DL Dudes: A Reappraisal

Hey, viewers, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions is an explicit podcast about queer sex, filter dirty words, and unfiltered descriptions of sexual activities. If hearing about orgies, anonymous sex, kink, fetish, and more offends your sensibilities, you might want to skip this.

Viewer discretion is advised. It's definitely not for kids.

All right, Cruising Confession time, Chris, have you ever been with a DL guy?

If they were DL, they didn't tell me, and it definitely was in like high school. I guess they were yell because we couldn't talk about it right, you know, like I could like publicize the fact that, like we were hanging out together. So yeah, I guess high school would be the time.

It is funny because I think a lot of queer people are sort of in the closet for a little bit.

And I mean not all of them obviously, but like you know what I mean.

In high school, I was like, so I love musical theater, debate club, and I'm straight, Like you know what I mean.

Believable, believable, she's an actor. Okay, she's an actor.

What about you?

Have you ever been with a DL person? There was a guy on a sports team in my high school. Okay. He like instant messaged me at eleven pm one night and he was like, Hey, what are you doing? And I was like what what text? Yeah? Then we started.

I knew he had a girlfriend, okay, and we started sharing like sexual stories and he's like, yeah, I've always been interested in like putting stuff up my butt and hooking up with a dude. Oh, and we like almost hooked up in a mall parking lot. He was like, Oh, I'll drive out to the O Vito marketplace to hook up with you at midnight.

And I was like, oh, I'm down. And then I was like, how am I going to leave my house?

Yes, at midnight and explain to my Puerto Rican parents that I'm just going to the mall.

Girl, I was about to risk it all for a deal.

Man.

Was he hot?

He was? Okay, well he was.

So I'm wondering when was the first time you heard DL as like I termed to describe people who were not out.

Yeah.

So for me, it was like daytime talk shows, the Oprah moment, these men around the down low, and what's wild is it was usually men of color. So the term felt very much racialized and kind of tied to a specific demographic or a specific type of person, because I was like, I know a lot of closeted white guys, but I didn't see them on Rocky Lake, you.

Know what I mean.

Like, so, yeah, it was interesting. How about you when you first shared the term around the same time. Honestly, I think being a black person and growing up in the nineties, there was all this conversation around HIV AIDS and how it was ravishing our community, and like that's where the conversation started.

It was like, well, it's all these DL.

Guys going out and getting HIV and giving into our women.

Right.

The blame is always on the individual and never on the government or the institutions of power that A forced people to be closeted and b don't provide folks with access to healthcare adequate healthcare. It's like, babe, it's the

First, we talked to author Brontes Parnell about his relationships with DL guys.

Then we'll talk to an anonymous DL guest who uses Sniffies to hook up with gay and straight curious men. Welcome to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

I am Gabe Gonzils.

I'm Chris Patterson Rosso. Each week weeks more the sublime world of queer sex, cruising and relationship.

We'll be talking to queer folks of all kinds. Ask them questions, swap sex stories, share intimate revelations.

A lot of us are discovering ourselves in cruising spaces.

This happened to me at this toilet stall, in the library or the airport.

I feel like everybody's gonna fuck a little harder.

Here, damn.

So I've been like the neighborhood flat, and I took pride in that I was so afraid but yet so intrigued.

And the more I gave to him, the more.

He could take. Our first guest today is Brontes Parnell. Brontes is a writer, poet, punk dancer, director, and an icon to the rad queers.

Everywhere.

His award winning books include Since I Laid My Burden Down and one Hundred Boyfriends, which won a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. His newest book, Ten Bridges I've Burnt, is in stores now.

Welcome to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Hi Son says, should we talk about the elephant in the room? That DL article that was on Hush Sniffy's.

I thought, that's why y'all flew me here, so a little context.

Sniffy's published this article by writer Zachary Zane and it was all about enjoying sleeping with deal guys. And then the online comments came in pretty swiftly and intensely, and you actually made a post commenting on the comments and the article itself. Do you remember what like the issue you took with the response to that article was and what you were feeling?

Okay, well, basically there's kind of like, uh, basically, a lot of the commenters were like framing all download guys is having a moral deficit for not being out of the closet. And the point I was making is if you're having sex on Sniffy's, you already have a moral deficit. Wily fingers and like, aren't we here to do sketchy

Yeah, it it's the only way to ground the community. Get the girls together.

I'm just like, girls were getting older. There's not a lot of options. Shut up and take the dig.

Do you remember when this whole thing blew up in the late nineties around DL guys.

Oh man, Yeah, I remember it, but I mean it was just it was framing and it was bullshit.

Did Gregory?

Actually I love did Gregory?

But did Gregory?

Like I remember him saying something to the effect in this panel of Oh so there are black men who have sex with other men, you know, and keep it as a secret life.

But we are to believe that.

White men don't do this, and of course, right like when white men do it, they are libertines or bisexual or whatever. Like DL is a specifically racialized term, and it's always on the head of like you know, the fucking lascivious you know, plantation bull or like you know, the Mexican day worker who's like coming to destroy your bussy.

Just don't, you know.

But it's the framing of it that makes it, you know, it's kind of the thing that's fueling the desire for people.

I think, so like, yes, we could all agree.

Sniffy's as an app that is used by many types of men, deal men included.

Sometimes DL is the connotation of just like I don't want you all niggas in my business. Oka't look because you know, like I'll be in Oakland and they'll be guys claiming to be DL. But like this one guy walked in my room and was like, oh, yeah, you got the guitar and books. My cousin fucked you, And I was like, you supposed to be d L. But y'all y'all talking amongst each other. But I also think that it, like the the notion of it has kind of morphed too, you know, which I also think is

Toppying like and I'm gay except me, But like what if I.

Just shut my fucking mouth and been DL, Like it could have been so much easier, you know what I'm saying, Like no, cause it's like and there's always this thing that I talk about, like I'll have like young d L boys come and talk to me about like should

Like, no, baby, just stay, just stay, like you know.

What I'm saying, Like, but then also even thinking about the fact that like Stiffy's is probably the only place I get trade anymore, Like the second the second I turned forty, the second I was over two hundred and twenty pounds and the second I had gray hair. Nobody talked to me on Grinder. Wait, white men especially like don't talk to me on Grinder. I had a scruff profile for two years. Not one hit right anybody that I am in. When I am, I want Sniffies and

You know what I'm saying.

Like, but I noticed that when I, you know, started going through Man, I pause, the dal dude that you know was you know, probably part of the prison population became like my number one fan, and thank god for them, But where would we be, yo guy. But it's also too it's like I don't know, like we're all just

Kind of excited.

The whole series, so I have to have then, what's been good or about about hooking up with DL men from a sexual and maybe an emotional perspective.

I don't.

It's when I say, DM, I don't think they act any different than the gay is.

What I will tell you is, Okay, here's a funny story.

Right.

I got this one guy that was like, okay, it was a white guy. It was this white top and he was using pictures of a light skinned black boys dick and talking in a a v like African American vernacular English, be like, yeah, I'm gonna show up.

I'm gonna beat them cakes up.

I'm gonna do all this.

But I want you like you know, I want you blindfolded, doors locked or door unlocked, like face down. But like I live on like Martin Luther King Junior Way in Oakland. You know it's always a scared street. Right, I'll leave my door on locks. And I was also like, I got roommates. This is the Bay Area. What the fuck do you think I live alone?

Anyway?

Right, I get to the door and I answered the door, and it's like, not just any white boy. I'm talking man Bun Berkeley, sweater, burken stocks.

You got like Rachel Doloso.

But he was like, oh.

Real, okay, no, but like y'all, but seriously, he has some serious dick on him, and I still let him hit right yeah, But then later he like hit me up and was like, hey, man, that's fucked up. That was supposed to be anonymous, and I was like, you were supposed to be black. But the thing about it was like.

His it's like.

Here's but because it's a weird.

His fetish was impersonating a download black man so he could go fuck blindfolded black bottoms, like okay. But then afterwards his boyfriend texted me on the app and was like, hey, did this guy come over? Was he using like was he using these black boys pictures?

And then I was like yeah, yeah girl, yeah, yo, man skitch. But then he was like, well how was the six?

And I was like and so I blocked him because I thought that was like the guy or whatever.

Yeah, but so.

That wild participating in someone else's fantasy without your knowledge, where I.

Can't do that every day. Also, like it was like

I'm very interested in these sort of porn ideals too, right because on the one hand, we have talked about how coming out in some places is not safe even still to this day, or not comfortable for a lot of people, which is why we stop people in the closet.

But I do think there's like a flip.

Side to the a DL men are viewed, and part of what causes the kind of controversy surrounding the idolizing of the DL guy, the idea that there's something harder about them in bed because they are straight or they give the impression of like uber masculinity. I don't know, how do you kind of unpack that when you're thinking about this topic that's.

All across the board, Okay, Like just if I say the mean average of stories I hear with these men, right, they are usually in their forties, the wife has had the second kid and has stopped putting out. Right, They usually are in social circle. Straight men have very close social circles, and it's very hard for them to be

He fucking someone's.

Girlfriend, fucking someone's wife, Like do the actual map Like a lot of these guys, I do think that their wives have like other lovers or doing whatever. Some of these guys I think are coming in to like kind of act out these things that these mans do. Some shit to me where I'm like, if I was a woman, i'd call the police. But you know, like look at me, like I don't know, I'm pretty built. People fuck me like I'm a linebacker, so it's like I could take

I don't.

I think it's like we live in a world where there was always room for the behavior, but the identity is what became the crisis. Men have found a way to have sex with other men forever years. Yeah, but now that we are in like this last seventy years of this kind of gay revolution, the subject becomes like identity, right. But then also sometimes I don't know, I feel there's ways I feel kind of left behind by the current sexual revolution in a way because I feel like it didn't make more faggots.

In my head.

Sometimes I'll be in Oakland and they'll be like I'll be hanging out with like the trans girls and the dolls, and all of them want to get their trade and go move to Sacramento and like live as white women in pick of fences. And now download men feel like they can just come in and fucking like, you know, you bang up all the gay bussy and not fucking owe nobody nothing. No fact, it's still been't asked to

I've definitely found a couple of men in my neighborhood that are faceless profiles and are afraid of being like seen on an apple, like Sniffies because of work or their family, right, So it's like they're kind of out of their social circles, but they're not out of families at work, and at least in my neighborhood. I mean, I live off Avenue in Puerto Rico, but it's a lot of Latino men. I'm right at home, but it is a lot of other Latino men.

Every time someone puts a face pic on Sniffy's too, I'm like, Reez is desperate. No one's there to be handsome, you know. But actually there was a while. There was a while. There was a period of about six months where I like didn't take any photos. I just let dudes come over because I was just like, how do I say it? In my twenties, I worked at the bathhouse, I worked at steam Marks.

Wow.

So there's something so crazy about like having spent most of my life in a situation where everyone's in towels, everything's kind of revealed. Men'll just walk up to you and grab your dick and be like yes or no, and like that's it. Where there's something about when you're having sex with a DL dude, he's coming to your house specifically just to see you, and I never even noticed how there's something actually magical about it doesn't matter what his dick look like, his body and also, to

There's something that can feel very almost romantic about that, right, the just you experience, And there's a kind of intimacy that I feel like closeted men actually sort of emanate in in trusting that.

This person is extremely vulnerable.

Right, we know that they are absolutely hiding this part of themselves and they have chosen to come over. They are exposing themselves in a way that they wouldn't normally do.

Yeah, it's really vulnerable.

Yeah, for sure, this one download trick. I've been seeing him for five years. I bought his kid's soccer gear because it's like, no.

Because stepmom, well, well, because I looked.

I thought about it too, because I was like, I was like you we were hanging out. I'm like, yo, like this fool has been digging me down for five years. Yeah, like, which is longer than most any gay relationship. I was like, yeah, you know what I'm saying. And my mom's boyfriends were such dicks. I was just like, oh, the least I could do is buy a kid's soccer gear to say thank you or something.

So have you ever had a relationship with the DL person and had them come out as a results of your relationship.

I don't know.

I don't think they came out. A lot of them struggle with the notion of coming out. And these these are like these are like gay and Latino men like in their like forties and on, like they're trying to catch up to the gay revolution that happened in the nineties much less like this whole like this twenty twenty fourth thing, where doing you know? So even sometimes when

Yeah, you know, like we were.

But we were those boys in San Francisco in the early two thousands, and like, remember how dangerously we read to people. But the generation just before us, they were not having sex in their twenties like we were because of like the age epidemic and like how.

Scary it was.

And so now these men are like thrust into a new era where it's like, oh, like you have to send a dick pic to get laid. Oh I can bang people without contracting HIV. But now that there's not the stress of this, now I can deal with this backlog of like emotional stress around what does it mean to have sex with a man? What if I like this person and I keep coming to him? How do I say this to my family?

You know, like.

It's it's really it's really interesting, kind of like the helix of the heliks of just like consciousness and sex and all of them. I think I don't think everyone's everyone's kind of fascinating. It's fascinating to watch someone kind of learn how to walk, and like how we're all learning how to walk and reconfigure it whatever age we're at, you know.

Oh gosh, all right, we've had such a good time with you. Unfortunately we do have to end.

But I want to know what is coming up for you this summer and where can people find you online?

I'm on rentman dot com word right now, I'm like, not even charging. I'm just doing the boyfriend experience as long as you buy me records.

Yeah, totally.

And then I'm going on tour with my band on the East Coast this week, so you might not see that. But this summer leaky around, I'm finishing my sci fi book and yeah, just vacationing, hanging out in Oakland. So you can find me on Instagram at Bronton's Parnell.

Oh my god, amazing. We'll have to take a field trip and come up to visit you. Yes, you can stay in the Sniffy office.

After the break, we will be talking to a deal guy about his experience on Sniffi's and so much more.

Stick around will be right back.

It's actually gonna be me.

So this is normally the portion of the show where we list our guest achievements and plug his latest product or release, but we can't do that today because our guest is anonymous. We aren't revealing any details about him because he is closeted and we want to protect his privacy. He is masked, and we are altering his voice.

We're really thankful for his willingness to come speak about this top topic. Welcome to a cruising Confessions. How you doing I'm doing good?

Yeah, yeah, amazing, Thanks for coming on.

Thank you. I appreciate you guys.

Truly, No, we appreciate you being here. So I think the first question is one of a lot of people must be asking themselves. Right, it's twenty twenty four. It feels like, more than any other time in history, it is safe for people to come out. So what is it that makes you feel that you need to stay closeted or deal?

I think, like you said, I mean, the only reason why you're so deal at this point is because you feel like you need to because it's New York, like, it's twenty twenty.

Four, and how long have you been DL?

Fuck? All my life. Yeah, I mean, I feel like there's stages to d on this. I was saying in the beginning, of course, it's like DL to the point where you're not even sharing a picture of yourself, and then there's DL where it's just like, Okay, some people know, but like the core people in my life don't know, you know. So I feel like I've been DAL my whole life. But then i just went through the chapters of d on this and I'm in this face now where like some people know, but like the people that

So, and do you do any intermingling between those two groups of people or do you keep them separate?

I don't know, we keep them separate. I think no, that would be a disaster to like mix them, because it's like you're just like two different people, two different worlds, you know, So I'm mixing them. You just you put yourself in a really really fucked position.

Yeah, you know, for real.

I'm also curious, do you identify as gay or bisexual.

Yeah, I'm definitely gay, but you know, fun night's a fun night. Like if I I think I had like I had a girlfriend of dated girls blah bah blah, but you know, I definitely want to focus on guys. It's super different with guys, like especially with like hook up culture. It's not this same as like when you're dating like hetero cis woman. I was telling I think Adam the director, like Sniffy's and all of that. It's like it's like go Puffer Dick and what's on demand

For sure Sniffy's is international. We're here like France, Germany.

Yeah, but not in the UAE or some shit.

Yeah.

Do you ever think there would be a time where you'd feel comfortable coming out to close friends and family.

For the foreseeable future. No, the idea of of me telling someone like telling them like why would I do that? Would I ever go to someone and be like, oh, like I fucked this girl last night? Like if anything, there should be a choice, like when you first like are born, like oh I want to know what X y Z is gonna be. But now it's just like, oh, like where's your wife? Like oh blah blah blah when you're having kids, And how do you respond to those

Safety, true, and that's the reality for people, right it might not be someone's individual experience. And I think, you know, we talked about this a brontest too. There's a lot of folks in New York and San Francisco that are like, you need to come out?

Why you come out?

I hate that song?

Well, yeah they don't.

Everyone's situation and experience is different, and there are places where it's not safe. Sometimes around family it's not safe. Sometimes with work it's not safe. So yeah, for sure.

Facts And there was one time I was in La. I was in La just for personal reasons and there was this guy that I met and he was like he was basically like demeaning me because I wasn't out, and then he was telling me and I was telling him that looked like it's so stressful, blah blah blah, it's so stressful, like I feel like the weight on my shoulders touch shit. And he was on home. It must not be that heavy if you haven't like came

Totally. Yeah, we got to meet each other where we're at. Absolutely, yeah, we got to meet each other.

Where we're at.

I'm curious if the opposite is also true.

If you ever feel like you get people chasing after you because your d O whenever you use an.

App, Yeah, but it's mainly older guys. Interesting young guys are not DL chasers, Like it's always the older ones. It's always ones that are like married or just completely not in the mix at all. But yeah, it's never young guys. But honestly, even if you are d teacher, like I don't care, like most of the time we are, we both want just one thing, so like, let's just get it.

Yeah, at the end of the day, no matter how we identify, and they.

Don't care to be able to say page because you're not dating them. You know, they only people really only care if you're like dating each other.

What was like one of the hottest hookups or meetups that you can remember having.

I mean, it's pretty exploitit or like t M I, but I didn't like I didn't like, I didn't not for like a long time. Okay, so you were ready, Yeah, I was really ready, but then.

Your voice just dropped it often when he said you were ready.

But then I went to the parkah, so just like it's hell, are people here?

Apparently?

So I meet this like Puerto Rican guy and you.

Know, we're like the one.

We're doing, the one doing the two and this guy is just like watching us. But like I think that what made it so hot was like when I it was like a three day nuts when I know, it was just so much and then he just like he just not as soon as I did that with the guy that was watching. So that was probably the hottest, just because it was just so much none. I was just like it felt so good. But other than that, like I feel like every time I do it, it's hot, Like why would I do it? And it's not hot?

So well, sometimes you don't know until you meet up with the person, right, you think you're gonna enjoy it, and then you get there and you're like, oops, maybe not.

Yeah, that's when you have to do the Oh I got to go somewhere or I have to do something or someone cold. Yeah, because there's no point in doing it if there's not like a if you're going to regret it after it's just like bro, like it's not fun, not fun at all.

Do you feel like you've ever been in, uh something close to a relationship with another guy?

Oh?

Yeah, for sure, Like I've been in a relationship where I was more recently, like we were both on the same page in terms of like out or like halfway out. We're both like halfway out, so we're very understanding both family,

Scary and I'm out, Like that seems really terrify. Ye, But thinking about like when I wasn't out and then, I mean.

I've always nowt, but like there was no there was a couple of years where I was masquerading as a straight man.

Oh yeah, see, you're giving me flashbacks to like high school and college. Like I was to school very out, but in college I still hadn't come out to my parents.

Like I mean, I was dating men, I was like going to a gay party. I was very out socially, but I went to school on Rhode Island. My parents were in Florida, so I was like, how the fun Yeah, absolutely not. And they're Puerto Rican, they're Catholic. I was like, okay, I like I don't even want to start. And then the funny thing is my first job out of college was editing for a gay porn company. I didn't tell them,

She kind of knew, right, like your parents are our suspect.

But it was just really funny because I had to come out to my mom as like a gay porn editor and gay at the same time.

But I thought they weren't good with technology. Bro, how did they find out?

I'm like, how did she find out about this job?

So that was my fault.

I went on a comedy show because they were looking to interview a porn producer. Oh god, but it was like a how Many Central show? And I was like, my mom doesn't watch Comedy Central? Houck is she ever gonna find this? This was like well before like like YouTube was huge, or like she had a smartphone, even like I didn't even have a smartphone. I did that interview and she only found it because I think she was getting divorced from my dad, and my dad found it and like tried to bring it up for I

Mom, I hope you're not watching Sniffies.

To be fair, I did not have a mask on when I did my interview. I was very Yeah, I was face out. I had a mustache. It was hard to miss.

Yeah. The thing about these you never know, like you never know who's DL obviously d O. So like anyone can be watching this, like my fucking uncles or my dad. That shit is wild. But I'm not updating anything on LinkedIn, and so like we should be good. Yeah, yeah, I'm not going like a j letter or like out magazine or some shit.

I mentioned a LinkedIn status like I'm bravely coming out as DL.

Podcast. Yeah I love that.

That's an exclusive. That's good for you guys.

Yeah, we did get the exclusive. We get that sixty minutes blurred face voice.

Yeah, this is great. I feel like a journalist. It's giving budget it's giving budget. It's giving budget.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for showing up and sitting down with us and having a conversation. It's been such a pleasure getting to know you a little bit better.

Yeah, really appreciate it. Your stories are really hot and it was also kind of fun. And I you know, I hope one day this does become less stressful for you. But I think you've offered so much insight to our audience on why some people might not feel ready or safe coming out. And I think it's really important to again, like Chris said to me, people where they're at for sure.

Me where I am. It's a good position.

In the park.

Maybe another Puerto Rican in the park. Stick around, don't go anywhere.

Today's episode was really great.

Yeah, And what I hope that people get from it, whether you're out or you're not out, that there is a place for you in this world, and if you aren't finding what you're looking for in terms of like community, that just go where it's warm, you know, find the people that do care about who you are and where your safety lies, and go to them. You know.

Yeah, I think one of the biggest takeaways for me from this episode is how often we point the finger people who are in the closet or DL folks and call them liars and you know, to tell them that they are holding sort of internalized homophobia. But what I've gotten from the conversation with our last guest in particular, is that it's usually external forces that make people feel pressure to stay in the closet.

I don't think it's an individual's fault. It's our culture.

It's a mentality of homophobia and queer phobia that still pervades so many parts of our culture and cultures around the globe. So really, to me, it seems like an institutional and cultural problem. And I hope that the next time, you know, you feel the urge to read someone down for being in the closet or identifying as DL, you think about the external factors that might be playing into that decision, and how for some people it really is a matter of.

Security, yeah, and safety, you know.

All right, Well, that is the end of this episode of Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

Thank you so much for joining us. It's been such a wild ride, and we hope you tune in for the next one. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions is directed by Adam Barron, produced by Stevie Williams and Karen mc femino, and executive produced by Elin Martin.

Cruising Confessions is presented by Sniffy's, the ultimate map based cruising.

Platform for gay by and curious people ready to cruise.

Check out the map at snippies dot com and follow Sniffy's on socials at Snippy's app.

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