Cybersocket Abroad: A Gay History of The Eagle London and Chat with Keeper of the Legacy, Mark Oakley

Throughout LGBTQ+ history, one thing has been consistently important to our family: the need for safe spaces to congregate and socialize. Hell, even the song "Yankee Doodle Dandy" is calling the colonies of bunch of homos because they stick a feather in their hats and call it macaroni. Macaroni was the 1700s equivalent of calling someone a faggot and the bars and restaurants where all the fops and dandies went were called Macaroni Clubs. In 21st century America, we are privileged enough to have a plethora of gay bars from which to choose, but even those are starting to thin out a bit as we become more mainstream. Anyone who’s been to a gay bar on the wrong night knows at any given moment a cavalcade of drunk straight girls may come in “woohooing” with their dumbass boyfriends standing behind them—or even worse it’s a bachelorette party! And anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of gay bars in America has either been to, or heard lore of, The Eagle. But what many might not know is that they are quite literally all around the world. New York, Amsterdam, Boston, Palm Springs, LA, Japan, Montreal… the list is seemingly endless. At one point in time, there were over 50 bars around the world who operated under the name Eagle. On my trip to London reviewing Queer culture abroad for Cybersocket, I had the incredible fortune to sit down with Mark Oakley, owner of The Eagle London, and learn a bit more about a place and a man that have been instrumental to London’s Queer rights movement. What I figured would be a half hour interview, quickly turned into one of the most enjoyable and informative two-hour conversations I’ve had in years, with one of the truly most enjoyable people I’ve met in years.

Mark Oakley, owner of London's The Eagle.

The Eagle London’s location has been an established bar location for over a century. Before Oakley bought it in the early 2000s, the location was home to The Duke of Cambridge, an old-school British bar, with booth stalls only and no dance floor space to speak of. According to Oakley, the clientele slowly started to shift to a gayer crowd, and eventually became home to some “really god awful drag.” When the opportunity to buy the bar presented itself, Oakley decided to make the business move. Having previously worked around the world for the likes of Virgin Media and Blockbuster Corporate, Oakley decidedly knew a thing or two about business. Before it was “The Eagle London” Oakley and his business partners Ian Cullen and the late Paul Wilde briefly called the place South Central, a nod to Los Angeles’ famous neighborhood. Like South Central, LA, the Vauxhall neighborhood has a rich history, a reputation for being a bit tougher and cooler than other parts of the city, and a large community identity, so Oakley wanted to honor that notion for his own neighborhood.

After a few years of existing as South Central, Oakley decided he wanted to create a permanent Queer space, with a more recognizable name. Friends with the owner of The Eagle Amsterdam, Oakley decided The Eagle rebrand was the perfect next step, and re-opened under the new name in 2004. I asked if someone owned “The Eagle” as a name and whether the rest were just franchises, but this is not the case. Oakley also explained to me that “Eagles” were common pub names in England even aside from the gay bars, so there was already a broadly recognizable sense to the word.

They gutted the existing space completely and transformed it into the general space that we know now (although more on that later). He teamed up with local Queer club promoters like Wayne Shires to create regularly-occurring events to bring in what would grow to become a local family of patrons. Events like Athena, Chunkies, (where they would serve large trays or roasted chicken, as well as donuts), and Handsome, as well as drag shows that were a bit more polished than the “really god awful drag” that had been there before. He also knew he wanted to create a space for local DJs to play to the Queer crowd. At that point, there was an unknown group with a handful of small gigs to their resume: Horse Meat Disco. He gave them a regular Sunday residency, and if you follow the roster of gay dance parties, you know that Horse Meat Disco has grown to become one of the biggest and most popular events around. On a personal note, HMD is, quite literally, my favorite dance party. Whereas most other gay dance events primarily play the “Oonst Oonst” gay techno music that you feel in your chest, HMD plays iconic disco songs that get remixed into even more incredible dance versions. In New York, HMD only happens a few times a year, so you can imagine my jealousy when I found out this was a weekly event for the London homos. Although, it is how I got to spend my Easter Sunday this year, so I'm not complaining!

 

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Oakley told me about how The Eagle London found inspiration in some of the great Queer artists who had been staples in England. Artists like Leigh Bowery, the fashionista and muse to British painter Lucien Freud. "Bowery was doing a lot of the stuff people saw on the club scene in New York City, but before they were even doing it," Oakley said.

And the bar has been home and host to an incredible list of iconic queer artists. Pete Burns, the legendary British musician and performer performed their last show at The Eagle London, shortly before his untimely passing in 2016 at the age of 57. Burns was creating art right up until the end and was a perfect example of someone living the life they wanted to live, in no small part because of the availability of a space like The Eagle London to do so.

If you know anything about the various Eagles (particularly the New York and Amsterdam Eagles), you know that they have a reputation for being very, shall we say…sex positive. At any given moment in the Amsterdam Eagle you may see someone getting fucked, fisted, and blown all at once. But that’s just Doug; he’s a hoot. As I was standing outside of Oakley’s office waiting to start the interview, a man with a very obvious—albeit indiscernible—American accent (it ended up being Alaskan) asked me if I worked there and if there was a “dark room.” For those of you who don’t know what a dark room is, you can better think of it as “the fucking room.” Right as I told him I didn’t work there and didn’t know, the incredibly sexy and charming manager, James, walked up and was able to answer his question. James’ answer was a quick “no.” Oakley explained to me that The London Eagle was at one time this sort of place, and here is what truly blew my mind: it was a completely legal and sanctioned space for fucking. In the UK, there are literal licenses that bars can get called “Sex Establishment Licenses” and it means exactly what you think it means: people can fuck there with no threat of being kicked out or arrested. These licenses are tough to acquire, and often when a bar with one closes, "that individual license dies with it," Oakley said. For years, The Eagle London had a Sex Establishment License. It was a go-to spot for London gays looking to get off. But it wasn't just a free-for-all. Oakley spent years working with the Lambeth Council to make sure protocols were in place to ensure that it operated within the strictest of standards and safeties, including condoms on premise, as well as safety officers to make sure things stayed safe.

Unfortunately, the rise of a quieter threat appeared on the London scene: Gamma Hydroxybutyrate, better known simply as G. For those who don’t know, G is essentially roofie, and is one of the most common drugs used on the gay party scene. To be clear, G is self-administered, and not “a roofie” the way it’s used as a date rape drug. The rise of G in the London gay community yielded an unfortunate number of overdoses and deaths. In addition to the G deaths, there was also the rise of another phenomenon: hookup apps. At this point, the primary hookup apps were Manhunt and Gaydar, and the need for a club to fuck in became less prevalent. Not only that, but what ended up happening more and more was people buying their one drink for the evening, and then spend the rest fucking. That’s all well and good, but for a business owner, the drinks are what keep the lights on. Not wanting to be a contributor to the ODing problem, Oakley decided to let that license expire and in 2016 removed the dark room. He shifted his business model to strictly dance parties, drag nights, and a more broadly appealing atmosphere to the greater LGBTQ+ community. “I want everyone to feel safe here. I want everyone to feel welcome here. Fuck any ageism, racism, or anything else. I want this to be a place for everyone,” Oakley told me. And this is true from the moment you step foot in the doors. I don’t know if he is always there, but during my visits, Roy, the man collecting covers at the door, was as kind and welcoming as he was hot.

Like many a gay area, The Eagle London is based in what was once (and at times still is) a fairly rough area: Vauxhall. But that’s kind of what we do, isn’t it? As the outcasts of society, we often move to the rougher neighborhoods. We’re used to fighting for our humanity, and know that sometimes that fight becomes quite literal and physical. This roughness has unfortunately given rise to a number of London hate crimes over the last number of decades. I won’t describe them here, but Oakley told me about them. One of them not only broke my heart to hear, but also made me sick to my stomach to think about. It involved a long-time patron of the bar—and frequent attender of Chunkies—who was jumped by a group of teenagers and murdered in a horrific fashion; absolutely devastating.

Oakley had enough and demanded loudly and vocally to the local police and community leaders to step their game the fuck up and start offering them better protection and resources. Luckily (and impressively) London has a large amount of LGBTQ liaisons in the various communities who act as a go-between for the local Queer business owners and the police. Oakley told me that save for a few asshole outliers, the community liaisons and police have generally been very willing to work with the Queer business owners to make changes, although as budgets thin out, many of those liaisons are the first to get the axe.

But Oakley doesn’t end his community involvement with just addressing hate crimes and overdose deaths. He has been a fundamental and profoundly important part of the LGBTQ+ movement and history in London. Oakley provides every poster for every event he has hosted at The Eagle London to the Bishopsgate Institute. Established in 1895 Bishopsgate Institute is the home to the UK’s official LGBTQ+ archives.

 

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“Preserving Queer history is all well and good, but what are they doing for things TODAY?!” Well, overly-critical reader, two things: 1.) Shut up 2.) I’ll tell you what they’re doing! The Eagle London teamed up with Stolichnaya to help two Ukrainian drag queens escape to London. Read that sentence again. And with the help of the Arts Council England, The Eagle London is also going to host an Eastern European themed dance night called Slav To the Rhythm, featuring Ukrainian-born drag queen Virina. 100% of the profits from this event are going to help the efforts to aid Ukrainian refugees.

 

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To Stoli’s credit, they are paying cash to help the queens move to a safer location and have been very clear in their distancing of themselves from any association with Russia. “Stolichnaya Vodka is proudly made in Latvia” their bottles read. When Russia launched their horrific attacks on the Ukraine, Stoli made an immediate financial commitment to the World Central Kitchen, a non-profit that is helping to feed Ukrainian refugees. They’ve also released limited edition blue and yellow bottles with the hashtag #LiberateUkraine on them. 100% of profits from the sale of these bottles are going to the WCK and their efforts in Ukraine.

What’s next for The Eagle London? Well, they’ve just gone through yet another massive overhaul renovation. Not long ago they installed state of the art sound equipment and almost completely soundproofed their entire structure to appease a few miserable neighbors who want to rain on their parade, regardless of the fact that the establishment has been there longer than most of the people who live in the neighborhood. With the help of some grants from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, as well as Arts Council England’s Culture Recovery Fund, The Eagle London had beat the fate that so many other Queer establishments suffered as a result of the Pandemic crisis the last two years. And then their bubble burst. Literally. There was a major water main that froze and subsequently burst on the top floor of the building, where their offices are located, and it just kept building up over nearly two days. The water destroyed the Victorian roof, made its way to the main bar downstairs, and then the literal main bar downstairs made its way to the basement. But this didn’t stop Oakley. Being the persistent badass that he is, he pushed on, had everything repaired, and the bar is now back in action, full force.

I can’t emphasize enough the importance of Queer spaces and how they can quite literally save lives. As long as The Eagle London is the stalwart of the community that it has been for decades, and as long as people like Mark Oakley keep stepping up and fighting for our family, the Queers of London will always have a safe and fun place to go. I can assure you this: the next time I make my way to London, you can bet your poppered ass that I’ll be stopping by The Eagle London, a place that very quickly made me feel at home in one of my favorite cities in the world. And if you go, make sure you check out their spacious outdoor garden. When I wasn't dancing in the club, I was meeting some of the coolest locals I could hope to meet. Top to bottom, The London Eagle is one special place.

Cybersocket: Plug In. Get Off. Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected].