![older gay men cruising for dick in the park older gay men cruising for dick in the park](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CQ83U4CWsAAkIiT.jpg)
He cleared his throat a couple of times but, thinking he just had a cold, I ignored him. I saw a husky guy, maybe in his 50s, muscles wrapped in a tight denim jacket, at the end of the path in front of me.
![older gay men cruising for dick in the park older gay men cruising for dick in the park](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/7a/95/9e/7a959ea5c9db207d3f0a0642d8351068.jpg)
I sat down on a bench, just a few paces from the men engaged in carnal activity. I had figured the advent of Grindr and more visibility of the LGBT community had quelled the surreptitious activity in The Ramble, but evidently I was mistaken. Being that it was so dangerous to be openly gay at the time, The Ramble became a literal breeding ground for men who had sex with men. Arrests for homosexual behavior skyrocketed, and by the 1960s Central Park became an object of fear for all of the rapes, muggings and homosexual sex that occurred there. Post World War II, societal panic overtook most of the country, so the perception of effeminate men and other undesirables in a heteropatriarchal society went from eccentric fops to threats to humanity. Since at least the turn of the century (the 20th, that is), it was a known trolling ground for gay men, probably the most popular in New York City, a site that was marked Queer long before Christopher Street or Fire Island ever was.
![older gay men cruising for dick in the park older gay men cruising for dick in the park](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zzrblIXpb3Q/UtBXb2S2-_I/AAAAAAABmyU/ZUvNBuugcEE/s1600/424731_501032176576322_598388772_n.jpg)
There’s a scene in Angels in America where one character, Louis, goes to have anonymous sex with a leatherman to divert his attention from his lover dying of AIDS. The Ramble is a dense ecosystem located behind the lake behind Bethesda Terrace. I heard a rhythmic thumping as I got further into the bosk, finally noticing two men having sex off the trail, partially concealed by some trees. A woman with a baby stroller seemed to be running away, a cop was stationed on his motorcycle, but drove off once I appeared. The area I ended up in was heavily wooded, veins of thin, bare branches reaching out into the sky, paths interlocking to break up long stretches of seclusion. Of course I wasn’t extremely familiar with New York geography at 19, and Central Park seems to have an intentionally circuitous design made to distract people from the fact that they’re in a giant manufactured agrestic rectangle plopped into the middle of a city. Missing my usual subway stop uptown, I got off the C at 86th St and entered the park, thinking I’d work my way down to the Angel of the Waters. Making a pilgrimage from FIT to Bethesda Terrace (where a pivotal scene of the play takes place) during breaks between classes became routine, until one day when I veered off the path.
![older gay men cruising for dick in the park older gay men cruising for dick in the park](https://scs-assets-cdn.vice.com/germany/v7n10/htdocs/cruising/cruising-1.jpg)
Several times over.Īs an undergrad at the Fashion Institute of Technology, I developed an obsession with Angels in America so potent that I had the original Milton Glaser-designed logo tattooed on my wrist. It’s something I always wanted to try and, sex being the only discipline I’m particularly enterprising in, inevitably occurred. A place, as it were, untouched by the fetid fist of heteronormativity. An area of nature carved out for gay men to copulate with animalistic abandon. But the thrill of the hunt always appealed to me, not just the exhilaration of having sex in public with a stranger, but exploring a landscape that felt almost indigenously Queer. The biggest hurdle to exploring my sexuality was my own self-consciousness, that was the only work I had to put into having sex, especially when I was younger.
#OLDER GAY MEN CRUISING FOR DICK IN THE PARK CODE#
Mostly.) Though usually flagrant with their hankies since only gay men knew what they meant, you’d also find a fair few of these butt flags flying at places like The Ramble in Central Park, or the Meat Rack on Fire Island, or the dunes on Jones Beach: notorious breeding grounds for public, anonymous gay sex.Ĭoming of age in the time of Adam2Adam, DList, and later Grindr, I never needed firsthand experience with things like the hanky code or bathhouses. It was a necessary game to play at a time where society sneered at Queers and the law enforcement breathed down their necks (in a non-sexual context. A man would put a bandana of the appropriate color in his back pocket (left if he’s a top, right for bottoms) to quietly declare his sexual proclivities and availability. This is a bit of what I know about the hanky code, a sartorial semiotic approach to cruising for gay sex that went out of style 30 or 40 years ago. Yellow means you’re into water sports, red signals an interest in fisting, robin’s egg blue pertains to 69ing, mauve is for navel fetishes, union jacks are for skinheads, black, of course, advertises BDSM.