Queer Townie Nightlife Is In Jeopardy

I have to say, I'm reluctant to go to a packed bar since COVID.

If I know someplace has an outdoor patio I'll go, but I'm not really down for 3 hours breathing in everyone else's funk and breath.

I prefer online socializing to in-person. I don't have to put my girdle on or my teeth in.

One reason people are eating at home more is that everything has gotten so expensive. Businesses seem to be "making" up for revenue lost during COVID/pandemic. I have a feeling many businesses have recouped a great deal of what they lost but (free market) they still charge what the market can bear.

Businesses need to share some blame in why things have gotten shitty for them. Suddenly, small businesses (and not so small) are charging customers the credit card processing fee (I keep seeing this more and more and it bugs me), they're skimping on their staffing and YET pay their workers shitty wages - expecting the customers to supplement pay with tips.

We're now basically subsidising normal business expenses.

It looks like a dump. If I'm going to pay today's prices, no dumpy vintage aesthetic of the 80s and 90s, please.

Honey, it's dying in NYC too.

Maybe we should all watch this documentary series I recommended the other day and discuss.

Oh wow, thank you R6. Your thread didn't show up on my feed, I would not have known about it. Will watch!

What a shame OP. I was just in Northampton last week and would have stopped in had I known.

Oh Elderlez, do you live in New England? What did you do during your visit?

Aren't these all queer spaces now for straight girls?

Not in many decades R9.

I was asking the Airbnb hosts if they rinsed their pasta.

[quote]r11 = I was asking the Airbnb hosts if they rinsed their pasta.

...and?

I've been to The Majestic... it wasn't "all that" by any means. It didn't know what it wanted to be. It wasn't a gay bar for men. It wasn't a lesbian bar, for women. It was queer... big on supporting the T, had RuPaul Dragfest on, really crappy gay art on the walls. The bar is small and it had no definition.

And FYI, Northampton has a thriving gay scene... decades ago it started with a gay bowling league. Gay - for men. This was decades ago - those guys showed up week after week and were out, proud and bowling. All of the Poles and locals? They bowled as well. Nowadays bowling is very much for lesbians, but gay men still bowl. All spring and summer there's gay volleyball. Those guys essentially take over the townie nets and play. They go out after and since it's Northampton, they don't need a gay bar to gather.

Quick tale about me, Northampton, etc... I came out late, joined bowling; a good way to meet guys and do it outside of a dark Springfield bar when drunk and cruising. I was subbing on a team and lanes away were 2 guys from my gym (a Gold's); father and son - a couple of nods of the heads across the lanes and back to bowling. Saw them at the gym - no change, just nods, a couple of "heys" and off to lift. Man did that feel good.

You're in Springfield, R13? I love to bowl but I have never been very good at it.

I feel comfortable anywhere, I'm not requiring "safe spaces" like the people in the article talk about. I'm mainly upset that there are so few places to go dancing anymore, which is my main reason for going to a specifically gay bar these days. Not for picking up tricks. Dancing seems to be dying, and it is really shocking.

I'm in western Mass R14/OP. Dancing, dancing for the gays in the area? H'mmm, try Fame in Holyoke MA.

[quote]Saw them at the gym - no change, just nods, a couple of "heys" and off to lift. Man did that feel good.

Oh hon, they did the math the first second the on first day they laid eyes on you at the gym.

Stopped reading at “queer.”

R16 - fuck off. You're an asshole.

R14 - yeah - I never thought gay nightlife would take such a depressing downward trend the last 15-20 years. I'm glad I was there to see what it was back in the 80's and 90's, but it's fallen so low.

If you do move to NYC, please refrain from using the word "folks".

[quote]back in the 80's and 90's

It was even better in the '70s.

[quote]One reason people are eating at home more is that everything has gotten so expensive. Businesses seem to be "making" up for revenue lost during COVID/pandemic. I have a feeling many businesses have recouped a great deal of what they lost but (free market) they still charge what the market can bear.

A bar/music club owner explained that it's a lot cheaper to have $2 worth of edibles at home before going out and then just get a single bottled water vs. paying for several drinks.

In gay bars, combine that with the death of cruising and the rise of online hookup culture, and it's understandable why young broke people aren't going out as much.

r5 as a Chicago resident, with not one but two gayboorhoods, it's shocking every time I go to NYC and see the state of the gay options. It feels so disjointed and a bit on the downside. Hell, you all don't even have a bathhouse, while we have a Steamworks. Not saying you NEED a bathhouse, but if any city in the US should have one, surly the town with the most gays would.

I don't know what's going on with NYC's scene, but it was just comparatively sad considering you are the premier city. I expected to see everything but it all felt so tired.

That said, you have a lot of gay bars all over, and I had fun, but nothing felt like a must see place. I know expecting a Queer as Folk style club is a reach, but everywhere felt too small or the crowds too light for the venues.

Isn't Northhampton mostly a big Dyke town?

Lesbians aren't known for supporting night life. They constantly bitch about it but then they don't actually get off their asses and support the venues they do/did have.

I love love queer townie nightlife. Visiting family for Thanksgiving and discovering gay bars in these sleepy towns is just magical

In grad school I had magical dalliances with local young men in my folks' small city, which had one gay bar and every time I went I could pick up the one cute guy in the bar. With each one we usually met a couple times during my visit to the town. With one we would fuck in the cornfields at night. He was a sublime skinny hung twink hick. A few were soldiers.

R24, actually, Northampton's not a "big dyke town" but its lesbian community was much more visible than the gay male community. Northampton's home to Smith College, which is just off of d'town. Years ago, you'd see some very dykey women walking about shopping and such, there was an overabundance of Subarus, a few other stereotypes, hence the reputation.

Ahem

COVID wrecked a lot more than mortality rates. Many of my hangouts closed and never opened again.

It’s not just Coviid, things were already circling the drain by 2019 when Covid gave it a hard flush. The truth is, gay & lesbian social life in the 70s and 80s was both pre-Internet and absolutely SOAKED with alcohol.

Going out on Friday and Saturday and Sunday night every week and expecting to spend $$ at the bar and get drunk, is mostly a thing of the past. Even for young people.

Doesn’t Rachel Maddow live in Northampton?

Not anymore

It is everywhere. When I moved to my mid-sized Deep South city forty years ago, there were three gay bars! Even in the Bible Belt, they were not hidden and everyone knew where they were. Any problems were rare. Now there are none and there seems to be more anti-LGBT activity. Go figure.

Covid, internet, high cost of everything, societal acceptance of LGBT so many don't feel the need to have spaces for themselves, high rates of gay marriage so they don't go out any more.

So many factors are killing gay bars and spaces everywhere. I don't feel even NYC has much of a "gay scene"--sure there are lots of gay people and a bars, but I don't see a common mission, if that makes sense.

I really dislike gay nightlife and always have. The obnoxious music, the expensive drinks and drag queens.

Give me an orgy with hot guys weekly and a dive bar once a month.

The problem with the Majestic is that it is a "queer" bar. It's also a dump, which I suppose is part of "queer" bona fides.

Had they positioned them selves as more inclusive, and used words like gay and lesbian, they might have been more successful.

[quote] Give me an orgy with hot guys weekly and a dive bar once a month.

Sadly, I'm over that too

Anything called "queer" and I'm not going near it.

She lives nearby in Cummington, which is one of the western Mass "Hilltowns." Same county, just a little further northwest, toward the Berkshires. Very peaceful and gorgeous around there.

Aww, R36 I liked the Majestic vibe, and the dumpiness. I don't resonate with "queer" but I liked their programming. It was quaint and cheerful. And now, as of last night, it is no more.

"She" being Rachel Maddow

The Majestic closed on Halloween, with, naturally, a DRAG show. I saw on Facebook one of the "performers" was Skye Skraper. His/Their/Its proud parents were in attendance. They were of so proud. Oy and vey.

We have two bars left in the Scranton/Wilkes Barre 500k metro area. One is kept open more as a hobby. It can't make much and the owner doesn't need the money. The other is a front for money laundering for the mob.

Let's kill the use of "queer" as well.

R42

I thought that's how they would go out. Not surprising. I'm sure there was some "queer" karaoke, too. though I never got to ask what was particularly "queer" about their karaoke.

Gay is now equal to Drag. Drag is now equal to Gay.

Pisses me the fuck off. But then, I'm not young and "queer."

I think for the young set, "queer" is seen as more inclusive and all-encompassing. For us Gen-Xers, it feels like erasure of something very sacred that was hard fought and hard won. It allows trans people and confused young nonbinary people to hitch a free ride on the acceptance train. And then they don't have to pick a side or understand their own sexuality clearly, or fight for it.

Emotional capital is spent online now, so why go out and extend yourself in a vulnerable way? The price of "home made" fun is of course a cycle of loneliness and isolation -- and poor mental health, obesity, emotional stasis, rapid aging, rising cancer rates, etc etc.

Picnics, amusement parks, dancing, carnivals and fairs, bowling, softball leagues, fishing and hunting, hiking, camping, biking, bar hopping, and still more dancing -- these were the normal modes of socializing for many years and - apart from being done with other people - had one thing in common: Movement. And it wasn't just young people doing these things. People from my grandparents' generation were frugging till they couldn't anymore or there was nobody left. Screens are destroying our humanity.

"Queer"--just like "Nigga"--is NOT going anywhere. Accept it. Live your life. Move on