Then there was the immigrant-led underground, dominated by working class gays and lesbians, Latin drag queens, trans people. There were the more mainstream-adjacent scenes that centered in East Hollywood and Silver Lake: leather, bears, rockers, “creative” types, the people who congregated at places like Akbar, MJ’s, the Eagle, Cuffs and Faultline. From the front page of the Los Angeles Times 70 years ago today, Jan. As a result, it’s taken me some years to realize that there were actually two alternative gay underground cultures in Los Angeles at the time, and that many of us had firm footholds in both. It is important for all kind of Relationship Like-marriage partner, sex partner. The corresponding flow was fluid and bent slightly toward the nihilistic in everything from music to sexual practices to street fashion. 11, but also well before dating apps, necessitating analog contact with strangers in order to have a life in a driving-heavy metropolis. Maybe this was because the period came right after the vibrating trauma of Sept. There wasn’t a lot of overthinking going on labels weren’t in style. We need to talk about safer-sex interventions, says Stephen Simon, AIDS coordinator for the city of Los Angeles and an openly bisexual black man. In L.A.’s central neighborhoods and its Eastside, denizens followed the underground gay calendar from club to club, week to week, where we made bands of friends and notched strings of enthusiastic bed mates.