Is DC Sexy?

An open question

Closeup of Adam and Eve: The Fall by Hendrick Goltzius I think, from the National Gallery in DC

You can’t import the coolness of another legitimately cool thing and inject it into your own context. You can’t force that. Instead, you have to dig deep and find the good stuff all by yourself. You must be willing to accept your circumstances as they are, and only then will their beauty and qualities reveal themselves to you. That’s why, this summer, I am casting my eyes away from the West Village. I am turning inward. I am discovering all that DC has to offer. Now keep in mind that this is all conceptual, all in the realm of the spirit and not the flesh (as I constantly have to remind you, I am above all: a lady), but I have a theory I’m developing that DC, by virtue of having an overall stuffy and repressed character in combination with close proximity to state power, hides a simmering core of eroticism that has gone unacknowledged for too long.

Before you ask, yes, I have already floated and received pushback on this idea. Mostly from charlatans in New York. I am undeterred. It takes a trained eye to spot these things. An eye not accustomed to the constant distractions of the Lower East Side, the esoterica and the pounds of trash on the street - something we are blessedly free from here in the capital city. An eye that prizes the tortoise over the hare.

You’ll say now Audrey, don’t be naive. Give up your wishful thinking. All the noirs you’ve been watching have gone to your head. New York is sexy. LA is sexy. Miami is sexy. DC isn’t sexy and you can’t make it sexy and it never will be sexy. You can’t make DC happen. Give it up!

To that I say No! You do me a disservice. If you think a lifetime of restraint and repression makes you less attuned to erotic undertones, you are the one who is naive. I keep running into it here. Not the vulgar certainty of Miami, not the direct masculine frenzy of New York, not the carefree fun of LA, no. Something hidden, something coy, something a little bit sinister. It’s the only thing that makes sense for this city. What propels these disinterested bureaucrats, the apparently sexless horde of civil drones building laws, breaking laws, discussing laws ad nauseam? What festering perversion would compel any one person to care that much about public policy? I don’t have the answer to that question, and therein lies the appeal: mystery.

And O! The things I’ve heard! The stories of unhinged dates with federal agents, the revealed affairs at Sushi Nakazawa, the rumors of rumors, the well-connected few, the timid dates I went on before I met my dear New York-based BF, being driven back home in the dark on U Street, being asked what I thought of Eyes Wide Shut and if I thought any of that sort of thing happened here? It can’t be normal. It can’t be. My only apprehension rests on the axiom that speaking on such subtle things erases their potency. But I never really believed in that idea much anyway. Potent is as potent does.

At the very least, I can count on one thing. I live here.