|
|
|
|
Minor Details |
|
 "Not into bar scene" is a fascinating self-description when it's part of somebody's personal ad. Bars, after all, have been central institutions in LGBT experience. The very symbol of the origin of the gay rights movement is the civil unrest that took place outside a now famous Greenwich Village bar. It's even known as "Stonewall," the old, sleazy bar's name.
Until the rise of Metropolitan Community Churches, there were few institutions besides bars and bathhouses where LGBT people could gather and feel some sense of acceptance. In many communities, bars are still major venues for defining LGBT entertainment, gathering with the clan, fund-raising, and meeting a potential date. For many, stepping into their first bar felt liberating. After the initial fear, it became the first place they could look around and see people "just like them." The history of the relationship of bars to LGBT people has molded behaviors. The past need to hide one's sexual orientation from the world's discrimination until it was dark enough to sneak out undetected, is still reflected in the fact that much bar activity doesn't begin until the darkest hours of the night. For those otherwise closeted, the darkness, the lateness of the hour, or the part of town in which the bar is found still provide the protections for being out and gay. Accountants can be leather daddies. Businessmen can dress in drag. Preachers can experience the opposite of what's approved from the pulpit. Women can congregate without having to show interest in men. Workers can be free of the power of their homophobic bosses. Men can act effeminate, women can act butch. The publicly innocent can act as if they really, really do want sex. How LGBT people relate to each other elsewhere sometimes reflects the kinds of behavior, looks, assumptions, expectations, and dynamics learned in bars. There's the way to eye someone as new meat, the speculation about someone's potential, the strategy, flirting and games that lead up to meeting someone, the pick-up lines, the regulars who develop into a clique, the primping, the process of lubricating oneself in order to feel uninhibited or do something stupid, the attention given to those with the in look, the shunning of the not so pretty, the assumptions about what the right look is, the hope of getting laid, the feelings of personal rejection and loneliness when no one shows interest. None of this bar behavior is especially gay. It's all just variations on the activities that go on in straight, singles bars. Bars, after all, are one of the places where the less clear one is about one's intentions and the playing of games increase profits. If everyone hooked up right away for a fling or that long-term relationship, they'd probably just leave together to get on with it. The result would be fewer drink sales. Instead, the wondering, flirting, insecurity, posturing, and game playing that keep people there, also increase sales. The difference between gay bars and straight, singles bars is the fact that the game involves two women or two men. Our culture's conditioning of human beings into gender roles just gets doubled when you have two people of the same gender involved in the activities.
Or, maybe it's something more personal that's still haunting them from their own past. I've heard people who, when they've coupled up, speak of "the bar scene" as if it's the deepest, darkest den of iniquity there ever was. And they do so even if they actually met each other in a bar. Now that's the interesting thing. Some people really have met in bars and some really have established long-term relationships with people they've met there. But I think what may remain in the minds of people is their inability to reconcile themselves to what they've done in bars. The bar for them, at some psychological level, still has the sense of the forbidden, the impure, the tawdry. For some that makes it exciting in that forbidden sense while also making them somewhat embarrassed to admit that they have to resort to bars. It makes them feel as if they've failed at attempts to define their social life or meet people in more "wholesome" environments. For others after they've coupled, there may be a guilt or insecurity that's based upon the activities they, themselves, engaged in during those days of wild (well, maybe) singleness in the bars. They think about the flirting, sexual tensions and temptations, one-night stands, cheating, failed attempts, and other activities, that they look back on as somehow unforgiven. Or they're still afraid that the activities they used to be engaged in could ruin their current relationship, fearing that what goes on in bars isn't good for committed relationships after all. But if that's what's going on, then this isn't really about bars, but about us. Bars don't have to be like this, and for others they aren't, because the bar scene for each person is ultimately what they make of it. For some couples it's a place to dance together. Holding one's partner while two-stepping, for example, can't do anything but good for a relationship. Yes, the heavy use of alcohol and alcoholism itself is rampant in our communities as beer and liquor advertisers know. Groups with histories of oppression are ripe for addictions. But that's a question of how we ourselves use alcohol. So, how we define the bar scene is about us. How we relate to it is our choice. And yet, whatever we might think of it, be assured, in our society it's not going away. 
Robert N. Minor, Ph.D., is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas. His new book, Gay & Healthy in a Sick Society (HumanityWorks, 2003), was named one of the "Best Gay Books of 2003." His Scared Straight (HumanityWorks!, 2001) was a finalist for the Lambda Literary and Independent Publisher Book Awards. He may be reached at www.fairnessproject.org
|
Maybe it's this bar behavior that people are shunning when they say they aren't "into bar scene." Maybe they're in recovery and need to shun temptation. Maybe they're tired of breathing second-hand smoke. Maybe they don't like the music, or the décor, or the staff. Maybe they just like to start the evening earlier than 11pm, midnight, or 1am.