2/18/10

Soft Cunt Is This



My room mate invited us to this youth ball. She worked at a residential center for homeless LGBT youth, and the center was co-sponsoring this event. It was a Disney-themed vogue ball, held downtown at an abandoned (I guess rehabilitated) nightclub, for under age performers. It was a massive, endless event and it was entirely sober. There was no smoking, drinking, or drug use. The kids showed up, mostly already in costume, and waited their turns for their respective categories. I was really impressed with how specific some of the categories were, too. "Cruella DeVille Couture Realness" I could see, but "Peter Pan Butch Queen" was new to me. "Aladdin Street Urchin Butch Realness"? "Sea-Witch?" As the evening went on, the categories became less about Disney, more vague, and increasingly competetive. None of the girls actually touched each other's hair, but they did whip each other with their long, long, ribon-in-their, hair. One of the last categories was "Soft Cunt Realness". One of the queens walked, and to my eyes did a great job, but was wildly unpopular with the judges. One of the MCs, a butch queen who had been narrating the event, read her like a billboard after she walked. "What the fuck was that? That was not Soft Cunt!" He motioned to the DJ to put the beat back on, while he demonstrated the lilting wrists, subtle head snaps and syncopated marching that was evidently expected of the category. While he was demonstrating, to thunderous applause from the audience (and considerable chagrin of the girl who had just walked) he roared, over the beat: "Soft Cunt is this. Soft Cunt is this. Soft Cunt is this. Soft Cunt is this."

Thinking a lot this morning about soft cunt realness. (lowercase). Thinking a lot about, like, instructing someone in a public way. Shaming. Manually shifting focus away from dark spots is exhausting and exhaustion is not an interesting place to start from.

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