Bayshore and Other Nostalgia

They have torn half of Bayshore Mall down. Barnes & Noble, Abercrombie & Fitch, Walgreen's, Blockbuster Video, all memories.

Milwaukee, especially in the 1980's and 1990's was a metropolitan area divided by malls. If a person told you where they shopped, then you had a somewhat of an idea of where they lived. Bayshore, for the most part was the closest mall to the part of Mequon where I grew up. (You could argue Northridge (RIP), but I spent more time at Bayshore.) It was relatively modern in that 1980's glass atrium way, and had a Rocky Rococo. What was not to like?

Well, apparently the owners thought that Bayshore was outdated and they have embarked on some ambitious new remodeling which will turn it from one solitary building into what appears to be several buildings plus a parking structure. I agree with the parking structure. (Surprisingly only The Grand Avenue in downtown Milwaukee was the only local mall to have a parking structure up until this year.) I have severe doubts with everything else in the plan. Part of the appeal of Bayshore for me was that it was basically all one level and in one structure. You didn't have to go hunting for an escalator or a map unless you were very new to the area. This also made it popular with senior citizens who would power walk from one end of it to another every morning before the shops opened. (The mall even posted "power walk" hours.)

It will be very interesting to see what this new look Bayshore will look like, but I'm not quite certain that it's a sign of progress.

Being at Bayshore last night also took me back to my late teens where it was one of the places I would arrange to meet men for sex. It went like this: we'd meet up in a chatroom, find somewhere public to meet up, one of us would drive the other back to his place, we'd do it, and then go back like strangers. Being a horny teenager, however, I didn't really play it safe all the time. I always wore protection, but oftentimes I'd skip the "public meeting place" rule and just have them come to my house while my parents were out.

I remember staring through the gauzy curtains, paying close attention to the sporadic traffic passing by, thinking one of two thoughts:

1) "Will this finally be a guy who's actually good looking?"
2) "Well, at least I'm having sex."

#1 always let me down in the end. How could it not? Every online sex meeting is basically a crap shoot, and ultimately I came to realise that there is something attractive about everyone. I'll be honest with you, I was no prize as a teenager except to chickenhawks who see youth over everything else. I was pimply, plump, had gynecomastia, and my hair was very unkempt. Yet most of the guys I was with achieved orgasm. Somehow there was something about me that got them off, if not myself.

In retrospect, I think the fact that the suburbs tend to be rife full of closeted married men who are just desperate to have any sort of gay sexual expression, played a major role. It was the act, not the actors.

Yet, it's nice to go back and remember this time when I felt like I was such a rebel having gay sex. A time when I was both sleazy and innocent. A time where scanning the cars and waiting for that one unfamiliar car to pull up onto the driveway. A time where I wasn't politically aware of the ramifications of what I was doing. I just knew that it felt good to be desired for a brief moment in time.

Today, I rarely go into chatrooms. I'm of age, quite happily hit the bars, and I feel no need for secrecy about what and who I do and associate with. That said, I still get those pleasant butterflies before sex. I still put my partner's pleasure first. And most importantly, I still feel that every guy is attractive.

Given all the primping and cloning that many gay men do, we do often lose who we are. We start to exclude others based on initial judgments. "He's fat." "He's effeminate." "He's this, that and/or the other." I think that if one day we all just gave ourselves a chance to look deeper, we'd find that there's a part of us that really is attracted to something that we claim we aren't attracted to.