OK, I gave in

and got myself a tumblr:

http://notyourexrotic.tumblr.com

I'm not sure if I'll keep this yet. Long form posts are hard and I was looking for something more scrapbooky. The experiment continues!

Starting and rethinking

I have just arrived in San Francisco for the MFA this blog is about. The MFA classes themselves haven't started yet; I am currently doing a Summer Bridge program geared for international students and anyone who wants to get back into US academic writing styles (though CIIS is admittedly not as traditionally academic as most places).

In the weeks since I last posted on here, I have mostly been preoccupied with getting the logistics together for my course and this epic huge move. The Blogger format doesn't lend itself easily to short snippets of inspiration; I have tried to find non-Tumblr microblogging alternatives but none are well-supported. (My past experiences with Tumblr, while a great platform for microblogging, was so mired with drama and echo-chambering that it became too toxic to stay.) Also I was experiencing a lot of personal emotional shifts - and still am - and wanted to keep them private rather than (over)share with the world as I would normally do.

I do feel that I likely need to loosen the focus of my project, since I am not even sure what sort of work I will be doing or what my opportunities are. I do suspect that sexuality and culture (and their uncomfortable intersections) will make up a large part of my eventual MFA, but I also want the opportunity to grow and explore pathways that I can't even imagine now, letting the final project take up whatever form it needs to rather than being so didactic so early.

It will definitely be very personal, even if I don't explicitly make it so. Art was always a means of expressing some issue or idea about myself and my experiencesl even the more superficial of my acts relate to a personal deep interest (such as my Darren Hayes fangirling, which also informs a lot of my creative and emotional processes as well as ideas on mentorship and guidance).

The challenge then would be to not let my personal matters be carved up and destroyed in a degree setting, as it happened in my Bachelors, where my more heartfelt creative writing pieces were told off for "unrealistic characters" (the characters DO exist! they're me!). As it is I'm going through a huge mess of culture shock + depression + illness (a persistent respiratory infection; doctors seem to be booked up till October) + uncertainty. I live a little further out from city centers or hubs, necessitating a multiple-block walk or public transport to get to anywhere non-residential; I would explore more, but my current residential area has a reputation for danger after dark, and I'm unwilling to go somewhere unplanned just yet. (Today on the bus a young woman sitting in front of me wielded a knife, ready either to attack or defend. My naive foreign softy self was chilled.)

I was heartened to have been remembered by Robert, one of the caretakers of the Center of Sex and Culture and a father figure to me the last time I was in SF (especially after a really bad accidental-dosing incident where he and his partners Carol and Dina housed & cared for me); I dropped by the Center to say hi and he offered the keys to the place if I wanted to come in to study (their library looks AWESOME) or rest. It's not far from CIIS and is a hell of a lot more convenient than going all the way back home and then back again; I may take him up on the offer. (I wonder if I could get a locker to keep my stuff for late-night jaunts. And maybe a bed.)

If anyone has better ideas on a Tumblr-esque blogging platform, I'm all ears. Also if you are in San Francisco or the East Bay and want to hang out or chat or have suggestions, do tell!

HIV/AIDS PSA features gay South Asian couples and messages of responsibility

The Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention in Canada has recently released a PSA video on YouTube with the message of HIV/AIDS prevention being a joint responsibility - in much the same way as respecting partners' last wishes, keeping them safe from harm, or even making sure their dinner doesn't boil over. Befitting the organisation, almost all the actors in the video are South Asian:

Responsibility and care-taking are strong tenets of South Asian relationships and families; from my experience, sometimes even more so than attraction or sexual compatibility. It's interesting to see this in a queer context, especially with men: there are some social stereotypes of the women in the family being responsible for people's well-being, but also a strong responsibility on the men to be the caretakers and safekeepers.

Thanks Queerty for the mention.

"Telling" by Laura Hershey

This is why I'm doing this.

What you risk telling your story:
You will bore them.
Your voice will break, your ink will
spill and stain your coat.
No one will understand, their eyes
become fences.
You will park yourself forever
on the outside, your differentness once
and for all revealed, dangerous,
the names you give to yourself
will become epithets.
Your happiness will be called
bravery, denial.
Your sadness will justify their pity.
Your fear will magnify their fears.
Everything you say will prove something about
their god, or their economic system.
Your feelings, that change day
to day, kaleidoscopic,
will freeze in place,
brand you forever,
justify anything they decide to do
with you.
Those with power can afford
to tell their story
or not.
Those without power
risk everything to tell their story
and must.
Someone, somewhere
will hear your story and decide to fight,
to live and refuse compromise.
Someone else will tell
her own story,
risking everything.

- Telling, Laura Hershey (via 1000 Reasons Not to Start Making Art)

Filmmaking Workshops for Queer Women of Color in SF - applications open!

The Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP) is now taking in applications for a number of filmmaking workshops to run from August to December 2012. According to QWOCMAP:

Want to create your own film?
Want to rock your skills to create social justice?
Want to develop your leadership as an artist-activist?
Through this intensive, fun and transformative 16-week Introductory Workshop, you will learn the technical, artistic and leadership skills to create your own film.
Each participant will create, write, direct and edit a 5-minute video project.
You will develop a story idea, write a script, draw storyboards, create shot lists, operate cameras and compose shots, set-up lights & sound, direct actors and manage crew, edit, and send your film to film festivals and beyond.

Applications are due August 3rd 2012 and there are options for Mondays and Thursdays. Send in your application now! 

GO Magazine's 100 Women We Love includes queer South Asian leaders & POC artist trailblazers

GO Magazine's 100 Women We Love showcases a wide range of LGBTQ women (mostly based in the US & Canada) across fields & occupations making a big impact on society. I'm going through the list right now and am happy to see a strong POC presence, including from South Asian backgrounds. Here's a selection (I've added links to the projects quoted):

Gauri Manglik
At 23, Gauri Manglik is already making her mark on the predominantly male tech startup scene. After graduating from NYU, where she majored in computer science, the young entrepreneur quit her job in finance to start her own company. She is now the CEO and co-founder of Fondu, a growing social network for sharing “bite-size restaurant reviews” with friends. [...] “Being a lesbian and an Indian in a leadership role is really cool,“ she says. “I’m proud to bring my unique perspective to the startup scene where a diversity of ideas is important when trying to create innovative solutions. I’m glad I can do this, so that other people can do it too.”

Kim Crosby
Trinidad-born, Toronto-based artist Kim Crosby is a queer survivor, multidisciplinary artist, activist, consultant, facilitator and educator who has plumbed society’s inequalities and transformed her experiences into potent tools for empowerment.[...] Today Crosby is a core member of T-Dot Renaissance, a collective of emerging artists of color; and a part of the nationally touring Les Blues group, an ensemble of black queer folks committed to decolonization through performance. She is the co-founder of The People Project, a movement of queer and trans folks of color toward empowerment through alternative education and activism; and the NYC-based Brown Grrlz Project of “femme of center” individuals. “It's not our differences that separate us, it is our inability to embrace and respect difference,” Crosby affirms. “Freedom does not come at the expense of another group of people. We must fight for each other; it's either all of us or none of us.”

Mariko Tamaki
“Lesbians are superheroes. Everyone knows this,” claims Mariko Tamaki, the Toronto-based author and performer known for injecting her work with autobiographical, queer outsider characters. This energetic artist won critical accolades for her collections of snarky observational essays, True Lies: The Book of Bad Advice and Fake ID; and for her live storytelling at Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and on the CBC’s DNTO radio series. [...] Tamaki draws inspiration for her work directly from her own life. “[Lesbians] are the grease that keeps the wheels moving in every arts and activist community,” she tells GO. “I am even more awesome at what I do because I know I am part of an incredible, talented, sexy community. Being a lesbian has set the bar.”

Madeleine Lim
"Art is activism—it’s an important part of any social justice movement. Artists need to be seen as leaders, not just the entertainment,” Madeleine Lim says. When she was 23, Lim fled her native Singapore to escape government persecution. Ten years later, she created and directed Sambal Belacan in San Francisco, a documentary film about queer Asian emigrants that is still banned in Singapore. The film’s impact, and her position as one of few queer women of color on the international film scene, prompted her to found Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project (QWOCMAP). “I decided that by training other queer and transgender women of color, we could get more films out into the world. If our community creates our own films, then we have honest representations of who we are instead of destructive stereotypes. It empowers us to tell our own stories.”

Crowdfunding my way through (and why I'm not doing that so heavily now)

In the search for funding for the MFA and for this project overall, a few people have suggested going the way of crowdfunding - putting up a pitch on Kickstarter or Pozible, including attendant video and interesting perks, and see the money roll in. This has become an especially popular suggestion since I am ineligible for most grants & scholarships due to my residency status (bridging visa in Australia, about to be an international student in the US).

I do not think I am at the point where crowdfunding is a strong option just yet.


There are two main factors that make a crowdfunding project successful, more so than anything else:

1. There is a sizeable crowd willing to contribute money.
2. There are tangible benefits or products - making the project more of a preorder.


Point 1: I do have a growing following, especially from those that knew me as Tiara the Merch Girl (my first burlesque iteration) and/or followed me on my relatively busy Tumblr & essays around various blogs. However, from my past experiences with crowdfunding, my crowd tends to not have a lot of money to spare. They have plenty of goodwill, and some spread the word, but for the most part they are themselves hard up on cash and would rather keep every cent.

I have also noticed that, at least in Australia, there isn't as strong a notion of personal philanthropy as there may be in the US. In Australia, people expect the Government to be the main source of funding, even if they deeply disagree with the current Government's politics. Even corporate funding was frowned on because of assumptions of loss of control. This was a major culture shock for me when I first arrived to Australia - in Malaysia (where funding options aren't that plentiful) it seemed that most artsy activist iconoclast projects would stay away from Government funding because that would mean being a puppet or mouthpiece for a ruling party with a lot of issues around bigotry, whereas private funding was often free(r) from that. In the US I notice more support for grassroots fundraising, such as the Awesome Foundation (a group of 10 trustees pool money together to fund an "Awesome" project every month in their city) - yet when I advocate for this in Australia, I have met deep resistance, including accusations of encouraging "neoliberal" ideas.

This frustrates me, because from my experience lobbying the Government on many issues (particularly immigration and bridging visas), whoever is in Government doesn't care. Some people tend to see it as one political party over another, but I've noticed that almost every party has its blind spots. I have no time to trust the Government to change its mind and consider me a viable avenue for funding, and no party will care. So I have to look for unconventional means...but there's still a lot to consider.

Point 2: People make a big deal about the perks because they want to feel like they got something for their support of Such-and-Such a project. Altruism can only go so far, and tax deductibility (which legally means you cannot provide gifts in exchange) isn't always accessible for everyone. People point to Amanda Palmer or Double Fine, both million-dollar fundraiser projects on Kickstarter (many griping that those two take away money from other projects - something I deeply disagree with but won't get into right now) as an example of altruistic generousity - forgetting that those two projects, and many others, were essentially shopfronts. You could buy music, art, games, services, miscellaneous merchandise, even personal attention - the difference here is there is a target goal, you can pay more than the perk requires, and you also get some involvement in the larger-scale project you're funding.

I'm really at the beginning stages of this project; I'm not even in California yet! I have some ideas about where I want to go with this, but so much of the course & project really depends on who my cohort members are, what they get up to, and what I explore in SF - things that can radically alter the course of my degree. I do not know what sort of resources I have up there yet, let alone work out if I can access them and have the time & money to make the items I need. My background is in performance art and writing, two fields that can be hard to create for presale and still have a concrete representation of your art. Thank you for funding my burlesque, here's a hair from the nipple tassel. In my last crowdfunding attempt I found that I couldn't really make some of the perks happen because I didn't know the resources available or just didn't have enough money/time.

By a year's time I should already have a tangible project in mind to end my MFA with, and whatever that project is likely will be much easier to crowdfund for. Tickets to a performance, recordings of music, published writing...there's something there for people to pick up and interact with. Right now, though, there's not a whole lot of money in crowdfunding for potential crowdfunding.

Once I have a following that is willing to put their money where their mouth is, and I have something to offer them, then I can think about crowdfunding in more detail. The very short deadlines do not help either; I'm just really thankful my parents are still willing to help. Right now, though, I need to concentrate on getting started.

That doesn't mean I don't appreciate support or have nothing to offer! Check out the ways to support Not Your Ex/rotic, and visit my official website to see more about me and what I do.

Intentions: On the choice of university

I've had a few prompts lately to consider my intentions with this project and the MFA overall. I've written about what I want to achieve artistically; this now is about my choice of university.

So ever since I announced my acceptance into CIIS I have been receiving VERY polarized feedback about the university. Either they're super excited about the course, think it's a great fit, and know graduates (or are themselves students) who have worked well there - or they got nothing out of it, and instead faced strife and discrimination (racism has popped up a few times). I sometimes feel pressure to pick one side, to justify my choices.

For me it's not about the university per se. It's part of the bigger environment.

I first met CIIS in 2010 at the Performing the World conference in New York, where they facilitated a creative workshop (I believe it involved telling your own story about a topic, about which I'm not sure). I really appreciated and resonated with their approach, and their presence in San Francisco strengthened my desire to be there.

From that point on I looked up any opportunity to spend time in SF and landed an artist-in-residence spot at CELLspace. I aimed to build my skills and courage in performance art, while also exploring the various aspects of the Bay Area I enjoyed so much. I found that three months was nowhere near enough, and not long after I returned to Australia I made it a goal to spend more time there.

I'm not really one for "pure" academia - mostly the idea that a degree is compulsory for respect. I believe skills and knowledge can be obtained in many different ways and that there are many problematic assumptions made about the worth of those who can't or won't go to university. I am all about choices, about working with your personal learning style, about respect no matter what.

I loved learning and loved research, but my last few forays into university took that away from me: my Malaysian university screwed many of us over with grading (unfortunately not an uncommon experience) and turned me off the in-depth research skills that would have made my progress at the Australian university better. That Australian university, meanwhile, wasn't as "real world" as it made itself out to be, especially with their very limited view on cultures outside Australia (one of the courses started off as Cultural Appropriation is Awesome and I tuned out) as well as some incidents that made it hard for me to find as much joy in writing as I used to.

Even then, I gained some useful and positive experiences from both places that I treasure. The Malaysian university was a rare one that encouraged open & free expression of dress, allowing for weirdo misfits (including a fair few queer students & staff) to be who they want to be. I also found a cohort of friends (most united against the shoddy management) some who are still dear to me many years on. It was also where I learnt how to ask good survey questions - something I don't see taught often and which has helped with my skills of critical thinking & interviewing.

Meanwhile in Australia there were a couple of classes & lecturers that I immensely enjoyed, plenty of opportunity to get involved with the community in & out, and some level of personal support. (I work there now and it's been pretty good so far.)

What I appreciated about the CIIS MFA was that it was more practical rather than solely academic - the same major trait shared in my favourite classes from undergrad. I'm getting to know some of the people in my cohort or just before, people whose work is inspiring & admirable - and who I'd like to get to know in any context. Such people aren't easy to find near me - and a large reason for my move is to be near the communities I see in the Bay Area, people who I find nourishing & helpful.

What this course also gives me is structure: dates and deadlines and goalposts to follow while creating my work. I have found that having a development structure makes a HUGE difference to the quality or existence of my work, especially when that structure includes built-in accountability to others. It gives me motivation, audience, and a framework that I can start from rather than being overwhelmed by too much empty space (as I noticed in CELLspace where I had to create my own structure at the same time as figuring out what's there for me to tap into).

Most importantly, it's a doorway to larger opportunity. Being enrolled gets me through US immigration & allows me to stay a while. Once I'm there I can get as involved as I want in and out the university - including reconnecting with the people that sparked me the last time around. It's harder (near impossible) for me to just show up with no plans: even if I somehow made it past Immigration, I'd be at a loss for "what now".

This MFA was the only grad school app I made - mostly because I just wanted to get one done & see how that goes. If I didn't get in I would apply for a couple of other suitable places for later. There weren't really much in the way of longer-term structured arts programs (I did apply for one but wasn't successful) though I'd be interested in hearing about them.

I fully expect to have to deal with racism & other bigotries while there. Life experience has taught me that it's unavoidable. Even the most open-minded radical places aren't immune (and sometimes the bigotry can be worse due to denial). And if it's not bigotry I'm sure I'll find some other problem. I'd find it everywhere: CIIS isn't special in that.

Even if CIIS turns out to be a dud, I would at least made some headway into exploring my artistic self & the issues that concern me. I don't have to rely on it, or an MFA, to provide that. It's not always my fault if something does go wrong, not my fault I "didn't listen" or went ahead anyway - I know what I'm getting into and have a larger vision in mind, and I'm still in the right to ask for help or support.

I think that even bad experiences that you never want to encounter again have something to offer depending on how you look at it. I believe everything in life is a Rosarch test, that the sum of your attitudes and experiences determine what you take from a situation. This wouldn't be a waste any which way - because I can still make the best of it the way I know how.

India, Erotica, and Writing: The Times of India interviews M Svairini

South Asian erotica writer & blogger M Svairini is interviewed by The Times of India on erotica and how that connects to Indian culture. Some choice snippets:

Do you think more women writers are exploring this genre now? Why? 

As a wider swath of Indian women have access to the Internet and some leisure time, they're looking for more fulfillment in every aspect of their lives, and for material that excites them. And when they don't find it, they're creating it. 

Not much existing visual porn is aimed toward women's tastes, and most women don't want to look at exploitative videos of semi-starved girls living in virtual slavery who are trafficked in from Nepal to be on sexcams - no more than they want to walk into the red-light districts of the metros. They want stories they can relate to. 

Who/what are your inspirations? Do you find India/Indians limiting in inspiration? 

I am inspired by my own imagination, by my lovers (past/present/future), and by almost anything that I see or read. This morning in fact I was thinking how it would be fun to write an erotic story set in a fictional culture where your sexuality is defined by whether you prefer to be the "inside" or "outside" of the "spoon". Many Indians seem to limit themselves sexually, but of course India and Indians are capable of unlimited sexuality. We invented most of this stuff. Currently Indian writing and sexual expression is very hamstrung by archaic obscenity laws. These remnants of colonialism are getting weaker. 

Check out her blog, The Bottom Runs the Fuck, as well as Shameless Yonis, a group blog (of which she is co-contributor) for South Asians interested in the erotic.

About Face: Gay men, diversity, and marginalisation

About Face is a photographic portrait project by Australian photographer Keo Lin, documenting gay men of various ethnicities, nationalities, abilities, and bodies based in Australia, as well as snippets from interviews about their thoughts on inclusion, exclusion, diversity, and the lack thereof.

About Face is a photographic exploration of multiculturalism and diversity in the Australian context. Australian men from all walks of life were invited to be photographed and interviewed on their diverse life experiences. 

Water is an essential element in all our lives – regardless of our race, culture, and economic circumstances. In About Face, the viewer is invited into each model's bathroom. This intensely private setting strips away the façade of fashion and offers the viewer a glimpse of the person's intimate "real" self. 

About Face shows that even though we may outwardly different – through our race, age, physical appearance, and abilities; we as a single species also share a lot in common, especially in the way we feel, and the way we want to be treated. 

When we finally realise the once foreign "other" isn't as strange as we thought it to be, we are able to embrace our differences and share our experiences in our short mortal existence.

It struck me that quite a few of the men photographed probably would vehemently disagree with each other - whether "reverse racism" was a valid topic of contention, whether someone checked their privilege or not, even assumptions made about cultures. Keo Lin seems to have decided not to censor nor strongly editorialise the photos & interviews (I don't know what the proportion is between the people on the site and the people he interviewed & photographed), letting their words speak for themselves - and the viewer to make up their own mind.

A few examples:

In a way, Australia is, and it isn't really multicultural. Outwardly, we appear to be open to different nationalities. But there's still a lot of discrimination when it comes to, say, employment. I've actually been told several times that I should change my name. As if that would matter in the way I perform my job. - Elias

Are all the minority cultures treated equally? Nope. But with saying that, I don't think I could ever get a job at say an Asian bakery. If I walk in there, they're gonna look at me, they're gonna think "Well, this White guy's parents aren't gonna give my daughter a job at a clothing store", and that's just a thought.[...] As much there is racism towards the minorities that aren't white, there's also a reverse racism, and might be this big growing factor where everyone's chasing their tails and not go anywhere. - Joel

I asked some girl about Aboriginals and the first phrase was they are the worst of the blacks. That was the end of that conversation. Having coming from the States, and lived in several other places before, I am inclined to think that Australia is a lot less tolerant of cultural diversity. Like it's funny how the Caucasian people born here don't consider themselves to be Australian White, but just "Australian", which is absurd as none of them is originally from here in the first place. - Theodore

With the photos and interviews are sidebars about diversity in Australia - from snippets of speeches, to statistics and analysis. I was especially struck by the sidebar about an experience sharing the Inaugural Speech by President of Jamaica Portia Simpson-Miller with a Grade 6 class, asking them whether Australia should remain a monarchy (with the Queen of England as Head of State) or a republic. The class overwhelmingly voted for the republic, and this response from one of the students is really thought-provoking:

If Australia becomes a republic, it might heal the rift between the Indigenous Australians and us. This is because if I were an Indigenous Australian, I would feel very frustrated that a British conqueror is still recognised as the leader of my country. So by removing the Queen and the monarchy from the top, we can all feel equal.

See more photos, interviews, and side bars on the About Face website.

Peer Sex Education in India: Aparna Bhola

The New York Times has an article about Aparna Bhola, a teenager in India who is taking the initiative to teach her friends and peers about sex education:

Aparna, the daughter of a sex worker, noticed how her mother and other sex workers in India were often shut off from adequate health care due to stigma against their class and occupation. This inspired her to study gynaecology and pass her learnings on to others in her situation:

Growing up in red-light districts, Aparna says she was distressed by the way doctors routinely mistreated sex workers because of the stigma against their profession. Her mother, diagnosed with uterine cysts, was unable to get treatment for them because of the bias against sex workers. Aparna remembers a niece being refused treatment by a doctor who said he didn’t want to bother with such poor people. 

When sex workers like Aparna’s mother would become pregnant, the “doctors would treat them so badly,” Aparna recalls. “They would yell at them, and even slap them sometimes. They would say things like ‘You go and pick up anyone’s child and come to me with your stomach swollen. When you were doing it, you enjoyed yourself and now what happened?’ ” 

These encounters made Aparna want to become a gynecologist. Even when she was younger, she would share with her friends and peers whatever sexual health-related information she could find. 

“I want to work with gynecology to cater to sex workers because I know the issues they faced,” says Aparna, her face set in a determined expression. “If I became a doctor, I could give whatever information the mothers need when they are pregnant. There would be someone to talk to them nicely when they are in pain.”

Her approach is open and directly combats shame:

“There’s nothing to giggle or be shy about; there’s no shame in it. It’s important for us to learn about these things. Be totally bindaas (carefree) and ask me questions,” says Aparna Bhola, with a wide smile.

and this approach is well-received:

“We are all girls, so we should know about this because in the future we might be pregnant at some point,” said Haseena Sayyed, 16, who attended the sex education workshop. “Earlier, we used to think that when we get our periods, the blood that is there is dirty. But when you’re pregnant, that blood goes to your child, so it is so it is not dirty; it is useful.”

Here's a short sampler of one of her classes, this one being about what to do during a pregnancy:

Artistic achievement and connections through art as conversation

I asked my MFA advisor what I could do now to prepare for the course in a couple of months, and she suggested I think about:

What do I want to achieve, artistically?


I suspect that's a question that's going to take more than a blog entry or a whole blog or even a 2-year-MFA to answer. But at least I can start somewhere.

Something that had been on my mind a lot even before this MFA came to be (but especially because of it) was who the focus of my work should be - me or other people?

I feel like no matter what field or form I'm in, there's always something I'm experiencing because of my race, gender, sexuality, some other identity issue, and a large part of my journey has involved trying to navigate through the peculiar obstacles in my way. A lot of my life's work really has been about carving a space for someone like me to be accepted - and that work has involved examining structures and institutions where these spaces would sit, changing and fighting and rebuilding. Bandaid fixes can only go for so long before it's the same problem over and over.

At the same time, I've been nagged for a while by the sense of not really having much fun and frivolity, not feeling like I could do something just because I wanted to without having a greater purpose attached to it. I don't know how much is internal and how much is the result of sentiments by family & society, but I've felt this notion that if my work isn't for some sort of Higher Purpose or Saves The World or something along those lines, it's selfish and pointless and self-indulgent. (Because art wasn't self-indulgent already!)

But sometimes I do want to be "selfish" and "self-indulgent". Sometimes I do want to be able to explore some silly idea I had or crack a joke or be totally random, without making it a Big Grand Sophisticated Statement.

The approach has been successful at surprising times. For instance, one of my acts, Teenage Fangirl, recreates a couple of experiences I've had as a teenager being a major fan of Savage Garden. Even the original poster I am caught in bed with by my mum (true story) features in the piece. It's all fluff and silliness; there's no artistic statement about teenage attitudes or the relationship between listener & musician or whatever. A few funny things happened in my life and I made a burlesque piece about it.

That piece garnered strong connections. People were coming up to me telling me about their teenage fandoms. They revisited lovely memories of the past and allowed me into their stories & histories, a part of them that doesn't get explored very often. My piece was a conversation starter - people heard my story and continued the conversation on with theirs.

Those moments are often my favourites, sometimes moreso than the actual performance. I love hearing how people relate to my work; it helps me feel that somewhere, someone's connecting to what I do. I have a hard time declaring statements like "I am a strong writer!" or "I am a great performer!" or whatever because of this: I define "strong" or "great" in art as the ability to resonate and connect with others, and who am I to decide that the piece is resonant if other people don't let me know?

(A while ago I posted the video to Teenage Fangirl on Darren Hayes's Facebook page, and he responded with "Hilarious!". I just about screamed my head off. Talk about validation!)

I have heard and read from various artists and creators that often one of the best ways to be resonant and connect with people through your work is to be specific about your experiences. It sounds like an oxymoron - how does someone who is not a queer poly South Asian female migrant type ever relate to anything I have to say about life? We would have gone through such different life situations that our paradigms would be vastly different.

At the same time, the artists whose work I have long admired and connected with often came from very different backgrounds (see: Darren Hayes, White Australian man of working class stock, as an example) but it was their heartfelt, earnest, sincere nature in their work and in their lives that connected me with them. They would be singing, writing, saying, performing about the essence of their life experience, the core of the events and experiences they had to deal with, without artifice or irony - and through there allowed people like me to find something to resonate with. (It's spooky how some of his songs predict my life sometimes, but he did have a 13-year head start.)

They started the conversation and allowed us a voice.
As James Joyce (as quoted by James Victore) said, "in the particular lies the universal.".

My challenge intention (thanks Pat B. Allen) for the MFA - and beyond - is to find a good balance between being true to my heart's desires and expressions, and providing space for others to be witnessed and celebrated as I wish for myself. I will need to work out how not to get to the point of resentment because I have put other people's wishes before mine, nor find myself in an echo chamber where no one else can connect with what I do. To turn that last statement into a positive intention: I find balance, connection, and conversations through sharing my stories, inspirations, and ideas with others who contribute their resonance, witness, and conversation in response, supporting each other strong.

Resource of Note: Journal of Applied Arts & Health

Journal of Applied Arts & Health

ISSN: 20402457
Online ISSN: 20402465 
First published in 2010 
3 issues per volume 

The Journal of Applied Arts and Health serves a wide community of artists, researchers, practitioners and policy-makers evidencing the effectiveness of the interdisciplinary use of arts in health and arts for health. It provides a forum for the publication and debate within an interdisciplinary field of arts in healthcare and health promotion. The journal defines ‘health’ broadly which includes physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, occupational, social and community health.
The journal provides artists, researchers, healthcare professionals, educators, therapists, programme administrators and funding bodies an opportunity to report and reflect upon innovative effective practices. The effectiveness of applied arts practices is currently under-researched and this journal provides a vehicle for high quality scholarly activity. The journal embraces contributions of an international dimension. 

A free issue is available for online viewing.

Reconnecting with culture through queer love

Autostraddle recently published an article about Jamaica's first lesbian wedding, between Dr Emma Benn and Nicole Y. Dennis, with a roundup of various articles that talk about the wedding and their relationship with each other & with Jamaica - a country still dealing with homophobia (partly from colonial history) and cultural clashes.

The part that especially resonated with me was how they talked about the decision to come back to Jamaica for the wedding, knowing that there was still a lot of cultural resistance against queer people (a common sentiment faced being about "American values"). However, according to Dennis - who had left Jamaica for America to find freedom - the marriage and partnership helped her see Jamaica in a new light:

In my vows I mentioned that because of my partner I fell in love with my country again. For a long time I ran away from Jamaica, seeking refuge in the freedom that America offered. However when I met Emma, she was adamant about visiting Jamaica. “Why not?” she asked when I turned her down a few times. I couldn’t tell her then how much I was hurt by the culture stifled by the seemingly robust structures of colonialism. I couldn’t tell her then that every time I touched the soil my insecurities flooded the gates of my consciousness and broke the levees, thus paralyzing me. However, when Emma and I finally returned to the island together for our first visit as a couple in 2010, something felt different. At the time I couldn’t place what it was. There were no words to describe it since my brain had not yet processed it. I felt beautiful, stronger. Empowered.  

Feeling comfortable with myself had nothing to do with maturity; it had a lot to do with acceptance, not of myself, but of my culture. You see, while I learned to love and appreciate myself, the good and the bad, I found my culture to be a big part of who I am. So running away with a knot in my chest only robbed me of half of the woman I am; half the partner; half the writer; and half the soul of the stories I live to tell. ... I now love myself enough to love my people and accept that not everyone had the opportunity I did to be exposed to certain knowledge that would rid the flaws and mentality colonialism imposed on us. I am lucky to be free, emancipated from mental slavery, free to love myself, and free to love others. In other words, I am now whole.

Does one gain a greater appreciation for their past if they feel they are accepted in the present? Does it take going away to be able to come home again? Is it possible to really come home if you still feel that home won't take you as you are - or that nowhere else will?

Call for Abstracts: Racialising Desire Conference, Australia

via Feminist Memory

This conference aims to focus on the imbrication of desire in the project of local, national and global forms of racialised domination. By taking desire as its starting place, the conference aims to problematise how race shapes desire (and desire shapes race) in as diverse forms as gender, sexuality, consumerism, identity, embodiment, occupation, territory, knowledge and the possessive investments that often underpin claims to belonging and indeed being. Importantly, the conference will focus on desire within both mainstream and marginal communities, and from across borders and communities, and draw upon a broad understanding of what constitutes ‘desire’. It will also consider the desire for difference. 

200 words abstracts (to be submitted along with a 50 word author note) should be emailed to conference2012@acrawsa.org.au by July 31st 2012. 

Full call for abstracts available at: www.acrawsa.org.au, as well as scholarship information, publication opportunities, and accommodation and venue information.

Respect and Shame

This article at Bitch Magazine about respectability and the roles Black women take on in American cinema reminded me of the issues of respect and shame that often come up for those of multiple minorities that want to explore creative sexuality.

One issue that often pops up from my family and home culture whenever the topic of sexuality is discussed is shame. Sex and our bodies are private matters, not to be shared openly - so if you do "expose yourself" you are "bringing shame" to your family, your community, your culture. Individualism isn't as strong a value; you are representative of where you come from, and your actions could lead to retribution onto your loved ones  if you weren't careful.

Growing up in Malaysia, "sexy" was often used as a slur. My teenage school-friends would still titter about it, though it didn't take much for something to be titter-worthy ("Mandy Moore wore a tanktop in her video! What a SLUT!" was actually something that was said by a classmate, which made me go o_____O heavily). Because professing any interest in sex in and of itself was grounds for disrespect, trying to get any solid information about sexual health and consent was difficult - leading to strange things like the head of a blood disease advocacy organisation in Malaysia writing a Letter to the Editor around 2003 protesting against free distribution of condoms, because it encourages "promiscuity", which then leads to STIs, which then leads to less blood donations. (I wrote a letter back pulling apart their points as well as reiterating that condoms help prevent STIs and that being a good blood donor doesn't depend on the number of sexual partners you have. A family friend who was a doctor applauded my letter; my parents were surprised that I knew anything about it to comment.)

Attempts at a national sex education curriculum come and go - the last time I knew of one was in 2004/5, when I was invited as part of a youth group to come to the discussion forums, and found contradictory information such as "If you feel that you may be gay or lesbian, you can seek support from a trusted adult" followed by "All religions and cultures condemn homosexuality". Thankfully there were other people there that were willing to speak up from the perspectives of LGBT rights, women's rights, and comprehensive sex ed, and I also learnt that abortion laws are relatively liberal and that birth control is OTC! Stuff you don't hear about from schools or the media because everyone's stuck on "OH NO WE CAN'T LET THE KIDS HAVE RANDOM SEX" and "orgies & drugs" are the go-to accusations for tabloid newspapers vilifying youth culture (and are taken seriously by the Government!!!).

There are groups of people who are more willing to understand and accept discussions of sexuality - usually you'll find them in urban hubs, where people have more exposure to outside cultures. Still, not all these hubs are accessible, and just because they're more liberal doesn't mean they don't hold problematic ideas around sexuality or other identity issues. (E.g. hipster anti-racism or transphobic feminism). Being someone from a multiple minority gets even more complex because one identity group you associate with could be discriminatory against the other identities you hold (racist queers or homophobic POC, for example) and it can be hard to find a group that will accept all of you.

There's also a somewhat related respectability issue when it comes to creativity. The arts isn't seen as a viable career in many cases. In Malaysia, if you wanted to study the humanities (art or literature, not many options beyond that), you were often relegated to the "last" class while the "top" classes were reserved for science. Even the Australian Department of Immigration and Citizenship doesn't recognise artsworkers in its Skills Lists, despite a strong push from the Creative Industries sectors within. There is often pressure by artists to be less "frivolous" or questions about whether poetry or dance will "change the world" - privileging more obvious and direct efforts (the "save starting children in Africa" issue). How do you command respect as an "artist", often told to "get a job" or do something more important?

The arts is a powerful vehicle for social change - it's a strong avenue for those who have been silenced and marginalised to express their truths (as demonstrated by Candy B in my last blog post). They provide representation and belonging, an opportunity for people to connect with those that they can relate to. I was just reading Art is a Spiritual Path by US-based artist and art therapist Pat B. Allen, which had plenty of personal stories and researched information about artists who found community and healing through their work. It's not always about directly being in service, such as feeding the homeless or building houses; it's also about constructing new paradigms and structures for opinions & perspectives to be respected and flourish, to show people as humans rather than as a set of stereotypes, to assist with healing and problem-solving, and to adjust the preconceptions and values that people hold that lead to structural and institutional issues. To dismiss it as just "frivolousity for those with nothing better to do" is to dismiss the hard yards that many people put in to express themselves and get issues in the public eye through creative means.

One of the core things I want to achieve with my MFA, and something that I was stoked to see discussed at length in Allen's book, is witnessing. People create, and the audience pay witness to their creations, while the artist themselves also witness the work to find wisdom and learnings. A lot of people's issues with respectability and belonging is the feeling of not being acknowleged or welcomed, of feeling invisible, that no one actually cares. Witnessing them as they express themselves the best way they know now gives respect to their experiences and perspectives, acknowledging it as valid and sacred, that their concerns have merit. Shame is replaced with respect. They are not wrong for having the questions they have, for wanting to explore certain parts of themselves (even if those explorations are loaded in a history of suppression and shame), and there is space for them to at least have those explorations acknowledged if nothing else - rather than feeling that they have to live up to someone's idea of "Respectability" to get by.

Booty Be' Representing

A couple of nights ago I had the great fun of watching (and being a backup dancer!!) in Candy B' Australian Booty, a stand-up musical cabaret show about being a "big brown woman" and dealing with prejudice, dodgy exes, and lack of representation.

Representation is an issue that comes up a lot in Australian Booty. Candy talks about never seeing anyone like her on TV, and how even studying in NIDA (Australia's premier drama school) didn't make as big a difference. From childhood onwards, she received derogatory comments about her skin colour and her appearance - from insults about her birth story, to salespeople responding to her requests for a sexy dress (the one she wears in the show) with a muumuu to "hide her flab" (after gushing at her supposed resemblance to Macy Gray), to ex-partners who respond to horrible racist comments by family members with a high-5. Every so often she brings up her nieces, and talks about how she finds it hard to find toys that show a brown person in a positive light - wryly commenting on an African-American Barbie who seems to be jobless, unlike other Barbies. (Her cover story to her niece is that she is a human rights lawyer who earned so much money she never had to work again.)

Candy found it hard enough to find people in wider media that looked like her, let alone those that were portrayed as sexy or desirable. She notes that took her a long time for her to feel deserving of attraction. Where are the big brown women? she laments. Hell where are the big women to begin with? Due to that lack of positive representation, she ends up with people's comments about how she couldn't be attractive (a childhood bully taunts with "no one would want to kiss YOU!") - because she didn't look like what is meant to be attractive.

Sexuality activist flexibeast talks about something similar, from the perspective of trans women in pornography: how most trans women in porn tend to conform to a "shemale" look, how flexibeast finds it difficult to take on "androgyny" as a term despite technically fitting it because the norm tends to favour minimised displays of anything gendered (also favouring women and those Assigned Female at Birth), and how even queer porn - usually described as a bastion of diversity and wider representation, tends to favour a certain trend: pieced, tattooed, unconventional hair.

One thing I have noticed in trying to be more involved in the queer community is that my appearance often flummoxes people. My brown skin and obviously ethnic appearance (no matter what I wear) means that more often than not people think my sexual orientation is Foreign. Even with an "alternative lifestyle haircut" I don't really pass. Some say my biggest obstacle is that my current primary partner is a straight cis male - but I have noticed that it seems to be easier for White(-passing) people to find female partners even if they already have husbands or boyfriends, or just easier full stop. I feel immense pressure to conform to some idea of Hipster Queer, or of Butch or Femme - concepts I find tied to ideas of masculinity and femininity that are foreign to me - and if I don't fit in, if I'm just doing what I want to do, I'm not queer. Never mind my personal sexual preference or history.

To connect to flexibeast's point about attractive people in porn, I wonder how much of it is a Magical Veil of Hawt effect happening: that your presence in something like queer porn presumes your attractiveness. I am on the Crash Pad Series (under a different name, see if you can find me) and there hasn't been any question from anyone (that I know of anyway) about my worthiness of being there, even though Crash Pad is widely known for its "alternative attractive queer" models. I have done nude art photography before and often get met with positive comments. There's only been one time that something more explicit of mine has received a negative comment - and that got shot down immediately by others. In contrast, other burlesque performers (and the general public) have put me down for my appearance and presumed lack of attractiveness (with the idea that "only pretty people do burlesque") and, as mentioned before, my queer identity is often disputed within the queer communities.

flexibeast talks about trying to start up their own trans pornography blog, only to not see many respondents amongst trans women, and wonders how much of it has to do with trans women not being willing to put themselves out there. They bring up some strong points, such as the already-low likelihood of employment and other life access being compromised further, personal perception that they don't look the part, and the high risk of being ridiculed for putting themselves out there, since it happens so often.

I see strong parallels with South Asians and creative sexuality (or anything that even remotely comes as "indecent" - my parents felt the entertainment & arts industries were already tainted from the get-go). Representations are few and far between, and when they do exist it's often as an exotic token or item of ridicule. The risk of being shamed and cut off important basic needs, something already very precarious, increases. Because hardly anyone's willing to be the first penguin, making themselves vulnerable to very high risks for very little payoff, representations are low - and then people assume they're not wanted anyway. The Magical Veil of Hawt doesn't even have a chance to bestow itself on those that dare - because it's not made a strong case for being worth the hassle.

And when you don't see yourself represented, like Candy B brings up, you feel less inclined to take on those roles. People reinforce the idea that you do not belong. You notice patterns: dominant look, dominant skin colour, dominant attributes - even when they have nothing to do with the task at hand. You see people responding more to those dominant traits just because they are more familiar. And the cycle goes on.

Representation is part of the core of what I am trying to explore with this MFA: How do we encourage people to be that first penguin? How do we not make the playing field so full of predators? How do we mitigate the risk? How do we find positive growth pathways so that creative sexual expression is a positive and beneficial experience for the performer and audience and wider public? How do we consider the Magical Veil of Hawt in what we do - and how much of that is stereotyping and objectification?

Which comes first - more marginalised people taking the risk (and possibly not getting anywhere), or the gatekeepers of wider society being more explicitly inclusive rather than exclusive? Or does this happen only in tandem?

On cultural appropriation (*again*) and "nothing is sacred"

Cultural appropriation is a topic that comes up so regularly in burlesque circles (and possibly others that I am not privy to) to the point of some of us nearly quitting because no one ever seems to listen. The latest, probably most high-profile case, involves Dita von Teese and an "Opium Den" act, which pretty much has every Chinese/Oriental stereotype you can think of:

Asian-American burlesque performer Shanghai Pearl wrote a poignant response on how this act offended her, and the responses on this (and on other means) are stunning - some are in support, speaking up about racism and prejudice and privilege, and some are so defensive to the point of sickening. There are claims that Shanghai Pearl wants to "censor" people, claims of "nothing is sacred", even an accusation that she's just "choosing" to be hurt.

Sadly, none of this is new to anyone.

Racialicious has a great roundtable with Chicava Honeychild, Shanghai Pearl, ExHOTic Other, and Essence Revealed about Dita's act and racism in the burlesque scene. There's also some discussion about whether it's easier to be defending Dita because it's an Asian act, while something more obviously racist such as lynching or slave boats would get more of a response. (Personally, having known performers that do blackface, I am not so sure.)

As mentioned before, one of the catalysts for doing the work that I do - including and especially this MFA - was the amount of cultural appropriation and racism I observed, received, and heard about in burlesque & creative sexuality. Cultural appropriation doesn't allow marginalised and minority folks to tell their story their own way. We get pigeonholed, expected to either be completely "ethnic" (sometimes using ethnic identities that aren't exactly ours but rather are ones we fit into, since no one believes our story), or completely conformist in what I like to call "Victorian 1950s" - rolls and pale skin and corsets. Deviate from either and you risk not being as respected, not getting as many opportunities (whether "you're too niche" or "you're too weird-looking"); conform to either and you get told off for not playing your part right. We can't win!

The Racialicious article talks about a group of Chinese exchange students who went to see Dita's act and were aghast at the Opium Den section:

The first thing that came to my mind was the fact that I was surrounded by a very large group of Chinese exchange students, who all had their mouths open and were just as stunned as I was. The girl next to me leaned over and said, “We don’t smoke opium and dress like that! Is that what you think we do?!” and they all began whispering amongst themselves.

It gets really awkward, uncomfortable, and sometimes downright dangerous to be in the same space as a performance that appropriates and mangles our culture. I was in a party where there were 2 White performers doing a "Kali" and "Krishna" blueface (well, blue-body) act, reducing the two important Hindu deities to fire-playing savages. I'm not Hindu and never have been, but being South Asian I do get a lot of assumptions and questions about Hinduism, and a lot of the culture I was raised in was heavily influenced by Hindu culture so I was struck particularly hard. I didn't want to have to answer weird questions about Kali or Krishna, I didn't want to be assumed (as had happened before) that I was a "yogini" since I was 6 years old, and I especially did not want to endorse an act that played to the wider societal assumptions of Kali as a demon and Krishna as just some random dead deity. No. I left the party post-haste.

Nothing is sacred. This comes up over and over again, and I am sick of it. If it's not a culture that you are involved with, not something you grew up with, not something you have a connection to - you don't get to say what is sacred or not. I know it's fashionable now to decry everything as "superstition" and stick to PURE RATIONAL SCIENCE!!!, but I often find that those feelings tend to stem from the fallacy that all belief systems that incorporate some sort of Higher Power work the same way (Bearded Man on Cloud being didactic) and that spirituality is the same for everyone. There are many symbols and entities in the world that are still sacred, that still holds meaning and protocol, and to abuse that is to deeply disrespect the original culture and say "you're just a plaything for me, just a costume in a box, there is no meaning because I said so". Imperialistic and colonial - "I shall impose my ideas onto you".

A lot of this happens not even out of maliciousness, but out of a misguided sense of "Respect" - for example, this newer trend I'm noticing of having anyone who is not an Aboriginal/Indigenous Australian male of playing the didgeridoo. That instrument has strong protocols about who gets to play it, when, and why, and any gender politics involved is not up for the outsider to decide: the Aboriginal/Indigenous Australian communities have their own vast history of gender issues, likely consider gender rights in a different paradigm to yours, and it's not your place to tell them what's good for their culture. As it is, Aboriginal/Indigenous communities tend to be vastly underemployed anyway - so if you're really after a didgeridoo player why not hire someone qualified to play one?

And that's the other sticking point with cultural appropriation, especially in burlesque: the idea that because portrayals are often "positive" and "admiring", rather than "mocking", they can't be bad. Cultural appropriation is disrespect. You're reducing a culture with very loaded symbolism and history into something cutesy and fashionable, while not looking at your own internal racism and how you work to perpetuate or decrease that. Just because it's putting the culture in a good light doesn't make it OK - it's still reductive and often baseless, and adds to the burden of prejudice & stereotyping that affects people from those cultures.

Not to mention the double standard too - it's pretty and glamorous when Dita von Teese and her ilk wear traditional Chinese clothing. When a Chinese person wears it? Go back to your country! Why are you not assimilating?! Backwards FOBS!. People lose jobs, opportunities, relationships, respect for looking even the slightest bit their ethnicity (hence the proliferation of skin-bleaching projects for South Asians, for example) - when those from the outside get to be called "cool" and "trendy". This double standard is one of my biggest frustrations with cultural appropriation, more so than the actual appropriation: it's the weight given on who wears what.

The other big frustration? Censorship in the guise of "you want to censor us!". Take Shanghai Pearl's note for example: she spoke up about her offence and the problems with Dita's act, and people claimed she wanted to "censor" burlesque - and told her to not speak up. Who's the one censoring here? Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from criticism, or freedom to avoid hearing the bad stuff. If you want to create an act that is appropriative, disrespectful, offensive? Well, your prerogative - just don't be surprised if people enact the same freedom of speech you used to speak up against it. It's not a discussion when the thrust of the discussion is "Like me or you fail".

People don't seem to get it; it's like talking to a brick wall. I'm not a fan of necessarily separating ourselves in the scene, but I can see why that's necessarily for personal safety and sanity. Things need to change, space needs to be opened up, and people need to listen.

Support and Get Involved

So as I write this, Not Your Ex/Rotic is still a very new project. There are ideas, and there are strands of past work that will definitely come into play, but grad school is a whole new adventure and this relatively unusual MFA even more so.

I start my course in August and will keep this blog updated (to the best of my ability) about my progress before and during the MFA. Here's how you can be involved:

Tell me your story!

Are you someone of multiple minority status (especially race, gender, sexuality, citizenship, ability, and so on) that has found it tricky to express your erotic self or sexuality because you're getting brickbats from everywhere? Would you like to explore burlesque, erotica, kink, or other "shenanigans" but (like so many others) feel that you'll "bring shame on the family"? Do you already participate or perform in creative sexytimes but have to deal with stereotyping and bigotry? Come talk to me - at the very least we can commiserate and share rants.

Recommend a resource!

Do you know someone or something I could check out - activism, performance, writing, media, project, whatever? Do you have a project you'd like some promotion for? Share! I'm especially interested in groups and resources in the Bay Area but anything goes.

Suggest funding sources (or give me money!)

At this moment this is my largest challenge, as I need to demonstrate the availability of enough funds to be able to obtain my F-1 US Visa, let alone afford studying. I am looking into scholarships and grants, though my complicated residency situation (Bridging Visa in Australia, Malaysian citizenship) limits my resources.

Here's how much I have to have available in a year (minimum for US Visa purposes, though my course is two years) - most numbers are provided by CIIS asides from airfare and visa costs, and all values are USD:

Tuition	$16974
CIIS Registration	$170
Bridging Visa renewal (AUS)	$87
SEVIS Visa Fee (USA)	$200
Housing/Food	$15450
Books/Supplies	$900
Transport in SF	$900
Return Airfare	$2000
Health Insurance & Personal Expenses	$4300
Total	$40981

The living expenses and airfare can be adjusted according to what I find in SF, but the tuition, registration, and visa costs are pretty set. So far I know that CIIS will give me a partial scholarship as an international student, but I still have to make up the shortfall.

I am looking at everything - scholarships, grants, loans, anything that an international student like me can access, preferably by August. Crowdfunding has been suggested as an option, but I've had mixed experiences with it, and I notice it seems to work better as a preordering mechanism - and I don't have anything tangible just yet. I have received some interesting offers and ideas, and would love to hear more.

You can also donate to my Paypal account using your own Paypal or a credit card:

If you use Pygg you can send this on Twitter:

@pygg pay @creatrixtiara $X Comments

Where X = the amount you want to send (in AUD).

If you'd rather pay direct to my Australian bank account, or have other ideas, let me know. Every dollar helps, every cent helps, every referral helps!

Spread the word!

Tell people about this project! Put it on social media, write about it, send people to me. This project will only work with your collaboration and sharing - dialogues rather than monologues.

Get in touch:

Use Our Contact Form Here

I hope to hear from you soon!

Vision Statement

As submitted to CIIS for my MFA application.

As mentioned in my Autobiographical Statement, I wish to explore the precarious balance between taboos from inherited cultures, wider societal racism, and personal sexual autonomy and expression, especially as it relates to queer South Asians and other People of Colour / Culturally and Linguistically Diverse people. I wish to explore this through research and direct consultation, the creation and evaluation of my creative practice both from self and from others and the facilitation of workshop and performance opportunities.

Research and Direct Consultation: I am in the early stages of researching the issues of racism and taboo insex-positive and sex-based performance & creative art. In early 2011 I presented Not Your Ex/Rotic: Diversity and Norms in Sex-Positive Performance at the Erotic Screen and Sound conference in Brisbane. This presentation reflects the core of my topic of interest, and it plus the feedback received and interaction with other academics, performers, and sex workers presenting on various aspects of sexuality, society, and the media, informs a lot of my approach towards the topic.

There is not a lot of academic research currently available about queer South Asians and sexuality, though there is a growing number of creative responses and discussion by this community - for example, Yoni Ki Baat, a Bay Area-based theater production inspired by the Vagina Monologues with stories written by and about South Asian women’s experiences with sexuality and gender – as well as support and advocacy groups for queer South Asians (such as Trikone, with hubs in San Francisco and Sydney) and queer Muslims. Connecting with them is necessary to understand the needs and issues related to sexual self-expression and cultural boundaries. I understand that there are possible differences in experiences and opinion depending on nationality, class, and other intersectional issues; I will keep these in mind throughout my research.

I am especially interested in researching the original South Asian philosophies and social norms around sexuality - especially Tantra and the Kama Sutra which have been heavily appropriated by Westerners looking for the “exotic”. How did the Subcontinent go from having nude bodies carved onto temple rock to chaste kisses being banned on screen? How were the multiple cultures in my ancestry and history affected by Islam and Christianity, colonialism and independence, migration and tourism? It is quite difficult to find resources that are not filtered through Western eyes or current conservative taboo - addressing those filters as well as the resources themselves is important to explore and unpack. The Women’s Spirituality program at CIIS may be able to connect me with resources and research leads, and it would be great to reconnect with Arisika Razak, whom I met at the Performing the World conference in New York in 2010 that introduced me to CIIS.

Personal Practice: I would like to continue the work I had started in San Francisco on my CELLspace residency, creating performance pieces that communicate and express my thoughts and politics on sexuality, race, and gender. As my research deepens, so will the heart and strength of my performance work. I would like to take the opportunity to work on specific performance and creative skills, such as choreography, dramaturgy, scriptwriting, and the cross-disciplinary use of other artforms such as music and visual art.

I’m especially interested in investigating and analysing the responses to my body as a work of erotic, sexual art and expression - particularly when politicised by race, shape, and size. While in San Francisco I worked with queer photographic artist Shilo McCabe on a series of photos satirising pin-up while presenting highly political messages. Recently I looked through the archives of A Year Without Clothes, a project by LA-based duo Sylva and Lucky where they present a diptych of photographs, one with clothes and one without. While the duo have obvious talent, especially in costuming and use of colour, I was quite dismayed at the casual cultural appropriation with misleading attribution (for instance, Day #8 involved Sylva in a Native American headdress reserved for male elders, yet the ‘style’ was attributed to Cher). I thought about doing a counterpart project of a regularly-updated set of nude photos of myself, without the cultural appropriation and with a more socio-political focus - partly inevitable, as my body is heavily politicised as it is, but partly deliberate, evoking the political pin-ups McCabe and I worked on earlier.

This would be a highly risky endeavour for me, especially if it is attached to legal names rather than my various pseudonyms for erotic work - I may face the same national and international backlash as Magda Alia al-Mahdy, whose nude photo in protest of patriarchy and subjugation against women in Egypt attracted more furore and backlash from Egyptians and various Muslims worldwide (as Middle-Eastern socio-cultural web journal Jadaliyya notes, more so than reports of Egyptian armed forces assaulting women under the guise of a “virginity test”), or Pakistani-Norwegian pop singer Deeyah, who was forced into silence after uproar over her music openly challenging patriarchy enacted in the name of Islam, to the point of accusations that she was secretly Hindu and lying about her Muslim heritage. At the very least I may face familial backlash similar to when my past pin-up photos were discovered (as stated in my Autobiographical Statement). However, it is exactly this risk that I seek to explore, unpack, and eventually dismantle, through my MFA and my life’s work.

Facilitation: Dismantling the risk of shame, exposure, and harm for sexual self-expression also involves supporting other people who wish to take on this risk. I am often contacted for individualised advice on getting involved with burlesque or other erotic arts, especially as a minority, and am currently experimenting with workshops and other educational material that can be distributed to a wider audience. I would like to be able to reconnect with Vixen Noir and learn the skills involved in facilitating a workshop like “Unleash Your Erotic Power” - skills that I can then adapt and adjust to meet the needs of queer South Asians & other QPOC.

I would also like to put on productions and presentations that highlight, showcase, and center the work of queer South Asians and other People of Colour. The Bay Area already has a great history of QPOC art, including in burlesque and erotic art - from the travelling QPOC burlesque show Mangoes with Chilli, to queer porn webseries The Crash Pad, recognised as one of the best in its genre, which makes a point of featuring a diverse range of ethnicities, sexualities, genders, and body types. The MFA will provide an opportunity to collaborate and coproduce such presentations, with a view to taking these production formats back to Australia or even elsewhere (such as the Subcontinent or South-East Asia) where such art is uncommon, while also taking into account methods of subversion and protection from jeopardy.

The Internet is a key source of information, referrals, and support for me. I am already an avid Web media producer and communicator, and plan to document my progress online (which would work especially well if I take on the regular-nude-photo project). Through this documentation I hope to engage and connect with other artists, producers, academics, and audience members to talk about creativity, sexuality, and cultural taboos, while also highlighting other productions, research, and artists that also work with such issues.

In five years I want to see the lineup of burlesque festivals have more than just token faces from people outside the Anglo-Saxon colonial diaspora. I want to see authentic Tantric practice by and for South Asians be as popular, or even more so, than the Western bastardisations thereof. I want to create and support families full of love and care for your creative sexuality when your family of birth decries your adventures. I want people to not see sex, gender, and the erotic as just concerns for “White Western people”. I want to support others to be empowered and at home in their bodies, exploring their senses and pleasure as they will, protected from harm - or swiftly and strongly supported if harm does befall them. I want diverse views of sexuality to be the norm. I want to be the person I most long to see on stage: erotic, charming, graceful, mesmerising, confident, fully within their body and their senses, performing from the heart, their bodies safe haven and sacred temple.

I want to hear “You are my role model: I wish I could do what you do...and I’m going to give it a try.”
And I will give them that opportunity to try.
First, though, I ask for that opportunity from you.

Autobiographical Statement

As submitted to CIIS for my MFA application.

My creative work is equal parts personal and political: the creative arts are my way of making sense of my political situation, my social circumstances, my struggles and celebrations. At the same time, I have a keen interest in the aesthetic and technical aspects of the creative arts: which music conveys the mood I seek to express? How can I paint my face to express a certain character? How do I execute a sharp shimmy, maintain eye contact, keep my pacing?

After just over three years in performance art (starting with burlesque and circus, as well as some improv and theatre work), a lifetime of writing, and experimental forays into other creative forms, the time has come to bring my work to a greater level. I need to develop my skills and technique further, and I also need to delve deeper into my politics and heritage to create stronger, more evocative work, while also being supported and surrounded by my peers and inspirations. However, my current environment does not provide the mix of support and resources that I need to advance and grow.

My political experiences and activism are mainly centered on the experiences and representations of People of Colour / Culturally and Linguistically Diverse communities, particularly as they intersect with other identity politics such as gender, sexuality, and ability. Yet such issues are often marginalised in larger Brisbane activism. There have been a number of times where I have been involved in anti-racist activism and have been the only non-White person in the room, making my presence conspicuous. Political activism in this area has not always been as creative as I would have liked, despite appreciation of the strong political history of street theatre and music: most of its applications are towards demonstrations or bureaucratic-like processes, and any creative protest action does not tend to spend a lot of time on the creative part.

Academia and media tackle these issues too, but mainly on a theoretical and impersonal basis - examining them from an outsider’s perspective rather than valuing the inner experiences of those that live these issues directly (as explored in the anthology Feminism For Real edited by Indigenous anti-racist activist Jessica Yee). Self-help and personal development do take a more applied approach, but like activism there is not a lot of time or energy spent on form: art is often just a tool like any other, and there’s not a lot of scope for those who want to explore the art form further for its own sake.

Yet the arts world itself also has its limitations. The mainstream burlesque scene, in particular, has demonstrated some derision against those that they feel are using burlesque as a therapy session, and both the pro-burlesque and anti-burlesque factions regularly debate the concept of “empowering” and whether the “burlesque is empowering!” sentiment leads to more professional performances. I feel that this derision and dismissal has led to a lack of insight about the content, heart and impact of performance, whether as performer, producer, or audience member.

Some of the most powerful, moving, memorable acts I have been lucky to witness have been strongly from the heart and soul - pieces on battling inner demons, fighting oppressions, reclaiming stolen power. I was especially inspired by the thoughts of current Creative Interdisciplinary MFA student Saria Idana on catharsis and vulnerability and its role in creating “art that moves”. Yet almost every class here spends more time on choreography than dramaturgy, and acts that are more overtly political or deeply personal are seen as “niche” at best, alienating and unentertaining at worse. These pieces may find a better ideological home in arts festivals and contemporary art venues - however, it is still a major challenge, as these art avenues tend to rely on a shared academic experience (while a lot of burlesque is self-taught or taught in more commercial settings) and see burlesque as too “low-brow” for inclusion. This then creates a conundrum for those who create alternative, political, activist burlesque: too angry and not pretty enough for the burlesque stage, too rude and not sophisticated enough for the contemporary arts world.

Things get even more complicated as a minority - one’s minority status is made out to be the definition and reason for their work, plenty of stereotypes and cultural appropriation takes place, and discussions about the implications of things like appropriation and stereotypes are shut down quickly for being “too dramatic”. These are recurring patterns within contemporary burlesque (including in supposedly more “sophisticated” avenues such as the queer subculture) but most responses by the local (often White-dominant) burlesque community have been dismissive.

The MFA in Creative Inquiry at CIIS reminds me of one of my first ever forays into burlesque - a special weekend workshop called “Unleash Your Erotic Power”, hosted by San Francisco-based burlesque performer (and currently pop musician) Vixen Noir while on tour across Australia. The workshop was a mini version of those she had been teaching in the US and which have led to the launch of many performers’ careers over the years, especially those of queer women of colour. In the workshop she provides tools and encouragement for participants to explore and examine their sexual history, their thoughts and feelings around sexuality, and their desires and fears, and combines them with practical skills-building in burlesque performance - dance, character development, stagecraft. Out of this workshop comes a set of performances that are at once strongly erotic, polished and professional, and also deeply heartfelt and personal - often with a strong political edge (past participants have created work around issues like fatshaming and rape).

This represents, to me, the strong mix of elements that I desire for my creative and personal development: analysis of the underlying issues and politics; reflection and contemplation of my personal history and values; skills development in performance, stagecraft, writing, creative planning - all coming together to strongly support each other. Each element is crucially important, not just an afterthought, and together they combine to create powerful, inspiring, evocative work - that is also aware of and responsible for its position within culture and society, in terms of content and representation.

During my last stay in San Francisco, for a three-months arts residency in 2011 with CELLspace, I have noticed that San Francisco and the Bay Area is particularly ripe with the types of opportunities that I desire. I was awed at the Bay Area’s wealth of opportunities and the respect given to those who wanted to explore their sexuality in creative ways, without the derision or condescension because it wasn’t “high-brow” enough. Many of my respected role models and inspirations, such as Dr Carol Queen and Annie Sprinkle, are based in San Francisco and welcomed me warmly as family. It was hard to feel isolated or unsupported because any possible minority status had a strong community backing. Issues do still crop up, including serious community strife and bigotry, but there is also space and recognition for those who protest to speak up and be heard; a far greater critical mass than there would be in Brisbane or even elsewhere in Australia.

This is a huge part of the draw of the MFA for me: I would be surrounded by the very people whose work and footsteps I seek to emulate; be able to tap into a wealth of resources on politics, culture, and sexuality; and have the emotional and social support to allow me to keep going with my work. As I am supported by the MFA and wider communities, I am more able to contribute my own strengths and experiences - curiosity and keen research skills, a vibrant passionate energy, perspectives of race, culture, and sexuality from different parts of the world, the willingness to try new forms and styles while staying true of my core message - being free to explore who you are without retribution.

This message and mission is often expressed back to me through one very common line of feedback about my work:

"I wish I could do what you do, but my family would kill me."

I get this comment surprisingly often, from other South Asians who marvel at this particular South Asian openly expressing her sexuality, whether with my words or my body. They say I am their "role model", that they want me to be their "mentor", that we should hang out sometime and share tips.

Little do they know of the massive risks I constantly take as someone who is out and open about her work, especially with sexuality and physicality. There have been times where my family’s culture and heritage have conflicted severely with my more eclectic upbringing and current situation - and these are the experiences and values that inform me and influence me, even if only marginally.

I grew up as the child of Bangladeshi migrants to Malaysia, where sexuality was not something to be talked about, thought about, or considered at all. Attempts at a national sex education curriculum were often short-lived, not helped by the tendency to conflate cultural biases and superstitious fears with scientific information. This society prized intelligence above everything, especially physicality and the body - the only time physical skills were prized is if they led to award-winning achievements. I didn’t even have the time to ponder my sexual or gender identity (though questions did pop up sometimes) - I was battling deep racism, especially from school and government policies, and was already dealing with enough emotional abuse and trauma to really think about anything else.

My only solace was the Internet, especially as an outlet for my pop music fandom: I was inspired and comforted by the music of Savage Garden, whose lyrics seemed to mirror my life with eerie precision, and the upbeat tunes of Aqua kept me smiling when everything else tried to bring me down. Even to this day I count them as my main creative influences - while they do not explore quite the same political and creative areas that I do, their approach to music, lyric, and expression greatly informs my own, and much of their work has become the soundtrack to my own pieces. (At one stage I was planning a cabaret about my life based on the music of Darren Hayes and Savage Garden, but was turned down by their management due to possible copyright issues.)

My precocious desire to learn led me to investigate sex and reproductive health information under my own steam, but what I found did not entice me. It seemed too messy, too prone to danger (a 0.001% risk is too much!) and other things seemed more interesting (and risk-free). Occasionally a side of me - nicknamed Pandora, after a friend’s story - would pop up and taunt me with dirty fantasies and idle sensual curiosity. I ignored Pandora, figuring her to be more trouble than was worth, found solidarity with the online asexuality communities, protested against compulsory femininity by being as anti-feminine as possible (no makeup! no skirts! no beauty industrial complex!), and settled into a life of perpetual non-religious virginity.

Then in 2006 I moved to Australia, met my first boyfriend, and any sign of asexuality vanished. I learnt about pleasure, about the possibilities that lay with the senses, about romance and intimacy. Being with my partner introduced an especially steep learning curve to my understanding of relationships - after a number of years I accepted myself as polyamourous and queer, preferring to develop individualised relationships based on my history and connections with people rather than on societal definitions and rules. I re-examined what I learnt about love, sex, and relationships, comparing and contrasting my South Asian culture’s notion of marriage for companionship and care with the Western ideals of sexual compatibility and attractiveness, finding that neither works in isolation. I had to do a lot of this work on my own, cobbling together whatever sources I could find to build my own philosophy.

In 2009, after finishing my Bachelor’s degree in Creative Industries I decided to release myself from the shackles of familial expectations and pursue things that I found more interesting, even if they were risky. I was cast in a production of the Vagina Monologues as the lady-loving dominatrix, which led me to investigate burlesque and kink further - and I fell in love with what I found. Here was an avenue for me to take the stage, a lifelong dream, and do it the way I want it to! I didn’t have to wait till I perfected complicated dance moves or conformed to a particular look or style: burlesque was built for self-expression, or so I felt. My class with Vixen Noir built a strong foundation for my perspective on burlesque. I revisited my (still) strong love for Darren Hayes and Savage Garden by creating a comedic skit based on a true teenage incident of my mother catching me in bed with their poster. I read widely and in depth about human sexuality, BDSM, sex worker rights, gender and sexuality politics - and gained an appreciation for the femininity I desperately tried to distance myself from before. Pandora was was making up for lost time in spectacular fashion.

However, the glitter and shine began to fade, and the scene’s true colours were not as pretty. I came across the propensity for racism and cultural appropriation, while simultaneously expecting POC/CALD performers to either fit into a 1940s corsets-and-pale-skin aesthetic or be as deeply ethnic as possible to be recognised. I was getting introduced as the Bollywood Princess at shows despite not having any acts to do with Bollywood. I would attempt to start discussions with other performers that staged very stereotypical work, talking about how that work is harmful and perhaps other avenues could be explored - but, like Barakat experienced with her note on racism in queer performance in Sydney, the responses were often accusations of “calling for censorship”. For a scene that often prided itself on “rocking the boat” it seemed like they could not deal with controversy from within.

To find support, healing, and company I explored burlesque by communities of colour, queer communities, people that have faced some form of marginalisation in their lives. Their performances were offbeat, subtle and loud at the same time, stinging in their satire while still maintaining their bawdy sense of humour - much like how burlesque was at the very beginning in Victorian times. Performers like Brown Girls Burlesque, The Lady Miss Vagina Jenkins, Masti Khor, Glitta Supanova, Akynos, the Ladies of Colour Cabaret, Iskra Valentine, Ginger Snapz, Cherry Galette, JZ Bich, and many more used this form to burlesque itself: perceptions of what is beautiful and sexy, political power and the lack thereof, conforming to and breaking out of gender roles, telling stories of trying to exist as a human being in a world determined to stuff them into pigeonholes.

I found great inspiration and mentorship from people outside the burlesque world who deftly addressed issues like feminism, racism, and intersectional oppression into their work. These included Brisbane performance artists Evelyn Hartogh and Sunny Drake, who opened up their hearts and souls to me to provide creative and personal guidance, to multidisciplinary artists like Candy Bowers who are also active in fighting racism in their creative fields. I have since created a private Facebook group, Anti-Oppressive Burlesque and Creative Sexuality, for all these people to network, inspire, and commiserate. The group has been a strong source of solace, hope, and community.

I also heard from other people who were new to burlesque or were spectators, appreciating my work in speaking up for those within the margins. Some had wanted to explore burlesque, being charmed like I was by its potential for fun and fabulousness, but put off by the constant exotification and erasure of minorities like them. Others were dubious about any sort of open performance of sexuality but managed to see the radical possibilities for change through art. To quote Heather MacAllister, founder and director of the Fat Bottomed Revue:

Any time there is a fat person onstage as anything besides the butt of a joke, it’s political. Add physical movement, then dance, then sexuality and you have a revolutionary act.

Their support and outreach showed me that it was still possible to create work that was heartfelt, poignant, personal, and also very political and hard-hitting. The work of my inspirations gave me the strength to keep going even when I was being attacked by other industry people who did not appreciate the call-outs and scrutiny. I looked around for other avenues to perform and create, finding like-minded friends in unusual places, while developing my knowledge on other ways people have used sexual expression to relate truths about themselves. I even branched out into other forms of creative sexuality, often more erotic: this was a major risk within my culture, and I am not as out as I would like to be about these aspects of my explorations.

In this journey I discovered an interesting dilemma: there is very little representation of South Asians in the fields of creative sexuality - burlesque, pornography, even erotic writing. Even the originally South Asian teachings of tantra and the Kama Sutra are predominantly taught and commercialised by White Western people, often with very colonial imperialistic stereotypes of South Asian culture, such as changing names to that of Hindu deities or whitewashing Tantra and Kama Sutra into predominantly sexual texts without respect for the original spirituality and cultural contexts. Even the “alt” scenes, exemplified by the likes of porn website Suicide Girls, are very White-heavy, and minority representations don’t tend to include South Asians. As a performer and model I have received plenty of comments about how I am “too fat”, “too hairy”, “too short”, “too dark”, and various other slurs about aspects of my body that are common to South Asians.

Even within South Asian culture, my look is not seen as attractive or desirable: I am the Before picture in the Fair and Lovely ads, in need of skin-lightening makeup and heavy foundation and long straight hair. Whether by local or international standards, people who look like me are considered “ugly”, and it is a rare soul that even recognises us as sexual let alone sexually attractive (especially difficult when queer, since we don’t neatly fit into conventions of queer fashion or look). I have spent many hours trawling website archives and databases looking for people who could be my kin, but they are few and far between: my only hints are cliche “South Asian” names, like Devi or Kali, and even then not all South Asians reveal their heritage as such due to a need to be anonymous (for example, a wellknown burlesque performer of Indonesian heritage tells others she is South American).

It’s this need to be anonymous and discreet that brings up the other half of this dilemma: there are South Asians who are interested and curious to explore these fields more, but social and familial taboos make it near-impossible to do so. The stigma against sex workers and sexually-open people is universal: almost every modern culture vilifies those that take their sexuality outside the framework of a heterosexual marriage with procreation as a priority (especially women and gender minorities), using slurs and insults like “slut” or “whore”, and questioning the moral values of those that dare to expose their body to the public. Even when these performers, models, and other producers are involved in something non-sexual, their judgement and values are questioned: for example, the controversy over porn performer Sasha Grey reading aloud to children or the number of teachers and childcare workers that were let go from their jobs due to potentially risque photos on their social network profiles. This gets extra complicated with many South Asian cultures due to the strong collectivist values of filial piety: everything you do is not just a reflection of you but also of your family, your kin, your community. Sex is seen as a private matter, kept between husband and wife; to bring any of that in the open and be indiscriminate about who gets access to your body is to dishonour yourself and dishonour your loved ones.

When young ladies are at risk of honour killings from their very conservative relatives for daring to even be close to a man; when gay and lesbian people are forced to seek asylum overseas for fear of their safety; when your job security, livelihood, and even custody of your children is precariously based on your reputation - any adjustment to that is risky, even if it’s not you yourself stepping out of bounds.

Thankfully my parents were not prone to drastic measures such as murder or ostracism: however, they do hold a relatively well-respected position back home, and in a wide and vast family tree that accepts anyone however loosely related as kin, word spreads fast. When I first started doing burlesque there was a major family uproar over a number of pin-up photos I had shot of myself merely due to the presence of heaving cleavage: I was otherwise fully clothed and indeed was very conservatively dressed by pin-up standards. No explanation about my agency, my safety, my free will, or even the cultural differences that made these photos really not a big deal in Australia, would be entertained. It put a big strain on my relationship with my family and I feel obligated to not discuss or even hint at my creative practice. I do not think my actions have severely impacted my family’s livelihood in material or practical ways, but the stress of being hassled are high, especially with mental health.

With pressures like these - your family’s reputation and life in your hands, society not seeing you as having a sexuality - it’s no wonder then that South Asian representation is very low even compared to those of other minority cultures. Who wants to be the first penguin, diving into ice seas to seek to seek sustenance, such high risk of death or injury? Who wants to bring that risk upon themselves, their family, and - by extension - their culture? Who wants to be saddled with the heavy responsibility of representing a major conglomerate of cultures, being the non-consenting spokesperson for people’s prejudices and biases, having their actions and bodies and expressions be taken as a symbol of that culture rather than an expression of their own individuality? There is hardly any support from family, and larger culture - whether mainstream or subcultural - is not as friendly either. What are South Asians to do if they want to explore their sexuality but do not see any safe ways to do so, no role models, no best practices? Not even recognition by their fellow minorities for their specific struggles and quandaries?

I completely appreciate the perspective of those who feel they could not even broach the idea: failure could lead to disaster far beyond that of the individual. The balance is so tricky to maintain - exploring and honouring your sexuality, sensuality, and sense of pleasure, while keeping to more conservative, traditional norms of such matters that remain private and narrow. It is this precarious balance that I wish to explore in my Creative Inquiry MFA, including documenting my own practice and the reactions to them, researching and having conversations with other people in this position, and facilitating related creative processes within these communities.

While I started off in performance and burlesque for fun, the direction of my work has been strongly affected by the responses and feedback (both positive and negative) from spectators and peers: deeply political through personal reflection. There are pieces that are less message-driven and are more visual spectacle, and even those are informed and inspired by personal experience - of what makes me happy, of what inspires me, of the specific images and feelings I get when listening to certain songs or living certain experiences. These sort of expressions are ones I don’t get to see for myself very often elsewhere. Even the more progressive liberal circles tend to be limited in their representation: often White, middle-class, educated, without too much worry of how open expressions of sexuality would impact the people around them. I felt like a precarious hanging bridge between cultures, trying to make sense of all my influences, never really belonging to any of them. As Somali feminist Idil Farah wrote about rethinking the rhetoric of female genital mutilation amongst both Somali communities and Western feminists:

There are many women who are forced into this mediator role by competing cultural paradigms. If I lend political and social agency to Somali women, and reject the limited narratives about my homeland, then I am in solidarity with patriarchy. On the other hand, if I challenge and call on Somali women/African women to address our subjugation at the hands of our men, I am merely the political messenger of the West. I think much of this conflict stems from society’s need to group cultures into comfortable boxes, so we may understand and place judgment upon them.

A sex-positive and openly expressive South Asian who still finds value in her cultures of heritage and defends them from Western accusations of “uncivilised”, but who also finds significant issues of concern with the current cultural ideas of sex and gender: backwards patriarchal apologist & “angry brown chick” in one box, seditious rabble-rouser acting as an agent of “corrupt Western yellow culture” in another.

The boxes are unstable and they crumble, trapping us within. I’d much rather strip off all expectations and break away from the ties that hold me down so I can express my experiences of contradiction & conflict and dance through heartbreak so that I can shine a light my own way.

And now that I have experienced the power of telling my own story my way, I want to help others do so too. As Matt Stillman, who provides “Creative Approaches to What You Have Been Thinking About”, advises:

If you are speaking with someone you can not wait for a moment to show off your brilliance but only be concerned with listening and offering service to them. You can provide care and kindness and service to people anonymously. You can do it for one person, for a group, to people you know, to strangers or the whole world. If you think you lack something you must give it.

I dearly miss the Bay Area and all the amazing people and communities I had the honour of meeting through that trip: the creatives, activists, social changers, people who were actively creating works of (he)art through social inquiry - or rather, as a means of inquiring and pulling apart society’s preconceived notions of sexuality, gender, race, class, representation. I met other Queer People of Colour who were also dealing with the intersections of their various minority positions, also feeling like precarious bridges, who built community with each other. I got to meet many of my inspirations and heroes, work closely with them, and feel strong affinities not just in terms of working in the same fields, but also of being respected as a peer, a friend, a family member. I found the acceptance and warmth I had long sought after, and I found many places that provided excellent building grounds for the work I yearn to do.

Not every part of San Francisco and the Bay Area was heavenly, of course - I still encountered racism as well as a strong dose of stress and heartbreak. But for every disturbing incident there were plenty of people that spoke up and had their voices acknowledged. There were Kitty Stryker and Maggie Mayhem, sex-positive activists and sex workers, charging along with their missing to educate the kink & sex-positive communities about consent and abuse within the scene, and the Femmes of Colour Symposium, who tackled issues of racism within queer culture and homophobia within their heritage cultures, welcoming any and all representations of “femme” across colours and borders - or directly challenging the exclusivist hegemony of “femme”. I strongly felt that if I wanted to start something I could in the Bay Area - and if there were people who wished to refute me or challenge me, or if I wanted to challenge others, we could have our disagreements openly. I felt my spirit soar and my creativity blossom in ways I had not felt for years due to the isolation I felt (and still feel) in Brisbane. And, as a bonus, there are plenty of people in the Bay Area that wish me back, that encourage me to return and spend more time with them, that thank me for my presence and count me as one of their own.

It is with this motivation that I apply to CIIS: a university I first got to know from attending a presentation at the Performing the World conference in New York in 2010, impressed by their approach to creative direction and their dedication to spirituality and social change, with a course that expresses everything I have wanted to do with my creative practice for some time now - develop it further as a means of providing space and avenues for people like me to express their truths and enjoy their physicalities, without worry or fear of negative consequences, and pass on those skills and knowledge to others.

I want to bear witness, and have others bear witness, to the stories and fantasies of people who don’t often get the stage: the dark, the ugly, the shy, the overwhelming, the absurd, the oddity, the incomprehensible. I want to support people who have been marginalised, desexualised, hyper-sexualised, thrown about in preconceptions and stereotypes. I want to empower them to represent their own truth, tell their own stories, tell their own stories, hold and display their bodies however they want to on their own terms. I want to create spaces for people to explore their erotic away from the norms of racist, classist, sexist, heterosexist, monosexist, ableist bigotry - whether through revelling in the pleasure of spicy food and hearty meals, or rupturing shackles of abuse and abandonment placed on them by people who saw them as mere objects.

I want to help ease sexuality into being, take part in expressing sensual truths, and - even if just for a short time - be part of a group and an audience that listens.