John said:
My first year in LA I went to a Christmas party advertised on a gym flyer. My date was one of three girls, out of ~60 people. Soon after I went to watch my dance teacher perform at a club, a gay club it turned out. With all the attention I thought, “Is this what it’s like for pretty girls every day?” But for them interest is greater than zero in practically any guy, so I think it’s more bothersome and/or more awkward to be hit on by gays.
Yes I lived in and worked around Hollywood for years. LA is gayer than Frisco if you ask me, especially the Hollywood area, which is insanely gay.
I was a young man when I was living there in my mid-20’s. Apparently I was a handsome young man because people kept telling me that, and I kept getting offers to be a male model, but I did not want to do work in the biz so I kept turning them down. Anyway, for whatever reason, I was massive gay-bait at the time. I would be driving down the street and all these guys in their cars and on the street would be rubbernecking everywhere I went. So many guys in cars were rubbernecking me and not watching the road that I always thought there was going to be a car accident.
In parts of that town, if you walk into say a coffee shop or a restaurant, it might be 75% gay guys. So I would walk in there, and every one of them would stop whatever they were doing and look at me like I was dinner. And they would stare at me real bad the whole time I was in there. And the waiters would be way, way, way, way too friendly. It was rather unnerving and after a while, I didn’t even want to go to certain establishments that were overrun with gay men.
One time I was working at this editorial shop in Beverly Hills. The area is full of gays if you don’t know already. After I worked there a bit, I figured out that this really tough looking guy wearing a leather jacket was always standing next to a wall every time I got off work. Pretty soon I figured out that he showed up there about 4:50 PM I guess just to wait for me to get off work. I would look out the window to see if he was there and he would eye-lock me and I would think, “Oh no! The fag’s there!”
I had to walk past to him to get to my car. He would start watching my work window at maybe 4:50 and then he would watch me every inch of the way down the street to my parking garage. It was like running a gauntlet.
It really scared the crap out of me and freaked me out bad. I was terrified to leave work and walk by that guy every day. The last ten minutes of work and then leaving the building and walking to my car I would be literally shaking the whole time. He did this for a couple of weeks, and I then guess realized I was hopeless and disappeared.
I used to hang out in Hollywood every weekend for years. Sometimes late at night I would go the ready teller and get some money. There was a nearby Bank of America on Santa Monica Boulevard. But on Friday and Saturday night that street turns into the most insane gay cruise scene you have ever seen in your life. I have no idea how many gay men are on that street on those nights, but you could swear it’s 100,000 or more.
So it would be midnight, and I would go to the ready teller on Santa Monica. I would park my car and walk down Santa Monica a bit before turning into the bank parking lot. Over the five minutes it took to walk to and from the bank, maybe five or ten carloads full of guys would catcall at me, “Woo hoo! Yeah! Oh baby! Hey sexy! Come to papa! Hey cutie! Hey stud!” and every other thing you could think of. Plus a lot of wolf whistles. I am not sure if I minded all that much as it was rather flattering, but it was also pretty unnerving.
I tell these stories to women and they usually respond by saying, “Now you know what we women have to go through every single day!”
I think I am empathize with them now.
