Counter Culture Dancing

Couple things happened in my head while I was dancing my hypothetical balls off at Club Z in Williamsport last night with some of my girlfriends and our DD/supervisor/agent, Tom.

First, I was missing a whole lot during my crippled-by-self-consciousness 20s. Dancing at a gay bar is awesome. I did go dancing at a gay bar once in my 20s, with some gay temporary roommates. I got felt up (and not in a nice way) by some straight dude.

Which is a total quandary. What are the straight people doing at the gay bar? I know, I know. It's a bar, a club, there's dancing and the air is thick with poorly mixed DJ beats and cigarette smoke. The energy is contagious and it's totally counter culture. I guess there're some straight folks (like myself) who get a kick out of being someplace where different is normal. In Williamsport, if you don't want to hang out with the 20-23 set at Cell Block, it's the only place to go dancing.

But what was with the posturing straight men trying to grab my (luscious) bootie, and feeling up Amber, this drag queen who danced with us, and trying to dance with the irrepressible Hillary? What were they posturing? Were they pretend gay or pretend straight? Were they trying to feel us up so as to discern our sex? I feel like mine is fairly obvious. And Amber's was, too, but her girl parts done comparatively well. And Hillary is a feminine, shimmering pixie. Do their weasely minds believe genitals grabbing is more acceptable at a gay bar?

That was what I told myself the first time. But I'm older now and wiser and angrier and more aware of the very real way in which women (and very similarly homosexuals) are second class citizens, even now--in the future! I sincerely believe that most straight men are utter pigs and not to be trusted. And I follow @MsMagazine on twitter, so I get all these news feeds about the high sex-discrimination crimes that happen the world over. Now. In the future!

And when I got home last night and I was a sweaty, vaguely drunk, cigarette stinking mess in bed with my lover, and my body still ticked with energy and glee, when I thought about way in which the fun was kind of marinated in this palpable cultural dischord; I almost wept.

There is no minority for which I have greater sympathy than the transgendered/transvestites. I can't think of a worse affliction than looking in the mirror and seeing the wrong thing. Feeling like your skin got mis-sewn at the factory.