BijouBlog

I thought I would do an IML-related piece, the whole leather contest circuit actually began in a leather bar, the famous/infamous Gold Coast founded by the legendary Chuck Renslow. I know one person who remembers this bar; he is in his eighties (hard to believe). Much has been written on this place of LGBT history already; I’ll just add that it seems to be the granddaddy of places where like-minded men could meet others who shared their sexuality. Much of what is perhaps now the traditional dynamic of gay leather bars originated there: the leather biker look, the rough sex and BDSM, the l hypermasculinity revealed in the famous artwork of Etienne aka Dom Orejudos now displayed in the Leather Archives and Museum. 
 

The Gold Coast closed in 1988 (alas, I never went there) at the 5025 North Clark location, having moved from its original location at 501 North Clark Street. Renslow later opened the Chicago Eagle in the 1990s; I remember the entrance being the inside of a truck, and the basement Pit. I actually consider this place my “coming out” bar as a leatherman. I was flogged in public down there, my first big BDSM scene. The Eagle closed in the early 2000s; the last time I went there was 2007; by that time the totally hot Pit had closed. 
 

I also remember another spot, now closed, called Leatherneck. It was located literally in downtown Chicago, the Loop. The upstairs was outfitted as a dungeon, where Windy City Bondage Club held amazing parties. The operator of this building was the infamous (emphasize the “in” in that word) John Birch aka of the now defunct Metropolitan Slave magazine. I could devote a whole other blog to this individual (it might read as a particularly outrageous National Enquirer article), but strangely enough, there’s almost no online trace of him, other than a link to some papers by one Beau Lee James, winner with John Birch of the International Master and Slave contest held by Pantheon of Leather in Houston, Texas, 1994. 

Leatherneck with its distinctive mezzanine opened in 1997; I don’t remember when it closed, but I do remember it being for many people I know more of a hangout place rather than a more serious down-and-dirty place like the Eagle or Touche. 

Now, I’ll end with one more place, the AA Meat Market. It was located next to the famous original Touche (I went there for the first time in the early 1990s; a week later it burned down). In my younger sluttish days, I remember being dragged into the bathroom at the Meat Market to perform fellatio and lick boots. I remember this place always hopping; it closed in 1993, I think, because of the gentrification of that neighborhood by Lincoln and Diversey, though I did hear there was some raid that year for “public indecency.” 
 

Our beloved David Boyer is keeping the leather bar legacy alive at Touche. I hope that these places don’t become memories, but continue to adapt to a world that communicates via phone apps. I know I would rather lick a boot or kiss a hot guy in full gear than stare at a phone app. 

Hope you had a  blast at IML 2016! 

Psalm 133:1-2
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that runs down upon the beard, Aaron’s beard, that runs down to the hem of his garments.

Why am I quoting a psalm from the Bible? We are just released a new porn compilation, Love a Man with a Beard 3, on DVD and streaming, and it's pretty obvious that the passage above refers to a beard. Not just any beard, but the beard of the first high priest of Israel. But something is happening on the beard. Oil is running down it, profusely. Why?

The Talmud makes the connection between these this passage and another passage in the Bible, Leviticus 8: 10, 12. Psalm 133 makes concrete heaven’s response to the actions of Moses and Aaron as they fulfilled their roles as servants of God.

Moses and Aaron were brothers who stood together as one unified presence before God, especially as Moses anointed his brother Aaron for the service of the tabernacle (which contained the famous Ark of the Covenant); together they blessed the people (Leviticus 9:23).

In their culture, blessings were physical: fertility (the end result of sexual prowess in Biblical culture) and wealth, as well as spiritual/emotional ones such as peace and intimacy.

What I find interesting is the amount of oil depicted in the passage. It flows profusely. It drenches not just the beard, but the entire body. The obvious symbolism here is actually more abstract (the oil is a concrete expression of God's blessings of peace and unity) than literal. But oil pressed from the olive tree, a staple of Biblical life, used for practically every bodily function, not just as a food additive.

In another monotheistic religion, Islam, according to the Quran and the Ahadith (sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad) there are multiple references to olive oil.

The Prophet Muhammad is said to have advised his followers to apply olive oil to their bodies and to “use olive oil as a food and ointment for it comes from a blessed tree” (Tirmidi). In fact, for centuries, olive oil was first used on the body, not in it. Olive oil has been used to maintain the suppleness of skin, to heal abrasions, to soften the hair, to strengthen nails, to cure the effects of alcohol (such as a hangover), and to relieve aching muscles.

And there's a definite sexual connection between oil and semen as well.

Olive oil offers a few significant benefits as a lubricant for sexual activity. It’s not water soluble, and as a result, it provides long-lasting lubrication in small amounts. A few drops of olive oil can last for hours. It isn’t very greasy, and most people have a bottle of olive oil in their kitchens.

Recently, there's been research about the connection of extra virgin oil increasing semen production!

In Biblical Hebrew, the word shemen (שמן) is usually translated as "oil," as in the essential extract pressed out of a plant or fruit (such as the olive). Could perhaps the essential extract of a man be his seed (זרע zera ) or semen?: [There is] treasure to be desired and שמן [oil] in the dwelling of the wise; but a foolish man spendeth it up [through lust]. (Proverbs 21:20)

Whether the one who literally spreads his seed rather than saving it for making babies, resulting in cum dripping on a beard or any body hair, is really foolish is of course these days a matter of opinion.

The Bijou Theater, the oldest consecutively running gay porn movie theater and sex club in the United States, officially closes its doors on September 30, 2015, at 9 a.m.

Bijou has become an icon representing that time in gay history, the 1970s, where gay men, long hidden in the shadows, emerged as both liberators and the  liberated. The nonstop mansex party had begun.

The AIDS crisis of the 1980s threatened to turn the lights out for a community still struggling with its identity, but it regrouped and continued its fight for justice,  focusing now on political and social equality and confronting directly the new Religious Rights and its allies, culminating in the historical SCOTUS ruling that  legalized same-sex marriage throughout the United States.

Even though the lights will literally go out and the music turn off at the Bijou Theater next week after 45 years, remember that the sexual freedom Bijou represents ultimately transcends a physical location.

The next time you find the right guy with whom to enjoy the hottest mansex, think of the Bijou and what Dorothy said at the end of The Wizard of Oz, “But it wasn't a dream. It was a place. And you and you and you - and you were there. But you couldn't have been, could you?...No, Aunt Em, this was a real, truly live place. And I remember that some of it wasn't very nice, but most of it was beautiful.”

“Come to the cabaret ...”

I watched the movie Cabaret when I was in high school under adult supervision (I guess it was beyond my parents to figure out that Sally Bowles was not at all judgmental about her gay friends).
 

The I graduated in college to the gender bending Victor, Victoria, much of which takes place in nightclubs/gay bars which seem to be pretty much be synonymous with cabarets.

Live entertainment … torchy songs around the piano … lamps with shades on the tables … people smoking … all dressed up in evening gowns and tuxedos …. scenes that were also commonplace in mainstream Hollywood movies of the 30s and 40s, except in those movies, they were pretty much heterosexual, though the usual sultry contralto (low, almost masculine) voice of the lead female singer singing songs usually about elusive romance and hidden passions and perhaps a “sissy” waiter hinted at gender bending.
 

This scenario is unfortunately all-too familiar: a gay man dies, and his partner ends up having to fight the “blood family” for property, a dwelling place, even a burial space. Unless a gay couple takes extraordinary, expensive legal measures, which in some cases means even adopting each other (see this link for a famous case), they are not legally protected, which protections and benefits would happen automatically if they were a heterosexual couple.
 

I know one person the above scenario happened to. He had to leave his dwelling of twenty-five years. His partner's homophobic family banned him from the funeral, and stole the burial plot. Why? He was not legally protected.

In another case, another friend of mine was much more fortunate. They lived in Florida, a state notorious for its homophobia (hello, Anita Bryant). Luckily, the partner's sister and brotherin-law were on good terms with him and followed his instructions about the sale of the house and other matters of the estate. Regardless of the financial situation, they respected the relationship. Their respect showed they saw my friend as a person, not an enemy “other” or an impersonal commodity.

The Edie Windsor case publicized and created much-needed discourse at the highest level the fundamental injustice of our defining only by gender civil marriage (yes, civil, not religious/sacramental). Edie would have had to pay an astronomical amount of inheritance tax on her wife's estate (yes, wife) because, as above, they were not a heterosexual couple. In response to this case, the Supreme Court struck down DOMA.

In other words, the civil society essentially treats those who do not fit heteronormative social structures as second-class citizens in a country which purports (and has failed and still fails to do) to operate under a claim that all people are created equal.

What I've said so far is not new, but I think it is really about not just the issue of same-sex couples being able to enjoy the economic, social, and psychological benefits of civil marriage, but about human dignity.

Human dignity transcends the physical ties of blood and the laws people make to be able to live together (which often results in people using each other as commodities, rather than persons). We experience human dignity by showing empathy and compassion for a person outside yourself, which means being able to find a piece, however difficult that may be, of that person in you, a process of growing, really becoming. To use the language of the famous Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, we need to enter into an I-Thou relationship, rather than an I-It one.