i'm so excited

27 août 2009

Extreme Makeover

bon bin crise existentielle j'ai relooke mon blog. dites moi si ca vous plait mieux comme ca. je savais pas qu'on pouvait s'amuser a ce point avec canalblog ! depuis le temps que je tiens ce blog j'avais meme pas cherche a le rendre un peu joli et navigable.

existential crisis, i gave my blog an extreme makeover. tell me if you like it better now. i didn't know there were as many possibilities with canalblog ! i've been writing this blog for ages and i hadn't even tried to make it prettier or at least a bit more navigable.

Nomination

Je viens de voir que quelqu'un m'a nominee pour la liste des Sexiest Bloggers of 2009 !
Bon, c'est une amie a moi qui m'a nominee, et je ne suis nominee qu'une fois, alors que la plupart des autres blogs soumis aux votes du jury sont proposes genre 15 fois chacun, par 15 personnes differentes. N'empeche, ca me ferait drolement plaisir d'etre sur cette liste - et ca me ramenerait grave du traffic.
Bon, mais suis-je vraiment qualifiee et eligible ?
Est-ce que mon blog est un sexblog ? Ouais.
Mais d'une, ce blog est partiellement en anglais, partiellement en francais. Peut-etre qu'ils voudront pas de moi car j'ecris trop souvent en francais ? Ensuite, contrairement aux gens qui tiennent leur blog serieusement, moi je poste assez irregulierement, et surtout j'ecris pas toujours un article qui a un theme, une histoire a raconter, une these a soutenir - souvent, je parle de 15 trucs differents, 3 lignes pour chaque info, je mets plein de liens vers des trucs que j'aime bien, et je divague beaucoup.
En plus mon blog est moche, j'ai pas de logo, de jolie mise en page, de photos de moi toute nue, tout ca. J'ai fait expres qu'il soit austere pour que faille vraiment le vouloir pour le lire, mais bon, j'ai des remords parfois.
Est-ce que, si je rentre pas dans la liste cette fois-ci, je devrais ecrire en anglais plus souvent, et des articles plus rigoureux, pour essayer de remplir les exigences de cette liste d'ici a l'an prochain, pour etre dans les Sexiest Bloggers of 2010 ? D'ailleurs, lecteurs francophones, ca vous empeche de me lire quand j'ecris en anglais ? Vous attendez le prochain post en francais ? Ou bien vous comprenez l'anglais aussi et ca vous importe peu ? C'est quoi vos articles preferes ? De quoi vous voulez que je vous parle ? Y a quelqu'un qui lit ce blog ? J'espere que vous lisez tout hein, et en cliquant sur les liens, et en prenant des notes ! Voila cette nomination m'a fait me poser plein de questions. Alors laissez-moi plus de commentaires, je me sens un peu toute seule parfois !
Au fait je sais pas pourquoi mais il y a de la pub sur mon blog maintenant. Elle etait deja la avant et j'avais pas remarque ? Ou est-ce que c'est depuis que j'ai mis mon blog dans la categorie "Pour Adultes" ?

Tina Fiveash est une photographe australienne, et Catherine Opie une photographe americaine, et je connais pas tres bien leur travail mais elles m'interessent. Jetez un coup d'oeil !

Le SexBloggerCalendar aide a soutenir SexWorkAwareness. Achetez-le !

Et visitez ce site aussi : Audacia Ray est super cool !

Je suis pas trop sure de comprendre exactement comment ca fonctionne, mais je vais essayer de participer au Sugasm #172.

22 août 2009

San Francisco

Saturday, August 22nd - ART OF RESTRAINT, erotic rope bondage event, at the Femina Potens Art Gallery. I will be performing there, as well as Madison Young, Midori, Fivestar... and also Margaret Cho !!!
2199 Market Street & Sanchez. Come ! My piece might get messy !

Tuesday, August 25th - RADAR, reading series, at the San Francisco Public Library.
It is hosted by Michelle Tea and I will be reading some of my writing. Rose Tully and Katie Crouch will also be reading. It is free ! Come ! I won't be naked, promise !

I just discovered PornSaints, and it's a very exciting project.
I want to be a pornsaint !

I am reading the book Intersex (for lack of a better word), by Thea Hillman, and you have to read it too.

The HomoAGoGo festival just ended and it was great. A fashion show (I walked the catwalk in a pink crochet jumpsuit), an art exhibit (I particularly loved a painting of two giraffes snuggling that was entitled Longingly), live music (I was amazed by Mirah, Tender Forever and Tim'm West)...

Being in SF has me wondering about something I'm feeling increasingly uncomfortable with.
Buying local, cruelty-free, fair trade, organic, recycled, non GMO, women-owned... Political choices seem to be a lot about consumption choices.
Are politics just marketing niches ? In French supermarkets, there is a tiny fair trade deparment, with very attractive packages that make you feel very cool, where the prices are much higher than the rest, and then there's the usual trash - made-in-China, underpaid cashiers, and battery chicken.
When you buy from a shop that sells many products that were made by 8-year-old kids, or tested on animals, AND a line of ethical products, who are you giving money to and what purposes does it serve ? As it seems to me, it's just a way for the shop to get money from more people : the ones who don't give a fuck about politics, AND the ones who do.
I remember going to this very green, ecological, organic, vegan restaurant in Paris, where they had no switch for the light in the bathroom. It never went off. When I enquired why, the woman said "when there is one, people forget to switch it off anyway", which is obviously a ridiculous justification.
This also makes me think of what this link shows : namely, that a few corporations own all the printed press, TV channels, and publishing companies of my country. The newspaper of the Communist Party is partially owned by a corporation that also owns a part of Cosmopolitan, and hundreds of other magazines, newspapers and tv channels (and also a weapon producing and arms trading company). I am not saying that the journalists who work for this newspaper are subservient to capitalism and not honest in the work they're doing. I'm saying the corporation that holds so many shares of their capital is convinced they're harmless and that reading this communist newspaper will not make any revolution or social change happen that would threaten its interests. It all confuses me a lot. To what extent can we trust a publisher who is selling a feminist book and a book advocating for rape, a book defending the theory of intelligent design and a book that is pro-darwinism, a book that says capitalism should end and a book that says communism is the root of all evil ? Are the freedom of speech that we have and the independance of our journalists so harmless and ineffective to make a real change ?
It makes me think of "La dictature c'est ferme ta gueule, la democratie c'est cause toujours", it makes me think of "if voting could change anything it would be illegal".
What can we do ? If you know how not to get cynical about this, please comment. I'm in need of positive thoughts on the matter.

I got to see Speakeasy, Courtney Trouble's yet unreleased 3rd movie, and it is HOT. The most glamorous queer porn I've ever seen. The bondage scene with Jiz Lee and Dallas Fivestar made me cream in my jeans. Lorelei Lee is one gorgeous foxy lady. Beautiful B&W photography, a simple, classic, efficient storyline, and hot FtM-on-femme & transfag action make for a dirty, smutty, delicious film noir.

I got to attend the shooting of her 4th film, Seven minutes in Heaven, and it's gonna be HOT. Courtney is still in the process of editing it and since I'm staying at her place, I get to hear the soundtrack of moans and whines and groans everyday as I wake up.

Oh, and : my creativity and inspiration are developing ! It is very exciting and sleep-depriving ! I am now a 19 year old porn actress, performance artist, sex educator, translator, activist and writer !

21 août 2009

Stone

Stone is the transmen who won't get naked when they're fucking you, much less let you fuck them. Stone is the sexworkers who won't let their clients kiss them. Stone is how sometimes you get ticklish and it's just the way your body says "don't touch me there". Stone is the butches who don't want my lipstick to get smeared on their lips when we make out, and the reason why I wear kiss-proof rouge a levres. Stone is how so many women won't trust anyone but themselves with their bodies enough to let go and cum. Stone is how I'll get tense if you get too close to my clit, and keep my hand ready to stop yours, clutched firmly around your arm, trying to keep control. Stone is how I'll fidget and wiggle under you, feeling trapped, not telling you I'm scared, just trying to reduce the harm, moving away from you with my hips, escaping as much as I can. "You're not doing anything wrong, just going places where I've been hurt", I whisper when you ask what's going on. Thank you for asking. Maybe stone is also how upset you got, how I felt you cringe, when your friend called you a name he says is your real name, and how relieved you felt that I didn't hear it. Stone is these experiences that queers have in common, these hard boundaries that pain has carved in our bodies, making us harden. In some places, my stone can be melted, if you do it right, if you're patient and listen. In others, it will remain hard as a rock.

15 août 2009

overwhelming whirlwind

so, after reading my last post, someone told me the exhaustion i talk about at the end of the text is very typical of sexworkers, and such women as Annie Sprinkle and Virginie Despentes mention similar feelings.

here's what i wrote back :
my exhaustion has very little to do with sexwork though.
i started feeling this way long before i began sexworking.
it's just the way my life is meant to be.
a constant overwhelming whirlwind. hectic frantic and fantastic.
i can hardly keep up with it, but most of the time the breathlessness just makes me a little dizzy and light-headed with happiness and excitement.
except the times when i get burnt out and have a nervous breakdown.
maybe sometime i'll come to terms with the existential anxiety that leads me to run after time the way i do, keeping myself busy all the time, maybe trying to escape something, who knows. i'm sure i'll work that out.
until then, this neurosis makes my life pretty darn interesting.

voici un lien vers un site qui vient d'etre cree : Les mots de la chair.

ce soir j'ai performe pour SIZZLE, une soiree de lectures et de performances organisee a la galerie Femina Potens. c'etait interessant et agreable. les autres auteures invitees etaient Madison Young, Luna Maia, et Thea Hillman, et ce qu'elles ont fait etait chouette.

je suis pressee de voir ce que San Francisco aura a m'offrir dans les deux semaines a venir.

(j'ai largement augmente l'article precedent depuis que je lai mis en ligne, si vous l'avez lu juste apres sa publication, vous devriez y jeter un nouveau coup d'oeil. je vais probablement le retravailler encore dans les jours qui viennent.)

vous devriez aussi jeter regulierement un oeil sur ce que fait Courtney Trouble :
elle a realise trois longs-metrages dans les derniers mois : Roulette, Nostalgia et Speakeasy, qui m'ont bien l'air d'etre des oeuvres d'art en plus d'etre des pornos queer excitants.
elle vient de faire passer son site internet, NoFauxxx, a la vitesse superieure : il y aura des updates plus regulieres a partir de maintenant (et un troisieme photoshoot de moi vient d'y etre mis en ligne) !
lentement mais surement, son projet d'inventaire exhaustif, que dis-je, de pantheon du porno queer, avance petit a petit : RealQueerPorn. d'ailleurs si vous voulez offrir votre contribution benevole a ce projet, contactez-la, elle a besoin de petites mains !

Sinon, voila une serie de liens vers des trucs sympas :
Bitch Magazine, un magazine lesbien feministe assez cool
$pread Magazine, un magazine qui "illuminate the sex industry"
On Our Backs, un magazine porno lesbien qui n'existe plus...
Fetlife, un reseau social genre myspace ou facebook sauf que c'est pour les deviants sexuels et autres kinksters
The Inverted Eye, une boutique en ligne qui vend des accessoires vintage et des antiquites dont l'usage initial peut etre detourne et perverti au gre de vos kinky games (fragments d'uniformes, materiel de barbier, materiel medical, materiel d'equitation... y a des tresors)

11 août 2009

Tour

The Queer X Show tour just ended.
You can read extracts from our tour diaries and see pictures on this blog.
There are also articles here, here, here, here (en Français), and pictures here and here.

I haven't written on the blog, or anywhere else really, during this tour.
I started trying to write, but I was just reporting facts.
A detailed report of every single event, every single feeling and emotion and sensation...
Long long long texts, that no-one will ever have time to read.
RECORD ME ! Mad Kate screamed in her performance, and it echoed deep inside with this obsession I have.
The obsession to record my life, to make archives of my life, with words and sounds and images and bits of papers put together.
I was trying to write it all down, but I was constantly failing, never enough time, never enough paper, never enough ink, I kept failing and being late, losing my breath. Je faisais la course avec le temps, j'essayais de rattraper la réalité, je voulais écrire ce que je vivais quasi simultanément, mais j'étais toujours en retard sur les évènements, le temps que je finisse de raconter l'histoire de la veille la journée d'aujourd'hui était passée, pleine de nouvelles histoires à raconter...
Alors j'ai arrêté. I stopped trying after a few days, and I started living it to the fullest, taking as much as I could take from this experience.
I was discovering new cities, new people, all these landscapes unfolding outside the windows of the van, all these stories unfolding on the rows of seats inside the van...
Berlin Wendy Brussels Sadie Paris Madison Cologne Katie Copenhagen Emilie Stockholm Ena Malmo Judy.
The seven of us, coated with sweat and filth after hours and hours of road, dirty with our little secrets and fears and ego battles and love letters, dirty with our little voices and laughters and underwear and fantasies. So much time spent together in this van, learning who I was, learning who each of them was, telling them about me and hearing about them, while another one was trying to sleep and couldn't because we were too loud. So much time spent laughing, screaming with laughter, laughing until my muscles hurt with it, laughing until I couldn't breathe, because Sadie was just so funny. So much time spent talking, my little high-pitched voice going further and further as I was telling my story, trying to be as faithful as possible to the truth, over analyzing everything I was saying... Each conversation that started seemed to end up being an exhaustive exploration of everything that could be said on the matter, with all of us participating, and all of us learning so much in the process. It was incredible.
We talked about psychiatrization and how harmful it can be to people in general and to women and queers in particular, we talked about how problematic it is to label someone crazy and how helpful it can be to be diagnosed sometimes, and how complicated all of this is.
We talked about art and money and how we manage to deal with the apparent contradiction and how we work out the issues that come up when your job is your passion, or when your passion doesn't pay the bills.
We talked about sexual orientation and the limits of defining oneself as homo/hetero/bi, or generally making the gender of your partners what determines your own identity.
We talked about sexwork and being out and being closeted and educating people and taking care of yourself and choosing your battles.
We talked about compulsive grooming like popping zits and plucking hair and how weird it is that it feels so good.
We talked about the porn industry and how it is in LA as opposed to in Europe, and how to prepare yourself for an anal scene.
We talked about race and class and gender, beauty standards, sexual freedom, objectification, transgression and taboo, shame and guilt.
We talked about our fetishes, our exes, our first times, our partners, our families, our body issues.
We talked about white people with dreadlocks and cultural appropriation.
We talked about alcoholism, codependance and relationships.
We talked about group dynamics.
We talked about linguistics.
We talked about so many other different things and in the end I'm so grateful that we were able to share so much, and I was confronted with so many worldviews that I'd never thought of before, and I was able to give a voice to so many ideas or stories that I'd had to hush or I hadn't been able to express before.
These girls are all such exceptional persons, performers, writers, thinkers, and besides super hot, and I felt so honored to be a part of this.
I grew and improved as a performer, too. When I accepted to take part in the tour, I really didn't think of myself as a good performer, and I certainly didn't think of my performances as art.
Whenever I performed, it was in front of an audience mostly filled with my friends, or if they were not my friends I felt I was lucky to be on this stage, it was almost undeserved, I thought of it as "I'm a beginner, they are offering me this stage for me to try out, experiment, learn, and if there weren't other more professional, more talented performers in this show, the audience wouldn't be as indulgent with me." I felt that I was Wendy's little sister, she had given me the chance to be there and I almost apologized for being there and never felt like what I did was really worth anything. Things changed slowly, I started developing my own solo performances myself, instead of always doing duos with Wendy, working on them alone instead of always asking her for coaching. Of course her help and her teaching was extremely valuable, and she was a great mentor to me, and she gave me so many opportunities. But at some point I had to try and fly with my own wings, and I did it little by little, and this tour definately created a new level of independance and self-confidence for me as a performer. I no longer think I'm bad. I'm definately inexperimented, and a beginner, but what I do is beginning to have its own little personal flavor, it is my work, it is my creation. I'm beginning to see performing as "hello, here I am, I'm Judy Minx, this is my art, I'm putting it out there for people to see and to criticize or praise".
Our show was a whole, it was a complete entity. The structure of it, the line-up (which number goes first, second, ..., last), we thought about all of this together and that way we integreated each little fragment, our solo numbers, into a bigger picture, an artpiece, a show. I was proud of all of us. When I felt I'd been bad, I was still able to see how great a show we'd done. When I felt I'd been great but the audience hadn't been very receptive to the show as a whole or the connection I'd had with the other performers hadn't been that good, I wasn't satisfied. It felt good to be working together like that. We all contributed to making the show good, we weren't just going on stage and doing our own piece and then letting the others do theirs. We gave suggestions, processed and brainstormed about each other's pieces, we asked for advice or opinions on our performance ideas, we made the others contribute to our solo numbers to make them duos, trios, quartets... Backstage we asked each other for bobbypins, hairspray, glitter, fake blood, fake eyelashes, lipstick, help with zipping the costume on or taking the shoes off...
Another very interesting thing was to perform to so many different audiences, in so many different venues and contexts, and to adapt our show according to the circumstances. A few hecklers from time to time. Some awkward shyness. Young drunk dykes at 1am the night of the gay pride in a huge club in Stockholm. A very quiet, seated, intellectual and artsy audience on a very interesting and newly built stage in Malmo at 10pm. A very receptive, very interested audience at 8pm in a small gay bar in Paris, who instantly got carried away with us in a very intimate and ritual-like connection, although they were totally unused to seeing anything like us... I could obviously not do a 15 minutes spoken word act, that requires silence and attention from the audience, at 1am in a club where people were standing and getting drunk and wanted to party. We couldn't do a fisting performance in Stockholm where the restrictions on nudity and explicitness and public sex are tough. I couldn't do twice the same number in the same city. etc. Working out all of this was a very interesting part of our work.
Sadie Lune wrote this rap for me (she made one for each of us) :
Tits for a minute, legs for days
Spreads em wide and invites your gaze
Drinks from a bottle fresh soy milk
And pisses all over your new silk
Judy Minx ! Judy Minx ! Baby pornstar really makes you think
Judy Minx ! Judy Minx ! You'll miss a mouthful if you stop to blink !
Tranny cock and kinky sex
Born in heels and raisin' heck
She'll never believe you might be right
Unless the rope's tight extra tight
Judy Minx ! Judy Minx ! Baby pornstar really makes you think
Judy Minx ! Judy Minx ! Brains and a pussy and a load of high jinx !
I got to see my cervix, meet incredibly talented people, chew on a red hot chili and find it sexually arousing, question my assumptions about who I'm attracted to or not, whip myself with branches in a sauna on wheels just a few meters from the Baltic sea, laugh at stupid private jokes shared by less than ten girls on this planet, have sex with hot queers after the shows in the backstage/in the ladiesroom/in the van, and get away with it without any polyamorous drama or yeast infection, do ageplay under the full moon, be attacked by an army of ladybugs and stung by a wasp, eat disgusting food in freeway rest-stops and delicious food in great restaurants, meet many people whose names end in -a, like Anna Erica Cecilia Christina and Alva, go to the Pere Lachaise and the Sacre Coeur, two touristy things I'd never taken time to do in my everyday life in Paris, decorate a van with garlands of tampons and hair-rollers and fake flowers and barbies in bondage and dick-shaped mint candy, hit on perfect strangers and not fear rejection, develop my creativity and feel validated as an artist, have crushes on people I probably wouldn't have thought were my type at first, see friends of mine who live far from Paris and that I don't see often enough, meet real straight feminist men, visit Christiania and be disappointed, buy a faux-vintage girdle, feel how much I miss you when I'm away and how thankful I am to have you, eat ice-cream, feel my belly aching with desire, not take enough showers, create more femme solidarity...
There's something else I want to talk about. While we were in Paris, a very close friend of mine who is trans', who had worked at helping us with the props and the stage, got assaulted. He was called a dyke by a men, then he was punched in the face and he fell to the floor and fainted, bleeding a lot. Noone came to help, although it was in the metro in the middle of the afternoon and people were passing by. He got two stitches and a lot of fear and shock.
On August 1st, while we were in Copenhagen, a masked man entered a LGBT Youth Center in Tel Aviv and started shooting, killing two persons and injuring 11 more.
You're always much more free on the stage than on the dancefloor. If I'm topless on the stage I'm considered to be doing art with my body and the distance with the audience prevents anyone from non-consensually touching me. If I'm topless on the dancefloor I'm just a drunk girl who's asking for it and they can all touch my tits without asking for permission, and then the bouncers can kick me out because "this ain't a strip club".
These things remind us that we can't be apolitical artists, we can't just do pretty and sexy things and not care about what is actually going on out there. Being an artist puts you in a very privileged space, and it makes you safer from these attacks. Performing feels very good to us, but we can't just do it because we enjoy it or just because it's empowering for us. We need to make something good for the world, good for our audiences. We can't stay in ivory towers, we can't disconnect our art from what is going on out there. Because when they attack one of us, they are attacking us all. Because it keeps happening, in Tel Aviv, in Paris and everywhere else, and it needs to stop. Because art can be and needs to be a force that impacts change, an element of the social and political context in which the world evolves. Because it all feels so close to us, because it has happened to us, and it could happen again, to be the victims of someone's hatred, to be the victims of the states's institutionalized discriminations, and we don't want to go through this in silence. Our art is political, and I have never been interested in creating anything that wasn't. (although there's an article in Swedish on the internet that misunderstandingly quotes me. it says I said that there's nothing more to our show than entertainment and fun. it is not true and i didn't say that.)
On a little square in Malmo, we went to a ceremony with candles and a march and a kiss-in on Aug 5th in remembrance of the victims of the Tel Aviv tragedy and to express solidarity with its survivors. Vendela, the organizer of this little demonstration, who is also one of the most wonderful persons I've met during this tour, read passages from the Queer Manifesto. Her voice was so strong and so broken and so beautiful I wanted to cry. AN ARMY OF LOVERS CANNOT LOSE, she chanted. I hope she's right. Until we're proven wrong we'll keep fighting.
After the last show in Berlin, everybody was sad that the tour was over. I loved it, it was definately a life-changing experience that helped me understand more about where I want to go with my life, what kind of person I want to be... But I was not sad that it was the end. I really needed it to stop. The sleep-deprivation needed to stop. I needed to be on my own again, release myself from the constant tension and self-consciousness and fears that group dynamics like this one raise in me, spend a few days with my partner, get things done in Paris...
I am now in San Francisco, where I got less than 24 hours ago. I really wish life was slower. It all happens all the time, I never get a rest from all the craziness, and it has just begun ! It drives me insane, and I mean it. I undergo a whole little personal revolution every three months. It's been like that for a while now, things get more and more hectic as it goes, I always think it can't get worse but it does, I have a serious problem with FOMO (fear of missing out) so I keep trying to do it all, I think "I'll sleep when I'm dead" but I actually need some sleep or I'll get burnt out. I keep having to choose between sleeping eating and taking showers and I end up not doing enough of either. One life-changing experience a day is too much. I can't process it all. The next one ends up erasing the previous one, because it was too quick, I couldn't get over the first one and there's already something new sweeping me off my feet. I need some rest, I need a slower pace in my life. It's just so hard to not do everything, to not make the most of every opportunity that I get. When you're 20 and you're offered to participate in projects with people who not so long ago were your idols and heroes, you can't say no. You can't tell yourself "I refuse this one and I'll get another chance later". So I'm living it up. I wanted my stay in San Francisco to be a vacation. Spa, manicure, shopping, sleeping, drinking fruit smoothies and having healthy food, writing and seeing friends... But then Madison offered me to perform for her art gallery, Femina Potens.

So tomorrow night, August 14th, I'll be performing for the first time in the US ! I'm excited, come see me if you get a chance. The event is called SIZZLE. The details are on www.feminapotens.org