It doesn’t account for why we spend so much time talking about gang bangs, fantasizing about them, or watching them online. I’ve heard it argued that gay men love the notion of gang bangs only because of what they’ve seen in porn videos-but why would those videos be produced en masse if there weren’t an enormous market for them? I’m fascinated by Daniel’s framing of the gang bang as an Olympic event, where both the athletes and the onlookers are somehow uplifted by the intense human striving-but this ultimately falls short as an explanation. Think how often the words appear in drag queens’ punchlines, raunchy brunch conversation, or the headlines of hookup aps and Craigslist ads. And I realized that I’m strong.’ ”Īfter talking with Daniel, I reflected on how much space the gang bang, as a concept, occupies in the contemporary gay imagination. “After the event, he wrote and said, ‘I realized how much strength I had. He was in remission, but he had been feeling really weak and didn’t have a very strong self-image, though he was very good looking,” Daniel told me.

“The first thank-you note I got-I was almost in tears-was someone who was dealing with cancer. Daniel says that his clients often have ecstatic reactions to their experiences.