Other activities include a Women’s Group, a Workshop for Lesbians and a Non-Scene Social for those, well, not on the scene. OUTreach is for 13-19 year olds, there's a youth group called Oasis (Out And Strong In Suffolk) and, for those who have left youth behind, there's the Ipswich Area Gay Group for the over-35s which organises dinners and social outings. Those who say Suffolk has no gay life outside the odd pub or club are simply not looking in the right places. As with all chat sites, you need to follow common sense with regards to meeting people for the first time.
There are several popular gay websites such as Gaydar (which has over 1000 users in Suffolk, many thousands more in the bordering counties and is free to use) and Out In The UK which has social groups in the area. Online chatĪnother good way to meet other gay people when you live in a rural area is over the net. It is distinctly uncomfortable to go to a gay club with your young man, start snogging on the dance floor and surface to find that a large hen party is rooted to the spot with amazement at this outrageous sight it would be worse to be subjected to mockery or abuse, and this has certainly started to happen in Manchester's clubs.If you prefer clubs you can try Betty Ford’s in Ipswich, The Dot Cotton Club and Life in Cambridge and The Loft or Absolution in Norwich. One such ex-gay bar in Soho lost so much of its trade by this means that they distributed flyers to the effect that "The Fluffy Bar Welcomes All Members of the Colourful and Outrageous Gay Community Especially Drag Queens, Please," but not even homosexuals are as stupid as all that.īasically, nobody likes being treated as the free entertainment. But even well-behaved straight people, in large enough numbers, start to be a bit of a problem.Įvery gay person recognises the sorts of bars that start by being gay, get a reputation for being cool, and then attract straight tourists in such numbers that gay people simply stop going there. And there is no doubt that many, perhaps most, straight people who are happy to go to a gay bar are going to behave themselves. If a straight person asks, "Why can't I come into a gay bar? I'll behave myself," then it seems rather harsh to refuse. In London, you can safely hold your boyfriend's hand in the few streets between Shaftesbury Avenue and Soho Square, and that is basically it. But the number of places where gay people can just relax, and behave in ways straight people take for granted are very few. In theory that it is true, and anyone would prefer to live in a world without walls between cultures. You might say that people who know what social exclusion feels like shouldn't themselves perpetrate more social exclusion. An openly gay man might have to look around a bit to find a team he could play football with or to find a job where he would feel entirely comfortable.
And gay people have a great deal of experience in being made to feel unwelcome, in their jobs, at parties, in social circumstances. I wouldn't expect to get much of a welcome if I turned up to a black hip-hop club in Brixton with seven gawping white friends, after all. The truth is that there are all sorts of situations in life where we are admitted on sufferance, or turfed out. But there is a time and a place for everything, I feel, and straight people should just accept that if some gay bars don't mind them coming in, others will turn them away on the grounds that a gay bar is for gay people. Some of my best friends are heterosexual, and it gives one a good feeling to see that heterosexuals are so visible everywhere these days, and not always working in the traditional occupations, either. It seems rather harsh, I know, and I have to stress that I have absolutely nothing against straight people.