SEX

My body is queer: Adam’s apple, Eve’s hips.

Sex is not a taboo within the queer imagination. Fetishism and the erotic are (and should continue to be) upheld and celebrated as touchstones of the liberated, especially within spaces where understandings of gender and sexuality are deliberately warped. To be queer is to be sexually rebellious; when one is repeatedly condemned for their innate physical attractions, they cultivate an intense desire for radical sexuality. However, historically this desire could only be expressed covertly for fear of identity-based discrimination.

In the 1970s and ‘80s, LGBTQ+ people secretly communicated sexual preferences through symbolic bandanas: the hanky code. Referring to an underground, universal color code, queer people wore certain color handkerchiefs in specific spots to communicate their particular kink or fetish. According to Out1, the hanky code was a safe, inconspicuous mode of communication for queer people looking to satiate taboo or socially unacceptable sexual and romantic desires. However, the hanky code, centering around binary understandings of sex, gender, and power, relies on the division and separation of the masculine and the feminine, the dominant and the submissive.

Essential to queerness is the merging of these two opposed positions— the ultra-rugged and the hyper-femme. Queer sex is a dialogue between the hard and soft physical bodies and their polar, gendered energies. By accepting this polarity within ourselves and our partners, we experience true queer intimacy.

And yet so often the queer desire is hushed— buried deep, waiting to be dug up. Eventually, we recover what was once at the center, what sat beneath the surface. And when we do, there is gold.

Queer sex liberates the body. 

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DRUGS

My mind transcends the earthly plane. I know the space behind my eyes, the empty above my spine. When it fills, it only hallows again and begs for the feeling of when it was full.

Excess is inherent to queerness— the extreme desire for more at any and all cost. It is intensely luxurious, entirely unnecessary, and commonplace in LGBTQ+ spaces. This constant yearning for extravagance is a side effect of prolonged sexual and identity-based repression; queer people who are socialized to believe their identity is linked to depravity will always mature to glut. Queer history is rooted in this excess. 

As queer nightlife emerged in major cities in the 1970s and ‘80s, so did new party drugs that enhanced physical endurance and, arguably, more importantly, allowed for emotional escape from a potentially traumatic or difficult personal history. According to Vice, ecstasy, ketamine, and meth-use was habitual in queer spaces, particularly throughout the extravagant, queer nightlife scenes slowly blossoming in various urban centers.

However, as queer nightlife grew in the ‘90s, drug abuse among gay men skyrocketed and party drugs quickly became the focus of the largest scandal in queer nightlife: the 1996 murder of drug dealer Andre “Angel” Martinez by club kid Michael Alig. Martinez’s murder and Alig’s sentencing to 17 years in prison were the catalysts for the quick fall of queer nightlife; the scene was unequivocally associated with drugs, crime, and depravity. 

Despite this late ‘90s dip in the club scene, party drugs remain a staple of queer culture, and abuse continues to run rampant in the queer community. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDH), LGBT+ people are statistically more likely to use drugs and misuse opioid prescriptions with 9% of queer adults reporting having used opioids in the last year. Additionally, the NIDH found that LGBT+ populations are at higher risk of developing an addiction to drugs and alcohol than their heterosexual or cisgender counterparts. 

These drugs— recreational, medicinal, illicit— are a means of transcendence and escape, the queer persons’ vessel to personal freedom in celebration of blithe excess. Drugs liberate the queer mind. 

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ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

My spirit has been released from its steel shackles. Unchained, I am unabashed.

Radical self-expression is not a matter of choice. The queer identity is a resolute Declaration of Self. And it is through queer literature, film, art, and music that LGBTQ+ people connect to one another in the collective desire for unrestricted, unrestrained free expression. Queer culture is punk. It is the underbelly of a vast and diverse community, both under and misrepresented by pop culture and mainstream media.

This punk, queer spirit is evident in the work of director John Waters and drag queen Divine. Unavoidable in the conversation of radical queer expression, Waters and Divine relied on low budgets and limited resources to bring their works of monstrosity to life. Creating true masterpieces— Female Trouble, Serial Mom, Pink Flamingos— Waters and Divine paid homage to the gritty, the grotesque, and the gay.

Waters’ work centers around unconventional, over-the-top characters whose stories, while outrageous, filthy, and usually disgusting, were honest, raw, and unfiltered. Waters, Divine, and their pantheon of monsters represent the most radical form of self-expression. Unapologetic, these characters stand for that which young queer people may be unable to access. 

Queer expression— gender-bending, performance, the disregard for standards of sexuality— is a statement of presence and power, an assertion of might. Loud, wild, and shameless, this attitude is imperative for survival in a world where our voices can be silenced at any moment. 

Queer rock ‘n’ roll liberates the soul.

ENDNOTES

1. Thomas, Chris. “Untucking the Queer History of the Colorful Hanky Code.” Out, 19 June 2017, www.out.com/out-exclusives/2017/6/19/untucking-queer-history-colorful-hanky-code. Accessed 29 Oct. 2020.

2. Daly, Max. “How Gay Clubs Changed the Way We Take Drugs.” Vice, 30 Nov. 2015, www.vice.com/en/article/avy885/gay-clubbers-early-drug-adopters-720. Accessed 29 Oct. 2020.

3. “Substance Use and SUDs in LGBTQ Populations.” National Institute on Drug Abuse, 25 Aug. 2020, www.drugabuse.gov/drug-topics/substance-use-suds-in-lgbtq-populations. Accessed 29 Oct. 2020.