SPEAKING OF HOTEL ROOMS

When you're in a strange city, behind closed doors, you can be whoever you want to be. A wimpy married man can be a queer stud. A vanilla virgin can try his hand at kink. Not to worry, though: If things don't work out, the key code will be changed the next day.

Just the trip to the guest room can be of bit of an adventure. The walk through the lobby, the lift up, finding the room - it's a whole little sexual odyssey before you even hit the sheets. And once you walk in and meet Mr. Fuck-the-one-you're-with, his luggage in a corner, his inevitable laptop on the inevitable table by the window, there's no pretending the two of you aren't there to have sex. Away from the telltale signifiers of his home environment, a naked man with a hard cock is just that - no more, no less.

There are gay resorts where sex - or at least cruising - is clearly on the menu; there's nothing like sitting around a clothing-optional pool beneath the Gran Canaria sun to get the mercury rising. But it can be even more fun to do the nasty where it feels transgressive. "After a hard night of S/M in a fancy hotel room," grins a leatherman, "it's great to get in a lift full of unsuspecting families and then walk past the reception desk carrying a backpack full of whips and ropes. I just feel so nasty."

Even less luxurious digs have their charms. One gay guest says, "My steady buddy and I like to rent a room in a cheap motel and go at it. It's a little bit sleazy and a whole lot of fun. Somehow we end up getting into things we might never do in our own bedrooms." Of course, those thin walls might give the people in the neighbouring rooms an earful - talk about a "smoking room."

And after the fun is done, hotels hold one final advantage over your own bedroom: Someone else will tidy up the chaos. One guy into "gunge" - messy scenes involving food - likes to lay the hotel's shower curtains down on the floor and let the rice pudding fly. "My dates and I do our best to clean-up after ourselves, but I'm sure the maids wonder why there's a pile of towels smeared with whipped cream in the middle of the bathroom floor."

Fucking anywhere can be a vacation, but nookie in a hotel - whether with your steady boyf or with a stranger off the streets - can be like going to a raunchy resort. And, unlike the complex safety rules that lust sometimes involves, good advice for hotel-room homosex can be summed up in just a few words: always ask for the best room-rate available.

Simon Sheppard

San Francisco artist and activist Simon Sheppard is best known for his contributions to the erotic literary scene. He wrote hundreds of stories that appeared in S/M magazines; erotic anthologies; and over twenty editions of Best Gay Erotica and Best American Erotica. His Sextalk column has appeared on OutUK for more than 20 years. You can find out more about Simon Sheppard in this OutUK feature and tribute, or take a look at some of his many books that are still available:

       

Looking for something very sexy and just as smart? Man on Man collects the best and hottest gay sex writing by Simon, who is also co-editor of Rough Stuff: Tales of Gay Men, Sex, and Power as well as a collection of gay erotica called Hotter Than Hell.

In KINKORAMA : Dispatches from the Front Lines of Perversion he takes readers behind the unmarked doors and black vinyl curtains that lead to the sometimes shocking, often hilarious, relentlessly arousing scenarios of extreme sex. There are also stories of bears in Tales from the Bear Cult: Beat Bear Stories from the Best Magazines.