When you visit the Web site for Voyeur , the “erotic nightclub” used for a recent RNC junket, you first see the image of a woman in leather SM garb lying on a bar, as if she’s being served up along with the Martinis. In the background plays creepy music reminiscent of the theme from Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut.
That’s not a coincidence, of course. Clearly, the whole concept of the club plays off the movie in which Tom Cruise is horrified to discover the depths of his own sexuality. Ahem.
The climax of the film—for those of you who fell asleep before the second reel—is Tom’s subsequent horror at discovering the depths of his wife’s sexuality. (I won’t go into the irony of all that here. The tabloids and every other gossip queen in America have already trod that particular plot of ground to death—including a South Park episode that Mr. Cruise tried to have banned—thank god for the wild west atmosphere of the Internet.)
So it seems fitting that the club based on the film should be the new hangout for the conservative hypocrite. Actually, I think it’s great to see the teabaggers finally come out of the closet as BDSM freaks. After all, they have ample experience with the sadism side of the equation—humiliating and torturing women, gays, racial minorities, and the poor. Now they can perhaps experience the pleasure of being on the other end of the whip.
Oh wait, I forgot: the club is called Voyeur. It’s all about watching, not participating. Apparently, the place is full of scantily clad (if clad at all) women, many of them simulating lesbian sex. And we know how much a red-blooded homophobic man loves to see lesbians go at it.
In a sense, I guess the clientele are masochists, after all: the whole experience is a tease: the club takes your $2,000, gives you a few drinks, and torments you with up-close visions of things you can’t touch. Kind of like what the Republicans have been doing to the middle class since the Reagan era.
Sex and the Sissy 