Black gay houston bars

Houston's independent source of local news and culture. Houston News. Richard Connelly September 7, PM. We're not sure why Houston seems to be on a gay jag ; maybe it's because a staunch defender of the Houston Texans opened our eyes to the fact we're secretly into that kind of stuff. At any rate, in the glorious pre-AIDS days when closeted men could find dark corners to embrace their inner alternative lifestyle, where did they go?

Houston has plenty of places where the urge to merge was taken care of anonymously and in semi-private. The Ripcord Bar Chutes. Behind the bar at Chutes the Ripcord was a seemingly incongruous wooden ladder. If you had to ask what it was for, you were in the wrong place.

Guide to Gay Bars in Houston

Upstairs was a pitch-black crawlspace where naked men did what comes naturally. Why they had to go upstairs is not very clear to us, gay we've always heard Chutes the Ripcord was a pretty out-there leather bar anyway. Longtime gay activist Ray Hill, our guide for this tour, tells Hair Balls that he still recalls going there to report on a police raid, and after the cops left he found a dozen or so frightened guys hiding upstairs, wearing any clothes they had grabbed in the dark.

Today, it's the site of the Empire Cafe. View Larger Map. The French Quarter Theater. A very bar theater, it was, showing adult films in an atmosphere of, ummm, collegiality. Intense collegiality. Raids were frequent, Hill said, until the owners and police worked out a deal -- the name of the theater was taken down, the entrance was moved to a non-conspicuous place, and its existence was advertised only in gay newspapers, out of the sight of those who would rather not know of such things.

Patrons also had to join a "private club" to gain admission; the club might well have been called The John Smith Association. Now the site is a Hour Fitness club. Hmmm: A fitness club, opened all hours, equipped with saunas and steam baths? La plus ca change The basement of the Milby Hotel. It had all the necessary ingredients: a tucked-away bathroom that offered some warning if an interruption was imminent; a host houston horny traveling salesmen black from the wife and kids in Odessa who might be looking for an anonymous encounter; and a convenient location in downtown.

We have no idea if it's true, for what it's worth. Now the den of iniquity is a parking garage for the Chase Tower and an office building. The basement of the Auditorium Hotel. Same thing as the Milby. Maybe aficianados knew the subtle differences in potential hook-ups at each locale.