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Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest to Track Down the Last Remaining Lesbian Bars in America
A former Rookie contributor and creator of the popular blog Effing Dykes investigates the disappearance of America’s lesbian bars by visiting the last few in existence.
Lesbian bars have always been treasured safe spaces for their customers, providing not only a good time but a shelter from societal alienation and outright persecution. In 1987, there were 206 of them in America. Today, only a couple dozen remain. How and why did this happen? What has been lost—or possibly gained—by such a decline? What transpires when marginalized communities become more accepted and mainstream?
In Moby Dyke, Krista Burton attempts to answer these questions firsthand, venturing on an epic cross-country pilgrimage to the last few remaining dyke bars. Her pilgrimage includes taking in her first drag show since the onset of the pandemic at The Back Door in Bloomington, Indiana; competing in dildo races at Houston’s Pearl Bar; and, despite her deep-seated hatred of karaoke, joining a group serenade at Nashville’s Lipstick Lounge and enjoying the dreaded pastime for the first time in her life. While Burton sets out on the excursion to assess the current state of lesbian bars, she also winds up examining her own personal journey, from coming out to her Mormon parents to recently marrying her husband, a trans man whose presence on the trip underscores the important conversation about who precisely is welcome in certain queer spaces—and how they and their occupants continue to evolve.
Moby Dyke is an insightful and hilarious travelogue that celebrates the kind of community that can only be found in windowless rooms soundtracked by Britney Spears-heavy playlists and illuminated by overhead holiday lights no matter the time of year.
Lesbian bars have always been treasured safe spaces for their customers, providing not only a good time but a shelter from societal alienation and outright persecution. In 1987, there were 206 of them in America. Today, only a couple dozen remain. How and why did this happen? What has been lost—or possibly gained—by such a decline? What transpires when marginalized communities become more accepted and mainstream?
In Moby Dyke, Krista Burton attempts to answer these questions firsthand, venturing on an epic cross-country pilgrimage to the last few remaining dyke bars. Her pilgrimage includes taking in her first drag show since the onset of the pandemic at The Back Door in Bloomington, Indiana; competing in dildo races at Houston’s Pearl Bar; and, despite her deep-seated hatred of karaoke, joining a group serenade at Nashville’s Lipstick Lounge and enjoying the dreaded pastime for the first time in her life. While Burton sets out on the excursion to assess the current state of lesbian bars, she also winds up examining her own personal journey, from coming out to her Mormon parents to recently marrying her husband, a trans man whose presence on the trip underscores the important conversation about who precisely is welcome in certain queer spaces—and how they and their occupants continue to evolve.
Moby Dyke is an insightful and hilarious travelogue that celebrates the kind of community that can only be found in windowless rooms soundtracked by Britney Spears-heavy playlists and illuminated by overhead holiday lights no matter the time of year.
320 pages, ebook
First published June 6, 2023
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May 21, 2024
The good news before the meh review: lesbian bars are actually having a bit of a resurgence - 8 new ones have opened in the US since 2021 💗
Moby Dyke is advertised as a book about visiting the remaining lesbian bars in America and hypothesizing why so many of them have disappeared in the past twenty or so years. Moby Dyke is about Krista Burton going to different cities, talking about the bars for a few sentences, stereotyping everyone she meets, and then talking about herself. There was so much potential for some really interesting discussions, but ultimately it fell flat because the bars were so not the focus of the book. This was a book about the author going on an adventure to write this book, not about what the book was supposed to be about. If you have a more Buzzfeed millennial sense of humor and/or have heard of the author before this, that might be interesting to you. Ultimately, it was disappointing for me.
There were a lot of aspects that made this disappointing and almost all of them boiled down to the lesbian bars being incredibly underexplored and the author stereotyping literally everyone all the time. Burton’s goal was to go to every bar twice and talk to at least two people. While she mostly did the first, her social anxiety prevented her from doing the second in any meaningful way most of the time. Instead of having an in depth discussion with other people, she mainly wrote about how nervous she was approaching people in bars. As someone with social anxiety, I do sympathize with this, but it felt almost unprofessional as that was what the book was about? Like if she couldn’t go up to people and ask meaningful questions, maybe she shouldn’t have been the one writing this as a lot of value was lost by her inability to talk to other people. There were a lot of moments where Burton would say something along the lines of “I wish I knew more information about this” and it really irked me that she just… didn’t do any additional research. Like, girl you can Google! It’s the 2020’s! There are definitely some statistics somewhere!
Her partner is also a trans man who spent a lot of time in lesbian bars pre-transition and stopped going because he felt that it was no longer his place. Krista made him come with her for half of the trips and I felt like there could have been a lot of really interesting discussions about how he was treated in the bars, but ultimately it really wasn’t mentioned. A lot of this book was just a bunch of missed opportunities. For the majority of this book, Krista was just so caught up in herself that she missed so many moments that would’ve been really powerful.
Instead of talking about the bars, Krista spent a lot of time complaining about how old she was (late 30’s), complaining about how young everyone else was, and constantly stereotyping and putting people into boxes. She seriously went on a rant for pages about how she was stereotyped as straight and then CONTINUALLY stereotyped young women as “straight sorority girls” throughout the book. Newsflash, if you hate being stereotyped then maybe you should realize that other people also hate it and you’re usually going to be wrong about someone if you do it! She also had a really weird thing about putting queer people in different boxes/giving them weird labels. It may be because I absolutely despise labels of any kind, but I groaned every time I had to hear about her talk about a “pin gay” or a “political queer” or any of the likes. Just let people be people and have likes and dislikes – not everything needs a label. On the other side, she kept misusing the term baby queer (defining anyone who looked 10 years younger than her as a baby queer, instead of using it as a term for someone who has recently come out) which irked me too.
Pretty much every story outside of the bars (and some in the bars) felt completely pointless. In the Cubbyhole & Henrietta Hudson New York City chapter, instead of including more insights about the bars, she spent minutes shitting on the girl sitting next to her on her flight. Why? Because she wasn’t getting all giddy and excited about flying over the statue of liberty. I am not exaggerating when I say I had to listen for minutes about how weird and off-putting her row-mate was because of this ONE SITUATION. Seriously, it was so gross to listen to and a great example of Krista making snap judgements of everyone she met. She also spent an uncomfortable time talking about a “funny” story where she bought edibles in Chicago and literally asked the employee how to get them onto a plane to Minnesota. She discussed it as if she was really quirky and funny, but the entire time I was thinking “oh my God, she has no common sense.” This was a trend throughout the whole book. I wish that someone just let her write a memoir like she obviously wanted to do and which I wouldn’t have picked up in the first place. I think we both would’ve been happier this way.
One thing I did really like about this book was the insight we got into Krista’s family – especially her mom. Krista was raised Mormon and her and her sister both left the church. There are some really detailed and emotional insights into what it is like growing up Mormon and lesbian. Specifically, her relationship between her and her mother was so intimate and emotional. It was a great add in, but again it took away from the entire Phoenix bar (Boycott Bar) because the majority of the chapter was about her life, not the bar. Which isn’t necessarily bad, but also isn’t what I signed up for. As you can maybe tell, I don’t like when my expectations of a book are different from the reality.
As the book progressed, I do think Krista got a bit better in some ways. Her Southern bars were surprisingly filled with no snap judgements and stereotypes (except for thinking that a local queer white man was going to say the n-word in a black owned lesbian bar in Alabama because “that’s just how the South is” which was kind of insane, because he was literally seen interacting multiple times positively with the owners). Some bars definitely got highlighted better than others, but every single one was just overshadowed by how much Krista centered herself.
While Krista did ultimately grow on me, this was really undercooked. I really wish this had more focus on the actual bars or was at least advertised as a memoir. While I do think this could’ve shined more if it was written by someone else, I should also mention the abhorrent budget that Krista was working with. While Krista was approached by someone else to write this book, she had to use all of her vacation days/travel around work and pay for a lot of stuff out of pocket because they gave her a very limited budget. I recognize that this made it a lot harder to get this book done.
Audiobook
I was really excited this audiobook because it is read by Sarah Beth Pfeifer, Clarisse in the Lightning Thief Musical. It was a fine audiobook. I wasn’t crazy about it, but I didn’t have any problem with it either. It did the job, but I prefer her singing.
Alternative Options
This is a PSA that if you’re interesting in the premise of this book, do yourself a favor and listen to Cruising Podcast - instead. It has a similar premise, but is actually all about the bars/people who work at or are regulars at the bars.
Moby Dyke is advertised as a book about visiting the remaining lesbian bars in America and hypothesizing why so many of them have disappeared in the past twenty or so years. Moby Dyke is about Krista Burton going to different cities, talking about the bars for a few sentences, stereotyping everyone she meets, and then talking about herself. There was so much potential for some really interesting discussions, but ultimately it fell flat because the bars were so not the focus of the book. This was a book about the author going on an adventure to write this book, not about what the book was supposed to be about. If you have a more Buzzfeed millennial sense of humor and/or have heard of the author before this, that might be interesting to you. Ultimately, it was disappointing for me.
There were a lot of aspects that made this disappointing and almost all of them boiled down to the lesbian bars being incredibly underexplored and the author stereotyping literally everyone all the time. Burton’s goal was to go to every bar twice and talk to at least two people. While she mostly did the first, her social anxiety prevented her from doing the second in any meaningful way most of the time. Instead of having an in depth discussion with other people, she mainly wrote about how nervous she was approaching people in bars. As someone with social anxiety, I do sympathize with this, but it felt almost unprofessional as that was what the book was about? Like if she couldn’t go up to people and ask meaningful questions, maybe she shouldn’t have been the one writing this as a lot of value was lost by her inability to talk to other people. There were a lot of moments where Burton would say something along the lines of “I wish I knew more information about this” and it really irked me that she just… didn’t do any additional research. Like, girl you can Google! It’s the 2020’s! There are definitely some statistics somewhere!
Her partner is also a trans man who spent a lot of time in lesbian bars pre-transition and stopped going because he felt that it was no longer his place. Krista made him come with her for half of the trips and I felt like there could have been a lot of really interesting discussions about how he was treated in the bars, but ultimately it really wasn’t mentioned. A lot of this book was just a bunch of missed opportunities. For the majority of this book, Krista was just so caught up in herself that she missed so many moments that would’ve been really powerful.
Instead of talking about the bars, Krista spent a lot of time complaining about how old she was (late 30’s), complaining about how young everyone else was, and constantly stereotyping and putting people into boxes. She seriously went on a rant for pages about how she was stereotyped as straight and then CONTINUALLY stereotyped young women as “straight sorority girls” throughout the book. Newsflash, if you hate being stereotyped then maybe you should realize that other people also hate it and you’re usually going to be wrong about someone if you do it! She also had a really weird thing about putting queer people in different boxes/giving them weird labels. It may be because I absolutely despise labels of any kind, but I groaned every time I had to hear about her talk about a “pin gay” or a “political queer” or any of the likes. Just let people be people and have likes and dislikes – not everything needs a label. On the other side, she kept misusing the term baby queer (defining anyone who looked 10 years younger than her as a baby queer, instead of using it as a term for someone who has recently come out) which irked me too.
Pretty much every story outside of the bars (and some in the bars) felt completely pointless. In the Cubbyhole & Henrietta Hudson New York City chapter, instead of including more insights about the bars, she spent minutes shitting on the girl sitting next to her on her flight. Why? Because she wasn’t getting all giddy and excited about flying over the statue of liberty. I am not exaggerating when I say I had to listen for minutes about how weird and off-putting her row-mate was because of this ONE SITUATION. Seriously, it was so gross to listen to and a great example of Krista making snap judgements of everyone she met. She also spent an uncomfortable time talking about a “funny” story where she bought edibles in Chicago and literally asked the employee how to get them onto a plane to Minnesota. She discussed it as if she was really quirky and funny, but the entire time I was thinking “oh my God, she has no common sense.” This was a trend throughout the whole book. I wish that someone just let her write a memoir like she obviously wanted to do and which I wouldn’t have picked up in the first place. I think we both would’ve been happier this way.
One thing I did really like about this book was the insight we got into Krista’s family – especially her mom. Krista was raised Mormon and her and her sister both left the church. There are some really detailed and emotional insights into what it is like growing up Mormon and lesbian. Specifically, her relationship between her and her mother was so intimate and emotional. It was a great add in, but again it took away from the entire Phoenix bar (Boycott Bar) because the majority of the chapter was about her life, not the bar. Which isn’t necessarily bad, but also isn’t what I signed up for. As you can maybe tell, I don’t like when my expectations of a book are different from the reality.
As the book progressed, I do think Krista got a bit better in some ways. Her Southern bars were surprisingly filled with no snap judgements and stereotypes (except for thinking that a local queer white man was going to say the n-word in a black owned lesbian bar in Alabama because “that’s just how the South is” which was kind of insane, because he was literally seen interacting multiple times positively with the owners). Some bars definitely got highlighted better than others, but every single one was just overshadowed by how much Krista centered herself.
While Krista did ultimately grow on me, this was really undercooked. I really wish this had more focus on the actual bars or was at least advertised as a memoir. While I do think this could’ve shined more if it was written by someone else, I should also mention the abhorrent budget that Krista was working with. While Krista was approached by someone else to write this book, she had to use all of her vacation days/travel around work and pay for a lot of stuff out of pocket because they gave her a very limited budget. I recognize that this made it a lot harder to get this book done.
Audiobook
I was really excited this audiobook because it is read by Sarah Beth Pfeifer, Clarisse in the Lightning Thief Musical. It was a fine audiobook. I wasn’t crazy about it, but I didn’t have any problem with it either. It did the job, but I prefer her singing.
Alternative Options
This is a PSA that if you’re interesting in the premise of this book, do yourself a favor and listen to Cruising Podcast - instead. It has a similar premise, but is actually all about the bars/people who work at or are regulars at the bars.
June 1, 2023
Reading Moby Dyke felt like being wrapped up in a big comforting lesbian flag, and being pulled into queer communities across the country from my home. Funny, clever, and dykey, this book was everything my soul needed.
What I appreciated most about this book was the casual nature that discussion points were brought up, not trying to have all the answers, not trying to be academic, not trying to be perfect, just spinning the little wheels in my brain. After nearly every chapter, I'd pull up a chair with my fellow lesbian friends and say "So this book I've been reading brought up something really interesting..." I could have finished the book a week earlier if I hadn't spent so long talking about the book!
Particularly, I had lots of discussions about what does it mean for queer spaces to evolve and be more inclusive? Why have several gay men's bars NOT been doing that, and why do non-cis gay men get such terrible service at those bars? (The stories I could tell, going to gay men's bars as a lesbian lmfao) How have labels changed and adapted? What does it mean to actually be "queer presenting" and how are their pros and cons of obvious queer flagging and then being suspicious of those who don’t look "queer enough." How do I seek community in my own life? What's my relationship with the queer elders in my life? What do I want my relationship to queer community to look like? What's our history that I've never had the chance to learn? Like seriously, every chapter of this book had the little wheels in my head spinning.
I don't know that I can properly string together words to describe how much this book meant to me, the ways it hooked into my chest. But I can say that reading this book made me feel more connected to my community than I have in a very long time, and encouraged me to go out and seek community in my city. It made me want to make more of an effort to go to the lesbian bars when I visit other cities! It just... I don't know! Made me feel a little less alone. Maybe the real queer community was the journey all along the way or something. I'm going to hold this book very close to my chest for a very long time.
What I appreciated most about this book was the casual nature that discussion points were brought up, not trying to have all the answers, not trying to be academic, not trying to be perfect, just spinning the little wheels in my brain. After nearly every chapter, I'd pull up a chair with my fellow lesbian friends and say "So this book I've been reading brought up something really interesting..." I could have finished the book a week earlier if I hadn't spent so long talking about the book!
Particularly, I had lots of discussions about what does it mean for queer spaces to evolve and be more inclusive? Why have several gay men's bars NOT been doing that, and why do non-cis gay men get such terrible service at those bars? (The stories I could tell, going to gay men's bars as a lesbian lmfao) How have labels changed and adapted? What does it mean to actually be "queer presenting" and how are their pros and cons of obvious queer flagging and then being suspicious of those who don’t look "queer enough." How do I seek community in my own life? What's my relationship with the queer elders in my life? What do I want my relationship to queer community to look like? What's our history that I've never had the chance to learn? Like seriously, every chapter of this book had the little wheels in my head spinning.
I don't know that I can properly string together words to describe how much this book meant to me, the ways it hooked into my chest. But I can say that reading this book made me feel more connected to my community than I have in a very long time, and encouraged me to go out and seek community in my city. It made me want to make more of an effort to go to the lesbian bars when I visit other cities! It just... I don't know! Made me feel a little less alone. Maybe the real queer community was the journey all along the way or something. I'm going to hold this book very close to my chest for a very long time.
May 30, 2023
I liked this book, but I went in expecting to LOVE it. A book following a woman visiting all the last remaining lesbian bars across the US and looking into why so many of them have closed over the years really appealed to me. But I ended up not being totally enthralled with the book as a whole.
I loved getting a look at the different lesbian bars throughout the country. The way Krista described their décor, ambiance, and overall vibe was extremely impactful. The parts of the book I loved the most were when she was actually able to interview the bar owners or have in-depth discussions with people about the changing landscape of lesbian bars over the years. There’s an interesting situation where people want to be inclusive and welcome all types of people into the bars, but then that seems like it's erasing the history of the bar as a lesbian bar. I do appreciate that Krista makes it clear that she doesn’t support any transphobic nonsense when it comes to discussions of who is or is not welcome in lesbian spaces.
However, as the book went on it started to feel a bit repetitive. Even though she was interviewing different people in different bars, a lot of their answers felt pretty surface level and samey. But then again it’s probably difficult to have an in-depth interview with someone inside a bar on a busy night on the weekend. I feel like there could’ve been improvements to the overall interviews if people were contacted again later away from the bar to be able to get deeper responses.
The way that Krista shared her own history with lesbian bars, her story about coming out to her parents, and the struggles she had with her sexuality because of being raised Mormon added a lot to the book. I still think this is a worthwhile read, it’s interesting to see the different types of bars in different locations. As well as the various types of interactions Krista had with people throughout her travels. I’d be open to reading more from her in the future. There were definitely portions of this that were great, even though it didn’t become a new favorite.
Thank you to the publisher for providing an advance copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I loved getting a look at the different lesbian bars throughout the country. The way Krista described their décor, ambiance, and overall vibe was extremely impactful. The parts of the book I loved the most were when she was actually able to interview the bar owners or have in-depth discussions with people about the changing landscape of lesbian bars over the years. There’s an interesting situation where people want to be inclusive and welcome all types of people into the bars, but then that seems like it's erasing the history of the bar as a lesbian bar. I do appreciate that Krista makes it clear that she doesn’t support any transphobic nonsense when it comes to discussions of who is or is not welcome in lesbian spaces.
However, as the book went on it started to feel a bit repetitive. Even though she was interviewing different people in different bars, a lot of their answers felt pretty surface level and samey. But then again it’s probably difficult to have an in-depth interview with someone inside a bar on a busy night on the weekend. I feel like there could’ve been improvements to the overall interviews if people were contacted again later away from the bar to be able to get deeper responses.
The way that Krista shared her own history with lesbian bars, her story about coming out to her parents, and the struggles she had with her sexuality because of being raised Mormon added a lot to the book. I still think this is a worthwhile read, it’s interesting to see the different types of bars in different locations. As well as the various types of interactions Krista had with people throughout her travels. I’d be open to reading more from her in the future. There were definitely portions of this that were great, even though it didn’t become a new favorite.
Thank you to the publisher for providing an advance copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
August 23, 2023
this woman has the investigative skill of a high school sophomore taking journalism
July 22, 2023
This can be a great place to start for reading about lesbian bars. It’s also very easy to read and doesn’t have any sort of academic jargon. So if you’re looking for something cute and easy this is for you. However, I really expected more from this book. I expected to learn more about the bars themselves and read deep conversation about lesbian communities with nuance. Instead, I got a millennial femme “that doesn’t fit in with other queers” who does not stop talking about how poorly femmes are treated and how old she is compared to “baby gays”. The comments about younger queer people are odd and repetitive. And the complaining about being femme in queer spaces is tone deaf. It’s suffocating honestly. If you’re anyone but a millennial, the humor is horrendous. Probably wouldn’t recommend unfortunately.
June 29, 2023
3.25⭐️! The book quickly became repetitive, both in terms of the travel guide aspect and the memoir aspect, to the point of being tedious to read. The authors observations about every bar bled together, as well as the interviews with each of the patrons. I would recommend reading in chunks, more as a travel guide if you’re traveling to any of the mentioned cities.
Read
July 12, 2024DNF. I'd love to read a thoughtful book about the last of the lesbian bars. But for me this wasn't it. Burton candidly warns at the outset that she isn't aiming deep. But I still didn't expect this level of superficiality and self-absorption. Her sloppy use of language was the first big turnoff: The terms lesbian/dyke and queer are not synonymous, as the author of a book specifically about lesbian bars should know. (In The Disappearing L: Erasure of Lesbian Spaces and Culture, which hopefully Burton has read, Bonnie Morris argues that this very shift toward an all-encompassing queer politics has contributed to the marginalization of lesbian voices and spaces.) I'm also scratching my head at her choice as a self-identified "femme lesbian" to drag along her transman partner, thereby presenting like a straight couple when they ambled into the bars. Were her respondents as candid as they might have been if she'd clearly identified herself as a lesbian? I am dubious. Odd choice, to me.
July 5, 2023
This book frustrated me!! On the one hand, the pun title is BRILLIANT and so is the mission. The author’s interjections of memoir and her experiences with her family coming to terms and ultimately celebrating her queerness were unexpected and appreciated. I loved hearing about each of the bars themselves and the people who were inside—I was surprised that there was less of this and more of the author’s actual travelogue.
What bothered me the most was her discussion (or lack thereof) of femme privilege. First she discusses frustratedly that “dyke bars” are becoming “places for everyone” which she was bothered by—which I do appreciate the nuanced discussion that there is a need for places where queer women feel safe, but what about our trans/non-binary/gender expansive siblings? But where I got angry with her was her frustration with being read as straight because she’s very femme presenting, and how she “dressed up” to look more stereotypically like a queer woman and she was disgusted that she was more welcomed as “one of us” as such; like yes sure queer people come in all sorts of appearances and to enter a space for you but read as straight when this is supposed to be a safe haven for you, could that be annoying? Yes. But she seems utterly oblivious to or intentionally ignorant of the fact that that passing confers safety!! If she gets read as an outsider when she walks into a queer bar holding a notebook and pen taking notes, yeah, it’s reasonable for someone to assume she’s a straight reporter invading their haven, no? And all she has to rectify that is to say she’s queer. Meanwhile on the flip side if she found herself in a dangerous situation but was dressed more femme, would she be better treated than if she were dressed more stereotypically queer?—probably!!!
She spends so much energy being mad that she isn’t being initially read as queer and it took away a lot of the joy of the book for me. And then she ends with this sweet note that, at the last bar, a patron wishes her well wishes on her journey home and she says “I already am home”—ma’am you’ve been ranting about how you don’t “look queer” AND at the same time you’re annoyed that lesbian bars have become “too inclusive” I mean do you HEAR YOURSELF?!
What bothered me the most was her discussion (or lack thereof) of femme privilege. First she discusses frustratedly that “dyke bars” are becoming “places for everyone” which she was bothered by—which I do appreciate the nuanced discussion that there is a need for places where queer women feel safe, but what about our trans/non-binary/gender expansive siblings? But where I got angry with her was her frustration with being read as straight because she’s very femme presenting, and how she “dressed up” to look more stereotypically like a queer woman and she was disgusted that she was more welcomed as “one of us” as such; like yes sure queer people come in all sorts of appearances and to enter a space for you but read as straight when this is supposed to be a safe haven for you, could that be annoying? Yes. But she seems utterly oblivious to or intentionally ignorant of the fact that that passing confers safety!! If she gets read as an outsider when she walks into a queer bar holding a notebook and pen taking notes, yeah, it’s reasonable for someone to assume she’s a straight reporter invading their haven, no? And all she has to rectify that is to say she’s queer. Meanwhile on the flip side if she found herself in a dangerous situation but was dressed more femme, would she be better treated than if she were dressed more stereotypically queer?—probably!!!
She spends so much energy being mad that she isn’t being initially read as queer and it took away a lot of the joy of the book for me. And then she ends with this sweet note that, at the last bar, a patron wishes her well wishes on her journey home and she says “I already am home”—ma’am you’ve been ranting about how you don’t “look queer” AND at the same time you’re annoyed that lesbian bars have become “too inclusive” I mean do you HEAR YOURSELF?!
June 3, 2023
A woman walks into a lesbian bar...and another, and another, until she's made it to all twenty that she can find remaining in the US.
I wasn't sure whether I wanted to read this, because although Burton describes lesbian bars as crucial to her experience of queer community as a young and newly out lesbian, that's just...never been my scene. I've been in a very small handful of lesbian bars, and a number of non-queer bars that is large only in proportion to the number of lesbian bars I've been to, and when I was younger my queer community was centered more around, like, book clubs. (This will surprise literally nobody who has ever met me.) But then I realised that Burton was the writer of Effing Dykes back in the day, and holy moly let me at that book. I kept Effing Dykes in my blog feed for years after it went dormant, because you never knew! She could post again! And I didn't want to miss it just because I was fool enough to unsubscribe!
So Moby Dyke does not disappoint, partly because it's both entertaining and thoughtful on its own but also partly because part of me is still stuck ten years ago, double-checking links in vain hope of updates. Burton spent the better part of a year juggling her weekends and PTO in order to traverse the country, visiting dyke bar after dyke bar and asking: why are there so few of them left? How does the community feel in an era when being queer is more accepted, but also in a not-quite-post-pandemic time? And what does it mean, in this day and age, for a bar to be a lesbian bar in the first place?
Burton doesn't play favorites, but I'd be curious to know which bar she most wished were in her neighborhood (and why)—and also whether they started to run together for her by the end. (They did for me, but since I was 90% in it for the conversations and commentary anyway, I can't say that I was bothered. I might have minded more had I been planning to relocate to a specific town in the US based on proximity to a good lesbian bar and was using this book as my sole reference, but that's not me, and...I don't think that's going to be very many people.) I'd also desperately like to know why there were apparently no lesbian bars in Provincetown, because you cannot tell me that P-Town has lost its status as the lesbian San Francisco or I will slowly melt into a puddle of grief.
Please go buy this book so that the publisher will give Burton a contract to write another book. I don't know what it's going to be about, but I want to read it.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
I wasn't sure whether I wanted to read this, because although Burton describes lesbian bars as crucial to her experience of queer community as a young and newly out lesbian, that's just...never been my scene. I've been in a very small handful of lesbian bars, and a number of non-queer bars that is large only in proportion to the number of lesbian bars I've been to, and when I was younger my queer community was centered more around, like, book clubs. (This will surprise literally nobody who has ever met me.) But then I realised that Burton was the writer of Effing Dykes back in the day, and holy moly let me at that book. I kept Effing Dykes in my blog feed for years after it went dormant, because you never knew! She could post again! And I didn't want to miss it just because I was fool enough to unsubscribe!
So Moby Dyke does not disappoint, partly because it's both entertaining and thoughtful on its own but also partly because part of me is still stuck ten years ago, double-checking links in vain hope of updates. Burton spent the better part of a year juggling her weekends and PTO in order to traverse the country, visiting dyke bar after dyke bar and asking: why are there so few of them left? How does the community feel in an era when being queer is more accepted, but also in a not-quite-post-pandemic time? And what does it mean, in this day and age, for a bar to be a lesbian bar in the first place?
Burton doesn't play favorites, but I'd be curious to know which bar she most wished were in her neighborhood (and why)—and also whether they started to run together for her by the end. (They did for me, but since I was 90% in it for the conversations and commentary anyway, I can't say that I was bothered. I might have minded more had I been planning to relocate to a specific town in the US based on proximity to a good lesbian bar and was using this book as my sole reference, but that's not me, and...I don't think that's going to be very many people.) I'd also desperately like to know why there were apparently no lesbian bars in Provincetown, because you cannot tell me that P-Town has lost its status as the lesbian San Francisco or I will slowly melt into a puddle of grief.
Please go buy this book so that the publisher will give Burton a contract to write another book. I don't know what it's going to be about, but I want to read it.
Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.
Shelved as 'dnf'
April 23, 2024There's nothing wrong with this per se, but I'm finding the author's voice a bit too internet-speaky for my taste and I don't think I'm actually interested enough in the topic to keep going.
August 12, 2023
I now must go on a road trip to all the lesbian bars before I’m 30. it must happen.
November 21, 2023
this was a rough read. it’s easy breezy, but so repetitive and so lacking in nuance and any sort of real depth or meaning. i realize that the author was not attempting to write an in depth history of the lesbian bar, but this was so much more about the travel and anxiety and financial stress than it really was about the actual bars. there were moments of queer joy and community interspersed throughout that make this not a one star for me.
i did enjoy the chapter about the backdoor, my hometown gay bar that i’ve never been to. i moved away the moment i turned 18 and haven’t been back in my adulthood enough to actually go. it’s always interesting when bloomington comes up in queer reads for me bc the experience is almost always adults from out of town, coming for the kinsey institute or in this case to visit one of the last lesbian bars in the country. and that so vastly differs from my experience of the town as a closeted kid in a very conservative and religious family. i don’t think my enjoyment of this chapter really speaks to the writing, but more to my own nostalgia/interest in seeing my hometown written about by people who don’t know it in the same way i do.
i also want to note that as a femme lesbian, i found the author’s constant complaining about femme invisibility and “femmephobia” incredibly draining and frustrating. i can understand the personal hurt of not always being perceived as gay. i mention my partner and then have people respond to me using he/him pronouns and the words “boyfriend” or “husband” all the time when those words have never left my mouth. it’s annoying and it frustrates me, and ALSO it provides me an incredible amount of protection and safety from homophobia. and that is a privilege that as a femme, i have to acknowledge and always remains at the forefront of my mind and discussions about life as a femme lesbian. and that is not to say that i haven’t experienced homophobia, i certainly have. but i am simply not oppressed for dressing and presenting in a more feminine way. and i wish the author had not pushed this narrative of “femmephobia” here. it does nothing but obscure and distract from the actual lived realities of our butch and visibly queer and/or trans counterparts who experience the heat of being visibly queer day in and day out, who do not have a choice but to be out and under scrutiny and threat of violence at all times. she literally has a trans man as a partner, so i am confused as to how she somehow still made femmephobia the biggest problem she noticed as a cis white woman at all these gay bars.
needless to say, i found this book exhausting. i’m so disappointed as i was really excited for it’s release and the premise is a wonderful idea! but the execution just wholly missed the mark for me.
i did enjoy the chapter about the backdoor, my hometown gay bar that i’ve never been to. i moved away the moment i turned 18 and haven’t been back in my adulthood enough to actually go. it’s always interesting when bloomington comes up in queer reads for me bc the experience is almost always adults from out of town, coming for the kinsey institute or in this case to visit one of the last lesbian bars in the country. and that so vastly differs from my experience of the town as a closeted kid in a very conservative and religious family. i don’t think my enjoyment of this chapter really speaks to the writing, but more to my own nostalgia/interest in seeing my hometown written about by people who don’t know it in the same way i do.
i also want to note that as a femme lesbian, i found the author’s constant complaining about femme invisibility and “femmephobia” incredibly draining and frustrating. i can understand the personal hurt of not always being perceived as gay. i mention my partner and then have people respond to me using he/him pronouns and the words “boyfriend” or “husband” all the time when those words have never left my mouth. it’s annoying and it frustrates me, and ALSO it provides me an incredible amount of protection and safety from homophobia. and that is a privilege that as a femme, i have to acknowledge and always remains at the forefront of my mind and discussions about life as a femme lesbian. and that is not to say that i haven’t experienced homophobia, i certainly have. but i am simply not oppressed for dressing and presenting in a more feminine way. and i wish the author had not pushed this narrative of “femmephobia” here. it does nothing but obscure and distract from the actual lived realities of our butch and visibly queer and/or trans counterparts who experience the heat of being visibly queer day in and day out, who do not have a choice but to be out and under scrutiny and threat of violence at all times. she literally has a trans man as a partner, so i am confused as to how she somehow still made femmephobia the biggest problem she noticed as a cis white woman at all these gay bars.
needless to say, i found this book exhausting. i’m so disappointed as i was really excited for it’s release and the premise is a wonderful idea! but the execution just wholly missed the mark for me.
November 29, 2023
This book has a charming, personal voice—it feels like a friend telling you a story. There are brief detours into the rest of Krista's exploration of a city, and some glimpses into her personal life. It makes for a very readable book that somehow didn't feel repetitive, even though each chapter is essentially the same thing: describing a new bar and recounting how patrons/owners answered her questions.
It's interesting to get a broad look at how lesbian bars operate and how they describe themselves. Krista quickly found out that while these bars were usually owned by lesbians and were in some way lesbian bars, each of them said they "welcome everyone."
These discussions about queer spaces were fascinating to me, and I also liked seeing the many different ways that these spaces are designed. Each has its own feel, its own events, its own kind of community. I'm not about to go out and start a lesbian bar now, but I did find it inspirational.
Full review at the Lesbrary on December 11th.
It's interesting to get a broad look at how lesbian bars operate and how they describe themselves. Krista quickly found out that while these bars were usually owned by lesbians and were in some way lesbian bars, each of them said they "welcome everyone."
These discussions about queer spaces were fascinating to me, and I also liked seeing the many different ways that these spaces are designed. Each has its own feel, its own events, its own kind of community. I'm not about to go out and start a lesbian bar now, but I did find it inspirational.
Full review at the Lesbrary on December 11th.
February 8, 2024
Mostly I just wish this had been written by someone else. The author spends much of the book talking about her personal life and background which, while interesting at times, is not really what I wanted to be reading about. I feel like the book should have been more focused on the lesbian bars, which had brief descriptions amidst huge swaths of authorial complaints of femmephobia, being really terrible at traveling, and her relationship. Overall I am so tired of so many descriptions of "cute masc-presenting queers" that said really nothing about the bars. The author is just incredibly ill-equipped for this particular project in my opinion. Also, please get back to me when ""femmephobia"" is more than someone insinuating you have a husband when you do, in fact, have a husband.
March 22, 2023
I am writing this review through honest-to-God-tears, after having stared blankly at the last line of this book and my kindle screen for five minutes.
This book was enthralling. I came to this book — as a lesbian, as someone who lives in Chicago, and is friends with two of the lesbian bar owners here — with my own pre-conceived notions about lesbian spaces. Krista Burton’s Moby Dyke affirmed some notions, dispelled and challenged others.
Moby Dyke invited and welcomed me into all of these diverse yet universal queer spaces around the country in such a way that I became addicted. I devoured this book in two days. I laughed along with her witty repertoire of insights throughout, yet also found myself crying at some of the more tender parts of this work.
As a woman who left Christian extremism (and a religion, who as Krista so eloquently stated, was more cult-like than not), leaving behind a family system that often feels like a gaping wound, those moments of personal disclosure around the writer’s own family dynamic felt particularly poignant.
Who gets to access spaces meant for lesbians and queer individuals? What does “all are welcome” truly mean and how do we keep these spaces safe for those that have so few spaces left? I am not sure this book answers this as I’m not sure there is a byline there to give. The closest it comes is this passage that was particularly affirming for me:
“It is a lesbian bar. To not call this a lesbian bar does a disservice to the reason the bar was created. This bar was built decades ago to be a safe space for lesbians. This is not a gay bar. This is a lesbian bar, and to ignore that is erasure.”
I felt it encapsulated what I want the answer to be — that being inclusive and welcoming to other identities does not mean we forget the need for lesbian community. It’s history, the fight for visibility, and belonging. Or, the ways in which lesbian women, both white and in particular lesbians of color, are treated currently, even by our sibling identities within the LGBTQIA community.
Let’s just say I have a few lesbian bars added to my travel wish list. I was additionally delighted to read of all the lesbian bar openings that were announced in the epilogue. How hopeful — and important. Which, is how I feel about this book. It is ultimately, so hopeful and important.
Thank you to NetGalley and to Simon & Schuster for an ARC of this title.
This book was enthralling. I came to this book — as a lesbian, as someone who lives in Chicago, and is friends with two of the lesbian bar owners here — with my own pre-conceived notions about lesbian spaces. Krista Burton’s Moby Dyke affirmed some notions, dispelled and challenged others.
Moby Dyke invited and welcomed me into all of these diverse yet universal queer spaces around the country in such a way that I became addicted. I devoured this book in two days. I laughed along with her witty repertoire of insights throughout, yet also found myself crying at some of the more tender parts of this work.
As a woman who left Christian extremism (and a religion, who as Krista so eloquently stated, was more cult-like than not), leaving behind a family system that often feels like a gaping wound, those moments of personal disclosure around the writer’s own family dynamic felt particularly poignant.
Who gets to access spaces meant for lesbians and queer individuals? What does “all are welcome” truly mean and how do we keep these spaces safe for those that have so few spaces left? I am not sure this book answers this as I’m not sure there is a byline there to give. The closest it comes is this passage that was particularly affirming for me:
“It is a lesbian bar. To not call this a lesbian bar does a disservice to the reason the bar was created. This bar was built decades ago to be a safe space for lesbians. This is not a gay bar. This is a lesbian bar, and to ignore that is erasure.”
I felt it encapsulated what I want the answer to be — that being inclusive and welcoming to other identities does not mean we forget the need for lesbian community. It’s history, the fight for visibility, and belonging. Or, the ways in which lesbian women, both white and in particular lesbians of color, are treated currently, even by our sibling identities within the LGBTQIA community.
Let’s just say I have a few lesbian bars added to my travel wish list. I was additionally delighted to read of all the lesbian bar openings that were announced in the epilogue. How hopeful — and important. Which, is how I feel about this book. It is ultimately, so hopeful and important.
Thank you to NetGalley and to Simon & Schuster for an ARC of this title.
June 11, 2023
I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I found a lot of the author's interjections to be very distracting and took away from the central question of how to build community. I found it actually proved that even writing a book about the community. She focused so much on herself that may be one of the problems with building community if everyone is just thinking about themselves. I also found it strange that she focused so much on her shyness. I wanted from this book to get a snapshot of these different bars and the way makes them special and unique. I also felt she focused so much on writing about how she set up the trip, which I really don't care about and she should have focused on what the bar meant. I'm curious if she didn't consider talking to neighbors or to people in the community as to the role that a lesbian bar plays in the community. Instead she went to a lesbian bar, very shyly and maybe or maybe didn't talk to some people and then wrote about it. Not enough for my taste.
July 16, 2023
I really liked the concept of this book but unfortunately didn’t love it like I hoped I would. One of my biggest issues is that she makes a lot of assumptions/generalizations about people she comes across that she doesn’t even really talk to (or if she did it’s not mentioned in the book), but then talks a lot about her own frustration with people making assumptions about her, which feels so hypocritical. There was also something about the writing style that sort of annoyed me, which I think had to do with the fact that it read less like a novel and more like a text to a friend which I don’t think is bad necessarily but it isn’t something I really love in a book.
August 31, 2023
WELL THIS WAS DISAPPOINTING
March 1, 2023
voy hacer una reseña en español porque ya en netgalley la puedo hacer en ingles entonces no problem 😺
no tengo muchos spoilers del libro porque en general este libro es más sobre los viajes a diferentes bars lésbicos de Estados Unidos, lo pedí desde un principio porque aparte de ser lesbiana me da curiosidad saber más acerca sobre temas que quizás desconocía, me lleve una sorpresa porque estaba disfrutando un montón el libro hasta que mmm no tengo nada en contra sobre las opiniones diversas pero la manera de expresarse de la autora acerca de las feministas radicales me pareció muy ??? 😐 ok lo entiendo la mayoría en ese país tienen más el feminismo liberal el cual no apoyo no me parece correcto (por opinión personal y no suelo hablar sobre ese tema en si) , pero se la paso insultando un bar como por dos paginas solo porque habían lesbianas que querían salir entre mujeres ENTRE ELLAS EN UN ESPACIO DONDE SE SINTIERAN SEGURAS por muchos motivos las gringas suelen ser cerradas en ese tema y no me gusta meterme en peleas por eso pero es mi verdadero "LEE UN POCO", bueno fuera de eso las experiencias en los bares me parecieron interesantes porque hablaba de las lesbianas mi tema favorito, sinceramente nunca iría a un bar pero me gusta el hecho de poder leer acerca este tema ajá.
le doy dos estrellas porque el hecho de insultar de una manera inapropiada a un bar que solo busca un espacio libre para mujeres, no me parece profesional y poco ético, otros temas que mejor me callo porque 🤐
no tengo muchos spoilers del libro porque en general este libro es más sobre los viajes a diferentes bars lésbicos de Estados Unidos, lo pedí desde un principio porque aparte de ser lesbiana me da curiosidad saber más acerca sobre temas que quizás desconocía, me lleve una sorpresa porque estaba disfrutando un montón el libro hasta que mmm no tengo nada en contra sobre las opiniones diversas pero la manera de expresarse de la autora acerca de las feministas radicales me pareció muy ??? 😐 ok lo entiendo la mayoría en ese país tienen más el feminismo liberal el cual no apoyo no me parece correcto (por opinión personal y no suelo hablar sobre ese tema en si) , pero se la paso insultando un bar como por dos paginas solo porque habían lesbianas que querían salir entre mujeres ENTRE ELLAS EN UN ESPACIO DONDE SE SINTIERAN SEGURAS por muchos motivos las gringas suelen ser cerradas en ese tema y no me gusta meterme en peleas por eso pero es mi verdadero "LEE UN POCO", bueno fuera de eso las experiencias en los bares me parecieron interesantes porque hablaba de las lesbianas mi tema favorito, sinceramente nunca iría a un bar pero me gusta el hecho de poder leer acerca este tema ajá.
le doy dos estrellas porque el hecho de insultar de una manera inapropiada a un bar que solo busca un espacio libre para mujeres, no me parece profesional y poco ético, otros temas que mejor me callo porque 🤐
December 15, 2023
We have a record time DNF, folks. And I HATE not finishing books. Normally if I abandon them I won’t even log them as “read” on here, but I NEED to keep you safe from this book. This book is what happens when you have a concept for what would be an intriguing blog, but then you give it to a quirky millennial to write as an entire book. The line that made me tap out? “He radiates queer-Ron-Swanson-from-Parks-and-Rec energy.” Shhhhhhhhh please just explore the history of the bars like you said you would, I didn’t come here for a memoir. Such a waste of a clever title
July 24, 2023
So an important factor for my reading experience here is that Krista Burton's blog was EVERYTHING to me as a newly-out teenager in the late 2000s. There are posts of hers (the rhinestone nail one, of course, but also the one about making your apartment look clean before a date even if it isn't clean) that I think about weekly, even now. Her writing had an enormous impact on me at a super vulnerable and malleable part of my life, so I think "loving Krista Burton's work" is imprinted somewhere on my DNA. I was never going to dislike this book.
Looking beyond my extreme pro-Krista bias to the best of my ability, though, I can say that this is an objectively fun travel memoir with a difficult mission: how do you make 18-20 bars with roughly the same ethos and decor sound distinct for 300 pages? It's a challenge that isn't always met; the bars do, eventually, blur together for the reader. It's really the non-bar parts, the stuff about the author's life and thoughts and mishaps, that make the book fun. Anyone who wants a straightforward ethnography of lesbian bars will be disappointed, which is clear in many other reviews.
I laughed through almost every chapter, and I had a really fun time with this book overall. I didn't agree with every generalization or overall assessment she made about lesbians/bars/the state of the queer community, but that's to be expected; I'm ten years younger, from a different part of the country, and gay, and therefore will never 100% agree with another gay person about anything.
Mostly, though, I just loved reading something new by Krista Burton. It felt like checking in with an old friend I hadn't heard from in ten years. She'd mention her friends by name and I'd be like, "omg, I remember them!" which was really delightful and strange. I can't wait for more of her writing--I hope she keeps making things, because I'll read literally whatever it is.
Looking beyond my extreme pro-Krista bias to the best of my ability, though, I can say that this is an objectively fun travel memoir with a difficult mission: how do you make 18-20 bars with roughly the same ethos and decor sound distinct for 300 pages? It's a challenge that isn't always met; the bars do, eventually, blur together for the reader. It's really the non-bar parts, the stuff about the author's life and thoughts and mishaps, that make the book fun. Anyone who wants a straightforward ethnography of lesbian bars will be disappointed, which is clear in many other reviews.
I laughed through almost every chapter, and I had a really fun time with this book overall. I didn't agree with every generalization or overall assessment she made about lesbians/bars/the state of the queer community, but that's to be expected; I'm ten years younger, from a different part of the country, and gay, and therefore will never 100% agree with another gay person about anything.
Mostly, though, I just loved reading something new by Krista Burton. It felt like checking in with an old friend I hadn't heard from in ten years. She'd mention her friends by name and I'd be like, "omg, I remember them!" which was really delightful and strange. I can't wait for more of her writing--I hope she keeps making things, because I'll read literally whatever it is.
December 14, 2023
This is the Buzzfeed-ification of journalism.
My expectations were incredibly wrong for this book. I did not think there was going to be a narrative, rather, I wanted a simple list of bars with funsies descriptions following each.
This book felt like someone wanted to write a memoir and their agent told them no, so they visited a bunch of lesbian bars and inserted those in randomly. Unfortunately the author had the vibe of thinking gentrification is kinda cool because puppers love the local dog toy store & that any point she could drop a polyvore link of what she was wearing. Also, of all LBGT-issues, "femme-phobia" doesn't exactly fascinate me.
After reading this I can say with full confidence that I am not a millennial. I do not seek out things with narwhals on them or call people "baby gays."
Also I need to set something straight (haha). Columbus, Ohio is not that gay, and Goodbye Earl is only a fun karaoke song in the south. I tried it once in Cambridge and people were appalled.
I want to go to a lesbian bar but I don’t want to meet the author. I'm sure she's lovely but I just listened to 12 hours of her life story.
My expectations were incredibly wrong for this book. I did not think there was going to be a narrative, rather, I wanted a simple list of bars with funsies descriptions following each.
This book felt like someone wanted to write a memoir and their agent told them no, so they visited a bunch of lesbian bars and inserted those in randomly. Unfortunately the author had the vibe of thinking gentrification is kinda cool because puppers love the local dog toy store & that any point she could drop a polyvore link of what she was wearing. Also, of all LBGT-issues, "femme-phobia" doesn't exactly fascinate me.
After reading this I can say with full confidence that I am not a millennial. I do not seek out things with narwhals on them or call people "baby gays."
Also I need to set something straight (haha). Columbus, Ohio is not that gay, and Goodbye Earl is only a fun karaoke song in the south. I tried it once in Cambridge and people were appalled.
I want to go to a lesbian bar but I don’t want to meet the author. I'm sure she's lovely but I just listened to 12 hours of her life story.
June 24, 2023
“Where are the quiet gays supposed to go?” When Hannah Gadsby posed this question on stage in 2017, it stirred reverberations deep inside my soul.
This Pride Month, I have an answer: quiet gays can happily read a book about loud gays going to bars. I think I have just realized that my favorite kind of night out is the night out I am merely reading about.
In Moby Dyke, lesbian humorist Krista Burton goes on an epic road trip to the last lesbian bars in America, and along the way she recounts how she emerged from an oppressive Mormon upbringing to become the creator of Effing Dykes.
I loved the way her book unfolded into a heartfelt travel diary. She treats other states almost like they’re foreign countries, curious about cultural differences and the dialects, fashions, and foods found across regions.
She also goes to many of the bars with her spouse Davin Sokup, who incidentally became Minnesota’s first trans man elected into office this year. Together they’re able to explore the complexity—and increasing inclusivity—of queer spaces today.
And that’s what this is: a fun, light, and airy exploration. Krista doesn’t dig too deep into questions like “Why are lesbian bars always inclusive when gay bars are just gay bars?” or “Why have lesbian bars become critically endangered?” This is not an academic text, never poking beyond the conversations she has over drinks at crowded bars on Saturday nights. Yet somehow, Krista’s experiences start to paint a bigger picture.
Lesbian bars rose up in response to the exclusivity of traditional gay bars. They’re the spaces for everyone else queer. And while they are decreasing—likely for a multitude of reasons, ranging from increased societal acceptance to Trump era politics—there is also a renewed spotlight on their plight. Campaigns like the Lesbian Bar Project have made folks consider: Do we still need lesbian bars? Do we still want them? The answer is a resounding yes, and more queer-inclusive spaces continue to open up across the country.
Sadly, the single Black-owned lesbian bar in the country, Herz, closed just last April. In the book, Krista frets, “When would I be able to come back [to Herz]? To what was—I suddenly felt it, standing there—one of my favorite bars on this trip?”
The answer, post-publication, turns out to be never, which is a theme that runs through the book: We all get only the here-and-now, this one night, these people in this bar in this city, and then it’s gone. Never again.
But there’s always the next night, and a different city.
Krista describes cities all across the country as having their own idiosyncratic charm and queer communities—gays playing beach volleyball in Virginia, getting overly competitive at cornhole in Colorado, inventing fried pepperonis dipped in ranch in Ohio, and it all added up into one big gay americana hug. To top it all off, Krista meets with the mothers of Free Mom Hugs, who give queer folks hugs at parades and stand-in for absent parents at weddings. Yeah, parts of this book made me tear up.
Moby Dyke felt as close to a great night out as it’s possible to get without being surrounded by actual sweaty bodies. I gobbled it up in two days and highly recommend it.
This Pride Month, I have an answer: quiet gays can happily read a book about loud gays going to bars. I think I have just realized that my favorite kind of night out is the night out I am merely reading about.
In Moby Dyke, lesbian humorist Krista Burton goes on an epic road trip to the last lesbian bars in America, and along the way she recounts how she emerged from an oppressive Mormon upbringing to become the creator of Effing Dykes.
I loved the way her book unfolded into a heartfelt travel diary. She treats other states almost like they’re foreign countries, curious about cultural differences and the dialects, fashions, and foods found across regions.
She also goes to many of the bars with her spouse Davin Sokup, who incidentally became Minnesota’s first trans man elected into office this year. Together they’re able to explore the complexity—and increasing inclusivity—of queer spaces today.
And that’s what this is: a fun, light, and airy exploration. Krista doesn’t dig too deep into questions like “Why are lesbian bars always inclusive when gay bars are just gay bars?” or “Why have lesbian bars become critically endangered?” This is not an academic text, never poking beyond the conversations she has over drinks at crowded bars on Saturday nights. Yet somehow, Krista’s experiences start to paint a bigger picture.
Lesbian bars rose up in response to the exclusivity of traditional gay bars. They’re the spaces for everyone else queer. And while they are decreasing—likely for a multitude of reasons, ranging from increased societal acceptance to Trump era politics—there is also a renewed spotlight on their plight. Campaigns like the Lesbian Bar Project have made folks consider: Do we still need lesbian bars? Do we still want them? The answer is a resounding yes, and more queer-inclusive spaces continue to open up across the country.
Sadly, the single Black-owned lesbian bar in the country, Herz, closed just last April. In the book, Krista frets, “When would I be able to come back [to Herz]? To what was—I suddenly felt it, standing there—one of my favorite bars on this trip?”
The answer, post-publication, turns out to be never, which is a theme that runs through the book: We all get only the here-and-now, this one night, these people in this bar in this city, and then it’s gone. Never again.
But there’s always the next night, and a different city.
Krista describes cities all across the country as having their own idiosyncratic charm and queer communities—gays playing beach volleyball in Virginia, getting overly competitive at cornhole in Colorado, inventing fried pepperonis dipped in ranch in Ohio, and it all added up into one big gay americana hug. To top it all off, Krista meets with the mothers of Free Mom Hugs, who give queer folks hugs at parades and stand-in for absent parents at weddings. Yeah, parts of this book made me tear up.
Moby Dyke felt as close to a great night out as it’s possible to get without being surrounded by actual sweaty bodies. I gobbled it up in two days and highly recommend it.
January 26, 2024
I really wanted to love this. I did not.
I was so excited to read this; I'd been waiting for my hold to come up for months after first seeing a copy in a bookstore but not wanting to shell out 30 dollars for a just-out hardcover. I'm glad I waited, because this is not at all what I expected to read or wanted to read.
Whoever wrote the copy for this book did a brilliant job at framing it as a deep, investigative journal-y look into why lesbian bars around the US are closing (from 206 in the 1980s to just 20 in 2021) and what we've lost because of that. Fascinating! But this book didn't do that. It leans heavily into memoir and personal narrative instead of really doing historical analysis and deep research into the communities that are sustaining lesbian bars and the ones that have sadly closed. Burton was more interested in spending pages talking about her deeply rooted personal insecurities, about how she hates talking to strangers, about all the issues with young queers these days, about the bowl of clam chowder she's eating and her joyrides on electric scooters, etc etc and NOT actually reporting on the bars in a way that made them come to life. I can't believe they paid someone this incompetent at real reporting to go around and visit cool bars and write this book, a book which is supposed to answer some really really important questions about the current state of queer women's culture but instead failed to even have a cohesive thesis or a list of reasons that lesbian bars are struggling to stay afloat.
Also: We don’t really need to micro-label all the different kinds of gay people and queer women! Sports gays and political gays and young emo goth gays and pin gays and "older lesbians"…it just felt so reductive and surface level to lean into these one off stereotypes so much. Talk to people! Get to know their stories and dreams instead of taking one look at their outfit and thinking you have them and their queer spaces all figured out. Ironically, Burton really takes issue with how people read her as straight because she's a high femme lesbian and brings it up all the time throughout the book, while literally turning around and labeling people in the same reductive way a page later.
I also cannot stand the Minnesota slander. Especially from someone who’s only lived there for a few years and acts like they’re an expert and just wants to make all the easy stereotypical Minnesota jokes instead of talking about what a unique place it is.
That's all. Sorry for the rant friends. I wouldn't waste your time reading this one.
I was so excited to read this; I'd been waiting for my hold to come up for months after first seeing a copy in a bookstore but not wanting to shell out 30 dollars for a just-out hardcover. I'm glad I waited, because this is not at all what I expected to read or wanted to read.
Whoever wrote the copy for this book did a brilliant job at framing it as a deep, investigative journal-y look into why lesbian bars around the US are closing (from 206 in the 1980s to just 20 in 2021) and what we've lost because of that. Fascinating! But this book didn't do that. It leans heavily into memoir and personal narrative instead of really doing historical analysis and deep research into the communities that are sustaining lesbian bars and the ones that have sadly closed. Burton was more interested in spending pages talking about her deeply rooted personal insecurities, about how she hates talking to strangers, about all the issues with young queers these days, about the bowl of clam chowder she's eating and her joyrides on electric scooters, etc etc and NOT actually reporting on the bars in a way that made them come to life. I can't believe they paid someone this incompetent at real reporting to go around and visit cool bars and write this book, a book which is supposed to answer some really really important questions about the current state of queer women's culture but instead failed to even have a cohesive thesis or a list of reasons that lesbian bars are struggling to stay afloat.
Also: We don’t really need to micro-label all the different kinds of gay people and queer women! Sports gays and political gays and young emo goth gays and pin gays and "older lesbians"…it just felt so reductive and surface level to lean into these one off stereotypes so much. Talk to people! Get to know their stories and dreams instead of taking one look at their outfit and thinking you have them and their queer spaces all figured out. Ironically, Burton really takes issue with how people read her as straight because she's a high femme lesbian and brings it up all the time throughout the book, while literally turning around and labeling people in the same reductive way a page later.
I also cannot stand the Minnesota slander. Especially from someone who’s only lived there for a few years and acts like they’re an expert and just wants to make all the easy stereotypical Minnesota jokes instead of talking about what a unique place it is.
That's all. Sorry for the rant friends. I wouldn't waste your time reading this one.
September 26, 2023
3.5? idk. i enjoyed the concept of the book and was compelled to keep picking it up, but the author really frustrated me at times. her frequent comments on “femme erasure” and “femmephobia” lacked a sense of self awareness. i understand that it’s frustrating to sometimes not be read as queer in queer spaces, but as a white cis femme she is arguably part of the most privileged group of lesbians. she even talked about how rare it is to see a femme for femme couple??? do we live on the same planet?? i don’t mind when the author inserts themselves into nonfiction but i thought it went too far here. if another author tackled this i think it could have been a 5 star.
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August 9, 2023still confused if her husband is a transmasc lesbian or a trans man…like how can one identify as a lesbian while being with a man (is her ass a terf)
i can’t comment on authors femmephobia because im not even sure if she is a femme (😭?)
i can’t comment on authors femmephobia because im not even sure if she is a femme (😭?)
July 15, 2024
FLOP ASS BOOK RANT-- 1.5 star
if you were an unfortunate soul who in the past week had to hear my longggg rant about this book, im sure you were expecting a one star! but i must give the author some due diligence that the last 4 chapters were somewhat redeemable.
but as for my qualms--
in the first half of this book, krista treats this journey with about as much care as a sophomore would treat their ap seminar exam.
the lack of any research or desire to talk to the bar patrons, as a "veteran dyke" is mind boggling. on the off chance that she actually works up the courage to interview anyone in the bar, she would just ask them verbatim her research question ("why are lesbian bars dying") and when they all give the exact same answer, she just leaves it at that????
also, she is underwhelmed when no one comes up to talk to her. but she's literally entering the bar as a fem woman with her husband and sitting in a corner recording eavesdropped conversations. she looks like a creep!!!
this woman wrote about wanting to smuggle weed out of colorado and literally ASKED THE EMPLOYEE how to do so. she asked at the counter "i want to bring this back for a friend but need it to get past security can you help me" and thought it was a fun quirky joke. if she cant even read the LEGALITY SIGNS in the shop, you can imagine how much research she would do for any substantial queer history.
krista obviously wanted this book to be a memoir, but the only somewhat interesting part of her life that she can recount as a cis white straight passing woman is being ex-mormon. mind you, it had nothing do to with the lesbian bars, she just wanted to bring it up.
thus this felt more like handing a nepo book deal to someone who thinks since they have a few viral tweets on gay twitter that they can write a book.
idk if this is just generational dissonance, but krista's need to bestow labels on complete strangers is so hard to read. here she is complaining about people assuming she's straight, but then she goes and does the same to others? and creating new sub-identities out of the ether like her pgh long lecture on "pin gays" (gay ppl that collect enamel pins???)
she started an "experiment" to "dress gayer" to see if she'd be treated differently by lesbians. to do so, she wore "zip-up sweatshirt dress with a visible hole torn on one side. Underneath, black leggings. I put on black Blundstones, which are shoes that look like baked potatoes and are basically queer bat signals for your feet, and I slicked my hair back into a ponytail. [...] Gay. I looked gay." Girl, all i'm seeing is a flop ass outfit. dont drag gay ppl into this...
finally, the nail on the coffin is krista's agenda to raise awareness of "femmephobia" within the queer community. she sobs in her car bc she thinks lesbians hate her cus she wears dresses. no girl lesbians hate you cus youre ANNOYING.
she's a femme lesbian with a trans husband and complains about being straight-passing, yet also is too intimidated to talk to any (allegedly) butches in the bar. girl if you actually "looked gay" you would get hate crimed. and here she is crying that she doesnt. good lord.
if you were an unfortunate soul who in the past week had to hear my longggg rant about this book, im sure you were expecting a one star! but i must give the author some due diligence that the last 4 chapters were somewhat redeemable.
but as for my qualms--
in the first half of this book, krista treats this journey with about as much care as a sophomore would treat their ap seminar exam.
the lack of any research or desire to talk to the bar patrons, as a "veteran dyke" is mind boggling. on the off chance that she actually works up the courage to interview anyone in the bar, she would just ask them verbatim her research question ("why are lesbian bars dying") and when they all give the exact same answer, she just leaves it at that????
also, she is underwhelmed when no one comes up to talk to her. but she's literally entering the bar as a fem woman with her husband and sitting in a corner recording eavesdropped conversations. she looks like a creep!!!
this woman wrote about wanting to smuggle weed out of colorado and literally ASKED THE EMPLOYEE how to do so. she asked at the counter "i want to bring this back for a friend but need it to get past security can you help me" and thought it was a fun quirky joke. if she cant even read the LEGALITY SIGNS in the shop, you can imagine how much research she would do for any substantial queer history.
krista obviously wanted this book to be a memoir, but the only somewhat interesting part of her life that she can recount as a cis white straight passing woman is being ex-mormon. mind you, it had nothing do to with the lesbian bars, she just wanted to bring it up.
thus this felt more like handing a nepo book deal to someone who thinks since they have a few viral tweets on gay twitter that they can write a book.
idk if this is just generational dissonance, but krista's need to bestow labels on complete strangers is so hard to read. here she is complaining about people assuming she's straight, but then she goes and does the same to others? and creating new sub-identities out of the ether like her pgh long lecture on "pin gays" (gay ppl that collect enamel pins???)
she started an "experiment" to "dress gayer" to see if she'd be treated differently by lesbians. to do so, she wore "zip-up sweatshirt dress with a visible hole torn on one side. Underneath, black leggings. I put on black Blundstones, which are shoes that look like baked potatoes and are basically queer bat signals for your feet, and I slicked my hair back into a ponytail. [...] Gay. I looked gay." Girl, all i'm seeing is a flop ass outfit. dont drag gay ppl into this...
finally, the nail on the coffin is krista's agenda to raise awareness of "femmephobia" within the queer community. she sobs in her car bc she thinks lesbians hate her cus she wears dresses. no girl lesbians hate you cus youre ANNOYING.
she's a femme lesbian with a trans husband and complains about being straight-passing, yet also is too intimidated to talk to any (allegedly) butches in the bar. girl if you actually "looked gay" you would get hate crimed. and here she is crying that she doesnt. good lord.
July 4, 2024
politics are .. imperfect but this is still valuable for its contribution to lesbian culture
June 15, 2024
2.5 (which is a rating it pains me to assign bc while the premise of this book is very cool and interesting) this book is not focused on the lesbian bars so much as the authors personal life and anecdotes. i felt like she could have gone wayyy more in depth about the lesbian bars and the local queer community and it started to feel a bit repetitive after multiple outings where she just says she’s to anxious to talk to people (despite that being the entire point of the book’s research). it also felt quite heavily reliant on stereotypes throughout the series of travel destinations, which felt odd (in my reading update i referenced a part of the book where she goes on a rant abt how she is always assumed to be a straight girl because of the way she looks and then she goes on to label groups of strangers who she never ended up talking to as straight people w their token gay friends/straight soririty girls etc etc.) because i felt like it defeated the messaging of inclusivity in a community that has been ostracized for decades. this was really such a let down because i loved the concept … i just wish someone else had written it.
July 12, 2023
respectfully not my thing. i would have eaten this up as a blog, but didn’t work structurally as a nonfiction book. my best recommendation for folks seeking this energy is to reread paul takes the form of a mortal girl
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