Jerry Timms

Last night I went with some friends to the Crush party at the Area Phoenix event space. Gabriel & Dresden were the headlining DJs, and what really made it interesting was that it was primarily a hetero event and crowd. I thought it would be a mixed crowd judging by the Myspace event RSVPs, but it really wasn’t an even mix and I only saw a few gays that I could identify or recognize - not counting the multitudes that were metro-ambiguous.

My overall impression? I think it was the Phoenix party of the entire last year and I’m pretty excited to have found a new scene to explore further. It was honestly the closest thing to a circuit party that I’ve attended in Phoenix, which is an odd review to give since it wasn’t a gay event. The party went from 9pm to 5am, and Gabriel & Dresden sounded very close to Rosabel during their afterhours mix. There was fantastic lighting, Party Monster type club kids, ravers, and just a lot of your regular clubbers. The entire thing had a great vibe and left me with some very intriguing observations and thoughts.

Gay circuit parties are essentially all about celebrating our solidarity and pride in being gay. For one weekend we celebrate our sameness, display our pride and intention of exploring our full potential as gay men, and show that we know how to live fabulous and throw one hell of a party in the process.

Last night, although very similar in feeling and function to a circuit party (or at least one event in a circuit weekend), was actually about something else and somewhat opposite. It was all about rejecting labels and celebrating the fact that everyone can have different sexuality and motives and still throw one hell of a party together. Remember the old rave culture adage PLUR? Peace, love, unity and respect. It’s about celebrating and encouraging diversity; not sameness.

It couldn’t have been more obvious than when Mr. X and I were outside on the patio talking very close with his arm around me (we were being obviously gay, for lack of a better description), and a straight guy came up and chatted with us about the night and introduced himself to us. He, along with many others over the course of the evening, just really didn’t seem to give a crap what our sexuality was. To be fair, they were all pretty young and so maybe this is the emergence of a new generation that has transcended beyond mere tolerance. But this is really the goal, right? Integration seems not only somewhat inevitable, but desirable. For a night we won, and I couldn’t help but to smile a little at getting a peak of what this would feel like.

So, I don’t know how much further I want to go with this…I just thought that something seemed to tap me on the shoulder last night and tell me to pay attention to the difference for an evening.