I don't know. I'm thinking NYC is the heart of it. SF/Bay Area just has the reputation - well deserved, mind you.

Anyone here been to Portland, Oregon? Hoo boy. We've got the mainstream gays runnin' scared. Of course, let's see how the rest of the West Coast like us when Sissyboy tours in 3 weeks. SF has a lot to live up to, but I don't know if I buy that they got attitude yet. In pictures, all I see are these sorry little fags that I know I could get to cry just by ripping the Dolce & Gabbaba labels off their edgy yet ironic sleeveless t-shirts.

youtube.com/watch

Only city-folk would put the "heartbeat" in THEIR Mecca - a metropolis. Any rural queer knows that city-folk will claim that he doesn't exist outside their "Walls". The heartbeat of the alternative-queer is the self-sustaining farmer living in the mountains, not some fancy-smansy City-wide "organization"...They are NOT an alternative.

Claiming NYC or San Fran as the "Mecca" to all queers is an insult to any rural gays..

I'm new in the tribe. So here is my two-cents worth... Okay, so I'm naive and I hope participating in this tribe will help overcome some of my ignorance.

This is an interesting question to me because it begs so many other questions. What do we mean when we say we are 'Alternative Gays' ? How do we define 'Gay Culture'? And does 'Gay Culture' have a locus? Are we discussing where (geographically) new ideas about how we can live our lives outside of gay stereotypes are spawned? What is' Gay mainstream'? What is the arternative to 'Gay mainstream'? While I have notions about most of these questions, I wonder if it is possible to discuss this subject, and be understood, because we probably all have varying ideas regarding what makes up culture, alternatives, stereotypes, mainstream, and Gay.

I think there are some fascinating responses to this question in this thread and I'd like to think about all of this a bit more before launching a tome on the subject. Tome? Just kidding.

This post was deleted by Druben

That past deletion was my own post which had a lot of typo's. Here it is again:

One might think of the heartbeat of American or Canadian alternative culture to be where the crowds and wanna be's don't gather to make the scene but rather it is the heroic chaps living in North Dakota, West Virginia, Alabama, the folks that courageously homestead in alien territory when they don't have a "culture" or "scene" to support their lifestyles and loving arrangements. These are truly who I see as our most alternative folks and I'd love to hear from some of them here. I read a book once, the title of which is something like "Across America" and it spotlighted some of these couples. It was very inspiring to me When I lived in San Francisco I mostly saw gay people who were deparately looking around for how they should dress, act and think to "fit in" to the culture. When I lived in the mountains of West Virginia and out in the dry expanses of New Mexico I found people forging really interesting lives without a lot of social support around them. I believe we haven't even heard from the truly alternative people because they are on edges that are not a marketable commodity.

Depends on what you consider alternative. If you mean you look different than you Castro clone than yeah I suppose SF or NYC are good choices. I live in Portland and the 'alternative' homos really aren't all that alternative if you ask me they just look different and go to different bars.

I kind of think this question is dumb. Not to dis anyone living in SF or NYC I'm sure it's great, -if- you can afford it and that's a big if. Having a surplus of culture doesn't make one the center of the 'alternative' it just means there are more choices of what to do on a Saturday night. Having something to do is not synonymous with there being a revolutionary spirit or urgency or need, which I think is required for a place to be the 'heart center' of an alternative community.

Call my cynical I think the internet has made any attempt to cultivate an alternative community moot. It just get sold back to us in about 6 months to a year anyway. That isn't long enough for a subculture to become a moment.

It is in a bar filled with hustlers, punks and drag queens, insurance company cube jockeys, millionaire investors who run a charity to fix their tricks' teeth and house them, right next to the bus station toilet in Downtown Omaha.

Alternative to what? A recent census poll claimed DC as the gayest city in the US, by far, with 8% self-identifying as gay, compared to 6% for SF.