Dragged to the Drag Show

A man in tights and a blond wig stumbles drunkenly to the curb outside the Moose Lodge in Moscow. His belly boils under a thin layer of spandex and the tail ends of a pink feather boa. He rears back his head and hawks a thick wad of cigarette slime into the street. As he does, a pasty strip of skin curls out of his spandex shirt. My friend Mikki and I are watching this as we approach the door to the lodge. Indignant, Mikki comments, "Honey, you need to be wearing a slip with that."



Inside the door, a man perches at the top of the stairs with several piercings and no hair. He yells down at newcomers to please have your IDs out! He carefully mulls over my card for a good minute and hands it back to me, waving me inside, where I pay seven dollars for entry. My group of friends part ways, half of us wandering into the crowded bathrooms, the other half timidly shying toward the dance floor where a battalion of heterosexuals, homosexuals, transvestites, and glorified teenyboppers grind up, strip down, and rock out.

Let me first convey to you before anymore is said that I, myself, am gay. I am not here to criticize or condemn this sub-culture, but to recount, in my own words, what a Moscow drag show entails.

Pushing through the throng, Mikki and I swipe rough and tender glances with each pair of staring eyes. I am reminded of being twelve years old again, decked out in chic club clothes and frosted tips. Everybody here sporting Hot Topic clothes and dyed hair. Everybody looking for a cue for action. Everybody transmitting signals of incertitude through invisible antannae.

I stand out here. I'm not your stereotypical Abercrombie-loving gay man. I'm wearing clearance jeans from Ross and a green sweater from Goodwill. Mikki wears a schoolgirl cardigan, a short black skirt, and black tights. Some people look at us like we don't belong here. So when Mikki starts grinding on me, heads turn, eyes roll. We just laugh.

Guys I know from the gay community look down at me and I keep laughing. They stand in gossip groups, masquerading as wannabe victims, masquerading as predators, masquerading as innocent onlookers. I see through their disguise. One of them turns to me as I walk away, my back telling him, don't waste my time.

Things here happen in clips. Nothing is fluid. Everything is moment to moment, without transition. One minute, my friend Sydney runs up to me screeching a confession about her desire for the woman announcing the beginning of the show. Next minute, guys with plastic breast replicas and tucked in genetalia begin gyrating to the sounds of overhyped pop artists. They swing their hips as they dance down the aisle in stilletos and tickle-me pink tops. By now, you have probably come to the assumption that this is not my scene, and you are not mistaken. However, I cannot deny that some of these "ladies" are quite impressive, lip-syncing cliché lyrics to Avril Lavigne and Ke$ha. Equally impressive were the girls in flannel and skater shoes, stomping, flinging their arms in the air. Performer after performer, the crowd goes wild. People whistle and cheer. They throw out their arms with exuberance to arouse the entertainer and everyone else watching. People thinking, "I wish that could be me." This goes on for a long time. By the end, my ears ring from the din of claps, hoots, and howls.

As people flood the entrance to leave, Mikki and I join the rest of our group. After deciding to crash a house party, after listening to Sydney go on about her new fantasy girl, after more of our friends show up and we get yelled at for blocking the entrance to the lodge, we scurry off into the night. Outside, we see the same drag queen we encountered walking in. She scowls at Mikki, but I'm the only one who notices.

My drag show experience reminded me why I am the way I am. So much of the time I was there, I felt like an outcast, but for all the right reasons. I don't need to make a spectacle of myself to be proud of who I am or what I stand for. I am perfectly happy to skip the drag show, next time, and go straight to the party. I know, at least, that the music at a party won't make my ears bleed.