The Art of Going Out: Meeting Men for Dating or Sex in West Hollywood

Nowadays, with same-sex attraction easy to accept and easy to divulge, people just click on Grindr to get a guy who lives 500 feet away to drop by for a 10 minute blow job.

 Thirty years ago in West Hollywood, things were different. "Going out" was an art, a form of recreation, and a game designed to get a man into your life or you rbed.  There were some very specific rules.  Breaking any of them meant being exposed to HIV, bringing home a druggie or a theif, or worse, or getting the reputation of being a sleazoid or a slut.  Or losing at the game, and not getting a man into your bed.

1. Decide before going out whether you will approach or be approached.  This would very important later: the approacher had to make the first physical contact, ask for the date or hookup, and provide the bed.

Plus if you planned to approach someone for sex tonight, you needed a clean apartment -- bed made, with new sheets, new towels in the bathroom, no dirty dishes in the kitchen.

Plus some interesting magazines on the coffee table, some condoms and lube at the ready, and at least coffee for the next morning.

Plus you had  to tell your friends that you were going out, so they could arrnage for a casual "drop in" to see if everything was ok.

2. Go out on a weeknight between 9 pm and 11;00 pm.  Going out could occur on any night of the week, but weeknights were preferable.  Friday and Saturday were reserved for dates and parties; guys would might go to the bars to look at guys or as part of their dates, but they were not likely to be "going out," looking to meet someone new.  .

Why be done by 11:00?  You have to get home anyway, and after two hours without success, you start getting desperate, and make bad choices.

After you decided on a bar, based on your age and the kind of guy you were interested in meeting:

3. Go out alone.   If you went out with a friend,you might get involved with an unsavory competition.  Besides, when you go out together, you stay together until the end of the evening.  This was a cast-in-stone, friendship-breaking rule.  I suppose it originated because someone, at some time, was left at the bar and ended up victimized


.

4. Do not drink, or just one beer.  If you were intoxicated, you would make bad choices.  I used to buy a coke and make it last for the two hours.

5. As the approacher, make at most six circuits of the bar.  I always walked around the entire bar, mentally checking who I was interested in.  Then I would start a second cycle,and nonchalantly stop next to ghe guy I liked most.  If he gave me Attitude (refused to make eye contact), I would go on to the next, and so on.  At the end of the second circuit, I would wait ten minutes, and start again. 

After six circuits, you're starting to look desperate or too picky.  And maybe you are.

6. When a prospect makes eye contact, interview him for about five minutes before initiating physical contact.  The questions  were purely social: "Where are you from ?  How long have you lived here?  What neighborhood do you live in?  What gym do you go to? Did you see Dynasty last night?"  Only sleazoids asked about cock size, bedroom interests, or HIV status.  It was the epitome of gauche.

At the end of the five minute interview, you either said "have a nice evening" and moved on or sealed the deal with physical contact.

7. The physical contact goes: touch shoulder, touch chest, grope.  The kiss was optional, and not usually recommended, as it might give you the reputation for being a slut. The conversation could continue during the physical contact for as long as you liked, since the decision had been made.  But the approacher had to issue the invitation fairly quickly.

8. After the grope, the inviation must always be accepted.  Before 1990, the invitation would be for a date, with an exchange of telephone numbers.  After 1990, it was usually to go back to your apartment for sex. During the early 1990s, there was a gray area, where some guys were not aware of the change, or not ready for it; they were permitted to reject an invitation for sex, as long as they followed up with an invitation for a date.

9. After the invitation is issued, you must both leave the bar. The cruising is over.  You weren't  allowed to stick around, even to "chat with your friends." You weren't  allowed to go to another bar. You could go to a restaurant for a late-night snack, to a late-night bookstore to buy The Complete Operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan, or go home.

10. The next day, you must report to your friends. Was the bar good or bad?Enough hot guys? Too much Attitude? You had to describe your evening, what you did right, what you did wrong, ask for tips on how to improve your technique. After all, in a few days, or a week at the most, you would be back  out, playing the game again.

My First Asian Hookup, with a Little Help from My Friends

West Hollywood, July 5th, 1985

I arrived in Southern California two days ago, on Wednesday afternoon.  Thursday was a holiday, but today I'm getting started with the three things I need.

1. An apartment.
2. A job.
3. Asian men.

I've been into Asian men for as long as I can remember, at least since I read My Village in Japan in third grade, or got a fleeting glimpse of a cute Chinese boy, Chi Ehr Ma, in fourth grade.  But I've only met a few.  Heck, I've seen only a few (even today, Rock Island has an Asian population of only 0.75%).

But there are 1.4 million people of Asian ancestry in Los Angeles, more Burmese, Thais, Cambodians, Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, and Indonesians than anywhere outside their home countries.

1.4 million people means 40,000 adult gay men, and probably 20,000 who are single and available.   I'm going shopping!

I have dinner at the Greenery and hang around the Different Light Bookstore and the Gold Coast until  cruising time, 9:00 pm.

My Gayellow Pages lists two gay Asian bar in Los Angeles, but one is "full of hustlers," so I go to the other, Mugi.  It's about a 20 minute drive from West Hollywood, down Santa Monica to Highland to Hollywood, past the 101, almost to Echo Park.

The neighborhood makes me a little nervous.  There are panhandlers and leering drunks and sleazy hotels.  Finding parking is not easy!

Mugi is a long, narrow room with a bar at the far end and some tables in the middle.  No dance floor.  No patio.  No theme nights, trivia games, best physique contests, or drag shows, nothing to do or watch.

You come here for only two reasons: to talk to your friends; and to cruise.

There are a few men sitting alone at the tables, and a few standing against the walls, lined up, facing the opposite wall like boys and girls lined up on opposite sides of the school gym on dance night.  But most are in tight groups of four and five.

More Asian men than I have ever seen before.  Thin, fat, muscular;  tall, short; young, old; masculine, feminine.  This is heaven!

It's the middle of the AIDS epidemic, so of course I'm not interested in "tricking" -- going home with someone that night.  I want a telephone number -- or two or three -- to make dates for next week.

There doesn't seem to be much tricking going on, anyway.  Most guys seem to come in groups, and leave in groups.

Maybe this isn't a cruise bar after all?

I don't care -- I'll make it a cruise bar!

Some guys are walking slowly along the rows, eyeing everybody as if they are merchandise on sale. I try that, and get major attitude, no eye contact at all, except from a white guy, a middle-aged Daddy with a short beard and an enormous basket.

"Hi, I'm Boomer, from Texas.  Quite a crowd tonight."

He shakes my hand.  "Travis.  Yeah, it's early, so most of the rice queens aren't here yet.  This is the social hour."

"Rice queen?"

"White guys looking for soft, passive Asian cocks."

Travis tells me that this bar was originally set up for rice queens to easily pick up "Asian cock," which is why Asian-Americans, guys born in the U.S., stay away.  It's all recent immigrants, mostly from Southeast Asia.  Some are refugees. Some are ladyboys who escaped from the sex trade.  Some were thrown out of their families for being gay.  All have stories of pain and degradation.

"Um...I just think most Asian guys are hot," I say, meekly.  "I just want a date."

"Don't we all?  But you have to know what you're up against.  They're suspicious of rice queens, worried that they're going to be exploited or abused. They won't even date Asian guys from other countries.  Look --"  He points at the various groups along the left wall: "Burmese, Thai, Filipino, Vietnamese."  And along the right wall: "Malaysian, Chinese, Thai but from a group that won't talk to the other Thais, Korean."

He puts his hand on my shoulder.  "If I were you, I'd go down to the Rage, have a drink, dance, and cruise some white twinks.  It'll increase your chances by about 500%."

I thank him for his advice and walk away.  I stand on the other side of the bar from a cute guy, tall, light skinned, lightly muscled physique, standing alone.

Attitude.

Another.

More attitude.

Travis is doing the same thing, with no success.

I'm getting annoyed!  24 years of fantasies about Asian men, and this is what I get?

Biting the bullet, I approach three guys standing together in a clump.  Short, dark-skinned, handsome grinning faces.

"Hi, I'm Boomer.  I just moved here from Texas."

One holds out his hand.  "Dato, from Malaysia.  Your friend is cute.  Tell him ok."

"Um...ok what?"

He frowns.  "To meet, of course.  What you think?"

"I'm new here.  I don't know..."

They burst out laughing.  I'm about to retreat when Dato grabs my arm.  "Ok, you new here, so I tell you.  At Mugi you don't cruise.  It's rude."

 "Your mother never told you, don't talk to strangers?" his friend asks with a giggling laugh.  "You like a boy, you send a friend to see if it's ok.  Then if he says yes, you bring him over, meet all his friends."

"So now you go tell Travis it's ok," Dato says.

How did Travis, a regular, miss this rule?

I look around the bar for him, so I can offer to introduce him to Dato -- and ask him to return the favor.

He's vanished, maybe gone on to the Rage to cruise some twinks.

I hang out with Dato for awhile, telling him and his friends all about Texas (yes, they grow them big there!).  Eventually a guy approaches and offers to introduce me to his friend Huan.

A 23-year old from Shanghai who has only lived in the U.S. for a few months, and doesn't speak English very well.  He has a job, though,  working as a liaison at the Community Redevelopment Agency.   Short, slim, young-looking, with thin arms but nice hard shoulders.

On our date, we go to Chinatown, just north of downtown L.A., to browse in the shops and have dinner in a Chinese restaurant.  Then we go back to his apartment.

Into kissing and cuddling, oral bottom, wants to go down on me but will barely let me touch his 5" cock.   Not a particularly satisfying sexual experience, but what sexual experience could ever live up to 25 years of fantasies?  What counts is that I managed to break the Mugi code, with a little help from my friends.

The best part is: Huan, now my friend, could introduce me to anyone at Mugi that I wanted to meet.

Plus he got me a job at the Community Redevelopment Agency.

I returned to Mugi at least once a week, often twice, for the next eight years.  I met many more Asian guys.  And I found that almost everything Travis told me was wrong.

Either he didn't know what he was talking about, or he was trying to discourage me with a weird cock and bull story.  Mostly bull.

See also: Asian Boyfriends, Hookups, and Sausage Sightings.

February 1983: My First Creepy Old Guy

Bloomington, February 1983

I'm 22 years old, out for 4 1/2 years, but I've only been to the bars a few times.  Growing up in a church that teaches that alcohol consumption is far worse than murder, I'm still not comfortable walking into a tavern.

Used beer bottles everywhere.  Rows of liquor bottles behind the bar.  A nauseating smell.  Guys drinking beer. Disgusting!

But gay bars are the only safe places, where you can relax and meet other gay people without fear of homophobic harassment.  So, with my friend Viju's help, I persevere, and get used to it.

Tonight he isn't feeling well, and wants to stay home.

Do I dare go by myself?

I decide to take the plunge.

I arrive at Bullwinkle's in downtown Bloomington at 9:00 pm.  There's room at the bar, so I sit on one of the red stools and order a Coke.   A small crowd, mostly college-age, some older guys from the community.  No one I know.

Suddenly the bartender hands me another Coke.

"I didn't order this," I tell him.

"That guy bought it for your."  He gestures at an older man sitting at the end of the bar.  Probably in his 50s, a little chunky white-haired, with a salt-and-pepper beard.  Dressed a little too formally for a gay bar, in a white button-down shirt and black pants.

I move over to sit next to him and introduce myself.  "Hi, I'm Boomer.  In grad school in English."

"Oh, a literary scholar!  I knew you were an artist!"  He takes my hand and refuses to let go.  "My name is Philip.  I'm a professor of the Classics, vainly trying to keep the basic texts of Western Civilization alive in this era of Disco Duck and BJ and the Bear." 


Ok, pop culture references five years out of date.  "I'm more a fan of Michael Jackson and Chips."  

"Even worse!  Have you never read Tacitus?  Or, if a randy mood strikes, Catullus?"

I take a sip of my drink, and sputter in disgust.  Vile concoction.  "What is this? It's not a Coke!"

"Why no, it's rum and coke. Isn't that what you were drinking?"

"No -- I don't drink."

"Don't drink, don't smoke," Philip says with a smile.  "What do you do?"

"So you've heard of Adam Ant?"  

"Oh, of course.  One must keep up."  His hand falls onto my lap, and he begins groping me through my pants.  "I hesitate to ask -- I'm afraid you'll find me a disappointment.  But I would certainly love spending the night with you.  Such youth!  Puerum pulcherimum!" 

Ok, this guy is way too old for me. I like guys who are my age, or only a few years older, 30s tops.  Philip is probably older than my father!  But I haven't had much experience in turning guys down.  Is it impolite?  Is it even allowed?

So I follow Philip to his house, an elegant two-story Tudor about five blocks away.

We sit in a living room that looks like it came from Versailles, on a gold-embroidered couch next to a grand piano.

"Do you play?" he asks.

"Um...no...I played the viola in high school."

"You're such a beautiful young man, so literary.  I'm sure you're musical, too.  You should play the piano."

"Um..."

"Care for a sherry?"

"Could I just have a Coke, with nothing in it?"

He brings me a can of bargain-brand cola, and the sherry, some vile-smelling concoction in a giant snifter, for himself.

After a sip, he fondles my shoulder.  "So beautiful.  Stunning, really.  You should be a model."

"Yeah..um...thanks."

He bends in for a kiss.  I see his whiskered mouth, wet from sherry, approach me, and turn away with a shudder.  He gets my cheek.

At that moment the phone rings.  "Yes...yes...oh, yes...he's sitting here now...very beautiful, like a Hellenistic youth.  Perhaps Hyacinth.  Yes, ok.  Thank you.  Good night."

Philip returns to me.  "My lover, calling to check up on me."

"He doesn't mind that you..."

"Oh, no.  At this point we're mostly business partners anyway.  Sex is a thing of the past.  It's all about the search for youth and beauty, don't you think?"

He takes the soda from my hand.   "Shall we adjourn to the boudoir?"

I'm reluctant -- being called "beautiful" a dozen times isn't erotic, it's just creepy.  But I can't see any way out of it.  Philip leads me down a hallway to a bedroom that looks like it came from a museum.  Gilded white dressers, Louis XIV chairs, lamps that must weigh fifty pounds a piece, a four-poster bed with lace curtains and gold pillows.

"Do you sleep on that bed?"  I asked.

"Among other things."  He unbuttons my shirt, runs his hand over my chest, then fondles me through my pants.  He unzips me and pulls it out.  I don't get aroused.

"Hmm...uncircumcized, are you?  The Phyrgian youth had foreskins so long that they pierced them and put ornaments in them.  Quite pleasing to the tongue, I understand."

Philip takes off his shirt - a thick mass of chest hair, and nipple rings.  The first I have ever seen.

"Oh, do you like my ornamentation?  You can play with them," he says.  "Squeeze them -- bite them...I'm used to the pain."

"Ok."

"Like this."  His mouth is on my nipple.  I feel his moustache tickling my cheek, then his tongue.  Then he bites down hard.

I push him away with a yell.

"Just relax.  Daddy knows best."  He returns to my nipple, and licks it.  Then he starts running his tongue down my chest, lapping like a puppy dog!  Gross!

"Stop that!" I yell.  Disgusted, I grab my shirt and start to leave.

He takes my arm.  "Don't go.  Youth is so beautiful, don't you think?  It fades away year by year, until finally you're a ravaged husk.  Cherish it while you can."

"Yeah, I'll do that.  See ya."

It's been 32 years since that night in Bloomington.  I'm now the same age as Philip.  But I don't go around calling twinks "beautiful boy" and complaining about the ravages of age.  I don't want to become a Creepy Old Guy.

Pop Quiz: List five things that Philip did wrong.

See also: The Night I Became a Creepy Old Guy