Earlier this year I was sitting on a bench at Stark Bollock Naked, Vauxhall’s much-loved end-of-weekend gay cruising party, waiting for my friend to get dressed, when an American man approached me and said, “Oh wow… a real English scally! I see you guys on the sites, do you know the website English Lads? I love this whole look.” He held his arm out, turning his phone towards us in his hand, and took a selfie.
I was in Adidas trackies, a white vest and a cap. To the British eye, I’m not a scally. I’m a public schoolboy who’s been east London-ified. A hipster with a childhood crush on Jamiroquai, a splash of Jack Wills and just a pinch of chemsex aura. But I thought nothing more of it… Until a few days later. I was sitting by myself in a bar in Fitzrovia. It was their underwear-theme night and a few of us regulars were sitting around sipping our drinks in the dark, wearing just our boxers. Practising sobriety, I find cruising bars useful because they’re to the point — sexual liaisons aren’t 10 tedious pints away. As humans we’ve learnt to drag out the prelude to sex so that it spans plates of calamari and gifts from Oliver Bonas. There’s nothing worse than listening to a man’s Moretti-fuelled rant about AI’s ulterior motives when you just want to get him into bed.
