Glide: It's Not Just A Lube

Last Sunday morning, I met my friend Marc at a church we used to go to every now and then when I lived in San Francisco in the early part of this decade. Glide Methodist Church became famous for its own brand of hyper-liberal sermons under the direction of Cecil Williams, a progressive pastor who welcomed gays into the church in 1964 and fought for transgender rights in the 1970's, while also turning Glide into the biggest provider of social services in The City.

I was introduced to Glide by a guy named Jeff who I dated in 2000. Shortly after moving to San Francisco at the age of 24, I met Jeff in a men-for-men chat room on AOL. Jeff was a hot young daddy-type in his late 30's, the manager of a small hotel, a recovering alcoholic, and a member of the Glide Ensemble (the choir). The first time I went to Glide, I went alone to impress Jeff. I had never been in a church like that before, where the first hour was spent singing and dancing, and the 15-minute sermon at the end was almost an afterthought, seemingly meant to just be a positive message for you to take with you for the day. I left in a great mood.

About a month into dating Jeff, I even went on a whitewater rafting trip with him and the rest of the Glide Ensemble. The congregation is about half black, a bit less than a quarter gay, and includes the homeless and rich and everyone in between. The Glide Ensemble was no different. As we sat around a campfire at the end of the day, passing a joint and telling jokes, with queens shouting, "Praise Jesus!" at every mention of a big dick, I thought the surrealism of it all was one of the most fabulous things I had ever experienced. It only got better when Jeff and I quietly started to have sex in our tent that night, and Jeff pulled out the Glide lube. I bet God loves a good pun.

It didn't take long for things to start falling apart with Jeff though. He had seemed so responsible and dateable when we first met, but I started learning that he was on the liberal end of the Glide congregation (and that is liberal). It started when we went to meet some friends of his at a bar one night. As we walked from the car to the bar, he said, "I should probably warn you that I have been in porn movies before, and it might come up because that is how I met these guys. I thought you should know." I asked how many he had done, and when. He said seven, in the last year. Strike one.

A few weeks later we went to a movie at the AMC theater on Van Ness, but showed up really early. We decided to get some coffee at the diner across the street. Somehow the subject turned to prostitutes, and he said that he should probably tell me that he had become a prostitute recently. He hoped that I wouldn't mind too much. Now trust me, I'm not one to judge a past of prostitution, but I am a realist who knows that dating a guy with an active career as a hooker is probably more trouble than its worth. Strike two.

And finally, I went to his house one night for a dinner date. He answered the door in his underwear. I thought he was just taking a long time to get ready, but after we walked to the back of the house, he sat down at the computer and said he was just jacking off with a guy on the webcam. He asked me if I could maybe put on a show and blow him so the guy could watch. Strike three. I was out.

I avoided Glide for a good year after that, but in the wonderful haze of business trips and partying and sex and sex and sex that became my life in San Francisco, I eventually went back looking for something stable. I started going with Marc, or Umecke, or by myself. And like always, I left feeling great.

So this last weekend, I took my new lover. I wanted to hang out with Marc, I wanted to share Glide with my lover, and I think I wanted to maybe give a shout out to God for allowing my life to fall into place here in SF again.

Unfortunately though, it appears that things have changed at Glide. Cecil is no longer the pastor, and neither is the great guy that took over for him when I was going years ago. The new pastor took the stand and screamed and yelled about how sin is the cause of everything wrong in the world. Sin is the reason that half the world is hungry. Sin is the reason that rich men here in San Francisco pay young black men to fight each other. He didn't elaborate on any of this, or tell us what sins he was referring to. He didn't give guidance on how to avoid these sins. He just yelled. I left feeling a bit confused and uncomfortable. I was sad, because I felt like I left with one less safe place in San Francisco.

Fortunately for me, I am feeling more comfortable in my life and more comfortable in my head than I did back then, so I don't need the safe place as much as I used to. I still praise Glide for all that they give to the community, but I doubt I'll go back. I guess for me, Glide is just a lube again.

(Did I really just turn this post into a love letter where Glide the Lube persisted throughout my life? God I'm tacky.)

God: "Seriously, the pun is over. Stop it already."