Taboo ado

Thanks to Matthew Hays for writing intelligently on the May 9 police raid on gay male strip club Taboo ["Is Taboo taboo?" May 22]. Several things need to be added, however.

In all gay-male strip joints and female strip clubs, a certain amount of touching goes on between clients and dancers. Many of us are not puritans and puritans don't go to strip clubs - why make an issue about it? As for the police questioning Taboo dancer "John" on how often he has erections on stage, why do they even bother to ask? Dancers at the other gay male strip clubs and Club 281 often have erections on stage - it goes with the territory.

The only rationale police ought to have had in raiding Taboo is the fact that some of the dancers looked underage (in reality only one was underage). It seems the police are homophobes and they targeted Taboo because it's a male-only strip joint (with no ladies' nights) and its dancers, along with a couple of other twink joints, are very often gay instead of straight or gay-for-pay. Why should gay strip joints not feature gay dancers?

And whom will the police harass next? Men who go to gay saunas? Straight and gay lovers who make amorous moves in parks?

It's time to disband the morality squad, and activists must criticize police for their harsh raid on Taboo, which ought to have just focused on making sure all the dancers were over 18. This issue must be kept alive in the media.

» Frederick Muster

Biting the wrong ass

I must say I'm a bit confused by the quote written under the picture that I appear in, "Bite my ass, bitch!" [Photo of the week, May 22].

Think about it for a second. Who's the bitch in this picture?!

Now if you had had the picture of her biting my ass, your caption would have worked. So my question to you is, how come it's not written, "Your ass is mine now, bitch!"?

But anyways, it was a lovely ass, and I'm glad I bit it!

» Mistress Vanisha

Getting grubby

I'm not sure where the confusion started, but in Kristian Gravenor's "Hotline offers beastly solutions" [The Front, May 22], your source stated that, "Skunks dig up lawns to eat white grubs, which are butterfly eggs. The skunks are doing you a favour because the eggs eat the grass roots."

Skunks do indeed eat white grubs, as do a number of birds and even racoons. However, these grubs are the larvae of beetles, most commonly the June beetle in this area. They are not butterfly eggs. I would be amazed to witness an egg of any species consuming grass roots.

» E. Blue

Montreal's mix

While Kristian Gravenor is absolutely right that segregation exists in Montreal, I dare him to find a city on this continent - anywhere in the world for that matter - where it doesn't [Kristian Perspective, May 22].

I have to say, having lived all over Canada, that Montreal is one of the more mixed places there is. Go to a city like Calgary and try to find a restaurant - or street for that matter - with any ethnic intermingling. There's a huge Asian component in Vancouver that doesn't speak English.

Halifax is unbelievably segregated. Put simply, there's the north end (poor, largely black, speckled with housing projects) and the south end (well off and white). People's consciousness of colour in all these places is far more heightened than it is here.

Places like that Portuguese café on Duluth are what make this city interesting. Sure it's old-school patriarchy and outsiders don't feel so cozy, but if they did it would be instantly watered down by hipsters and yuppies.

A certain amount of foreignness can be good at times. And even though we have a ways to go, this city's ahead of the pack.

» Jessica Kim

BOM lottery

Another year, another letter from someone complaining about corporate ballot-stuffing in the Best of Montreal poll leading to results most readers consider laughable [Letters, May 15]. Why not reform the voting procedure by making it a lottery? Anyone submitting a ballot would have to choose a number between one and 2,000 and enclose it with their submission, be it by mail, e-mail, carrier pigeon or smoke-signal.

One hundred random numbers would be picked by the Mirror. Only those whose numbered ballots matched the numbers selected would have theirs tabulated.

It's not "democracy" in its full flower, but every garden needs weeding, no?

» Gary Jewell

Correction:

In the May 8 Best of Montreal issue, the phone number for Kilo Restaurant (5206 St-Laurent) should have read 277-5039.

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