A recent op-ed by Rose Dommu and published by Out accuses gay men who don’t like women in gay bars of being misogynists.
“Women can go anywhere we want to!” Dommu writes. “And furthermore, we don’t need your approval to do it!”
She adds, “If you can’t dance to some shitty house song or go down on a stranger just because a woman is in the room, you need to examine what that says about you, not call for that woman’s removal.”
She concludes the piece by calling on more DJs at gay bars to play “The Thong Song” by Sisqó, a hip hop track that demands women put on thongs and “make your booty go da na da na” while the men watch. (Nothing remotely misogynistic about that, right?)
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
We asked you, our readers, how you felt about women in gay bars, and the responses were all over the map. We though we’d take a moment to highlight some of the different perspectives…
The responses from commenters on the article show quite a range of opinions on the matter:
“Nothing says girl power like constantly trotting around after men and anything men create for themselves,” one reader says.
“I just hate the double standards,” another adds. “Feminists think that women should be able to go wherever they want, even places that specifically cater to gay men. Yet when they hold all female events, God forbid a man shows up there, even a gay one.”
“I’ll accept that you have some right to be where you want to be,” a third reader comments. “But if you walk into the backroom and I’m blowing somebody, you don’t get to lose your shit over the fact that it’s a sexualized environment.”
“I like ‘The Thong Song’,” a fourth reader says. “And, frankly, I don’t have a problem with women in any place.”
Then there are the folks on Facebook, who, so far, have left over 350 comments on the post.
A lot of them said they don’t have an issue with straight women in gay bars, so long as the women are respectful:
“We go to gay bars to be with our people [and] to escape from the outside world where we are judged and discriminated against,” one guy explains. “I don’t have a problem with anyone going to any bar, but know that it is our house, and they (straight people) are guests.”
“It doesn’t bother me the least bit, as long as they are mature about it and don’t act like they own the place,” someone else says.
“Showing up isn’t the problem,” a third person writes. “The issue is more often than not they fail to respect or understand where they are. It’s a gay bar not a ‘no straight guys to hit on us’ bar.”
Others say they’d prefer if the ladies would go elsewhere:
“That hostile article basically explained why we don’t need straight women in gay bars,” another guy writes. “Go to the other 95% of bars in the world tailored to your people. Request your Thong Song there.”
“I go to gay bars to feel comfortable with other gay people,” someone else says. “Not to be a subject of your curiosity or to be persuaded that I need to be someone’s gay BFF.”
“It is not their womanhood that makes people not want them at the gay bar,” a third person explains. “It is their heterosexuality.”
But not everyone seems to have an issue with it:
“Misogyny is not a good look,” one woman writes. “Straight women go to gay bars for part of the same reason gay men do–to be away from straight men.
Also, gay women exist in gay bars. We’re not extinct. Don’t assume women in gay bars are all straight.”
Another person agrees: “Nothing is more disappointing than misogyny and stupidity from a group of people that have dealt with prejudice, and should know better. One of the best things the LGBT community can do for the world is break down the patriarchal bullshit that is keeping us all trapped.”
Then there’s this interesting take: “Is it possible that a lot of the straight women go because they have gay friends and want to make sure they are comfortable? Just some food for thought.”
We’d say this is just one of those issues people will have to agree to disagree upon.
Related: Woman to gay men everywhere: ‘Stop telling us we can’t be in gay bars’
crowebobby
How about just turning off the music until they leave. I assume they’d get the message.
jimmypalmieri
lol. great idea.
Tombear
Watch me get sensored! I like drinking with men! No bitches allowed in my bar! They smell like menses!
MikeE
One major issue is that there no longer seem to be ANY bars that are (gay) men-only.
Gay guys with woman friends would be free to go to those “mixed” dance clubs.
And gay men, who want to be around only other gay men, would be free to do so in the men-only clubs.
As far back as I can remember, there were these two types of clubs – mixed, and purely gay.
By the way, that one commenter who said that women go to gay bars to get away from straight men, and then presumes that gay men want the same thing, is REALLY blind.
Gay men don’t go to gay bars to “get away” from anything. They go to be in the company of people like themselves.
And has no one brought up the corollary that when straight women go to a gay bar, their straight boyfriends often end up following?
Years ago, I saw bars that started allowing women in, and within a month the places were full of straight people. Apparently, the music and decor in gay bars was more appealing. That’s very nice, except now the gay men didn’t have a place to go to that was a “gay” haven. It was basically just going to a straight bar.
And not wanting women in a gay bar has nothing to do with misogyny.
if I go to a meeting of choral singers because I want to be around a bunch of other musicians, it doesn’t mean I hate construction workers.
That’s the exact same logic these people are using, by trying to use accusations of misogyny against gay men who’d like to have safe spaces of their own.
Over the years I’ve partied lots with female friends, mostly in straight bars, and I’ve always been surrounded by female friends. So I’m the last one anyone should be trying to accuse of misogyny.
That doesn’t stop me from pining for a gay-male-only place to go every once in a while.
Brian
I used to go to a gay bar in Pasadena CA that had nightly karaoke. It was a fun hangout type of place with a huge group of regulars. Over time, the owner started pushing the karaoke angle, hosting karaoke contests and advertising in non gay publications. Before long, half the crowd on the weekends were middle aged straight couples, and all of the regulars drifted away. There’s nothing as fun as being in a gay bar and not even knowing if you can hit on a cute guy because you have no idea if he’s actually gay or not. For me, the turning point was on one of the contest nights, overhearing one of the customers talking about the “fags” in the bar. Yeah, sorry, I don’t need to deal with that in a freaking gay bar.
It’s one thing for a straight woman to show up with her gay friends, it’s another thing for the bar owner to make a concerted effort to bring them into the bar.
Donston
The writer of that OUT magazine article frankly sounds like an idiot. Hell, I thought she was being sarcastic at first. She clearly doesn’t actually understand why most gay men go to gay bars. The mass of it isn’t to “dance to sh*tty house music” or “blow randoms” or to “get away from straight guys” or misogyny. Many (if frankly not most) gay and homo-dominant men contend with bouts of depression, damaged and convoluted egos, anxiety and internal conflict that involves trying to “fit into the straight world” and trying to live up to conventional masculinity, being tired of trying to find friends and co-workers and community that will accept them, a sense of isolation from feeling like they’re on the outskirts of society and of course getting away from having to contend with homophobia (which, you know, sometimes comes from women). The gay club represents a freedom from those pressures and also a witnessing that there are people like you. Furthermore, many gay men are tired of the masses appropriating gay culture and “gay lifestyle” while ‘mo’s still get seen as something less than and something to engage with when it’s convenient your mood and entertainment. I get all that, and I’ve only been to the club the couple times. It’s just not my scene.
Does that mean women shouldn’t be allowed? Of course not. My point is understand the true purpose before go and definitely understand before you write an article.
MikeE
+a million
Dave in Northridge
This was the problem with the feminist movement from the get-go. The radical feminists really wanted admission to all of the male-only spaces BUT they wanted desperately to preserve women-only places because, well, you know, male privilege. The women who show up in gay bars aren’t that kind of feminists, but it’s really about safe spaces for us and if that means none of them, too damn bad.
ethan_hines
We live in a free society. PEOPLE are allowed to go where they please. However there are expectations involved right? I mean a gay cis guy wouldn’t go into a straight bar expecting to pick up a straight cis man nor should a straight cis woman expect to go into a gay bar and pick up a gay cis man.
alanballs
no. I prefer that str8 women AND men, stay in their own bars and leave ME alone when I’m out at my favorite haunts. period.
jimmypalmieri
Perhaps if the ill informed writer showed one iota of respect for the community she was writing about, she would have had a better reception. It is exactly the attitude of entitlement that she displays in her article, that turn gay guys off. When you come to our safe places, play by the rules. Better yet….DON’T COME.
Donston
It’s the arrogant and dismissive tone of the article as well as its general ignorance that didn’t allow for any real conversation.
Pistolo
The “going down on a stranger” line in that article really rubbed me the wrong way, it grated against me actually. Girls with unresolved contempt for gay men always seem to *love* insinuating that we’re all hussies. There’s also this vibe of “Ok, you’re not a minority, you’re some elite, fashionable, bitchy class who isn’t at all effected by toxic masculinity or heteronormative microaggressions”- it’s this very entitled, authoritative, inconsiderate tone people who are being implicitly homophobic seem to take.
Donston
The article definitely had more than a whiff of homophobia, a deducing of gay men as slutty things addicted to club music and partying. Those homophobic aspects would stand out more if it wasn’t written by an OUT Magazine writer. Unfortunately, you shouldn’t expect better from them. It’s been a sh*tty, shallow, hetero-worshiping magazine for many years now.
The crux of the problem here is sociological and limited personal experience. A decent amount of gay and homo-dominant men prefer to always be surrounded by women and often use those women as a shield, a protective device from the rest of society and a way to stabilize their egos. In turn for that “protection” they constantly kiss those women’s asses and aid them with all their shallow problems. So, for many of these women who interact with these types of men they’re used to “the gays” constantly placating them and wanting to party with them. When they realize that that doesn’t represent the majority of most self-accepting, self-comfortable gay and homo-dominant men, that most aren’t interested in being a woman’s pet, they get upset and think it means the majority must be misogynistic. All they’d have to do is take a step back, look at the full scope of what it truly means to be an openly gay male in this society and what these clubs represent, and they’d understand where most of the hostility truly comes from. That is, unless the individual is just an a-hole (like the writer of that article) or they’re one of those women that “feels like they’re a gay guy”.
Armiya
Shitty and shallow. That could be said of Queerty too.
Donston
Queerty being a shit-fest goes without saying. It definitely is the worst of the worst, especially since 2/3 of its “articles” are just quotes from other articles. However, OUT was once a legit publication with solid, insightful pieces. However, like most “gay media” it’s become all about promoting sex, promoting straight people, “I might experiment sometimes or I used to” people, “queer” people, “fluid” people, “I’m supposedly bisexual but I mostly have a straight love life and want to use gay media to promote that straight life” people, and it has become generally sensationalistic and antagonistic, especially towards gay men.
DarkZephyr
I’m fine with straight women in gay bars, but that Rose Dommu can bleep all the way off.
“If you can’t dance to some shitty house song or go down on a stranger just because a woman is in the room, you need to examine what that says about you, not call for that woman’s removal.”
I like how she generalizes all gay men as going down on strangers any time they are in a gay bar.
“Feminists think that women should be able to go wherever they want, even places that specifically cater to gay men. Yet when they hold all female events, God forbid a man shows up there, even a gay one.”
And this remark is spot on. They are always talking about their “female spaces” (and a lot of the TERFS don’t even want Trans women at these things) events and yet don’t seem to think gay men should have their own spaces as well. Tired of such hypocrisy.
Josh447
Str8 women belong in str8 places and should forget practicing escapism. Coming to gay bars so they won’t get hit on by str8 men is no reason to clutter up our men – only intended spaces. The club owners probably like the cash so best we make our complaints known to them and that they respect what our community desires. Though with declining gay bars everywhere, that could be a difficult argument.
KiwiJello
When I was younger and used to frequent gay bars in San Diego, there were always straight women there. Never had any issues. They were fun to dance with and flirt with because we both knew nothing going to happen. Not to mention, straight girls make amazing wing-men.
If they are there, having a good time, great! If they are there trying to change the environment to suit them, then they can go elsewhere. Most straight women I came across in gay bars loved everything about it and never asked for change. Maybe times have changed…
Josh447
I remember that time too. This one chic was always hitting on my bf, which was like a nat flying around one’s head. We finally had to ask her to go take a cold shower. She was hurt. Totally incompatable environment. I’m sure the are much more benign stories. Women are great but I don’t need them in my gay space though if friends that’s a different story. But a bunch of chics coming in to party, no thanks.
Donston
That’s what a lot of these “straight women” who love to always frequent places that mostly entertain gay and homo-dominant men don’t want to admit. A decent percentage are turned on by male homosexuality (which is okay in and of itself). A smaller percentage are looking to “turn” a gay guy or are looking to be a beard or are looking to receive romantic and/or sexual attention from men whose sexual attractions they are aware are only or greatly with other men, or (a bit more common and less insidious) they’re just looking from some ego-boosting attention from hot guys without having to worry about putting out. A lot of people have motivations they’re scared of revealing.
Guy068
My experience with the breeder babes invading gay bars is that it’s all about them. It’s like they’re visiting a show or expect some kind of performance to entertain them.
Josh447
Yeah but they do have to be careful of the hott sensitive gay guys, they’ll lose it and burn their wings in the process.
Jack Meoff
Wow Queerty, way to rehash a story that’s already been covered and create even more tension on the issue. This was just a stupid little badly written and ill informed article by some women with an axe to grind and now you have given her more validity and attention by producing not one but two articles on something that should have been ignored. Is it a slow news week or something?
batesmotel
He she didn’t have a hat on with racist xenophobe whatever on it ya blind bat. It was a pro Trump for President hat.
Tête Carrée
@batesmotel
Oops! You’re trolling too many tabs at the same time. There’s no one here by the name of Caitlyn “HeShe” Jenner. But that would make a fascinating addition to this article…”A straight woman goes into a gay bar wearing a MAGA hat. How many gay men hit (on) her?”
BriBri
I once fingered a straight girl in a gay bar, needless to say we were trashed!
AmyLaw
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Tombear
Certain bars yes but bear/leather bars no way! The fact of pornfilms alone keep bitches out!
jayjay333
Actually, that is not totally true (unfortunately). I’ve been to bars that play gay porn in NC and Atlanta and the women just keep on comin! The worst is that the few recent times I’ve been to Ziegfields – that all nude male strip club in DC – its all bachelerotte chicks now screeching at the top of their lungs! Total buzzkill and total boner-kill.
Why do straight chicks have to appropriate EVERYTHING about gay culture???
Spike
Bitches just be pissed cuz gays don’t buy them drinks like dumbass str8 boys do……
marque63
The picture on this article describes the type of female that makes a night out at my favorite gay bar or cabaret or gay dance club a living nightmare. As I am older now, I prefer the quiet relaxing atmosphere of a cabaret or piano bar, and have been going to one in New York City for the past 20 years, even when I was living in West Hollywood and a regular customer at all of the bars on the Santa Monica strip. Back in the day, a few cute yet polite straight girls would come in, and heck, I’d even invite a few college friends to join me. But they were not a part of the social media, “Hey look at me, I’m being hip and trendy being in a gay bar!” mentality, and after a few drinks, they’d excuse themselves and get home in time for the boys to do what they came in to do. The first time I recall seeing a bachelorette party was maybe 20 years ago, and it didn’t bother me. At the time, it was cute and a novelty. But these women came in for a scavenger hunt, did their thing and left, and nobody was bothered. In reflection, if the same type of incident were to happen today, it would be uncomfortable, but being out of the norm, it wasn’t an icky experience. I moved from West Hollywood to New York 10 years ago as West Hollywood began to expand on straight women going there (blame the presence of the nearby Abbey for that), and at my West Village piano bar, the presence of a regular group of customers made for a family atmosphere that made me comfortable right away. I can see how the straight women customers gained a sense of being comfortable there, and the regulars have always been more than welcome. But for the “woo girls” and “hen parties” to come in, it’s a nightmare, with their entitled modern feminist attitudes unwelcome in a bar that caters primarily to gay men and their polite family like supporters. They infiltrate on guys who simply want to be alone with their other half or their new pick up, try to intrude on private conversations, and plant themselves squarely in the middle of the action, whether there is room or not. So I have no objection to the presence of straight women in this sort of atmosphere (a leather bar or cruise bar would be a different story), just to the ill-mannered pests who think, like the three women pictured at the top of this article, that their presence is God’s gift to gay men and that we’ll automatically become their shopping girlfriend, buy them drinks and then stand guard as they get rip-roaringly sick after overdosing on cosmos. Give me the older straight women or butch lesbians over them any day; We really know how to party and make sure everybody has a great time!