Old gay reminiscing alert!
If you’re triggered by older gays lamenting the good old days when men met face-to-face before deciding to fuck each other, you’d better skip this post. It’s sure to send you into an “okay boomer” spiral.
I understand that the only thing consistent in life is change, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings regarding the change. The feelings I find myself having today are produced by disorientation, loss, and isolation. My feelings are fear, anger, and sadness. I’m not labeling them as good or bad. I’m just feeling them. I hope to learn from them. Writing this post is part of that learning process. And I thank you for participating.
This post was triggered after hearing that P-22, a famous Los Angeles puma mountain lion living in what was left of his natural territory, died after suffering a less-than-dignified decline.
P-22 had to make do with 9 square miles of territory to live and hunt in. Male mountain lions normally cover a 150-square-mile territory, so space was tight. As he aged, he was driven to find what substance he could in his ever-shrinking, now urban environment. He went from eating deer and coyotes to chihuahuas and cat food left on people’s porches. The authorities say that he was probably hit by a car before finally seeking refuge in a backyard. The animal care team came to his aid but then declared him beyond help, and he was euthanized.
Over the last three decades, since I arrived in West Hollywood in 1991, I’ve seen the public territory for gay male spaces in the LA area dwindle as well.
Businesses like LA Sporting Club not only catered to a gay man’s distinct fashion needs with help from the sexy sales staff, but it was also one of the few places a gay could pick up tickets to the next big gay party whose posters graced the plate glass windows. Gone.
The Athletic Club was a GAY gym, not a gay-friendly gym, it was decidedly gay. As long as you carried a towel and used it properly, you could work out shirtless. Music was a CD of the latest circuit sets. The announcements from the gay at the front door included phrases like, “Queens, re-rack your weights! Your mom’s not here.” It had naked sunbathing on the roof and plenty of sexual shenanigans. Gone.
Across the street (W. Knoll/Santa Monica Blvd) from the gym, Koo Koo Roo served up food that muscle queens needed to build the types of bodies other muscle queens wanted to dance with at the next party. Without phones, it was a great place to make eye contact and more with other gays. Gone.
665 Leather. A place to get gear for destinations with a kinky bent. They also had tickets. These were for those more rarified fetish parties. Pedestrians keeping an eye on the posters gracing the plate glass front door of 665 stayed informed on what options were available for those with more spicy gay tastes. Gone.
Big Gay Starbucks (Santa Monica Blvd & Westbourne). I called it WeHo Beach. It was across the street from the LA Sporting Club. It was the only plaza-like area that existed for gay men. A place you didn’t necessarily need to buy a ticket to attend. Outside, it had guys with their shirts off taking in the sun, and on the inside horny adult students and gay writers cruising while studying and writing. Gone.
24-Hour Fitness with its cruisy basement and showers and guys working out in spandex. Gone.
I include the Circus of Books’ demise and replacement by the relatively sterile, hetero-like retail experience of Chi Chi LaRue’s sex shop as a loss. Anyone who enjoys cruising knows what I mean. The name, Circus of Books, is still on the building, but the crotch-swelling cruising enjoyed by gay men… Gone.
The Spike and the Eagle were only blocks away from each other on Santa Monica Blvd, and both were places a gay could cruise in testosterone-filled air for like-minded sluts. Gone
Eighteen months ago, I moved from West Hollywood to Silver Lake. Most of the hunting grounds that I drove from West Hollywood to Silver Lake for are no longer here.
Cuffs was a place so dark and seedy that it scared me when I tried it out as a 20-something gay curious about the more spicy side of my sexuality. From all the stories I’ve heard about it, I know that I would now happily walk the 15 minutes it would take for me to travel there for that rare spice. By all accounts, it was a place to have semi-anonymous periods of ecstasy with other gay men. Gone.
MJ’s was a club owned by Michael John Horn. I knew him as a West Hollywood Commissioner when I worked at West Hollywood City Hall. As a fun and sexy living member of the generation preceding me, I always took note of what he said. During the polite small talk before a commission meeting began, the commission members were asking one another, “where would you like to be when you die.” He said, “a bathhouse.” When asked why he said that, he said that’s where he feels the most joy. He opened a club that drew the guys all the way from WeHo. The foam parties were slippery fun in all the right ways. Gone.
The King of Hearts was also within walking distance of where I now live. It was the first time I enjoyed some “daddy” energy projected on me from a Latin guy who called me “Papi” over and over during our encounter. I don’t remember the space being great, but it took care of a horny man’s needs, including his place in the generational arch of the community. Gone.
Sex clubs like the Meat Rack on Santa Monica Blvd. in southeast Hollywood, The Zone on the eastern fringe of West Hollywood, and the Vortex just one block west of Vine and Santa Monica Blvd. All gone.
The Hollywood Spa baths. They even had a restaurant. My friend had a coffee mug from the Ivar Cafe (the name of their restaurant inside the sex club) emblazoned with a bumpy pickle. Gone.
Outdoor cruising was ubiquitous in WeHo and Silver Lake. The road that no longer exists in West Hollywood Park, vaseline alley, the Spike, the public spaces behind the Spike, my neighbor across the street who left his living room curtains wide open when he jerked off to porn on his widescreen TV. Gone.
I get it. Times change. Neighborhoods change. Technology changes. The world is changing. The only thing consistent is change. All that.
I breathe in. I breathe out. I do my best to accept it.
But each annexation of what used to be gay male space saddens me. Each death of a gay male business. Each sanitation of a public cruisy area. Each man’s face I see buried in a phone while walking down the sidewalk or at the gym. Fuck! Even in the steam room at the gym, he’s now looking at his phone instead of reflecting on his own life or being available for flirtation and connection. More isolation. It’s sad.
When being gay was “bad” and being seen in a gay neighborhood could result in a lot of uncomfortable questions, we had the place to ourselves.
Without smartphones, we needed to deal with each other face-to-face.
Sexting and negotiating exactly what’s going to happen to your butt when I open your unlocked door loses some of its eroticism while I’m simultaneously listening to the wail of a baby crying as I eat at Fresh Corn Grill in West Hollywood. It’s just not as affirming as braving a “gay restaurant” in a “gay neighborhood” where we were all taking a risk by simply being there, by being out and available to one another. The thrill of receiving a man's glance, his nod, his question asking if you “live around here?” Then saying yes and wondering as we walk what will happen during sex. It wasn’t checking all the boxes on our sexual menu that brought us together, it was something human. It was pheromones, it was eros, it was love’s pursuit, and it was old-fashioned slutty camaraderie.
It can be argued that, because of hook-up apps and marriage equality, the entire world is now a space for gay men, but the essence of home, territory, and cultural ritual is gone.
Just catching up here... Mike, your poignant reflection on the changing landscape of gay male spaces resonates deeply. Your storytelling captures the essence of a beloved era, where face-to-face interactions and the thrill of shared spaces were central to our community. I wish I was around for more of it (age 37 currently).
The community and camaraderie you vividly describe, rooted in shared physical spaces, resonates with many. I yearn for the authentic, unfiltered connections that defined those moments, refusing to suppress my desires despite societal expectations.
While the landscape has changed, your illustration serves as a powerful acknowledgment of the beauty found in the raw and authentic connections that we all love. Thank you for sharing this evocative reflection on the essence of home, territory, and cultural ritual.
You write exactly what I'm feeling. Our only bathhouse closed abruptly this summer, not like it was very busy anymore - but it's GONE!
Nothing left except gaggles of 'gays' fussing over what pronouns they should use and how gender-neutral they are. I see nothing gay about them - mention sex to them and they move away as if I've uttered a forbidden word. What the hell happened! Where did my people go?
Ok..I'll stop. I'm just so disappointed where we are.... B.