Why Gay Men Need Spaces That Aren't Clubs or Apps

Key takeaways
- Most gay social life runs on two tracks: clubs and apps. Both are built around a particular kind of availability
- Many gay men report loneliness, shame, or a sense of missing something despite regular use of both
- Third spaces — facilitated, embodied, sober — offer something different: genuine encounter without performance pressure
- A growing number of events in London are built specifically for this gap

Most gay men's social and sexual life runs on two tracks.

The first is the app. Grindr, Scruff, Sniffies and their variants. Available at any hour. Efficient at delivering a particular kind of encounter. Built around profile-level presentation and fast matching.

The second is the venue. Bars, clubs, saunas, play parties. The social infrastructure of gay male life in most cities. Built around proximity and availability, usually lubricated by alcohol.

Both serve real functions. Neither was designed to deliver depth.

What is actually missing?

A 2023 survey by the LGBT Foundation found that more than half of gay and bisexual men in the UK reported feeling lonely often or always — a figure significantly higher than for heterosexual men. This was not explained by lack of social activity. Many of those men had active app lives and regular club nights.

What they reported missing was something different: genuine encounter. Connection that did not require performance. Spaces where their bodies were present without being evaluated. The experience of being with other men without the constant calibration of how they were coming across.

This is not a new observation. Research on gay men's wellbeing, including Mind's LGBTQIA mental health resource and multiple LGBT Foundation reports, consistently identifies loneliness and isolation as significant issues for gay and bisexual men — even those with active social lives.

What clubs and apps cannot provide

Apps are built for selection. You present a version of yourself, someone evaluates it, a match is made or not made. There is nothing wrong with that mechanism, but it does not build the conditions for genuine encounter. The self-presentation layer stays active. You are always, to some degree, performing.

Club environments share that quality. Who is looking. How you are perceived. The ambient evaluation that is just part of moving through a gay space after dark.

"Gay men deserve to meet their sexuality with presence, not performance."

These are not spaces where slowing down is easy. They are not built for it.

What a facilitated embodied space offers instead

A facilitated event — where the purpose is not to find sex or to be seen, but to be in your body with other men — operates by different rules.

The arrival is different. Men introduce themselves honestly, not as a profile. The morning of an Erotic Gateway workshop begins with practices that ask participants to slow down and notice what is actually happening in their bodies. Breathwork. Movement. Partner exercises that ask for real contact rather than projected availability.

The social dynamic that results is different from what happens in a club or on an app. Men often describe it as the first time they have been in a room full of gay men without feeling watched, evaluated, or in competition.

That is not because the space is non-erotic. Erotic Gateway is explicitly a consent-led erotic workshop. The afternoon involves an erotic space. The difference is that men arrive in it having spent several hours practising genuine presence with each other, rather than arriving already in performance mode.

Is this about rejecting gay culture?

No. This is about recognising that the existing infrastructure — genuinely useful for what it is built for — does not cover everything gay men might need.

A man who enjoys clubs and apps can still benefit from a different kind of space. The two are not in competition. What facilitated embodied events offer is a different register of experience — one where depth is possible, where the body is met rather than evaluated, and where connection does not require the constant management of appearance.

Men who attend Erotic Gateway are not people who have given up on gay culture. Most of them are people who love gay culture and want more than one dimension of it.

Frequently asked questions

Are sober gay events for men who don't drink?
Not only. Many men who drink regularly attend sober events because the quality of experience is different. The absence of alcohol changes the social dynamic — not because sobriety is better, but because it makes a different kind of presence available. Most men attend sober events alongside rather than instead of their usual social life.

Is this for men who are unhappy with their sex lives?
No. Men attend Erotic Gateway with all kinds of motivations — curiosity, a desire for genuine connection, working through something, or simply wanting a different kind of experience than apps and clubs provide. You do not need a problem to benefit from a different kind of space.

What is a "third space" for gay men?
A third space is a social environment that is neither home nor work — somewhere you can exist without the roles and pressures of those two contexts. For gay men, the concept often gets applied to bars and clubs. Facilitated conscious events offer a different version: structured, sober, and focused on genuine connection rather than performance or consumption.

Where are these events in London?
We have written about five sober gay events in London here. Erotic Gateway itself runs monthly in Stoke Newington.

Ready for something different?

Erotic Gateway runs monthly at Soma Home, Stoke Newington, London. Tickets are £85–95. See upcoming dates and book a place →

Last updated: 17 May 2026