Queer Spaces

Bunch of fucking bullshit. And the way some 'queer' people behave I'd rather not thanks.

I have friends who only hang out in queer spaces OP. They wouldn't dream of doing anything not "queer" from restaurants to campgrounds to events to traveling. Personally I feel kind of sorry for them since they're missing out on so much that the world has to offer.

Back when no one was shoving "queer" down our throats, I loved living in a gay neighborhood (Village, Dupont Circle). I had gay friends. I could meet gay guys out on the street with whom I could have sex. I could go to gay bars. But that era has passed, and I find myself having friends both gay and straight in my dotage. AIDS has as much to do with that as any other factor. Four of my best friends died in the '80s and '90s, as well as others I used to see around.

But "queer space"? No, thanks.

I'm not with you, R3. I still want those gay spaces. There are times when I want to be around other gay men. OP said bars are not part of this, but to me gay bars were more than just pick up joints. It was the neighborhood feel...the community...I desired.

Now, I get that gay space by gathering for a meal with other gay friends..

I'll confess, there are times when I don't want to be in the company of straight men or straight women. No matter how open-minded, sometimes they just don't get it.

No offense to the opposite sex, but I do miss sex segregated spaces for bathrooms, dressing rooms, etc.

Threads and comments like these here make me hate DL.

Queer spaces are just spaces now seeing as “queer” has lost all meaning and basically means “straight people who think they’re special”.

To some of us, these are part of our culture and history. Leisure activities like the campgrounds, cruises, queer-dominant places (Fire Island etc) have been around for years, and they are "special events" or cultural spaces, whether they're shallow and cheesy, or relaxing, whatever you can get from it. I've been to campgrounds that are just sex parties, with nothing else going on, and I've been to campgrounds with a lot of cool activities and events. People also love the ball & pageant scene for the community & culture.

I can't imagine only being in queer spaces, though. Two things allow for that type of life: proximity to those spaces & opportunities (large cities with many things going on) and money, which allows the well-off gays to travel anywhere they want.

For me, I love our culture & history, but I'm also poor. The spaces & things I go to are infrequent, but I still try to make it to my favorite campground at least once a year. Helps that its dirt cheap & in the middle of nowhere. Run by an old fart with an absolute heart of gold. Might make it to a barn dance or see a gay singer-songwriter at some tiny club somewhere; those are queer spaces, if just for a night.

I liked gay bars in my youth and now go to queer AA meeting. I don’t mind the queer members. I also go to a queer affirming church. I figured out recently that I don’t need to believe everything there if it helps me be a kinder person and provides community. Change with the times OP.

R6, for you:

I guess DL won't let me post a link to TikTok, but you would like it better there, I think. Another option:

[quote]I find people’s tendency to only be surrounded by people of a similar demographic to be a little depressing—something to overcome.

Would you say the same about Black churches, HBCUs, women's sports leagues, synagogues, Jewish community centers, mosques, Chinatowns, fraternal orders, country clubs, and any other social institution or organization where people with shared backgrounds and characteristics gather and make community?

This topic is imbecilic, thinly veiled trolling. But over the years I've grown inured to the self-loathing idiots who post here.

Yes. I prefer to be surrounded by gays. I don't dislike straight men or women but I can't say I understand them or that I care to.

I don't identify gay as queer since, as R7 said, any autistic straight can dye their hair purple and proclaim they are non-binary "queer". That said, only socializing with one type of group leads to lots of problems.

People tend to seek comfort, safety, or security by being with like-minded people. As a Liberal, I wouldn't feel comfortable, safe, or secure surrounded by Deplorables.

For some, the Queer Community provides a safe space. Others prefer their comfort zone to be Liberals, Conservative, Gay, Lesbian, Trans, Black, White, Asian, Muslim, or Golden Girls fans only.

You have an issue with Queer? Well, that's your issue. Why are you trying to make everybody else's issue when you could instead stick with what you prefer? Oh, other people living their lives and doing their own thing is a threat to you? Oh, well.

I don’t like “queer spaces”; they tend to be dirty, unwashed and filled with non gay people.

I do enjoy gay and lesbian spaces. Not all the time, of course. But, I go toa couple of gay social events a few times a month. It is fun to be able to show a different side of myself.

What do you show of yourself in gay spaces that you don't in mixed spaces, R16?

R15 I'm not OP but I don't think you really understand what he's saying.

I'm with those who prefer gay spaces to "queer" spaces.

People who only associate with their own type are xenophobic bores no matter what religion, race or sexual identity they claim.

If by “queer” you mean gay… Then yeah, I’d rather hang out at a gay bar than a bro bar playing shitty trap music.

Queer isn't gay R21.

I don't think those of us who prefer gay spaces to queer spaces are saying we only hang out with our own. We also hang out in spaces open to everyone. Most of us probably prefer that to queer spaces as well.

I’m down to hang out in a “queer” space, but if the ratio is too many chubby “queer” non-binary misfits vs. gay men… then, yeah, I’m out.

I'm fine with staying in my lane and it makes complete sense that a minority group who have some kind of significant shared experience, shared traumas, would want to have some places and spaces that are completely exclusive. I feel a bit of guilt sometimes just for having a DL account like I'm an invader, but it doesn't seem to be too big of a faux pas and I think there are very few other straight guys here. To be so overcome with fear that you would never do anything or go anywhere that isn't a restricted safe space does seem pathological but on the other hand I can't really imagine how scary it can be when you don't know where everyone stands. I do think young people now are tragically uncomfortable with anybody who isn't on "their team" and what defines that gets more restrictive and ridiculous and superficial by the year.

[quote]How important is it to you to have “queer spaces” to go and be surrounded only by people who don’t identify as straight?

Not important in the slightest.

Now, it's extremely important to have "gay spaces" where gay men can go and not worry about the exhausting rest of the LGBT alphabet soup.

Meh.

In bars and sex-related things yes. You can still easily get a punch in the face for hitting on a straight man in a bar. This is less likely to happen in a gay bar.

Plus things like Folsom, Fire Island, bathhouses, etc. (and yes straights come and then complain about it).

Queer spaces are full of hormone-injected heterosexual interlopers with dyed hair chastising gays and lesbians for being homosexual. Fun fun fun!

A friend made a point of using gay doctors, dentists, accountants and real estate agents and patronizing Gay Owned businesses. One of the doctors prescribed a medication that was contraindicated. Friend had bad reaction and yet continued seeing same MD, who's still practicing.

My experience and perspective is similar to R3's. When I was a young man I lived in gay neighborhoods, knew my way around gay bars, gay restaurants, gay breakfast diners, gay vacations, gay sex clubs, gay gyms, hired gay plumbers and contractors and handymen, saw gay doctors and dentists. I read gay novels, attended gay film festivals, worked to elect gay politicians, volunteered with gay organizations. Etc. For all the gays I fucked, you might think I would have had lots of gay friends. Not really, not until middle age did I have more than one or two gay and lesbian friends (and I'll note that I've always enjoyed good and faithful relations and friendships with lesbians.)

I'm very glad for that experience and much improved by it, but it's not important to me now, nor even gay spaces.

I live in a country where gays enjoy equal rights but, more importantly, they can enjoy the support of friends and family who are not gay and lesbian. In any circle of friends or family there's someone who is gay and someone else with a gay kid or a gay brother or a gay uncle or a gay best friend. Being gay is not earth shattering news, not a great divide among people in any age group. It's not perfect equality, if course, nor perfect nonchalance, but it's remarkably good considering history and other parts of the world.

Now my friends are roughly evenly split between gay and straight, but the gatherings of those same people are not, they are always always mixed groups. Only quite rarely do I find myself in a gay space these days and that seems natural to me now just as being surrounded by gays all the time seemed natural when I was younger in the age of gay ghettos and gay lifestyle magazines and gays living apart and circulating apart from straights.

There was a sense if community (even if, pre-AIDS, that rarely landed me many gay friends), an easy way to approach the world one city to another as uf the member of a gentleman's club with reciprocal membership the world over. The need and pleasure if that is much diminished, in society and in my life, so no, while I'm happy they exist still for the benefit of others who may Kean in them, I don't miss Gay Spaces and the culture that went with it.

[quote]This topic is imbecilic, thinly veiled trolling. But over the years I've grown inured to the self-loathing idiots who post here.

Thanks for the reminder of why I avoid gay spaces.

I can't think of any place I'd least love to be than in a 100% homo environment. I much prefer being around a nice mixture of gay and gay positive straight people, Unfortunately I've seen too many instances of gay people acting like complete fools in a totally gay environment. We are not our best when we think we have total control over anything. And that's sad to say.

[quote]Back when no one was shoving "queer" down our throats, I loved living in a gay neighborhood (Village, Dupont Circle). I had gay friends. I could meet gay guys out on the street with whom I could have sex.

Hey! I used to live in DuPont Circle! I've probably seen you having sex in DuPont Circle! Are you the homeless guy that looked like Fred Flintstone with Mo from the Stooges hair? Or the guy people mockingly called "Robert DeZero"?

[quote] Back when no one was shoving "queer" down our throats,

When was that? Before or after "We are here, we are queer, get used to it!", Queer Cinema, and Queer Studies?

And what's with the conservative homphobe "down our throats" rhetoric?

I love when people complain about things being "shoved down their throats" because it makes me think they secretly WANT that thing shoved down their throat. To the balls.

[quote]When was that? Before or after "We are here, we are queer, get used to it!", Queer Cinema, and Queer Studies?

Queer today is not the queer from yesterday, but that topic has been done to death, and I’m bored with repetition, which happens endlessly on Datalounge. Do a search if interested.

r36, LOL. Like the "stop shoving QUEER down my throat!" temper tantrums haven't been done to death on Datalounge as well. Do a search if interested.

Well, stop^.

R34, ACT UP! used the slur to shock people into action out of pure desperation because gay men were dropping like flies from AIDS.

Forcing homosexuals to be called a slur against their will is not progressive. It’s authoritative.

It’s also homophobic.

Keep all them queers together in their queer only spaces.

Love all the whining and crying of these conservative snowflakes over the word queer. Actual Gays can't be hurt by such made up culture war bullshit.

Agree with r12 and r41

R14, But most people around the world generally stay in their own tribes and communities. Why is it a bad thing when gay people want to as well? We are often accused of “making gay” our “whole identity” but I never hear that phrase used on any other group of people.

R39, people use "gay" as an insult too (That's so gay).....so is it homophobic to use the word gay?

You're not smart enough to understand the concept of reclaiming a word, that doesn't mean you have pretend to be offended by people using the word queer in a neutral context.

No one is "forcing" you to use the term queer, either

[quote]Love all the whining and crying of these conservative snowflakes over the word queer. Actual Gays can't be hurt by such made up culture war bullshit.

Real gays support transitioning.

[quote]You're not smart enough to understand the concept of reclaiming a word,

Then reclaim nigger. But that won’t happen. Only slurs against gays and Jews.

Are we allowed to stomp on dirt and bugs in these Queer Spaces?

I’m 60; the safe spaces were within gay bars. Entering and leaving them was another matter. I’ve been called a faggot numerous times on the streets.

Me too^.

I’ve been called faggot in public regardless of where I was.

[quote] I don’t like “queer spaces”; they [bold]tend to be dirty, unwashed and filled with[/bold] non gay people. I do enjoy gay and lesbian spaces. Not all the time, of course. But, I go toa couple of gay social events a few times a month. It is fun to be able to show a different side of myself.

r16 Indeed. I'm a sane normal gay who values things beautiful, attractive, clean, decent-looking, decently-functioning, etc. Sometimes into gay-related indulgence that still has nothing to do with the dirty, unwashed, unfunctioning masses that I see with anything named "queer". Why should I be subjected to gross shit/people because my sexual orientation is homosexual???

[quote]But, I go toa couple of gay social events a few times a month.

If your group encourages “LGBTQ” or “trans”, you should drop them. I did mine. I’ve had no interactions with any gays in about two years, and it’s not all that bad. I don’t think I miss them.

What, you don’t miss the YASSSSSSSS Kweens who prioritize TQ+ over G at every opportunity? They’re just so fun to be around! All the lecturing, posturing, false sense of moral superiority…..

For some reason gay people have never liked me. So I'd rather be anonymous in a bland, generic straight crowd.

Trading gays for straights is no prize either.