Chronologically, this should probably have been the first post on this blog, being a reflection on the origins of the current stream of research. But that would have required some desire to present the ongoing narrative in a strict, orderly timeline – as it stands, this is simply a repository of thoughts, ideas, reflections and connections. The research is only weeks old. Order and sequencing will come later.
Coronavirus in the summer of 2020 changed a lot of things – not least of which, my job prospects for earning essential money over the break between my graduating with BA Hons. from DJCAD in May and commencing the MFA course at the same institution (originally to have been September, but later postponed to October). With no degree shows to hire me in my usual role as tour guide (and of course I wouldn’t have been able to work my own graduate show anyway), I had to think – and act – quickly to pursue an alternative line of employment – one that would be stable and regular, but also involve minimal setup costs and travel.
Internet sex work wasn’t exactly the top of my preferred list of options, but a number of contributing factors made it so, chief among which were those listed above, as well as the assurances from a couple of close online friends that, as a genderqueer performance artist with few personal inhibitions, a very long-standing interest in traditional striptease, burlesque and exotic performance (from about the age of seven or so, the same age at which I began to discover my own feminine identity) and who had read my one professionally-published novel which relates the memoirs of a 1970s female stripper1, I should find it easy and untroubling.
I was recommended to try my hand with Xhamster.com – a huge internet pornographic outfit whose main public face is free, user-uploaded content – video and photographic – but also caters to live, streaming interactive webcam performance. Camera broadcasts may be viewed for free by registered users, but they are encouraged to spend dollars with the site on tokens, which may be used to ‘tip’ performers, as in traditional nightclub acts, request specific actions (or interactions) and pay for special treats like private time with the performer. The site exchanges dollars for a number of tokens, whilst taking a cut from each transaction. Signing up as a performer cost nothing but required photographic ID to be submitted. I was sceptical about this, but in the end overcame my fears and reservations by weighing up the worst-case scenario of a massive online data breach and possible ID theft (cf. Sony 2012) against the likelihood of being singled out from the millions of other users subscribed to the site. It was the internet, and the sense of ‘being someone else’ online from as early as 1992 which gradually fostered my alternative persona as a genuine being in the world, rather than an inner construct and projection, and ultimately nourished the confidence which allowed me to step out in public2. It took me a week to have my personal documents validated and by the end of April, Ms Lilith was born3.
Within a week, I was feeling the effects of my new job as tangibly as the fictional heroine I had created seven years before in my novel: working four, five nights a week left me fatigued, craving R & R, and occasionally having to do exactly what she did on her days off: soak my feet in salted bowls of hot water to relieve the callouses caused by hours of dancing and posing in 5” heels. By going live at around 10pm and working through to 4, 5 a.m or later, I was able to cross two calendar days in one session which would allow me the rest of the day off (assuming I had made some tokens from the experience) without affecting my potential score on the performers leaderboard - which in the early days was something I cared about. (My highest point was being raked number 31 within my first few days - no doubt due to me being flagged as a ‘new’ performer and therefore highly visible. Once I became ‘old hat’, that rating plunged, as I was unable to maintain the peak interest shown in me.) Working five calendar days a week, whilst preparing for my Honours assessment during evening times, pushed my physical/mental stamina to its limit, and during daylight hours I would often take advantage of sunshine by working in the garden, too.
Like any kind of sex work, good results can be down to luck as much as any particular effort on the part of the operator: one can spend over an hour getting primped and dressed in the most glamorous fashion, carefully matching styles and accessories, only to sit in an empty room for half the night with little or no interest – whilst conversely, a hasty grab-bag of minimal garments from the bottom drawer elicit ecstasies in those who just happen to admire the cheap, trashy look, and fling batches of tokens around like confetti in response. Or the layers of carefully-applied glamour may be literally stripped off in a moment, as by one of my first ever ‘private’ clients who exhorted, “Strip off. Everything...4”
The ontological experience of cramming oneself into a 640x480 pixel window is strange in many ways, for other than disparities in actual monitor size at the client end, what we see of ourselves in that window is exactly what others see as well. It is a mirror, but one which does not present us with a reflected image – it is the image of the self as seen by the Other, and as the Other is invited to seek sexual pleasure in that image, so we may also, ourselves, entertain that notion, as we become linked to that Lacanian object of fascination, desire, and ego-building. In fact, any exotic dancer, stripper or burlesque performer needs to carry a healthy amount of narcissism to look as if they are enjoying the experience. The dynamics of performer/audience in traditional hetero-normative work such as this is well documented – what is less so, is the marginalised area of gay, trans and queer generally performance. The image which links viewer (or voyeur) and webcam performer – becomes the shared object of attention, that to which the viewer reacts and through which we also construct our own performative self, continually adjusting movements, expressions, poses based upon the ongoing visual feedback, and – as I have often found in the past via my mainstream video and performative work – viewing this image of the Self as Other, making the webcam interaction a triangular symbiosis between performer – performative image – viewer. The true notion of Self can become somewhat detached as if, in an infantile Lacanaian way, we invest and immerse ourselves in the image on-screen rather than the experience of being, expressing unity of visual with interiority – the stage where surface overcomes depth and we reduce ourselves to mere Object status, the common anti-pornographic complaint of 1960s feminists. Dressed in seductive clothing, especially various forms of lingerie, is a rather uncomfortable experience (we can assume that most such items were designed by men for women to wear), which is why I rarely have entertained it, but the visual and aesthetic charge is powerful enough to make it worthwhile, as in the manner of birds’ plumage and other animals’ sexually attractive performances and displays of colour and form. Certain designs of boots, for example, are commonly described as “only for the bedroom” - meaning that their practical function can barely venture beyond that of sexual arousal.
Working online in this manner, with my self literally in focus at all times, reminded me of the paradox inherent in Foucault’s socio-cultural construction of ‘man’ - as a subject which views itself in the world and experiences direct relationship with the world (in my case, through the interface of the website), and simultaneously as an object of study and knowledge within the world and hence, Janus-like, looks inward and outward simultaneously. The Sartrian model of the Other as the sculptor of the Self was also, I found, given tangible credence: viewers who advised me that I was “sexy”, “gorgeous” or any number of other preposterous (so I thought) adjectives quickly began to convince me that I was – at any rate, to them, even if I myself knew how sketchy the makeup really was, how tangled the showgirl wig was at the back, or how insecure the showgirl themselves was inside. Those who deemed me sexy very often proved the veracity of their claims by spending their tokens on me, sometimes for quite simple and unrevealing gestures or requests. “Wish I was with you right now,” was a common trope. My answer was originally, “If you were, you’d lose your illusion,” - finding honesty easier than acceptance of blind praise. Before long though, I realised that it was easiest – and kinder, too – to simply accept the wild flattery and play the part they wanted me to play. In this sense, also, I felt the subtle presence of Barthes’ use of language as a skin – where the mere words of others, linguistic notation on a screen, helped to move me in the manner in which their writers desired, and which I myself therefore found desirable, by being able to respond in kind – which, in turn, would then inspire further eloquence on the part of the viewer. Using their “words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of [their] words5”, I found myself moved, inspired and often aroused – creating a mutual feedback loop of call and response.
When one is on a stage, in front of an audience, one doesn’t know how the performance looks from the viewer’s point of view, and only rehearsals can assure one that the movements can well approximate how we want the event to be perceived. But we cannot imagine how the performance may be seen from every possible angle – how views from the gallery differ from those at the front of the stage, or in the wings. Certain gestures may be more discernible from some angles rather than others. In a live webcam environment, there is only one flat view which we control, and only by moving the camera itself can shift the angle of perception. In this situation the viewer is often the director, critic and audience in one. We might enjoy a greater or lesser degree of autonomy during what I tend to call the “attract mode” (striking poses or instigating a sequence or scene for the benefit of viewer traffic passing through the room, in the hope some will be attracted enough to stay and engage in conversation, or more) – the “trailer”, “advert” or “teaser”. But with sufficient interest (and arousal) on the part of the viewer, they may then feel inclined to suggest modify or derail the performer’s current mode of performance. “Why don’t you show this”, “Stand up”, “I want to see you full length”, “Let’s see you do...” etc., thereby creating an interactive, improvisational experience in which neither the performer nor the audience knows entirely what may happen next – whether the outcome, or its method of formation.
My own personal rules for what would constitute a successful striptease or sex scene might run as follows: It must not look cheap, or tacky (or if it does then it had better at least be funny – on purpose); it must build a discernible curve of tension and relief, ideally starting out with performers fully-clothed and ending with inevitable full nudity; appropriate music should set the scene and help to build the suspense, as well as fuel the performer’s movements and interest in the performance (I.e no inappropriate dubbing after the fact); a good variety of camera angles and shots should be employed, from full-length long shots to close-ups, facial shots (to carry the details of the performer’s emotion to the viewer, and to help make eye-contact – a vital component of any kind of live performance that requires audience connection). As a film-maker, I had to bear all of this in mind as I also went about the business of trying to be so sexually alluring and entertaining for audiences, that they were willing to spend good money on the experience to see more of me, as well as ensure a continuing soundtrack to keep myself motivated and raise my game when required (the site requires all performers to have a working microphone on at all times)6.
I am completely removed from the common fetishistic obsession with the materiality of lingerie and other items, and sensations provided to the wearer (usually with fantasies – or realities – of extreme submissiveness) without consideration of the emancipatory nature of such gear – cf. Paglia’s assertion that a “woman’s most powerful weapon is a stiletto heel”. This, to me, suggests a patriarchal construction of how the idealized female ought to be, and they themselves inhabit that form in pursuit of their own sexualized agenda. Materiality of clothing is irrelevant to me (other than, for example, certain substances I simply can’t wear – e.g latex, PVC, which have terrible tactile sensations to me, and look cheap too) – it’s the outer look, not the inner sensation, which interests me, the self-as-other – objectifying myself not to the level of a sexually repressive fetishistic figure but to the female – not ‘feminized’ in the fetishistic sense – within me which felt connected more as the ‘other half’ of my male side and hence embodied or completed my androgyny of being/spirit. For myself, a certain primal aggression is at work – channelled through a dialectically opposed conduit of archetypal figures which recur eternally within my own work (both written, visual and performative) – the Amazon, the valkyrie, the witch, in all her dark and worrying aspects – the challenging, blatant, openness of female sexuality, inviting, yet also ultimately devouring and destroying, embodying the pagan Goddess in my own way.
As Foucault noted elsewhere: “BDSM is sexualized power”, and the dominance/submission dynamic soon became very clear and obvious in the public room as well as in private sessions. Some men assumed me to be dominant from the word go, perhaps due in part to my imposing stature and enthusiasm for leather boots, and requested I act as such upon them (“topping from the bottom”, as it were – or, not knowing your role in the D/s relationship); others were equally keen to assert their dominance on me, attitudes which might as readily make me produce the riding crop and segue the current music into ‘Venus in Furs’, as make me actually seek to comply (depending on my mood, and the status of the user – might they be likely to pay for more of the same?). As just stated, there soon developed a miniature cultural trichotomy within my relationships with users, one already put in place by the site. Grey-coloured users are registered but have never bought tokens with which to buy media or tip performers; green users have tokens which can be spent (but will eventually be used up, and revert their status to grey, but with the ‘ex-green’ status); and gold users, the élite, pay a monthly membership fee to enjoy varied benefits. This description alone ought to clearly illustrate the pyramid structure of the online membership, and the colour status of a user is, of course, a determinant in how much attention the performer ought to pay to them when tips are at stake. Personally, I find it mannerly to return compliments with gratitude no matter who they may be from, but rudeness or demands will find my attention quickly diverting elsewhere – no matter what the status of the user. Greys issuing curt commands (“Show your -”, “Do this, do that”) would just be ignored, whereas those with actual funds would be told, “All things come to those who tip” or, one occasion which saw the recipient head straight for the exit after a tedious barrage of requests, “If you ain’t tipping, I ain’t stripping”. Occasionally, some would put their money where their demands were, and a proftable exchange would open up – more often than not, they would get the hump and leave, obviously upset at having been made to look cheap in public (or else deeming me, to misquote Dr. Johnson, “Worth seeing, but not worth paying to see”). Greens and golds entering the room would elicit the online equivalent of the streetwalker flashing her coat open at the sight of an approaching Porsche or Ferrari – which might often screech past her to the younger, or prettier, colleague three hudred yards down the road7. I soon tried not to make my reactions look too transparant, like jumping up from a reclined pose to immediately start strutting the floor like a Las Vegas showgirl (and huffing to an abrupt stop as the Green or Gold disappeared as swiftly as they arrived). Once the novelty of being out in public in a live, paying erotic environment had become normalized in my psyche, I began to use the experience as an exercise in psychology - studying the actions of users and figuring out their potential intentions (usually when nobody was chatting, or saying anything of interest). Sometimes a green would sit in the room, silent, lurking; as though hoping for another green or gold to enter and drop some tips which they were themselves not so willing to part with. Often, the same green would leave and then return five, ten, minutes later, seemingly to check if anything had changed – most of my tip ‘goals’ (a certain action being performed publicly when a set number of tips had been received) involved removing items of clothing in a very protracted striptease, on an escalating pay scale – a skirt might be worth 8 or 10, a G-string 30 (or even 50 if I wasn’t wearing that much to begin with) – so I understood their psychology for wanting to be around to see only the later adult-rated ‘good stuff’ rather than having to pay to get me through the PG-rated underwear level first. Understanding, however, does not equate with appreciation.
The bulk of my earnings came from private sessions, which I had fixed at 16 tokens/minute (a token being worth $0.05) – half of the default value. I cared for quantity and customer retention over extortion. My longest session ran almost two hours one night, and almost single-handedly took my balance from $0 to $100 (the magical threshold for triggering automatic wire payments) in the space of an evening. Rather like being in a hotel room with a client, one is, to an extent, rather at their mercy – they are paying after all, and unless they’re asking for something illegal (either to the site hosts, or in actual law) then I found it easiest just to comply – as long as it didn’t involve crossing any of my personal lines, making a mess of good clothing or compromising my own safety. I had it clearly stated on my profile which actions I do publicly, and which I do in private, so anything outwith that range would therefore need to be at least discussed. Quitting from a private session for any reason other than verbal abuse or illegal intent would probably be frowned upon, as users can vote the performer afterwards, and a negative vote would upset the performer’s overall ranking (it took me from May until mid-September to get enough votes on my private shows to actually show up – but when it finally came, it was a perfect 5/5 from 10 votes). I much preferred speaking in privates than public – if only because in a public room you cannot tell who can hear – and the erotic potential of live talk cannot be underestimated, to those who appreciate such. Americans especially found my identifiable Scottish accent ‘sexy’, which I found highly entertaining – given my long-standing hatred of hearing my own voice until very recent times, when I first started public spoken word performances (in September 2019) and as a result, began to modulate my speech patterns and focus on clarity of pronunciation.
The analogy of striptease to my own work was found to be misleading, if not entirely false. While it is the one activity (along with dancing, whether erotic or otherwise) in which I would most gladly participate for an adult audience (for many reasons), it was something I was able to perform less than I would have liked. The advantage of a club is that the audience is static – they are there, you are on stage, and the only variables are how many are interested enough in you at any time to throw money your way to see more. In a webcam room, nobody pays for entry, so traffic can be busy, dead, or non-existent. Before long, a performative paradox arose in my mind whenever the population of the room dwindled to zero: “Is nobody coming in because I’m not doing anything interesting? But, I’m not doing anything interesting, because there’s nobody coming in...” The idea of parading around the room in mad self-absorption, with no actual viewership to see, felt antithetical, if not farcical. Sometimes I did anyway when a particular favourite song came on, and I was in the mood anyway. Too often than not I found myself reclined in the chair, trying not to look as if I was paying too much attention to the screen, whilst still also exhibiting some layer of enticement for those who might wander by at a moment’s notice.
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| As time went on, my profile text became more pushy against the kind of liberties often taken by non-paying viewers |
In Barthes’ essay on Striptease, “Striptease...is based on a contradiction: Woman is desexualized at the very moment when she is stripped naked”. In my case, I began to find exactly the opposite: disclosing the male anatomy to the viewing public increased the tension between viewer and viewed. Unlike the apotropaic stare of Medusa8, which Freud saw reflected in an infantile view of the mother’s genitals, my unveiling animated and galvanised those watching, liberating them from the potential fear of what they might see, only to be confronted with what they already knew well to expect: the sight of that they possessed themselves, the comforting, assuring promise that not all women had been castrated, that a sexually available and desirable feminine form may still hold no terror for the child-within by revealing ‘her’ secret: ‘she’ is just like ‘him’ - literally echoing Kipnis’ observation that pornography is a genre with “two genders but only one sex” - wherein both sets of performers yield completely and uneqivocally to each other’s needs and demands, finding total, almost divine (if not pre-Lapsarian) unity. In this case, her statement is literally true.
Barthes: “The classic props of the music hall...make the unveiled body more remote, and force it back into the all-pervading ease of a well-known rite...”
One of the advantages which the digital revolution has brought to the industry is, of course, the autonomy of the individual performer – who, no longer needing a sleazebag producer to ‘make her a star’, or even a stripclub venue to dance in, can take total control of her own career and do it her way, on her terms, at times that suit her and with – this, I believe, being the most crucial – total personal safety, and 100% of the profits. If websites such as Xhamster can offer anybody (Male, Female or Trans) a guaranteed 100% cut of the token tips spent on their live broadcasts (as well as passive revenue earned from any additional digital content, such as explicit or specialized videos which cost a set number of tokens to view and download), all in the safety of their own homes – then anyone with photographic ID and a stable internet connection can become not just a performer but a paid performer. We might do well to remember that in the last days of the 20th Century, the first internet-specific business model to turn a profit was the pornography industry – before Amazon ever made a cent and before ‘social media’ was even a phrase. At the age of 47 (and biologically male), finding myself to be praised as not only desirable but sexually interesting left me rather bemused at first. Being physically fit helped a great deal – comments on the “killer abs” and “amazing legs” helped get me off on the right foot, and I realised quickly that the limited resolution of the camera helped to mitigate surface blemishes (body stubble, sketchy makeup) and present a much cleaner image than I knew was actually in front of that camera. Of course, viewers also saw what they wanted to see - if their initial perception was of a 25-year old knockout 6-foot blonde in 5” heels, then no amount of self-deprecating honesty from my direction (“I’m actually old enough to be your parent”) would be likely to dislodge those hooks of sexual desire, once embedded in the Id of the captivated viewer. Self-appointed ‘straight guys’ told me on various occasions I had forced them to reconsider their sexuality – I didn’t dare ask what they were doing trawling through the ‘Trans’ section of a very popular website when there were hundreds of perfectly fine cisgendered female broadcasters presenting themselves in the default broadcasters’ screen9 at the time, for their alleged straightness. As I have said elsewhere10, “any inclusion is better than exclusion” and if a person like me can go some way towards normalizing an alternative object of desire – whether it be a non-binary body, or in the case of others, coloured, Latino, disabled or other marginalized bodies and beings – then my work is worth more than the hundreds of pounds it brought me over the summer – it has helped to sow the very seeds of the purpose of almost all of my academic and creative work since 2017, that of raising awareness and recognition of the non-élite form, the marginalised body, the Bakhtinian grotesuque, through my own post-modernist levelling of the high-low cultural dichotomy. To interrupt, interrogate the bastion of heteronormativity, pornography – albeit couched in the ‘Trans’ section of a specific website – was a project more than worthy, especially as I did so on my terms – refuting the full-on hardcore activities of many others (often Latins, with Colombians featuring in at least half of the top ten trans performers at any time). That many no doubt viewed me as a fetishized curio was inevitable; but I brought my own standards, my own personal rules to the game, and played them with those willing to participate with me. My strength of personality occasionally pushed a little far – but if I were ever in any danger of think for a moment that some guys can just be too stupid, too insensitive, too - for words, I only had to consider how much more trans and cisgendered women would have to put up with (and throughout normal life as well). That I might have denigrated, debased myself for money, never once entered my mind – such moral accusations tend to be the domain of those for whom morality is an absolute, an immovable standard set apart from the needs of life and earning a wage (for example, would trans women of colour in the United States and elsewhere put themselves at critical risk of assault, abuse and murder if they had another option to earn a wage?). ‘Sex work’11 itself is mere work, as valid as any other form, and I have strongly supported (for years) those brave people who undertake it, subject as they are to the threat of violence. As Angela carter notes in The Sadeian Woman, “Violence, the convulsive form of the active, male principle, is a matter for men, whose sex gives them the right to inflict pain as a sign of mastery and the masters have the right to wound one another because that only makes us fear them more...” (pp. 25 – 26). Pornography, them being socially relegated to the lowest stratum of culture, is therefore irredeemable by default – unclassifiable as art, worthless to any but the lowest, without any consideration of those who not only choose to – but those who have to – earn a living from it. By joining that community I felt, in a small way, proud at having shared a lived experience which is a way of life for millions around the world. If anything, I felt that, occasionally, I was the one denigrating others – appealing to their lowest instincts in order to prise from them a desirable amount of tips in order to call the session ‘satisfactory’ or ‘profitable’ - the spectre of the neoliberalist nightmare of the 1980s was not far from my shoulder, a skeletal Gordon Gekko whispering that “greed is good” and encouraging me to empty the latest user’s token account for all I was worth, by doing, or saying, whatever it was they wanted from me. Exploitation, especially in a free-market environment as on the Internet, can cut both ways. But if I could give a paying user a good time, “a night’s worth of great dreams” as I was sometimes told, or just a worthwhile way to let off sexual energy for that night, then my work was done, and it was good – for all concerned, insofar as the position of people like me is a consequence of the global neoliberal agenda of the 80s in the first place. The user is given a safe and guilt-free environment in which to release pent-up desire; the performer is equally safe in her house, often hundreds if not thousands of miles away; the financial transaction is clean and automatic; nobody is hurt and nobody has to freeze or get soaked in the street, or risk verbal or other abuse from strangers. If things get too much we simply hit the ‘block’ button or stop broadcasting (or viewing).
1Originally published as ‘Phoenyx: Flesh & Fire’ by Pink Flamingo in 2014, republished in a fully revised format by Extasy Books in 2018 as ‘Berlin Girls’. The book was ostensibly written as a joke, as I had never tackled ‘erotica’ in any form before. It ended up as a rather serious and personal fantasia on a vanished world, not just the days of more ‘innocent’ adult entertainment (striptease/burlesque) but of the European Cold War situation itself.
2My personal story – filmed as, I hope, something of an inspiration to others - ‘Beyond 100 Days’
3I had toyed with using the non-gender specific title ‘Mx’ but reckoned the subtlety – and meaning – would be lost on many users. Besides, the ‘Ms’ itself already hinted at personal independence, and placed me more directly in the ‘feminine’ spotlight, the socio-cultural area I’m most used to inhabiting.
4‘Everything’ involved hastily unlacing a pair of calf-high patent stiletto boots (which took about five minutes to lace up only minutes before), ditching suspender belts and associated hosiery, bra, padding and button-up top. The gloves and hat were allowed to stay. I had offered him the option of disconnecting and rejoining me when I’d actually managed to get out of it all, but he was happy to stand by, saying it helped to build suspense, although he was in no mood for a tease and requested I be quick about it. In such a case it was definitely the promise of what lay beneath, rather than the outer plumage itself, which got his attention. This became a regular customer who had a very specific physical pose and position which he requested each time – by the third session I knew exactly what to do and was praised for knowing what he liked (the unquestioning submission to the Other’s will, on my part, being, no doubt, a strong part of the appeal – knowing he had ‘trained’ me to assume that specific posture which worked best for him). Submission of this sort I find easy to play, as I understand the power dynamic is two-way – one submits, willingly, to allow the other to enjoy what one’s body and being present to them.
5From A Lover’s Discourse, quoted in The Philosophy Book – p. 291
6At times, when facing the oblivion of non-interest and encroaching boredom, I would turn to music to advertise my feelings. From the usual soft rock, show tunes and occasional jazz numbers which I’d employ during actual public performances, I might instead select something by Napalm Death, and segue abruptly into a piece of Morricone or Hans Zimmer movie soundtrack – or, in the deadpan style of a late-night radio DJ, announce the next tune as ‘something to help you all get ready for bedtime’, and promptly blast a chunk of Motorhead through the microphone. The subversive appeal of music when mixed with incongruous visuals is something that has long appealed to me, and my inability to take anything 100% seriously - least of all myself – would sometimes become glaringly apparent to a no-doubt bemused and bewildered viewing audience. If I was unable to amuse others, I reasoned, then I may as well at least amuse myself.
7The correlation between the webcam work and traditional prostitution was evident in my mind even before I made my camera début – that first evening, I went to some length to ‘dress’ the entire set (the section of the room visible through the camera eye) which would be visible to any viewer. I used a dark red curtain to screen irrelevant bookcases and pictures, tacked Victorian and Edwardian pin-ups to the back of a bookcase which was turned 180 degrees to act as a touchstone for the direction from which I was coming – and used a bamboo room divider to hide other distractions such as the TV. This, of course, would be the environment in which I wanted to welcome the ‘clients’ and in tune with my invented persona for this initial series of sessions, I adopted a very retro, even Parisienne, look (also partly informed by Rita Hayworth’s legendary opera glove striptease in ‘Gilda’). To present myself in any kind of modernistic mode seemed unpalatable at the time: people were being encouraged to pay, so I hoped to give them something worth their money, and definitely something they had never been likely to see before on Xhamster. By appealing to the vintage, the traditional, I hoped to deflect the most crass and crude excesses my audience might be capable of. Within a week I realised that all of this devotion to detail was unnecessary and was not even commented upon, although it satisfied the artist/film-maker within me, and the performer in search of a character. By the end of the first few weeks I realised that the only character I was portraying was my own self, Lilith in her most devouring and independent form.
8Whether or not Freud is right on all aspects of the Medusa/castration complex, I will not argue – but the notion of the female genitalia holding an unsettling subconscious note for certain varieties of male spectator is, I feel, apparent through the history of literary, artistic and mythological symbolism – certainly when correlated with those aspects of nature and the life/death cycle explored at great length by Camille Paglia in Sexual Personae.
9Which does, of course, present female performers for an (assumed) majority hetero-normative male audience.
10''The Non-Binary Body in Western Art and Vulture', 2020 Hons. dissertation, unpublished
11A term I actually dislike – seeing it as an extension of the base concept ‘work’, as though it were somehow a less legitimate, marginal subset of that concept of labour/wage exchange.
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