The Darkroom Review

I’ve been waiting for ten minutes in front of the police building for Pepi to arrive. It is a bit cold, and I have been walking around the city visiting art galleries. I am not in the mood to be standing waiting for things to happen anymore, but she likes to do the putivuelta together and insisted that I linger while she comes from work. It is 7 pm. “Sorry, the gossips at the after-work drinks were good this week.” She is already happy. We walked up the square to the Cuckoo’s Nest, nobody was outside.

“Uuu, the bald guy convention!” says Pepi as soon as we enter. The first floor is packed mostly with older men, some groups of friends, two girls -that’s new-, and some young guys standing holding their beer. The atmosphere is talkative. We sat at the bar next to a couple in their 30s who were not the usual type of clientele of this establishment. They were conventionally handsome, more the type of guys you see at a circuit party than an old darkroom in the center of Amsterdam. We ordered our beer (4.40 each) and immediately headed downstairs to the darkroom. Freed from Desire was blasting on the speakers.

With Pepi, there’s a strict pathway while doing the putivuelta in Cuckoo’s darkroom. First, we walk to the left corridor with the cabins. When we reach the wooden seat, we peek into the darkroom, and if the cabin in front of it is closed, we check what’s happening inside through the glass wall of the next box. Then, we continue to what Pepi likes to call the predatory corner, a section with a group of cabins under a bulb, where you can barely see the people inside the boxes, but they have a clear view of you. We continue through a dark section with two cabins and an open space with a stool, and then to the corridor back to the stairs, where there are two more cabins, a screen, and a rectangular brick pen.

“Not even to sell kidneys in the black market we have material tonight!” I laughed, but I get what Pepi means. The truth is, in Cuckoo’s Nest, some patrons rather than loyal costumers are more part of the bar’s inventory. The old guy seated on the wooden stool, the bald guy who fucks everything that moves, the Brazilian guy who never interacts with other people, the arab guy who plays hard to get. No matter the day or time, you will always find them there. A sure sign of a good darkroom is seeing people you cannot imagine having a life outside of it. Does the desi guy always flashing his big cock at the predatory corner stand in line to get his statiegeld and have long Zoom meetings for work? Unthinkable! This darkroom has plenty of those cases. 

It is no coincidence that Cuckoo’s have achieved breeding such a rich native fauna. Its darkroom is very well designed. For me, it should be declared a national monument of the Netherlands. People do not design darkrooms like that anymore. The spacious cabins, with lights that can be turned off, hangers for your clothes, long metal shelves for drinks, and solid wood walls with gloryholes, are a testament to other times. Yet, it is a pity that in such an inviting space, there is not much sex happening tonight.  Well, at least for most of us, Pepi is already on her knees sucking a naked guy covering his face with his hair. I will never understand how she does it. “Just go for it, be yourself!” she told me once at the naked beach in The Hague. But for me, cruising is more of a telepathy game than being comfortable in your own skin. I don’t speak cruising, and unless the other person is giving clear, almost physical cues, I don’t get the hint

Often, if sex is off the table, you can easily talk with someone you wouldn’t meet anywhere else. I tried to start a conversation with the guy seated next to me on the bench in front of the darkroom, but I only got back smiles from him. It took me a while to realize he was deaf. Suddenly, a chubby guy decided to start sensually dancing for me to the rhythm of Leigh Howlett’s remix of Holding on by Michael Watford. He opened his mouth and moved his tongue side to side while walking backwards until disappearing into the darkroom. Although flamboyant, I guess that’s the type of signs I get. I could barely decide if I was amazed or horrified when I heard a voice with a thick Spanish accent saying “Not my type…. Not my type….. Not my type!”. It came from a tall guy holding a beer while pointing to everybody who crossed his path. My deaf fella was moaning somewhere in a cabin, and I envy that he couldn’t hear the comments of the entitled pricks that seem to be invading gay spaces lately. 

I decided to walk again. I saw a shirtless Pepi stealing a dick that someone else was sucking. The couple of handsome guys we saw at the bar upstairs were now in an open box, putting on a show for everybody to see. Thick beards, toned bodies, Calvin Klein briefs, perfectly shaved pubes. Unfortunately, there was not much to see. Soon, I made friends with a Romanian guy who showed me a handwritten sign in one of the cabins’ ceilings: SUGE PULA, suck dick. Did someone bring paint and brushes into the darkroom? Eventually, I managed to hook up wth an indian guy. “It’s my first time here. Why is everybody walking?” “It’s the putivuelta” I answered. He looked at me confused, and I explained to him that most people were expecting the fuck of their life to come walking down the stairs next. “You are bad at sucking dick” he said after he came. “I am sorry, I am not the fuck of your life!” When I went to the bathroom to freshen up, I realized that he not only insulted my skills but also gave me a hickey. I guess it’s dickhead night at the Cuckoo’s Nest.

I went looking for Pepi to say goodbye. The same people we saw when we arrived were in the same formation, still not interacting with each other. I finally found her being the Lucky Pierre of the hot circuit couple. I pushed myself between her audience and waved goodbye to her. She sent me kisses with her right hand while keeping up the show. What a blessing to have extrovert sluts like Pepi in this world, or we wouldn’t have anything to comment on from the darkrooms. When I was leaving, I saw a DJ at the bar playing for an audience of 5 people. It is almost eleven, and the other sleazier and more naked bars in the city are opening, triggering a migration of all the guys who are still looking for the fuck of their life, that one that would make all the time waiting, all the steps walked, worth it.

Welcome to The Darkroom Review, the section of the blog where we talk about the things we’ve seen at the places where you can’t see much. Today, we feature our local darkroom, a venue that is quite bright because it is the biggest XXX cinema in the Netherlands: Erotheek Schiedam. 

While gay life in Rotterdam has been in intensive care since corona, with saunas and cruising bars closing around the city, the neighboring town of Schiedam -where the headquarters of El Corruptor are located- has mastered the art of giving a hint of gay to things that are officially not gay. Bars with rainbow flags and photos of the royals that are not gay bars; casual clothing stores where you can buy pumps and harnesses, and cinemas where the clientele is straight, until they are not anymore.

Part cinema, part large sex shop, the cruising area of Erotheek is located in the basement. After paying the 15 euros entrance fee, a staircase descends to a lounge area with a velvet round sofa in front of two doors. The entrance to the cinema is the door under the stairs, and the person at the register buzzes people in. Once inside, the place is divided between the cinemas and the cabins. To the left, the first room is the gay cinema, with chunky faux leather chairs that make a loud noise every time someone sits. Behind the chairs, there is a dark corridor with holes in the walls, a cabin with gay porn, and the lockers. On the other side is the hetero cinema -with the same chairs-  and an adjacent room with a screen, three chairs, and an Andrew’s cross that, as is often the case in this type of establishment, serves more decorative than functional purposes. One particular feature of Erotheek is a foam platform in front of the big screens, which allows those willing to lie down to put on a show for everybody. Going back to the entrance, there is another corridor of private cabins with locks, each showing either straight or gay porn, some without the faux leather chairs.

In general, Ertotheek’s facilities are well-maintained and easy to navigate. It is dated, which gives a very particular atmosphere. Although lube or condoms are not provided, tissues and trash cans are readily available. However, there is only one toilet, and it is not only located outside the cruising area but also locked. Customers must ask for the key at the cash desk, which requires people to go upstairs, altering the cruising experience. There are numerous signs warning customers not to pee in the trash buckets, which may be the reason behind the key policy. Still, considering that toilets are a basic service in a venue where people gather to have sex, we can only find locking a toilet patronising. 

The customer base is largely senior, to the extent that it makes you contemplate the possibility of reaching 75 years old and still horny. Is this my future? Yet, there is one feature that makes Erotheeks special. By not defining itself as a gay or hetero cinema, it attracts a broad range of characters that otherwise would not visit the place if it were aiming for the traditional gay cruising customer. This makes it one of the most inclusive places we have visited in the Netherlands, beyond those spaces that promote themselves as inclusive but have a rather homogenous crowd. Examples of things we have seen in Erotheek include: actual grandpas; crossdressers; lost straight couples who thought it was a swingers club; muscular guys looking for other muscular guys; a group of friends wearing biking leotards who go together to the XXX cinema after cycling some kilometers; filipinos; temporary workers from the harbour;  straight men who locked themselves in a cabin and later came out fully dressed as a women; Polish workers; approachable young guys; guys with canes; mean gays; and a specturm of horny men who enjoy sex regarding gender. Still, seniors are the core patrons 

Keeping in mind that the venue is also a large sex shop selling clothes, Erotheek might be one of the few places in the south of the Netherlands where customers can get, change, and fuck in a sexy outfit in a single day.  As a remaining cruising place, located in a city with a diverse immigrant population, and a door policy that welcomes most, if not all, people, it should not come as a surprise that Erotheek is capable of bringing together dissimilar customers, a fact that the administration has yet to come to terms with. Like it or not, they are providing a service for an audience with a very clear need, and the least they can do is to make their customers’ experience comfortable. Looking at other stores in Schiedam, we are sure their main source of revenue is not the sex toys.

Embrace: those who have always wanted to crossdress outside home, and those ready to include “when I fucked someone else’s grandpa…“ to their stock of anecdotes.

Release: collagen chasers and those new to cruising antics.

Explore: action is slow, but the sound of the faux leather chairs guides you to it.