|
Pulse of the Twin Cities Login |
|
If you do not have an account yet
Create One.
|
|
|
Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
|
|
|
|
Sex Workers' Art Show
Wednesday 18 December @ 09:27:47 |
 by Lydia Howell
“For some, it’s degrading. For some, it’s empowering. For some, it’s boring—but, it pays better than the minimum wage,” says artist/activist and sex-worker Annie Oakley, as she concludes makeup and a sexy ballerina costume. She’s curator, “road tour director” and MC of the 5-year-old Sex Workers Art Show. “We should be taken seriously. Prostitutes and other sex workers deserve labor protection like any other job.”
Sex Workers' Art
“Our events produce space for those who don’t normally get heard,” says Katie Holbrook, member of Women’s Student Activist Collective which brought the multimedia performance to a packed University of Minnesota audience Dec. 7. “This was great artists talking about sex work.”
Preconceptions end up like a used condom, discarded in tangled sheets. These eight women and one man harness humor, heartbreak, fear and fierceness into diverse creativity: video, music, spoken-word, poetry and storytelling. Days later, the experience remains under your skin, insidiously inspiring unexpected insights. A searing intelligence informs established and emerging kick-ass-talented writers exploring realms from street prostitution to peep shows and much in-between. Interviews and performances asserted absolute individuality that crosses boundaries of race, class, sexual orientation and personal history. What follows is only a tantalizing sample that readers can explore further at the individuals’ Web Sites.
Freelance writer/activist Spider fuses the intimately personal with political indictments of the Bush administration. “Bruised Hearts”, (“We’re all as %@!#$&ed and lucky as the next guy...”) draws parallels between sex workers’ lives and our own, dissolving the artificial walls. Another piece challenges current courses, asking, “Why isn’t there information about how to save the world from our pain?”
Penny Arcade started in theatre with Andy Warhol’s late-1960s Factory. Her discourse on “bad girls” is a shock of recognition for every woman. A short history of her most-performed play “Bitch! Dyke! Fag Hag! Whore!” exemplifies her commitment as a free-speech activist, resisting America’s latest crop of censors.
Ms. Candye Kane
Candye Kane has gone from welfare mom and a variety of sex work (including Hustler model) to five time winner of the San Diego Music Awards for best blues band. Experience her gutsy blues on five CDs, most recently “Toughest Girl Alive” on Rounder Records.
Filmmaker/actress Gina Gold might have supported her studies at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts as an exotic dancer. Her video “Do You Want Me To Stay?” hilariously looks at lap-dancing. The joke is definitely on a series of customers (all played by the same male actor). It’s undeniably similar to a bad blind date!
Carmen Li, punk cellist/ dominatrix, combines avant-garde music and slam poetry with ambiguous results. Isis Rodrigues exhibited her animation-inspired art in the lobby with paintings by other performers (which should have been clearly identified).
Michelle Tea has three published novels–the latest is “The Chelsea Whistle,” which won the Lambda Award.
Jayson Martenson was a Hollywood hustler, now doing AIDS-education/prevention work and writing. His gritty stories show double-edged dangers that contradict prostitution on the gay side of the street: one ends with his violent robbery of a trick; the other looks at a closeted “TV sitcom dad” actor that Mateson refuses to “out” for money offered by tabloids.
Emerging poet Leslie Bull’s experience as a self-described “junkie street hooker” might initially confirm stereotypes. Her defiant honesty reminded me of the rebellious girls I cut school with. She demolishes the hypocritical evasions that deny the continuing, often violent, realities of racism, sexism and (the biggest American taboo of them all) class. Bull’s pen is on fire with a survivor’s burning clarity and her “Prostitution Is Just Life” should be required reading. (Available at www.eminism.org).
Scarlot Harlot (aka Carol Leigh), activist filmmaker has screened and won international awards for her 75 documentaries and shorts. She did satirical musical theatre that would curl John Ashcroft’s hair. An indomitable artistic advocate (who coined the term “sex worker”), she continuously filmed the preperformance interviews—including her own.
“Decriminalization would just be a first step. Then, we have to unionize!” the sumptuously-figured 40-something advocate says, remarking on the irony of ending their national tour in Minneapolis: “the center of so much FEMINIST ANTI-sex-worker propaganda” Leigh calls collaborators with contemporary Puritans.
Like other opposing the “war on drugs,” she proposes a rational compassion based on the “harm reduction model,” encouraging people to leave prostitution, but not requiring that in order to receive supportive services. “With folks like Ashcroft who can’t be pictured with a statue’s exposed breast, we won’t get very far right now. Public opinion is closer to us than ever—but, the Bush Administration isn’t about public opinion!”
Perhaps the most stunning impact of these women’s art is to remind us of the thin membrane between them and all women: “slut” and “whore” are divided only by whether money is involved in a women’s sexual autonomy. As several of the women observed, prostitutes aren’t the only women subjected to rape and violence, but they are women law-enforcement automatically refuses to protect. Just as these artists demand to be seen as more than “T & A,” every woman breathing struggles for self-determination and respect.
For links to their works see www.sexworkersartshow.com.
|
|
 |
|
|
