Last night, I was out with a groups of friends for a bachelorette party. It was, for me, quite the interesting adventure outside of "the ghetto" of the Village and back into Straight-land.
Without getting into the details of how the fun-filled evening progressed, we ended up in a nightclub on Crescent street after much running about. We even managed to get our party of eight into the club cover-free simply by chatting with one of the doormen. That's one of those advantages women will always have over men! Whether gay or straight, clubs never feel compelled to let a group of guys into their club for free. But I digress...
Inside, the club looked like you would expect for a Saturday night on Crescent. Poshy-poshy. Clean-ish. Dark. It was early when we got there so I had some time to observe the dynamics of of the club in a bit more detail than I usually would.
First off: why the hell are drinks so expensive outside of the Village? A drink that would usually cost 7$ in any gay club, say Smirnoff Ice, is at least 9$ in the downtown area! What the hell is with the markup? Now I get why so many straighties are going east to get hammered. At that price, it's discouraging to drink.
Next: straight guys can't dress for shit. Their shirts are generally hanging off of them, ugly, out of date, out of style and dirty. There are a few who dressed decently, but they just didn't know how to accessorize and coordinate their outfits with any flare that would make them stand out of the crowd. I look at the "badly dressed" guys of nightclubs I usually go to, and they look like rockstars next to these untrendy heteros.
Add to their horrible appearance the fact that these guys are horrible dancers. What is going on my straight men? Did you forget even basic dance steps? Basic rules of movement? Why did I just see a bunch of poorly dressed guys bobbing around like apples in a bucket? Pathetic. No hip movement, no body control...bleurk. There were, notably, some exceptions who were skilled dancers, but of course that led to one of the most ridiculous stunts I've seen in a club...ever. Oh yes, I saw one of those "dance battles" you see in movies. Yes, dance battle, in a club, on a Saturday night. It was almost too ridiculous to be true. There were 3 or 4 guys who were pulling out their best moves that made them look purely ridiculous. Generally, the whole battle looked like they were trying to wriggle out of their ugly clothes en route to making out with themselves.
Speaking of dancing, why is it that men are not allowed to dance on podiums/stages/cubes in straight clubs? The girls I was out with tried to pull me up onto a platform with them and we were warned within three seconds that I had to get off immediately. No guys are allowed to dance on any elevated surface. Even if, as we witnessed in the night, it's some guy doing a flawless moonwalk on a stage while Micheal Jackson is playing, no good! He was warned and removed from the stage (that no one was on anyway).
Anyway, overall, I understood why most women hate going out in regular clubs. There's a predatory atmosphere in there where the guys are simply ruling the space by treating the women in it like meat to be bought with alcohol. There's a distinct lack of fun that is built-in in gay clubs. Yes, gay clubs are no different in the treating of guys as objects, but at least everyone is in on the game and is playing at the same level.
