Dubai Bar Offers Women Free Drinks Based On Their Weight Because...?

Call it a botched celebration of body positivity, or a shrewd marketing move calculated to go viral—we're really not sure what to think. Fusion Club, a bar in Dubai, is currently running a promotion in which women report their weight to receive free drinks. The more you weigh, the more free drinks you're entitled to.

Insider reports that now through the end of the year, Fusion Club is offering women the chance to either weigh themselves on the scale provided by the bar (as one does), or simply write their weight down on a piece of paper and hand it to the bartender (also as one does), and they receive 1 Emirati dirham per kilogram in free drinks. In American terms, it works out to about $0.12 per pound. Haven't you always wanted to be assigned value just like the prized meats at the butcher counter?

Fusion's food and beverage manager, Anil Kumar, told Insider, "We wanted the ladies to surprise their partners and friends that it's good to gain weight!" The tone here is inscrutable, but "It's good to gain weight!" is the official slogan of the promotion, suggesting a genuine, if rather misplaced, enthusiasm. After all, a promotion tied to one's weight (and the disclosure of one's weight to others) is still prioritizing that metric, even if it rewards a higher number. Maybe this place should stick to generic Happy Hour discounts?

Kumar also said that Fusion Club wants to be "different than the rest of the nightclubs... in making our guests delighted." So while the inclusive tone of the promotion feels off, the desire to gain an edge in the marketplace is surely genuine.