Politics, Privilege, Poppers: Unearthing Social Hierarchy in Queer D.C.
/
TW: sexual assault/consent
The year is 2007. Bush is President, we’re speeding toward a recession, and Ellen DeGeneres is the most visible queer person on TV (a long, long way from cancellation). I’m eleven years old and stand at a whopping 5 feet, 3 inches. I sport firmly clenched chapped lips, a cloud of dark Jewfro, and, of course, a uniform: khaki shorts and a tucked-in, dress code-approved polo. It’s the first day of sixth grade.
Though this has been my school since kindergarten, when I enter the assembly hall, it’s immediately apparent that everything, everything, has changed. Now, through some kind of teenage telepathy, everyone knows that if you’re a boy wearing your polo shirt tucked in without a white undershirt underneath, you’re gay. Rules are rules.
There’s also a new seating chart—informal, of course. The popular jocks sit along the back wall. Popular girls giggle in front of them. Mediums fill the spaces. The cool alt kids form a row to the left. And then, right in the front, snuggled against the podium, there’s us—the untouchables. The spots where our prepubescent asses hit the carpet that day become our places, our constellations. They become our unspoken hierarchy, one that will endure with few changes until the day we graduate high school.
Anyone who even peripherally knows me knows that I am obsessed with popularity, elitism, and hierarchy. It’s the reason I went to Princeton. It’s the reason I wrote an immersive play about bicker. It’s the reason I write teen dramas. And—it’s the impetus for my newest venture. I’ve always wondered why humans create hierarchies, what they mean, and how geography plays a part in their reification and longevity.
Popular Spotify QR Code
Enter popular. Popular is a podcast I created with The Gay and Lesbian Review (a bimonthly LGBTQ print journal) and haus of bambi (a DC production company). Over three episodes, the podcast delves into “queer DC”: through the circuit parties, bars, and LGBT kickball leagues, the history of gayborhoods and gentrification, and the hookup apps that have proliferated in recent years. As the podcast’s host, I embody a kind of queer Carrie Bradshaw or Gossip Girl character, illuminating the “scandalous lives” of DC gays. I tell the stories of bureaucrats with security clearances who engage in drug-fueled circuit parties and sorority rush style kickball mixers by night.
As I was planning the project, I had a hidden two-fold agenda. First, I wanted to challenge the DC gay culture I had experienced, which involved what I saw as an excessive amount of conformity, image consciousness, clique forming, and networking. Second, I needed to get something off my chest. On my birthday last spring, I experienced a Very Bad Hookup… the kind you don’t know how to label but after which you feel deeply violated. This interaction belonged to the euphemistic “gray area” that discussions of consent and assault sometimes sidestep. After it happened, I couldn’t find any place where that grey area, particularly in gay male-dominated, sex-positive spaces, was taken seriously. I needed to see my experience reflected, and I wanted to see it honored. I wondered who else secretly needed it, too.
But why a narrative podcast?
At circuit party: the next morning
Around the time of the VBH (Very Bad Hookup), I was engrossed by investigative podcasts, especially those produced by Serial Productions, The New York Times, USA Today, CBC, and Wondery. In between the riveting content and delivery, I started to notice that the hosts were usually straight, White women with a lot of economic privilege. I vividly remember one episode in which a seasoned investigative journalist with an impressive resumé reports on strippers working in a Reno nightclub. The host is offered a vodka shot by her subject and recounts, in her most soothing reporter voice, something like, “While I might sometimes drink a glass of wine after work with my husband, I politely declined her offer.” When I heard that, I thought, Oh, my God. I need to make one of these (despite my complete lack of expertise and experience) about my life, my friends, my world. I need to be an “investigative reporter” with a soothing reporter voice, proclaiming that “while I would usually do a line with the girlies before hitting the sex dungeon, I declined because of the next day’s drug test.” I am quite invested in a world devoid of Victorian mock outrage and pearl clutching.
Anyway, I jumped in. I wrote a mockup, pitched it to platforms, received a lot of rejection and a trickle of interest, and started working. And then I realized… oh, honey. Podcasting is a lot of work! I was already working two jobs. I thought I would be able to throw together a script, corral friends for quick interviews, record the material, and quickly edit the final product. Girl… no.
I will spare you the details of the scheduling, but the project took six months longer than expected. Even then, all that work was ultimately pressed into exactly three episodes. The biggest challenge was on the proverbial “cutting room floor.” I wanted the podcast to be truthful, but the subjects were my friends; I wanted them to feel comfortable with what was being revealed. I didn’t want to cut too much, but I also wanted the podcast to move at a clip. I wanted to impart my most penetrating and academic analysis and also avoid being stuffy, pretentious, self-involved, and boring. In the end, I tried to find a balance between these concerns. Did I succeed? Let me know in a review on Apple podcasts! *wink*
Popular Apple Podcasts QR code
The biggest challenge was finding a balance of authenticity and objectivity. When I sent my mentor the scripts for the first two episodes, “(a) social geography,” and “(b) conformity,” the refinement process was relatively easy. But the third episode, “(c) sex.” brought everything to a standstill. I had trouble even discussing sex-positivity without being triggered. Ultimately, I did remove my agenda and let the interviews guide the direction of the story. The result is more profound and universal than it otherwise would have been.
The last major challenge I had while working on this project was with promotion and media. I have an aversion to “gatekeeping” (a form of hierarchy enforcement). This is why I am a ContraPoints stan, a TikTok enthusiast, and an avowed critic of academia (while I actively benefit from it—go, Tigers!). Still, in order to promote this podcast, I had to lose my ego and kiss up to “the powers that be.” I did informational interviews with powerful people whose organizations are overwhelmingly cis, straight, white, and male, and who were very, very interested… in hearing themselves talk. I also did interviews with people who have less privilege than I do and who resented me for my audacity and platform. I got very lucky with The Gay & Lesbian Review, haus of bambi, and the majority of other outlets and interviews. But to bend the ear of some outlets, I had to perform a complex operation involving a processed dairy product and an upward direction (you know—butter them up). Some powerful people wonder why there aren’t more marginalized and/or authentic voices in the mainstream….
In conclusion, thank you for reading. I hope you give the podcast a listen, subscribe to the show, and leave a rating and review. I hope, too, that you get something out of the listening experience. I hope it inspires you to conduct and write your own investigative reporting (regardless of “objectivity”) about the communities and issues that matter to you.