What flavored balm goes on smooth and keeps the mustiest puckers fresh as a teenager? If you answered Anal-Ese, well, son, you’re one hell of a
professional. Today as part of our Worst Products Marketed to the Gays series, we feature this desensitizing agent long used on porn sets to keep the loosest goose from squealing after a three-hour Arpad-Miklos pounding. Generally, the benzocaine confection has been marketed to women trying to get over the hump, so to speak. As gays scoop up more products marketed to women (Special K, Juicy Couture, Enchanted), it gets harder to believe that any woman (or alternately, the man who wants to pop her in the pooper) is gonna care that her thumping hole is flavored like a maraschino. Of course, we’re not really sure that a guy who’s numbing himself for a three-day party is at the top of our menu, either… but we digress.

What’s the difference between a fag and a freezer? 

Aunt Charlie’s Lounge

Tenderloin

133 Turk Street

The carpet probably hasn’t been replaced since the mid-70s, there’s one of those flammable-stuffed-animal crane games up front, and Anthony the toothless bartender is the sweetest thing to happen to the Tenderloin since the advent of crack. Don’t miss the Hot Boxxx Girls, Fri-Sat 10 PM.

Ginger’s Trois

Downtown

246 Kearny Street

Though Damron Guides cite a “professional crowd” and a recent makeover and change of ownership has brightened up the inside a bit, our experience of Ginger’s leans more toward wheelchairs and Cutty Sark neat on a Tuesday afternoon. Not exactly a late-night destination, but a good bet for a gayische happy hour crowd replete with bobo financiers and retail queens.

Hole in the Wall Saloon

SOMA

1369 Folsom Street

Expect a selection of leather daddies and pool-hustling cubs at this Harley-friendly dive recently relocated to Folsom Street.  It opens at noon and it’s about bottled beer and hankies around here, so don’t even think about ordering a fucking Cosmo. Also, the occasional patron craps outside the door for our viewing pleasure.

Gangway

Polk Gulch

841 Larkin Street

The bandana’d and rolled-jeans bicycle crew takes the place over twice a month at Chrome and Manquake, but most nights the Gangway is the sort place where old guys have slurred shout-fights about the names of Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands and who got more tail during the war.

The Men’s Room
Castro
3988 18th Street

It’s a bit like a ski lodge in this tiny joint on 18th, complete with 60s canister fireplace in the back corner, and it’s perfect for a weeknight birthday because you and your friends can basically take over the place and own the jukebox, which isn’t half bad.  Also, a nice escape from the usual shitshow up the street on a Saturday night–the kind of place you can watch a closed-captioned PBS on Broadway special while sipping some Scotch and working through a breakup.

>SEE MORE BARS ON DAMRON.COM

Easternbloc
505 E. 6th Street

The music’s good, the boys are hip, the bartenders are cute and it’s the kind of non-BnT, come-as-you-are booze fest Manhattan needs more of.  But we admit we also love it partly because of fond memories the old, seedy Wonder Bar at the same address, with the blackout back room and $2 beers and John Waters movies and projected on the back wall. Check out Bloc Party on Fridays.

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The Ritz

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HK Lounge
523 9th Avenue

HK Lounge just is still coming into its own, but Hell’s Kitchen is where it’s at and the space is airy and well designed. The boys tend to be cute, the music more hip than not, and the crowd a mix of professionals and performers from the neighborhood.  If you’re in the ‘hood on Thursdays and you’re not swilling late-night happy hour drinks at Barrage, check out Buzz.

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The Cock
29 2nd Avenue

The East Village was ahead of the curve in bringing sleaze back to gay life in the late 90s, and the Cock was at the forefront of that movement. Then the place got more popular and moved to the Hole, but it’s still a really easy answer to the question “where can I get drunk and laid with the most efficiency tonight in Manhattan?”  Check out Cock Fight on Saturdays.
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>SEE MORE BARS ON DAMRON.COM

The mustachioed granddaddy of back-alley fag enhancers, “poppers” is the name given to any number of alkyl or amyl nitrates found these days in little bottles labeled as “room odorisor” or “VCR head cleaner” with brand names like “Rush” and “BANG!!” and “Jungle Juice.”  The drug was originally a treatment for angina, and got its street name from being sold in small glass ampules that made a popping sound when they were crushed to release their vapors.  Once blamed for the ‘gay virus’ that appeared in 1981 (they now think that was something else), poppers are still said to cause temporary weakening of the immune system. After the jump, our complete field guide.

Over the years, the Anheuser-Busch Companies and their advertising agency, DDB Needham Worldwide, have made some truly valiant efforts to court the gays into drinking more Bud Light (fags love diets!).  Among these inspired campaigns, found in back issues of Out and HX, we chose a few to remind us that Heidi Fleiss and David Forest aren’t the ones who should be charged with pandering.

After the jump, we take a look at the last decade of Bud Light print ads geared toward gays.