Ruby, there was justice, one huge archie.

Real and orgasm.

The day is good for you and have fresh breath.

Come on.

From just beyond the lights of Los Angeles and Steale Palm Springs, California.

It's Mick Robert Bill just say and this.

Is silver Lining with the old days.

Hello, LGPTQ plus queer community and everyone else under the sun.

Silver Linings is our stage for sharing stories and lessons from our lifetime of living out loud, from sex and relationships to fashion, art and aging.

We'll share the wisdom we gained over the years.

On our last episode we talked about community and chosen family.

But today we're getting a little not safe for work talking all about sex and relationships of all types.

Now onto the good stuff.

When it comes to sex and relationships, you can imagine.

Our lives have been filled with many salacious stories and sweet and romances, but relationships come in many shapes and sizes, especially in the life of an old gay.

I would listen to them and their sex stories because their lives have been more exciting than mine.

Yeah, now we want to hear you first.

Now it's so uninteresting, Let's start with the least.

Okay, it is so uninteresting.

I'm so vanilla and baby and sex wise has been a while because I'd gone through my prostate cancer, so it's changed my life wholly.

But things are slowly coming back.

But in the past it's a secret.

You are a romantic god there, aren't you?

Very much?

Yeah, probably the most romantic of the group.

Yeah.

I'm not a slut like y'all, except on cruise ship.

Oh that's right, cruise ships.

Cruship say is a slut.

Oh, tell us he's the biggest slut in the Western Mediterranean.

But I don't share.

Tell us about that dancer that came to your place at one am in the morning.

Yeah, who was that guy?

His footprints are all over you.

And that's been years, No, it was last year.

Well, yes, well I have found out on cruises life begins after midnight, especially for the entertainers on the crew, because they are not allowed to socialize with us during normal business or Yes, and I like staying up late.

I kind of slowed down as I've gotten older.

But I have to say, hey that my San Francisco years from nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety were pretty outrageous at the beginning and interesting over the balance of the eighties and then moving to the desert here Palm Springs Cathedral City, it sects all the time.

I kind of think that's a misnomer.

You know, when you first moved to the valley kind of are very active.

And then as you get to know everybody, everybody because you know, the tourists come and go and they don't come back, so it's just getting to know each other.

That usually happens in the summer months.

I agree because one of the first things I learned when I moved to Palm Springs in two thousand and three was the summers were so dull that friends even had sex with friends.

Oh my god.

Well, as Nick mentioned, the tourists come and go, but it's like every weekend, there's fresh meat weekend.

I did you come out here seven days a week?

Okay, Bob, what was your favorite sex story that you want to relate to us?

My favorite sex story?

Oh, I have so many, I know, pick one.

Oh, I guess.

One of the most thrilling for me was in San Francisco and I lived near the Castro area, which is one of the gay neighborhoods, and I was in a video bar talking to this very attractive young guy, a ballet dancer from a New York ballet company that was in town.

And it was one of those rare, warm Sand Francisco nights, and so we drove out to the beach and it was a beautiful moonlit night, and so we took off our clothes and waded out and climbed up on a rock in the surf and had sex on top of the rock with the waves crashing around this and it was really pretty exciting.

Bob, was that at Land's End?

Yeah?

Okay, because I have a very similar story.

You drove over the Golden gate Bridge at the Marin Headlands, there was a gay beach.

The north end of it was straight people and the south part of it was all gay.

So I went down there, laid my towel down, and I looked up and there was this handsome guy looking at me and he was playing with himself, and I looked at him and I was staring at him, and then he pointed to himself and he said me, and I went yeah.

So he moved his towel up and we went to a very discreet place and we played all afternoon.

It was a sunny day we were watching the boats come in and out under the Golden gate Bridge and again the surf was crashing, and it was an absolutely wonderful afternoon of love making.

Those are special moments.

Me.

Are you asleep?

You had any memorable sex experiences?

Well, not, Vanilla.

I went to Fossom Europe about ten years ago.

If Folsom is an event for the leather community and the fetish community, and they hold a festival and in It began in San Francisco on Folsom Street and it just morphed into this huge event.

Folsom Europe is a little different.

It's in Brilliin and it's much more leather, it's much more raw and rough.

Berlin is very theatrical.

It's where the theater really much of are what we know is theater really originated in Brilliin.

And it was just this incredible million of people from all over Europe.

We're all playing, we're all having fun, we're all taking substances, and we're all just enjoying ourselves.

Being gay.

Anyway, the major party at Folsom is called Pig, that's b ig.

And what was cool about it is that they had enormous arch tallas lit and then there was a dark room on the other side, and so I went into the dark room and I played around with some guys, and then somebody grabbed new film behind really strong man, and he whispered into my ear just standing and so it was enormous.

It was incredible.

I touched the sky and after and after I settled down, I leaned over to the guy and asked him, just out of curiosity, where are you from?

And he whispered into my ear long beach.

It went around the world and knew another America.

One of the biggest elements of growing up gay and having sex his bathhouses.

Bill, what about two?

Have you ever had a bath?

Oh?

My god?

If I when I was in San Francisco, I mean, if you went out on the weekend and if you didn't pick up any one in the bars, you just went to one of the myriad of bath houses that were all around.

And my favorite one was called the Rich Street Baths, and it was south of Market and a converted old warehouse and it was on three floors and it was absolutely fantastic.

On the third floor there was just this one huge orgy room and it was always packed with people.

It was a playland.

Absolutely.

San Francisco pri ATYV was definitely a haven for debauchery.

And I remember one in particular in the Tenderloin area that had a Mac truck inside the building and you could play in the cab of the truck or on the hood of the truck, wherever you wanted.

The first introduction I had to a bath house was in Los Angeles.

It was a place called the eighty seven nine and it was at eighty seven oh nine West Third Street, just across from Joe Allen and I went there and I have never seen so many beautiful but this was preage.

I had never seen so many beautiful bodies in my life crammed into one building.

And not only that, there was a central kind of cruising area where everybody could check each other out.

Everybody, of course, is clad in white towels and walking around they're checking out each other.

And I was totally intimidated.

And it was at that time when I realized, well, you know, even though when you go to the baths and you go with somebody, it's a buddy system, and so you know, you make sure that you go in together, you leave together.

But I think you know it was a communal place where you got to know people and developed relationships with people now who are no longer with us, And I miss them because, quite frankly, they were the fun people.

And I'm glad that there's a whole new generation that's come up that's enjoying themselves and trying to be free about their bodies and really trying to be themselves as sexual beings, because quite frankly, that's how we pro create, and quite frankly, that's how we experience love.

Question for you, what happened when you went in?

You said it was better to go with somebody than alone.

What would happened if you went in alone?

Did you get lost in a crowd.

Or no, that's in case something happens.

Okay, Yeah, you know you have a buddy to check you out.

You know, I can tell that was a buddy.

What would you consider cruising etiquette?

Oh, I don't think there's any etiquette in cruising.

To the extent that if you're cruising a guy and through his physical manifestations he shows disinterest, you know, not to try to oh or interest or interest.

Yeah, you know that they're very obvious, not necessarily set gestures, but you know when someone's interested.

You know, in the old days, I don't know if they do.

Man, I still think people do it.

He would stick a hanky, a colored hanky in your pocket, like blue mint.

You wanted a fuck, And I think it was on the left side you were top, and on the right side you were bottom.

So you would stick a handkerchief really nicely folded of course.

Yeah.

They had a sheet, an eight and a half by eleven sheet filled with colors.

There must have been forty different colors on there, with definitions.

Where would you wear the hanky when you were versatile.

In the middle.

Between your legs.

Oh, that's gonna get caught.

God's gonna get caught.

Maybe not, that's good, that's real.

So did you put it in your left or your right?

But I do it in the garbage can.

Look at me, I'm so vanilla or a black man.

I'm so lily.

Yes you are?

You said that I didn't.

We all have stretched me.

I see we see people in the background going dirty.

They have educated me and so many things.

And I sit like my eyes wide open, just excited about their stories.

Why do you think people are so scared talking about sex?

I think a lot of that comes from one's upbringing, and I grew up in the southern home.

It was a great family, leave it to beaver type family, but sex was one thing you just didn't talk about.

And I think that was because my parents were Southern Baptists.

And it wasn't really until I went to college and freed myself of the environment I grew up in that my attitudes and education about sex really started happening.

Honestly, think that it's more societal because if you go to Europe, attitudes about sex are so different.

Well, for me, I grew up in southern California, and I remember the first time that I was aware of something.

There was going to be a meeting of all the girls in the school in the gym, and none of the guys were allowed.

They didn't talk about it at all.

They wouldn't say what the girls were learning and everything, and it sort of turned it into a taboo kind of thing.

Now, my parents sat down with my brother and I and talked to us about sex, and of course my brother and I had already heard all of this kind of stuff, but there was there was just this sort of enigma to keep it down, don't you know you don't talk about it.

Yeah, and I think people should talk about it more because I think you hear a lot of misconceptions about sex, you know, and that's what gets Yeah, that's what gets us into trouble because we think we you know, we we say these pious things about monogamy, and as gore Vidal put it, and then we want a little extra size.

And that pursuit of the little extra on the side in secrecy gets people into trouble.

We'll be right back after a quick break.

Welcome back to silver Linings with the old gays.

Who's the most romantic of the group, I would say to say, I would agree.

Yeah, who's the biggest flirt?

Just say, don't you who is the most swave?

I would say Bill, Bill is swave.

He dressed, yeah, save.

Yeah, he dresses.

The part looks so deceiving.

Okay, so what's your type?

To say, what's your dream man?

My dreamman he's got dark hair or he's got gray hair, and he's got a wonderful, warm character that is giving and received because I like to both give and receive to a person.

And we're best friends and we can talk about anything when we get upset with each other.

We talk about it, but I've been single so long, I don't know how to do it now, but I'll try.

What's your type?

Bill?

Well, both of my long term relationships, they were brunettes.

They had harry chest.

They were very, very, very attractive.

But I have this ideal man in my head and I've never met him or never been to bed with him.

But he's about six foot one.

He's blonde, with a blonde hairy chest, and that is one of my fantasies.

You mean Lassie.

She was sweet, she was a bitch too, your favorite well being that I'm a hairy guy and opposite subtract.

I like smoother guys.

And I have to admit I like him young, not too young, but you know, younger and the energy that youth brings.

It doesn't matter if they're bond, or are dark haired, or blue eyed or brown eyed or what.

Okay, Well, I got very creative here and I wrote up a little of something that I could always place in the frontiers or online.

So here goes, and I hope that dream is listening.

What is my type?

Silent or gregarious?

My dreamman stands six foot four of two hundred and thirty five pounds of pumped, ripped and vascular dom top muscle.

His big hands are gentle and versed in the ways to make me quiver.

A sensational kisser.

It is all or nothing with him.

So you like passion, don't we?

All?

Well, that's the kind of a eye product.

What's really what I'm saying is this guy exists somewhere and I like him big.

I like him bigger than me.

I like the way they smother me and nail me to the floor.

So if he's out there and you're interested in this sixty eight year old man who's trying to make his way and still you know, working out and doesn't want too much resistance, I'm here.

You seem to like the kink ear side of the sexual world.

What what do you think are the biggest misconceptions about kink and fetish?

Well, I wrote you on here.

Kink means bent to bent.

Bent is a British expression for kink, and it means unconventional or taboo sex, mostly dealing with bondage and saddle masochism.

The big misconceptions I think people have about kink is people's adversion to pain.

They have never experienced a true endorphin rush.

Talk through any athlete who has pushed themselves beyond the edge and they will tell you there is an endorphin rush that is like no other.

It is tantabout to sex.

And I think people are afraid of that because they think it's long lasting.

It isn't.

It lasts only as long as well it takes for you to heal.

But for the most part, it is designed to not hurt people, and I think that is the misconception.

Now as far as pain is concerned to me, because I've experienced that rush many times, and I guess you could say I'm a pain pig because I'm looking for that endorphin rush.

It has prepared me for the chronic pain that I now experience for the rest of my life.

I know how to cope with chronic pain, and I think my tolerance for pain is much higher as a result.

But there are ways that you get through it.

Now.

I'm talking basically as the bottom and there's submissive for the top.

The top's purpose is once that person is giving you trust, they are depending on you to take them to that endorphin rush without hurting them, Okay, And that's the mark of a true dump top, somebody who knows what they are doing.

And I can only say that I've been very lucky to have had that experience.

I can also say I've moved on from it because I'm a sixty eight year old man now with a chronic disease that has destroyed my nerves, and so I live with chronic pain every day.

But I have to say I've met some wonderful men, some really incredible daddies, who have taught me how to trust, how to give yourself to really another person in a wholly complete way, and that person takes you on a journey.

That is what kink is about.

Okay.

You know, if you want to talk about fetish, that's a whole other issue, okay, But I'm just talking about kink.

Care.

Thank you because you educated me just now, oh, because most of us are scared of it.

Well, I have to tell you, I used to equate kink to weird, but after hearing your stories, which were wild stories and that, but you also educated me about the world of s and m and what it was and the feelings and everything.

So I have to thank you, Mick, because I have a greater understanding and I don't consider kink weird and more.

Oh, I consider kink weird because I don't have a problem with weird.

I've been called weird for years.

I think my whole life I was called weird as a child.

So you know, when somebody tells me that I'm weird, I say, okay, great, let's move on.

You haven't told me anything.

New, okay, and we all are in some way.

What about dating apps?

Do you guys use dating apps?

Last night, for a little bit of research, I went, I went back online with this one dating app and see I had dropped out of it, and so I re established the profile and I hadn't even put pictures in yet, just a cover picture.

So I got this response from this guy who said what a fuck?

And so I responded with yeah, and I said text me, and I gave him out my number, oh, because I had thought, you know, remember this guy, And sure enough, the same response came back, you seem a little too wild for me.

I gave him my phone number.

Yeah, I mean this is the mark of a guy who likes to pull hooks out of fish.

Oh yeah, so you got to be aware of that.

And that's a lot of what you see online.

I don't like that either, and I get tired of people saying what are you into?

And my last sentence to them is, well, evidently you didn't read my profile.

Well then, but I think of the way what you're into is is that's kind of like a pick of one.

It's kind of weak.

But say hello to me first.

I'm a greeter, I'm a proper man.

I have to admit that once the dating apps came along, that was my.

Mo.

I seem to recall you being on BBRT every day, Well not every day, oh, I'm sorry, every other day, every other day.

I used to love cruise and I was so sure and happy then and then all of a sudden, it went to the internet.

I liked the instant gratification.

The thing that I liked the most was going to bars because you could find out what they were into they were there.

It was instant sex.

You could go right out the door for the price of a drink.

I think dating apps are are good if you are doing the traveling.

Yes, and that's all I did, because then you could set up your dates, you know, depending on what city you're going to be in or what place you're going to be in or like you know, if you're on a cruise ship, you just go on your app right, just say right, man, you just just go ahead because you know it's a finite population.

But they're there and they're just as desperate as you are to get off.

All right, gents, we're reaching the end of today's episode because this show is called silver Linings.

Thinking back on our conversation, what is your silver lining takeaway about sex, love and romance.

The silver lining about sex is that sex is a very important part of your being throughout your life, no matter how old you are.

And I also believe that's an important component of health and that I know for myself, I have my own philosophy that an orgasm a day is good for you.

It's not over until the fat Lady sings for me.

And I would have to say I had two wonderful partners, one for five years and one for sixteen years, and the silver lining of that was the joy of being with him, traveling with him and have just having a great time.

I mean, for me, it comes down to trust, submission, having a twisted mind, and at a minimum eight inches.

That's all for today on silver Linings with the old gays, tune in and two weeks to hear our coming out stories and why it's still important to celebrate.

Silver Linings is a production of Iheart's Ruby Studio and The Outspoken Network.

We're your hosts Bill Lyons, Jesse Martin.

Prick Pedson, and Robert Breeze.

Our executive producer is Sierra Kaiser.

The episode was written by Ryan Amador with post production by Eric Zeiler.

The music was composed by Max Herschanow, with audio direction and design by Matt Stillo.

And if you're having fun with us, please subscribe to follow along and don't forget to rate and review the show wherever you get your podcast.

Thanks for listening.

Ce you in two weeks.

I came out at the right time.

I had to do it on my own.

I do not recall pretending I was straight.

It was impossible.

My response was what and give up parade?