Last night, after my return from the dinner party mentioned in my previous post, I was wide awake due to the coffee after the meal and the fact that there wasn't 30 units of alcohol searing through my veins. So I flipped open this very laptop and began shuffling though 4OD to see what I might watch to lull me off to sleep. I came across a feature length programme that I had previously missed on Channel 4. I settled into bed and watched the formidable Clapham Junction, I was fascinated by it's portrayal of the famous South London cruising ground (Clapham Common) for gay men, especially as I have been known to have frequented the area myself. Kevin Elyot has managed to set off alarm bells in my head with this fantastic piece of drama. The fictitious story revolves around the taboo of gay men and their desire for dangerous public sex, notably extracting many facts from the murder of Jody Dobrowski. This was a programme where I related to most things that occurred in my life as a gay man, drugs, drinking, dangerous sex in public places with anonymous men. Yet it startled me and brought a rude awakening.
Despite my friends' warnings of the dangers of what may happen on the Common, I would generally end up there intoxicated after a night out. Drunk and looking for some no strings fun. Often with more than one man, either at a time or in a night. It was cheap and easy. Not thinking of the consequences of being a headline on the tabloids which would no doubt distress not just my friends who know me so well, but my parents and siblings that would have to discover the sleazy underground sex life that I had adorned. That would have hit them like an articulated lorry, for even though they know that I am an out and proud gay man, we have not spoken in nearly 3 years. I can no longer run the risk of putting them through a trauma like that. Risking my own life is one thing but causing my beloved parents that much anguish is beyond repulsive.
What of the untimely death of the gay man? Russell T Davies tackled the issue in the groundbreaking 1999 television series Queer As Folk. In episode 3, Phil hooks up with a guy in a club and takes him home, they snort drugs on the premise of a sexual encounter. Phil, unfortunately dies from an overdose and the ripple effect can be seen in the following episode as his mother questions would it have happened if he was straight? Would he have taken some random back to his house and snorted inordinate amounts of narcotics before having sex? Well also from what I have seen in watching customers in bars and clubs, yes they do. But the fallout for me is when Stuart takes Vince to Phil's house just after his death to clear out the porn stash. There really are somethings a mother doesn't need to know about.
It is hard for any parent to lose a child, it is always supposed to happen the other way around. These risks that we take for the instant gratification, whether it be sexual or a drug high, increase the chance of this ideology being reversed. The same cannot be said for hate crimes. Aware that Jody Dobrowski was a victim of such crime, and as mentioned in Clapham Junction that the character that represented him that 'no one deserves to be treated like that.' Men that put themselves in the position of public cruising grounds increase their risk of attack, even if they are only passing through. Though only last year a man was stabbed to death not far from the George & Dragon, a bar I have been known to drink in and visited 2 months after this attack wearing not much more than a smile in one of the most intoxicated states I have been in. Would I have acted or dressed differently if I had known what had happened? I doubt it, because at that time I was in a very different mindset as to now. It appears that this violence is everywhere, yet Olly was not putting himself at any significant risk, he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Thinking about it, I am certainly not going to be putting myself in any situations that will increase my risk of attack. There are plenty of places I can go to fulfill a sexual need without cruising in dangerous locations, the last thing I want is for the police to inform my parents, the tabloids to torment them or a friend to have to clear out my porn stash.
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