Speaker 1: Hey, viewers, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions is an explicit podcast about
Speaker 1: queer sex. Filter dirty words and unfiltered descriptions of sexual activities.
Speaker 1: If hearing about orgies, anonymous sex, kink, fetish, and more
Speaker 1: offends your sensibilities, you might want to skip this. Viewer
Speaker 1: discretion is advised. It's definitely not for kids.
Speaker 2: Put your pussy up, put your put your pussy up,
Speaker 2: Put your pussy up. Put put your pussy. Welcome to
Speaker 2: Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. I'm Gabelon Sadez and I'm christtison Rosso.
Speaker 2: Each week we explore the sublime world of queer sex, cruising,
Speaker 2: and relationships. We talk to queer folks of all kinds.
Speaker 1: We'll ask some questions, swap sex stories, share intimate revelations,
Speaker 1: and provide practical advice that you can use at home.
Speaker 1: Jo the put put Joe, pussy, put job, put put
Speaker 1: your put, put.
Speaker 2: Your put up. So Chris, so game, what are we
Speaker 2: chatting about today? Oh gosh, we're doing a deep dive
Speaker 2: I think, and even deeper dive. Yeah, into cruising, into cruising.
Speaker 2: That's right, this is gonna be our cruising through a
Speaker 2: one episode. But Chris I feel like at this point
Speaker 2: we should be experts. I mean, I came into this
Speaker 2: kind of our radio as an expert. I see, yes,
Speaker 2: so brilliantly stated in season one. Yeah they have. They
Speaker 2: watched me in action, Chris.
Speaker 1: Is mech cranes like an owl when we pass people
Speaker 1: on the street.
Speaker 2: I'm like, if that's not commitment to the art form,
Speaker 2: I don't know what is. I'm wondering. Though.
Speaker 1: We host a podcast called Cruising Confessions. We have done
Speaker 1: two episodes on cruising. Yes, we should be experts on paper,
Speaker 1: but I feel like there's still a law for us
Speaker 1: to discuss.
Speaker 2: For sure, And I'm always a student, so I'm always
Speaker 2: willing to learn more.
Speaker 1: If you have listened to this podcast, as we mentioned,
Speaker 1: for the past two seasons we've covered cruising, you might
Speaker 1: have heard our Cruising one on one episode with Lee
Speaker 1: Horrera who we love, and are cruising two to one
Speaker 1: episode with Professor Joel Florencio, who we lovingly call Professor
Speaker 1: pig Well.
Speaker 2: Today, students, it's time for another lesson. That's right, the
Speaker 2: bell has rung. Cruising through a one begins now and
Speaker 2: your professor for today's class, incredible Alex Espinoza.
Speaker 1: I am so excited about this guest. Alex's twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: book Cruising is a pretty essential read for anybody interested
Speaker 1: in learning the history of cruising, but it also offers
Speaker 1: uniquely personal insights into his experiences being a queer, disabled
Speaker 1: Latino in cruising spaces.
Speaker 2: On today's episode, we're going to be talking with Alex
Speaker 2: about what he learned about himself and cruising while writing
Speaker 2: his book, how things have changed since it's writing, and
Speaker 2: get some practical tips for queer cruises of color. Please
Speaker 2: welcome to Sniffley's Cruising Confessions. Alex Espinoza.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. It's great to be here
Speaker 3: with both of you.
Speaker 2: So excited, SOULEI, thank you for being here. I'm really
Speaker 2: sexy that you hear. We both are.
Speaker 1: We're a huge frend of the book and we're so
Speaker 1: happy that you're hear from California.
Speaker 3: Right all the way from Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: Amazing. Thanks for making the track. How's the weather hot?
Speaker 3: But you know where it's really hot?
Speaker 2: Where on Sniffy's Oh? I love that?
Speaker 1: Are you an Avid Sniffy's user in La define Avid?
Speaker 3: Okay, I do have a profile?
Speaker 2: Okay? Is its profile or is it an anonymous.
Speaker 3: It's a registered profile.
Speaker 2: Okay, you're like, yeah, the photos I.
Speaker 4: Put the work in. I don't mess around when it
Speaker 4: comes to that.
Speaker 1: Well, if there's one thing we take seriously, it's cruising,
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4: But if people want to be anonymous, that's completely fine also.
Speaker 1: All right, So before we dive too much into our
Speaker 1: personal cruising practices, I do want to kind of start
Speaker 1: us off big picture.
Speaker 2: I don't want to talk about your book Cruising.
Speaker 1: It has become one of the major go tos for
Speaker 1: anybody interested in learning about cruising. When you started writing it,
Speaker 1: what was sort of the inspiration behind it, and was
Speaker 1: the reaction what you expected.
Speaker 4: I wasn't looking to write a book about cruising. That
Speaker 4: was the last thing I was looking to do. But
Speaker 4: I just happened to be having a conversation with my
Speaker 4: editor at the time, and I was talking about how
Speaker 4: I felt as though I think the literary landscape when
Speaker 4: it came to queer writing at the time was a
Speaker 4: little too polite. I think it was catering to a
Speaker 4: non queer lens. And I kept saying, like, why can't
Speaker 4: we go back to that era of sixties writers like
Speaker 4: John Reshie or Jim Grimsley, who were writing very unapologetically
Speaker 4: about sex and body fluids and just everything right. That
Speaker 4: was my entree into queer literature. And then my editor
Speaker 4: and her partner took me out to lunch one day
Speaker 4: and they cruised me. Actually, they said, we think that
Speaker 4: you have it in you to write a book about cruising.
Speaker 2: You got professionally cruised. I did.
Speaker 4: I got professionally cruise. And I thought about it and
Speaker 4: thought about it and thought about it, and I think
Speaker 4: the reason why I said yes to it was because
Speaker 4: I really wanted to bring in the perspective of not
Speaker 4: just a queer person of color, but a queer person
Speaker 4: of color with the disability. And I said, you know,
Speaker 4: that's an angle that I think I can I can
Speaker 4: lend to it. That was the genesis of the book.
Speaker 4: And I knew that when I was going to write it,
Speaker 4: I was going to have to put my own self
Speaker 4: into the book. And I'm like, you know what, I'm
Speaker 4: going to write about my first experience. I'm going to
Speaker 4: write about, you know, these sex clubs I've been to.
Speaker 4: I'm going to write about all these places, and I'll
Speaker 4: worry about what people think about it. Later, I was
Speaker 4: writing something that was kind of in between scholarship and
Speaker 4: personal memoir because I'm not a scholar, you know, I'm
Speaker 4: not I teach creative writing. And you know, one of
Speaker 4: the things that was important for me were the interviews
Speaker 4: that I did with a lot of the men, and
Speaker 4: there were a lot that I didn't include.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 4: And you know, for all of all of the men
Speaker 4: that I interviewed, what was fantastic was just the complete
Speaker 4: intimacy of the details that they remember from me years ago.
Speaker 4: You know, the color of the tiles in the bathroom
Speaker 4: at their college bookstore, the smell like the they remember,
Speaker 4: you know, the graffiti on the walls and the stalls.
Speaker 4: Details that are just like when you're a creative writer,
Speaker 4: Like I tell my students, like, that's the shit that
Speaker 4: I want you pulling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, and they had it all.
Speaker 4: I knew that I wanted to be in conversation with
Speaker 4: that because I had denied that for so many years.
Speaker 4: I'd been you know, participating in it and doing it
Speaker 4: and feeling really ashamed and you know, carrying this cross,
Speaker 4: feeling like I'm the only one that's like this, you
Speaker 4: know muro in Spanish. And then I have these conversations
Speaker 4: with these men and they were like, no, I did too. Yeah, right,
Speaker 4: And it was revelatory. You know, it was revelatory for me.
Speaker 4: So it was a really fantastic experience.
Speaker 2: Well, now, Cochino Pig is quite empowering.
Speaker 3: It's very empowered.
Speaker 2: I was like, everybody's acino, everyone everyone's So I'm curious.
Speaker 1: Take us back to sort of the beginning of your
Speaker 1: first encounters with cruising. Did you find cruising or did
Speaker 1: it find you?
Speaker 3: Oh, it found me? Tell me about that it found me.
Speaker 3: And I included this in the book.
Speaker 4: I grew up in the San Gabriel Valley in the
Speaker 4: nineteen eighties in La the youngest of eleven. Wow right,
Speaker 4: I know that's the reaction. And you know, hyper catholic.
Speaker 4: I was born with the disability, very insecure. I have alopisia.
Speaker 4: At a time when I think, you know, a lot
Speaker 4: of us are are coming into our own and discovering
Speaker 4: our urges and our desires, my body was starting to
Speaker 4: betray me and it was, you know, losing my hair.
Speaker 4: And I was an athletic. I couldn't do a lot
Speaker 4: of the things that my peers were doing. I knew
Speaker 4: that I was gay, and I knew that. You know,
Speaker 4: I liked men. I remember being very attracted to Harry
Speaker 4: chests because I don't have.
Speaker 3: Hair, what you don't have. I worked at the mall.
Speaker 4: It was my first job, and I was sixteen years
Speaker 4: old and I was waiting at the bus stop. I
Speaker 4: was going to the mall to get my paycheck. And
Speaker 4: this guy in a white Hyundai Excel, say, there are
Speaker 4: the details again.
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 3: El hatchback blue interior. Still remember all this.
Speaker 4: Drove by and pulled up to the bus stop, looked
Speaker 4: at me and drove away. And he had spiky hair,
Speaker 4: I remember, and he was wearing a like a teal
Speaker 4: colored tank top.
Speaker 3: This was the eighties. Yeah, I mean it's like total
Speaker 3: Miami vice.
Speaker 4: And he drove by and looked at me and then
Speaker 4: drove away, and then drove by again and did the
Speaker 4: same thing. And I was I had a walkman. I
Speaker 4: was listening to my Smith's cassette. Yeah okay, And he
Speaker 4: drove by. The third time, he pulled over and pretended
Speaker 4: to check the tire.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: He walked around and like kicked it and then looked
Speaker 4: at me and then drove away. And the fourth time
Speaker 4: he pulled over and he said, do you want to ride?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: And I looked at him and I said yes. And
Speaker 4: the minute I said yes, I knew exactly what was
Speaker 4: going to happen. And he took me to a field
Speaker 4: and you know, we did our thing. I remember, he
Speaker 4: didn't drive me all the way to the mall. He
Speaker 4: just left me at another bus stop, which I thought
Speaker 4: was kind of shitty.
Speaker 3: That damn after I did what I did the least
Speaker 3: I could.
Speaker 4: You know, I mean, come on, I that was a
Speaker 4: pretty good blow job. Say, it was my first, and
Speaker 4: I knew exactly what I was doing.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was just instinctual.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I was like, and he didn't even drop me off.
Speaker 3: Damn them all. He didn't leave me in front of the.
Speaker 2: Well maybe he did have is shoes with the tire
Speaker 2: you never No, I don't know.
Speaker 3: The tire looked fine to me.
Speaker 4: And then the funny thing is he said to me, hey,
Speaker 4: if you know, if you have any other friends, oh,
Speaker 4: just let them know I'm usually at the park. So
Speaker 4: I was like, okay, And then I take the bus
Speaker 4: and I get I get to work. And I had
Speaker 4: one gay friend back then. He was this Filipino guy,
Speaker 4: named Ed, and Ed was very out and very proud
Speaker 4: and very flamboyant, and d used to cruise and I was,
Speaker 4: you know, it's my first time. It was I was
Speaker 4: a virgin and I said to Ed, Oh my god,
Speaker 4: you're not gonna believe what just happened to me. I
Speaker 4: said what, And I said, I looked up with this
Speaker 4: guy and it was so hot and he had a
Speaker 4: huge dick and stopped me goes, wait a minute, was
Speaker 4: he in a white Hyundai?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: And I said yes, and he looked at me and
Speaker 3: said it wasn't that big. So that was my entre.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: And then after that it just it was like this
Speaker 4: homing beak And that was kind of my first cruising experience,
Speaker 4: was that. And you know the strange thing is is
Speaker 4: I still remember how just instinctual it was like it
Speaker 4: was like this part of my DNA, you know, it
Speaker 4: was like a mutant power that was lang dormant inside
Speaker 4: of me, that like sprang Forth, And the moment that
Speaker 4: that happened, I realized that there was this whole other world.
Speaker 3: It was like almost like.
Speaker 4: A parallel world that existed outside of the norm that
Speaker 4: I could enter into and exit whenever I wanted, and
Speaker 4: I felt like that was really powerful.
Speaker 2: It is kind of funny how instinctual it always let's
Speaker 2: it sort of rust happened, Like I think about my
Speaker 2: first cruising experience and it was just instinctual. Like I
Speaker 2: don't know, I guess we're just born queer.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny the way the body responds when
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, something feels good, right, especially after years
Speaker 1: of being told these are the people you should be
Speaker 1: attracted to. It's like I tried making out with a
Speaker 1: girl in the sixth grade, Like it felt weird, and
Speaker 1: then the first time I kissed the boy, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: what's that like?
Speaker 2: You know what?
Speaker 1: I like?
Speaker 2: You just cut your body is gonna give you the
Speaker 2: cues and you pick them up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I kissed ahead a lettuce once. That's what it
Speaker 4: felt like kissing a girl.
Speaker 3: Oh for me, Wait, I didn't. I didn't like make
Speaker 3: out with the head of lettuce, but like I kissed
Speaker 3: it on a dare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but how did this come about? That?
Speaker 3: That's a whole lot of stuff, Chris.
Speaker 2: We've watched people fuck pumpkins. I think kiss lettuce. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think we're going to be fine. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I will say I'm kind of shocked
Speaker 1: that you had your first cruising experience in the Los
Speaker 1: Angeles area because I grew up in Florida.
Speaker 2: That's a heavy driving.
Speaker 3: There weren't a lot.
Speaker 2: Of places to be outside and walking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it was for me, it became a very
Speaker 4: different experience when I started driving, you know, when I
Speaker 4: and then you know, back then, it was all word
Speaker 4: of mouth, you know. It was it was my friend Ed,
Speaker 4: you know, Size Queen and my friend Eric who you
Speaker 4: know who. They were the ones that would would tell me, like,
Speaker 4: there's this alley, you know. I mean, it was like
Speaker 4: West Hollywood, or it.
Speaker 3: Was Griffith Park.
Speaker 4: You had to go to these places, and rarely did
Speaker 4: it happen spontaneously. We didn't have you know, apps, and
Speaker 4: we didn't have you know, you know, the access to
Speaker 4: the technology that we have now, So it was a
Speaker 4: very different kind of experience. It was really spontaneous and
Speaker 4: it could happen, you know, any time in any place.
Speaker 4: I think now we're seeing cruising taking on a new form.
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of the conversations I've had with
Speaker 4: men over the years since the publication of the book,
Speaker 4: is you know, there are the purists to say, no
Speaker 4: cruising is you know this, it's it's pre Internet, it's
Speaker 4: you know, it's going to you know, a Macy's bathroom
Speaker 4: and waiting or attacking your foot.
Speaker 3: Or it's this or that.
Speaker 4: And I think I'm of the mind where it's just
Speaker 4: it's evolving into something different, you know, it's it's just
Speaker 4: becoming a new thing.
Speaker 2: So, as a brown man living with a disability, what
Speaker 2: has been your experience navigating queer or social spaces.
Speaker 4: I grew up in a time when, again and in
Speaker 4: a culture, in a gay culture where it was all
Speaker 4: about looks. I remember West Hollywood in the eighties and nineties, it.
Speaker 3: Was all about looks.
Speaker 4: It was all about you know, the hard bodies and
Speaker 4: the great hair and the you know, all of those things.
Speaker 4: It was very superficial. I always felt like I was
Speaker 4: the ugly duckling of my group of friends where we
Speaker 4: would go to these clubs in West Hollywood. We're all
Speaker 4: like closeted, you know, Mexican queers. We'd get in the
Speaker 4: car and we'd drive to West Hollywood and we go
Speaker 4: party and they would always get invited to dance, and
Speaker 4: I was always the one sort of against the wall,
Speaker 4: just like watching and like like drinking, you know, a
Speaker 4: cocktail or something. And so I never felt comfortable in
Speaker 4: those spaces. I felt very insecure. I didn't know what
Speaker 4: to do with my body. And it wasn't until I
Speaker 4: started cruising that I realized that physically below the belt
Speaker 4: I was special.
Speaker 3: And yeah, and let's.
Speaker 1: Say ED would have given you a good would have
Speaker 1: given me a great review.
Speaker 4: And so it wasn't until I was like, oh, I
Speaker 4: get it now. So my confidence grew in no penitent
Speaker 4: it grew enormously, and so I realized that I could
Speaker 4: wield power, that my disability didn't matter, that I could
Speaker 4: you know, use it as a way to gain confidence.
Speaker 4: So it was a really unique and strange and wonderful
Speaker 4: experience for me that that taught me a lot about
Speaker 4: myself and my body.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It was it was okay if I went to the clubs.
Speaker 4: And wasn't looked at because I looked at certain or
Speaker 4: I had hair or this or that, but you know,
Speaker 4: you'd look at me if we were in another environment,
Speaker 4: you know, and then some so I kind of was
Speaker 4: able to walk between those two worlds right in a
Speaker 4: way that my friends couldn't. I felt incredibly empowered and
Speaker 4: very special. But it took me a long time. It
Speaker 4: took me years and years and years of soul searching
Speaker 4: to be proud of the fact that I was a
Speaker 4: sexual person, and that I could be a sexual person
Speaker 4: with the disability, that I didn't have to be this
Speaker 4: sort of like, you know, very humble and very I'm
Speaker 4: so sorry, you know, please give me any kind of
Speaker 4: affection or attention that you feel that you can throw
Speaker 4: at me. I was like, no, fuck that It was
Speaker 4: my sexual experiences that taught me how to be confident
Speaker 4: and how to walk a little more proudly in this world.
Speaker 4: The minute I realized that that was the moment I
Speaker 4: met my partner of twenty five years. Was that moment
Speaker 4: I realized, like, Okay, I'm good with who this person is.
Speaker 3: And that was in like two thousand, so.
Speaker 1: Alex we talked a bit about how these hierarchies are
Speaker 1: formed in kind of public facing queer spaces, right standing
Speaker 1: by the wall at the club, waiting for the muscle
Speaker 1: guy in West Dollywood to come grab you. How are
Speaker 1: these hierarchies functioning or maybe torn apart in queer cruising spaces.
Speaker 4: In cruising spaces, and a lot of men that I
Speaker 4: talked to is people assume different roles and kind of
Speaker 4: exaggerate them. You know, you can subvert these roles in
Speaker 4: ways that you can't in regular society. You know, if
Speaker 4: you're a brown person, if you're you know, a bus
Speaker 4: boy or you know, a gardener, and that's all that
Speaker 4: society sees you.
Speaker 3: In these cruising spaces, you can become somebody else. You
Speaker 3: can totally flip the script.
Speaker 4: It was I guess it was that was the first
Speaker 4: time I learned that that there was a kind of
Speaker 4: a kink to it. I remember doing that thinking it
Speaker 4: was really hot and I liked doing it, but I
Speaker 4: didn't I didn't have the language back then to be
Speaker 4: able to articulate it. It wasn't until I became educated, when
Speaker 4: I when I went to school and I learned about
Speaker 4: things like hierarchies and those big buzzwords that we used
Speaker 4: to use in academia that I realized like, oh, that's
Speaker 4: what I was doing in these anonymous spaces and these
Speaker 4: spaces where you don't exchange names. You see how these
Speaker 4: notions of flipping scripts and and and and playing off
Speaker 4: of each other and and donning a persona really play
Speaker 4: out in fundamentally potent ways that they don't, you know,
Speaker 4: in other spheres. When I was in graduate school and
Speaker 4: as an undergrad and then realizing I know exactly what
Speaker 4: that is. Oh yeah, because you know I hooked up
Speaker 4: with that guy and he was white and he made
Speaker 4: me do this, and you know I was just brown
Speaker 4: Mexican and he wanted me. You know, it's like, I'm
Speaker 4: proof that you can walk in those spaces and assume
Speaker 4: that role and dominate in ways that society tells you,
Speaker 4: as a poor brown kid you're not supposed to.
Speaker 1: I think there's something that you were kind of hinting
Speaker 1: at when you told us that story about that kind
Speaker 1: of aha moment where you're like, I've got a big
Speaker 1: dick and it's valued in this space, and it teaches
Speaker 1: you to value more of yourself besides facer dick. Right,
Speaker 1: But it does seem like it's not like going to
Speaker 1: the bar and waiting by the wall and being like, oh,
Speaker 1: I hope the haughty picks me. It's looking looking back
Speaker 1: and gestures and like pointing the eye to our areas
Speaker 1: you want to highlight. Right, there are different ways that
Speaker 1: you can kind of make the approach when cruising that
Speaker 1: you can again, you know.
Speaker 4: What it is, it's like, fuck the hot you picking me,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna pick you right.
Speaker 3: It's not a question of whether you want me, It's
Speaker 3: a question of whether I want you. Yeah, and you
Speaker 3: know what, You're gonna want me?
Speaker 4: Yeah, because wait till you pull my till I see
Speaker 4: my my pants down, literally waiting. Yeah.
Speaker 2: When you you spoke about when you were writing your book,
Speaker 2: you did a lot of interviews, and I'm wondering what
Speaker 2: was a commonality through all of your interviews.
Speaker 4: A lot of men that I that I interviewed really
Speaker 4: were driven by this uh insatiable lust.
Speaker 3: I don't want to say lust, but like a it
Speaker 3: was a rush almost.
Speaker 4: The danger of it, the spontaneity of it, the energy
Speaker 4: that comes with that. They all talked about how exciting
Speaker 4: and hot that was. This idea that you know, you're
Speaker 4: out there and you're doing something that you're not supposed
Speaker 4: to be doing, that you're not supposed to be participating in,
Speaker 4: and you're doing it in a public space is really hot.
Speaker 4: But that's what makes cruising so unique is that you're
Speaker 4: doing it in these spaces that are you know, for
Speaker 4: lack of a better word, outlawed, right, and you're breaking
Speaker 4: the law, and you're doing it because you're thumbing your
Speaker 4: nose up to this larger society that's constantly told us
Speaker 4: that our wants and our desires don't fit into the
Speaker 4: larger mainstream narrative that we've been fed. A lot of them,
Speaker 4: you know, love the thrill and the chase of it.
Speaker 4: They love going back and repeating the steps. I think
Speaker 4: that sort of and as an immigrant who's studied a
Speaker 4: lot of migration, you know, patterns of migration, that's a
Speaker 4: migratory pattern, right, it's going back and again and again
Speaker 4: and again in the same space and crossing it over
Speaker 4: and over. A lot of men talked about the almost
Speaker 4: almost like meditative You can participate in this act and
Speaker 4: the veil of reality gets torn, and suddenly that bathroom
Speaker 4: in that Macy's becomes more than just a bathroom in
Speaker 4: a Macy's. It becomes a really special, intimate, very powerful,
Speaker 4: impotent space that changes the air around you. And then
Speaker 4: you finish, you go off and do your thing, and
Speaker 4: then the next person that walks into that bathroom is
Speaker 4: just trying to buy shoes that Macy's.
Speaker 2: So the book has been out for a while and
Speaker 2: I'm wondering, is there something that you left out that
Speaker 2: you wish you would have been included?
Speaker 4: You know, I think I would have liked to have
Speaker 4: included more of the experiences of this younger generation of
Speaker 4: gay men who are on you know, a prep and
Speaker 4: taking all of you know, these preventative steps, and it's
Speaker 4: I think it's freed up a lot of it's led
Speaker 4: the way for a lot of that sex positivity. And
Speaker 4: you know, the funny thing is is the younger generation,
Speaker 4: like my nephew you I had to explain to him
Speaker 4: how frightening it was being queer in the nineties, getting
Speaker 4: them to understand that that there was this fear about
Speaker 4: getting AIDS and dying and being outed. But you couldn't
Speaker 4: say no to it. You couldn't like, what do you
Speaker 4: gonna do? Like become celibate. The conversations I had when
Speaker 4: I was on book tour was I'd have, you know,
Speaker 4: this younger generation of of of gay men who would
Speaker 4: come up to me and would.
Speaker 3: Say, like, was it really that scary?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: And that goes to show you how much of our
Speaker 4: history has been just completely obliterated, right, And why it's
Speaker 4: important to have books, you know that that that traced
Speaker 4: the trajectory you know, of this history, to have podcasts
Speaker 4: that discuss it and and and shed light on it
Speaker 4: and talk about it honestly, because we've we haven't been
Speaker 4: doing that for so long, and you know, it's it's
Speaker 4: led to, you know, not very good things.
Speaker 2: Sorry, emotion no, because I love this project and I
Speaker 2: love what we do here. I am gonna cry sorry.
Speaker 2: I do love what we do here, and I do
Speaker 2: love the conversations that we're able to have, and what
Speaker 2: we're doing here is really important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think that sounds like a good place
Speaker 1: to take a break.
Speaker 2: When we come back, we're gonna hear Alex's tips and
Speaker 2: tricks for both cruisers of color and disabled cruisers, and
Speaker 2: maybe here a cruising confession or two.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere the spirit of ed compels you will
Speaker 1: be right back, Welcome back. We've been having a lot
Speaker 1: of fun and a very incredible discussion with author Alex Spinosa.
Speaker 1: But in this act we're going to hear some practical
Speaker 1: advice for both disabled cruisers and cruisers of color.
Speaker 2: What should disabled cruisers be thinking about when they're looking
Speaker 2: for cruising spaces or things like that, or how should
Speaker 2: they approach cruising.
Speaker 4: I think it's important to remember what your own sort
Speaker 4: of limits and capabilities are, right like what you can
Speaker 4: and can't do physically, and you have to let that
Speaker 4: dictate how you cruise and the spaces that you occupy.
Speaker 4: I think it's important for cruisers to remember that safety
Speaker 4: is important, that their safety is a priority. When to
Speaker 4: reveal your disability or when not to is you pretty
Speaker 4: much have to gauge it depending on how the conversation's
Speaker 4: going with the person. You have to get used to
Speaker 4: and be comfortable with the possibility of rejection, right of
Speaker 4: knowing that someone is not, you know, going to have
Speaker 4: a taste for this or for that, and you as
Speaker 4: a cruiser have to be comfortable with that. And I
Speaker 4: think I think for cruisers of color, particularly Latinos, right now,
Speaker 4: we're seeing because we're seeing a lot of things happening
Speaker 4: in the major cities, like ice raids. If you're undocumented,
Speaker 4: you know, I had plenty of conversations with men when
Speaker 4: I was writing the book who talked about the fact
Speaker 4: that they were the breadwinner of their family and if
Speaker 4: they got arrested and sent back, then that was it.
Speaker 4: So you know, remembering what's at stake for you, right
Speaker 4: and letting that dictate engage how and when you participate
Speaker 4: and in what you participated, and to stay informed. You know.
Speaker 4: One of the things that I think is really fantastic
Speaker 4: about some of these apps is that they do post warnings.
Speaker 4: I've seen, you know on apps heads up, you know,
Speaker 4: I saw ice raids here, or I saw cops here,
Speaker 4: or you know, be wary of this park. So that's
Speaker 4: a really handy tool that we need to start really
Speaker 4: paying attention to and being a little more cognizant. So
Speaker 4: I think I think it's all about education for me.
Speaker 1: And you were talking a bit about how to grapple
Speaker 1: with rejection. Was there something that helped you sort of
Speaker 1: deal with that in cruising spaces or to sort of
Speaker 1: rediscover your confidence and keep looking after potentially fear seen
Speaker 1: rejection walle cruising.
Speaker 4: I think it's just that knowing that there are plenty
Speaker 4: of other fish in the sea, right that for all
Speaker 4: of the times that I've been rejected, there have been
Speaker 4: plenty of times when I haven't been and and just
Speaker 4: just remembering that and putting that in perspective, and it's
Speaker 4: all about recognizing that if you are going to participate
Speaker 4: and play the game, know that you are participating in
Speaker 4: an act that one has had a long you know history, right,
Speaker 4: it's been around for a long time.
Speaker 3: And know that you are one in a series of.
Speaker 4: Many, many, many, many many men who have gone through
Speaker 4: the exact same thing. There's there's solidarity in that. There's
Speaker 4: solidarity in recognizing that.
Speaker 3: I think I've just become.
Speaker 4: A little wiser now and just been like, okay, well,
Speaker 4: you know, if I go and there's no chemistry, then
Speaker 4: that's fine, that's okay. You know what's the worst thing
Speaker 4: that could happen right to me? You know at that moment,
Speaker 4: my feelings get hurt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, okay, you know I'll get over it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: my feelings have been hurt before. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of times it's more about
Speaker 2: that person than.
Speaker 3: It is about exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: I don't know what they're looking for, you to know
Speaker 2: what their circumstances are. Like.
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I went to a video
Speaker 1: store and I paid to go into the little basement
Speaker 1: cruising area. I became so fixated on this I was
Speaker 1: very young too, it was like twenty two.
Speaker 2: I don't know what I was doing. It's my first
Speaker 2: time there.
Speaker 1: I became so fixated on this guy and I kept
Speaker 1: looking at him and looking at him and looking at him,
Speaker 1: and he'd catch me and look away like like clearly
Speaker 1: not interested, like clocking up, but not interested.
Speaker 2: And at some what I went up to him.
Speaker 1: I sort of verbalized. I was like, hey, what's up,
Speaker 1: and he's like, sorry, I'm just here to look like.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm looking for. I want to watch other
Speaker 1: people hooking up and like masturbate to that, but I
Speaker 1: don't want to particy.
Speaker 3: I don't want to participate.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, this is what you're into,
Speaker 1: is what you came looking for.
Speaker 2: You're not gay with anybody in.
Speaker 3: This room, right, It's not me, it's right what you've
Speaker 3: got going on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And then think of those spaces we all wear,
Speaker 4: are desires out in the open totally, We're all just
Speaker 4: sort of showing it all out. What might seem like
Speaker 4: a snub to you is somebody else's preference. It's just
Speaker 4: all temperature. You know, you just and you take it
Speaker 4: for what it is.
Speaker 1: So We've touched on this a bit, but do you
Speaker 1: think black and brown men are more likely to deal
Speaker 1: with internalized shame when it comes to sex and cruising
Speaker 1: and what are some of the factors that might contribute
Speaker 1: to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think certainly there is because we
Speaker 4: have also the added stigma of always feeling like our
Speaker 4: brown bodies have been scrutinized and policed and watched. So
Speaker 4: we carry that as immigrants and as minorities, we're it's
Speaker 4: indoctrinated into us that we're not supposed to rock the boat.
Speaker 3: We're supposed to be good.
Speaker 4: We're supposed to contribute to society, you know, we're supposed
Speaker 4: to stay out of trouble, and so we carry we
Speaker 4: have that added you know pressure. And then also you know,
Speaker 4: growing up sometimes in hyper religious households. I was raised
Speaker 4: in a very staunch Catholic family. You know, my mom
Speaker 4: was very very religious. There's that added guilt that just
Speaker 4: hangs over you. So yeah, I think it manifests differently.
Speaker 4: And that's not to say that it doesn't exist in
Speaker 4: Anglo or white culture.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 4: It just manifests itself differently, but we do carry it
Speaker 4: a lot more intensely, And I think our shame and
Speaker 4: our guilt lingers a lot longer and is tied to
Speaker 4: our skin color and to the history and legacy. I
Speaker 4: think of oppression that a lot of our communities have faced.
Speaker 4: A lot of the men of color I talked to
Speaker 4: felt like they were betraying that legacy. I'm supposed to
Speaker 4: be the good immigrant. I'm supposed to be the godly,
Speaker 4: you know, the good saintly, you know child who's supposed
Speaker 4: to protect everyone.
Speaker 3: And I'm going against that.
Speaker 4: That linger for me along For a long time, I
Speaker 4: was the savior of my family, the youngest of eleven.
Speaker 4: I was going to be the one that was gonna
Speaker 4: pull everyone out of the muck. I needed to keep
Speaker 4: my nose clean. I needed to be a good moral person.
Speaker 4: But I had these desires, and every time I acted
Speaker 4: on them, I felt horrible. And then it took me
Speaker 4: a while to realize, like, you know what, it's not
Speaker 4: my responsibility to pull you out of your ship. You
Speaker 4: got you got yourself into it, you get yourself out
Speaker 4: of it when it comes to my family, and so,
Speaker 4: you know, it took me a long time to realize that.
Speaker 4: But that shame and that guilt as a person of
Speaker 4: color with the disability, came from a marginalized background, hung
Speaker 4: around for a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that kind of guilt goes hard, baby, it does hard.
Speaker 2: It's when it comes to overcoming this shame.
Speaker 3: How did you do it? And maybe what's some.
Speaker 1: Advice you'd offer to folks who are struggling with unleashing
Speaker 1: their inner scene but.
Speaker 4: Wins therapy therapy, no, I think, And I think also
Speaker 4: it's you know, I'm lucky that I have a partner
Speaker 4: who has taught me a lot about the difference between
Speaker 4: you know, sex and love. We've been in relationship for
Speaker 4: twenty five years. We know everything about each other, in
Speaker 4: and out, upside down, left and right. We've been through
Speaker 4: so much together. That's love. And I think that has
Speaker 4: really taught me how to overcome that right, to understand
Speaker 4: that I can participate in both, and I'm lucky enough
Speaker 4: to be able to do that. And also again being
Speaker 4: in conversation with other queer folks and talking about it
Speaker 4: openly and honestly it helps. And remembering that if you
Speaker 4: do have the sense of shame or you know, seeing veduenza,
Speaker 4: you're feeling like a mucrosso or you know dirty that
Speaker 4: you're not the only one, that there are plenty.
Speaker 3: Of other people that have felt that way, and that.
Speaker 4: There's nothing wrong with it, And you'll get to a
Speaker 4: point where you'll understand that your desires and wants and
Speaker 4: needs are human, that we're all just human. And again,
Speaker 4: you're participating in a practice that existed since there have
Speaker 4: been civilizations.
Speaker 1: So you talked about your partner and how you all
Speaker 1: have been together for twenty five years and it sounds
Speaker 1: like you're open. How did you sort of navigate that
Speaker 1: before that that was in the zeitgeist right before open
Speaker 1: relationships are hot?
Speaker 2: And do you all cruise together sometimes? You know what?
Speaker 4: We began discussing it when we're deep into our relationship.
Speaker 4: I think that's what I would advise. We had many, many,
Speaker 4: many years together before we decided like, let's let's try this,
Speaker 4: because I know he was looking at the menu and
Speaker 4: I certainly was.
Speaker 3: So it's like, growing up.
Speaker 4: My model for a successful relationship was a successful heterosexual relationship.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: That's not to.
Speaker 4: Say that that, you know, in the in the queer community,
Speaker 4: if you want to have a close relationship, that's great,
Speaker 4: that's great. But if you if you want to have yourself.
Speaker 4: Oh that's great too, we should have that option, right.
Speaker 4: I didn't think that that option was available. I always
Speaker 4: thought like, well, I need to follow this rate pattern, right.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't until my partner and I were together
Speaker 4: that I realized like, oh, okay, like I get this now,
Speaker 4: like we're in love. But then, you know, you have
Speaker 4: desires and I have desires too. We certainly had our
Speaker 4: experiences with the same you know men, but then we
Speaker 4: began to realize, like, we have different tastes, and then
Speaker 4: sometimes it would get too complicated because it's hard to
Speaker 4: orchestrate those things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm free, You're not free.
Speaker 3: He's not free. When the two of them are free,
Speaker 3: I'm not free.
Speaker 4: You know, it was a whole other ballow acts that
Speaker 4: presented itself, and I don't know what it's like for
Speaker 4: other people, but for us, it just kind of became
Speaker 4: a little awkward and cumbersome. And so right now we're
Speaker 4: in a good place. Like I do my thing, he
Speaker 4: does his thing. Sometimes we tell each other, sometimes we don't,
Speaker 4: but we always come home to each other.
Speaker 3: And it's also important to have rules. But what are
Speaker 3: your rules?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 4: Do you host, do you travel? You know, do you
Speaker 4: do it when one's at home and on's not. Like
Speaker 4: it's important to lay down those rules to understand it
Speaker 4: and to stick with them, because at first, I mean,
Speaker 4: when we first started doing it, it was it was
Speaker 4: just trial by fire. I'd get jealous and he'd get jealous,
Speaker 4: and then I.
Speaker 3: Thought that guy was hot. Nah, he wasn't your taste.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It is just a lot of that, and then we
Speaker 3: just learned.
Speaker 4: We just kind of learned like, oh okay, like let's
Speaker 4: right this way, and it's just sort of it's just
Speaker 4: sort of evolved into its own thing, and it's good
Speaker 4: where it is right now. Like that's what I like,
Speaker 4: is that it sort of became its thing and we're
Speaker 4: both happy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'm curious.
Speaker 1: Season one, when we first talked about cruising, we sort
Speaker 1: of touched on this idea of utopia, right, which J. S.
Speaker 1: Muno's postulates is a very like theoretical kind of vibey
Speaker 1: thing was always in the future. I think it's an
Speaker 1: interesting thought experiment, and I'd like to know what would
Speaker 1: an inclusive utopic cruising experience look like to you.
Speaker 3: I think it would it would look like a culture or.
Speaker 4: Community where we could do what we do and participate
Speaker 4: in what we participate and not feel so guilty about it, not.
Speaker 3: Feel so bad about it afterward.
Speaker 4: A space that's that's welcoming of every body, every shape,
Speaker 4: every size, every every color, every you know, ability slash disability, whatever.
Speaker 4: And again, if somebody isn't into you, that you don't
Speaker 4: feel bad about it, that we're secure enough and confident
Speaker 4: enough to know that. That's that's just how it is, right,
Speaker 4: That's that's what it would look like for me.
Speaker 1: Okay, Alex, Now we've reached hand of the interview, but
Speaker 1: there's quite a bit more we'd like to ask you.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna go into some rapid fire questions. Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: So the first one is describe your Sniffy's profile pick
Speaker 1: if you could ed approved.
Speaker 2: Good, amazing. What's the last message you received on Sniffy's.
Speaker 3: The last message I received? Hot?
Speaker 2: All right, let's flip this around. What's the last message
Speaker 2: you sent on Sniffy's Thank you? All right?
Speaker 1: If you can describe the last person you fucked in
Speaker 1: three words or less?
Speaker 3: Converse high tops?
Speaker 1: Oh right, god, I'm sensing a fetish all right?
Speaker 2: When you hook up is it your place, their place,
Speaker 2: or a third place.
Speaker 4: It's their place or a third place, not out of
Speaker 4: some weird you know, respect, but it's just my I
Speaker 4: have really, really, really badly behaved dogs who are total
Speaker 4: cock blockers.
Speaker 3: They'll just ruin the moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I had a dog pee rain next to
Speaker 2: someone's bed.
Speaker 4: Just yeah, that sounds like my dogs. No, no, my
Speaker 4: dogs wouldn't. They would bite the person attack them.
Speaker 2: Before, So it's not good. I stayed all right.
Speaker 1: So this is a two parter. Part one, name an
Speaker 1: unproblematic straight person.
Speaker 4: An unproblematic straight person. I know it's probably hard, but
Speaker 4: oh my therapist good.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And the second part is name a problematic queer person.
Speaker 3: Oh me, you got the ass.
Speaker 2: And that's why you're here. Yes, I love that. I'm
Speaker 2: the problem. Yeah, I love all right.
Speaker 1: And if you can remember, what's the corniest opening line
Speaker 1: that's ever worked on you?
Speaker 3: You look like Lex Luthor?
Speaker 2: Wow, and that will worked. I love that.
Speaker 4: Okay, he's a hobby, he's like a very like.
Speaker 2: He's a smart one. I'm not a DC person, so
Speaker 2: I don't. Yeah. So you got two nerdy latinos in
Speaker 2: the room.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all right, this is our last rapid fire question,
Speaker 1: what is your most controversial take related to cruising, sex
Speaker 1: or queer life.
Speaker 4: I think the most controversial one is that apps aren't cruising.
Speaker 3: Wait wait, wait, no, no, no, but I don't believe that.
Speaker 3: Oh so that's not controversial. Okay, okay, that's not gonna work.
Speaker 3: So you say that apps are cruising you.
Speaker 2: Your controversial take is that apps are our cruiser.
Speaker 4: Because I again, I am of a generation where I
Speaker 4: cruise pre apps. So for a lot of men of
Speaker 4: my generation, using apps isn't cruising, But for me it
Speaker 4: is like you can't call you know, you can't call
Speaker 4: it cruising if you're using Sniffy's regrinder or whatever. That's
Speaker 4: not the same, but I think it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well this has been an incredible discussion, Alex.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for stopping by. It's been it's
Speaker 2: been really lovely having you here much. Thank you, thanks
Speaker 2: for making me cry.
Speaker 3: And thank you for the work that you're doing too.
Speaker 4: I have to say thank you for both of you
Speaker 4: and for you know this this podcast and this opportunity
Speaker 4: for us to come together.
Speaker 3: I think it's really important.
Speaker 2: Where can folks find you and your work on Sniffy's.
Speaker 3: If you I'm just kidding, you know what to look for.
Speaker 2: Now you.
Speaker 4: Know you can find me on I have a website,
Speaker 4: Alexispinosa dot com. I have an Instagram TikTok every now
Speaker 4: and again, excepted on dance. You can find my work
Speaker 4: at bookstores. So I'm out there.
Speaker 2: Amazing, amazing.
Speaker 1: Thank you again Alex for joining us, and congrats to
Speaker 1: our listeners for completing Cruising three to zero one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love being a teacher.
Speaker 1: Next up, we're going to hear another scandalous true sex
Speaker 1: story from our special Cruising Confessions hotline. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to hear what y'all are getting up to in the park.
Speaker 5: The park was hot.
Speaker 2: Today, Hey, diffies.
Speaker 5: I live in West Hollywood, California, and I had the
Speaker 5: hottest public play experience. I love to jerk off and
Speaker 5: play in public. And there was a profile two hundred
Speaker 5: three hundred feet away from me, no face, just a torso,
Speaker 5: and I messaged the profile to catch me jerking off outside.
Speaker 5: When I was outside, I took a snapshot of my
Speaker 5: dick and a location of like where I was by.
Speaker 5: This guy walked out of a building nearby and walked
Speaker 5: past me. And I was like, what's up? And he
Speaker 5: didn't respond, and I was like kind of anxious about
Speaker 5: it because I was like, oh shit, what if this
Speaker 5: isn't up the person? And then he turned back a
Speaker 5: couple times, and I was like, this is definitely him.
Speaker 5: Had that happened? One came out of their building walking
Speaker 5: their dogs, and I quickly put my clothes back on
Speaker 5: and continued to walk after the guy. He turned back
Speaker 5: and I was like, shit, where am I supposed to
Speaker 5: go to? Like have this guy watch me jork off?
Speaker 5: And there was these little stairs between some bushes and
Speaker 5: a building. I went right on top of the steps
Speaker 5: just between there, and I got super nervous, but I
Speaker 5: heard like six steps coming back, and I took my
Speaker 5: short sauce started stroking, and this guy stopped and watched
Speaker 5: me jerk off passionately. I was moaning softly. I would
Speaker 5: like gesture to him to like come closer, but he
Speaker 5: never did, but he watched me play with my nipples
Speaker 5: and just stroke my dick until I came. I coated
Speaker 5: those steps with my load, and when we were done,
Speaker 5: I saw that he was online again and I said
Speaker 5: thanks for watching, and he just replied, damn that was
Speaker 5: really fucking hot.
Speaker 1: I'm so interested in these kind of like stoic figures
Speaker 1: that are interested in watching but aren't like pleasuring themselves
Speaker 1: at all, aren't They're like, I'm just I'm here to
Speaker 1: be an observer.
Speaker 2: I'm here to be a witness. And I think that's
Speaker 2: so fun.
Speaker 1: I think that's like I don't know, because I'm wondering
Speaker 1: if it's like does it take self control?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It must.
Speaker 1: It's like or you just like, oh, I just like
Speaker 1: like you go bird watching, you, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: You go like jerk off watching. Okay, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I feel like if I'm watching someone jack off, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna want to participate. It doesn't matter who they are.
Speaker 1: Well, it seems like a preamble, Yeah, something exactly right,
Speaker 1: exactly Yeah. And also like very daring to like go
Speaker 1: to a public spot and be like, all right, let's
Speaker 1: let's go together to another spot. But then like kind
Speaker 1: of like staggering your walk. That's commitment, that takes a
Speaker 1: lot of coordination.
Speaker 2: It's a hot story, yeah, because.
Speaker 1: I would have been like, can we go back to
Speaker 1: your place? But then it wouldn't be as fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The mystery of it all in sort of taken
Speaker 2: out of it because now I'm seeing your apartment.
Speaker 1: Right exactly, and then I know too much about it,
Speaker 1: and then and then I see the poster of your
Speaker 1: favorite movie and the books that I judge and your DVD.
Speaker 2: Collection, and I don't want to know that. I want
Speaker 2: your eyes on my dick while I'm jerking off on
Speaker 2: the stairs. Now, would you do this kind of maybe?
Speaker 1: Yes, I am a little bit of an exhibitionist, but
Speaker 1: it has to I'm also like very paranoid about like
Speaker 1: either exposing myself to somebody should not be exposing myself to,
Speaker 1: or like getting in trouble for doing stuff out in
Speaker 1: pub So I do enjoy public play, and I do
Speaker 1: kind of enjoy cruising and like having.
Speaker 3: Other people watch, but it's rare.
Speaker 1: Then I'm doing it not in the context of like
Speaker 1: a queer event or a queer vacation spot or like
Speaker 1: a known queer location.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm not out in the streets of
Speaker 2: LA being like, hey, you know what I mean, like right,
Speaker 2: and it's kind of a neighborhood area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but that's the thing, because you're walkable too, is
Speaker 1: there's way more foot traffic.
Speaker 2: But like if you're thinking about, like what time of night,
Speaker 2: you know, like there're that many people walking in the street,
Speaker 2: people drive like yeah for sure. All right. If you
Speaker 2: want to hear your own cruising confession on an upcoming
Speaker 2: episode of this podcast, you can call our Cuising Confessions
Speaker 2: hotline at three zero two two one nine three eight
Speaker 2: nine eight. That's three zero two two one nine three
Speaker 2: eight nine eight.
Speaker 1: All right, what a show we should think. Alex Espinosa
Speaker 1: again for stopping by. What incredible guest. I've been such
Speaker 1: a fan of his book for so long. We were
Speaker 1: gagged in very starstruck. And just what a refreshing combo
Speaker 1: have at Approove, Yeah, Approove. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions is directed
Speaker 1: by Adam Barron, produced by Amanda Kuper and Cameron Femino,
Speaker 1: and executive produced by Eli Martin.
Speaker 2: Cruising Confessions is presented by Snippy's, the ultimate map based
Speaker 2: cruising platform for kay by and curious people ready to cruise.
Speaker 2: Check out the map at snippies dot com and fall
Speaker 2: snitches at Snippy's app. Cruisers are a community. Do your
Speaker 2: part in keeping us safe.
Speaker 1: Learn more about protecting your sexual help at Healthy Sexuals
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 2: Put jo put put jo, put put your put