A visit to a gay bar.

I know a lot of you were asking me to write about my experiences in the US, I refrained from it for a lot of reasons. Today’s experience, however, was just screaming out to be written about and shared.


For our class assignment at the J-school, Columbia University, we were to choose a place and profile it. In my zealous addiction to History and a mad drive to do something different, I decided to profile Stonewall Inn.


Stonewall Inn is a bar whose history with gay rights dates back to 1967. It is the site of Stonewall Riots, which many believe was the visible start of the gay rights movement in the US. So, my project was looking at how things have changed in these 40-odd years, if at all.


With a lot of vigour and enthusiasm about the new assignment, I stepped into Stonewall. While I was mentally prepared to see some rather explicit ‘performances’, my mind was still not communicating with my senses. I must have given a slight squeak, and my eyes must have popped open when I walked in. Being the professional that I am, I quickly regained my composure and strode in.


Once inside, I actually marvelled at the various couples sitting there - an African American man with a man from the Far East, two White women and an Asian man with two White men. And within minutes, I was feeling comfortable sitting in my cosy corner.
I began speaking to the bar tender who was a very pleasant lesbian woman. She tried her very best to find people who I could interview. But with little avail. So, I hung around hoping someone might want to face the mike. I felt it impolite to not order for a drink, so, I asked her to fetch me a beer. For the record, I hate beers! I looked at it as a professional hazard. Well, my profession seems to be quite hazardous, as I later found out! The beer cost me $6 and as tips are a must in the US, with the heaviest heart, I slipped in two one dollar bills. That is how much I would spend on one lavish meal! And remember, I still had no story. No one was willing to be interviewed yet!


In the meanwhile, a girl who was darting her eyes over me now and then, walked over to me. It got me slightly worried. I was not sure what to say, how to react. She wanted to know more about my T-shirt. I relaxed. But suddenly, she said, ‘I like the way you hold your beer’. Oh! This is what I dreaded! By the time one reaches my age, one gets used to boys hitting on you almost every day. You know how to politely reject their advances, or just tell them to back-off at times. But I had never been hit on by a woman before. I tried doing what I would do if a boy had used that rather horrible pick up line. I asked her if she would like to be interviewed. It worked! She rejected the offer and said ‘yeah, you look the kinds men would like. I am sure a lot of men fall for you’. Smiled, and left.


I was left introspecting, ashamed at my awkward behaviour.


But, as my interviewee later said, the gay and lesbian community probably need their own islands of seclusion, where they can be themselves, unhindered. I finally interviewed a man who insisted on putting his sexuality as his primary identity, over nationality. He has been visiting the Stonewall Inn for the past 23 years.


The experience that evening was a unique and a very educating one. And, I managed to get a good story! It was a true journalism experience.


Raksha Kumar