Gagging

In ballroom and drag culture, gagging describes stunning an audience so completely that people are floored. To gag the room is to deliver a look, reveal, or performance so impressive it leaves onlookers breathless, and a "gagging moment" is exactly that kind of jaw-dropping high point. The word shares the same root as being gagged, the state of speechless amazement, and both trace back to the Black and Latino gay ballroom scene of 1970s and 1980s New York. This theatrical sense is distinct from the BDSM meaning of a physical gag. Here gagging is entirely about impact and spectacle, and it carries strong approval.