I was just out of high school in the 70's and I toured 42nd Street. I was from a neighboring state. I could not believe the scene. Times Square was openly every kind of sexual outlet imaginable to meet any and every need. Everything from a major theatre showing Linda Lovelace in Deep Throat to so many quarter theatres, Plato's Retreat, Cupid's Retreat, 20 dollar whores, tons of flyers being handed out and strewn all over the sidewalks and streets, drugs, needles, small sex clubs, upstairs, downstairs, neon signs, absolutely unabashed, unsupervised by law enforcement, allowed to flourish.
I was really, really young and not prepared for all of that, immature with a steady girlfriend satisfying any and every sexual need. I went to a burlesque theatre and a very nice, warm black lady who was a stripper invited me to a back room for a massage. Coming from a totally white upbringing, I had almost never even seen a black lady. And she was very different. She saw that I was young and innocent. She was large breasted in her 30's, possibly double my age, older-sisterly, but warm and very kind and walked the kid through it. But, I felt incompetent because she took the lead and with my girlfriend, I always took the lead. The nice black lady's maturity intimidated me. The excitement was too much. A lasted about three seconds.
I remember another joint that was a sex club. I walked down the stairs and was greeted by a guard, a hippie kind of a cool dude with long hair and a handlebar mustache in his 30's. He also saw that I was very young, a kid, and he explained how the club works. You pay 75 dollars to come inside; you are given a locker to strip down and put your clothes in the locker and you can roam around and "make it" with a number of women, and there is a table with a smorgasbord of food. But, 75 bucks was really a lot of dough for a student in those days, and, I was intimidated by the whole scene. The people there were like men and women, and I was just a kid. I was happy to leave. I mean I wondered how you would walk around naked and eat a sandwich and go from girl to girl. I realized that I was no courageous bigtime player. So, I ran home to my safe girlfriend where I was her big guy and in control.