Welcome back to Hot Takes and Deep Dives, and I am here with the legendary Manhattan and Fire Island DJ Susan Moribito.

To give a bit of context, Susan Moribito first moved to New York City from Cleveland in 1987.

So she was part of the heyday of the Saint and Paradise Garage,

but she didn't have her big breakthrough as a DJ until she landed a multi-year summer residence

at the pavilion in the Fire Island Pines.

So we're going to jump in this interview

to where I'm really asking,

why was she such a DJ for gay men?

Why was her audience the men

rather than a mixed crowd or even women?

You know, in my career, I started off playing for the women.

I'll never forget when I played Love as a Stranger for the first time when Annie Lennox

was a nobody and it cleared the dance floor.

Now, within a month, that changed because she started getting radio play.

But my point is playing for the lesbians,

if I played something they didn't know, they ran off that dance floor. Game men don't do that.

Why not? Why is that? Maybe because of the drugs. Maybe. I mean, I would go to the lesbian club and at at 2 o'clock in Cleveland, when that club closed, I'd be off to the boys' club because they'd be partying until 6 in the morning.

The boys knew how to party.

The boys were very serious about their music.

So when I first moved to New York in 1987, the club that was sought after that everybody

wanted to work at was either the garage or the saint. I used to go to the saint. It was 99.9%

gay men. Men will stay out till noon, 3 o'clock the next day dancing. Why is that? Sex sex that's a big part of it women like to nest

...