Don't touch me there!!! ... Touch me here!

A few months ago I attended a birthday celebration extravaganza at a rollerskating rink where most of the people were black (aside from me, there was only one other white guy- he was very old, skated alone, and may have been entirely insane).

After taking to the rink and forgetting that my ankles are actually made of jelly, I took a breather on the side to enviously watch little 9-year-old shits who acted like they had skated out of their mothers' wombs (I did the Slip 'n Slide method, old school).

Now ... I am quite used to being around straight people and seeing couples engage in slightly disturbing behaviors such as hugging, hand holding, and kissing (the older I get the more puzzled I become at how straight people are attracted to another human being whose anatomy is so entirely different ... how are you supposed to know what to do with that thing?!? Very odd, I must say).

What is not often observed, particularly outside of Dupont Circle and Minnesotan airports, is the PDA of gay couples. There are few places where you can get away with it- New York, San Francisco, DC - and only in certain sections of town. Wait ... I take all that back. In the world of sports you can hug, embrace, ass slap-- lord, anything short of actual penetration -- and that's acceptable. Anyway, non-athletic displays of affection are rarely tolerated.

So imagine my surprise when I see two guys skating around the rink holding hands! (obviously they forgot that we were in Virginia) My jaw dropped, and I violently shook my head back-and-forth in a very cartoon-like manner ... oh my heck, there are 2 guys holding hands and they have not yet been lynched by the breeder mob!

But wait a minute ... there goes another pair of guys holding hands! Oh my sweet lord in heaven, there's another! What is going on here? Why are all the gay boys congregating at this rink? Did Sarah Jessica Parker promise to swing by or something?

Apparently in black rollerskating culture it is perfectly acceptable for grown men to hold hands to aid them in performing skating "tricks" across the rink. I saw a number of male and female pairs spinning around the rink uninhibited by their casual retaliation against society's rigid roles and definitions of appropriate same-sex behaviors. Suddenly the rink became very peaceful, and this sense of community and friendship gently embraced the rink like a child squeezing a stuffed teddy bear.

I must say, I have never seen anything like that. And I think it's absolutely brilliant.