Episode 4 - Jerry & Lee

Cruising the piers in 1980s NYC, sexy pilgrims, watching OZ for gay sex tips, first love at fat camp & making consent sexy. These are just some of the themes that Dave and guest host Lee discuss in this episode of Fruitbowl.

My name is Jerry. I'm about 105, or fifties in gay years. I live in Seattle, was born in Queens, and raised in Long Island. 

I got to dig this up, I was in first grade and it was Thanksgiving and I drew a picture of a Pilgrim with an open shirt and hairy chest, and my mother's like, “You're so artistic!” I was like, “No mama I'm a homo.” So yeah, at an early age I knew that. It was just coming to terms with that and embracing that. I think the moment that I acknowledged that, the only time I watched the Dukes of Hazard, is when I knew that the Duke boys were not wearing a shirt. 

I'm old, so, I mean, back in the day when we had cable, we had a box and there was three rows of channels. And if you were lucky you had the Playboy station, but if you could push down two at the same time, you may be able to flip over to the Playboy station and get like a grainy view of some sex going on. It was straight porn, you know? And it's like, yeah a lot of tit and ass with the females, and if you got a cock out of that, that was a bonus. 

I think for a lot of gays, the locker room is a place of pleasure and pain at the same point. It was like, all right you get to look at your friends and classmates, but also not to be outed at the same time. 

Being an older gay, it was much more complicated because there was no internet. There was none of that. I mean, I had no gay friends. I'm the eldest. So it was really just learning by chance and learning from older men of what goes where and what happens, through experience. It wasn't until my late teens, early twenties, to be able to embrace having sex without being a place of anger or rage or abuse.

I found the Chelsea piers in New York, in the mid eighties, which is a cornucopia of beautiful gay sex in the open down past Christopher Street. You walk down Christopher street, right across the highway and the pier right there. It was the mid eighties at the rise of the AIDS epidemic, so part of the pier system was a “fuck you” to the universe and to our government. It's like, we're just going to be who we are and have sex and do what we want, but basically it was a pier where men just hung out naked and bathed in the sun and whatever happened happened, and that was accepted. We looked out for each other, even if we didn't know each other. If some police were coming, we would all put our clothes on in an instant. So there definitely was a buddy system with that. It was basically the piers that I learned the dynamics of what sex was. 

So I had to be around anywhere from 19 to 21. I didn't have a car yet, so I had to be under 21 and I wasn't legal to get into bars per se. I mean, we all always found a way to get in. But I met this guy at the piers, and it's killing me because I've been thinking about this all day, I can't remember his name. So we'll call him Rich because he was a banker and had some money. And he lived on north shore Long Island, and me living on the south shore. We hit it off. I fucked him in public. We exchanged numbers and we had an affair for like a year. And he would pick me up like once a month, his wife would travel a lot, and I would come over. And look, 19, 20 years old, a date is Boone's Farm and Burger King. And here you have a man that's red wine, and steak and shrimp, and a lot of cocaine, so I was in heaven. 

One night we're hanging out and he actually called me before he's picking me up. He's like, “I want you to fist me tonight.” I'm like, “I have no idea what that is.” I have no access to, again, internet or any of that stuff. So I'm like, “Alright.” And I come over and we're eating and drinking. And then he tells me what the hell that is. I'm like, “Oh, we're going to need a lot more cocaine for this.” Again, it was the eighties, cocaine was like a Colombian hello. It was everywhere. So he's like, “Well, I got an eight ball.” I was like, “Well, what are you going to use? Because that's all for me.” So he had two eight balls and we threw down. 

And one of the challenges about having sex with him is we would go back to his place and he had this Great Dane that would love to watch as we fucked. And I love dogs. I love most dogs except this dog had, like, the bloodhound eyes. I can't handle bloodhounds. They make me nervous. I'm like, “How do I make you happy? You look sad all the time.” So this dog would sit there watching us and he would be like, “Well, it's his house too.” I'm like, “This is creepy, but fuck it.” So the time comes and I'm pretty high, and going in. I mean, I'm a young man so you're limber. I'm able to get in and also do lines at the same time, and plugging away. And then out of the corner of my eye I see the dog. I see the dog, which creeps me out to begin with. It lets out like this weird noise and I just see it fall to its side. I look over and it pisses and shits all over the floor. So both of us stopped, but like, “What the fuck is happening?” And then we realized the fucking dog dropped dead. 

So he's freaking the hell out. He jumps out of bed, totally freaked out, neglecting to realize that my arm is up his ass. Like my hand is holding onto his spinal cord at this point. So I go flying off the bed as he jumps out. Clip the nightstand, hit my head, buckets of blood everywhere. It's kind of like The Shining when the elevator doors open up and all the blood come out. He's on the floor crying, you know, poor dog's dead. I'm on the bed crying. Not because I'm in pain, not because there's blood everywhere, and not because we spilled the cocaine, but because your instinct– What is the first thing you do when you hurt yourself? You cover yourself. And I promptly rubbed frothy shit all in my eyeball. It was awful. So that was our last date.

It was the worst car ride home ever. I actually was too high to go home. He dropped me off at the Huntington train station. I took another eight ball and danced the night off in New York City. And that was the last time we saw each other. So that would have to be it. You know, my worst sex experience. There you go.

My best move in bed is if both parties don't get physically or emotionally hurt. That is a win. 

I would have to say, growing up in my teens and into my twenties, I was with both men and women. And this is going to steal some gay points away from my life, I was good at eating pussy. I loved it only because I didn't have to perform. I'm like, “I will go to town.” That I think enhanced my ability to eat ass at the same point. I don't want Giardia, again. Not a good look. But I would have to say that I'm a hungry little man that just wants to eat, you know?

I love watching other people get off. I love it. If I'm in control and I'm going to get you off, I get off on that, you know? And it depends on who I'm with, then what that looks like. Part of that could be the switch or the power play, which I enjoy. There's also moments of actually being emotionally and intellectually intimate with somebody. And just even having that intimate moment. Or, we're gonna fuck, we're gonna get bruises, we're going to bite and scratch and get rug burns. I mean, it really depends on the context. I really can't say. It's like Sophie's Choice. What child would you pick? It's a cornucopia, why would you limit yourself to one? The person, the environment or sobriety, you know? I mean, whisky dick fuck. 

At my age it's limited. Age. I have some people I'm with that are 20 years younger than me. And they'll call me up on a Monday night at 11, being like, “What are you doing?” I'm like, “I'm in bed” They're like, “I'll be right over.” It's like, “That's not a fucking invitation.” And in your twenties you want to fuck five times in a row. I'm like, “Look, I got three rounds in me. After that it's like rubbing a genie lamp, a cloud of smoke's coming out and you're not getting three wishes. Sorry.” So it really depends on the context.

So if I had the opportunity to go back and look at my baby gay self, there would be a multitude of things. To love yourself, to embrace who you are and to be gentle on yourself. My formative years was the ugly eighties at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. And that just heightened my own inner homophobia. And it gave people permission to hate gay people. It was awful. I mean, it mimics our country now, you know? So yeah, to really just love myself. It took me a long time to love who I am and to love other people. I was great at fucking people. You want a fucking bruise? Throw down, you got it. But to be intimate and to make love it took me years to learn. So I would encourage my younger self to do that.

My name’s Lee, I’m 31 and I’m from Fairfield, Connecticut.

My childhood was so bizarre. I actually grew up like on one hand quite religious and on the other hand was like a total free range child. So it was a combination of things.

I learned about sex from a book that I read in the third grade about the human body. I was quite precocious so it was probably maybe for a middle schooler. So I read, you know, like the digestive system and the nervous system, and then it was like, oh my gosh, gametes. But I didn't really understand what I was reading yet, but I knew that sperm and ovum existed from the third grade on. 

I was not a cool kid. I was super queer and I didn't know it. I mean, I knew it, but I didn't know it yet, and I just went to the library a lot after school, ‘cause it was across the street from my elementary school. And my parents told me that I had to be a doctor in this really stereotypical Jewish way. So I was just like, I should probably read a lot about science. And so it was like no other reason. It wasn't like I was actively finding it, but like, once that knowledge was gleaned, there was no turning back. And then also I watched Oz as it aired live. I might have still been in like elementary school because I moved in the fourth grade and I remember watching it in like the condo that I lived in until the summer before I started fourth grade. So I was too young to be watching Oz. And so I learned a lot about sex from Oz. And that's not so great for understanding consent or anything like that. But I would say that the combination of the two things: I had the science side and I had the very graphic prison sex. And yeah, that's it. That's where I learned about sex. Notwithstanding, it's still one of my favorite shows.
My house, like I said, was so weird and I found the previous tenant's porn stash. I just was like in the upstairs bathroom, which is like between the room I shared with my sister and my parents had like a small suite, but we shared this bathroom at the top of the stairwell and there was a medicine cabinet tucked in an alcove.

And I think I was like climbing a chair or a step stool to get something on the top shelf like sunblock or something. And I put my hand on top and there was a little dip and I felt something glossy up there. So I just started to pull and I was just like, “Holy moly, what is this?” So I found eight hardcore smut magazines and then they were like mine. I just remember like a lot of shiny purple G-strings and really gross veiny all over like fake tan dudes and like always bald, always like 10 to 15 years older than their female counterparts. And a lot of acrylic nails. Oh yeah, there was penetration. And I hid them. I was dumb and I didn't put them back or I found them. ‘Cause at that point we had lived in the house for two years and nobody else had seemingly had found them. And I hid them interspersed between all my other magazines. And then that's also how I got caught ‘cause I didn't do a very good job at hiding them. Yeah, so that was that story. So they were mine for I’d say like three or six months until I got caught. Just I ran into a shame hole and cried for three days until my grounding was over.

But by middle school or early high school we had gotten internet at home and I was really into this website called girl.com. Like late nineties, early aughts vibe. And it was like watered down what was happening here with Riot Girl and stuff like that.

But it was like, let's talk about how to protect yourself from STDs and boundaries and these other things. So people would talk about their own experiences. So that was when I started to get into more safer spaces surrounding sex and sexuality. But again, like super queer, super burbs. I wasn't like kissing my friends or anything like that. It wasn't like I was in the closet, but it just felt so unsafe. So I was just really living this internet life and just like reading a lot of poorly written soft core erotica written by like other creative teens. And so yeah, I would say that that's like when I really started to seek it out and engage more, even if it was just more like in a cyber sense.

The first time I had really strong queer attractions… My parents sent me to Fat Camp and when I got there I met this fat, butch, Hispanic girl from Sacramento and I was like, done. I was like toast. I just followed her around the next eight weeks between water aerobics and weigh-ins and I think everybody thought that we were sleeping together because there was a double room open in our suite and the counselor… all the people in the dorm were, like, “Let's make it like a fun and hangout room.” And then you saw the counselor's eyes dart to us and she's like, “I need to lock that door.” So nothing ever really happened outside of like stolen kisses. But that was my first like hardcore queer crush.

I have like my first gross straight sex first time. Then I have my more first queer sex first time. And then I have l even though it's like real, like late in the game almost what I consider like more authentic first time.

For gross straight sex, I just got bored and I was like living at my parents' house and I was just like, “Okay, I just wanna start sleeping with strangers like everybody else I know.” So I went on to OK Cupid  and I went on a date with somebody. I think he was skinny. He was kind of lanky and that's it. And we bonded over the fact that we both had worked at Pier One and it was pretty awful over C grade Caesar salads. And then it was just like, “Mmm, should we go back to your place?” “Yeah.”  And then I was just like, “Okay, unceremoniously, this is it. I'm just like over it.” And it was exactly what having sex with a cis straight dude sounds like. You're lying there. It's bad. Like nobody cares. He fell asleep. It was a twin bed, I'm pretty sure. Like I don't even put that much thought into it because I'm just like, “Eh. Like what was that?” And then I remember just sitting naked on his couch, texting my friends, being like, “What do I do?” Leaving and making out with somebody different the next day or like within a few days. Leaving and never talking again. It's sad that these unceremonious sexual experiences are really normal for people, right? And like, we're not part of a culture where we talk about how to think about your partner. I was missing language to describe being non-binary. That was what I was really missing. I just was like, “Everybody else is doing it. I don't have a hangup. I don't wanna be like a virgin at marriage, a concept they don't believe in. I just… I am gonna go get it over with.” And I did.

I was living in a rural part of Connecticut - about as rural as you're gonna get within three hours of New York City. And so it was rural enough that if you wanted to date, you were going to have to drive. So I was like seeing a person who lived in a different town. We both needed to grow a lot as people so it was very tumultuous, but I was just very sexually attracted to them. And so I think on our second date I was just like, “Can I fuck you like already? Can we just get this over with?” And so I was living in the house of a 50 something year old lesbian hoarder at the time and they were living at their sister's house. So we were like, “Hmm, this isn't so great. We're having like teen problems right here.” So they stayed at their other sister's house who lived on a lake and it was really nice and cute. So they invited me over after dinner and we were fooling around making out in their bedroom there. Finally we stripped down naked, starts to get hotter and heavier, and the sister came home and like, not just came home, but that family had real poor boundaries and she opened the fucking door. And I was like, “I barely even know this person that I'm sleeping with and now I'm meeting their sister and I'm naked.” That was probably the most embarrassing sexual experience I’ve had. Unless I've blacked something out deep in my brain, I can't think of anything worse than that and nothing since has happened that can top that.

We went to Provincetown in Cape Cod where her family had a house, and so she zipped the twin beds together because we couldn't have sex in any of the other beds ‘cause like other family members slept there. You can probably sense reasons why this didn't last very long. So we show up in P-Town and then we had dinner and we went back to the house and started to make out. And I remember like making out on the couch and kind of like power moves and they were sitting on the couch and I was kind of dancing a little and like taking my clothes off and the buttons and things are flying everywhere. We go back into the bedroom and at this point we're just naked, hands everywhere, lots of heavy petting. 

And then they're like, “I have a birthday surprise for you.” 

And I'm like, “What?”

And they start like wiggling the fucking harness up and they're like, “I got you a present.” And, honestly, it just was like this unimpressive red dick. And I was like, “Cool.” 

And they're like, “I'm gonna fuck you with this.”

And I was like “Cool.” And it just moved forward from there. 

There was some like gentle dick sucking and caressing and then, you know, like she fucked me. But honestly, it was a lot like the first, first time where I just kind of lied there and it was just very unceremonious after a certain point and I was like, “You seem to be working really hard.” It didn't feel good to the ratio of effort that was being exerted on the part of my partner. But you know what? I think that it really goes back to the same point as my first, first time where the communication wasn't there. So it doesn't matter how hard you're working, if you're not talking during sex, it's probably gonna be bad. It was a cool surprise and I felt very cared for in a way. But on the other hand, like, if you're gonna specifically buy a dick for this relationship, maybe bring me or at least ask me. Cause like, you know, that was part of the problem. It wasn't the dick for me. You know, on the receiving end. And so yeah, it just felt again like kind of unceremonious ‘cause I wasn't consulted in my own pleasure.

In a former life, I was a total pillow princess because I was sleeping with people who were into that dynamic. There was always like so many hang ups and they were not necessarily my hangups, but like the other person always wanted to be in this role. Like, “I'm the top and I'm gonna please you.” And I could never really even get that into it because I was just like, I can do really great performative work, but I cannot make my body do things that it's not wanting to. And so I think I was just tricking all of us into thinking that it was really fun, including myself. So I frustrated many a top in a previous incarnation of self.

I actually really struggled for a little bit cuz I wanted to be a top. And I was like, well, if I'm not a pillow princess, I'm obviously a top, but that's not true. And I really now more identify as vers and really emphasize just like consent and communication over anything else. And so I've given up having a label or having a job, I'm a team player now. And I'm just open to sort of … I'm not gonna say endless possibilities, but I'm gonna say like almost endless possibilities that can occur if two people have a good connection and good communication.

I would say my brand is pretty hot right now and my favorite move is if I'm going down on somebody to just stare into their soul via their eyes. Like, I've made many a person just sort of lose their shit from doing that. But more so than that confusing ability ‘cause like, I am not even sure how I can do it ‘cause like I am not wearing my glasses being blind as a bat, but somehow it still works. I think like my ability to make consent sexy, which has been really difficult to figure out how to do, but to integrate this pleasure and pleasing aspect of sex with consent has been this thing that I've really had to be aware of to figure out how to make the dynamic work and that fine line.

But once I figured out the sweet spot, I actually think that that's my best move. “Do you like it when I touch you here?” Or like, “May I take this article of clothing off?” And then like doing it for them, like really delicately and sensually. Or “May I take my own article of clothing off?” Or like, “Do you like, you know, to be touched here?” And I think that's extra important now I am more having sex with gender queer and trans folks and we have really complicated relationships with our bodies. So like, I think it's also just really reaffirming in those regards and that's what makes the sex good because you're showing respect, right? To people who might have some baggage and so that has been my power move more than anything else.

“Don't trust what you see and what you read,” would be my number one advice to myself in particular. I think it could apply to other people too, but we've talked about my experiences, right? Like I wasn't having dialogues, I was having one sided conversations with media and I think that I had this very juxtaposed exposure to sexual knowledge. I had this very, very in-depth scientific knowledge of how an egg is fertilized and then I had knowledge of hardcore porn and very graphic, often non-consensual sex that was happening in a prison on HBO. And that's not good. Those are very extreme examples of knowledge, especially if you don't have a lot of it.

So just don't believe what you read and what you see as real, that's not what sex is. I think when I was younger, it would've been nice to have more knowledge of consent. Like to learn about consent before learning about sex, learning about boundaries and also learning that sex isn't just penis in vagina. It's so much broader than that. I think having a broader definition and a consent based definition would have been the healthiest thing for me and a lot of other folks I know as well. That was sort of how I knew that like queerness existed was from Oz and even if it wasn't like great portrayals, they did have people who were gender nonconforming whether by choice or by prison structural power dynamics engaging in sex acts, whether consensual or not with other prisoners or other guards or whatever. So yeah, it did give me this exposure, but also it still had this catch of like, somebody is a giver and somebody's a receiver and these roles are really fixed and you are like a lesser person if you're like the receiver. That was still really built into Oz.

So even though it was exposure to not straight sex, it still had a lot of really toxic hang-ups. There are relationships in the show where people are having consensual sex, but a lot of the sex in Oz is violent and coercive. So it wouldn't even fit like my definitions of like, what is sex and what is sexy? It's much more rape. Right? And so that's not sex. But it was being presented as such and I didn't have the other knowledge to discern that because I was far too young to be watching that show. And so I think just being armed with very different knowledge or knowing how to tease what I needed out of it would've been really helpful. Or maybe if they gave me a book that was comprehensive and age appropriate, that could have been helpful too.