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The video was shot at a branch of the LGBT bar and restaurant chain in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in September 2021. Sofia strutted around the bar wearing a pair of large fake breasts that hung outside her costumes, complete with tiny yellow pasties covering the nipples in what appeared to be an arch attempt at modesty. She was sat on the knee of an adult woman at the time, who smiled warmly as the youngster tipped the performer, whose real name is Gabriel Burgos Ortiz. The child, whose age was not disclosed, passed a bill to RuPaul's Drag Race star Yara Sofia at Hamburger Mary's in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the clip. Miami in the 1970's was a great time to be young and gay.A young girl was filmed tipping a drag queen baring a huge set of synthetic breasts during a 'family-friendly' event at a Michigan gay venue. As my fictional alter-ego, Joe Martinez, said in one of his adventures, "Miami was a candy store for a young gay guy just out of the closet." With no AIDS in sight, and most venereal diseases treated with a simple shot, it was "the golden age of gay sexuality." It was also a golden age for Miami-Dade County's lesbian and gay bar scene. Not only were there far fewer raids than before, but local laws that made it a crime for "known homosexuals" to be served liquor or congregate in a tavern were overturned. The legal drinking age was 18, which made things very convenient for a young gay man who was just coming out.Ī gay kid had many places to choose from in 1974.
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In fact, there were more gay watering holes in Miami Beach - and certainly in the Miami mainland - than there are today. In his 1972 directory, "The Gay Insider USA," author John Paul Hudson (writing as John Francis Hunter) listed 15 gay or mixed pubs and clubs in the mainland (including Coconut Grove and Coral Gables) and 8 queer watering holes on the Beach. A 1975 bar rag, "Where the Action Is" - whose only claim to fame is that one of its contributors was a 21-year old newcomer named Jesse Monteagudo - listed 13 mainland bars and 6 Beach bars. They did not include the "down low" mixed taverns that catered to minorities. Nor did they include the other places where gay guys cruised and socialized: the Club Miami and Regency Baths the 21st Street and Virginia Beaches Bayfront Park Florida Pharmacy Rio Theater Danny's Book Store Downtown YMCA the Greyhound Bus Station, and so on. The years between 19 were also my gay bar years. Never before or since would I frequent so many pubs or clubs, or as often, as I did back then. Lack of money did not bother me since student discounts and the kindness of friends and strangers often helped me get through.
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The lack of a car was a detriment, since it limited me to a great degree to bars that I could get to by foot or bus or ride. Interestingly, I never went to the Cactus Lounge on Biscayne Boulevard, which till its demolition a couple of years ago had the distinction of being the only 1974 gay bar in South Florida still in existence. And I was too late to enjoy Googie's, a hot spot immortalized by Jack Nichols in his memoir "The Tomcat Chronicles." But somehow I managed to visit virtually every other openly gay male bar in Miami-Dade County, save for a couple of Miami Beach or West Miami taverns.