In October I got an invite from my homie DJ Honey Bear Swag to go to the GSU sex party in San Francisco; he said he would put me on the guest list. I, being a glutton for all adventure, gleefully answered the call.
Now to be quite frank with you, dear reader, I had come to something of a sexual turning point in my life.
I had spent the last five years abandoning all gay sex spaces. The bulk of my sexual trysts involved meeting up with DL trade in the dark confines of secret local spots; it had become both a metaphor and a reality. Sex had somehow morphed for me- the cloak of secrecy turned me on more so that the idea of a public gay orgy free for all. But of course, seasons change, metaphors change, and when I got the invite from DJ Honey Bear Swag I felt like it was time again (at 43) to throw myself back in the original pool from which I had emerged from.
I am by no means a prude, but public sex had always given me a kind of pause.
I had worked at Steam Works Bathhouse when I was 20. I was still a virgin at the time and hadn’t had sex with another man- but I’d heard they were hiring and needed a job. The interview was crazy.
The boss told me to stand up and turn around, told me he liked the way my jeans fit- and asked me if I had problems with my father and I was like “Who the fuck, doesn’t have problems with their father?” and I was immediately hired.
What I learned from the old bath school crowd was that one was supposed to say “yes” to anyone who asked to fuck you- I, being young and full of both hormonal urges and a weird sense of FOMO, took that advice with gusto.
But in actuality, there was this weird sense of power I had being a Steam Works boy- I had what I called “the luxury of experimentation”- that is, alongside public sex spots the business offered private rooms where one could explore outside of the public eye. My main problem with public sex parties is that they can, in practice, mimic the ugly side of both voyeur culture and sexual preference culture. Given how many I’ve been to (way too many), I usually notice that it is only the people who are either the whitest, the most hung, the youngest, or the most conventionally attractive are the ones who engage in the ritual as it is most celebrated. But when you have sex in these spaces and deviate from these “preferred” categories, you can quickly be excluded. If you do somehow find your match, people disperse when you become the center of a sex interaction like oil from water. Public sex is always a Catch-22.
But for that night in October I decided to set these insecurities aside and let myself be open to the possibilities, because alongside all the ugliness, I know that at these parties the sexiest thing any man can be is confident – and I a made personal choice to err on the side of confidence that night.
I had stopped taking testosterone because it was making me feel crazy; as a result I’m not like super horny anymore and can walk through a sex party with a controlled ease I lacked 20 years ago. It was a nudity or jockstrap mandatory party so I paired my black Sniffies jockstrap (a gift I got from being a guest on their podcast), with my $4,200 Comme des Garcons Doc Martens and my Telfar hoop earrings- I mean, like, not to brag, but I looked like a high-end hipster hooker.
I was there to be a voyeur, but still (in case I did get lucky) took a sharpie and wrote the word (in huge font) “ASIAN TOPS” across my chest- I mean, if I was gonna get pounded out, why not flag my preference?
Of course, that thing happened where four different people came up to me and were like “Wait, are you Brontez Purnell? / Didn’t you write that book “100 Boyfriends?! OH MY GOD- "I LOVE YOUR WORK!”- which, like, I appreciated, but it’s kinda hard to hear when you’re trying to feel like an anonymous cum vessel at a sex party, but either way, whatever.
I got on the go-go box cause my friend’s DJ set was on fire. I got on all fours and started popping it like an Atlanta stripper girl and I saw like 4 white tech dudes give me this look like “Yo, what’s good?” But to be honest, I kinda was just into dancing alone.
I then went to watch everyone fuck and this other white dad asked why I wasn’t joining in and I was like “Oh, I went off testosterone and I’m not horny, and honestly I just come to gay sex parties cause it pisses the Right Wing off” and he was like “OH COME ON! There has to be a better reason than THAT!”. And yeah, after thinking about it I was like, “I guess I just like group rituals?”, and he smiled.
I didn’t get laid but the vibe at the party was so positive. No one there was rude or stuck up, everyone was so friendly and warm, even if they didn’t wanna fuck you. There was an air of kindness, and that I think is crucial to any successful sex party. I got deep in my thinking about how spaces like this in the time we are living in can become more than just a party but also political, maybe even an act of civil defiance. One of the heads of the party asked if I wanted to be a featured bottom and one of their other parties and that made me feel really really really pretty (I said no).
I ended up going home with a 23-year-old twink who knew my writing but we didn’t hook up- we just spent the cab ride talking about literature. All in all, it was the best sex party I been too all year and I give it a 10/10.
