The Unsung History of Circu Parti, Where Gay Men Seek Sex and Freedom

Contents:

• THE UNSUNG HISTORY OF CIRCU PARTI, WHERE GAY MEN SEEK SEX AND FREEDOM
• THE SLUTTY RURGENCE OF NEW YORK'S UNRGROUND GAY SEX PARTI
• FELLOWSHIP INDY -- GAY MEN'S MEETUP GROUP
• EURO MEN'S CLUBPARISMENUHOTELS · LUXURYHOTELS · MID-RANGEHOTELS · BUDGETON TODAYBARSLBIAN BARSDANCE CLUBSCISE CLUBSSNASSHOPSMASSAGECAFéSSERVICCY GUIGAY MAPTOURSEURO MEN'S CLUB
• ITS ‘DEMON’ EXORCISED, A FLOATG GAY PARTY SERI RETURNS
• MEET THE GUYS EXPOSG OTHER GAY MEN PARTYG DURG THE PANMIC
• SEND HUNTER BIN IRS WHISTLEBLOWER INTIFIED AS GAY DEMOCRAT
• JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

THE UNSUNG HISTORY OF CIRCU PARTI, WHERE GAY MEN SEEK SEX AND FREEDOM

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" Plenty of olr gay men, too, fd the whole ethos of circu parti — glow sticks, remixed diva anthems, lor them, "body fascism"—to be tired figure out the state of the circu 2017, THUMP spoke wh Mickey Weems, a lecturer at the Universy of Hawai'i Manoa who has extensively studied circu parti (alongsi relig, anthropologil and folklore terts). Weems spoke to their past, prent and potential future, explag what role the circu has played shapg queer and gay culture, and what s evolutn says about the same today. When the Gay Activist Alliance was formed—the first gay rights group, born only six months after Stonewall—they had danc an old firehoe SoHo.

And New York, thoands of men began gatherg at Downtown loft spac that began croppg started pourg , wh plac like Flamgo and Twelve Wt, two of the most proment gay male dance spac, full of sweaty men dancg all the same time, Fire Island beme the place for people who uld afford . The term "circu" me om beg the "need to know circu"—not only diss, but "--the-know" plac the gay muny that even clud, 1980, the Sat opened the East Village. One thg the 2002 documentary When Boys Fly [which followed a group of young gay men attendg the Miami Whe Party] got right was showg someone fallg out [passg out om dg e] was sndalo.

THE SLUTTY RURGENCE OF NEW YORK'S UNRGROUND GAY SEX PARTI

People like Michelangelo Signorile, who wrote about his experience at the Palm Sprgs Whe Party Life Outsi, a book about gay culture at the time, were posg that the parti were crics like Signorile, Larry Kramer and Gabriel Rotello, parti were seen as havens for irrponsible behavr, sex and dgs.

Most of the kds of studi look at the areas of gay culture—like the bathhoe scene, club scene, the app scene—bee they're supposed hot spots for HIV fectn and rampant dg the qutn is: do the people dog the studi unrstand our muny at all? Bee what they're "studyg" is jt what go on regular gay that "regular gay life" has e to mean somethg very different 2017. This generatnal divi between gay Boomers and lennials has to fluence how they perceive circu parti—or even if there's still a need for, as you said, the circu reached a nadir earlier this century, has that cle been nstant, or have they ma a eback?

H ave the parti themselv evolved to meet the challenge of a changed landspe for gay/queer culture a post-liberatn world? It was Speedos and pecs gatherg around a pool at host hotel Palm Sprgs Hilton, durg Jefey Sanker‘s Whe Party Palm Sprgs Party 2019, the largt gay circu party the U.

FELLOWSHIP INDY -- GAY MEN'S MEETUP GROUP

And then the group would disperse, and all of a sudn another area would bee a garn of pnmatic lv, as -shape dus kneeled all over the floor to give head to other -shape dus reclg on the was jt another Friday night gay New York Cy, where ’s a great time to be a days the cy, when the weekend rolls around, men who enjoy men have a variety of optns: They n go out dancg, they n go out drkg, or they n go out fuckg.

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)As one might spect would be the se wh any sex party—gay, straight, or otherwise—the scene operat wh some level of natural secrecy. “We started the party a year ago, ” said a party host I’ll ll John, whose party, until recently, was largely held a small, divey gay bar Manhattan.

Public gay sex New York, too, never really went away, even durg the plague years of the AIDS epimic— jt got phed to gym steam rooms and the odd bar back room. Sex parti targeted at men who have sex wh men, though, tell a story about gay history and s prent: In 2017, men who have sex wh men are fuckg a new age of liberatn.

Michael Bronski wr his 2011 book A Queer History of the Uned Stat that early gay-liberatn groups such as the Mattache Society foced on “two distct rpons to legal issu faced by homosexuals. ” The first aimed to secure “sexual eedom for all women and men by repealg sodomy laws and endg police harassment associated wh homosexual socializg or activy.

ITS ‘DEMON’ EXORCISED, A FLOATG GAY PARTY SERI RETURNS

This is primarily a legacy of the cy’s ght, post-Stonewall history wh public spac for gay sex; early on the HIV/AIDS epimic, the vis was referred to as “Sat’s disease” bee so many patrons of the East Village dis the Sat died om . Startg soon after the AIDS crisis began the early ’80s, gay men heard about the adly nsequenc of their kd of sex near-nstantly, via PSAs, news footage of nearly ad bodi ravished by AIDS, and even through the work of gay activists like Larry Kramer, who took to prcribg abstence to bat the much has changed sce then, even if Larry Kramer’s hand-wrgg over gay promiscuy hasn’t really. In 2014, New York, wrer Tim Murphy examed how PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis, an antiretroviral medil regimen that prevents negative people om ntractg HIV up to 99 percent) was g a cultural sea change amongst gay men.

Murphy tled his piece “Sex Whout Fear, ” and at the sex parti I’ve vised over the past few months, the tle has held up; I haven’t seen much to suggt that AIDS-related fear dictat many urban, gay men’s sex liv. A recent study of 350 gay-male upl which one partner was HIV negative and one was HIV posive, but on viral-supprsn meditn, found zero stance of exposure over the urse of more than 17, 000 ndomls sex acts. ”) Pl, the parti offer a refuge om the hassl of geo-loactn-app acquired sual sex that has bee such a norm amongst gay and bisexual men.

The most recent one, May, featured a DJ set and the mock baptism— red pat, by legendary gay filmmaker Bce La Bce—of some naked twks.

MEET THE GUYS EXPOSG OTHER GAY MEN PARTYG DURG THE PANMIC

In those days, he’d advertise by handg out vatns bars or by postg the back of gay weekly nightlife rags like began to build a followg, throwg parti at var lotns throughout the cy before settlg to his current spot about 20 years ago.

It looks a lot like the scriptns I’ve read of the notor gay Wt Village BDSM club the Mhaft, which was open for about 10 years before beg shuttered by the health partment.

” And a week whout time wasted chasg sex va on hook-up apps, is a week well spent gay 2008, Huntr Vreeland has held his weekly all-male HandsomeNYC party at the Manhattan BDSM club Paddl. Though is officially a “BDSM club, ” Paddl offers a variety of gay-themed parti throughout the week (“Straight or BDSM people will not e out [Sunday-Thursday] nights, ” he explaed), cludg after-hours parti on Friday and Saturday nights until 7 am. “At this pot, law enforcement New York Cy has far more prsg ncerns than gay sex parti nsistg of nsentg adults privately owned lotns, ” he explaed by phone.

SEND HUNTER BIN IRS WHISTLEBLOWER INTIFIED AS GAY DEMOCRAT

I’ve seen guys socialize at the parti wh an enthiasm that is unmon other, ls sex-oriented, more play--ol gay spac I’ve entered. Most atten have the good sense to keep any dg e beyond marijuana discreet, but signs of GHB, the so-lled “date rape dg” that some gay men self-admister small, timed dos orr to achieve a horny dnken state (whout the next-day haner), are unavoidable. Both Thomas and Matthew have experienced varyg gre of the kd of sexual racism that thriv gay spac like this, as well as bars, clubs, and cisg apps.

While Matthew said he’s never been more nonted by gay racism than at sex parti, Thomas said the racial divis he’s experienced are lser at sex parti when pared to general bars and clubs.

JAGS' MAXEN IS FIRST MALE AMERIN PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

A particularly radil velopment New York sex parti fds queer people of varyg genr inti and sexuali nveng the same space at the same time to fuck—this is te of several of the parti at Simon’s space, the rare place where gay women’s parti and gay men’s parti overlap. Sex parti New York appeal to a niche crowd, sure, (the number of bodi Le has ever packed to his party topped out at 270—blockbter numbers for the relatively small venue and nature of his gatherg), but ’s a crowd that is, a major way, philosophilly aligned wh one of the fundamentals of the gay liberatn movement that stretch back s: the belief that we should be able to atta nsensual pleasure as we see f whout I do on ocsn, I took a turn DJg Amerin Whorer Party May for about 90 mut, and I found the experience more fortable than most sex parti I’ve attend.

The song is unabashedly about gay sex (“The boys the back room / Lgh’ up / Shoot’ off menergy” go the jgle-like hook, sung by a group of gleeful women). The song reached the height of s populary the years jt before anyone knew what AIDS was, when gay social liv were full of what I image was the same sort of vtment sual sex that I uld feel the room that night. Havg ma the rare fd of a pictn of queer life durg a time when beg found out as LGBT uld almost every aspect of your life, Story has started piecg together parts of the home movi to Gay Home Movie.