I’d never have thought of the residents of those neighbourhoods as community activists, though it did make sense that, if they were going to protest anything, it would be the possibility of gay sex in their immediate vicinity.

They exert the full force of their will in striking the image of straightness, which they pull off surprisingly well considering that their genitals are in the mouths of other men.

One of the great gifts of the arcade was the way it put us all on the same level.

I’d learn over time to insist on chatting by phone before hooking up. It was prudent, I thought, to see if the guy sounded like the type who might ejaculate and then murder me in the throes of shame, or lock me in his basement for the remainder of my life, or hold me down and rape me. Or drill holes in my head and inject boiling water and hydrochloric acid into my brain, the way Jeffrey Dahmer did with his hook-ups to try and turn them into sex zombies.

Once in a while I found myself actually slipping in cum, skidding around the tiny space praying to find traction before I landed in a puddle of some stranger’s gooey discharge.

I had been someplace none of my friends or family would ever go, smelled the smells and seen the sights.

In a forum online I saw a thread about favourite smells. There was the usual stuff about fresh cut grass, babies, and whatever, but slowly a controversial contingent arose which named the smell of their own balls as their favourite aroma.

I’ve always understood pornography to be an industry growing ever more granular, appealing to smaller and smaller segments of idiosyncratic perversion.

People appeared to have no clue how truly horrible they were.

The guys who appeared to have a genuine interest in the videos and products at the arcade confounded everyone. You couldn’t be sure who was actually looking to fool around. It was even more disconcerting when a straight couple came in to check out dildos and cheap negligees, as if taking a shot at spicing up their sex life or beginning in earnest their earliest dalliances into swinging.