ABSTRACT
Twenty-five years ago, Weston argued that "bars remain a central symbol of identity, and almost everyone has a story about a first visit to a gay club". As a particular spatial understanding of community, scene spaces are important, so it is particularly significant that not everyone feels able to access such spaces. This chapter shows how, the scene is experienced as an enjoyable space that can offer friendship, feelings of comfort and safety and 'diversion' away from heteronormativity. It demonstrates that whilst the concept of community is frequently understood in positive terms, those who base their understanding of community on the scene can often experience 'their' community as inadequate. In part this is due to a lack of ownership, with tensions evident in conceptualisations of community based on a space over which people have limited control. The chapter explores experiences of scene spaces and focuses on how exclusions and problematic norms intersect with scene spaces.
