Stupid Metaphor Tricks: Of Gay Bars and Politicians: When dealing with issues that call into question our moral and ethical standing as a nation, like the insane debate over whether or not we should legalize torture, it's always easier to comprehend where everyone stands if you put it in terms of different types of gay bars. The Rude Pundit's thinking specifically of three dens o' male queerism that used to be (and still might be) in New Orleans. There was the festive queer nightclub, the one that still maintained that Studio 54 vibe. Located in the French Quarter, it was an open, welcoming, sparkling place where all comers, straight and gay, could enter and dance the night away with balloons, confetti, cherry-scented smoke, bubbles, whatever, pouring down from the endlessly resourceful ceiling crew there. You could look around and see feather queens consorting with tranvestites chatting up spiky-haired preppy guys making out with biker dudes fondling military men licking the chests of Chippendale-lookin' studs in thongs. The music was hip and loud, with video screens blazing the latest celebrity sex tape or a Judy Garland film. And when Liza Minnelli was played, a row of drag queens would get up on the bar and form a kick line. Truly, it was a space of respect and love and lust and gettin' yer ya-yas out with no judgment, from the fattest drag queen to closeted Saints football players to the biggest hung chaps-wearin' cowboy. If you left the festive club and headed down Royal or Bourbon, close to Esplanade, there was the gay leather bar. You walked in there without some kind of bondage gear or weapon of mass ejaculation and you were either gonna get tossed out or picked on like the leanest meat at the cell block. The place was a Tom of Finland dreamscape or nightmare (depending on your view of Touko's work). Yeah, you could look around and think all present were a little too into the Village People costumes, except that they weren't kitsch, man. You meet a guy in a cop uniform, that cocksucker was gonna invite you to get handcuffed to the wall while he shoves his baton up your asshole. The dance floor was far more punk than disco, with lots more sweaty shovin' and ass smackin' and faux fistin'. In the back were BDSM rooms available for hourly rental. The multi-pierced dudes with spiked collars and wristbands who held their bitch boys by leashes attached to cock rings were living a life man, moreso than all but the most committed drag queens, but, fuck, it was all about power, who has it and who submits to it. They may have scared you, but you knew they walked the walk. Still, only one gay bar in New Orleans was truly a frightening place, so horrifying that all of the feather and leather homosexuals avoided it. It was a nondescript little wooden joint on the edge of the Bywater. Inside, it was badly-lit, stinking of pissed-out beer and cigarette smoke, a few tables, seats at the bar. The men there were alcoholic and burnt-out middle-aged queers, who seemed to gather here because they didn't belong anywhere else. You looked around and you thought there must be a pit in back of the place where they kept adolescent boys they kidnapped for regular sodomizing. The Rude Pundit went there one time, with a friend, Sammy, who was seeking his boyfriend who just got out of the Marines. We got Dixie beers and headed to the one pool table to shoot a game just to check out the joint. Like the undead in an Italian zombie movie, the men got out of their chairs and all - no, really, all - gathered around the pool table to watch us play. They did so silently, no comments on a good shot or a bad one. Just fondling their longnecks and staring at us. A few grabbed pool cues and started bouncing the rubber bumpers on the floor. When we finished the game, one of the guys, a skeevy fucker with a moustache and sideburns, asked us if we wanted to play. As cool as possible, we begged off and headed out the door with the zombies following us until we hit evening air. Sammy couldn't stop nervously joking about getting fucked with pool sticks because the dudes couldn't get it up. The Rude Pundit, who had heard what he thought were just rumors about college students gang raped there, just wanted some weed. Those guys didn't know what to do with their unslaked libidos, sick of sucking each other's demi-flaccid dicks off in the disgusting men's room, wanting fresh meat to punish for their own inability to deal with who they were. The eeriest people are always the ones who seem normal on the outside, who have lived apparently quiet and eventless lives. There would be no safe word with them, no line they would not cross, no flesh they would not eat, no skull they would not fuck. Much like the Bush administration (and its lackeys in and out of government) and its increasingly desperate attempt to do an end run around the Geneva Conventions and allow for torture, trials with secret evidence, renditioning, and more. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley told Wolf Blitzer on CNN yesterday, regarding the Geneva Conventions' prohibition on "humilating treatment and outrages upon human dignity," that "nobody knows what humiliating treatment is. What does it mean?" The Bush administration is standing around the pool table, bouncing its cues, hopin' for that right moment when the players are bent over taking a shot to shove that tip home. (Oh, the rest of the metaphor: what the hell - let's say that liberals and many Democrats are at the dance club, and some Republicans and conservatives like McCain and Graham are attending the leather bar. Although the thought of Arlen Specter wearing a suede vest and a nut cozy just makes the blood chill.)