11pm on Sunday night, and I find myself on Charing Cross concourse a little drunk and chowing down a burger in the fluorescent depression of Burger King. In my final week in London I'm planning on taking a few field trips to locations that bare some relevance to the show, such as the Croyden reception centre and Club Kali. But tonight, as the booze is making me a little braver, I decide to check out one of London's sex clubs.
Raw sex can often seem a little off the agenda for all the 'queering of hetronormativity' intellectualism, 'right to love' romanticism and sanitised image consciousness of the mainstream gay scene. I often think of it as the Will and Grace effect where gay men are intelligent, well dressed and witty gal's best friends, but where the lube stained bed sheet, nipple yanking and dirty towel to wipe it all up after, stay well off stage. The right for a man to lie with a man is surely the very kernel of LGBT rights whether they love each other or just fancy a shag. But is that all it is? One of the guys I interviewed told me of a mother disgust when she heard her son was gay; to give up family and an accepted place in his society for what? To get fucked?
The impulsive decision having been made I wiped the mayonnaise from my face, gubbed a couple of chewing gums and descend into the underground. The train was surprisingly busy for so late on a Sunday. London suddenly seemed ripe for adventure and I could hear Neneh Cherry whispering "Here in the night, love takes control/ Making me high, making me whole" from Pulp's seedy ballad of sexual noir "Seductive Barry;"
I'd been sex clubs before, and was rather surprised to find myself on a more than salubrious street in a very well heeled neighbourhood in central London. In Birmingham you had to leave the bright lights of the gay district behind to find a tattered rainbow flag flapping amongst the warehouses and light industry of Digbeth, whilst in Zagreb all I knew was to ring the buzzer for "Dennis" at a soot stained tenement. Here the houses were extremely expensive and the street almost scrubbed white. None the less I scanned the basement windows, expecting to find only the merest indication of the streets dirty little secret, but again was surprised to find the door wide open onto the pavement and looking like a friendly local bar.
At the bottom of the stairs a small window nestled next to a security door. As I descended I could hear men's voices that made the place sound relatively busy, and almost ludicrously cliched HI-NRG music pounding away. A little sense of danger and trepidation returned. The office behind the window was empty and I spent a few moments wondering if there was a buzzer I should press. Eventually someone came out, and I slipped through into the main bar space.
The bar area was large and metallic, and smelt strongly of detergent. It was also freezing cold thanks to a powerful air-con. A handful of men stood at the bar chatting, whilst others stood on their own furtively nursing their drink.
"There was no one at the door." I told the barman, who was gamely adding a note of youthful sexiness to the otherwise drab surroundings, wearing a tight white vest and tiny running shorts. He looked at me annoyed and gestured to another man who told me to come back to the door, again with irritation that I should have somehow got in. He took my £6 and gave me a drinks voucher. A third man took my bag and placed it in a crate in a back room. He was topless, but his sallow body made him appear deeply seedy.
I returned to the bar, where the barmen took my token in exchange for a beer with minimal interaction. Apart from the smell and the porn showing on flat screen T.V.'s it could have been a bad night in any other gay bar in town. I looked around at the other men. They were mostly older, and I couldn't say I felt remotely attracted to any of them, but then none were paying me any attention either, so I sat, sipping my beer feeling invisible. Behind me a cavernous opening, hung across with a chain-mail curtain, gave out into the area where I assumed you would find the darkrooms and sex dungeons. The topless man emerged carrying a mop and bucket. In the interests of research I decided to go and investigate.
The row of booths were empty as far as I could tell, though the burly man following close behind me seemed to want to remedy that. I felt a little threatened, but kept my slow, curious pace. At the end of the corridor two men were kissing hungrily, but they returned to the bar shortly after I did so nothing much could have happened.
I returned to my seat. A new porn film was starting; the startlingly young faces of it's stars shown in close up, with their ridiculous sounding names captioned below. The man from the door called last orders, and I motioned the barman for another beer. He handed me an unopen can of 1664, but I left a pound on the tip tray regardless. He suddenly perked up when he came to retrieve it.
"Are you having a good night?"
"It's okay. I was just in town and I'd heard this place was interesting."
"Well, it's kind of quiet tonight but you should come back tomorrow. Then it's naked night, if your brave enough."
I thought about all the guys in there seeing me naked, and seeing all them naked too. I'm not sure which appealed less.
"Do you do it?" I asked.
" I just wear shorts, but I have to go topless." That was all the chat I got from him, a pound clearly didn't go far.
I watched the porn. Three guys; one on his back, legs in the air, the other two taking a hole each. The one in the mouth touched the body of the prone boy with a gesture of "I've-got-you-exactly-where-I-want-you" power, full of himself. I thought about the relationship I dream of being in; hiking up mountains in the rain, smiling on long journeys, no need to impress each other, to be comfortable in silence, to be attracted to each other but be in love with more than that, for sex to be an expression of deeply held feelings, a need to be one. The camera zoomed in on one of the guys cumming, repeating it again in slow motion, a eulogy to a perfectly everyday ejaculation. I smile to myself. I can do that on my own, I think.
A man whispered in my ear, "Gorgeous." He was not unattractive, but the proposition that lay behind his compliment repelled me. The aggressive tongue in the mouth, the grabbing, the spunking up on the floor to be wiped up by the strong smelling detergent, I decided I like my sex a little more hopeful. "Thanks" was all I could reply. I went to collect my bag and set out to leave.
I felt strangely happy as I left, leaving behind the oppressive atmosphere. For me at least homosexuality is about more than fucking or getting fucked, it's about an emotional need that can somehow only be filled by another man, for whatever strange and mysterious reason. I am happy to wait untill I meet someone who can potentially fill that rather than a stranger in the dark, and when it comes I'll be happier still. I'm sure those who attend the club are searching for something similar in whatever way, but to say more than that would be hopeless conjecture.
And I will not be going to naked night.
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