Gay Bar: Why We Went Out

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Strobing lights and dark rooms; throbbing house and drag queens on counters; first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression—whatever your scene, whoever you’re seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What was the gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it? Even before I ever went inside a gay bar, I was aware of the smell. A mixture of cologne and BO, it’d waft out of the open doors of the cavernous establishment down the street from where I lived, like man cake emanating from a queer bakery. I’d walk through that smell almost every day while still in the closet, holding a steadfast, soldierly resolve to stare straight ahead. Surely if some passerby saw me even casually glance in, they’d figure out I was gay. Not only that, but they'd also run and gossip to all my friends and family. The neuroticism of being closeted is like that stress of seeing a cop while you’re stoned, but 24/7, and also, you like gay sex. The arrival of the big, loud gay venues in Dublin came at the same time as other freedoms. In Barcelona in 1975, when Franco died, there was not a single bar that was clearly designated as gay in the city. In Buenos Aires, a decade later, as military rule ended, it was the same. The explosion of gay bars in both cities came with democracy. They were a sign of the times.

Strobing lights and dark rooms; throbbing house and drag queens on counters; first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression—whatever your scene, whoever you’re seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What wasthe gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it?But the ghosts in his book are also those who created gay San Francisco itself, where there were 18 gay bars in 1964 and “an estimated hundred and eighteen within a decade”. Atherton Lin registers the nostalgia that came with all this change, quoting Foucault: “I actually liked the scene before gay liberation, when everything was more covert. It was like an underground fraternity, exciting and a bit dangerous.” One group in San Francisco 'could be detected from a distance by the stink … Each seemed to have a magnificent ass and be writing a book' It’s a tough world, constantly having to measure what we say or do in public. In a bar, we can let down some of that guard.”

We go out to get some," writes Jeremy Atherton Lin in his new book, Gay Bar. "We go out because we're thirsty. We go out to return to the thrill of the chase ... We go out for the aroma. Some nights just smell like trouble."

by Jeremy Atherton Lin

That kind of gay bar — all kinds of gay bars, really — are in danger of closing, Atherton Lin writes, due to the popularity of dating apps and rising property costs. He's ambivalent about the development, writing, "I had to consider whether gay bars promised a sense of belonging then lured us into a trap. In a gay bar, am I penned into minority status, swallowing drinks that nourish my oppression — have gay bars kept me in my place?" Gay Bar is a sparkling, richly individual history of enclaves in London, San Francisco and Los Angeles. It is also the story of the author's own experiences as a mixed-race gay man, and the transatlantic romance that began one restless night in Soho. Expansive, vivacious, curious, celebratory, Gay Bar asks: where shall we go tonight? Atherton Lin explores topics like architecture and urban geography, as they relate to gay bars, beautifully; he writes with a real knowledge that's more than just intellectual dilettantism. About the changing looks of bars before the turn of the century, he observes, "A new type of gay bar began to appear in London's Soho in the nineties — airy, glossy, continental. The design sent a clear message: In here you won't catch a disease. The new establishments were not circumspect, nor did they toy with their orientation gradually. These gay bars were born that way. They were conceived specifically to take gay men's money."

Still, he knows that the complicated history of gay bars, and the issues that still exist today, aren't so easy to grapple with. “A lot of the banal and generic places that have these incredible histories are also problematic too, especially involving racism, sexism, ableism, and ageism," he notes. "But at the same time, they’re rich spots where political progress was made.” The subtitle of Atherton Lin's book is Why We Went Out, and the London-based author offers plenty of reasons in this remarkable debut. Gay Bar combines memoir, history and criticism; it's a difficult book to pin down, but that's what makes it so readable and so endlessly fascinating.At Metropolitan, McEnrue has held a front row seat to that evolution for over a decade, long before same-sex marriage was legalized in 2015. “I remember what it was like pre-dating apps,” he says with a laugh. “It’s funny how things have changed [with gay rights]. Some for the better and some, I don’t know. When it comes to acceptance and exposure, we’re being represented across the board. I think there’s a general sigh of relief.”