You can find me in da club
The lone lesbian club in Greenville, South Carolina, that is. I was actually surprised to find one even existed. The wife and I were searching for a way to get our Sunday night L-Word fix when a google search turned up with The Sugar Shack. After dinner with the in-laws, we ventured into Greenville to check it out.
The club itself was cute – two bars, a decent sized dance floor, a pool table and a lot of small tables. When we walked in, there were four girls on stools at the bar. Not a big crowd, but the bartender was friendly enough. We ordered two Blue Moons and took a seat at the bar, hoping to making friends with the locals. No such luck as almost immediately all four of them got up and moved to a table. I guess I was wrong – not everyone in the South is friendly.
No worries – the friendly bartender filled us in on the history of the bar. Originally, in the 1940’s, it was a club for Blacks. Eventually it morphed into a lesbian bar and moved to the present location. Now a private establishment, you have to join as a member if you want to get into the 21+ club. I was reminded of my days in college when I went to my first gay bar. I was 18, newly out, and ready to meet some dykes! (That’s what we called ourselves in those days… hence my wannabe-butch roots.) The only place in town was The Common Ground, a decent bar about a mile away from campus. However, being under 21, the only way for me to get into the bar was to fill out an application stating I was over 18 and get it notarized! That was my first experience with having to trust the public official with whom I was about to disclose my sexual orientation. It was also my first experience with being treated differently because I am gay – not once did I ever have to fill out an application to go to a straight bar. I knew the folks at the club were just protecting themselves – but it made me angry that they had to do so because they were under more scrutiny than the myriad straight bars downtown that were notorious for their underage drinking. Everything worked out fine – the nice lady downtown placed her stamp of approval on my application (and my life), and I got my under-21 card from the bar. So began many fun nights of dancing…
I am not sure why, but the bartender at the Sugar Shack didn’t ask us if we were members, so there was no application process this time…
The history lesson ended as a few more people trickled in to order beer and watch the L-Word start. I think the highest head count during the evening was 11 people. I was a little disappointed, but I will not give up on southern lesbians! So we’re going to go back Thursday in hopes of a larger crowd…
