The Cock Might Be the Sleaziest Place in Town

The Cock is at Ave. A and E. 12th St.?you know it by the red rooster in the window. There are plenty of fine, cruisey EV bars where you can stand around and watch other black-frame-wearing gay hipsters drinking Rolling Rocks or sipping cosmopolitans. The Cock is something else again.

It was pretty busy for a Thursday night. There was a mostly naked older man gyrating on a little platform to the sounds of hard cock rock. I knew right away that this wasn't The Cock of a few months ago by the way the backroom was so brightly lit up. In The Cock of old, that backroom would've been barely bright enough for you to see three feet in front of you. A setting conducive to random oral sex, groping and orgies.

Now, it appeared, the sex police had clamped down. I'm not saying that what used to go on in the backroom was safe, or that it was for everyone. But at least there was the option. Instead of walking into the middle of a gay orgy, I found myself watching a writhing, clearly coked-up blonde girl gyrate to the blasting rock. She was quite a show?stiletto pumps, halter top and short dress?very heroin chic. So 1996. There were about a dozen guys on the leatherette benches, gesturing at the girl, talking among themselves and smoking. With all the lights shining back there, cruising was at a minimum?although one enterprising guy standing in the doorway did unzip his jeans and start to jerk himself off.

Back in the front of the place, a really horrible dancer was massaging what was surely a fake cock in his g-string. I noticed that people kept leaving the bathroom with satisfied looks on their faces. I wondered if the action had moved there, via some heretofore unknown gloryhole. Or maybe the bathroom was just where guys were going to do their hits of E.

Not that I could pick out any undercover cops by sight, but the place was definitely on its guard. At one point the lights dimmed a bit in the back room, and a large group of guys crowded around to watch, I was told, as one guy got a blowjob, or the beginning of one, from some other guy. But the lights snapped back on ultra-bright, and a bar worker appeared to give a little lecture along the lines of No sex back here, guys?and if you ever want to have sex here again, you can't have sex here tonight.

Back to the bar, to order more drinks and watch an older, bald dancer masturbate onstage. After cruising a little longer, my friend and I decided it was time to leave. As we were walking out, the lights in the backroom dimmed again.

I have some gay friends from Philadelphia who loved The Cock. It's still a place for gay men to meet and socialize on Ave. A, where you can score some action in the bar, or pick up some young hottie and bring him back to your place. And the laid-back East Village atmosphere means that Chelsea boys tend to leave their Chelsea attitude at the door.

But I wonder what my friends will think of this new, brightly lit bar. I left The Cock early that Friday morning feeling slighted, wondering when people will be able to go back to having fun again. If a guy's idea of a night out is a random blowjob in the back of a gay bar, why should Mayor Giuliani, or anyone else, care?