This post was submitted by Jude

LEATHER AND TURQUOISE

Lately, I have found myself going to a lot of industry fairs. It started when the gallery Guillermo works for asked him to help run their booth at SCOPE Art Show, held in Lincoln Center earlier this month. There was bad art, good art and an excess of overpriced beverages to choose from. His boss even brought us to an afterparty at The Standard Hotel in the Meatpacking District, which made me feel a little more glamorous than I normally would on a Thursday, but when she got into a screaming match with the bouncers outside about having to wait in line for the elevator, I had the realization that I am actually not Serena van der Woodsen, but a 24-year-old gay guy from Pennsylvania. But what is Serena van der Woodsen if not a 24-year-old gay guy, anyway?

When Zack asked me to cover The Black Party Expo for TNG, I didn’t shy away from the chance to get my name on another press pass and reclaim my lost glamour. But first I had to try and remember what The Black Party actually was. Diddy had his White Party in the Hamptons every summer, and I could recall an old roommate going to some annual event called Mr. Black, but this I wasn’t sure about. As I was leaving work later that day, my boss happened to mention Black Party Weekend—“How did you know about that?” I asked, thinking he had seen my Google cache. He told me about going once in the 80s, and about all the other circuit parties in New York I had missed out on as a toddler. Hearing about it just made me feel too young and too old at the very same time.

Guillermo and I were properly hung-over by the time we made it up to the BPX venue in midtown Manhattan that Saturday afternoon. It was also brilliantly sunny for what felt like the very first time, making us half-reluctant to step off the street and into the dark shadows of the cavernous Roseland Ballroom. Inside, I felt immediately terrified, confronted with all the black leather and turquoise comprising “gay culture” the way so many people would know it. Ass cheeks and drag queens paraded between booths, going from table to table. Banana dicks restrained by metal harnesses, their pink heads sheathed in thick foreskin, swaying half-mast above an array of discounted pornography. Until then, I’d really only seen this kind of thing in random photostreams on Flickr.

The first booth to catch my eye was selling some kind of lubricant product called Boy Butter. Neatly packaged in colorful little tubs, it promised to “Take the Fuss Out of Your Bottom!” And while I did want to ask if people ever tried eating it, I didn’t want to be further convinced I could be able to park a car up my ass. The guy selling it didn’t even look like Fabio. His neighbor at the table next door was selling an elixir called “Stiff Nights” and bottles of Jungle Juice-brand poppers.

As we made our way around, Guillermo and I stopped to look at a 3-D porno, Whorrey Potter and the Sorcerer’s Balls. One of the stars of the film—though I can’t say for sure it was Whorrey himself—was bouncing around in a Speedo, handing out the glasses needed for the full experience and flopping around his enormous wand when encouraged. There weren’t any amusement park boners projecting out of the screen into our faces, as expected. It just looked like a raunchy pop-up book come to life, guys fucking each other while bathed in a green tint. I handed back the glasses, now even less convinced of ever going to see Avatar.

Around the corner, one lonely old man guarded his table. Above him was a sign that read, “Crystal Meth Addicts Anonymous.” His pamphlets were fanned out before him, but no one seemed to take any. Nearby a Harlem organization offered on-site HIV testing, and in between them a bald, bearded man was seated, having his boots spit shined for $10. Looking around, I knew all this was what ran through my mother’s head the day I told her I was gay, and all she could say was that it terrified her. The only place to sit down was on something resembling a headless rocking horse, with ankle straps and a leather flogging device resting against it.

I did find a bed, though, where one guy was laid out with a microphone, giving interviews while wearing only a yarmulke and his underwear. Behind him, the escorts from a website called Rentboy.com were lined up, showing off their naval tattoos and Prince Albert piercings, groping each other. I couldn’t see much after that, as a crowd of men soon gathered around them to take pictures with their cell phones, before moving on to the better-endowed boys of “Chocolate Cream.”

One thing I was curious about was the kind of people I would be attending the expo with. Who goes out of their way to be surrounded by butt plugs and get sold on switching to a new brand of lube at two o’clock on a sunny Saturday afternoon? It was a surprisingly diverse crowd, with equal amounts of bears and leather daddies, traveling businessmen, traveling Asian businessmen, some Ted Kaczynski-types and what I’m sure were heterosexual women. With the possible exception of little Whorrey Potter, we were the youngest people there that day. And at the other end of the rainbow, we encountered little old men helping themselves to the free condoms and jelly cock rings with the rest of us.

After chatting up the guys from Spank Zine, and the charming Jessica Resler of MuffinCupcake (who took portraits at the actual Black Party), we noticed the crowd had nearly doubled and decided to leave. Exiting through the back, we found a couple of drag queens sharing cigarettes and basking in the sunlight. They looked really happy to be outside.

See, this expo came on the heels of me being called a faggot by a random guy on the street near my apartment. I expect this in the town where I was born, but I never had to deal with it in New York City. And I’ve never had someone spit such hatred at me, telling me I deserved to be killed for being gay. I shrugged it off at the time, and continued making my way to the gym. I just couldn’t shake the disappointment I felt, the feeling of wanting to find some hole to crawl in and hide. But what would I be hiding from?

The simple fact is that we shouldn’t need to hide. Our culture is one of contrasts, extremes, but it need not be one of secrecy or exile. The opportunity to embrace our visibility comes with every wave of change, a near-future, when boys can sit with their Mom on the front porch and say they are gay without it scaring the shit out of them.

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