Meow…. Hello! Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. I realize my last post was a tad heavy. But heavy seems to be my specialty. I think we can disregard any need for pretense and dive right on in….
My last entry was specific in dealing with my gender identity. I made sure to leave out other elements of my identity to make that admission easier to digest. But now seems like a good time to come out about these other elements as well. Not only do I identify as Queer and omnisexual, but polyamourous and kinky as well. In my small world that is the New York burlesque circuit, these elements of mine are becoming more and more known… because, well, I have a lot of lovers. I currently have 1 serious girlfriend, 2 serious boyfriends, 1 husband… and 1 suitor. I find it easier to juggle men, whereas I find it takes all my energies to have a girlfriend, so I honor us both by not having more than one. All of the men in my life fulfill a different need… I have a debonair top, a role play partner, and a slave. But to phrase it like that it makes it sound like the arrangement is only for sex, which is in fact the furthest thing from the truth… each one of these people, I love. I love them so much it is nearly impossible to describe how lucky I feel to be just one person in their lives who can adore them in my unique way and make them feel known. The last few sentences read to me like someone else’s life. As I have said before, I grew up Roman Catholic, and I always felt like the life I wanted deep down was never something I was strong enough to reach for… and therefore not something I could ever enjoy.
I said in my last post that a lot of my life had been about suffering. Some of that suffering did come as result of living in the closet, some came at the hands of cruel men and women alike, and some came from my natural predilection towards being a “flower child”. Because our society as it is now has no way of accommodating people who live so freely. If you had asked me when I was young about how I wanted to live, I never wanted to marry, I wanted to live in a big house with many lovers both male and female, and adopt lots of children…. basically what I now know is an art commune. I really did and still do desire a kind of completely free existence. If I meet you and we hit it off and I fall for you, then we will be lovers. Simple. And for the most part my lovers are all friendly to each other, and in fact, the unique bond between them all has created a kind of community all its own. The Rosebud Vagina Community, I guess. I do impose structure but that is because I know not everything that is allowed to blossom organically is an accident. I make sure everyone gets quality time, I make myself available when they are having rough spots emotionally, I focus only on them when we are together, I respect their privacy, I cheer them on with other lovers, I try only to bring joy to their lives, and I never let drama take hold. They are all real, committed loving relationships…. there just happen to be many of them. I’m currently trying to figure out how many is too many… I have a lot of love you see.
When I look back over my life, I see how that mountain of love has gotten me in trouble too. I committed myself to monogomous relationships with abusive men, because when I was young and stupid I thought they needed the most love. I sublimated my love for women because it went against the church. And whenever I found myself developing feelings for someone else while I was in a monogomous relationship I would berate myself for being weak, sluttish, and unworthy of whatever jerk I was with at the time. It never dawned on me that non-monogamy was an option. The closest thing to a non-monogamous situation I had ever heard of was when my Mother told me a story about how a French lady who used to live next door to us had once proposed that my Mother stay on birth control even after my Dad had gotten his proposed “snip” so that she could still have affairs if she wanted. That mentality was scandalous. And French. Therefore doubly scornful.
When I was 17, I moved here to New York to pursue classical acting, and while I was at school I became friends with a girl from Switzerland who blew the dust off of many dark and dangerous thoughts I had long assumed dead. Funnily, now she is a very well known Burlesquer by the name of Roxy Diamond. But to get back, in the same way that my Mother had thought the French lady next door was trouble, so was Roxy. Roxy was and still is confident, sensual, exotic and free. She was not non-monogamous but she never judged others for it. That was what opened my eyes. To be in the company of a woman I respected, who I thought of as the ambassador of class and excitement, who never judged anybody. She never hated women. Though we were both roundly judged, she didn’t give a shit and went on living how she pleased… and she yanked me along for the ride.
I had a real nightmare for a boyfriend at that time, and I was very depressed. But Roxy had gotten me into Dita Von Teese… looking at her picture, I saw things that appealed to me, things I knew. Camp, artifice and power. And so I can honestly say that my 16″ waist and 6″ heels saved my life at that point… the only thing I had worth getting up for was hooking into my stocking and roll setting my hair. The feminine discipline Roxy had enlightened me to was something I could lose myself in, only to find myself being better and stronger. This wasn’t the only thing she showed me. She also gave me my first copy of The Story of O and Venus in Furs… She let me peek at her copy of the Satanic Bible, while I feared for my soul. Roxy taught me that if you’re strong enough, you can have your cake and eat it, too, even trussed up in leather from head to toe while you sit on a human chair and eat it off your fabulous human table.
Roxy also taught me that being a woman of sadistic impulses didn’t make you bad as long as you were responsible about them, and about communication. Something my mind has a hard time grasping to this day. When I desire to punish my slave, I always mentally bump into old, tired ways of thinking that urge me to judge myself… but then I remember that I am not evil, I just enjoy doing horrible things to people, when they have made it clear that is what they want. Because loving people the way they want to be loved is endlessly delightful. Because love is beautiful, because real love is consensual to some degree, and aware of how it improves the quality of life of each lover. Because people are strange, and wonderful and deserve to be seen honestly and without shame. Because even when you’re beating someone, the love you have for them can be pure and innocent. Not that innocence matters.
For me living multiple relationships many with heavy BDSM qualities, Burlesque, and growing a harem of men are all of a piece. I view these things through a nostalgic lens, as following in the footsteps of women who sought to bring knowledge, feeling and joy to the world. Women like Roxy, The World Famous *BOB*, La Belle Otero, Violet Gordon Woodhouse, Theda Bera, Lola Montez… the list goes on and on. These women live(d) how they want, they’ve inspired and entertained many, they’ve become legendary sources of scandal and joy. They bring balance to the world with an injection of both feminine and androgyne power. I may identify as more male, but I understand who gives life, the kind of life that makes life worth living. Women and femininity provide the hidden source of immortal energy that stimulates the fantasy consciousness of the world. Who wouldn’t want to respect that, honor that, worship that, impersonate that? That, of course, is a rhetorical question, history has shown us: not most people, including most women. Only up to certain point is self-directed behavior to be tolerated. When “wild” women become too much of problem, then burn them, put them in institutions, rape them into submission. These are the facts, sad but true. I hope everyday that I will hear less annoyance in the voices of people listening to the plight of women, but until then I can take comfort in confronting them with the most powerful artistic rendering of a woman I can create. Some have argued with me that I play too much with stereotypes, or that I have become safe in my art. But to that I say, “Look at my life, it’s all a part of it”… The power I try to embody on stage is not something I just put on anymore. For better or worse, I live it. Because that is the natural evolution of life as art.
I was recently reminded how much all this honesty with myself has changed me. I went on a few dates with a new suitor, who disappointed me by treating me like a piece of livestock. A dumb animal that made annoying noise, that was too curious, and too clothed. After he roughly handled me… I was even sadder. It dawned on me: he hates women, or at least resents them. I realized then why he was so frustrated with me: my autonomy was a problem. I never felt shame, or that this was my punishment. I just felt sadness, because I realized there was nothing I could say that would make him realize he could trust the words coming out of my mouth. That I was smart enough to understand what I was saying, and that I was strong enough to bear those convictions. Poetically, he later called me “the Devil,” which makes me laugh because he’s not the first (and I know not the last). But what continued to depress me was that he meant it. He feared me, and when I have so much love to give I find that soul crushingly tragic. Because loss of a lover, even when you have a harem, still hurts…
The universe offered up to me an overt and delightful joke in response. I randomly selected Boccaccio 70 one night after said date, and skipped along until I got to Fellini’s contribution. Watching Anita Ekberg has always been spiritual for me, but her performance in the film as the quintessential seductress and Devil made me laugh til I had a stitch! Really, we are all that little man wedged in her bosom. We can either fight it, drawing her wrath, or we can accept it and, along with it, whatever love she wants to throw our way. And yes, also some wrath. Of course now I have a tribute act in the works, because when magic happens, I just say yes.
I will close in saying I have read many books on non-monogamy. I have a habit of being overly analytical about life. But the one book I always come back to because it has helped me the most, the one book I read once a year, is not really about the topic at all. It’s about women, all kinds of women, old women, fat woman, ugly women, smart women, legendary women who lived ferocious lives. This book, my favorite book, is called Seductress by Betsy Prioleau. My experience in reading it is not entirly dissimilar from my relationship with Roxy: a warm, intelligent, sensual hand guiding me without judgment to my free-est self. I highly recommend it!
XO