David's Chicago Sexual Underground 9/2/22 & P(r)ick of the Week

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Greetings P(r)icksters!

Been pretty busy at the bar, still training new staff. I have also been hosting regular vax parties for this monkeypox mess. Lots of guys have been coming round getting a shot and thanking me for doing this.

When I came to Chicago back in 1976, I checked out several bars, looking to make new friends in a new town. Then I walked into a leather bar and after a while, I found what I was looking for.

Back then, gay bars were pretty much low key. They didn’t draw attention to themselves, and they were easy targets for police raids and harassment. A gay press was just developing at the time, so finding where bars were in any town wasn’t easy, more word of mouth.

Folks could be friendly in most gay bars but when things went down, a bar raid for example, patrons would dash off and look for another bar to hang out at. The concept of a cohesive community was not quite there yet. One bar getting the spotlight and folks ran to another, being as they were just as much in a closet.

The thing about leather bars back then was the leather clubs that called them home. I’ve talked before about how biker clubs formed up after our GIs returned from Europe and abroad from WWII. These close-knit clubs looked out for their club brothers and, when needed, brothers in other clubs. They were my mentors that brought me to this scene and taught me that we take care of each other as no one else would.

These clubs did a lot of support for members like helping them put a roof over their head or a find job to pay for it. When one got sick, their brothers would take care of them. And a lot of times, when it was serious, say a major accident that had one laid up for a spell, they all stepped up to help. Early fundraisers were just for this, paying someone’s rent or car payment.

As our community grew, so did the leather circle, and our financial support went towards early community efforts. One of my favorite memories from that era was a Toys For Tots Show the various clubs came together and put on. Image a bunch of bearded bikers singing, dancing, some in drag, while raising thousands of dollars for a worthy cause. (Unfortunately, the Salvation Army returned our donation because it came from gay men; why I never put a nickel in one of their kennels)

Most people these days are familiar with Howard Brown Health Center here in Chicago. A huge operation, with clinics across the city providing medical care for LGBTQ+ folks from the northside to the southside and west. But back in 1976, Howard Brown’s focus was on STDs in the gay community. You got a drippy dick, you went to Howard Brown for a swap and a shot. They operated in the basement of a church, one a day a week. There was no charge, just a place to receive care that gay people were fearful to ask for from their doctor or city health clinics. After all, we were just a bunch of queers and because we had sex with other men, we deserved what we caught.

We would host tag nights at the bar where we’d ask for a buck at the door so Howard Brown could get the medical supplies and penicillin to treat us. We did that for Howard Brown and other small groups trying to serve the gay community as it grew.

When HIV/AIDS struck in the 80s, Howard Brown grew from a doctor and nurse in a church to one of the leading efforts to figure out what was causing this unknown disease that was killing gay men. Early on, the leather community put a lot of effort towards support for Howard Brown’s work to help us survive.

Covid came around a couple of years ago and we stepped up to educate and take care of those stricken with this disease. Even during shutdowns, we would check up on each other, get friends to doctors when needed, make soup, shop for others and encourage others to pitch in and get vaccinated.

Now it is monkeypox. Just like HIV/AIDS, this one hit gay people first. It started spreading around before we knew it was here. But, we are leathermen and we take care of our own. That’s why the only gay bars in town hosting vaccination events are the leather bars. Not one other gay bar here has done so.

It is what I have been taught and shown, and as a leatherman we will continue to take care of our own. Even those that have never stepped inside the bar before. Of course, I am making sure they understand Touché is the only bar hosting weekly vax parties, suggesting maybe they should check out what we are all about. More than just hot kinky sex.

So for all my horny bastards out there reading this blog, get a pox vax. It’s two shots, four weeks apart. Once you do that, in another two weeks your body will develop the immunity you need to avoid getting monkeypox. Six weeks and we can put this mess to rest and end the spread.

While you are waiting out those six weeks, grab my P(r)ick and keep it hot.

David

To order from Bijou, visit bijouworld.com, call 800-932-7111, or email bijou.orders@gmail.com

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Pictures from the Black Dance (DK0047) - On DVD and Streaming

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Mr. Chicago Leather Contest 1988 (D00568) - On DVD and Streaming

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David's Chicago Sexual Underground 8/10/22 & P(r)ick of the Week

virus - BijouBlog
David's Chicago Sexual Underground header

Greetings P(r)icksters!

Long time, I know. Haven’t fallen off the planet (yet), just an incredibly crazy spring and summer. Things have somewhat settled down, but I have branched out into a new focus.

Life got overwhelming in the spring. After two years of covid interruptions, we at Touché had planned to host our Mr. Chicago Leather contest in January. That was until omicron came along at the beginning of the year. So we postponed the contest to April.

In the intervening time, I had staffing issues, trying to bring on new staff while others came down with covid and/or had time off for vacations, etc. I spent several nights behind the bar and, a couple of times, just limited hours of operation based on who was available to work.

We hosted a huge, huge MCL contest weekend. While we did not sell out the contest, the bar was packed all weekend and I literally just stood by the bar and watched my crew frantically serve the crowd. It was almost like watching the numbers turn at Mc Donald’s (remember when they used to post number of burgers served?).

All this made me behind schedule in planning parties for Memorial Day weekend when Chicago hosts International Mr. Leather. We figured we would see a pent-up increase in folks wanting to get out after this event was put on hold for two years, too. It was just that!

I was just as frantic trying to line up events, porn stars, dancers and everything else that goes into a six-night run of parties. Not kidding, it was just on Friday the week before everything would kick off on the following Wednesday when I nailed down the last details.

Then we jumped right into Pride planning, including lining up our local clubs to host our leather & kink contingent in the parade. On the heels of the Pride parade, I was also putting together my family reunion back in Ohio over the 4th of July weekend.

Coming back after that is where I took on my new focus, namely monkeypox. After IML & Pride, cases began to take off here in Chicago and it was a scramble to get ahead of it.

I first reached out to Chicago’s Department of Public Health but could only get a “leave a message” response. I could not speak to an actual live person.

Then I reached out to Howard Brown Health Center, they have a clinic just a half block from Touché.

A little history here, Howard Brown was here back in the 1970’s when I first arrived in Chicago. Back then, their focus was on STDs. It was basically a doctor and a nurse in the basement of a church. You had a drippy dick, they’d swab it and give you a shot of penicillin. Gay sex was taboo, most guys didn’t want to go to a doctor who would want to know how you got gonorrhea in your ass. Howard Brown was gay providers taking care of our community discreetly. It was drop in, no appointments, no fees, simple. You needed care and they did it.

Then came HIV/AIDS in the early 80’s. Howard Brown ramped up their efforts to care for gay men in the early days of this disease as some mainstream healthcare was paranoid of this new and deadly unknown illness. In the early days, Howard Brown would line up a medical van to pull up in front of a bar to offer free STD tests and eventually HIV testing in the 80’s. Howard Brown went from a small group of volunteers to a full fledged health clinic. Still lots of volunteers but a growing staff of doctors, nurses and more.

Howard Brown secured federal grants to treat and develop research into HIV/AIDS and continues to play a pivotal role. As they succeeded in treating people with AIDS, they took a more traditional role of healthcare, primary care, women’s healthcare as agencies like the Lesbian Cancer Project were brought under its organization. Howard brown expanded from one clinic in the gay neighborhood to several spread across Chicago. Also, HB would develop connections with other healthcare businesses; you can find a Walgreen’s pharmacy in their clinics.

I thought after our early days of working with Howard Brown on STDs and then HIV/AIDS, they would be jumping on this latest health crisis centered on our community. My first call to the clinic by the bar should have been a indication. This poor kid answering the phone had no knowledge of Howard Brown’s history or mission. He just answers the phone at this health clinic.

Eventually I got a name and email address (not a phone number) and began trying to get something set up to help keep our customers and community safe. Several back and forth emails over a week led to an actual conversation on setting up vaccine events at Touché.

In the meantime, I was contacted by Project WISH at the University of Illinois Chicago about hosting vax events. In a couple of days, we set a day and time for our first Vax Party. Before this, the local bathhouse Steamworks had begun hosting vax events there in late June. This Project WISH would offer vax shots at the baths, usually 100 shots at a time and there was at least twice that number showing up.

Other than Steamworks and now us, folks were scrambling to find vax shots at their doctors’ offices, some city health clinics and hospitals to get vaccinated. Even Howard Brown was offering vaccines on an appointment basis, but they stipulated in the first few weeks that you had to be displaying symptoms to get a shot. As you might expect, it has been just nuts to get ahead of monkeypox. Guess we learned nothing from covid.

Anyway, Project WISH has hosted two vax nights already at the bar, with more to come every week. They run it pretty simple. Folks need to fill out a two-sided form, then line up for a shot. No restrictions on whether you live in Chicago, Illinois, whatever. Our first night was crazy; we planned to start at 9pm but when we opened at 5 that night, the bar filled quickly. (I had to scramble to get staff behind the bar and open the second room.) We learned right away to be ready.

Our second vax party was last Wednesday, and we began prepping right at 5 pm. Had to, as when I arrived at 1:30 that afternoon, there was a line outside. To make it run smooth, I stood outside when we opened and handed each person a numbered ticket and the form they needed to fill out. I was told we would get 140 vax shots that night and I handed out tickets to the first 140 in line.

Once folks got inside, they could mingle around and wait until their number was called. We tried our best to make it a party with music and drinks. Even the medical team administering the shots enjoyed the night. It took them about 90 minutes to jab all 140 doses into arms. They’ll be back today, Wednesday the 11th, with hopefully 200 doses, and back again this Thursday the 11th.

Knowing monkeypox spreads by close extended physical contact, we’ve encouraged guys to slow down at the bar. We stopped showing porn on our screens and backed off some promotions that may entice guys to get touchy feely. It has hit us in the pocketbook, but we survived AIDS and now covid. We’ll keep working to get folks vaccinated and put this pox crap down. It may take a bit more time than we hope, but we can do it. Besides, we still have covid to contend with as well. Guess you can call me Dr. David now.

I’ll be back soon, as our Pride was fun and I have stuff from that to share. First, I’m going to get another round of vax parties lined up and set a couple of days aside to go rider some roller coasters.

Take care, get your vaccines for covid and monkeypox. If you have to quarantine or just hold back till we get the pox vax out, you can still grab my P(r)ick and enjoy yourself. Here’s a couple of fun choices for you to consider.

David

To order from Bijou, visit bijouworld.com, call 800-932-7111, or email bijou.orders@gmail.com

Prick of the Week header - images from M.A.G.I.C.

M.A.G.I.C. images
M.A.G.I.C. (D01681) - On DVD and Streaming

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Inches (D00044) - On DVD and Streaming
 

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David's Chicago Sexual Underground - 4/22/20

 

David's Chicago Sexual Underground header

 

Greetings P(r)icksters,

You’d think since Touché is closed due to the Covid-19 virus, I would have lots of free time and be on top of things. But it’s just the opposite. I have no set schedule – don’t have to be at work at any set time, don’t have to work so many hours. Just meandering through my days here.

Oh, I have been busy. Taken the time off to do some housekeeping at the bar and at home, just not putting in that many hours each day. Decided I would use this down time to clear out stuff at both places. We literally pulled stuff out of the basement at the bar and are sorting what stays and what goes. You know how it is, you have a piece of wood, an extra light fixture, that backdrop for a staged event from 10 years ago, stuff you might use again and keep. It’s all piled up for the dumpster.

Doing the same at home clearing out closets, stuff under the sink, in this cubbyhole, etc. Got lots cleared out of storage, now just piled up in my living room for me to haul away. I have come across stuff I forgot I had and others that I couldn’t remember where I'd stashed. Like my train set (yes, I still have trains and track I pull out and play with). Though I haven’t found the box with the rest of the tracks and the power supply. Next stop, the basement storage locker.

I should have enough time to get through everything I have stored away. They announced today that Chicago and Illinois coronavirus cases should peak by mid May and with a 2 week waiting period, that would begin our comeback the end of May. It will be a gradual process to reopen businesses with bars way down at the bottom of the list. So I’m hoping for June sometime to get back to work.

The other big part of my day is Facebook. I am a latecomer to FB, I signed up a couple of years ago basically to promote events at the bar and my country dances I have been hosting for years. Mostly I would post an event and invite others, check on my family and friends and once in a blue moon post something that I felt was needed to share.

With this freer time, I have been on FB a lot more than before and reading a lot more comments, news, posts about this Covid-19 mess we are in. Of late, this rash of protest to “liberate” our nation. Now being mindful of purposely feeding misinformation on FB, I just got a video from a friend that just astounded me.

The video was of a woman stating she was in Jacksonville, Florida and she was all upset about the need to stay at home. The case she made was just so, so stupid. She claimed that up in Jacksonville where she was, was safe from coronavirus. They are safe up there because the hot spot in Miami was due to the numerous Mexicans (not Cubans, mind you) in the Miami area. And they all drink Corona beer in glass bottles.

Her logic for Jacksonville was that it is hot there, not the 70 degree hot in Minnesota, but daily 95 temps in Jacksonville that keep the virus at bay. Plus the salt in the water at the beach, that salt keeps things well. And... They drink Natural Light beer in cans. It’s natural beer, and it’s light beer and it’s in a can not a bottle, not imported Corona.

I can’t make this kind of stupid up. What is probably the most frightening thing about this is that this woman not only thinks this (Corona beer & Mexicans are the source) but that she feels good enough about this concept to post it online and that others around her will see this and agree with her. Be proud of her for her complete ignorance, meaning there are many more just as ignorant.

I can stay at home but thanks to FB, I can’t avoid the ignorance out there. Maybe I’ll spend a little less time on FB and watch more porn. I did uncover some more Bijou DVDs I had tucked away. Now I just have to choose who to spend tonight with: Al Parker, Jack Wrangler or Bruno.

Grab my P(r)ick this Week and get shacked up with Joe Gage’s Closed Set. For this plotless film, director Joe Gage invited the entire stable of Gagemen to the studio for an uninhibited orgy. Men. Dozens of them. Hairy, hung, horny men, stroking themselves, stroking each other. Fucking and sucking each other in pairs, threesomes and groups.

Now if you like solo action, my second P(r)ick of the Week is Beat Cop starring the muscular Donnie Russo as beat cop Sergeant Geraldi taking us from one crime and j/o scene to another. The criminals, Tony Lattanzi, Eddie Acosta, Richard DeSantis and Eddie Rodriguez are all uncut and jack-off to an excellent soundtrack.

Enjoy your “captivity” and stay safe with some fun from Bijou Video.

David

To order from Bijou, visit bijouworld.com, call 800-932-7111, or email bijou.orders@gmail.com

 

Closed Set images
Closed Set (D00042) - On DVD and Streaming

Beat Cop images
Beat Cop (D02659) - On DVD and Streaming
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Welcome to Masturbation Nation

Posted by Madam Bubby

 

According to the holy haters, the coronavirus lockdown is turning an already sinful nation (its sins are reproductive rights and the fact that LGBTQ persons are allowed to exist, not robbing and cheating the widow and the orphan) in Masturbation Nation (and in their “minds,” that means Pornography Nation).

According to a report in LGBTQ Nation, some denizens at Liberty Counsel and the likes of gay sex-obsessed Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, (the ones who are defending those death cult astors who insist on holding in-person services, are claiming that many are now succumbing to such lustful cravings and are now so, so unhappy.

 

Guy jacking off to porn

 

(Of course the above assume men, and especially gay men, are the “perpetrators,” because I doubt it would even cross their minds that a woman might masturbate or watch pornography, but that’s another blog.)

So, lockdown is making more guys pull their puds and watch porn (probably on their phones). Yeah, right, If you’re a hetero guy locked down in a house with a spouse and kids with Grandma quarantined in the basement, I’m sure you could easily find and a time and place to watch some porn and jerk off. You could escape as many have to the forest preserves, but I’m not certain shelter in place deems this pastoral journey to essential travel.

(Yet these “family men” are many times the politicians who get caught in hotel rooms with underage persons or in public bathrooms, of course.)

So, once again, it’s the gays. Yes, we are now using the pandemic lockdown to indulge even more in nonprocreative sexuality that their God so hates.

What’s so disturbing about this both irrational and psychologically harmful world view is that during the AIDS crisis, gay men actually embraced masturbation, including the director Michael Goodwin in The Goodjac Chronicles and the other movies in his Goodjac series, as a responsible, safe sex practice in order to stay alive and keep from potentially infecting others. Yes, in order to stay alive.

 

Safe sex poster

 

The current lockdown situation is caused by an impersonal virus which does not discriminate (and it isn’t transmitted, according to the haters, by only those who indulge in “dirty” sex or “dirty” drugs, and thus are easy targets for discrimination and scapegoating), because anyone can get it from something as mundane as a sneeze (itself something of a taboo act, which is why we say God bless you, because some believed it could cause the soul to be ejected from the body!).

But yes, even the Bible-toting Southern Baptist Meemaw known for her famous church basement hot dishes lauded by Perkins and his ilk for her virtues can become sick; she can get it, and she can also transmit it to others as well. So, to stay alive, everyone, yes, everyone, has to stay away from everyone else. Alone and yet alive.

But even in this scenario, the haters still need to somehow accuse, scapegoat LGBTQ persons, and in this case, especially gay men, of somehow “desecrating” the lockdown, but at the same time, these are the ones who are complaining about the fact they even have to lockdown, claiming they are forced to do so especially by tyrannical, godless Democrats.

All in all, as usual, these holy haters confuse what being holy really is, and it doesn’t mean hating the world or escaping from it. Some can lockdown voluntarily, in order to find that ineffable “more” than the “I” by becoming monks or nuns. Many are called, few are chosen.

But the majority of humans, everyone, not just specific Christian sects, are now being locked down involuntarily, in order to preserve life, and all that lives is holy, proclaimed the great poet and heretic William Blake. We have to separate now to stay whole in order to preserve life for ourselves as individuals and as parts of communities, now and for the future.

Masturbation may not be an ideal sexual activity on a psychosocial level for everyone, but the act keeps the sex drive alive. Your orgasm literally screams out that you are still alive. Your imagination is thus still creating and by doing so is able to transcend boundaries this non-living virus is both breaking and imposing on its victims.

 

Cover of Brentwood's Self Service
The cover of Brentwood's Self-Service

 

And who knows, some imaginative person now might be doing some kind of Zoom virtual masturbation session. Just make sure you protect it from the holy haters who would love to bomb this sort of thing, not because they hate it, because they really want to participate in Masturbation Nation.

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Purity and Danger and Foreskin

Posted by Madam Bubby

 

I was born into a world where baby boys were routinely circumcised, whether they were Jewish or not. Hygienic purposes. (These were also the days when nurses wore caps, which were later deemed to be unhygienic. Go figure.)

These were also the days when women at least in middle class white America were knocked out in order to give birth. Babies were kept in rooms behind windows, often in incubators even if they weren’t under five pounds, held up for viewing like specimens by nurses in crisp white caps. (I am remembering the episode of the birth of Little Ricky on I Love Lucy, which corresponded to Lucille Ball scheduling a caesarian section for the birth of her son, Desi Arnaz, Jr.)

 

Ricky in the hospital waiting room, from I Love Lucy
Ricky in the hospital waiting room (Source)

 

It's like anything that resembled the nitty gritty raw materials of sex and blood and birth and death was hidden, sterilized as much as possible. Dirt was disorder. Sex was dirty unless it produced babies, but giving birth to those babies was a disordered process that required forceps and scalpels and anesthesia to control it, get it out of the realm of actual living.

 

Scalpel

 

And of course any type of sex other than what took place behind closed doors in a missionary position for procreative purposes was generally deemed dirty and disordered. Thus LGBTQ persons themselves were deemed by the general population as irredeemably dirty, unless they could cleanse themselves and rejoin the pristine world of Father Knows Best, itself but an idealized fantasy.

Mary Douglas in her seminal book Purity and Danger explored this primal desire to contain dirt and disorder, like the way we still keep our basic bodily functions of urination and defecation in a toilet which is supposed to be sparkling clean and in a room that is also supposed to be sparkling clean. The toilet itself is an image that contains in itself this fraught tension which informs our attitudes toward sexuality and even to parts of the body that one uses to express that sexuality.

 

Purity and Danger cover
Purity and Danger cover

Scrubbing a toilet

 

Thus, that foreskin had to be brutally cut off, to cleanse, make pure, the member of an appendage would make its appearance and its role sexual act even more exciting, promising deep, dark, rich scents and that pungent but also enticing smegma.

It revealed the mystery in order to contain it. When I experienced sexually a man who was uncut for the first time (in the bathroom, and in the shower, ironically), which could imply he was somehow more complete, even “holy” which word can also mean complete, I experienced mystery. And in that mystery, glory, and by glory, I am thinking of not a vague disembodied entity or feeling in the clouds, but physical reality itself charged with an energy that creates and propels the orgasm but also encompasses it.

 

Images from The U.N.C.U.T. Club of L.A. & Club Mandom 1: Blue Collar Cheese Factory
Images from The U.N.C.U.T. Club of L.A. (top) and Club Mandom 1: Blue Collar Cheese Factory (bottom)

 

His phallus contained on it a boundary, and it’s through crossing boundaries one grows, changes, lives, dies. I could experience at that time a fullness and as I said above, a mystery that transcended the rigid binaries which result from treating sexual, in fact, all human experience as something we have to dissect with scalpels and pull apart with forceps.

I’m not advocating for an end to circumcision, as it is a boundary-crossing, consensual ritual of initiation for males in many cultures, but, significantly, also a source of horrific pain and suffering for so many, especially women and girls who are circumcised in order to completely suppress their sexual desire, eliminate it like it is indeed something dirty and thus disordered. They in essence are forced into becoming objects only defined by what the culture deems as purity, but at the same time depriving them of living as full, complete persons.

Yes, there’s dangerous realities we do need to contain, as a virus plagues the world and we must first try and control it, then eradicate it, by amplifying up to the nth degree our bathroom rituals of cleansing and purifying. But our complicated, messy, exciting and ultimately glorious sexuality can and should become for humans both dangerous and pure, exploding the tension in that binary if only for a moment. A holy moment.

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