When you feel like a creature on exhibit in a zoo, it is time to leave.
I wrote before about a trip to Key West we took a few years back. We don't go there much anymore - most Gays don't. We successfully "gentrified" what was a run-down city in the 1970's into a resort town full of multi-million-dollar homes. Most of our gay friends took the cash, sold out and left. Most of the gay resorts sold out and closed down - to be bulldozed into condominiums for absentee owners.
There are still gay bars, but even those have changed. At "Alice's Restaurant" (yes, that one) there is the "La-Te-Da" room upstairs with a real professional drag show where the performers actually sing, not lip sync. We saw a show there where they performed with Julie Nixon - you have to have some real balls (pun intended) to sign in drag alongside a bona fide Broadway Diva. It was quite a show. Afterwords, Debra and Patrick were performing downstairs. It was quite a night!
The next night we went to "801 Bourbon" which had a drag show in the upstairs bar. We were the only gay people there. There were a bunch of drunk married couples from the Midwest haw-hawing it up at the "ugly drag queens" on stage. They would drag some hapless husband up on stage and do raunchy routines. They were not laughing with us, but laughing at us. We left.
Of course, I have to wonder how that is working out these days in Florida, where drag shows are outlawed and people accuse drag queens of being "groomers." Maybe it has changed somewhat.
But we have seen this trend in other places. At Magnetic Springs, Arkansas, they have a drag bar with a great show, but most of the audience is bachelorette parties where young women get shit-faced drunk and scream at the top of their lungs. We kind of felt out of place. We stayed, only because it was fun to watch these drunk girls like animals in the zoo, much as they were viewing us.
Sadly, we saw the same thing in Provincetown, when we went to a leather bar. You'd think that would be hard-core Tom of Finland types, but there was a screaming group of girls at the bar which sort of killed the buzz. I guess girls are entranced by the sight of masculine men making out with one another, much as many heterosexual men find Lesbian porn very enticing. We all want what we can't get, I guess.
I think the problem for bar owners is that gay bars are in the decline as younger patrons go to ordinary bars with people of their own age - of any orientation - and acceptance (until recently) has meant that the "gay ghetto" is losing is raison d'etra. So they welcome the bachelorette parties and the curiosity-seekers, to the point where many gay bars are no longer gay. Some call it "straightwashing" and it has been going on for some time.
Of course, people of all orientations should be welcome at a gay bar, but you can't go to a gay bar and call people "faggots" or act all shocked when someone hits on you (now you know how women feel!) or say "eew! gross!" if you see two guys kissing. Years ago, I went to a Lesbian bar - the Laurel Tree in Syracuse (long since closed). I was reluctant to go at first, not wanting to "invade" their space. A Lesbian friend of mine said it was OK, so long as I realized it was their space and to be polite and not try to be the main character. And so long as there were only a few gay men there, they didn't have a problem with it. If we tried to take over the place, that would be different.
But the bar went bust - and a number of gay bars in Syracuse followed suit, victims, I think of a more accepting and progressive society. The college kids I met at the end of my decade of undergraduate work were all going to college bars, not gay bars populated with "old people." They could dance with their boyfriend at a bar right near campus - so why drive to some dank hellhole in a bad part of town?
It made sense to me.
But as these gay institutions lose customers, they have to go where the money is, and if straight people want to feel "hip" by going to a gay bar, then so be it. Money is money. But some of these bars are seen by gays as more freak shows than gay refuges. People are coming to gawk at you like an animal in the zoo. And the clubs that go this route are no longer so accepting of gays - no Lesbians, no old people, no trans people, no leather men, no bears. They want a certain "look" that appeals to the Bachelorette party set.
And I guess that makes financial sense for them, but it sort of makes a mockery of the rainbow flag concept and the whole LGBTQ+ thing. This, in turn, turns away more gay customers and... at what point do you just take down the rainbow flag? And with all the backlash and homophobia being pushed on Fox News these days, how much longer can you count on the straight clientele to hold up the business?
Years ago, we attended a party put on by a hip co-worker. We were not really friends, but he wanted a couple of gay props to show his other hip friends, because having a gay friend was trendy. The problem with this model is that trends can change rapidly - as we are seeing today, as we saw in 1930's Germany. You can go from Wiemar Republic to Third Reich nearly overnight. So I hate to be a trend, even a favorable trend, as I know the winds of favor can change rapidly.
Maybe it is nothing. Times change and people change. With the Internet, there is no need for the "Gayborhood" anymore as people can meet and communicate online. And let's face it, bars are noisy and nasty and loud and expensive. What's not to like?
So maybe the demise of the Gay Bar is not a bad thing. I just don't hope gays don't become a diorama in the Smithsonian for people to gawk and point at.
