Sans Fig Leaf

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"Save the last dance..."

12 June, 2003

The Prom holds an almost mystical place in the collective conciousness of our society. If you don't believe me, think about how many horror movies feature a Prom as either the climax or a major turning point in the story. Weighed down by conflicting and ever-escalating expectations, the Prom is for some the most cherished memory and for others the worst nightmare of their teen years. For many of us, it was both at the same time.

At my high school, the Prom wasn't called a "prom" at all. It was the Red and Black Ball (red and black being our school colors, natch). At best, I had ambivalent feelings about dances of all sorts. Don't get me wrong, I love to dance. I dance anywhere to all sorts of different kinds of music. But in high school, where one's identity and worth were all defined by who you hung out with and where you were seen, a dance wasn't about dancing. It was an arena where the wheat was separated from the chaffe. It was a competition whose rules were convoluted and mostly unspoken. The winners basked in the glow of acceptance, while the losers withered in rejection.

Because I was a music geek and an a/v geek, I managed to attend a lot of the little "after game" dances during football and basketball season as the DJ's assistant (and later as one of the DJs). Safe among the cables, amps, and racks full of cassettes, I could observe the arcane dominance rituals without feeling that I was involved. Of course, deep down I knew that if I had possessed a sliver of a chance at being anything other than a loser, that I wouldn't be back there with the equipment. But I tried not to think of that while rocking out at the mixer board. Sometimes I would go so far as to admit that a big part of the appeal of DJing was that, in the social context of the time, that was the only acceptable excuse a guy could have for dancing by himself. Girls could run out on the floor and dance alone or with other girls. But a guy could only go on the floor in the company of a girl.

Which brings me to another reason that participating in the dancing and socializing part of the event was such a nightmare for me. As a gay kid, I was interested in all the wrong things. Even now, if I think back to those days, I can see the the faces and bodies of many of my fellow male students, bouncing around to the music, some more spastically than others. I can even describe to you what certain guys (ones I had crushes at the time) were wearing, but I have almost no memory of the girls. They weren't who I was paying attention to. No matter how deeply in denial I was, I noticed which guys were cute, which ones were graceful, which ones were clutzy, which were happy, and which were standing in the shadows watching the floor.

Then, midway through sophomore year, a female friend from band and orchestra asked me to go to the Sadie Hawkins dance. Suddenly, I was attending one of the big dances and I couldn't hide behind the mixer board. I had to dress up, go to dinner, go to the dance, stand in line to get our picture taken -- the whole nine yards. I remember all sorts of things from that night, mostly me feeling terrified and awkward. I don't remember dancing with my date. I know we did, because I can remember feeling terrified that other people might be watching me. I remember dancing close to a guy I had had a crush on. But I don't remember what she looked like when she danced. In theory, she and I dated for the rest of that year. I don't think we actually went out that often. We had almost nothing in common. Things were awkward between us from then on.

In my junior year I started spending an inordinate amount of time with another female friend from the debate team. At one point all of our friends decided we were dating. Things went on autopilot for over year. She's the girl I asked to go to with me to the Red & Black Ball. We didn't actually attend. About a week before the dance her car was rear-ended and she wound up in a back brace. She could only walk with difficulty so dancing was right out. She could only sit up for about an hour at a time. We got dressed up, anyway. I took her to dinner, then we went back to her house where we played this silly dice game with her mother until some ungodly hour of the evening.

I'm glad that things worked out that way. I'm glad I can remember what she and I talked about and what we did. We attended the same community college the next fall, but lost touch when she transferred to a nursing school elsewhere. Later, through one of our old teachers, she found out I was living in Seattle with a boyfriend. She tracked me down so that she could invite me to her committment ceremony. Yep, she was lesbian. We had a lot of good laughs over that.

Many years after high school, I found out about "The Prom... You Never Went To." For about a decade it was an annual event here in Seattle, hosted by a non-profit organization whose mission was the raise money for worthy causes, usually gay and lesbian charities. It was explained to me that some years before a bright person at a gay/lesbian non-profit in either New York or San Francisco came up with the idea to raise funds by throwing a Prom. Lesbian couples and Gay couples could attend an event that would have all the trappings of the old high school prom, except for us.

The idea caught on in many places. Lots of organizations still put them on, and parts of the idea has caught on elsewhere, as now straight groups put on Proms for adults who are many year past high school. They're usually promoted along the lines of, "Now that you're an adult and have found the real love of your life, don't you wish you could take them to the Prom?"

The first time I attended a "Prom... You Never Went To" I was a volunteer. The beneficiaries of the event included the chorus I sang with. The proceeds were split among the beneficiaries in proporation to how many volunteers each organization provided. I wound up working the ticket booth at the front of the building. They had rented an entire club with several gymnasium-sized rooms. The Prom was put on by the fictitious Lavender Valley High, and each dance floor had a name that evoked high school (the auditorium, the gym, the multi-purpose room, the faculty lounge...). Not long after the doors opened we sold out. Most of the attendees bought their tickets in advance, but a lot showed up hoping to buy a ticket.

People came in the most outlandish costumes. There were troops of scouts. There were jocks. There were cheerleaders. There was a lot of drag. It was a wild and crazy and, yes, even a magickal night. After we had sold out, we had to stay in the ticket booth to accept pre-purchased tickets held by late arrivals. There was this one woman who showed up in a gold sequinned gown that looked like it had been painted on. She didn't have a ticket. She was really irritated that she hadn't bought a ticket in advance, but as she said, since she didn't have a date, she hadn't been sure she would attend. Someone suggested that she could wait and see if anyone showed up with an extra ticket.

There were a number of off-duty police hired as security for the event. The tall, sandy-haired male cop who had been hanging around the door when the woman first showed up was relieved by a short, butch brunette female cop. She and the woman in the sequins got talking. After several minutes, the lady cop came over to the booth, leaned in and asked in a very quite voice, "Does she really have to have a ticket to get in? I mean, can I just take her in for a few dances?"

I and the other guy working in the booth looked at each other and shrugged. I said, "You're the one with the gun and the badge."

The cop laughed. She walked over to the other woman and said, "Will you please go to the Prom with me?" and offered her her arm.

Two or three years later I got to take Ray to the Prom. Under a disco ball, while a band called "The Way Back Machine" played dance hits from our teen years, we danced and laughed and held each other, wishing that the night would never end. It was like all those sappy romantic movies, only better.