Mistress160's Abode: Sol, Ms160, Eileen + May May attend Mardi Gras

Last Saturday we joined Eileen and May May in Sydney for the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade.

It was the Mardi Gras' 30th birthday, the parade being one of the highlights of a month long festival. To celebrate it's "brave new world" theme over 10,000 people marched in the parade, accompanying about 150 floats. I've uploaded some pix below I thought you'd enjoy.

It was a great night. Although Eileen and May May have taken part in similar, larger events in New York, they found the high level of crowd participation in Sydney created a different experience. You can read May's post about the night here.

The parade's route begins in Hyde Park and winds it's way through the heart of gay Sydney. The four of us claimed a spot on the corner of Oxford and Riley Streets (stealing May's idea, here's a link to Google maps) about 2 hours before the parade. Even that early the crowd was becoming deep on both sides of the road. I wasn't surprised later to hear the crowd numbered over 350,000.

Mardi Gras crowd volunteers moved up and down their street sections, providing free water and sweets as well as free whistles, glitter and tinsel, while rainbow flags, plastic stools, ice creams and practically everything else was available from street vendors.

Eileen and I sent the boys for some of those plastic stools and drinks, and sat chatting and crowd watching. Watching the crowd is almost as much fun as watching the parade. As always, the event had attracted people from around the world (Air New Zealand even put on a special "pink flight" from San Francisco to Sydney). Amazing outfits and tanned, toned bodies flitted in and out of sight, Asian tourists exclaimed with delight at every float, British tourists expressed their horror (the English tourist Eileen later generously loaned her stool to, was appalled to see children taking part in the parade!) while locals waved frantically to friends....

Behind us, the balconies of all the apartment blocks and hotels were full of revellers. Including the pool of the apartment block you can see in the pic on the left ... the fact it had glass sides meant that every time someone went for a swim they could be seen and the whole crowd whistled.

In fact the crowd didn't stop cheering and whistling for several hours, as they roared their approval and support for everyone marching. By the end of the parade we were all four of us hoarse AND deaf from all the noise...

The parade began with a fierce celebratory lap by 250 Dykes on Bikes, who have been taking part for twenty years. The first group marching were the 78ers, who took part in the first "Mardi Gras" in 1978, a protest march in commemoration of the Stonewall Riots. One of this original group, Diane Minnis, was asked by the press if she had never imagined their 1500 strong protest would morph into today's extravaganza:

"Absolutely not ... but we're very glad that it did because it makes being gay, lesbian, transsexual, etcetera, very visible and that's what we still need"

Note that etcetera, fellow kinksters, because that stands for you and me. Sol and I had actually stopped attending Mardri Gras a few years back, when the gay community's attempts to integrate into the wider suburban Australian community saw kinksters discouraged from inclusion in the parade. So it was great to see some friends marching this year in serious fetish gear ... including B in a great rope harness and Angel looking amazing in an outfit she told me later had been partially made that very day. God, I hate talented people.

The 78ers were followed by Chief of Parade, American comic Margaret Cho and then Shane Brennan and Craig Gee, a young couple who were bashed while holding hands in Surry Hills late last year. They received an enormous response from the crowd.

Don't worry, I'm not going to list the remaining thousands lol, but it's worth recalling the number of younger people who marched (from schools as well as universities):

as well as the number of different religions represented. The latter included a group of ministers from various religions calling themselves 100 Revs who marched to apologize for the past discrimination against gas and lesbians. Members of Australia's armed services also took part in the parade for the first time.

The parade finished quite late. More than 18,000 people attended the after party, where Olivia Newton-John and Cyndi Lauper performed, along with Carlotta and David Campbell with forty drag queens. Did we go? You jest. Tickets sold out ages ago!

Ears still ringing, we grabbed a bite to eat in Newtown then dropped Eileen and May at Kings Cross and headed out on the freeway home. We made it over half way before exhaustion saw us curl up for a snooze in the car, under the sheepskins and doona I'd brought from home. We eventually reached home just after dawn and fell straight into bed.

Sol kissed me when we woke late on Sunday, then laughed: "you are still covered in glitter" he said...