My First Gay Bar
Slate has been running a series of articles about the death of the gay bar in gay culture and what the meaning and implications of that are. The second article in the series are prominent gays and lesbians talking about their first gay bar experience. It got me thinking about my own first gay bar experience.
Technically my first gay, bar experience was a last night of high school joyride in 1994. I got in a car with a load of folks I never really hung out with in a post graduation party mode. We went and hyped up on sugar, went to Pizza Hut and stole like a bunch of utensils and I think a chair as well. It was fucking crazy. Then we all drove into Cincinnati and we went to this club which eventually became known as "Vertigo" up by the university. I'm sure that the club is still there, but it was one of those mall dance places that changes owners like a millions times over. Now this bar was not a gay bar, per se. Just a dance club. My friends and I got in with our 18 year old "x"'s, so no drinking for us. I think I even showed the bouncer my birth certificate. I just went crazy with dancing in that club. It was a blast, and as we were leaving I got a wink from a skater/goth-looking boy with long black hair. My heart stopped, I blanched, then blushed and ran out the door. Nothing came of that encounter, but it stirred something that needed stirring. When I eventually got to going to bars on a regular basis, Vertigo had a gay night there (Tuesdays I think) and that was fun, and I got some play out of it. But it was never a gay bar.
My first proper gay bar came about when I was 21. It was about 1998 or so, and I had been chatting up gay men on IRC in the #gaycincinnati channel. I don't even know how I learned about IRC. Maybe it was through gay.com or something. I can't remember even. But I was chatting up a guy and we had been talking for a while, and we agreed to meet. He suggested that we go to the Golden Lions to meet up. I had never been to a gay bar before, though, like everyone in these stories I walked past it with trepidation and anticipation about a dozen times at least. It was right next to an indie bookstore that I went to all the time, and I had seen those rainbow lights a million times. I was in college, I knew what that meant. But I had never had the courage to go inside.
So I went inside and it was a little creepy. There were no windows, all the walls were painted black and there were mirrors on the walls that weren't black. There were only maybe two other guys in there. Both of whom were at least 20 and 40 years older than me. John and John, who jokingly always said "we're all Johns in here honey." I started talking with the older John who was a product of the 1950's gay scene in Ohio, and he told me stories about cruising in the parks and the raids and the films about how awful homosexuals were. His drink of choice was the red wine for the flavinoids to keep his heart health up as he was in his late 60's. The other John was a professional escort for wealthy women, whose husbands were not interested in cultural events. Me being a chatty person I loved this. It really was an education in gay history and what gay life used to be like for individual men. Eventually my date showed up and we chatted. That relationship went absolutely nowhere, because he wanted to be my gay history and culture teacher, and not a lover. So I turned back to the internet and to that bar.
In the late 90's that bar was really hip to the internet. The bartender was running one of the IRC channels, a lot of folks there were active online, and we all got to know each other really well. It felt like there was a real world correspondence between the chat channel and the bar. They really made that work. It was a bridge between old school and new school gay life that was exactly the right blend for its time. It seems it closed in like 2008 or 2009 and that makes me a little sad. It was a relic, but it was something that was meaningful to a lot of guys, myself included.
Technically my first gay, bar experience was a last night of high school joyride in 1994. I got in a car with a load of folks I never really hung out with in a post graduation party mode. We went and hyped up on sugar, went to Pizza Hut and stole like a bunch of utensils and I think a chair as well. It was fucking crazy. Then we all drove into Cincinnati and we went to this club which eventually became known as "Vertigo" up by the university. I'm sure that the club is still there, but it was one of those mall dance places that changes owners like a millions times over. Now this bar was not a gay bar, per se. Just a dance club. My friends and I got in with our 18 year old "x"'s, so no drinking for us. I think I even showed the bouncer my birth certificate. I just went crazy with dancing in that club. It was a blast, and as we were leaving I got a wink from a skater/goth-looking boy with long black hair. My heart stopped, I blanched, then blushed and ran out the door. Nothing came of that encounter, but it stirred something that needed stirring. When I eventually got to going to bars on a regular basis, Vertigo had a gay night there (Tuesdays I think) and that was fun, and I got some play out of it. But it was never a gay bar.
My first proper gay bar came about when I was 21. It was about 1998 or so, and I had been chatting up gay men on IRC in the #gaycincinnati channel. I don't even know how I learned about IRC. Maybe it was through gay.com or something. I can't remember even. But I was chatting up a guy and we had been talking for a while, and we agreed to meet. He suggested that we go to the Golden Lions to meet up. I had never been to a gay bar before, though, like everyone in these stories I walked past it with trepidation and anticipation about a dozen times at least. It was right next to an indie bookstore that I went to all the time, and I had seen those rainbow lights a million times. I was in college, I knew what that meant. But I had never had the courage to go inside.
So I went inside and it was a little creepy. There were no windows, all the walls were painted black and there were mirrors on the walls that weren't black. There were only maybe two other guys in there. Both of whom were at least 20 and 40 years older than me. John and John, who jokingly always said "we're all Johns in here honey." I started talking with the older John who was a product of the 1950's gay scene in Ohio, and he told me stories about cruising in the parks and the raids and the films about how awful homosexuals were. His drink of choice was the red wine for the flavinoids to keep his heart health up as he was in his late 60's. The other John was a professional escort for wealthy women, whose husbands were not interested in cultural events. Me being a chatty person I loved this. It really was an education in gay history and what gay life used to be like for individual men. Eventually my date showed up and we chatted. That relationship went absolutely nowhere, because he wanted to be my gay history and culture teacher, and not a lover. So I turned back to the internet and to that bar.
In the late 90's that bar was really hip to the internet. The bartender was running one of the IRC channels, a lot of folks there were active online, and we all got to know each other really well. It felt like there was a real world correspondence between the chat channel and the bar. They really made that work. It was a bridge between old school and new school gay life that was exactly the right blend for its time. It seems it closed in like 2008 or 2009 and that makes me a little sad. It was a relic, but it was something that was meaningful to a lot of guys, myself included.