... the most common penalty was death so in a really bad way this was somewhat of a movement forward. It took over 200 years for the U.S. supreme court to over turn these types of laws making it illegal to discriminate against anyone because of their sexual orientation. In 1961 Illinois was the first state to abolish the sodomy law making it legal for two consenting adults to perform what ever sexual acts they wished. Of course there was the stonewall riots when in 1969 police raided a NYC gay bar arresting customers and performers. This turned into a three day riot that was one of the first of [...]
The Toilet New York City’s 1970′s Gay Bar
The Toilet was once New York City’s most outrageous gay man’s Bar, housed in an old 1886 Building known as the Kelly Building and Henry Aubert Paper, Boxes on 14th street and Ninth Avenue in the Meat Packing District. The Toilet located at 400 West 14th Street from what we hear was exactly that! Perfect bar for those “Wet n Messy” kinky voyeurs that seek out a little more excitement than just your average vanilla sex acts. In order to enter this bar you would have to enter an elevator from the ground level and take it up to the 3rd floor. Below we [...]
Just an Innocent Boy From the Suburbs of Toronto
... Everybody, I have a few stories to share with you about New York City and what it was like for me to discover it at the tender age of 15. Let me preface my memories by first explaining how it was that I ended up there. The late 70′s and early 80′s were very important pivotal years for gay rights in Toronto. There use to be a a gay bar called the St Charles on Yonge St., Toronto’s main strip. Somehow a “tradition” was started every Halloween when HUNDREDS of homophobes would line the opposite side of Yonge, directly [...]
They Came With a Sign in Thier Hands
... with the word activist in front of her on Logo. Someone explain this to me. I wonder if they called her iPhone or she called theirs. She’s a hater folks, not an activist! Drag queens are the first to try to raise money grassroots for causes and yet we are treated quite shamefully sometimes by the rest of the gay world the other 362 days of the year. Our wonderful transgendered people at least HAVE a letter in LGBT. Be open, be out, be outspoken! Get in the getup and go to your local gay bar often! Drag queens [...]
Oppression by Example
... this blatant disrespect and the associated crimes against our community. Religion fuels the fire and our government sits on its hands. In this environment some feel justified in taking action against us. Many of them feel they are doing the world a favor. Most of these actions are religiously based. Through out my life I have had the displeasure of hearing many stories about beatings and murders directed towards an actual or perceived homosexual. Like the one from the 80s where a marine left a gay bar and ended up in a hotel room with a gay man. The [...]
NYC 1983
New York City 1983 the girl bars: Network, Shescape, Rusty’s the music: Holiday, Madonna White Lines, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five Ain’t Nobody, Chaka Khan Sweet Dreams, Eurythimics Just be Good to Me, SOS Band All Night Long, Lionel Ritchie It’s late summer, early fall. I came out earlier this year, while home in San Francisco. I’ve spent the summer in New York, discovering GIRLS. Walking down streets in my fiorucci t-shirts and leggings and bleached blond crew cut. I’ve been working at some escort service that used to be an in-house joint but is out call only now, [...]
My Addiction, My Recovery, My Story – ThaTBob
... treatable disease which means that it will never get any better if I kept it up, and it will always, always get worse. I learned that AA had the most success with people who recover. That was the good news. The bad news was only 1 out of 36 who have alcoholism will recover. And that’s if your a straight person. The really bad news for us gay folks is that the recovery rate among us is not 1 out of 36, but a frightening 1 out of 175. What that means friends is that when we go to [...]