My heart aches to share the community of men.

Not a widespread sentiment among left-leaning queers, I know. Inclusiveness — meaning all people of all kinds should be in all spaces, every time we do anything — is the only acceptable way to socialize nowadays.

I get it.

But, I miss the fuck out of those all-male spaces.

Even before sex became important to me, all-male spaces provided the kind of mentoring a boy can only get from men.

Like that feeling I had as a 13-year-old Boy Scout, sitting under the stars around a campfire in the Rocky Mountains, singing songs led by mentors who had taught us earlier that day the skills necessary to earn merit badges in First Aid, Cooking, Camping, Citizenship, and so many others. Grown men singing heartfelt renditions of Kumbaya, verse after verse in a call and response: “someone’s laughing Lord, Kum ba ya”…someone’s singing, someone’s crying, someone’s praying. Grown men teaching young men that all of us have a variety of feelings, and somewhere, right now, you’re connected to someone who feels all the feelings, just like you.

That sensation of attending early-morning Mormon Priesthood meetings before the sun came up, resenting the early hour but welcoming the skin-to-skin, firm, friendly handshakes with eye contact they taught us to give. I knew my role in the tribe and had a sense of useful responsibility. All of us suited up, unified, ready to take on the challenge of serving our community.

The surge of kinship I felt with three other gays in a small car driving from Cheyenne, WY, to Denver, CO, on my first gay pride parade and bathhouse pilgrimage. I was 18. Feeling protected as the older guys (in their 30s/40s) gave me pointers on cruising. “It’s all about eye contact, look into his eyes, and think about what you’d like to do to him. Then pass him and look back, if he does the same, you’re on!” said the driver. “‘I’m just resting,’ means ‘no,’ in the bathes,” said the guy next to me in the back seat. We were all on a mission, pulling for each other to get as much dick as possible.

Falling in love.

Later that night, on the dancefloor of a Denver gay bar, I fell in love with a boy named Robert as Irene Cara sang, and we slow danced to the opening 45 seconds of “What a Feeling” from the Flashdance soundtrack. That very niche Denver gay bar served “3.2 beer” (regarding its low alcohol content), which the state of Colorado deemed acceptable for 18-21 year olds. My friends were at the cooler, hotter bars for older, 21+ gays, but we had plans to meet up at The Ball Park bathhouse after the bars closed. When the boy I had just fallen in love with turned out to have a jealous, dramatic boyfriend, I couldn’t wait to rendezvous with my comrades at the bathhouse.

Feeling grateful for my bathhouse tutoring on the drive down, I seamlessly made it through The Ball Park’s entry process.

I was soon standing at the foot of an enormous faux-stone hot tub, fed from above by a two-story indoor waterfall. The sound and scent of water crashing into the hot tub. In the misty open space above, men used the conspicuously placed shower stations lining the floors above to lather up, cruise, and be cruised. Like a chandelier of male sex, I felt their energy rain down on me.

The fact that it was still a crime to have gay sex in Wyoming, the state I woke up in that morning, (and the two other states I’d lived in: Nebraska and Idaho), made the three floors of cruising, two hot tubs, a steamroom-cave-maze, a full-sized semi truck cab, a three-tiered orgy/porn room, a giant fish tank, a maze of glory hole booths, what seemed like miles of private rooms, a snack bar, and a dance floor to dance the night away, all the more opulent and liberating.

The idea that this playground was designed and made for me and my kind made me feel seen and empowered, like I’d received a gift. I belonged there.

I miss the protocol of Men’s Class at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet School summer session, where the rituals of the ballet world focused on the specific proclivities of men. The surprisingly delightful competitiveness between us as we showed off for each other and the ballet master. Jumping, turning, and beating our legs together, proving who was best. All of us working to perfect the same art form gave us unity, while we simultaneously competed to be the best, the soloist who stands out. Ballet tights accentuated our crotch mounds and lined the deepest crevases of our well-developed glutes, providing a hormone-charged surge that didn’t occur during mixed class.

“Ladies, re-rack your weights!” was a call to order routinely made over the Athletic Club’s speakers. It made me grin every time. There were no ladies. The Athletic Club was not a gay friendly gym; it was a GAY gym. Only one locker room, stacks of free gay publications by the front door, working out with our shirts off, a tanning service, a pool, a kitchen, and sections of glass brick separating the showers from the parking lot so anyone walking by could see the fractal shapes of bodies showering. The stairs up to the sun deck, the sun deck itself, the steam room, the sauna, and the tanning bed rooms all made on-site orgasms possible. The professional masseurs were excellent, gay, and accommodating.

During one workout, I looked up to see lots of guys packed around the TV in the kitchen, and I worried something terrible had happened or that some sports thing I knew nothing about was droning on. But when they started laughing and singing along to a scene from the 1956 musical “The King and I,” I was both relieved that nothing bad was happening and happy to know I could chat about “the game” we were all watching at the gym.

On the cork bulletin board filled with calling cards and flyers, someone posted a handwritten, anonymous note: “To the man with the Tweety Bird tattoo. I miss you. We never talked, but I always liked you, and I’m so sorry you’re no longer with us.”

As much as I love the club feel of the new John Reed in West Hollywood — probably the gayest gym in LA right now, only feet from the old Athletic Club — it will never be a gay club that offers that kind of camaraderie and solace.

It was more than a gym; it was a club for gay men. It was home.

The book, Man’s Country, More Than A Bathouse, published in 2023, inspired this post. It was open for 44 years, from 1973 until 2017. Here are a few quotes from men who were there:

“Going there made me feel safe. It felt comfortable–like we were all connected or a big family in a way.” ~MS (p. 31)

“At Man’s Country, we knew each other like brothers of a clan. We trusted each other in sex and morals, and didn’t trust that our society would treat us morally.” ~Jon-Henri Damski (p. 37)

“There was sex, entertainment, and food there. Since it was the 1970s, there was lots of positive sex energy. … The thing was, even though I was alone, I felt connected to a broader community at Man’s Country. It was a way to merge community and sex in a positive way.” ~Richard F. (p. 28)

“I love the way the sexual mixed with the social. That didn’t exist in any other environment outside of the great bathhouses, and it hasn’t been replicated since.” ~Race Bannon (p. 30)

We’ve had these places before: the benefits they provide for building community and dignity are proven.

Is it possible to create these places and feel that kind of solidarity again?

The only places I’ve felt that kind of gay belonging and fellowship recently have been on cruise ships and warehouse parties. But the fact that neither of them has an address where I can drop in when I need the energy and support of being with my own kind makes me sad. An ephemeral gathering spot that may or may not be shut down at any moment is not the same as a physical location built for us that many regulars eventually call home.

In my next post, I’ll discuss why we think sex is bad and how that keeps us from rebuilding these spaces.

Until next time, please be good to yourself,

Mike

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