I am Professor of Sociology at Oberlin College and Conservatory and member of the Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies Program. I teach courses on cities, sexuality, social control, and inequality, informed by my research about LGBTQ+ communities, gentrification, and prostitution. My CV is here.
I’m the author of a forthcoming book about changes in gay bars in the United States over the last 25 years from Redwood Press, Who Needs Gay Bars? I have published articles on the topic in venues like Slate, the Daily Beast, LitHub, Urban Studies, Socius, and Gender Place & Culture.
Previously I published a book on prostitution politics in the European Union, and am working on another one on the topic set in early 19th-century Paris. I went viral once for a blog post about artificial intelligence and gayface.
I grew up in a small town in the Pacific Northwest and earned degrees at The University of California, Berkeley; Oxford University; and The George Washington University. I currently live in small-town Northeast Ohio with my partner and our dog.
I can be reached at greggor.mattson [at] gmail.com or @greggormattson
- New data: gay bars and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.This report is currently undergoing peer review but the preprint with data table is freely available at SocArxiv. Abstract: “What was the impact on gay bars of COVID-19 public closure orders? Gay bars were already quite vulnerable, retaining only 63.4% of their business listings from 2007 to 2019. Historic data from printed business guides were […]
- Chapter: The changing role of gay bars in American LGBTQ+ lifeIn Introducing the New Sexuality Studies 4th Edition, released June 2022. “Gay bars are iconic in part because they are the most common and accessible LGBTQ+ places, but they are in decline. About one third of gay bars closed in the 2010s, but new ones continued to open to serve their communities as one of […]
- Interview: Fox Market is Vermont’s 1st LGBTQ+ bar in 15 years. What took so long?Erin Petenko interviewed me for a piece about Vermont’s newest LGBTQ+ bar-cum-grocery store, the first of that kind I’ve ever heard of, and for which I apparently said something about “skipping through the maple trees.”