I had entered a reality similar to the gay pornos I watched as a teen-men gathered here to have sex with other men they didn’t even know-and I felt my nervousness evaporate. Strangers looking for cocks to suck surrounded me. While the twink sang “How Deep is Your Love” and sprayed disinfectant over any surface he could find, I looked around the room at grown men removing their suits and young guys slipping out of their sweaty boxers. He presented me with flip-flops and led me into a locker room blasting the Bee Gees. Once I handed over the paperwork, an Asian twink in a tank top approached me from across the lobby. The club returns the card to the patron when he leaves. Each member receives a card and must turn in the card upon entrance. The contract stipulated that to enter any Roman gay club, men must pay a membership fee and agree to keep the identities of the patrons a secret.
The website said the club only cost 13 euros, but I handed him cash, anyway in return, he gave me a pile of paper thicker than the documents I had presented to enter Italy. He looked at Tarzan as if I had said I were Amanda Knox visiting Rome to murder a few sodomites. Inside, I joined the line behind businessmen in suits carrying backpacks-the postwork closet-case crowd was just arriving, I guess-and examined the portrait behind the receptionist of two gay men jerking each other off in an empty disco, until the receptionist shouted at me in Italian. A Tarzan look-alike wearing nothing but a white towel appeared and gave me a once-over-to see if I was hot enough, maybe?-then opened the front door. Luckily, the sex club, as well as the Vatican-owned apartments, were located in Salustiano, a nice (read: bourgie) area that didn’t seem like it would hold any insane gays.Īfter a few minutes of procrastination, I swallowed my fear and buzzed the Multiclub’s entrance. We ran out of the building after 20 minutes because a guy claiming to be Gloria Estefan’s “background dancer” shoved Diva D, naked, into a locker. The last time I had been in a bathhouse was my senior year of high school, when my friend Diva D and I went to one in Miami.
Naturally, when I visited Rome recently, the Multiclub was on my sightseeing list, though I was a little nervous.