Jeremy Atherton L (Author of Gay Bar)

Contents:

• LK IS A GAY IN, AND ZELDA FANS KNOW
• 'GAY BAR' TRACKS THE WAVE OF A WHOLE CULTURE — AND ONE LIFE
• TOPIC L.I.N.K = MORE LIKE ?
• GAY BARS AND HOOKUP APPS
• GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR
• THE PLEASURE AND PA OF GAY BARS
• IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE
• A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME
• NEW ‘POWER RANGERS’ MOVIE FEATUR FIRST OPENLY GAY FILM SUPERHERO

LK IS A GAY IN, AND ZELDA FANS KNOW

AO3 may not be the only metric for how many Zelda fans terpret Lk as gay and/or transgenr, but ’s one of the biggt. In art, ’s mon to see queer-d monsters and pecially queer-d villas, particularly bee of how the Hays Co prohibed pictns of homosexualy on screen. This qut fails trans Zelda fans major ways, but much like Aonuma’s nial that Lk is gay, also prents players wh an opportuny.

Even if Lk is never nonilly intified as gay or trans, fan ntent for The Legend of Zelda is everywhere, and queer fans pecially seem to produce ntent drov. Correctn (May 22): A prev versn of this story rrectly ntextualized a quote om a 2015 terview wh Kotaku, which Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma said Tgle is “not gay. Gay Bar b memoir, history and cricism; 's a difficult book to p down, but that's what mak so readable and so endlsly fascatg.

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

Atherton L's book starts off a crowd room a gay bar where he's gone cisg wh his partner, whom he refers to throughout the book wh the Leonard Cohen-spired nickname Famo Blue Raat. That kd of gay bar — all kds of gay bars, really — are danger of closg, Atherton L wr, due to the populary of datg apps and risg property sts. He's ambivalent about the velopment, wrg, "I had to nsir whether gay bars promised a sense of belongg then lured to a trap.

In a gay bar, am I penned to mory stat, swallowg drks that nourish my opprsn — have gay bars kept me my place?

He wr betifully about his llege days Los Angel, where he went to his first one, though he n't rell the name, wryly notg, "Of urse I n't remember my first gay bar — I was dnk. " He's also spired to dig to the past: "Enough time has passed that gay bars, once a surge, have bee monumental their own way. " That history clus the famo 1969 uprisg at the Stonewall Inn New York, but Atherton L also div to other, lser-known bars, cludg on that endured police raids meant to put gay people their place.

TOPIC L.I.N.K = MORE LIKE ?

Throughout the book, Atherton L scrib the gay bars that he equented, and his scriptns of the tablishments are endlsly evotive.

" Atherton L explor topics like archecture and urban geography, as they relate to gay bars, betifully; he wr wh a real knowledge that's more than jt tellectual dilettantism.

GAY BARS AND HOOKUP APPS

About the changg looks of bars before the turn of the century, he observ, "A new type of gay bar began to appear London's Soho the neti — airy, glossy, ntental. " Along the way, Atherton L dips to other topics related to the gay muny: the appropriatn of gay culture by straight people, mic, drkg, and the valu of the younger generatn of LGBTQ people.

Gay Bar is a book that's beyond imprsive, and Atherton L's wrg is both extremely telligent and rehgly unpretent. And while succeeds on many levels, perhaps the most remarkable one is Atherton L's nstant qutng of himself, and the realizatns of how he's changed sce he walked to his first gay bar years ago: "Maybe, I thought, I'm a dis ball. Oromagic-II Voir le profil Oromagic-II Posté via mobile le 15 avril 2013 à 20:29:49 Avertir un admistratr Si dire gay t offensant, où va le mon Le bon temps où on pouva appeler son pote "Gros PD" sans se faire sulter d'homophobe...

This month, Christa, Bryan, and Rumaan are first joed by June Thomas to discs Jeremy Atherton L’s new book Gay Bar, their own personal histori wh gay bars, and if such queer spac have a future. Already the most popular women’s K-pop group the world, this year, Blackpk released their sophomore album, Born Pk, September, smashed global chart rerd after global chart rerd, and embarked on a ne-month world tour. Although L don’t “wholeheartedly believe” Chaelisa is a real romantic relatnship, they fd a lot of joy seeg the two teract ways that may or may not be gay as hell.

GAY BAR BY JEREMY ATHERTON L – A GOG OUT MEMOIR

And there’s an ongog tongue--cheek nspiracy among TXT fans that all the members are gay and love wh each seemgly never-endg roel of gay ships K-pop stems part om the mic genre’s vibrant queer muny. “All of a sudn I was like, life is too short to hi my tert K-Pop, but also to hi the fact that I'm jt so gay, like such a ltle lbian, ” they said. ”Mac is ls ncerned about whether BTS members are queer, let alone secret gay relatnships wh each other, but noted that the absence of explicly gay K-pop moments don’t mean the idols are straight.

“One of the thgs that I fd genuely hilar is whenever people say thgs onle like, BTS are gay, and people will reply, Stop assumg their sexualy. Civil unns for same-sex upl are illegal there, and only 38% of the public supports marriage for gay upl, acrdg to a 2021 Gallup Korea poll. South Korea has very few out celebri, and earlier this year, one of K-pop’s most proment gay idols, Holland, was attacked Seoul an anti-LGBTQ hate crime.

THE PLEASURE AND PA OF GAY BARS

“I remember growg up the Midwt when gay was still a slur, and if you knew you were queer any way, you're not gonna get explic about , ” Lex, a 27-year-old former tor livg the Midwt, told BuzzFeed News. When asked about Blackpk, Lex referenced a recent terview wh Rosé where a reporter asked if she supports gay rights. On Irish televisn news, the headl rmed the natn that Panti Bliss, a brilliantly articulate mpaigner, had arrived at Dubl Castle, as ed she gay was all the rage jt then.

Leo Varadkar, mister for health, soon to be taoiseach, had announced that he was gay, as did a former mister om the other ma party, as did a well-known TV news journalist. That day would not have been surprisg had all the bishops of Ireland arrived their fery to let know that they, too, wanted to jo our Gay Bar, a brilliantly wrten and cisive acunt of gay life Los Angel, San Francis and London, Jeremy Atherton L quot the cric Ben Walters on gay history that is “agile om fear and fettg, too often wrten whispers and saved scraps”. I imaged a walk that two men of my generatn – I me to Dubl 1972 – might do to revis the gay plac that have gone, such as The Gym, a sna jt a stone’s throw om Dubl Castle, or Ingno, another sna, much favoured by prits.

IN ‘GAY BAR,’ TIME-HOPPG SNAPSHOTS OF QUEER NIGHTLIFE

Photograph: Clodagh Kilyne/Getty ImagThe arrival of the big, loud gay venu Dubl me at the same time as other eedoms.

He wr about a DJ his 40s lled B Statn John who “played ecstatic sets of arne dis … He was there to bear wns, to ttify, g rare tracks om what he lled ‘the goln age of gay’, the perd between Stonewall and Aids. ”But the ghosts his book are also those who created gay San Francis self, where there were 18 gay bars 1964 and “an timated hundred and eighteen wh a ”. Atherton L registers the nostalgia that me wh all this change, quotg Fouult: “I actually liked the scene before gay liberatn, when everythg was more vert.

Some thgs give him the creeps, like a gay thrift shop: “I crged when I passed , imagg the store to be filled wh stuff svenged om the hom of ad queens … I hadn’t found a way to nsir the multifar story of my people – and to read wh, but not through, the disease. When they stop shavg, their beards “were perverted, their bristl perfumed wh the sudor of scrotum” gay group, observed San Francis, “uld be tected om a distance by the stk … Each of them seemed to have a magnificent ass and be wrg a book.

A MEMOIR ABOUT QUEER INTY, TOLD ONE GAY BAR AT A TIME

There were three bars that he and his partner lled the Triangle: “jolly Gee and Dragon, sordid Joers Arms and laid-back Nelson’s Head – a rpective five-, ten- and fifteen-mute walk om our buildg” wr well about another hntg the London years, the spectre of gay-bashg, quotg Neil Bartlett: “Those nights out were spirg – but the solary walks home were foolish.

London, 1986, was not a safe place for a visibly gay man like my twenty-eight-year-old self to be out alone after dark – or even by daylight for that matter. My but Gay Bar (2021), an exploratn of some plac that rmed my inty, received the Natnal Book Crics Circle Award Autobgraphy.

In 2017, the wrer Jeremy Atherton L noticed a spate of media verage mourng gay bars London, more than half of which had closed wh the last .

NEW ‘POWER RANGERS’ MOVIE FEATUR FIRST OPENLY GAY FILM SUPERHERO

From NBC News to the Guardian, nearly all the verage ntaed a siar slant, which played to a popular narrative: gay bars as beans of liberatn, central to the formatn of queer inty and muny. “Gog to your first gay bar — I feel like 's told wh so much agency, ” Atherton L told me over the phone, om London recently. I walked around the rner bee I uldn't brg myself to go , but then the next night I did and everythg was illumated and the drag queen sed at me and I was gay.