Speaker 1: Ruby, there was justice, one huge archie.
Speaker 2: Real and orgasm. The day is good for you and
Speaker 2: have fresh breath. Come on.
Speaker 3: From just beyond the lights of Los Angeles and Steale
Speaker 3: Palm Springs, California. It's Mick Robert Bill just say and this.
Speaker 4: Is silver Lining with the old days.
Speaker 5: Hello, LGPTQ plus queer community and everyone else under the sun.
Speaker 3: Silver Linings is our stage for sharing stories and lessons
Speaker 3: from our lifetime of living out loud, from sex and
Speaker 3: relationships to fashion, art and aging. We'll share the wisdom
Speaker 3: we gained over the years.
Speaker 1: On our last episode we talked about community and chosen family.
Speaker 1: But today we're getting a little not safe for work
Speaker 1: talking all about sex and relationships of all types.
Speaker 5: Now onto the good stuff.
Speaker 1: When it comes to sex and relationships, you can imagine.
Speaker 1: Our lives have been filled with many salacious stories and
Speaker 1: sweet and romances, but relationships come in many shapes and sizes,
Speaker 1: especially in the life of an old gay.
Speaker 3: I would listen to them and their sex stories because
Speaker 3: their lives have been more exciting than mine.
Speaker 5: Yeah, now we want to hear you first. Now it's
Speaker 5: so uninteresting, Let's start with the least.
Speaker 3: Okay, it is so uninteresting. I'm so vanilla and baby
Speaker 3: and sex wise has been a while because I'd gone
Speaker 3: through my prostate cancer, so it's changed my life wholly.
Speaker 3: But things are slowly coming back. But in the past
Speaker 3: it's a secret.
Speaker 4: You are a romantic god there, aren't you?
Speaker 3: Very much?
Speaker 4: Yeah, probably the most romantic of the group.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I'm not a slut like y'all, except on cruise ship.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right, cruise ships.
Speaker 5: Cruship say is a slut. Oh, tell us he's the
Speaker 5: biggest slut in the Western Mediterranean.
Speaker 3: But I don't share.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that dancer that came to your place
Speaker 1: at one am in the morning.
Speaker 5: Yeah, who was that guy? His footprints are all over you.
Speaker 3: And that's been years, No, it was last year. Well, yes,
Speaker 3: well I have found out on cruises life begins after midnight,
Speaker 3: especially for the entertainers on the crew, because they are
Speaker 3: not allowed to socialize with us during normal business or Yes,
Speaker 3: and I like staying up late.
Speaker 4: I kind of slowed down as I've gotten older. But
Speaker 4: I have to say, hey that my San Francisco years
Speaker 4: from nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety were pretty outrageous at
Speaker 4: the beginning and interesting over the balance of the eighties
Speaker 4: and then moving to the desert here Palm Springs Cathedral City,
Speaker 4: it sects all the time.
Speaker 5: I kind of think that's a misnomer. You know, when
Speaker 5: you first moved to the valley kind of are very active.
Speaker 5: And then as you get to know everybody, everybody because
Speaker 5: you know, the tourists come and go and they don't
Speaker 5: come back, so it's just getting to know each other.
Speaker 5: That usually happens in the summer months.
Speaker 1: I agree because one of the first things I learned
Speaker 1: when I moved to Palm Springs in two thousand and
Speaker 1: three was the summers were so dull that friends even
Speaker 1: had sex with friends.
Speaker 4: Oh my god. Well, as Nick mentioned, the tourists come
Speaker 4: and go, but it's like every weekend, there's fresh meat weekend.
Speaker 3: I did you come out here seven days a week?
Speaker 5: Okay, Bob, what was your favorite sex story that you
Speaker 5: want to relate to us?
Speaker 4: My favorite sex story? Oh, I have so many, I know,
Speaker 4: pick one. Oh, I guess. One of the most thrilling
Speaker 4: for me was in San Francisco and I lived near
Speaker 4: the Castro area, which is one of the gay neighborhoods,
Speaker 4: and I was in a video bar talking to this
Speaker 4: very attractive young guy, a ballet dancer from a New
Speaker 4: York ballet company that was in town. And it was
Speaker 4: one of those rare, warm Sand Francisco nights, and so
Speaker 4: we drove out to the beach and it was a
Speaker 4: beautiful moonlit night, and so we took off our clothes
Speaker 4: and waded out and climbed up on a rock in
Speaker 4: the surf and had sex on top of the rock
Speaker 4: with the waves crashing around this and it was really
Speaker 4: pretty exciting.
Speaker 1: Bob, was that at Land's End?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Okay, because I have a very similar story. You drove
Speaker 1: over the Golden gate Bridge at the Marin Headlands, there
Speaker 1: was a gay beach. The north end of it was
Speaker 1: straight people and the south part of it was all gay.
Speaker 1: So I went down there, laid my towel down, and
Speaker 1: I looked up and there was this handsome guy looking
Speaker 1: at me and he was playing with himself, and I
Speaker 1: looked at him and I was staring at him, and
Speaker 1: then he pointed to himself and he said me, and
Speaker 1: I went yeah. So he moved his towel up and
Speaker 1: we went to a very discreet place and we played
Speaker 1: all afternoon. It was a sunny day we were watching
Speaker 1: the boats come in and out under the Golden gate
Speaker 1: Bridge and again the surf was crashing, and it was
Speaker 1: an absolutely wonderful afternoon of love making.
Speaker 4: Those are special moments.
Speaker 2: Me.
Speaker 4: Are you asleep? You had any memorable sex experiences?
Speaker 5: Well, not, Vanilla. I went to Fossom Europe about ten
Speaker 5: years ago. If Folsom is an event for the leather
Speaker 5: community and the fetish community, and they hold a festival
Speaker 5: and in It began in San Francisco on Folsom Street
Speaker 5: and it just morphed into this huge event. Folsom Europe
Speaker 5: is a little different. It's in Brilliin and it's much
Speaker 5: more leather, it's much more raw and rough. Berlin is
Speaker 5: very theatrical. It's where the theater really much of are
Speaker 5: what we know is theater really originated in Brilliin. And
Speaker 5: it was just this incredible million of people from all
Speaker 5: over Europe. We're all playing, we're all having fun, we're
Speaker 5: all taking substances, and we're all just enjoying ourselves. Being gay. Anyway,
Speaker 5: the major party at Folsom is called Pig, that's b ig.
Speaker 5: And what was cool about it is that they had
Speaker 5: enormous arch tallas lit and then there was a dark
Speaker 5: room on the other side, and so I went into
Speaker 5: the dark room and I played around with some guys,
Speaker 5: and then somebody grabbed new film behind really strong man,
Speaker 5: and he whispered into my ear just standing and so
Speaker 5: it was enormous. It was incredible. I touched the sky
Speaker 5: and after and after I settled down, I leaned over
Speaker 5: to the guy and asked him, just out of curiosity,
Speaker 5: where are you from? And he whispered into my ear
Speaker 5: long beach.
Speaker 3: It went around the world and knew another America.
Speaker 4: One of the biggest elements of growing up gay and
Speaker 4: having sex his bathhouses. Bill, what about two? Have you
Speaker 4: ever had a bath? Oh? My god?
Speaker 1: If I when I was in San Francisco, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you went out on the weekend and if you
Speaker 1: didn't pick up any one in the bars, you just
Speaker 1: went to one of the myriad of bath houses that
Speaker 1: were all around. And my favorite one was called the
Speaker 1: Rich Street Baths, and it was south of Market and
Speaker 1: a converted old warehouse and it was on three floors
Speaker 1: and it was absolutely fantastic. On the third floor there
Speaker 1: was just this one huge orgy room and it was
Speaker 1: always packed with people. It was a playland. Absolutely.
Speaker 4: San Francisco pri ATYV was definitely a haven for debauchery.
Speaker 4: And I remember one in particular in the Tenderloin area
Speaker 4: that had a Mac truck inside the building and you
Speaker 4: could play in the cab of the truck or on
Speaker 4: the hood of the truck, wherever you wanted.
Speaker 5: The first introduction I had to a bath house was
Speaker 5: in Los Angeles. It was a place called the eighty
Speaker 5: seven nine and it was at eighty seven oh nine
Speaker 5: West Third Street, just across from Joe Allen and I
Speaker 5: went there and I have never seen so many beautiful
Speaker 5: but this was preage. I had never seen so many
Speaker 5: beautiful bodies in my life crammed into one building. And
Speaker 5: not only that, there was a central kind of cruising
Speaker 5: area where everybody could check each other out. Everybody, of course,
Speaker 5: is clad in white towels and walking around they're checking
Speaker 5: out each other. And I was totally intimidated. And it
Speaker 5: was at that time when I realized, well, you know,
Speaker 5: even though when you go to the baths and you
Speaker 5: go with somebody, it's a buddy system, and so you know,
Speaker 5: you make sure that you go in together, you leave together.
Speaker 5: But I think you know it was a communal place
Speaker 5: where you got to know people and developed relationships with
Speaker 5: people now who are no longer with us, And I
Speaker 5: miss them because, quite frankly, they were the fun people.
Speaker 5: And I'm glad that there's a whole new generation that's
Speaker 5: come up that's enjoying themselves and trying to be free
Speaker 5: about their bodies and really trying to be themselves as
Speaker 5: sexual beings, because quite frankly, that's how we pro create,
Speaker 5: and quite frankly, that's how we experience love.
Speaker 3: Question for you, what happened when you went in? You
Speaker 3: said it was better to go with somebody than alone.
Speaker 3: What would happened if you went in alone? Did you
Speaker 3: get lost in a crowd.
Speaker 5: Or no, that's in case something happens. Okay, Yeah, you
Speaker 5: know you have a buddy to check you out. You know,
Speaker 5: I can tell that was a buddy. What would you
Speaker 5: consider cruising etiquette?
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't think there's any etiquette in cruising.
Speaker 4: To the extent that if you're cruising a guy and
Speaker 4: through his physical manifestations he shows disinterest, you know, not
Speaker 4: to try to oh or interest or interest. Yeah, you
Speaker 4: know that they're very obvious, not necessarily set gestures, but
Speaker 4: you know when someone's interested.
Speaker 5: You know, in the old days, I don't know if
Speaker 5: they do. Man, I still think people do it. He
Speaker 5: would stick a hanky, a colored hanky in your pocket,
Speaker 5: like blue mint. You wanted a fuck, And I think
Speaker 5: it was on the left side you were top, and
Speaker 5: on the right side you were bottom. So you would
Speaker 5: stick a handkerchief really nicely folded of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They had a sheet, an eight and a half by
Speaker 1: eleven sheet filled with colors. There must have been forty
Speaker 1: different colors on there, with definitions.
Speaker 4: Where would you wear the hanky when you were versatile.
Speaker 3: In the middle.
Speaker 5: Between your legs. Oh, that's gonna get caught. God's gonna
Speaker 5: get caught.
Speaker 4: Maybe not, that's good, that's real.
Speaker 5: So did you put it in your left or your right?
Speaker 3: But I do it in the garbage can. Look at me,
Speaker 3: I'm so vanilla or a black man. I'm so lily.
Speaker 3: Yes you are?
Speaker 5: You said that I didn't.
Speaker 3: We all have stretched me. I see we see people
Speaker 3: in the background going dirty. They have educated me and
Speaker 3: so many things. And I sit like my eyes wide open,
Speaker 3: just excited about their stories.
Speaker 5: Why do you think people are so scared talking about sex?
Speaker 4: I think a lot of that comes from one's upbringing,
Speaker 4: and I grew up in the southern home. It was
Speaker 4: a great family, leave it to beaver type family, but
Speaker 4: sex was one thing you just didn't talk about. And
Speaker 4: I think that was because my parents were Southern Baptists.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't really until I went to college and
Speaker 4: freed myself of the environment I grew up in that
Speaker 4: my attitudes and education about sex really started happening.
Speaker 5: Honestly, think that it's more societal because if you go
Speaker 5: to Europe, attitudes about sex are so different.
Speaker 1: Well, for me, I grew up in southern California, and
Speaker 1: I remember the first time that I was aware of something.
Speaker 1: There was going to be a meeting of all the
Speaker 1: girls in the school in the gym, and none of
Speaker 1: the guys were allowed. They didn't talk about it at all.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't say what the girls were learning and everything,
Speaker 1: and it sort of turned it into a taboo kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Now, my parents sat down with my brother
Speaker 1: and I and talked to us about sex, and of
Speaker 1: course my brother and I had already heard all of
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, but there was there was just
Speaker 1: this sort of enigma to keep it down, don't you
Speaker 1: know you don't talk about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I think people should talk about it more
Speaker 5: because I think you hear a lot of misconceptions about sex,
Speaker 5: you know, and that's what gets Yeah, that's what gets
Speaker 5: us into trouble because we think we you know, we
Speaker 5: we say these pious things about monogamy, and as gore
Speaker 5: Vidal put it, and then we want a little extra size.
Speaker 5: And that pursuit of the little extra on the side
Speaker 5: in secrecy gets people into trouble.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a quick break.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to silver Linings with the old gays.
Speaker 4: Who's the most romantic of the group, I would say
Speaker 4: to say, I would agree.
Speaker 5: Yeah, who's the biggest flirt? Just say, don't you who
Speaker 5: is the most swave? I would say Bill, Bill is swave.
Speaker 5: He dressed, yeah, save.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he dresses.
Speaker 3: The part looks so deceiving.
Speaker 5: Okay, so what's your type? To say, what's your dream man?
Speaker 3: My dreamman he's got dark hair or he's got gray hair,
Speaker 3: and he's got a wonderful, warm character that is giving
Speaker 3: and received because I like to both give and receive
Speaker 3: to a person. And we're best friends and we can
Speaker 3: talk about anything when we get upset with each other.
Speaker 3: We talk about it, but I've been single so long,
Speaker 3: I don't know how to do it now, but I'll try.
Speaker 4: What's your type?
Speaker 5: Bill?
Speaker 1: Well, both of my long term relationships, they were brunettes.
Speaker 1: They had harry chest. They were very, very, very attractive.
Speaker 1: But I have this ideal man in my head and
Speaker 1: I've never met him or never been to bed with him.
Speaker 1: But he's about six foot one. He's blonde, with a
Speaker 1: blonde hairy chest, and that is one of my fantasies.
Speaker 5: You mean Lassie.
Speaker 4: She was sweet, she was a bitch too, your favorite
Speaker 4: well being that I'm a hairy guy and opposite subtract.
Speaker 4: I like smoother guys. And I have to admit I
Speaker 4: like him young, not too young, but you know, younger
Speaker 4: and the energy that youth brings. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 4: they're bond, or are dark haired, or blue eyed or
Speaker 4: brown eyed or what.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well, I got very creative here and I wrote
Speaker 5: up a little of something that I could always place
Speaker 5: in the frontiers or online. So here goes, and I
Speaker 5: hope that dream is listening. What is my type? Silent
Speaker 5: or gregarious? My dreamman stands six foot four of two
Speaker 5: hundred and thirty five pounds of pumped, ripped and vascular
Speaker 5: dom top muscle. His big hands are gentle and versed
Speaker 5: in the ways to make me quiver. A sensational kisser.
Speaker 5: It is all or nothing with him.
Speaker 4: So you like passion, don't we?
Speaker 2: All?
Speaker 5: Well, that's the kind of a eye product. What's really
Speaker 5: what I'm saying is this guy exists somewhere and I
Speaker 5: like him big. I like him bigger than me. I
Speaker 5: like the way they smother me and nail me to
Speaker 5: the floor. So if he's out there and you're interested
Speaker 5: in this sixty eight year old man who's trying to
Speaker 5: make his way and still you know, working out and
Speaker 5: doesn't want too much resistance, I'm here.
Speaker 4: You seem to like the kink ear side of the
Speaker 4: sexual world. What what do you think are the biggest
Speaker 4: misconceptions about kink and fetish?
Speaker 5: Well, I wrote you on here. Kink means bent to bent.
Speaker 5: Bent is a British expression for kink, and it means
Speaker 5: unconventional or taboo sex, mostly dealing with bondage and saddle masochism.
Speaker 5: The big misconceptions I think people have about kink is
Speaker 5: people's adversion to pain. They have never experienced a true
Speaker 5: endorphin rush. Talk through any athlete who has pushed themselves
Speaker 5: beyond the edge and they will tell you there is
Speaker 5: an endorphin rush that is like no other. It is
Speaker 5: tantabout to sex. And I think people are afraid of
Speaker 5: that because they think it's long lasting. It isn't. It
Speaker 5: lasts only as long as well it takes for you
Speaker 5: to heal. But for the most part, it is designed
Speaker 5: to not hurt people, and I think that is the misconception.
Speaker 5: Now as far as pain is concerned to me, because
Speaker 5: I've experienced that rush many times, and I guess you
Speaker 5: could say I'm a pain pig because I'm looking for
Speaker 5: that endorphin rush. It has prepared me for the chronic
Speaker 5: pain that I now experience for the rest of my life.
Speaker 5: I know how to cope with chronic pain, and I
Speaker 5: think my tolerance for pain is much higher as a result.
Speaker 5: But there are ways that you get through it. Now.
Speaker 5: I'm talking basically as the bottom and there's submissive for
Speaker 5: the top. The top's purpose is once that person is
Speaker 5: giving you trust, they are depending on you to take
Speaker 5: them to that endorphin rush without hurting them, Okay, And
Speaker 5: that's the mark of a true dump top, somebody who
Speaker 5: knows what they are doing. And I can only say
Speaker 5: that I've been very lucky to have had that experience.
Speaker 5: I can also say I've moved on from it because
Speaker 5: I'm a sixty eight year old man now with a
Speaker 5: chronic disease that has destroyed my nerves, and so I
Speaker 5: live with chronic pain every day. But I have to
Speaker 5: say I've met some wonderful men, some really incredible daddies,
Speaker 5: who have taught me how to trust, how to give
Speaker 5: yourself to really another person in a wholly complete way,
Speaker 5: and that person takes you on a journey. That is
Speaker 5: what kink is about. Okay. You know, if you want
Speaker 5: to talk about fetish, that's a whole other issue, okay,
Speaker 5: But I'm just talking about kink.
Speaker 3: Care. Thank you because you educated me just now, oh,
Speaker 3: because most of us are scared of it.
Speaker 1: Well, I have to tell you, I used to equate
Speaker 1: kink to weird, but after hearing your stories, which were
Speaker 1: wild stories and that, but you also educated me about
Speaker 1: the world of s and m and what it was
Speaker 1: and the feelings and everything. So I have to thank you, Mick,
Speaker 1: because I have a greater understanding and I don't consider
Speaker 1: kink weird and more.
Speaker 5: Oh, I consider kink weird because I don't have a
Speaker 5: problem with weird. I've been called weird for years. I
Speaker 5: think my whole life I was called weird as a child.
Speaker 5: So you know, when somebody tells me that I'm weird,
Speaker 5: I say, okay, great, let's move on. You haven't told
Speaker 5: me anything.
Speaker 3: New, okay, and we all are in some way.
Speaker 4: What about dating apps? Do you guys use dating apps?
Speaker 5: Last night, for a little bit of research, I went,
Speaker 5: I went back online with this one dating app and
Speaker 5: see I had dropped out of it, and so I
Speaker 5: re established the profile and I hadn't even put pictures
Speaker 5: in yet, just a cover picture. So I got this
Speaker 5: response from this guy who said what a fuck? And
Speaker 5: so I responded with yeah, and I said text me,
Speaker 5: and I gave him out my number, oh, because I
Speaker 5: had thought, you know, remember this guy, And sure enough,
Speaker 5: the same response came back, you seem a little too
Speaker 5: wild for me. I gave him my phone number. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean this is the mark of a guy who
Speaker 5: likes to pull hooks out of fish. Oh yeah, so
Speaker 5: you got to be aware of that. And that's a
Speaker 5: lot of what you see online.
Speaker 3: I don't like that either, and I get tired of
Speaker 3: people saying what are you into? And my last sentence
Speaker 3: to them is, well, evidently you didn't read my profile.
Speaker 5: Well then, but I think of the way what you're
Speaker 5: into is is that's kind of like a pick of one.
Speaker 5: It's kind of weak.
Speaker 3: But say hello to me first. I'm a greeter, I'm
Speaker 3: a proper man.
Speaker 4: I have to admit that once the dating apps came along,
Speaker 4: that was my.
Speaker 5: Mo. I seem to recall you being on BBRT every day,
Speaker 5: Well not every day, oh, I'm sorry, every other day,
Speaker 5: every other day.
Speaker 3: I used to love cruise and I was so sure
Speaker 3: and happy then and then all of a sudden, it
Speaker 3: went to the internet. I liked the instant gratification.
Speaker 1: The thing that I liked the most was going to
Speaker 1: bars because you could find out what they were into
Speaker 1: they were there. It was instant sex. You could go
Speaker 1: right out the door for the price of a drink.
Speaker 5: I think dating apps are are good if you are
Speaker 5: doing the traveling. Yes, and that's all I did, because
Speaker 5: then you could set up your dates, you know, depending
Speaker 5: on what city you're going to be in or what
Speaker 5: place you're going to be in or like you know,
Speaker 5: if you're on a cruise ship, you just go on
Speaker 5: your app right, just say right, man, you just just
Speaker 5: go ahead because you know it's a finite population. But
Speaker 5: they're there and they're just as desperate as you are
Speaker 5: to get off. All right, gents, we're reaching the end
Speaker 5: of today's episode because this show is called silver Linings.
Speaker 5: Thinking back on our conversation, what is your silver lining
Speaker 5: takeaway about sex, love and romance.
Speaker 4: The silver lining about sex is that sex is a
Speaker 4: very important part of your being throughout your life, no
Speaker 4: matter how old you are. And I also believe that's
Speaker 4: an important component of health and that I know for myself,
Speaker 4: I have my own philosophy that an orgasm a day
Speaker 4: is good for you.
Speaker 3: It's not over until the fat Lady sings for me.
Speaker 1: And I would have to say I had two wonderful partners,
Speaker 1: one for five years and one for sixteen years, and
Speaker 1: the silver lining of that was the joy of being
Speaker 1: with him, traveling with him and have just having a
Speaker 1: great time.
Speaker 5: I mean, for me, it comes down to trust, submission,
Speaker 5: having a twisted mind, and at a minimum eight inches.
Speaker 3: That's all for today on silver Linings with the old gays,
Speaker 3: tune in and two weeks to hear our coming out
Speaker 3: stories and why it's still important to celebrate. Silver Linings
Speaker 3: is a production of Iheart's Ruby Studio and The Outspoken Network.
Speaker 3: We're your hosts Bill Lyons, Jesse Martin.
Speaker 5: Prick Pedson, and Robert Breeze.
Speaker 3: Our executive producer is Sierra Kaiser. The episode was written
Speaker 3: by Ryan Amador with post production by Eric Zeiler. The
Speaker 3: music was composed by Max Herschanow, with audio direction and
Speaker 3: design by Matt Stillo. And if you're having fun with us,
Speaker 3: please subscribe to follow along and don't forget to rate
Speaker 3: and review the show wherever you get your podcast. Thanks
Speaker 3: for listening. Ce you in two weeks.
Speaker 2: I came out at the right time. I had to
Speaker 2: do it on my own. I do not recall pretending
Speaker 2: I was straight. It was impossible.
Speaker 5: My response was what and give up parade?