Hello. I am new to this forum, but definitely not new to Philly. I came to this forum, precisely for the reason this thread started. I don't know what is it about Philly (have been living here for 22 years), and I have seen a decline of venues and people willing to hookup. I have to agree with NeedSeedBad in that there seems to be a bad culture that doesn't promote unity.
Years ago I used to go to sex parties here in Philly, and one of them closed and the guys running it moved to Vegas. The other stopped the parties, and this is his account about the reasons for him to stop: He said to me that he stopped the parties because he got death threats if he didn't stop. He was running sex parties for big men of color in NYC, and decided to bring them to Philly. I attended a few of them and then they stopped.
I stopped going to the bath house in Philly because (a) they were always the same people, (b) they were always the same people with poor attitude, and (c) the management and employees of the place were treating customers like garbage, and (d) I got a job for a nonprofit that helped the community and many of the clients also went to that place, and it didn't feel right for me to go where they went to hook up. In one occasion, at the bath house, I found an employee in the room that rented, claiming that "he was checking and noticed that it was unlocked". I have OCD, so trust me, it was locked. He was lying. He was the same employee who processed me when I entered, so he knew that I hadn't checked my wallet with them. Also, I got a one-year membership and they cut it short by a month, putting its expiration date a month sooner than it should be. So, shady practices all around.
Philly is full of clicks ready to "attack" outsiders with gossip or racial shit, or just whatever reason. We don't even have Gay Pride anymore over gossipy, catty bullshit. And that is, after being the only city I know that had Gay Pride, Black Gay Pride and Latino Gay Pride separately. Overall it's a city of bitter, angry people with the attitude that comes with it, but lately has gotten worse in that respect. We shouldn't expect differently from gay men there.
