Drag queens and kings promote corset cabaret
July 10, 2007 
While the cabaret scene in Glasgow has been revived by the opening of drag club Priscilla's, reporters found out that you never can tell whether the corseted divas are male or female these days.
Already building up a following in Scotland with the Ab-Drag club night in Edinburgh and Club Noir, which is based on burlesque, Priscilla's looks set to put cabaret and cross-dressing firmly on the map for Scotland, with another branch expected in Aberdeen.
However, the club does aim for a mainstream audience, catering for hen parties. But clientele are also offered the chance to get "dragged up", whether from male to female or the opposite, by staff.
Auditioning for a spot on the stage at Priscilla's drag queen 'Avon Starr' sang Grace Slick's Dreams wearing a feather-tailed black corset. But as Lady Munter, another drag queen pointed out, the corset look does not necessarily mean that cabaret artists have a desire to be a woman. "People automatically assume that you put make-up on because you want to be female," he told the Sunday Hearld. "I might wear the wigs and heels but I still wear the trousers."
A journalist for the Sunday Herald reported encountering a person wearing "black suspenders, black knickers, a black leather corset and make-up" coming out of the ladies' toilets and being surprised to find she actually was a female.
With a fake plastic phallus, Emma Fork, is a 'faux queen' or drag king, as it were. Her corseted look for the night was inspired by a recent trip to the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Ms Fork says she is playing "a woman dressed as a man who is dressed as a woman, although he's not really trying to be a woman".
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