What was public sex like in Los Angeles in the 70's and 80's?
 

Hey Guys -

LOVE to hear your stories about the glory days of glory holes and backrooms. I get hard just thinking about how hot it was before every place got busted.

PLEASE share your hot stories!

Worked in West LA Fed Bldg for years...used to blow attorneys (and their clerks?) at lunchtime in a hi-rise two doors down.
Griffith Pk was really cruisy...not as many red-painted curbs. Daytime, nitetime, didn't matter. I got fucked by two Mexicans in the bushes right near the zoo. Used to blow "straight" family type guys in the restroom (w/ gloryhole) at Bette Davis picnic ground. They were there (mostly Latinos) picnicking with families and would come into the restroom. When restroom remoded, another cruiser I knew took home the stall dividing wall with the glory hole and the writing on it...covered with old jism.
Got busted once for jacking off in a park restroom...expensive.

outdoors was wild
 

There were a number of open space parks I used to cruise when I was in the Navy, early to mid 70's. Orgies, gangbangs, poppers, my god was I used as a total cum dump by a thousand (or more) guys!

The 1980s were GREAT for cruising...now everyone is so pent up and supposedly "BI"
 

I thought it was coincidental and funny that someone felt like I do. I have never really had a forum to say how much fun it was to cruise in the late 70s and through the 1980s. I had several spots in LA that were my favorite, but the best spot far and away was Griffith Park. The closure of the roads in the 1990s--"because of the drought and fear of the fire danger"--killed the action and Griffith is NOTHING like it used to be. If the closure truly had been because of the drought, it would have eventually been reopened, but it was perfectly clear that the park roads were closed because of the cruising...not because of the drought. The park used to be teeming with men, while now there are only a few scattered about. Once all the curbs were painted red and no parking signs erected everywhere, the final nail in the coffin was in place. It was far, far different and I miss those days. Men would go up into the park at all times, but Sunday afternoons were a free-for-all. Men were lying out sunbathing by the side of the road just waiting to get fucked. My favorite spot in the park however was on Zoo Drive....you could go there anytime of the day and night before the fences and dog park were installed, and men were cruising, sucking and fucking right out in the open. Gawd I miss that. Now everyone is so pent up and supposedly bi, too intimidated and fear of being out of their closet to hookup (witness the popular usage of the word discreet (usually misspelled discrete) in hookup ads. What the fuck difference does it make if someone is discreet?! They are going to be. Absolutely stupid.

At any rate, the bars were cruisy then too....Cuffs, Detour, Mother Lode, Spike, Eagle, and my favorite the One bar on Melrose....almost all were cruisy. Now women go to the bars.....killing any potential action.......uggh.

What I miss the most now however is the generall overall feeling of just cruising for the sake of cruising...and getting off....now everyone is pent up, frightened, scared of being thought of as gay, with the mask of being bi....

cruising
 

I live in Tampa now but use to live out in LA. I loved Cuffs and the Eagle and had sex everywhere. Use to walk down from the Motherload and go through the vintage shops and give my mother load to the owner in the back room. Use to have sex on the blue line and red line and on the beach in Venice Beach, no one cared I even had sex in downtown LA on a street corner at 6 am with cars driving by. Yes, I am an exhibitionist. I miss all the open public sex and ahte that the bars in Tampa are being raided as well as the ones in N'awlins. "They" just can't let us have any fun. If they don't like it they don't have to watch!

Zoo Drive was the best! Before they had the soccer fields the place was overgrown with lots of hidey-holes...people would drag picnic tables to "caves" made under the trees. Drive by there once in awhile, but can't tell if there's any action left.

RE: "in the navy," I was stationed at 32nd St. station in San Diego in 70s...there was a non-military cafe on base name of "Jerry's;" very active glroyhole, in fact my introduction to such. Looking back on it, can't believe that the navy let is stay open with the line of young sailors going back and forth to the head.

I plan to check out a place in N. Hollywood...Whitsett Park area...heard it might be kinda active in the later evenings...I suspect mostly uncut Latinos. (yum).

Didn't hit LA until 1990 and Griffith Park was still jumping in the early years of that decade. I remember going straight up there from the gym and stipping naked night after night. Even the daytime action was hot, sometimes at 6 in the am. Sad to think that as the years go by, sexual freedoms we all thought would be on the up after Stonewall are now being eroded. The sex club situation alone in this burg is ludicrous. Early 90s there were maybe 6. Now? Slammer and the vanilla Zone. By comparison, the scene in London (England) gets better and better every year and as for the great outdoors, Hampstead Heath has always been a great playground. RIP Griffith Park.

I remember Griffith Park, of course. Amazing, because it's a huge park, but almost wherever you went, there were guys cruising. So much sex in so many bushes. After dark was very hot, too. They didn't close the park at sunset, then. Was in the bushes near Ferndell next to the big parking lot one night. Tons of guys fucking and sucking everywhere. Ran face to face w/ my ex! It took a few seconds to focus, in the dark. Funny.

Over-the-top most surreal experience was along the drive now closed. It was towards the top. When parked, you had to hike through this valley-like gully onto this little hill. There were so many guys all over the hill in every bush fucking and sucking, that it became a stop for a Japanese tour bus! I kid you not. It was insane seeing these Japanese tourists with cameras alongside the road taking pictures of the guys in the bushes.

And, who could forget Western Avenue? That's where I finished Homosexuality 101. Scads of adult bookstores, with arcades. Lots and lots of sex. One had a back room of booths. You had to go to the back of the store, and go through a door to get to the booths. No one ever hassled you. Stan's (which is still there, in the same place north of Santa Monica & Western on Western) had the best booths. There were a couple of gloryholes that you could put your head through. That's where I honed my cocksucking skills.

These posts are all so awesome. I love to come back and read them. Truly the good old days!

These stories are amazing to read - and what pisses me off is I lived in LA in the late 80's but was to chicken / too far in the closet to make use of any of this fun! :mad:

I love this thread!!!!

In the late 90’s the dumpsters at Runyon was were it was at.

I so regret that between fears of being outed and AIDS I never dared take advantage of some of the opportunities back then.