on the wane, itâs almost as if the university administration realized it was best to name these departments in a way that might also suit any other emerging academic issue â disability, transsexuality and indeed the transhuman being the issues that eventually ate â or I should say devoured â departments that were originally devoted to race and/or sexuality.
At any rate, Trevor and Dash were drinking buddies, and Trevor is a veritable treasure trove of trivial yet indispensable personal information about King. Trevor informed me that Dash â until he tried to organize the Shakespeare conference that quickly became a turning point in his life (the failure of the conference was a huge blow to him, as you will see) â had been trying to control his addictions. After the conference failed, he began falling prey to his most pernicious habits. Trevor claims Dash was addicted to poppers. (This could explain his eventual heart failure.) Dash associated poppers with late-night promiscuity and alcohol. He was also prone to paranoia, unable to smoke marijuana and was, according to Trevor, afraid of chemical drugs of any kind. Dash had, for many years, controlled his obsessive attendance at the gay bathhouse by limiting his visits to the early part of the evening, and imbibing afterwards, thus avoiding the dreaded poppers.
I donât know how familiar you are with gay bathhouses. Of course, they havenât existed since the paranoia about disease grew to such epic proportions. (Strange, isnât it, how unconcerned we are with consequences of our actions, and yet the fear of disease is omnipresent.) The gay steambaths had little to do with steam, or even baths. If you want to learn more about them, there are some cyberbaths that apparently provide a lot of fun for those nostalgic for the experience. These sites are a fair â though obviously mediated â representation of what the real experience was like. People today would find the actual experience alien and discomfiting â for there was much real, physical, sexual contact. (Although the contact was under controlled conditions. Condoms and lube were made available, along with suitable sanitary facilities, etc.) This is, of course, completely alien to present-day sexuality, which rarely involves human contact at all, at least, that is, above ground â or commonly.
In Dashâs day, sex was still linked with propagation, even though people feared that homosexuality might wipe out the human race. Itâs quaint that people might have thought that, isnât it? What actually happened was that matters of convenience, issues of population control and the fear of disease made it more practical for human beings to be conceived in test tubes. In fact, at the turn of the last century it was, paradoxically, people who called themselves heterosexuals who campaigned for a safe, sterile method of procreation that did not involve intercourse.
The steambath was a series of tiny rooms that one could barely move around in â rooms the size of closets. This was certainly ironic. Gay men fought so long to get out of the closet, only to find themselves cruising the darkened hallways and tiny rooms that were so very much like closets in search of a passionate embrace. The tiny sex rooms also resembled prison cells. Indeed, the prison motif was played up in establishments (as it is today in cyberbathhouses) â barbed wire over the doorways, sexy little prison windows, that kind of thing.
So this was where Dash would spend the early part of his evenings, followed by drinks with Trevor and the students at the university. It was a sad and lonely life â at least, in terms of the sexual practices of the time. For there were other âgayâ people who were not only still having actual sex with each other, but falling in love, getting married, experiencing romance. Dash got drunk almost every night â remember, for him this was
At any rate, Trevor and Dash were drinking buddies, and Trevor is a veritable treasure trove of trivial yet indispensable personal information about King. Trevor informed me that Dash â until he tried to organize the Shakespeare conference that quickly became a turning point in his life (the failure of the conference was a huge blow to him, as you will see) â had been trying to control his addictions. After the conference failed, he began falling prey to his most pernicious habits. Trevor claims Dash was addicted to poppers. (This could explain his eventual heart failure.) Dash associated poppers with late-night promiscuity and alcohol. He was also prone to paranoia, unable to smoke marijuana and was, according to Trevor, afraid of chemical drugs of any kind. Dash had, for many years, controlled his obsessive attendance at the gay bathhouse by limiting his visits to the early part of the evening, and imbibing afterwards, thus avoiding the dreaded poppers.
I donât know how familiar you are with gay bathhouses. Of course, they havenât existed since the paranoia about disease grew to such epic proportions. (Strange, isnât it, how unconcerned we are with consequences of our actions, and yet the fear of disease is omnipresent.) The gay steambaths had little to do with steam, or even baths. If you want to learn more about them, there are some cyberbaths that apparently provide a lot of fun for those nostalgic for the experience. These sites are a fair â though obviously mediated â representation of what the real experience was like. People today would find the actual experience alien and discomfiting â for there was much real, physical, sexual contact. (Although the contact was under controlled conditions. Condoms and lube were made available, along with suitable sanitary facilities, etc.) This is, of course, completely alien to present-day sexuality, which rarely involves human contact at all, at least, that is, above ground â or commonly.
In Dashâs day, sex was still linked with propagation, even though people feared that homosexuality might wipe out the human race. Itâs quaint that people might have thought that, isnât it? What actually happened was that matters of convenience, issues of population control and the fear of disease made it more practical for human beings to be conceived in test tubes. In fact, at the turn of the last century it was, paradoxically, people who called themselves heterosexuals who campaigned for a safe, sterile method of procreation that did not involve intercourse.
The steambath was a series of tiny rooms that one could barely move around in â rooms the size of closets. This was certainly ironic. Gay men fought so long to get out of the closet, only to find themselves cruising the darkened hallways and tiny rooms that were so very much like closets in search of a passionate embrace. The tiny sex rooms also resembled prison cells. Indeed, the prison motif was played up in establishments (as it is today in cyberbathhouses) â barbed wire over the doorways, sexy little prison windows, that kind of thing.
So this was where Dash would spend the early part of his evenings, followed by drinks with Trevor and the students at the university. It was a sad and lonely life â at least, in terms of the sexual practices of the time. For there were other âgayâ people who were not only still having actual sex with each other, but falling in love, getting married, experiencing romance. Dash got drunk almost every night â remember, for him this was
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