30 Bt Gay Bars In NYC for a Hot Night Out on the Town

Contents:

• DO YOU WANNA FUNK WH ME?: A BEGNER’S GUI TO GAY NIGHTCLUBS
• GAY BARS AREN’T DISAPPEARG; THEY’RE CHANGG
• HOW TO BEE POPULAR AT A GAY BAR
• THE 30 BT GAY BARS NYC
• WHAT’S A GAY BAR ANYWAY: WHO LOS WHEN QUEER SPAC SHUTTER?
• GAY BARS NEAR ME
• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
• GAY NEW YORK CY

DO YOU WANNA FUNK WH ME?: A BEGNER’S GUI TO GAY NIGHTCLUBS

Good advice, but you uld jt do the easy way: fd the bit gay club town. (By “gay bar”, I mean any bar that ters primarily to gay men or lbians.

But if you want to go dance, party, and have a good time, tst me — a gay club is where you should be head. To be fair, there are straight clubs that play great mic and have fun, nonjudgmental crowds, and there are gay bars that are nothg more than S and M (Stand and Mol) clubs.

Certa gay/lbian clubs have their target clientele, of urse — wboys and wgirls (The Round-up Saloon Dallas), leather men (La Track Montreal), punk lbians (The Dyke Bar Brighton, UK), and drag queens (1001 Pub Maryl Istanbul), for stance — but what I’m talkg about is your basic glter-ball, all-wele, humpg-on-the-dance-floor dis. This wouldn’t have happened at any of the gay bars town, and we fely would have had a better time, as the doorman was jt the first of numero snooty employe we enuntered, there. If you’ve never been to a gay bar, there are a few thgs you need to unrstand so that you n have the right attu.

GAY BARS AREN’T DISAPPEARG; THEY’RE CHANGG

First, there are gog to be homosexuals there. That may seem obv, but ’s amazg how many people enter what is clearly a gay bar and say, “Hey, thar’s a bunch a queers ‘ere. ” And the homosexuals who are there will be dancg wh one another, holdg hands, huggg, and, y, kissg.

A gay bar is one of the few plac where homosexuals n exprs their affectn for one another whout beg subjected to someone’s narrow judgment, or, prumably, riskg harm to themselv, so expect to happen.

I went wh three iends — a lbian and a straight uple — to a gay nightclub a while back, but was separated om them immediately after enterg the crowd club.

HOW TO BEE POPULAR AT A GAY BAR

Unlike what you may have seen on Queer as Folk, the overwhelmg majory of gay bars don’t have backrooms and hallways where wild i are takg place.

Dg e, particularly the e of ecstasy and other signer dgs, is higher among the gay populatn than the straight populatn, and some gays and lbians equate a night on the town wh a night of high-energy, dg-duced spastic dancg. Havg said all that, why should you go to a gay nightclub? In my qut for the perfect dance club, I tried, or was dragged to, diss of all varieti, so I know om experience that the bt dance mic is a gay bar.

And numero dance masters and producers market their goods to gay clubs specifilly.

THE 30 BT GAY BARS NYC

Sylvter, the late dis diva of the ’80s, was one of the first to target gay dienc, and he tablished a proud tradn of producg multi-layered tracks to which even the most rhythmilly-challenged uld dance. Not so a gay club. Even though he was straight and had a girliend, Ron and I went dancg together often; we both loved to dance, and if no one wanted to go out wh , we knew we uld dance a gay bar whout beg hassled.

From gym gods to nerds to fag hags (the latter beg the straight women who hang wh their gay male iends) to straight upl who want to try some place new — don’t matter.

WHAT’S A GAY BAR ANYWAY: WHO LOS WHEN QUEER SPAC SHUTTER?

Although, to be hont, the more you look like a er ught the headlights, the more the regulars will look at you oddly, so try not to eak out when you see your first drag queen or gay/lbian uple makg out.

Still, there are a few thgs to keep md before venturg to your first gay bar. And often, gay clubs smaller towns or ral areas are entrance-by-membership-only, to keep out the rednecks and others who want stir up trouble. When I attend llege the homophobic town of Wa, Texas, gettg to the one gay bar town remd me of enterg a speak-easy durg Prohibn, but once si, the patrons were all nice and easy-gog.

GAY BARS NEAR ME

Dependg on the cy, the parts of town where gay bars are loted are often rough, and crime rat are high.

Even when loted “nicer” parts of town, gay bars tend to attract n artists, pick pockets, and gay bashers lookg to prey on the weak or dnk. If you would prefer to have bamboo shoved unr your nails to beg around homosexuals, then bt to stay out of gay clubs. However, if you have no problem wh gay, lbian, bisexual or transgenred people general, they turn will have no problem wh you, so you ought to give the lol gay bar a try.

'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE

There was a moment readg Greggor Mattson’s book, Who Needs Gay Bars?, where I found myself beg credibly fensive. One of the 130 gay bar owners he terviewed is bemoang how his ctomers are no longer ntent to hang wh iends and nverse over a few drks. Gay bar patrons want entertament, he says — drag shows, TV watch parti, activi.

The differenc are sort of the pot of Mattson’s book, a chronicle of gay bars 39 stat across the untry and throughout Amerin history. “There is no one answer to the qutn ‘Who needs gay bars? ’ bee there is no one ‘who, ’ no one set of ‘needs, ’ and no one kd of ‘gay bar, ’” wr Mattson, a soclogy profsor at Oberl.

There are strip clubs and dive bars and f and cktail bars servg both gay and straight people.

GAY NEW YORK CY

Gay bars are not a monolh. But the state of the gay bar has bee a prsg ncern.

Mattson wr that 50 percent of the untry’s gay bars closed between 2012 and 2021, and that the difficulti have not been evenly felt. But even light of all the threats, gay bars are figurg out how to fill hol muny needs, how to pete wh apps and apathy, how to balance muny tradns wh more clive valu. And what’s more, the “gay bar” as exists popular imagatn — an exclive space by and for eher gay men or women — has never reprented what gay bars actually are.