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Before Law Reform: "Do you see the cops?"

Mon 26 Jun 2006 In: Comment

Before Law reform: Contributor John Stone recalls a little of what life was like back then. It's easy to forget how few positive role models there were before the comparative openess post-law reform, back when being gay meant you were an outsider, in every every sense of the word. Easy to forget how inaccessible information on what it meant to be gay was. And how difficult it was to meet other gay men, especially if you were only just coming out. Of course it was probably easier if you somehow clicked into a big city downtown gay community in a place like Auckland or Wellington, but such communities were damned rare even in the early 1980s. Especially in Christchurch, my home town. The product of a conservative upbringing, I had no idea that there were places to meet up socially, let alone sexually, with other men like me. I probably narrowly missed my first chance of man on man sex, furtive though it would have been, when I unwittingly used the Manchester Street carpark toilets whilst returning to my car late one night after the movies. I guess ‘those in the know' knew all about this notorious cruising spot, but I had no idea. After having a slash I was followed down the little entrance alley towards the footpath by the only other man in there, a darkish, kind of swarthily handsome chap. “Do you see the cops?” he hissed from the shadows behind me. I looked left and right along the footpath but couldn't see a soul. Why was this chap asking me about cops? Perhaps I had misheard him. “Huh?” “Do you see the cops?” I stepped further out onto the street. Maybe there were plainclothes cops in a mufti car amongst the parked cars? Again I glanced around. “No,” I said, and hurried towards Oxford Terrace before I got tangled up in whatever he was up to. It was a mystery to me. I looked back towards him while waiting for the lights at the old MED showroom corner but he had disappeared back inside. Strange. A year or so later I was quietly and gently sprung by a really neat gay chap who had started work with me. He was very openly gay and his gaydar had pinged. Without acknowledging that he thought I might be gay he let slip that there was a club gay men went to, upstairs in Cashel Street. Desperate for gay company and to understand my misfit sexual urges I tentatively scoped it out over a month or more. There between Whitcoulls and Hannahs was an anonymous doorway and on Friday nights it was open. Behind was a long staircase going up to perhaps the third floor. I was terrified of anyone noting my interest in this plain, unmarked doorway. It took several nights of walking back and forth as casually as I could muster, trying to see out of the corner of my eye what was up there, before I summoned up the courage to give it a go. I must have feigned an intense fascination with window displays of books and shoes for about 15 minutes before I was sure there was no one in the street who would recognise me. Once I was through the door I would be safe from public view, but I would also be in view of whatever or whoever was up there. I hardly knew which was worse. With heart pounding I quickly entered and headed gingerly up the stairs. Up top was a closed door with a chair beside it. As I neared the top the door opened and, sorry for not being PC here, a fat old bouffy-haired queen in a kaftan and way too much jewelry looked down at my approach. I looked up, he looked down. I slowed. Stopped. Neither of us said a word as he looked me up and down. Half a dozen steps below him I was lost for words, not knowing what the etiquette was. Finally he broke the silence. “Yes?” I looked at him, at the shut door, maybe he had a gin and a fag in his hand, maybe not. In my memory he did, gazing imperiously down at me. I stammered the start of a sentence but I didn't know what to ask, what to say. “This is a private club” he sneered archly. “Oh,” I replied. For a long moment we continued eyeing each other. He personified every negative, embarrassing and uncomfortable thing I had ever heard about gays. So I knew I was in the right place. Or rather this was clearly the right place for gays, but suddenly I felt completely out of place. He confirmed my thoughts in one short sentence: “This is for gays ONLY!” The tone of voice said ‘go back down.' And that's just what I did. I had had my first contact with any kind of gay community and I didn't belong. For months I questioned my sexuality all over again. The guy at the top of the stairs was clearly gay but he was nothing like me. If that was ‘gay' then what was I? It wasn't until months later that I found Ringo's seedy little secondhand magazine and book store and managed to surreptitiously leaf through a few dogeared gay magazines. Within those pages, amongst the endless pics of young blond male bimbos, I spotted the occasional masculine looking gay man. No archness, no effete hairdos and mannerisms. Men. It slowly dawned on me that there was more than one way of being gay, and I was one of the other ones, and so were the men who might interest me, whose company I might enjoy. Through mutual friends I met a lovely gay guy and he and I hit it off and our friendship became a touch romantic and it was in his company that I returned to that stairway in Cashel Street. Dancing arm in arm, two of only ten or so men on the Dorian Club dancefloor, embracing as we gently swayed under the mirror ball, we kissed for the first time. I kissed a man for the first time! I melted, literally swooned, in his arms. The whole world evaporated and I felt romantic, sexual, sensual, homosexual passion for the first time. But only for a moment. From behind the bar a harsh voice shouted at us: “Stop that, you can't kiss here, it's not allowed!” It was a hesitant start, but it was a start. Soon I heard about the back bar of the Cantabrian, the Colombo Sauna opened, the Lambda Centre, and I struck up acquaintance with a few gay men. After an agonisingly tortuous and hesitant start I was slowly coming out. And after eventually hearing what really went on in the Manchester Street bogs at night I even understood what that shadowy guy had been asking me in his urgent, furtive manner. Not “Do you see the cops?” No, he was asking “Do you suck cock?” By the time I understood the question I also, finally, knew the answer. John Stone - 26th June 2006    

Credit: John Stone

First published: Monday, 26th June 2006 - 12:00pm

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