

The Basque word for man is gizon, which is similar to the phrase big penis (giz lun) in ancient Sumerian.  Coincidence?

Yuri was very interested in that! Last year he competed with me over Jaan the Estonian Mountain Climber solely because of his enormous proportions, and picked up Kalle, even though he looked like a serial killer.

So in the summer of 1999, when I was in Paris, he came to visit, and insisted that we take a side trip to Basque Country.

Um...the Basque Country is 8 hours from Paris by train! Couldn't we go to Amsterdam instead?  It's only 5 hours by train, and there's the Horsemen's Club, with a strict size requirement.  Or we could pop over to England and see the naked, aroused Rude Man of Cerne Abbas.

Ok, we'll go there, too, but first, Basque penises!

Any reasonable person would check to see if the ancient Sumerians were correct at a gay sauna, like Ego in Bilbao or Venconmen ("Come with men") in San Sebastian, but Yuri was a sports nut, and wanted to go to a bike race.

Basque Country is very rugged, with mountains and the seacoast, perfect for bicycling.  There are so many amateur races every year, it's almost the national sport.  We went to see the Euskaldun Tournament in Vittoria-Gasteiz.

I found it quite boring.  The cyclists all start with a flourish, and then you wait around for two hours for them to get back.

But the bulges made it worth the wait. The winne was 24-year old Ruben Oarbeaskoa (second from the right, later photo), from the Ollara-Ercoreca team.

He actually looked to be among the smaller of the team, but Yuri fell in love anyway, and said "I'm going to touch it!"

"How are you going to do that?"  I asked.  "Sneak up on him in the locker room?  There are reporters and fans everywhere."  The crowd was enormous.

"Russians are smart!  How do you say 'Writer for a sports magazine' in Spanish?"

I told him.  Wielding his camera, he began piecing his way through the crowd.  "Escritor para Sports Seminal!" he yelled, alternating with the Russian "Pisatel dl'ya Sportivnogo Zhurnale!

He made his way up toward Rubin. Eventually I couldn't see him anymore.  After awhile he came back, beaming.

"Basque men are the best in the world!" Yuri exclaimed.

Vittoria Gasteiz

"What happened?  Did you....?"

He grinned.  "I told Ruben I'm a writer, and I wanted to ask him some questions about the race.  He was surprised -- no Russian sports journals talked to him before.  So he reached out to shake hands.  And I fell....I show you."

He mimicked the motion of  reaching out, tripping, and "instinctively" steadying himself by grabbing at -- my crotch.

"Did he get mad?  Did he yell?"

"No, he laughed.  I said I'm sorry.  But boy, I'm not sorry!"  He put his arm around me  "Ok, so tomorrow we go to the gay sauna."

I think Yuri got the idea of the trip-and-grab from an episode of Seinfeld.

The Gay Russian Teenager Comes Out

Long Island, December 1997

In West Hollywood in the 1990s, we practiced a strict age segregation: dance clubs when you were a Cute Young Thing, then leather bars when you started greying, balding, or getting a belly.

If you had muscles, you could go anywhere you wanted, but you were expected to date guys within about a five year age range.  Much older or younger, and the tongues would wag.

In the fall of 1997, after trying several careers, I started a new graduate program on Long Island.  I was 36 years old, pushing 37, so I figured I would be dating guys in their 30s, maybe early 40s.

Instead, I was swarmed by Twinks, Cute Young Things, even teenagers.

On the first day of classes, I was walking toward the Social Science Building, when a slim, feminine guy who looked about 16 came rushing up.  "Vi iz Ruski?" he asked excitedly.

"Huh?



"Futbolku s Ruskoi Reki !" he said, pointing at my chest.  "Your football shirt -- it says 'Russia River.'"

Oh, right.  I forgot that I was wearing a t-shirt from the Russian River.  "It's a gay resort...um, a town where gays go."

He frowned.  "Ok, but what does gays mean?"

How long had he lived in New York?  "Gay...men who like men...for dates and falling in love."

"Oh, oh...goluboi...blue."  He grinned broadly.

Yuri turned out to be 23, a little older than I thought, but still much too young for me, a grad student from Russia, studying meteorology.  A pretty, feminine face with soft features, but nicely muscled -- from the day we met, he dragged me to the gym every afternoon to work out for two hours.



Remembering my brief obsession with Russia in college, I considered changing my age rule.  But was he gay?

He claimed to be heterosexual: "Some day I will get married and have a lot of kids."  But he had never met anyone gay before, and he wanted to know everything about it.

Everything.  Names, dates, sizes, positions.  Especially cock sizes.

"Tell me about Raul.  How big is he?  What does he do in bed?"

"When you were in West Hollywood, did you have sex with Tom Cruise?  How big is he?"

"Ok, what about Lane?  How big is he?  Do you have pictures with his clothes off?"

Most heterosexuals don't ask a lot of questions about sizes.  But I still wasn't sure.

In October, I invited Yuri to a Halloween party, and chased him around with a giant foam dildo.  He didn't mind a little surreptitious fondling in the back seat of the car on the way home, but when Josh, who was giving us a ride, asked "Do you want to be dropped off at your dorm or Boomer's place?" he said "Dorm!"

In December, I invited Yuri to a Christmas party.  Tickets cost $15, with a catered dinner and dancing. But he refused to dance with me!  Instead, he approached a girl and asked her to dance.

When he got back to our table, I told him, mostly in jest, "I paid for your ticket, so you owe me.  Either get up on that dance floor with me now, or get into my bed later."

He chose my bed.

See also: Yuri's First Boyfriend.

Yuri and I Meet the Emo Boy of London

London, June 1, 2007

I arrive at Heathrow Airport at 5:00 am. Yuri picks me up and takes me to his tiny, incredibly expensive apartment near Soho Square, in the heart of London's gay neighborhood.

His boyfriend Michael is just getting back from the gym: a bodybuilder, naturally, in his 40s, ripped but going a little to fat in the belly, with an oval face, a severe haircut, and several tattoos.

He grunts and squeezes my hand too hard.

Over breakfast, I  evidence no knowledge of British football, and make the newbie mistake of complaining that the people in London are rude.  You never criticize the country you're visiting!


Michael glares at me.  "Gotta go to work, but we'll meet for dinner tonight, yeah?  Burger King?  Or do you prefer McDonald's?  Some other kind of burger?"

"Boomer likes Thai food!" Yuri exclaims, to defuse the situation.  "Patara on Greek Street, 6:00, ok?"

They kiss, and Michael leaves.

Yuri has taken the day off, so we go sightseeing: the British Museum, St. Paul's Cathedral, a walk along the Thames, shopping in Soho.



"Michael is a nice guy -- trust me," Yuri says.  "He just needs time to know you."

"I was hoping that we could get together in bed again.  Are you monogamous?"

"No, we share. But I didn't tell Michael about sharing with you.  He's jealous, I think, because we lived together for a long time.  You can ask tonight, maybe."

At dinner, Michael is still surly.  When we go back to the apartment and sit on the couch to watch tv, Michael sits between me and Yuri.  I grab his knee, but he pushes my hand away.  Then, overcome by jet lag, I doze off.  I vaguely remember someone stretching me out on the couch and putting a blanket over me.

June 2 (Saturday)
I get up at dawn and go into the bedroom to awaken Yuri and Michael with hugs, and hopefully get an invitation into their bed.

"Sorry we overslept, mate," Michael says, pushing me away.  "We'll be up soon -- just give us a minute for private time, right?"

I don't mind not "sharing" Michael -- I've been with lots of bodybuilders.  But I want to hold Yuri in my arms again.

We have breakfast and go to the gym together, where Michael and I can compete over who can bench-press the most.

Afterwards I try to score some points by suggesting that we go on a tour of Wembly Stadium, where Londoners gather to watch football, but Michael says "Sorry, I'm very busy today.  But you and Yuri go on.  Get your sunglasses and cameras, and take a tour of Buckingham Palace.  Maybe Prince William is taking a shower, yeah?"


He is joking, but since Prince William is 25 years old, it's obvious that he's into young guys.  Yuri is 31, but could pass for a teenager.

Yuri and two of his friends drive me out to Stonehenge, and later we rendez-vous with Michael at the Gay Hussar, near their apartment.  It isn't actually gay-specific; it serves Hungarian food.

"What do you want to do tonight?" Yuri asks.  "We can go cruising.  There are lots of nice gay bars in Soho."

"Sure, that would be great. Would you guys mind if I brought someone home?"

"Not at all," Michael says, "If you don't mind blankets on the floor."

I'll bet if I bring a twink home, Michael will suggest more than that.  

Yuri hands me a guide book.  All types of gay bars, just like in West Hollywood.  Leather -- drag -- older guys -- twinks -- and Indie!  Obviously British slang for Indian.  This must be a bar for South Asians and their admirers, like the bars for black and Asian men in West Hollywood.

"How about this Indie bar just off the Strand.  I love South Asian guys!"

"It doesn't..." Yuri begins.

"Now, Yuri, don't be rude, like Londoners.  If our guest wants to go to an Indie bar, he can go to an Indie bar."

So we go to the Retro Bar.

You guessed it -- Indie doesn't mean Indian.  It's a type of music: Independent, not signed on to a mainstream record label.  Often local groups with an eccentric sound.

How was I to know?  I haven't listened to popular music regularly since around 1985. I think Avril Lavigne is a French children's author, and Fergie is Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York.

Indie music is horrible, all screeching and incomprehensible lyrics.

And the patrons are very young, barely out of their teens.  Some are probably in their teens.  We are the only guys over 25 in sight.

I like twinks as much as the next guy, but I feel very out of place in their hangout.

Besides, they aren't clean-cut, muscular college jocks.  They are emo, Goth, and scene kids: thin, pale androgynous, with straight black hair, hoodies, shirts emblazoned with cartoon characters, mascara-ed eyes, multiple tattoes, and pierced everything.  Not my type at all! Certainly not worth bringing home in the hope of fondling Yuri.

We commandeer a pedestal-table and order expensive juice drinks.

"The guys here are cute, yeah?" Michael says with an evil grin.  "So many Desis (South Asians)!  But the music is horrible, all screeching and shaking.  Not a lot of David Cassidy!"

I'm not going to let him know how uncomfortable I am!  "No, Indie music is great.   I had no idea.  I really love - the Futureheads."

"A Daddy who likes the Futureheads?"  someone says.  "And an American!  That's random, isn't it?"

I turn.  It's an emo kid, short, slim but with some muscle, dark skin, and a fringe of beard on his mascara-ed face.

"I'm Nehal.  Care to dance?"

Apparently my superheroic attractiveness to twinks works in England as well as America.  And, as it turns out, Nehal is a South Asian emo kid.

We dance, flirt, kiss.

"I'd invite you home," Nehal says, "But I stay with my parents, and they're old school conservative and that."

 "I'm staying with my friends.  They said I could bring someone over, as long as you don't mind blankets on the floor."

He glances at the pedestal table, where Michael is watching Nehal hungrily, and Yuri is looking bored and gesturing at his watch.

"Three Daddies!  Hot!"

First time I ever heard the youthful-looking Yuri described as a "Daddy."

"Maybe I could convince them to move us into the bedroom tonight, yeah?  If you don't mind sharing the wealth."

Before the night is over, I see both Michael and Nehal naked.  But more importantly, I hold Yuri in my arms again.  It feels like going home.

Elijah Wood Dumps Roger for Jason Bateman

New York, October 1999

For about a month, Yuri has been dating John Benjamin Hickey, the 36 year old actor who starred in Love! Valour! Compassion! and Finding North, and now plays Clifford Bradshaw in Cabaret on Broadway.  Not his usual type -- balding, rather sallow chest, not a gym rat.

Well, he does have one characteristic that Yuri likes.

I think Yuri is star-struck, dating John for his address book rather than his wit, charm, and physique.  Who wouldn't accept a date that involved meeting  Nathan Lane and  Liza Minelli?

Yes, we shared.  I'm kind of interested in that address book, too.

When Yuri invites me to dinner at John's house, I assume it will be a standard West Hollywood party, with nudity and oral sex, and guests including aging mega-hunks that I had crushes on in the 1970s: James Naughton, Matthew Broderick, Tom Wopat, and Lou Diamond Phillips.

Instead, there are just four of us -- the fourth, apparently my blind date, is Roger Rees, who I remember as Robin Colcort, Rebecca's crush, on Cheers (1989-1993), and as the Sheriff of Rottingham in Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993).

Not at all my type: I like short, husky, and dark-skinned, and he's tall, thin, and gaunt, with an unattractive long face. I like working-class "regular guys," and he's a sophisticate.  I'm a teetotler, and he likes his wine.

But I figure, Rees probably has an address book even bigger than Hickey's.

Besides, to quote a show tune, "In the dark they are all the same."

"I can't tell you how refreshing it is to meet a mature man for a change," Roger tells me, fondling my knee under the dinner table.

"I'm only 38..."

"38, eh?  Brace yourself -- the tidal wave is coming.  Ever since I turned 40 --er, 40-something [he was actually 56], the twinks have been positively throwing themselves at me.  Why, I just broke up with the most obnoxious Cute Young Thing you can imagine."

Great -- he's on the rebound.  I glare at Yuri for setting me up with this guy, big address book or not.

"Granted, he was cute, but a pretty face is no substitute for substance."

His hand works its way up to my crotch.

"And he dumped me out of nowhere, when he found someone that he thought would further his career -- Jason Bateman, can you believe it?"

"I dated Jason Bateman's ex..." I say, trying to steer the conversation away from Roger's Cute Young Thing ex.  "Porn star, gigantic penis...but nothing compared to the guy I met in Texas."

Too late.  Rees has already begun.

Too late.  Rees has already begun the story.

New York, Fall 1999

Roger's first love was the theater, and regardless of how much Hollywood beckoned, he was determined to stay put, in the Manhattan he so dearly loved.  He only took the role of Dr. Croft, an evil mad scientist sort who runs an asylum for amnesiac and dying children (in The Bumblebee Flies Anyway), because he could stay in New York, and because he was a fan of Robert Cormier, who wrote the original novel.

He hadn't anticipated a problem -- most of the cast consisted of actors in their teens and early twenties, and age 40-something, Roger was a full-fledged twink magnet.  Half the cast wanted to date him!  Or at least go down on him in his dressing room.  He usually had a rule against dating costars, but some of them were very persistent, such as 18-year old Elijah Wood.

"Oh, I hate him!"  I exclaim.  "An insufferable kid in gut-wrenching movies like 'Radio Flier' and 'The Good Son.'  He manages to drain the gay subtexts from everything he does, even 'Huck Finn.'"

"He took his shirt off in 'Flipper,'" Hickey adds, "Giving the teen dream crowd something to dream about.  Not me, though."

"Well, he's a little more mature than that by now," Roger says.  "Not much, but a little."

Eventually a cute face and persistence wore Roger down.  "Look, I know we have some chemistry together," Elijah said one day, cornering him in his dressing room."Why don't we just admit it?"

Roger allowed a kiss and a grope, but then broke away.  Who was this young succubus?  "We both have jobs to do here...." he stammered.  "We can't let something so mundane as sexual attraction get in the way of our art."

"Well -- the filming won't last forever.  What are you doing for Christmas?"

So  after the filming was over, Roger agreed to some simple, uncomplicated dates -- a walk through Central Park, a quiet dinner at home.  The most public they got was seeing Liza Minelli at the Palace Theater.

Elijah was very, very horny.  He wanted to go down on Roger three or more times a day -- even in his salad days, Roger could never have been a match for that voracious appetite, and now his libido was waning.  What about kissing and cuddling, just holding each other as the darkness enveloped them?

Then there was the porn -- gay and straight -- the three-ways -- the discussions of women's breasts and vaginal whatchamacallits!  Disgusting!  Apparently Elijah was into everybody and everything.

"How big was he?" Yuri asks.

"Not very, maybe 5" aroused," Roger says.  "And anyway, he was strictly an oral bottom, into giving head but not getting."

"I wonder how he handles it when he's with a woman," I say.  Then, embarrassed, I figure it out.

A couple of weeks ago, Elijah came as Roger's date to a party at Liza's apartment.  Among the guests was Jason Bateman, who Roger knew from Hollywood: 30 years old, rather a nebbish sort but still cute, with a pretense of naiveté that had gotten him into more bedrooms than Jeff Stryker dildos.  He was as horny as Elijah, with an open relationship with his girlfriend, carte blanche to cruise everybody and everything in sight.    

Roger gamely introduced the two, then wandered off in search of more stimulating company.

Awhile later, he saw them still talking.  Maybe standing a little too close...but well, nothing wrong with that.  Probably comparing notes on the horrors of being child stars, the poor tykes.

Still...was Jason starting to tent?

Roger forced himself to back off and talk to the other guests.  When he looked again, Jason and Elijah were both gone!

Very bad form -- you don't abandon your date at a party! Could Elijah be going down on Jason right there?  Enraged, he started searching for them.  The living room...the parlor...the music room...the kitchen.  The master bedroom...

They wouldn't be in the master bath, would they?  But...the guest bath was too busy...if they wanted seclusion.

The door was locked.  Roger dangled the knob.

"Just a minute!" Eliza called.

Roger was too embarrassed to search the rest of the apartment.  He got his coat and left.

Elijah called the next day:

"Sorry to ditch you, but I couldn't let Jason get away.  I really need someone who has some ins in Hollywood.  Broadway is great, but..."

"That's fine," Roger said, gritting his teeth.  "These things happen.  You either have chemistry, or you don't."

"So, could we come over later to share?  Maybe I could go down on you while Jason is topping me?"

Roger hung up on him.

Was Roger Telling the Truth?

Roger Rees was a celebrity with a long-term partner, and so had nothing to gain by inventing a celebrity hookup.  And Elijah Wood has been the subject of countless gay rumors, although he dismisses them as "the fantasies of people with too much time on their hands."

But Jason Bateman hasn't been the subject of many rumors.  And I'm actually surprised that the sophisticated, elitist Rees would know the former teen idol, who hadn't yet become famous for adult roles.

By the way, I did go down on Roger before the night was over.  About 7.5", uncut.  And an even bigger address book.

See also: My Date with Andrew Lloyd Webber; Sausage Sighting of Richard Grieco