By Jerome Stuart Nichols
During the final leg of the fifth season of reality competition "RuPaul's Drag Race," the queens were neck and neck. Pageant girl Roxxy Andrews served body-ody-ody for days. Alaska proved she was too big to sit in anyone's spooky shadow. And Seattle's premier narcoleptic Jewish drag queen Jinkx Monsoon flooded out the competion with every drop of her charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent.
Ultimately, it was Jinkx who sashayed away with the crown. Having just become America's sweetheart and Next Drag Superstar, there's the question of what's next for Jinkx Monsoon. The obvious answer, besides her upcoming Detroit gig at Menjo's on May 23: release a debut single.
"Definitely by this summer I will have at least two singles out, one a kind of dance track and one a kind of torch song," she tells BTL just after championing "Drag Race." "I hope to eventually produce an album. A lot of drag queens try to go for the clubby dance song but I'm going to try to produce an album of standards, like Broadway standards and original music by my music partner, Richard Andreesen. I also have a rap that I wrote that is based on my mantra 'water off a duck's back.' Then I have a couple parody songs that I wrote … but I don't think I could release those as singles."
The new music she has coming up isn't the first time she's stretched her surprisingly not-Auto-Tuned vocal chops. In "Jinkxalicious," her raunchy parody of Fergie's "Fergalicious," she showed off her quirky vocal talents and certification as a Grade-A MILF who has no problem giving your boyfriend's penis "the twitches."
"I call it 'the pre-boner tingle,'" she says. "Even though gay men are not attracted to women, there's something about being a drag queen in a bed with 15 other men in their underwear and various states of undress. It's kind of dirty and raunchy and it feels wrong, but you love it."
Just because she's fond of sharing her bed with a host of hot boys doesn't mean she spreads like peanut butter. Instead, she spreads like something slightly creamier.
"Jinkx Monsoon, I wouldn't call her peanut butter," she says. "That's actually Roxxy's thing; she's definitely peanut butter. I say Jinkx Monsoon spreads like Marshmallow Fluff: a little bit more pale, a little bit sweeter … a little bit more sticky."
If the old adage is true, you attract more flies with honey. In that case, it's no wonder why Jinkx, who prides herself on being sweeter than honey and easier than Sunday morning, is attracting a lot of male attention. Even long before her Goddess Moment, she's been the focus of many wandering hands.
"I was 17. I used to host shows at Escape Night club in Portland. When I do drag, I just look five to 10 years older than I actually am. This one guy, who was in his early 20s, didn't think I was a drag queen. He thought I was a trans woman and he was very into me. I thought he was joking around for the longest time until he finally put his hand on my butt and made his intentions very clear. I had this moment of 'I can't believe that just happened … but I'm not actually against it.'"
Despite her remarkable dedication to the art of slut, Jinkx Monsoon and her everyday-drag persona Jerick Hoffer don't exactly share the same anal dedication to ho-ish perfection.
"I grew up in Portland, which is very liberal and progressive," she says. "Now I live in Seattle, which is even more so. I consider myself very sexually liberal. Our lives are too short to not try the things we want to try. I'm not the biggest whore around but I'm no prude. Jinkx Monsoon is the opposite; she just wants it all. She doesn't care. She wants every boy in the room. She doesn't want just the cutest one, she wants every boy in the room to have his eyes … hands … legs all over her."
Just because Jinkx loves to have a good time with one or 15 underwear models in the privacy of a public bathroom stall doesn't mean she's not looking to settle down … just not too soon.
"It's funny, because as much as I love portraying Jinkx as an older woman, I'm very much a boy in his early 20s," Jinkx says. "I'm in no hurry to grow up as Jerick. So, I'm not looking to settle down with any one person anytime soon and I'm not looking to be a mommy yet.
"I hope to have a husband, and I hope to get married legally and have it recognized in all 50 states in our goddamn country. One day, I want to have one son; I want to adopt him from Russia and I want to name him Wolfgang. I just want to raise one person to turn around and continue to make this world a better place. I want to raise him with all the intellect, know-how and respect for his fellow human beings so that he can pick up where I leave off."
The lady is a tramp with a heart of gold sequins and it extends to the gay community as a whole. To her, drag isn't just about chasing tail (or having her's chased), it's also about using her lady-boy powers for good.
"This might sound weird, but I think drag queens make our community a more vibrant, safer, more accepted community in America at large," she says. "I think drag queens play the role of the soldiers, the ambassadors for the gay community. We kind of split the difference between straight culture and gay culture because almost every drag queen is some sort of amalgam of straight female celebrities, but then we're also gay men dressed as women.
"We have this opportunity to be who we want to be and say what we want to say. I feel like we have the most ability – out of anyone in our community – to get up, get seen and speak out."
Jinkx Monsoon
May 23
Menjo's
928 W. McNichols Road, Detroit
http://www.menjosbar.com
