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Austyn Rowley (left) and Cole Struhar
hey were just enjoying a little
downtime after their laborious
work week.
“We were having a wonderful
time, sitting at the bar, talking with
people and the bartender. It was lovely,”
recounts 25-year-old Cole Struhar, who, along
with her partner, Austyn Rowley, 26, was savor
ing a night out this past spring at a place they
thought was gay-friendly: the Princeton
Athletic Club.
The two had never been there before, but
had certainly heard enough anecdotal evidence
about the club’s appeal to queer folk, particular
ly gay men, many of whom work out at the
Princeton.
Situated in downtown Portland on
Southwest Alder Street between 11th and 12th
avenues, the establishment includes a gym,
pool, bar and billiard tables.
“We were just laughing and hanging out and
waiting for a pool table to open up,” says
Struhar, adding she and Rowley were “clearly a
couple.” Not in an overtly sexual way, mind you,
rather in a more benign, affectionate way. A
touch, a loving glance, a smile, one’s finishing of
the other’s sentence.
“T hat’s all," Rowley chimes in.
A t one point, they say, Rowley hugged
Struhar.
“ It was nothing more than that,” says
Rowley. “We were simply being sweet.”
“The next thing we know is one of the own
ers comes up to us and says, ‘We don’t allow that
kind of thing here,’ ” reports Struhar. “I was so
shocked and said something like, ‘This has
never happened to me before.’ ”
She says she then went over to the bartender
(with whom she had been bantering and chat
ting a little earlier) and told him what hap
pened.
“He said to me, i told him not to say any
thing to you,’ ” she asserts.
The couple say they told a few of the bar
patrons about the incident, then left.
“ I was so stunned and upset. It was totally
humiliating,” Struhar says, explaining that in
her five years of being out, she has never been
confronted in such a manner.
“I was one of the fortunate few who had
never faced that kind of situation. I can’t say
that anymore," she says, adding that she is a
changed woman because of the occurrence. “I
now think about it when I’m being affectionate
with my girlfriend in public. I don’t want to cen
sor myself, yet I find myself having to work real
ly hard not to.... This isn’t something that hap
pens to you one night and it’s over. You carry it
with you the rest of your life.”
Rowley points out that she spotted a woman
sitting on her boyfriend’s lap at the club.
“We didn’t do anything like that,” she says.
A Princeton employee who asked to remain
anonymous says some co-workers were very
upset by the incident.
“I was extremely offended by it,” says the
source. “It divided the bar.”
Just Out spoke with Princeton Athletic Club
co-owner Jeff Marlow on Aug. 18. He told us he
was in the dark about the lesbian couple’s claims
until we shared them with him.
Marlow, who estimates 40 percent of the
club’s 2,800 members are gay, staunchly defends
the business, saying it does not discriminate on
the basis of sexual orientation.
He also points out the Princeton Athletic
Club offers same-sex couples the same member
ship rate it does to married heterosexual couples.
“We’re pretty open and liberal here,” he says,
conceding that occasionally someone’s member
ship will get revoked because of “lewd” behavior
on the premises. (He mentions sex in the sauna
and masturbation.)
Princeton Athletic club co-owner Lee
Morris was out of town and unavailable for com
ment.
Rowley and Struhar, meanwhile, still can’t
get over the irony. Struhar, who works for a non
profit organization that counsels children on
death and dying issues, is also the mother of a
six-year-old named Joey, who attends Buckman
Elementary School in Southeast Portland.
"A t the end of the last school year, Austyn
and I went to see Joey in the school play. (He
was the lizard.] Austyn and I held hands and
were affectionate in the way any loving couple
would be,” Struhar says. “There were no prob
lems at all— zip. We were not made to feel like
we didn’t belong, and that was in an elementary
school."
Rowley adds, “It’s really unbelievable what
happened to us, given that so many gay people
go to the Princeton. And we were right down
town, not at a truck stop in Gresham.”
FLOREID WALKER
(503) 23&0036
1-800487-6626
Voicenuil:(503) 291-7713
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