The (Real) Bar Scene

Although Northampton has a bit of a paucity of bars given that it's a college town, I must admit, the Sex Fairies are spoiled. Our bars are clean, well-lit, safe, and fun. Real college bars are NOT like this.

I got an education on this subject last night when I explored the West Chester bar scene for the first time. West Chester is a state college town in PA, and thus chock full of raucous bars. I spent most of the night staring at the chaos and drunk texting myself so I would remember all the lovely details.

The environment was so male-oriented and frat-like. The first bar we went to had five TVs, all of which were broadcasting sports, clearly pandering to the men of the bar scene. One of my companions, Beefcake, pointed out that sports are one of the few things that you can watch without sound and still understand, and while this is true, why do we need TVs at all? I don't go to bars to catch up on SportsCenter; I go to bars to get my drink on. This reminded me very much of the club at which I met Beefcake, where they broadcast episodes of Manswers (the show that answered pertinent inquiries such as "what does it take to make an implant explode?"), catering to a more male experience.

They also had $2 mixed drinks as a promotional special, something I very much appreciated, but which also seemed to unfairly target women: nearly all of the females at this bar were throwing back the mixed drinks, while the men sipped beers. It also reminded me of a frat's beer policy at WPI: men can get five beers free, women have unlimited (presumably in order to get them shitfaced and less able to discern who, if anyone, they'd like to go home with).

At this same bar, a very skinny, very scantily-clad woman was DJing. Before putting on the song "Crazy Bitch," she advocated to the other females in the place that they "treat their men right" later that night.

...female chauvinism, much?

The saving grace for this bar (for me, anyway) was the one lone gay female. With her short hair and flannel shirt, she made me feel at home. I wanted to buy her a shot out of solidarity of being the only folks there to understand the definition of "heteronormativity."

The second bar was much more crowded and college-scene than the first. By the end of the evening, the floor was coated in that familiar frat house beer sludge that comes from too many spilled drinks.

One man with a beer gut and early male-pattern baldness stood near the bar, criticizing the women who walked by him and blatantly looking them up and down. I wanted to storm over and lecture him on objectification (as well as questioning how a fat fuck like himself thought he deserved the attention of ANY of the females there), but knew a half-drunk five foot tall blonde yelling at him would not exactly be the pinnacle of conscious-raising, so I refrained.

And attention was clearly the currency of the realm here. For me, this was exemplified by the extent to which most of the women had dolled themselves up (I'm not sure I wore that much makeup to my prom), but even moreso by the faux-bisexuality on display (fuck you, Katy Perry!). Far be it from me to dictate a person's sexuality (I'm all for experimentation), but these two girls were making out for a man holding a camera. It was not only important that they attract attention to themselves by pandering to the male gaze directly in front of them, but also that they document it for later to prove just how fun and crazy they are. It didn't seem to be about enjoyment for them, as they stopped as soon as the picture was taken, but about attention. It made me sad.

While I'm sure I will probably drink in West Chester again, I couldn't help but be struck by the way the entire atmosphere replicated the male-dominated air of a frat house. It only made me more homesick for the safe, bourgie bars of Northampton, and made me see how sheltered we are from the outright chauvinism encouraged by so many bars and their patrons. We really do live in a pro-women bubble, and I love it.

Much love,
The Albright Sheriff