I was sitting at the airport in Dallas waiting for my plane and looking around I thought ‘Damn, even if I didn’t know something was happening in New Orleans, I’d still know something was happening in New Orleans.’ About 100 overtly gay men who were already in party mode joined me at the boarding gate and I’m pretty sure I was the only straight person on the plane!
There were loads of parties in the Quarter but as I had serious jet lag, waking around 3am and hitting the wall around 5pm, I didn’t get to many of them. I did spend quite a bit of time in the Quarter during the day though and there was always something going on. I did go to the parade at the end of the weekend, which was Monday afternoon, and that was pretty cool. The costumes and atmosphere were awesome.
Decadence is quite different from the gay & lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney, which seems to me to be more a celebration of the gay & lesbian community; Decadence seemed much more debauched and more a celebration of sexual freedom instead. I was pretty surprised at the lack of clothing and inhibitions I saw at Decadence but I think that was because I was used to ultra-conservative Korea where, if you listen to the official hype, homosexuality simply doesn’t exist. Here it’s in your face and celebrated, which I think is great.
There were such a variety of people at Decadence. You had older couples (think grandpas in leather), lesbian couples, straight couples, singles, the crazy Baptists picketing the parade etc. There were a lot of people who looked like they’d be more at home in a business suit next to wife and 2.5 kids and I did have to wonder how many of them come to Decadence, go wild for the weekend and then return to a ‘normal’ lives. The thing that struck me the most was the general acceptance of all lifestyles and how friendly everyone was, which was refreshing.
So all in all, it was a fantastic ‘welcome to New Orleans’...
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