Promiscuity

I asked him his name,

But he said it wasn’t important

And undid my belt.

He made me stand on the toilet seat,

Grabbed my hardening dick and balls

And stuffed it all into his mouth.

I had never let anyone touch my asshole before…

There were two other ushers

In the bathroom, bored

Having to bust up another couple of fags

Like nameless creatures fucking in plain sight

Who needed to be shamed

And we begged for it.

When reading this passage from City of God by Gil Cuadros, I stopped several times to go back and reread certain parts, the physical parts; “grabbed my hardening dick and balls and stuffed it all into his mouth.” I reread these physical verses over because of the impact of these word’s vulgarity and intensity. Never in my life had I seen poetry with such promiscuity as straightforward and bluntly honest as when I read City of God. Cuadros perpetuated the role of the victim not only in is emotional relationships, but in his physical ones as well, which led him to come across many random sexual encounters.

Promiscuity did not seem to be looked down upon by Gil Cuadros. He tells the story of a sexual encounter with a stranger in the poem “Conquering Immortality.” “I asked his name, but he said it wasn’t important and undid my belt.” The first thing I thought of while reading this verse was a whore. If a straight couple were to have this same sexual encounter, the women would automatically be labeled as promiscuous just by the fact that she did not know the name of her sexual partner. Here, Cuadros writes as if this licentious encounter was not rare or was expected.

“There were two other ushers in the bathroom, bored having to bust up another couple of fags like nameless creatures fucking in plain sight.” Here, Cuadros shows that promiscuity, though stereotypical, was expected of homosexual men even