Ballet: Porn For Rich People.

I like going to 'the ballet' (to be said by projecting voice through the top set of the teeth, with one's head tilted slightly up, whilst looking down on commoners) for three reasons:

1) It's an excellent reason to get tarted up as though one is going on a date, without having to actually go on a date (because going on dates often means spending the evening with turds who have more than likely not passed primary school);

2) It's really quite pretty.  Those chicks are amazing.  Seriously.  And if, I'm to be entirely honest with you, I did find myself having totally inappropriate thoughts about doing my own kind of pirouette with some of those male dancers, naked; and

3) I get to hang out with some gay love.

I have a knack, you see, of picking up a little bit of gay fluff wherever I go.  (I think I was born in the wrong body, to be honest.  Apart from the fact that I - unlike many women - really like my body (well, today anyway), I think I would suit being gay, and male.  At least then My Future Ex-Husband Who Has Less Than No Desire To Actually Caress My Inner Thigh may, in fact, want to caress it.  With his tongue.)  And let me tell you something, it's chicks and Marys at the ballet.  And straight guys who've cheated on their wives/girlfriends and paying big time for the crime.

In fact, within three minutes of arrival, had I no sooner acquired a gin (little big bottles of - such fun), was I whispering into Dear Gay's ear...

The Pant:  You naughty, naughty boy.  How dare you wear a tie to a function of this nature?

Dear Gay:  Why?  You said I should shave... I just thought I ought to look the part.  And look at you in that beautiful little (and he meant little) frock, you foxy minx-

TP:  Ooooo.  Say it again.

DG:  Little frock?

TP:  No.  The other bit.

DG:  Look at you.

TP:  Look at you?  No.  The other bit.

DG:  Foxy minx?

TP:  Well, yes.  But it's kind of lost its impotus.

DG:  So what's wrong with my tie?

TP:  You obviously don't know what I do to naughty little boys who wear ties.  Let's just say I hold the tie in a vice grip.

DG:  **blush** **fumble** **realise that, in fact, is not at all aroused by said image** **laugh like drain at my inappropriate behaviour.

The thing with ballet that does get me, though is a previous conversation I'd had with The Brother.  I was laughing at him - I think at this stage he was one of those whipped husbands who was forced to appreciate the arts with his (hussy, charlatan) wife.  He missed a very important rugby match for an outing to the ballet because "rugby is for the intelligentless masses".  (The witch also believed that my - or anyone's - avid consumption of tomato sauce was indicative of one's belonging to "the lower class".  I suffered my addiction to the righteous redness in silence.  It was only when I learnt, some years after her departure from the family, through Malcolm Gladwell's literature that tomato sauce is the most complex, yet perfectly balanced flavour on earth - in fact, it's the only perflectly balanced flavour in the world.  Low class, hmmmmmmm?)

The Pant: How was the ballet?

The Brother:  Not too bad, actually.

TP:  Who are you and what have you done with my brother?

TB:  Well, it's kind of like porn for rich people.  I haven't seen so much minge and cock in my life before.

I took The Brother's unsavoury description of the ballet as evidence of the fact that you can take the pleb out of the gutter but never the gutter out of the pleb.  Until I witnessed it first hand.

Don' get me wrong: I am actually one of those people who truly delights in the art of ballet.  But I did feel a little uncomfortable in a few of the scenes on Wednesday evening.  Particularly the one where the prima ballerina lifts her leg back, over her head, revealing her Russian McMuffin, and The Evil Genius the spends a good five minutes swivelling her aroud, ensuring that all audience members get a good look.  I blushed such a deep scarlet that I think I may have lit up, illuminating the man in a lace shirt beside me.

My enjoyment of ballet may be permanently hindered.  And The Daughter's dabbling in the dance may just about be over.