I cracked my neck, knuckles and toes before sitting down to write this. I probably should have just created a Bluesky account instead, or tweeted it but here we are.
I left a male dominated industry for a job dominating men. I then started a drag career, in a scene that is predominantly dominated by cis white gay men. And I need to say, I am sick of the blatant sex worker appropriation I see in the industry. I have asked professional drag queens to not use the word ‘whore’ to describe their make up. I have seen them take this on board somewhat, only to refer to drag as “geish” – an abbreviation of geisha – while wearing pleasers and having never worked a day as a Sex Worker in their lives. Cut to now and the resurgence of jelly wrestling – a really fun spectacle – a new and improved formula minus the participation of workers. Like diet caffeine-free cola, some like it hot.
I am bored of being in such close proximity to ignorant white cis queers who fail to grasp the concept of intersectionality. I am bored by these members of my community in particular, mouthing off on international television about their prejudices. I am even more disappointed in the alternative spooky gays having the audacity to say, “Drag is art and art is subjective”, to then just completely discredit the lived experience of a worker on an international platform. A worker who is a ‘face out’ person of colour, in a challenge where competitors are asked to essentially cosplay as workers. Sex work is not a costume and drag is not cosplay.
I have asked professional drag queens to not use the word ‘whore’ to describe their make up.
Yes, I am talking about the Boulet Brothers and I should basically kiss my drag career goodbye right now but regardless; I will persist. Season 5, Episode 6 of Dragula called ‘Pleasure Planet X’. Strap in, I am about to read you for filth, this is gonna be a rough and bumpy ride. The cast are asked to create a character from the “Sex Work is Work” universe, there are Rocky Horror Picture Show references, the cast are concurrently encouraged to “Don’t Dream It, Be It”.
Fantasia Royale Gaga speaks of being excited about this challenge as a worker themselves, and feeling confident about the task at hand. Viewers witness contestants have an informative and well presented lesson about American censorship laws around nipples delivered by Throb Zombie, who says a lot of their friends are sex workers. The second part of the challenge is the floorshow, and each contestant must – what workers would call – ‘intro’ themselves as their Intergallactic Sex Work persona. And then Fantastia Royale Gaga, the only member of the cast to say they are a worker, is critically and I feel, brutally judged for their costume looking ‘circusy’. Now, the venn diagram that is the history of sex work and circus isn’t not a circle… At no point in the final cut of this episode are we the audience informed of this history, or sex working history really at all? I would like to fix that and to give you a brief introduction (that is beautifully conveyed in Kitty Velour’s podcast “The Pussy Parlour”).
Sex work is not a costume and drag is not cosplay.
Firstly, poledancing in its modern iteration is widely known to have originated as an enticing spectacle performed – by predominantly women of colour –, outside the three ring circus tent, to attract customers and “buy the ticket, take the ride”. Sex work, burlesque and circus are of interest to me as a performer, and history is an important part of the context of what we, the community, do. I know this because I listen to people of colour and I do my research.
Season six is currently screening at the time of writing. Season six’s sex worker episode calls for a re-imagining of the “patchwork prostitute” Frankenhooker. They strangely decide not to reference the movie at all in the episode until it's time for judging. They admit that Frankenhooker is “problematic” only after using “prostitute” and “hooker” frequently and flippantly throughout the episode, without pause. True to the cult classic Frankenhooker, the contestants are asked to perform their “patchwork prostitutes” around a car, which seems to me like poorly informed optics that could have been mitigated by employing a sex worker consultant for the episode.
From my red-umbrella-tinted glasses this looked like once again a drag reality tv show appropriating the culture of street based work, as a gimmick. Bringing back Fantastia from season five to judge on the panel for this seasons “sex work” episode would have gone a long way to looking like the sex working community was not an afterthought in this challenge. I expected more from the Boulet Brothers, and I do not feel the need to pay any lip service to RuPaul as Jack Parker has already made incredibly salient points about that franchise.
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