The Strange Experiences

In the 1970s I Accidentally Turned More than 300 Real People into True Friends

That’s me above. A nerdy, funny, 29-year-old geek who arrived in San Francisco in 1971. Just 3 years later my friend April (below) said, “de Jimbob, we’re going to massage school, 3 nights a week for 8 weeks.“ We didn’t want to become professionals, but it never hurts to know how to provide pleasure, relaxation and healing to anyone, while becoming a better lover for a special someone.

The first night the 3 instructors and we 15 or so students all put our clothes in lockers. just keeping out notebooks for taking notes during the demonstrations. Everyone seemed comfortable being nude. After the instructors demonstrated the night’s massage strokes, we students paired up and practiced on each other. I found that massaging and being massaged by anyone is a great pleasure.

April and I emerged 2 months later with 4 trained hands and 2 portable massage tables. For the next couple of years I enjoyed offering free massages, mostly to friends I found attractive. My hope was almost always for some kind of sex, and this hope was realized maybe a third of the time. Either way, they might or might not accept an invitation for a rematch; so the lesson I learned was, “Try harder to have sex the first time; because you might not get a second chance.”

At a party I met Lady Jane Montgomery (above), owner of the Montgomery Playhouse in San Francisco’s rowdy North Beach. We became great party buddies, and when we found out we’d both been to massage school, massage buddies as well. The first time we traded I considered suggesting sex, but didn’t want to ruin our friendship.

In 1976 she invited me to her theater for the opening of the stage version of The Rocky Horror Show. We were standing in the lobby before the show, with our arms around each other’s waists, and I was telling her about a new age workshop I’d attended where I was taken on a trust walk: being blindfolded and then led around to interesting things to touch and smell and investigate with all my senses except sight. Then up walked Lady Jane’s weekend house guest, famous New York actor/model Cal Culver (below).

Lady Jane introduced us and told Cal what I’d been saying about the trust walk. “I want one,” he said.

The next afternoon he rang my buzzer, and I went down to meet him in the lobby. I handed him a blindfold and started leading him around the neighborhood. He was really into it, and we also really hit it off. He had a very sharp mind, and he said I reminded him of his good buddy Andy Warhol. It also turned out his lover was a famous Hollywood movie star and also a best-selling novelist whose books I loved.

Suddenly I realized that earlier, while I’d been waiting for Cal, I’d taken my portable massage table out of the closet and set it up in the living room to be ready for the friend who was coming over later. I led Cal back to my place and put his hands on the massage table. He said, “Great,” undressed (except for his blindfold) and climbed on.

Here I should mention my sexual inclinations. When I hit puberty, all my fantasies were about girls. Then one day after school in the 7th grade I saw some high school guys playing basketball with their shirts off, and went, ‘Whoa!” The next morning in class I was looking at the head cheerleader, got a stiffie, and thought, “Good, I still like girls too.” (And my longest sexual relationship has been with a woman.) So ordinarily I would have suggested sex to Cal, but I didn’t want to mess up my friendship with him or Lady Jane; so I didn’t.

Afterwards, Cal took off his blindfold, sat up, and said, “That was wonderful! I just wish I hadn’t known it was you!”

Gasp!

Cal noticed my stricken look, laughed, hugged me, and said, “No, no. I just meant, think what it would be like to get a massage from someone when you didn’t know what they looked like.” I agreed it would be very interesting, but didn’t think any more about it.

The next day Cal called and said he wanted to blindfold Lady Jane and bring her over for a mystery massage. I was confused. “But she already knows what I look like.”

Cal said he’d bring her over, get her undressed, and put her on the table. And he’d tell her there was no talking; so she wouldn’t hear my voice. I dubiously said OK. However, once she was on my table and Cal had left, I had serious doubts. For one thing, the face cradle on my massage table was just a hole in the table itself, instead of being the usual extension you attached to the end. Also, If she suspected where she was, Lady Jane would notice the music was coming from where mine did; she’d realize coming into the building and getting to my apartment was familiar, etc. She might even recognize my magic touch. I was almost certain she knew where she was. However, I’d promised Cal I wouldn’t talk; so I didn’t.

Imagine my surprise when, at the end, Lady Jane took off her blindfold and started the scream of a maiden who’s just been raped! Color me startled out of my wits!

Then her eyes focused, and she gasped, “Oh, Strange!” and went into peals of laughter. It turned out Cal had told her he’d borrowed my apartment; so she did know where she was, but naturally assumed I was anyone but me. And she’d asked if she knew the mystery masseur, and Cal had truthfully said yes. In short, she’d imagined I was Bob Dulaney, the hunk who played Rocky at her theater.

Imagine my surprise, a night or two later, when Cal and Lady Jane brought me a blindfolded Bob Dulaney (below) for the first Strange Experience with someone who really didn’t know what I looked like.

I found him very attractive and was wondering about trying to turn him on. He knew I was male, so if that was a problem he would let me know. If he was disappointed when he took off his blindfold I could protest that I’d done nothing to make him think I was better looking than I was. In fact, the whole point was that he didn’t know what I looked like. He might be a little miffed, but I’d have the memory of a lifetime.

Then something hit me. What if he wasn’t just a little miffed? What if he had an immediate strong gut reaction like Lady Jane’s? Did I want to be alone with a big muscular stranger who felt he’d been taken advantage of? I had to forgot about trying for sex. Afterwards he was very nice and was happy for me to take the above picture of him, which he agreed I might even publish in a magazine and get us both some publicity.

After he left I realized there were several more strong reasons for not trying to have sex with him. Cal and Lady Jane had brought him. What if he were upset and complained to them? I might lose face with two of my best friends. Or what if he actually liked it but still told them about it? They might hesitate to bring me more people to massage. But there was something much more than that. From past experience I knew that the percentage of people who looked like him who were willing to have sex with me was very low. So if I tried I would be taking advantage of him; and he’d very probably be, at the least, disappointed and unhappy. So from that time on I was honestly unwilling to have any kind of sex with anyone who didn’t know what I looked like. And when I learned how good I felt about myself and how all the Experiencers felt about me when I treated them so honorably, I became not just honestly unwilling, but honestly and cheerfully unwilling to have sex with them, which, during the entire massage, they felt in my hands, heard in my voice, etc., and which amazed and delighted them.

 Of course, after they’d seen me, when I gave them standard massages, I was free to suggest a happy ending or more. However, even if they said yes, that might lessen the chances they’d want more massages or that they’d send me more of their favorite people. During Strange Experiences my rule remained being honestly and cheerfully unwilling to have any kind of sex. On later massages, I’d simply wait to be asked. And with the hundreds I massaged, a blessed minority actually wanted to have sex with me. What a concept!

Then I noticed something. The better looking people were, the more likely they were to offer to cook me dinner if I’d give them another massage or let them bring me their spouse, lover, best friend or other favorite person for a Strange Experience. In 1980 I wrote down names of the 20 people with whom I most often gave or traded massages. Turns out, 18 of the 20 were gorgeous. Andy Warhol once pointed out that gorgeous people spend more effort trying to avoid sex than regular people do trying to have it. They get hit upon many times a day. They can’t spend an hour alone, even fully dressed, with anyone without it happening. And during a massage? For most of them I was the only person they’d ever met who could cheerfully resist them naked.

My whole social life went platinum as well. If I were going to a bar, a movie, or anywhere else, I’d call 5 to 20 of them to join me. And they were so comfortable with me that people often overimagined our relationship. If my famous author friend Armistead Maupin. who also lived in the Castro, would run into me while I was alone, for instance, he’d ask, “Where’s your harem, Strange? Where’s your stable?”

It was at that point that I decided to share this wonderful discovery with the world; so I wrote a 100-page book called The Strange Experience. However, before I published it I realized no one could possibly believe the word of a geek named Strange. That’s when I went to my index cards and was amazed to find I’d given more than 300 Experiences. I hoped I could find at least a few Experiencers willing to tell the world they’d enjoyed one of these blindfolded massages. Maybe I could find as many as 10.

When I started calling, the first 10 friends all said sure. And they didn’t have any qualms about anything. “Are you going to tell that we were both naked? Are you going to make sure they know there was no sex?” No one even asked. Amazed, I changed my plans. I doubled the length of the book by having every other page be a full-page photo of an Experiencer. Only 5 people politely declined the honor, which left me with 200+ wonderful friends I didn’t get to call. (Incidentally, even though no one had asked, because I thought of it and thought it was funny, I told the last 25 or so people I called that I was going to tell the readers there was “no sex or violence no matter how hard they’d begged”)

There was really only one big problem with the book. I was so fixated on the fact that I had ended up surrounded with gorgeous people that I mostly bragged insufferably about that and really didn’t even explain how the Experiences came about, or most of the other things I’ve just told you.

So how do you, to name one perfect example, start giving Wonderful Experiences once we humans can touch each other again? Simple. Ask a good friend to put on a blindfold and let you massage them. You’ll both find it very interesting. Then say, “Think how much more interesting it would have been if you hadn’t known what I looked like.” Invite them to send you people they’d love to delight.

And you’re sure to want to add, both to regular massages and Wonderful Experiences, a couple of Wingsong meditations and chakra-balancing techniques. Take a peek at my “Visioning” page.