Sociologist Greggor Mattson, author of “Who Needs Gay Bars?” (2023), found that gay bars, in general, are declining but still doing well in conservative and rural areas of the United States, dominated by homophobia, and there is a reason.

Bars in conservative regions still accomplish the function of being a refuge for LGBT people who can’t be themselves in mainstream society.

Mattson also found that leather bars have seen the steepest decline in recent years due to cultural change within the LGBT community and technological change.

In many areas of the United States, there is no need to spend money at a bar to find a casual encounter because you can find one by swiping right or left in apps.

Your leather dark room could be on Recon, BLUF, FetLife, Scruff, Grindr, and even Facebook Dating, where you can find a hook-up without spending money on expensive, diluted drinks at a bar.

If you still want to find romance, go to a church, have brunch, attend a charity event, join a mutual interest group, etc. Even taking your dog out could lead you to romance. In progressive areas, LGBT people are well-integrated into mainstream society.

So, are dark rooms relevant today? The answer is that it depends on location. Also, even in progressive areas where rents tend to be expensive, and people live with roommates or relatives, dark rooms are still valuable for those who don’t have that privacy at home or haven’t come out yet.

So, yes, dark rooms are relevant for some demographics, but times, technology, gentrification, high commercial rents, and gay assimilation into mainstream society are presenting a growing challenge to the permanence of those spaces.