Sex Workers' Art Show...!!!

http://www.sexworkersartshow.com/

Last year the Sex Workers' Art Show dazzeled the audience of the MCC for the first time. The show brought in an interesting mix of the Women's Studies and ally department crowds, queer kids in the know, and of course the average "bro" or two who were just there for well, "naked ladies" as host of the show, Annie Oakley would put it. Either way, the show was a super sold-out success and I know I couldn't wait to see more.



This year, oddly enough, there was not as much "outsider" support economically as last year. (But thanks again to the Women's Studies Dept and Professor Miller-Young for bringing them and the MCC for the free space). But that was a shame considering once again the show was sold out and then some; filling the ile floors and standing in the back. Apparently those Sex Workers do know how we like it...

One main difference I saw between this year's and last year's show was the level of nudity. Last year, Julie Atlas Muz http://www.julieatlasmuz.com/ started the show off with her performace to Judice Priest's "Breakin' the Law" in which she not only smoked and cigarrette in the MCC and stamped it out on the stage, but she also was fully nude! In all, last year there was definately more "skin". This year no performer was completely nude, tops covered with pasties and bottoms covered with at least dollar bills.

And why am I paying particular attention to this? No, it's not because I was disapointed at the lack of nudity this year (believe me, I was over stimulated as it was), but it is like Burlesque teacher and performer Jo Weldon http://www.gstringsforever.com/ put it when she brought a member of the audience on stage to do a strip-tease teach-in; No woman should take her clothes off for free. Yes, I don't think our admissions fee reaches the going rate for these extravegant women and men.

Another issue brought to my attention by a roomate who also went to the show this year was that of representation. What kinds of sex workers did the performers represent? In terms of class, working conditions, and motives, do these sex workers represent the majority of workers in and out of the U.S.? The answer clearly is no, but it would be foolish to ignore the impact that their work has on all sex workers. For one, they are working to dispel myths about sex workers and show that they have a voice, and an artistic one at that, and can use that voice rather than simply being silent objects of consumption. Also, everyone in the performace is contributting greatly to the sex worker community through the different aspects of their work. Amber Dawn from Canada organizes an FTM top surgery fundraising group called For the Boys and is a sexual health educator in an AIDS organization. Kirk Read works with St James Infirmary in San Fransisco, a free health clinic for current and former sex workers where he also started a men sex worker support group. Reginald M Lamar's lyrics discuss issues of race and opression that can't be ignored in the lives of sex workers of color. Just to name a few....

Finally, on a personal level I would like to comment on Miss Dirty Martini http://www.missdirtymartini.com/



Ahe is my newly found role model, and well Goddess. Her moves were amazing and she glide across the stage beautifully. I was able to speak with her after the show; she gives all kinds of confindance and inspiration to my kind, that is the "pleasantly plump"; thank you Miss Martini...

On Freaks...

In between school, organizing, and blogging, yes I actually do things just for fun. Ok, well blogging is fun, but only when you can throw in those fun posts that make all the academic stuff worth it.

So this weekend I saw Little Miss Sunshine, an excellent film about a family and all the problems that go along with being in one.

I would like to particularly talk about the Little Miss Sunshine Pageant scene. The first clip shows all the contestants in the bathing suit walk through. All of the girls except Olive are wearing makeup, heals, and hair extensions. In an earlier scene one girl is getting spray tan on her legs. The point is that they are trying to win with the sexuality of these girls and to make them look as grown up as possible. Little Olive is the only one without makeup, in a simple one- piece, her hair down in a pony-tail, and even with a little tummy.

The next clip is of Olive's "talent" in which she is doing somewhat of a striptease to the ever appropriate Rick James' "Superfreak". The crowd is more or less disgusted (aside from the one pedifile in the audience) and try to pull her off the stage.

The point is, one is really no different from the other. What the other girls were doing was the same display of young, tabooed sexuality, but in a more subtile form. And becuase olive was not your typical pageant girl, she was stigmitzed and thrown out of the contest.

Little Miss Sunshine - Clip One

Little Miss Sunshine - Clip Two

Patricia Hill Collins Gets Her Freak On in Black Sexual Politics

As Patricia Hill Collins dives into the different meanings of terms such as freak and bitch, the important themes covered through out is that of discourse; who creates it, and who resists it. As Foucault discusses, hegemonic discourses control ideas circulating that define our realities, and even our bodies and self. In order to resist this negative naming and stereotyping, subcultures create new meanings of the same language used by dominant forces, in an in-your-face response that leaves most "outsiders" baffled.

The colonial creation of the term freak is discourse in the making. We have the dominant players, the Western white male, who comes to Africa to view the "inhumane objects" that are the African people, in particular, the fascinating African female body. With his power and privilege, the Western white male is able to define these bodies that are new to him, though had been in existence for years before. Instead of learning about these various populations within the context of their specific cultures and history, the Western white man sees them at the "Other" and compares them to himself, the hegemonic norm. That said, where Western civilization is just that, "civilized", African peoples are what Westerners are not, uncivilized, brutish, and animal-like; “under colonialism, West African people’s proximity to wild animals, especially apes, raised in Western imaginations of the spector of ‘wild’ sexual practices in an uncivilized, inherently violent wilderness” (C p. 120).

The most tragic and famous example of this shameful history is the life of Sarah-Bartmann.



As Professor Miller-Young discussed in class, Western scientists, or zoologist rather, who were fascinated by the bodies of African people literally stole African bodies, dead and alive, and took them back to Europe to study. It was believed that by looking at the proportions of the African body and their craneology, "experts" could prove they were descendants of Apes, while Westerners were of a distinct geneology. Sarah-Bartmann was put on display all her life. And though she never showed the men her genitals, upon her sudden death, all of her body parts were put in jars on display. Though some jars have been "lost", some justice was made when the rest of her remains were brought back to her home in Africa.

Noting this intense racist history of colonialism where the term freak has its origins, it is hard to believe that it is now part of everyday language and used frequently to express new meanings about the body and sexuality; “...the term freak came to permeate popular culture to the point at which it is now intertwined with ideas about sexuality, sexual identities, and sexual practices” (C p. 120). One well known use of the word as Collins points out, is in Funk musician Rick James' hit "Superfreak".

http://www.lyrics-top.com/178211-103621/SuperFreak/Rick-James.html


As the lyrics go, although the woman is from the "street" and is somewhat of a groupie, she is "alright" to Mr. James who gives his seal of approval to freaky girls and behavior.

The term has since continues to transform, as Collins details, giving the people who use the term to define themselves power, independence, and style; “the term has shown stunning resiliency, migrating onto the dance floor as a particular dance (Le Freak) and as a style of dancing that signaled individuality, sexual abandon, craziness, wildness, and new uses of the body” (C p. 121).

Missy Elliott also gets her Freak on in her hit song of the same title.



http://www.lyrics007.com/Missy%20Elliott%20Lyrics/Get%20Ur%20Freak%20On%20Lyrics.html

Although "get your freak on" is the chorus of the song, the lyrics seem to be more about Missy herself. She defines herself with power and as she says, "Shh, hush yo mouth Silence when I, spit it out" you better listen to what she has to say. This speaks more to the next part of Collins' article in which she discuses the term Bitch; “…only African American women can be ‘Bitches’ with a capital ‘B’. Bitches with a capital ‘B’ or in their language, ‘Black Bitches,’ are super-tough, super-strong women who are often celebrated” (C p 124).

Missy, along with her partner in crime, Lil' Kim, are Black Bitches. They are writing, producing, and marketing their music, and even their bodies as "many African American women rappers identify female sexuality as part of women's freedom and independence" (C p. 127).

Indeed, because the media is such a powerful source of discourse where so many go to get their knowledge, subcultures have created their own media to reclaim definitions of themselves; "Black popular culture and mass media [are] sites where ideas concerning Black sexuality are reformulated and contested" (C p. 121). Words like freak and bitch have been reclaimed by the same groups who were once oppressed by the terms to become modes of empowerment. Again, illustrating the power of language and discourse, and how they can be resisted and changed.

Patricia Hill Collins, Chp. 4: "Get Your Freak On: Sex, Babies and Images of Black Femininity," Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism, New York: Routledge, 2004, 119-148.

Reading Kobena Mercer on the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe

Debate has been centered around whether or not Mapplethorpe's intentions, in his portrait work with black male nude models, are to create "pornographic" photos to "shock the bourgeoisie". The debate seems to be stuck in a sort of binary; is the art porn? or is it art? and is it fine art? By examining Mapplethorpe's style and technique, it is evident that the artist uses the conventions of both fine art photography, and pornography. This combination, and perhaps contradiction, creates ambivalence in the works and in interpretations of it, which viewers experience. Kobena Mercer struggles with these interpretations in his original thoughts on Mapplethorpe, which he moves on to reevaluate.

The major use of fine art conventions evident in Mapplethorpe's photography is that of sculptural code, or the use of the Greek ideal body and pose.

Mapplethorpe takes the black male nude and places him in the ideal form of the Greek muscular body. As shown above, placing the subject on a pedestal, literally, as well as in the notion of high art. Within the discussed binary, there are two interpretations that Mercer covers. At first, this technique can be seen as using the stereotype of the black muscular man who society is afraid of. The sports star that no one wants to play against; "the idealized physique of a classical Greek male statue is superimposed on that most commonplace of stereotypes, the black man as sports hero, mythologically endowed with a ‘naturally’ muscular physique and an essential capacity for strength, grace and machinelike perfection: well hard" (M p. 178). Upon reflection, Mercer points out the subversive element of this tactic that he obscured in his earlier argument; “…the potentially subversive aspect of the homoerotic dimension in Mapplethorpe’s substitution of the black male subject for the archetypical white female nude was underplayed…” (p. 191). Indeed, by using the Greek ideal as the model for the black male subjects, Mapplethorpe shatters racist assumptions that the black male cannot be ideal, beautiful, and within the definitions of fine art.

In contrast, Mapplethorpe also uses techniques of pornography to send a message to viewers. The most obvious being the fragmentation of body parts; “the body-whole is fragmented into microscopic details- chest, arms, torso, buttocks, penis- inviting a scopophilic dissection of the parts that make a whole...The camera cuts away, like a knife, allowing the spectator to inspect the ‘goods’" (p. 183).

This photographic device is also used in pornography. A way of focusing on the items to be consumed, i.e. breast, penis, penetration, ect. In Mercer's first reading, he sites arguments anti-porn feminists have used against this strategy to show his frustration with putting the parts of black male men up for grabs; “the cropping and fragmentation of bodies- often decapitated, so to speak- is a salient feature of pornography, and has been seen from certain feminist positions as a form of male violence, a literal inscription of a sadistic impulse in the male gaze, whose pleasure thus consists of cutting up women’s bodies into visual bits and pieces” (p. 183). But again, upon reconsideration, Mercer discovers that perhaps he himself was caught up in the ambivalence of identifying with both the male models being looked at, as well as a gay black man looking at the models; “…the element of aggresivity in textual analysis-the act of taking things apart- might merely have concealed my own narcissistic participation in the pleasures (and anxieties) which Mapplethorpe’s text makes available, for black spectators as much as anyone else” (p. 193). In this dual dissection, Mercer was frustrated by the fragmentation of the male black bodies, but more so by his anxities at perhaps enjoying this gaze as viewers of pornography so often do.

When all is said and done, I think it is important to remember that the "hype" over Mapplethorpe's work had a lot to do with the moral panic at the time in the U.S. surrounding HIV/AIDS. Mapplethorpe and many of his models have passed from the disease, making Mapplethorpe's work an important reminder to our history, and to their lives. Indeed, Mapplethorpe's combined strategies were succesful in adding the subverssive voice to this history; “Mapplethorpe’s ironic juxtaposition of elements drawn from the repository of high culture-where the nude is indeed one of the most valued genres of the dominant culture- with elements drawn from below, such as pornographic conventions or commonplace stereotypes, can be seen as a subversive recoding of the ideological values supporting the normative aesthetic ideal” (p. 198-199).

Kobena Mercer, "Reading Racial Fetishism: The Photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe" Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies. New York: Routledge, 1994, 171-219.

On Focault...

Whenever I read Foucault, I can't help but have Salt 'N' Pepa's song "Let's Talk About Sex" in my head. At first it is humorous, and a way to alleviate me throughout the reading, but the more I think about it, with a Foucualt-ian analysis, the lyrics are quite telling.

First of all, we all know how important of a discourse hip hop and hip hop culture are in society. ("What is at issue, briefly, is the over-all 'discursive fact,' the way in which sex is 'put into discourse,'" F p. 11). In particular, youth looks a lot to music to find descriptions of reality that they can identify with. How common it is that we can hear a piece of music and be brought back to a certain stage in our lives and beliefs. That said, musicians and lyricists have a lot of power in terms of what type of knowledge they are producing to the public and can choose to be part of hegemonic discourses that perpetuate racist and sexist views, or they can be part of a counter-culture that resists such "norms". ("If sex is repressed, that is, condemned to prohibition, nonexistance, and silence, than the mere fact that one is speaking about it has the appearance of a deliberate transgressions" F p. 6).

Salt "N" Pepa has been part of this subversive group, representing themselves as strong women in both their lyrics, as well as rap style. Though the woman in the song appears to be using her sex to her advantage, nevertheless she is strong and has agency.

"Let's Talk About Sex" lyrics: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/saltnpepa/letstalkaboutsex.html



As the lyrics go, even though people may misunderstand us, we should talk about sex anyways, because that's how life is. And the only way to insure that our point gets across, is to try and try again, learning more every time through our interactions with others. The more perspectives you hear, the more varied your outlook on life is, and you can better understand the experiences of others, also known as the "marketplace of ideas". This line of thinking is in protest to the notion of censorship, that certain things should just be baned from the public. ("...modern prudishness was able to ensure that one did not speak if sex, merely through the interplay of prohibitions... by dint of saying nothing, imposed silence. Censorship" F. p 17).

Don't try to avoid sex because "it keeps coming up anyhow" and we can't stop this "discursive explosion" (F p. 17). The more you try to repress sex, the more you will realize it is every where. Sex sells, we see it on the streets, the television, and the written word. We look in the mirror every day when we dress and think about our bodies and our sex. We wonder what it is the other is thinking when they give a flirtatious glance. What are my child's peers telling her/him about sex that I don't know in a codified "rhetoric of allusion and metaphor" (F p. 17) ?

So where does that leave us? We have a responsibility- as women, men, queers, academics, activists, people who have sex, or don't- to talk about sex. Because if we don't, it will be the hegemonic discourses that define the sexual world. ( sex "had to be taken charge by analytical discourses... sex became a 'police' matter... the necessity of regulating sex through useful and public discourses" F p. 24-25) - i.e. abstinence only education, religion denouncing pre-marital and queer sex, or perhaps our protective fathers (that was a joke).

"Let's tell it how it is, and how it could be. How is was, and of course how it should be." Speak up! Whether it's in the bedroom, to friends, or in the classroom, make your opinion known. Otherwise our experiences will go unheard and be lost faster than we lost our virginity (also a joke).

As our sexualites are fluid, so is our future in terms of our sexual freedoms and who controls the information that is put out there. You bet I'll be there to talk about it and have a say in what is MY sex.

"At issue is not a movement bent on pushing rude sex back into some obscure and inacessible region, but on the contrary, a process that spreads it over the surface of things and bodies, arouses it, draws it out and bids it speak, implants it in reality and enjoins it to tell the truth: an entire glittering sexual array, reflected in a myraid of discourses, the obstination of powers, and the interplay of knowledge and pleasure" (F p. 72).

Michel Foucault The History of Sexuality Vol. 1
Vintage Books, New York
1972-1977

Learning How To Blog!

Mireille is helping me set up my blog today... woop woop!