SOPHIE TUCKER

AND

MR. GAY D.C. PAGENT

MONDAY-SEPTEMBER 11, 1978

9 pm sharp

Tickets: $7.00

WAAY-OFF BROADWAY THEATRE

(55 K STREET, S.E.)

$500 FIRST PRIZE

SUIT CASUAL WEAR AND SWIMSUIT COMPETITION

CLUB BATHS

OF WASHINGTON

20 "O" Street, S.E.

SIX-SHOOTER

(Six Locker Visits

$20)

Good at the following clubs:

BAL CAM⚫ NWK

BOS HAR⚫ WDC

Legal I.D. Required for Membership

488-7317 or 488-9731

*Trademark/Servicemark Club Bath Chain Assoc. Inc.

Outlook

The other day on our way to the office we stopped in at one of our city's largest all-male porn-theatre stores. You know the type of place. A place where men of all types wonder silently about gazing at the covers of magazines featuring super-studs in an endless variety of lascivious poses.

These places have always fascinated us. What is the appeal of the multitude of pornography on display in such stores? What is the attraction of the faceless, anonymous sex taken in the dark corners of the theatres and the quarter-movie booths.

The titles of the "novels" arranged edge-to-edge on the long shelves may provide some clues. There are Bun Banger, Rim Shot, Sucker for Seafood, Cops and Throbbers, Hot and Hard, Deliveries in the Rear, Bottoms Up, Hard on His Tail, Cock Cult, Hot White Suckers, Young Men of the Night, The Hole Thing, Suck Slave, All Day Sucker, Suckin' Truckin', Studs, Hard Headed Dick, Uniformed Rape, The Butt Branders, Rough Reamers, Ten Inch Lover, Meat My Buddy, Deep Dick, and Young Butt Full, among hundreds of other titles.

Obviously there are "kinks" in the selections of porn stores to suit every fettish. Who are the men who frequent these establishments and read this literature? They are businessmen, doctors, lawyers, janitors, teachers, government executives, the married, the single, the old, the young, the goodlooking, the not-so-goodlooking. In short, virtually every variety of gay man at one time or another has probably been in one of these places.

What statement, if any, does the success of porn stores make about gay men? The statement is actually more

about the society from which we all stem than about gay men. There are more heterosexual pornography businesses here and in every major city across the nation than homosexual porn shops. Such businesses cater to those who have sexual tastes and desires that do not meet the moral standards of the vast majority of the populace. The businesses grew up because there have always been those of us who have sexual proclivities that are beyond the pale of the white middle-class America.

The success of pornography can be attributed directly, we believe, to the repression of very natural and healthy desires that are common to all human beings, but which have been successfully squelched in most people by the over-riding moralistic mentality of our nation. If the specific manifestations of those desires seem somehow perverted or outrageous, it is because they could not grow in a healthy light but have been confined to the shadows of a seamy underground. That underground happily, is becoming less seamy as more people become more liberated.

As with all things natural, no amount of repressive indoctrination can stiffle "kinky" sexuality, whether heterosexual homosexual. Pornography, like sex itself, is here to stay at least until our society frees itself from futile attempts to deny the validity of the fantasies of all people, even those who march to the beat of different drummers.

If that happens, pornography will be a moot term. But, we do not expect that utopian era to evolve anytime soon, if ever. As Kurt Vonnegut might say, "So it goes."