If you venture out after dark any time in June and hear a high-pitched humming, don't be alarmed. In many places it's only the harmless cicadas singing their mating song.
With only six weeks to live, the red-eyed insects take advantage of the warmer temps of spring to get busy and lay their eggs.Some cicadas are expected to be hooking up until the start of summer on June 21.
But if you're in a gayborhood and hear the same sound, take cover. You may be under attack.
Swarms of buzzing, often shrieking, bachelorette parties are known to descend in June and July. Determined to celebrate the last nights of freedom (if you're the glass-half-empty type) of their veiled leader, the groups alight in gay bars to drink, laugh, dance, flirt, whoop it up and be photographed in drunken circus contortions with male strippers.
It's all good clean fun, right? As my friend Michael J. pointed out, the women are comfortable with gay men and isn't it wonderful we all get along and hang out together?
It's also good for business as gay bars have tapped into an unexpected, entirely new seasonal market.
"We count on them this time of year," said Tom Wagner, manager of Hunters Video Bar and Lounge in Palm Springs, CA.
Hunters is visited by a couple of bridal parties each week, he said. The women who show up are looking for a safe, fun environment where they don't have to deal with being hit on by men -- usually not an issue with gay men.
The bar doesn't advertise in bridal magazines or in general to market to brides, Wagner said. Their frequent visits began a couple of years ago and grew from there.
"It's just a phenomenon that took off on its own," he said.
The downside, of course, is that alcohol rarely mixes well with any group looking for a good time. The women aren't always respectful of personal space of others.
I've been approached a couple of times at a bar to dance with the inebriated bride-to-be or a member of her party. It's annoying because neither was accepting no for an answer, as if they were entitled to whatever they wanted and I was there solely as part of the pre-wedding entertainment. It's nearly impossible to rationally explain to someone who's been drinking that you don't want to dance with her.
The first time it happened she became angry and aggressive. What do you do then? I left the dance floor.
When it happened last month, the bride-to-be stopped to dance with me on the way to the dance floor with her screaming friends. Instead of saying I wasn't interested and trying to explain why, I excitedly said "Congratulations."
Beaming, she thanked me and went on to the dance floor without me. I realized then that she, like many women celebrating an impending wedding, simply wanted to be the center of attention. She was determined to not be ignored, even in a crowded bar of men who aren't sexually interested in women.
So the moral of this story is, when you're in a gay bar in June and hear the buzzing of a bachelorette party, don't dodge them or verbally swat them away. Muster enough enthusiasm as if you're celebrating your own wedding, which isn't legally allowed in most states, to congratulate the bride; then move on and enjoy the rest of your night.
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