When Viju started taking me to the bars, when we were in grad school in Bloomington in 1983, AIDS was practically unknown, there was little fear of being robbed or murdered, and the West Hollywood rule against casual sexual encounters did not exist. We had casual sex. Quick, practically anonymous.
I think it's because we were living in a world inundated by images of men and women together, being told a hundred times a day that gay people did not exist, or if they did, they were monsters, and this was our way of rebelling, of relishing the look, smell, and feel of the masculine.
The adults are lying -- only real is real.
One night we saw an older black guy standing by the pool table, drinking a soda: in his 40s, taller than me, very muscular and very dark. Since I was particularly interested in black guys, Viju said that I could "have him."He introduced himself as Ollie with a slightly lilting accent.
"That's a very Swedish," I commented.
"Short for Olawale. I'm from Nigeria."
The rest of the story, including the hookup and the tattooed penis, is on Tales of West Hollywood.