What’s with the stereotyped flamboyant, queenish language, honey? And if you’re not making fun of the way gay people talk, then surely your use of the term “honey” is a misogynistic insult.

/just think Broadsheet ought to hold itself to the same ludicrous standards to which it holds everyone else.

You know, I think the real issue has more to do with the fact that for "bachelorette parties," one of the OBJECTIVES is to behave like an asshole.

I don't single them out. Same is true for bachelor parties, and (from my experience) much more so.

But really--both types of events are about indulging your less civilized impulses and showing off to all the people around you.

I don't think it's right to call the gay/straight thing into this, honestly. If it were a straight bar, and a table of bachelorette-party revelers were ruining the enjoyment of others, I'd hope the management would ask them to be courteous, and failing that, ask them to leave.

And of course, if it were just a table of straight guys in sweaters and ballcaps, I'd expect the same.

If the view of Turner is that even well-behaved bachelorette parties shouldn't be held at gay bars because it makes gay men feel bad, I'd say tough luck and deal with it.

Public places are public.

Because no matter who you're with, how you look, or what kind of lifestyle you prefer, you're not likely to be judged or glanced at disapprovingly.

It's no mystery why some straight people enjoy them. Drunk straight women thinking we gays are ripe for the picking because we have penises is an everpresent reality at gay bars. I take it with amusement. It's my turf, and by definition I'm not required to engage in annoying coddling of women since I don't want to sleep with them. It's a good place to toughen up if you're a girl.

Flaunting hetero marriage in gay-dominant places could get a bit rude. But it's not my straight friends' fault I can't get married, and I celebrate their happiness as I would any other friend's.

Stereotyped and flamboyant? Where? I don't see it.

Some people will always be offended.

I sympathize with the first 3/4 of the article, re: gay bars, but since when was an all-male revue always intended only for gay men? It isn't the bachelorette's fault that the only place she can see male strippers is a place that also draws in gay men. Gay bars are a little different, since their clientele is more clearly defined. But arguing that an all-male revue is strictly for men is pure hooey. Plus, even if it were a gay-themed show, we all know that drag shows are generally advertised to all sexual preferences; there are usually as many straight people at those sorts of things as there are gay people. Performances are different from bars because, unlike at a bar, at a revue you're a spectator, not a participant, so I can't see how a bachelorette or the rest of her party could be so much of an imposition.

...then the owners of the gay bars that ban bachelorette parties are just being pissy. I mean, because how are the unengaged, unloved, and unattractive straight people at regular bars suppose to feel when they see bachelorettes celebrating their upcoming weddings? They're left out, too.

(I'm being slightly facetious here...I understand there's a difference between a legal right to hypothetically marry the love of your life, and the actual ability to do so.)

But seriously, having seen any number of bachelorette parties stumbling their way up and down Bourbon Street, and having been out for drinks with friends who know how to behave themselves, only to have our chosen watering holes crashed by noisy, rude, assholish bachelorette parties, I completely sympathize with the bar owners.

(I've only heard of a couple of gay bars in New Orleans that won't let women in, and they're much more on the line of S&M clubs than drinking establishments or dance halls. I don't know what the situation is in other cities.)

The way these ladies' behavior apparently mimicks that which they don't like when they experience it from the other side is perhaps very human -- that's why the more offensive men do it to women, too.

Where does that come from, this need to advance, grope, touch, have contact with other human beings? Is it just sexual hunger? Now, considering how often this behavior leaves said hunger still unsatisfied--in fact almost guarantees that the object of groping will not satisfy it, it's hard to see how it would be a good method for solving a problem.

Some say it's a desire for power (Nietzsche anyone?): the predator-and-prey game, you're under my power so I win. Some say it's a reversal to a childish game; like teenagers who love to shame others just because they can. Like a prank. Aren't pranks funny? Also, those who do the prank -- the ones doing the laughing and groping -- are bonding with each other. They're a team, they're risking something together, they know (at some level) that they're being silly but that's the point: being silly together. Doing stupid things, making stupid faces and having stupid behavior, to go ha-ha-ha with friends who are being similarly silly. You'd be ashamed if someone took a picture and then later showed it to your friends in a more serious get-together, but while you're doing it it's fun, risky, childish, silly, bonding... Yeah, like children.

There's the alcohol too, of course. Many people wouldn't be able to do this without the alcohol, that strange liberator of subconscious urges.

And then there's a darker side. The suffering side, the I-never-get-lucky side who wants some revenge on the desired ones who never seem to want to attend to one's needs. The desire for revenge. Take that, (son of a) bitch. For making me suffer. For being desirable yet unreachable. For reminding me that I'm a loser. For not being compassionate, for not noticng that I suffer. I'll show you what suffering is!...

Many good and bad things mixed together, ahn? With different people having different percentages of each. It's hard to decide if humans are despicable or adorable. My take is that they are interesting.

I once said we'd have gotten somewhere when old gender stereotypes become the stuff of jokes rather than reality -- just like democracy seemed to be getting somewhere once absolute kings and queens and princes and princesses became the stuff of fairy tales rather than reality. Of course, there's always human nature, too. Whatever it is. Who knows where we will end up?...