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Straight male, i went to this gay club a bunch with friends. Vibes were the best, plus i could go into either mens or womens restroom and be in the stall with either doing coke and no one gave a single fuck. We were all just there for a good time.
But this one time i went up to tip this beautiful drag queen and they pulled me on stage and danced around me before kissing my cheek. I dont like dudes but they were hot and i didnt care. It was always a fun time.
I think not everyone is out of the closet and we shouldn't make anyone feel unwelcome. Also anyone you clock as "straight" could be one of those who fall under one of the letters or the + at the end of the acronym everyone leaves off in conversation. Which means they ESPECIALLY deserve not to feel alienated and shouldn't have to justify their existence in a space that is "suppose" to be accepting of queer folks. So unless someone is being an obnoxious twat (in which case bounce 'em) we should mind our own damn business.
Oh and if you have a "straight" friend you want to bring or wants to come to a gay bar, all of my points still stand.
As a straight man, I feel like I shouldn’t have a lot to say here, but I do.
First off, toxic masculinity makes me very uncomfortable. I’ve found over the years that I tend to gravitate towards friendships with queer people, and I find a lot of straight men very off putting.
But it’s not black and white. I find the younger crowd, at least the circle that I feel into, to be very kind and accepting. E.g. you can identify as whatever gender you want and people will support you. I find that very touching.
But I’ve also met a lot of problematic gay men. People who will speak rudely of woman because they are gay and I guess they feel they need to prove to the world that they don’t like woman 🤷. And it’s not just me, because I’ve seen the woman around me, including one who is bi, feel very uncomfortable at the comments made at them by certain gay men.
Like it’s not that hard. If someone isn’t being disrespectful then don’t be rude to them. Sometimes I feel like toxic masculinity plagues all men, regardless of their sexual orientation.
Is this just me, or has anyone else noticed this?
When I was a young woman and alienated teen, the gay bars were so welcoming and safe, it was a safe place for some of us who didn't fit at the keg parties and proms and shit. We didn't bother anyone just danced, drank, enjoyed ourselves. Made friends, watched drag shows. It probably helped me stay sane back then. Not to say that was anybody else's responsibility, just that that's what it did. They liked having stylish punky girls there, were always welcoming.
Of course that was decades ago and we were not like "tourists" there, if that makes sense, there was more overlap between subcultures and back then at least the gay guys were a subculture. We stayed close to some of those guys, but over half our older gay friends died of AIDS, including two who killed themselves when they got HIV.
Where I live there used to be two gay bars. One of them held events for queer people, things like a queer adult prom for people who weren't able to go as themselves when they were teens. Or drag shows of course because that's such a fundamental part of the community. These weren't events only for queer people but they were primarily for queer people. The thing is they became more and more overrun by straight folks, including my parents and a bunch of their straight friends. So one day they changed ownership and stopped being a gay bar. Now my town only has one gay bar.
That shit fucking sucks. Come to a gay bar if you want, but you gotta understand that it's not for you. It's for queer people to have a space to be themselves without straight people judging them in some way. We use it to meet people like us, to have fun with people we can feel safe around. If you don't respect that then stay the fuck away.
Straight women visiting gay bars are fine. Bachelorette parties using gay bars as props are not fine
We don't care. We know why they come and we welcome them. Bring your straight male friends. Bring your bachelorette parties - they can become annoying but we know what happens when you finally feel safe and uninhibited. And at the same time, there are economic rules at play. We go to find other gay men for various objectives. If it becomes difficult to find them or if the market feels saturated with women and straight men, we will go to a different space where there are fewer women and straight men and we will feel some amount of annoyance that we had to do so.
I once got told off for being at a gay bar by an older lesbian couple. They said "our kind didn't belong there" after they saw me dancing with my (just-out-of-the-closet) male friend and I guess assumed we were straight 🤷.
I understand they get annoyed when straight people just come to their parties because it is fun, because it is supposed to be a safe space and a space where you go to look for other gay people. At the same time, I wanted to be supportive of my friend and continue going to parties together.
Those people are just as pathetic as homophobes.
Similar, granted....however homophobes didn't go thru societal level hatred before finding a safe space
Yet! There’s still time to change that.
Nah, fuck those old bigots.
Nobody gets a pass on that shit. And people likely to say that shit are likely to say it about other groups they don't belong to as well.
The dance bar in my old city used to get overrun by bachelorette parties, women disrespecting the space and its purpose, disrespecting patrons, etc. So they made a rule that you couldn't do bachelorette parties there anymore. Ultimately it was a good rule. I have nothing against a girl and her friend going out for a drink at a gay bar. I do have issues with them getting blitzed and walking around, trying to hang on the half naked guys, trying to be the "star" of the night, that kind of thing.
I do think of gay bars as spaces SAFE for gay people, not exclusive to us.
So as long as I'm a good boy, I'm okay to be there?
I'm not going there on purpose, but I managed to stumble into bars a couple of times without noticing it at first. I finished my drink and went on as I didn't want to offend anyone as the foreign object invading.
This lesbian bar has no fire exits!
Pretty much like this, yeah, but it was all men.
This was me in a foreign city one time. Walked into a random bar by myself, had a few drinks. In retrospect i think it was a gay bar, but i had no idea.
Nobody cares.
When I was younger gay bars were always the pre-drink bars.
It's not like they're all you can eat buffets where everyone is down, it's just a place where gay people feel comfortable approaching people they're attracted to.
So by being there, the only thing you're agreeing to, is not to freak out if a guy hits on you. It's a very low bar to clear.
Probably because that's what they are supposed to be?
That being said, as a straight man who's been to a lot of gay bars all over, I know more people (regardless of gender) who were drugged at gay bars than people (again, regardless of gender) who were drugged in "straight bars".
Like, it depends on your definition of "safe" I guess, and obviously the individual bar. All it takes is one douchebag to make anywhere unsafe.
You probably just meant "gay bars are a safe place to be openly (whatever sexuality you are)".
Which is true.
I've never seen any gay bar discriminate against straight people tho, the absolute closest would be they treat hot women as normal people. And especially for young attractive women that could come off as discrimination. Because they don't realize how much preferential treatment they get at straight bars, and that it's all based on their physical looks.
The last part reads super misogynist. Young attractive women have problems of their own, feeling underpriviledged in gay bars is not one of them.
Unsure. I'd say "intruders". If I go to a gay place, it's not to become a token to a straight person, be they men or women, it's to get the f away from them. My safe place is not a zoo for straights who can find us cute or exotic, it's a place where I can finally just be me. Or, they need to make sure that we are welcome in straight bars as well. Else, just GTFO of my safe place.
If they go to a gay bar for safety, then it's another story.
To sum it up : "Let's go to the gay bar for fun" = GTFO.
"Let's go to the gay bar because I'm afraid straight men will harrass/assault/rape me" = "Come in".
"Let's go to the gay bar because I'm questionning my sexual orientation and would like to meet gay women" = "Come in".
What about "let's go to a gay bar because one or more friends in the group is gay, but not everyone is, and we want to have a great time together AND let our friends be themselves in a safe space"?
I don't know about others, but I cannot be myself in the company of my straight friends. I'd never go to a gay place with them for fun, making myself an accomplice to their "let's go to the zoo watch the gays" mindset, I'd go to a gay place to get away from them. Straight people have no idea how tiring it is to mask for them. When I'm around people I need at least 4 hours to myself before I can interact with anybody else.
I get it. But if they are your friends, you shouldn't be masking too hard. Maybe what you call friends, I call acquaintences. "Let's go to the zoo and watch gays" is not what I was referring to. I'm talking real allies who accept you, not just politely tolerate.
Either way, I get it. It's great to have a space of your own. Good clubs often have occasional and even regular open nights where it's more inclusive, without losing the importance of what the space was always meant to be.
You have every right.
Dunno, in my life, the people who've claimed to be my "allies" or "friends" are the ones who've hurt me the most (humiliation, isolation, outing, assault, sexual assault, etc etc), so if one person from my entourage claimed that they wanted to go to a gay place with me, i'd immediately find it suspicious : why do they want to embed themselves in my private life? What will they get from accompanying me that they'll use to humiliate or confine me to the role of being their gay pet, and not a full human being? What will they do to me next? Why do they need to claim they're my allies, and how will that claim stand when things become serious?
Same thing with "representation". I'll never watch a gay character created by a straight person, even less if they're american. They're insults to what we go through and they silence our real problems without solving any, all in the name of an "inclusion" that's just silencing, social blindness or insulting caricatures.
I avoid liberals at all cost. They're all talk, no guts, they provoke the opposition and abandon us when it's backlash time (backlash THEY provoke by using us to humiliate the opposition, because the goal is not to advance our cause, the goal is to use us for a comfy feeling of moral superiority that allows them to not question what really make life shit for everybody -spoiler: capitalism, imperialism, etc-), and when they get to a good position in life, they just ditch us or side with the enemy.
I prefer enemies. At least I know where to stand, I know they hate me, I know to avoid them and they respect my boundaries because they want nothing to do with me and, good news, I want nothing to do with them either.
If one really wants to support us, they'll stay the fuck away from our safe places. Those place are all we have. They have the rest of society to fuck around, whereas we get gay bars and one day a year, and even that, corporations will exploit while it's a trend (now, tech bros are outright nazis, which is waaaay more honest and, in a weird way, sane). Fuck corpo pride, btw.
To sum it up: what you wouldn't do to a black person, a woman, a handicaped person, you don't do to a gay person. Society is made for you, leave our safe places alone unless you need sanctuary, because that's what those places are for us, even if they look fun. We need the fun because you make our lives miserable.
Shit man. You need better friends and allies. Friendship, like allyship can't be claimed, they must be earned. Neither would impose themselves on you, or the space or community if it weren't cool all the way around.
Enjoy your safe spaces.
Yup, I need people with at least basic class consciousness. Those are the friends I still have, they respect my boundaries and don't "support" me by worming their way in my intimacy for their weird voyeuristic needs. Else, I know they're just posturing, using me or worse, "tolerating" me (until they don't).
Shut up and come in
On that last bit, even if you arent gay or questionning, remember that you are in a gay bar and you might get hit on by someone who assumes you are gay. Dont be offended, take it as a compliment, be straightforward, and move on.
My band of mostly straight men (like a dozen years ago) played a set at a gay bar every Thursday night for a year or so. It was great fun first of all, and maybe 15-20% of the people there were straight or mostly straight but just hung out there.
It felt really fun and welcoming to all, and was less about gay people finding other gay people than it was about no one caring much about your gender identity or sexuality (unless it was maybe to take you home, idk).
That's not to say it's one size fits all, probably depends on the bar and the area a fair bit
Its all good.
What's my opinion about women going somewhere where they know they'll be safe, you mean?
...thirty years ago "fag hag" was a common pejorative for groupies; not sure whether that's still the case...
I don’t care?
