Finds Old, Tired Circuit Queens

‘Out’ Goes Out On The Town

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Nightlife’s not dying. It’s just taking a new form. That’s Out magazine’s thesis for their October issue.

As part of their coverage, the monthly probes actor John Barrowman’s kink filled imagination:

I have a fetish for leather that I’ve never lived out. I would like to be blindfolded and guided in a room, with everyone else in chaps, in harnesses and slings, and just – […] I’m a control freak. So I’d be taken out of my control zone.

While that’s all well and good, we’re much more interested in another one of their investigations: the waning, aging state of the circuit party. And the young bucks who are taking its place…

Journo Steve Weinstein writes:

After 20 years of prominence, the yearly calendar of gay dance parties known as “the circuit” is facing middle age, as are its most passionate adherents.

Where an earlier generation saw the drug-fueled all-night dances as liberating, those in their 20s are as likely to view them as archaic throwbacks that bear little relationship to the way they live their lives.

One of those twenty-somethings, Next EIC Justin Ocean, explains that we faglings are less concerned with self-segregation. What’s more, we’re not as interested in the muscular, post-AIDS body types sported by so many of our predecessors. There are myriad factors killing the circuit party, Weinstein says, such as a change in drug habits and musical taste.

We think Ocean’s comments, however, hold the most truth. After years of overarching oppression, many gays only felt comfortable associating with one another. As American culture spreads its sexual wings, however, there’s less stigma and, thus, more interaction between straight and gay “camps”. Circuit parties only further sexual apartheid. It’s for this reason that more niche celebrations have gained the upper hand.

Not coincidentally, Out dispatched Michael Musto and photographer Nikola Tamindzic to document New York City’s up-and-comers, including two of our friends, Lady Fag and Cazwell. Don’t fret if you’re not in the Big Apple – Out‘s new issue features the world’s 50 best gay and gay friendly bars.

The issue hits stands early next week. Get it before it’s old and craggy like circuit parties.

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