Excerpt:
For the past year, virtually every time I told a friend I was working on a gay guidebook to Las Vegas, the sarcastic response was a variation of: “Boy, that’ll be a short book.”
Har har. Funny, yes. But true? Not anymore.
Certainly, what you’re holding in your hands would have been just a pamphlet back when I first moved to Las Vegas in 1996 to work at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. But like everything else in a city that’s growing at a dizzying pace, a decade has meant a radical change for everyone in this valley, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) residents and visitors.
Consider the difference. Back then, the shows on the Strip were, largely, aggressively heterosexual, from girlie productions to homophobic comedians. There was little to get excited about in the way of shopping, fine dining, or culture. The newspaper I arrived to work at had, only a few years earlier, refused to run a comic strip because a teenaged character had come out of the closet. A same-sex couple who wanted to marry anywhere in this town, which ironically purports to celebrate sin and liberation, would have been laughed out the door.
Today, the desert oasis founded by Mormon missionaries has blossomed as a mecca for gays. Most of the major hotel-casinos allow same-sex unions in their chapels, even though the Nevada electorate passed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in 2002. Two recent chairmen of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce were openly gay, as was, until recently, the county manager, who was promoted to a top post within Harrah’s Entertainment. The mayor is gin-swilling Oscar Goodman, a man so publicly pro-gay he showed up in drag at the debut of a new, though short-lived, gay club in 2005. Goodman also appeared in a hilarious queer version of A Christmas Carol as one half of a gay couple—the state’s ACLU executive director was his paramour—in 2003.
The Strip, it seems, has seen the light. Such hotels as New York-New York, Luxor, Paris, and Wynn Las Vegas all advertise heavily in gay publications. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority had a float in New York City’s Gay Pride Parade in June 2006 for the first time, complete with showgirls and beefcake imported to Manhattan from major Strip shows for the occasion. This year, Paris Las Vegas was a finalist for a GLAAD Media Award for the hotel’s gay-targeted advertising campaign. In addition, the Human Rights Campaign launched a nationwide fundraising concert tour here starring a list of gay music icons, including Erasure, Cyndi Lauper and Debbie Harry. And much of this is happening because a 2005 study by Community Marketing Inc. showed that Las Vegas was the second most popular destination for gay male travelers after New York. That’s right; more gays come here than go to San Francisco. Believe it or not.
Consider that the world’s two largest gaming companies, MGM Mirage and Harrah’s, offer their employees same-sex domestic-partnership benefits, give thousands of dollars to GLBT and HIV/AIDS causes, have high-level openly gay executives, and spar for bragging rights over who has the better gay-positive rating from the Human Rights Campaign. When a gay Wynn Las Vegas marketing representative heard that I was writing a piece on gay Vegas for Out Traveler magazine in 2005, he e-mailed to urge consideration of the new $2.7 billion property, noting exuberantly, “The Wynn is the gayest hotel in Las Vegas!” It’s hard to imagine Bugsy Siegel’s boys doing something like that.
In addition, Las Vegas is now a food capital of the United States, rivaling New York and San Francisco with vaunted chefs like Joël Robuchon, Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Susan Feniger, Guy Savoy, Alessandro Stratta, and Wolfgang Puck. Bellagio and the Venetian display the finest of fine art in galleries. Fifth Avenue, Rodeo Drive, and North Michigan Avenue pale in comparison to the stores you’ll find at the Bellagio, Wynn, Venetian, Planet Hollywood, and Fashion Show malls.
And the shows? Elton John, Zumanity, Mamma Mia!, and Le Rêve couldn’t be more queer, and gay subtexts pop up where you’d least expect them, as when the team of hunky men writhe all over one another in Celine Dion’s A New Day …. A recent migration of Broadway to the Strip has been a mixed bag, with Hairspray and Avenue Q both fizzling quickly, with a Vegas-ized Phantom of the Opera at the Venetian looking to stick around for a while and the jury still out on The Producers at Paris. And some old favorites endure, including the campy Jubilee! and An Evening at La Cage.
Oddly, while the tourist corridor has embraced the pink dollar and life for GLBT people continues to improve in the valley, the gay scene itself remains stuck in neutral. Las Vegas has about the same number of gay bars now as a decade ago. The total annual budget for The Center, our GLBT hub, is only $200,000. The Gay Pride Parade is an embarrassment, unsupported and sparsely attended as it is by the community at large.
There’s also no Boystown or Castro, no gay ghetto in Las Vegas. Of course, we also don’t have a Chinatown, unless you count the series of Asian-themed strip malls that line Spring Mountain Road. In that way, Vegas is something of an archetype for future American cities: fully integrated, fully assimilated. Other than a lingering African-American ghetto known as West Side, we don’t have sections of town denoted by minority; we’re separated by income and class, which does tend to skew in certain directions for certain groups.
But gay people here don’t feel the need to band together in certain geographic areas. Why not? Because from Summerlin to Anthem, from Boulder City to Mount Charleston, we are everywhere and, if not always embraced, we’re largely tolerated.
Still, that lack of a center of gravity leaves a GLBT community that fails to gather its political, financial, and cultural strength when threats—such as the insidious anti-marriage amendment that passed in 2002—emerge.
Sadly, too, there may be a lot for gay men to do in Vegas, but the city offers pathetic little for lesbians, which is why this book is so deficient in information for women. There are, I was shocked to discover, simply no dyke bars in Las Vegas and just a few lesbian groups. In most bars, lesbians are welcome and, as The Center’s executive director Candice Nichols explains on page 193, our gay male and lesbian populations are unusually integrated. Still, it’s a glaring omission.
All that said, GLBT people continue to flock here, along with the rest of the world, because we’ve got great weather, plenty of jobs, and low taxes. In this guidebook, you’ll learn what to do, where to go, what you must see and taste. And you’ll meet a number of GLBT entrepreneurs and leaders who have made this city what it is today.
As the flight attendants often say when flights land at McCarran International Airport—and only when they land here—good luck.
Description:
Vegas as a queer fantasyland?
You bet!
These days, the ultimate heterosexual adult playground is so awash in pink and lavender, in hot guys and same-sex subtexts, that Bugsy and Sinatra would hardly recognize the town. Twenty-first century Sin City is a magnet for gay and lesbian travelers and a mecca for relocating gays. The major hotel-casinos conduct gay weddings. Shows such as
Elton John, Zumanity, Mamma Mia!, and
Le Rêve couldn’t be more overtly homoerotic or gay-friendly. Even the mayor gets in on the act—he showed up for the opening of a gay club in drag!
Gay Vegas addresses the needs—and desires—of both visitors and locals. Get a brutally honestly, completely un-PC take on where to go and, perhaps even more important, where not to go when you touch down. And don’t miss the pictorial on Vegas’ most phallic!
This is the only gay guide to Las Vegas you’ll ever need.
Reviews/Media Mentions:
CityLife, LA Times, Las Vegas Review Journal View, Nevada Magazine, Nevada Today, Wall Street Journal
“It's ironic that a desert oasis founded by Mormon missionaries is now a thriving mecca for gay tourists. But such is the wild history of Las Vegas. Although, according to author Steve Friess, there are no gay-owned casinos and only one gay-owned hotel, there are still plenty of gay-friendly lodgings. Friess lists the best places for gays to stay, offers his thoughts on the best dining options and recommends the best of the shows, including the best male revues. He also includes chapters on spas, shopping and culture. When it comes to his opinions, Friess pulls no punches. Readers will know exactly his likes and dislikes—and why.” —Chicago Tribune
"We have just read one of the finest books ever written about gay life AND for gays traveling to any city in the country. Steve Friess's new book, "GAY VEGAS, A Guide to the Other Side of Sin City" is a MUST for any gay person traveling to Las Vegas. We have gone to Las Vegas over 25 times in the last 30 years and we thought that we knew all about gay life in Las Vegas but Steve's new book has educated us much more on where to go, where to stay, what to see and where NOT to go." —Donald Pile and Ray Williams "Award-winning, Celebrity Travel Columnists"
Huntington Press
