Performed in public, discussed in the public realm, regulated by public agency, encouraged or discouraged by design, criminalized, or celebrated with flags, sex in public is a critical component of a queer sensibility, if not actual behavior. It’s the end of May as I write and the big rainbow flags are going up along Market Street, an event that in recent years prompts me to ponder the state of Gaydom in America generally, and San Francisco in particular. Does the flag even mean anything anymore, or does it, by virtue of lasting as long as it has mean more now than ever, like the flag of a middle-aged nation? This year, with major “victories” under our collective LGBT belt in the form of marriage equality, I can’t help but ask at what cost? Sexual liberation, feminism and radical identity politics seem to shrivel away in order not to distract from the marriage agenda, and we can certainly no longer claim the label “fugitive sensibility” that Susan Sontag attached to us way back in 1964. Even the resurgence of a radical sensibility and politics with the AIDS epidemic in the form of direct-action activism, art and literature has given way largely to a desire, above all else, to fit in, or at least the appearance of such a desire. We all know “fitting in” has always come at a very high price to self—not just for LGBT folks. Add to that the simmering issue of wealth inequality, Google busses and evictions sweeping this town like never before, Facebook and other big money corporate sponsorship of the SF Pride parade, and it’s clear that the city’s days as America’s gay Mecca are numbered, if not already over. This year also marks the 25^th anniversary of the 6^th International AIDS Conference held in San Francisco in 1990 and the large demonstrations staged at that time by ACTUP and other groups in the city; the event that also marks my own entre into activism and a more radical feminist way of thinking with the help of some powerfully smart dykes inhabiting the city and ACTUP back then. But, this essay wasn’t going to be about politics or economics; it was going to be about the sex, literally sex in public places. But, in the words of that women’s liberation classic from 1969: “The Personal is Political.” Also perhaps the greatest gift and curse of an aging mind is the ability to synthesize divergencies—even if incompletely—to realize that literally everything is connected to everything else. The hardest thing becomes to actually focus on one thing.

I moved to San Francisco hungry for experience and knowledge. The city seemed at first like a big gay library where no question would go unanswered, and where anything might happen in the “stacks.” A friend and I enrolled in a night class shortly after moving to SF through City College, called “Homosexual Anthropologies.” I was curious, and wanted to know everything about my “tribe” and its offshoots.  Our first assignment was to draw a map of our queer space. I based my map entirely on the comfort zone for holding hands with a boy, from 18^th and Castro outward to the boundaries where we would most likely drop each other’s hands in an awkward pretense of casual parting, or perhaps a sneeze. Of course when you’re with a brand new boyfriend, feeling turned on and invincible, that zone is quite large, extending even to downtown, though never as far the Marina or God forbid Fisherman’s Wharf. The area always shrinks with time though, and abuses suffered; the boldness of a new love can put you in serious danger. I remember once making out on Mission St. around 22^nd in a bus stop with a boy and being warned by a kindly stranger that such behavior really wasn’t safe there—as if we didn’t know. My map showed a very tight radius for holding hands “without even thinking twice” extending only a couple of blocks, and dropping hands occurred around Sanchez, Duboce Park and Delores Park. Uphill toward Twin Peaks was still a mystery. Happily I think that litmus test map of gay freedom to hold hands has expanded quite a lot in 25 years (acceptance for being “normal” i.e. a couple?) though I still cringe at the site of a straight couple exchanging a casual but passionate kiss over a baby stroller, not because I would deny them their complete lack of fear and feeling of entitlement, but because its so easy, nothing is risked, and that is a feeling gay people almost never experience. The course’s final assignment was meant to be more challenging, and it was. We were all to choose a subculture of the larger queer panoply from a list provided that we knew the least about, immerse ourselves in it, and write a paper. There were several who picked S/M, a couple of lesbians wanted to try to get into a bathhouse, and some chose ACTUP of which I was already a member. It just so happened that right at that time local news was buzzing about an upcoming national meeting of the controversial group NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association). I told the instructor of my choice, which she supported, but warned me that twice in the past students had chosen this research topic and then disappeared never to complete the course. I felt like the conference would be a relatively safe place to learn about this group of proponents and practitioners of intergenerational love between males, and I was confident nothing illegal would happen during the event as it was held over a long weekend at The Women’s Building, but soon discovered that to register for the conference I actually had to join NAMBLA. This didn’t scare me too much in those pre-NSA days, though I was assured that becoming a member would land me on some kind of “watch list,” which it may well have done. However, not being sexually attracted to kids, again I felt reasonably safe, and even more curious at the idea of becoming identified as an outlaw. After all at some point in our history all queer people would have been literally outlaws somewhere, if not still. The conference was truly eye-opening. It was large with a few hundred participants, and surprisingly included some women. Missing though was anyone under the age of 18, which made the whole thing a bit suspect, but the reason is obvious. One extremely brave and articulate 16 year old boy did show up on the final day to speak about initiating his affair with an adult. His appearance at the conference appeared to go without incident, though I’m sure there were cops in the audience so who knows what happened after. What the group presented as their reason-for-being had little outwardly to do with an old man’s attraction to youth and everything to do with empowering young people and bestowing rights upon them beyond treatment as the property of their parents, a message that resonates with most any queer, and certainly did with me at that time. There was definitely a Radical Revolutionary Workers Party presence (a group who infiltrated virtually everything back then) but the focus was on kids rights. Position papers were presented on a variety of political issues and I was genuinely impressed by what seemed honest and I was reminded not to prejudge any of my people—though as my teacher had predicted, I never wrote that paper. I don’t think I really had time to crystalize everything I’d heard, and as convincing as some of it was, I remained skeptical that all those present had the same honorable motives. NAMBLA’s platform does not translate to men and underage girls for a host of what seemed like good reasons of power imbalance. That position was made very clear by one of the best speakers of the weekend, incidentally a woman.

In the second half of the 1980s, the height of the AIDS epidemic, while studying Landscape Architecture at the University of Oregon and beginning to develop an activist political bent, I became fascinated with the social power of public space (architecture and landscape) to reinforce or to challenge cultural norms, whether by intent or through appropriation by a subculture or minority group—sexual minorities in particular of course. Ten years later, working as a landscape architect, I was asked by a coworker and friend to help him with his role as research assistant on a new book being written by the architectural curator of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. That book, published in 1997, was, I thought, the book I had always wanted to write. Even its title, “Queer Space” was the same that I had used a few years earlier for a small “affinity group” within ACTUP that for a month or two plastered The Castro district with “Rules for Straight Behavior” printed on large bright orange stickers to be stuck onto utility poles. We also spray-painted crosswalks with the simple slogan “behave or be gone.” The older assimilationist gays in the “Stro” back then hated this and would soon create a little goon squad of do-gooders calling themselves “Castro Cleanup” to go out each night to scrape the poles clean of any content, which united activists, club promoters and people with lost pets against them—a battle the merchants and their goons ultimately won. Strangely my most frightening arrest among many, including some fairly violent demonstrations against the Gulf War and battles with Randel Terry’s anti-abortion thugs, was during this quite tame stickering campaign. I was picked off alone one night by police, having not yelled “Mary!” (code for cops) loudly enough for anyone to rally around me before disappearing into a squad car. I spent that night in Mission Station cuffed to a bar in a holding cell decked out in the standard “dangerous” looking AIDS activist gear of shredded jeans, black leather biker jacket adorned with cock rings, chains and stickers, and of course Doc Martins, while surrounded by some authentically dangerous characters wearing much tamer outfits. Of course I knew better than to get arrested alone—a big no-no in civil disobedience circles—but never thought I’d get arrested for posting flyers. The cleanup (sterilization/neutering) of The Castro is nearly complete now. New “streetscape” (a common term in my profession that I abhor) is like the final nail in the coffin bearing any hint of subversive subculture, save the odd dildo in a shop window; strangely, or not, coinciding precisely with the snow-balling “success” of marriage equality. Be careful what you ask for, when what you’re asking for is acceptance. I don’t use “subversive” as a negative obviously, but as a challenge to the norm. The one lesson I’ve hung on to from my years spent reading Ayn Rand, while pretty much everything else has gone in the dumpster, is her assertion that we must “question everything,” but as a community we didn’t question the institution of marriage, we coveted it, and now we too are stuck with antiquated, heavily loaded terms like “husband” and “wife” to describe our loved ones, terms that I imagine cause enlightened straight couples to cringe as much as me. I’ll stick with “partner” though I used to prefer “lover” for precisely its shock value in conjuring an image of what was actually being suggested, but alas for a 25 year relationship it’s inadequate. ….I’ve strayed from sex in public again.

What the author of that new book “Queer Space” wanted, and why his research assistant and my friend had asked me to help, were photographs of the inside of a huge new sex club known for its themed spaces that included a “campground” made up of a dozen or so “semi-private” tents. The author had heard about the interior but never been and neither had my friend. The author had made all sorts of assumptions about the meaning of the various design elements within this very “queer space,” but was either too afraid or… well too afraid to experience it for himself. I can’t think of another reason. As for my friend, the extremely attractive research assistant, I have no idea what he had to be afraid of, but he was born Catholic. Of course he knew to ask me as a frequenter of such establishments. The tents never interested me, nor did anything else about this club other than being a few blocks from my home. I knew the tents were really just a cheap way to create some private hookup space in the era of sex clubs vs. bathhouses. This was the era of sex in public that followed Dianne Feinstein’s closure of all San Francisco Bathhouses in 1985—the definition of a bathhouse being private rooms with locks on the doors and nothing at all to do with water. From that moment I was prepared to hate the upcoming book, written by someone who couldn’t even bring himself to experience the thing he wanted to write about in a smart and critical way; the book that I was meant to write. I pretty much did hate the book in the end. It spent way too much time on tired spatial icons of gaydom like the interior decorating of Oscar Wilde and of course Studio 54, a place in which I’ve never understood the level of fascination; I suppose because I was born a bit late for it to be anything but mainstream, but maybe that was the point the author made (the mainstreaming of gay culture) but I really don’t remember. I labelled the author a prude and wrote him off, though I never met him, and he’s no longer at SFMOMA.

I’ve always been baffled by gays who don’t have a burning curiosity to see or experience every possible aspect of our culture, but it seems that for many, just as strong as the urge to experience sex in public is the fear of it. I too remember that fear—it passes quickly. Every generation has its prudes and its horn dogs, with the current generation of gays dominated by the former. The internet revolution, which should have opened minds seems to have achieved the opposite. I’m always very suspicious of categorizing people by a historical block of time in which they were born anyway. I’m officially a “Baby Boomer,” but what does that mean? Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are Boomers, but so are Courtney Love, Susan Sarandon and Camille Paglia. They were all walking around on the same planet at the same time, but certainly their take-away lessons have been quite different so far, as will be their legacies. Of course as important as when one comes of age is where one does it. I had two, first in Portland at the end of the 1970s at the beginning of my 20s, and then San Francisco at the end of the 1980s and start of my 30s—very different times and very different places. San Francisco is where I always knew I wanted to be, but my knowledge of it was vague at best, spending no time here as a kid or young adult. For me the city actually exceeded its own mythology like no other place I’ve been since, admittedly though I may not have fully grasped the myth, some events and phenomena that I knew about were not placed specific to here in my mind. As soon as I arrived at my knew home in the Castro, on the eve of Gay Pride, June 1989, I understood for the first time all those references to Dorothy and The Wizard of Oz that I’d heard for years. Here was a place and a night wholly created to express a sense of freedom by the people who lived here, and as I would soon learn almost none of them born in San Francisco. Some of my earliest recollections of the city are of edgy art events like “Body Manipulations” at Theater Artaud, with a tanned human skin hanging on the wall and live labia piercings, or “How to Read a Dirty Movie” live with Suzie Bright at The Roxie. There was a lot of this stuff happening here in the early nineties. The city was fatigued of disease and death, and in the mood to fight back in all sorts of ways—creativity flourished. Sex also flourished under new banners proclaiming a sex-positive public health campaign. Guilt and fear faded with knowledge. Opening night at Eros was… to be continued.