Page 217 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 187

Maupin. He’s perfectly commercial at what he peddles. He gives you
people, and I mean you people, like the straight public, the comfortable
image they expect of faggots. We’re not talking musical comedy here.”
“Forgive me.” January, who had never in her life asked for forgiveness
and meant it, turned to her purse. Archly conciliatory, she reached for
her small snifter. “Would you care for,” she spoke directly to Solly, “some
real coke?”
Ryan jumped back in. “Men need wildness,” he said. “In these per-
missive, feminist times, men need to be radically tough with each other.
We need to be warriors. We need to get our balls back.”
“Whatever for?” January said between toots.
“I’ll tell you what for,” Solly said. “Men can’t get much physical inten-
sity from women who expect them to be gentle. You women have only
yourselves to blame. If women were more wild and adventurous in bed,
men, some men, some basically straight men, wouldn’t turn to other men.”
“Oh?” January said. “You mean women are the cause of homosexuality?”
“I mean,” Solly said, “if all a man wants is kids, women suffice as
breeders.”
“Breeders!” The word shocked January.
Solly was relentless. “Breeders.” He repeated it with emphasis. “For
when men want procreation sex. When a man wants recreation sex, if his
wife can’t be levitated out of the passive missionary position, he turns to
other women, or to hookers, and when he can’t afford hookers, he turns
to other guys.”
Ryan, the ringmaster, grinned.
“If most dutiful wives,” Solly said, “could tune into the fantasies in
their fucking husbands’ fucking heads they’d run straight out the bed-
room door. Women think sex is all candlelight and fireplaces. Men think
it’s fourth down and inches to go.”
“You certainly have strong opinions,” January said. “For a
pornographer.”
“And all of them,” Solly said, “subject to whim.”
Ryan liked the intensity of their disdain for one another. He had
always wanted his Victorian to be a sort of intellectual salon, but one more
butch than the Hula Palace. He enjoyed reading biographies with lines
like: “In certain Right Bank Beaux-Arts buildings in Paris, the experience
of sitting in a drawing room in late afternoon is enhanced by the quality of
fading pinkish daylight.” He admired the talented ensemble that Robert
Opel entertained in his gallery salon: singers like Sylvester and Camille
O’Grady, artists like Rex and Tom of Finland, photographers like Robert

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