I’m often too shy to spark conversation and most of the patrons I’m surrounded by have come in fortified by their own friend circle, which they have no interest in expanding. But in my experience, going to both gay and lesbian bars when I’m solo usually reminds me of my own loneliness. When I’m traveling, which I often do alone, I always head into the local gay bar expecting it to be a sort of queer community center, where strangers will greet you with easy conversation, letting you know you inherently belong. Bubbly (had I been his type) wouldn’t have made me feel like I actually fit in at Lafitte. It’s played host to famous patrons like Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, and even allegedly has its own ghost: Mr Bubbly, who gets a thrill out of pinching patrons’ behinds.īut even a friendly pinch from Mr. Jean Lafitte, famed New Orleans privateer, allegedly owned the blacksmith’s shop that was later converted into the original Lafitte’s bar it was rechristened “in exile” after the owner had been forced to relocate. So there I was in the empty Lafitte in Exile, something of an exile myself: a vegetarian in the carnivorous Big Easy, a non-football fan in town for Thanksgiving’s big game, a skeptic spooked by a ghost tour. It was easy to understand how someone could imagine a shadow cast by an oil lamp to be a shimmering apparition, or mistake a distant whoop from the bars on Bourbon Street as a ghostly shriek. Now closed, the colonial facades of restaurants and knick-knack shops looked like dwellings out of a ghost town, ready for the bayous to swallow up. A few oil lamps glowed orange under the galleries. Linger too long under a gallery and you might feel cool, wet drops of blood tickle your neck.Īll was good, albeit sick fun, until the tour ended and I was alone on the backstreets of the French Quarter. And our guide, Brie - who’d come adorned in a sparkling black shirt that sprinkled glitter everywhere - did not disappoint. Guides gleefully embellish tales of the distraught hurling themselves from galleries, of teenage suitors disemboweled on hooks as they snuck from lover’s second-story bedroom windows, of Civil War doctors who roam the halls of hospitals-turned hotels, looking for limbs to lop off.
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And the French Quarter, with its colonial mansions, eerie gas lanterns and quiet, moody back streets, is the place to go for a good ghost tour. I’d spent my solo night on a New Orleans ghost tour - I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do enjoy good ghost stories. I had other reasons for needing some cheering up. While not exactly a third wheel, I wasn’t part of the bike, either. Still, with half of the city, including my wife, at the Superdome, I couldn’t help but feel a little left out. She hadn’t been amused.) And we had no way of scrounging up another ticket to the game - for which I was eternally thankful, since I had no desire to cram myself into a crowd of drunken, cheerful football fans. I’d already made myself something of a headache for them, since my wife had spent hours on the phone trying to find a restaurant that not only still had seats available on Thanksgiving, but which also provided vegetarian options (“You can be thankful I’m not vegan,” I’d told her. I’d never been to New Orleans, and so I’d tagged along. I’d come to New Orleans as a sort of stowaway: my wife’s friend had an extra ticket to the game, and had invited her down for the Thanksgiving weekend.
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The game was in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter, with the Bills in a commanding lead. A few couples, all men, sat scattered around the triangular bar, drinking from plastic cups (necessary for a city where you can take beverages to go, and drink openly on the streets). But I’d come early in the night and the place was quiet. Lafitte in Exile, in New Orleans’ French Quarter, is the oldest continuously operating gay bar in New Orleans, and a must-stop for LBGTQ+ tourists looking for the famed city’s gay scene. I settled into a seat at the bar and ordered an Aperol spritz, reassured I’d come to the right place.
#Gay sex club new orleans series#
Then I caught sight of the rainbow flag, and a series of framed plaques lining the interior walls, each defining “ Queer” in creative and empowering ways. I looked around for a quick exit, fearing I’d stumbled into a straight bar by mistake. In my experience - admittedly, mostly limited to Boston’s Club Cafe - gay bars played Anderson Cooper on CNN, followed by music videos, if they broadcast anything at all.īut football? In a gay bar? No way. Yet there it was, the Thanksgiving showdown between the New Orleans Saints and the Buffalo Bills, blasting on the screen above the bar at Lafitte in Exile.
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I hadn’t expected to see a football game televised in a gay bar.