Apparently Warner in 1999 wrote that NYC served as a valuable reference point to know that things were different somewhere; Herring points out that there are at least thirty-five gay bars in North Carolina. (Even though, as suggested in Mary Gray's piece, people may have to drive an hour or two to get to the services they want. [1])
Things may have changed, but going by radio advertising when I was a teenager, there was exactly one club (dark, smoky, plays Top 40) per county, and one per several counties that was 18+. (Bars qua bars were rather more common, but as watering holes, not pick-up scenes.) So I'm not sure this is a problem unique to gay bars.
Actually, on second thought, NC is not that large, nor is it lacking in cities (my scheme goes big city -> city -> town -> the cornfields.) If only 5 or 10 of those 35 are outside Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, I'm not really clear that's a ringing endorsement of robust queer community resources [you know, gay bars!] in the area. But if your yardstick is 'nothing queer exists outside NYC', that's a really flimsy premise to demolish...
I think I would like to read this book too, although I think I would argue with it a lot. Specifically, I am curious about how the flight of queer youth from "rural" to "urban" spaces is distinguished in a meaningful way from the past ~century of youth of all sorts leaving their impoverished towns and seeking their fortunes (or at least partners) in the big city, and how violence and psychological isolation leading to self-harm and suicide are considered as motivating factors for queers showing concerns about their peers living in unfriendly communities [which exist in NYC and SF, I hear.]
Hm, apparently I have thought about this a lot.
Things may have changed, but going by radio advertising when I was a teenager, there was exactly one club (dark, smoky, plays Top 40) per county, and one per several counties that was 18+. (Bars qua bars were rather more common, but as watering holes, not pick-up scenes.) So I'm not sure this is a problem unique to gay bars.
Actually, on second thought, NC is not that large, nor is it lacking in cities (my scheme goes big city -> city -> town -> the cornfields.) If only 5 or 10 of those 35 are outside Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, I'm not really clear that's a ringing endorsement of robust queer community resources [you know, gay bars!] in the area. But if your yardstick is 'nothing queer exists outside NYC', that's a really flimsy premise to demolish...
I think I would like to read this book too, although I think I would argue with it a lot. Specifically, I am curious about how the flight of queer youth from "rural" to "urban" spaces is distinguished in a meaningful way from the past ~century of youth of all sorts leaving their impoverished towns and seeking their fortunes (or at least partners) in the big city, and how violence and psychological isolation leading to self-harm and suicide are considered as motivating factors for queers showing concerns about their peers living in unfriendly communities [which exist in NYC and SF, I hear.]