A recent poster in New York's gayborhoods tells the tale: "MORE GRINDR=FEWER GAY BARS." This brief cri de coeurspread, appropriately enough, via social media and on blogs like Joe. My. God.cited hookup sites and rapidly proliferating mobile apps like Grindr for killing New York's gay nightlife.
It's hard to believe that a mere 10 years ago, up to 2,000 men were dancing into Sunday morning at the Roxy; in the '80s, 3,000 members were packing the Saint for 18-hour marathons. Today, the city's only dedicated gay dance club, XL, has an official capacity of 750, which along with a few smaller dancefloors in bars like the Ritz and Splash, is the only game in town. Meanwhile, Manhunt, the granddaddy of hookup sites, boasts 200,000 active users in the city. With more than 400,000 local log-ins a week, New York makes up 10 percent of Manhunt's user base.
Santiago Felipe
Still dressing for club success
Even John Blair, the veteran promoter behind Hell's Kitchen's XL, admits, "Even if you could build a club like the Saint, you couldn't get that many people. Back then, that's all their social life was. People don't need to go to bars to hook up."
On those rare occasions where they actually meet someone face to face, guys wait until they're home to seal the deal. "It's not part of the culture where, if you meet someone, it's even socially acceptable," notes Stephen Pevner, who, as head of the Saint At Large, produces one of the city's few remaining major big-room dance events, the annual Black Party. "They say, 'I'll see you on Manhunt.'" Hey, why go out at all when you can order in?
The reasons for what everyone agrees is a noticeable contraction in club life go way beyond the digital revolution into even more fundamental changes. Younger gay men might be more concerned about meeting Mr. Right to marry and start families than the perpetual search for Mr. Right Now. Even the ones still on the prowl have less expendable income after paying for a rabbit warren of a room in a shared apartment in a funky neighborhood far away from Chelsea, Hell's Kitchen, or the East Village. Who wants to be cooked at 4 a.m. while anticipating a long wait for a subway train and a longer walk from the station?
Besides, gay men don't define themselves by the clubs they frequent anymore. Nor do they have to. In the years after Stonewall, clubs like the Firehouse and 12 West represented safe spaces in a hostile world where we could flirt, make out, and hook up (usually on site). With gay men coming out earlier and being comfortable hanging out with straight friends, even Blair and his partner in life and work, Beto Sutter, disagree about whether an unspoken, discriminatory door policy still works. "At the Roxy, people complained about too many girls," Sutter says, adding, "eight girls for every guy! Now they want diversity on Saturday night."
Jake Resnicow, promoter of one of the few new franchise events in town, Matinee, which began on Ibiza, agrees: "Matinee has demonstrated that the boys appreciate a mixed crowd."
Blair, however, maintains that "the gay community wants to be around people like themselves. "If you have too many straights, there are complaints, a lot of complaints. If anything, gay men are segregating themselves into smaller groups." The bears have their club nights, like Joe Fiore's Rockbear and Blowoff, held periodically at the High Line in West Chelsea; the skinny young guys (a/k/a/ the twinks), the single-named HK bars (Barracuda, Therapy, Industry, et al.); the musclemen, the semi-regular Alegria parties. Even older gay men have their own dances, such as Sunday Teas at XL.
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Nightlife Suffers as Gay Men Move Online