PHOTO: LILY LETIGRE (IG: @LILY.LETIGRE)

The following guide was submitted by someone who chooses to remain anonymous.
Click HERE to read Part One. 
 

4) Performance

a) Developing a personal style

One of the first things you will want to do is develop a style. My "character" is very girl next door; submissive and quirky, sweet, adorable, and flushed/ easily embarrassed by sexual talk. It's not far from who I am in real life, so it stays fairly simple.

The idea of topping makes me want to vomit in real life, but my character doesn't mind it. In fact, she loves it. It took me a long time to be able to do dom and top shows, but there are lots of men who want that, so it's not something you want to miss capitalizing on if you can learn to stomach it for a few sessions a night.

At the end of the day, it's all an elaborate act. I am not myself when camming. Things that trigger and hurt me in real life have ceased to hurt and trigger me during shows. A lot changes once you learn to step into a character entirely. This is something that requires practice. I would highly recommend starting out with just being yourself. Let things naturally progress and evolve.

If you sense a john is craving a more dominant partner, feel free to lean into that. If they make hints at certain secret fetishes and desires--coax those thoughts out of them. They will forget they are paying you by the minute if you manage to completely immerse them in their fantasy. The more open minded you are in this world, the more successful you will be.

b) Talk for those coins

My personal style also includes a great deal of dirty talk during my shows. I have found this to be the most important skill in my arsenal.

With words, you can walk a client through a fetish situation. You can create whole fantasies in their head to imagine while they watch you riding your dildo or fingering yourself. Sometimes this involves roleplay and pretending that you are in a particular situation, ie--You were just picked up at the bar but he doesn't know that you have a dick. Or maybe he is your dad’s best friend who was secretly sent to check in on you while your parents were away on vacation. Surprise! He caught you drinking, you bad, BAD girl.

There are no limits to what you can accomplish in a highly verbal show. Aim to entertain yourself--not your john. If you’re loving it, they will be too.

c) Topping digitally

My top shows are entirely verbal. I have done so many of these at this point that I have the script memorized. it goes something like this once they have let on that they wish to be topped:

"Oh so you like being bent over and fucked really good don't you. Mmm. That makes your mistress very happy. But before I'm going to go inside you, I want you to show me how good of a boy you can be. Why don't you get on your knees for me? Can you do that? Good boy. Now I want you to bend over just like this and put your face in my lap. That's right; that's it. Press your face right up against my panties. Can you feel my girlcock starting to swell down there? You like that don't you. I bet it makes you want..."

It kind of just goes on from there. Try to remain in tune with what EXACTLY they want in a topping situation because men are fragile and the wrong words can make them feel self conscious and leave. Some men just want to be topped but NOT dominated. Some want to be dominated but NOT feminized. Some men want to be dominated and feminized. Depending on their exact demands, my language changes. Sometimes I make them pick out a girl name and tell them what a good little sissy they are. Other times I am a more submissive, "I've never done this before, but it feels so warm inside you that I can't stop moving my hips" style top.

d) Know your fetishes

Stay in your comfort zone of course, but having a deep knowledge of the various popular fetishes that the internet has to offer and understanding what makes certain clients tick can be critical to your success. If you are able to help a client live out their most personal and deep fetishes, they will come back again and again. A lot of this is trying to get into the headspace of someone with that particular fetish. THE MORE YOU KNOW!

PHOTO: LILY LETIGRE (IG: @LILY.LETIGRE)

5) Enhance yourself with camera tricks.

When I first started camming, I did not "pass" in real life. But in perfect lighting, with a full face of heavy and well conceived makeup, and having spent quite a lot of time finding the perfect angles to present myself to the camera at, I came much closer to passability.
 

a) Makeup

Start spending time learning makeup if you haven’t already!

Jeffree Star, as much as I hate him, does a great job of teaching techniques that are applicable for trans women who are struggling to pass.

Remember that on camera, in proper lighting, heavy makeup does not register anywhere near as heavy as it does in real life. This allows you to bend your look much further than you can when chatting with folks face to face.

b) Lighting

I would recommend getting in full face and turning on a camera application that is not broadcasting before messing with your lighting setup.

Try positioning your lamp in various places in the room. Maybe drape a colorful or blanket over it to bend the color of the light. Perhaps incorporate some christmas lights and see how they impact your look. In this way, you can adjust virtually everything in your lighting setup without spending a penny on fancy stage lights.

*Don't look at this as an exact science!* Just toy with your approach until you like what you see in the camera and continually tweak as you grow and evolve as a performer. The more you play, the better you will get.

The angle of the lighting is perhaps more important than its hue and brightness. Light reaching the face from head on or a 45 degree angle reduces the appearance of the brow bone and other masculine features. No matter who you are--direct, overhead lighting is not a good look and tends to make the face appear more gaunt and masculine.

c) Camera angle

Play around with the angle of the camera and position it in such a way that it views you from your most flattering angle as a default in your lobby. If you have ever taken selfies, you will be aware of how we can tweak our overall look with angles.

The goal is to memorize your most flattering angles and postures and learn to flow through these seamlessly while avoiding the ones that are not flattering. This also extends beyond your face to the positions in which you are riding a dildo or fingering yourself.

Consider your body and its relationship to the camera at all times. Keep an image of you blown up on your monitor or dedicate a second monitor to keeping tabs on yourself at all times.

I always keep my shoulders pulled back to minimize their appearance. This also makes my breasts stand out more. Again, the goal is to flow seamlessly through a series of overly flattering angles while outright avoiding those that are not flattering. The particulars will be different for everyone.

PHOTO: LILY LETIGRE (IG: @LILY.LETIGRE)

6) Know who to pay attention to; BE KIND!

Some clients will just show up and hope to get off from chatting with you without any intention of ever giving you a penny. We call these “time-wasters.”

Be polite to them, but learn to identify them from their behavior. Feed the right wolves. Flirt heavily with big tippers. When a regular shows up in your room, act as if you have missed them terribly. Allow yourself to build friendships with clients, but always maintain boundaries. Whatever you do, keep engaging. Stay moving and flirting. Have funny stories prepared to tell them. Make up elaborate stories of larger than life sexual exploits. Anything to keep them interested.

Lots of girls play loud music and ignore their room until someone takes them to a show or tips. This is a huge mistake in my opinion, being that a large part of this job is learning to build “relationships” with your clients. It takes practice and a strong stomach, but you will get the hang of it. Some of them I even consider almost friends.

7) Be patient!

Be patient with it. You first have to grow a client base, and that isn't something that always happens overnight. My first night ever camming I made 70 bucks in 3 or 4 hours. I just kept at it until I got to where I was when I first made the switch to escorting--making 175 an hour.

It took a lot of time, energy, and very real effort to get to that point, but with persistence, you can do it too.

8) HAVE FUN!

This part can be hard. Especially at first. But try to have fun with it. I almost always have porn up on one of my monitors or my cell phone, muted, and I fantasize about the things that truly get me off in real life during my shows.

I can be doing a domme session with a john and talking him through it step by step, "I need you to get on your knees for me now, you little slut. Show your mistress how you like to play with that pretty little pink boi-pussy..." and meanwhile in my head I am making out with Beyonce or visualizing my personal kinky fantasies.

It helps a lot if you can bring your own fantasies into the mix. You can always test the water by teasing that you have a secret fantasy that you're not sure if anyone would like. This will garner interest. Next thing you know you're acting it out on your own terms and getting paid to do so.

There's a lot of nuance as to how you can run your show. Just experiment and see what works for you to create the most positive and lucrative experience possible. Best of luck out their ladies and good luck making it through the storm.

May you all be surged for the gods <3

The longest season ever of Drag Race continued this week with their 10th episode. Are we sure that’s right? I feel like there have been at least twenty….and in that time I had two birthdays, a root canal, and a colostomy.

Let’s spill some T and talk some shit about this week’s episode, because this was a really good episode (for this season).

After the non-elimination, Aquaria is upset that it's still top six. She voices this opinion to which all the other queens seemingly attack her for being so selfish. I had a problem with this, because at the end of the day, it is a competition with a $100,000 on the line. My ass would want to see the girls sashay away one at a time.

TBH Eureka should’ve gone home last week and seeing as she’s a strong competitor, I don’t blame the girls for feeling like she should’ve been eliminated. Instead, the girls think Kameron should’ve gone home, but HENNY, I ain't buying that shit.

Mini Challenge

The mini challenge this week is for the queens to get in their best Masc4Masc drag, and star in a photo for RuPaul’s new cologne….TRADE. This mini challenge restored the streak of good mini challenges that this season has gifted us. The queen’s personalities get to shine which is where the mini challenges always succeed.

Tops

Kameron - OMG IS THAT A DAMN GRAPEFRUIT IN YOUR…...oh I’m sorry….what was the question?

Eureka - Eureka playing BJ, the creepy trucker bear that won’t leave me alone on Growlr until I block his ass was eerily accurate.

Bottoms

Aquaria - Gurl. We know you don’t have an ounce of toxic masculinity running through you, but thanks for the conformation.

Monet - Monet and I are very similar in that when we try to act “Masc”, our sissy always finds a way to come out in the end. She might not have done well on this challenge, but I see you Monet!

Maxi Challenge

The maxi challenge this week is to take social media “influencers” and drag them up into your family haus. True to Drag Race herstory, the queens also have to star in a musical number with their new sisters, in a YouTube worthy video.

I dunno about y’all, but this is the episode I usually zone out for. Historically only one or two queens do a semi decent job of making over their person, and the rest prove that it’s easier to paint yourself than others. This season though, the queens did really well and nobody came out looking like an over highlighted girl Gremlin.

Tops

Miz Cracker - MY BABY FINALLY WON!!!!! I was so proud to see my girl pull herself out of that slump she got herself into. Their presentation, make-up, hair, and costumes were clearly the best. Bonus points to Cracker also having the biggest transformation in the makeover. For real, Miz Cookie might have stolen the whole damn episode.

Eureka - As much as it pains me to say, because I also loathe Frankie Grande….the bitches turned it. The presentation was very much in line with the Eureka brand, and they sold it with their storytelling and celebrating their over the top personalities.

Bottoms

Aquaria - I’m sorry y’all...but Aquaria should’ve been in the bottom two and Kameron should’ve sent her ass packing. The looks were a miss and Kinglsey was so shy and timid, this challenge is about not just making over the outside, but trying to help makeover the inside too. Aquaria failed on both parts.

Kameron - The family resemblance was more like 2nd cousins that showed up to the same party wearing similar outfits. Kelly’s outfit  was very basic and haphazardly made, I could see undergarments….it wasn’t the T.

Monet - While Monet and Shor’ were one of the better pairings personalities wise, this challenge showed where Monet struggles the most and that’s in design. The outfits were all right, but I agree with the judges that they were basic, and the reveals were mediocre.

LSFYL

Ru puts Kameron and Monet up for elimination, and spares Aquaria, perhaps only on her track record this season. Two lip sync assassins must duel it out to Lizzo’s “Feeling Good”, which has been a banger of mine for a good year now, but I’m happy to see Lizzo get more exposure.

Monet and Kameron don’t hold anything back and throw it all on the line for in my eyes what was the best LSFYL of the season (but we used our double shantay on Eureka -__-). Kameron ends up staying with Monet sashaying away. If I have to pick between the two, I would agree that Kameron slayed a little harder than Monet.

WUSSY is proud to present poetry by North Caroline queer, reid drake. 
If you would like to send in a writing submission, please contact Nicholas Goodly. 

reid drake is a North Carolina poet & artist who's work wishes to be badly bruised by the worlds it's wrestling. They received an MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and currently work as a teaching artist in Chicago. drake’s texts have appeared or are forthcoming in Yale University's PALIMPSEST V. IX, WUSSY Mag Vol. 2, If You Can Hear This: Poems in Protest of an American Inauguration, & Assaracus #18; they have also been shown as part of Sullivan Galleries' the Poetics of Haunting, in response to Apichatpong Weerasethakul's the Serenity of Maddness, as well as in collaboration with artist Matt Morris as part of Tusk gallery's Dinner Party exhibition. 

WUSSY has been curating & producing queercentric ATL experiences for over three years and we are ready to bring that DGAF sissy glam to the rest of the world!

With a little help from Miss Lucy Stoole as the host for our film screening series, we are launching MONTHLY midnight movies at the Davis Theater in CHICAGO, the first in our series is Spice World on Saturday, July 21st!

Here's a little taste from our sold out screening in Atlanta -- photos by Savana Ogburn:

Spice World Tickets are available now! 
RSVP to the Facebook Event Invitation HERE! 

Be on the lookout for Chicago events coming your way and sign up for our Chicago Newsletter below! 

THE MISANDRISTS, Cartilage Films

Throughout the span of time, powerful feminist figures have been polarizing archetypes viewed as threats to patriarchy. Today, we say that is passé and absolutely incredulous. Let’s ponder, what would an army of radical, badass lesbians look like?

In comes The Misandrists -- the new feature film by Bruce LaBruce that puts that fantasy to the test. A provocateur for decades, LaBruce is one of the fathers of queercore (an offshoot of 80s punk), the political movement that unabashedly pushed an agenda of overt homosexuality, specifically as it pertained to gay men. Now, he’s switching gears and gender roles, with an anarchist lesbian flair.

The Misandrists is premiering at the Plaza Theater in Atlanta on June 15, with a post screening discussion moderated by Bodies On Display. The film tackles significant issues pertaining to feminism’s exclusionary history, the premise of female dictators, and the impact of intersectionality creating a more unifying feminism for all womyn!

Bruce LaBruce jumped on a call recently to discuss this and more about his incendiary film, The Misandrists.

Can you broadly discuss the radical politics of The Misandrist?

Bruce LaBruce

It’s about a group of lesbian separatist essentialist feminist terrorists set in 1999. It’s a critique of second wave feminism and certain aspects of post feminism from the perspective of radical lesbians who think that pornography is a radical expression of sexuality that can be used for political purposes. So these radical lesbians make their own lesbian porn which is really designed more as propaganda than anything else.

What aspects of film history and aesthetics inspired your vision?

There's so many cinematic influences and references in The Misandrists. I was referencing a lot of different genres like Nunsploitation and sexploitation movies of the 70s. Those kind of erotic softcore movies that often had lesbian undertones to them. Also certain Hollywood films from the late 60s and early 70s. A-list films that have more of B movie atmosphere like, The Beguiled by Don Siegel which Sofia Coppola recently remade, and Robert Aldrich’s The Dirty Dozen. I’m referencing my favorite nun movie, The Trouble with Angels directed by Ida Lupino. One of my main inspirations for the film was the writing of Ulrike Meinhof, who was one of the main four members of the Red Army Faction, the extreme left wing terrorists from Germany in the 70s. She wrote a movie called Bambule which is about a girls reform school. Then there is Morrissey and Warhol’s work, particularly Women In Revolt. Some of the critique of feminism from that film but also the celebration of feminism at the same time. That’s about it. Aesthetically, I tried to make it as pretty as possible. It’s supposed to be very romantic and aesthetically pleasing.

You are a queer pornographer that’s primarily worked with men. Did you have a different experience working with mostly women this time around?

Yeah, I’ve made some films like L.A. Zombie and Hustler White that only have male characters, but a lot of my films do have strong female characters. My film Otto has a main character who is a very imposing lesbian filmmaker, and Gerontophilia has a very revolutionary young girl as lead, but I’ve never made an all female film before. A film with an almost all female cast. That’s exactly why I made the movie! It's something I’ve always wanted to do for a very long time. My film The Raspberry Reich is about left wing radicals but it didn't really have lesbian characters. My lesbian friends always said, “you have to make a movie about lesbian extremists,” so that's what I did. It was really great! Much of the cast and crew were female like the musical composer, the costume designer, two of the producers, the sound recordists, and the sound designer. There was a lot of female energy on the set. We were filming in an old house in the German countryside, a two hour drive from Berlin. The crew stayed on location and the cast at local hotels. We were thrown together in this remote location and the women on the film particularly the female cast members bonded very strongly together. There was kind of a parallel movie going on that I wasn’t even privy to in a way. All these women hanging out together sharing stories. The more mature actresses were kind of mentoring the younger girls. It was really cool in that regard. To do lesbian softcore pornography was interesting for me as well. It was a much different process that was collaborative with the actors. For the orgy scene, I just left them all alone in a room, and they all discussed what they were and weren’t comfortable with. It was all very much about people expressing sexuality but in a way that made them comfortable.

Do you see any powerful purpose to pornography?

Super 8 1/2, 1994

Well yeah, personally, I think pornography does serve a valuable purpose. Sex is a very powerful, untamed force of nature. It really has to have expression. A lot of us have politically incorrect sexual fantasies that obviously can't be acted out upon, so porn is kind of this play space in a way. This fantasy space where we can work out these dark or extreme sexual fantasies. It has a cathartic function and it’s also pleasurable. I've always used porn in what I consider a political strategy, gay porn in particular. When I was a punk in the 80s there was a lot of homophobia in that scene or just in general people were. There was a lot of free floating homophobia. My idea was to use sexually explicit imagery in my films as much as possible to be very militant and in your face about the reality of gay sex and not pander to some kind of liberal idea of tolerance. To be tolerated by the mainstream or by straight people as long as you are a good gay and don't push things to extremes. As long as you’re not flaunting your homosexuality. So I used porn to flaunt it as much as I could!

When it comes to performance, is there a relationship between eroticism and fetishes?

A lot of my movies are directly about fetishes. Starting back with my first film, No Skin Off My Ass, which has some S&M imagery, boot licking, and toilet licking even though it’s in a dream sequence. In Hustler White, the infamous stump fucking scene, the amputee fetish. Skinheads as a kind of fetish. Gerontophilia is of course about the specific fetish for the sexual attraction to the elderly. According to Freud, anything that does not contribute directly to the procreative sex act is a fetish. By that definition, even a kiss, is a fetish. It's hard to avoid representing fetishes when your making films about sex. For me the point is, eroticism is quite often just that. Something that isn't so obvious as the blatant kind of sex act, the act of intercourse. It's about the romance around the sexual object. Fetishist can express a great reverence for the object of desire, almost worship. It has a spiritual dimension. That’s more what I think eroticism is. It’s an expression of that kind of romance for all things that contribute to a sexual fantasy.

What is your argument to the anti-pornography rhetoric?

Anti-porn feminist have been around forever. They were quite vocal in the 80s. I’ve always been totally discreet with them. Though, I understand their critique of pornography. I called a book of mine, The Reluctant Pornographer because I do have ambivalence to certain aspects of porn. I'm well aware of how people are exploited in porn, particularly women. That it can prey on vulnerable people who when they enter the industry have some kind of sexual abuse in their background or sexual trauma. They can be exploited by the industry. It’s a huge industry and a lot of it is very professional with ethical practices and oversight with a respect of consensual sex and the boundaries of the performers. Like any industry there is certain aspects that are corrupt or exploitative. But I don't think it’s indicative of… it’s not an indictment of the entire industry. There's so many kind of pornography now, so much personal pornography and people expressing themselves online. The average person putting erotic or pornographic photos of themselves online on social media and sex sites. It's really become very normalized in a lot of ways and i think that's probably a good thing because it allows peoples to express their sexuality as opposed to repressing it.

Culturally, people are more confident expressing their sexuality and exposing their bodies. Why are people so scared of pornography?

There's a kind of schizophrenic reaction to it these days. It's so ubiquitous and children are even exposed to it from a young age on the internet. As well, because of the regression to conservative values In America, they are trying to cut down on open expressions of sexuality. They just closed down Craigslist (connection ads) and Backpage, so there is an inconsistency there.

THE MISANDRISTS, Cartilage Films

There are some amazing actors and performers such as Susanne Sachsse and Kembra Pfahler in your film. It’s a fabulous cast... some are typically seen in porn others are not... how was it on set and these two opposing practices convening?

A hodgepodge of different styles of acting with different kinds of performers. I cast Susanne who started out as a theater actress who I’d worked with quite a lot. Kembra’s work as a performer and musician is quite theatrical as well, kind of like performance art. Viva Ruiz, who plays Sister Dagmar is also a performance artists. They come from a more art or theater tradition. We also cast using an agency so there's a couple young actresses who act more in film and T.V. That’s a different kind of style! Then there’s some non-professional actors. There's a couple of girls, who make their own kind of feminist porn so they have a different style as well. It’s just about embracing all styles and making it consistent. “Camp” works best when it's played straight without winking at the audience or anything. Have the actors commit very seriously to the roles, even if its melodramatic, and it's not about naturalistic acting at all. People always complain about the bad acting in my films. They don't get that it comes from a tradition of gay camp, and melodrama, and this intermixing of professional and non-professional actors. When I work with a porn star which I have many times in my films the challenge is to get them involved. To be excited about having an actual acting job. To get them into it. They're not used to in porn delivering complex dialogue or whatnot, and most of them love the challenge of doing it. Their performances may not seem up to the standard of professional acting. They're still interesting, the way they commit themselves to the role, and give the best performance they can. Everything has to be consistent, the cinematography, the acting, the tone. The balance between sincerity and sarcasm. The political critique, which is both, supporting feminism and critiquing it at the same time, it's all a delicate balance.

Will there be more after this film, perhaps a sequel?

I wouldn't rule out making another film about terrorists, or extremists which is something that really fascinates me. In fact, Ulrike’s Brain, is a little film within the film in The Misandrists that Susanne stars. I made that into an hour long film which is also about political radicals; two rivals, an extreme right wing neo nazi and extreme leftist feminist radical.

Do you feel that “queerness” has been co-opted by the masses? Does that notion express anything about the future of sexuality?

I recently interviewed and did a profile of Phillip Picardi, the editor of Teen Vogue for Fantastic Man. He has that new queer platform on social media, them., the website. It represents a new kind of queer consciousness. You could say it's been co-opted to some degree because it very corporate. It’s coming out a very corporate environment, Conde Nast, and attitude towards mainstream media. That kind of reality is the new default for queer youth. They are born into a world of brands, and corporate advertising, fashion, and entertainment. They don't really know anything else, that's their reality! When I was making queer films in the 80s we were completely anti-corporate. There was still an underground. It was before the internet. We self published everything. We advertised ourselves. We didn't use advertising in our fan zines. It was all DIY. The punk bands at the time all had independent labels. It was a whole different strategy and approach. At that time there was a such thing as an underground or an avant garde, that existed as more of an invisible entity, something you had to seek out and look for. Now the model is the internet, and social media is so over determined that its hard to make your voice heard in that context. Everything is available, immediately, instant gratification. So it still kind of makes sense that its a more mainstream concept now. We also talked about old school gay. To me it means pre-liberation, late 60s-70s, which is about militant sexuality, being separated from society, celebrating outside status, and going against the grain, predominate order. Now it’s about working within that system and trying to make it more universal. Recently, Gucci put out a line of shoes called “Queercore.” The aesthetic had nothing to do with queercore. That's the kind of co-option that seems to be exploiting underground erotica culture.

You’ve been able to maneuver between the art and film worlds simultaneously. Do you have a preference ?

Cinema is my first love. I'm a total cinephile, that's my primary focus. The art world has never been that receptive of me. They've always found my work too pornographic. I work too strictly within the porn idiom to the point of really making porn that I consider art as well. In fact, I consider all pornographers artists of some kind. Its a creative process. It's a kind of filmmaking too. The art world, they rejected me for being too pornographic. And the porn world rejects me for being too artistic. Again, I’m kind of the outsider in both worlds. For me cinema is the most important discipline.

Poster art by Shanisia Person

Who are some artists you’re currently looking at?

A lot of the people I worked with who are in my film...Kembra. No Bra, who does the love scene, “Down With The Patriarchy”, she's a really great artist. I worked with Desi Santiago, who did production design. He’s designed some major tours for Britney Spears and Madonna. I like contemporary gay artists like Scooter LaForge, Slava Mogutin, Cody Critcheloe of SSION, Casey Spooner, Gio Black Peter, Ryan Trecartin. There’s this artist, I'm not sure if he's even gay but he's very queer, Petr Pavlenski, nailed his scrotum to cobblestone in Red Square, an amazing performance artist.

I love reading Academy of the Underrated, queer analysis of movies from the past. Do you think all along some films have been “queering” us?

Oh yeah absolutely! I studied with famous art and film critic Robert Wood. He always talked about the homosexual subtext in classical Hollywood movies, anything from Howard Hawks movies, macho westerns, or films by gay directors, Vincente Minnelli or George Kuchar. He would talk about how there's a latent thread of homsexual themes running through the movies. I would say horror movies are based on homosexual panic for example, or B movies always have a thread of homosexual references. I wrote for Academy of the Underrated about this teen high school movie, Over the Edge, and I listed 23 homophobic references. This kind of fear of “otherness,” of homsexuality, runs through a lot of Hollywood movies. Sexual repression is a theme from a lot of these movies. What I've done with a lot of my films is I’m “queering” straight movies, or mainstream movies. My version of the story or film brings out that latent subtext. I did it with That Cold Day in the Park, the Altman movie which I remade as my first film, No Skin Off My Ass. It queers that movie or The Misandrists, as a loose remake of The Beguiled.

Finally, you wrote an amazing essay on “Notes on Camp/Anti-Camp.” Can you discuss the thesis of that piece and its relevance to your new film?

I was basically reinvestigating Susan Sontag’s famous essay Notes On “Camp” about the camp sensibility, and aesthetic. One thing I strongly disagree with is she made the claim that camp is apolitical and unengaged politically, and that's ridiculous. The whole point of camp in terms of being a queer sensibility is it was exactly a kind of secret language between homosexuals that was adopted because they were marginalized and had to communicate invisibly, or secretly, like code words. A kind of sensibility that they shared and straight people didn't really understand. In that sense it's totally political, and it also has a direct political meaning just in terms of acting out against mainstream conventions. Its extreme appreciation of artifice and theatricality, in itself is kind of a political statement against very conventional straightforward mainstream entertainment.

Bodies On Display is a curatorial project on Gender and Sexuality in Visual Culture. It aims to highlight the intersections between erotic art, pornography, fetish, and performance. The next screening will be Narcissister Organ Player showing date TBA.

The Rowdydowdy crew (not pictured: Durham Henderson

There's a light (over at the Frankenstein Place) ...

It's been nearly a year since we've heard from the glam punk priestesses at RowdyDowdy, a DIY party, performance, and living space located in Southwest Atlanta. The Athens-to-Atlanta transplants made a huge splash last year, hosting original productions and local music shows with WUSSY favorites like LONER and Coco & Clair Clair.

The Dowdy Gurls are a drag family. Not unlike Savannah's House of Gunt or Warhol's Factory, they create art together, swap makeup tips, and make their own rules. When you enter the paint-spattered venue, you are also entering their home.

Since last year, life at RowdyDowdy hasn't been all garbage and glam. The Dowdy Gurls experienced some pushback in 2017 after "The Big Thing" music festival pulled out of working with the venue, citing allegations that they were supportive of abusers. 

Now the team is back, on the heels of premiering their new drag space odyssey, BOYMAN: The Musical. We spoke to the crew to hear more about their new production, the ImmersiveAtlanta controversy, and a whole new era of RowdyDowdy. 

Kether Drella

Who or what is RowdyDowdy? Describe yourselves for people who might not know you yet.

Rowdy Dowdy is an eclectically decorated ATL lifestyle event space featuring art and entertainment events of all kinds. We are a mixed bag of mid-20s broke ass queens living in a garage and striving to untuck the gender-f***-movement while also searching for true love. Our goals: Provide an entirely unique DIY experience in our beloved city, and look FIERCE while we do it. Bottom line, we’re just trying to launch our careers as weirdos.

You all started out in Athens, correct? 

Rowdy Dowdy started out as a homo with a dream, a dream to get into some guy's jeans. It has evolved since its secluded farm days hosting house shows and making art, and is now a thriving creative collective producing original content. Also, we got college degrees. Except Trey.

Sara Bridges aka Britney Strokes

Tell us about your new show!

The Assventure of Boyman: THE MUSICAL is Dowdy's premier foray into producing a classic Hollywood cash grab. Set in a world where Hillary Duff is President of a utopic Moon Society on the moon, where everyone is a superhero, and synthetic cum is a mass produced cure-all commodity; its magic gathering of cosmic characters and original interpretation of intergalactic planetary space couture will provide cheap laughs and make you say...."but, why?" Just imagine Infinity War, but make it fashion.

Tyler Jundt aka Tyle Jund

Y'all are known for being SUPER queeny -- can you tell us what it is about drag that is so vital to your art and space?  

Oh! Who us? OMG, thanksssss!!! Well, like all burgeoning queens, drag was something we started doing in the middle of the night, in our parents closets, in the Marshall’s rejected beauty product section, in that Value Village half price sequin prom dress...but eventually we started bringing out the drag personas at parties, and people loved it! It quickly became an integral and WOMANDATORTY part of the entire Dowdy experience, and we just happened to love doing it. Drag is at the core of Dowdy's identity because it is multidisciplinary by nature, and we feel that it liberates us from reality; whoop, there goes gravity. 

Trey Rosenkampff aka Fred Velvet

The Dowdy crew is a mix of gender expression, with straight and queer folks on the team. What do you say to people who believe straight folx shouldn't be doing drag? 

We love straight queens and bioqueens and drag kings and trans queens and all the cream in between! To us modern drag is an art form that invites one to turn themselves into anyone or anything they want to explore, express, or embody. At Dowdy, drag is for everyone regardless of sexuality, gender identity, persona, race, age, creed - with arms wide open! The important thing is to embrace and share your truth, hotness, and friendship love with others...we don't have $100,000 to judge you with, so come as ya damn please Brenda!

We haven't heard much from y'all since "The Big Thing" show pulled out of your venue after the allegations of Rowdy booking and supporting abusers. What have you been up to since then and do you have anything else you'd like to address about that situation?

You’ll be pleased to hear that this incident became a hugely positive turning point in the history of the Dowdy oeuvre! We took the allegations very seriously and as a direct result, did not allow the band in question to play. Obviously we have always aimed to make our space as fun and safe as possible. It’s not just a venue; it’s our home- we literally live in this warehouse, so a threat to anyone’s safety in the space is a threat to all. When those allegations were published, it made us take a step back and ask what, what, WHAT were we doing hosting band shows and being misinterpreted as a concert venue when ultimately, we just wanted to MAKE ART and DO DRAG. The band shows were, at their core, a glorified way to throw a big party as an excuse to DO DRAG and MAKE ART! We collectively decided to take a hiatus to refine our goals and better curate our future events to support and showcase what we truly love. 

David Iduate

Will y'all be changing the way you book and host events?

Absolutely. It’s a whole new era of Dowdy. Going forward, you’ll see much more original content from The Dowdy Girls, more drag and queer events hosted and curated in the space, and more themed events featuring artists and musicians within our community who are near and dear to our hearts. 

What can we expect from the Rowdy crew in the coming year? 

Boyman: The Musical will be our Grand Re-re-re-opening at the end of June, and we have other original productions currently in the works. We are very excited to be partnering with WUSSY and other artists and organizations to host and participate in future events! We are very willing to collaborate, so if you have an event or project that you would like to bring to Dowdy, don't be a stranger! ;D

BOYMAN: The Musical premieres on June 29th, with follow-up performances on June 30 and July 2nd. Doors at 8pm, show at 9pm. Cost is $5-10 donations (Pick your price!)

Photography by Jon Dean

On Thursday, the longest season in the herstory of RuPaul's Drag Race finally reached the penultimate (I don't count reunions) episode. Once upon a Chi Chi DeVayne, the top four episode used to mean something. Now it has turned into a final episode for us to REALLY get to know the queen's, see them fumble through basic choreography, and shamelessly plug whoever paid that $100,000 cash prize (HAAAAYYYYYY Squatty Potty). 

 Next week is the reunion episode, which just like last season was filmed after the finale for whatever reason. If you’re just now learning this, that’s why Shea Coulee’s saltiness and IDGAF attitude was so strong. Speaking of robbing queens of color, the finale this season is another Lip Sync for the crown.

Hopefully, this will put Asia and Aquaria battling it out, but I have a feeling we're gonna get another Shea v. Sasha moment. I hope I’m wrong, but these twists keep getting gaggier and gaggier. 

Rather than use this Rucap to recap the boring ass episode, let's breakdown the Final 4 and how they fared on this episode.

Aquaria

I don't know about ya’ll, but I am now a full on Aquaria fan. When the season first started, I really couldn't stand her or her personality. Slowly but surely, Aquaria let us in and showed that at her core she really is just a goofy kid with an impeccable eye for fashion, hair, and makeup. Aquaria has a perfect track record, murdered the runway EVERY DAMN TIME, shockingly slayed the Snatch Game as Melania Trump and is the only queen in the Top 4 to never LSFYL. This episode was no different, she slayed her song, did the best job with the choreography, and looked STUNNING AF on the runway…..BITCH THAT HAIR AND MAKEUP IM STILL GAGGING!!!!

America’s Next Drag Superstar is supposed to represent the future of drag. If that still rings true,  this crown is already firmly on Aquaria’s head.

Asia O’Hara

Asia had a roller coaster of a journey this season, but going into the home stretch she has been FLAWLESS... snatching wins and constantly being in the top. Asia had one of my favorite performances of the season in Madam ButterFace and then later in the episode SLAYED a Tweety Bird inspired lewk. Asia had some lows though: her Beyonce during Snatch Game was a choice, and don't even get me started on that Cher performance.

Through it all, her heart shined through and that's what we fell in love with. Her infectious can do attitude is not only refreshing, it is very inspiring to me and i'm sure anyone else who is grieving. Not surprisingly, Asia also slayed this latest episode with tight choreo and from a fashion perspective, had the only other gagworthy runway.

I'm firmly team Asia and Aquaria. If Ru wants to honor a young legend in the making, Asia deserves this crown and will carry on the brand with grace and dignity.

Eureka

Okay. So I will firmly stand by this statement to my grave... Eureka should've have been sent home by Kameron. That aside, Eureka has done a very good job all season long and for Ru, that's enough to warrant her often being in the top and the bottom only twice. Eureka has had some great runway lewks and then some that were just a miss for me, like her finale lewk. Eureka’s biggest problem is that she is to selfish and too self centered to really listen to criticism and grow from it.

Out of the four queens left, Eureka least represents the brand, and what America’s Next Drag Superstar should stand for. She fumbled through the episode and TBH if they wanted to eliminate someone this episode, it would've been her.

Kameron Michaels

I am a full on Kameron fan, officially!

This episode sealed her legacy and let viewers get a better glimpse at who she is. I should be really salty with Kameron because she is sitting in Cracker’s spot, but after this episode finished, all that saltiness disappeared. Kameron has been super under the radar all season -- only winning the Cher episode, but she has slayed that runway every single time. She somehow made having to LSFYL a strength and kept us gagging tho every time she's had to actually perform. Her lyrics for American were the most impactful, and she made me cry like a goddamn baby when she was talking to little baby Dane.

Final Conclusion
 

Asia or Aquaria for the win. Or anyone but Eureka!

WUSSY is proud to present work by queer Austin poet, M. A. ISTVAN JR.
If you would like to send in a writing submission, please contact Nicholas Goodly. 

Photograph of Woman Who Fell off Her Bike

Euphoric, Jacques-Henri suggested to his wife
that they go for a bike ride. His main reason
was to take photographs. She knew this, but got
excited anyway. She was proud being the wife
of a genius. She was glad to do whatever it took
to support him. She accepted that his work came
first and would steal whatever time she could.
Jacques-Henri, secure in having convinced her
of his being due for air and time with his wife,
gave a shrug as they walked out, a shrug to say
that he was bringing the camera only from habit.

About twenty feet ahead along the trail she was
when she flipped over the handle bars to the left,
face-planting in the weeds. “Watch for roots,”
Jacques-Henri had called out moments before.
She started to explain how her dress got caught
when she swerved to avoid the roots. The hope
was that giving an explanation would block
his certain criticism. To dissuade the lecture
on what she should have done once realizing
that her dress was caught or so on, she groaned
for her scraped knee and her soiled white dress.

He did not care about scolding her for lack skill.
He did not care about using this as an occasion
to teach her how to handle such situations. No.
His entire concern was with getting the shot.
It was for the shot that he had her lie back down.
He told her to put her face into the weeds. “Vite!”
he yelled, an analogue to the five-second rule
clearly in effect here. He placed her bonnet
on the back of her head and ran to his position
when she fell. She was happy to oblige, happy
that she was a help and that he did not scold.

Uniting with Beauty

Ecstasizing us, placing us beside ourselves,
items of beauty drive us to reproduce them:
painting them, poetizing them, and the like.

The most basic form of such reproduction
is simply keeping them present: following
the scent to stay in its plume; savoring
the taste to forestall the loss; moving
where the man’s whistling moves; tracing
the eagle to ingrave it within your mind.

Is it a wonder that more beautiful women,
the best muses for begettings, are not eaten?
Is there not an urge to eat a dewy white rose?

Frequently still slipping into baby-talk despite his son being in elementary school, M. A. ISTVAN JR. is out and proud as an age-queer. Even in Austin, a city chock full of queers, Istvan finds it sad to see all the nasty looks in response to his whimsical rhymes and sing-song motherese, the sort of babble speak you find in Sam Pollit or Tom Bombadil. Visit his page at https://txstate.academia.edu/MichaelIstvanJr.

PHOTO: Lizzy Johnston

On the surface, Pride looks like one big queer party: rainbow floats, glitter-covered city streets, disco balls, gold lamè bodysuits, and enough liquor to leave most of us strung-out well past the Fourth of July. But, really, Pride is more than a drunken celebration of queer voices, bodies, and lives; it also commemorates the anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, the riot that acted as a catalyst for a nation-wide gay liberation movement. Pride month, then, is as much about celebrating as it is about reflecting on what “gay liberation” means to queer people today.

More than a moment to be memorialized, “liberation” implies an ongoing political battle, enmeshed with various other struggles, among them: the struggle for black lives; the modern women’s movements, movements against capitalism, poverty, and imperialism; and movements for transgender visibility. Queer (as opposed to “gay”) liberation is complex and multi-faceted. The numbers of people, politics, and identities that fall under the modern LGBTQ+ umbrella inevitably clash and battle with one another, especially during Pride month—a time when queers from drastically different backgrounds protest, dance, drink, and throw glitter bombs together.

"A large contingency of the LGBTQ community has no pressing desire to challenge convention: they want privately owned homes, well-paying jobs, monogamous marriages, successful children, and the respect of the majority."

One of the most hotly contested parts of Pride season is the debate about the gradual mainstreaming of Pride festivals and, by extension, certain queer identities. As Pride grows, it is becoming increasingly corporatized—multi-million-dollar companies like Target and General Mills are rolling out specialty products for queer consumers who want to wear, sip, and eat Pride the Brand. And police, long antagonistic and violent towards queer communities (particularly queer communities of color), now walk alongside Pride participants in many major Pride events. As a result, the radical, anti-establishment tactics that fueled the Stonewall Riots and many other gay liberation protests have been sanitized by the light-hearted, expensive festivities that make up Pride today. But many attendants don’t so much mind Pride’s mainstream appeal. According to some, the freedom to conform is a form of liberation.

In liberal politics, most discourse surrounding “LGBTQ+ rights” focuses on the rights of queer people to assimilate into existing sexual and social schemas and be seen as “equal” to most heterosexual people. Gay marriage rights, rhetoric that claims sexuality and gender identity are primarily biological/fixed, and the corporatization and sanitation of Pride all speak to queer people and movements that desire to fit within the status quo. Assimilationists, as some theorists have called proponents of queer assimilation, might desire for straight friends, family members, and the state at large to see their identities as fundamentally similar to the identities of heterosexual people. To them, being queer isn’t necessarily a political imperative or a conscious act of dissent, it’s incidental—a part of their humanness. And why not? A large contingency of the LGBTQ community has no pressing desire to challenge convention: they want privately owned homes, well-paying jobs, monogamous marriages, successful children, and the respect of the majority. Considering the major victories assimilationists have won politically and culturally, living a “normal” life while queer is possible for more and more of us. And since being labeled as “deviant” confers crushing disadvantages, becoming “normal” is more than enticing.

"We who have the most clout in straight society share a political imperative to stand with those queers who have the least. "

But what of the queers who can’t—or don’t want to—assimilate? There are those of us who believe that “queer liberation” necessarily means freedom from all axes of oppression, which also means standing in solidarity with the people most “othered” by society and the state against the institutions that have marginalized them. This could mean advocating against police at Pride because of the way police have brutalized black and brown people and censured queer expressions of sexuality and gender, even if their presence makes some attendees feel safer. It could also mean critiquing (or rejecting) marriage and monogamy because of the way those institutions have perpetuated misogyny and heterosexism in society broadly, even though queer people might personally enjoy being married or monogamous. Essentially, arguments against assimilation are rooted in the belief that institutions that are fundamentally oppressive and exclusionary cannot be adequately reformed. Queer anti-assimilationists seek alternatives to existing norms; specifically, alternatives that challenge heteronormativity and the prescriptive moral and ethical codes that are enforced on society from the top down. They recognize that conformity is a social construction and make the point that it is also a political weapon. Sure enough, as Pride celebrations become more mainstream and “gay rights” make legal headway, some members of the community do fear losing their elevated status via contamination with less “normal” queers.

For instance, in a CNN comment thread about a transgender father who gave birth to a child, one commenter who self-identified as a gay man called the father’s experience “unnatural” and blamed gender-nonconforming trans people for the prevailing belief that the queer community is mentally ill (his insults were then “liked” by dozens of other commentators). Of course, just a few decades ago homosexuality was widely considered to be a mental illness and gay parenthood was deemed “unnatural” or outright criminal. As this rhetoric has changed or, more aptly, adjusted to new targets, some of the very people who once had cause to rally against it are internalizing it and projecting it back outward. In the above example, the relative amount of “normalcy” the gay male commentator has achieved possibly entitles him to join in on the policing and gaslighting of queer people who still challenge norms about gender and sex. This entitlement is a political problem. Though the LGBTQ+ community is more visibly diverse than ever before, its most marginalized and least marginalized members lack political solidarity, leaving a great deal of queer people feeling underserved and unwanted by the public-face of the liberation movement.

Via "no pride in police' facebook page

If you ask me, corporatized Pride celebrations that cater mostly to the primarily white, cisgender, and middle class gay men and women who have led the “queer assimilation” front in liberal politics are a far cry from queer liberation. However, even as a critic of assimilation, I sympathize with people who genuinely want the right to be apart of experiences and institutions that long excluded them.  As I said before, being labeled “deviant” has crushing disadvantages: rejection from friends and family, increased vulnerability to violence, discrimination in jobs and housing, etc. Assimilating is easier, and safer too. But some queer people—particularly gender-nonconforming and trans people of color—do not have an easy path towards assimilation. Their identities are often, in and of themselves, a blunt challenge to heteronormativity, white supremacy, and cissexism. And their welfare is not being addressed by liberal politics. That is why even those of us who personally desire the trappings of “normalcy” must still be willing to stand against prescriptive moral and ethical codes that deem some expressions of queerness acceptable or “normal” while villainizing others. We who have the most clout in straight society share a political imperative to stand with those queers who have the least. If we believe that Pride is as much about liberation as it is about celebration, we must recognize that conditional acceptance is not enough, especially when it is granted at the expense of queer people who have been continually excluded from mainstream. Though it is not necessary or possible for us all to want the same things, our collective liberation requires a collective recognition that the right to “stand out” is even more essential than the right to “fit in.”  

----
 

RM Barton is a writer and activist living in Roanoke, Virginia. Originally from Maryland, she moved to Southwest Virginia for school some five years ago, and has since become invested in queering southern space. She is the co-lead of The Southwest Virginia LGBTQ History Project and the publisher of The Southwest Virginia LGBTQ History Project Zine, which aims to illuminate queer history through queer art and storytelling. She blogs at rmbartonblog.wordpress.com

Every now and then an artist hits the scene that just makes you jiggle with excitement.

I first heard of Big Dipper when his summer 2017 anthem, "LaCroix Boi", came across my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist last year. Known for his clever lyrics and signature beats, Big Dipper has been making waves in the queer music scene since his 2011 hit "Drip Drop". His new single, "LOOKIN", produced by So Drove, just dropped, with a music video that solidifies him as a thiccening force to be reckoned with.

The LOOKIN' video, directed by long-time Big Dipper collaborator Tobin Del Cuore, features a variety of fat bodies across the LGBTQ+ petting zoo spectrum -- cubs, chubs, otters, polar bears, and whatever else but fuckthoselabels -- dancing and cutting loose in tights jorts at a car wash.

"I got you Lookin, I got you Shooken, I'll give you something to see," BD exclaims, rubbing his hairy curves and flirting with the camera. As a fat queer myself, it's so refreshing to see someone who LOOKS LIKE ME celebrating his body and looking damn good. 

Big Dipper’s forthcoming full length album Late Bloomer is due out later this summer, so stay tuned y'all!

For more Big Dipper, listen to his podcast "unBEARable with Big Dipper and Meatball" and be sure and check out WUSSY Volume 4 for more exclusives with Big Dipper and photographer Rakeem Cunningham.  

Before we buckle up for a fall season of prestige dramas and Oscar-bait-Meryl-Streep-vehicles, it's important to take stock of the year so far in cinema. There's been some fantastic documentaries and stand out horror films, with mostly predictable fodder in between. 

It's been a summer of lackluster Blockbusters -- Deadpool 2, Solo: A Star Wars Story, Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom all failed to deliver anything that validated their existence. Some flashier titles like Avengers: Infinity Wars and Oceans 8 were close to cracking my list, but neither did anything unexpected with their wildly talented pool of actors. 

It's time for WUSSY's roundup of the best films of 2018 (so far)!
If you disagree with our picks, sound off in the comments!

Hereditary

Toni Collete in Hereditary

If you're active on social media or gayTwitter, you've probably seen a few "holy shit" posts regarding Hereditary. Like most instant classics, this new horror/suspense film starring goddess Toni Collette is completely polarising. 

Full of gag-worthy twists and truly terrifying performances, Hereditary is up there with Get Out, It Follows, and The Babadook as one of the best horror movies of the decade. Some audiences were disappointed by the lack of jump scares and traditional horror thrills, but this film is a slow burn -- one that sticks with you far longer than you want it to. 

The Academy is generally unkind to horror films, but if Toni Collette isn't nominated for Best Actress, I will have someone's head. Also, let's give Alyssa Edwards a Sound Design nomination for that *tongue pop*!

Black Panther

Letitia Wright in Black Panther

After his brief but powerful introduction in Captain America: Civil War, Black Panther is back in his own title film. The film is a splashy epic of black excellence, with a cast of heavy hitters like Angela Bassett, Michael B. Jordan, and Lupita N'yongo. Letitia Wright was a standout as T'Challa's badass and brainy sister, Shuri, who is basically the "Q" to T'Challa's James Bond. 

Black Panther is still the highest grossing film of 2018, proving that the world is ready for more diversity in our superhero movies. I've never anticipated a Marvel release as much as this one, and Black Panther more than delivers on its promise. 

Will the Academy recognize a standout comic book film for Best Picture this year?

Love, Simon

A lot of queer people wrote this film off as just-another-cis-white-gay-love-story, and while it is certainly not a perfect film, I would argue it is still remarkable. Fox's clever marketing strategy and the choice to make this a wide release is something that has never been seen before for a LGBTQ+ film. 

When I was in high school, I remember sneaking in to see Brokeback Mountain with a close girlfriend during its limited release. We were the only ones in the theatre and I was so nervous someone would see us. This year, I saw Love, Simon in a theatre full of diverse teenagers, and it was moving to hear them audibly cheer when the film reaches its cavity-inducing conclusion. 

Queer representation on the big screen still has a long way to go, but this type of representation saves lives.

A Quiet Place

Another wholly satisfying horror flick released this year was A Quiet Place. 

Directed by and starring mega-cutie John Krasinski, the film takes place in a post-apocalyptic future where people must avoid making noise in order to avoid a mysterious terror in the woods. 

Millicent Simmonds (who you might remember from Todd Haynes' Wonderstruck) is a standout as Regan, the defiant and deaf child of Krasinski and Emily Blunt's characters. The film's expert sound design (and lack thereof) dials the suspense up over 9000 and makes A Quiet Place one of the most fun and terrifying films of the past few years.

Won't You Be My Neighbor

Fred Rogers and François Clemmons

It's been a great summer of documentaries, with RGB and The Gospel According to Andre, but Won't You Be My Neighbor stands out at the top.  A moving portrait of a man that spent so much time nurturing America's children, the film is a delicate mixture of personal interviews and archival footage.

Actor François Clemmons, who played the neighborhood police office, has arguably the most powerful on screen interviews. He recalls coming out as homosexual to Fred Rogers, and being asked to keep that a secret. This raises interesting concerns over Mr. Rogers' motto of "I love you just the way you are". The film carefully dissects this motto and the criticisms and implications that attitude may have had on a generation of young people. 

Mr. Rogers wasn't a perfect man, but he was damn close. Bring tissues. 

RUNNER UPS: 

6. First Reformed
7. Tully
8. Blockers
9. Annihilation
10. The Tale

Arch by A. DiCamillo
5’x3’ 
Oil and chalk pastel on canvas
2014

When one is describing non-binary things, explanations have to be creative. As my therapist says, I express myself kinetically, so I drag my hands into my explanation. “So like male’s here.” One hand up. “And female’s here.” Other hand up. “And they meet up here in androgynous, genderfluid, etc.” Point them together into a mountain. “I’m the inverse of that.” Point hands together and down, make a pit. “I want to be neither.” I’m trans, female to neutral. I identify as neutrois, which is agender with the specification of affected physical appearance.

I will argue that you cannot find a more viciously inclusive breed than that which springs from no-man’s--and no-woman’s--land. Non-binary voices on social media are determinedly pushing forwards visibility and awareness for an identity that might otherwise feel invisible (I point anybody towards Alok Vaid-Menon and their gorgeous personal website). Very often, we are first able to recognize hidden parts of ourselves when we see it in others. However, there is a story I want to discuss as part of a trans and/or GNC (Gender Non Conforming) narrative. The LGBTQIA+ lexicon is understandably sex-saturated and there is a prominent trend of queer people discovering sexuality before gender. What I’m curious about is, among other TGNC folks who struggle with body dysphoria, did anyone else’s ignorance of their gender identity act as an obstacle to exploring their sexuality?

I currently identify as demisexual and pan. I am attracted first to a personality, then the body follows, no matter the individual’s gender or anatomy. However, that realization is new. For two and a half years, I thought I was asexual. No matter how beautiful I thought any specific person to be, and no matter how attracted I was to them, I did not want anybody to touch me.

I have had sex before. He was a cishet male and, at the time, I identified as a cishet female. The experience was seamless. He was obsessed with consent, safety, and me enjoying myself. Our arrangement was casual, lasted a summer, and then it was done. When he left my dorm room the last time, I expected to be relieved at the return of my open schedule. Instead, I felt nauseous. Memories of our contact began to feel aggressively wrong, to the point that I had to lay down for the rest of the day.

From that point on, when I thought about anyone touching me, my thighs did that thing, that comedic thing where they snapped together to keep ghost penises out. I could not for the life of me figure out how I had ever wanted that, no matter that I had enjoyed it while it was happening. Of course, I still had a sex drive. The practice of sex was still attractive to me, but only after I put myself in someone else’s shoes—anyone, any gender and with any sexual partner. It all made utter sense to me. It was when sex involved me explicitly that it was repulsive.

I knew that others were attracted to me, and that my female body was not difficult to like. Whenever I viciously disliked my body, I assumed that it was because I was overweight. The push of thicc beauty into the mainstream, however, didn’t help me to feel any form of self-love. It lent me a detached aesthetic appreciation of my own form, but I took no joy in it and so it was no relief. My body never felt like my form. “I” was always just a mind. There was vast psychological distance between that mind and that body. I didn’t understand how me loving or being attracted to someone could translate to me wanting them to touch that, that thing which is technically mine.

Asexuality was the only way I could find to explain everything. I read up on asexuality, and, with satisfaction, checked off all the boxes. The ace communities I engaged with were welcoming and gave me a sort of healing I couldn’t find elsewhere; validation was everywhere, and I didn’t have to confront that nauseous feeling anymore. I identified as sex repulsed on the asexual spectrum. I do not mean to characterize asexuality or any subset of it as invalid or transitory. Asexuality is a beautiful identity. However, it is not what I was. The actual driving force was integrated to the point that I genuinely thought of it as a natural part of me: I hated that my body was my body. The fact that it looked like that, and meant that I had to equal Woman, made me feel small and corrupted. It repulsed me to the point that it felt selfish, manipulative, and abusive to ask someone I cared about to touch me. However, none of these feelings had words yet. I did not realize it was possible to feel any other way. The identifier of asexual is innocent here, and I don’t want my words construed otherwise—it is the thinking hiding behind that identifier that was poisonous, made doubly poisonous by its subtlety.

Self-hatred should not have the power to isolate someone from physical connection if they desire it.

Two things happened to help me recognize it for what it was. One: I went on a study abroad in Singapore. There, completely isolated from my historical context, I got to act, more or less, in a vacuum. I experimented, recognized flaws, cut off the excess and chose what to take with me back to Athens. What I took back was an agender identity--not a trans one, but the roots of understanding. Then, on a whim, a little over a half a year ago, I decided to look up the specifics of top surgery. The website I looked on had an explanation of the fish mouth incision, with the acronym FTN. Female to Neutral, transgender.

I’ve gone over that moment multiple times to cis individuals. I have tried to describe what it felt like to suddenly have a body after believing that to not have one was normalcy. I could feel the extent of what had trapped me by virtue of its absence: 75% of the self-hatred, and the struggle against it, that had defined me since puberty absolutely disappeared. Like hallucinations do. I had always thought that a flat chest was Man territory. I never wanted to be a Man, so obviously I must want and love my breasts. FTN meant that I could make my body look like how I felt, even though that wasn’t female or male. While medical intervention is by no means always a requirement to reclaim one’s body from one’s assigned gender, for me, the possibility of physical change was the game changer. FTN, and the top surgery it was tied to, meant that I could make my body look like how I felt. Even better, other people had done it already. That realization was like being given a love letter. Inside of it, I understood myself, my body, and how thoroughly it was possible to be who I was. I understood how other people could want me. I understood sex.

I am not (and I mean it) criticizing or diminishing asexuality. Ace people and the ace identity all deserve recognition and respect. What I experienced was not asexuality. It was repressed and even eradicated sexuality as a side effect of oppressive binary structures, disguised as an unrelated sexual identity. It is something I am still healing from, and the thought of others experiencing it terrifies me to death. Self-hatred should not have the power to isolate someone from physical connection if they desire it. For those who don’t identify within an absolute physical binary, the path to discovering that we can build our own bodies--physically, or in our perception--is murky. We can accrue collateral damage. Non-binary visibility and storytelling is the best way to build bridges over ditches like this one, where members of the community can get trapped. I am so thankful that I was able to climb out. I am more grateful still to now be in a concert hall of people, all of us waiting to listen.

---

Penske McCormack is a writer and art historian living in Athens, Georgia, where they have been studying for the past three years. Their studies are focused on art conservation, art writing, and performance studies. In their own art, they experiment with movement as an intuitive form of meaning-making and communication, and use performance as a route to create, articulate, and experience genderless identity.

WUSSY is proud to present two poems by ATL artist, Maddie Fay. 
If you would like to send in a writing submission, please contact Nicholas Goodly. 

dyke boots

i have never found myself in any situation thinking,
"i wish i had worn less comfortable shoes."

see, i am a big fat bulldyke,
see,
comfort is my favorite word.
i cultivate comfort like the most
precious of resources,
a luxury afforded all-too-rarely
to a body you wanna insist is wrong,
too big and too strong,
too womanly and too not.

i never liked dressing up
until i started dressing for women.
i thought i hated all comments
on my appearance
until a woman called me handsome.
pretty is a target on my back,
but handsome is,
"yeah baby, i DO wanna dance,"
like butch is fucking freedom.

butch is my hands the hammers
and my elbows the knives,
and butch is the medical training i got
so i could patch up my friends.
butch is picking you up at three in the morning because you called me crying
and butch is never making you tell me what happened.
butch is the way i fucking melt when she smiles at me,
the way i am physically incapable of watching her shiver without handing over my jacket,
butch is all the softest parts of me.

and i am soft,
i am so fucking soft
because of course i am,
like a black bear is soft
when it isn't afraid.
they call it "bear hug" for a reason.

to the first girl who was brave enough to hold my hand
in public where people could see,
fucking thank you.
you,
middle school mall queen,
and me,
sixth grade emo tomboy.
i liked you so much i thought i wanted to be like you.
but i was never any good at being like you.
i wore my hair long and shiny the way you did,
but when boys in my school wound their fingers in it,
i felt like i was dying.
you would wear dresses that showed every part of you and they made you feel so free,
and i loved that for you,
and i loved that about you,
but when you got me to try one on,
it was just a reminder
that down to the bone,
i was wearing things that did not belong to me.

you and i, we never claimed to belong to one another,
we just liked each other,
and that was enough.
i didn't tell my friends,
and i didn't tell my boyfriend,
and i definitely didn't tell my parents,
but you kissed me on the mouth
in the mall parking lot,
and people could see,
and i was glowing from the inside
and forgot to be afraid.

i learned,
the way that we learn,
through kisses and closed fists,
things given and taken,
to admire women
and to fear men.
i wanted to be like the girls who held my hand and kissed me at sleepovers
and not like the men who grabbed my hips when i was trying to dance with my friends.
so i put on bows and dresses and makeup and heels,
an elaborate costume that made all my skin hurt,
and every time someone told me
i was pretty,
i wanted to fucking cry and i didn't know why.
my face in the mirror was a stranger's,
and my body fit me wrong.
so i stopped wearing shoes i couldn't run away in,
i stopped wearing makeup,
i cut all my hair off,
and suddenly i could breathe for the first time since the reality of womanhood had originally been thrust upon my muddy little-kid body.

and now people wanna compare my masculinity
to that of the men who follow me on the street shouting slurs,
act like butches have the social power of cis men,
as if we are not in danger all the time
for being what we are.
like, fake-progressive straight white dudes feel justified calling me fuckboy,
do not understand the ways in which their man-ness has always protected them at my expense.

i am not woman enough to be worthy of protection,
but i am woman enough to be conquest,
i am woman enough to not be believed,
i am woman enough to never be taken seriously.
to the kinds of men i am still afraid of,
i am not woman as in daughter or sister or wife,
but i am not man as in equal,
either.
i am still woman enough to be institutionalized on the suggestion of a guy i know,
in church they call that dominion.

it used to be my dream to be a wild thing,
all glitter and six inch heels,
but now all i want is a body that doesn't feel like a goddamn punishment.

so i will wear baggy pants tank top sports bra,
i will set my feet too far apart and slouch to soothe my spine,
lace up my fucking dyke boots
and hold stadfast to the fact that
my shoes,
at least,
are comfortable.
 

Maddie Fay is a storyteller and writer and a designer and technician for theatre and other live events. Her favorite band is the Mountain Goats and her favorite Spice Girl is Scary. She is passionate about communism, lesbian stuff, and her pit bull Myrtle.

The first time I heard the phrase “people watching,” I was a young child walking around at the county fair with my parents and brothers. The fair, my mom said to me, is a good place for “people watching.”

Though I’d never named it, I’d already been “people watching” for years, obliviously scanning crowds for faces and bodies that seemed beautiful, interesting, or strange to me. Giving a name to the practice validated it, making it into a kind of game. I played this game at the county fair for several years during my youth, often with friends. We would walk around the boot-stomped grounds and point out whatever we considered notable. Sometimes our judgments seemed innocent, but other times we were petty, even cruel. We stared at people. We laughed at them. We made jokes to each other about the way that people dressed, about the shapes of their bodies, or the way they walked and talked. Looking back, being “watchers” made us feel powerful, and it entitled us to a degree of false superiority. But I don’t think we ever considered that we were also being watched.

I began to realize that other people were looking at me when I was a pre-teen playing in the surf at a public beach in North Carolina. The beach was another place I considered good for “people watching.” Indeed, I had spent a lot of time there just looking at people, considering them, judging them. But, as my body developed and my self-concept become more concrete, I noticed how other people did the same thing to me—but less childishly. Adults with blonde-headed toddlers stared aggressively at the way my chubby body spilled out of my purple bikini. They looked with even more concern at the curly black hairs that had begun to grow on my legs, under my arms, and on my upper lip. Their staring made me nervous. The beach went from feeling like a playground to seeming invasively intimate. Looking down on myself in my swimsuit, I wondered for the first time if what I was seeing was normal. Soon after, I started using my moms razor to cut away at my body hair. And, while browsing catalogues for next year’s swimsuit, I thought of ways to make myself smaller, less conspicuous.

The rest of the story is sad and common: I started resenting my body hair and went to painful lengths to remove it; I developed an eating disorder; I exclusively wore tankinis and one-piece swimsuits until I was 17. These experiences were, in part, a response to the social shame I felt being stared at on the beach and in other intimate settings. Since coming out as queer a couple years ago, I’ve thought more intensely about how public shaming is used as a tool to undermine and regulate gender-nonconformity and other expressions of queerness. Conversations I’ve had with gender-nonconforming and trans friends have further confirmed a sobering reality: the beach and other settings where bodies are on prominent display are transformed into sites of queer anxiety by social shaming and public policing of non-normative bodies. These acts of social shaming effectively keep gender nonconforming queer people from enjoying and utilizing public beaches in the same way that straight, gender-normative patrons do, and they reaffirm that “family-friendly” spaces are often, in practice, explicitly anti-queer.

Gender-nonconforming people are subject to unjust social policing, shaming, staring, and gawking in every public space.

Gender-nonconforming people are subject to unjust social policing, shaming, staring, and gawking in every public space. They—in addition to other groups whose bodies are marginalized—must think constantly about the way public shaming shapes their public lives. Everywhere they go, makeshift armies of people attempt to enforce gender and sex binaries, silently communicating that “femininity is not compatible with body hair and fatness,” or “masculinity is not compatible with breast tissue,” and other lies. The fact that many people who stare and gawk at gender nonconforming people in public do not realize that they are policing non-normative expressions of gender is beside the point. Children, especially those who inherit multiple privileged identities, are trained from a young age by parents and other authorities to recognize and note deviation from established norms. When my friends and I stared at strangers at the county fair, we were implicitly looking for people who seemed to violate the status quo, and, in a small way, attempting to correct that violation, just as “community-watch” patrols might try to deter crime by watching and reporting “strange activity” in their neighborhoods. It seemed innocuous to me at the time, but I was wielding a weapon of social control. Gender-nonconforming people who are publicly shamed feel the hostility and rejection inherent in being singled out and marginalized from the group. The marginalization they experience could, and often does, result in violence and harassment. It may be so severe and constant that they feel they cannot safely leave their homes, especially to go somewhere like the beach.

The “family-friendly” character of beaches typically applies to heteronormative, white, affluent, nuclear families at the exclusion of most other kinds of kinship and camaraderie.

Beaches are particularly fertile sites of queer anxiety because of how they are coded in the minds of straight, cisgender patrons who feel entitled to access them. In addition to being sites in which bodies are on prominent display (and thus subject to intense policing and shaming), beaches are often characterized as being “family-friendly” environments where hetero parents can “safely” have fun with their children. The “family-friendly” character of beaches typically applies to heteronormative, white, affluent, nuclear families at the exclusion of most other kinds of kinship and camaraderie. Various kinds of bodies—the poor, the disabled, the non-white, and the queer—are easily shunned as “unfriendly” to family values. Thus, the patrons at many beaches are much whiter, richer, and straighter than the population as a whole. The power that this exclusive group has is undergirded by their collective fear of difference. Straight families may view gender nonconforming people’s bodies and identities as corrosive to the (oppressive) values they are teaching their children about gender and identity broadly. And since many straight families consider the “family-friendly” public beach to be their domain, they feel entitled to try to push non-normative bodies and expressions out through small but effective actions such as social shaming, staring, gawking, and policing. However, these gestures are just the bottom tier of a pyramid of socially sanctioned trans-misogyny and homophobia in which violence and harassment are the next logical step.

That being said, not all beaches are coded the same way. This past May, I had an opportunity to explore Riis beach in New York City, a community beach created for queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming people. It is both beautiful and tragic how magical it felt to lay out in the sand with so many queer and gender-nonconforming bodies, totally unworried and unashamed. But Riis is but a tiny portion of a larger shoreline, and the nearby “family-friendly” portion of the beach is inching closer to Riis’ contestable, undefined border, threatening the open displays of queerness and genderfucking that flourish there. Obviously, queer and gender-nonconforming folk deserve more than the occasional safe-haven amidst a tumultuous sea of unwelcome glares and unfriendly interactions. They should be able to walk anywhere, wearing anything, and feel the same degree of safety and comfort that cisgender, straight, able-bodied white men feel walking in public.

In fact, recognizing the way we each perpetuate and engage in the social shaming and policing of various kinds of bodies and identities is necessary to disrupting oppressive systems broadly. When we engage in social shaming and policing, or turn a blind eye to the way others do, we act as foot soldiers for the powerful institutions that do real, daily violence to marginalized members of our communities, gender-nonconforming people among them. Though a positive catch phrase like “all bodies are beach bodies” sounds sweet and encouraging, it does not adequately address the real danger people with nonnormative bodies face when they put on a swimsuit and head for the shore. Queers and allies must actively work to combat public shaming and policing when they see it, and to create explicitly pro-queer, non-judgmental spaces like Riis beach for queer people who want and need safe public getaways. After all, a space is not truly “public” until queer people—regardless of gender expression—can exist there unafraid and unashamed.

Every now and then, a new singer/songwriter emerges, creating a song so sexy and so unapologetically queer that we have to take listen. On the heels of Hayley Kiyoko's "Curious", we are again blessed with a Girl-on-Girl anthem, and this one takes the crown for 2018's Song of the Summer. 

What exactly does it take to be crowned song of the summer, you ask? The song has to go down easy like a glass of rosé, making you want to roll the windows down or throw your legs in the air or both. With "Flowerbomb", Liggins shows a cool confidence, singing about stealing your wife and doing it again in the morning.

"I wanted to write a song that encapsulated the high feelings of sex with someone untouchable because girls like to have sex, too, and sometimes it’s just a beautiful mess."

Liggins is a member of Detroit's Assemble Sound—a studio and artistic hub for musicians—where she writes alongside other pop musicians like Flint Eastwood, Sam Austins, Tunde Olaniran, and Nydge. 

WUSSY spoke to her about the debut single and what lies ahead.

What inspired "Flowerbomb"?

I'm very inspired by real life happenings. I tend to leave little gems in my songs for the person who inspired me to write it. In this one specifically, I named the song after the fragrance she was wearing. Early 2000s pop and R&B have a ton of influence on my taste in and style of music –Usher Raymond, Destiny's Child, *NSYNC, Missy Elliott.

Tell us about Queer Detroit scene?

Yesss! Queer Detroit is budding! The city is going through such a massive resurgence right now and like most marginalized communities, queer spaces have to fight for visibility amongst the masses, but there are people on the ground doing work and making sure our voices are heard. Detroit is such a unique cultural hub with its art and music –in my opinion– being responsible for the comeback. Hopefully, music like the kind my friends and I are making will have something to do with an uprising of the ever-so-gay agenda in my favorite city. 

Talk about Assemble Sound and what it's like working in this type of collaborative artistic environment?

Without a doubt, Assemble is the best thing to happen to Detroit's music scene since Motown. We all work so hard and feed off each other's creativity and efforts to be better, and are honestly like family. There have been days where I had no session booked, but I would drive to the church because I knew there'd be at least one artist, producer, or songwriter who would see me chillin' in the chapel and be like "Si Si, what do you think of this?"  That's basically how I've tricked everyone there into working with me.

What can we expect from you next?

Definitely stay hip for new music and visuals that will follow Flowerbomb. You can also catch me performing this song and a few others live in Atlanta on July 31 at Union Eav.

Flowerbomb is now available on all the major streaming platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal. 

PHOTO: Nathan Noyes

This conversation has been condensed for web. To read the full interview, order your copy of WUSSY Volume 4 featuring original photos by Nathan Noyes. 

When WUSSY asks you to interview a nationally-recognized drag supermonster, you don’t hesitate, especially if you grew up a closeted kid in rural Georgia, watching Will & Grace, getting crushes on girls in your French class, and having a Scream marathon the first time your parents left you home alone. I first heard of the horror/drag series Dragula when I was eavesdropping on a conversation between a couple friends. I asked them what it was, and they explained it was a reality show that several local Atlanta drag queens were on - including Biqtch Puddin’, one of my personal favorites.

Gay shit, horror, and drag queens are a lethal combination I can’t resist, so I hopped onto YouTube as soon as I got home that night to binge watch Dragula. I had been following Biqtch on social media since meeting her in person one night at Heretic, where she was performing, and I loved her Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent - but that’s a different show. Watching her star rise has been heartwarming, because from that one night with her, I know that she deserves every bit of success - and she’s earned it.

Biqtch sat down with me over the phone (her in Los Angeles, where she now lives, me in Atlanta), to spill the tea on drag, fame, guys on Scruff, and how she used what she was bullied for her whole life to snatch that bloody, bloody Dragula crown.

Read on, monsters:

Anna Jones: You may not remember, but we actually met at a Eureka show here in Atlanta. You hit on my husband, and he was thrilled.

Biqtch Puddin': [laughs] Damn. That was my Kathy number, right?

AJ: Yes! You performed your Kathy Griffin piece that night. I remember thinking, “Okay, this is one of my favorite queens of all time,” because I read Kathy Griffin’s book, Official Book Club Selection, which inspired me to pursue taking classes at Groundlings in LA. I love that you love her as much as I do.

"I love Atlanta, but in [the drag scene], you have to have a very thick skin."

BP: Yeah, she was my everything. I would always go home and watch her specials on Bravo and shit. I didn’t really know I was gay... she was one of the few people on television at the time that was kind of publicly talking about gay as if it was just fucking cool. Until then, there was always a very narrow viewpoint on it. She has a comedic style, but how she was talking about queers, it was like, getting me more comfortable with that concept.

AJ: I was actually shocked when I heard that you were bullied in the Atlanta drag scene and on Dragula [before I watched Season 2], because you were so kind to me and my friends when we met, and obviously such a creative talent. I wanted to hear your side of that.

BP: The Atlanta drag scene is probably one of the best in the country. And how they go about fostering this talent is they don’t necessarily take the “kind” approach. It’s more like, they’ll tell you everything wrong about you, and never take a second to [tell] you when you actually do something good.

AJ: That makes sense, because I’m originally from the South, and it can be a very judgmental place.

BP: Yeah, it’s a very definitive mindset. In retrospect, I’m thankful for my time in Atlanta. I miss Atlanta, and I love Atlanta, but in [the drag scene in Atlanta], you have to have a very thick skin. There are girls who will make a career out of [this]. Look at girls like Evah Destruction - she hasn’t been on a platform yet - I say yet, because I feel like she will be any second now; if not, then people are sleeping on it. Or, Violet Chachki. Or even girls like Phoenix who came back and established a whole career for themselves. The Atlanta scene has been a dominant one for years.

There was this iconic HBO documentary done in the 90s [Dragtime, HBO Feature Documentary], where it shows all these New York girls, but they spend a whole chunk of it talking about Atlanta, like Charlie Brown’s Cabaret, where it shows like, Shawnna Brooks and Raven, who was this infamous, rebel, fire-wielding, sex-on-heels bitch who kind of burned the place down a couple of times...it’s this mecca, right? When you first join something like that - when you first join a team, you get a little bit of hazing. It’s like a sorority of bitches that put you through it and read you, but if they’re reading you, it’s because they want you to be better - but no one’s going to tell you that. If you can grow with it, you can become a very versatile queen, which is what I showcased on Dragula.

"I had to convince the world who I was [on Dragula]. I had to keep my head down, and it really fucked me up." 

AJ: Absolutely. I was surprised, because from the first episode, they were dragging you. As the backstory of what had happened between you and Abhora came out, it was understandable. But then you apologized profusely for it, and they just kept dragging you, and I’m glad that it seemed to become a redemptive thing for you - not only winning Dragula, but the other girls seemed to really support you by the end, even Abhora.

BP: When that happened, and I got the show, out of all the girls there, I was most excited to see Abhora. I wanted to compete with the best that I knew of at the time. I wanted to have good competition. I know this bitch, I was on cast with this bitch, and this bitch is sickening - she’s a monster.

I knew that [Abohora] had a lot of animosity towards me, and it was mostly because of the show that we were on cast together. I don’t want to spill tea. I want to be respectful. But I had to convince the world who I was [on Dragula]. I had to keep my head down, and it really fucked me up. The second episode was a great example of that. I was really in my head. If I put Biqtch Puddin’ in a western world, she would be a fucking whore. But I didn’t do that. I was like, I need to be this fucking drowned bitch monster that the townspeople drowned in the well, and she was mad about it and coming back to kill everyone, which, no - I should’ve just been over it. I was in my head about the competition, but once I got out of that - you saw the result. I couldn’t have pulled myself out that if it wasn’t for that grueling, sorority-esque mentality that Atlanta gave me. It prepped me for a situation like that. That’s why I’m grateful for how Atlanta raises its queens, because it helped me deal with shit like that. If there had been another girl in that situation, she would have cracked.

AJ: That’s one of the things that I feel helped save you.

BP: Yeah. I was bullied throughout my life, being a Navy brat. And I was a huge, flaming undercover faggot. From the jump, I tried to fight it so long, and people were calling me faggot in 5th, 6th grade, and I didn’t even know what that meant. I was always the new kid in school every two years. I was just an easy target. I thought I had dealt with bullying my whole life in different ways, and I thought, “This is the time. I’m on a show with monsters. We’re queer as fuck - it’s the most queer shit on television right now. If anything, this is a safe place.” And it was the exact opposite. It was the same situation, but here. And I think that the universe prepped me for this in a weird way - putting me through [all this] bullying. I would love to live in a world where I can wear lipstick and go to the club and not have my [identity] questioned. I just want the next generation to not have to be questioned...if you want to wear a dress on a Tuesday, then wear a fucking dress on a Tuesday. It doesn’t fucking matter.

AJ: What inspired you to audition for Dragula?

BP: I auditioned for two reasons: 1.) when I watched the first two episodes of Dragula Season 1...it was raw, it was online, and I just saw these queer individuals allowed to be themselves on a platform unapologetically. And then 2.) I was looking at the cast, and I was like, “I don’t really see Biqtch existing,” but I feel my mentality might fit in this realm, and I saw the scene where Loris died, like...her fucking death scene where she looks like an eighties bitch-cunt-prostitute -

AJ: Yassss, that’s your aesthetic!

BP: - and I was like, “Oh my God, that’s like - me.” I can see myself in this universe completely. It’s not just my beast mentality as a performer or party energy, but it’s that. They love this shit, too. I knew I had a shot. I went out to DragCon in LA last year - I like Atlanta, but I was ready for the next thing. It’s hard, as a queen, to find the next city you’re going to jump to [especially since] Atlanta pays its queens so, so well.

Dragula has a live pageant. Obviously, they stopped doing the party, but brought it back for DragCon weekend. I thought I would compete, and I ended up being in the Top 3 with Abhora, and I won. But it wasn’t an automatic in for the show. The Boulets were like, “We’ll message you.” I definitely felt like, “This is it.”
 

AJ: Okay, let’s switch gears a bit and do some quick, rapid-fire questions. Favorite horror movie?

BP: Silence of the Lambs. Without a doubt.

AJ: Greatest fear?

BP: Heights. I don’t know why. There was a person in the 90s who died on a roller coaster, and I was there. But I still ride roller coasters.

AJ: Favorite drag queen (besides yourself, duh)?

BP: [screams] Disasterinaaaaaaa! The first day on set...it was the most beautiful thing on the planet. I bawled my eyes out when they eliminated her, because if I was going to lose to any bitch, I’d want to lose to her or Abhora.

AJ: What is one of the biggest perks to fame?

BP: Getting clocked on Scruff.

AJ: Who did you feel was your biggest competition overall on Dragula?

BP: When I got to set, I immediately was like, “Abhorra,” because she knew what I was capable of. I may not read as ‘monster,’ but I have shit and tricks that I can apply that these girls don’t [have]. But I will say, Victoria, Episode 1 - first day, level awesome. I thought I was going to be the body girl, but I was like, “Oh my God, she’s padded, and her tits look amazing, and she’s scary as fuck.” I was like, “Damn, I’ll be lucky if I make it halfway through.” But then I realized that the girls didn’t have what I have, so I started celebrating that, and that’s when I started kicking ass.

AJ: Do you have a Drag Mother, and if so, who is she?

BP: [laughs] I don’t necessarily have a correct drag mother, but I do have two mothers that I would like to identify: one is this girl named Kiara - she’s from Virginia Beach. When I saw her perform, I was like, “Drag can be that?” She transformed the whole room to look at her. She was doing this weird song that no one would know, and it was like you were teleporting into this video game world. It was fucking sickening.

In terms of Atlanta, I will say Celeste Holmes really helped me out in a variety of ways, and has constantly been my cheerleader. She was one of the few ones that was like, “Biqtch, you’re sickening, keep going, don’t listen to the haters.” I love her for [that].

AJ: What was the messiest moment on Dragula that didn’t make it onto the show?

BP: It was during the first episode. Shit was being spilled backstage, and everyone was blaming me. So, it was messy with that, but it was also messy when we got to the bottom. It was me, Kendra, Erika, Felony, and Monikkie. Right now, it’s comical, but in the moment, I was like, “Oh my God.” Felony is rocking back and forth and mentally trying to prep herself. Erika is freaking out. Monikkie is like, “James Majesty is in the top? What the fuck?” and through all these interactions, you hear Kendra Onixxx saying, “It’s a Trump America.” [laughs] It was reality gold, and I don’t know why there wasn’t a camera on it. It was messy, but it was really fucking funny.

AJ: Plug time! What’s next for Biqtch?

BP: I’m trying to come up with music. I just want to come out with some honest, fun songs. I’m working with a couple of different artists right now - I don’t know if anything will come of it. I’m launching my Twitch channel around or after DragCon. I’m trying to get DragCon done. I’m going to switch to video games and have fun online. I’m going to do the European tour with Dragula, dates to be determined. I’m very fucking excited about that.

---

To read the full interview, order your copy of WUSSY Volume 4. 
Photography by Nathan Noyes for WUSSY Mag. 

Anna Jones is a writer and producer currently based in Atlanta. She is the proud owner of digital copywriting agency Girl.Copy and independent film production company Tiny Park Productions. She loves a lot of stuff, but mainly: her husband, kid, and cat, writing and filmmaking, coffee and Diet Coke, millennial pink, sushi, gay stuff, and horror films.

PHOTO: Dennis COWALS

WUSSY is proud to present poetry by queer ATLien, Isabel Theodore. 
If you would like to send in a writing submission, please contact Nicholas Goodly. 

I walk the finely threaded linearity of your dreams—
Your dreams which iron my dreams.
Heated press, whoosh of steam,
          a cotton scented blue and no other color,
          my nerve-crimps de-crimping.
I say art has location, space and time,
temporality the nail on which we hang our paint paintings and word paintings and music paintings.
But so does love, which is never a just but an all and an everything and an eat pray.
Am I a straight man walking, Doctor the Missus Your Name Here?
Will I build the house under us? Does the house already exist: stucco on cervix, carpet, curtains
and other ugly words that named me
that dread incubator of more flesh and more teeth and resentment?
I stood toe to toe with women. Our eyes and breasts near level
or I dreamed them to be, in desire's drowsing halls. 
I rise your soft underbelly.
My father sees me. Throws an apple. 

Isabel Theodore is, alphabetically: an aspiring comedian; Pinay; a poet; queer; Sagittarian, so you can trust her. Lives in Atlanta, talks shit @docfission.

The following interview originally appeared in WUSSY vol. 4. For more photos and more exclusives, order your copy here, featuring exclusives with Amanda Lepore, Big Dipper, Lucy Stoole, and more. 
 

Will Sheridan is an enigma and he’s not afraid to proclaim it.

One look at his Wikipedia page will tell you the basics, but you’ll still be left scratching your head. He began his professional career as a basketball player, a forward at Villanova University. Then, not long after coming out as gay his freshman year of college (and being among the first NCAA athletes to do so), he began a music career that eventually eclipsed basketball. By 2010, Will Sheridan became fully the out hip-hop-house artist he is today. Now at 33, and a longstanding career based in Brooklyn, he’s got more to say and more to do, and isn’t pulling any punches.

“I am an artist —a rapper— that began to deejay because I throw parties. I curate parties. And I think there’s a lot of parties I go to where they don’t play hip-hop or vogue or music I like to listen to. So that's why I started deejaying, because I wanted to play music I wanted to listen to and people started responding to my deejaying by booking me.” Will Sheridan is the resident DJ at Hot Fruit exists in the best of both worlds: where his deejaying is lauded and booked on its own, and music has a following of its own. Though the two worlds seldom intersect; he very rarely plays his own tracks when he’s deejaying.

He’s still got struggles of his own though, but they mirror a lot of artist’s reconciliation of art vs commerce. “I’m still trying to debate what’s better: giving away your music or having it on Apple Music and all that. My target audience is everyone.”

"Make your music for you. Perform it with all your heart. And someone will start fuckin’ liking that shit.”

The art of performing hip-hop live was brought up, naturally. Artists have a number of ways of going about taking what they’ve written and performed in-studio and translating it to a live setting, but are they all equal? “I find that mostly with hip-hop artists they either are, like, super hip-hop and want to rap all the words over instrumentals, or they just rap over songs and don’t rap all the words, but neither one of them is as entertaining as me,” Sheridan explains. After asking why, “Because it’s boring. We don’t care about your little, like, super conscious rap that’s not about the queer narrative. And then some of the people that depend on back tracks usually don’t have the energy or enthusiasm behind what they’re doing. I’m like, you’re getting paid to do this, right? This is what you love to do? Put some enthusiasm into it!”

With music thumping in the background of the phone call, “I’m rarely entertained by other rappers”. Will Sheridan said energized. His six-foot-eight stature could be felt over the phone, though the confidence he had over every declaration. This sort of superlative could only be responded with well, who *are* you entertained by? But the question gives him pause. “Um, I mean… I love Le1f. I love Big Dipper live. Dai Burger, Junglepussy, Dick Van Dick, all those people, and Cakes da Killa, too. Everyone else is like, a fraud. I’ve been rapping since 2009, I’ve seen a lot of shit.”

Though he digresses, “There’s no beef in gay rap. [laughs] Now you’ve got me feelin’ I’m controversial.”

The subject shifts to queer culture, and music as as a whole, and Will Sheridan has choice words for the community and up-and-coming voices, “When you’re talking gay culture and talking music, most queer people don’t even really listen to rap. And if it’s gay? It’s too much for them. They’d rather listen to Lil Wayne eating pussy than Will Sheridan sucking dick. So I would say if someone was just coming up, and their dream is to be a queer rapper and tour the world; make your music for you. Perform it with all your heart. And someone will start fuckin’ liking that shit.”

But what about those of us who are unable to live their most authentic selves? To those people, Will says “Well, my brand is going in never timid—if you’re big enough to be who you are, you’re a giant.”

“Whatever you’ve got to do to secure your life, do it. If you need to be a little more discreet to be safe, be safe. But don’t beat yourself up that you’re not living this extravagant life cause all of us start somewhere. All of us start somewhere. I wasn’t always this queer radical, six-[foot]-eight, former basketball player being. I was eleven years old. I was an outsider, and I was completely afraid of the future and what was coming.”

Will Sheridan’s advice to others is authenticity. Do whatever it takes to be authentic, real, and alive.

“All I did was challenge myself to be the best at everything I did so that nobody would have any reason to not love me. It may not be healthy, but it’s what I did.”

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Will Sheridan's new EP LexIcon is available now! Check it out here. 

This story originally ran in WUSSY vol. 4.
For more photos and more exclusives, order your copy here. 

WUSSY Prom 2018 is coming soon, y'all! 

The theme this year is Petty in Pink, hosted by the illustrious and iconic, original club kid herself: freakaleakin Amanda Lepore! Club kid formal wear is encouraged, and remember to THINK PINK!

Last year, Atlanta's live-singing drag sensation, Qween Farrazz, took home the grand prize -- following in the footsteps of previous winners, Hydrangea Heath (2016) and Cayenne Rouge (2015). 

We've changed up the categories a bit this year, but keep in mind PROM OVERLORD is the grand prize!

Which of your problematic favorite queermates deserve to be on Prom Court this year? Who has made a positively petty impact on the Atlanta community this year? You can nominate yourself, but you can only submit your ballots ONCE.

You have until September 1st to nominate your queer peers via the form below or this link right here. Once your nominations are tallied and announced, you will be able to vote on the winners in person at WUSSY Prom. 

Nominate away!

WUSSY invaded Chicago last month for an ICON celebration of Lady Gaga, featuring Biqtch Puddin', winner of Dragula Season 2. The night hosted by Lucy Stoole, as well as Bambi Banks, Chris Williams, Delikate Doll, Luka Ghost, and Irregular Girl. Photographer Erik M. Kommer was there to snap all the lewks and deathdrops. 

Can't wait to see us again? Join us for another weekend of sickening styles: Thursday for Clueless at The Davis Theater hosted by Lucy Stoole, Friday for LEWK at Moxy Chicago Downtown starring Evah Destruction & stop by the #ThisFreeLife booth at Market Days to win tickets to see The Birdcage in September & take photos with Trannika Rex & Bambi Banks while Lucy Stoole serves the beats. 

Check out photos below from ICON: