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I was christened into the rituals of darkroom sex by blunder. New York's Wonder Bar in the East Village had a walk-in-closet-sized backroom when I visited in 1995. I entered through a tarp-like curtain and paused at the doorway, hesitating long enough to annoy the breathy men inside who glowered at the beam of light I was allowing to slice through the room. Using my hands as eyes I treaded carefully, shifting through gropes and hairy tentacles and settling on some thick arms that shoved me to the ground. When I was vertical again and ready to leave I dusted myself off, patted myself down and noticed my wallet was no longer in my back pocket.

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or the 20 minutes I spent squatting in the undergrowth of pant legs I had kept checking my back pocket and finding my wallet safely in place. And yet, now it was gone. In a panic I knelt back down to feel the cold, filthy concrete around my feet, slapping at strangers' sneakers and god knows what else, patting the ground frantically like Velma in search of her glasses. In the indignity of my flailing about, an image flashed in my mind: light switch. As I'd lingered in the doorway, I recalled glancing at a light switch before peering into the dark. I made my way back determined, found the switch and didn't think twice about flicking it on.

At once the men turned my way, their expressions reminding me of night vision: eyes disoriented, looking but not seeing, in disheveled states of semi-undress. They appeared like cave-dwelling creatures caught unaware by the hiker's flashlight. I realized the grave infraction I'd committed and kept the light on just long enough to spot my wallet laying innocently on the ground amid a forest of denim. Before anyone had time to complain I turned the light off and retrieved my wallet.

I had violated the cardinal rule of darkroom safety: never enter with your wallet, much less with it in your back pocket. Pickpockets are the perennial menace of darkrooms throughout the world. Joan, the manager at Boyberry in Barcelona, emphasizes this most obvious recommendation. "Don't have anything of value, nothing," he told me. Leave it at home, in your hotel room, or at the coat check.

Though I was lucky and proved to be bold at Wonder Bar, which has since closed, most darkrooms don't have accessible light switches, thank goodness. Used condoms are what cleaning crews find most often at the end of the night, though they can also find keys, wallets, phones, soiled shirts, broken belts, even shoes, according to Ted, the manager of Cuckoo's Nest in Amsterdam.

"Too many people were using the darkroom to chat," Ted told me, explaining the mistake that Cuckoo's Nest once made by turning its very large darkroom into the smoking area of the bar. There were complaints, naturally. Talking is noise, moaning is atmosphere. In darkrooms men communicate through touch, actions - walking away, gently removing an unwanted hand from your ass - and, if absolutely necessary, the faintest whisper with lips pressed to ear. This code of silence places creative constraints on sex negotiations. If condoms are important to you, bring them and apply them. Don't expect verbal communication (such as HIV disclosure) in an environment where talking is a killjoy. Boyberry and Cuckoo's Nest provide condoms for free. If you plan on getting fucked in the darkroom, bring lube and please douche. Hygiene is essential darkroom etiquette. Body smells shouldn't be pungent or fragrant. Save it for theme night or date night.

The very nature of darkrooms is to blot out the bias of looks, to see with one's hands. "Have an open mind," Ted says. A final cautionary note on darkrooms and drugs: don't fall out on GHB, mix Viagra and poppers, or stumble about sloppy drunk. In spaces as dim as Cuckoo's Nest, if you pass out or worse in a private cabin, nobody may notice till morning. Know your limits, gentlemen.

Author Profile:  Tony Valenzuela
	Tony Valenzuela is a Los Angeles based writer and leader in the gay men's health movement