Nathan Puts His Sexual Orientation on the Line!

Yes folks, it´s finally here. The report of my sexual compass-spinning trip to Plop!

Here are my manly and stalwart traveling companions. From left to right they are Charly (spelled that way and no other, dammit) myself, Cristian, the dancing fiend from Colombia, Mateos?, Agustina and finally at the bottom, Luz, of plucked-eyebrows renown.
These are Luz´s finger nails. Yes, that is his sweater and yes, they do match. I hope that this begins to present to you exactly what level of homosexuality we are working with here in Plop!

And sadly, ladies and gentleman, that is as much warming up I can give you, in the photographic sense. From here, we dive into the insanity, the depravity, the misty depths of gender role/identity. I shall, by means of narrative passage, offer you a opportunity to change your mind, as I describe the events that lead to Plop!

How did I come to be invited to go to Plop!, a gay club, when I myself am not gay? What provoked me to accept such an offer, especially in a city where the men are so notoriously... forthright, shall we say?

I was recently and graciously invited work on a music video by my classmate Charly. I accepted, of course, thrilled to be involved in something for once and thrilled to be speaking Spanish and hanging out with such a cool bunch of humans. The music video centered on a group dance and for this reason required people with dancing capabilities. Therefore, theater students. Therefore gay. Sorry, Eric.

I heard legend of Plop! when Charly, some others and I were lounging around in somebody´s apartment. Some strange club in wildnerness, where there is stage show with crazy dancers with limitless energy, all held in old theater. It seemed like a good idea to me as it would fulfil my desire to try the vida noche porteño. I suggested that I would like to go and I was told that they would surely take me. Interested parties note that at this point I had no idea that the place was gay.

Time passes, Charly informs me in class that the coming friday they, and therefore me, would go to Plop! I accepted, naturally. More time passes, Thursday rolls around, I look up the name online. Google: Plop! Buenos Aires. What returns is a bunch of hits surrounding a big gay fiesta held in some club somewhere. I´m convinced that this cannot be the place, I thought there had to be a club that shared the name somewhere else in the city. Wishful thinking, the staff of ISA soon corrected this notion of mine.

I was now faced with a question. Did I still want to go this club? Normally, I don´t even like clubs; my limited experience suggests that they are noisy, smelly and boring. This new gay factor was tipping the scales in a whole new way. Don´t get me wrong, I have nothing against homosexuality. I love it. Lesbians in porno (Im well aware this has little to do with real lesbianism), and well-dressed, potentially competitor men that can dance and cook and are uninterested in the women that lust after them seems like a winning combination for me.

It was this little conversation I had with my friend Juan Pablo, when he was talking to me about Plop! He said that I was likely to get ¨¨tocado¨ (touched) there on account of my highly anglo appearance. This was back in the time when I thought that Plop! was just any old club so I said ¨Sweet!¨Sexually-aggressive women were alright by me, though I was confused as to why they were in this club and not any other club in Buenos Aires/the World.

This conversation took a whole new light as Google´s harvest rolled down the screen. Though I sympathized with the horror stories of grabby porteño men told to me by my female compatriots, I was not sure if that was something I was ready to experience for myself.

Friday rolls around, Charly asks me if I want to go. I review the results of the formal and informal polls and delay answering the message. I figured that Charly was straight and he was going, how bad could it be? I also thought about what exactly it could be to be ¨tocado¨.

I fessed up. I asked Charly if it was normal for people who aren´t gay to go to gay clubs. He said: of course! I said: Alright, so I´m going.

And that was that. Chances are, they´d bought the tickets and though I later wanted to back out and attend a capoeira function early in the morning on Saturday, it was too late. The die was cast.

I sent Charly a text message around midnight (yes, that´s when people begin to think about going out here) asking if it was still on. He said yes and that I needed to hall my ass across town immediately. I spent some time picking my most heterosexual clothing and deciding not to put on deoderant or shave before hustling out.

Some dashing around, meeting and collecting people, waiting for his Charlyness to bathe and at 2 oclock, we set out. My heterosexual wingmate Charly seemed awfully preoccupied with his hair.

Naturally, someone forgot the tickets and there was some miscounting and rumination that it would be too late to get in and I thought that I might be able to walk away from this one.

No.

We finally catch a long bus-ride and we arrive at around 3:00 and the party is in full swing. A crowd in the streets trying to buy tickets and we zip buy them into the club. The place is a converted theater with the seats removed. A stage with a huge pit in the front, overflowing with gyrating bodies.

Charly cuts through the mountain of people and deposits us stage-side, right under a speaker. The aural assault had begun. Then, as I regained myself I looked up at the stage and I saw this:

Meet the first member of Plop!'s lipsyncing and dancing cast. As you may have noticed, Plop!'s theme for the night was McDonalds! Plop! This meant a cast of characters parading around in a nightmarish version of the obesity icon and his friends. For example:

The horror, the horror.

From this photo, you might be confused as to what a tall and attractive looking female is doing in this scene.

But this next photo clears it all up, doesn't it? Oh alas, this is the closest thing to female attention I've been getting lately in Buenos Aires.

Really truly though, I was having a great time. And as you can see the in the middle right of this next photo, so were other members of the audience. That particular pair continued for about 20 minutes. And then, when they were finished, another dynamic duo began to do some face sucking in the exact same location. It was like a revolving door of homosexuality.

Left to Right: Luz, Cristian, Charly, Juan Pablo, Unknown Face Suckers. Agustina. Front Row: Giselle, Lucas.

This was without question everyone's favorite photograph.

And the night raged on. But what about the tocado-ing, you ask. Well, that did come to pass. I gradually became aware that I was the object of a certain type of glance that I had given and had never conceived that I might receive. I suppose that's one level of a certain kind of tocado. At least one group of enterprising young portenhos thought it would be a good idea to take my picture. Then, some member of my group thought it would be a better idea if he grabbed me by the chin and directed my gaze at the interested parties. Somehow, eye contact was the last thing I was looking for.

Another guy stepped up into my space purposefully as I was in the process of turning around to avoid the process. I looked him up and down and continued turning in what I retrospectively realize to be a classic bitch move. Whoops. At least now we know how these things happen.

Finally, one guy threw one hand on my waist and the other in the air in what appeared to be some kind of invitation to dance. I turned and evaded. Another grabbed me on that hand and I believe said "vamos" or "let's go" in what was certainly an invitation to something. And the kicker is, my group informed that I had provoked them with my "sensual" dancing. Show of hands, who thinks I am capable of sensual dancing? Well apparently, I am, so stuff it. Nyah!

After that magical encounter, my energy had pretty much fled and I succumbed to the clock. It was then about 6 in the morning. We finally made our way out the door at 6:30 and I was home by 7:30. I was unable to put the final jewel in my crown of porteno unhealthyness by eating breakfast before returning home because I refuse to eat another piece of McDonalds ever again.

Oh forgot to mention. Cristian, in the yellow, is the kind of all dance ever. Score one point for Colombia. Goodnight all.

PS Charly's not straight, either.