Much ado about nothing?

Gym culture is now such an ingrained part of the gay world in major cities that it is tempting to see all of this as much ado about nothing. Boys will be boys, and we’ve all seen enough wedding bands on the hands groping at us to think that even straight men aren’t completely immune to the siren song of misty sexual encounters. There is an undeniable and potent veil of anonymity drawn when we enter the small wooden rooms that smell of toasted flesh. Furtive glances size up the room’s inhabitants as your hands hover close to the opening in your towel, just waiting for the right signals from the others present to cross the line from socially acceptable to indecent.When the door opens, of course, hands instinctively fly away from barely exposed areas. The outside world, with all of its conventions and insecurities, rushes in with the clammy air of too many showers. The newcomer is quickly sized up, and once the door seals again order is restored, and the game continues apace. It is a game with many potential pleasures and few realized ones, which only adds to the frustrating allure of such a dicey public experience. Unlike an actual sex club or backroom, there are many different wild cards that must be watched for in our predominantly gay steam rooms. There are some men who seem to enjoy the experience in a completely non- sexual manner. They are often the ones you see in their flip-flops with several towels carefully tucked to avoid accidental exposure, doing breathing exercises. Or the absurdly hot but painfully obvious straight men who seem to have no trouble at all opening their towels and doing stretches in front of everyone, driving the room crazy with thwarted lust. Occasionally, a gay man himself will surprise the room by shaming everyone back into concealing themselves again. And it’s hard not to notice the undercover gym plants, sent to police the area. These men are usually about as subtle as an undercover cop at a bus station men’s room, sometimes even wearing shorts and sandals out of discomfort with their bawdy chore. But sometimes the stars align and you have one of those experiences that makes you believe in anonymous public sex again. That adorable muscular boy you saw in the free weight area wanders in while you are alone and smiles, opening his towel and inviting you to explore the heady mysteries of instinctual attraction with him. No one bothers you as time and space seem to melt away and afford you the intoxicating luxury of pure sensual pleasure with a beautiful stranger. It happens maybe one out of every fifty trips to the steam room, but it’s enough to keep you coming back for more, just in case. But what drives many of us to these encounters? Are the infrequent successes worth the potentially embarrassing and psychologically damaging side effects? Is this merely harmless fun - what you can’t see very well can’t hurt you? "There are always two sides of every coin," says Christopher Murray, a Manhattan- based therapist specializing in gay issues. "Just as much as we are aggressively, and perhaps in a subtle way sadistically, showing ourselves to ourselves as dominant, we are also flirting with disaster- by risking exposure, humiliation, rejection, as well as physical and emotional violence."