Can Gay Bars Mitigate Sexual Assault and Still Embrace Sex?

I can remember the national mood on October 7th, 2016, when the video became public that revealed that Donald Trump had boasted about sexual assault. I can remember this only deepening my revulsion for Trump as I recalled my experiences in dealing with powerful sexual predators. I returned to those experiences after Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony. The discussion then and now focused very much on the experiences of women —as it should have—but it also prompted me to think about the issue of sexual harassment and assault in the gay community and my personal experiences.

In October of 2016 I was working at a gay bar in Philadelphia. Each October the Philadelphia gay community celebrates National Coming Out Day with a popular block party known as Outfest, and I had escaped tending bar that day, instead working the door. At this bar the bouncer stands or sits on a stool directly beside the entrance.

I learned some things. A fair amount of men groped me, touching me below the waist, even at times touching my genitals. I learned that men could do this and pretend that it meant nothing, there faces unchanged, pretending to talk, to ask how I was and to listen to my reply. I learned that different portions of my body were as open on this market as reduced price chicken thighs. I learned that many men liked to touch me and then tell me why.

I learned that drunken men, so drunk as to be completely unaware of self, liked to lean in and tell me what they liked about me, and that they liked to show me where with their hands. These confessions bothered me less than when they drunkenly leaned in and told me what they didn’t like about me, as if they wanted a refund on their voyeuristic experiences—flat butt, skinny legs, why don’t you smile—you probably have a handsome smile. These men thought that their opinions—whether good or bad—mattered to me. I was unaware that I had come to work to hear these opinions. I thought that my body was mine.

I learned other things. I learned that despite not having a pussy many gay men saw fit to grab me by the male equivalent.

The first two or three times this surprised me, a man would simply grab my crotch, probing. A man gripped my arms upon entry and drunkenly burped in my face that I was beautiful and that he liked seeing me. Moments later, when he came back downstairs and headed toward the door he simply lingered and reached out and grabbed my genitals. When I gripped his hand and forcefully removed it he doubled down and went harder, and I then ejected him. It was only later that I realized I had never seen him before, that he was not some vaguely familiar regular, despite the presumed intimacy of his greeting.

​I like to think about my own sexual aggression. I wonder: would I walk up and touch a man in a bar uninvited? The answer is no, I would not. I never really have. But sexual assault haunts victims with self doubt. I approach men with my eyes in these spaces, trying to make contact and probing for a flash of desire in their eyes in return. I have grabbed men unprompted whom I have been on dates with and kissed them, deeply, full of desire. I was on a date with them, we made prolonged eye contact, say, on a smoke break, or on a darkened street corner, and I did—I grabbed them and kissed them deeply and passionately. But the only cue I had that this might be okay was a form of longing and desire—or what I interpreted as such—gleaming in their eyes.

​Then I think of tending bar and I remember that I think the nuance is power— economic power, legal power, etc. I think of some of the revolting things that men have said to me over the years while I made and poured them drinks or served them food. Example—“you would be a lot more fun if you would smile more.” Further example —“are you on the menu?” These men think these comments are witty. I can tell that they do, because they laugh at their own humor.

​“Are you on the menu”, “how much for you”—men who believed, or seemed to believe, that bartenders in gay bars and clubs are quite literally a side dish, something they can order like eggs benedict at brunch. There was the man, who I know to be a donating member of the Human Rights Campaign, who informed me that he would tip me more than a dollar if I would take my clothes off for him, and when I refused informed me that that kind of attitude was the reason I worked where I worked, somehow managing to combine sexual cretinism with classism. There are so many innumerable offenses that I could list them all day, but the commonality is that the men committing them held sway over my immediate income. They could decide whether I made the rent that month or not, how much and how well I ate that month.

​I didn’t write this to suggest solutions. I could facilely suggest that gay men rethink the way they approach other men, but I think we all know what a new year’s resolution that would be. Rather, I wrote this to prompt a discussion. I would suggest that men who find themselves victims of assault and harassment discuss it. Within the last few years here in Philadelphia members of the community fostered a growing conversation on race and gay spaces. Discussions sometimes start with whisperings and grow to a national volume. The queer spaces in Philadelphia are implementing policies explicitly designed to combat discrimination against community members of color. I would not consider it a long shot to suggest queer spaces could encourage an end to sexual harassment of service industry members. They could be the agents who begin to effect change.