Appeared December 1, 1995, in Philadelphia Gay News and other gay papers.
SURPRISINGLY, and blind-sightedly, leading lesbigay activists applauded the news that the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was taking legal action against Hooters, the restaurant-lounge chain renowned for its sexy waitresses.
But letting the state dictate that straight men cannot enjoy an eroticized ambience at a private establishment isn't good news for gay folks, or at any rate those of us who don't subscribe to the unisex view that gender is nothing but an unfortunate social construction.
Let's take a look at the government's war against Hooters, often described as Playboy Clubs for working-class men. As James Bovard recounted in the Wall Street Journal, the anti-Hooters vendetta was not initiated in response to a complaint from disgruntled male job applicants but solely at the behest of the EEOC. Hooters tried to explain that only women were hired as "Hooters Girls" because their primary function is not serving food, but "providing vicarious sexual recreation." Their "uniforms are designed to tempt and titillate, consisting of short shorts, and either low-cut tank tops or half shirts, which are to be worn as form fitting as possible, and the Girls are expected to enhance the titillation by their interaction with customers. They are to flirt, cajole and tease the patrons."
In short, said the company, "The business of Hooters is predominantly the provision of entertainment, diversion, and amusement based on the sex appeal of the Hooters Girls."
Like Orwell's Big Brother enforcing an anti-sex campaign -- but this time doing so in the name of perfect gender equality - the EEOC dismissed these arguments and decreed that "no physical trait unique to women is required to serve food and drink to customers in a restaurant." In other words, the bureaucrats just don't get it.
The government is demanding that Hooters abandon its trademark concept of Hooters Girls and adopt a quota (what a surprise!) for male waiters. Bovard quotes a former EEOC official who observed, "The women attorneys [at the EEOC] are hot to do this case because they want to bust up a sexist restaurant chain. They want to get at this wicked institution."
So why should gay men - and lesbians - be concerned? For starters, many of our establishments and clubs also intentionally provide an eroticized ambience, the difference being that in this case staff and customer are the same sex. As for gay male bars and private clubs, including gyms, their all-male atmosphere is already under siege by those who consider "homo-sociality" more of an offense than homosexuality.
In one well-publicized case, a lounge in New Port Richey, Florida, which became a gay bar and announced it would no longer employ female bartenders, came under fire. Although the bar's manager insisted his patrons preferred being served by other gay men, a statewide lesbigay rights group took up the barmaids' cause, arguing the women were victims of sexual discrimination.
Although Hooters aims to provide soft-core erotic pleasures to straight men after a hard day's work, the case could create a precedent that allows the government to outlaw exclusively gay male or lesbian commercial establishments by insisting, say, that gay clubs hire a customer service staff that is divided equally between the genders.
While I don't treat the issue of employment discrimination lightly, I wonder what the politically correct response would have been if men (especially straight men) demanded the right to serve drinks at a lesbian bar. In fact, it's not too far-fetched to imagine that lesbian clubs - prized because they provide the safety of "women's space" - could also be required to hire male waiters in this brave new world, freedom of association and the rights of private business owners be damned. Carry the principle of government-determined gender-mixing to its natural conclusion and all eroticized commercial spaces - gay and straight - become verboten under the dictates of a politically correct puritanism.
In the pursuit of absolute gender equality and sameness, as scouted out by government lawyers, liberty for gay and straight alike becomes a casualty.