By Joey Hood My first dabbling in Nashville’s gay scene was a visceral experience, to say the least. Armed with a smudged copy of Out & About newspaper and a busted flip phone, I proceeded to trudge through the city’s gay salt mines (read: Church Street) in a frumpy hoodie and worn tennis shoes. After the thumping bass line of Rick James’ “Super Freak” faded into oblivion, I stumbled into the nearby rest room and took slight notice of the posted signs that nudged patrons to adhere to a policy of “one customer per stall.” As with any virginal experience, my usual Seinfeld-ian neuroses washed over me. “Should I call my smattering of gay acquaintances?” I asked myself. And more importantly, what was I doing alone in a hipper-than-thou gay bar looking like a walking advertisement for The Gap? I spent the remainder of my Friday night outside the crown jewel of gay Nashville, Tribe Restaurant and Bar, scrolling through my address book in vain hope of finding some disgruntled lesbians or queer shut-ins. Fortunately for you, dear reader, I’ve included a detailed guide to Nashville’s gay scene. With any luck, you won’t make the same mistakes that this Larry Davidesque newbie did. Does Nashville have gay-oriented press? The most prominent periodical is Out & About newspaper (to which this writer contributes), a monthly publication that caters to the NewsHour With Jim Lehrer set. Distributed across the state, Out & About regularly targets the latest anti-gay legislation in matter-of-fact prose. Sister publication Xenogeny enlists the help of shirtless go-go dancers for its provocative stories. Boasting the title of “Nashville’s oldest gay rag,” Xenogeny primarily serves horn-dog men with short attention spans. Church Street Freedom Press is the newest contender in Nashville’s gay publication ring. Despite a long title, Freedom Press aspires to be mentioned in the same breath as The Washington Blade and Atlanta’s Southern Voice. How do socially awkward gays land dates? Gay.com, anyone? Seriously, this decade-old website offers a who’s-who of sexually frustrated ’mos. At local bars, an inspired drinking game involves spotting beleaguered Gay.com users drowning their sorrows in dry martinis. Gay.com certainly holds rank at Middle Tennessee State University and other area colleges (well, maybe not Lipscomb University), where straight, bi-curious freshmen pore over the personals section in the back rows of their respective college libraries. Where can I purchase barely legal gay/lesbian porn and other novelties? If you’re in the mood for last month’s copy of Unzipped or a VHS-tape featuring leather-clad lesbians, Church Street’s Outloud! Bookstore is a sure bet. Unlike the cross-brandishing sexagenarian at Barnes & Noble, Outloud!’s clerks could not care less whether you flaunt transvestite porn star Chi Chi LaRue’s surgically enhanced breasts in plain view of other customers. For non-porn readers, the front section of Outloud! features the latest in gay reading (i.e. David Sedaris) and a well-stocked discography of must-have music from locals Jen Foster and experimental rock band Thornton. Where do the hordes of sex-crazed twenty-somethings congregate on weekends? Tanned, well-toned male bodies devotedly swarm to Church Street’s latest import, Play Dance Bar, on any given Saturday night. With stereotype-busting wet boxer-brief contests and underwear parties, Play has the peroxide-using, Abercrombie-models-in-training crowd on lock. For lipstick lesbians, East Nashville’s aptly titled Lipstick Lounge celebrates a hodgepodge of doting biker babes and sleekly dressed career women. Where can a closeted college student go for help? Unbeknownst to Nashville’s Southern Baptist contingent, MTSU and Vanderbilt University provide the equivalents of gay outreach programs to questioning college students. MTSU’s Lambda organization is nothing more than a gay support group for students struggling with sexual identity issues. Vanderbilt also has a Lambda program, as well as the tolerant Vanderbilt Divinity School, which stocks fresh copies of Out & About. For younger students, One-in-Teen Youth Services provides on-site counseling and Oprah-worthy solace (www.one-in-teen.org). Does a 33-year-old carpenter live around these parts? In Nashville, you can’t blindly swing an untied tetherball without landing on a CVS pharmacy or ostentatious mega-church. Of course, the trick is finding a mega-church that suits your belief system. (You won’t see Jerry Falwell waltzing into the Holy Trinity Community Church anytime soon.) That said, Nashville has a surfeit of socially conscious churches and sane pastors, who actually preach love instead of shrill hate-mongering. The aforementioned Holy Trinity Church and Metropolitan Church of Nashville are decent places to start. On another note, Glendale Baptist was ousted from the Southern Baptist Convention due to associate minister April Baker’s lesbian ways, which gives this Green Hills church a certain cool factor.
