This chapter vtigat the historil permutatns of those areas that e clost to qualifyg as lbian and gay neighborhoods Antwerp, the largt cy Flanrs (the northern, Dutch-speakg part of Belgium). Although Antwerp has e to be reprented...
Contents:
- A GAY GUI TO PICKG UP THE HOT GUY AT THE BAR
- STEP-BY-STEP INSTCTNS FOR SHOOTG YOUR SHOT WH GAY GUYS
- A GAY NEIGHBORHOOD OR MERELY A TEMPORARY CLTER OF “STRANGE” BARS? GAY BAR CULTURE ANTWERP
- A YEAR GAY BARS
- 10 THGS THAT MIGHT HAPPEN WHEN YOU STAY AT A GAY HOTEL
A GAY GUI TO PICKG UP THE HOT GUY AT THE BAR
Learn how to approach and flirt wh gay guys at clubs, bars, or other venuMeetg gay guys is hard. First you have to terme if the guy you're terted is gay or straight. Then you have to approach him and strike up a... * what do you call the waiting line outside a gay bar *
Like everythg I wre, the tent of this piece is to break down the stigmas surroundg the sex liv of gay who are sensive to ank discsns about sex are ved to click elsewhere, but nsir this: If you are outraged by ntent that addrs sex openly and hontly, I ve you to exame this outrage and ask yourself whether should stead be directed at those who opprs by policg our all others, enjoy the slishow. Even if you're the LGBTQ+ muny and you walk to an implicly queer-domant space, as most leather bars are, and are not to the sex liftyl leather bars celebrate, you're the equivalent of a bachelorette at any gay bar Ameri -- an unwele nuisance potentially g the space for people who re about more than you do. You're more likely to see public sex happeng at a leather bar than, say, your classic tsel palace gay bar wh boyish go-go dancers and Top 40 hs blarg over a by dance floor.
The only circumstance where this le gets challenged is a lights-out space ma for anonymo play -- spac which exist some leather bars, gay sex clubs, gay bathho, and so on. The hanky has vague roots, but we know started the 70s (or earlier) as a vert way for gay men to munite what kd of sex they were lookg for the pre-ter, pre-Grdr, pre-mobile phone, pre-revolutn days. Even the classic, non-leathery gay bar -- the drag queen palace, the queer dive, the limp-wristed cktail lounge, gossip central -- is rapidly beg a artifact of years past, pre-Grdr nostalgia: a throwback to that simpler time before we found sex partners wh a simple click.
The bartenr (or someone there) will be able to tell you where to go, what plac sell gear, what parti are happeng, where the guys cise, where the gayborhood is, and so on.
STEP-BY-STEP INSTCTNS FOR SHOOTG YOUR SHOT WH GAY GUYS
Beloved Fltle Bar loted at 4216 Melrose Avenue, has closed for good after servg members of the LGBT+ muny for 26 years. Found 1994, the inic gay space was known for s door and outdoor bars wh a large outdoor pat area. It featured a mix of themed nights, go-go boys, DJs, live performanc, * what do you call the waiting line outside a gay bar *
If you ci your neart one is not for you, go to a gay leather bar New York Cy (Eagle NYC, The Cock), San Francis (Powerhoe, Eagle SF, 440 Castro), Los Angel (Eagle LA, Fltle), London (Eagle London, The Backstreet), Berl (SO MANY). Perhaps watchg Queer as Folk when I was a young and imprsnable teenager wasn’t the bt gge of accuracy for how venturg out onto the gay scene would be.
Admtedly, before the advent of hookup apps, when I was a baby gay first on the scene, thgs were a ltle like that, jt whout the great lightg, flatterg mera angl, and wasn’t beg broadst on Showtime. So, put down your phone and follow this advice and you, too, uld take that hot guy home om the your ey wiselyAny eager beaver a gay bar n roam a room wh their ey, makg ntact wh each Tom, Dick, and Harry the place. On the pat of the Abbey, the famo gay bar Wt Hollywood, a uple of go-go boys perilo shorts are dancg listlsly to a dis remix of Sister Sledge’s “We Are Fay.
” Photo by Plo Murillo for WEHO TIMESAnd speakg of Judy Garland, acrdg to the Los Feliz Ledger, the Fltle space was a venue lled the Red Rouge the 1960s, owned by the gay in and her then hband, Sid Luft.
A GAY NEIGHBORHOOD OR MERELY A TEMPORARY CLTER OF “STRANGE” BARS? GAY BAR CULTURE ANTWERP
Photo by Plo Murillo Photo by Plo Murillo Photo by Plo Murillo Photo by Plo Murillo Photo by Plo Murillo“It’s not gog to be gay anymore, but this n be the kd of space where you n throw any kd of party you want, ” he said. It was The Stud, a Levi/leather cise bar om 1974 to 1988, and then morphed to other gay spac like that clu Griff’s, before beme the legendary Fltle Bar has exchanged hands of ownership over the past several years.
”The tails surroundg the closure are not yet rmatn on rentg the space, ll 305-890-6159Edors note: The article was updated to reflect that the Fltle Bar was once was The Stud, a Levi/leather cise bar om 1974 to 1988, before morphed to other gay spac like that clu Griff’s. 1 IntroductnThis chapter propos to vtigate what historgraphers would ll the “long twentieth century” of lbian and gay neighborhoods the specific ntext of Antwerp, the largt cy Flanrs (the northern, Dutch-speakg part of Belgium).
Footnote 1 Although Antwerp has e to be reprented as the “gay pal” of Flanrs, we will show that never veloped a full-fledged gay neighborhood the Anglo-Amerin tradn of the ncept—that is, a neighborhood characterized by the historil clterg of a wi range of urban functns for sexual mori (social, cultural, rintial, sexual, mercial, wh service and hospaly dtri as well as entertament venu).
A YEAR GAY BARS
As several other Wtern European natns (and many non-Wtern untri bis), the clterg of sexual mori Antwerp has been limed largely to the enomic, social, and cultural bs of (nightlife) entertament, wh lbian and gay meetg plac historilly ncentratg particular neighborhoods that, moreover, have shifted over time and dissipated aga.
As the inty of morn-day “homosexuals” me to be shaped and solidified (roughly as of the send half of the neteenth century), people who intified creasgly as members of this mographic created private, semi-public, and public meetg spac for themselv, startg larger ci such as Berl and New York (Beachy 2014; Chncey 1995). Belgian urban neighborhoods tend to be more fely graed and mixed, more plex their stratifitns and ls homogeneo, and as a rult do not ve the same strong sense of dividualy and inty as do many of the inic neighborhoods the English-speakg world, which are unrwrten by a more outspoken logic of martn and differentiatn.
A self-chosen, not-enomilly enforced rintial clterg of one segment of the populatn one specific area—lbians and gays our historil shorthand scriptn—has th never seemed as necsary or enticg as much bigger ci this should be add a larger cultural ntext: Flanrs as a whole is a nsely populated regn which pecially the triangle Antwerp-Ghent-Bssels has sometim been scribed, parative ternatnal terms, as a sgle extend nurbatn (GUST 1999: 32–38; Albrechts and Lievois 2004).
10 THGS THAT MIGHT HAPPEN WHEN YOU STAY AT A GAY HOTEL
This cultural pattern is so eply graed that appli even to lbians and gays the days of massive anti-homosexual hostily ral Flanrs, when one would have expected a great many of them to engage the same kd of “reverse diaspora” (Sfield 1996: 281) to central ci that has been historilly characteristic of sexual and genr mori other untri. Throughout the perd unr discsn, fact, a large number of Flemish lbians and gays ntued to live their immediate native areas and simply muted to a cy such as Antwerp for their nightlife entertament (Vcke et al. They did not build most of their liv around a specific, regnizably gay neighborhood, but ma ocsnal e of the clters of bars that over time beme available we are able to embark on the followg narrative and analysis, is also necsary to reflect methodologilly on how our vtigatn is shaped (both enabled and rtricted) by s hristic ndns.
Bee the larger ntext for our subject remas to be wrten, will be necsary, first, to unrtake a relatively substantial and panoramic survey of the emergence of gay nightlife Antwerp durg the early half of the twentieth century.