Cruising for Sex in a Burning Building

Cruising for Sex in a Burning Building is a larp about intimacy and community connection through kink, set in the underground gay men’s Leather scene in the 1980s under the shadow of the AIDS epidemic.

Long Description

It’s the mid-1980s, and the gay Leather club Inferno is preparing to re-open after some time shuttered after an owner’s death of AIDS. Tonight has a buzz of anticipation though – at midnight staff will re-open The Pit, the hottest, sweatiest, most free and wild zone of the club. New to the club is an added awareness of the safety needs brought up by the AIDS epidemic. Leathermen arrive tentatively, awkwardly, and hopefully to figure out the future of The Pit together.

Characters range from old hands in the Leather scene, earnest and socially messy community organizers, baby gays working up the nerve to enter the club for the first time.

As the evening begins, early birds are encouraged to practice their rusty BDSM skills with one another to warm up the space. The middle of the scenario is unstructured cruising and playtime, though characters pause to create luminaries to remember the dead. Players can freely visit different parts of the club such as the bar, bathroom, cruising maze, or dance floor.

The larp ends when staff make a dramatic showing of opening The Pit, a dedicated darkroom and dungeon in the basement of the club. During the final song players decide where their character chooses to end their night now and in the future: will they go home alone, leave with one or a few, find solace socializing at the bar, or descend into the crowded heat and complex intimacy of The Pit?