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Earlier this year I was sitting on a bench at Stark Bollock Naked, Vauxhall\u2019s much-loved end-of-weekend gay cruising party, waiting for my friend to get dressed, when an American man approached me and said, \u201cOh wow\u2026 a real English scally! I see you guys on the sites, do you know the website English Lads? I love this whole look.\u201d He held his arm out, turning his phone towards us in his hand, and took a selfie.<\/p>\n
I was in Adidas trackies, a white vest and a cap. To the British eye, I\u2019m not a scally. I\u2019m a public schoolboy who\u2019s been east London-ified. A hipster with a childhood crush on Jamiroquai, a splash of Jack Wills and just a pinch of chemsex aura. But I thought nothing more of it\u2026 Until a few days later. I was sitting by myself in a bar in Fitzrovia. It was their underwear-theme night and a few of us regulars were sitting around sipping our drinks in the dark, wearing just our boxers. Practising sobriety, I find cruising bars useful because they\u2019re to the point \u2014 sexual liaisons aren\u2019t 10 tedious pints away. As humans we\u2019ve learnt to drag out the prelude to sex so that it spans plates of calamari and gifts from Oliver Bonas. There\u2019s nothing worse than listening to a man\u2019s Moretti-fuelled rant about AI\u2019s ulterior motives when you just want to get him into bed.<\/p>\n
The Fitzrovian vibe-killers<\/p>\n
The atmosphere at Vault 139 was decidedly low-key \u2014 but then four Americans<\/a> walked in. Without really pausing to get a sense of the place, they quickly began to socially dominate, commenting on everything loudly so that the rest of us were forced to listen non-consensually: \u201cOh my God, look at the guys on the TV!\u201d one yelled. \u201cOh wow, I love this ceiling!\u201d I wondered if they\u2019d never seen a bar with a dark room, so literally had no idea what the etiquette is. But then that\u2019s hardly an excuse \u2014 I was also new to these places once and I learnt the ropes from older gay men. Within half an hour the American men had killed the vibe. My favourite sleepy cruising bar was now a drag brunch in Hell\u2019s Kitchen.<\/p>\n These are not just tourists, but a new wave of long-stay Americans looking to lay down roots in the UK<\/p>\n Not long after this, I was having a normal brunch with a DJ pal and he\u2019d just flown to New York to play at a Pride<\/a> party. \u201cHow was it?\u201d I asked. \u201cOh, not my thing\u2026 You know what gay Americans<\/a> are like, they\u2019re so flashy and extra and intense.\u201d And I thought, \u201cYes. I do know what you mean, because I\u2019ve seen it spreading across the London scene this year.\u201d These are not just tourists, but a new wave of long-stay Americans looking to lay down roots in the UK.<\/p>\n Some gay Americans moving to the UK say that they feel socially persecuted, others are getting priced out by the rising costs of living in now gentrified, spoilt, sanitised cities like LA and San Francisco. Some gay Americans simply love London. They love the culture, the history, the West End, the escapist appeal of a never-ending Brat summer<\/a>. The dream was always there but Trump is forcing them to realise it.<\/p>\n It makes sense. If you\u2019re a gay American and don\u2019t have a strong tie to somewhere fabulous like New York, why swim against Trump\u2019s tide of neo-nationalist authoritarianism when you could be getting trashed in Vauxhall and doing TikTok for Burberry?<\/p>\n The good news is that American money is breathing life into the London scene as the new gay frat bros snap up tickets to drag shows, raves, or splash about in gay saunas. They want personal trainers, therapists, teeth, Botox, facials\u2026 Americans need lots of stuff. <\/p>\n A Bratlantic wave of Anglophilia rippling across the American gay scene<\/p>\n