It was a somewhat unexpected Christmas present for the neighborhood, something that made me feel all sentimental and warm and fuzzy inside, sending me back to a time when things were very different here in the legendary South of Market neighborhood. I recalled waiting in long lines of hushed men in this or that alley, waiting to gain entrance to a dark even decrepit old house transformed by dim lighting and a few homo-erotic murals and holes cut in the walls about waist level, into an all night wonderland of wanton male flesh lust. There was a time when as many as 6 or 7 such places known as “sex clubs” flourished in this neighborhood just after the forced closure of the bath houses in the 80’s left a large part of the more reptilian community without a place to express their sexual proclivities in an abundant and round-the-clock manner as they had for many years. San Francisco had experienced it’s first huge wave of AIDS-related deaths and the baths were demonized as the singular “hot zone” the most active petry dish for risk of infection by the Department of Public Health and Safety. Granted, business was down at the baths due to, well, death and fear and new guidelines for safe sexual activities were established and moralistic judgment flew in every direction, both within the community as well as from authorities and varied members of The God Squad (Falwell, Anita Bryant, Donna Summer, etc.), then local government struck the final blow and San Francisco became the only major city to shut down all the bath houses for good in hopes of curtailing a rapidly growing rate of infection. This was a huge modification for a subculture whose identity was based on sexual preference in the first place. It prompted a period of introspection and big questions and research and a mission to gain more knowledge on this killer disease. Gays embarked on a new quest for survival, pushing for acknowledgment of this crisis by heads of state and the medical multi-conglomerate, not letting the thousands of deaths be forgotten or overlooked and pushing for education of the masses on how to prevent infection, because, after all, human beings do have sex. It was then that Sex Clubs began springing up here and there, heavily promoting safe sexual guidelines, even touting themselves as centers for proper safe sexual instruction. It was clear Gays were not going to stop having sex, and it’s still barely becoming clear to the powers that be that all people are going to continue having sex, even the brood born of traditional family values, America’s greatest resource—all those precious children, so pure and full of goodness, unhindered by knowledge of birth control and safe sex and masturbation or where to get condoms or any of those things that will lead them down a path towards promiscuity or damnation, and now even death. In the face of a global health crisis, the Pope and Reagan and Bush and even Clinton as he caved in to pressure from conservative forces of his administration, are all responsible for stanching the education and protection of young people against a disease they should be explicitly taught how to avoid and given the tools needed for self protection without the stigma of shame. Shame is what these no count retard politicians and sellouts and especially the Pope should be feeling, for all the lives lost or wasted by archaic moralizing and making birth control a sin and keeping entire portions of the worlds population from controlling their destiny by denying them proper education. I really cracked up the other day when I saw a news segment from Rome about how The Pope was named an Honorary Harlem Globetrotter in a recent ceremony. Maybe having reached that supreme pinnacle, Pope Drool-Cup can finally just die. Whether apologizing for the holocaust or becoming a member of a comical exhibition sports team, the man looks like he doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing, and I bet it’s hard to hold a basketball with all that blood on yr hands.
But back to the business at hand (a chance to bad-mouth The Pope is something I cant resist), the new place that cropped up right on the very block I live on is the return of the sex club called Mack, absent for two years after it vacated it’s old location on 10th street, Mack has returned making it’s new home in a large warehouse style space at 1285 Folsom. A non-descript doorway beside the relocated Taste of Leather store is the entrance and it’s doors open every night at 6:00 pm till 6:00 am except on Friday through Sunday when it remains open 24 hours. It reopened in a quiet way, no grand opening banner, no balloons, no naked guys with sandwich boards, and with just a print ad or two running in some of the gay papers. I was completely shocked in this day and age of tripled and quadrupled rents forcing out the older businesses on this block then transforming into some vague dot.com venture, that suddenly an old and notoriously nasty sex club closed for two years blasts back into action in a prime location. Of course, this signaled a small reason for something like rejoice—a sex-positive venue cropping up just when you thought the number of such establishments would continue to dwindle as it has over the last five years. Another odd detail of this change of location that I couldn’t help but think about is the fact that the two-flat apartment building that used to house Mack for many years now has tenants who call it home! EEEEEWWWWWW!
Of course I felt it my duty as a good neighbor to march on down there and welcome the new business on the block with my enthusiastic patronage. The staff was personable and helpful in explaining that you get a locker and a complimentary towel with the $15 price of admission on weekends, $10 on weekdays. Also complimentary is piping hot institutional coffee from a big silver vat, self served in Styrofoam with non-dairy creamer. One night I’ll have to show them the magical pyrotechnic qualities of coffee-mate. Moving onward past the check in counter, the place opens up into one big room with lockers, two showers, two sinks and two toilets and eventually a bathtub (not exactly for bubble baths I’d guess) against the one wall. The rest of the open space in the room is dominated by about five well constructed towers made of wood and metal bars and elevated platforms looking like elevated jail cells or gigantic go go cages if you will. Under each tower is usually a little sling room or a bi-level glory hole gallery, or an exhaust fan equipped smoking room with a terribly bright light. In the one far corner are three dark little glory stalls in a row and directly above that is another elevated cage, this one made of chain link fence. These higher altitude show places can easily accommodate probably 12 to 16 people comfortably and are accessible only by steep tilted ladder stairs with handrails. These can be climbed with relative ease but I really sort of had to worry about the safety of patrons who maybe had a few drinks before coming there, went upstairs, got their brains fucked out and perhaps miss a step or grab a handrail that’s covered with sexual lubricant. The club has a zero tolerance policy regarding drug use and condoms and lube are distributed liberally throughout. Several video monitors are scattered throughout the room very close to the ceiling
The overall design of the place I find to be very creative. They’ve transformed a stark and bare space into a sexual multi-level funhouse with enough visual jailhouse elements you halfway expect to see Elvis appear and lead a production number, or the cast of Oz witnessing another prison rape scene. Jean Genet would approve of the new Mack. One element of the old Mack they seemingly left behind completely, thank God, was the overwhelming aura of filth and decay. I know I know, for some people that was a part of the ambiance they craved and returned for. Filth to me is not a sexually charged condition so get over there and wipe those handrails down, prisoner. I predict a steady rise in this particular Folsom Prison population and I welcome the presence of this institution on the street where I live.