In ‘Who Needs Gay Bars?,’ Greggor Mattson Explor the Past, Current, and Future of Ameri’s Queer Spac - Eater

Contents:

• GAY BARS NEAR ME
• DO YOU WANNA FUNK WH ME?: A BEGNER’S GUI TO GAY NIGHTCLUBS
• GAY BARS AREN’T DISAPPEARG; THEY’RE CHANGG
• SEATTLE’S BT GAY CLUBS, SHOPS, AND BARS
• HOW TO BEE POPULAR AT A GAY BAR
• THE DOS & DON'TS OF GAY CLUBBG
• THE NUMBER OF GAY BARS HAS DWDLED. A NEW GENERATN PLANS TO BRG THEM BACK.
• THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI
• GAY NEW YORK CY
• GAY NASHVILLE
• STEP-BY-STEP INSTCTNS FOR SHOOTG YOUR SHOT WH GAY GUYS

GAY BARS NEAR ME

27 plac sorted by traveler favorBars & Clubs • Gay BarsDowntown Manhattan (Downtown)Bars & Clubs • Gay BarsDowntown Manhattan (Downtown)Gay BarsDowntown Manhattan (Downtown)Bars & Clubs • Gay BarsDowntown Manhattan (Downtown)What travelers are saygDgn1010Dungannon, UK392 ntributnsSo ol to be drkg such a historil bar. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.Flamg Saddl is the perfect mix of great drks, Amerina, gay culture and cute bar staff.This high energy gay bar rais the roof wh their bar top dancg bartenrs.

I went to a few gay bars, and by far this was the bt place to dance and the mic was the bt here, varied, and not too much dance mic like you got your head bangg a fish bowl!Super efficient, iendly bar staff, wh buy one get one ee drks before 10pm if I remember rrectly.

If you have gay iends like me, brg them there, you will have the bt night out!The guys dance on the bars, there's no hassle, s all fun, good tim! There are plenty of gay bars up and down 9th ave and there's no reason to spend money at a place that will treat you like total trash, threaten you, and be unnecsarily belligerent and make you feel unsafe jt bee they're on some kd of power trip.Wrten January 9, 2023This review is the subjective opn of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. The bars are safe spac where members of the lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and tersex (LGBTI) muny n e together and celebrate their inti whout fear of discrimatn or judgement.

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

To fd gay bars your area, you n do a quick onle search or check out popular gay-iendly webs and apps such as Grdr, Her, and Gay Ci. The rourc n help you fd the perfect gay bar for you, whether you’re lookg for a laid-back neighborhood spot or a high-energy dance club.

Many gay bars are safe havens for the LGBTI muny, and ’s important to be nsirate of others and follow the l of the tablishment. 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.

GAY BARS AREN’T DISAPPEARG; THEY’RE CHANGG

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. 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.

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. 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. 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. 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.

SEATTLE’S BT GAY CLUBS, SHOPS, AND BARS

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. 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.

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. 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. 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.

HOW TO BEE POPULAR AT A GAY BAR

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.

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. 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.

THE DOS & DON'TS OF GAY CLUBBG

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. In the book you wre that certa kds of gay bars, like lbian bars or more “cisy” gay bars, are closg at a faster clip than other typ.

You mentned that a lot of people have been sayg that they personally don’t need gay bars anymore bee they feel wele anywhere. Is , “I don’t need gay bars my middle age, but I might as a retiree, ” or is , “I don’t need gay bars now that I’m a mted partnership, but I might if I were sgle”? I don’t know that needg gay bars is an on-off swch for the rt of your life, and so ’s important to me that the bars that n serve all of be open for when we need them.

THE NUMBER OF GAY BARS HAS DWDLED. A NEW GENERATN PLANS TO BRG THEM BACK.

” A lot of amics bate or wonr whether we’re a post-gay phase, where we — and ’s never que clear who the “we” is — don’t need our gay inti or LGBTQ+ inti anymore. But one of the thgs I realized talkg to owners of bars that don’t intify as gay bars but are certaly full of gay people is that maybe other bars need to prove to that they’re post-straight.

Here I rely on David Halper, who wrote a book, How to Be Gay, and he nclus that even if was a world whout opprsn, we still are raised a heteronormative world. I’m not married to the ia of a gay bar always beg everythg — if ’s a queer fe, if ’s a nonprof LGBTQ+ center — but I thk the panmic tght all how important is to have physil plac to ngregate, and those will rema important even a hypothetil, non-opprsive future.

Was there anythg else your rearch you were surprised by, posively or negatively, or maybe a prenceived notn that you had about gay bars that was challenged?

THE 42 BT GAY BARS AMERI

The fact that you have a bar that’s maly Latx folks or a bar that’s Ain-Amerin LGBTQ+ folks, that didn’t surprise me, although I was very terted to fd out what were the challeng of nng those kds of bs bee those are the bars that’ve been closg among the fastt — gay bars that serve people of lor.

GAY NEW YORK CY

“Whether ’s evotive pictn of gay life durg the tumultuo 1980s, pastakgly rearched bgraphy or elegant memoir, Whe’s work stands out across s as s ronance … for a multu of voted rears. “I’m workg now on a sex memoir about the lov of my life, ” Whe, who 1977 -wrote wh Charl Silverste, “The Joy of Gay Sex, ” said. If this nightmare sounds faiar to you, might be bee 's what actually happens to me almost every Saturday night whenever I go out on the gay 't get me wrong: The gay scene n offer the ocsnal magil and rmative experience.

As ltle gay boys, many of our first flirtatns wh the scene were surrept viss to bars where we'd drk cheap beer, unrage, and get sh-sred the mute that someone spared a prolonged glance our directn.

GAY NASHVILLE

Dcribed as a place to meet "others whout the strs of havg to drk loads as well, " the typ of sober gathergs might take you way out of your fort zone, but 's weirdly fortg to know that everyone will probably be feelg that way, too (not somethg you n say about your lol gay waterg hole). Show up, fd your queer muny, and be your Bt Gay Media Meet-UpsSocial media might have stolen an electn and killed onle journalism.

However, when you buy somethg through our retail lks, we may earn an affiliate answer the qutn posed by the tle of his new book Who Needs Gay Bars?, soclogist Greggor Mattson vised more than 300 of them across 39 stat. He unrtook this journey as a ath knell seemgly sound for bars servg LGBTQ+ people; by Mattson’s unt, 50% of all gay bars shuttered the 19 years om 2012 to 2021.

Gentrifitn, broar social trends, and the rise of hookup apps have all played some role this wnowg, but there is ultimately no sgle explanatn for the prery facg the vast array of queer bars dottg the book, which is subtled Bar-Hoppg Through Ameri’s Endangered LGBTQ+ Plac, is anized to sectns that addrs particular them (like ambivalence toward gay bars and who’s wele them) and typ of bars (cludg lbian and fetish bars). Some bars are the only oasis servg queer people for around, while those big ci may be petg for attentn wh an entire gayborhood.

STEP-BY-STEP INSTCTNS FOR SHOOTG YOUR SHOT WH GAY GUYS

Beneath the stctural factors affectg gay bars, Mattson’s tle provok a perhaps more existential qutn: Who is the we who need gay bars?

Given the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ+ bills workg their way through stateho across the untry, the stak of g together, both to fight and fd joy, are latg every, Mattson speaks to Them about the sights he gathered while puttg 10, 000 on his r, sharg what he learned om talkg to gay bar owners and patrons about everythg om straight people their midst, strategi for keepg the doors open, and why bars that wele the entire muny are the way of the Needs Gay Bars? That’s a ntradictn that I didn’t fd an easy answer found that the growg number of straight people gay bars signals some tertg social dynamics.