Monkeypox Outbreak a Boner Killer for NYC Gay Sex Parties

By the time the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released its monkeypox guidelines in July—warning men who have sex with men to avoid “skin-to-skin” contact, sharing cups, casual hookups, and to wash their hands “often”—gay men in NYC had already committed most of those offenses and more during Pride Month at the Members Only Club, an invite-only gay sex party in Hell’s Kitchen, one of the city’s most prominent gayborhoods.

“Hoes and gentlesluts, start your proud engines!” event organizers teased in a newsletter advertising a handful of “jockstrap or naked” parties for Pride weekend, including Jock Pride, Overtime After Hours, Proud Sluts and Ooz. Tickets are around $30 and attendees must submit a photo of themselves shirtless to be added to the mailing list.

An abundance of parties, a surge of tourists, a shortage of monkeypox vaccine doses, and some initial confusion over how to qualify for a shot, quickly made NYC a monkeypox infection hotspot as people began seeking treatment for their symptoms in early July. With monkeypox infections burning through social circles, many of the city’s most popular places for people to engage in gay sex took matters into their own hands and began shutting down.

“It definitely affected our business,” said Chris Hawke, organizer of another ticketed weekly gay sex party and social club called GBU (Golden Boy USA), with meeting locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn. “It was like a double whammy after the 18-month pause with COVID.” But he said stopping the parties was the right thing to do to protect attendees. He explained, many guys who usually attend GBU were “freaked out and a little shell-shocked” by the images of monkeypox they saw online.

Members Only Club announced that it was shutting down on July 15 due to “unfortunate circumstances that quickly extended beyond our control” that included monkeypox. Meanwhile, gay bars with dark rooms for hooking up such as Club Q, The Eagle and The Cock, helped get the word out about monkeypox infections.

“We have been aggressive in educating our clients through social media and in-house,” said a representative for The Cock, located in NYC’s East Village. “We continue to require COVID vax proof and are frequently posting monkeypox info and vax availability on Twitter, Facebook and Insta.”

A new CDC report says gay men are proceeding with more caution. One-time hookups account for “50 percent of daily monkeypox virus transmission,” according to the report, and the center has found that men who have sex with men have indeed reported decreasing their partners. Achieving a 40 percent reduction in one-time partnerships among gay men could delay the spread of the virus “by 20 percent to 31 percent,” the CDC report explained.

The CDC report shows that these efforts have been working to lower transmission as men who have sex with men stop hooking up as often.

In New York, “we have seen cases begin to fall, and transmission slow,” explained Dr. Ashwin Vasan, MD, in an Aug. 24 presentation to the New York City Council. The slowing transmission rate is “due in no small part to our city’s efforts to get tens of thousands of people vaccinated, the heroic efforts of community leaders and advocates to disseminate messages around primary prevention and behavior modification,” he said.

“Most of the gays I know, who are out and about, are vaccinated,” a gay friend who works in beauty told me. “(They) aren’t doing random hookups anymore. Some guys are keeping their clothes on at parties or clubs.”

As more people have received their first monkeypox vaccine dose, they are becoming more confident to rejoin the sex scene, GBU party planner Hawke said. After putting a pause on GBU sex parties since July, Hawke hosted his first event on Saturday, which he said was “at full capacity.” There was one change though to the parties of old—a New York Department of Health van administering first doses of the monkeypox vaccine onsite.

“They were great and were with us all night,” says Hawke, but they weren’t authorized to give second doses to New York residents. “Almost everyone had their first dose and were asking if they could get their second. Some guys from out of town were able to get their second dose since they weren’t in the NYC system. But besides that there weren’t many shots given.” He added, “Hopefully by next Saturday’s ‘GBU Kegger’ event in Park Slope, they will be allowed to give second doses.”

With monkeypox predominately hitting the gay community so hard, there were bound to be comparisons of the virus to HIV, said Hawke. But this isn’t that, he said.

“Having lived through that, I found this to be much different,” he said. “I think the best time in history for us to be gay was the 10 years between 2009 to 2019 when we could all be on PreP, get married and not feel the social stigma or shame in being gay.”

He added, “Then in 2020 came COVID and now monkeypox. I don’t think we fully appreciated what a great decade that was.”

The current outbreak has led to questions about whether monkeypox is a Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI), explained CDC press officer Scott Pauley. “Monkeypox can more accurately be described as ‘sexually transmissible.’” There have been more than 18,000 monkeypox infections across the country, nearly 3,000 of which in NYC are affecting gay men, according to the CDC.

For content creators on OnlyFans, the spread of the monkeypox virus has at times meant less sex and more solo play. A handful of performers have openly shared with their followers that they are taking a break from filming after contracting the virus, including NYC-based creators Timothy Champagne and Boomer Banks. Houston-based porn star Silver Steele shared a now-viral Instagram post documenting his battle with monkeypox during July.

Others have opted out of mentioning the virus at all. The Daily Beast reached out to multiple OnlyFans performers who preferred not to share their experiences.

NYseed, a NYC-based OnlyFans account that hosts sex parties for other gay OnlyFans content creators, told The Daily Beast that monkeypox has interrupted filming schedules as models follow prevention guidelines after exposure.

“There has been a two-month period where we were experiencing a lot of last-minute cancellations,” said R, an organizer for the account. As vaccinations have become available, they are starting to film again.

“It’s completely fair for the CDC to have told gay men to limit their partners,” he said. “What is unfair is that it was said in a bubble—gay men limiting their partners was one way to help prevent more spread, but it wasn’t the only way.”

The focus on limiting sexual partners among gay men made it “seem like this was an STI rather than showing the full picture about how monkeypox is spread,” he explained. “It also wouldn’t have been nearly as important to mitigate the spread if the government had handled the vaccine better.”

The monthly masturbation bukkake group called the Gokkun Gang doesn’t charge a ticket for entry to its event or make any money from its attendees. Its decision to shut down this summer over monkeypox was purely for safety, says Randy McMurdo.

“Every sex party organizer I know has put things on hold and most friends are limiting their hookups,” he said. “The disease can be extremely painful, so even though it is not lethal, it is nothing to toy with.”

McMurdo recently sent a survey out to gauge the monkeypox vaccination rates among its members and see where everyone’s comfort level is at to plan a future gathering. “I think for the most part guys are cooling their jets until everyone is vaxxed and cases die down,” he said. “I think we really dodged a bullet. What if this had been something novel and lethal, like a Marburg-type virus that got a hold in the community and spread easily via sex. No vaccine, no treatment, it would have been HIV all over again.”

Because Gokkun Gang is mostly focused on masturbation, McMurdo considers it one of the city’s safest sex gatherings.

“As you know, gangbangs, cumdumps, are a big thing now that guys feel liberated by PreP,” he said. “Even though the risk of HIV is low, it’s a perfect way to spread other STIs. Our party is mostly JO so from an STI risk it was pretty low risk. I always felt good about it from a safety standpoint as guys could do whatever they were comfortable with.”

Overall, McMurdo says monkeypox is having a big impact on the gay community because group sex venues offer more than just sex—they offer a place to talk and interact. “They are an important outlet for gay men,” he said. “We get a lot of bi/curious guys who are exploring their sexuality but are not fully out.”

After two years of COVID-19 shutdowns, everyone is just looking for an opportunity to let loose, he said. “The shutdowns definitely affected the gay community, and part of the reason I think monkeypox happened is guys went hog wild after nearly two years of celibacy and no sexual outlets,” he said. But he urges venues to stay closed until it is safe.

“The big danger with monkeypox is that it spreads via touch. It is not an STI, but sex of any type besides solo JO, involves a lot of touch,” he said. “My worry is bi or down-low guys will get it, give it to their wives, who give it to their kids via touch. Kids go to school, and we are off to the races.”

He argues the CDC is doing the right thing by focusing on gay men. “It is also appropriate for guys to moderate their sexual behavior for a couple of months. It is the best way to stamp it out at the source. Fortunately, times have changed and I see the guidelines as being honest, not homophobic.”