2005 Sex Workers' Art Show
Annie Oakley has worn many hats during her life, but right now, she wants you to attend the Sex Workers Art Show, coming to a city near you! Annie founded this annual tour in 1997, and it features people from every aspect of the industry. There are strippers, prostitutes, dommes, film stars, phone sex operators, Internet models, etc. She and her band of merry cohorts are going to break the doors down and shatter whatever views you may have regarding this industry.
Elisabeth Suicide: So what inspired this tour?
Annie Oakley: Well...when I first started working in the sex industry, I was really pissed off by the way friends and colleagues responded when I told them about my new job. People were suddenly telling me I was anti-feminist and that I was degrading myself. They were people who had known my works and me for years. They said that I was degrading all women, bla bla bla, and it infuriated me. During one particularly heated conversation, I blurted out that I was going to be putting on a sex workers' art show. I hadn't really thought about it prior to it coming out of my mouth. I just knew I wanted to make people confront the sexist, classist tripe they were spewing at me under the guise of feminist politics.
At the time I didn't know there was any kind of sex worker movement, I didn't know of any sex worker organizations I could contact for help. I just put up calls for submissions in strip clubs, massage parlors, clinics, street outreach venues, bars, wherever, and hoped for the best. There was an overwhelmingly positive response, from the audience and especially from the artists who participated. And it grew from there, starting out as just an annual local show in Olympia and turning into this hell beast of a national tour. However, a lot of the inspiration is the same: using the show as a form of cultural activism, to entertain the audience while at the same time getting them to confront stereotypes they hold about people who work in the industry.
At the time I didn't know there was any kind of sex worker movement, I didn't know of any sex worker organizations I could contact for help. I just put up calls for submissions in strip clubs, massage parlors, clinics, street outreach venues, bars, wherever, and hoped for the best. There was an overwhelmingly positive response, from the audience and especially from the artists who participated. And it grew from there, starting out as just an annual local show in Olympia and turning into this hell beast of a national tour. However, a lot of the inspiration is the same: using the show as a form of cultural activism, to entertain the audience while at the same time getting them to confront stereotypes they hold about people who work in the industry.
ES:
Who is on the bill for the 2005 tour?
AO:
We have a really exciting lineup this year! Circus sideshow Diva of Danger Miss Satanica (aka SG Satanica) will be performing her bizarre blend of burlesque and freak show tricks. Contortions, fire eating, turning on light bulbs with surprising parts of her anatomy... Writer, musician, and Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year Nomy Lamm will be serenading us with her famous accordion and will be telling stories of her mind-boggling phone sex clients.
San Francisco cartoonist and performer Isis Rodriguez is going to be doing some hot burlesque with a message. Ben McCoy is an AMAZING performance artist and master of genderfuck who has the most commanding stage presence and also the most perfectly plucked eyebrows that I've ever seen! Writer, party promoter, and fashion queen Chelsea Starr is doing some storytelling and super cute tap-dancing. Playwright Naima Lowe is performing a multimedia piece that addresses race and body image in the sex industry.
Tre Vasquez is going to slay people with hip-hop brilliance and steal all the ladies. Ronica is a hilarious stand-up comedian from NY who takes apart imperialism with humor. And Shawna Kenney, who is with us on certain dates only, is reading from her acclaimed book, 'I Was a Teenage Dominatrix'.
San Francisco cartoonist and performer Isis Rodriguez is going to be doing some hot burlesque with a message. Ben McCoy is an AMAZING performance artist and master of genderfuck who has the most commanding stage presence and also the most perfectly plucked eyebrows that I've ever seen! Writer, party promoter, and fashion queen Chelsea Starr is doing some storytelling and super cute tap-dancing. Playwright Naima Lowe is performing a multimedia piece that addresses race and body image in the sex industry.
Tre Vasquez is going to slay people with hip-hop brilliance and steal all the ladies. Ronica is a hilarious stand-up comedian from NY who takes apart imperialism with humor. And Shawna Kenney, who is with us on certain dates only, is reading from her acclaimed book, 'I Was a Teenage Dominatrix'.
ES:
How did you decide who was going to be on the tour?
AO:
As far as how the crew is picked, calls for submissions are sent out all the hell over the place. This year we got more submissions than any other year, with almost 50 people applying. There's a small curatorial committee that wades through all the submissions and makes decisions. The goal is to include a range of points of view on the sex industry, particularly with regard to area of the sex industry people have worked in; why they got into it; race; gender; and class. That all needs to be considered along with balancing the acts that are light, entertaining, and sexy with some of the heavier pieces. It's cabaret-style, one act right after the other, and the acts need to complement each other and keep the energy moving.
ES:
What are you hoping to achieve with the tour?
AO:
Mainly what I'm hoping to achieve is to not end up completely fucking broke! Besides that, like I said, the goal is to get people to deal with the fucked up stereotypes they have about who is in the industry and why. People who work in the sex industry are constantly fetishized, mythologized, or demonized. The idea is to demystify the industry, to humanize the people who work in it. The goal is not to glorify the work, but to help present the whole complicated, messy picture. The people who works in the industry are here for a huge range of reasons, they have such a range of experiences and feelings about their work and their lives, all of them deserve to be heard and respected. The public's ignorance of the experiences (and, essentially, the personhood) of sex workers allows the shitty working conditions in the sex industry to flourish. Cops, pimps, bad tricks, and greedy club owners are the only people who benefit from the mystery and shame that surround the sex industry.
ES:
How long is the tour going to last? I understand that a lot of the dates are going to be held at various colleges and universities. How did this come about, and do you feel that you will have a very receptive audience?
AO:
The tour lasts a month, we hit 28 cities, and colleges sponsor about a third of our shows. This is great for us; cause schools tend to have good funding! I think the on-campus dialogue about sexuality and class has become more developed in the past few years, as porn and sex work have become more acceptable topics in academia. Which makes it much easier to book a show like ours. As far as a receptive audience, it has been my experience that the kids on college campuses are super excited to see us. They're really enthusiastic and fun. But college campuses are also one of the places that the anti-sex work vs. pro-sex work debate rages most viciously, and I keep waiting to show up somewhere and find the campus Dworkinite group marching with signs about the patriarchy in front of the venue.
ES:
You have such a wide variety of acts and personalities on the tour. Do you hope to have future tours with even more people on the bill?
AO:
Omigod, tour with MORE people?!!? It would probably kill me! The lineup changes each year, and I could maybe see adding one extra performer slot, but really if I added too many the show would start to be too long.
ES:
If you could have absolutely ANYONE on the tour with you, who would you choose and why?
AO:
There are a ton of artists and performers, who I really admire, and I have some ideas up my sleeve for next year, but if I could really tour with anyone it would be Bruce Springsteen. He is my personal hero, spiritual leader, and object of eternal lust and admiration (even if he has succumbed to the inadvisable aging-rock-star-vest-wearing-syndrome). We wouldn't even need an extra seat in the van; he could just sit on my face. But seriously, Bruce and his mythology are the reigning icons in my spiritual universe and I would do anything to tour with him.
ES:
I did read Shawna Kenney's book 'I Was a Teenage Dominatrix' when it came out. I was very impressed, and there were many parts of the book that seemed dreamlike to me. Do you feel that what you do is kind of like a dream?
AO:
I'm assuming you mean sex work? It was my full time job for years, but now it's only part-time. I have another part-time job as a buyer at a natural foods cooperative. The rest of my time is spent organizing and promoting this tour, and other arts/activism events like 2004's Homo-a-Gogo festival. The part of my working life that I find most fulfilling is event production, cultural production. I feel like cultural activism is one of the best ways to reach people at this point in history, and I love having the chance to contribute to movements and change. I've been slowly moving towards having event production be a full time job, and that is such an exciting prospect for me.
Sex work is sometimes really fun and exciting, I love any excuse to get dressed up and I like the challenge and the hustle. It fucking rules to make more in a night than I would in two weeks at a regular job. It changed my attitude towards money, somehow made me feel more secure. I have met some of the most amazing people and made some great friends. However, it's also been scary, boring, and sometimes, um, emotionally draining. Or worse. I guess it's been dreamlike at times- kind of this weird landscape made more out of the iconography of people's desires and fears than actual people or places.
Sometimes you see the best of people and yourself, and everything seems so easy and attainable, and the money feels like it's rolling in for free. Other times it's the worst job you've ever had and you can't believe the ugliness of humanity and you want to get out and never come back. I'm not one of those people who feel that sex work is one big party; I think it has its difficulties and dangers just like any job. I am more about supporting everyone's right to dignity, safety, and autonomy in whatever kind of work they choose.
Sex work is sometimes really fun and exciting, I love any excuse to get dressed up and I like the challenge and the hustle. It fucking rules to make more in a night than I would in two weeks at a regular job. It changed my attitude towards money, somehow made me feel more secure. I have met some of the most amazing people and made some great friends. However, it's also been scary, boring, and sometimes, um, emotionally draining. Or worse. I guess it's been dreamlike at times- kind of this weird landscape made more out of the iconography of people's desires and fears than actual people or places.
Sometimes you see the best of people and yourself, and everything seems so easy and attainable, and the money feels like it's rolling in for free. Other times it's the worst job you've ever had and you can't believe the ugliness of humanity and you want to get out and never come back. I'm not one of those people who feel that sex work is one big party; I think it has its difficulties and dangers just like any job. I am more about supporting everyone's right to dignity, safety, and autonomy in whatever kind of work they choose.
ES:
Do you have a 'day job', and what are some other occupations that you've filled?
AO:
The laundry list of my other jobs has included: traffic flagger, day care center worker, all manner of food service including waiting tables, a factory worker sitting next to a conveyer belt picking bugs out of frozen blueberries, retail, janitor at a pet store, caregiver to developmentally disabled adults, fruit harvesting, woodworking, artist's model, nanny, construction laborer, and I had a housecleaning business for awhile. I'm sure there are others I've forgotten.
ES:
You've done tours and lecturing in the past. How did all of that come about?
AO:
In my late teens I moved to Olympia, WA, the weird small town that fomented much of the riot girl movement. I was too isolated and out of the loop in my first years here to really catch riot girl in its heyday, but when I finally made some friends I was lucky enough to meet a bunch of queers and feminists who had retained some of the movement's do-it-yourself punk aesthetic. There was this feeling that you could do whatever you wanted to if you just had enough enthusiasm, and that you could make your own fun and your own culture. We put together drag shows and performance art events, put on feminist conferences that were attended by people from all over the world.
People were starting their own publishing companies, making feature films; groups like Sister Spit were touring the country with brilliant spoken word. Being in that atmosphere gave you all the confidence and inspiration that high school tried to beat out of you. So when I got the crackpot idea to do the SWAS, it seemed perfectly reasonable that I could pull it together by myself. And after years of it being hugely successful in Olympia, when it started to seem like it was time to take it out on the road, the fact that I had absolutely no touring experience didn't seem daunting. Looking back it probably should've, the tour had a HUGE-ass budget for a first-timer to try to meet. I taught myself to be a booking agent, promoter, producer, and road manager. It was a lot of fucking up and learning from mistakes, but this is the third national tour and it gets easier and bigger every time. It turns out you totally CAN make your own culture.
I have not been to college, but I have spent lots of time at them speaking or performing. Schools bring me to speak about feminism and the sex industry, or about cultural activism. It's really fun, and I'm hoping if I do it enough someone will finally break down and just give me a degree.
People were starting their own publishing companies, making feature films; groups like Sister Spit were touring the country with brilliant spoken word. Being in that atmosphere gave you all the confidence and inspiration that high school tried to beat out of you. So when I got the crackpot idea to do the SWAS, it seemed perfectly reasonable that I could pull it together by myself. And after years of it being hugely successful in Olympia, when it started to seem like it was time to take it out on the road, the fact that I had absolutely no touring experience didn't seem daunting. Looking back it probably should've, the tour had a HUGE-ass budget for a first-timer to try to meet. I taught myself to be a booking agent, promoter, producer, and road manager. It was a lot of fucking up and learning from mistakes, but this is the third national tour and it gets easier and bigger every time. It turns out you totally CAN make your own culture.
I have not been to college, but I have spent lots of time at them speaking or performing. Schools bring me to speak about feminism and the sex industry, or about cultural activism. It's really fun, and I'm hoping if I do it enough someone will finally break down and just give me a degree.
ES:
What do your family and friends think about the tour and what you do?
AO:
When I first started working, I got resistance from a few of my friends, but now it's nothing but support and respect. I'm really really lucky to have the friends I do. My family, aside from my brother, doesn't really know about me doing sex work. They know what the tour's about, but I think they just think that I organize it, not that I perform in it. They don't ask a lot of questions, I assume they vaguely know and don't really want to. It seems to be more comfortable for everyone that way.
ES:
Where else can we see you? Do you have any exhibits taking place? Any galleries where your artwork is being shown?
AO:
Nothing at all right now. All my time is spent organizing this tour, basically being an administrator for other people's art, and then I have no time for my own. It sucks. The only art I've done in awhile has been designing posters and press materials for the tour.
ES:
What did you think when you first noticed the presence of sex workers on the net, their personal sites, blogs, etc? Early pioneers on the Web.
AO:
It's true; sex workers were some of the earliest people to realize the possibilities of the Internet, and to take advantage of technology like web cams. I think it's great, web pages offer a very low-cost way for independent workers to advertise themselves and web cams are an excellent option for people who need to be able to work at home.
The web was also where I first learned about other sex work activists. I remember getting someone to explain what a 'search engine' was, very mysterious term at the time, and typing in 'sex work' and being blown away. The Internet has changed everything about the way we exchange information, who knows how long it would've taken me to learn about different sex worker movements otherwise.
The web was also where I first learned about other sex work activists. I remember getting someone to explain what a 'search engine' was, very mysterious term at the time, and typing in 'sex work' and being blown away. The Internet has changed everything about the way we exchange information, who knows how long it would've taken me to learn about different sex worker movements otherwise.
ES:
How do you define feminism? Who is a feminist? How do you think the 21st Century will evolve in terms of what feminism means to you? I've been so reluctant to label anyone, as I think labels are for jars, not people. I'm asking this because I think it's important as websites like SG and others continue trying to break down stereotypes and boundaries.
AO:
I think labels get a bad rap. I think the hesitancy of the left wing of this country to identify with anything has actually been really divisive. You don't see Republicans or Conservatives pussyfooting around like, 'Oh I don't know if I really want to be called conservative, but I do oppose gay marriage and abortion'. They band together despite some differences in ideology and they get shit done, which is why we are fucked.
Feminism, to define it simply, is the belief that women deserve equality in all respects. There are differences amongst feminists as to what exactly that looks like, and those dialogues are important to have. But there are times when it is politically expedient for people to publicly 'label' themselves as something, to identify themselves with a movement. Making the term 'feminist' an unpopular word with negative associations like Rush Limbaugh's 'feminazi' was a genius move of the right wing, and make no mistake, it was a deliberate move. It made thousands of young women afraid to identify as feminists, cause it would make them uncool or scare away the boys.
It's so depressing to see so many female musicians and celebrities refuse to identify as feminists. What kind of dipshit woman doesn't want women's equality? If you don't like what the term feminist has come to imply, identify yourself as a feminist and then be a living example of a different kind of feminism.
Feminism, to define it simply, is the belief that women deserve equality in all respects. There are differences amongst feminists as to what exactly that looks like, and those dialogues are important to have. But there are times when it is politically expedient for people to publicly 'label' themselves as something, to identify themselves with a movement. Making the term 'feminist' an unpopular word with negative associations like Rush Limbaugh's 'feminazi' was a genius move of the right wing, and make no mistake, it was a deliberate move. It made thousands of young women afraid to identify as feminists, cause it would make them uncool or scare away the boys.
It's so depressing to see so many female musicians and celebrities refuse to identify as feminists. What kind of dipshit woman doesn't want women's equality? If you don't like what the term feminist has come to imply, identify yourself as a feminist and then be a living example of a different kind of feminism.
ES:
Very well said! You never know though about what some women are thinking, I think that fear is such a huge component of silence, not speaking out for what you believe in.
I cant thank you enough for the interview, and patiently await your show coming into town!
How can people contact you for future bookings?
I cant thank you enough for the interview, and patiently await your show coming into town!
How can people contact you for future bookings?
AO:
They can visit the website at www.sexworkersartshow.com, and email me at annie@sexworkersartshow.com.
2005 Sex Workers Art Show TOUR SCHEDULE
2/17 Portland, OR Berbati's Pan
2/18 Eugene, OR John Henry's Club
2/19 Olympia, WA The Capitol Theatre
2/20 Arcata, CA Humboldt State Univ.
2/21 San Francisco, CA Cafe du Nord
2/22 Healdsburg, CA The Raven Theatre
2/23 Los Angeles, CA UCLA
2/24 San Diego, CA The Voltaire Street Space
2/25 Phoenix, AZ Alwun House
2/26 Santa Fe, NM Backroads
2/28 Austin, TX Univ. Texas/ Sidekicks Club
3/1 Beaumont, TX The Art Studio
3/2 Houston, TX The Axiom
3/3 New Orleans, LA The Zeitgeist
3/5 Huntsville, AL The Flying Monkey
3/6 Wilmington, NC The Soapbox
3/7 Richmond, VA The Nanci Raygun
3/8 Baltimore, MD The Creative Alliance
3/9 Princeton, NJ Princeton Univ., Terrace Club
3/10 Bronxville, NY Sarah Lawrence College
3/11 Providence, RI AS220
3/12 Boston, MA TBA
3/13 New York, NY The Knitting Factory
3/14 Washington, DC The Black Cat
3/15 Annandale-on-Hudson, NY Bard College
3/16 Ithaca, NY Ithaca College
3/17 Ann Arbor, MI The Michigan Theatre
2005 Sex Workers Art Show TOUR SCHEDULE
2/17 Portland, OR Berbati's Pan
2/18 Eugene, OR John Henry's Club
2/19 Olympia, WA The Capitol Theatre
2/20 Arcata, CA Humboldt State Univ.
2/21 San Francisco, CA Cafe du Nord
2/22 Healdsburg, CA The Raven Theatre
2/23 Los Angeles, CA UCLA
2/24 San Diego, CA The Voltaire Street Space
2/25 Phoenix, AZ Alwun House
2/26 Santa Fe, NM Backroads
2/28 Austin, TX Univ. Texas/ Sidekicks Club
3/1 Beaumont, TX The Art Studio
3/2 Houston, TX The Axiom
3/3 New Orleans, LA The Zeitgeist
3/5 Huntsville, AL The Flying Monkey
3/6 Wilmington, NC The Soapbox
3/7 Richmond, VA The Nanci Raygun
3/8 Baltimore, MD The Creative Alliance
3/9 Princeton, NJ Princeton Univ., Terrace Club
3/10 Bronxville, NY Sarah Lawrence College
3/11 Providence, RI AS220
3/12 Boston, MA TBA
3/13 New York, NY The Knitting Factory
3/14 Washington, DC The Black Cat
3/15 Annandale-on-Hudson, NY Bard College
3/16 Ithaca, NY Ithaca College
3/17 Ann Arbor, MI The Michigan Theatre
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