What to wear to a gay bar if you 39

In his straw Western hat with the feather hatband, Clay looked no different from most urban cowboys at "happy hour," except he was hustling a guy instead of a girl. Inside Saddle Tramps, a private club for gays at NW 39, the Mickey Gilley look-alike on my left lit a cigarette for a man about half his age.

A girl’s modern guide to gay bar etiquette

So I'm flattered by your 25 years," Rex said. A neon wagon wheel flashed multi-colored shadows across the small hardwood dance floor, where a tall, slim redhead in an expensive knit sweater dress a "drag queen" I would later learn was dancing with a man in jeans, checked shirt and black felt hat.

A white-haired gent and his balding, but younger friend stood like statues near a video game being played frantically by two collegiate types. Near the bar, some male couples kissed and held hands while a pool tournament was under way near the Ladies' Restroom the only one I've ever seen that also had a urinal on the wall.

He said my "Sherlock Holmes" trench coat was only one thing that gave me away: "Don't wear that again if you decide to crash a gay bar. That started a three-hour conversation that was like a short course in what it's like to be homosexual and living in Oklahoma. That is why almost all gay Oklahomans are "still in the closet," except for the owners of Oklahoma City's gay bars, Rex said.

Many of the city's homosexual residents moved here from small Oklahoma towns like Poteau, Tahlequah and Woodward where, "it's hard to be gay," he said. Oklahoma City's gay community is a secretive, self-protective society that screens heterosexuals and other outsiders on the basis of "personal vibes" and better yet, "personal references" or escorts.

In Saddle Tramps' lobby, the manager studied my driver's license and asked me: "How do we know you won't pull a knife on someone? A man in his early 20s peeked his head over the counter and offered to buy me a Coke, but the manager warned, "Be careful. You're trying to buy a drink for someone you don't even know. The club, founded inis the city's oldest gay bar.

The news cameras focused on the Circa Club's parking lot last month after the Oklahoma City Council received a petition from 16 area residents and merchants complaining about noise, loud music, fights and parking problems in the area. They can't afford to be seen coming in here," the bartender said of the Circa Club clientele, which he described as "age 25 and up.

Oklahoma's social and legal climate seems "about years behind the times" to Jim, he said. But, he added, he has friends here now so he thinks he may stay awhile. The redhead ran by and pulled my hair, asking, "Is it real?