How it Works: Bars and Gender

In Seattle there are two bars that are related in a way most people wouldn't expect.

Cowgirls is a country themed top 40 bar.  Girls wearing only jean shorts and shirts dance on tables and on the bar itself, hips gyrating to the music as they show off their bodies.  Their legs and midriffs are exposed.  The bar is super crowded with writhing swarms of drunk people.  Straight men enjoy looking at the women.  If they tried to inappropriately touch one, they'd get kicked out.  Moving through the crowd is a chore;  girls will probably get touched "by accident."  The people who go here are automatically considered white trash.

R Place is a gay bar, which means it has a gender ratio that is almost as bad as a computer science classroom.  Boys wearing only thongs dance on tables, hips gyrating to the music as they show off their bodies.  Their legs, chest, and sometimes upper buttocks are exposed, and you can't unsee that shit.  The bar is super crowded with writhing swarms of drunk people.  Straight girls enjoy staring at, and inappropriately touching, the men.  Moving through the crowd is a chore;  boys will probably be touched "by accident" for a very prolonged and shame-lacking amount of time.  The people who go here are automatically considered awesome and so great.

On paper, these bars might seem like simple inverses of each other.  Not so.

Cowgirls is a trashy, misogynistic bar that exploits women and something something something gender roles.  Expressing an interest in going here means you are an uncouth villain who hates all women everywhere.

R Place is the best place to dance, and gay guys are so great, and if you express an interest in going there you are a good person have good taste in bars, etc.  In fact if you express anything less than enthusiasm about dancing there, well then you're just homophobic son.  Welcome to Capitol Hill.

That, my friends, is how it works.