The first time I went to a gay bar by myself, I caused “a scene.” I was sitting on one of those lumpy vinyl stools beneath a glitchy video screen (Madonna, probably), feeling like an adult, quivering with vulnerability, putting myself right out there for romance, sex, or just some conversation with a new friend. And although I had already attended many gay nightclubs encircled by my catty coterie, this was exhilaratingly different. I was flying solo, baby.
After a couple too-sweet drinks, an older man approached from a shadowy corner, rasped some sort of hokey compliment through smoke-stained teeth, and started putting his hands on me in ways and places that made me feel icky. Being a brash club kid, I slapped him away and yelled something insulting. I had no problem with older men, especially ones I was attracted to, and I was certainly open to any adventure at that age. But this was a bit of a shock.
I turned to the bartender, told him the guy had gotten a bit too forward, and asked that he be thrown out. (Another thing that made me feel like an adult, this time from a Marlene Dietrich movie.) The bartender looked right through me and said, as if imparting some sacred wisdom, “His generation has been through a lot.” Looking back, not only was that an absolutely ridiculous thing to say to a teenager living through the height of the AIDS crisis in Detroit and about to lose half his friends, it also wasn’t exactly breaking the cycle of trauma, buddy.
And yet, I internalized this sentiment. Older gay guys had been through a lot. Was this 1980s gay bar finally a space they could express, unencumbered by social parameters, the lust that was demonized and beaten out of them? Was there an intergenerational frequency of queer empathy that collapsed personal space into a physically and morally borderless void of desire? Was I, possibly, simply irresistible in my own, not entirely guileless, queer youth?
No on all counts. Not all older men are handsy. I am, 40 years later, an older gay man who has himself been scathed by history, and yet who is not handsy. Handsiness in gay spaces still happens to me, surprisingly, and I nervously giggle my way through it until I can escape—a neurological trace of that passed-down trauma, thank you very much, Mr. Bartender.
Are there sanctioned gay spaces where handsiness is permitted, even encouraged? Absolutely, and good for them! Sex clubs and backrooms are great, dark alleys and party basements where everyone knows what they’re getting into are exciting. Some people dig being groped and I hope there are a thousand groping community retreats. Gauging the vibe is something we’ve had decades to practice, and speaking your desire clearly and sexily might get you somewhere.
But mere proximity to a gay space in general does not signal receptivity to a hands-on experience. And, as always, in sexual spaces or not, no means no. We’ve been through this. Many times, and very publicly. Several popular essays and jargony academic papers have been written, blogs have been blogged. How are there still gay men who do not get this?
That’s why it was so disheartening to see the reactions of some older gay men to D8 supervisor candidate Manny Yekutiel’s withdrawal from the race after multiple allegations of sexual assault allegations from fellow gays/queers, which he denies or says he doesn’t remember. (The allegations include unwanted digital penetration at a house party and multiple and repeatedly rebuffed crotch grabs at a dance party.) It all feels like a tired retread of the kind of internalized homophobia, corrosive trauma, and predatory enabling that should have been dispelled decades ago.
We have gay supervisor Rafael Mandelman (52) allegedly saying about his initial undying support for Manny, “For women, this is a big deal. Among the gays, it’s not a thing,” and then, in his denial of saying that, actually saying something worse: “Sexual assault is a thing. I think sexual assault occurs differently [in the gay community] and there’s a different threshold.”
We have another gay supervisor, Matt Dorsey (61), brushing off the victims and already focusing on Manny’s inevitable recovery redemption arc and sobriety journey back to power. Both these gay men, along with a whole lot of queer politicos who should know better, swept aside the first allegations against Manny and only caved when his downward momentum was too strong to ignore.
And then we have white-bearded San Francisco Facebook gay hoi polloi posting stuff like the below, just one example of many:
Nothing has had me cursing my GenX cohort and screaming “check his hard drive!” more than reactions like these—even as I’m encouraged at the social media pushback against them. (Never fear, straight people have their own weird-ass thing going on.) In several conversations at the recent Folsom and Castro Street Fairs, I came across the sentiment that “everyone goes through it,” or “that’s just what happens at gay parties.” One friend posted, “Groping as sexual assault must be a generational thing.”
Disappointing. I like to think we want to evolve as a community, and that gays would set a higher bar for ourselves. Groping is not a character-building exercise. Thank goddess a handful of LGBTQ elected officials came together to denounce such antediluvian thinking, declaring in an open letter that “Gay men do not need a ‘different threshold’ for sexual assault. We need a higher standard of leadership for our community and city.”
Let’s get a couple things out of the way. Manny is 36. He lived through neither Lavender Scare nor AIDS crisis. He is far from elderly. He did, however, experience the Tumblr/social media era of lacerating queer community introspection and the #MeToo foregrounding of consent. One would not hesitate to call him privileged in terms of education. There’s no reason he would not know this behavior crossed the line—and, more cynically, might spell the end of his career. (This is in fact the one thing that surprised me about the allegations.) For him, groping would come across less like a pitiful grasp at trauma-quaffed youth than the entitlement of landed gentry toward the gay peasants.
Then, there’s the groping itself. Literally, the definition of “groping” is “unwanted sexual touching.” (Welcomed sexual touching is called “heavy petting,” and maybe we should bring that phrase back so that some among us understand the concept better.) Persistent unwanted sexual touching can be considered assault, and I think it’s up to the gropee to decide at what point which becomes which. And while there is obviously a difference between a garden variety sex pest and a rapist, assault is assault, and I do not want someone prone to, or even credibly accused of, assault to make the laws that govern me. It’s a perfectly cromulent sentiment!
Yes, there are nuances. Signals can be misread. Boundaries often need to be renegotiated and reinforced. Context exists. Such is the eternal twirl of human interaction. Sometimes a stranger’s hand on your butt is just a stranger’s hand on your butt. Did I feel assaulted or deeply traumatized by my early encounter with the Gay Bar Octopus? Maybe not at the time, I don’t know. It was confusing; I wasn’t trained in “proper” homosexual de-escalation. Something about it, however, surely lodged in my consciousness enough for me to be writing so succinctly about an incident that happened in the Year of Madonna 1986 in the Year of Madonna 2026.
I do know that I don’t want other newbies going through that. I also know that person wasn’t running for public office.
Things, I hope, are getting better: I co-own a queer bar where the bartenders are on the victims’ side. I work with a vital organization that brings awareness to sexual violence in nightclubs. “Navigating consent” and “ask first” are not culturally foreign phrases.
But, come on, really. If you were standing around a run-of-the-mill gay club or house party with your friends and some dude came up and kept grabbing your dick, even after you said no, how exactly would you feel? I’m guessing pretty assaulted, if not just plain embarrassed. And for them to be a powerful public figure? Get with it, people. We should all know better, and be doing better, by now.
