This has to be a joke video, right?

[Loverskitten]

Thoughts?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/...straight_people_behave_in_gay_bars_video.html

 

[Dyslexicea]

Thoughts?
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/...straight_people_behave_in_gay_bars_video.html

As far as "This has to be a joke video, right?" No and yes. No if she'd have said in my opinion, yes if she thinks she speaks for all of us.

Although I do agree with her about gay men staying out of lesbian bars/clubs, if you let to many in pretty soon they're telling us how to dress, walk, talk, put on our makeup and even what to think. An evening with a gay friend is fine, an evening with four or five of them is pure hell.

 

[stickygirl]

I think a straight person in a gay bar looks as out of place as your might mother at a nightclub: embarrassing and uncomfortable. It's not them being exclusive - it's just doesn't work. I'm not too keen on them myself

 

[naughtyinsilk]

I disagree, it should not matter what your sexuality is, when it comes to frequenting bars or clubs. Ban people if they act like arseholes. However the LGBT community would be up in arms if there were straight only clubs and they were excluded.
I am now 50 and have been frequenting gay clubs since I was 14, I work in gay and lesbian clubs as a drag queen. I regard myself as straight, though in reality that extends to does not date and has been that way for a number of years now.

One of the clubs in London I work at frequently, last year had a change of management and decided to ban all straight people, not sure how they wre planning on testing this policy. I refused to perform there nor let any of my burlesque performers do it either, as I regarded the new policy as discriminatory against people such as myself. In the end the policy was dropped, as they were threatened with court action under the same legislation that prevents people refusing service to gay and lesbian people.

Discrimination is never positive, if a straight club said we want to keep the atmosphere as it is ,so will ban or gay/lesbian people then there would be uproar.

Its a slippery slope, I know of lesbian clubs which will not admit transgender females even those who are fully transitioned.

As Jayne County said a few days ago, sections of the GLBT community are getting more rightwing and discriminatory, than the mainstream which is opening up.

If you want equality for all, that includes equal access for all.

 

[stickygirl]

Totally agree with inclusion Silky and I thought it was weird that the vid suggested a hetero guy should never ever kiss his gf in a lesbian bar ( like wtf? ). I think it's courteous for heteros to stay away from G & L spaces, but there's no way I would object to a few friends wandering in because we've all got hetero friends.

The problems would only be caused by the the No Homo brigade if you tried mixing things up too much.

 

[Dyslexicea]

naughtyinsilk

I can't say I agree with you, although I'm not in favor of any kind of discrimination, having places where we as LGBTQ can go that are our places is not discriminating against those who happen to be straight. Straights have more than their fair share of places to go, which may not strictly be heterosexual but by default are.

Lesbians go to lesbian clubs to be with other lesbians or bisexuals, not hetero couples or straight and gay men. Change the mix of the club to hetero or gay and we no longer have our own space, it's hard enough to have women spaces as it is and it's doubly hard to have queer women spaces.

The truth is most opposite sex couples come into lesbian space for only one reason, thinking they can pick up a third for a threesome, which makes most of us rather uncomfortable, to say the least, including most of the bisexuals who came to the club to be with women. I won't even comment on straight men coming into a lesbian club, it's just too obvious why they do so.

I'm all for any woman coming to a lesbian club but if you're straight, check your straightness at the door, you'll have much more fun and you can pick it back up when you leave or maybe not, there are some of us who love turning straight girls.

Should there be a rule, 'No men ever' I don't think so but men should respect our spaces just like we should respect theirs. We don't go to a lesbian club to be overwhelmed by men, if we wanted that we'd go to a straight club.

By the way, for those of you who might not have gotten it, my earlier comment about gays was tongue and cheek, some of the best fashion advice I've ever received is from gay men and when I used to dance it was a gay man who did my hair and makeup and I wish I had half the skill and knowledge he had.

 

[Loverskitten]

Well, I've watched this thing 3 times and it's not funny enough to be a joke (aside from the Applebee's which got a snort) This person is serious.
This person also seems like the first to file a lawsuit if she was told to stay out of certain places :/
My best friend of over 10 years is gay and I have many other gay friends, so I've been to gay bars probably more than straight bars. All kinds of gay bars too.
Leather bars, fetish clubs, the high fashion dance clubs, the bars where you don't touch anything in the bathroom, mixed gay bars, neighborhood gay bars, and more, lol.
Only once did I feel unwelcome (due to one staff member) and I've still been back to that bar and had a great time.

You can't want equality and exclusion all at once. If you saw me in a gay bar, how do you know to whom, I'm attracted anyway? (I have even been unsure at times myself, lol)

I do agree that if a gay bar is going to make you feel uncomfortable, leave. That is true about ANY bar. I don't like sports, I don't go to sports bars. There you go.
I went to a strip club once that had a sign that said "proper attire and ATTITUDE required, if you're going to be offended do not enter" this is true of any bar, really.

As for the 3rd question (I think) about the straight guy who frequents a gay bar and the staff treats him like he's invisible. I can guarantee it's only due to his poor tipping. I've worked in the service industry for many, many years and as long as you treat servers/bartenders with respect and TIP, they don't give a shit if you're gay or straight. Hell, you can have an arm sticking out of your forehead, but if you tip well, I'm all over it!

 

[Loverskitten]

As Jayne County said a few days ago, sections of the GLBT community are getting more rightwing and discriminatory, than the mainstream which is opening up.

If you want equality for all, that includes equal access for all.

YES! Don't even get me started on the RuPaul "she-mail" thing. Ru has done so much for the community, people need to lighten up!

 

[Stella_Omega]

It's a semi-serious subject, treated in a semi-toungue=in-cheek fashion. It's pretty hit or miss.

But the primary message is serious-- if you are uncomfortable, or if you feel compelled to make the regular patrons uncomfortable, or waste their valuable and limited pickup time -- you don't belong there.

After all, there about a thousand straight bars for a homophobic guy or gal to frequent.

 

[Loverskitten]

It's a semi-serious subject, treated in a semi-toungue=in-cheek fashion. It's pretty hit or miss.

But the primary message is serious-- if you are uncomfortable, or if you feel compelled to make the regular patrons uncomfortable, or waste their valuable and limited pickup time -- you don't belong there.

After all, there about a thousand straight bars for a homophobic guy or gal to frequent.

Like Applebee's right? Bah

 

[njlauren]

I have to admit, it is years since I really saw any kind of crap like this. Years ago, there was a divide with gay clubs and bars, there was a dyke bar called the Cubby Hole (not the same place that exists today) that if you weren't a gay woman, they would actively try to throw you out of there, gay man, trans woman, didnt matter, and gay male bars were the same way....and it was kind of sad, really, not to mention under NYC law it is quite illegal. I didn't experience that being trans, very few places thankfully exist like that any more, most places don't care as long as you aren't an asshole or gawker making people uncomfortable. I hung out in women's bars, and I never was bothered nor did I bother anyone, maybe because I was there enjoying myself, talking to people who wanted to talk to me, and I didn't interfere in anyone's cruising. I did once help kick out a group of obnoxious frat boy types who were drunk, and were acting, well, like frat boys, but gay guys and even some straight guys hung out there because they liked hanging out there, they were friends with people.

Unfortunately, what the whole 'women's only spaces' or 'gay men's only spaces' often turn into isn't safe space, it is more about enforcing rules of who is 'real' and who isn't, and it often comes down to a kind of reverse snobbery. Sometimes that separateness is natural, draq queens don't generally hang out at leather bars, it isn't their scene, and gay men not into that don't hang out there, but it isn't necessarily rigidly enforced.


As far as 'safe space', I would have to ask safe from what. If you are in a dyke bar looking to pick up a woman, and you see a straight couple there, you wouldn't go pick them up....and as far as straight couples going to dyke bars to pick up a woman for a threesome, that quite frankly is idiotic, I am sure it goes on occasionally, but as a rule? I doubt that, I spent a lot of time in women's bars and I can't ever recall seeing it or hearing about it. I did see bi curious or married straight women in women's bars, but they were generally there to either simply check it out, or in the hopes of getting picked up, but straight couples picking up a third? Most straight couples know better, they would have a lot better chance in a straight pickup bar doing that.

It sounds really attractive, the idea of 'safe space' for minority groups, but the problem with it, besides legal issues (bars and clubs are public conveyances and are governed by anti discrimination laws), is that it is no different than a bar that refuses to serve someone who is of another ethnic group or race, it is the old 'right to free association' that rednecks tried to use when banning blacks or non whites from restaurants and such, and whether it is a majority doing it or a minority doing it, it is distasteful. You can claim ownership of a space, like a women's bar, and you have the right to set up acceptable behavior, but when the walls go up it becomes discrimination no matter who does it. A women's bar can have as its prime purpose a place for lesbians to meet other lesbians, maintain that air, but still be open to anyone who is willing to behave themselves.

At one time that separatism made sense, when it was dangerous to be gay, where kissing a woman in a bar could get you arrested and sent to jail (if you were a woman), or being dressed as a woman if biologically male could get you arrested, but these days, when gays have fought so long and hard to be accepted as normal and have won a lot of battles, all that does to me is lend credence to the idea that somehow it is us versus them, and rather than being about simply being ourselves and living as we wish, it becomes more about "I am different, and because I am different, you can go fuck yourselves, stay out of 'my places'" and to me that is wrong, it is the same shit that for years was applied to LGBT people in other places. And want to know what the result of that kind of openness became? Most clubs and bars in NYC are mixed, and while many clubs are full of straight people, gay couples aren't made to feel weird, either, and most gay and lesbian bars, while predominantly patronized by gays and lesbians, are open to other people and no one makes a big deal out of it, and that is cool to me.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Living in Los Angeles where I am, it's the same way, Lauren. And in most big cities, and even big towns, to a certain extent. But if you really think its safe to be gay in huge parts of this country...

All I can say, is I am happy for you that you are safe in NYC, because I wouldn't want to let you out elsewhere, not without a bodyguard.