Dispatch from Bellingham...the Drag Show

        

I just came back from a charming bit of gay entertainment at a coffee shop out near the big mall.  The place is called “Cafe Caffé” and is generally open for breakfast and lunch, but on Tuesday evenings, the venerable Betty Desire performs.  Betty is a fixture in the local gay community and has been for many years.  Unlike most DQ’s (Drag Queens), Betty sings instead of lip-synchs, and is a quite passable cabaret singer with a fairly wide repertoire.  No youngster, Betty is in her 50’s, and has grandchildren, one of whom was at tonight’s performance.  Another DQ did a couple of numbers…Sydney Downunder…lip-synching this time.  I must say, this young lady was quite elegant, in a very fetching, green spangled sheath dress, and an auburn wig.  It was a short show, approximately an hour and a half.  Betty chatted a bit about her recent experiences, having attended a SCA event (Society for Creative Anachronism) where she was an espresso vendor (it fits…espresso was invented before 1600!).  I enjoyed myself and was disappointed that the turnout was rather small.

I had met Betty a bit earlier, when I had marched with the PFLAG contingent at the Ski-to-Sea parade/race.  I knew of her from participating in last year’s Bellingham Pride celebration, but this was the first time I had a chance to sit and spend time with her after the parade.  I hope to get to know her a bit better, both in and out of drag, for no doubt she can tell a lot of stories about the gay community here in Bellingham.  For a small city, there is a rather active drag community, and earlier this year, I attended a drag show on the campus that filled the venue that this summer featured the Bellingham Festival of Music orchestra performances.  It was packed for the show, and the show itself was varied and funny and, to my surprise, demonstrated quite a bit of talent.  Betty MC’d the show, with another DQ whom I’ve gotten to know out of drag as the co-chair of PFLAG and as the B’ham Pride chair as well.

I share this experience because the whole phenomenon of drag fascinates me.  It is distinct from Trans-sexuality, for most of the performers (so far as I know from my experience) are not interested in becoming women or having surgery.  And most, again so far as I know, cross-dress only for performance.  It is clearly a form of theatre, and as such, has an ancient heritage.  (e.g., In Shakespeare’s time, the female roles were played by men…think now of Juliet, and imagine this to be a young male playing the part).  In Japan, it is true for the Kabuki theatre.  I have no idea how this came to be almost exclusively a gay phenomena in the US, but it certainly has a long history.  

As I indicated before, most performers lip-synch to recordings.  And as they do, they move about with what seems to me to be an exaggerated gesturing that is meant to emphasize their adopted femininity.  Some have been extremely athletic, jumping and doing deep knee bending postures.  One I saw recently was so graceful that they almost had to have had some formal dance training…or else certainly ought to pursue it. 

 

I hope to get to know more of the performers in the B’ham community to better understand the motivation to engage in this particular form of entertainment.  It is demanding…both in scouting for suitable attire, which for some rather sizable male bodies, isn’t easy, especially since they generally seek the more glamorous styles.  Shoes must be a bit of a challenge.  And mastering makeup…another not typically male endeavor, makes me wonder how this skill is learned (although one must admit, not all do in fact, master it).  And it must take a considerable effort to memorize the lyrics and to coordinate the gestures to the lyrics and the music.  For some, this clearly represents a profound commitment of time and energy.

However, it is the spirit of the entertainment that fascinates me most.  As I have suggested in regards to the Pride march in Seattle, there is a Carnival sensibility about drag shows that is an extension of that in the marches….or could it be the reverse?  I can imagine that by crossing the gender boundary, a great freedom of expression is gained, more so than simply acting a role that is in one’s day-to-day gender identity.  I wonder if those males who do drag find greater empathy with women as a result of this experience.  I have long thought that be being gay, my own comfort with women increased, and that it became easier to be friends with members of the opposite sex (I suspect that phrase itself is dating me…and that I need to be more gender/role/identity precise and current).  I certainly know that it makes me less inclined to an aggressive initial response to other males and thus has increased my empathy with them too. 

 

I recently read “Sex At Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality” by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá, which I highly recommend.  In it, they argue for a rather radical viewpoint towards monogamy, and suggest that our early ancestors, when humans were in hunter-gatherer societies, tended not to view sexuality as something to be confined to the “nuclear” family, but often as something far more fluid.  (Absolutely NOT "one man and one woman") But this was also associated with a society of sharing of resources too, and of kindness and compassion to all members of the community.  These hunter-gatherer societies, like the Bonobo chimps that are our evolutionarily closest primate relatives, are far more peaceful.  I have found, over my years of being a gay activist, that gay society (btw, “gay” generally means “gay male” when I use the term) is far less involved with violence, and that gay bars are far less likely than straight bars to witness serious fighting.  In that sense, I’d like to think that the gay and lesbian subculture reflects this more ancient heritage of human society.  Alas, I wish I could say that gay male society is less chauvinistic towards women…that’s not true, though it is, I think, slowly getting better.  (That chauvinism is the reason that lesbians often have their own, distinctly separate bars in many communities) I think that the presence of drag performers is, perhaps, an element of that more fluid, less violent, aspect of the gay male world and may be a lingering reflection of our earliest evolutionary development as humans. (And yes, there are lesbian drag performers, termed "Drag Kings"...though I gather they are not as numerous as Drag Queens)

I guess I have a bit of an anthropological and sociological curiosity at work here.  Over the years, I’ve read descriptions of many, quite different societies, both human and animal.  What I’ve learned is that what most folks born and raised in what we might call “modern, industrial, Western” societies consider to be “normal” is anything but when compared to the full range of modern and ancient cultures for which we have data.  And though many here in the U.S. would like to think that our viewpoint is singularly the “correct” one for all time…it too has evolved with time…consider just the contrast between our everyday lives and those of but a couple of hundred years ago.  If John Boswell is correct, the perception of same-sex relationships has changed dramatically over the centuries, even when we confine ourselves to “western” cultures, from the ancient Greeks through Medieval Europe to the present day.  Drag performers existed throughout that period of more than 2500 years, in various forms.  What I watched tonight is thus a continuation of a thread of human history, however modern it may have sounded.