13 décembre 2009
Coming out
Whether one decides to show publicly their interest in porn or their consumption of sexual services or not is their
choice, and it is a complicated one, that can sometimes have serious consequences - losing jobs, breaking up with wives, getting rejected by family, etc. The social stigma on clients of prostitutes is very hard. Coming out as a consumer of sex for money is not easy, and I am not allowed to judge someone for not wanting to take the risks that it entails.
However I've often felt offended or hurt when
people around me were telling me they didn't want to expose their porn viewing habits, or other stigmatized sexual behaviors. I have been thinking they were cowards, and I have felt angry and sad, I have over-reacted. A friend of mine once asked me if I could give him something to hide his anal plug in, and I refused : "you can hide it if you want to, but I'm not going to help, because I disapprove", I said. Another friend, who wanted me to send him good porn links, asked me to send them in private messages instead of posting them on his facebook profile where his relatives could see them - I said I'd either send him the links publicly or not at all. And just recently, a fan told me he wasn't sure he wanted to subscribe to my facebook fanpage because that would mean to much of an exposure.
Of course I understand them. The stigma is a heavy burden to carry, and the shame and taboo are still very deeply engrained. Of course the reactions I had meant more than just "how do you dare not wanting to be my fan?", there was much more at stake than the apparently unimportant situations where the issue emerged. My reactions came from a feeling in me that I wasn't really able to formulate clearly, and now I have put my finger on it. Here is what I want to tell these people :
Do consider this - as sexworkers, it is much harder to stay closeted than as clients. As porn
actresses, we are out and exposed every day of our lives. As porn actresses, we are confronted
with the social stigma of being a sexworker, so that people like you
around the world can have beautiful images of sex to look at and jerk off to. We take the risk of exposition and all the consequences it can have, to provide you with porn and other sexual services.
And there is something people can do to thank us for what we give them. The more
people will say proudly they watch porn, the less shameful it will be
considered for people to be making it or performing in it, and the easier
my life as a porn actress will be. The more people will say publicly
they are consumers of adult entertainment and sexual services, the less
stigma and taboo there will be around the people who work in the
sex-industry, and the easier it will be for all the sexworkers around
the world to take care of their health and well-being, to find
someone to turn to when they need help, or to say "I've had a bad day at
work" when they come home - while on the contrary when you're ashamed of your job or
rejected because of it, it is harder to find support.
Now
of course what I'm telling you is not that you should subscribe to my
fanpage, because if you don't, God will kill a whore. But I
guess what I'm trying to tell you is it does take guts and courage and
generosity for us sexworkers to do the things we do, and it is not fair
that the people who consume our work should always be hidden and never
stand up for us.
One of the slogans of the sexworkers movement in France is
"vous couchez avec nous, vous votez contre nous !",
which means "you're having sex with us, but you're voting against us !"
It
pretty much sums up what I think. Whether it is on their facebook
page, in public speeches, or in everyday life conversations, there are many things one can do, tiny acts of bravery to lift the taboo and the shame. The
things one should do are not for me to judge. If you don't want to
be out as a porn consumer on your facebook profile you certainly have
very good reasons for that, and it's not a big deal. There are also times and places when I choose not to be out, to protect myself, and of course it is fine, I don't have to be a hero all the time, and you don't either. But maybe there's still something you can do, some situation where you can act, some other way. I'm sure there are many
of them that might be easier to do, and have less consequences than outing your porn consumption habits
to your family. Please do try and find things, costless things, that you could do to support sexworkers. List of things you can do to be an ally. You owe it to them because they have given you so much.
PS - December 17th is the annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers.
Here are organizations and projects you can donate to, volunteer for, resort to, learn from :
Pétition contre la Criminalisation des Travailleur-se-s du Sexe : Sign it !
Syndicat du Travail Sexuel
$pread Magazine
Sexwork Awareness
NYC Sexblogger Calendar
Sexwork 101
Sexwork Outreach Project
Video : SANGRAM, sexworkers organizing in India
Sex Worker Literati
26 novembre 2009
femme invisibility
So apparently there's been a lot of writing about femme invisibility on queer blogs in November (here, here, here and here), and since I'm always late, well here's my December blog post about femme invisibility.
Being invisible as queer because I am femme is something that is a
problem when I am in the metro, or in the streets, and I see someone
who is visibly queer, and I want to express attraction and/or
solidarity.
Being invisible because I am femme is a problem in Berlin, where all the butches are attracted to other butches and don't have a clue we exist, or despise us for not looking anti-capitalistic enough.
Being invisible is also a problem in NY, which is such a huge city, and where I can't go to lesbian bars because they card and I am not 21, and where the only way I could hope to meet queers would be if they recognized me in the streets as one of them when I stare and stare and stare desperately.
But altogether really, I am pretty resigned to my invisibility and I guess I don't see it as so much of a problem.
Sometimes funny things happen to me. Sometimes I think I'm invisible and I am not.
Last summer when I was stuck in an airport for hours and
hours waiting for my flight from NYC to San Francisco, I started trying
to find queers in my boarding gate. When I spotted a cute
genderqueer person, I did all I could to make myself visible to them. I
was being less and less subtle : staring, smiling, re-applying lipstick,
showing my garter-belts, putting on my Lexington Club sweater and
trying to make the logo conspicuous (”Lexington Club, San Francisco :
where every night is ladies night”, it says)… To no avail. I felt so
invisible. I gave up, feeling despaired. Then, aboard the plane, cute
genderqueer and I happened to be seated next to each other ! We started
talking, and in the first minute I dropped as many names as I could to
prove I was queer : Michelle Tea, the Homo A GoGo Festival, the Femina Potens gallery… It turned
out that, earlier in the boarding gate, I was the one not seeing that
while I was trying to get their attention, they were busy writing me a
cute letter, which is why their eyes weren’t meeting mine. We ended up
fucking on the plane and having a very romantic summer crush. Fuck
femme invisibility !!!
Just recently, a femme
friend of mine asked me for advice on femme in/visibility. She just got
in a relationship with a transman, and she is struggling with the loss
of visibility that entails for her. Basically, she is used to being
with a butch which makes her visible, but now as a couple they pass as
straight. And as I have been with someone trans for quite a long time
now, she wanted to know how I dealt with that.
Well, I guess I’ve come to see invisibility as something that defines
femmeness. Having a butch with you to make you more visible is not a
solution, it just makes the problem more obvious : you can’t be visible
on your own, your queerness has to come from your partner. People will
still think that you are a straight girl who was corrupted by a butch,
you weren’t really a lesbian before you met this girl who doesn’t
really look like one anyway, so you’re not really a lesbian at all.
In my queer community, people are always much more surprised when they
learn that someone who is butch has had sex with men – they aren’t
really shocked when they learn a femme has had sex with men. A butch is
always seen as more of a lesbian, even in the queer community. In most people's eyes, femmes are not really dykes, either they’re attracted to masculinity
and therefore they’re kind of heterosexual (since they’re attracted to
otherness in terms of gender), or if they’re attracted to other femmes
then they’re just doing lesbian porn for men, kissing to make boys
horny. I guess what I’m trying to say is that invisibility is kind of a
fatality and I’ve come to be resigned to it.
Also, I think that somehow if I’d really wanted to be visible as queer, I would have
made other choices in terms of identity. Not that being femme was a
choice, but it has to reflect my needs and my personality. So one of
the reasons why I’m femme is probably BECAUSE it makes me a spy, an
invisible queer, because I pass, because I can pretend. Of course
sometimes I resent it, but it’s also comfortable. My identity as a
femme probably matches my needs and my personality, and for some reason
or other it suits me better to be invisible than to be visible, as the
lesser of two evils. Accepting that invisibility is a part of
femmeness that is inherent to it makes it easier. It has never been that big of a
problem for me to be rendered invisible by the fact I was in a
relationship with a trans. I’ve accepted it and have never given that
much thought to how I could solve the problem.
Also, I think one of the main reasons my boyfriend transitioned was NOT
that he felt he was a man deep inside, but that he wanted to be able to
choose when to be visible and when not to be. Basically, he doesn’t
identify as a man, he still identifies as butch, but it was too much
for him to be stared at, assaulted, confronted with so much hatred all
the time, and he just needed to be able to negociate when he wants to
be out and when he wants to be closeted. Being femme allows you to do
that, and transitioning to pass as a man also allows you to do that
too, to a certain extent. But being butch doesn’t. When you’re butch,
you are constantly out and visible, even when it’s a danger for you. So
basically, the fact that his transition has so much to do with the
question of his in/visibility, makes it easier for me to empathize and
to accept the compromise I’m making by losing some of my visibility for
him to be able to choose his. I can still come out when I choose to, although it has to be verbal, linguistic, and he can now be closeted when he chooses to, instead of being subjected to the public examination of his gender, as in "are you a guy or a girl ?".
Also I guess the fact that he is out as trans to most people around us makes things easier. If he wanted to pass
as a man to more people than just the strangers in the streets and the
salesman at the grocery store and the people at his job, it would mean I would
have to be closeted as queer to a number of people. But I’m lucky he is
even ok with being out to my Jewish grandmother, which avoids me the
humiliation of saying “I have a boyfriend” after I’ve said “I’m a
lesbian” and my family said “it’s just a phase”.
Now I have a problem with the people who say being femme means "looking straight". I don't think my femininity is a straight femininity. The problem is in the eye of the reader but certainly not in my gender presentation. My femininity is a twisted one, a perverted, subverted one. Of course sometimes you will see me looking like just another girl. But most times even if I'm not necessarily readable as queer, I'm read as different, weird, over-the-top.
Something in the article on Sugarbutch really questioned me : it's the "invisibility to yourself" part.
I’ve always felt that my queerness came from intellectual and
political choices, that I had decided as a feminist not to have sex
with cismen anymore although I couldn’t help but being attracted to
masculinity ; that I had tried really hard to become a lesbian, by cutting my hair short
and having sex with straight girls or lipstick bisexual girls, and I
didn’t feel sexual desire for them ; and that I had therefore decided that butches would be what was most suitable to both my feminism and my attraction to masculinity.
It sounds pretty ridiculous now that I think about it. It sounds like I
am saying that I’m not really queer, that since I’m a feminine person
attracted to masculine persons, I’m basically heterosexual. That my
queerness is a operation of my brains, a strategy, that I could act
upon it, choose to become queer.
Actually something probably changed in my DESIRE, and not just in my
THOUGHTS, when I stopped having sex with men. I have not DECIDED to
stop having sex with men. It’s just what I’d been telling myself.
Probably that explanation I had for my queerness was some sort of
integrated femmephobia.
I remember thinking that since my ring finger was not longer than my
index, then it meant that I wasn’t really a lesbian, not a “primary”
lesbian, not biologically a lesbian, which sounds awful now that I think about it.
Something else that I found interesting on the matter in the past weeks :
The LGBT association I'm a part of, Etudions Gayment, organized an student exchange with the Swedish queer association SFQ. Nine young queers were invited to Paris for a week of workshops, etc. Two of them gave a workshop on heternormativity, and part of it was an exercise : you get two pictures, and you have to guess which pictures represents someone who is heterosexual. The pictures I got showed two feminine girls, one older, one younger. I said "I don't want to take part in this exercice, you can't say whether someone is gay or straight just by looking at them, I am confronted with invisibility way too often to accept to play this game". Of course this was one of the reactions that the organizers of the workshop expected - uncomfortable feelings, anger and confusion. But the main point of the exercise is : we do have assumptions, we are prejudiced, whether we like to admit it or not. Of course, among activists, political correctness will prevail and noone will want to say "I assume this person is straight because they look feminine", or "I assume this person is straight because they are working-class", although this is something we actually do. And indeed even I would probably have thought these two women on the pictures were straight if I had seen them in the street out of a queer context. Even maybe in a queer party I would have thought they were out of place. Another point of the exercise was to show how heterosexuality is that which isn't noticed, commented upon, it is normal, and therefore doesn't stand out in a crowd : it is the norm. This was shown by how the only participants of the workshop who accepted to play did not respect the rule of the exercise : they tried to look for signs of homosexuality, to say which of the two was homosexual, and not the opposite. It is much easier to point signs of homosexuality than signs of heterosexuality because everybody is supposed to be heterosexual unless they're gay. Anyway, I'm beginning to drift from my original subject which was femme invisibility.
Here is a link which shows the beautiful diversity of femmeness. I am addicted to it and refresh the page several times a day to check if something is new.
I hope that is not what you have done with my blog, because I haven't been posting anything new in a long time. I didn't advertise for the queer playparty last night, I didn't tell you to walk for World AIDS Day march last week, or let you know about all my intricate thinking and good BDSM sex, or give you plenty of porn links to jerk off to... I'll try and catch up on all these things in my next post.
In the meantime, please comment.
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
18 juin 2009
Self-centered narcissistic blahblah
Someone just rang the door bell, and it was a UPS delivery guy.
I knew what was in the box.
TWO NEW DICKS I BOUGHT FOR MY BOYFRIEND'S BIRTHDAY !
One pink (to replace the old one who was tired), one black.
They're so beautiful !
Mr Bendy, also known as Silky, is exactly the right size for me, and
incredibly soft. It's a pack&play, or hardpack, which means you can
both use it for penetrative sex and as a packer. It's also perfect for oral sex, and especially deep throat. I LOVE IT !
I've been wondering about my life, and I haven't been so well. I've
been taking anxiety medication and considering maybe going into
psychoanalysis.
But then that raises many questions, like will shrinks ever tell you
anything else than what they learnt in books written by a straight white
man strongly influenced by judeo-christian mentality and full of
heteronormative and misogynistic/homophobic prejudices (either Freud,
Jung or Lacan) ? how can I find a shrink who is BDSM-friendly,
queer-friendly, polyamory-friendly AND sexwork-friendly in this city ?
Anyway. I need to find a way out of my codependance issues, my
affective neediness and insecurity, and other problems. I have started
to take some steps towards taking better care of myself, and not
indulging too much in parts of me that hurt me and others. Strategies when I feel anxiety coming, to make it less hard on me and others. I'm quite
proud that I'm so strong and that I'm still able to be happy after all this time.
My relationship is getting better too, and that also makes me feel better. What
makes me feel really good is how much thought we give to it, how hard we
try to find better ways of communicating, etc - and how successful it's
been these days. I have a great partner. I love talking about a lot of things with him, politics and TV-series and our friends and sex and our relationship and parties and how my day went and how I love him and just anything. It feels good to be doing something else than fighting or having sex - not that I mind the sex. This morning's quickie before you went to work... Breathtaking.
The summer, and my therefore outrageously sexy outfits, seem to make
guys think they have a right to talk to me, comment on how I look, or
even grab me and grope me, when I'm walking in the streets.
Yesterday I was literally harassed by men in the streets - stared at,
"complimented", whistled at, approached, physically threatened, and,
yes, grabbed and groped.
On a night like that one, no matter how many times you assault me, I'll
fight back, I'll chase you on my high heels, screaming "what makes you
think you have a right to touch me ?", I'll stride the streets and feel
fierce and powerful, I won't lower my eyes when I pass you by, and I
won't stop wearing what I want to wear and going out late
at night on my own in so-called dangerous areas.
Maybe the fact that I was feeling better and more open to others, has
something to do with how many times they tried to make me feel that I was there for them to see and that they owned me. I had been such a socialite at the burlesque
party and I had felt so happy to be around people. And then maybe when I left the party I forgot to protect myself from the outside world, I was just euphoric and smily, and the guys thought it was sexual seduction aimed at them, which it was not. I am vulnerable, and I don't want to harden, I don't want to wear an armour. I want to let you reach me, I want to let your bullets pierce through my skin. That's the only way I can make your love pierce through it too. If my skin gets thick and tough, nothing will get in me anymore.
So I am like a Christian martyr, trusting them forever, giving them still another chance not to disappoint me. Always answering them when they ask for directions, a lighter, a cigarette, even if it might just be an excuse to talk to me and then become annoying. Always with a bright smile and as much charity as I can. Always offering help even when I'm not asked anything. Cheerful, warm, open. I know some of them are bad, and it will hurt all the more that I had decided to trust them and give them the opportunity of showing me they're good. If they abuse my trust, if they decide to hurt me although they knew I wasn't defiant - I was as trustful as a child - it will damage me. But if they prove me right, if they see me being so good and naive and open and don't take advantage of it, it will make me all the more thankful, it will give me more strength to keep believing in people and loving them and having this cheesy Christian humanism. [Where the fuck did I get that from ? please don't believe I'm writing all of this without distance and irony. I'm obviously aware that it is weird, fucked up, laughable, simplistic, childish, manichean. However it's also how I know myself to think sometimes]
This is also, I think, what is at stake in the emotions I feel in BDSM.
I give you all the power. To me it's not a scene, not a game, it's not play. I don't act. I get into a space, a space of weakness and
trust, which is a part of me, not a character. I put myself in a position where I'd let you rape or kill me - and you don't. I give you power to abuse me and you use it for my pleasure, not just yours - although you know I'm so submissive at that moment I might not even resent you abusing me. And that, giving up all the control, giving you so much of myself, giving you power to hurt me, and knowing you will only use it with love and respect : that is what makes me so incredibly thankful after a BDSM scene. That is what brings me so close to tears during aftercare. I love you for not hurting me, for how good you are to me. For how you let me be an open, trusting, innocent, vulnerable, welcoming person, without punishing me or abusing me.
It's always seemed such a horrible thing to me, how good people become hard and bad because there is this social pressure, this norm of defiance and distrust and selfishness. Kind people are always punished for being kind and they're either killed, or made to harden. Kindness is regarded as weakness, trust as naiveness.
I like to hitchhike, I like to ask strangers a favor, I like to give people the possibility to reject me, so that they also have a possibility to accept me. I like to give people an opportunity to show the best that they have.
Ok this was written all in one piece and I didn't re-read it or try to make it consistent and understandable and well-written - like almost everything I write here, by the way. I had an appointment with the shrink, I didn't go. I wrote this instead. It's some sort of a confession, not an argumentative well-thought-of, well-worked-on, logically-structured text - so don't read it or criticize it as such.
My wisdom teeth are growing and it HURTS !
In less than a month, I'm going on a European tour with several other girls. We'll perform in Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm... I'm excited and scared at the same time.
And in August I'll be in San Francisco !
There are so many things I want to write about on this blog. Interesting, theoretical, political things.
And instead I find myself talking about my life. Oh well, it's fine too.
Alright. That's all for now.
12 juin 2009
Answer to some pornblogger
Alright, I got a bit fired up. What this guy is saying isn't so insulting really - I understand his point, and even if he was really insulting me and didn't have a point, it's not a big deal either. Just a pornblogger using his freedom of speech on the Internet, not harming anyone. It's just late at night, I had three exams today and I have another one tomorrow and I should be working on it, and so I found a way to procrastinate by answering that guy. It made me angry though, how he's making such a cliché of me, and what he says is not fair.
http://artandporn.com/judy-minx-mix-and-a-hilarious-sasha-grey-blog/
----
Hey,
I'm Judy Minx, and I've been a porn actress for two years now.
I'm not an existentialist, and I am not a philosophy student at the Sorbonne.
I do have North African blood though - you got that one right.
My thoughts about sexwork are NOT excuses to legitimize my career. I actually say on several occasions in articles of my blog that the political and theoretical aspects of sexwork are NOT the reason why I do porn. I do porn because porn is the best way, or at least the most suitable to my skills, tastes and needs, that I have found to make money - I do my job for just about the same reasons that most people do their jobs.
The reason why I write about the theoretical and political aspects of sexwork are NOT because it's "hip" either. I write about them because I am and have always been interested in non-conventional sexual choices - sex for money, kinky / BDSM sex, and queer sex. How and why the people who make these choices are oppressed minorities. This is what I talk and think about most. Sometimes I use "pseudo-intellectual language" to write about that and maybe it's because I've been told that sex isn't a serious matter or cannot be intelligently and rationally discussed, that I over-compensate with academic language.
I don't mind that you prefer the anal shots - fair enough. I am glad that people watch my porn and jerk off to it. That is what it's for. As I've written on my blog too : I don't make porn that has huge subtitles saying "this person is a sexworker, she is a respectable person who is intelligent and fights for political rights". I make porn for people to jerk off to. Most of them won't give a fuck who I am, and what I'm thinking. And it's fine. My blog is not for them. My blog is for the people who want to read it. It has happened to me sometimes to be interested in what such or such porn actress had to say. Plus, my blog doesn't only target porn-watchers like you, but also people who've never seen my porn, and among them people who think porn is evil. In lots of articles I am trying to write for them. This pseudo-intellectual language is the only one they'll take seriously.
I don't mind that you're not interested in my blog. I mind the contempt and sarcasm in your post. It's so easy to joke about it, from where you stand. You are not confronted with what it means to be asked a hundred questions a day about your job, by people who think you are either a victim of patriarchy or someone with low moral standards. There's also the people who are "just curious" and can't help asking intrusive questions. You are not the one who gets harassed by a society that thinks it's such a big deal to fuck for money. People keep telling me what I should and should not do, questioning my choices, asking me to justify myself. It gets in you. After you've been asked the question a hundredth time, you ask yourself. You doubt. You wonder. You feel like you have to answer them, you feel that you have to find a thousand intellectual and political reasons for what you're doing, although you shouldn't have to answer more questions than any other person who's working any job.
You know what ? I'd like it to be so easy and widely accepted, that I wouldn't have to ask myself these questions. Mostly, my blogposts about porn and sexwork were not written spontaneously, out of the blue: they were written as answers to questions I was asked, to someone who called me anti-feminist, to someone who said they pitied me. This text I'm writing right now will end up on my blog. I'm angry that you're making fun of how I'm made to think about this all the time. Seriously, I'm tired of it too. But as long as most people will think sex can't be work, I'll feel it's my mission to explain that yes, it's my job, and I'm a worker.
---------
Dans le même registre :
je réponds à un commentaire d'un mec qui dit que l'enfance malheureuse de la pauvre Lorelei Lee explique pourquoi elle a choisi de devenir actrice porno qui est évidemment un job dans lequel elle se fait exploiter par des mafieux.
Similar situation :
I answer to a comment written by a guy who thinks poor Lorelei Lee's unhappy childhood explains why she chose to become a porn actress, which is obviously a job in which she gets terribly exploited by evil pimps.
"Hey dumbass, what about YOUR life ?
Was your life a happy life ?
Has one single person ever tried to explain to you that the reasons why
you chose the job you’re working are linked to childhood traumas ? What about a person you’d never seen or talked to ? What about a hundred people you’d never seen or talked to ? What about a thousand ?
THAT is abuse. The way we as porn actresses can’t get a fucking break from amateur psychoanalyses.
%@$# dammit it pisses me off !"
--------
Talking about powerful women in porn, Madison Young has a brand new website and it's amazing !
And it was designed by another powerful porn woman, Courtney Trouble !
-----
And finally, I wanted to share this great quote with you :
"If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a terrible warning"
Apparently it's Catherine Aird who said it, I have no idea who that is and I won't research it now.
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