JANUARY 1977

entrance door so there are at tendants around.

Off the TV room winds an adult puzzle called the maze, covered with thick carpets. You have to feel your way around in its alleys, turns and twists. The Minotaur is alive and well in this update of the ancient Greek legend of hunter and hunted. Around the corner may be the bull of your dreams or one more dead end. In choice places a small ultra-violet spotlight strikes a painted figure on the wall. Men with false teeth are careful not to smile because the ultraviolet light makes your teeth look black. Bodies in front of you, bodies in back of you,

groping, pushing, trying to get to the prize at the end of the puzzle, the orgy room. Standing at strategic locations in the maze, men waited for a partner attractive to them. If sex starts in this setting it's usually cocksucking or a hand job. A

bed hid behind one turn. The

two men on it attracted a small following as others watched. It isn't considered bad manners to watch others and for some men the fun is in being watched. The oid taboo of sneaking away for sex doesn't have a chance in these plush surroundings. As you bump through the dim puzzle you get groped, but it's gentle compared to the kind of grabbing a woman gets on a subway.

At last the maze spills into a dark and unbelievable orgy room. A large square bed, about the size of four double beds placed together, dominates the room, with about four feet of space around it so men have a place from which to observe. The silence amazed me. Seventy-five to one hundred men packed into that room, seven of them on the bed and not one word was spoken. Heavy breathing, sucking and a few timid moans were the only noises. Everyone watched the bed where a black man assfucked a white man while another white held his balls waiting for the surge. One couple valiantly tried to pull off 69 without choking each other to death. The two other men on the bed circled each other like wrestlers trying to get the proper hold.

Inching around the bed I felt like I was sliding by a picket fence all the erect penises behind me were hitting me in the small of my back. People reached for your genitals as you pass. My first response was to turn around and smash the offender's face in. I had to keep reminding myself, like a mantra chant, that these men thought I was a man and being a man is much safer than being a woman. One huge fellow with a potbelly embraced me as I nudged him to get by. Another man quickly enclosed me from behind. Fighting off my instinctive violent response i relaxed, then hugged the man in return whispering, "Thank you but I've been here for an hour and I'm tired." He released me instantly. As we filtered through the orgy room I had to disengage every two steps. The easiness of

refusal is incredible. In heterosexual life and lesbian life a first refusal never sinks in. Men and to a lesser extent, gay women, are geared to pursue you. Women, despite the "sexual revolution," demand an affirmation of your desire/affection, hence pursuit. How long this affirmation takes depends on the woman hours, days, weeks, months. Since sex as a bargaining tool is the only thing most women control, they have to make you come to terms or they lose their market value. In the baths there was no pursuit and the reason was quite simple. Men have nothing to lose say "no" it means "no," that's through sexual activity. If you all, and that simple "no" also protects fragile egos. Sex isn't a weapon here, it's a release. There's no need to make anyone psychologically pay for your favors. Everyone pays to get in here to fuck, pure and simple.

The pressure to perform is diminished in this room because it is the ultimate anonymity. While everyone goes into the orgy room at one time or another in his sexual career, I couldn't help but think this room was the refuge for the unattractive, the insecure and the guilty. Here you risk the least and in merging with the crowd can lose yourself in the totality of genital

sex.

From the orgy room we climbed the stairs to the cubicles, small rooms where men wait for a connection. Nerves tighten here. Belying their tension, they stroll up and down the two floors of corridors brazenly checking out the men on the beds. If a man lies on his stomach, a tube of KY. sterile lubricant, beside him, it means he wants to be assfucked. If he lies on his back, legs wide apart, he wants oral sex or possibly he'll fuck you. People stare into the rooms and then move on. As

prowled the corridors looking at the display I was struck again by the silence and by the fact that everyone plays with himself trying to get it up so it looks larger. Sex is deadly serious.

One bear of a man, probably not attractive to the other men, lay in a room desperately seeking his connection. Possibly in his mid-thirties, blueeyes, he looked like a burly carpenter or strong dock-worker. Pausing in his doorway overlong I felt his anxiety increase. Without thinking about what it meant I smiled, wanting to reassure him. He smiled back as though some awful dragon had been slain and invited me in.

"I really like the way you look," I said, "but I've had it for the night." I waited for the classic line from him, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" Again, I didn't reckon with a men's fear of not being manly. Of course he wouldn't call attention to my voice because who knows what I'd say to rip his balls off? He nodded his head and leaned forward to shake my hand, the traditional male response of good intentions.

Since class peels off with clothing you might think a

HIGH GEAR

democracy of nakedness and need would develop. But here in the cubes a new hierarchy took place among these lawyers, artists, grocery clerks, stockbrokers, movement activists, professors and cab drivers. Rank now came through size of penis, condition of body and age. The pretty young thing reigns, a sexual prima donna. Experience, intellect, talent, compassion mean nothing. Since you don't converse with your partner until after orgasm, if you talk at all, the irrationality of the flesh commands. Here the great American principle of competition and performance frightened and slightly savage. If keep those on the make hungry, you're old or potbellied or with a tiny penis, you face blatant though silent humiliation.

At the end of one corridor was another orgy room composed of bunk beds slapped against the walls. As there was more light than in the downstairs orgy room, looks were more important. I saw a guy looking over his shoulder for Prince Charming while being blown. When a more attractive man meandered CONTINUED ON

PAGE 19

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