By Dana Miller

This issue of IN is all about sex. Conservative idiot Sen. Larry Craig has forced me to ruminate lately on anonymous sex. This anti-gay gent, who clearly does not self identify as our pal, was apparently looking to hook up and get down with his bad self in a men’s airport bathroom with a stranger and was busted by a cop for it. I love this quote from one of my favorite comics, Dennis Miller: “The radical right is so homophobic that they're blaming global warming on the AIDS quilt.” Larry’s family and his obvious self-loathing aside, I get the sex part. I have always enjoyed anonymous sex. I honestly have. Mine was quite properly done in bathhouses, in a pre-burned Griffith Park, Ocean Park in Santa Monica, Point Dume in Malibu back in the day after the bars closed on Rosewood, Dorrington and Rangely off Robertson and even in a head 33,000 feet above earth. The gym sauna, the PDC Blue Building, gloryholes, Vaseline alley or that restroom above the pet store at the Beverly Center were just never my thing. Hey, just because its anonymous doesn't mean we are not discriminating. Unlike Sen. Craig I can’t tap out codes that I don’t know and I’ll be damned if I would run my paw across a shit hole divider. I've always said that I love being gay; I just don’t want to die or be arrested for it. I have naively always assumed that any man who pleasured himself off my muse or at the very least coaxed flax out of my distaff was gay, yet now quite possibly I'm wrong. The bible of all sex surveys; the Kinsey Report never stated 10 percent of the population was gay—that's a fake figure we all toss about. In truth, Kinsey’s clinical assertion was that the 10 percent of adult white males surveyed—many of them convicts—had been predominantly homosexual for a period of three or more years, some time between age 16 through 50. Fewer than 4 percent of them had been exclusively homosexual for all of their adult lives. Duh! As a kid I used to have sex every Thanksgiving with my cousin Kurt who eventually became a convict. He is straight today with kids so how friggin’ complicated is all this!?

Put us all in cages and we all get horny. Bars of metal or bars of mind apparently can just draw us to dick. This has nothing to do with the nature-nurture argument. It’s that down low stuff. Not that Sen. Craig is street, but I’ll betcha he truly and really doesn't self identify as gay. He may suck a little dick now and again, but he has a corpulent wife and bald step kids and likely looks in the mirror every day and knows and commits to God he is hetero. I’ll bet he truly believes it. Blinded or hiding from his certainly now-withered cock. We see it all the time in our community. It has just honestly until now never occurred to me that the guy yanking my wanky might be a dad and would completely forget our magic moment once the spew was sopped up. Kinda sad, and scary.

Yet I still do believe the very concept of wanking without words is interesting, even fascinating. I asked a buddy his opinion of carnal anonymity and why we gents do it. His take was:

“In my case, anonymous [sex] I take to [mean] sex with someone I meet randomly and don't get their name or have any interest in seeking out in the future—prostitutes included. I don't tend to categorize anonymous just based on where I have it—I have had sex with a boyfriend in airport bathrooms, first-class lounge bathrooms, but nonetheless bathrooms. Now as for why—that’s a great discussion. I'd say for me it is largely a utility. No different from blowing my nose. And it’s a place for me, on occasion, to test out some boundaries that I hadn't gone with before with my bf (water sports for example). So in that case the anonymity is a source of power—no judgment. But I'd still revert to my early point—sex is sometimes a utility and that utility can be serviced, perhaps better in some cases, anonymously.”

Wow! I hope and wish and think and pray that the good Sen. Craig in a rare hour of honesty might agree and take council with that. And then here is another take from a bud that agrees with me that anonymity indeed has its benefits:

“Dana: Funny you use the word ‘benefits’ ... coming from a small town in the South and not really being out until I lived in NYC: (My first bf was the captain of the Choate swim team, but I met him when we were at Vanderbilt in Nashville—hell, if I only knew the benefits of finding a fat thick Italian dick at 20!) I understand the magic of a moment ... any moment.

It was accepted, and the rule in ‘Youth NYC’ that it was cool as a jewel to suck dick/f--k first and then if the guy was fun the next morning, they were put into your friendship category. Perhaps I was naive, but between 20 and 27, the sad side of gay life had escaped me. It was f--k and suck a stranger and I loved it ... So did he ... (or them).

For all the perceived negative side effects I felt of being ‘gay,’ the main benefit was: F--k first and then decide if you want to know them and it was totally normal. No one told me you're a freak if you desire to suck your swim coach’s cock or you blew a pal once in awhile. You were just popular and gay. Hell, if you went out and you didn't at least feel someone up it was indeed a dull night. Being open in the moment without bullshit guards holding you back is a true joy of being gay”

I gotta agree. I guess one of the things I have always liked about being queer is that we cum first. Safe sex before substance is a pretty good idea in my mind. Check out the merchandise before you buy, if you will. I love the memories of my tricks and treats. I just can’t for the life of me remember their names.

I must sincerely thank both IN and Frontiers for their support of the 2007 return of Labor Day, L.A. The weekend was a blast and a rich success and I believe much of that was due to the commitment of these publications and your support. You must indeed plan now to be there for 2008. The peace that weekend was profound and the beauty considerable.

So here is the deal between you and me: I need your spirit and essence, fire and force just twice more in 2007. One is in December for my annual Toy Box Party. That one is easy and important. Right now I need your support for AIDS Walk Los Angeles for APLA. I am walking as part of APLA boardmember and philanthropist Tom Whitman’s “Gang of 100” team. Please get yourself over to AIDSWALK.net and click on Los Angeles. I want you to register to walk or simply donate. We need walkers and cash. Walk with me or donate a buck or two. Do what you can to make a difference for people: your brethren living with HIV/AIDS. Honest to God there is little you or I will do this fall that is more important. I find the ugly side of us gets pretty when we care and are pure of heart. My old boss Bob Hope used to say, if you have no charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble. He could never ever keep his dick in his pants so this seems a fitting and perfectly on target end to this missive! Once again I have observed too much and understand too little.

See You Out & About.

Contact me at malibudana@aol.com.