I get lots of letters from gay guys who are attracted to straight guys but don't know how to get into their pants. Well, gay boys, first you get out of your own pants:

There’s nothing overtly gay about this party: Even oral sex is sheathed in condoms, and the industrial stench of poppers is absent. Michael Wakefield, who lives upstairs and runs the space, often attends as his alter ego, Pickles. “Some of these guys are bisexual,” Wakefield says of the trans admirers, “but most are straight-identified and the straight-identified ones are definitely not part of the queer community.” Even so, “These are all chicks with dicks,” he hastens to add. “That’s what the guys are there for. If they want a girl with a vagina, they’ll get a girl.”

Elden, a straight attendee, agrees. “Pre-op transsexuals—what are there?” he rhetorically asks. “Three of them?” We’re talking outside, where I’m back in male attire (except for that eye make-up). If I were still in drag, he assures me, he’d most definitely fuck me. So why is he willing to fuck a gay man in drag, but not any of the men he identified as gay back in the party? And why do the gay guys lusting after guys like Elden get cold feet about doing what would attract this straight trade in the first place—dressing as a woman?

“Most gay guys are really drag-phobic,” Wakefield points out. “So a lot of them don’t even see it as an option. They just won’t come back. I had a friend who came to the party as a gay guy and got no action because the focus is on the trannies.” ... Wakefield, a veteran promoter going back to the legendary, early-’90s He’s Gotta Have It gay sex parties, concedes that his Pickles persona might be a result of his reaching mid-life. “As I get older,” he explains, “I’m still attracting guys, but when I started to dress up in drag, I was getting major positive sexual attention from very hot guys. It was like, suddenly, I had that sexual awakening I had when I was younger. I can do this thing and I’m attracting attention from very sexy guys that are willing to do pretty much anything."

It's sad that safety precautions—condoms for random hookups with strangers—is an indication that a sex party isn't "overtly gay."