Experience the horror: lose your virginity with “˜Rocky’
By Daily Bruin Staff
March 5, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Sarah Monson Monson is currently
frequenting area gyms in an earnest attempt to locate the secret
behind that transvestite’s great butt. She can be reached for butt
crunching work-out tips, Time Warp dance lessons and general
redemption at [email protected].
I lost my virginity when I was 14 years old in a crowded room
surrounded by a bunch of guys dressed up like girls.
It was at the “Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
I heard the rumors: if it’s your first time attending the
show, you are branded a virgin. And as such, you will be sacrificed
and forced to do degrading and inhumane acts of pure carnal
indulgence ““ in front of a group of total strangers.
To me, it’s kind of like being a first-time visitor at
someone’s church. I just want to sit comfortably in anonymity
throughout the service and try not to look stupid ““ because
everybody knows each other and knows when to stand and when to sit.
Then, right when you think it’s over, the pastor calls your
name, makes you stand up, and has the congregation applaud you for
attending. It’s utterly unexpected and humiliating.
Only at “Rocky,” you get spanked, ridiculed and sold
like a piece of meat on the chopping block.
And I thought virginity was sacred.
I must have looked like a little lamb of God that first night,
because, while standing in line before the movie, a person of
suspect gender wearing a long black cape and fishnet stockings,
immediately spotted me, pulled out a tube of blood red lipstick,
and headed right toward me.
Luckily, I’m as quick as a cheetah and managed to avoid
getting tagged with a giant “V” on my forehead. This
scarlet letter marks unsuspecting folks as virgins and, once
inside, the sacrifice begins.
I was spared that night. While my friends were forced to the
front of the theater and auctioned off to rambunctious audience
members in exchange for condoms and packets of ketchup, I kept my
butt firmly planted in my seat and tried not to draw attention to
myself. I felt like I had cheated on a math test and totally threw
the curve.
It was a quiet ride home.
One may think this experience would leave me a little shaken.
But I was altogether enraptured by this cult phenomenon and spent
the better part of my high school years in Seattle fully
integrating “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” into my
life, or at least my Saturday night.
For those untainted souls who have no clue what I am talking
about, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is a movie that
first came out to tepid reviews and indifferent audiences in 1975.
The only people from the film who have since made a name for
themselves as legitimate actors are Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon and
Meatloaf.
The other actors are as mislaid and uninviting as that carton of
milk sitting in the back of the fridge that hasn’t seen the
sun in four years.
As for the plot, well, it’s thin and as full of holes as
the fishnet stockings fashioned by every character on screen.
It’s a familiar boy meets girl meets a castle full of
transvestites love story. That, and a whole lot of nudity, makes
attending a screening of it so much fun, because as the film plays
in the background, a fanatical cast plays out the movie on stage in
full costume (or lack thereof).
To some, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is just a
lame, old, poorly written, directed and acted movie.
To others, it’s a way of life. To me, this cult film that
has been gracing movie screens all over the country for over 25
years, is a nice compromise between the apathetic L.A. bar scene
and a strip joint. After all, where else can you see a bunch of
naked people for 9 bucks.
I outgrew the “Rocky” scene when I was 18, but like
an itch on the bottom of your foot when your shoe is too tight to
scratch it without removing the whole thing, I had to see if it
could still captivate the masses and succeed in what it has been
doing since 1975.
So a few Saturdays ago I found myself standing in a line on
Santa Monica Boulevard among a group of people that under normal
circumstances wouldn’t even frequent the same Starbucks, let
alone a street corner.
I felt like the calm in a cross-gendered underage hurricane.
Droves of people from all over L.A. collected under the Nuart
Theater sign just before midnight to witness the phenomenon of
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
But, as I stood there in line, it became painfully clear to me
that I was a total geek in high school.
To my left, a gaggle of teeny boppers who most likely snuck out
of the house and stole their mom’s minivan for transportation
were chattering on about how “totally rad” the show
was.
On my right, a 7-foot-tall drag queen with a fabulous butt which
fit perfectly into a floor-length evening gown was schmoozing with
the crowd like an expert.
It was clearly a formula for an interesting time. Take two parts
unsuspecting movie patron, add a schtick of sadistic humor, pepper
with incessant taunting, bake in a small, trashy theater for three
hours and let mayhem abound.
I used to go to the show as Magenta, the sultry redheaded maid
who makes hot passionate elbow sex with her brother Riff-Raff, a
balding, skinny specimen of a man. Boy, did I think that was
cool.
Brad, the asshole, and Janet, the slut, are the main focus of
this fish out of water tale, stumbling upon a castle where Dr.
Frank N. Furter, a sweet transvestite from Transsexual,
Transylvania, lives.
And, I cannot fail to mention Rocky. The namesake and least
developed character who spends the length of the film running
around in gold underwear ““ which is cool, because at the
Nuart, the cast keeps in line with the movie to a T. And by that I
mean the girl playing “Rocky” (all the cast members
switched roles because they had a gender switching night on this
particular evening) ran around for two hours in nothing but gold
panties and some very ill-fitting pasties.
Did I mention that this is an all ages show?
Fun for the whole family, it is.
A truly interactive experience, the audience, to my glee, still
participated eagerly in all aspects of the movie.
They threw rice during a wedding scene, they danced to the
“Time Warp,” and hurled obscenity after hilarious
obscenity at the screen throughout the whole show.
It’s a pissing contest to see who can remember, and more
importantly, say on cue, the little quips and added lines that have
made attending “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” a
titillating experience for over three decades.
So seek salvation on Sunday morning, because late Saturday night
is when people of all walks of life go to seek solace together in
the darkness of a theater on Santa Monica Boulevard.
And, while I have decided that I’m way too cool for this
since spending my Saturday nights trying to log on to URSA to
register for classes, I am tickled pink that “Rocky”
hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s gotten better. So
don’t dream it, be it, as the show urges you to do in a
musical bravado at the close of the film, and serve yourself a
little piece of this decidedly decadent American pie.
And don’t feel bad to lie about being a virgin,
it’ll save you the humiliation of having to fake an orgasm on
stage with a complete stranger.
Besides, I won’t tell. I promise.
