Back in My Day in San Francisco

Back in my day, sex was a treasured indoor sport, especially in San Francisco. This was in the 70s before AIDS and in a time of economic boom. I worked for a very large, very successful high tech company in a very tall building in San Francisco. Our company took about nine floors of the building and was one of the owners. Success just glittered all over everywhere and the people were beyond vibrant. Everybody was well-dressed, intelligent, bright eyed, and, yes, bushy tailed. In fact, “tail” was the name of the game.

“Tail,” of course, was one of the slang words for sex with its reference to a woman’s ass. Getting pussy, getting laid, nailed her, and other juvenile terms were the coin of the hour for most of the more, shall we say, adventurous men. And there were a lot of them. Still, without a lot of “adventurous” women, there would have been nothing for the men to do. There were a lot of adventurous women and ambitious women hoping to land one of those well-dressed, intelligent (well, mostly) men. It was actually a soft sex and marriage bazaar. It was a hell of a lot of fun. People worked hard, sometimes very long hours, made a lot of money and got laid frequently.

In the all and all, it was just a microcosm of life in San Francisco. This was the era of the fern bar, ‘meat bars’, hot tub joints, and a lot of lonely women due to the increasing number of gay men. In fact, the surge in the gay population really helped surge the heterosexual boom. Shoot, why should the gay guys have all the fun? Plus, the gay men really were fashion leaders, style leaders, party leaders, social icons. I mean, they set the stage and heterosexual men were quite happy to follow.

Then there was the focus on self satisfaction. That was supposed to be self improvement, learning to love yourself, overcoming your traumatic childhood and all that. “I’m OK, You’re OK” so let’s get in bed. “I used to be shy and sort of ashamed of myself, but, well, I would really like to have sex with you.” Plus most of the women in that tall building on Market Street were happily into it.

 The beautiful young woman who sat next to me and intimidated me had sex with two managers, a friend of mine and during one of our earthquake evacuations, walked up the hill with one of my friends to a world class hotel and had a little go. She was the daughter of a well-known executive in the music business and a graduate of Wharton. At the time, she was sharing space with a guy who founded one of those “me, me, me” cults. But, guess what? Eventually, she married one of my friends, had two girls and a long married life. My friend, whom I eventually disowned, cheated on her like mad but she was mostly faithful. Then she died.

I was short, sort of cute, but very lacking in confidence. I was not OK. I had two or three taller, sort of masculine, friends frequently regaling me with stories about the latest bimbo they had picked up at Perry’s Grill. Or a manager bragging about how he nailed the new, gorgeous trainee on his office desk later in the evening. One guy told me a story of how a young, good-looking woman followed him into the men’s room and as he took out his penis, she asked “Can I hold that for you?” That same guy told the story of how he was living with this spectacular woman but couldn’t give up the “strange.” She came home unexpectedly one day and he had to shove his hot bed partner into the closet. His girl friend found the “hot lady” and she actually had the gumption to dump him. Was he sad? No, he thought it was all funny.

That particular guy was the source of many, many stories. But he was one of many, many guys with similar stories. A lot of them hung with Bay Area professional athletes, especially the black ones who took pride in “nailing’ white women. One such used to drive around from bar to bar in a large Rolls Royce with a white driver and he was very popular. Bill Cosby came to town often and rolled with several of these men. That always generated good stories.

Two of my best friends in the company were masters of the hunt. I knew all the women that they laid from the company and was awestruck and jealous. I can just hear #me-too’ers screaming, “awestruck?” While I understand their outrage, they don’t understand the environment.  Let me assure you that the women were a part of all this. I had two girl friends who were constantly cheating on me. One of them wanted to marry me, but when she got mad at me, she slept with one of my friends. Minor sex providing little inconveniences like STDs were common and the women carried them. While I was more of a “girl friend” guy than a “pick-up master,” I was infected at least three times.

My ego was fragile. I embarrassed easily and I was embarrassed by attention and praise. I was in a bar at Jack London Square once when two good looking women walked in. They actually came up to me an said,”think you can handle both of us?” (I did have a very appealing smile.) I turned multiple shades of red and stuttered. They decided those were bad signs and moved on. Such a loss.

As I mentioned, I was kind of cute and so I would score sometimes in a bar. I will always remember the young woman from Texas who walked with a slight limp who picked me up at The Bus Stop. We went to her hotel room and she insisted that she get get drunk before having sex. I insisted on not. So, we had sex and afterwards, she said, “See, I told you you should have gotten me drunk. I need to loosen up.” Oh well,

That happened a lot in San Franciso too. Young women from all over the country coming to San Francisco for their adventure. Picked up by Prince Charming, swept off their feet into bed. Some of the more hopeful ones were looking for husbands and found them. 

The whole thing, the whole time was amazing, exciting, and unforgettable. A combination of The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland. Bob, Ted, Carol and Alice. Sex was the word of the minute. The office building on Market Street was just one of many “Peyton Places.” It’s just the way it was… moving’ West.

AIDS changed it all. The sexual revolution hit a brick wall and hit it hard. Everybody was afraid. Only gays could get AIDS. Oops, heteros could get it. No, they couldn’t. Well, they did. I remember sitting in a theater on Polk Street, which had morphed into a “gay” street, and watching Arnold Schwarzenegger do his Conan thing. That was a trip unto itself, but hearing all the gay guys, whistle, scream, laugh and make lewd comments made us realize that the theater was packed with gays. What if AIDS was airborne?  My girlfriend was scared, but we stayed. Arnold was spectacular and James Earl Jones was evil.

Nightlife changed and changed drastically. The hot tub places simply closed. Bar business dropped as did restaurants and theaters. It was not as bad as the COVID pandemic but the swinging’ Seventies were coming to an end. Getting laid carried real risk for both men and women and they both felt it.

From a moral perspective, it was probably a good thing. Some of my wilder friends wound up marrying-finally. I moved from the West Coast to the East Coast. I was a bit surprised how different things were on the East Coast. It was obvious that even before AIDS, the East Coast maintained a loose but restrained culture. It just wasn’t the same.  

That’s how it was back in the day. And after “the day,” I got married.