It’s like clockwork: every few months we get a fresh distillation of straight people in gay bars discourse. Usually it’s more of the same old stuff we know and…you know…feel pretty annoyed over. Yes, we know that Heated Rivalry is a thing now, and yes, we know that straight women seeking safe nightlife spaces are and should be welcome in the clurb. But sometimes, things get a little out of hand—like the time a straight woman came online to complain about being “ignored” by the gay men in a bar that literally exists for them to notice each other and not random straight women who happen to come wandering in.
Everyone is welcome in the gay bar, but let’s face it, sometimes straight folks feel a little bit too welcome in queer spaces. So one TikToker is proposing a free and easy solution, and honestly, it sounds pretty rock solid to us.
“If we don’t want straight people taking over all the gay clubs and gay bars,” explains user Darian Black, “our one solution is more gay ‘corn’.”
How about we take this to the next level?
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Oh? Do tell!
“And I’m not talking about regular gay corn, I’m talking about the most raw-doggy-est, whole-gapingest corn.”
Listen, he’s not wrong, and at least a few users are already seeing the value of this very strategic plan.
“No because I honestly agree with this,” says user Izaiah R. “If we want less straight people at the gay clubs, we have to have G A Y corn playing on the screen. We have to.”
Now before you interrupt, yes. We are well aware that there are plenty of gay bars that already do this. While this practice, to some, might feel like it belongs to a vintage era of gay bars, it’s still alive and well in certain metropolitan areas. In one archived thread from last year, a Redditor asked for specific recommendations, and boy did he ever get them!
“Eagle LA still plays hardcore [corn] and it is seriously the biggest selling point in going there,” one user said of the stalwart leather bar. Others mentioned The Eagle in Portland, Diesel in Seattle, Green Lantern in DC, Beaux in San Francisco, The Vault in Provincetown, and Ramrod in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. That’s right: even in Ron DeSantis’s backyard you can enjoy premium adult content on the monitor.
But is this randy solution actually enough to keep gay bars gay? Or will it just invite more randy straight people? Worse: can it get bars targeted by law enforcement?
Technically, yes—which is why it helps to be quiet on the creek about this wonderful practice. Because according to users in the comments, it’s actually a pretty tried and tested formula. “Hardcore corn is like mosquito repellent for straight people,” according to one poster. When it comes to keeping straight people out of gay spaces—especially the dreaded hetero bro groups—it works like a charm.
Listen, we love our straight sisters, and we want them to feel welcome in queer spaces. The problem is when the neighborhood gay bar starts to look overwhelmingly straight, and the straight bar across the street is already far too hetero to function.
“We finally got the hard won acceptance we wanted in our jobs, to marry,” as one Redditor put it. “The byproduct is we’re more readily accepted in str8 spaces & vice versa, so our bars are no longer exclusive.”
True enough. Luckily, there are still bars doing the dirty work we love to see—preferably on the big screen.
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