In reaction, assimilationist gay organizations like GLAAD dismissed things such as cruising and glory holes as a tragic aspect of an earlier generation of queer culture. There was an understandable fear at the time that queer sexual practices could lead to anti-gay stigmatization. Technically, no glory hole was involved (“there is no smoking glory hole here,” explained a prominent gay blog at the time) but it’s true that Craig’s toe-tapping in a Minneapolis airport restroom did get him arrested, creating a panicked investigation in straight media about, as the Advocate put it, " What Are the Gays Up to in Bathrooms Anyway?"
Police surveillance of homosocial meeting spaces first uncovered the existence of glory holes for scandalized cis heterosexuals back in 18th-century England, long before the Oscar Wilde trial turned sodomy into a scandal and homosexuality into an identity.Īccording to my highly scientific research, meaning I asked a straight colleague what came to mind when she heard the term “glory hole,” she explained that a certain generation of straight white women first heard the phrase during coverage of the 2007 arrest of Sen. The idea of a hole in a partition of a public men’s restroom - at waist level, to put a penis in or gesture for another person to do so - has been linked to queer men in the public imagination since before the notion of queer identity existed. Queer outlets quickly decoded the recommendation for straights: The department was encouraging the use of glory holes. It suggested, for instance, that New Yorkers try new sexual practices, including "physical barriers, like walls, that allow sexual contact while preventing close face to face contact.” With his panting breath and dripping sweat infused in each page of his memoir, Patrick Cowley describes himself on his knees, bending over and "worshipping Phallus." He touches the ground beneath a much-used glory hole and with complete sincerity calls for it to be consecrated territory.Last month, in the midst of coronavirus quarantining, the New York City Health Department encouraged residents to be sexually creative to stay safe. Having just indulged in the pleasures of a "golden idol," Cowley offers sacraments to show his appreciation, and if religious offerings were not enough, he sends thanks directly to the Father. This might just be a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour, but by adopting religious language in descriptions of conventionally irreligious exploits, Cowley shatters our expectations of gay freedoms in the 1970s.
We're left celebrating gay liberation as a period that empowered homosexual men to self-govern without restraint. Spanning the liberation period from Stonewall in 1969 to the dawn of AIDS in 1981, record label Dark Entries' publication of Cowley's private journal, Mechanical Fantasy Box, captures without concession one man's proud and unabated expression of sexual freedom. The diary's writer and intended sole confidant, Cowley, is known as the pioneer of Hi-NRG, disco's electrified successor, for his extended remix of Donna Summer's ‘I Feel Love,' and for his collaborations with Sylvester, the gender-bending, falsetto-singing disco mainstay.
By recording the spectacular details of his indulgence, Cowley gives us a sense of the vibrancy of the gay liberation period.Ĭowley's pursuits seem effortless, self-manifested, however what his actions conceal is the might of self-organisation that had taken place in the relatively isolated Castro District of San Francisco to give rise to his sexual freedom. With leaders like Harvey Milk, the famed gay District supervisor, the Castro community established some ninety gay bars in the city and a further hundred and fifty gay organisations, a catch-all for church groups, social service groups, and business associations. Nine gay newspapers were set up, two gay charitable foundations, and three gay Democratic clubs, one of which grew to be the largest Democratic club in California. Cowley's insatiable lust is the torch that allows us to navigate this web of gay infrastructure and celebrate the period for inculcating authentic and uninhibited sexuality.