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3X7
Foreword
3 x 7 by Miles Cigolle is a work of fiction-fantasy, but inspired by real-life experiences. It is a book about gay life in New York in the early 1980s, It is filled with passionately intense gay sex, but it's also about camaraderie, mentorship and unselfish love, among a couple (Miles and Abbey) and their cherished friend (Bob), who comprise the trio, with the later addition of a not-entirely-innocent young acolyte (Tim).
In the New York of those days, to sexually active gay men, the famous 10% estimate of the homosexual population seemed to be a gross underestimation. At that time there was an abundance of well-known gay trysting venues, all of which are visited or mentioned in the pages of this in Manhattan, the abandoned piers by the West Side Highway; the Ramble section of Central Park; the “tea rooms” in certain subway station rest rooms; and the commercial spaces in the West Village and the Meat Packing District that were given over to communal orgies. On Fire Island, in the summers, there was the famous Meat Rack in the wooded area between the largely gay hamlets of Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove. But in fact, sex was to be had everywhere and anywhere. In their 3 x 7 romp, Miles and his buddies also engage in sex with a mechanic in a foreign-car garage, doormen in apartment buildings, a workman on a construction site and a cute attendant in a high-end candy shop. In fantasy, and with the deepest irony, there is sex with a handsome young priest in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the very heart of Catholic New York and the disapproving world.
Several of my favorite moments in this book are the humorous ones. Something about sex in the back aisle of the cooking section of a Barnes and Noble bookstore made me laugh out loud while reading 3 x 7 in my local Starbuck's Reserve. Why? The image incongruously combines the much-caricatured effeminate interests of gay men with uninhibited masculine sex. The illicit secretiveness of it all is somehow funny as well, and sex right under the noses of people in the straight world. Then there's the ethnicity of the penis--Abbey's Jewish cock, Bob's German cock, and the enormous French black dick of a foreign - car mechanic named François, plus several tantalizingly substantial Latin cocks. I couldn't contain my laughter by the time I got to François. It’s all very sexy, too, reminiscent of William S Burroughs but not, in the main, as dark.
3 x 7 also has personal notes for me, having crossed paths with Miles in friendship during the era he describes so well. Miles’s work has helped me to realize how grateful I am to have been young in that special place and time, to have ventured from my bookish pursuits enough to enjoy it all as much as I did--and to have survived. All told, 3 x 7 is an importantcontribution to gay male literature in my estimation . It is a gift for baby-boomer gay men, a part-fiction paean to our lives, thoughtfully embellished by the lyrics of then-popular songs that are placed at the beginning of each chapter. 3 x 7 is also an unapologetic historical record written by a man who loves art and life, documenting and celebrating, not disparaging, our experience for succeeding generations.
Robert C. Abrams, M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry in Medicine
Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
3 x 7 by Miles Cigolle is a work of fiction-fantasy, but inspired by real-life experiences. It is a book about gay life in New York in the early 1980s, It is filled with passionately intense gay sex, but it's also about camaraderie, mentorship and unselfish love, among a couple (Miles and Abbey) and their cherished friend (Bob), who comprise the trio, with the later addition of a not-entirely-innocent young acolyte (Tim).
In the New York of those days, to sexually active gay men, the famous 10% estimate of the homosexual population seemed to be a gross underestimation. At that time there was an abundance of well-known gay trysting venues, all of which are visited or mentioned in the pages of this in Manhattan, the abandoned piers by the West Side Highway; the Ramble section of Central Park; the “tea rooms” in certain subway station rest rooms; and the commercial spaces in the West Village and the Meat Packing District that were given over to communal orgies. On Fire Island, in the summers, there was the famous Meat Rack in the wooded area between the largely gay hamlets of Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove. But in fact, sex was to be had everywhere and anywhere. In their 3 x 7 romp, Miles and his buddies also engage in sex with a mechanic in a foreign-car garage, doormen in apartment buildings, a workman on a construction site and a cute attendant in a high-end candy shop. In fantasy, and with the deepest irony, there is sex with a handsome young priest in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the very heart of Catholic New York and the disapproving world.
Several of my favorite moments in this book are the humorous ones. Something about sex in the back aisle of the cooking section of a Barnes and Noble bookstore made me laugh out loud while reading 3 x 7 in my local Starbuck's Reserve. Why? The image incongruously combines the much-caricatured effeminate interests of gay men with uninhibited masculine sex. The illicit secretiveness of it all is somehow funny as well, and sex right under the noses of people in the straight world. Then there's the ethnicity of the penis--Abbey's Jewish cock, Bob's German cock, and the enormous French black dick of a foreign - car mechanic named François, plus several tantalizingly substantial Latin cocks. I couldn't contain my laughter by the time I got to François. It’s all very sexy, too, reminiscent of William S Burroughs but not, in the main, as dark.
3 x 7 also has personal notes for me, having crossed paths with Miles in friendship during the era he describes so well. Miles’s work has helped me to realize how grateful I am to have been young in that special place and time, to have ventured from my bookish pursuits enough to enjoy it all as much as I did--and to have survived. All told, 3 x 7 is an importantcontribution to gay male literature in my estimation . It is a gift for baby-boomer gay men, a part-fiction paean to our lives, thoughtfully embellished by the lyrics of then-popular songs that are placed at the beginning of each chapter. 3 x 7 is also an unapologetic historical record written by a man who loves art and life, documenting and celebrating, not disparaging, our experience for succeeding generations.
Robert C. Abrams, M.D.
Professor of Psychiatry in Medicine
Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY
Paperback
Published July 15, 2022
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