I have had occasion recently to attend drag shows in Savannah and to go to LIPS INC NYC . I started thinking about drag when I run into girls who are dressed to the nines, at events where i in the name of a "natural" look, i look like something the cat dragged in circa 1971. So for some of these venues, I decided I needed a more "arch" look. I acquired breast forms and a corset, did the proper research in Savannah.. Thank you Club One! The secret of drag.. psst dont tell anyone but it is two words.. big earrings! So I got some big earrings too, and even dug my big hair out of storage. With a little help from my friends, I was ready willing and able to look fabulous, and i descended upon LIPS, with a few other more subdued lookers. What I saw there has me puzzled still, but in honor of Woodstock... let's have a flashback. It is 1983, and there is drag every weekend at the Flamingo in the West Village a few blocks from the current locale of LIPS inc. The entertainers are dressed in ballgowns and fabulous, the audience is men. The fabulous queens are generally willing to go out back with someone or home with someone for a little monetary consideration. The men.. well some are like me... looking to meet these fabulous creatures to be around them to absorb their aura, to become like them. I even dated one.. no really dated! and the other men were there because they wanted girls who had something special and who would do special things.. It was a way to end up having oral sex and not be gay is how i figured it.
So we show up at LIPS expecting a more modern version of same.. What a surprise to be the only person umm mature, formerly a heterosexual male, in drag! except for the performers, and wait staff who seemed to look at us..like ... "excuse me are you queens lost?!" Only in time honey. The whole audience was women , young women having batchelorette parties, and having birthday parties, and looking for a little innocent raunch with some fabulously accessorized males they wouldn't be expected to take calls from the next night.
What is the common denominator to these social changes. the Drag Queen doesn't pretend to be a woman, or aspire to be a woman too much. the Drag Queen is a proud to be an absurdly effeminate man, and the closeted men were, and the thrill seeking young women are looking for a man who isn't a man.
I have been flirting with the drag look in order to be more a woman.. by emulating a woman's shape, and taking the extra trouble to create a look. but at the heart of drag is a man in disguise, rather than a man transformed. At any rate that is my take, but don't ask me to give up my big earrings honey, I am wearing those until my ear lobes hand down to my shoulders.
