It’s been so long since I hit the clubs that I didn’t know women were choosing gay bars for their bachelorette parties. When I first read about the pheomenon today, I thought: Brilliant! I shudda thought of that, though my own was from rowdy (by choice). What a great idea! Turns out, not so much.
Not only are women getting drunk and handing out the same kind of pawings they passed on hetero-bars for, they’re (we’re) just rubbing salt in the wounds of our fellow citizens who can’t marry. From the Chicago Tribune (via Salon’s Broadsheet):
“The women are a hoot, and some can be just delightful,” said Geno Zaharakis, the owner of Cocktail, a gay bar on North Halsted Street. “But because not everybody can get married, watching them celebrate, it’s such a slap in the face. Prop 8 just reopened the wound.”
Zaharakis told me that Cocktail stopped hosting bachelorette parties a couple of years ago when he noticed his gay patrons weren’t just complaining about the women being minor irritants but about them “flaunting” their right to marry. So Zaharakis hung a sign on the front door of his establishment that says, “Bachelorette Parties Are Not Allowed.”
If that message isn’t resonant enough, he offers a written statement: “Until same-sex marriage is legal everywhere and same-sex couples are allowed the rights as every heterosexual couple worldwide, we simply do not think it’s fair or just for a female bride-to-be to celebrate her upcoming nuptials here at Cocktail. We are entitled to an opinion, this is ours.”…Indeed some gay men and straight women have a friendship that’s reminiscent of the old television show “Will & Grace.” And many men make the distinction between their “girlfriends” who frequent gay bars and are sensitive to the marriage issue and other women who are merely seeking good music and “go-go boys” (translation: nearly naked male dancers) for a bachelorette party.
“We appreciate that these women are not homophobic and … want to party with us,” said Jens Hussey, a gay man who’s in a four-year relationship and worries about being able to make medical and other decisions regarding his partner. “But with all that’s going on [in] the media about us not being able to marry, are [these women] willing to march with us or raise money with us or work to change somebody’s attitude to help us get equal rights?”
Just goes to show, no matter how well-intentioned you might be, there’s always something to be learned. I wouldn’t have given a second thought to attending a bachelorette party at a gay bar. I’d try to talk them out of it now. Sorry guys.
On a different point though, in my younger days I did hit the gay bars with gay friends and did indeed enjoy the go-go boys. But I never wondered if they’d rather not have to ‘tend’ to the female guests, many of whom were quite…uninhibited with them. I gave my gay friends the bills to ‘offer’ to the dancers but lots of women don’t. From what I understand, female ‘dancers’ don’t mind tending to women clubbers.
I’ll have to call “my gays.” I don’t have as many as Kathy Griffin, but I got a couple that’ll do.
