january B. 1
From cyber chats
to sex clubs
to personals,
¿fust Out ponders
a few queer venues
for meeting and,
just maybe, mating
(soul or otherwise)
photos by
L inda K liewer
Booty is in the eye of the beholder
CONNECTIONS
Cruising the Infobahn as
an option for queer singles
(or doubles...)
by
W ill O ’B ryan
s
ay men have always known how to
find one another, especially for sex.
As tawdry as it might seem in 1999,
we’ve found ways of marking our territory,
whether it he a particular park, bathroom or
pier.
O f course, not all gay men have made these
seedy playgrounds their own. 1 have to admit
I’ve never cruised any of those venues. But in
the sterile, latex-wrapped Information Age, I
have been known to cruise a chat room or two.
It started innocently enough. I got my first
computer just before graduating from college in
1994. America On-Line, the behemoth of
Internet service providers, was included. I first
explored with my boyfriend at the time.
Our exploration took us to "member rooms”
(nonstandard rooms created by users). It
seemed that nearly every city in the United
States merited a room followed by the code
“M4M,” meaning “male for male." From that
nearly innocent first step to years later near the
end of the relationship, we came to know all
the ins and outs of what these chat rooms had
to offer.
Our first dalliance was trading “pics.” The
first time someone sent us a message that
asked, “Trading?” we didn’t know how to
respond. Baseball cards? Recipes? Soon— unso
licited— people were e-mailing dirty pictures
into our mailbox and we understood what trad
ing meant.
Like Prometheus wanting to steal fire from
the gods, we got bolder. It took a year or two,
but like many couples, we got an itching to
mutually try a little outside action. Our cruis
ing spot of choice was AOL’s “PortlandM4M”
room.
From the comfort of our own home, we
could peruse. (Although we’d often wait a half-
hour or so to get into the room, as it is often
filled to its 23-person capacity.) People would
instantly send photos of themselves to make
shopping easier. We would send digitized pho
tos back. Relative to some of the photos
strangers sent us, ours was a pretty tame fully-
clothed pic.
The whole business bore an uncanny simi
larity to a scenario in the 1976 movie Logan’s
Run. For those unfamiliar with this futuristic
tale, it takes place in a groovy sci-fi future con
cocted by set designers in bell-bottoms. The
citizens of Logan’s bubble city run around in
skimpy satin and feathered hair. They’re bom
you like, hit another button. The parade stops
and you’ve got company.
When George Clayton Johnson and
William F. Nolan wrote the story, I doubt they
imagined that a crude version of their “circuit”
would be in place before the end of the century.
Humans are multifaceted creatures, though,
and we’re not always looking for sex. Men
included. Accordingly, PortlandM4M serves
different needs. I’ve met people in the room
who’ve been engaging enough to meet later in
person on a purely platonic basis. One of those
people, whom I met years ago, is still a close
friend. I doubt I would’ve met him if not for
the chat room. When the aforementioned
romantic relationship ended, PortlandM4M
provided an easy way for me to take baby steps
back into the dating pool.
Now that Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks
have put the “America’s Sweethearts” stamp
of approval on virtual dating with the release
of You've dot M ail there’s not much more
I can say. There’s no promotion of Internet
cruising/dating/socializing I could offer
to surpass that.
to live a carefree existence for just a few years
before expiring. In the meantime, they recreate
with sex and go to plastic-surgery salons for a
different look. (In the movie, Farrah Fawcett-
Majors runs the surgical lasers.)
To facilitate their sex lives, Logan’s compa
triots indulged in something called “the cir
cuit.” Simply take a seat in your living room,
flip a switch and a parade of other people look
ing for a little divergence appear (then disap
pear) on a little appliance that matches the
rest of your decor. When you see something
Now that Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks have
put the “America’s Sweethearts” stamp of
approval on virtual dating with the release of
You've Got Mail, there’s not much more I can
say. There’s no promotion of Internet
cruising/dating/socializing I could offer to sur
pass that.
Every generation has its town square, and
gay men have always known by unwritten code
which comer is intended for queer loitering.
Today, the town square may only be reached
via modem, but we still have our comer.
STEPPING OUT
RT THE
SEH CLUBS
The neighborhood bar
on a different level’
by
P atrick C ollins
*
Truth in advertising?
or the single, the lonely, the bored
and the just plain homy, it is perhaps
Portland’s most promising landmark.
A sign attached to a dark building on a well-
traveled stretch of West Burnside Street
offers— quite simply, and with little fanfare— a
14-ounce boner. That’s nearly a pound of flesh,
but the sign offers no further instruction.
G o around the comer, though, through the
spotlight-illuminated orange doors, and you’re
in. Welcome to Club Portland, the Rose City’s
answer to a bathhouse— or, in today’s vernacu
lar, a sex club.
Legendary in 1970s and vilified in the ’80s,
the end of the century’s final decade finds the
sex club scene up and running at full speed.
Inside Club Portland, men of all shapes and
sizes and colors make their way around a trian-
F
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