LGBT nightlife hits the high notes in Tucson

Ladies, I found the perfect men - and they're not interested in us. One of them lounged across the table from me: impeccable style, handsome and keeping his gaze eye level. And he had more to remark on than that girl's ass over there or how many points what's-his-name scored Sunday night. I was in heaven - and I was in a gay bar.

So I didn't find the love of my life, but I found the chill, the rave and the sketchy LGBT establishments hidden around T-town. My first stop was Woody's, and let me say it was hard for the other establishments to prove they had what I was looking for afterward. Tucked on the east side of Oracle, it took three U-turns to find the place, but once I was in, there wasn't much chance of leaving.

Lights gleamed along the bar roof and hung from canopies spaced along the patio; cushioned chairs circled underneath. A wooden bar stood in the middle of the covered patio, and cast-iron table sets hovered along the perimeter. Like any bar, there was a pool table and unused dance room.

"If you want to go dance, go downtown," said Jonathan Groth, a recent UA grad. "It is gay friendly and you can do what you want, but it's not the hype and it's not the stereotypical go-to-a-gay-bar with the rave setting."

Groth vouched that the bartenders are as bright as the bulbs overhead.

"The service is incredible," he said. "I've never had to wait for a drink."

On Fourth Avenue, you've got IBT's. The entrance is hard to miss, but the waiters, clad in their tighty-whities, aren't.

"I think it's a really good place to immerse yourself in a different lifestyle," said Kim Collins, an ecology, evolutionary biology and classics senior.

If you're considering taking a stroll over to Yard Dog on Stone Avenue, stop while you're still considering - unless you're partial to the 50+ crowd and enjoy drinking in your closet.

But Ain't Nobody's Bizness on Broadway is worth more than a shot.

"It's very LGBT friendly," said Scott Rising, a retail and consumer sciences sophomore. "I can come here and just dance once a week and have a good time."

Your skin vibrates from the bass; strobe lights refract against the chain-link fence, barring the 21-year-olds from the not-there-yet, and bodies stick together in clumps on the dance floor as couples mount tables for a go-go-esque experience. It's a sweaty, sexy dance machine mess. The bathroom was the only real spoiler.

"I'm a little scared every time I go in," Rising said.

When I snuck into the single unisex bathroom, two women waltzed through the lockless door while I washed my hands and got down to business as I finished drying.

"Pee together, stay together forever, you know," pre-nursing junior Paul Galvan said.

Yeah, I guess.

Galvan's word to describe the joint? "Homo-excited."