Of Breeders and Gay Bars

A friend and I went out a couple of nights ago and decided to visit Sonya's, a downtown Seattle Gay bar. Sonya's use to be located near the Convention Center but when the Center expended it's facilities a few years ago Sonya's had to move and found space on First Ave near the Pike Place Market. It's previous location was a very small nondescript building. I suspect only the gays really knew what it was. There was a small diner type restaurant in one half of the building while the other half was the bar. It was a pretty unique place for Seattle. It had no windows and was always very dimly lit. They made the stiffest drinks. I loved the place. It's new location necessitated a few changes.

The new location was much larger and being on First Ave near a major tourist attraction the front part of the joint is a bit more upscale. I was concerned that a gay bar wasn't going to do well in it's new locale. I can't imagine what their neighbor's thought. Thankfully it's been a few years and Sonya's seems to be doing fine, or is it?

My friend and I decided to sit in the front part of the place, the back room doesn't have the most comfortable seating and we were planning on getting some food. On all previous visits I had always made my way to the back room, it's more bar like and there are views of Elliot Bay. I had noticed, on these previous visits, that the patrons in the front part seemed a less stereotypically gay but didn't really think anything of it, Sonya's had always been a gay bar and there was little doubt that the people in the back section were as gay as myself but as this most recent visit progressed I began to realize that something was amiss! The people sitting around me and my friend were displaying very heterosexual behavior, one of them even had a skateboard! Sonya's was a gay bar that had a breeder clientele. At least they seemed to confine themselves to the front section.

To be truthful this is not really a serious issue for me. In fact I would say it may even be a sign that things are continuing to change for the better. What a wonderful world we will have when gender preference is a non-issue and we can all intermix and mingle without fear. The only problem is that we are not there yet. Short of the internet, gay bars are one of the few places we can go to meet somebody and be pretty sure that any advances made toward somebody will not start some nasty altercation. I feel somewhat comfortable approaching a man in a gay bar and starting a conversation without the fear of a reaction somewhere between "I'm not gay" to "Die faggot" and a punch being launched at my face.

So while I am happy to see us all getting along and bars like Sonya's acting as a bridge between cultures I expect all you cute straight men visiting our bars to be flattered when hit on and not hit back.