Deschutes Public Library

Gay bar, why we went out, Jeremy Lin Atherton

eng

Includes bibliographical references

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

Gay bar

1158019877

Jeremy Lin Atherton

why we went out

An intimate trip through queer history.. "An absolute tour de force. "--Maggie Nelson.. Strobing lights and dark rooms throbbing house and drag queens on counters first kisses, last call: the gay bar has long been a place of solidarity and sexual expression'whatever your scene, whoever you're seeking. But in urban centers around the world, they are closing, a cultural demolition that has Jeremy Atherton Lin wondering: What was the gay bar? How have they shaped him? And could this spell the end of gay identity as we know it?.. In Gay Bar,--the author embarks upon a transatlantic tour of the hangouts that marked his life, with each club, pub, and dive revealing itself to be a palimpsest of queer history. In prose as exuberant as a hit of poppers and dazzling as a disco ball, he time-travels from Hollywood nights in the 1970s to a warren of cruising tunnels built beneath London in the 1770s from chichi bars in the aftermath of AIDS to today's fluid queer spaces through glory holes, into Crisco-slicked dungeons and down San Francisco alleys. He charts police raids and riots, posing and passing out'and a chance encounter one restless night that would change his life forever... The journey that emerges is a stylish and nuanced inquiry into the connection between place and identity'a tale of liberation, but one that invites us to go beyond the simplified Stonewall mythology and enter lesser-known battlefields in the struggle to carve out a territory. Elegiac, randy, and sparkling with wry wit, Gay Bar is at once a serious critical inquiry, a love story and an epic night out to remember..