July 31, 2025 • 31 mins
Historically, pop culture has been so important to LGBTQ people, not only because we often experience sexual awakenings to figures in the media we consume, but also because so many of our favorite films, shows, and records have been created by queer people. In this episode, Gabe and Chris have a freewheeling discussion about pop culture, erotic discovery, porn parodies, cruising and Buffy slashfic, with our favorite podcaster and author: Ira Madison III. Then, a cruising confession from a horny French slut has Gabe and Chris saying “sacre bleu!”
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, viewers.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
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 1 (00:20):
Put JR.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Pussy, put your put your pussy up, Put your pussy,
put put your pussy.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. I'm Gabelon Sadez and.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I'm christtison Rosso. Each week we explore the sublime world
of queer sex, cruising, and relationships.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We talk to queer folks of all kinds. We'll ask
some questions, swap sex stories, share intimate revelations, and provide
practical advice that you can use at home. Joy Put Jos,
put Joe, put put your put.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Your so Chris, what are you gonna ask me? An?
I'm gonna ask you?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
What am I gonna ask you? Chris? Today we're gonna
be talking about pop culture. We're gonna approach you very broadly,
but I want to hone in on on one specific
question for you. If I can do you remember the
first pop culture figure you saw that led to your
queer awakening. Maybe it was a pop star, an actor
on a TV show, a musician. It could be a.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Cartoon okay, never ending story, never ending story, betray you, okay, work.
He was brown, he had long hair, and he had
a horse. That was really all that I needed.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Chris is easy, all right. If you're a person of
color with a horse, you know who to hit up, say,
love horses.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
But that was sort of like the first moment for
me where I was like, oh, I feel different. And
from there I sort of like realized that I had
like crushes on boys in school. Yeah, all right, what
about you? Oh God, who was that pop culture for you?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I can tell you the specific moment that I was like,
I'm horny for the first time, and it was Ricky
Martin in the Live in Levita Loco video. Oh, when
the woman pours hot wax down his chest. I like,
something can be And I was like, what the fuck
is that?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Fun fact, if you look up the Live in le
Vida Loca music video right now, that scene has been
taken out. Really, that scene no longer exists in the
YouTube version. I don't know where the fuck it went.
Trust I check in every year to make sure it's
still there. It is, You've gotta dig if you want
to find that scene. I have a gift of it.
I've got the original music video on a hard drive somewhere.
I'm not fucking around and riding.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Historically, pop culture has been so important to LGBT people.
It's often where we see ourselves for the first time,
whether explicitly or coded. And it's not just because we
often experience our first sexual awakenings to figures in the
media we consume, or our first moment of identification, but
also because so much of pop culture has historically been
created by LGBT people.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Surprise, Today, on Sniffie's Cruising Confessions, We're going to have
a freeweling discussion about culture awakenings, porn, cruising, and so
much more with our favorite pop culture critic, Ira Madison
the Third.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So excited to have them on today. You probably know
Ira as a host of the amazing podcast Keep It,
where he discusses pop culture and politics from a queer
perspective and has interviewed guests like Rose O'Donnell, shir Lee
Ralph and Michelle Yeo.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
His TV writing credits include Uncoupled, Q Fours, Nikki Fresh,
and So Helped Me, Todd and It's essays and cultural
criticism have appeared in GQ, New York Magazine, Interview, and
Cosmopolitan and many others.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
He just released his debut essay collection titled Pure Innocent
Fun I'm sure it is, which combines memoir and pop
criticism to offer a brand new pop culture manifesto.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Welcome to Snape's cruising compassions. Iram Madison the there, hie, hie,
I'm great.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
All right.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
So there's so many things we want to ask you about,
but I do want to kick it off with your
book of essays that you just released. Your new book
is called Pure Innocent Fun, and very broadly, what prompted
you to write it and what are you hoping to
share with readers.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I wrote it because I've written essays before for outlets
and a newsletter and JA, and I was just sort
of like, let me do it for like a book,
you know, I've always wanted to. And the book is
inspired largely by Chuck Klaussman, Sexuros and Coco Puffs. I
reread it during the pandemic and that just sort of
came to me as like the idea, do this?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
How long did it take a little too long?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
I saw the pitch of the book in twenty twenty
one and turned it in Labor Day weekend twenty twenty three.
I was visiting La for Beyonce, actually for the Renaissance tour.
The concert was Monday, Labor Day, and I was like,
finish this damn book.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So you're not thinking about it anymore.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
What I'm on a vision for a deadline. It's like,
got Beyonce, I gotta get this. Ye.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
So we did talk about this earlier, but I'm curious
Chris and I talked about like our first pop culture
sexual awakenings or a queer awakenings, however you want to
interpret that. I'm wondering what was yours? What was the
first piece of media you saw where you were like
either identify with this or I am deeply turned on.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Like I'm a Tom Cruise fan, so I remember specifically
like his Vanity cover two thousand and two, two thousand
and three post breakup, it's like shirtless on the cover.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
So there's one and David Silveria from Corn People don't
remember his name, but like the he had like the
frosted tips. So he had a Levi's ad where he
was just sort of like resting on top of a
car in the middle of the desert. And I don't know,
like maybe the movie ex Caliber too. That was a
(05:27):
movie that like my grandmother would have. There's like this
sexy in the middle of it that I just remember,
as you know, like rewind a bunch of times.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
That's about it.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
One of yours tits out during that era. Yeah, of
course according to the historians.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I wouldn't know.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
But one of the things you talked about early on
in the book is how some of the pop culture
that you like maybe didn't match your peers or wasn't
from the same era or sort of world as your peers.
Talk to us about maybe some of your most polemic
like pop culture choices as a young person, and how
you came around to own them.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Okay, well, so first of all, Coldplay obviously, I love
those White Boys, and we all love Chris he takes.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Since youre cringe in a way, yes, and that's it.
It feels natural.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, I mean Coldplay at its height was like really good.
I like that and I know I also feel like
my appetite for pop culture came from Nickelodeon, like Nickeodknitem.
So I was also a person who would be watching
like the Brady Bunch of Marathon, the Bewitch Marathon, I
love Lucy Marathon, you know. So like I've seen all
those shows because they were on every night.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
I do feel like we're people are drawn to like
these older kind of comedic you know, the Croburnetts and
Lucio Balls. And I think part of that is like
that's kind of passed down, right, It's not something that
a lot of us grew up with. Like at some
point some older queer is like you've never seen and
then I guess I have to.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, for me, it was my grandmother, Yes, the same
that Walter Mercatto was like the first I think like
queer person. My grandma used to watch on TV. But
you would watch him religiously on the weekends and he
always did like the cape and the big blown out hair.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I watched a of the kids shows pastor expiration date.
I feel like like I was still watching Nickelodeon. Yeah,
probably when my other peers were wrong. You know, there
were sports on the weekend. Yeah, and I wasn't doing that.
I still watched like Disney, like was this a Waverley Place?
Through college, like because it was my favorite show to
get stone and watch Got It weekends.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Okay, I definitely watched the Lizzie McGuire show well past
it's it's prime. Of course, I was definitely like too
old to be watching it, but again I loved that.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Also felt like a very like Wink Wink kind of the.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Nineties was full of media made for kids that I
think had like little easter eggs for adults. Like the
subtext was always either like very sexual or like a
political reference.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Yeah, which they're getting in trouble for today, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
But.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I also feel like they had like a Hillary Duff
like Sili and Gomez. Can you take it back to
like Clorisa explains at all, Like those were like teen
girls right with dating problems, like school problems, et cetera.
And it used to be like you would watch it
and see like they're just either your age or people
older than you that you would aspire to be.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And now it's just for kids. Yeah it's paw patrol
a cab.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, a cab exactly a cab includes paw patrol it
kevincludes paw patrol and sadly make shoot first with all
their pause. It takes all their pause to get it going.
But you know they'll shoot, you know they will. They
will ask questions later.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
For queer kids growing up, it's the differences in their
cultural taste that can immediately mark them as queer. You
talk in the book about what happened when you developed
an impression of Martin Lawrence as a drag queen character
in the show Martin.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Obviously I was drawn to s because she you know,
like it's giving drag, it's giving like funny, you know,
it's giving a catch character, like a catch phrases, et cetera.
But I feel like you get that from a lot
of shows. You want to be these characters that you
see it. I just feel like you get pinpointed as
gay when you do them because you drawn to them.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, there's sort of two examples of drag maybe that
we saw growing up, and what was straight men doing
drag for comedy all the time? Right, and when it's
a character, and when they're already rich, well known, straight
cis people, that's palatable. But then the moment, like I
think back to when I saw Coleman de Bingo in
the Oprah and Gale sketch, which on Big Gay Sketch Show,
which you like, cannot find online anymore. His peer team
(09:18):
scrubbed the fuck out of that, and I respect them,
but that was queer people getting into drag, right. But
I remember I would show that to some of my
straight friends in college and they'd be like, oh, ha,
what is this? He is very gay? And I'd be like, well, yeah,
what you just showed me? Right, like Keenan Thompson a
wig on SNL or like you know, the Waynes brother
like any of that.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Conservatives, Hey drag now, right, and yeah Missus Daufa was
playing in the Kennedy centerle you know, because that's palatable.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Giuliani put on a blonde wig for a video of
Trump in the nineties. Like the nineties just peaked straight
people to be drags, and then Paul came along they
all got scared.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
That's my theory.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
But I do want to go back to this though.
When you did this sort of impersonation of this character,
what was sort of the reception.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
From your peers.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
The peers loved it, yeah, you know, and my teacher
loved it, but she told my mom about it, who
did not love it. And then then it became like,
I look at this faggot. That was the weird part,
Like it was a character. I felt like you felt
gay like doing it from people's reactions to it, but
like everyone loved it. Yeah, in the minute you do it,
(10:20):
it became like sort of like a bit of a taboot.
But that's what happened. Then it was over.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Okay, So I were given that you are someone with
very passionate tastes and opinions about pop culture, a taste
maker if you will, do you ever find yourself more
interested in someone or like maybe drawn to them when
you find out that they love a piece of media
that you loved.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah, make connections.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So it's not exactly like sapeio sexual you're only into
people because of their brain. Imagine that.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
No, the brain is a muscle, not the one I
was looking for.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
But work those smart people aren't hot.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
But there is a thing where you know when someone's
really into something or has like, did taste in something,
Like people don't to exchange like Instagrams when you meet people, right,
let me see the latter box. I need to see
the top four. Okay, so cause some people like why
has Interstellar on there?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Thank you? Let's yep, let's start to wake it up.
Mine is music, okay? Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
If we aren't musically aligned, it's not gonna work. You know,
I get it, Like music is so intimate, Like you're
not gonna get me to listen to Britney Spears. I
guess it's not gonna happen. Oh oh, do.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
You want the heat today?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Aren't you want?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
You want to read the comments after you say that?
Chris to play Devil's advocate. I okay, I understand that
there's some things you kind of have to have in
common with somebody. There's nothing that gets me more heated
when a hookup or a date turns into someone like
chastising me for not knowing things. And there's a line,
right you can be like, oh, we share this, we love,
but I will never forget. One night, I went to
Julius and this guy was like, oh, I live around
(11:54):
the corner, and I was like, great, easy, let's fucking go.
Maybe like twenty years age difference. We started talking about Sondheim,
because that's what fag gets.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Do, right.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I was going look into the woods. He was like,
have you ever seen this one? Have you ever seen Company?
And I was like, well no, And he was like,
how have you're not seen Company? And I was like,
well it hasn't been running while I lived in New York.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
No.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
We were fully about to do the deed, and he
was just like yelling at me about Sondheime and like
what you did here? We like did after that, and
I was like, I'm gonna need you to do.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
I mean, it was there.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
He was there. He was there.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
He became your name.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
That's how I became my nanny. I am my own nanny.
We've talked a lot about popular media, a lot about
popular media today, but there's a whole other genre of
media that quarantines sometimes consume as they get older. Erotica porn.
Whenever people ask me, what's the first time you saw
yourself in media, I'm like, I can't actually answer that
question because it was it was a porno. You write
(12:46):
a little bit about this as a young person growing
up looking at playboys at the barber shop. Yes, and
obviously you know there's this sort of attitude that when
young straight boys are looking at playboys, that's kind of okay.
I imagine we're looking at it for vastly different reasons.
Can you tell us about that kind of moment in
your life.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
I don't know if you two have had this when
you first started like reading or looking at play or
you look at porn. Right, it was probably straight porn first. Yes,
I actually didn't really know like what I was looking
at first to the first straight porns. I didn't even
mention this in the book, but like one of my
first straight porns I ever saw, I found like in
my grandma's room and she must have been watching it.
(13:25):
It was a Mad Max themed straight porn. It probably
like Mad Max with three excess Mad Max straight porn.
It was very eighties, but it was it was wild
because they were really driving around the desert and I'm like,
it was probably just Palm Springs. Yeah, but you know
it was getting real desert now, yeah, and the true
(13:49):
but the costumes were on point, like it was giving
Mad Max.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yeah, Oh my god, I'm kind of dressed in like
thongs and studs in Mad Max. Anyway, It's very like skimpy, Yeah,
desert attire.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
They're fun to watch to like a street porn will
be fun to watch, you know, because the can't fact
throughout it.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Okay, porn is.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Still giving dialogue, they're still giving storyline.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Yeah, I just I just think like a woman like
with like nails, like clutching, like you know, like a
man's dick.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
That's like to me, you're not gonna scratch it.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, there's something so delicate when you can't actually wrap
your right right.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
You just gotta go. You gotta like uff like that.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Yeah, all right, we're gonna talk more about cruising pop culture,
hook up culture, and here's some of iris personal cruising confessions.
When you come back. A little Birdie told me, oh,
I sound like Jennifer hud.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I love her. She really does do that though. A
little Birdie told me you're half a movie. Then you
came out. I'm here to promote it.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
So I hear that you bought your first porn with
your grandmother's credit car.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Okay, I did, yes.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
First of all, it wasn't just for that porn, by
the way, Oh, you bought.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
A lot of things.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yes, you're a serial offender.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
So when I was younger, I found the credit card
because there was just like a credit card in a
drawer that was unused. Imagine me having a credit card
unused doesn't exist, but it was just in the drawer, unused,
and I bought a DVD with it, and that DVD.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Was called The Hole. It was a gay porn parody
of The Ring.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Oh that tracks.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
So it was bros in the in the movie and
then they'd accidentally see like a tape and like in
the Ring, but it would be a gay porn on
it and they're like, oh, turn that off. But then
they get a phone call in seven days you will
be gay, and then in seven days that fucking somebody.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I'm sorry, we need premise back. This is such a
strong storyline. I love this idea. I'm so mad that.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
What are you in this room?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah, where's my manager? Come on, I have to samples
ready to go, like, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
So, yes, the whole is what I purchased. It's a
DVG and it was actually like by coming out to
my grandmother. Oh what happened is she was dieting at
the time, and her whole thing was very much like
if they're on a diet, like the Whole House, I want,
so it's like I don't want to see it. But
(16:22):
I was allowed to have pepsi in my room like
out of sight, you know. So I'm at school one
day and she went looking for the pepsi but like
cheat on her diet, right, because we all do that.
I'm obsessed with And that's how she found the DV
looking for PEPs Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
That's a sitcom storyline. She can't tell you about the
pepsi because she doesn't want to miss she broke the diet,
but she has to talk to you about the DVD exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And she was about.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
And also very much just to like let me know
in a gentle way.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I came home like the dv's like resting on my bed.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Yes, I parents like there you but it was like, oh,
I've let me just put it here. Yeah, Like why
are your parents like this, because like because they can
be Oh, okay, did you.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Have a combo with your grandma after that? Well?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, well because then she found the charges, right, right,
how did you pay for this? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Like this she was like, you're either gay or thief,
but you kind of you cannot be.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
And of course you know that moment where you're first
maybe confronted with being gay and you don't want to
come out. I think my response was like, why would
I want that?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
That gay ship? I don't know how that got here.
Oh yeah, I've done that monologue. I've done that monologue
several times, and it's the whole. That was a lady whole.
I'm so sorry. Right of course, during the digital age,
when we get the internet, right when when we move
beyond DVDs, was there ever anything on your computer? Because
that's where I really really got caught, like downloading stuff
(17:51):
photos that would never were documents.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Never never got caught with poor.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Okay, So I am a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer
work okay, yes, and I used to write Buffy fan fake.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Oh shut up, Xander Spike.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
No Xanders Spike Angel.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
But wait, I read a Buffy Giles fan fiction. My
mother found that Buffy like porn because I guess I
don't know if i'd actually book market or something fan fit,
but she found that never found any porn on the computer.
I was there, who knew how to delete the history,
but like.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Don't I feel like I would have just like left
that as like a little brood com.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
She was just like, what is this.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
But this was more like this is where just like
what was this child?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah? I know.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
I just was like like here was it straight fan?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Fake? It was between Buffy, it was Giles, it was
a gay fan.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
But it's also like it's weirder. It also is weird,
like things are perfect, Like that's it was.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Like a better be Buffy season three and beyond when
she was in college.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, that's almost incests. Okay, yeah, oh god, So let's
get back to your book. What a transition. That's why
we're here talking about your book.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Will see your book has let us down so many trails. No,
it's like we were told to walk down the path
and we're like, wait, but there's.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
There's something here exactly something year. Yeah, and that's kind
of the point of the book, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah, you go down those I describe it as having
a conversation with a friend and a party, almost like
you know, when you're talking about a topic, you're going
to get to the end. My friend Mikey Freeman calls
it shoots and ladders conversations. Oh my god, yes, like
you're getting there, but also you are there's a lot
of other things happen up.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
So now that you've kindly gone us back on track
to the book. In the book, you also talk about
your first cruising experience and the kind of likely location
in the late nineties where it took place.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Okay, wow, First of all, it was the two thousand
ok the only cruising I was doing in the nineties
was cruising USA, So let's be clear. Okay, late two
thousand early I went to college in Chicago. I worked
at the Borders on Michigan Avenue. Oh yeah, r I P.
(20:12):
Borders was like a guy. It was like the chic
Barns and Noble. Yeah, but I worked there in the
fiction department. And my first cruising experience was with a
customer on the cloth. Yeah he was British. I remember
he wore sandals too. It was summertime.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Okay, yeah, it was in Chicago.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yes, but also, like you said, British had to be clear,
but like, actually.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
You know what, maybe Australia one of two. There's a
fine lit one of the.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
How did this initiate to tell me about me for
a book?
Speaker 3 (20:54):
And I was like helping him look for the book,
and you know, it's a lot of checking each other
out and then and he was like, I'm going to
go to the bathroom. Told yeah, and then I followed him.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
That's so hot, that's great.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
You were like, we're clocking out for a break.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
No, I didn't clock out. You can just go to
the bathroom. Yeah you can breaks.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
They still let you go to the bathroom exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, true. Yeah. And did you ever see this person again? No?
I gave him a blow job. That's actually I saw
one more time.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
He came back into the store ones that summer, like
maybe like, yeah, we just said high, Okay, the throw
was gone.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
No, But sometimes if you love something, you gotta let
it go, you know what I mean, when you love
sucking a dick and maybe that's the moment you had
with it, that's yea. Yeah, there's something beautiful and fleeting
about it.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
And this is one of my first early like hook its,
like ever So okay, you know yeah, yeah I did
spit the cum in the toilet.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Good good for you for not swallowing. No, I still know.
I just started eating oysters a few years ago. Okay,
you got love and I love oyster.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Semen is another thing, you know, if you could if
the sausage that come with oysters, Like if you could
throw that on com as it's coming out, I just
do a little bit of lemon if that it like
there's womon on the day.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Oh yeah, I thought you met Lemon and then the
day like I was like, oh, you're about to come
give me a second.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Like imagine in like a lemon. Hold on, hold on,
hold on, hold on?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Wait, where's my lemon? You're the bone's plug.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
It's a mess.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
It's a mess.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
That's kind of what I miss about like bookstores, like
these places where you could kind of hang horny. Yeah,
so fucking horny. I remember I used to go to
Animalorph's like a teen.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
I was k Applegate down, Okay, I really a baby.
Cassie was that girl, and.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
It was there were characters that were kind of queer coded.
I felt like Tobias was queer coded. Cassie was giving
early bisexual that hadn't come out.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yet because she was black. She was a black teeners girl.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
But she listened to nine Inch Nail, which is how
I first listened to Niners Dales because I was like, well,
if she's listening and.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
She was a horse girl, you'd love her. Oh she's
a horse though she did turn into but she had
a horse, she.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Was on a farm.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
It was shocked they could turn into humans, but it
was like a moral line they wouldn't cross except for
a couple of times. But I would always read that
series and be like, what if I turned into someone
hotter and then got stuck as that, you know what
I mean? Or if like I turned into a famous person,
if I morphed into readA Moreno and then I'm like, oops,
I'm stuck is read a Moreno the rest of my
fucking life? Like that's not a bad existence because don't
think I could match her talent. I don't have the
range to my whole life.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Her.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
You're a duplicate exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
To read a morenos. Read a morendos.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
That's my drag name books.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Like you said, people used to really hang out at
bookstore and now I feel like they don't because I
would never want to hang out in like the Barnes
and Noble anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
So that's where all the quirdos, the suburban quiridos went
when I was growing up. If you went to the
comic book section or the adult erotica section, but you
can never stand there because they look.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And be like no, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, you have
to like peruse quickly.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Okay, So we've talked about your early cruising days and
mourned for these third spaces where we can cruise.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, that's why we need to bring back thirs.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I honestly really do. I know the parks are doing
a great job, but like I miss bookstores. Give me
a brick and mortar location where I can go blow
somebody on my break. But since you are here on
cruising confessions, we want to ask you about some of
your most memorable cruising confessions.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yes, taking it back to when I first moved to
New York around like two thousand and seven, the first
time I've ever done the like seeing someone on the subway.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah that's old school, that's hot. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Yeah, so that's that's one of the best. But then
one of the worst is also that, oh, because I
found I left with someone, but then they were sort
of like, so, we can't let go in my place?
What do you mean You couldn't go to the apartment,
you know, it was like in a stairwell or something,
And I'm like, I didn't come here to like go
in your stairwell.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Would have been so angry.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I was mad you got off your train, yeah, yeah,
to walk to this person's home.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah, and then you can't host. Yeah, that's like you
can't lead someone to stairwell.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Exactly, crucial learning experience here. Okay, if you are making
Google eyes and someone on the subway, do not take
them to a place where you cannot host.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I actually even don't do that when like you're talking
with someone. Maybe that's anti the city's culture. Sorry, I
don't know what the girls like to do on there,
but if someone's calling me over and they're like, you
got to be in like the stairwell of even the
apartment building, I'm like, I'm not doing all that.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Some people are into it. Some people perfectly can host,
but they prefer to have sex on the stairwell. This
this guy in my neighborhood. Oh, I was about to
name him today, right, I am messy, but like has
a perfectly good apartment, but like likes the fucking the
stairwell is a nice stairwell because you've done it and
(25:56):
I have not, And so then one has been your
most in Thane cruising?
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Can does that qualify a Broadway show?
Speaker 3 (26:03):
During ye, like not during, not during but intermission, Like
I remember seeing them on and actually so they were
like I've been the theater. Oh yeah, so it was
like come meet me here, you know. Yeah, but then
they just sort of really wanted to talk in the
bathroom the key key and we started to look up,
but then like the like the lights, you know, the
(26:25):
five minutes thing. So yeah, we didn't even get to it.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
So they tried to take you on a date during internation.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
They were like, let's talk, maybe we'll hook up, let's
go drink.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
I didn't like that, you know, because I need my cigarette.
What do we during intermission? What do we do? I
need to re up on a drink, And.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
So I write, you're an experienced podcast host. Have you
ever hooked up with a fan or found yourself hooking
up with somebody who's like, oh, I listened to you
all the time.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Actually, yes, someone that I was a seating for a bit.
They let me know later. Yeah, they were like they
were like, I didn't want to tell you because I
didn't want to be weird.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
But I'm a super fan and I've been watching you
for a while.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Is that what?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Not warming in a window? But they were like, they
were like, I listened to you every week, you know,
oh yeah. I actually kind of.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Prefer it when someone doesn't tell you upfront, because a
minute someone tells you immediately like a fan, like I
listened to you, Like yeah, it's sort of it becomes weird.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
It feels weird to like try and flit with them.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Then yeah, it creates a power dynamic that's weird. It
immediately creates something imbalanced, and then you're trying to toe
around that and be like is this an appropriate?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Is this all right?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Are they going to tweet about what I did? It's like,
all yeah, right.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
This podcast came out last year before I started dating
my current boyfriend, and he did not tell me that
he was listening to the pod until like aster we've
been dating for a while and was like, by the way,
I've been listening to the podcast.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
And I was like, oh, that's great. That saves us
from having a.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Lot of conversations. You're very clear about who I am
and what I've experienced. I feel it especially for podcasting
or even as a writer. You know, yeah, both because
you're sharing personal stories and sometimes it's not even the
quote unquote fan thing that's uncomfortable. It is just you know,
personal things about me that I've said, but you also
(28:07):
don't know which ones they know.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, I'm I'm telling a story they've heard already.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Tell you story they heard already, or like they just
know a story, an intimate story about you having met you.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I'm on the whole DVD.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
If they see you in a bookstore, if they see.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
In a bookstore, they're putting on their sand bars.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And putting on an Australian accent.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I love that good. Might want to suck some cult.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I think he was British. Actually, oh yeah, okay, well.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, Next up, we are going to listen to another
one of our listeners submitted cruising confessions from our cruising
Confession hotline in ira. We haven't had any guests to
do it with us this season, but I'm worried. Do
you want to stick around and hear another dirty story?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Please? Let's go to the stairwell.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Okay, yeah, let's take me to the stairwell.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
So I was about nineteen years old in Paris. I
was about in the street and turned out she was
a train conductor, and lucky enough, he was gonna take
his train to my hometown. So we got on board
in the conductor's cabin and I just said the ride
(29:16):
was worth it, artistic. The whole way sucked a little bit,
and then we came to my place. Still one of
the hottest random memory I have.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Amtrak could never wait.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Did you notice that he got more French as the
call went on? He okay, wait, no, I was like
my hometown.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
I mean, I will say, there is something that is
really sexy about the story. Right, It's sort of like
you're meeting this conductor.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
He's like, you know what. I know you have a
first class ticket, but come ride with me.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
It's like I've always wanted to fuck in the little
monorail at the airport, the one at the end with
a window. Yeah, I feel like it would be like that, right.
You were like you can kind of see nature. You're like, oh,
someone's driving by.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Also, he was nineteen Yeah, he was nineteen nineteen, and
this is like a hot older conduction.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, with like a beer. Yeah, Pepper, he's got the
hat on again. I hope you wear that. I wouldn't
wear the hat. Yeah, where the hat hat?
Speaker 5 (30:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Now that we are at the end, we have to
bid adieu to you and our audience, Ira, But if
you're listening right now and you want to hear your
own cruising confession on an upcoming episode of this podcast,
you can call our Cruising Confessions hotline at three O
two two one nine three eight nine eight. And again
that's three zero two two one nine three eight nine eight.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Ira, Thank you so much for joining us on this episode.
Tell us where folks can find you, your book and
all of your work online.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
You can find a lot of my writing at my
newsletter Frank Ira Madison, substack dot com, and you know
my podcast, Keep It, Keep It Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Sniffy's Cruising Confessions is directed by Adam Barron, produced by
Amanda Kuper and Cameron Femino, and executive produced by Eli Martin.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Cruising Imfessions is presented by Snippy's, the ultimate map based
cruising platform.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Were gay by and curious people ready to cruise.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Check out the map at snippies dot com and fall
snipchees at Snippy's app.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Cruisers are a community. Do your part in keeping us safe.
Learn more about protecting your sexual health at Healthy Sexuals
dot com.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Put job Good put Job Put Joe puts ya
Hey, viewers.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
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 1 (00:20):
Put JR.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Pussy, put your put your pussy up, Put your pussy,
put put your pussy.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. I'm Gabelon Sadez and.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I'm christtison Rosso. Each week we explore the sublime world
of queer sex, cruising, and relationships.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
We talk to queer folks of all kinds. We'll ask
some questions, swap sex stories, share intimate revelations, and provide
practical advice that you can use at home. Joy Put Jos,
put Joe, put put your put.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Your so Chris, what are you gonna ask me? An?
I'm gonna ask you?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
What am I gonna ask you? Chris? Today we're gonna
be talking about pop culture. We're gonna approach you very broadly,
but I want to hone in on on one specific
question for you. If I can do you remember the
first pop culture figure you saw that led to your
queer awakening. Maybe it was a pop star, an actor
on a TV show, a musician. It could be a.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Cartoon okay, never ending story, never ending story, betray you, okay, work.
He was brown, he had long hair, and he had
a horse. That was really all that I needed.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Chris is easy, all right. If you're a person of
color with a horse, you know who to hit up, say,
love horses.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
But that was sort of like the first moment for
me where I was like, oh, I feel different. And
from there I sort of like realized that I had
like crushes on boys in school. Yeah, all right, what
about you? Oh God, who was that pop culture for you?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I can tell you the specific moment that I was like,
I'm horny for the first time, and it was Ricky
Martin in the Live in Levita Loco video. Oh, when
the woman pours hot wax down his chest. I like,
something can be And I was like, what the fuck
is that?
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Fun fact, if you look up the Live in le
Vida Loca music video right now, that scene has been
taken out. Really, that scene no longer exists in the
YouTube version. I don't know where the fuck it went.
Trust I check in every year to make sure it's
still there. It is, You've gotta dig if you want
to find that scene. I have a gift of it.
I've got the original music video on a hard drive somewhere.
I'm not fucking around and riding.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Historically, pop culture has been so important to LGBT people.
It's often where we see ourselves for the first time,
whether explicitly or coded. And it's not just because we
often experience our first sexual awakenings to figures in the
media we consume, or our first moment of identification, but
also because so much of pop culture has historically been
created by LGBT people.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Surprise, Today, on Sniffie's Cruising Confessions, We're going to have
a freeweling discussion about culture awakenings, porn, cruising, and so
much more with our favorite pop culture critic, Ira Madison
the Third.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
So excited to have them on today. You probably know
Ira as a host of the amazing podcast Keep It,
where he discusses pop culture and politics from a queer
perspective and has interviewed guests like Rose O'Donnell, shir Lee
Ralph and Michelle Yeo.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
His TV writing credits include Uncoupled, Q Fours, Nikki Fresh,
and So Helped Me, Todd and It's essays and cultural
criticism have appeared in GQ, New York Magazine, Interview, and
Cosmopolitan and many others.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
He just released his debut essay collection titled Pure Innocent
Fun I'm sure it is, which combines memoir and pop
criticism to offer a brand new pop culture manifesto.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Welcome to Snape's cruising compassions. Iram Madison the there, hie, hie,
I'm great.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
All right.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
So there's so many things we want to ask you about,
but I do want to kick it off with your
book of essays that you just released. Your new book
is called Pure Innocent Fun, and very broadly, what prompted
you to write it and what are you hoping to
share with readers.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
I wrote it because I've written essays before for outlets
and a newsletter and JA, and I was just sort
of like, let me do it for like a book,
you know, I've always wanted to. And the book is
inspired largely by Chuck Klaussman, Sexuros and Coco Puffs. I
reread it during the pandemic and that just sort of
came to me as like the idea, do this?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
How long did it take a little too long?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
I saw the pitch of the book in twenty twenty
one and turned it in Labor Day weekend twenty twenty three.
I was visiting La for Beyonce, actually for the Renaissance tour.
The concert was Monday, Labor Day, and I was like,
finish this damn book.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So you're not thinking about it anymore.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
What I'm on a vision for a deadline. It's like,
got Beyonce, I gotta get this. Ye.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
So we did talk about this earlier, but I'm curious
Chris and I talked about like our first pop culture
sexual awakenings or a queer awakenings, however you want to
interpret that. I'm wondering what was yours? What was the
first piece of media you saw where you were like
either identify with this or I am deeply turned on.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Like I'm a Tom Cruise fan, so I remember specifically
like his Vanity cover two thousand and two, two thousand
and three post breakup, it's like shirtless on the cover.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
So there's one and David Silveria from Corn People don't
remember his name, but like the he had like the
frosted tips. So he had a Levi's ad where he
was just sort of like resting on top of a
car in the middle of the desert. And I don't know,
like maybe the movie ex Caliber too. That was a
(05:27):
movie that like my grandmother would have. There's like this
sexy in the middle of it that I just remember,
as you know, like rewind a bunch of times.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
That's about it.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
One of yours tits out during that era. Yeah, of
course according to the historians.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
I wouldn't know.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
But one of the things you talked about early on
in the book is how some of the pop culture
that you like maybe didn't match your peers or wasn't
from the same era or sort of world as your peers.
Talk to us about maybe some of your most polemic
like pop culture choices as a young person, and how
you came around to own them.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
Okay, well, so first of all, Coldplay obviously, I love
those White Boys, and we all love Chris he takes.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Since youre cringe in a way, yes, and that's it.
It feels natural.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
Yeah, I mean Coldplay at its height was like really good.
I like that and I know I also feel like
my appetite for pop culture came from Nickelodeon, like Nickeodknitem.
So I was also a person who would be watching
like the Brady Bunch of Marathon, the Bewitch Marathon, I
love Lucy Marathon, you know. So like I've seen all
those shows because they were on every night.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
I do feel like we're people are drawn to like
these older kind of comedic you know, the Croburnetts and
Lucio Balls. And I think part of that is like
that's kind of passed down, right, It's not something that
a lot of us grew up with. Like at some
point some older queer is like you've never seen and
then I guess I have to.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, for me, it was my grandmother, Yes, the same
that Walter Mercatto was like the first I think like
queer person. My grandma used to watch on TV. But
you would watch him religiously on the weekends and he
always did like the cape and the big blown out hair.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I watched a of the kids shows pastor expiration date.
I feel like like I was still watching Nickelodeon. Yeah,
probably when my other peers were wrong. You know, there
were sports on the weekend. Yeah, and I wasn't doing that.
I still watched like Disney, like was this a Waverley Place?
Through college, like because it was my favorite show to
get stone and watch Got It weekends.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Okay, I definitely watched the Lizzie McGuire show well past
it's it's prime. Of course, I was definitely like too
old to be watching it, but again I loved that.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Also felt like a very like Wink Wink kind of the.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Nineties was full of media made for kids that I
think had like little easter eggs for adults. Like the
subtext was always either like very sexual or like a
political reference.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Yeah, which they're getting in trouble for today, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
But.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
I also feel like they had like a Hillary Duff
like Sili and Gomez. Can you take it back to
like Clorisa explains at all, Like those were like teen
girls right with dating problems, like school problems, et cetera.
And it used to be like you would watch it
and see like they're just either your age or people
older than you that you would aspire to be.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And now it's just for kids. Yeah it's paw patrol
a cab.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yeah, a cab exactly a cab includes paw patrol it
kevincludes paw patrol and sadly make shoot first with all
their pause. It takes all their pause to get it going.
But you know they'll shoot, you know they will. They
will ask questions later.
Speaker 4 (08:24):
For queer kids growing up, it's the differences in their
cultural taste that can immediately mark them as queer. You
talk in the book about what happened when you developed
an impression of Martin Lawrence as a drag queen character
in the show Martin.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Speaker 3 (08:39):
Obviously I was drawn to s because she you know,
like it's giving drag, it's giving like funny, you know,
it's giving a catch character, like a catch phrases, et cetera.
But I feel like you get that from a lot
of shows. You want to be these characters that you
see it. I just feel like you get pinpointed as
gay when you do them because you drawn to them.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, there's sort of two examples of drag maybe that
we saw growing up, and what was straight men doing
drag for comedy all the time? Right, and when it's
a character, and when they're already rich, well known, straight
cis people, that's palatable. But then the moment, like I
think back to when I saw Coleman de Bingo in
the Oprah and Gale sketch, which on Big Gay Sketch Show,
which you like, cannot find online anymore. His peer team
(09:18):
scrubbed the fuck out of that, and I respect them,
but that was queer people getting into drag, right. But
I remember I would show that to some of my
straight friends in college and they'd be like, oh, ha,
what is this? He is very gay? And I'd be like, well, yeah,
what you just showed me? Right, like Keenan Thompson a
wig on SNL or like you know, the Waynes brother
like any of that.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Conservatives, Hey drag now, right, and yeah Missus Daufa was
playing in the Kennedy centerle you know, because that's palatable.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Giuliani put on a blonde wig for a video of
Trump in the nineties. Like the nineties just peaked straight
people to be drags, and then Paul came along they
all got scared.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
That's my theory.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
But I do want to go back to this though.
When you did this sort of impersonation of this character,
what was sort of the reception.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
From your peers.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
The peers loved it, yeah, you know, and my teacher
loved it, but she told my mom about it, who
did not love it. And then then it became like,
I look at this faggot. That was the weird part,
Like it was a character. I felt like you felt
gay like doing it from people's reactions to it, but
like everyone loved it. Yeah, in the minute you do it,
(10:20):
it became like sort of like a bit of a taboot.
But that's what happened. Then it was over.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Okay, So I were given that you are someone with
very passionate tastes and opinions about pop culture, a taste
maker if you will, do you ever find yourself more
interested in someone or like maybe drawn to them when
you find out that they love a piece of media
that you loved.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
Yeah, make connections.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
So it's not exactly like sapeio sexual you're only into
people because of their brain. Imagine that.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
No, the brain is a muscle, not the one I
was looking for.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
But work those smart people aren't hot.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
But there is a thing where you know when someone's
really into something or has like, did taste in something,
Like people don't to exchange like Instagrams when you meet people, right,
let me see the latter box. I need to see
the top four. Okay, so cause some people like why
has Interstellar on there?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Thank you? Let's yep, let's start to wake it up.
Mine is music, okay? Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
If we aren't musically aligned, it's not gonna work. You know,
I get it, Like music is so intimate, Like you're
not gonna get me to listen to Britney Spears. I
guess it's not gonna happen. Oh oh, do.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
You want the heat today?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Aren't you want?
Speaker 2 (11:33):
You want to read the comments after you say that?
Chris to play Devil's advocate. I okay, I understand that
there's some things you kind of have to have in
common with somebody. There's nothing that gets me more heated
when a hookup or a date turns into someone like
chastising me for not knowing things. And there's a line,
right you can be like, oh, we share this, we love,
but I will never forget. One night, I went to
Julius and this guy was like, oh, I live around
(11:54):
the corner, and I was like, great, easy, let's fucking go.
Maybe like twenty years age difference. We started talking about Sondheim,
because that's what fag gets.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Do, right.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
I was going look into the woods. He was like,
have you ever seen this one? Have you ever seen Company?
And I was like, well no, And he was like,
how have you're not seen Company? And I was like,
well it hasn't been running while I lived in New York.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
No.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
We were fully about to do the deed, and he
was just like yelling at me about Sondheime and like
what you did here? We like did after that, and
I was like, I'm gonna need you to do.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
I mean, it was there.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
He was there. He was there.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
He became your name.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
That's how I became my nanny. I am my own nanny.
We've talked a lot about popular media, a lot about
popular media today, but there's a whole other genre of
media that quarantines sometimes consume as they get older. Erotica porn.
Whenever people ask me, what's the first time you saw
yourself in media, I'm like, I can't actually answer that
question because it was it was a porno. You write
(12:46):
a little bit about this as a young person growing
up looking at playboys at the barber shop. Yes, and
obviously you know there's this sort of attitude that when
young straight boys are looking at playboys, that's kind of okay.
I imagine we're looking at it for vastly different reasons.
Can you tell us about that kind of moment in
your life.
Speaker 3 (13:03):
I don't know if you two have had this when
you first started like reading or looking at play or
you look at porn. Right, it was probably straight porn first. Yes,
I actually didn't really know like what I was looking
at first to the first straight porns. I didn't even
mention this in the book, but like one of my
first straight porns I ever saw, I found like in
my grandma's room and she must have been watching it.
(13:25):
It was a Mad Max themed straight porn. It probably
like Mad Max with three excess Mad Max straight porn.
It was very eighties, but it was it was wild
because they were really driving around the desert and I'm like,
it was probably just Palm Springs. Yeah, but you know
it was getting real desert now, yeah, and the true
(13:49):
but the costumes were on point, like it was giving
Mad Max.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yeah, Oh my god, I'm kind of dressed in like
thongs and studs in Mad Max. Anyway, It's very like skimpy, Yeah,
desert attire.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
They're fun to watch to like a street porn will
be fun to watch, you know, because the can't fact
throughout it.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Okay, porn is.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Still giving dialogue, they're still giving storyline.
Speaker 3 (14:08):
Yeah, I just I just think like a woman like
with like nails, like clutching, like you know, like a
man's dick.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
That's like to me, you're not gonna scratch it.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
Yeah, there's something so delicate when you can't actually wrap
your right right.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
You just gotta go. You gotta like uff like that.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
Yeah, all right, we're gonna talk more about cruising pop culture,
hook up culture, and here's some of iris personal cruising confessions.
When you come back. A little Birdie told me, oh,
I sound like Jennifer hud.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
I love her. She really does do that though. A
little Birdie told me you're half a movie. Then you
came out. I'm here to promote it.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
So I hear that you bought your first porn with
your grandmother's credit car.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Okay, I did, yes.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
First of all, it wasn't just for that porn, by
the way, Oh, you bought.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
A lot of things.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yes, you're a serial offender.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
So when I was younger, I found the credit card
because there was just like a credit card in a
drawer that was unused. Imagine me having a credit card
unused doesn't exist, but it was just in the drawer, unused,
and I bought a DVD with it, and that DVD.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
Was called The Hole. It was a gay porn parody
of The Ring.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Oh that tracks.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
So it was bros in the in the movie and
then they'd accidentally see like a tape and like in
the Ring, but it would be a gay porn on
it and they're like, oh, turn that off. But then
they get a phone call in seven days you will
be gay, and then in seven days that fucking somebody.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I'm sorry, we need premise back. This is such a
strong storyline. I love this idea. I'm so mad that.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
What are you in this room?
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Yeah, where's my manager? Come on, I have to samples
ready to go, like, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (16:02):
So, yes, the whole is what I purchased. It's a
DVG and it was actually like by coming out to
my grandmother. Oh what happened is she was dieting at
the time, and her whole thing was very much like
if they're on a diet, like the Whole House, I want,
so it's like I don't want to see it. But
(16:22):
I was allowed to have pepsi in my room like
out of sight, you know. So I'm at school one
day and she went looking for the pepsi but like
cheat on her diet, right, because we all do that.
I'm obsessed with And that's how she found the DV
looking for PEPs Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
That's a sitcom storyline. She can't tell you about the
pepsi because she doesn't want to miss she broke the diet,
but she has to talk to you about the DVD exactly.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
And she was about.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
And also very much just to like let me know
in a gentle way.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
I came home like the dv's like resting on my bed.
Speaker 4 (16:57):
Yes, I parents like there you but it was like, oh,
I've let me just put it here. Yeah, Like why
are your parents like this, because like because they can
be Oh, okay, did you.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
Have a combo with your grandma after that? Well?
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, well because then she found the charges, right, right,
how did you pay for this? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (17:15):
Like this she was like, you're either gay or thief,
but you kind of you cannot be.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
And of course you know that moment where you're first
maybe confronted with being gay and you don't want to
come out. I think my response was like, why would
I want that?
Speaker 2 (17:30):
That gay ship? I don't know how that got here.
Oh yeah, I've done that monologue. I've done that monologue
several times, and it's the whole. That was a lady whole.
I'm so sorry. Right of course, during the digital age,
when we get the internet, right when when we move
beyond DVDs, was there ever anything on your computer? Because
that's where I really really got caught, like downloading stuff
(17:51):
photos that would never were documents.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Never never got caught with poor.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
Okay, So I am a big Buffy the Vampire Slayer
work okay, yes, and I used to write Buffy fan fake.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Oh shut up, Xander Spike.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
No Xanders Spike Angel.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
But wait, I read a Buffy Giles fan fiction. My
mother found that Buffy like porn because I guess I
don't know if i'd actually book market or something fan fit,
but she found that never found any porn on the computer.
I was there, who knew how to delete the history,
but like.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
Don't I feel like I would have just like left
that as like a little brood com.
Speaker 1 (18:31):
She was just like, what is this.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (18:35):
But this was more like this is where just like
what was this child?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah? I know.
Speaker 4 (18:40):
I just was like like here was it straight fan?
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Fake? It was between Buffy, it was Giles, it was
a gay fan.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
But it's also like it's weirder. It also is weird,
like things are perfect, Like that's it was.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Like a better be Buffy season three and beyond when
she was in college.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, that's almost incests. Okay, yeah, oh god, So let's
get back to your book. What a transition. That's why
we're here talking about your book.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Will see your book has let us down so many trails. No,
it's like we were told to walk down the path
and we're like, wait, but there's.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
There's something here exactly something year. Yeah, and that's kind
of the point of the book, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah, you go down those I describe it as having
a conversation with a friend and a party, almost like
you know, when you're talking about a topic, you're going
to get to the end. My friend Mikey Freeman calls
it shoots and ladders conversations. Oh my god, yes, like
you're getting there, but also you are there's a lot
of other things happen up.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
So now that you've kindly gone us back on track
to the book. In the book, you also talk about
your first cruising experience and the kind of likely location
in the late nineties where it took place.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Okay, wow, First of all, it was the two thousand
ok the only cruising I was doing in the nineties
was cruising USA, So let's be clear. Okay, late two
thousand early I went to college in Chicago. I worked
at the Borders on Michigan Avenue. Oh yeah, r I P.
(20:12):
Borders was like a guy. It was like the chic
Barns and Noble. Yeah, but I worked there in the
fiction department. And my first cruising experience was with a
customer on the cloth. Yeah he was British. I remember
he wore sandals too. It was summertime.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
Okay, yeah, it was in Chicago.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Yes, but also, like you said, British had to be clear,
but like, actually.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
You know what, maybe Australia one of two. There's a
fine lit one of the.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
How did this initiate to tell me about me for
a book?
Speaker 3 (20:54):
And I was like helping him look for the book,
and you know, it's a lot of checking each other
out and then and he was like, I'm going to
go to the bathroom. Told yeah, and then I followed him.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
That's so hot, that's great.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
You were like, we're clocking out for a break.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
No, I didn't clock out. You can just go to
the bathroom. Yeah you can breaks.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
They still let you go to the bathroom exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Yeah, true. Yeah. And did you ever see this person again? No?
I gave him a blow job. That's actually I saw
one more time.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
He came back into the store ones that summer, like
maybe like, yeah, we just said high, Okay, the throw
was gone.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
No, But sometimes if you love something, you gotta let
it go, you know what I mean, when you love
sucking a dick and maybe that's the moment you had
with it, that's yea. Yeah, there's something beautiful and fleeting
about it.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
And this is one of my first early like hook its,
like ever So okay, you know yeah, yeah I did
spit the cum in the toilet.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Good good for you for not swallowing. No, I still know.
I just started eating oysters a few years ago. Okay,
you got love and I love oyster.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
Semen is another thing, you know, if you could if
the sausage that come with oysters, Like if you could
throw that on com as it's coming out, I just
do a little bit of lemon if that it like
there's womon on the day.
Speaker 2 (22:13):
Oh yeah, I thought you met Lemon and then the
day like I was like, oh, you're about to come
give me a second.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Like imagine in like a lemon. Hold on, hold on,
hold on, hold on?
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Wait, where's my lemon? You're the bone's plug.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
It's a mess.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
It's a mess.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
That's kind of what I miss about like bookstores, like
these places where you could kind of hang horny. Yeah,
so fucking horny. I remember I used to go to
Animalorph's like a teen.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
I was k Applegate down, Okay, I really a baby.
Cassie was that girl, and.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
It was there were characters that were kind of queer coded.
I felt like Tobias was queer coded. Cassie was giving
early bisexual that hadn't come out.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yet because she was black. She was a black teeners girl.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
But she listened to nine Inch Nail, which is how
I first listened to Niners Dales because I was like, well,
if she's listening and.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
She was a horse girl, you'd love her. Oh she's
a horse though she did turn into but she had
a horse, she.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Was on a farm.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
It was shocked they could turn into humans, but it
was like a moral line they wouldn't cross except for
a couple of times. But I would always read that
series and be like, what if I turned into someone
hotter and then got stuck as that, you know what
I mean? Or if like I turned into a famous person,
if I morphed into readA Moreno and then I'm like, oops,
I'm stuck is read a Moreno the rest of my
fucking life? Like that's not a bad existence because don't
think I could match her talent. I don't have the
range to my whole life.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Her.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
You're a duplicate exactly.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
To read a morenos. Read a morendos.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
That's my drag name books.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Like you said, people used to really hang out at
bookstore and now I feel like they don't because I
would never want to hang out in like the Barnes
and Noble anymore.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
So that's where all the quirdos, the suburban quiridos went
when I was growing up. If you went to the
comic book section or the adult erotica section, but you
can never stand there because they look.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
And be like no, no, yeah, yeah, yeah, you have
to like peruse quickly.
Speaker 2 (24:03):
Okay, So we've talked about your early cruising days and
mourned for these third spaces where we can cruise.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, that's why we need to bring back thirs.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
I honestly really do. I know the parks are doing
a great job, but like I miss bookstores. Give me
a brick and mortar location where I can go blow
somebody on my break. But since you are here on
cruising confessions, we want to ask you about some of
your most memorable cruising confessions.
Speaker 3 (24:27):
Yes, taking it back to when I first moved to
New York around like two thousand and seven, the first
time I've ever done the like seeing someone on the subway.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
Yeah that's old school, that's hot. Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
Yeah, so that's that's one of the best. But then
one of the worst is also that, oh, because I
found I left with someone, but then they were sort
of like, so, we can't let go in my place?
What do you mean You couldn't go to the apartment,
you know, it was like in a stairwell or something,
And I'm like, I didn't come here to like go
in your stairwell.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Would have been so angry.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I was mad you got off your train, yeah, yeah,
to walk to this person's home.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Yeah, and then you can't host. Yeah, that's like you
can't lead someone to stairwell.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Exactly, crucial learning experience here. Okay, if you are making
Google eyes and someone on the subway, do not take
them to a place where you cannot host.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
I actually even don't do that when like you're talking
with someone. Maybe that's anti the city's culture. Sorry, I
don't know what the girls like to do on there,
but if someone's calling me over and they're like, you
got to be in like the stairwell of even the
apartment building, I'm like, I'm not doing all that.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Some people are into it. Some people perfectly can host,
but they prefer to have sex on the stairwell. This
this guy in my neighborhood. Oh, I was about to
name him today, right, I am messy, but like has
a perfectly good apartment, but like likes the fucking the
stairwell is a nice stairwell because you've done it and
(25:56):
I have not, And so then one has been your
most in Thane cruising?
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Can does that qualify a Broadway show?
Speaker 3 (26:03):
During ye, like not during, not during but intermission, Like
I remember seeing them on and actually so they were
like I've been the theater. Oh yeah, so it was
like come meet me here, you know. Yeah, but then
they just sort of really wanted to talk in the
bathroom the key key and we started to look up,
but then like the like the lights, you know, the
(26:25):
five minutes thing. So yeah, we didn't even get to it.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
So they tried to take you on a date during internation.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
They were like, let's talk, maybe we'll hook up, let's
go drink.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
I didn't like that, you know, because I need my cigarette.
What do we during intermission? What do we do? I
need to re up on a drink, And.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
So I write, you're an experienced podcast host. Have you
ever hooked up with a fan or found yourself hooking
up with somebody who's like, oh, I listened to you
all the time.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Actually, yes, someone that I was a seating for a bit.
They let me know later. Yeah, they were like they
were like, I didn't want to tell you because I
didn't want to be weird.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
But I'm a super fan and I've been watching you
for a while.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Is that what?
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Not warming in a window? But they were like, they
were like, I listened to you every week, you know,
oh yeah. I actually kind of.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Prefer it when someone doesn't tell you upfront, because a
minute someone tells you immediately like a fan, like I
listened to you, Like yeah, it's sort of it becomes weird.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
It feels weird to like try and flit with them.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Then yeah, it creates a power dynamic that's weird. It
immediately creates something imbalanced, and then you're trying to toe
around that and be like is this an appropriate?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Is this all right?
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Are they going to tweet about what I did? It's like,
all yeah, right.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
This podcast came out last year before I started dating
my current boyfriend, and he did not tell me that
he was listening to the pod until like aster we've
been dating for a while and was like, by the way,
I've been listening to the podcast.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
And I was like, oh, that's great. That saves us
from having a.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Lot of conversations. You're very clear about who I am
and what I've experienced. I feel it especially for podcasting
or even as a writer. You know, yeah, both because
you're sharing personal stories and sometimes it's not even the
quote unquote fan thing that's uncomfortable. It is just you know,
personal things about me that I've said, but you also
(28:07):
don't know which ones they know.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, I'm I'm telling a story they've heard already.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Tell you story they heard already, or like they just
know a story, an intimate story about you having met you.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I'm on the whole DVD.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
If they see you in a bookstore, if they see.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
In a bookstore, they're putting on their sand bars.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
And putting on an Australian accent.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I love that good. Might want to suck some cult.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
I think he was British. Actually, oh yeah, okay, well.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, Next up, we are going to listen to another
one of our listeners submitted cruising confessions from our cruising
Confession hotline in ira. We haven't had any guests to
do it with us this season, but I'm worried. Do
you want to stick around and hear another dirty story?
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Please? Let's go to the stairwell.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Okay, yeah, let's take me to the stairwell.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
So I was about nineteen years old in Paris. I
was about in the street and turned out she was
a train conductor, and lucky enough, he was gonna take
his train to my hometown. So we got on board
in the conductor's cabin and I just said the ride
(29:16):
was worth it, artistic. The whole way sucked a little bit,
and then we came to my place. Still one of
the hottest random memory I have.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Amtrak could never wait.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
Did you notice that he got more French as the
call went on? He okay, wait, no, I was like
my hometown.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
I mean, I will say, there is something that is
really sexy about the story. Right, It's sort of like
you're meeting this conductor.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
He's like, you know what. I know you have a
first class ticket, but come ride with me.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
It's like I've always wanted to fuck in the little
monorail at the airport, the one at the end with
a window. Yeah, I feel like it would be like that, right.
You were like you can kind of see nature. You're like, oh,
someone's driving by.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Also, he was nineteen Yeah, he was nineteen nineteen, and
this is like a hot older conduction.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, with like a beer. Yeah, Pepper, he's got the
hat on again. I hope you wear that. I wouldn't
wear the hat. Yeah, where the hat hat?
Speaker 5 (30:22):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Now that we are at the end, we have to
bid adieu to you and our audience, Ira, But if
you're listening right now and you want to hear your
own cruising confession on an upcoming episode of this podcast,
you can call our Cruising Confessions hotline at three O
two two one nine three eight nine eight. And again
that's three zero two two one nine three eight nine eight.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
Ira, Thank you so much for joining us on this episode.
Tell us where folks can find you, your book and
all of your work online.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
You can find a lot of my writing at my
newsletter Frank Ira Madison, substack dot com, and you know
my podcast, Keep It, Keep It Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
Sniffy's Cruising Confessions is directed by Adam Barron, produced by
Amanda Kuper and Cameron Femino, and executive produced by Eli Martin.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
Cruising Imfessions is presented by Snippy's, the ultimate map based
cruising platform.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Were gay by and curious people ready to cruise.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
Check out the map at snippies dot com and fall
snipchees at Snippy's app.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Cruisers are a community. Do your part in keeping us safe.
Learn more about protecting your sexual health at Healthy Sexuals
dot com.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Put job Good put Job Put Joe puts ya
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