Something Eloise said made me remember what I think was the only time I’ve ever been to a gay club (because, you know, I’m not gay, and I’ve never been that keen on clubbing anyway).
It was Love Muscle at the Fridge in Brixton, which, slightly startlingly, still seems to exist. Not the nightclub – I know that still exists – the fact that the same gay night is still going with the same name. It must be over a decade since I went there. The men were all in DMs, jeans and white T-shirts, which must date it quite badly.
I remember being struck by how male the atmosphere was; blokey even. I think the only other time I’ve been in quite such a male-dominated atmosphere is at a football match. That shouldn’t really have come as a surprise, but our culture is so keen to portray gay men in terms of effeminacy and (double-edged, this) stylishness that it really did come as a surprise to see the dancefloor full of men who were not buff, effeminate fashion mavens but just rather ordinary-looking men who didn’t look that special in the jeans and T-shirt combo, and didn’t dance that well, and were generally rather like any dancefloor-full of London men on the pull.
The danger of stereotyping is not that the stereotypes are out-and-out lies, but that they contain such a partial and simplistic version of the truth.
One reply on “Gay clubs”
Love Muscle? That is possibly the best name for a clubnight ever (up against Cock and Pop Justice).
IMO, stereotypes provide useful extremes, and help you understand what those on the outside see when they look in. Other than that they are almost invariably too simplistic, and never more so than when describing a minority, where the numbers are too few (or at least the visible ones) to provide enough opposing evidence.
However, sometimes it is helpful to consider what stereotype you might belong to, it’s a good antidote to that awfully self-absorbed desire to be special and different. We aren’t as unique as we think, after all.
Eloise
my favourite part of that post(apart from Love Muscle, and the image of you in it)was the tags you filed it under.