Working Sex (23 page)

“I want her to cut into me, I want you to watch! This is a musical game show for the dispossessed, of my buzzers getting repaired so I can win a brand new washer and dryer set and go back into showbiz like the cougar, your father!” I spoke-sang emphatically.

“She’s given me a whole bunch of loot, which she does not possess, in order to fix up her fun house, so she can win a washer and dryer set and get a job that gives her enough loot to pay back her loan. How truly stupid are the masses!” my blood-and-grease wrestler jeered.

I warned the young performers, “Soon you’ll have to make everything up from scratch because nobody will tell you the real story anymore! You’ll have to build a puzzle of yourself and put it in the mail and hope it gets there.”

“Soon you too will be twenty-six years old and all worn out and nobody will want to purchase you for any entertaining purpose, and then you’ll come to me, and I will purchase you.” My blood-and-grease wrestler started cutting stars and spirals into my thighs with her scalpel, and my hips rose up toward her hand.

I moaned, and turned back toward the crowd, “Soon she will give you a little fright wig cut for your hapless broken buzzers, and you will let yourself be opened up and rearranged which will make your fun house a more desirable shape for returning champions. It will be the first time you’ll ever pay to put your fingers in the mouth of the lion with a blood-and-grease wrestler for free!”

“This is a Showcase Showdown for you, young high school performers. To let you know what no one will tell you!” She sang, as she sharpened a toothy saw.

“There’s only one reason for this searing pain, like a fist punching meat everywhere inside me, organ-grinding my fun house. There’s only one reason I’d ever let myself be sawed in half!”

“There’s only one reason she’d let someone hurt her fun house as badly as I’m hurting it now, before your eyes! What is it? What is it? Why are we here now?” The blood-and-grease wrestler (who’d turned into a mustachioed magician in a black silk hat and cape) pulled her giant glinting saw back and forth through my tenderized buzzers.

“Fingers in the mouth of the lion!” the performers in the audience cried out, coming down from the bleachers to quiz show my bonus round and join us in the fabulous conclusion. The gym was so orange, the lights so hot.

“Fingers in the mouth of the lion!!!” the blood-and-grease wrestler and I shouted together, and then we hit crescendo with the performers from the crowd starting to jeer, the high schoolers and I belted out that this must be a musical game show for the dispossessed, not of a rickety roller-coaster ride to financial independence, but a vaudeville act where the archetypal evil magician and his lovely assistant pretend to put their fingers into the mouth of the lion in front of everyone. I was being sawed in half.

Clearly I wanted it, I was the star, and plus, I was paying for it. Since I was paying for it, I must have been enjoying it,
so I thrust harder, yelled out louder, so I could hear myself under the blue paper sheet, “Make me disappear you magical blood-and-grease magic-hat fuck! I want my brand new washer and dryer!!!”

As I woke up, I heard the tail end of my show tune. The blue paper was gone. Someone had painted an elaborate sunset on the ceiling of the operating room. There was no serenading cougar, just a dopey sunset. I was wet between my thighs.

“We’re almost through,” my blood-and-grease wrestler said. I could feel little tugs on my stripey tent as she finished sewing me up.

“Was I screaming obscenely?” I asked.

“You did just fine.” The blood-and-grease wrestler announced, not answering.

“No,” I pressed her, getting the spins. “I went into this Brechtian musical. I thought I was saying something to you. I’m a little humiliated. I don’t know if I really said it out loud,” I continued.

“I didn’t hear a thing. You might feel some nausea from the anesthesia, just a warning. But you did fine during our rickety roller-coaster ride toward your financial independence.”

That was eight years ago. I’ve since restuffed my fun house full of extra-buttery popcorn, more than ever before. My buzzers are freak shows again, and my booby prizes are literally the size of funnel cakes. The “sold” button itself is flat
and wrinkly. The affirmation trigger is light as a scar. The stripey-stripes are less pronounced, but the booby prizes and “sold” button scars are monstrous. I will never again be able show these buzzers to strangers without a warning first, and could never make anyone pay for the privilege. My buzzers are completely death defying, and broken to boot. The right one only perks up when I pinch it really hard, then it stings. The left one responds to a circular rub, but feels creepy, like I’m shorting out, and my “sold” button recoils instead of lighting up. So now my buzzers are these heavy, high-modernist abstractions like the houses of lonely ex-drug wives in the Hollywood hills. When I can, I sit at home holding my tired buzzers, wishing I could still get suicidal. So I lost.

I always knew I was the kind of performer who’d blow my chance at winning a brand new washer and dryer set. I’d wanted that goddamned washer and dryer. I’d wanted to be a puddle of glittery Vaseline and a puppy-washer since I was seven years old. I pulled on my nonexistent booby prizes and told my tissue carnations to grow. I pounded them like Tarzan. I watched performers on the television do exercises to increase the volume of their buzzers, and I did them too. I prayed to Chuck Barris to give me a loud, flashy pair of buzzers so I could be a famous puppy-washer one day. By the time I was in sixth grade, I was wearing a desirable size, like in Pleasures of Evasion magazine.

Chuck Barris answers prayers. Chuck Barris gave me a childhood prize clown who was much older than me with a big hard red nose and a miniature unicycle. Chuck Barris gave me a job at the amusement park for wall-eyed pickpockets so I could pay for my middle-class rehearsals. Chuck Barris gave me my first returning champion who convinced me to go up to his filthy cage after my shift at the drab coffee job.

He told me, “Everyone’s a puddle of glittery Vaseline and a puppy-washer, but some are built to win better prizes than others.”

I won three pots of Manic Panic that night. He didn’t make me disappear, though. We didn’t even stick our fingers into the mouth of the lion. He was embarrassed to have such a soft rubber nose. He just waved his wand and said “Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to The Greatest Show On Earth!” while I pressed my buzzers into his unguarded vulnerability. His blanket was gray and itchy. He just wanted someone to give him applause. Everyone does.

“N
o no no!!” It was Ricca yelling at some new girl. “Never ever flip them off when they drive by. They could be honking at your dumb ass ‘cause they wanna give you a ride . . . stupid girl! Come over here honey let me give you a lesson in whoreanomics.” I started laughing to myself. Ricca took it upon herself to talk to all the newbies who came onto the strip. And she always gave her lesson in whoreanomics in front of as many people as possible. I always thought she did “ it because it made her feel older or wiser. . . . She says she did ‘cause she liked to make sure every girl got turned out right.
She was also quite possibly the most intelligent woman I had ever met.

“What’s your name honey?” she asked the new girl.

“Uhh-umm . . . ”

“Hold it hold it, right now is lesson number one in whoreanomics. . . . You gotta have a name. And stuttering won’t get you anywhere. We all got names over here.” She pointed to Rhonda, “You see that shrimp over there with the fake orange tan? That’s Oompa. We call her that cause she looks like a goddamn Oompa Loompa.” She started howling at her own joke. Ricca was really the one that nicknamed everyone. A new girl would walk up and in a matter of days she had a nickname. She stopped laughing and grabbed TD’s arm. “Now this woman. She an old ho. Show some respect to her. We call her TD ‘cause she’s got the biggest knockers of anyone out here. Triple D.” She started laughing again. TD walked off mumbling something. “Come over here Lucy,” she waved me over. Shit.

“Yes?” I asked.

“Now this here is Lucy Vulgar. We call her that for two reasons. The first reason is cause she has the filthiest mouth of anyone you will ever meet.” I rolled my eyes. Was my mouth really that bad? “The second reason . . . ”she was trying to hold back a laugh, “The second reason is cause she always seems to attract the weirdest, nastiest motherfuckers
this side of the river.” She was rolling on the ground. It was true though, so I didn’t say anything.

“Well what about your name?” the new girl asked.

“There isn’t anything special about my name. They used to call me Puerto Rico . . . ‘cause I’m Puerto Rican, then it shortened to Rico, but I didn’t want to sound like a man, so now it’s just Ricca.” She was pulling herself up off the ground still laughing a little. “Now . . . what’s your name?” she asked again.

“It’s Jennifer. . . . Nothing special, just Jennifer,” she replied.

“Okay, then JJ,” Ricca said.

“JJ? I . . . I don’t get it, I said my name was Jennifer,” she looked at Ricca puzzled.

“You said Just Jennifer. So I am calling you JJ. And now so will everyone else,” Ricca said, hands on her hips.

“Okay,” JJ said. She looked so scared, and I imagined what I must have looked like the first few nights I came down to the strip. I remembered thinking that all the girls probably never talked to each other, or knew each other. But the truth was they had a strong bond with each other, they really looked out for one another. It made me feel safer.

“Now then, lesson number two in whoreanomics. . . . You see that man walking over there?” JJ looked. “Don’t look dummy! Just a glance. You never ever wanna look at any
man walking back and forth on that side of street . . . or you will end up on that side of street working for him.” Her tone was forceful, you could hear the seriousness of her voice. JJ looked nervous and I knew she understood what Ricca was telling her. “Lesson number three in whoreanomics. . . . You ever get a funny feeling in your stomach about a ride don’t go,” Ricca’s eyes bulged when she said it. “Always trust your instinct honey, if one of these girls tells you not to take a ride with a certain someone . . . listen to them honey, they’re not trying to steal your money, they’re trying to help you out.”

A Johnny pulled up. “Hey girls!” he said, “Who’s that?” He was pointing at JJ. We knew this Johnny. He came around two or three times a week.

“I’m . . . uhh . . . JJ” she said.

“You wanna go for a ride JJ?” She was petrified. Her legs were shaking hard. Ricca gave her a nudge, and she moved towards the car. She looked back at her as if to ask, Are you sure? Ricca nudged again. After they drove off Ricca said, “Damn, I guess my lesson in whoreanomics will have to wait till she gets back,” she laughed at her own joke. She always laughed at her own jokes. “I need to write a book,” she said. “Whoreanomics 101. The Basics of Being a Whore.” She laughed hard this time.

I am still waiting for the book.

M
ajor thanks to Michelle Tea for unending support, advice, and hilarity. To Marie for being the funniest, bitchiest, smartest friend/fishbowl-mate ever. To Sarah Adams, Shane Vogel, Molly, and Kevin Walter for feedback. Inspiration and assistance: Carol Leigh, Amber Dawn, Chris Kraus, Greg Taylor, Jeri Beard, Tre Vasquez, and Bruce Springsteen. Thanks to Tennessee Jones for instigating this project. And thanks to my fabulous editor at Seal, Brooke Warner.

SHELBY AESTHETIC is an artist/writer/film documenter. Shelby has done sex work at various times in her life as a means of survival, and is currently a sex worker activist. She moved to Alabama in 1998 and is currently doing outreach for sex workers, documenting their lives, and writing for her own underground zine
Psycho Tomato.
Her book
Dick’s Favorite Goods
will be published through Little Lies, Unrepentant Publishers next year. Shelby is a supporter/believer in equality for all people. “As long as those in the sex industry are pushed further into the shadows, more rapes, violent acts and murders will take place. . . . How long are we going to sit around while men and women are losing their lives? Decriminalize prostitution!!!”

 

JENNIFER BLOWDRYER got her name from The Blowdryers, a punk band she sang with in 1979 in San Francisco. The name has continued on as, stunningly enough, has she. She received her MFA from Columbia’s writing division in 1988 and pioneered Smut Fests the same year at Harmony Burlesque in New York City, and her most recent books include
Good Advice for Young Trendy People Of All Ages
(San Francisco, CA: Manic D Press, 2005), and
The Revolution of 1964
(Berkeley, CA: Zeitgeist Press, 2007), a book of poems by her and her mom Lenore. She is bicoastal, bimonthly, and not hard to find. Listen to her tunes on Myspace, or see
www.jenniferblowdryer.com
. for outdated tour information.

 

SIOBHAN BROOKS is a PhD candidate at New School University in sociology. Her writings have appeared in several anthologies and journals, in
Feminism and Anti-Racism: International Struggles for Justice
and
Anti-Racism: International Struggles for Justice
(France Winddance Twine and Kathleen Blee, eds., New York: NYU Press, 2001) and University of California,
Hastings’s Women’s Law Journal,
Winter 1999. She is currently finishing her dissertation, which looks at sexualized desire, or erotic capital, as a variable in racial segregation among black/latina women in housing, education, and sex industry jobs by analyzing social stratification within strip clubs in New York and San Francisco. She is a lecturer in
Univerity of California, Santa Barbara’s Women Studies and Law and Society programs.

 

VAGINAL DAVIS is an originator of the homo-core punk movement and a genderqueer art-music icon. Her concept bands—including Pedro Muriel and Esther, Cholita! The Female Menudo, black fag, and the Afro Sisters—have left an indelible mark on the development of underground music. Set apart from gallery-centered art and Hollywood movies, and from those systems’ necessities of high-polish, lowsubstance production, Vaginal Davis’s low-budget—often no-budget—performance, experimental film, and video practice has critiqued exclusionary conceits from the outside. Vaginal Davis is the key proponent of the disruptive performance aesthetic known as terrorist drag. Disrupting the cultural assimilation of gay-oriented and corporatefriendly drag, she positions herself at an uncomfortable tangent to the conservative politics of gay culture, mining its contradictory impulses to interrupt the entrenchment of its assimilatory strategies. A self-labeled “sexual repulsive,” Ms. Davis consistently refuses to ease conservative tactics within gay and black politics, employing punk music, invented biography, insults, self-mockery, and repeated incitements to group sexual revolt—all to hilarious and devastating effect. Her body a car-crash of excessive significations,
Vaginal Davis stages a clash of identifications within and against both heterosexual and queer cultures, and black and hispanic identities.