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Denizens Of The Night

By Mardi Clark
Visit your basic large American city, you know, the size where people can really live without a car (!!), and venture out on the street at night and you may well think you are on the set of "The Crow"! Midnite, two am, they file by, intent on a destination, white faces, blackest hair, pierced, black-clothed, refugees from "Dark Shadows"...The Goths! Others, black-leather clad, male and female, silver chains and rings and handcuffs dangling from elaborate belts tromp by in heavy boots and or heels...The S&M crowd! Then color...and a non-somber expression!...a young group dressed like a Frederick's catalog, shimmery silver minidress, go-go boots, strappy heels and sequins no less..The Clubbers!

All these people are doing a different scene, mixed in places but distinct. Since you'll see these folks..and many more variations (humanity is such a zoo!) you need to be in on what they're up to...right? So let's take a closer look.....

Mardi
Two of the groups which seem to hang together the most are the S&M people and the Goths. The music they enjoy is pretty similar if not the same--all instrumental, often very heavy, clashing percussion with complex and slow rhythms set off by an often shrill flowingly undulating melody....Sinatra it ain't.

The dancing is very distinctive and reminds one of a bunch of ghouls dancing in a moonlit stone-walled courtyard in the light of the moon, widely flowing whole-body gestures( the best simply beautiful to watch) more like theatrical than recreational dance. The Goth's fascination with the dead and dying and already dead and their sometimes regretted link to a sub-group, the Vampires (who mimic, sometimes TOO well, the behavior associated with these figures of the macabre) all stem from a basic linkage to their perceived state of our society, which they are symbolically mourning as they see humanity as in it's final death-throes. Sound depressing? Well, they aren't exactly a bunch of cut-ups that's for sure!! But neither are they threatening as almost without exception they're as gentle as they are somber.

Like in every group, there are the oft-derided "posers"....identified in this case as persons who are "Goth" only at night...the real McCoy live it as a lifestyle, 24/7 as we say, and endure a significant amount of harassment along the way as well...something else some of us can appreciate. Maybe it is because of this that I have found a certain friendliness extended to our ilk...a kinship of radical alternative appearance if you will.

The S & M Crowd

Perhaps because of their shared taste in clothing and serious demeanor, the S&M crowd often cohabit the same space as the Goths but there the resemblance ends--as Sado and Macho isn't in the Goth repertoire. Sometimes running afoul of the blue laws in various states and thus often having a significant underground element, the S&M is a practice often linked inextricably to sex. Typically conducted in dungeons and special meeting places, and often linked as well with the pagan community (more for their noted toleration than any particular reason otherwise) they enjoy sessions of bondage coupled with various levels of physical torture...whipping mostly but creativity is definitely a forte here! The fetish scene is linked in here as well--this is the leather/latex crowd and they actually wear colors! Red, black, purple and even white skintight clothing, with some spandex thrown is for good measure as well.

Tammy
Although this crowd can be pretty conventional in their actual sex practices (reatively speaking of course!!), sex combined with bondage without the pain element is very popular... in the way of masks, gags, handcuffs and various creative restraints often applied almost ritualistically. As with S&M, this scene uses the concepts of top and bottom, master and slave routinely. Here is where transvestitism intersects----in forced crossdressing/feminization and the whole dominatrix specialty scene. One of the most avant scenes is London, England and the club Skin-Two. The gay leather scene is an offshoot of this whole genre as well...these are the guys with the studded leather wear, black military caps and riding boots. This is a pretty closed bunch but they're mostly harmless if very macho or butch as the case may be. If ya go into one of their bars, don't bother looking for women's restroom..they probably don't have one....same for a strict women's bar...no men's room!!

Stay Clear: Skinheads

So whatever happened to rock & roll?? Not to worry, it is alive and well in several scenes: Punks and skinheads, stoners, rockers, alternatives(who are a vast vague group these days) and the frat/jock/sorority crowd. Not all of these are groups we might prefer to mix with tho...some are rather benignly "diffophobic",like the frat/jock crowd, and some actively, like skinheads and some punks and jocks. Let's take a quick peek at all of these as the biggest groups are here and so you are bound to run into them wherever you go at nite.

Shaved heads are getting so popular it isn't a good sign of a skinhead anymore, tho' all of these people do have shaved heads. Ya gotta give 'em credit for trying as a group to clean up their act, but there are far too many of these people who do meet the stereotype of active ultra-violent bigot to warrant avoidance as a good policy. If the Goths are mourning the dead and dying, these guys are bringing 'em the bodies!

Extreme metal, lots of spikes, heavy boots, they often try to look as scary as possible and since it is also a lifestyle , the aura is there as well--its like looking eye-to-eye with a jackel at the zoo. Some of the punk crowd, what is left of it anyway, is a lighter weight version...motorbikes, and usually not Harleys by-th-way, are popular accessories as well. This scene is waaaay bigger in Europe and has gotten most of it's bad press from there. ANYway, head the other way!

If you hit a new bar and see alot of young BIG guys in letter jackets around, you've probably walked into a sports bar of one sort or another. Karayoke and top 40 rock is commonly the thing here and it is almost always a VERY straight crowd that is very into consumption of vast, vast quantities of cheap all-American beer. Not the place to try out your cheerleader outfit, ok? The jock/college crowd like to swarm some dance clubs as well..these are the hetero meat-market places, often in the suburbs and often local chains..like Black Angus for instance. Not a center of toleration usually.

Stoners have been around for a long time and rockers too. The alternative crowd, pierced, dyed blond hair, ripped clothes--this is what grunge morphed into when it went mainstream. They frequent live rock venues and this is a variable scene, sometimes quite cool other times not. Gotta go with local knowledge in this one.

The Beautiful People

Last are the ravers/clubbers. This is a basically good bunch and is the dance/disco crowd...they actually dress up to go out Saturday nite (!!) and their places are very hot and trendy right now, lots of fashion and style and beautiful people....the music, all recorded (except some live electronica), includes such genres as techno, electronica, industrial, jungle and even some old-fashioned Saturday Nite Fever once in awhile. D.J.s are the stars of this scene and they come from all over the world to live-mix & spin the vinyl for crowds of hundreds on huge packed multi-level dancefloors. This is usually a pretty mellow bunch and fights are pretty much unheard of. This scene has lots of safe, appreciative fun for us. There is a big after-hours scene as an adjunct here, the "Rave". This is party-till-dawn, very uninhibited and high energy----mood drugs like ecstasy are not at all unknown (But none of this is the stuff that makes maniacs, like the notorious PCP (skins, metallicas, etc), so don't worry.)

Well, geez, there is more...country, gay and straight with two-steppin' and line dancing, the "lounge" scene with cigars and 40's dance music and a _young_ crowd, and hip-hop and rap scenes for instance but I haven't ventured into this stuff much so I will leave it to another corespondent! But the above will serve ya pretty well for the big-city people watching scene and hopefully help you find a niche where you will feel comfy and have fun and stay out of trouble. So, enter the night and party 'till the sun rises!!



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