Sex in the City Has Gone All Queer

05 March 2004

WHAT a funny little town this is sometimes, writes Geoff Taylor.

In the last fortnight two pifling issues have arisen which have attracted a ridiculous amount of moral outrage.

First, there was the Riff Raff statue proposal on the former Embassy site in Victoria St.

Congratulations to actor Mark Servian for the idea and to the Perry Foundation for the grant towards it. Good on the city council for supporting the idea. Richard O'Brien is one of our most famous exports.

His is an inspirational story of a teenager who broke out of dead-end staid Hamilton in the 1960s to create something special. A worldwide phenomenon. And the link with the Embassy Theatre, where as a young man he used to watch the late night double features, is perfect.

The idea is so good, I don't know why we didn't do it years ago.

The city council had its doubters though. I was staggered to hear Councillor Roger Hennebry say that if the Riff Raff statue went ahead Hamilton would be known as "queer city" or "transexual town". Quite a revealing statement, I think.

And to suggest one statue of Riff Raff in the main street is going to turn us into queer town is just stupid hysteria.

We always over-estimate the impact of these things on outsiders. We'll be lucky if visitors even notice the statue, let alone brand us as deviant.

No disrespect to Roger, but this is the guy who during the last election campaign paraded himself on a bridge in a gold wig to get attention.

I know one or two councillors have received mail from offended Christians. They are critical of the councillors for supporting the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which they say is nothing more than a cult.

True, it is. But some would say Christianity fits into the same category. Yet they get to put up big pointy-shaped buildings with funny crosses on top, dress in strange clothes and make up scary stories threatening we'll all go to a horrible place when we die if we're not good.

We don't try to spoil their fun. Why do they have to knock other cults?

Riff Raff was just dying down when we had the brothel fiasco.

Shock, horror. A brothel was operating quietly on a suburban street in Chartwell. Neighbours were outraged and prepared to "fight to the death" to shut it down because, quote, there are families around.

Suddenly Mr Hennebry jumped on this bandwagon again. "We don't want them in the suburbs, next to kids or churches," he cried.

What the hell does that mean? What's going to happen? Is some kind of disease going to spread and attach itself to kids as they pass the house on the way to school? Is some bogeyman going to jump out and nab them? Please. What emotive nonsense.

In such situations you often hear complainants throw up the line about the impact on "families" or "children".

I think this sort of stuff is peanuts to kids. If you want to protect children, do something about over-worked parents with no time for kids, spiralling divorce rates, violence on TV and too much PlayStation.

Don't bother about imaginary fears like this one.

And the point with the brothels is that they are for the most part anonymous. I can't see how something you don't know about can hurt you.

I was also intrigued by Mr Hennebry's comment he knew of several other brothels but wouldn't say where. How does he know that? I asked myself. What's he been up to? Perhaps he just walks the streets a lot holding some sort of sex geiger counter, looking out for signs of perversion. Hamilton's version of Patricia Bartlett.

It made me realise that for all the new-found sophistication we credit Hamilton with, we actually haven't really grown up that much.

The main street might look different, there's more places to eat and people aren't so self-conscious about their appearance. But I'm not sure we've moved on much from the time the Riverina's Lido Bar was humming and Cobb & Co was the only restaurant in town.

Some people are just as narrow-minded as ever.