Street 1
A boy in his early twenties sporting a belly-shirt, showing off his lean body as it asymtopically approaches eating-disorder status, complete with faux-hawk and Diesel jeans. A middle-aged business executive with a sports coat tossed over his shoulder and Armani shirt slightly unbuttoned, revealing just enough chest to suggest he'd spent hours in the gym prior to that morning’s board meeting. An androgynous youth who may or may not be old enough to legally enter any of the bars in an area; the quote on the back of his t-shirt is some homage to Judy.
None of these types existed in the male-dominated portion of the Soho district we immediately entered following our trek from the nearby Covent Gardens. Women were few and far between, and seemed to be heading quickly for one of the few bars designated specifically for lesbians. The occasional heterosexual family with young children passed by with a relatively low frequency.
For the most part, my introduction to the gay district of London marked (at least this part of Soho) as nearly exclusively male, masculine, and white.
I'm not quite sure why I expected Soho to be more representative of a femme male population than a masculine one (thought I can undoubtedly at least partially ascribe my expectations to my own desires and, I'll admit, masculine-phobia). Nevertheless, I never expected there to be (what I initially perceived to be) a nearly exact delineation between butch and femme. And I'm not going to lie: I had a small internal panic attack. Where were all the fem boys at?
We walked around for a bit, perusing both sides of the street. A visit to a porn shop (with a surprisingly large collection of straight porn, artificial vaginas, and oral sex simulators) was terminated moments after we entered and we continued our search for the appropriate gay bar. The act of actually entering a bar was delayed and delayed because of the vast number of only butch men crowding around outside the bars while drinking from overcompensatingly large mugs of beer. Were there any bars not specifically marked as butch? Finally we settled on entering Duke Wellington's. It was getting relatively late and we still needed to eat dinner prior to meeting the bus at nine o'clock.
And there they were! The boys from before, the ones I had projected onto the Soho I imagined. Raging queens, total nellies, and I suppose one or two boys in the middle, were all inside of the bar. It took me a while before I actually decided to contemplate why there was this fem boys inside/butch boys outside dynamic; I was just relieved to find them!
The indoor clientele was the first of many surprises at Duke Wellington’s. The bar also featured an all gay bartending staff (in contrast to the often all-hetero staff hired in many gay districts in America), each of whom fit a specific type. One typical pretty boy with a tan and Abercrombie shirt. One more ‘punk’ looking androgynous guy in his 20s. One (dare I say thicker) young man, donned jean shorts and tank top. Popular fem types were represented not only as frequenters of the bar, but as employees, perhaps designed to specifically target the various gay crowds.
I am still unsure as to how I feel about the butch/fem division of men in Soho. Granted, we were in the part of Soho that bordered with other London neighborhoods, and I speculate that this proximity to other London neighborhoods might actually grant easier access to closeted men, (we overheard a man on his cell phone tell his secretary to let his wife know he’d be home late tonight, as he entered a bar simply, though appropriately, named ‘gay’).
While I find the butch/fem delineation problematic in many ways, I feel I immensely benefited from engulfing myself in a butch male environment. My own internal homophobias of masculine gay men, while not immediately resolved, were called to my attention. And even though I remain critical about some parts of the gendering and whiteness of Soho, I enjoyed myself immensely. Is the structure of the gay district perfect? Of course it isn’t. But there remained something in the air, some repeated exhalation of satisfaction and comfort that such a place existed. Gay bars end where the theatre district begins, what more can a boy ask for? I cannot wait for my return in a couple of weeks. Next time I’ll know where (and how) to look.
posted by PatrickMcKelvey @ 2:15 PM
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