June 13, 2024 • 40 mins
We all know Sniffies - and the pandemic - ignited a gay cruising renaissance in cities around the world. But where did cruising begin - and how has it changed over time? This week, Gabe and Chris welcome writer and activist Leo Herrera to talk about his new manual, “(Analog) Cruising”, which offers tips and tricks for making the most out of your cruising experiences, whether you’re a beginner or seasoned pro
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Guests featured in this episode:
Leo Herrera
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, viewers, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions is an explicit podcast about
queer sex, filter dirty words and unfiltered descriptions of sexual activities.
If hearing about orgies, anonymous sex, kink, fetish, and more
offends your sensibilities, you might want to skip this. Viewer
discretion is advised. It's definitely not for kids.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Gabe.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yes, Chris, tell me about your hottest cruising experience.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I've got to say I once was very curious about
the Blue Store rip and I had never been there before,
and everybody was like, oh, the video boosts at the
Blue Store, and I was like, well, let me go
try a piece of queer history. I went downstairs to
the video booths and there was nobody. There was like
me and this older guy who had clearly also taken
(00:45):
his lunch break.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
To go to the bus. And I was like, all right, baby,
it's you and me. Guy. Let's it. We're either staring
at a screen or we're gonna make the most of this.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
And it was one of those things where it was
like neither of us were what the other one was
looking for, but we were like this could be.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah. It was like a really good.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Hookup did in an exchange a name, didn't exchange number,
like absolutely nothing, and then we just left and I
never saw that personally again.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
It was really it was fun, how about you.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
It was late one night and I was headed to
a friend's house to stay in the city. I'm supposed
to going to Brooklyn and there's this like hot guy
who's like on the other side of the door, and
like we're making eyes at each other, making eyes.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
There's a door between you, well.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
You know, like the subway door, and then see yeah, yeah,
So like I'm like looking over and I like, I
I'm like, it's kind of hot. Two stops and then
he comes and sits in front of me. He starts adjusting.
I started adjusting. We start playing with each other with
the with with ourselves, and uh, finally he just like
motions for me to get off the train. We get
(01:47):
off the train and we like hook up on the
train platform. We don't say a word this entire time,
and then wait for the next train that was coming
in like six minutes. Get on the train. He gets
off of the next time. I give a little nod
and uh, yeah, I'm tracking hot.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
I am coming into this episode like a cruising novice
like I need a cruising one O one, you're like
grad school Like ready, h for.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Sure she holds multiple degrees in cruising. Okay, that is amazing.
That's a great story.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Not gonna lie every time I get on the train
and I'm hoping he's on it, just to like for
a repeating.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Whenever I revisit the Blue Store, I hope that man
in his suit is there as well.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
No, I love that. That is really really incredible.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah, we all know that Sniffy's and the Pandemic kind
of ignited a gay cruising renaissance in cities around the world.
But where did cruising begin and how has it changed
over time?
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, this week we welcome writer and activist Leo Herrara
to talk about his new manual and a Log Cruising,
which offers amazing advice to make cruising easier, whether you're
a beginner or you're like me, a season pro.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Welcome to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I am Gabe Goonsilers, I'm Chris Patterson rosso each week
weeks for the Sublime world of Queer Sex, cruising and Relationship, where.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
We talking to queer folks of all kinds, ask them questions,
swap sex stories, share intimate revelations.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
A lot of us are discovering ourselves in cruising spaces.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
This happened to me at this toilet stall, in the
library or the airport.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I feel like everybody's gonna fuck a little harder here, Damn.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So I was like the neighborhood slot, and I took
pride in that.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I was so afraid but yet so intrigued. And the
more I gave to him, the more you could take.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
If you're having sex on Sniffy's, you already have a
moral deficit.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I think if you're a gay or career person on
Instagram or Twitter, you definitely have seen our first guest work.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Leo Herredra is a Mexican writer, activist, and filmmaker best
known for his viral essay Means that explored queerness, race,
and disease.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Not to mention his incredible Herrara Words substack, where he
publishes long form essays on queer culture and sex.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Leo's latest project is a new manual called Analog Cruising, which,
opinion every Cruising Confessions listener and Sniffy's user.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Should probably read for sure. Welcome Leohredra. How are you
And I'm going so good, Thank you so much for
having me. So glad you're here.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Let's pretend I have been living under a rock for
the past thousand years. Uh, And I asked you what
cruising is. How would you give us, like a very
base simple definition of cruising.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Cruising is when two people look at each other and
know they're going to have sex and then have sex.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
It's a really simple note. Yes, simple, Yeah, truly one
of the oldest art forms. I mean, the beauty is
in the simplicity, right, Yeah, I like that. And it
seems like.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
The eyes and eye contact is maybe like part of
the vocabulary or nonverbal language of cruising.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Eye contact is the mother tongue. Everything starts with eye
contact and then builds from there. So you start by
looking at one another. And as most game I know,
if you're in a crowded you can look around and
you will spot out the other gay just by the
way that you guys look at each other. If you
look away and then look back and you're still looking
at one another, that is a whole romance novel waiting
(05:11):
to happen right in that split second. Gay men are
so good at nonverbal communication. Because we've had to do
it for so long for safety issues. Once we learn
to sort of harness that for sexual issues, it sort
of opens.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Up this entire different world for us.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Whether it's park cruising, cruising someone on a subway, in
a dark room at a sex club, at a bath house,
there's sort of different rules of engagement for each of
those spaces, but they always always start off with eye contact.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
So, thinking about cruising, what do we know about where
it started?
Speaker 4 (05:44):
You know, it's one of those things where, because there's
so little historical records about gay culture, we're never really
gonna know. But my thought about that is it's probably
when two cavemans saw each other and look down and
they're like that, it's a huge cave mancock, and then
they dragged each other.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
To a cave and then had sex before language.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Began, and then they probably had you know, a little
like drawings up on a cave men.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, I love those are proto only fans. Those drawings
were only fans before we knew what it was.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's great, it's amazing totally.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
And so we have some records, Unfortunately a lot of
them are police records of you know, sting operations, and
things like that. When you're studying queer history, you have
to sort of read between the lines of certain things.
But what's interesting to me is that cruising is ingrained
in the gay DNA.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So almost the history. In a way, it's valuable, but
you don't need.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
To know it to go cruising. It's just something that
you can sort of instinctively pick up because it's basically
all instinct. I'm also curious why like parks and public
places became sort of the focal point for cruising, and
whether or not that has a lot to do with
like police persecution or the persecution of queer spaces, especially
(06:59):
like mid twentieth century, right. I mean, the reason that
those parks exist is because that's all we had, you know,
before queer bars were a thing, or before they were
allowed to be legal, which hasn't been that long. I mean,
people would cruise, you know, neither Coliseum or in you know,
when Aversta Park in San Francisco or the Rambles in
(07:20):
New York. A lot of black and brown men would
go to Prospect Park, to the Veil of Cashmere, which
is one of my favorite names of any cruising area.
So that's sort of you know, they're just born out
of necessity, but they're also you know, born out of adventure.
How many married men who were secretly gay would take
a walk in the park, you know, after dinner time,
(07:41):
and so a lot of those spaces are created by
a community that just needed to find each other for
sexual and just communal reasons.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I live across the sea from Prospect Park. I have
been there. I bet you it's wonderful. I'll save.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
It's definitely been great for that because you can sort
of check in when you're going to be there, which
I love. I love that feature actually where you can
sort of like I'm going to be there at twelve
forty three.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
You're a prompt girly.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
You're like, look, we got the audition at eight, we
got it. Yeah, I'm going to be in the veil
Kashmir as seven.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You can veil me and it will be fantastic. It
will be great. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
So it's like, it's interesting, how cruising sort of you know,
we had a very hyper focused on only digital tools
for so long, and we're sort of seeing that pendulum
go back to where we're experiencing sort of a hybrid
cruising word incorporates a little bit of digital elements to it,
but at the end of the day, you're still stucking
dick at apart and it's still beautiful.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Back in the early days, pre internet, when I was cruising,
I like had all these skills, and then we sort
of got away from that, and then like when cruising
started started happening it again, I was like, oh, I
don't have these skills anymore. I don't know how to
look at someone and get the okay and walk with
them and do the thing, and like, you know, I've
sort of had forgotten that, and you know, now that
I'm doing it again, it's like, Oh, it's kind of
(09:05):
like old hat. It's like getting on a bicycle again.
They're all in there, all those skills.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And even learning about where to find cruising spots is
so interesting because the idea, right is that these spaces
are somewhat secretive. It's word of mouth, it's passed along
through through gay channels. I remember the first cruising spot
I ever learned about was in college and I was
like freshly out. I was like nineteen or twenty, and
it was this park about like a mile away from
my campus in Providence, and it was a park where
(09:31):
you knew people were cruising, and you knew when you
were getting to the cruising spot because there'd be like
little used condoms on the ground.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Tall. Yeah, but I had to drive to get there.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So I remember driving my friends to this park, or
my friend's car to this park. I went alone, and
I parked and I went and I did my thing,
and I like made furtive eye contact with someone and
I got a little scared and I left and then
I went back and then I had a really fun time.
And when I got back to my friend's car, the
car wasn't working anymore. So I was like stranded in
(10:01):
a known cruising spot in Providence, and I was like,
who am I going to call to come pick me up?
Outside this gay cruising park lo and behold another cruiser.
A man driving a truck was driving by and he's like, hey, buddy,
you need car help, And I was like yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Then we hooked up in his truck. Before it was wild.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Honestly, it felt like I was living a porno and
I was like, oh, but this can be life.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Like you can live a little fantasy at the park
if you want too.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
And that's what makes cruising so exciting because you never
know what narrative you're gonna get. Yeah, use this digital
narrative machine that you're like, oh, I'm into this, and
I'm into that. You're gonna go here, and you're gonna
go to that. Please don't gost me or please show
it me when you show up at a park and
when you're doing like cruising on a subway, like you
literally don't know what that story arc is gonna be.
(10:50):
And even when it's not good, you know, knock on
wood and you're still safe. You know, even when it's
not fantastic, even if you don't get late, it's always
such a story.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, and even when it's tragic.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
It's always a fantastic part of the things that sort
of mold you as a gay person.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
How have you seen sort of cruising evolve. I guess
over the past twenty thirty years. In particular, I think.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
It evolves in the way that we do use technology.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
But also one of the biggest watershed moments was the
release of Prep in twenty thirteen and how that sort
of started to lift the stigma that a lot of
these spaces had for such a long time.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
You know, bathhouses were closed because of aids. There was
this stigma attached to it.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
When I started going to dark rooms and sex clubs
in the early in two thousand and five, you know,
when I was twenty something, there was still a lot
of stigma. People were really really scared of those places,
and older men had dealt with such a traumatic experience
through the crisis that they just weren't There was so
much shame attached to them and so much fear, And
(11:55):
so now that we've sort of lifted it, you can
see that these spaces are gradually filling up with younger
men that are very curious about them, and filling up
with older men who removed themselves from them for so long.
So that's one of the biggest parts of how it's changed.
But the wonderful part about cruising is that it never
really changes. It is such a constant in our community.
(12:18):
It sort of adapts to the culture, and it adapts
to the safety of everything, and it adapts to laws.
But it's still two men looking at each other being like,
I'm gonna suck that dick.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Happen, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
I think it's such a beautiful part of our culture
because it takes us back to such a primal place,
and it's also a litmus test of how we're doing politically,
how we're doing medically, how we're doing socially.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
It's it's it says a lot to.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Me that we're even having a conversation like this for
ag n Apple Sniffy's, because for so long most gay
men ninety nine percent of their hookups were digital. There's
so many more doc rooms at parties. There's so much
more value attached to a bath house, for example, like
the EMPOS outbreak, when we really learned how dependent we
could be on them to get our vaccines and to
(13:14):
get our safe sex information.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I actually got my empox vaccine at a mobile vaccine
truck that showed out, showed up right outside of a
sex party, and I was like, oh, this is easier
than trying to sign up on the City of New
York's website.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Like I just had to go to.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
The sex party and it was an increasing was great.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I made friends in line, like it was a great time,
and the nurses were sitting there like this is the
most people we've seen show up to one of these
mobile vans. And I think a lot of times people
think that sexual community or sexual subcultures are just solely
focused on sex, but there's also a care element and
a community element that I think is so interesting.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
And those spaces can exist without a care element, Like
a lot of all cruising areas and all cruising interactions
depend on a bay level of respect and consent and
excitement and pride in who you are and what your
needs are. So you can't go into a cruising space
feeling terrible about yourself, not being able to look at
(14:13):
someone in the eyes, caring a lot of shame about
what you're doing because it's not sexy, nobody wants.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
To fuck back up.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
You really need a level of base pride in your
culture and your community to enjoy those spaces. The queens
that have the best time, that are proud to be
there and having a good time. Even if you're not
having sex, you're making friends and you're just gathering a
story to tell later on.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
So I'm wondering how did people share cruising spots or
tips or etiquette, or like even learn how to cruise
with each other pre internet?
Speaker 4 (14:48):
So cruising is one of our oldest forms of oral histories.
So it was just something that somebody told somebody else
who told somebody else, who told somebody else. When we
were able to get you know, classifi as in newspapers
and use codes, we did have ways to sort of
communicate that with each other. But one of the most
interesting parts about cruising is that it's so instinctual. So
(15:10):
when you go into a park and you see the
little nooks and crannies and you see somebody standing there,
you're gonna be like, Oh, that's an interesting thing over there.
I wonder what's happening there? Why is there a guy
just standing there? And so a lot of our cruising
spots and a lot of the way that cruising evolves
is instinctual and like the most minimal word of mouth,
(15:33):
because we needed to protect ourselves from the law and
from queer bashings and the politics of our own culture.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Is so interesting to me, like the sort of languages
that surround cruising, both verbal and nonverbal, are constantly evolving
and really just depend on like who's the person you hear?
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah? Right?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
I learned how to cruise from you outside. We were
standing outside waiting to be left from the in from
the studio. Chris turns to their left, sees this man
walking down the sidewalk and goes ooh, he looks yummy.
The man approaches us Christs and not avert their eyes.
The entire time passes us. Chris turns looks at it
like waiting for him to look back, and I was like,
maybe I need him to look back for you.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
That was that was like masterclass outside the.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Whole world is then that waiting of are they going
to turn back? And that moment that they do is
one of the most exciting things that can happen to you.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
I get such a rush from it, like get yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
I Like, I'm a sober person, so I don't get
a lot of highs these days, so like this is
my new high.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Just like getting the look back in the smile and
then that's it. I just sort of going my way.
I have no intention of poking up. I just want
to get the look back.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
There's a dopamine explosion, says hey, you should probably pay
attention to that.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, I mean, the joke's on your brain because you're
not going to appropriate.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
But still so thinking about the danger of cruising, right,
we look at like these police raids, how has it
changed from the past to the present.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
You know, I think we'd like to tell ourselves that
everything's totally fine, but as we know, police presence and
queer culture is always going to have a really terrible relationship.
But even our bars, you know, are still dealing with
raids and parties get shut down all the time for that,
so we always have to be really hyper aware of that.
And as soon as we, you know, drop that vigilance,
(17:22):
that's when we're really going to get in trouble.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
So the first rule in my park.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Cruising guide is to inform yourself on the police activity
in the area.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
And sometimes it just takes.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
One toddler to pick up a dirty condom and that
Karen mom is going to run to that park, you know,
to the police, and then they're gonna mow down all
the bushes, and that happens all the time.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
To be honest, I kind of love the danger. The
thrill of kind of getting hot is kind of really
hot to me, and like the urgency of having to
get off so I can get out, so I you
know what I mean, Like I kind of love that.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Yeah, yeah, So that's interesting because to me, I'm the opposite.
I hate the idea of getting caught, so and every
every cruising area is going to have a different element
of that danger because it is such a dopamine rush
to be like, oh my god, what if somebody comes up?
But there's you know, there's different levels of rushes to
each space and sort of one of the one of
the most exciting parts is figuring out, like what is
the thing that turns you on the most about cruising
(18:19):
and about being sort of exposed to the elements or
exposed to other people. That's the beauty of these cruising
areas is that they are made to be able to
see out and not and for the outside to not
see in. So most cruising areas are not going to
be very you know, they're not going to be about
exposure and exhibitionism. But one of the things that I
do remind people when I'm doing I'm working on my
(18:41):
dark Room cruising guide right now, and one of the
rules is to just take this moment into like skin
room and understand that you're hearingsing something that is very
very rare to the rest of the world, Like to
be able to go into a bar and to go
into a back room and there's a dozen guys fucking
it's really specific to us and we're one of the
(19:01):
very few cultures that can make a friend in the dark.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
And so there's a beauty of that.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
So you're going through this veil of consciousness where you're
experiencing this thing that is private, that there are entire
our entire culture builds to be a private thing, and
you get to step into this looking glass of sexuality.
That's really I mean, that's where the rush for me
comes sometimes because that's magic.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
It's magic, it's sex magic, it's sex magic. That's what
we're channeling here today. Chapter one of them are throw
that in my culture, baby, come on.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
A thing I see a lot, especially online, because everyone's
got an opinion about having sex on Twitter, is that
because we have apps, we don't need physical cruising spaces,
or that we are somehow subjecting people to dangerous scenarios
by engaging and cruising in public spaces. How would you
sort of unpack that or address that concern, whether or
(19:57):
not it is being asked in good faith.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
I think we're always going to need physical cruising spaces,
and we're already learning sort of the damages of social media,
for example, and how they, you know, cause a disconnect
with one another. The thing that people have to remember
is that a lot of us are discovering ourselves in
cruising spaces. So it might be easy to get on
an app and be like I'm into this, this, this,
this and this, but a lot of us don't have that.
(20:22):
You know, a lot of us discover our sexuality through practice,
and that's what cruising spaces are meant for. So, for example,
I learned that I was into larger guys when I
was in a bathhouse, and that wouldn't have been the
case if I had just ordered in what I thought
that I was supposed to be attracted to. A lot
of other people don't have the luxury of getting on
an app or being out of the closet. Even so,
(20:46):
cruising spaces allow us to come into our own sexually
and also to explore things that maybe wouldn't have occurred
to us. Is something that's really priceless and something that
can't be replicated digitally.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
We're going to take a sh up break and when
we get back, we'll hear Leo's personal advice for first
time cruisers and two distinct locations more Sniffy's cruising confessions.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
On the way.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Welcome back, we are chatting with Leo Herredra. So, Leo,
your new book is called Analog Cruising, Can you tell
us a bit about it? What prompted you to write
it and what are we going.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
To find in it?
Speaker 4 (21:23):
So what prompted the Cruising Guide is how much interest
there is in cruising and also at the same time,
how we don't know a lot about it because it
hasn't been spoken about very openly for a really long
time as we sort of got more dependent on the apps,
and so many younger people will ask me, like the
really the most basic parts of it, like what can
I expect when I walk into a bath house?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
The moment I like, how do I check in? What
should I bring?
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Or how do I stand in a part? How do
I depend on not having my phone?
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I mean, I will say as a person, I read
them before this interview, and I felt so nostalgic reading them,
experiencing like remembering my first time cruising in a park,
or like going to the pathouse in particular, like getting
the courage to go to the bath house, trying to
find someone to go with me, and sort of like
going through your checklist and being like, God, I really
wish I had had this because there was so much
(22:15):
of the unknown. I just sort of like showed up
at the bath house and I was like, Okay, now
what you know and asking a lot of questions at
the front desk, and they're all rolling their eyes at me,
like girl, just go in and have a good time,
you know.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
But it's such a rite of passage.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
But I think we could have made it a little
easier for ourselves. And because of the stigma associated to
these spaces, I had to do the same thing like
we've all had to. It's such a moment to like
get the courage to walk into a bath house and
not know what's.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
On the other side.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
And there's an excitement to that, but I feel like
there's also an unfairness to how scary it could be
for some people.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
You know.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
One of the most basic questions that I get about
park cruising, for example, is like where do I stand?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Which is so adorable when like a twenty one year.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Old like messages you on Instagra and be like, I'd
love to you, but I just don't know how to stand,
And You're like, oh, wow, where are you gonna know?
Like where who would have taught you that? So I'm
going to read you guys. One of the one of
the things I'm most proud of in this cruising guide,
Tip number six says, pretend you're in a museum. Walk
around at the same pace as an art exhibit and
use a similar volume. You're either the art or the viewer.
(23:26):
Mosey around or stand and wait. Tick off your headphones,
put your phone away, and pay attention. If you're interested
in someone, walk to them and stand the distance as
you would a painting. So already you're already letting them know, like,
don't be talking a lot, like how would you be
in an art exhibit? And are you the person who
is being gazed upon or are you the one that's
sort of looking around for that? And so those kinds
(23:47):
of really real world tips, I'm really surprised at how
helpful they've been and how people will be Like, I
did it, I did the thing, I went to the
cruising area.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
What happens when you get rejected? How do we behave
in that in these instances?
Speaker 4 (24:01):
One of the things, one of the most important things
that we learn in cruising spaces is to not take
rejection as a reflection of ourselves. And one of the
I think one of the worst parts about the apps
is how they allow us to just reject one another
in a way that we probably wouldn't in person, Like
I would never go up to some and to be like,
that's an ugly dick, but you.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Know that's crazy, or to just stop talking to them. Yeah,
so I might. I might. I might be the type
that would, but I was just saying, godasa likely, so
I think it.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Really sometimes the apps encourage some sort of our more
sociopathic qualities in the Bathhouse Guy Tip number eight is
do not take rejection as a reflection on you. If
you get a no, just not courteous, they'll leave their
space because you don't know why they've said no to you.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
They might be a voyeur.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Here in the guide that says, you know, it might
just be a voyeur or exhibitionist or biding their time.
It may also mean not write this minute and they'll
find you later. So you have to sort of leave
yourself and leave all the demons in your head and
understand like they might just not be into me right now.
It might just might not be their type, they might
not be in the mood. They might just want to
(25:11):
just chill for a minute, So it kind of makes
you sort of be an adult and accept rejection and
also give it and return in a way that's courteous
and then the way that you would want somebody to
do that for you.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
So one of the.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Biggest concerns in cruising spaces for younger folks is.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Like, am I going to say no to the old
ugly guy?
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Like that's one of the one of the main questions,
Like what if somebody touches me and I don't want
them to, And it's very simple.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
You just tap tap them on the arm and then
you say no, thank you, and that's it.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Most people that are seizing cruisers in these spaces understand
it's like, Okay, that's not for me. And if you
have to get verbal and be like no, they've already
broken enough rules that they don't belong in that space.
It teaches us how to accept rejection and to give rejection,
and that sort of strengthens us and strengthens our sort
of emotional immune system, because that's the scariest part of
(26:03):
any kind of interaction, is that someone's going to say no.
One of the things that I learned because of my
elders was that's the worst thing that can happen.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yes, yeah, someone just says no and you deal with it.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
And one of the other tips in the guide is like,
don't go to these spaces when you're not feeling okay,
you're really depressed, if you're really anxious, if you're like,
if I don't get laid tonight, I don't know what
I'm gonna do. That's really unhealthy and so and I've
done it before, and a lot of us, you know,
we'll go through a terrible breakup and we'll be like,
(26:36):
I'm just gonna go get fucked in a bathhouse and
you know, fuck the pain a way, and there's a
time and a space for that. But when that doesn't
function right, it could do real damage. So it's important
to approach cruising and when you're already feeling centered. If
you're expecting a stranger to make you feel good about yourself,
that's a whole different other conversation.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
That you have to have with yourself.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I am always the person to injury myself to someone
that I think is attractive, and my friends are always like,
how do you do that? And I think it's from
going to the bathhouses and having this like exactly the
worst thing that could happen is someone just says no,
and like the other possibilities are endless, you know, and like,
so what if they say no, I live in New
York City.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
There is another dick around the corner.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
But yeah, that's one of the most important things that
I was taught. Was wasn't just you know what my
elders were, my elder with a specific elder who is
this big ginger bear where I was like, how do.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
You always pick up these beautiful boys?
Speaker 4 (27:31):
And he said, I just ask, and the worst thing
that can happen is is they say no. But and
the second part, so that was even just as important.
He said, that just leaves room for a yes somewhere
else exactly, And once you sort of fix your mind
around that where you don't fixate on that guy rejected me.
That guy rejected me. He was like, yeah, I got rejected.
The night's still young. Let's keep it moving, let's keep
(27:53):
it pushing, and maybe we'll find what we want tonight,
or maybe we won't. But that rush of coming up
to somebody and introducing yourself, it builds up stamina, and
it builds up sort of your strength, not only as
a sexual person but as like a queer person. Yes,
because we're so used to rejection by the outside world that.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
If we can't get rejection from one another in a sexual,
playful way, how are we gonna deal with the rest
of the world that wants to kill us.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
It is so funny because I really do think that
that being part of like a queer community has prepared
me for performance and comedy. The one thing that I
always hear when it comes to cruising and stand up
comedy is be prepared for a ton of rejections. Yeah,
And I was like, all right, I picked a lifestyle
where I'm gonna hear no ninety five percent of the time. Yeah,
and I'm gonna relish every letter in that word ultimately.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
I mean, I'm a scrawny little guy, you know, I'm
a skyreletvel brown guy who's attracted to big, big bears.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Like I've gotten said no a.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Ton of times, but the times that they've said yes, Babe,
changing for everybody.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
For every party involved.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I love that You're like, I'm gonna, you know, I
changed their life.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
I do kind of want to get down to these
two spaces that you've introduced in your writing. The bath
house and the park. What would you say are the
differences and similarities between these these two locations of cruising.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
I think of the park it's sort of the Olympics
of cruising. It's a really difficult learning curve. It's really intimidating.
You're you're dependent on the elements you're dependent on. Cops
are exposed to mom's jogging. It's depending on how the
park is. You're not so sure, but the rewards of
(29:39):
that are so high. Like I love park cruising when
I'm in Berlin because I never know what I'm going
to get, and it's just I have my own ritual.
I get to I wear something really like nondescript. I
take my little flask or my little like white claw
and wait. And a parks, for example, teaches you how
to wait, and it teaches you to understand the you
(30:00):
might not get what you want and you don't even
know if you're gonna have an orgasm, whereas a bath
house is more about the amenities and you can bring
a friend with you, and they were built for socializing,
and they were built sort of as a response to
being exposed in the elements in parks and things like that.
So it's almost like their opposite ends of safety and
(30:20):
of relaxation. So you're not going to be that relaxed
in the park if you're looking recruising, if you're too relaxed,
then you're not doing it right because you have to
be very vigilant about everything, whereas a bath house, all
you got to do is just lay in a steam
room and wait and see if somebody hot comes in.
And the worst thing that can happen is you sat
in a steamroom and relaxed. One of my favorite bath houses,
you know, there's a little there's a little place to
(30:42):
have a little salad and a little white wine, so
you can bring a friend to those and you can
sort of like lean into it.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
There's also a lot of.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Intimidation involved because you have to get completely naked and
you have to be walking around a towel, and a
lot of us have a lot of you know, self
consciousness about our bodies, so they're both kind of have
a give and take.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
And all cruising areas are like that.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
So I'm doing guides for arcades and for dark rooms
and for sex clubs.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Which are a little bit different than the bath house.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
And all of them have sort of different rules of engagement,
and in the book, I have like a kiki level
of like this is how much kinkiki here, or like
you know, this is how you should be thinking about safety,
whereas like a park, your safety is very very important,
whereas't a bath house.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
You know, just don't be.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Fucked up and crack your skull on a tile and
you'll be fine. Each one of these spaces has a
different rule of engagement and a different rule of what
consent looks like and how verbal consent is. And within
those spaces, like for example, in a bath house, you
don't just start groping people in the locker room, right,
That's not what you would do. That's kind of rude.
But if there's a maze for a steam room, that
(31:48):
gets a little bit more gropy. So those things are
sort of they can be spelled out, and that's why
I'm spelling them out in these guides. But after a
while you sort of start to realize that they all
have a rhythm and that you you just have to
pay attention. And I think that's the thing that sort
of gets lost when we get too dependent on apps,
as we start learning how to like look up, look up,
(32:10):
like look up.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Mary as well.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Tell everybody what is your favorite cruising moment? Oh my god,
oh my.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Least favorite actually happened this year, and this guy broke
every single room, like every single rule imaginable. I was
in a park in Berlin and there was a power
bottom against the tree and I went in there and
I did my thing and I'm fucking I'm really hard
and I smelled that he at Popper's, so I was like, hey,
can I take a whiff of those? And as I'm
(32:38):
jackhammering this man, he looks back and goes, no, I'm
not a store.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Get your own. I was like, oh my god, I'm
inside you. Correct, Yeah, like we are. We are in
an intimate act. We are showing things to each other. Wow.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
I was like, are you I'm like, I pop out
and I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? And the
queens around me were like no, she did it. And
now I was like, get the fuck out of here.
I'm like, are you out of your fucking mind talking
to me like that?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Wait, but at this point you've got there are other
people there as well, so you've got like a little crowd.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
This is like the third actually people got there.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
Were sort of like whoa, yeah, and so I'm like,
get the fuck out.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Of here, you rude ass bitch.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
And I'm like, no, you're not having sex with anybody here,
and I was like, I want to make sure you're
having super uncomfortable So we sort of like hissed him
out of there.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
And this other queen who I who would wouldn't have
been my type, but she was like, I can't believe
that happened. And I was like, was that just me?
Because it's like, you know, midnight? Is it just me?
Was that like the rudest thing you've ever heard ever?
Speaker 4 (33:43):
She was like, we don't talk to each other like
that in these faces, Like I was just it was
so gross, and me and him just sat there and
we talked for a while, and then after we were
done talking. He was not my type at all, but
after we were done talking, we had this thing that
we shirt.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I was like, we were both like, you know, I'm trying.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Having sex and it was so hot because we shared
this moment out there, and then out of nowhere, these
two just my type guys came in to like surround us,
and I was like I couldn't have ordered either of
them if I had tried, and so all of a sudden,
this moment that was so rude and kind of a
(34:19):
little bit demoralizing and was really I was like, I've never.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Felt so used as the top before. All of a
sudden it.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Became this communal kind of like experience. And then even
though me and this guy weren't exactly one another's type,
we sort of connected sexually, and then that energy and
us having sat there and like kind of processed it
brought all of these people around us, and then all
of a sudden we both had exactly what we wanted.
(34:47):
This other guy was like he was he was like,
this is just my type, and I'm like, these two
are just my type too, And it ended up turning
into this like really tender, sweet orgy of like six
people outside in the summer in a park.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
And it would have never happened had that first kuyd have.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
Been a total dick and it And there was a
moment there that I wanted to leave because I felt
so grossed out by that experience and being talked to
sort of that way and the way the way that
he talked to me and treated me, and I didn't leave,
and instead I sort of, you know, commiserated with a sister,
and that created this whole nother energy and this whole
experience that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
So that's my favorite, my two favorite ones, And that
was a perfect story.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
It would have been such a gag if you'd asked
for popersy and turned around tap tap tap no.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
No, that would have been so much better. I'm not
a store who the.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, the store ising like I had a line ready
and wanted to try it out on an unwilling crowd.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
I think the thing that I would leave the audience
with about cruising is always just to trust your gut
and your comfort level whenever you're in any of these spaces,
and if something doesn't feel right, you are not obligated
to partake, You're not obligated to be there.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
You're not missing out on anything.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
Those spaces will always be there for you for when
you are ready perfect.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Trust your gut before you slide something inside it.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Leo, thank you so much for stopping by to educate me,
Gabe and our listeners on cruising.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Absolutely, this has been so much fun and so enlightening.
I'd love to know, Leo, where can folks listening or
watching find you online.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
I am at Instagram and Twitter at Herrera Images and
on substack at Herrera Words, and you'll be able to
buy my analog cruising.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Guide at if They Lived dot org. Awesome. All right, y'all,
don't go anywhere. I'm all right.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
It's almost an end of our show, which means it's
time to play pump and dump.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
We're gonna get some topics and we have to vote
pump or dump, pump being a very positive affirmation and
dump being a literal dump where you're throwing it out.
All right, So our first one is Captain Rush, the
little known mascot of Rush Poppers.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
They used to have one. He's a superhero.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, and I think he wears a crop top.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
He's got like a crop top and like like leggings on,
like form fitting leggings. Yeah, that's a pump. It's a
pump for me. Yeah, yeah, I like. I like an
off brand Dollar Store superhero. Look, it's my favorite for sure.
So here's the next topic for you. Pickleball absolute dumb
any athletics dump. I didn't say that.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah, if it needs a racket and a ball, I'm out.
I'm so sorry. Yeah, no, that's a dump for me.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
I'm not you know, we don't learn how to play pickleball,
are you kidding? I disappointed my parents enough when they
learned I couldn't play baseball. There's nothing left for me
after that. We're done with sports, all right.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Next on our list is Art the Clown. I don't
know who that is either, but also clowns. It's an
immediate dump for me. Oh no, clowns are not sexy.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
I'm so sorry. No, but you're thinking circus clown.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
But clowns are like terrifying. Yeah, but those are circus
clown There's no way you can make a clown sexy.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
I promise you they're fun. They can be.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I will say.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
One of my favorite clowns I've ever seen is named
your Girlfriend, and they were performing actually at our producer
Adam's Inferno party, and it was a really great performance.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
It was spectacular.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
All right, Art the Clown is a dump, but I
stand clowning, just not horror clowns, all right.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
The last one is the man in the Sniffy's logo.
There's a man, There's a man. There's a man in
the logo. Yeah, like in the little swivel.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, it's this guy. It's him, it's him.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
He told me about this guest of honor, like you
see you know how like that little wave.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, this is him and he's got his dick under
the stall. I love on.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Wait actually, like yeah, can we get a little can
I inspect more close?
Speaker 3 (38:42):
There's like a very a lot worth inspector Dick.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
I want to know who modeled for this, and I
want to find them and meet them in person. Okay,
this is incredible. I just I really I need everyone
to know the ratio of Dick to boy.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
This is out of thicker than his forum.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
It is absolutely thicker than his forums. And his balls
are about as large as like half of his face
each ball. Yeah, this is really great. These are impeccable proportions.
I need to know who's his surgeon. It's very lovely
from the back, Okay, we can work on that. From
the front, it's amazing. Okay, So the man in the
Sniffy's logo is pomp.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
We got it all right. We learned so much this week,
we really did.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
I have to thank Leohreda for calling in. That was
such a fun interview. Please remember to check out his substack,
edit it out words, and his new manual Analog Cruising.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
And if you want to read even more about cruising
in general, head over to Sniffy's hash where we're posting
a list of our favorite books about gay cruiser.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Including one from nineteen thirty eight. People have been cruising
for a very long time.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Thank you for watching or listening.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Sniffy's Cruising Confessions is directed by Adam Barron, produced by
Stevie Williams and Cameron Femino, and executive produced by Eli Martin.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Cruising Confessions is presented by Sniffy's the Ultimate Map Cruising Platforms.
We're Gay by incurious people ready to cruise. Check out
the map at sniffys dot com and follow Sniffy's on
all socials at Sniffy's app.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Put your put, put your put, your
Speaker 4 (40:13):
H
Hey, viewers, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions is an explicit podcast about
queer sex, filter dirty words and unfiltered descriptions of sexual activities.
If hearing about orgies, anonymous sex, kink, fetish, and more
offends your sensibilities, you might want to skip this. Viewer
discretion is advised. It's definitely not for kids.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Gabe.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Yes, Chris, tell me about your hottest cruising experience.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I've got to say I once was very curious about
the Blue Store rip and I had never been there before,
and everybody was like, oh, the video boosts at the
Blue Store, and I was like, well, let me go
try a piece of queer history. I went downstairs to
the video booths and there was nobody. There was like
me and this older guy who had clearly also taken
(00:45):
his lunch break.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
To go to the bus. And I was like, all right, baby,
it's you and me. Guy. Let's it. We're either staring
at a screen or we're gonna make the most of this.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
And it was one of those things where it was
like neither of us were what the other one was
looking for, but we were like this could be.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah. It was like a really good.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Hookup did in an exchange a name, didn't exchange number,
like absolutely nothing, and then we just left and I
never saw that personally again.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
It was really it was fun, how about you.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
It was late one night and I was headed to
a friend's house to stay in the city. I'm supposed
to going to Brooklyn and there's this like hot guy
who's like on the other side of the door, and
like we're making eyes at each other, making eyes.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
There's a door between you, well.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
You know, like the subway door, and then see yeah, yeah,
So like I'm like looking over and I like, I
I'm like, it's kind of hot. Two stops and then
he comes and sits in front of me. He starts adjusting.
I started adjusting. We start playing with each other with
the with with ourselves, and uh, finally he just like
motions for me to get off the train. We get
(01:47):
off the train and we like hook up on the
train platform. We don't say a word this entire time,
and then wait for the next train that was coming
in like six minutes. Get on the train. He gets
off of the next time. I give a little nod
and uh, yeah, I'm tracking hot.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
I am coming into this episode like a cruising novice
like I need a cruising one O one, you're like
grad school Like ready, h for.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Sure she holds multiple degrees in cruising. Okay, that is amazing.
That's a great story.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Not gonna lie every time I get on the train
and I'm hoping he's on it, just to like for
a repeating.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Whenever I revisit the Blue Store, I hope that man
in his suit is there as well.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
No, I love that. That is really really incredible.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah, we all know that Sniffy's and the Pandemic kind
of ignited a gay cruising renaissance in cities around the world.
But where did cruising begin and how has it changed
over time?
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Well, this week we welcome writer and activist Leo Herrara
to talk about his new manual and a Log Cruising,
which offers amazing advice to make cruising easier, whether you're
a beginner or you're like me, a season pro.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Welcome to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
I am Gabe Goonsilers, I'm Chris Patterson rosso each week
weeks for the Sublime world of Queer Sex, cruising and Relationship, where.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
We talking to queer folks of all kinds, ask them questions,
swap sex stories, share intimate revelations.
Speaker 4 (03:10):
A lot of us are discovering ourselves in cruising spaces.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
This happened to me at this toilet stall, in the
library or the airport.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
I feel like everybody's gonna fuck a little harder here, Damn.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
So I was like the neighborhood slot, and I took
pride in that.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I was so afraid but yet so intrigued. And the
more I gave to him, the more you could take.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
If you're having sex on Sniffy's, you already have a
moral deficit.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
I think if you're a gay or career person on
Instagram or Twitter, you definitely have seen our first guest work.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Leo Herredra is a Mexican writer, activist, and filmmaker best
known for his viral essay Means that explored queerness, race,
and disease.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
Not to mention his incredible Herrara Words substack, where he
publishes long form essays on queer culture and sex.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Leo's latest project is a new manual called Analog Cruising, which,
opinion every Cruising Confessions listener and Sniffy's user.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Should probably read for sure. Welcome Leohredra. How are you
And I'm going so good, Thank you so much for
having me. So glad you're here.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
Let's pretend I have been living under a rock for
the past thousand years. Uh, And I asked you what
cruising is. How would you give us, like a very
base simple definition of cruising.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
Cruising is when two people look at each other and
know they're going to have sex and then have sex.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
It's a really simple note. Yes, simple, Yeah, truly one
of the oldest art forms. I mean, the beauty is
in the simplicity, right, Yeah, I like that. And it
seems like.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
The eyes and eye contact is maybe like part of
the vocabulary or nonverbal language of cruising.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
Eye contact is the mother tongue. Everything starts with eye
contact and then builds from there. So you start by
looking at one another. And as most game I know,
if you're in a crowded you can look around and
you will spot out the other gay just by the
way that you guys look at each other. If you
look away and then look back and you're still looking
at one another, that is a whole romance novel waiting
(05:11):
to happen right in that split second. Gay men are
so good at nonverbal communication. Because we've had to do
it for so long for safety issues. Once we learn
to sort of harness that for sexual issues, it sort
of opens.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Up this entire different world for us.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
Whether it's park cruising, cruising someone on a subway, in
a dark room at a sex club, at a bath house,
there's sort of different rules of engagement for each of
those spaces, but they always always start off with eye contact.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
So, thinking about cruising, what do we know about where
it started?
Speaker 4 (05:44):
You know, it's one of those things where, because there's
so little historical records about gay culture, we're never really
gonna know. But my thought about that is it's probably
when two cavemans saw each other and look down and
they're like that, it's a huge cave mancock, and then
they dragged each other.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
To a cave and then had sex before language.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Began, and then they probably had you know, a little
like drawings up on a cave men.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Well, I love those are proto only fans. Those drawings
were only fans before we knew what it was.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
It's great, it's amazing totally.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
And so we have some records, Unfortunately a lot of
them are police records of you know, sting operations, and
things like that. When you're studying queer history, you have
to sort of read between the lines of certain things.
But what's interesting to me is that cruising is ingrained
in the gay DNA.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So almost the history. In a way, it's valuable, but
you don't need.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
To know it to go cruising. It's just something that
you can sort of instinctively pick up because it's basically
all instinct. I'm also curious why like parks and public
places became sort of the focal point for cruising, and
whether or not that has a lot to do with
like police persecution or the persecution of queer spaces, especially
(06:59):
like mid twentieth century, right. I mean, the reason that
those parks exist is because that's all we had, you know,
before queer bars were a thing, or before they were
allowed to be legal, which hasn't been that long. I mean,
people would cruise, you know, neither Coliseum or in you know,
when Aversta Park in San Francisco or the Rambles in
(07:20):
New York. A lot of black and brown men would
go to Prospect Park, to the Veil of Cashmere, which
is one of my favorite names of any cruising area.
So that's sort of you know, they're just born out
of necessity, but they're also you know, born out of adventure.
How many married men who were secretly gay would take
a walk in the park, you know, after dinner time,
(07:41):
and so a lot of those spaces are created by
a community that just needed to find each other for
sexual and just communal reasons.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
I live across the sea from Prospect Park. I have
been there. I bet you it's wonderful. I'll save.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
It's definitely been great for that because you can sort
of check in when you're going to be there, which
I love. I love that feature actually where you can
sort of like I'm going to be there at twelve
forty three.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
You're a prompt girly.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
You're like, look, we got the audition at eight, we
got it. Yeah, I'm going to be in the veil
Kashmir as seven.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
You can veil me and it will be fantastic. It
will be great. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
So it's like, it's interesting, how cruising sort of you know,
we had a very hyper focused on only digital tools
for so long, and we're sort of seeing that pendulum
go back to where we're experiencing sort of a hybrid
cruising word incorporates a little bit of digital elements to it,
but at the end of the day, you're still stucking
dick at apart and it's still beautiful.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Back in the early days, pre internet, when I was cruising,
I like had all these skills, and then we sort
of got away from that, and then like when cruising
started started happening it again, I was like, oh, I
don't have these skills anymore. I don't know how to
look at someone and get the okay and walk with
them and do the thing, and like, you know, I've
sort of had forgotten that, and you know, now that
I'm doing it again, it's like, Oh, it's kind of
(09:05):
like old hat. It's like getting on a bicycle again.
They're all in there, all those skills.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
And even learning about where to find cruising spots is
so interesting because the idea, right is that these spaces
are somewhat secretive. It's word of mouth, it's passed along
through through gay channels. I remember the first cruising spot
I ever learned about was in college and I was
like freshly out. I was like nineteen or twenty, and
it was this park about like a mile away from
my campus in Providence, and it was a park where
(09:31):
you knew people were cruising, and you knew when you
were getting to the cruising spot because there'd be like
little used condoms on the ground.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Tall. Yeah, but I had to drive to get there.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So I remember driving my friends to this park, or
my friend's car to this park. I went alone, and
I parked and I went and I did my thing,
and I like made furtive eye contact with someone and
I got a little scared and I left and then
I went back and then I had a really fun time.
And when I got back to my friend's car, the
car wasn't working anymore. So I was like stranded in
(10:01):
a known cruising spot in Providence, and I was like,
who am I going to call to come pick me up?
Outside this gay cruising park lo and behold another cruiser.
A man driving a truck was driving by and he's like, hey, buddy,
you need car help, And I was like yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Then we hooked up in his truck. Before it was wild.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Honestly, it felt like I was living a porno and
I was like, oh, but this can be life.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Like you can live a little fantasy at the park
if you want too.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
And that's what makes cruising so exciting because you never
know what narrative you're gonna get. Yeah, use this digital
narrative machine that you're like, oh, I'm into this, and
I'm into that. You're gonna go here, and you're gonna
go to that. Please don't gost me or please show
it me when you show up at a park and
when you're doing like cruising on a subway, like you
literally don't know what that story arc is gonna be.
(10:50):
And even when it's not good, you know, knock on
wood and you're still safe. You know, even when it's
not fantastic, even if you don't get late, it's always
such a story.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah, and even when it's tragic.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
It's always a fantastic part of the things that sort
of mold you as a gay person.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
How have you seen sort of cruising evolve. I guess
over the past twenty thirty years. In particular, I think.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
It evolves in the way that we do use technology.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
But also one of the biggest watershed moments was the
release of Prep in twenty thirteen and how that sort
of started to lift the stigma that a lot of
these spaces had for such a long time.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
You know, bathhouses were closed because of aids. There was
this stigma attached to it.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
When I started going to dark rooms and sex clubs
in the early in two thousand and five, you know,
when I was twenty something, there was still a lot
of stigma. People were really really scared of those places,
and older men had dealt with such a traumatic experience
through the crisis that they just weren't There was so
much shame attached to them and so much fear, And
(11:55):
so now that we've sort of lifted it, you can
see that these spaces are gradually filling up with younger
men that are very curious about them, and filling up
with older men who removed themselves from them for so long.
So that's one of the biggest parts of how it's changed.
But the wonderful part about cruising is that it never
really changes. It is such a constant in our community.
(12:18):
It sort of adapts to the culture, and it adapts
to the safety of everything, and it adapts to laws.
But it's still two men looking at each other being like,
I'm gonna suck that dick.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Happen, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
I think it's such a beautiful part of our culture
because it takes us back to such a primal place,
and it's also a litmus test of how we're doing politically,
how we're doing medically, how we're doing socially.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
It's it's it says a lot to.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Me that we're even having a conversation like this for
ag n Apple Sniffy's, because for so long most gay
men ninety nine percent of their hookups were digital. There's
so many more doc rooms at parties. There's so much
more value attached to a bath house, for example, like
the EMPOS outbreak, when we really learned how dependent we
could be on them to get our vaccines and to
(13:14):
get our safe sex information.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I actually got my empox vaccine at a mobile vaccine
truck that showed out, showed up right outside of a
sex party, and I was like, oh, this is easier
than trying to sign up on the City of New
York's website.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
Like I just had to go to.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
The sex party and it was an increasing was great.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
I made friends in line, like it was a great time,
and the nurses were sitting there like this is the
most people we've seen show up to one of these
mobile vans. And I think a lot of times people
think that sexual community or sexual subcultures are just solely
focused on sex, but there's also a care element and
a community element that I think is so interesting.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
And those spaces can exist without a care element, Like
a lot of all cruising areas and all cruising interactions
depend on a bay level of respect and consent and
excitement and pride in who you are and what your
needs are. So you can't go into a cruising space
feeling terrible about yourself, not being able to look at
(14:13):
someone in the eyes, caring a lot of shame about
what you're doing because it's not sexy, nobody wants.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
To fuck back up.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
You really need a level of base pride in your
culture and your community to enjoy those spaces. The queens
that have the best time, that are proud to be
there and having a good time. Even if you're not
having sex, you're making friends and you're just gathering a
story to tell later on.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
So I'm wondering how did people share cruising spots or
tips or etiquette, or like even learn how to cruise
with each other pre internet?
Speaker 4 (14:48):
So cruising is one of our oldest forms of oral histories.
So it was just something that somebody told somebody else
who told somebody else, who told somebody else. When we
were able to get you know, classifi as in newspapers
and use codes, we did have ways to sort of
communicate that with each other. But one of the most
interesting parts about cruising is that it's so instinctual. So
(15:10):
when you go into a park and you see the
little nooks and crannies and you see somebody standing there,
you're gonna be like, Oh, that's an interesting thing over there.
I wonder what's happening there? Why is there a guy
just standing there? And so a lot of our cruising
spots and a lot of the way that cruising evolves
is instinctual and like the most minimal word of mouth,
(15:33):
because we needed to protect ourselves from the law and
from queer bashings and the politics of our own culture.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Is so interesting to me, like the sort of languages
that surround cruising, both verbal and nonverbal, are constantly evolving
and really just depend on like who's the person you hear?
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah? Right?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
I learned how to cruise from you outside. We were
standing outside waiting to be left from the in from
the studio. Chris turns to their left, sees this man
walking down the sidewalk and goes ooh, he looks yummy.
The man approaches us Christs and not avert their eyes.
The entire time passes us. Chris turns looks at it
like waiting for him to look back, and I was like,
maybe I need him to look back for you.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
That was that was like masterclass outside the.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
Whole world is then that waiting of are they going
to turn back? And that moment that they do is
one of the most exciting things that can happen to you.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
I get such a rush from it, like get yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
I Like, I'm a sober person, so I don't get
a lot of highs these days, so like this is
my new high.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Just like getting the look back in the smile and
then that's it. I just sort of going my way.
I have no intention of poking up. I just want
to get the look back.
Speaker 4 (16:43):
There's a dopamine explosion, says hey, you should probably pay
attention to that.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, I mean, the joke's on your brain because you're
not going to appropriate.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
But still so thinking about the danger of cruising, right,
we look at like these police raids, how has it
changed from the past to the present.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
You know, I think we'd like to tell ourselves that
everything's totally fine, but as we know, police presence and
queer culture is always going to have a really terrible relationship.
But even our bars, you know, are still dealing with
raids and parties get shut down all the time for that,
so we always have to be really hyper aware of that.
And as soon as we, you know, drop that vigilance,
(17:22):
that's when we're really going to get in trouble.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
So the first rule in my park.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
Cruising guide is to inform yourself on the police activity
in the area.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
And sometimes it just takes.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
One toddler to pick up a dirty condom and that
Karen mom is going to run to that park, you know,
to the police, and then they're gonna mow down all
the bushes, and that happens all the time.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
To be honest, I kind of love the danger. The
thrill of kind of getting hot is kind of really
hot to me, and like the urgency of having to
get off so I can get out, so I you
know what I mean, Like I kind of love that.
Speaker 4 (17:57):
Yeah, yeah, So that's interesting because to me, I'm the opposite.
I hate the idea of getting caught, so and every
every cruising area is going to have a different element
of that danger because it is such a dopamine rush
to be like, oh my god, what if somebody comes up?
But there's you know, there's different levels of rushes to
each space and sort of one of the one of
the most exciting parts is figuring out, like what is
the thing that turns you on the most about cruising
(18:19):
and about being sort of exposed to the elements or
exposed to other people. That's the beauty of these cruising
areas is that they are made to be able to
see out and not and for the outside to not
see in. So most cruising areas are not going to
be very you know, they're not going to be about
exposure and exhibitionism. But one of the things that I
do remind people when I'm doing I'm working on my
(18:41):
dark Room cruising guide right now, and one of the
rules is to just take this moment into like skin
room and understand that you're hearingsing something that is very
very rare to the rest of the world, Like to
be able to go into a bar and to go
into a back room and there's a dozen guys fucking
it's really specific to us and we're one of the
(19:01):
very few cultures that can make a friend in the dark.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
And so there's a beauty of that.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
So you're going through this veil of consciousness where you're
experiencing this thing that is private, that there are entire
our entire culture builds to be a private thing, and
you get to step into this looking glass of sexuality.
That's really I mean, that's where the rush for me
comes sometimes because that's magic.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
It's magic, it's sex magic, it's sex magic. That's what
we're channeling here today. Chapter one of them are throw
that in my culture, baby, come on.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
A thing I see a lot, especially online, because everyone's
got an opinion about having sex on Twitter, is that
because we have apps, we don't need physical cruising spaces,
or that we are somehow subjecting people to dangerous scenarios
by engaging and cruising in public spaces. How would you
sort of unpack that or address that concern, whether or
(19:57):
not it is being asked in good faith.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
I think we're always going to need physical cruising spaces,
and we're already learning sort of the damages of social media,
for example, and how they, you know, cause a disconnect
with one another. The thing that people have to remember
is that a lot of us are discovering ourselves in
cruising spaces. So it might be easy to get on
an app and be like I'm into this, this, this,
this and this, but a lot of us don't have that.
(20:22):
You know, a lot of us discover our sexuality through practice,
and that's what cruising spaces are meant for. So, for example,
I learned that I was into larger guys when I
was in a bathhouse, and that wouldn't have been the
case if I had just ordered in what I thought
that I was supposed to be attracted to. A lot
of other people don't have the luxury of getting on
an app or being out of the closet. Even so,
(20:46):
cruising spaces allow us to come into our own sexually
and also to explore things that maybe wouldn't have occurred
to us. Is something that's really priceless and something that
can't be replicated digitally.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
We're going to take a sh up break and when
we get back, we'll hear Leo's personal advice for first
time cruisers and two distinct locations more Sniffy's cruising confessions.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
On the way.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Welcome back, we are chatting with Leo Herredra. So, Leo,
your new book is called Analog Cruising, Can you tell
us a bit about it? What prompted you to write
it and what are we going.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
To find in it?
Speaker 4 (21:23):
So what prompted the Cruising Guide is how much interest
there is in cruising and also at the same time,
how we don't know a lot about it because it
hasn't been spoken about very openly for a really long
time as we sort of got more dependent on the apps,
and so many younger people will ask me, like the
really the most basic parts of it, like what can
I expect when I walk into a bath house?
Speaker 2 (21:44):
The moment I like, how do I check in? What
should I bring?
Speaker 4 (21:47):
Or how do I stand in a part? How do
I depend on not having my phone?
Speaker 3 (21:54):
I mean, I will say as a person, I read
them before this interview, and I felt so nostalgic reading them,
experiencing like remembering my first time cruising in a park,
or like going to the pathouse in particular, like getting
the courage to go to the bath house, trying to
find someone to go with me, and sort of like
going through your checklist and being like, God, I really
wish I had had this because there was so much
(22:15):
of the unknown. I just sort of like showed up
at the bath house and I was like, Okay, now
what you know and asking a lot of questions at
the front desk, and they're all rolling their eyes at me,
like girl, just go in and have a good time,
you know.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
But it's such a rite of passage.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
But I think we could have made it a little
easier for ourselves. And because of the stigma associated to
these spaces, I had to do the same thing like
we've all had to. It's such a moment to like
get the courage to walk into a bath house and
not know what's.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
On the other side.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
And there's an excitement to that, but I feel like
there's also an unfairness to how scary it could be
for some people.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
You know.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
One of the most basic questions that I get about
park cruising, for example, is like where do I stand?
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Which is so adorable when like a twenty one year.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Old like messages you on Instagra and be like, I'd
love to you, but I just don't know how to stand,
And You're like, oh, wow, where are you gonna know?
Like where who would have taught you that? So I'm
going to read you guys. One of the one of
the things I'm most proud of in this cruising guide,
Tip number six says, pretend you're in a museum. Walk
around at the same pace as an art exhibit and
use a similar volume. You're either the art or the viewer.
(23:26):
Mosey around or stand and wait. Tick off your headphones,
put your phone away, and pay attention. If you're interested
in someone, walk to them and stand the distance as
you would a painting. So already you're already letting them know, like,
don't be talking a lot, like how would you be
in an art exhibit? And are you the person who
is being gazed upon or are you the one that's
sort of looking around for that? And so those kinds
(23:47):
of really real world tips, I'm really surprised at how
helpful they've been and how people will be Like, I
did it, I did the thing, I went to the
cruising area.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
What happens when you get rejected? How do we behave
in that in these instances?
Speaker 4 (24:01):
One of the things, one of the most important things
that we learn in cruising spaces is to not take
rejection as a reflection of ourselves. And one of the
I think one of the worst parts about the apps
is how they allow us to just reject one another
in a way that we probably wouldn't in person, Like
I would never go up to some and to be like,
that's an ugly dick, but you.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Know that's crazy, or to just stop talking to them. Yeah,
so I might. I might. I might be the type
that would, but I was just saying, godasa likely, so
I think it.
Speaker 4 (24:32):
Really sometimes the apps encourage some sort of our more
sociopathic qualities in the Bathhouse Guy Tip number eight is
do not take rejection as a reflection on you. If
you get a no, just not courteous, they'll leave their
space because you don't know why they've said no to you.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
They might be a voyeur.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Here in the guide that says, you know, it might
just be a voyeur or exhibitionist or biding their time.
It may also mean not write this minute and they'll
find you later. So you have to sort of leave
yourself and leave all the demons in your head and
understand like they might just not be into me right now.
It might just might not be their type, they might
not be in the mood. They might just want to
(25:11):
just chill for a minute, So it kind of makes
you sort of be an adult and accept rejection and
also give it and return in a way that's courteous
and then the way that you would want somebody to
do that for you.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
So one of the.
Speaker 4 (25:23):
Biggest concerns in cruising spaces for younger folks is.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
Like, am I going to say no to the old
ugly guy?
Speaker 4 (25:29):
Like that's one of the one of the main questions,
Like what if somebody touches me and I don't want
them to, And it's very simple.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
You just tap tap them on the arm and then
you say no, thank you, and that's it.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Most people that are seizing cruisers in these spaces understand
it's like, Okay, that's not for me. And if you
have to get verbal and be like no, they've already
broken enough rules that they don't belong in that space.
It teaches us how to accept rejection and to give rejection,
and that sort of strengthens us and strengthens our sort
of emotional immune system, because that's the scariest part of
(26:03):
any kind of interaction, is that someone's going to say no.
One of the things that I learned because of my
elders was that's the worst thing that can happen.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yes, yeah, someone just says no and you deal with it.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
And one of the other tips in the guide is like,
don't go to these spaces when you're not feeling okay,
you're really depressed, if you're really anxious, if you're like,
if I don't get laid tonight, I don't know what
I'm gonna do. That's really unhealthy and so and I've
done it before, and a lot of us, you know,
we'll go through a terrible breakup and we'll be like,
(26:36):
I'm just gonna go get fucked in a bathhouse and
you know, fuck the pain a way, and there's a
time and a space for that. But when that doesn't
function right, it could do real damage. So it's important
to approach cruising and when you're already feeling centered. If
you're expecting a stranger to make you feel good about yourself,
that's a whole different other conversation.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
That you have to have with yourself.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I am always the person to injury myself to someone
that I think is attractive, and my friends are always like,
how do you do that? And I think it's from
going to the bathhouses and having this like exactly the
worst thing that could happen is someone just says no,
and like the other possibilities are endless, you know, and like,
so what if they say no, I live in New
York City.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
There is another dick around the corner.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
But yeah, that's one of the most important things that
I was taught. Was wasn't just you know what my
elders were, my elder with a specific elder who is
this big ginger bear where I was like, how do.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
You always pick up these beautiful boys?
Speaker 4 (27:31):
And he said, I just ask, and the worst thing
that can happen is is they say no. But and
the second part, so that was even just as important.
He said, that just leaves room for a yes somewhere
else exactly, And once you sort of fix your mind
around that where you don't fixate on that guy rejected me.
That guy rejected me. He was like, yeah, I got rejected.
The night's still young. Let's keep it moving, let's keep
(27:53):
it pushing, and maybe we'll find what we want tonight,
or maybe we won't. But that rush of coming up
to somebody and introducing yourself, it builds up stamina, and
it builds up sort of your strength, not only as
a sexual person but as like a queer person. Yes,
because we're so used to rejection by the outside world that.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
If we can't get rejection from one another in a sexual,
playful way, how are we gonna deal with the rest
of the world that wants to kill us.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
It is so funny because I really do think that
that being part of like a queer community has prepared
me for performance and comedy. The one thing that I
always hear when it comes to cruising and stand up
comedy is be prepared for a ton of rejections. Yeah,
And I was like, all right, I picked a lifestyle
where I'm gonna hear no ninety five percent of the time. Yeah,
and I'm gonna relish every letter in that word ultimately.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
I mean, I'm a scrawny little guy, you know, I'm
a skyreletvel brown guy who's attracted to big, big bears.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Like I've gotten said no a.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
Ton of times, but the times that they've said yes, Babe,
changing for everybody.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
For every party involved.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I love that You're like, I'm gonna, you know, I
changed their life.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
I do kind of want to get down to these
two spaces that you've introduced in your writing. The bath
house and the park. What would you say are the
differences and similarities between these these two locations of cruising.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
I think of the park it's sort of the Olympics
of cruising. It's a really difficult learning curve. It's really intimidating.
You're you're dependent on the elements you're dependent on. Cops
are exposed to mom's jogging. It's depending on how the
park is. You're not so sure, but the rewards of
(29:39):
that are so high. Like I love park cruising when
I'm in Berlin because I never know what I'm going
to get, and it's just I have my own ritual.
I get to I wear something really like nondescript. I
take my little flask or my little like white claw
and wait. And a parks, for example, teaches you how
to wait, and it teaches you to understand the you
(30:00):
might not get what you want and you don't even
know if you're gonna have an orgasm, whereas a bath
house is more about the amenities and you can bring
a friend with you, and they were built for socializing,
and they were built sort of as a response to
being exposed in the elements in parks and things like that.
So it's almost like their opposite ends of safety and
(30:20):
of relaxation. So you're not going to be that relaxed
in the park if you're looking recruising, if you're too relaxed,
then you're not doing it right because you have to
be very vigilant about everything, whereas a bath house, all
you got to do is just lay in a steam
room and wait and see if somebody hot comes in.
And the worst thing that can happen is you sat
in a steamroom and relaxed. One of my favorite bath houses,
you know, there's a little there's a little place to
(30:42):
have a little salad and a little white wine, so
you can bring a friend to those and you can
sort of like lean into it.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
There's also a lot of.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
Intimidation involved because you have to get completely naked and
you have to be walking around a towel, and a
lot of us have a lot of you know, self
consciousness about our bodies, so they're both kind of have
a give and take.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
And all cruising areas are like that.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
So I'm doing guides for arcades and for dark rooms
and for sex clubs.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Which are a little bit different than the bath house.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
And all of them have sort of different rules of engagement,
and in the book, I have like a kiki level
of like this is how much kinkiki here, or like
you know, this is how you should be thinking about safety,
whereas like a park, your safety is very very important,
whereas't a bath house.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
You know, just don't be.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Fucked up and crack your skull on a tile and
you'll be fine. Each one of these spaces has a
different rule of engagement and a different rule of what
consent looks like and how verbal consent is. And within
those spaces, like for example, in a bath house, you
don't just start groping people in the locker room, right,
That's not what you would do. That's kind of rude.
But if there's a maze for a steam room, that
(31:48):
gets a little bit more gropy. So those things are
sort of they can be spelled out, and that's why
I'm spelling them out in these guides. But after a
while you sort of start to realize that they all
have a rhythm and that you you just have to
pay attention. And I think that's the thing that sort
of gets lost when we get too dependent on apps,
as we start learning how to like look up, look up,
(32:10):
like look up.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Mary as well.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
Tell everybody what is your favorite cruising moment? Oh my god,
oh my.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
Least favorite actually happened this year, and this guy broke
every single room, like every single rule imaginable. I was
in a park in Berlin and there was a power
bottom against the tree and I went in there and
I did my thing and I'm fucking I'm really hard
and I smelled that he at Popper's, so I was like, hey,
can I take a whiff of those? And as I'm
(32:38):
jackhammering this man, he looks back and goes, no, I'm
not a store.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Get your own. I was like, oh my god, I'm
inside you. Correct, Yeah, like we are. We are in
an intimate act. We are showing things to each other. Wow.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
I was like, are you I'm like, I pop out
and I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? And the
queens around me were like no, she did it. And
now I was like, get the fuck out of here.
I'm like, are you out of your fucking mind talking
to me like that?
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Wait, but at this point you've got there are other
people there as well, so you've got like a little crowd.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
This is like the third actually people got there.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
Were sort of like whoa, yeah, and so I'm like,
get the fuck out.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Of here, you rude ass bitch.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
And I'm like, no, you're not having sex with anybody here,
and I was like, I want to make sure you're
having super uncomfortable So we sort of like hissed him
out of there.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
And this other queen who I who would wouldn't have
been my type, but she was like, I can't believe
that happened. And I was like, was that just me?
Because it's like, you know, midnight? Is it just me?
Was that like the rudest thing you've ever heard ever?
Speaker 4 (33:43):
She was like, we don't talk to each other like
that in these faces, Like I was just it was
so gross, and me and him just sat there and
we talked for a while, and then after we were
done talking. He was not my type at all, but
after we were done talking, we had this thing that
we shirt.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
I was like, we were both like, you know, I'm trying.
Speaker 4 (33:59):
Having sex and it was so hot because we shared
this moment out there, and then out of nowhere, these
two just my type guys came in to like surround us,
and I was like I couldn't have ordered either of
them if I had tried, and so all of a sudden,
this moment that was so rude and kind of a
(34:19):
little bit demoralizing and was really I was like, I've never.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Felt so used as the top before. All of a
sudden it.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Became this communal kind of like experience. And then even
though me and this guy weren't exactly one another's type,
we sort of connected sexually, and then that energy and
us having sat there and like kind of processed it
brought all of these people around us, and then all
of a sudden we both had exactly what we wanted.
(34:47):
This other guy was like he was he was like,
this is just my type, and I'm like, these two
are just my type too, And it ended up turning
into this like really tender, sweet orgy of like six
people outside in the summer in a park.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
And it would have never happened had that first kuyd have.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
Been a total dick and it And there was a
moment there that I wanted to leave because I felt
so grossed out by that experience and being talked to
sort of that way and the way the way that
he talked to me and treated me, and I didn't leave,
and instead I sort of, you know, commiserated with a sister,
and that created this whole nother energy and this whole
experience that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
So that's my favorite, my two favorite ones, And that
was a perfect story.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
It would have been such a gag if you'd asked
for popersy and turned around tap tap tap no.
Speaker 2 (35:36):
No, that would have been so much better. I'm not
a store who the.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Yeah, the store ising like I had a line ready
and wanted to try it out on an unwilling crowd.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
I think the thing that I would leave the audience
with about cruising is always just to trust your gut
and your comfort level whenever you're in any of these spaces,
and if something doesn't feel right, you are not obligated
to partake, You're not obligated to be there.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
You're not missing out on anything.
Speaker 4 (36:01):
Those spaces will always be there for you for when
you are ready perfect.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Trust your gut before you slide something inside it.
Speaker 3 (36:07):
Leo, thank you so much for stopping by to educate me,
Gabe and our listeners on cruising.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Absolutely, this has been so much fun and so enlightening.
I'd love to know, Leo, where can folks listening or
watching find you online.
Speaker 4 (36:18):
I am at Instagram and Twitter at Herrera Images and
on substack at Herrera Words, and you'll be able to
buy my analog cruising.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Guide at if They Lived dot org. Awesome. All right, y'all,
don't go anywhere. I'm all right.
Speaker 3 (36:36):
It's almost an end of our show, which means it's
time to play pump and dump.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
We're gonna get some topics and we have to vote
pump or dump, pump being a very positive affirmation and
dump being a literal dump where you're throwing it out.
All right, So our first one is Captain Rush, the
little known mascot of Rush Poppers.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
They used to have one. He's a superhero.
Speaker 3 (36:56):
Yeah, and I think he wears a crop top.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
He's got like a crop top and like like leggings on,
like form fitting leggings. Yeah, that's a pump. It's a
pump for me. Yeah, yeah, I like. I like an
off brand Dollar Store superhero. Look, it's my favorite for sure.
So here's the next topic for you. Pickleball absolute dumb
any athletics dump. I didn't say that.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
Yeah, if it needs a racket and a ball, I'm out.
I'm so sorry. Yeah, no, that's a dump for me.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
I'm not you know, we don't learn how to play pickleball,
are you kidding? I disappointed my parents enough when they
learned I couldn't play baseball. There's nothing left for me
after that. We're done with sports, all right.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Next on our list is Art the Clown. I don't
know who that is either, but also clowns. It's an
immediate dump for me. Oh no, clowns are not sexy.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
I'm so sorry. No, but you're thinking circus clown.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
But clowns are like terrifying. Yeah, but those are circus
clown There's no way you can make a clown sexy.
Speaker 2 (37:56):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
I promise you they're fun. They can be.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
I will say.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
One of my favorite clowns I've ever seen is named
your Girlfriend, and they were performing actually at our producer
Adam's Inferno party, and it was a really great performance.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
It was spectacular.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
All right, Art the Clown is a dump, but I
stand clowning, just not horror clowns, all right.
Speaker 3 (38:15):
The last one is the man in the Sniffy's logo.
There's a man, There's a man. There's a man in
the logo. Yeah, like in the little swivel.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, it's this guy. It's him, it's him.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
He told me about this guest of honor, like you
see you know how like that little wave.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, this is him and he's got his dick under
the stall. I love on.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Wait actually, like yeah, can we get a little can
I inspect more close?
Speaker 3 (38:42):
There's like a very a lot worth inspector Dick.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
I want to know who modeled for this, and I
want to find them and meet them in person. Okay,
this is incredible. I just I really I need everyone
to know the ratio of Dick to boy.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
This is out of thicker than his forum.
Speaker 1 (38:57):
It is absolutely thicker than his forums. And his balls
are about as large as like half of his face
each ball. Yeah, this is really great. These are impeccable proportions.
I need to know who's his surgeon. It's very lovely
from the back, Okay, we can work on that. From
the front, it's amazing. Okay, So the man in the
Sniffy's logo is pomp.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
We got it all right. We learned so much this week,
we really did.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
I have to thank Leohreda for calling in. That was
such a fun interview. Please remember to check out his substack,
edit it out words, and his new manual Analog Cruising.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
And if you want to read even more about cruising
in general, head over to Sniffy's hash where we're posting
a list of our favorite books about gay cruiser.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Including one from nineteen thirty eight. People have been cruising
for a very long time.
Speaker 2 (39:47):
Thank you for watching or listening.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Sniffy's Cruising Confessions is directed by Adam Barron, produced by
Stevie Williams and Cameron Femino, and executive produced by Eli Martin.
Speaker 3 (39:56):
Cruising Confessions is presented by Sniffy's the Ultimate Map Cruising Platforms.
We're Gay by incurious people ready to cruise. Check out
the map at sniffys dot com and follow Sniffy's on
all socials at Sniffy's app.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Put your put, put your put, your
Speaker 4 (40:13):
H
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