Gay Pride Has Changed

Minneapolis, June 2017

I've been marching in gay pride parades since they were called gay rights marches.

I was in the first ever to be held in the state of Iowa, in June 1981.

When I lived in California and New York, from 1985 to 2001, I marched almost every year, either with the Metropolitan Community Church or with the gay synagogue.

 It was the biggest event of the year: we spent months deciding which group to march with, working on banners and floats, charting out the route, making plans to meet friends afterwards, at the festival.

The day of the parade,we would show up at the staging ground on Crescent Heights an hour early (walk, if you could), dressed lightly -- Los Angeles in June is hot!

It was fun to be walking down the streets we drove down every day, with a wall of spectators on all sides, more gay men and lesbians than we ever knew existed.

The hetero screamers, outraged by our existence, with their signs saying we were going to hell, were confined to a small area next to the Rage, where we could ignore them easily.

Then came the festival in West Hollywood Park: 20 or 30 booths from every gay organization you had ever heard of, and some you hadn't: Dignity (for gay Catholics), Frontrunners (for runners), Gay Fathers, the Gay Asian-Pacific Alliance.  A few food carts, whoever was brave and non-homophobic enough to be seen with us, selling ice cream, corn dogs, and Thai food on a stick.

A huge crowd of gay men and lesbians, some you would never see anywhere else.  A chance to catch up with friends you'd lost track of.  Acres upon acres of shirtless musclemen.
Nonstop cruising: it wasn't a successful pride festival unless you got at least three phone numbers.

Hetero screamers milled about with pamphlets about how we were going to hell, so the rule was: never accept anything someone tries to hand to you.  Representatives of gay organizations will sit at their booths with brochures for you to pick up.

In the evening there was a round of parties and dances, with a lot more cruising, and there was always that one guy who was completely nude in a public place.

At work the next day, you could always tell who was gay: they were sunburned.

In Florida I didn't go, and in 2005 I moved to the Straight World, where Gay Pride was a small, understated affair.  A barbecue in the park for about 20 people.  A parade with about 20 banners but no floats that marched down one side of the street, the other still open to gawking traffic.

I haven't been to a big-city Gay Pride for 16 years.

They've changed.

Last weekend I went to Minneapolis for Twin Cities Pride.  Due to a GPS problem, my wisdom tooth extraction, and oversleeping, my friend and I missed the Parade, but we went to the festival in Loring Park, near downtown.



1. It's not Gay Pride or LGBT Pride, it's just Pride. It's rather annoying to be erased from your own festival.

2. Instead of 20 or 30 booths, there were over 200.  Most were not gay-specific.  Banks, credit unions, colleges (not college LGBT groups, just "why you should come here"), sheets and towels, a service that would clean your rain gutter.

Instead of two or three food trucks, there were about fifty.  No longer do the organizers have to scrounge around to find enough vendors willing to be seen with us.

3. The rule about not accepting anything someone tries to hand you was gone.  Everyone tried to hand us something: beads, buttons, bags, brochures.  I didn't take anything -- force of habit.

Fortunately, I didn't see any screamers.

4.  But the festival wasn't for us anymore.  Over half of the crowd consisted of male-female couples, often with kids in tow, and most of the rest were groups of women  A scattering of gay men.  

5. The acres and acres of beefcake were gone. Very few of the men were shirtless, and very few were buffed.  At least I can say that I have a better physique than 99% of the men at a Gay Pride Festival.

6. The cruising was gone, too.  The few times I got cruised, it was by a woman or a teenage boy.  I get more action at the doctor's office.

Afterwards we walked back across Lyndale Avenue, through the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.  A large Muslim family was photographing each other in front of the cherry spoon statue.  College kids were playing miniature golf on a weird course with brillo pads and maps of downtown.  There was a baseball game going on at the stadium.

They were half a mile from Gay Pride.  They didn't know, or they didn't care.

"Gay Pride has changed,"  I told my friend.

"For better or worse?"

"I'm not sure."

One of the college boys playing miniature golf looked over at me with a cruisy glance.

Some things don't change.

A G-rated version of this post is on Boomer Beefcake and Bonding

See also: My First Gay Rights March

Will, the Bondage Boy with the Sweeney Todd Fetish

Silverlake, November 1987

I met Will  at Sunset Junction, the gay street fair held every October in Silverlake, L.A.'s second gay neighborhood.

He was about five years older than me, short, compact, with a little belly and a  very hairy chest, one of the first "bears" I ever met.  He told me that he worked at the Eagle, a leather bar in Silverlake.

I was a little nervous about accepting a date with a bartender -- he must get drunk a lot.  But Will was attractive, different from my usual Asian and Hispanic guys, and besides, I wanted a tour of Silverlake.  It was 15 miles from West Hollywood, way out where Santa Monica met Sunset, so we didn't go there much.







We had dinner at La Casita, a very bright, colorful Mexican restaurant -- rather a treat, since there were no Mexican restaurants in West Hollywood at the time.

Then Will took off his shirt, put on a leather vest, and took me to the Eagle.

It was my first time in a leather bar.  Older crowd, a lot of bears, a lot of chaps and leather jackets and cigarette smoke.  I was the youngest guy there, a little out of place in my cruisy tank top and jeans.


Will got himself a bottle of beer and me a soda, and introduced me to some of the regulars.  One asked "Isn't it past your bedtime, kid?"

I wasn't amused.  "I'll be 27 next week."

Will escorted me away.  "Don't mind him -- he's just jealous,  We don't get many young guys at the Eagle.  The rule is, West Hollywood for twinks and creepy old guys, Silverlake for daddies and bears."  He paused.  "So, what do you like to do?  In bed, I mean."

The question was surprising, even shocking.  In West Hollywood we never asked -- we just brought the guy into our bedroom and found out.  It must be a Silverlake thing.

"Oh, um....the usual." I stammered.  "You know, a lot of kissing and cuddling and...well, French [oral sex], of course.."

"What about non-vanilla sex?  Like, you know, bondage? BDSM scenes?"

"I'm not very experienced with that," I said.  "My first boyfriend Fred liked to be tied up and spanked, and I met a guy at Mugi who had a closetful of whips and paddles.  But I've been reading Cavelo and Sean since I lived in Indiana."

"Wow, Cavelo and Sean, that's hardcore stuff!  You're probably ready for a scene, do you think?"


"What kind of scene?"

"Kidnapping and POW are my favorites, but my super super favorite is cannibalism."

Cannibalism?  This evening was getting complicated!  "Let's start out with some kissing and French, ok?"

Will shared a very nice Spanish-style house with an older gay couple, who sat in the living room with us to eat sponge cake and drink coffee before excusing themselves.

Then we kissed and cuddled for awhile.  I tried to unzip Will, but he pushed my hand away.

"Not ready for oral?" I asked in surprise.

"Oh, that stuff is ok, but why bother when there's a full dungeon in the basement?  There's even a giant cauldron for cannibalism scenes!"

"How about some music?" I asked, to get his mind off cannibalism.

"Oh, sure."  He sprang to the stereo.  "You'll like this.  It's Sweeney Todd, the musical."

"Um...I'm not really into show tunes."

"You've never heard show tunes like this.  If you're interested in Victorian London, or crime, or language, you'll love it.  Let me put it on for you."  He fumbled about for the cassette.  "See, Sweeney Todd was imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, and he gets revenge by killing the people responsible and serving them in meat pies.  Len Cariou plays Sweeney Todd, and Angela Lansbury plays Mrs. Lovett, the owner of the pie shop."

Lovett: Since marine doesn't appeal to you, how about rear admiral?

Todd: Too salty. I prefer general.

Lovett: With, or without his privates? "With" is extra.

Todd: What is that?

Lovett:  It's fop, finest in the shop. And we have some shepherd's pie peppered with actual shepherd on top!  And I've just begun --  here's the politician, so oily it's served with a doily...

Angela Lansbury, the mild-mannered mystery writer of Murder, She Wrote, was singing about eating people!

I could see that I wasn't going to get out of there with some plain old-fashioned bedroom activity.  "I'm not really into cannibalism scenes, but I'm up for some light bondage and spanking."

"Great, that's great too!"  Will exclaimed.  He yelled "We're going downstairs" into the other room and led me through the kitchen and into the basement dungeon.

Very impressive.  Nude photos on the walls.  A sling.  A St. Andrew's cross.  A leather-covered bondage table.  And the famous cauldron, big enough for the bottom to sit in while the top doused him with water from a hose.

"It's an old movie prop.  Johnny Sheffield, who played Boy in the MGM Tarzan movies in the 1930s, was cooked in it."

"That's enough talking, slave!" I said sternly.  "Now strip and stand against that St. Andrew's cross.  You're going to be tied up and tortured!"

"Yes, sir!"

The torture involved "forcing" Will to submit to oral sex.  That counts as "eating" him, right?

That was my last date with Will, but we stayed friends.  He dated Raul for awhile.

See also: 15 Bondage Boys  ; Sean and the World of Gay Leathermen; Will and Scott's Wild Night with Keanu Reeves.

Waking Up to a Straight Boy in My Bed at the Gilroy Garlic Festival

Gilroy, California, July 1997

In the 1980s and 1990s, when you found a gay haven, you stayed there.   You ventured into the straight world only when absolutely necessary, and then you stayed closeted, undercover, careful not to let your guard down for a moment.  If the straights found out that you were gay -- or even suspected -- they would scream "God hates you!" and grab the nearest baseball bat to attack.

But in July 1997, shortly before I left San Francisco to go to graduate school in New York, my friend David suggested that we drive down to Gilroy for the annual garlic festival.

"Are you crazy?" I exclaimed.  "It will be full of straight people!  We'd never make it out of town alive!"

"I was there last year.  It's fine -- nobody says anything.  The straights might not like us very much, but they don't mind taking our money.  Besides, it's full of the cutest small-town rednecks you'd ever hope to meet."

"You don't....cruise straight men?"  I asked, aghast.  "That's just asking to get beat up!"

"Boy, you've got to get over this straight-o-phobia of yours.  Straight guys get just as horny as you and me.  Tell you what -- we'll get a hotel room, spend the night, and if you don't trick with a straight guy, I'll pay for the whole trip."

Gilroy, "the garlic capital of the world," was a  town of 40,000 about two hours south of San Francisco, surrounded by vineyards and farms.  Its annual Garlic Festival drew thousands of people from all over the country.

There was music, art exhibits, and cooking contests, but the main draw was the food -- garlic-infused everything, from burgers and pizza to muffins and ice cream (plus some non-garlic items).  There were booths sponsored by town restaurants, charities, churches, and clubs.

Most of the crowd were aggressively hetero families or teenagers, but there was a scattering of gay people, in groups of four or five for protection.

David selected his straight guy to cruise right away -- a cute, muscular blond in a trucker cap who was staffing the petting zoo.

 But I was uncomfortable trying to cruise among straight people.  Finally I gave up and stopped at the garlic ice cream booth.

Hector, one of the workers, was short, Hispanic, husky, with nice muscular arms.  Cute, but too young for cruising material -- the booth was sponsored by the Gilroy High School football team.

"Do you get much business?" I asked as he poured a bowl of diced garlic into the ice cream maker.

"Not too much in the afternoon.  It's mostly a 'friends-dare-you' kind of thing, so we do good business at night, after the guys have a few beers in them."

"You work that late?"

He smiled. "I'm here until midnight, except for a dinner break at six."

The ice cream wasn't bad -- vanilla with a slightly spicy undertone.  But definitely a fad item.

"Do you eat the ice cream yourself?"

"You know what -- I shouldn't tell you this, but I've been working here five years in a row, and I've never had a taste.  Garlic isn't really my thing."

"Five years!" I exclaimed.  "How old are you?"

"Twenty.  I graduated two years ago.  I go to UC Santa Cruz now, but the guys always ask me to work this booth -- it's tradition."

We chatted for a few minutes, and then Hector got a line, so I wandered away, looking for someone to cruise.  Not much luck: straight guys made eye contact with strangers only to issues threats ("You're too close, back off!), or to respond to them ("You got a problem?").

After awhile, I returned to Hector.

"Can't get rid of you, can I?" he exclaimed.

"What can I say?  I'm hooked!"

"I'll get you the recipe, so you can make your own, when you get back to..."

Suddenly David had his arm around my shoulders.  "About to seal the deal with my guy.  Who's this?"

"Hector.  He's run the garlic ice cream booth for five years, but never tried it."

"Well, you should try it!" David said with a leer.  "You never know what you're missing."

Hector scowled with unmistakable homophobia.

"Um...Hector, this is my friend David," I said.  "We came down from the City together."

"What can I get you?" he said icily.

We retreated.

"Was that your guy?"  David asked.

"No, we were just chatting, but when he found out we were gay, he turned into a first class homophobe!  I have half a mind to go cruise him just to watch him squirm!"

We drove back into Gilroy, had dinner, and worked out in the hotel gym.  Then I settled in for a night of HBO, but David wanted to go out.  "Pete -- the petting zoo guy -- said he might stop in at Stubby's for a drink later.  I'm going to check it out."


"Cruising at a straight bar?  That doesn't sound safe."

"Don't worry, Mom, I'll be careful.  Up for sharing?"

"Sure, if he agrees.  But don't stay out too late -- I'm tired."

At midnight, David wasn't back yet, so I went to bed.

I awoke about an hour later to the warmth and pressure of someone between my legs, fondling me.  David! I thought.  He must have been unsuccessful.  

Wait -- then who was lying beside me in the darkness?  I reached over and felt hard biceps, a smooth hard chest.

Pete?

I tried to make out his face.  Young, Hispanic, smiling.


Hector!

 He drew me close, and we kissed.  I ran my hand down, over his firm abs, down below his waist -- and found David, working on us both.

We changed positions a few more times, and then we fell asleep with Hector between us.

"I thought you were lovers," he told me in the morning.  "That's why I got all bitchy -- how would you like it if you were just about to seal the deal with a hot guy, and his lover showed up?  But then David came by the booth and explained the situation, and invited me over."

I still had to pay for my half of the trip, since Hector was technically David's pickup.  And he wasn't straight.

See also: David pulls "it" out;  David and I Pick Up a Teenage Hitchhiker; The Boy Selling Pickles at the Farmer's Market