Lesbian Life Comparison through the decades

[*Anya*]

There were a few women's bars in the LA/Orange County area when I came out in the late 70's.

The old dive bar "The Happy Hour" where the butches laughed at me walking in because I wore heels and was quite femme. I drove by where it used to be in Garden Grove, a few years ago, and it was no longer a gay bar. It was a Ranchero music place.

In Long Beach, The Executive Suite, which is still in operation today. Also Que Serra, on 7th street. I think it is also still open, too.

My all-time favorite: Peanuts. An awesome disco (my auto-spell just changed disco to FICCO *sniff*).

Peanuts had a great dance floor and when gay men went there, they were really in the minority, not the majority.

I also went to the Palms (don't even remember if that is the right name) but I only went once or twice. I didn't really care for it but how great that we had choices! Peanuts closed sometime in the 1980's.

Oh you youngsters! It was an awesome time to come out!

I will always remember my dancing days so fondly.

[JustLovelyJenn]

I love to read these stories! As one of the "new millennium" kids... I came in just early enough to have been privileged to hear some of the stories from the older generations.

I love that this is coming up right now, as it aligns with a project I am working on. The GSA at the high school I work for is developing a lot this year, and I am trying to bring in speakers to help them connect with the community at large. Last weekend, a friend I know from the drag community volunteered to come and speak to them. He is 58 years old and was part of the drag community and an activist all the way back to Stonewall. I think it is SO important for our youth to hear the stories, to understand the fight that came before so they can have the freedoms they have now.

Thank you all for sharing your stories!

[Virago]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

There were a few women's bars in the LA/Orange County area when I came out in the late 70's.

The old dive bar "The Happy Hour" where the butches laughed at me walking in because I wore heels and was quite femme. I drove by where it used to be in Garden Grove, a few years ago, and it was no longer a gay bar. It was a Ranchero music place.

In Long Beach, The Executive Suite, which is still in operation today. Also Que Serra, on 7th street. I think it is also still open, too.

My all-time favorite: Peanuts. An awesome disco (my auto-spell just changed disco to FICCO *sniff*).

Peanuts had a great dance floor and when gay men went there, they were really in the minority, not the majority.

I also went to the Palms (don't even remember if that is the right name) but I only went once or twice. I didn't really care for it but how great that we had choices! Peanuts closed sometime in the 1980's.

Oh you youngsters! It was an awesome time to come out!

I will always remember my dancing days so fondly.

Peanuts didn't really close. Just changed its name to its address. The full name became "7969, the bar formerly known as Peanuts" but everyone kept calling it Peanuts anyway. I was a bartender there through the 90's. And I'm so sorry you didn't like the Palms. I was also a bartender and a bouncer there at the same time...the 90's. I hope your dislike of it wasn't due to any drinks that I might have made for you. lol Look for the documentary about the Palms, working title is "Where The Misfits Go"

[Virago]

In NYC in the early 80's there was a bar called The Duchess. All us dykes were androgynous then. All in our mantailored shirts and jeans. We were a by-product of the Women's Movement in that era, so there was NOTHING allowed that even MIMICKED male/female relationships. Butch/Femme was highly looked down upon. If you DARED walked into the bar in a dress, you were shunned. And Sex....sex was also very equal back then. There was NO penetration at all (remember, nothing that mimicked male/female). Basically side by side mutual touching and rubbing.

I am so glad that part of those days are over.

[Soon]

Originally Posted by Virago

There was NO penetration at all (remember, nothing that mimicked male/female). Basically side by side mutual touching and rubbing.

I am so glad that part of those days are over.

I'm so curious about this! (of course, the sex part haha). So, was this an unspoken rule? Or was it discussed among women generally (outside the bedroom) that penetration was not cool and 'off the table' for lesbians? Or was it just understood once you were coupled with someone and 'in the moment'?

It's hard for me to imagine. I was just thinking how gay men would never have a 'rule' like this around their sexual activity. It's interesting how the politicized the bedrooms of lesbians were (are?).

Last question (for now):
So, all the butches and the femmes went into a more andro mode. Were there ways to suss each other a bit and still couple up despite the more neutral outerwear?

Fantastic thread -- love reading everyone's experiences and will share my (kind of limited) ones!

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by Virago

In NYC in the early 80's there was a bar called The Duchess. All us dykes were androgynous then. All in our mantailored shirts and jeans. We were a by-product of the Women's Movement in that era, so there was NOTHING allowed that even MIMICKED male/female relationships. Butch/Femme was highly looked down upon. If you DARED walked into the bar in a dress, you were shunned. And Sex....sex was also very equal back then. There was NO penetration at all (remember, nothing that mimicked male/female). Basically side by side mutual touching and rubbing.

I am so glad that part of those days are over.

Originally Posted by Soon

I'm so curious about this! (of course, the sex part haha). So, was this an unspoken rule? Or was it discussed among women generally (outside the bedroom) that penetration was not cool and 'off the table' for lesbians? Or was it just understood once you were coupled with someone and 'in the moment'?

It's hard for me to imagine. I was just thinking how gay men would never have a 'rule' like this around their sexual activity. It's interesting how the politicized the bedrooms of lesbians were (are?).

Last question (for now):
So, all the butches and the femmes went into a more andro mode. Were there ways to suss each other a bit and still couple up despite the more neutral outerwear?

Fantastic thread -- love reading everyone's experiences and will share my (kind of limited) ones!

My long-term ex came out in the late 50's, 60's and used to tell me that in her circle, you were either butch or femme. If you were butch, there was basically only stone as a choice.

No touching, absolutely no penetration for the butch and the rules were that the butch must only please the femme partner. they even had a word for it: KiKi. No self-respecting butch would want to be called KiKi (K"I" K"I" was how it was pronounced). *I just remembered, that the phrase laughed about with her friends was butch in the streets, femme in the sheets and it was said with derision.

It took 10 years of being like this in our relationship before she allowed me to push some boundaries with her (it goes without saying but I will say it anyway: her choice, her decision, her curiosity). She did feel like she was KiKi then but did it anyway because no one knew what we did in the privacy of our bedroom (and she found that she really liked it).

She used to talk about the cop raids on bars back then and that every one had to wear at least one piece of women's clothing or they would be hauled to jail.

It was very difficult for her when everyone became andro in the late 60's, early 70's. It did not fit the rules of how it was in the early days and in her crowd. She loved that I was femme and even though we were looked down upon at some lesbian events in the 70's (because flannel shirts were never my fashion choice), we both loved being butch and femme.

[Virago]

Originally Posted by Soon

I'm so curious about this! (of course, the sex part haha). So, was this an unspoken rule? Or was it discussed among women generally (outside the bedroom) that penetration was not cool and 'off the table' for lesbians? Or was it just understood once you were coupled with someone and 'in the moment'?
It's hard for me to imagine. I was just thinking how gay men would never have a 'rule' like this around their sexual activity. It's interesting how the politicized the bedrooms of lesbians were (are?).

Wonderful questions, Soon! In response to this one, was it an unspoken rule or discussed? I would say, in the way that any culture develops its norms and customs, it was both. It was basically an unspoken way of behavior. You just learned it by dating. (and realize I'm trying to imagine myself back in those situations in order to find the answer, so I am responding with 35 years between the action and the consideration). Now with facebook and the forums we can read what people say and how others respond to those statements and decide which path we take by that education. Back then we just had The Community. You would maybe make a slight move and see how it was responded to. You would go on a date and then talk with your friends about it. Maybe you said something like, "She grabbed my hands over my head" and then saw how your friends reacted to it (usual response would be "That's Rape!" BDSM was NOT considered a normal alternative, although the Lesbian Sex Mafia was working on changing that). These days I found my soul as a Top and a Butch, but back then those phrases were only mentioned with a sneer. I remember one girl I was with throwing me off my side onto my back. She then got on top of me and started to 'dry hump' me. I thought, What the f*ck is she trying to prove? What is she doing? Trying to act as a guy??!!?? I so wish I could find her now and discuss her experiences, any pain or isolation she might have felt. She moved to San Fran so I believe I can assume where Her/His life took him. And yes, I dissed him (now using the pronoun that I believe he is living his life with). That's a quick thought about how society norms got spread. I'm sure tomorrow I'll want to add more thoughts to this.

The bedrooms of Lesbians were VERY politicized. But most groups do react more radically when they are emerging, trying to find their rights and the Lesbians of the 80's...or women as a whole were no exception. If we copied men we were just trying to BE men and not trying to show that we are capable as people. So we shunned anything that mimicked polarized relationships.

I remember when I first moved to L.A. one of the first women I met in a lesbian bar was a regular character in a TV show of the time. She came up to me and outright asked me, "Are you butch or femme? You ride a motorcycle so you must be butch but you seem to have a women's heart so you must be femme!" I was so stunned by the question! That would NEVER have been asked in NYC! I thought quickly and responded with, "I'm a hippie". Not the best answer, but it was out of my realm of experience.

I also remember the start of a new magazine just before I left NYC in '85. It was called On Our Backs (the name was a response to a radical political magazine called "Off Our Backs"---which might have also helped mold our sexual position). San Francisco had already started to realize that we didn't need to unsexualize ourselves to repel men, but instead we needed to sexualize ourselves to attract other women! I remember my feelings when I read my first issue. I found myself.

Originally Posted by Soon

Last question (for now):
So, all the butches and the femmes went into a more andro mode. Were there ways to suss each other a bit and still couple up despite the more neutral outerwear?

Fantastic thread -- love reading everyone's experiences and will share my (kind of limited) ones!

Was there a way to suss each other out? Hmmm. I guess there were. No relationship is perfectly equal no matter how much you try. But we didn't try to suss each other out as butch or femme. That would have meant we needed to label ourselves as one or the other and that was a no-no. But of course, if you are naturally more in one direction you hopefully found your magnetic opposite

Anya, I have no doubt it was difficult for your ex, coming out of the Butch/Femme era, to learn how to walk through the new social environment. I feel for her and her contemporaries. Many of those contemporaries are on these panels with me these days. I bless them for all they did because it was easier for me to find my way as I stepped OFF the straight and narrow, then it must have been for them to learn how to tight-rope walk that path.

[Kätzchen]

You mentioned the magazine On our Backs, Virago, which caused me to think of the long enduring small business in Portland called, In Other Words... which used to be located in the Hawthorne district for years, but they're out in the Alberta district on 14th & NE Killingsworth, these days. I remember that this business too was an great place to find community and thoughtful, grass-roots agencies, that partnered with them, to build a stable social network and outreach to members of the lesbian community.

Eta: OOB was a great magazine to read, I enjoyed it much.

[dykeumentary]

I would love to hear thoughts on how race/class played out in lesbian bars you went to. My experience as a white working class softball dyke was very different than white middle class upwardly mobile lesbians in the 1980s, and it was even more different than the experience of my friends of color.
https://youtu.be/e1eUIPCbKec

[Glenn]

Originally Posted by dykeumentary

I would love to hear thoughts on how race/class played out in lesbian bars you went to. My experience as a white working class softball dyke was very different than white middle class upwardly mobile lesbians in the 1980s, and it was even more different than the experience of my friends of color.
https://youtu.be/e1eUIPCbKec

This issue was not played out at all in my personal experience in the Chicago bars. We we're welcome in the male bars also without any racism, classism, or bias. Heck, I probably sat on the same stool Barak Obama sat on.

[theoddz]

I'm really enjoying reading all of the posts here. It takes me back to some really fond memories of good times and good friends. I was serving in the USMC back in the late 70's/early 80's, in Southern California. My/our (a large group of gay Women Marines) "stomping grounds" were mainly in San Diego and L.A.. We had sooooo much fun then, and it made coming out so much easier being around such good friends.

Peanuts, in LA, as was Que Sera (to a lesser extent, however), was a major party place for all of us, though we didn't go up there to LA nearly as much as we partied in San Diego, at places like The Club, The Brass Rail, The Apartment and Diablo's, among many others. After The Club closed, places like The Box Office opened up, but most were just flashes in the pan, so to speak.

I do remember, though, being told by a few of the older members of our group that there was another group of lesbians that never socialized in the bar scenes. These women, as I was told, were those who couldn't afford to be seen in the lesbian bars because of their professions (many were military officers and career military members) positions in society or fears of being outed to their families. Because of this, they met each other through other means and socialized together outside of the bars. It was all a dark and mysterious culture to me, at that time. I was young and into the bar scene.

It's been a long road for me, since those times and those places, and it just serves to remind me of how far I have come, and how deep my roots are in the Lesbian community. It's such a big part of my life and who I am now. Abandoning it would be like tearing a piece of my heart out.

~Theo~

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by theoddz

I'm really enjoying reading all of the posts here. It takes me back to some really fond memories of good times and good friends. I was serving in the USMC back in the late 70's/early 80's, in Southern California. My/our (a large group of gay Women Marines) "stomping grounds" were mainly in San Diego and L.A.. We had sooooo much fun then, and it made coming out so much easier being around such good friends.

Peanuts, in LA, as was Que Sera (to a lesser extent, however), was a major party place for all of us, though we didn't go up there to LA nearly as much as we partied in San Diego, at places like The Club, The Brass Rail, The Apartment and Diablo's, among many others. After The Club closed, places like The Box Office opened up, but most were just flashes in the pan, so to speak.

I do remember, though, being told by a few of the older members of our group that there was another group of lesbians that never socialized in the bar scenes. These women, as I was told, were those who couldn't afford to be seen in the lesbian bars because of their professions (many were military officers and career military members) positions in society or fears of being outed to their families. Because of this, they met each other through other means and socialized together outside of the bars. It was all a dark and mysterious culture to me, at that time. I was young and into the bar scene.

It's been a long road for me, since those times and those places, and it just serves to remind me of how far I have come, and how deep my roots are in the Lesbian community. It's such a big part of my life and who I am now. Abandoning it would be like tearing a piece of my heart out.

~Theo~

Oh Theo! Just think, we could have danced side by side at one time or another and never knew each other!

That mysterious group you were talking about was Southern California Women for Understanding, or SCWU, for short.

My ex and I joined for a few years. They had dances, potlucks, casual activities and we met for picnics at parks with our children and things like that. Those were the days that lesbians did not have children to the degree gay women do now! To find an organization where other women had children, helped mine to not feel so alone to have a gay mom.

I recall that there were a lot of teachers in the group. I believe SCWU was founded sometime around *1978-1979. Teachers were understandably worried about job loss due to being lesbian, so they truly felt like they had so much to lose if they came out or were found out.

I guess lesbians in the military were really in the same position. Imagine the stress of hiding but it was so normal to hide for lesbians of the 50's, 60's and 70's! It is still the same in parts of the USA, other countries and with some jobs today.

There also was the Briggs Initiative back then and lesbian teachers really and truly were threatened with the loss of their jobs! It was scary for a professional woman.

I was in nursing school and my ex worked in the jail at the time, so we were less worried about exposure than the women that had achieved a level of status in their jobs.

Oh my, I feel like an elder lesbian stateswoman now! I guess that I kind of am.

*I looked online and according to the June Mazer collection:

Southern California Women for Understanding (SCWU) collection, 1975-1999

The Southern California Women for Understanding (SCWU), was an educational non-profit organization, formed in 1976 and dedicated to “enhancing the quality of life for [the lesbian] community and for lesbians nationwide, creative and positive exchange about homosexuality, [and] changing stereotypical images of lesbians.”

SCWU emerged in the midst of the civil rights, gay rights, and women’s movements when many marginalized social groups organized en masse to demand recognition and rights. SCWU was one of the earliest known lesbian organizations. At its height, SCWU reached membership of 1,100 and in 1982, Lesbian News hailed it as the “largest lesbian support group in the country.”

The collection contains the operational records of Southern California Women for Understanding (SCWU), one of the earliest lesbian non-profit educational organizations in Los Angeles, California.

http://www.mazerlesbianarchives.org/...standing-scwu/

[clay]

I came out in 1973 as a youngster! Around the time of the Stonewall riots.This was in the Deep South, smack in the middle of that "bible belt". The only women "visible" to me were ones who dressed very masculine, and were called "diesel dykes". Most wore blue jeans, jean work shirts, and heavy boots, worked some sort of machine shop jobs, and rode motorcycles. I thought they were just beautiful people to me....and I admired their courage, grit, & stance to be themselves. The only words I had ever heard for describing any one who preferred "same sex" coupling were "queer" & "faggot"
It wasn't until late 70's I began to hear of "butch & femme". I met a butch/femme couple...when the butch was my patient. The femme & I became very close, and she schooled me on the butch concept.

My very first bar ever was a small bar in Greenville,SC....Club Gemini. I talked a gay male friend into us "checking it out". If anyone approached us & we felt uncomfortable, we would claim to be "together". Ha....

The owners, whom became very dear friends of mine, sold that club & opened the Stone Castle. I am not sure if it is still in business, but I had many fun times there.

Cops did come in regularly, ID'ed us, etc...but I was never hassled in any way by them.

The friend who schooled me on the BF dynamic took me to a very popular bar in HotLanta....The Sweet Gum Head. There I saw my very first drag show. Brandy Alexander, Hot Chocolate, and others.....OHHH EMMM Geeee....I loved iut...and wound up going back often as it was a short drive there!!!

Late 80's I moved to HotLanta. Like Georgia Ma'am said, I hung out at Charis Books, Piedmont Park, and several clubs. I saw Lea DeLaria, the Indigo Girls, and Melissa Etheridge perform there.

My fave club was Deana's One Mo' Time. I went to the Page a few times, but wasn't as comfortable there. I went to The Other Side when it opened, and was fairly comfortable there. Until the one night, someone brought a backpack in, filled with explosives and nails, sat it down next to my table. I was outside when it went off, injuring several folks. I just didn't want to go back there anymore after that.

I went to some of the other colorful bars around town, some I no longer remember names of...but Model T's was one my male friend always wanted me to go to with him when he was prowling...lol.

Another piece of history I remember early on was the case in Ga. of Bowers v. Hardwick. You can google it to read more. Basically two guys were in the privacy of their own bedroom when they got "raided" and charged with sodomy.

Years & years ago, two ladies out in California had what was called The Wishing Well....Laddie & Gloria....where you paid for an ad, the booklet was published and sent to members, updated every so often. On Our Backs was one of the very first things I read..... Radycliffe Hall's Well of Loneliness was my first fiction. Then I was gifted the Beebo Brinker series of books...

I remember the March On Washington . I wasn't privy to be a part of it but proud still...

Athens,Ga was a very well known town for feminists. I went to several events there, one being the Vagina Monologues, played out on the grounds of UGA. I was active in the feminism movement in my very small hometown area. I saw Alix Dobkin perform there several times. Her stories always amazed me. Women & power!!!

Thanks for all these great posts. I have enjoyed reading them all & even know of several of the places & people mentioned.

It is amazing to step back in time..to where I was and where I am now. Fond memories & stories from over the last 42 years....gassssppp...where DID time go...

Thanks, Virago!!!

[Esme nha Maire]

What a lovely, fascinating thread! I am so glad that it's been bumped!

Originally Posted by Virago

... Now with facebook and the forums we can read what people say and how others respond to those statements and decide which path we take by that education. Back then we just had The Community. You would maybe make a slight move and see how it was responded to. You would go on a date and then talk with your friends about it...

One of the things I hate about current times is the seeming primacy of "social media" over actual face-to-face interaction in some respects. On the one hand, YouTube, with its various LGBT channels has been quite an education for me in some respects, since the start of 2017, and was partly responsible for me gathering the nerve to go to the lone "lesbian bar" (hah! "lesbian-friendly", more like! Not a criticism of the owners, I gather that they just don't get enough women through their doors consistentlyenough to make it financially viable to be women-only) where I live. On the other, there's nothing like face to face contact for judging how interpersonal relationships of any kind are going, and I just wish that there was somewhere that was women-only that I could always go to when I'm able, and learn from simply socialising with my peers quite where and how I fit in in lesbian society. I'm sure I'd've had that sorted out pretty rapidly, given the opportunity. Gripping hand (any other fans of Larry Niven's SF in the house?) is that the world is as it is and not as I'd wish it to be, so it's me that has to adjust to the fact that, so far as I can tell, a lot of current lesbian socialising is pre-arranged out where I can't see it on "social media" that I won't touch with a bargepole for ethical reasons that most folk (and it isn't an age thing) seem blithely unable to comprehend. So sure, I can go to the few dyke places I know, but it's very hit and miss as to whether there'll be many/any actual lesbians in them at any given time... sigh.

Maybe it's my geek streak, but having social places for particular groups to some extent ("this is a straight place, here's a dyke place - that one's for the gay guys - that one's for anyone.." etc) just seems a more rational and easier way to arrange things. And the twice I ventured to our sole dyke bar and it happened to be wall-to-wall women were just glorious, it felt like coming home at long last!

[cathexis]

Glad this thread was bumped. It's been great reading about everyone's coming out/socialization experiences and how things have changed over the years. 1974 was when I came out as a mid-teenager in Indianapolis. Remember that there were a few bars which we spent time trying to get in. We hoped no one would ID us, but truth be told none of us looked a day over 17.

We were relegated to hanging out at a Steak & Egg diner in the downtown area or hanging on the streets if the waitress found out we had no money.

Glad to runaway to Chicago where I got a fake ID, and started actually getting in clubs. The two I remember best were Augie's on Broadway (middle class, white, younger) and CK's on Diversey (decidedly working class). Backstory on these two bars was that Augie and CK were lovers who both open bars. Years later, the two bars joined together. CK's was butch/femme with a few of us hated kikis thrown in. A kiki was a lesbian who could go either way on the gender scale depending on desire or need. We weren't a defined value traveling between the binary extremes so it made many feel uncomfortable.

At that time, Chicago had another bar that I remember, Lost and Found, which mostly catered to the 40 plus crowd.

New Orleans was the next stop about mid-1976. Had a co-worker and male friend who took me to all his leather haunts. Unfortunately, there were no womyn (would have become a leatherdyke much sooner).

As for community attitudes toward lesbians, the only problem with bias I encountered was in Indy.

Got blown away the 1st year I went to Michfest when it was on the old land in the early eighties. Loads of naked dykes everywhere. Even more amazed in 1987 at the March on Washington. More dykes than I'd ever seen together in one area.

[*Anya*]

Originally Posted by Virago

Peanuts didn't really close. Just changed its name to its address. The full name became "7969, the bar formerly known as Peanuts" but everyone kept calling it Peanuts anyway. I was a bartender there through the 90's. And I'm so sorry you didn't like the Palms. I was also a bartender and a bouncer there at the same time...the 90's. I hope your dislike of it wasn't due to any drinks that I might have made for you. lol Look for the documentary about the Palms, working title is "Where The Misfits Go"

Ha! No, no worries! Not due to the drinks! I am sure you mixed a fine drink! I just felt at home at Peanuts (formerly known as just Peanuts!).

All I recall of the Palms was that is was so dark in there but it could have been my perception!

[GeorgiaMa'am]

I didn't come out until 1984 in Atlanta, and by that time, there were quite a few venues that weren't bars. Of course, we had bars too - The Sports Page was probably the most well-known. There were at least two others that I can't remember the names of (one on Glen Iris, which I think is still there - and one on Piedmont at Pharr Rd., which I think was torn down.)

We also had Charis Books, a feminist bookstore that is still active. There was the Dyke and Dine - ahem, I mean, the Dunk and Dine - which was technically a mainstream establishment, but everyone _knew_ that was the place to go. It's still there, but I don't know what the crowd is like any more. There were also women's music festivals where you could go camp for a weekend and meet women and see the likes of Lea Delaria and the Indigo Girls and Melissa Etheridge. (That was in my day - earlier than my time had been the era of Meg Christian, who I am sorry to have missed. But we had Lucie Blue Tremblay, Cris Williamson, Holly Near and many more.) There were also lots of support groups and organizations (a shout out for the Atlanta Feminist Women's Chorus!). The Atlanta Lesbian Feminist Alliance (ALFA) (of _Our Bodies Our Selves_ fame), which had a clubhouse of sorts that housed meeting space and a library, and hosted a softball team, had started to decline around the mid 1980s.

Then around 1986 we got a dance club. (I think it was called The Other Side?) It had a VIP room, a great dance floor, and _everybody_ in the world seemed to know about it. Women came from all over the country to go. It was like, finally! We had a dance club to equal anything the gay men had - and they had at least four big dance clubs in Atlanta at the time. (There was Backstreets, a 24-hour club where women and also everybody else went at 4 a.m. when the other bars closed, only to stumble out into the sunlight at 7 or 8 a.m. The other men's bars were usually friendly towards lesbians, but none of them were good places to go to meet women.)

Oh, and I almost forgot the DeKalb Farmer's Market in Decatur, GA (a small city next door to Atlanta)! It's like a giant produce stand/fish monger/butcher/bakery/restaurant inside a warehouse. Produce was/is cheap and fresh, organic products are/were readily available, and there are any number of things to recommend this amazing place. But foremost in my mind, it was one of the best places to meet lesbians in Atlanta. It may still be.