I was really pleased to read James R.’s recent article, Closeted in Bushwick. James writes: “I love you, Bushwick, but I have some complaints. This neighborhood, so creative, friendly, so densely populated and diverse, desperately lacks a thriving queer scene.”

As a relatively recent hetero transplant from Chelsea, I was surprised to read this since Chelsea seemed much more sexually segregated. I really enjoy how much the LGBTQ community feels integrated in a particularly healthy way in Bushwick. But James’ article highlighted that there simply aren’t enough places to go for queers to socialize just with each other.

I hadn’t thought about this until now and I felt James was doing us a service by bringing the topic to the table. Of course, just as any article involving sexual politics, the comments had the usual back and forth sniping. FishBait BK wrote, “Clearly [he] didn’t attend ‘Trey LaTrash’s Dizzyland’ this past weekend at Spectrum or ‘Spank’ (which happened last month).” And a comment from MushRoom indicated he was happy with the way things are, “Queer people want to be accepted in a REGULAR bar and not have to create their own homosexual versions of bars that already exist.”