Tomorrow, as per tradition, hundreds of drag queens will race down 17th Street between R and Church Streets NW. According to Metro Weekly, the 24th annual Dupont High Heel Race will see a couple of changes this year: One, you won't be able to drink beer outside anymore. And two, it's political this time.

Metro Weekly delivers the bad news: This go-around, the "traditional beer garden adjacent JR.'s" will be closed due to inclement weather. In place of beer, however, this year's High Heel Race will provide racers and on-lookers with a sense of purpose! Will O'Bryan reports:

the event is now being run under a First Amendment permit rather than a parade permit, reflective of the event's gay identity. That distinction clears the way for street closures and a police presence. Loosely speaking, it's the difference between a political rally and a block party.

"Until we have complete equality and people want to show up at gay events, they need to realize we don't have the same rights," says [Dave]  Perruzza [vice president of JR.'s]. "The [volunteers'] shirts will probably say, 'Equality for Everyone.' It's the High Heel March for Equality. It's a gay event, put on by gay people."

It's unclear why the permit switcheroo was necessary—the parade has run for years with street closures and a police presence. Whatever the rationale, the designation may help drum up support for a pending bill that would recognize same-sex marriages in the District of Columbia. So, who's running for domestic partnerships?

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Take a look at this man. He is sculpted. Sophisticated. Discriminating. Confident, as if in possession of a heightened sense of core consciousness. Ripped. But no—this man is more than ripped. This man is RIPT.

" ?" you may be wondering. RIPT, according to RIPT, is "a body-sculpting undershirt designed to support your core, shave inches off your belly and enhance your posture. Immediately, you will look and feel better in your clothes with a heightened sense of core consciousness." It's also a product on the cutting edge of achieving equality for women via regression.

How does RIPT work? Sophisticatedly—by "compacting the abdomen and back" to create "a flatter silhouette under clothes," while subtly bringing men down to the level of women by impugning their masculinity with make-believe standards of physical perfection, then marketing uncomfortable and impractical products meant at solving what ails them (retail price $58). If only Sojourner Truth were alive today to see this.

But wait just a minute. What's wrong with the relaxed sense of core consciousness inspired by a man's regular old cotton t-shirt?

Honey, no: "Regular cotton t-shirts are so dead and gone," RIPT informs. What you need is a "compression garment" that may be worn under a "dress shirt, a polo, or a sweater." Can your regular cotton t-shirt do that, with the added benefit of making women feel better about feeling bad about their bodies? No. Only through a padded bra for men will women experience true equality.

How do you put on this goddamned thing anyway?

Okay, smartass. But how do you take it off?

My God—a $58 dollar shirt that will make men sophisticated, discriminating, confident, flatter, just as miserable as women, and which can be applied to their bodies just like a regular t-shirt? What's the downside here, beyond the totally awkward scenario of pulling your padded t-shirt up to your underarm, then grabbibg one side and pulling all the way over your head—in preparation for having sex with a woman? As a friend of mine pointed out, in a resounding defense of RIPT: "Whatever, who wants to sleep with the same woman twice anyway?"