Okay, I have a confession to make:

As everybody past the age of consent probably knows by now, RuPaul is very likely the best-known drag performer in the United States these days - best known in the contemporary age, at any rate. He (or to use the pronoun drag performers seem to prefer when in costume, she) set up the television program referenced here in an effort to share the wealth by promoting the "next drag superstar" each season, judging a field of twelve to fourteen competitors according to four basic criteria; Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent. My confession is that it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize why the show picked those four characteristics. Read 'em again.

As sometimes happens, I stumbled across this show quite by accident and got hooked. Its structure resembles a lot of other reality shows as established by "Survivor". A panel of competitors undergoes a challenge each week. Those who do the best job gain some prize or game advantage, and of those who perform the poorest, one gets sent home each week until only two or three are left. At that point, a judge or panel of judges chooses an ultimate winner, who receives some useful prize, contract, and/or sum of money to assist in their career.

In this case, obviously enough, the competitors are all drag performers. I've done a little reading on the subject and learned that, although a few drag performers are straight men, most are gay, and as far as I know all the "Drag Race" competitors to date are gay as well. One generally doesn't make a living doing drag, so these men are dancers, comedians, graphic designers, makeup artists, costumers, and any one of a number of other things. Even RuPaul herself relies on music and movie performing to make ends meet.

And by the way, it's worth emphasizing that most drag performers are gay men rather than transsexuals - that is, they identify as men and do not want to change gender, though some of them do. Over time, a couple of "Drag Race" competitors have opened up as transsexuals. This has nothing to do with their participation in drag.

Apart from that, I find the drag world as shown here rather surprising. Seeing these men in their performance outfits, complete with wigs and makeup, they often make surprisingly attractive women, to such an extent that it's no longer too surprising to me that Eddie Murphy got confused. Long ago, Alfred Kinsey taught us that sexuality is not an either/or phenomenon - it occurs on a continuum between 100% straight on one end and 100% gay on the other, and almost no human being lands on either extreme. So when I see these drag performers dressed as women, in a lot of cases I forget their gender, and it's a bit startling. (And now I suppose some minority of small-minded yahoo will assume that because I think some of these men make pretty attractive women, I must be gay. Go ahead and think that, gentlemen - my sexuality is none of your goddam business.) items for second marriages to wear of the wedding

Another interesting aspect is that the competitors on "Drag Race" come from an unusually diverse variety of backgrounds, including what seems to be a statistically large percentage of Puerto Ricans - whether there are a larger percentage of Puerto Ricans in the drag world than other ethnicities I have no idea. The producers of the show also seem careful to include a fair number of "plus sized" competitors at the beginning of each season, although as far as I know, none of those has yet won the ultimate title. It brings to mind something my friend Dan Oliverio , an expert in body image issues, once said to me - in some Latin American countries, the people have no hesitation in using the word "fat" to describe people, but unlike the case in this country, "fat" is not a pejorative. They say "He's fat" in the same way we would say "He's tall" or "He's short" or "He's blonde." It's nothing more than a descriptor. Makes me wonder whether we'd see a "plus sized" winner at the season's close if "Drag Race" were produced in - well, Puerto Rico, say.

So why does this show interest me so much? Apart from enjoying the competitive challenges, I like these men - who oddly enough look significantly more mature and adult in full drag than out of it. However dressed, they are witty, determined, alert, intelligent, bitchy, and above all courageous. Some of them have survived challenges and troubles that probably would have broken me long ago, from broken homes and psychological pain to drug and alcohol abuse, abandonment, disease, and very likely a whole range of hatred and threats, and they've come out (so to speak) stronger and cleaner than ever.

Still, I watch an episode or three and I still find that I ask myself, Why the hell am I watching this??

Oh well. Life is an exciting adventure.