A Decadent Romp

Stepping out into New Orleans's "Gay Mardi Gras"

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I regularly told people that I didn’t like going to Southern Decadence, the annual Labor Day gay extravaganza, because I didn’t like being hot in crowds. This is the God’s-honest truth, but it concealed the ancillary fact that the festival intimidated me.

I’ve always struggled to feel fully at home in gay spaces, partly because I’m screamingly self-conscious about my appearance and partly because of an aversion to being “part of the group”. But when the team at Country Roads offered me a two-night stay at a downtown hotel to visit Decadence and write about it, there was no way I was turning it down. Telling myself I was brave from the comfort of a cozy hotel suite was exactly the post-breakup tonic I wanted.

I took a rideshare down to the voco St. James Hotel Friday evening and got my key to the first real hotel suite I’ve ever stayed in. A cozy sitting area opened into a bedroom with a fancy elevated bed: to my delight, there was a small step unit to climb to get in. A more patient man might have saved one of the two chocolate fleur-de-lis that greeted me there for the following day, but I did not. I turned in early after a nightcap at the hotel bar to keep my powder dry for the next morning. An attempt to say some hellos on dating apps failed because they were nearly too overloaded to launch: I was not the first person with this idea, nor the one with the most up-to-date phone.

[Like this story? Read more from Chris Turner-Neal, including his memorable experience inside Louisiana’s only clothing-optional campground and resort.]

Saturday morning, I lathered up in sunscreen—I burn if I stand too near the microwave, so being outside all day in late summer was going to require some repeated applications—and loaded up a small bag of necessities: more sunscreen, water bottle, fan, costume change. After an honest conversation with myself about my outfit—if the sequins chafe now, imagine how they’ll feel in seven hours— I changed and headed to brunch.

I was meeting my dear and perennially late friend Leah and some of her friends at Tableau; we started hitting the champagne and appetizers until she swanned in. I can recommend a bowl of turtle soup and the Gulf fish sandwich to set you up for the day, as they were both delicious and set me up with a good layer to go out drinking on. I fortified myself further with a slice of tarte a la bouille and then began harassing Leah to pay up: we had somewhere to be.

Our “somewhere to be” was the Mrs. Roper Romp, an unofficial but widely celebrated adoration of the secondary character from Three’s Company. Played by Audra Lindley, Mrs. Roper was the open-minded, lovelorn, caftan-wearing, macrame-tying wife of Norman Fell’s frantic landlord. (The cast saw heavy churn, so you’re forgiven for remembering incorrectly, as I did, that she was married to Don Knotts.) The good-hearted high-camp sitcom character has emerged as an aspirational figure for people who like loose, comfortable clothes, vivid colors, and to relax on the porch with a glass of wine resting between hijinks. Lucy Ricardo is too high-energy, the millionaire’s wife too buttoned-up, Maude too heavily scheduled, but we could all wear a caftan, do some crafts, and only get up to mischief when it served our purposes.

Today, La Roper is commemorated by parties and parades of people assembled in caftans and plastic jewelry—curly red wig optional. The New Orleans iteration was lining up outside lower Quarter gay bar the Golden Lantern as a come-one, come-all profusion of breathable paisley. After a quick costume change in the bathroom of Tableau—not my most dignified hour, not my least—I was ready to head over, but as we approached the bar, we were met by the ladies themselves. The parade had begun on schedule, an amusingly rare occurrence, and so the romp had romped to us. We crashed the parade and began waving at the crowd.

Leah and I spent about twenty minutes in the parade as ersatz marchers before deciding that we had romped as much as we could reasonably be expected to in that heat and defected to the Hermes Bar for champagne cocktails and ice water (in that order, twice). Refreshed and newly effervescent, we started on the best part of any New Orleans festival day: wandering around. We ran into friends, friends of friends, and people whose costumes we liked, hitting up perennial favorite Cosimo’s with a married couple dressed as Marie Antionette and Elvis before retreating into the Marigny to enjoy a couple of frozen drinks at R Bar.

R Bar is famous for its haircut-and-a-shot deals, but as no barber was present, I had Leah sit in the built-in barber chair and spun her around. A couple of frozen drinks there brought down our core temperature into the safe zone but also made spinning in the chair less than completely prudent, so we walked a block to Royal Sushi, a stalwart for people needing to supplement liquid refreshment with good filling food. We shared dumplings and rolls and restored our carb level over tipsy professions of friendship. Afterwards, Leah cabbed home, and I decided to walk back to the hotel through the French Quarter. Some parties were winding down, some showing no signs of fatigue. Heat-woozy but unburnt, I tumbled into a clean, cozy bed satisfied from a day of silliness and friendship. It hadn’t been my task to fit any mold that day: the festival, and the city, had fit me. 

This year, Southern Decadence takes place August 31–September 4 throughout the French Quarter. Details at southerndecadence.com.