In honor of Drive-Away Dolls, which has scenes set in two fictional late-90s dyke bars in the South — Butter Churn and The She Shed — I thought it would be fun to revisit some iconic dyke bars from history. Take this personality quiz, and I’ll match your energy to a historical dyke bar (at least one of them is still open!) and provide a short history lesson, too. For this quiz, we’re focusing on cities outside of LA, NYC, Chicago, etc., with a particular emphasis on dyke bars in the South and the Midwest. We’re going to time-travel for this quiz! The year in 1999, and you’re getting ready for a night out on the town…
Before you go!
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Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya is the managing editor of Autostraddle and a lesbian writer of essays, short stories, and pop culture criticism living in Orlando. She is the assistant managing editor of TriQuarterly, and her short stories appear or are forthcoming in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, Joyland, Catapult, The Offing, and more. Some of her pop culture writing can be found at The A.V. Club, Vulture, The Cut, and others. You can follow her on Twitter or Instagram and learn more about her work on her website.
Kayla has written 922 articles for us.
Babes of Carytown sounds like a nice place.
It’s theeeee best!
That’s what I got too! Kayla, is that joke? Does everyone get Babes of Carytown? LOL.
I was actually clubbing age in 1999 so I tried to answer with what I would’ve done back then. Except we pregamed with Zima and MD 20/20, because college. Also my fave club banger was Cher’s “Believe.”
*snaps for believe*
Omg so good
This is a fun quiz :) I got:
Babes of Carytown (Richmond, Virginia)
My hometown’s local dyke bar, Babes has been open since 1979! Incredible! To this day, it’s still one of my favorite stops to make when visiting my parents back in Richmond and when I was growing up, it always had a reputation as the best place to dance downtown. It skews to the divey side of things and inexplicably has an outdoor sand volleyball court in the back, where things definitely get spicy. A place where you can dance, makeout, play pool, AND play beach volleyball? Babes is versatile, and perhaps if you got this result you’re also a multi-hyphenate in your own right.
My sweet sweet Babes of Carytown! I miss you Richmond. Shout out to my fellow VA gays!