NYSocBoy's Beefcake and Bonding

In February 2009, around Valentine's Day, Chad the Satyr's housemate and I broke up, and I was ready to start dating and hooking up again.

I was getting tired of the Gang of Twelve, the guys in Upstate New York who all had dated each other over the years and knew each other's secrets and gossipped constantly. So although I continued accepting dates with the Klingon, the Sword Swallower, and the Pitcher with a Secret Move, I started looking at other guys.

Like the water man.

That spring water coolers were all the rage. Tap water was unsafe, or at least the media said so, so everybody installed a water cooler in the kitchen, with a 5-gallon, 40-pound tank that had to be changed every week.

It was tricky changing the tanks yourself without splashing water all over, so the water companies offered a service whereby "the water man" would knock on your door once a week with a new bottle to replace the old.

They hired only the most muscular guys for the job, and my water guy, Pete, was no exception: in his 30s, short, dark-haired, with a v-shaped torso, an oval face and big hands. And a wedding ring.

None of the Gang of Twelve had ever heard of him.

Not gay.

Still, every Wednesday afternoon, when Pete arrived with my water, we chatted a little longer than usual, made a little extra eye contact. Sometimes I "accidentally" had my shirt off to see if his eyes widened.

They did.

Pete told mewas from Long Island, where he and his wife owned a house. He was in town studying music at the University. It was very expensive trying to maintain a house and an apartment, so he took the water-delivery job to make extra money.

"What does your wife do?" I asked.

"Sally is a teacher back in Long Island," Pete said. "We're separated."

Separated? The precursor to a divorce?

It made perfect sense. Why did he choose a music school upstate, when there were so many options closer to Long Island? He wanted to get as far from his wife as possible, to make a fresh start as he explored the gay world.

Now I just had to seal the deal.

The rest of the story is on Tales of West Hollywood

Ok, I've told you about 114 boyfriends, dates, hookups, and sharing experiences on four continents over a period of 36 years. I have a few more good dating/hookup stories, but it's about time to expand to some of the other things I've done. Like eat.

My memories of places I've lived often center on restaurants where we went. The food, the waiters, the people I went with, and the food.

1. Rock Island. Harris Pizza, no question, the best in the universe. We ordered several times a year when I was growing up, and I always insisted on getting it when I returned for a visit. Once I tried to pick up the guy at the counter, but my friend Dick did instead. They've been together ever since.

2. Bloomington, Indiana. Viju and I used to go to Bob's Burgers (no relation to the tv show) after an unsuccessful night of cruising at Bullwinkle's, and sometimes with out hookups after a successful night. You could get a hamburger with a fried egg on top. The waiters were paid extra to get enthusiastic over the food. And they never gave us weird looks for being two (or four) men together.

3. West Hollywood. Obviously the French Quarter, our go-to place for brunch, lunch, and an occasional dinner. Remarkable for their 8" long fried zucchini sticks. And for their cute waiters who flirted for tips. If you sat at the little tables outside, sooner or later everyone you knew would pass by. Once I hooked up with our waiter -- the next day, when I saw him at the gym.

4. San Francisco. Orphan Andy's, with a diner atmosphere, cute waiters, and even cuter clientele at the beginning of Castro Street. It was also cruisy -- my friend David hooked up with a lot of guys there.

5. New York. There were about 10 Thai restaurants in a 10 block radius of my apartment, but I always went to a little Thai restaurant near the Flatiron Building that's not there anymore. Stuffed, deep-fried chicken wings with a sweeet sauce! Never found them anywhere else. I brought Yuri there the first time he visited me in Manhattan.

6. Paris. Speaking of Thai restaurants, during my summer in Paris I went to Suam Thai almost every night, and I tried to go back whenever I visited later. No Angel wings, but good pad thai to go. I managed to hook up with the chef -- while he was still working.

7. Florida. The Courtyard Cafe, Wilton Manors' answer to the French Quarter, with a huge patio where dozens of gay men gathered for brunch every Saturday. Lunch was ok, too. My friend hooked up with a waiter here, and dated him for six months.

8. Amsterdam. Indrapura, an Indonesian restaurant notable for its chicken and beef satay, was on Rembrandtplein, just across the street from the guest house I always stayed in, and less than a mile from the Horseman's Club. I never hooked up with any waiters, but I did get cruised by a lot of the regulars.

9. Dayton. I didn't eat out much, but when I did, it was Giovanni's in Fairborn, the best pizza outside of Rock Island. You walked through a narrow hall to get there, where you could see the pizzas being made by muscular guys in tight green t-shirts.

10. Upstate New York. The Neptune Diner, one of those old-fashioned glass and steel diners that advertises "steaks and chops," whatever those are, but has a menu 30 pages long. I liked the gyros, the moussaka, the pancakes, and the chicken. Chad, the housemate of the Satyr , who I dated in the fall of 2008, was a waiter there.

11. Minnesota. No gay restaurants in this small town -- there's a gay coffee house with a limited menu -- so we always go to the Lone Star Barbecue for breakfast. Pancakes, "cowboy potatoes," and brisket-omelettes. Plus a long-haired hipster waiter with a ripped chest and huge biceps. I've seen him naked at the gym. It's only a matter of time...

Ok, looks like I included a few hookups here, too.

Every day we see, hear, and talk to friends, neighbors, coworkers, students, strangers -- and dozens of service people, the pharmacist, the plumber, the carpenter, the bus driver, the pizza delivery guy, the bookstore clerk.

99 out of 100 are female, ugly, straight, or taken, but even if you encounter that 1 in 100 that's male, cute, gay, and available, the interaction is so momentary that there's no time to determine if they're attracted to you, or just being friendly as a part of their job.

Even if you can establish a mutual interest, how do you arrange a date or a hookup with other customers waiting behind you and the boss keeping an eagle eye from a post nearby? 99 times out of 100, it's impossible, and you each go on to more accessible guys at the Rage or a M4M Party.

This is the stuff of porn movies, where the service guy is always muscular, gifted beneath the belt, and ready for action, in an empty store or on a service call with an empty schedule all afternoon.

I've only managed a few of these "porn movie" hookups or dates, where you approach the guy and make the connection while he is at work.

Here are the most interesting.

1. The Waiter. In West Hollywood, you got cruised by waiters all the time. They weren't serious. When the waiter flirted with me at the French Quarter, I just laughed it off. But the next day I saw him at the gym.

2. The Doctor. In the 1980s, doctors were usually homophobic, so you always had to be careful that your doctor was gay or gay-friendly (you still do). So when I got sick and needed a doctor right away, I stayed strictly closeted. But he said "I can do a house call tomorrow, to see if you're feeling better..."

3. The Mayor. I'm not interested in politics, and I especially wasn't while living in San Francisco, with homophobic rhetoric spewing from every press conference. But I met the youngest mayor in the U.S., who also happened to be gay, I became interested.

4. The Fireman. When I was living in graduate student housing in New York, my roommate left a pan of water on the stove all day. I returned to find the kitchen on fire. It was easily put out, but the fire department came anyway, and one of the fireman gave me his number.

5. The Chef. During my summer in Paris, I went to Suam Thai almost every night. One slow night the chef -- who was not Thai -- invited me back into the kitchen to talk about something or another, and one thing led to another.....

6. The Pizza Delivery Guy. Just after I got my Ph.D., I was visiting Rock Island, and cruised the pizza delivery guy. I was leaving town the next day, but my friend Dick sealed the deal. They've been together ever since.

7. The Hitchhiker. When my friend David came to visit me in Florida, we drove out to Key West, and picked up a hitchhiker, a college student who was happy to share a bed with us.

8. The Actor. You go to a play, your eyes meet, you go to their dressing room afterwards, and sparks fly. Easier said than done: they can't see you in the darkened theater, they're busy concentrating on their performance, and it's hard to get backstage afterwards unless you already know them. It's only happened to me once.

9. The Chinese Food Delivery Guy. In Dayton. Ok, I didn't hook up with him, but I got a date with his best friend

10. The Flight Attendant. The flight was half full, I was sitting in the back row near the galley, and the attendant was bored. We struck up a conversation, and when we were delayed too long for me to catch my connection, he offered to show me the sights of Boston.

11. The Water Delivery Guy. Pete, who delivered bottled water to my apartment in Upstate New York. One day I asked him to show me how to install the water bottles, one thing led to another, and we dated for about 3 weeks.

12. The Museum Guard. While we were passing through Indianapolis on our way home from New York in 2015, we stopped to visit a museum where Ryan was a guard. He came by our hotel later.

As social media makes everyone's life a fishbowl, an ongoing issue becomes: should I read this book or comic strip or see this movie after the author or director has made a homophobic comment?

There are really 3 questions:
1. Should my money go to help support someone who is homophobic?
2. Will other people think I'm homophobic, too?
3. Will the product contain homophobic scenes, situations, or comments?

I don't care about #1 and #2. After all, there are dozens or hundreds of people involved with every movie, tv show, and novel. Some are homophobic, some are not. My money is going to support all of them.

But I draw the line when they let homophobic scenes, situations, or comments leak into their products.

So why do I read Pearls Before Swine (2001-)?

It's an acerbic newspaper comic drawn by Stephan Pastis (top photo), who grew up in the Bay Area in the 1970s, went to UCLA, and worked as a lawyer in San Francisco before breaking into cartooning.

Not the background you'd expect in someone who is homophobic.

The characters are crudely drawn stick figures:
1. The misanthropic Rat
2. The goodnatured Pig
3. The pompous Goat

4. Larry the Crocodile
5. Zebra, who is surrounded by predators ineptly trying to eat him.

There are frequent gay subtexts in the relationship between Rat and Pig, who live together and behave like romantic partners.

And between Zebra and his predators. Their lame attempts to eat him can easily be read as attempts at seduction.

But universal heterosexual desire and behavior is assumed throughout. "How about a man hug?" the lion asks, suggesting a hug between two heterosexual men with nothing homoerotic involved.

Rat claims that is impossible for men and women to be platonic friends, since the man will always want to have sex with the woman. Pastis later explained that he wanted to specify "straight men," but the syndicate nixed it, because "kids read the strip" and might ask their parents what "straight" meant,.

Traditional gender roles are promoted throughout. When Zebra is found with a People magazine, his lion friend tells him that the female lions (who do the hunting) will think he's "weak, effeminate. An easy mark."

Wait -- aren't those female lions strong and powerful?

When Pastis wants to identify a character as gay, he throws in antiquated stereotypes about fashion and show tunes. Once he congratulated himself over including an up-to-date reference to the movie Brokeback Mountain (but he was careful to specify that he would absolutely never, ever, ever see it himself)

Ok, Stephan, you don't like gay people. I get it.

There have been occasional "pansy" and "fairy" slurs, plus a pun on gay men as "queens."

And when Goat discovered Rat and Pig in bed together, and concludes that they are...you know, Rat screams in a homophobic agony that has to be seen to be believed.

So, after all that, why do I continue to read the strip, and buy the collections, including the big treasuries with Stephan Pastis' comments?

1. I like the idea of Pastis learning that gay people read his strip. They actually put their hands on the treasuries! Even worse, the treasuries are on a bookshelf in the room where they engage in their sickening, disgusting sexual acts!

2. There are plenty of unintentional gay subtexts.

3. I love the Croc accent.

4. There are a surprising number of muscular guys with their shirts off hanging around the strip. Pastis loves drawing hunks.

5. Bottom line: it's funny.

See also: R. Crumb, from Fritz the Cat to Gay Marriage.; and Get Fuzzy.

That's right, Finland, the conservative outsider of Scandinavia, somewhat isolated from the usual tourist circuit (but you can fly from London in about 3 hours), cold and cloudy, with a non-Indo-European language that's a problem for most Europeans to learn. When I visited in the spring of 1999 with Jaan and Yuri, I found out something very important:

On enemmän julkisia penis kuin Prahassa tai Pariisissa.
There are more public penises than in Prague or Paris.

1. Start with Helsinki, where there are about 400 monuments, statues, and works of public art. The most famous is The Three Smiths, by Felix Nylund, a statue of three naked smiths hammering on an anvil, in Three Smiths Square in the heart of Helsinki. It's customary to tell people, "Meet me at the three naked guys."

2.-3. Then the statues of long-distance runners Paavo Nurmi and Lasse Viren outside the Olympic Stadium. They didn't really run naked.

4. Drop by the Central Railroad Station to see two muscular guys holding lamps.

5. This statue is called Haaksirikkoiset, "Shipwreck," by Robert Stigell. It's facing east, toward Russia, so it's often interpreted in patriotic terms as the Finnish people overcoming adversity.

6. After that, you can just wander around. There are nude men on every corner. Like this monument to the Battle of Pellinki, by Gunnar Finne.

More after the break

7. Or "The Boxers," by Johannes Haapsalo, depicting two nude men sparring (left).

8.-9. Maano Oitinnen's "Matti and Jaakko" are two naked adolescents greeting visitors to an apartment complex on Munkkiniemenn Street. They represent the sons of the builder. How would you like to walk past a naked statue of yourself every day?

Then there's "The Fighter,""The Wounded Athlete," and...well, you get the general idea.

10. And don't forget Tampere, about two hours north of Helsinki, for three naked Tammerkoski, Bridge Statues by Väinö Aaltonen.

11. Or the monument to Aleksis Kivi, author of the homoerotic novel Seven Brothers, who was apparently allergic to clothes.

12. Or Tampere Cathedral, with its naked people rising from the dead in a fresco over the altar. It also features the very odd sight of 12 naked boys representing the Twelve Apostles handling "The Garland of Life." Real boys from Tampere were used as models.

And we haven't even gotten to Turku.

See also: the Forest of Gay Dreams in Parikkala, a park devoted to muscular male nudes in Oslo, and an Icelandic museum dedicated to the penis.

One night in 1993, Lee and I went to a movie at the Cinerama Dome, the giant "shower cap" on Sunset, and on the way home, about 8 blocks from the border of West Hollywood, we saw a Mexican restaurant called La Azteca (Now it seems to be called La Numero Uno).

A restaurant in the straight world? What if we were told "We don't serve fairies"? What if we were assaulted on the street.

But there were no Mexican restaurants in West Hollywood at that time, so we decided to take the risk.

We weren't assaulted. But it was obvious that it was a place for heterosexuals.

1. A dining area packed exclusively with pairs of men and women. No same-sex couples anywhere. It seemed outlandish and bizarre after years in West Hollywood.

2. The hostess asked "How many in your party?" and her neck to look for the women we were meeting.

3. She took us to a table for four, and didn't remove the other two place settings, apparently not believing that there were no women on the way.

4. Heads turned to stare, gossip began to be whispered. What was up with these two guys dining together on a Saturday night? Could they be brothers? College roommates? A celebrity and his bodyguard?

5. A woman sitting at the bar smiled at me with unmistakable intent. Did heterosexuals cruise each other?

We buried our noses in the menus.

The waiter approached -- he was young, in his 20s, short, solid, light-skinned, with a black buzz cut. His name tag said "Mauricio. Mexico City."

"Have you guys been here before?" he asked.

Finally, a nonchalant heterosexual! Attentive, too, bringing us water and chip refills several times. He even flirted, putting his hand on Lee's shoulder to point out the desserts.

Did waiters in heterosexual restaurants flirt for tips?

He asked "one check or two?", so he didn't realize that we were a couple. We concluded that he was just being friendly as part of his jobs.

The next day I got up early so I could work out before church, and there, amid the power-lifting semi-celebrities was our waiter, Mauricio!

We spotted each other and chatted, exchanging the four main pieces of information you got from a new acquaintance:
1. Where are you from?

Macon, Georgia, but "Mexico City" looked better on his name tag. Anyway, his parents were from Mexico.

2. How long have you been in L.A.?

3 months. He lived with his cousin on Poinsettia Boulevard in Hollywood.

3. Are you out at work and to your family?
Not at work. Yes to his family, but "we don't talk about it."

4. What is your career goal?
To become an actor.

The preliminaries over, Mauricio asked "That guy you were with last night -- was that your lover?"

I nodded. "Lee. We've been together for three years."

"Wow, congratulations! You got a good thing going on -- he's so hot! I love big bears! Is he a top or a bottom -- please say bottom."

Yes, we did have conversations like that with near-strangers in West Hollywood in 1993.

I was so used to being cruised all the time that I was a little put-off. But I figured, fixing him up with my lover would be almost as good as dating him myself. "We have an open relationship," I continued. "If you want, I can give you our phone number."

"Wow, that'd be great! Thanks!"

Dating when you were in a relationship was almost identical to dating while single. You called, made the date for four or five days in the future, then went out for dinner, a movie, a concert, or cruising. The only difference was, when you got home, your lover was waiting, to either watch the bedroom activities, or preferably join in.

So the next Friday night, I waited while Lee and Mauricio went out to dinner at the French Quarter, followed by cruising at the Faultline. They came in at a little after 11:00, groping and kissing each other, and stumbled into the bedroom. I followed.

And watched.

Mauricio had a smooth,solid body and an impressive Bratwurst+ beneath the belt, but whenever I tried to pay attention to him, he became embarrassingly unaroused. A brief kiss, a desultory grope, and I was relegated to watching while he and Lee kissed, groped, fondled, and got even more intimate.

Two hours later, they were still at it, and I was resisting the urge to turn on the tv.

I did get a little hugging when we all fell asleep in each other's arms, but the next morning it was Lee and Mauricio again, followed by breakfast.

After he left, I exclaimed, "What was that about? You ignored me all night, and then again this morning!"

He smiled. "Sorry -- it's just first date syndrome, you know, when you can't get enough of the guy. We'll pay more attention to you on our second date, I promise."

The second date was two nights later. Mauricio came over to dinner with a couple of our friends, and we rented a movie.

This time Lee and Mauricio went into the bedroom alone, while the rest of us stayed in the living room. Eventually the others left, and I joined them.

I got a little action, mostly from Lee, but I still felt like turning on the tv, and letting them go at it.

When you're in a relationship, the third date is just as critical as when you are single. Afterwards, you are officially together, a three-way romance.

Three-way romances were quite common in West Hollywood. Who invented the heterosexist myth that you could only love one guy at a time?

Often the third liked one or the other more, so it was really more like a guy with two lovers. But never was the third simply left out of the equation.

I made sure there was no third date with Mauricio.

In an April 1940 episode of the radio Adventures of Superman, the Man of Steel helped a young boy named Jimmy Olsen protect his mother's shop from racketeers. Sensing audience identification, the producers soon gave Jimmy a part-time job at the Daily Planet so he could follow leads on his own, snoop around abandoned warehouses, get into trouble, and require lots of nick-of-time rescues.

Jimmy arrived in Superman comics in November 1941, somewhat older, perhaps seventeen. He was a redhead, like the cliche sidekick in boys' adventure novels of the period, and his v-shaped torso suggested muscleman potential. But he was never a sidekick, like Robin to Batman, or Bucky to Captain America. Jimmy never lived with Superman, he never learned Superman's secret identity, he only participated in the adventures by accident. Was he homoromantic partner, or merely a coworker and pal?

In Jimmy Olsen's comic book series, which began in 1954, it doesn't take a lot to find the romantic subtext beneath the boy pal text. But in the tv and movie versions of the mythos, things are a little different.

TV first:

1. In The Adventures of Superman (1952-58), Jimmy Olsen (former teen idol Jack Larson, top photo ) seems mostly a coworker to Superman (George Reeves). We rarely see the two together, except on the job, and even then, Lois (Noel Neill) usually forms the third. Jimmy requires rescue alone (without Lois or Perry present) just once, when he is kidnapped by a transvestite in "Double Trouble" (1953). He bonds with editor Perry White (John Hamilton) more often.

Jack Larson is gay, and even states that he was out on the set during the period; maybe that explains why he kept Jimmy carefully free of any romantic feelings for Superman.

2. Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993-97) starred Dean Cain and Terri Hatcher as the famous couple (yes, now a couple), with the standard antipathy turning into romance ("He's so...arrogant!").

Jimmy was played by Justin Whalin, a former child star (the child of lesbian parents in a 1993 School Break special). Given the hetero-romantic story arc, it would seem that Jimmy would be a third wheel, but he actually has an unrequited crush on the hunky Clark. And there are a few Jimmy-rescues.

3. Smallville (2001-2011) was about Superboy, the teenage Clark Kent, so Jimmy (Aaron Ashmore, left, with an unidentified hunk) was not introduced until Season Six, when Clark arrived in Metropolis.

Jimmy had at least two girlfriends during his three years on the program, and expressed any romantic interest in Clark or Superman.

Clark Kent (Tom Welling) did have a homoerotic bond with a young Lex Luthor (Michael Rosenbaum), but not with Jimmy.

Not a very good record. Where there is a gay subtext at all, it is between Clark Kent and someone else. Why has one of the most substantial and overt homoromances in all of comics failed to make it on the small screen?

In West Hollywood in the 1980s and 1990s, hooking up was unheard of. You dated -- you met someone, then planned a full evening of social activities five or so nights later.

Even when you were partnered.

One Friday night in the fall of 1991, Lee went to Shabbat services at Beth Chaim Chadashim, the gay synagogue, and returned gushing over a Cute Young Thing he met at the refreshment table.

Artan, 19 years old, a sophomore at Pepperdine University, still living with his parents.

West Hollywood culture was rather strict about age differentials: anything more than 5 years older or younger caused raised eyebrows and snide remarks. I was 30 at the time, and Lee had just turned 35 -- Artan was 11 and 16 years younger!

"I know they'll make fun at me at temple and the Zone -- but he's so cute, I couldn't resist!' He went on to describe a blond, tan beach boy, with broad shoulders and a hard chest. Plus he was studying English. He wanted to become a writer. Plus he was a science fiction fan. And Jewish. Practically perfect in every way.

"Anyway, in 20 years we'll all be Daddies," Lee continued, planning ahead. "Our date is Wednesday night. And you're invited."

Date #1:

It was rare to let a partner tag along on a first date -- the infatuated gushing made you feel like a third wheel, no matter that you would all be sharing a bed soon. But I was curious about this guy who had Lee on Cloud Nine, so Wednesday night we met Artan for dinner at Killer Shrimp in Marina del Rey.

There was one thing on the menu: shrimp. It came in a bucket, with bread on the side.

Artan was as extraordinarily cute as Lee said, and not as shy and quiet as most Cute Young Things. In fact, he took over, quizzing me on the first date essentials with the ease of a news reporter, yet not for a moment leaving Lee out of the conversation.

Yes, I noticed the incongruity of two Jewish guys at a shrimp restaurant, but I didn't mention it.

After dinner we went to the Change of Hobbit, the premier science fiction bookstore in California, probably the world. Lee was 300 times the science fiction fan that I was, yet Artan managed to draw us both into discussions of our favorite authors.

Next, cruising at the Rage (we figured a twink bar would be his style), then home to the bedroom, where Artan was equally attentive to both of us.

In case you were wondering: hard, smooth body, tan line, good kisser, average beneath the belt gifts, and extremely energetic. We were both dozing while he was still going strong.

It still seemed weird to be going out with someone so much younger, especially when he had to leave at 11:00 because he told his parents he was studying at the library.

Still, best three-way date ever.

In West Hollywood, the 48 hours after a first date were traumatic. You were flushed with the heat of desire, thinking about him, fantacizing about him, yet you couldn't call, lest you appear too eager and scare him off.

You had to wait at least 24 hours, but no more than 48.

Our date ended at 11:00 pm Wednesday, and 11:00 pm Thursday was too late to call, so Lee had to wait until Friday and call him from work. He got the house phone -- no one had a private telephone in those days -- and left a noncommittal message.

Artan finally returned our call at 10:30, half an hour before the 48 hour waiting period was over.

The second date was his idea -- to the Santa Monica beach tomorrow at noon!

Date #2:

In all my years in West Hollywood, I was only at the beach twice. A few years ago, Alan dragged me to the nude beach for cruising. And this time.

The scenery was breathtaking, but the water was too cold for swimming, the sand was gritty, and we felt quite out of place among the heterosexual couples with children and presumably heterosexual surfers.

Although some of them were quite breathtaking as well.

We splashed around a bit, then dried off, changed into our street clothes, and, anxious to be among gay people again, went to the Different Light and then had dinner at the Greenery.

There were a few stares -- what are those two doing with a Cute Young Thing? A friend came over and asked "Is it past your bedtime?" But no major resistance.

We began thinking about a three-way romance, having Artan move in with us, meeting his parents, signing our party invitations "plus Artan."

He was, again, very attentive and very affectionate in the bedroom, even though he had to leave at 8:00 pm because he was meeting some of his school friends. He wasn't out at school, see, and....

Still, the second best three-way date ever.

Traditionally another 24-48 hours passed before you called to ask for the third date, the one which officially sealed the deal, made you a couple. Or in this case, a trio.

Our date ended at 8:00 pm on Saturday night, so we couldn't call until a little after 8:00 pm Sunday night.

Artan answered. "Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm a little busy this coming week. But we'll definitely get together again soon. I'll call you."

That's West Hollywood speak for "I have to wash my hair."

We were disappointed, but figured the age difference was just too much for him.

A few months later, we ran into Artan again at the French Quarter. His tan had faded a bit, and he grew his hair out, but he had the same broad shoulders and impish smile.

He was having brunch with an older man. Way older.

Lee knew him -- Isaak, who sometimes came to Shabbat services at the gay synagogue. A newspaper reporter in Poland before World War II. A concentration camp survivor.

In his 70s.

Distinguished, grey-haired, wearing a white shirt open a few buttons to display some chest hair, plus short pants that displayed a bulge. But still....

We said hello and retreated to another table. Artan followed.

"Hey, I'm sorry we never got to the third date," he said. "I had a lot of fun with you guys, but it was exhausting!"

"You..were exhausted?" I repeated, shocked.

"Isaak is more mature, settled down. Not running around all over creation all the time. You know we did last night? We ordered Chinese, watched tv, and fell asleep in each other's arms! No sex! How romantic is that?"

"We like to order Chinese, watch tv and fall asleep without sex," Lee protested.

He laughed and rubbed Lee's shoulder. "You firecrackers? I don't think so. But I'm into sharing -- just give me a few days advance warning, so I can rest up!"

He left. Lee and I stared at each other.

Years later, when I turned 40 and became a twink magnet, I started to understand.

See also: The Youngest Guy I've Ever Dated and Sharing the Orthodox Jewish Boy.

I didn't watch the premiere of The Muppets last night. I was worried that it would remind me too much of my college days, when I watched the original Muppet Show.

Or that it wouldn't.

In college I spent most of my free time in a little bookstore off the Student Union lobby that looked and felt like an old-fashioned living room, with a writing-desk for a checkout counter, low mahogany-stained bookcases, two armchairs, and a green couch by the western window. It stocked some bestsellers and miscellaneous nonfiction, including The Little Prince and Dag Hammarskjold's Markings, but mostly science fiction and fantasy, with some underground comics under the counter.

It provided a bright belonging place for "head cases," boy who were majoring in English or philosophy or music, who wanted something greater and nobler from life than carrying briefcases into skyscrapers. We called ourselves the Bookstore Gang.

During any hour of the afternoon and early evening, half a dozen members of the Bookstore Gang could be found standing by the counter, or sitting on it, or browsing through the shelves, or reading in the armchairs or green couch that blazed with western sunlight. We discussed classes, comic books, movies, ghosts, and politics, but for some reason never girls. When the bookstore closed, we adjourned to the Rathskeller or to the TV Lounge, to argue and advise and review, discussing The Wizard of Id or Saturday Night Live, yelling "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" while stuck-up Business Majors stared.

Everything we watched or listened to or read was hip, anarchic, iconoclastic, but my favorite was The Muppet Show (1976-81), with Kermit the Frog from Sesame Street hosting a comedy-variety show, juxtaposing parodies of medical dramas or Star Trek ("Pigs....in space") with musical numbers, while the elderly gay couple Statler and Waldorf heckled everything (except for the famous guest stars, of course).

And what a cast of guest stars! Everybody who was anybody stopped by:
Joan Baez
Milton Berle
Bert and Ernie
Joel Grey
Arlo Guthrie
Vincent Price
Tony Randall
Sylvester Stallone

Other hip, anarchic, iconoclastic tv programs and movies -- Monte Python, Mary Hartman, Saturday Night Live, WKRP in Cincinnati, Blazing Saddles, The Cheap Detective, Silent Movie -- were loaded down with fag jokes and hetero-horniness, but The Muppet Show had neither.

Only Miss Piggy regularly displayed heterosexual interest -- at Kermit and various male guest stars -- and she was always rejected. And instead of constantly ridiculing gender transgressions, same-sex contact, and "fags,"

The Muppet Show offered a pleasant nonchalance about diversity in size, shape, affect, and affection (who knew what Gonzo the Great was into?).

Muppet creator Jim Henson was a gay ally, as is his daughter Lisa, now CEO of Jim Henson Enterprises. In 2012, the company severed ties with Chick-Fil-A due to its homophobic bias, and donated existing proceeds to GLAAD.

I always knew that the Muppets were gay-friendly.

When MGM executives wanted to expand the audience of their extremely successful Tarzan series by giving the Ape Man and his Mate (Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O’Sullivan) a child, they faced a quandary: since the couple was not married, Jane could hardly give birth to Korak. Instead, Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939) envisions an airplane crash in the jungle with a sole survivor, a cooing infant whom Tarzan names Boy.

It is an odd name, and evidently a last-minute change – the trailers call him Tarzan Jr. One wonders why Jane did not insist on Tarzan Jr. or John Clayton Jr., particularly if she expected the child to one day survive hazing at Eton. But if Tarzan and Jane are the primal Man and Woman of a sexless heterosexual Eden, then their Boy must be the primal Boy, the archetype of all Boys everywhere.

The primal Boy was cast with seven year old Johnny Sheffield, hand-picked by Johnny Weissmuller from the hundreds of hopefuls. Perhaps Weissmuller was shopping for a surrogate son of his own: he taught Johnny to swim and wrestle, and often took him places off-camera. They were a common sight at premieres and Hollywood hotspots.

Johnny was no ordinary Boy. In Tarzan and the Amazons (1944), Johnny at 13 could easily pass for a high school athlete. In Tarzan and the Leopard Woman (1945), he is 15, but he already sports the thick, heavy chest, flat belly, and deepened voice of young adulthood. In Tarzan and the Huntress ( 1946), he is nearly 16 years old and six feet tall, with a chiseled torso that makes 42-year old Weissmuller look flabby and out of shape, a middle-aged businessman ludicrously enacting a Tarzan fantasy. The Boy has surpassed the Man, and Johnny Sheffield must retire from the series.

Although the teenage Boy is handsome enough to compel most of his classmates at Randini High School to write his name amid hearts in their notebooks or scramble to ask him to the Spring Fling, he has few opportunities for jitterbugging. The women he encounters are always older, and usually evil; indeed, a half-hour walk in any direction seems to lead to lost civilizations led by evil women.

Any cute boy he meets is likely to be evil, too. In Tarzan and the Leopard Woman, a boy named Kimba (Tommy Cook) appears one day at the Escarpment, claiming that he got lost in the jungle. The Tarzan family takes him in, but Boy is suspicious. It turns out that Kimba belongs to an evil leopard cult, and plans to prove his manhood by murdering them all. Many jungle-story scripts would have Boy befriend and ultimately rehabilitate the troubled teen, but not here: the two Boys never express any sentiment but seething contempt, and the unrepentant Kimba is shot to death.

More often, Boy’s homoromantic interests are stymied by Daddy Tarzan himself. In Tarzan and the Amazons, a scientific expedition visits, and Boy can barely contain his excitement; he wiggles up to one, then another, flirting his way into hands-on-shoulders, cool gifts, and an invitation to “come around anytime.” Tarzan passively-aggressively suggests that Boy shouldn't pester the strangers. “They’re not strangers!” Boy cries, over-reacting with teen angst. “They’re Jane’s friends, and mine. . .I don’t want to go hunting with you! I won’t go hunting with you ever again!”

Tarzan is equally passive-aggressive about denying Boy peer companions. In Tarzan and the Huntress, the Tarzan family visits the kingdom of Teronga, where Boy befriends the teenage Prince Suli (Maurice Tauzin). But when Boy asks to stay longer, Tarzan says no. Later they find Prince Suli in the jungle, left to die by his evil usurper-uncle. Surely the long and dangerous trek back to Teronga would provide many opportunities for buddy-bonding, but Tarzan has other ideas: “Boy, go home, tell Jane!” he barks. “We go to Teronga!” Boy protests, but Tarzan stubbornly leads the Prince away.

What is the significance of these denials? Of course the movies are about Tarzan, so he must wrestle all of the crocodiles, rescue all the princesses, and supervise all of the shifts from absolutism to democracy in lost-civilization governments, but surely allowing Boy some friends would not threaten his status as Busybody of the Jungle.

Yet perhaps Tarzan is threatened after all. As Boy hardens into adolescence, his role becomes paradoxically soft and passive – his muscles become purely decorative, to be displayed for their beauty just as Jane’s curves, and as useless for fending off crocodiles. Indeed, Boy usually takes Jane’s place as the objective of Tarzan’s chest-pounding heroics.

The three pre-Boy movies all end with Tarzan swooping down to rescue Jane. Afterwards, she is captured along with Boy twice, and in four movies, Boy is captured alone, tied to something, muscles straining, until Tarzan swoops down to the rescue. (And in one, Cheetah comes to the rescue.)

During Boy’s adolescence, he and Tarzan are constant companions, leaving little time for Jane, who confesses without complaint “They’re used to doing everything together. Why, they often leave me alone for days!” They leap into the lagoon together, enacting the quintessential moment of jungle romance. They are even shown sleeping together, curled up on the same mat, Boy’s head pillowed by Tarzan’s bicep (Jane’s sleeping arrangements are left unseen).

If the homoromantic Arcadia is a displaced fantasy of adulthood, then the viewer must desire the sight of the primal Man and Boy diving into the lagoon together as eternally as the primal Man and Woman. Tarzan must contain his Paradise against threats to Boy as well as to Jane, and he must guard as jealously against any other love.

Johnny Sheffield continued wearing a loincloth through the 1950s as Bomba the Jungle Boy, to the delight of gay kids everywhere. Johnny Weissmuller put a shirt and pants on to buddy-bond as Jungle Jim.

See also: Why is Bomba the Jungle Boy always tied up?

Beefcake alert -- I just saw the season premiere of The Middle. The episode itself wasn't great -- about Sue going off to college. But Axl (Charlie McDermott) spent the entire first two acts in his underwear.

He was fully clothed most of last season.

It's nice to see the beefcake back.

I've been watching The Middlesince it premiered in 2009. It's a striking contrast to Modern Family, which comes on ABC shortly afterwards: two "family sitcoms," but the families are rich/poor, big city/small town, West Coast/Middle America, and inclusive/not-inclusive

White -- all white all the time. Christian. And heterosexual. I was holding out for quirky youngest kid Brick (Atticus Shaffer) to be gay, but nope, he "discovered" girls, and now he's as hetero-horny as his brother Axl.

The flamboyantly feminine Brad, one of high schooler Sue's friends, appears occasionally. But the joke is that no one thinks that he's gay except Sue's parents. Not even him.

Other than that, nothing. Not a word or a scene suggesting that same-sex desire, behavior, or identity exists. This is a complete, utter heterosexist wasteland.

To what can we attribute this void?

Maybe the producers, Eileen Heisler and Deanne Heline believe that all gay people live in L.A. or Manhattan, so Orson, Indiana must obviously be gay-free.

Or the suits at ABC

Or the cast. Most are not exactly gay allies:

1. Patricia Heaton (Mom Frankie), formerly the wife on the heterosexist Everybody Loves Raymond, is openly conservative, although she states that she has gay friends. She complains that the kids of The Middle would never display themselves as sexual objects, like the kids of Glee. Um...Axl and his friends are displayed semi-nude in nearly every episode because....?

2. Neil Flynn (Dad Mike), formerly the sardonic janitor on Scrubs, doesn't have any gay roles on his resume and hasn't made any pro-gay statements.

3. Charlie McDermott (the shirtless Axl) has played in several movies with "aren't gay people ridiculous?" jokes, such as Sex Drive (2008) and Hot Tub Time Machine (2010).

4. Eden Sher (the over-enthusiastic Sue) has a gay best friend.

5. Atticus Shaffer (Brick) had a role in the homophobic Year One (2009), but he was only 11 years old at the time, so you can't really blame him. He hasn't made any pro- or anti-gay statements.

I guess we'll have to make do with subtexts.

See also: Raising Hope/The Middle and Brock Ciarlelli: The Uncle Tom of The Middle

At every gym, there are two kinds of guys in the locker room.

Displayers: guys who strip and then nonchalantly stop to chat, who wear their towel on their shoulders as they head for the showers, their beneath-the-belt gifts swinging between their legs for everyone to see.

Hiders: guys who turn their backs to change, wrap a towel around their waists, and shower in the stalls with curtains.

The displayers always have superlative beneath-the-belt gifts, while the hiders are almost always small, afraid of being judged or even sneered at by their peers. Especially in gay culture where bigger is better.

So when Keith joined Barney's Gym in Wilton Manors, and spent every moment in the locker room hiding behind a towel, we figured that he didn't have much down there.

I was shocked when Yuri asked him out anyway.

"But you're the world's number one size queen!" I exclaimed. "You won't even look at a guy if he's less than a Mortadella!"

"That's not true. I was with lots of little guys."

"Sure -- one date apiece. Once you find out they're not packing, you send them packing."

"Wise guy!" He punched me in the shoulder. "But you don't know he's small. And look at how he's hot!"

I had to admit that Keith was exactly Yuri's type: early 40s, tall, balding, bearded, pleasantly muscular, with a hairy chest. Plus a sports nut, a former college football star who sometimes sat in the lounge watching this or that game.

"Anyway, he's out. After Jim, I can't stand closets anymore." Yuri had just broken up with Jim the Baseball Player, mostly over the issue of outness.

So Yuri and Keith went to some sort of sports match, then returned to the house to spend the night.

In the middle of the night I had to go past Yuri's room to get to the bathroom. The door was open to take advantage of the breeze. They were lying in each other's arms. Yuri was naked, but Keith was wearing boxers.

Wait -- he had sex, then put his underwear back on?

At breakfast in the morning, Keith told us that he had been in a monogamous relationship with his college boyfriend for 18 years, and only started dating when they broke up. He had never been to a bear party or a bath house, and never shared a boyfriend.

I wanted to ask, Is that why you're so shy about displaying yourself? But I kept mum.

"I'm anxious to try everything, though" he added with a grin.

I noticed that they were holding hands under the table. Apparently the date went well.

They left at the same time, so I didn't get a chance to ask Yuri about Keith's beneath-the-belt gifts. I sent him an email, but he didn't respond. So that night I grabbed him the moment he walked in the door.

"Details!" I exclaimed. "Details!"

"What do you mean? We had a nice time. I will call Keith for another date tonight."

"And...."

He blushed a little, and looked away. "And...he likes to kiss. In bed he is a top."

"You know what I'm talking about, Mr. Size Queen!"

"Oh, that! Well -- there is something. I don't know if I can tell you."

Why was he being so mysterious? "We tell each other everything. Don't leave me in suspense -- just give me a number!"

"No, no. I don't know how to explain it. You should see." He headed toward his bedroom, then paused and turned back. "Ok, this is what we will do -- when I date Keith again, we will share."

I stared in surprise. "On the second date? Are you sure?"

"Sure, sure.. He said you are hot, he won't care."

I spent the next few days in suspense. What was the big secret of Keith's beneath-the-belt gifts? Was he remarkably small, or gigantic?

On Friday the four of us -- Keith, Yuri, Barney, and me -- met for dinner at Rosie's Bar and Grill in Wilton Manors, and then went cruising at the Filling Station.

I kissed and groped Keith a bit -- nothing unusually small or large presented itself.

When we got home, Barney excused himself and went into his bedroom. Yuri wrapped his arms around Keith and asked "Is it ok if Jeff comes with us?"

"That'd be great!" Keith exclaimed. "I'm anxious to try this sharing thing!"

We went into Yuri's bedroom and stripped. Except Keith kept his boxers on!

He climbed atop Yuri, they kissed, and soon he slid his boxers off. Soon I was watching his butt as he topped Yuri. Without a condom!

"Hey, Yuri, you forgot something!" I said.

"No, not a problem," he murmured, reaching for me.

Not a problem? Because somebody found a cure for AIDS while I was asleep? Because Keith was monogamous for a long time?

When they finished, Keith stood to go into the bathroom and wash off. I saw it before he pulled his boxers back on.

His penis was average sized, not gigantic but nothing to be ashamed of. But beneath it was smooth -- no testicles.

"Yeah," Keith said, noticing me trying not to look. "I'm a little self-conscious about it." He went to the bathroom.

"That's what I want you to see," Yuri said. "I never saw that before, no...um...balls."

Keith returned and sat down on the bed. "I've never produced any testosterone, so I have to get shots every few weeks. That means that my testicles have atrophied, and I have orgasms but don't produce any semen. So I don't need to use condoms."

"Don't they have prosthetics?"

"Sure, but why bother? They'd just be good for showing off in the locker room, and I wear a towel. Besides, my ex didn't care."

"Who cares if you do not make semen?" Yuri asked. "I don't want to have a baby." He pulled Keith on top of him.

When we talk about beneath-the-belt gifts, we're always talking about the penis. Does testicle size matter?

Not to Yuri. They dated for about three months.

See also: The Naked Baseball Player in My Kitchen

During the 1960s, when Bill, Greg, and I zoomed into Schneider's Drug Store to blow our allowance on comic books, we zeroed in on the Gold Key jungle titles (Tarzan, Korak), Disneys (Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge), or maybe Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig as swashbuckling adventurers. I had to go back later to pick up Little Lulu, since my friends would rib me for liking a comic that was "just for girls."

But Little Lulu offered something that no other comic book or tv program or movie of the 1960s had: cute boys running around completely nude. Stylized, cartoon nudity, but still exciting for a preteen who had a vivid enough imagination to fill in the blanks.

I didn't know that I was reading reprints of comics written by John Stanley in the 1950s, and originally based on single-panel strips published in the Saturday Evening Post. So, like Out Our Way,I was mesmerized by this kid world so different from my own.

1. At Denkmann Elementary School, boy-girl friendships were discouraged, but Lulu Moppet had friends of both sexes: the self-assured Tubby (left); timid Annie and her brother Iggy (right); spoiled rich kid Wilbur; the haughty Gloria.

2. Some of the plots involved Tubby wanting to kiss Gloria or Lulu getting valentines from boys, but not many; mostly boys and girls were completely oblivious to heterosexual desire, a pleasant surcease of the girl-crazy boys on tv during the 1960s.

3. There was little of the gender segregation of my grade school. Boys had no qualms about appearing in girls' clothing. Girls excelled at boy-only pursuits.

4. They had remarkable freedom to go wherever they liked without parental supervision.

5. They lived in a urban neighborhood, a short walk from downtown shops that were curiously specialized (meat, vegetables, bread, and candy all in different stores). There were also woods, a lake, caves, and a swamp nearby; the beach was a short bus ride away.

6. There were many inexplicable dangers. Spankings, often for things they didn't do. Truant officers who wouldn't listen to reason. Goblins who stole your identity. Parental abandonment ("I found a little boy I like better, so you'll have to leave"). A witch who would turn you into a stone or a lead pipe and leave you, immobile and helpless, forever.

These dangers mirrored those of gay kids who tried to negotiate the straight world, following nonsensical rules, knowing that the slightest slip-up would mean disaster.

One of the perils of hosting M4M Parties is the constant stream of invitation requests from guys who say "I want to be with 10 guys, Mortadella or bigger. Will that happen at the party?"

If I'm in a good mood, I respond: No. Most guys on the guest list aren't into that.. You'd be lucky to find one guy willing to top you."

If I'm in a bad mood, I click "delete."

Marty got when I had already responded to five such emails that day, and made it worse by sending me pictures of his butt. Who wants to see a picture of that?

So I decided to play with him a bit: Yes, I always invite 1 guy to be the bottom and 10 guys to be the tops. But unfortunately, we have our bottoms already picked out. Try again next time.

Not surprisingly, he really believed that our parties had a roomful of porn movie stars waiting to gang-bang him. "Please, can't you squeeze in one more bottom? I'll settle for 5 guys instead of 10. Or even 3."

No, sorry.

"Well, can I come later and help you clean up?"

No!

"Well, can we have a private hookup after the party?"

The rest of the story is too risque for a G-rated blog. See it on Tales of West Hollywood.

Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood, fall 1988. A small town of tree-lined streets. Small shops, restaurants, and bars where gay men and lesbians gathered in search of freedom.

The Sunset Strip, only five blocks north, still technically West Hollywood, but big, blaring, glaring, crowded with cars and the clubs where hetero glitterati snorted cocaine.

Five blocks, actually only two blocks up the hill from the house that I shared with Derek, but we never went there. It was as if there was an invisible force field keeping gay people away.

The Strip was relatively uncrowded during the daytime, the easiest way to get to Hollywood, Silverlake, and sometimes Downtown. But I didn't even like to drive through: I always felt like an interloper, passing through a wild, alien territory.

Eight years ago, on a visit to Los Angeles long before I moved here, my friend Tom and I drove down Sunset, and stopped at Book Soup, where I bought my first gay-themed book. Now I passed it with a little frisson of dread.

But one Friday afternoon I thought, "What's the big deal? It's just a street. I'm going to Book Soup."

There was a cowboy by the front door, drinking the free coffee. Mid-20s, my height, muscular, maybe a little chunky. He had a bright, open, very handsome face. He was wearing a cowboy hat and a lumberjack shirt unbuttoned to reveal a smooth chest, and very tight jeans with a silver belt buckle.

"Jim Morrison! Excellent!" he exclaimed.

"Are you a fan?"

"My band covers the Doors sometimes. We do mostly country, as you can see, but we do some rock, too." He paused, an unmistakable gleam in his eye. "So, you live around here?"

The rest of the story is on Tales of West Hollywood.

Between 1960 and 1965, when all-American beefcake was giving way to suave, sophisticated, and cool, The Rat Pack ruled Las Vegas. They were five actors and singers, performing regularly at casinos like the Sands. They were famous for living the Cool Life, drinking, gambling, sporting, chasing dames, and having fun. They were famous for their connections to the mob and the Kennedys. But mostly they were famous for being friends. When one appeared, he was asked about the others. Their spats and reconciliations made front page news.

The homoerotic subtext of the Rat Pack bond is obvious -- today, anyhow. They were all about male bonding, with the intensity and physicality of romance. And audiences cheered them for it.

Some of them were bisexual in real life. Others were homophobic -- even more than what one expects in the homophobic 1960s. In order, from least to most gay-friendly, they were:

5. Frank Sinatra, age 45 in 1960 (top photo), The Chairman of the Board, a teen sensation of the 1940s, still releasing old standbys and finding a whole new generation of fans. Although he starred in the gay symbolism-heavy On the Town, he also starred in one of the more homophobic movies of the 1960s, The Detective (1968), and was reputedly so homophobic in real life that he threatened reputedly-gay Johnny Mathis.

4.Joey Bishop, 42-year old comedian, sitcom star, later talk show host. Married during the days of the Rat Pack womanizing, kept to himself a lot. Bff of future talk show host Regis Philbin.

3. Dean Martin (left), age 43, whose comedy act with Jerry Lewis in the 1950s had distinctive, perhaps intended homoerotic undertones. In the 1960s he released some popular songs, had a comedy-variety show and starred in the detective-spoof Matt Helm series. His son, Dean Paul Martin, was bisexual.

2. Peter Lawford, 37 year old former child actor, later a tv star (he was on The Doris Day Show). Everyone thought he was gay; Louis B. Mayer went as far as to order testosterone injections as a "cure." Got married to Pat Kennedy, the future President's sister, over the objections of her father -- he didn't want his daughter married to a gay guy. Reputedly had relationships with Tarzan Gordon Scott, Rock Hudson, and Merv Griffith.

1. Sammy Davis Jr., age 35, "Mr. Show Business," dancer, singer, actor. Converted to Judaism. Kissed Archie Bunker on a famous episode of All in the Family. Bisexual, tended toward men, preferred clean-cut all-American types. Closeted to the other Brat Packers (except maybe Peter Lawford), but opened up to teen idol Paul Anka, whom he thought was gay (everyone did at the time). Mentioned being bisexual in print as early as 1978. Died in 1990.

See also: Dean Paul Martin

When Alan moved to Thailand in the fall of 1987, I moved in with a fitness model-turned-realtor named Derek, a tall, muscular, hairy guy in his 40s, and his lover Chazz, a slim, androgynous twink.

They lived in a small but very nice house on Hilldale, just off Sunset.

Derek and I turned out to be Just Roommates: We scheduled different hours for cooking and eating meals. We were invited to each other's parties by default, and on Saturday afternoons we went to the Bodhi Tree on Melrose to browse for New Age books, but otherwise we rarely socialized. We had different social circles.

And he never invited me to "share."

It was rather frustrating listening to the activity on the other side of the wall, and never being asked to join in.

Did I mention that Derek's physique was spectacular even by West Hollywood standards? And that I saw his beneath-the-belt gifts in one of his old layouts in Mandate?

The rest of the story is too risque for this G-rated blog. You can read it on Tales of West Hollywood.

When I first moved to L.A. in 1985, I met 40-year old David Cameron, a lawyer involved with historic preservation and gay politics -- and a connection to my earliest childhood.

When he was nine years old, he asked his mother to write a story for him and his best friend, Chuck Fabian, about a "little planet just their size."

The result was The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet (1954), one of the first books I read on my own (another wasThe Spaceship Under the Apple Tree), a fascinating evocation of the world of a gay child whose gayness is known but not yet consciously acknowledged.

David becomes David Topman, "tall and quick, with freckles and sun-bleached brown hair that flopped over his eyebrows." Chuck became Chuck Masterson (the gay S&M references obviously unintentional), "shorter and squarer with brown skin and dark hair."

Their call to adventure is a newspaper ad for boys to build a space ship. They build one, and deliver it to an odd little man named Mr. Bass, who lives in an observatory on the outskirts of town. Soon all three are en route to his home planet, Basidium, which orbits the Earth at a distance of 50,000 miles (a lot closer than the Moon), for some clever critiques of modern bureaucracy and a crisis to resolve.

When I was very young, I found in Mushroom Planet "a good place," a precursor to Earthfasts, The Tripods, or The Lord of the Rings.

1. Everyone insisted on misunderstanding the boys I liked, calling them "buddies" rather than boyfriends. But in Mushroom Planet, no one mistakes David and Chuck for buddies. They are most obviously partners, with a bond that is unstated but as strong as any true love. There is no question but that they will be together forever.

2. Everyone insisted on misunderstanding my friendships with girls, calling them "girlfriends" rather than buddies. But in Mushroom Planet, no girls are gazed at, thought of, or even mentioned, except for the boys' mothers. The planet Basidium is occupied entirely by little men (later we discover that they reproduce through spores, like mushrooms).

I didn't realize at the time that there were sequels: Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet, Mr. Bass's Planetoid, A Mystery for Mr. Bass, Time and Mr. Bass. The boys grow older, and the plotlines more elaborate and mature. But through it all, Basidium remains a good place.

Every LGBT person knows, or should know, that on the night of June 28th, 1969, patrons of a Greenwich Village dive bar called the Stonewall Inn fought back against police harassment, starting a rebellion that would result in the decriminalization and depathologization of gay people, hundreds of gay-positive churches, thousands of gay elected officials, gay studies courses and majors at hundreds of colleges, and positive media images, including the new Stonewall movie.

Stonewall wasn't sacralized until the late 1970s, when gay historians such as John D'Emilio and Jonathan Katz seized upon it as The Moment That Changed Everything. That contention has been been disputed -- Stonewall got no media attention at the time, so no one outside of New York City knew that it happened. There had already been many rebellions against harassment, and lots of gay organizations were already in operation.

It's a little simplistic to talk about "Gay Life Before/After Stonewall."

Still, it sounds more substantive, more definitive, than "Gay Life Before/After the Black Cat" or "Gay Life Before/After Compton's Cafeteria."

In the 40 years since, Stonewall has undeniably united us as a people with a history and a destiny.

I haven't seen the 2015 Stonewall movie, directed by Roland Emmerich -- it's not playing here -- but it's apparently about a young, white, clean-cut, heart-throb type guy in a 2015 haircut named Danny Winters (Jeremy Irvine, who has muscles and a bulge to draw in the gay male audience).

He arrives in New York from Kansas...um, I mean Indiana, meets a group of nonwhite, transgender, and colorfully-dressed gay hippies, and helps them overthrow the Wicked Witch of the West...um, I mean Ed Murphy, the Big Bad who runs Oz...um, I mean the Stonewall Inn.

It's not just the plot of The Wizard of Oz -- it's the plot of every colonialist movie every made, from Tarzan on down.

We now know who threw the first brick at Stonewall -- not any of the real people, who were really there, and claim the honor -- but the young, white, clean-cut, heart-throb leader of the natives, Danny Winters.

And apparently the 1960s gay people have a distinctly 2015 mentality, responding to their exploitation (with Danny's help) as if it were happening today. No 1960s closets for them!

And apparently the heavy-handed "We Must Fight Oppression!" dialogue sounds like it comes from a movie musical, not a serious historical drama. In this shot, one does expect them to break out to song.

But this isn't a review -- I can't review a movie I haven't seen. It's a reflection.

Stonewall has been released.

A positive movie about LGBT people, with a gay director and some gay actors in the cast, has been written, directed, produced, and released.

Isn't that, in itself, a cause for celebration?

See also: The Stonewall Veteran and the Bodybuilder in the Park.

I was never a big superhero fan to begin with, and Spider-Man was at the bottom of my list. He's got a crush on a girl, his name has a stupid hyphen, and the 1970s tv series had an awful theme song:

Is he strong? Listen, bud...he's got radioactive blood.

And I walked out of the 2003 Spidermanduring the first scene, when Peter Parker, narrating, insists that "Like all stories, this story is about [a boy and] a girl." Horrifying heterosexism!

But I may have to rethink my anti-Spidey sentiments.

The Ultimate Spiderman (2012-), an animated series on Disney XD, has a teenage Peter Parker being trained by the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (I don't know what they are, either).

During his adventures, Peter encounters teenage versions of just about every superhero in the Marvel Universe, mostly being voiced by uber-muscular actor/models. The 10 Ultimate Hunks are:

1. Drake Bell (top photo), formerly of the gay-subtext heavy Drake and Josh, as Peter Parker.

2.Ogie Banks as Luke Cage (the African-American Hero for Hire of 1970s comics).

3. Greg Cipes as Danny Rand, aka Iron Fist.

4. Matt Lanter (left) of 90210 as Harry Osborn, Peter's best friend, destined to become his nemesis, the Green Goblin

5. Logan Miller (left) as Sam Alexander, aka Nova.

6. Travis Willingham as the blond god Thor.

7. Roger Craig Smith as 1940s Superhero Captain America

8. Oded Fehr as some sort of mummy superhero.

9. Bodybuilder Terry Crews, formerly of Everybody Hates Chris, as Blade.

10. Disney teen hunk Ross Lynch as my favorite Marvel comics character, gay-coded werewolf Jack Russell, Werewolf by Night.

See also: Bring on the Spider-Men.

Hookup with the Water Delivery Guy

Cruising Waiters in West Hollywood, Florida, and New York

12 Hookups and Dates that Sound Like the Plots of Porn Movies

Why I Read "Pearls before Swine," Homophobia and All

Top 12 Public Penises of Finland

Porn Movie Hookup #1: Waiter at a Mexican Restaurant

Jimmy Olsen on TV

Our Date with the Teenage Beach Boy

Watching the Muppet Show

Tarzan's Boy: Johnny Sheffield

The Beefcake is Back: Axl in Underwear on "The Middle"

Yuri and the Bodybuilder Who Never Got Naked

Little Lulu: The Perils of the Gay Child's World

The Marine Who Wanted to Be with 10 Guys at Once

The Cowboy of Sunset Boulevard

The Gay Rat Pack

Sharing Derek's Date with the Teenage Cowboy

The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet

Why You Shouldn't Boycott "Stonewall"

The 10 Ultimate Hunks of the Ultimate Spider-Man