How We Invented Sex Parties

West Hollywood, November 1992

In West Hollywood in the 1980s and 1990s, hooking up was frowned upon.  You dated, shared your boyfriend with your friends, and played party games with a sexual component, but bringing home a stranger with no preliminaries -- deviant, dangerous, disgusting.

We knew about bathhouses and backrooms as relics of an earlier age of innocence, but there were none left in Los Angeles, and few of us went to them when traveling abroad.

And no one had ever heard of sex parties or bear parties, roomfuls of guys who get together explicitly for sexual activity with complete strangers.

The first one ever was Lane's idea.  But I helped.

Lane grew up in the Spanish Colonial house on Crescent Heights Boulevard that his parents bought when they got married.  It was no mansion, but it was huge by West Hollywood standards: an enormous living room, a family room, two dining rooms (one for everyday, one for special occasions), four bedrooms, two and a half baths, an enclosed porch, and a basement (rare in Los Angeles).  Plus a back yard with a huge hedge around it.

When his mother  died in November 1992, and Lane inherited the house, I expected him to immediately put it on the market, but instead he said "We should live there. The old-fashioned furniture will have to be replaced, and the kitchen needs remodeling, but it will be just like having a house in the suburbs."

I balked.  "Too stiff and formal.  And too much space for just two people.  It would hardly be cozy, would it?"

"It's walking distance to the French Quarter and the Metropolitan Community Church."

"But a mile from the Different Light. I just like our apartment better.  It's home."

But Lane prevailed, and we rented a U-Haul to bring over our bed, our tv, some paintings, six boxes of books, and some miscellaneous odds and ends.  There was something wrong with each of the bedrooms (where his parents slept, where his mother died, his old room, etc), so we moved the stuff out of the cavernous family room and moved our bed and an old dresser in.

And we set about trying to deal with the sound of silence.

We got no sleep the first night.

On the second night we invited someone in to "share."

On the third night we went out to the Faultline, even though it was a Tuesday.

But no matter how late we stayed out, no matter who shared our bed, we still couldn't sleep in that cavernous room, knowing that there were seven other equally cavernous rooms, an infinite space between us and the rest of the world.

"How did you handle all this space when you were growing up, with just you and your parents?"  I asked,

"It wasn't just three.  We had a housekeeper, my grandparents lived with us, my cousin spent summers, friends of my parents visited.  The house was usually full of people.."

"Then we should have a party," I told Lane.

"A housewarming party?"

"No, bigger than that. .  Twenty or thirty people to fill this place up.  I want them overflowing the living room,, spilling out into the enclosed porch and into the back yard. I want every one of these cavernous bedrooms full."

"Bedrooms occupied?" Lane repeated with a grin. "Sounds like you want some sharing to happen at this party."

"Definitely.  Sharing in the bedrooms, making out in the formal dining room, oral in the second dining room, anal in the parlor, bondage in the basement.  Guys showering together in the bathrooms, walking down the hall with their penises swinging in the wind.  Like a bathhouse without the Attitude."

"A bathhouse-themed party!" Lane said, his eyes glowing with party-planning fervor.  "We could pass out those scratchy white towels, label rooms 'steamroom' and 'darkroom' and such, play bathhouse games -- I don't know what,   we'll figure it out!"

A standard West Hollywood party has six to ten guys, are all friends or friends' dates.  But a bathhouse experience needs a lot more, and they have to be strangers.

We invited ten friends and asked them to bring a guest, and also passed out fliers to random guys who looked hot at the gym and the French Quarter. It had a photo of a shirtless model and this invitation:

Boomer and Lane's First Annual Bathhouse Party, Saturday night 8:00 pm!  Admission fee $2.00 to cover the snacks and sodas.  Men only, all ages (21+), shapes, and sizes welcome.  No drugs or alcohol, no hustlers, no Attitude, just hot guys in towels doing what guys in towels do.  

We locked up the valuables, bought 50 gym towels and a lot of condoms and lube packets, and installed a row of fake lockers.  Blaring disco music, flashing red and blue lights, and a mist machine added to the bathhouse effect.

Over 50 guys came, including about 30 that I had never seen naked before, and 20 that I didn't know at all.  Collegiate twinks, chubby bears, taciturn leathermen, swishy queens from the Rage, Hollywood semi-celebrities, all stripped down, wearing towels or nothing, socializing, playing party games -- and wandering down to the basement "maze" for sexual encounters.

I lost track of the number of guys I went down on, had go down on me, or kissed and groped -- there were some repeats.  But more than at a real bathhouse.

Around 10:00 pm, guys started getting dressed and going home or to the bars.  By 11:00 there was no one left but Randall, the Muscle Bear with the Pierced Penis, who we invited to spend the night.

"We should have these parties on a regular basis," Lane said.  "But a different theme every time.  Fire Island, maybe..Castro Street...a t-room..."

"Or no theme," Randall said.  "Why bother?  Guys don't want a lot of fancy props and complicated party games -- they come for the socializing and sex."

After more sleepless nights in the cavernous space, we called it quits, put the house on the market, and moved back into our cozy two-bedroom apartment.  So we had to go back to small, intimate dinner parties.

But one of our guests started hosting "bear parties," for husky, hairy men and their admirers, at his house in the Hollywood Hills.

And the tradition spread.  Within a year, nearly every guy with a house was inviting friends and strangers over for socializing and sex.  Some specialized in BDSM, oral, or anal.  Some specified that you had to be young, fit, or big beneath the belt.

And some said "all ages, sizes, and shapes welcome," just like Lane and I did in our invitation to the very first sex party.

See also: Helping Marshall Lose His Virginity

Escaping Church with Shaun Cassidy

Rock Island, Fall 1977

When I was a kid, I hated the Nazarene church.

Hour-long sermons three times a week, with dull funereal hymns from a hundred years ago, full of "thou hasts" and "wilt thee."

The preacher pacing the stage and pounding his Bible and screaming about how evil the world was.

Excruciatingly long altar calls, where the backsliders and the sinners had to go to the front of the church, kneel at the altar, and beg and whimper and sob for God's forgiveness from their sins.

And there were lots of sins.  God hated movies, cards, games with dice, swimming, dancing, short pants, long hair, earrings, bad words, Catholics, comic books, restaurants that served alcohol, carnivals, circuses, rock music, science fiction, and evolution.

And the three sermons per week were just the beginning.  There was Sunday school, Nazarene Young People's Society, Afterglow, choir practice, Calling (visiting people who had missed last Sunday), Canvassing (knocking on doors of strangers to try to Win them for Christ),

Having a school activity or a lot of homework was excuse enough to skip the weeknight activities, but the Sunday morning and evening services were another matter.  You had to go.  No exceptions.  I tried various ways to get out of it:

1. "I don't want to go to church!" That didn't work, even if I started to cry.

2. "I have a lot of homework to do."  Nope.  It was a sin to do work on Sunday, even homework.

3. "I have an upset stomach!"  Foolproof, right?  No one can say that you don't.  But then my parents would sneakily serve fried chicken and apple pie for Sunday dinner, with some thin soup and jello for me.

4. "My friend invited me over for a sleepover Saturday night."  Nope.  First I had to be actually invited to a sleepover, and then Dad would pick me up Sunday morning early enough to get to church on time.

5. "My favorite tv program is on!"  Nope.  You'll just have to miss it.

In junior high and high school, I attended regularly, due to my fondness for the jump quiz and Verne, the Preacher's Son, and because I wanted to be chosen to go to Switzerland for the Nazarene International Institute.

But during my senior year, Verne was gone, Switzerland was over, and the preacher had discovered "homa-sekshuls,"

I wanted out.  

I thought of the "what girl do you like?" interrogations of my parents and practically every other adult.  They were so obsessed with compiling evidence that I was wild about girls that I could get away with anything, from coming in after curfew to losing my new jacket, just by claiming that I had been trying to impress a girl or meet girls.  

Why did you sign up to fight tigers? "I heard there would be girls in the audience."

Why did you jump out of the airplane?  "There was a girls' school below."

Getting out of the Sunday evening service suddenly became easy:

6. "I want to stay home to watch The  Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries," with Shaun Cassidy, Parker Stevenson, and...um... Pamela Sue Martin."

"You have a crush on Pamela Sue Martin!  Great!  Wonderful!  Stay home and watch her all you want!"

Later I tried Wayne Rogers...um, I mean Loretta Swit of M*A*S*H.

Sunday morning was a little harder.

7. "A girl invited me to her church."  No -- I would actually have to get a girl to invite me, and then it would just be more church.

8. "I want to go to the library to study.  There will be girls there."  No -- the library was closed on Sunday.

Ok, think!


Awhile ago, church princess Debbie  asked me to go with her to the Afterglow, the teen party after the evening service.

When I refused, she stared at me for a moment as if she had never heard such nonsense, then flounced off in a huff.  Ever since, neither she nor her cronies would talk to me.

9. "I can't go to church -- Debbie will be there!"

"Rejected by the girl of your dreams!" My parents commiserated.  "Heartbreaking!  Of course you can stay home!"

I still had to go on occasion.  But it was a start.

See also:The Backslider at the Ponderosa Steak House

The Security Guard on My Sausage List

Wilton Manors, September 2001

In West Hollywood, there were strict age limits on dating.  More than 5 years older or younger, and you were gossiped about and not invited to parties.

In New York, the lower age limit was gone.  It was perfectly acceptable, even expected, for someone in his late 30s to be seen with a 20-year old Cute Young Thing.

When I moved to Florida in 2001, the upper age limit was gone, too.  It was perfectly acceptable, even expected, for someone in his early 40s to be seen with a 60-year old Daddy.

Of course, the older still had to wait for the younger to approach, lest he be labeled a Creepy Old Guy.  So I never approached 60-something Troy at the Sunshine Cathedral, a gay church in Fort Lauderdale: we were "just friends."

We continued to be "just friends" when we started working out together at the Club Fort Lauderdale, and going out to dinner, usually to a Japanese fusion place called Kenji.



Troy was a retired physician who had just come out upon his wife's death.

He was well-versed in Eastern mysticism, the paranormal, and the occult.  He had a gay Tarot cart deck.  We talked about Zen Buddhism and mysterious disappearances and my summer in Japan.    

But I adamantly rebuffed his attempts to get physical.  I was dating another guy from the Sunshine Cathedral, 24-year old Matt, who wasn't very bright, but had 3 of the 5 qualities that I find attractive: muscular, religious, and gifted beneath the belt (#1 on the list of the 15 biggest "sausages" I've ever encountered).

Matt was trying to write a novel about a hard-boiled noir detective who happened to be gay, and in the meantime worked as a night-time security guard.  We usually went out in the early evening, before his shift started.

The only time Matt and Troy saw each other was during Sunday morning services at the Sunshine Cathedral, and once or twice when I invited them both over for dinner.

Or so I thought.

That fall Troy went on a vacation to China and Tibet.  He brought me back a stamp shaped like monkey with Davis in Chinese characters:

丹尼斯 Dān ní sī, "Nice Redhead", which I suppose is is better than Boomer:  杰夫 Jié fū, "Outstanding Husband."

He brought Matt a silk shirt that beautifully highlighted his pecs.  But I didn't think anything of it at the time; he also brought back a souvenir for Yuri, who he barely knew.

I didn't think anything of it when Matt occasionally said that he was too tired to go out, and Troy was also busy.  In your 40s, you can stay home on Friday and Saturday night without feeling guilty.

So I went home for Christmas, to hear my old high school teacher make the most homophobic comment in the world.

After two weeks, I flew back from Rock Island, and Matt and I spent New Year's Eve together.

But on January 4th, Matt said he was too tired to go out before his shift, so I went to the Club by myself.

You know where this is going: Matt and Troy in a dark corner, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.

"We've been dating since Christmas," Matt explained. "I didn't know how to tell you."

Troy just grinned.  Age trumps beauty.

See also: The Georgia Boy and the Cute Young Thing; and The Coffee Drinker