There was dancing...and naked ladies
Photo courtesy of mizzchicago.com
My first experience at
Chances Dances was pretty much like stepping into someone's women and gender studies thesis. I initially began to analyze the crowd and the behavior through the lens of an anthropologist or a taxonomist. I showed up with a gaggle including
Downtown, RedFemme, and gay boy, LatinLover69. I figured our representation (black, white, lesbian, gay man, femme, butch, 'tweener, bottom, top) gave us a diverse enough array of perspectives from which to begin "studying" people.
We were very attentive to identity politics and had delicious, stimulating conversation as we classified random attendees. We didn't want to repress anyone with our restrictive pronoun set, so we pointed out potential interests as, "What do you think about white tie-- appears to be F to M and attracted to girls." Or, "We need to find RedFemme a boi. No! Not a boy, a BOI! Boi, b-o-i." This became increasingly difficult and frustrating. Spell b-o-i and b-o-y aloud and tell me how different they sound. Exactly. And actually, forget sound. Jock Jams were pumping, so it was a lot of lip reading. I don't think there's any way to distinguish a 'y' from an 'i' when spelling boy vs. boi. End scene.
I think between classifications we knew to exist and ones we made up, we must have
used like 50 different terms throughout the course of the
night. They ranged from "bioman" and "biowoman" to "houseboi" and "
Andy Gibb."
But as I knocked back pint after pint of Point, suddenly my scientist's
lens got a wee bit blurry. By the end of the night, the question
literally became, "female parts or male parts?"
To say the
least, the diversity and eccentricity of the crowd was incredible. If
aliens were to land in Subterranean on a Chances Dances night, they'd
either think they arrived in Germany, or they'd be dumbfounded to find
that we actually subscribe to a binary gender system. There were artsy
folks to boot and plenty of evidence to support my continuing saga,
"lesbian or bike messenger?"
At one point towards the end of the
night we turned around to find topless, braless, lesbian-seeming types
running around groping one another. THEN, they started making out with
what appeared to be gay boys, maaaaybe F to Ms. Who the hell knows.
At that point, we just threw in the towel. Bottom line is: we were
there to dance and make out. Studies ajourned, time to prey.
You
know how there's that time...maybe an hour before a party ends where
everyone starts hunkering down with the person they've been eyeing and
make-outs ensue. Well, that time was now. And suddenly I realized
that amidst all of my anthropological studies I had failed to zero in
on a prospect. RedFemme had not been so remiss. So then while she
danced and made out with her conquest of the evening, Downtown and I
watched jealously-- any chance at game I had left ruined by the fact
that I was dressed like a jock-lite, yet was dancing with RedFemme's
delicate clutch under my armpit. Even that was too much of a paradox
for Chances Dances.
In review: it was awesome, it was fun, and I will definitely be a
regular at this famed institution. I went to bed way too late, woke up
way too late, and showed up to work way too late this morning. I think the last time I was out that late on a Monday night was...never. Yikes. When I did get up and moving this morning, I found
this text message from LatinLover69: "Omg! I was having nightmares
about boobs last night!!! Was scary dreams. Thank gawd for beautiful
breasts."
Now if that's not enough to entice you to join us next month, then I don't know what is.
2 Comments
Mia said:
Lovin this and so happy (and sad) that I didn't join you. I'd say next time, but this gramma needs to be home and in bed before the party even starts.
Katherine Winfrey-King said:
True that. I will need to sleep for 48 hours in preparation. I was dead to the world this morning...still...
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