The Animal Instinct Has Kicked In!
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It’s a simple story. I am annoyingly picky, especially when it comes to my hair. A few years back, I kept changing hairdressers until one of my gay friends suggested I go try out his barber. And it seemed like an ingenious idea since I have short hair, and seemingly, he was a creative guy. So I gave “Ely” a chance and we seemed to be on the same wavelength. He always gave me the haircut I had in mind, and the idea of going to a men’s salon served my mission perfectly to break society’s conventional rules. It still makes me snicker.
Ely was special. He was so obviously gay! But since he was married with a kid, we were forced to presume he was bisexual. Hilariously enough, his wife was somehow butch, and the child took after her mother. The assistant was a flaming queen, with Nawal El Zoughbi as an idol. And the shampouineur was a supposedly straight teenager, who happened to be the butt of all the gay double entendres. But homosexuality in itself was never discussed as an issue. My friends and I used to go together to get ready for the partey and we were never asked about the night’s whereabouts. It was commonly understood that the bunch of us were gay, and every weekend’s destination was the ever so dear ACID Nightclub!
At present, the staff has changed, but Ely is still the boss. Last week I went for my latest haircut. I waited for the assistant, “Joe”, to finish his talk with a delivery guy outside and come brush my hair, while Ely was cutting someone else’s. When he walked back in, he made a small joke about how the delivery guy seemed effeminate, and they all laughed. At this point the client started babbling how the whole country’s gone gay. And out of the blue, he shares his stories about Acid. And he describes the place in details that I hadn’t noticed myself! He went on about the eccentric outfits, and reported how a guy with an unbuttoned shirt and a belly started hitting on him, in addition to the chats in the men’s room. And these were the results of recurrent visits, that he attributed to the “khwet”1 music they played. As I listened attentively, I couldn’t help but notice how he failed to notice the lesbian factor. I found it quite odd that a straight guy was more impressed with a queen in an open shirt, which is also a common trend among over-confident heterosexuals, rather than the women who were dirty dancing and kissing each other.
Then he went on to ask Ely if he’d been to Acid before, to which he laughed nervously and answered “I’ve never been and I already have a reputation, imagine if I ever did go…”. Yes indeed, Ely, I wonder why u have a reputation of being gay. Perhaps it’s because of the tight t-shirts, or how you spend more time looking at yourself in the mirror while you’re cutting someone’s hair rather than looking at their head. Or could it be the topless pictures you posted on facebook with your “tennis buddies”? People can be so cruel.
And then Joe and the other assistant admitted they’d been to Acid. I was so tempted to check if they had gone together.
I am not assuming that whoever goes to Acid is gay or bisexual. Acid is fun because of the diversity of its goers, except for some of the ogling eyes, and excessively friendly hands. The clientele varies between laborers who save every possible penny to pay for their entrance fee, and filthy rich people who warm pockets with hundreds of dollars as they strut around the club, and they’re all there to let off some steam and escape the stress of their daily lives. But why is it that the LGBTQ community has to be mocked and ridiculed through void eyes?
Has Acid become the national zoo?
This is one day, at one barbershop, in one corner of the city. I’ve heard of plenty more stories on how people socialize and criticize the Acid community. How much time would they be willing to spare to listen to these people’s survivor stories? Would they dare face their depthless reflections once they realize the struggles they’ve had to endure while they were sitting on their behinds rubbing aftershave and cracking jokes?
Well the animals of this zoo will no longer remain in their cages! We are coming out! Look around you, we are every where! We are your bosses! We are your doctors! We raise your kids! We make your food! We’re becoming legal! So you’d better start running along towards social change or we’re gonna stampede all over you!
1- crazy
Phoenix is a self-centered and sarcastic soul incarnated, perhaps by accident, in the bodi of a woman. As a writer with a temper, she replaces her "y's with an annoying “i” for aesthetical purposes and lives to crack a joke, at the expense of others. Her paranoid nature makes her sensitive to plants, animals and people. Ironicalli, after making fun of the Meem lesbians for years, she found a warm home there and is now renowned as its veri own emotional pest. She enjoys reading the paper with a hot cup of black tea while nude, more often than not.
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