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Saturday muses
April 06, 2006
Just now I caught myself staring at my computer screen and wondering why I hadn’t written about spending twelve hours of quality hang out time with Melissa Gira, Jane Vincent and Jessica Melusine on the Saturday after Sex Work Matters, because it was so long ago. But wait - actually it was just this past weekend. It just feels like a long time because of the insanity every day this week has brought down on my head.
But the thing is - after getting through the opening and co-moderating a roundtable with Melissa Gira (who I’d just met in person for the first time), we realized that it might be awesome to actually, you know, hang out. And so, Saturday came about. The four of us met up at the LGBT Center after our respective lunches in the East Village. Everyone wanted to see Sex Worker Visions without the hordes of people, plus I was scheduled to do an interview with Joe Gallant for his Screw Show, which airs in the wee hours - Friday night/Saturday morning, at 2:30 AM on Manhattan Cable ch. 67. When I mentioned to Melissa that I was meeting up with Joe, she said she’d love to meet him, as they’ve had ongoing email correspondence but hadn’t met in the flesh.
Melissa and I combined forces to do a walk through of the show on camera, because she knew a lot of the artists in the show and had some good insights. We had a good laugh with the always affable and genuine Joe afterwards, and Jane commented that after meeting Joe, she totally gets why people take their clothes off for him and allow him to give them bong enemas.
Jane, Jessica, Melissa and I then decided to make our ways into Chelsea and wander through art galleries. We saw some good installation stuff and paintings, but also a lot of crap. It was awesome to intersperse thoughts on the conference and the sex workers rights movement with our thoughts on the art - a pretty natural flow with these four slutty artsy hyper-intellectual women. We lounged over coffee and pastries for a while, bid adieu to Jess and then headed back to Brooklyn for a night of more talk and take out pizza.
These women - they are my muses. They keep things in sharp focus, and remind me why I do what I do - I do it for them. Better than that, I’m starting to do my work with them, tnagled up with their thoughts and criticisms and ideas, and my work is getting stronger for it. Collaboration is a beautiful and unstoppable thing - especially when it’s bicoastal brilliance.
Posted by Dacia at April 6, 2006 08:58 PM
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Comments
I have lamented, even despaired, that one of the crucial elements needed for artistic growth in porn is a vibrant, collegial, and critical community. Pornographers are notoriously thin-skinned. Spend some time on ADT you’ll notice that even the most gentle criticism is met with howls of “It’s just porn” or “Well people are buying it and we’ve sold 10,000 (or 100,000 or 1,000,000) copies!”
Part of the problem is that most people don’t go into porn to be challenged, they go into it because they see it as a world nearly devoid of expectations or standards. Showing late to the set or putting people on the box covers who don’t appear in the video is par for the course, and what difference does it make? It’s just porn.
Pornographers are also quick to their persecuted status whenever faced with critisism. It might be ‘more mainstream than ever’ when Jenna’s on E! again. But when a critical voice dares rise up among the self-congradulatory din, then it’s “You should know better than to say such things! Don’t you know they’re all out to get us!”
If in these women you’ve found some people you can trust to give you the benefit of the doubt, but who you can also trust to expect your best from you, then you’ve found something special indeed. Hold them close.
Posted by: Tony Comstock at April 7, 2006 08:00 AM
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