When I first came out, I felt out of place in the local Gay scene. Most of the Gay men I knew were effeminate and not into bodybuilding—I had little in common with them. I used to tell people I was “stray,” that is, both Straight and Gay. I finally came to the conclusion that I was a Straight guy who happened to sleep with other guys. I was especially attracted to men like myself, but they seemed so few.

That was before I attended my first Circuit party: Columbus, Ohio’s Red Party, 1998.

I remember walking into a...

The Circuit community is a loose-knit, transregional association of men and women from many backgrounds that come together for extended weekends to dance. Circuit participants make up an urban nomadic community of revelers that reconstitutes itself for a few days and then disperses until the next Circuit party. In addition to the movement of bodies on the dance floor, there is also the movement of people from city to city and country to country. Originating in Manhattan, Circuit culture has spread across the United States and Canada to Mexico, Britain, Australia, Holland, France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Israel, South Africa, Taiwan,...

Dance is powerful. It is a source of profound sensual, emotional, and spiritual pleasures for people from cultures around the world. At a certain level, people who dance for pleasure understand each other, in much the same way that people all understand what it is like to breathe.

I am a dancing fool. I dance around my house. I dance in the shower. I dance in my car when I drive. Sometimes I dance when I write. I would rather dance than eat, sleep, or have sex. I never dance alone, even when I am by myself. But I do...

One of the highest compliments in the folk-speech of the Circuit community is to be called “fierce.” One may have a fierce body, fierce attitude, or fierce haircut. A drag queen in a striking outfit may be fierce. DJs who play a good set are fierce. People who dance well are fierce. Those who are the life of the party are fierce. Divas and performance artists are fierceness personified when they radiate aggressive, magnetic individualism onstage. Fierceness is power. It is not, however, destructive power or deadly force—it is not savage, violent, ferocious,¹ or terrible.

Taken from the wordplay...

In the early days of the Manhattan/Fire Island Circuit, the Gay male party scene underwent a serious shift that reflected the new confidence and raw sexuality of proud Gay men, a strong sense of self-worth, and an obsession with muscle that fostered body fascism. It was also the dawning of the age of club drugs beyond the old standards of alcohol, cocaine, tobacco, and marijuana. Within the Circuit community as well as the Gay male community in general, drugs are not bad per se, although certain ones are considered undesirable. For example, recreational drugs that are injected through a hypodermic...

In response to the excessive and self-destructive behavior of too many Circuiteers, there has been a strong movement within the community for harm reduction, strategies and programs to reduce health risks associated with intoxication and unsafe sex in the Circuit community.

The basic principles of harm reduction are as follows: drug addiction should be treated as an illness, not a crime. Attempts to ban recreational drugs and unsafe sex are counterproductive, as are campaigns that use shame to prevent drug use or unsafe sexual practices. Education is the most effective means for reducing overdoses, addiction, and STDs. The most effective...

As a Gay festive movement that celebrates the forbidden, the Circuit has ancestors. The oldest Gay communities are remembered today because of parties and scandals that occurred 300 years ago. In fact, modern LGBTQ history revolves around Stonewall, the most notorious and publicized Gay party-scandal in history, a pivotal event in 1969 that involved dancing, liquor, cross-dressing, and three days of civil unrest mixed with street revelry.

In the trajectory of Gay festival history, tolerance of homosexuality is intimately linked to humor. Festive expression of same-sex attraction is usually encoded in comical and often spectacular gender- bending performance, both within...

Just as there was a circuit of drag balls in the eastern part of the United States during the 1930s, so were there annual Gay events before Stonewall. But it is a bit of a stretch to consider any of them Circuit parties because of some features that came into existence only after Stonewall.

Some of the distinguishing characteristics are as follows: largescale, semi-public, annual theme parties dedicated strictly to dance; sound and light technologies that were perfected during the disco era (1972–1981); the rise of the DJ-as-star and the art of “mixing” songs in an unbroken series; display...

I have included detailed accounts of two major Circuit events I attended in the last few months of 2007: Halloween’s in New Orleans and White Party Miami. Halloween’s in New Orleans was held on the last weekend of October. White Party Miami was held Thanksgiving weekend. These parties are fundraisers for AIDS charities: Project Lazarus in New Orleans and Care Resource in Miami-Ft. Lauderdale. The two accounts were originally written for the Gay press, and are stylistically more journalistic than ethnographic. In order to give readers some idea of what actual events are like, the accounts are situated in my...

Dance and LGBTQ history go together. From molly house to drag ball to rent party, same-sex dancing inspired persecution by the state but also promoted solidarity among those within the outlaw community for hundreds of years. During Stonewall and its aftermath, dance accompanied, sustained, and accelerated liberation. The AIDS epidemic dampened the fervor for dance but did not extinguish it, as people danced to remember the dead, celebrate the living, and raise money for the sick. Masculine nonviolence and spiritual transcendence are not simply mental constructs or ethical principles; they are performed and experienced through bodies that interact with each...

In order to understand spirituality-in-motion on the Circuit dance floor, it is not enough to look at the history of dance by itself. Rhythm and music are the sources of energy that fuel the performance of dance in the Circuit and, like dance, have African roots. Music is also the primary means for participants and performers to transmit Africanized spirituality into Circuit spirituality.¹

The Brazilian African Yoruba term axé refers to spiritual power and authority. In Meu Tempo É Agora (My Time Is Now²) axé is defined as “power to accomplish by means of supernatural force” (poder de realização atravéz...

The most important feature of dance in the Circuit is the awareness of pulse, the energy imparted to the body that comes at specific points in rhythmic repetition. Awareness of the pulse as a means of unifying people from different backgrounds pre-dates the Circuit, disco, and the United States. It goes back thousands of years to the first military marching formations.

Dancing and warfare are intertwined in history. Men’s dances across the ages and in different cultures are often martial exercises that imitate combat. Several cultures preserve combat dances as part of their traditional folklore, such as the khattak of...

The most important professionals in the Circuit are the DJs. In a groundbreaking study of the Gay male party scene in Sydney, Australia, Lynnette Lewis and Michael Ross state that DJs carry the highest status as sacred persons. Party promoters and drug distributors, who likewise occupy positions of power similar to that of religious leaders, are not given the same level of reverence (146–48).

In standard American masculine discourse, one’s status as a man is greatly increased by being a member of elite masculine teams, most of which are military or paramilitary in design. Men who are soldiers, police,...

Ecstasy¹ is the common goal for those who wish to push things outside of their normal boxes, including themselves. Although most societies allow some form of ecstatic expression, undisciplined ecstasy is often considered dangerously excessive because it may lead to transgressive behavior. Substances and behaviors that produce ecstasy are often closely policed or even banned to ensure that chaos does not spill out and undermine the political and religious institutions that guarantee stability and safety. But there are always undisciplined outlaws— people stepping out of line—who live for ecstatic experiences not regulated by licensed institutions. This includes groups of...