bravos333

Swinging Richards is a blight on the gay community

I have NEVER had such a bad experience in a gay bar in Atlanta! We, 4 females, were going out to celebrate our gay male friend’s birthday and decided to go to Swinging Richards. I was very excited since I have had many positive experiences at other gay bars in the area. We went around 9pm on a Saturday. The place was fairly empty so we saddled up close to the stage preparing for a fun night. We had not even gotten drinks yet, been there MAYBE 10 minutes, when the DJ/manager began heckling us. I can take a playful joke and roll with the best of them. This man was outright hateful over the sound system. He began with the “women don’t tip” singling us out by our location near the stage. He moved on to “you must be single” to “get off your asses” and “pull out the tampon”. I was absolutely appalled. Our friend, who’s birthday it was, was mortified that his friends, who were taking him out, were being publicly flogged just for being women. A female “regular” came over and tried to explain that he wasn’t going to let up until he “saw us tipping”. We had just tipped 3 dancers on the floor (not on stage yet)! It quickly became more apparent he was being antagonizing because of our gender not the tipping. We asked the “regular” to point him out so we could tell him to lay off for the sake of our friend. She was so afraid of his taunting that she would not nod or look in his direction and just pointed under the table. Then he set in on her! We sat for another 5 minutes trying to figure out what to do. We really wanted our friend to have a good time, but the DJ/manager was making it impossible. I had had enough and wanting to congratulate the jerk for ruining our friend’s birthday. The conversation that ensued was absolutely ridiculous. He said, verbatim, women are not welcome in his club, but he is glad to take our money. He made no attempts to cool the situation or end the discussion. Contrary to common sense he continued being antagonizing. I could see that he was unwilling or unable to act intelligent so we started to walk away. Instead of letting a dead dog lie, he followed us out to the parking lot yelling insults about how much money we make and our clothing being from TJ-Max. I would think a real gay man could identify a shirt from The Limited, jeans by Citizens, and shoes from Nine West. Here is the point. I understand that a gay man would like to have a place where he can go to be away from women and straight men (which some of the dancers are).... I get it. But that is not reason for me, a paying customer, to be berated and harassed! If you do not want women in your club, turn them away at the door for whatever reason you want to make up. I would think alienating the predominate gender and #1 supporter of gay men would be a bad business decision, but that is yours to make. This type of leadership is the embodiment of what the gay community has been fighting. He was intolerant, ignorant, prejudice, narrow-minded, and openly malicious. As a gay man or woman why would you support what you have spent your whole life fighting?