Point/Counterpoint: The DRA Drag Ball

Wednesday, February 11, 1998

This Saturday, the Dartmouth Rainbow Alliance (DRA) is sponsoring it's annual drag ball. For those of you who missed it, the DRA posted a description of last year's 'tintillating' event.

From the DRA's year-end wrap-up of events:

'The Drag Ball February 6 was divine! From several women in tuxes and tophats to one young man in a Star Trek dress and another in a medieval gown, the Ball was just crawling with divas and kings. Thanks to DJ Brian Cina, the Ball's dance music was fabulous and the crowd danced for hours. More than twenty people strutted in the runway competition while a large crowd watched and cheered. Peter Jacobsen '00, in a red satin dress with spaghetti straps and a large feathered headpiece, was crowned Queen. Uju Anya '98, oh so handsome in a dark suit with a flared collar, was crowned Drag Ball King. Be sure to check the cover of GQ next month...'

The Dartmouth Review's internal source at the ball, however, weighed in otherwise.

'I expected the drag ball to be an orgy of homosexuality,' he reported. 'I pictured having to strut down a runway through a wild pigsty of men in whips and chains shrieking 'You Go Girl!' I wanted to see millions of watts of lighting screaming in my eyes and 'YMCA' blaring at obscene volumes.

'But the scene inside was nothing like I expected. There were ten people inside, five of whom might have been in drag.

'I say 'might' because the hall was so dark it was nearly impossible to see five feet away. As dim traces of techno wafted through the hall, the cross-dressers huddled in the dank corners, muttering to one another and hoping not to be seen.

'There were no RuPauls at the ball, no outlandish, colorfully clad colossi of cross-dressing acuity. In fact there were very few cross-dressers at all.

'The 'girls' that did grace the Webster Hall dance floor were clad in the sort of drag that caters to the fashion sensibility of middle-aged tract home housewives.

'Duly unimpressed, I left the cowering crossers to their dark and gloomy corners, their reluctant techno, and quickly left for home.'

Point/Counterpoint: The DRA Drag Ball

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