“It’s about having a deeper connection, and at the Eagle, we had that deeper connection,” Alice said. The Eagle was certainly a place to meet new partners, but it also transcended the party and hookup culture that can permeate gay life. If you do something you’re not supposed to do, they’re going to let you know. “But there’s also people that will put you in check. “You know when you walk into the Eagle, you’re good,” NLA Dallas co-chair Sir Tender said. Because many kink groups are devoted to boundaries and consent-negotiation of what your partner does and does not feel comfortable with before any physical contact-the Eagle was a safe way to explore. Regulars at the bar say the Eagle was a rare Dallas location that in recent years increasingly welcomed people of various gender expressions, sexual identities, races, and body types. With each shuttering, concerns grow that one of the most vital groups within the LGBTQ community is slipping out of sight. As of 2017, there are close to thirty such bars. Regulars there called it the Eagle’s Nest, and the concept expanded to around fifty Eagle bars across the world, including in England and Canada. It is not a chain, but it is part of a legacy of leather bars across the United States that have the same name in honor of the original Eagle that opened in 1970s New York City. The Dallas location of the Eagle originally opened in the mid-1990s. Before it closed in 2020, the Eagle was regarded as the leather bar in town, and the time-honored signals and codes and watchful staff members made it a uniquely safe space. It’s not uncommon to find military veterans in a leather bar, and leather groups welcome straight as well as queer members. Rather, it welcomes those who are into the feeling, look, and smell of leather. Leather falls within the broader kink community, but it’s not BDSM. But within any city’s gay scene, leather bars stand out. Gay bars have always been special places of refuge and activism. To its regulars, the Eagle was the only bar in Dallas where they could freely and properly express themselves. Patrons shot pool near a rectangular bar that served cheap beer and Jell-O shots. Glitter from performing drag queens snowed onto the vests and pants of the leather-clad crowd, and trophy cases were crowded with prizes from leather pageants and photos from cookouts and tournaments. The Eagle was a place of red lights, hairy bellies, leashes, and pup masks. But there is no place like the Dallas Eagle. There are clubs where you can groove to Latin tracks or square-dance. One of the few remaining lesbian bars in the country, Sue Ellen’s, is there, as well as an energetic shack known as the Tin Room.
You can find plenty of gay bars in Dallas’s Oak Lawn neighborhood.