Tourist

In 1999 I went to Israel on business. By the end of the week we were pretty much done with twelve-hour days and wanted a chance to see the country. We drove to Jerusalem, parked somewhere and started walking. As we neared the old city an elderly gentleman accosted us and appointed himself our tour guide. His name was Muhammad. He had traveled the world in his days as a businessman and gave tours now mainly because he loved his city. His English, and so far as we could tell from chance conversations his Hebrew, were impeccable. He took us through alleys and across rooftops and through the Arab quarter market and made us feel we had been privileged to see things most tourists never see.

Yesterday we went to the Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco. By the end of the day, the festival long being over, we were hopping from bar to bar in the company of a good young friend who has spent much of his youth immersed in local gay culture. Our last stop, The Powerhouse, was crammed wall to wall with mostly shirtless men. It was clear once we pushed our way in that there were about two hundred people in there, approximately 1 ½ of whom, thanks to us, were heterosexual. I felt very quickly as though we were privileged to see things most tourists never see.

The basic story is that my partner followed our friend and I followed her. We went all the way to the half-upstairs dance floor in back. Wall to wall men. Group blowjob gay porn on the monitors. Deep house music blasting. Eye contact and continuous cruising. Pockets of group sex spontaneously forming and breaking apart -- a very biological dynamic in this dark sweaty Petri dish -- hips thrusting into buttocks or faces, constant interchange of participants, observers masturbating. My woman had me pull my shirt off. We danced in the midst of it. My nipples were only grabbed by an unseen man once, and anything else, not at all. In time she got claustrophobic and we made for the exit. The cool night air was very welcome. Our companion was visiting with groups of old friends -- I say old but they were all in their twenties. His implied imprimatur seemed to hold us in good stead, for it's a fact that heteros can go anywhere and gays are thus rightfully protective of turf that is their own, but we felt either welcome or ignored. Of course, gay-friendly looky-loo couples are probably not uncommon.

I've defaulted to tourist status (i.e. observer rather than citizen or participant) in many ways and places but this one reminded me of Jerusalem, which I find wonderfully ironic.