JANUARY 1977

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15

my clothes. Under the moustache I was grand, old | glorious me, but whatever slenby he left the man sucking him der bond these men felt for me and started working on the as a male would have been beauty. shattered if I revealed myself as Amid all this one-dimensional a woman. I began to get angry sexual activity people still look that woman would freak out for the "right one." It's romansome of these men. Their ticism in a mechanical setting, sexuality was their business. All with a heavy load of ego. Each I wanted to do was remove my man wants a partner worthy of robe, my cod piece, the him even if it's for a hand job. moustache and feel the sensual Since erection is the whole pleasure of heat and nakeness. show, some men will hold their But naked I would become come if they're being worked on frightening to some of these in one part of the baths and go men. Their sexuality depended to another part to see if there's on my absence. Men are someone better to shoot for. terrified of being women; they Another reason they hold back don't want to identify with us in is because if a man comes first any way and gay men are no he's got to keep working on the exception. We still aren't people other guy and that can become to them. a colossal bore. In the orgy room you can leave someone, but in the cubicles there's more responsibility to your partner. The pressure of controlling your

erection and orgasm adds to the

sense of tension already existing here.

The steam bath and sauna were the only places remaining after the cubicles. Descending a narrow staircase busy with traffic we checked into the sauna first. The heat didn't wilt intense sexual activity. The steam baths proved even busier. The hissing of the steam, the mist and sweat provoked hot sex. My

At 1:30 a.m. after three-and-a-

HIGH GEAR

men sexually, in, an anonymous situation, the way men can trust each other. Some men do need a ballet of submission or conquest for their sexual adventure, both here in the baths and but I don't. To those of us forced out in the heterosexual world, to live beneath our abilities politically, sexually, socially, artistically and economically, sexual submission carries no hidden shudder of delight.

The men in the baths can walk out on the streets and reclaim all the privileges of maleness unless they are courageous enough to come out publicly and identify themselves as homosexuals. I walked out of the baths as I walk out anywhere, a woman. Although gay men are oppressed they have the baths as a retreat, an

such sexual/social outlet.

half hours, we left the baths. outlet, a fantasy farm. I have no Triumph! I felt as though I had stowed away on the Queen Mary. But I still had a question:

is this fuck palace the ultimate

conclusion of sexist logic or is it

erotic freedom? Perhaps the answer varies with each man who frequents The Club. Some men go to enjoy themselves and that's all there is to it. For other men the baths become central to their existence. Adventure, thrills, acceptance narrows down to a few inches of cock attached to strange and therefore wonderful men. In anonymity

each man can be Minotaur or victim.

moustache drooped dangerously. By, now my own frustration hit a peak, partly To a woman anonymity is because I love steam and partly currently undesirable and because I was tired of the frightening. Rape is often deception. I wanted to take off anonymous. Women can't trust

Women build no Xanadus

because we are oppressed in a different way than the we lack the money but we lack homosexual male. Not only do the. concept. Despite changing attitudes toward sex we can't create our version of the baths because, for most of us, sex for the sake of sex is still wrong whether you are a heterosexua! woman or a lesbian. Cigarette manufacturers tell us we've come a long way, sociologists write books about our sexual liberation, yet we build no stately pleasure dome to enjoy this so-called liberation. Sex still calls up awesome emotions, the old tryannies of romance. We scramble to invest sex with love and we call men dogs because

they've been taught to separate the two. If a woman manages to distinguish between sex and love and her needs for both, she's "fast", as grandma used to say, whether she is straight or gay.

So I return to the question rattling in my mind ever since I peeled off my moustache. Sexism or erotic freedom depends on the person and yes, I do want a Xanadu. I want the option of random sex with no emotional commitment when I need sheer physical relief: erotic freedom. Our Xanadu would be less competitive than the gay men's baths, more laughter would ring in the sauna and you'd touch not only to fuck but just to touch. It is in our interest to build places where we have relief, refuge, release. Xanadu is not a lurid dream, it's the desire of a woman to have options. Like men we should have choices; deep long-term relationships, the baths, shortterm affairs. And those choices are not mutually exclusive.

Going to The Club taught me more about women's sexuality than it did about men's sexuality. And it taught me about myself. Like all human growth, sexual growth is ongoing.

PAGE 19

same: sexual release. The deeper need, human contact, love, exists also. Men simply have more ways to mask that love than women do. The real lesson for me was that there were moments in this strangest of places when I forgot to be different.

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