Page 55 - Gay Pioneers: How DRUMMER Magazine Shaped Gay Popular Culture 1965-1999

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Jack Fritscher Chapter 1 37

the slaves said, “I don’t want to be freed. I am here because I want
to be.”...We repeated many times what the [charitable and playful]
purpose of the slave auction was.... They made us lay on the ground,
hands on our necks;....they actually booked 380 people, and they
took 40 to jail. They just went you..you...you.... They treated us like
animals.... The funniest thing was this friend of mine was wearing
a dildo. And when they made us strip, a cop was standing in front
of him, and when he took his pants off, his dildo fell out. The cop
just freaked out....for the cops it was like a carnival. They must have
called everybody in the building to come in and take a look at us.
They were taking pictures, calling us names....
Of the 40 [charged], they dropped 36. They left only four:...
John Embry, myself, my helper [Douglas Holiday] and a lady who
bought one of the slaves, Jeannie [sic] Barney....I think the sentence
[for “slavery” which was changed to “prostitution”] could have been
5-10 years. They gave me ten days in jail and three years probation.
John Embry and Jeannie [sic] Barney, the same. My helper didn’t
go to jail. He had to pay a $500 fine and got three-years probation.
My lawyer fought back and we [all] got off with 100 hours of vol-
unteer work instead of ten days in jail, and three-years probation.
It cost the community [LA taxpayers] something like $160,000...
Most of the people [had] paid bail... For the 40 it was half a million
dollars.... The bail was reduced from half a million to $100 a piece,
to $50. But those who went earliest paid $1,000, even $2,000....
[The LAPD] spent over $150,000 that night....[Coincidentally] a
lady was killed ten blocks away, at the same time they were doing
the raid. She was mugged and killed. —Selections from and ©
1984 Olaf Odegaard, “Serving Two Masters, Or: The Great Slave
Auction Bust (1975): An Interview with Val Martin,” Connection,
October 10-24, 1984

So infamous was the bust worldwide that the Slave Auction was reported
on immediately, with some sexual detail, as far away as in the mimeographed
newsletter, South Africa Gay Scene, No.21-21, May-June, 1976, who found
their information in the straight newspaper, the Rand Daily Mail.

Hollywood. About 39 men were charged with “Suspicion of
Slavery” recently under a state law going back to 1901....The 30
officers who raided the Mark IV Health Club one Saturday night
around midnight confiscated leashes, chains, ropes...harnesses,

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