Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Drag show


I live in a place where an entire team of heterosexual men cross-dresses for its softball games. Men in dresses consistently win awards and throng our many town parades. My guess is, not one of these cross-dressers is gay or even particularly kinky, although who knows what goes on between their sheets?

I have observed little kids when first they see a man dressed as a woman. It is so far outside their experience, such a non-sequitur in the lexicon of their perception, that they stare unabashedly, unable to take their eyes off the fashion statement. They just don’t get it.

Transvestites or cross-dresser men are not necessarily gay; they simply like to wear women’s clothes. Cross-dressers are not minimalist players. In my experience, their breasts are too big, they wear entirely too much makeup, and they all have too much “big” hair. Maybe all that is the badge of entry; maybe it’s part of the fun of cross-dressing. I don’t know.

I have never experienced any great compulsion toward cross-dressing, if for no other reason than because I look like hell in women’s clothing. I don’t have a body that looks attractive in tight-fitting anything. I have no hourglass waist, no bosom, no flaring hips and my legs are not those of an attractive woman. I can’t imagine wearing high heels; I have injured my ankle falling off cowboy boots.

Furthermore, I have seen a lot of transvestites who simply didn’t cut the mustard in their wannabe garb. I have only seen one or two men dressed in drag that I thought made for an attractive woman; one of those looked damned good. Maybe I’ve just been looking in the wrong places…which begs the question: Which are the right places?

The right place to see men in drag—no surprise—is a drag show. I witnessed my first drag show a couple of months ago in Dallas, where we happened into a restaurant called Hung Dinger’s. At a show like this, there is no doubt that performers are, or once were, gay men. No simple cross-dressers and no pretense: They were gay.

Hung Dinger’s features a good Italian feed followed by a floor show with female impersonators, transvestites, transsexuals…whatever. I never did fully determine the sexual disposition of the performers; I think several were in transition between genders.

Regardless, although I didn’t deem my first drag show highly erotic, I fully enjoyed myself. The women were titillating and sexy, they flirted effectively enough to wrangle paper money from my pocket, and they had their act down. Most of the time, I couldn’t even tell they were lip-synching. That is, until they lowered the microphone enough to say, “Thank you, sweetie,” while the music voice-over continued unabated.

The show was good enough at Hung Dinger’s that it made me wonder how good a really high production drag show must be. In either case, high-rent or low, I do wonder something else: Why do gay men pay money to watch other gay men dress up as women? Entertainment value? Rite of passage? Good clean fun. Ah, that must be it.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

The other woman, er…man


Maybe it’s the age thing instead of the fidelity thing. More likely, the fidelity thing is pervasive across the age continuum. When young, we play the field and tickle the ivories of promiscuity. As we age, we find a partner and settle into a single committed relationship. Young or old, homo or hetero, committed relationships usually imply and demand fidelity.

My own attempts at fidelity have been dismal failures. As a mature man who has danced both sides of the sexual orientation fence, it is safe for me to assert that fidelity is not part of the way I am put together. With apologies to everyone whom I have failed, I admit that fidelity goes against my nature. Therefore, a committed relationship is probably—never say never—beyond my ken.

Here’s the age thing: No matter what our sexual orientation and for whatever reasons, in the fullness of maturity we seek the security and comfort of a long-term committed relationship. We want to be “married” to one person who will succor us through better and worse. It’s time to settle in for the duration.

This makes social and sexual life difficult for newly-single mature gay men, fresh out of the closet and the security of heterosexual marriages. Young and single men aren’t interested in the old dude, who may himself desire young men, but who probably relates better to men his own age.

There are more and more men in this situation; life isn’t necessarily easy after the closet door slams shut behind us. Having changed the program, we must begin anew, seeking friends of like mind and sexual partners with whom we are compatible. The field is limited, and many of us are long out of practice or completely unfamiliar with the new social milieu.

For my part, I am not entirely out of practice and I thoroughly enjoy my new social milieu…rarified as it is. I am attracted to men around my age who share a life experience and lifetime agenda that years past demonstrate. No surprise: many of those guys are married.

Here’s the fidelity part: Married men—homo or hetero—are involved in one of those long-term committed relationships…with someone else. Having myself so recently been down the long and painful road of infidelity and divorce, I tell myself not to help put other men on that path.

This is lots easier said than done. While still in a heterosexual marriage, I interacted with married men; it seemed safer that way and less damning. Mutual guilt is somehow less guilt. I still share those relationships, although I now try to maintain them as friendships so sex doesn’t jeopardize a marriage.

Gay relationships and a few heterosexual relationships are sometimes more open. A wife, for example, may demonstrate love and understanding for her gay spouse and consent to his homosexual perambulations…as long as he’s careful. Gay relationships are sometimes non-monogamous enough to sustain one partner enjoying sex outside the primary relationship.

The upshot? Be kind, be careful, what goes around comes around. It’s complicated, but who would expect it otherwise?