Your first time in a gay bar. What were your impressions?

1975 in Springfield, MO of all places.

LOVED it.

"Oh my god! All these men are gay?"

That was my impression.

I was 19 and living in a state where you could drink 3.2% alcohol content beer if you were under 21. There were lots of dance clubs - gay and straight - in my city that catered to the under 21 crowd. I was nervous as hell before I went into my first gay under 21 bar. I probably sat in my car for 30 minutes before getting the courage to go in. I was nervous as hell, but calmed down quickly when I saw people dancing and just having a good time.

Randolph Country Club, a half hour south of Boston, 1988. I was spoiled by this, as it was an upbeat and highly social place where gay men and lesbians mixed together and got along well. I did notice, as the night went on, that quite a few of the regulars had a massive Alcohol Problem.

Boston bars and clubs seemed much less friendly in comparison, though I often got lucky hookup-wise at Paradise (aka “Parasites”) down Albany St in Cambridge near MIT.

R1, what bar? My first was 1105 in Springfield, MO in 1994.

I did my Liza impression. You're terrific!

Cologne, disco music (which I've never liked), the darting eyes--this was the late 80ss. It seemed anachronistic

I had only been to a few straight bars before, so I just assumed the gay bar would be the same, just all gay men. I was not ready for - OMG GAY PORN PLAYING ON THE TVs! I really was so shocked. I loved it, I just felt like we were all going to get in trouble.

No idea, r5. It was downtown, upstairs and the space was weird, so the dance floor was split in half.

1976, Topeka Kansas- as a Junior in High School. After several bailed attempts, I worked up the courage to go inside. I parked myself between the cigarette vending machine and the jukebox. It was very very dimly lit, with those little red netted table top candles and super smoky. It was 1976, so I was hearing a lot of great disco music for the first time. The very kind Lesbian bartender immediately spotted me, introduced herself and escorted me to the bar. She bought me a coke and introduced me to the regulars. They, in turn became very protective of me over the years. I was very fortunate to have such a safe first time experience

Excitement

1974 Atlanta. I was with a friend who suggested we celebrate me reaching legal drinking ago and go see the floor show at The Sweet Gum Head, a famed Atlanta drag bar. I was mesmerized. The drag queens performing on stage were incredible. At the time I wasn't really aware how famous that bar was. People in places far and wide have mentioned TSGH to me over the years. In the mid 80s I was in London for work. I was having dinner in a restaurant and the waiter asked where I was from as he detected an American accent. I told him "I'm from Atlanta, the the state of Georgia" . He got a look of surprise on his face and said "Oh, I love Atlanta, I visited friends there once we went to a wonderful club called The Sweet Gum Head, and I had so much fun there. I had to tell him that sadly the bar had closed years before.

1987 - I was 16. I couldn't believe some of these guys were gay.

I got uncomfortable and laughed when I saw 2 guys kissing - because I had never seen it before. Then music and dancing started later and the whole place lit up.

It was a total safe refuge and a secret world all its own. (This is back when no gay bars had windows - and if they did, it was darkened and bullet-proof glass. Signage was also very small or non-existent).

Still saw a lot of gay bashings, harassment, and unpleasant things. Looking back I'm still undecided if I was too young or if it saved my life.

I hated the one woman in there, busy making it known that she was there.

1992, I was 15. Loved every minute of it, especially all the attention.

You also have to remember - up until late 90s/2000? The gay bar scene was like an underground scene. Thankfully most cities had gay guides you can pick up in the gay bars to show you where each bar/restaurant/bathhouse/other was located.

And many gay bars weren't in great areas - just like a black door in a warehouse area, then you went in, opened another door - and it was a whole different world exploding before you.

It seemed forbidden, decadent, but also cool and exclusive.

Babylon in Redondo Beach in the 90s. My biggest shock was seeing Latino guys who looked and dressed exactly like gang members from TV and movies. Because of my limited exposure to other cultures growing up I assumed they were gang members! It got me thinking about the issues of multi culturalism and masculinity among gay men.

R17 - I hear you. I think the variety was what was such a shock. Of course you had twinks and flaming retail queens - then you learned there was a leather scene (who looked scary to me), a country/western scene with guys straight out of Urban Cowboy, and then mainly 'normal' looking guys who worked in an office.

Or the guys who looked like Norm from Cheers. And then you would see the MARRIED men (married to women) who looked very uncomfortable and fidgety but still with those wedding bands. (This was way before gay marriage).

As far as gay Latino and Black guys - you learned quickly how much some of that styling and posturing was fashion or just something you needed to do to not be a target in certain neighborhoods. Doesn't mean they were thugs - at ALL.

Coming out in the late 80s - there was still this dark cloud though - you saw all of the AIDS obits in the gay rags - pages and pages of them, plus the fundraisers.

Happenings Social Club in Winnipeg. It was 1981 and the place was a lifeline for me.

I was 15 and got fingered in the butt by a guy at the bar.

I just assumed that’s what happened in these places.

NYC in 1989. I was 19, and nobody was ever carded back then. I was frightened and intimidated because I expected to be surrounded by leathermen like in the Police Academy movie... and forced to dance the tango or something....or carried forcibly to the bathroom.

Instead it seemed like a fun and laid back vibe to have a beer in, and a few guys smiled at me. I had a drink and talked to one guy, and then I went home feeling a bit curious and yet not really like these were my people, per se. But it dispelled any of the fear I had that I would have no agency. It took a few more years to find bars that I liked. I learned that I preferred a bar with a great jukebox and a full bar, with some space to move around in.

Friends took me. I was so nervous I threw up in the car park. I'd been reading the gay press for about 3 years since I was 15 and I was so keen to leave the straight world behind and finally meet my people and be accepted.

Getting inside it was a huge letdown. Maybe half a dozen men, all of who seemed ancient but where probably in their 30s, and a woman behind the bar in a light up wig.

I didn't go into another one for months until I left rural Essex for London.

Mine was 1985 at the Dock in Cincinnati. Men walking around a big room in a circle eyeing each other, like a meat market. It was very crowded. I was very uncomfortable. I was a twink back then and no one paid any attention to me. I left after a short while.

The only reason guys were there was to hook up. So you were dissed and sneered at as you made you way through the joint if you weren't fuckable. Everyone danced the same, smoked and wore lots of black (I guess in hopes that if you were a clone you might get SOMEthing out of the night).

Most patrons disliked dance/electronic music and never listened to it outside of clubs.

My main impression was the music was fucking awful.

It was 1983, my first year in college. I was in nursing school, and was working as a phlebotomist in a neighborhood hospital evening and weekends. The lab had a mall friendly group of older lesbians, who would invite me out with them and one that I became especially close to, who suspected I was gay let me know if I ever wanted to go to a gay bar, she would take me. I was sorting myself out then. Raised very Catholic, and had gone to both a psychologist and a priest for counseling (thanks to my mom, very pragmatic, and the psychologist ended up saving my life, whereas the priest (who I think was gay) told me my life would never amount to anything, I would be an alcoholic (OK maybe that came true), I would constantly crave sex and also attack children, and I'd never be capable of a stable relationship - and since I had already had sex, I was doomed to go to hell - thank you Father) - so I was so curious to know what a real gay man was like. We ended up going to the Kings and Queens in Woonsocket RI. It was really a small friendly neighborhood bar, mostly older people, not a pick up place at all. I befriended an older man at the bar, and talked his ear off all night asking him all sorts of questions. Was he ever in love? Did he ever want to have kids? Are is family supportive? - he was so kind and patient and was probably thinking OMG I wish this brain dead dizzy queen would just go away.....I felt so good after talking to him. I left there with a new confidence, and I'll always be thankful to him for that. Then I moved to Boston and became a big slut..

It was exactly like Don Murray's first experience in "Advise and Consent."

While distorted sultry Frank Sinatra music played and evil-looking men leered at me, an enormous spotlight hit me while the queeny bartender started calling out to me, "Well come on in, don't just stand there!"

I was so horrified I didn't even stop to talk my hunky blackmailing ex-boyfriend whom I left in the mud!

I think sweet gum head sounds a little gross.

What is the phrase a reference to?

My much older BF Jack took me to a small club near Fountain Square in Cincinnati. I was underage, but I was still able to order a beer. It was boring, but I was still excited.

I was 14 . It was a seedy dyke bar called Little Dude . They accepted me with open arms and made me feel totally welcome. It was 1974 and no one even bothered carding my obviously underaged twink ass . It was there I learned about a disco called Old Plantation wich I soon went to and that place was like heaven to me ! I walked in and knew instantly I found my spiritual home. The clothes,the music ,the men I loved it all.

My first impression was how dark it was. Later I learned how beneficial that was.

[quote]The lab had a mall

Interesting concept.

"whereas the priest (who I think was gay) told me my life would never amount to anything, I would be an alcoholic (OK maybe that came true), I would constantly crave sex and also attack children, and I'd never be capable of a stable relationship - and since I had already had sex, I was doomed to go to hell"

JFC - the damage priests and clergy have done to young people. It's one thing to hear taunts from classmates or someone mentioning that X is a sin - but to have your priest say that is so immoral and abusive.

People will gladly take a lot of abuse for their religion though - we see that over and over. Anyway - sorry to derail - but that sentence just really burned me up.

Why was Sid Fairgate so terrified in that scene?

I didn't go to a gay bar until I was 21 (in 1990). Boring, I know, but I was finding plenty of cock elsewhere so I didn't sneak in to meet guys. I waited until I could get in with my ID.

The first place I went was a little dive bar in the rust belt town where I lived, and THAT seemed really sad - sad people, sad smell of smoke, piss and "gin and regret."

The first CLUB I went to (a month or so later) was in a larger city, and was in a big beautiful old bank building. I actually cried a bit because it was so beautiful - just watching people dancing and being joyful.

I eventually grew to dislike most clubs because they were pits of attitude and nellie Mean Girls BS - I had no time for that. And I grew to like most neighborhood bars. But every once in a while there'd be a glorious night at a club. I'm way too old to go clubbing now but I do cherish some of those memories.

It was in the 1970s when there were lots of gay bars in NYC.

It was heaven, I felt completely at home and relaxed, I was with my tribe. Finally. It was a big moment, really. A great affirmation.

And after that first blush of relief came exhilaration,excitement, attraction, stimulation..

R36 - yes - I don't know how anyone can put it into words. But suddenly you find a hidden world where there are other people just like you - for the first time in your LIFE.

No, you're not weird. No, you're not psycho. And yes - there is a community and you can live your life and be happy among these people.

It was truly life affirming. It was hope. It was information. Resources. Connections. A life-saver thrown to you from a boat while you were drowning in a sea by yourself.

Before the internet, being gay was SO isolating - and it wasn't talked about and there weren't many resources. I don't think people understand how tough that was.

It's far different than being a racial minority, woman, immigrant, etc - you already had a community. And you weren't called evil because of who you were.

Gay bars were so much more than bars.

1986, first year of graduate school, Columbus, Ohio. A gay friend my age (22j took me. It was the second or third week of fall quarter and I was petrified that I might run into somebody I knew from school.

It was dark, loud, and smelled strongly of smoke and colognes. I wanted a vodka and tonic, but refused to get a drink that was not factory sealed since I was afraid I could get AIDS from a glass. I ordered a beer but the bartender opened it for me when I was not watching, so I asked for another, unopened one. He gave it to me, but then I realized I needed an opener. The music was 80s pop — Madonna, Culture Club, Wham, and dance numbers I didn’t recognize. There was a disco ball over the dance floor with “laser” lights reflecting off it. My friend and settled on a place to stand and drink.

Eventually my friend went to dance with some guys he knew, so I lurked in the shadows against a wall in back. Boom, I looked up and saw a guy who worked in the building where my office was. I thought he was cute and had checked him out at school, but had no clue he was gay. Plus, another grad student who was in his department inferred that he was slutty, which ended my initial attraction to him. He walked right up to me and said, “Hey, I know you,” then planted a wet kiss on me. Then he turned and walked away. I was convinced that I would get AIDS and ran into the bathroom to wash my mouth out. That was a mistake. Aside from the fact that there was no soap or hot water, a guy was blowing another guy at the urinal.

Ignorant and traumatized me left without saying goodbye to the friend who drove me there, ran two blocks in empty streets to a hotel, where I got in a taxi to take me to my apartment. I didn’t go to another gay bar for years afterward.

I attended art school in Savannah in the early to mid-90s. I moved in with 2 gay friends, only one was out at the time, and I came out after we moved in together sophomore year. We went out together in a small group to Club One, which was where Lady Chablis held court. It was a large space over three floors, and as I was walking with one roommate to the downstairs bar heading down the staircase, 2 older guys walking up passed us and said "Oh, FRESH MEAT!" Honestly, I was kinda terrified yet thrilled? My days of being an introvert were about to come to an end.

R38 - err - I guess that is your story, but sometimes not all stories need to be told, particularly when it is as insulting and ignorant as yours was.

Only the truly ignorant thought you could get AIDS by kissing in 1986. And you were so traumatized you didn't go to another gay bar for years?

This story doesn't exactly paint you in a good light.

r40 = cuntiest cunt of all cunts on the DL.

Many sheltered people still had no idea about the ins and outs AIDS in 1986. I think you are the one not painting yourself in a good light.

June 30, 1989. Christopher Street Chicago. It was exhilarating, but I realized I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.

R41 - most gay men and young men who thought they were gay read enough about it to know you wouldn't get it from a beer bottle or from a kiss. I would have expected more from a GRADUATE STUDENT even with access to information.

Not cunty - that story was insulting and rude. He wasn't sheltered. And he didn't return for years? I stand by my assessment - it isn't a great story to tell.

r43, having lived through the plague, I can confirm there was much misinformation and outright lies being passed around. Some of our local Post Office letter carriers wore rubber gloves to deliver mail to the 'gay' neighborhoods in town. So much confusion, panic, fear and fear mongering in those years. R38 is talking about 1986- still early in the crisis. Hell, Reagan couldn't bring himself to make a speech about until 1987.

[quote]Why was Sid Fairgate so terrified in that scene?

Because he had a premonition of Joan van Ark's eventual plastic surgery, Rose.

I think it was the Georgetown Grill, Labor Day weekend, 1973. A guy I met while signing into my dorm at George Washington U asked if I wanted to go to a bar. I said sure, and we walked to Georgetown. I ended up getting so drunk. When my new friend asked me if I wanted to go home with some guy he'd met, I said sure. I think I had a blackout, in which I woke up and our host was blowing me. He had a full-length mirror he had us posed in front of, and my cock looked so huge. I'd never seen myself having sex before, or watched any porn. Eventually I came, and soon thereafter, the guy I'd started out with wanted to leave. He had me promise I wouldn't tell anyone. And I never did.

R38 that story is worthy of a sequel tell us about your second bar experience years later

R38 before clutching her pearls and running, shrieking and screaming as if on fire, from the bar in Columbus. (Was it the Gay Rage, dear?)

R44 - I lived through it too. The CDC discovered it was not passed through saliva in 1983. The New England Journal of Medicine concluded in 1985 that HIV had not been passed through saliva in any single case.

It was in the news. I'm sorry - but I just find it offensive how R38 thought he was going to get AIDS from a drink or a kiss in late 1986 and treated people - his fellow gays - that way. Particularly someone who was in grad school and had access to information and libraries.

Leather bar. I was terrified until one dude opened his mouth and the purses and Jimmy Choos came flying out which was even scarier.

He was in Columbus, r49. Not at Columbia.

In DC, it didn't become real for me until 1985, when a friend and his husband suddenly couldn't make it for dinner one Saturday night in April. We all found out the next day that he had full-blown AIDS. I didn't really start learning All About AIDS until then. And I'm ten years older than this guy.

Let me guess. You're one of the Timmy haters. You're every bit as cuntescent, to say the least.

R50 It wasn't my first visit to a gay bar, but years later around the time of Cher's "Believe" I went to a bar - it had a club on the main floor and a leather/Levi bar in the basement.

All the guys were standing around in their leather gear/Levi's, steel toed boots, looking gruff and speaking very low if they spoke at all.

And then suddenly, the CD player began to play "Believe" and all those gruff, butch men instantly became the most exuberantly nellie, bring out the disco ball and glitter group of men, prancing around to the music.

I'm been a nellie prancer many times, so no shade to them. I just thought it was hilarious (and a bit hypocritical) since those guys were trying so so SO hard to sell their butchness up to that moment.

R33 when you spend your whole life indoctrinated....I was an alter boy, went to Catholic school, and it was a core concern with me.....you looked at priests like they were the very representation of God.....my mother, who was also a nurse, was not very religious, and when it all came out that I thought I might be gay, she brought me to the church but also a mental health professional to make sure I had both sides....and thankfully so. I don't blame him, he was stunted and afraid. He was cute too - a ginger bear - wish he wanted to fool around - would have been great.

I had this teacher who hated me. He despised me so much he told me to write out an entire math book; by the next day...impossible. so, 4 years after I leave school and enter a gay bar, nervous as he'll, who comes waving at me across the long bar. I turned on my heels and ran out the door..help kept chase, so I ran about a mile through the city centre. Ive never ever seen him since..it just had to be my 1st time. Im sorry I ran like cinderella at midnight , and i Am sorry that i ran, but he was about the worst person the universe cud have placed in my path.

[quote]crisp straight leg jeans

GURL!

r40, GFY. His story is both sad and funny. You're painting yourself in a bad light by commenting like that.

R49: I normally love making fun of Columbus, Ohio as it is a vapid, boosterish place, but in 1986 all kinds of people had misconceptions about how HIV was transmitted.

R54 I saw my social studies teacher, the one that hated me in ninth grade and gave me a hard time, at the bar about a year or so after I came out.

He was gay from space so it's not like that part surprised me, but when he walked up to me all smiles and extended his hand I looked at that hand as if it had shit on it and said, "You've GOT to be fucking kidding me." That asshole forgot what an asshole he was to me, I guess.

My first time was sometime in the 00s. I never went in college. My college town had two gay bars and one was gay and the other was black and gay.

There were two "old" guys with their hands in each other's flies jerking each other off and making out, and by old they had to be in their 30s or 40s. I was with a man showing me "the ropes" that the Datalounge gays of yesteryear told me to punch and delete. It took me a few years but you were all right about him and I did manage to do it.

Some guy was getting dragged out and as he did he ran his hand over my butt. I turned around to grab his wrist and break it because I thought he was trying to steal my wallet.

I liked the cheap alcohol and my bar hopping years ended when my older friends stopped doing it.

Eventually, I knew a ton of bartenders at various bars and bouncers because the guy that took me initially was one.

I felt completely at home. I was in San Francisco. I went to The Castro District in the afternoon. Walked into a place, sat at the bar ordered a drink (a beer probably) and looked around. I realized all the men in the place (not many but still) were gay like me. And I relaxed. To this day, decades later, I feel safe and right at home in gay bars (not many left sadly...texting, the internet, and Grindr are not the same). This no doubt sounds schmaltzy, but I'm amongst my own. It feels safe.

OP, very similar. 1981, I was 19. Couldn't have been a friendlier, low-attitude bar, but I was awestruck by all the good looking gay guys -- who looked alike. This was at The Elephant Walk on Castro St in SF. I would soon take on "The Castro Clone" look myself and gain more confidence. It helped having my lesbian wing-man with me. And then it took just a drink or two to lose my inhibitions. It was one thing to visit Castro Street, but going into my first gay bar (with my student ID with a fake birth year) and seeing so many gay men having a good time was a revelation.

Also in Cincinnati in 1985, a couple of friends and I went to a tiny little gay bar on Ludlow Avenue. You wouldn't even know it was there, it was just a door in the wall. We were just 18, and everyone in there was 40s and up. There was a little square dance floor in the corner with different colored lights in the floor like Saturday Night Fever. There was a single guy dancing away in there. We had one drink and left.

The Blue Parrott on Drury Lane 2 doors down from Mcgillin's olde ale house in Philly.

It was 1982!!

1998... Atlanta.... The club music was fantastic. I remember that more than any sense of freedom or anything anout the crowd.

It was 1999 and my family and I took a trip to Toronto. I was 19yo and there just happened to be what appeared to be a fag bar across the street from our hotel! How convenient. That bar was Remington's. Being only 19 and from the US I'd of course never been into a gay bar and the very thought of walking into one terrified me...which was exactly why I became determined that I was gonna enter that place before we left. For days I walked past the front entrance trying to psyche myself up enough to go in. And the more I'd puss out, the more angry I'd get at myself. Time was ticking down. Towards the end of our stay, I realized that it was now or never...I wasn't going to have another chance to enter a gay establishment in a "foreign city" where nobody fucking knows me, so I knew it had to be done.

The next time I nervously walked by the place, I worked up the courage to ask the two employees standing by the door, "What is this place?" And in classic Canadian fashion they were overly-friendly and insisted I must go in. And so I walked in those doors. I'd known it was a gay bar...what I hadn't known was that it featured fully nude strippers. Immediately upon entry I saw a dude swinging his dick up on the bar and I just completely froze. There was a stairway right there that lead down to the restrooms so I bolted down there for a few minutes in order to regain my confidence. I remember telling myself, "You're just gonna go up there and sit in on the nearest stool to the door and simply observe." And that's what I did. Within no time I had some old dude hitting on me, telling me "You should work here!" I still remember my cringe response to him which was, "I don't think my mother would like that."

I sat and watched the naked dude do his thing on the bar. At one point he kneeled down and stirred a guy's drink with his penis--and the guy proceeded to drink it! That was...interesting. The rest of that visit consisted of me sitting there as all the strippers passed right by me to flirt with all of the older men, trying to get them to agree to a private dance. I did at one point have a very nice black kid come and offer me a dance for free but I was too shy.

I left there totally fucking emboldened that I'd actually done it! I conquered my fear. And I went back again either that night or the next night and ended up meeting two really nice Canadian guys who took me around to some other gay bars. Fly and The Barn if I recall?

Back in the US it took me many more years to work up the courage to ever enter another gay bar. I have social anxiety and I've always avoided large gaggles of gays because it makes me feel like I'm back in high school again with everyone looking at me from afar and gossiping. Maybe it's all in my head, but it always feels that way. I'm also just not into drinking, smoking (back when bars were full of smoke) or loud music. Eventually I landed on Bourbon Street in San Diego and I fucking loved that place. Friendly crowd, outdoor courtyard so smoke wasn't an issue and the music wasn't crazy loud. Aaaaand then they shut it down.

But I digress.

Fun story to read, r65. I thought Ambien put people to sleep.

Nope...generic Ambien is trash! I'm still wide awake. Just took a Quvivic in addition.

The Rage, in Birmingham, Alabama mid 80s. The first person I saw was this gorgeous girl dancing towards me and laughing at the top of her lungs while saying “Mitch, it’s me Valerie! Don’t you still love me?” Turns our she was the girl I used to get in trouble for trying to kiss in first grade. She moved and I hadn’t seen her in almost 11 years... she was now a beautiful, femme lesbian and we danced all night. It was wonderful and she made any nervousness I had fall completely away.

After this I quickly started going to Atlanta most weekends and was a regular at Pharr Library, Blake’s, Backstreet, and lots of private parties. I was underage but wasn’t given any hassle with getting in. Also went to some random gay bar in Tuscaloosa... maybe it was called Magnolias?

By 1990 I was living in NYC and going to Uncle Charlie’s, The Works, Splash, Crow Bar, the Boiler Room, and occasionally The Townhouse. Never went clubbing much as I was a tall, thin, hairy otter way before that was “trendy” and I always felt self conscious about being shirtless, etc.

Also remember going to The Big Cup, Barracuda, that random gay piano bar in the East 80s, Universal Cafe (felt like a bar, right?), and many, many more. Loved NYC in the 90s, there was an innocence and positive energy that faded after 9/11... and, of course, I got older. :-)

The 247 in Philadelphia in 1978. At first it looked like s place where everybody would know everybody, but I quickly realized it was one of the most efficient fuck shops I would ever encounter. Whatever type of man, whatever face I fancied, if not that night than another. And as many customers lived within several blocks, it was easy to make several acquaintances in one evening, go fuck, chat a bit, maybe have a coffee together at a cafe, then do it all again.

It's nice to hear these affirming stories (seriously it is).

But I just thought "Oh fuck, I don't fit in here either".

Can relate, R70!

Omg I'm so popular and everyone is so nice

[quote] And in classic Canadian fashion they were overly-friendly and insisted I must go in.

Not that I haven't found friendly bars in the US but every place I went in Toronto was so friendly. I wanted to live in The Barn and Toolbox (RIP).

The only regret was going once to the Black Eagle when they had some sort of event with scat aficionados. (Went another time and it was fine.)

To R69-You are correct, the 247 was a very local gay bar!! One time I stopped in when I was at Wharton on a Saturday afternoon during College Football season. The one bartender& 2 guys yelled out "Yo, you already had everyone here!!!

I was kind of hurt!!

I was about 15, so 1978–79. DOK West in Garden Grove, CA, an 18-and-over dance club. We hoped we wouldn’t get carded, but my little gaggle of baby gays got clocked on sight. A drag queen saw our sad faces in the parking lot and slipped us in through the back.

The DOK rule was simple: don’t order booze and you’re fine. Inside, cue the Dorothy cliché, it really was Kansas to Oz. Disco blasting, gay guys dancing in full choreographed steps, all very Danny Terrio, 'Solid Gold' backup dancers except it was all glorious, gorgeous men. Unreal.

My classmate Robert asked me to dance, Donna Summer playing, and that was it, I was hooked. DOK became our spot. When we couldn’t sneak in, we hit Rumour Hazzit down the street, my second gay club. Total dive, seedier, but the doormen didn’t care about IDs.

I made friends everywhere. I was a social little slut for attention, but it was pretty chaste. None of us were going home with the ancient 25-year-olds. Just kids finding each other. Soon we discovered the underground club scene in LA and left parochial Orange County in the dust. Yes, we were social climbing little punks.

Some gay trivia: in the late 70s and early 80s, Garden Grove actually had more gay clubs and bars than West Hollywood. Yes, Garden Grove.

Small city. 90s. There was a group of 4 “pretty boys” who had this cliquey entourage around them. They dominated the place. If you weren’t part of the circle, you were no one. I just went and danced and said fuck em. I was a bit surprised that the mean girl cliques of high school existed in the gay world, but I learned fast.

Lexington, KY, in October 1987. Reagan was still in office, the AIDS epidemic hadn't peaked quite yet, but to an 18-year-old closeted virgin, the thought of sex with another man was terrifying. I was blond and cute - with zero idea how to use what I had. I was from upstate NY, but the university was a very preppy school and the students were a lot more sophisticated than I'd anticipated.

It was an "after hours" party which started at 1 AM. I arrived around 1:30 with a couple of new girl friends (I was pledging a fraternity and they were "Little Sisters"). No alcohol was being served, many patrons arrived drunk or buzzed. When I walked in, the space was filled with college students, like me. People were gesticulating in gothic twists and clawing the air to Soft Cell's "Tainted Love." I could only make out disembodied body parts because the air was so thick with fog, and strobe lights caught millisecond snapshots of young, attractive people dressed mostly in black. Bottles of "Buzz" poppers were available to purchase at the registers - and I learned only that it gave you a buzz - not that it had sexual applications.

Most of the regulars had gone home for the night, but several had returned. Everyone was having fun, there was no discernible sexual tension - there was an unspoken code of silence. The first rule about "The Bar" was "you don't talk about "The Bar." As far as I knew, people came to dance. And dance I did, with anyone and everyone. My ass got pinched more than 20 times. I loved the attention but was too afraid to talk to any guys. Nor did I reciprocate. any pinching. God, I was a provincial idiot. I was getting attention from some gorgeous men. I wouldn't come out of the closet for another 7 years.

“My, those boys sure do like show tunes.”

[quote]R40 Only the truly ignorant thought you could get AIDS by kissing in 1986.

You are surprised the general population can be ignorant?

I went to my first AA meeting in 1990. There was a guy there who shared about being HIV positive. When we all formed a circle at the end I congratulated myself on bravely taking the risk of holding his hand.

I was college educated, but we didn’t have classes on HIV at my school.

[quote] There was a group of 4 “pretty boys” who had this cliquey entourage around them.

I remember the so called "pretty boy" entourage at my first bar.

I never understood the fuss. One was a ginger and honestly, he looked like a ferret. One was a shorter black dude and we used to call him Weezy Jefferson because that's exactly who he looked like. The third dressed nicely but looked like a plastic surgery victim, even though he was far too poor to have had any work done. The fourth guy was actually really cute, and a bartender to boot. Looked like everyone's fantasy jock top, but had serious helium heels syndrome.

Somehow they were the "pretty" ones. Okaaaay..........

I was tall, skinny and pretty and was quietly scanning the crowd at The Stud when an ebullient black man bounced over to me and said hey you can just stand there, sucking in your cheeks, or have some fun with me and my friends. We did become friends quickly. They were a bunch of young guys who worked at Esprit and Gap HQs in San Francisco.

r81, in its original location on Folsom St in the early 80s, The Stud was where the pretty 20-somethings hung out. Didn't realize it at the time, but I was one of them. It was a hassle to get to, but it was fun without too much attitude, like Badlands had. Damn, back then it seemed like there was a gay bar on every corner in SF with something for everyone.

1977, Buffalo, "What if someone I know sees me?" "Then," my friend responded, "you'll see them, too." It was crowded and I mostly remember Thelma Houston and "Don't Leave Me This Way." I also wondered when I left why there was a piece of paper in my jacket pocket with a guy's name and phone number on it.

It was some off-campus candy floss bar near the OSU campus. It was the first time I'd ever danced with a man. His name was Jim, and we danced to the Supremes' "Forever Came Today." I got a little drunk, went with Jim back to his dorm room and promptly fell asleep. Through him I met a man I would live with off and on for the next 20 years.

It had been pointed out to me as “a sailor bar.” It was early an afternoon so this “fast” girl from school said “let’s go here for a drink.” I was in NYC on a long weekend from college. Lenny’s Hideaway was bone empty. The bartender was a Lithuanian ballet dancer. Forget what I was told was the gay stuff, even at 19 I thought if you are a Lithuanian ballet dancer what are you doing as a bartender in a seedy Greenwich Village bar? No matter, he was cute. We had our drinks, we left. Several months later, the spring NCAA tourney at Madison Square Garden, I went down those stairs again, alone. I gotta find out what I was, knowing seeing guys naked in the gym wasn’t like seeing guys in a famous gay bar in NYC that might lead to seeing someone naked who wanted to do what I thought I wanted to do. At the bottom of the stairs the room was packed! Everyone seemed to be dressed in the same way, all looked 20 and a blond like me and have crew-cut hair and wearing a crew-necked sweater. I thought these guys aren’t queer (that’s what we said those days ) so I left. A couple of years later I moved to New York, into the Village and thought the first thing I was going to do was go to that Lenny’s bar and get some man to take me home. I got to Lenny’s after ten, went straight through the room to the bar, the bartender was the ballet dancer! He said he remembered me, we talked, he pointed out a few guys to me, and in seeing me talking to Robbie as he worked, other guys came along to chat. Suddenly it was easy to be in a gay bar, move about, get invited to a Sunday afternoon party and that good-looking guy in the yellow sweater over there eyeing me I took home. My first! He asked “can I brown you?“ I wasn’t sure what he meant, said no, but he spent the night. That afternoon he was at the party I went to. He had some people for me to meet, his drinking pals. I went home with one of them. So my first time in a gay bar turned out well. Down in a NY basement, small room, loud juke-box music. I was in/out of the place for a while, we all were. I had found my people! After conscripted Army service, I was back again. Then in time I would stop in at one of two bars on Greenwich Avenue. I do not remember my last time in Lenny’s, nor do I recall any press about its closing. For years I have walked by the place, never wanting to go downstairs, afraid to see what it had become. Do not want fond memories bashed. The place is now Smalls jazz club.

"Can I brown you?"

NYC ex slut over 60. I have never heard this expression. Just how old are you, R85.

When I first came out it was the era of these giant mega huge gay clubs. I went to a few of them (I think U4ia in Cleveland was the biggest one) but they were all so cold and it was hard to socialize in there.

I found the clubs that were cozier, or ones in old buildings, seemed to be a lot more fun. Although I did like the club inside the big bank building I mentioned at R35. But the most popular club was a few blocks away - you went down a basement stairwell to get to it. It was cozy but man, when the dance floor filled up it was amazing!

1984, Chester Street Bar, Champaign, Illinois. I was still dating girls and hadn't been with a guy yet. My girlfriend and her friends took all their boyfriends to "mixed" straight/gay night at the bar for fun. I saw a really handsome guy, andI was so clueless that I didn't realize I was cruising him. He finally came up to my girlfriend and said "is your boyfriend straight, or can I dance with him?" She dragged me out of their pronto. We obviously didn't last much longer, and I finally started inching my way out of the closet a few months later.

16 Philly - where is all the gay sex? I expected to walk in and be able to have sex. Instead it was standing around a bar, no one talking, standoffish. Followed the only decent looking guy into bathroom after 30 minutes in desperate attempt to hookup. I did.- he blew me - but then he got totally paranoid about AIDS, spit and washed mouth. 1985. I had no idea about AIDS. Thanks to Rock Hudson, I realized what was happening 3 months later. A horrible time to start having gay sex - but also allowed me to live past 30.

Felt forced, still hate it. Thanks.

R10, when I first started going to gay bars (you whispered their names and there were never windows onto the streets) I had the same good luck in being comfortable around older guys. They weren't creepy or anything. I loved their stories about how Buffalo was once a hugely vibrant entertainment attraction for many great acts and touring companies, with amazing nightclubs and cabarets. A lot of them were from the surrounding rural areas but after their service years (some WWII, mostly Korea) they were attracted to a city. They would have such great stories. I've actually looked up old newspapers and sure enough, some of the acts and road shows that came through were gold standard stars.

JFC I'm old but from some of your stories a couple of you are really dating yourselves. In some ways though I'm a little jealous.

90, R86.

Explain to me R92, is something wrong with dating ourselves? What is, is. What is it with you?

MARY!

1973 - The Brook in Westport, CT. I was 17 and I really don't remember much about my first time though. I'm sure I was scared.

R92, you're sounding a bit like one of the Mean Girls we are lamenting here.

This site is for all gays, including the ElderGays like myself. It's important for us to share this stuff amongst ourselves. It's not just fun and nostalgic, it's critical to document these stories, as we find ourselves dying out, and getting erased by other groups in our current climate.

R97 amen!