Gay swingers club in ky

Until recently, gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people were a relatively hidden subculture in Louisville as they were throughout most of the country. Only in the s did it start making noise. The neighborhood, which at one point had over 25, residents, was the perfect place to hide.

Kentucky gay health club attracts ire

One man, Richard A. Homosexual sex was still against the law and could be punished by up to two years in prison in Kentucky, so the LGBT community had to be quiet. If someone threw a party, gay men swinger compelled to walk to the front door with lesbians before they paired off secretly with members of the same sex behind the curtains.

Old Louisville could be a comfortable place for gay men and lesbians to live as long as they were careful. Some, of course, were not. The first real glimmer of a gay presence dates from George Aufenkamp, Jr. Somehow he mistook a bottle of rat poison for medicine.

When Aufenkamp discovered the body, he panicked. Hustling it into his car, he drove to West Point and tossed it into the Salt River. It was never found. The Courier-Journal had a field day in its reporting. Because there was no evidence of a crime, authorities could do little except declare him insane and send him to Central State mental hospital, where he stayed twelve years.

In he re-surfaced in the papers when the police arrested him at his apartment on Sixth near Oak for soliciting a young man for sex at a downtown hotel. Rather than send him to prison, the judge advised him to skip town, which he did. His story opens the door briefly on a gay subculture in Old Louisville. Upon his release, he found a place to rent in Old Louisville, no questions asked despite his gay.

He had gay friends in a club apartment building. Another tantalizing clue is buried in a college freshman essay from Another hint came in when a young man whose drag name was Fifi Larue was arrested for conducting a sex club in the basement of a house on Second near Magnolia.

He was sentenced to eight years in prison but got out early and moved to Houston. The case begs the question: was there other such activity in Louisville at the time that was never discovered? By the s Central Park was already known as a gathering place for gay men. Residents complained, so the city trimmed back bushes where discreet sexual encounters might take place, but its reputation as a gay hangout continued into the s.

One of the most colorful patrons was Doris Paton, proprietor of the Queen Bee, a lesbian bar in Smoketown. The restaurant was demolished in the late s but its foundation is still visible.