This year's Rent-A-Gent Bachelor Auction, which benefited the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition, made a conscious effort to encourage men to bid on other men. The fourth annual auction, held Thursday night in Levin Ballroom, auctioned off 63 bachelors and made about $6,000 for charity.While women bought most of the men up for bids, a few of the men auctioned off were bought by other men. The auction organizers, Mariel Meringolo '03 and Gabrielle Mayer '03, fully supported men bidding on other men, and emcee Morty Rosenbaum '03 got the ball rolling by bidding against Meringolo on Matt Preece (GRAD), who showed up in vinyl pants and a cowboy hat. "You want to get the crowd excited, and once Mariel started bidding, it worked, so I put in a bid too -- it upped the bid, and it let everyone know that anyone could bid on anyone," said Rosenbaum.

Later on, Preece bid on Damien Scoditti '05. Rosenbaum also spontaneously auctioned himself off, was bid on by men and women, and was eventually bought for $150 by a man.

In the past, the auction has primarily functioned as a platform for women to bid on men to go out on dates with them. After realizing this type of forum was exclusive and not encouraging to the gay community, Meringolo, Mayer and Rosenbaum worked on ways to make the auction more accessible to people of all sexual orientations. "Same-sex bidding is never anything we have prohibited in the past, however, it seemed to come to the forefront this year and we are happy the issue was raised because it illuminated the fact that we are not against same sex bidding and that in fact, we encourage it," Meringolo said.

The organizers said they contacted many gay men who are comfortably "out" to encourage them to either be auctioned off or to vocally bid on other men. They even extended the deadline to add in some gay bachelors. The organizers said they realized that audience members may not take the initiative though, hence Rosenbaum's impromptu bid.

The audience responded to the same sex bidding by clapping wildly when Rosenbaum won Preece. And, although there were men bidding on men throughout the evening, they just did not always end up winning. "Even if not a lot of bachelors were bought by men, there was a lot of male bidding going on, so there was definitely a presence there," Rosenbaum said.

Meringolo said there have been no issues raised because of same-sex bidding, nor does she foresee any potential problems. Due to this year's success, Meringolo, Mayer and Rosenbaum said they hope larger steps can be made in the future. "I felt really happy with it, in terms of the progress it is working towards, as not being a mechanism of compulsory heterosexuality. With anything that's a bachelor auction, there will be problems, but it was a really great step," Rosenbaum said. "Hopefully, in the future, there will be gay men bidding at the auction, not only as a deliberate and necessary way of asserting there presence, but because they will know it is a legitimate place to find a date.