The gilded grape gay club

I miss the groovy days in New York City, the days when you didn't have to clean up dog shit or use condoms. The days when graffiti covered the trains like a Basquiat art-piece, when bucks a month for a two-bedroom apartment off Central Park West was expensive. The Donald was still with Ivana, Bernard Goetz was shooting 'em up in the subway, Son of Sam was doing his thing and pimps 'n' ho's plied their trade in Times Square, where on West 45th Street The Gilded Grape was packed every night with drag queens in slutty get-ups.

Back then, there weren't any gay marriages. Gays were just coming out of the closet. In the gay world back then, there was always the whiff of danger in the air but also a strong sense of community, one that no longer exists. I was a "fag hag," a girl who hangs out with gay guys almost exclusively, usually relying on straight men to satisfy her needs.

Sometimes fag hags screw their fags, sometimes they only wish they could.

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Usually pejorative, the term "fag hag" has lost its sting and, like "queer," has become a term of endearment. In the '70s, being a hag was a political act, a pledge supporting alternative sexuality. Nowadays, fag hags are so Banana Republic, so tacky. Being a fag hag then was a revolt against straight society and traditional gender roles.

So-called "normal" people turned their noses grape at our homosexual sub-culture-it was a lifestyle. Sometimes homophobes would spit on us, even in NYC. When I gay in gilded school, my club life changed when I met Bob, a gay boy who was to become my best friend, my Svengali, and eventually a thorn in my side.

Although we were underage, we went to gay clubs. My initiation into the gay world was completed New Year's Eve, On break from college, where I had opted to live in the gay dorm, I celebrated the night with Bob at a favorite haunt. These two guys in a Buick outside the bar offered us a ride. When they started threatening us, we realized they were "narcs" undercover cops.

The men abducted us, forced my friend to blow them, then rewarded him with a black eye. Instead of the us, we were dumped penniless into the night, in the middle of nowhere, miles from Boston. As the queens used to say, "Miss Thang," what a way to start the year! A year or two later, our year-old friend Jerry, high on downs and wearing glitter and platform shoes, was murdered and left in the gutter one night for the crime of liking men.

The gay life in those days could be scary. We danced till dawn at gay discos like The Saint and Paradise Garage. I stayed home afternoons while the guys would prance off to the Rambles of Central Park for sex in the bushes, returning with lurid stories of anal and oral sexcapades.

The upside of living with cockoholics was learning style, sophistication and independence as well as tips on how to party and please a man. Gay men loved me for me, not for sex.