The Gay Bar Experience

As I have mentioned in my previous post, we went to a gay bar the other night. It was not my first time to enter a club like that actually, the first one was during our cousin’s so-called bridal shower and I was with our aunts that time. The first experience was fun because we entered a hip club and the atmosphere did not feel any degrading.

However, during my second time to enter such type of club, the ambiance was different. I could literally smell poverty and I felt that the people working there have no other choice but embrace that type of job to make a living. There the guys are allowed to sit in the table of the so called spectators and when one “performer” joined our table (fully clothed, fortunately) we were so apprehensive to entertain him back because honestly, we felt disgusted by them. But a compassionate friend of ours exchanged conversations with the guy and I listened to them. At first I did not know what their topic was but then I heard the guy say in a Visayan dialect “I know that this is a sin, selling my own flesh, but I do not have a choice. There’s no other job for me out there.” Right there and then I felt a pang of pity and sympathy. I also felt a tug in my heart when the guy whispered to me to buy him a drink so that he will have certain income for the night.

I don’t care if you call me gullible or naïve because I know that in that line of work, those guys have to make up stories to make people feel sorry for them and give them money. But you know what, no matter what lies they tell us, the truth is there. They either spill some lies or they give pleasure and lie down on the bed (pun intended). But the bottom line is: they are merely begging for money because they have no other options to earn money.

It’s a fun night but the mark it left me was a scar in my heart.