Gay Bar: Why We Went Out – Jeremy Atherton Lin

The lone holdover from my 2021 Pride reading list proved to be the worst of the bunch.

There are multiple things I took umbrage with in this unfocused, pretentious, and boring historical memoir (is that a thing?) that I gave up at 34 percent read.

Let’s start with the first chapter; it made absolutely no sense! Clearly, Lin didn’t know what story he was trying to tell.

Alternating between his personal experiences at various gay bars in the United Kingdom and United States — and some very light explorations of the role of gay spaces (only focused on cis-gender M/M locales) — it had whiplash inducing shifts in tone and topic that felt like a stream of conscious memory versus a cohesive thought.  

But, I liked the idea of part anthropological study, part memoir so I read on.

It devolved from there.

Basically, Lin feels mainstream acceptance of queer people (i.e. cis-gendered men) and equality measures have neutered gay culture. I don’t fully agree with this statement, because there’s no right or wrong way to be gay.

Lin portrays the ideal gay bar as a seedy, salacious romp through dark corners and anonymous sex, which leads you to believe that any behavior not like this means you are fundamentally not being gay correctly.

Gay bars have a strong foundation in queer culture, specifically when they were a haven for closeted individuals to (kinda) safely explore their desires without risk of being caught. But Lin’s sex-first focus reinforces stereotypes and ignores the role gay bars played in community building, advocacy and support.

No, Lin, sex with randoms in a bathroom isn’t “why we went out,” it’s why you went out. What I read felt like a master’s thesis that should’ve been a magazine article – if that.

I’m not a prude, but this is just trash.

Rating (story): 1/5 stars

Rating (narration): 1/5 stars

Formats: Audiobook (library loan)

Dates read: September 19 - 20, 2021

Multi-tasking: Don’t even bother picking it up.