Penn grad's Web site aims to unite gays

Andrew Cramer has a dream: a gay on-line service with a million subscribers. It's tempting to discount -- after all, Gay.Net only has 10,000 subscribers. But Cramer, a 1970 Wharton graduate, has dreamed, and succeeded, three previous times. His latest idea -- a World Wide Web site for gay men -- is the result of an on-line conversation a few years ago. "I was talking with this guy from Chicago, and he said, 'Please don't sign off. I'll never find another gay person in my life'," Cramer said. Struck by the plea, Cramer set out to create "a service reflecting the whole range of gay life and culture." Two years later, Gay.Net continues to grow exponentially. Gay.Net's goal, Cramer said, is "to be the gateway to the gay on-line world." The service focuses on fostering a sense of community, which it accomplishes by using the latest technology in its chat rooms and providing features such as live member-to-member video connections. The site also contains libraries of information in areas spanning the range of gay interests, from a comprehensive news area to health and political information and regular features on gay celebrities. Another popular area of the site is devoted to erotica. Regularly scheduled programming, updated features and community activities add to the sense of gay pride and shared values that Gay.Net seeks to promote. The service also works as a matchmaker, allowing gay men to meet others who share their interests. Indeed, Cramer himself met his current partner on Gay.Net. While success brings happiness to most, for Cramer it was not always so. Born in upstate New York, Cramer always knew "there had to be more to life than [my] small town." So he came to Penn in the 1960s -- a school in a big city at a happening time. After college, Cramer founded a home furnishings store in Albuquerque, N.M., with his best friend Mitch. The store was a success, but all was not well. "As a freshman, I had a gay experience with a guy, and was so ashamed of it? my own shame was the worst thing," Cramer said. "I figured [being gay] was something I'd get over as I got older." But he never did. So Cramer lived a lie, dating women because he was afraid to come out of the closet. The turning point came in 1974. Telling Mitch he was headed for Denver, Cramer instead took off for a long weekend in San Francisco. On his first night in the city on the bay, Cramer recalled wandering over to Castro Street, a gay area that was then relatively quiet compared to its later heyday. He saw a few gay men walking into a bar, and decided to follow. Cramer told of a man at the bar putting an arm around him, and "I'm thinking, 'What a creep, doing something like that in a public place'." -- but it was exhilarating. The feeling for Cramer was one of belonging. "I saw men with men, dining together, and it just blew my mind away. "[When] I told [Mitch] I went to San Francisco, I remember him lifting up his glasses -- he had these little round glasses -- and saying 'Oh, so we're going to be gay.' " For the next two years, Cramer played a straight businessman by day and dreamed of San Francisco by night. When he finally moved in 1976, San Francisco was a city celebrating the end of the Vietnam War. But the AIDS epidemic brought the party to an end. "One of my best friends became ill in '81," Cramer recalled. "I remember watching as this man withered? and there [was] nothing you [could] do but just sit there. "I wasn't sexually active for a long time," he said. Instead of standing helplessly by while most of his peers died, Cramer founded a group which distributed condoms, and he has continued his involvement in AIDS education and awareness efforts. Cramer said he harbors no bitterness for his closeted days, but he remembers the isolation of college, saying, "Gay.Net can be a place to connect with guys all over the world." To help accomplish this, he is currently offering free access to Gay.Net to any interested college students at http://www.gay.net/college.