Everyone should remember their first visit to a gay bar. Perhaps you were underage, sneaking into the Columbian to get a taste of what life could be like.
Maybe you were older, accompanying a friend who’d just come out. Maybe you were visiting Sydney from somewhere else, heard Oxford Street was a good place to go, and stumbled unwittingly into the Midnight Shift. Or maybe you’ve been living in Sydney your whole life, walking past Taylor Square on your way to school, and so your first visit inside one of those dingy bars was an entirely forgettable, everyday experience.
I grew up in regional Australia, living both a closeted and sheltered life. We had two nightclubs in my town, one above a shopping mall and next door to some legal offices, and one below the same shopping mall, next to the car park. So when heading out for a night, the question was literally, “Upstairs or down?” We had one taxi rank, goon sunrises on the menu at the local pub (for $2.40), and we were imposing lockouts long before they were cool.
I moved away when I was 18, heading overseas to Brighton, the UK’s gay capital. At this point I was still closeted, and still pretty sheltered. The girls I moved in with and I were quickly told that a rainbow flag at the entrance to a bar meant it was a gay bar. Absolutely fascinated by this (again, sheltered life), we followed this to the letter, including the converse – if it didn’t have a rainbow flag out the front, it couldn’t possibly be a gay bar, because that was against The Rule!
Heading out for one of our first nights on the town, we did what all 18-year-olds do, and drank cheap vodka at home first until we were already tanked, and then caught the bus into town. Arriving at the nightclub precinct (we would later learn we were at the Oxford Street equivalent), we walked around. Rainbow flag, rainbow flag, rainbow flag. All of these bars were strictly off-limits, being the robustly heterosexual teenagers we were (ha).
Finally, we found a bar with no rainbow flag out the front. Success! The bright purple exterior and pink neon lights were definitely a heterosexual safehaven. We joined the queue of well-dressed men, oblivious, still tasting the faint petrol flavour that was on the £6 vodka’s tasting notes. We get to the front and learn there’s a £7 cover. That’s substantially more than the $5 cover at ‘Downstairs’ I was used to. We paid it anyway. We’d already drunk too much; it wasn’t like we were going to spend much more money that night.
As soon as we headed inside, climbing the stairs to the club, the rainbow flags appeared. The staircase was adorned with them. “But they weren’t outside!” we cried. “We’ve been deceived!” But we paid £7, so we were going on.
The dancefloor was full of sweaty men with their shirts tucked into their back pockets. The bartenders were a twinky man and a dykey woman, both wearing vests, underwear and boots, sporting fauxhawks. We stood in a corner, watching what I would later come to realise was possibly the most stereotypical gay bar experience I could have possibly had for my first time. The drag queens came out, wearing tall pink wigs, lip-syncing to ‘It’s Raining Men’. The bartenders abandoned the bar to serve as back-up dancers, twirling their way through some impressively punchy moves with their matching fauxhawks staying strong, the cans of hairspray holding them firmly in place.
A group of women glanced at me and smiled. I hadn’t noticed, but my very afraid, very Christian housemate had.
“Lucy, those women are staring at you.”
“Are they? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Yes, we need to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because those lesbians are staring at you.”
“It’s not a big deal, let’s just have a dance.”
And with that, my very Christian and I now realised very homophobic housemate started to cry. (If she could see me now, I lament almost daily.) We left before the drag queens could do their second show. I waved and grinned at the lesbians as we left, to spite my awful housemate.
In the cab ride home, I asked the cabbie if we could put the radio on. A breaking news bulletin informed us that Heath Ledger had been found dead in his New York apartment. My housemate’s quiet tears turned to heavier sobs, presumably mourning the evening’s loss of both our Heath and her innocence.
This Week…
This Wednesday November 11 sees another instalment of Kings Cross Library’s Late Night Library. This time, it’s a panel discussion with the good people of Archer Magazine, ahead of their launch of issue number five. The discussion will be around the impact of place on one’s identity, and features a range of contributors to the magazine.
On Friday November 13, get to 90 Liverpool Street for the next instalment of Girlthing. It’ll feature all the regular DJs, including Ariane and a performance from Burley Chassis.
Then on Sunday November 15, head to the Red Rattler for Pony Up,a pole dancing and comedy show hosted by Ground Up, with all proceeds going to indigenous communities in Western Australia. Yolanda Be Cool will play a DJ set.
[Main photo byBex Wade /flickr.com/photos/bexicle]
