In the article, “Cruising, or Eight Simple Rules” I talked about the rumor mill at cruising grounds. All subcultures have their own codes of conduct and means of recording history. It is only the pornographers who pen dirty stories and the interlopers such as myself who record any of the secretive ins and outs of cruising. Most of the information available is anecdotal. Though I do try to be honest in my telling of stories from work, there is always going to be a subtle skewing of information as it is filtered through my point of view. If it is true that I can’t be trusted to give all sides of a story in an unbiased manner, then it is true that it rates no higher than gossip in honesty (integrity and motive are a different story). Gossip is the secondary oral tradition of the gay scene (you may let your imagination decide what the primary oral tradition might be). Boy, do I know some gossip. In fact, I have been the target of quite a bit of it in my time working at Adult Store.
What I learned from posting that thread, is that most people don’t understand how cruising works. I decided that I would walk you through the depressing sexual practices of the average homosexual. Firstly, let me make myself clear, every gay person I know has done some form of cruising. Whether that means that they hooked up with someone online or through a gay app like Grindr or Scruff, visited a bath house or gay arcade, or communed with nature at a gay beach or a cruisey park, anonymous or semi-anonymous (hey, I knew his name…) sex is ingrained in gay culture. Your average faggot won’t admit to it, but I swear to you it is your God’s honest truth.
Hanky code. The hanky code. It should have died with disco but it is still clinging to life in the seedy underbelly of gay life. At the bath houses, strip clubs, circuit parties and cruising grounds, any combination of hankies could be hanging from the back pockets of the oldest revelers. A growing number of gay hipsters are starting to appropriate the rainbow of square cloths and the acts that they signify. In your left pocket a hanky marks you as the “top” or active partner and in the right you are asserting yourself as a “bottom” or passive partner in your chosen fetish. The idea of color coding sexual desires comes from the need for secrecy among gay men pre-stonewall. Should you be at a park a bus station bathroom or a hotel party/orgy, being able to identify like-minded partners without having to engage in a long and public conversation was a necessity. The left/right delineation is a hold-out from the leather seen in the 60’s and 70’s. One would hang their keys from their left or right belt loops to advertise their top or bottom status.
Color makes the system more specific but also more tricky. There are a handful of colors, yellow, brown, black, green and red, whose definition are universally accepted. Many other hankies, in upwards of 40 different patterns and color combinations, are regionally specific. Purple could mean that you are into piercing in the Northeast and tattoos in the Midwest. Brown always means poop, black always means leather, green means that you are a prostitute or hire them, red signifies a desire to practice fisting and yellow always mean watersports.
For those of you unable to be in the Providence area (or those in R.I. who are going to the B-52s concert- which is clearly the only good reason not to be at this event) I have chosen to share what I am reading. The text below will preamble the story: Like Winnie The Pooh In A Hunny Pot, linked below. If you are coming, it is in Providence, RI at 65 Eddy St. It is just blocks from the train and bus station!
January 3, 2012
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