Dragtime

"It will be gender bending debauchery at its finest." Bradley Forkner stares at me with direct blue eyes and flashes a lightening-white smile. His teeth enchant me. They're not just white, they're bedazzling white— the kind of whiteness a electric bulb shines. I imagine them glittering in the spotlight, surrounded by scarlet lipstick and deep wet layers of lip gloss. "It's like getting baked for free!" He taps his temple with a long, slender finger. I imagine that temple crowned with a luscious blond wig, poofy platinum erupting over his short buzzed hair. "It will be good times," he says.

The "it" Bradley refers to is— of course— Pacific University's fourth annual drag show. Brad started the drag show his first year at Pacific, and the event has only increased in size and popularity since then. "I brought it up as an idea. We said let's do it. And we did it." Bradley cocks his head to the side and smiles proudly. His tall, slender body radiates confidence. Charisma and confidence. Yet Brad insists his confidence vastly intensifies when he sports a dress, a pair of tights, and the audience's attention. "It feels powerful to be in a position to demand that respect... in normal every day lives, gay men feel— unpowerful."

Bradley knows copious amounts about drag. He knows drag queens. He's dated them. He's written an ethnography about them. And once a year, for the entertainment of Pacific students, he dresses like one. I suddenly blush at my basic, uncomplicated questions. "So what exactly is the difference between a cross-dresser and drag queen?"

He smiles patiently, and I see my naivete reflected in his direct blue eyes. I feel like a child asking "Why do boys and girls have different parts?" Brad sits up straighter, elongating his neck. "Cross-dressers do it for sexual purposes. And transgender people literally want to be the other gender. But drag queens are people who do it as a form of expression. Most of them don't actually want to be women."

I think of all the time I have seen men elaborately dressed as women in the streets and wonder which category they fell into. As Brad elaborates on the complexities of drag queens, I realize how little I know about anything he's saying.

"It all started with masquerades... when people would do stuff they normally wouldn't do because they were behind a mask— or in our case— under a wig..."