A gay bar is a drinking establishment which caters primarily to gays or lesbians. It may often be called a gay club or pub, and occasionally queer bar, lesbian bar, dyke bar, or boy bar. They include gay nightclubs, entertainment venues which usually do their primary business after dark. Gay bars range in size from the tiny, five-seat bars of Tokyo to large, multi-storey "super clubs" with several distinct areas and often more than one dance floor. A large venue may be referred to as a nightclub, club, or bar, while smaller venues are typically called bars and sometimes pubs. Categories: Stub ... Gay, in addition to meaning happy, also means, simplistically, preferring the same sex in current usage, though to tie down the word to a specific cultural meaning might be to misrespresent a huge community of individuals who find themselves described by the word gay. The term gay, or lesbian for... A lesbian (lowercase L) is a homosexual woman. ... An amusingly named pub (the Old New Inn) at Bourton-on-the-Water, in the Cotswold Hills of south west England A public house, usually known as a pub, is a drinking establishment found mainly in Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other countries influenced by British culture. ... A nightclub (often dance club or club, particularly in the UK) is an entertainment venue which does its primary business after dark. ... Tokyo (東京; Tōkyō  listen, literally eastern capital), is located in the Kanto region on the island of Honshu in Japan. ...

Gay bars and nightclubs are often segregated by sex, though this is more common in some places than others, and people of the "wrong" sex may be unwelcome or even barred from entry. On the whole lesbian-only bars are comparatively uncommon. Gay bars may also attempt to restrict entry only to gays or lesbians, but in practice this is both difficult to enforce and generally undesirable. This may be more common in specialty bars, such as gay male leather fetish or BDSM bars, or clubs that have back rooms (see below), for example. Some unsegregated gay bars have occasional or regular "women only" nights. Gay bars are generally welcoming of transvestites and transsexuals, and drag shows are a common feature in many gay bars. Leather fetishism is the name popularly used to describe a fetishistic attraction to people wearing leather, or in certain cases, to the garments themselves. ... A collar is a common symbol of BDSM. BDSM is a term which describes a number of related patterns of human sexual behaviour. ... This article deals with the history of the word transvestite. For information about cross-dressing, see there. ... A transsexual (sometimes transexual) person establishes a permanent identity with the opposite gender to their assigned (usually at birth) sex. ... Drag queens Luc DArcy and Jerry Cyr and friend at Montreals 2003 Divers/Cité pride parade See also entry Chris Herbold Drag queens are performers - usually gay men, sometimes transgendered women - who dress in drag, clothing associated with the female gender, usually highly exaggerated versions thereof. ...

Music, either live or, more commonly, mixed by a DJ or DJs, is almost always a prominent feature of gay bars, as is the serving of alcohol. Music in gay bars, as in other bars, ranges in style from jazz and blues to disco, drum and bass, punk, house, trance, and techno. For other meanings of DJ, see DJ (disambiguation). ... Jazz is a musical art form characterized by blue notes, syncopation, swing, call and response, polyrhythms, and improvisation. ... Blues is a vocal and instrumental musical form which evolved from African American spirituals, shouts, work songs and chants and has its earliest stylistic roots in West Africa. ... Discothèque redirects here. ... ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... House music refers to a collection of styles of electronic dance music, the earliest forms beginning in the early- to mid- 1980s. ... Trance music is a subgenre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s. ... Techno is a form of electronic music that emerged in the mid-1980s and primarily refers to a particular style developed in and around Detroit and subsequently adopted by European producers. ...

Depending on the size of the club and its image, music and clientele, common features of gay bars are light effects, including colourful moving and flashing lights, disco balls, etc, as well as fog-machines, screens showing special effects or videos, raised platforms or stages for dancing on and for special performances, and decorative cages or podiums for hired dancers (often called go-go boys or go-go girls). Some gay clubs also have "backrooms," dimly lit or darkened rooms where men can have sex.

Like other clubs, gay clubs are oftened advertised by handing out eye-catching flyers on the street, in gay or gay-friendly shops and venues, and at other clubs and events. These flyers frequently feature provocative images.

Gay Bar is also the name for one of Electric Six's songs Electric Six is a six-piece Detroit-based rock band, that plays a mix of hard rock, funk and disco. ...

Notable Gay Nightclubs

Club Universe, San Francisco, a trend setting SOMA nightclub in the late 1990's. Club Universe was a trend-setting gay nightclub in San Francisco in the late 1990s. ... This article is about the city in California. ... A nightclub (often dance club or club, particularly in the UK) is an entertainment venue which does its primary business after dark. ...

Pleasuredome, San Francisco, a gay men's dance club from the early 1990's till 2002. Started by Bill Camilo. This article is about the city in California. ...

Famous Gay DJs

Robbie Leslie

David Harness

Phil B.

Jerry Bonham

External links

• US Rainbow Pages (http://www.usrainbowpages.com) Online guide of gay bars and nightclubs in the US.
• South Beach Magazine (http://www.southbeach-usa.com/columns/columns1/warsaw/warsaw.htm) Article with photos of the notorious Warsaw Ballroom Nightclub in Miami Beach.