It was "conversion therapy with a side of ranch." As a young teen who felt he was unlike most other boys but had not yet recognized he was gay, the writer Peter Rothpletz was taken to Hooters by his grandfather for "a baptism into manhood—one that would backfire beautifully," Rothpletz writes in a guest essay at the New York Times. Their waitress—"a caricature of the caricature that is a Hooters waitress"—seemed to recognize his sexual orientation. And when Rothpletz was alone, she slid into the booth opposite him and delivered an important message: "You're perfect just the way you are, kid." For decades, Rothpletz thought of this as a singular experience. But now, he sees "the delicious irony that a chain restaurant famed for its cleavage and chicken wings somehow became a secret sanctuary for young gay men."
When Rothpletz recently described the experience online, he received "hundreds" of messages from other gay men with similar stories, he writes. One man recalled that when his father asked for a photo of two waitresses kissing his "very flamboyant" son, the women sensed the boy's hesitation and, with a wink, suggested they do bunny ears instead. "After that, I just felt like it was a safe space," the man said. Another man said a waitress had been kind to him as a 9-year-old after relatives demanded he flirt. "Perhaps these women—so often stigmatized as almost sex workers, so accustomed to society's sidelong glances—see kindred spirits in the boys who aren't quite 'right,'" suggests Rothpletz. "Or maybe it's simpler: a waitress's knack for reading a room, turned tender for those who need it most." Read the full piece here. (More Hooters stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
