When this image of Mary Tyler Moore in a green dress, a still from an episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, popped up in my Instagram feed recently, I immediately recognized the 1970s sex worker aesthetic (note: the term “sex worker” wasn’t in the American vocabulary at the time, since it was introduced by Carol Leigh in 1978 and didn’t enter common use until the 21st century). Thanks to YouTube’s bounty, I was able to rewatch what has come to be known as “The Green Dress Episode,” #21 in Season 5, actually titled “You Try to be a Nice Guy.” I watched the series so long ago that I didn’t remember it at all, and I found it even juicier than I had hoped.

The Mary Tyler Moore Show was a successful sitcom from 1970-1977, featuring Moore as Minneapolis journalist Mary Richards. While we watched the show in my childhood home, my focus was often interrupted by my stepfather’s constant commentary. He emulated Archie Bunker and would recline in his Naugahyde lounger, mocking any potentially feminist moment (“That’s why she’s not married, ha ha”). He was simultaneously parodying that type of guy and being one. My annoyance was treated as a lack of sense of humor. I still managed to enjoy the show.

The series reflected a new era for women, and the portrayal of Mary Richards going to work in pants was considered somewhat controversial. In the early 70s, I went to an elementary school where the girls weren’t allowed to wear pants, so even pantsuits on TV meant something to me. Our school dress code changed suddenly when all the women teachers showed up in pantsuits one day. That was that. It was, honestly, one of my earliest in-person lessons in the power of women deciding what to wear.

At the time, the term “women’s liberation” was used, rather than feminism, and the idea of freedom of any kind sounded fabulous to this queer neurodivergent kid trapped in a conservative suburb. To me, Mary, a single professional journalist who prioritized her career over marriage, offered a promising version of women’s independence and modern life. Both her pantsuits and this green dress represented 70s modernity.

The first scene of The Green Dress Episode begins with a knock on Mary’s door. As usual for a 20th-century sitcom, the visitor did not call first, which is always as unnerving for me as when they hang up the phone without saying goodbye. But it’s a sitcom, and I knew what I was getting into when I sat down to it, so I grudgingly brushed it aside.

The unexpected guest is Sherrie, a woman Mary met in the same season’s first episode, when she was briefly held in jail. Mary was there for refusing to reveal a news source, Sherrie, played by the brilliant Barbara Colby , for soliciting.

Sherrie, busted again, asks Mary to help her get a job so she can tell the judge she’s leaving the life. Mary agrees to help her. Sherrie is mostly repelled by other jobs, doesn’t want to learn to type, and doesn’t want to be told what to do. Eventually she confesses that she dreams of being a clothing designer. She creates a line and brings the green dress over for Mary to try on, and Mary hates it but refrains from saying so at first to protect Sherrie’s feelings. (It reminds me of Pam Grier’s white dress in the landmark Blaxpploitation film Coffy, which was released a couple of years before this episode aired.) Mary’s co-worker Ted, always a pig, over-reacts to the dress, and his wife Georgette, who also dislikes the dress, has to settle him down and take him out of Mary’s apartment. Before she leaves, she says, “Ted, do you want me to get a dress like that?” and he says, “I want every woman in the free world to get a dress like that.” Exasperated, she threatens him, it becomes clear who’s the boss, and they leave.

Mary finally regretfully tells Sherrie that she doesn’t think she has talent as a designer, and she can’t succeed in fashion. Sherrie says, “Oh no, I guess I’ll have to tell the guy who hired me.” It turns out that Sherrie has pranked Mary, knowing that she’s uptight and will be uncomfortable, and that she won’t like the dress.

There are other interesting moments in the episode. I could have done without Ted’s piggishness, of course. Still, more interesting to me was when Mary’s “crusty but benign” boss, Lou Grant, is talking about Sherrie, trying to honor her humanity and Marys respectability by refraining from using a vulgar term. He can’t bring himself to say the word “prostitute,” so he calls her a “lady of the evening.” If a 2020s version of this episode was made, would he be able to bring himself to say “sex worker?” At the end of the episode, Lou drops by, also unannounced, and Mary pranks him by opening the door in the shocking dress. Uptightness, not sex work, is the butt of the joke.

Of course I would wear this dress, even, or even particularly, at my advanced age. A dress like this is a kind of comfort zone for me. It evoked a certain kind of stretchy unlined dress that was almost-but-not-quite a nightgown, popular in the 1970s, and also popular in strip clubs in the 1990s/2000s (and probably still). With the recent popularity of naked dressing , a well-made version of it — or a vintage 1970s Stephen Burroughs or Bob Mackie dress — could work on most red carpets today.

Overall, I truly enjoyed watching this. If you like sitcoms of this era, you’ll enjoy it too. For me, a researcher exploring the intersections of sex work, fashion, and culture, there’s satisfaction to be had in the way it resolves. A sexy worker designs a sexy dress and gets a job as a fashion designer. That works for me.

[Note: The green dress was probably designed by the show’s costume designer Leslie Hall, but I haven’t yet done enough research to confirm that.]

Text below added 8.5.26:

Burlesque star and educator Lola LeSoleil sent me an email saying, “I remember digging into it a few years ago as potential inspiration for a hosting gown. I did an image search, trying to find a brand/designer, and resulted in a Reddit post featuring a b/w photo of a fly couple in 1974 and she’s in the same dress. Looks like the subject’s daughter is in the thread and she commented her mom said the dress was red.” See the link to the Reddit post , featuring what I believe is the same make of dress. See the colorized image based on a poster’s comments. You can view the original colorization artist’s response the comment about the dress being red rather than green here.

I know a few costume designers for film and television, and have interviewed some for my research project. Designing costumes doesn’t always mean making them; it means designing a wardrobe for the actor to wear to help express the character’s narrative. It’s possible that this was a mass-manufactured dress that came in multiple colors. I wonder if it was influenced by, or even possibly made by, the same company that made Pam Grier’s white dress for Coffy (1973, costume designer Sandra Stewart.

In my book Fierce: The History of Leopard Print, I talk about the concept of tackiness, and how it’s often associate with queerness and ethnicity. I think I could have added sex work to that list of associations.

You can read a version of my chapter on tackiness at LitHub.

I’ve got three events coming up in Coney Island!

Thursday, July 23rd, I’m hosting the student showcase for the Coney Island Master Class! With all-new numbers, and some performers who are doing burlesque for the very first time.

Appearing:

Eva Erotikka
Huxley Rose
Miss Belle Jolie
Moxy Mayday
Nina No
Queen of Wands
Rayna Pleather
Svetlana Sin

Pickup Artist:
Filthy Marichino

Hosted by:
Headmistress Jo Weldon

Details and Tickets for July 23

Then, on August 8, it’s my notorious birthday show. This year’’s theme is Tourist Traps and Roadside Attractions, and I’m going to come up with something REALLY STUPID. Everyone else on the show is doing something brilliant, so I just had to go there.

Featuring:

Miss Aurora BoobRealis
Cheeky Lane
Fem Appeal
Miss Indigo Blue
Jonny Porkpie
Little Brooklyn
Pinkie Special
Veronica Viper
Wae Messed

GoGo by Miss Manhattan

Hosted by Headmistress Jo Weldon

Details and Tickets for August 8

Then, on September 26, it’s the 23rd Annual Miss Coney Island Pageant, and I’m hosting! EEEEEE It’s the biggest honor of my burlesque career, and I’ve had some doozies! It’s sold out, but you can read about here.

I’ve got some gigs coming up in October I’ll announce closer to the dates!

YouTube is a goldmine for old clips of such shows of my childhood (and lots of “we did WHAT?” moments), and I’ve watched this one dozens of :

There’s so much charm in this fabulous clip I almost hate to deconstruct it, but that’s what I do, so away we go.

Ann Marie is toying with striptease after having been told by a casting director for a soap commercial that she’s perfect for it because she’s not glamourous or overly sexy. She’s wholesome, and he’s thrilled about it. She’s glad to get the gig, but the idea that she has no sex appeal tests her confidence.

I didn’t recognize the tune she’s dancing to, but it took me down a rabbit hole. It’s got the campy vibe of a David Rose instrumental. Rose composed and recorded “The Stripper,” which was a Billboard number-one single in 1962, the year I was born. He began his bandleading career in the 1930s, when burlesque striptease was experiencing one of its golden eras, and when Gypsy Rose Lee was making her name. “The Stripper” is itself a nostalgic piece, referencing an era before the 1960s, so when people riff on it now, it’s hard to keep track of which era is being referenced!

However, Rose, who composed, arranged, and scored many TV shows, was likely not at all involved in the music for this scene. When I looked into the show’s music to see if he’d had any influence there, I discovered that the theme for That Girl was a collaboration between show producer Sam Denoff and composer Earle Hagen. Hagenwho is at least as influential in the music of television of that era as David Rose. Furthermore, Hagen composed “Harlem Nocturne” in 1939, which Dixie Evans told me was the song most likely to cause an argument among 1950s burlesque strippers choosing their music. “All the girls wanted to use that song,” she told me, and it’s still popular with burlesque performers in the 21st century. Dozens of people have covered it, and I use a version by Sam Taylor in my fan dance classes.

Overall, the episode (Season 2, episode 20, “Call of the Wild”) wouldn’t measure up to standards of the post-#metoo era, with our improved criteria for what constitutes privacy, harassment, and assault, and how to respond to it. Her father barges in on her private mirror tease. This is typical of sitcoms where nobody needs to knock to drop in on their friends and neighbors, but it reads intrusive to a 2020s sensibility — and honestly, I can’t think of a time when I would have tolerated anyone dropping by without calling first, especially any of my parents. Then the casting director harasses her, and while Ann is pushing him away, his watch gets caught on her dress, and her boyfriend walks in (again, no call, no knock) on the struggle and punches the casting director in the face. When this rips her dress, she blames Donald for the damage instead of the casting director. This is what passed for cute at the time, and I will say that I still retain a sense, not that it’s okay, but that it was okay at the time for this sitcom — by which I mean I’m capable of simultaneously watching it as it was intended to be received then, and as it feels to me now. Ann Marie is meant to be an example of the modern, independent 1960s girl who can take care of herself, and for the 1960s, this was, to a significant degree, a feminist character. She didn’t faint away at the man’s advances, seem damaged by them, or consider herself at fault — she stayed pragmatic and retained her sense of self-worth. Even so, I flinched more than once, from a 2020s point of view, knowing that it didn’t occur to her to sue him for it because at that time women experiencing sexual harassment rarely would have had a case under that decade’s laws.

The striptease is, of course, by far the most interesting thing to me. While assessing her sex appeal, the first thing she tries is burlesque. And it’s definitely burlesque, with the shoulder roll and the wink, and her teasing with costume pieces — and it would have been retro and campy even in the 1960s. In 1967, strip joints as we currently think of them didn’t exist, although topless bars and gogo joints were popular, but even so, burlesque was often thought of as an old-fashioned presentation of sexuality. Even then, when Carol Doda was making a name as a topless gogo-dancer, burlesque was thought of as your grandmother’s suggestive dancing. I think as a kid I saw the affection in the scene, and how it allowed her to portray sex appeal without compromising her generally innocent character.

I’m always fascinated by how nostalgia and kitsch can sanitize sex. As an elder myself, I’m well aware that the times I lived in, particularly the hair-metal era of my life, read kistchy now. At the time, though, they were furious, wild, drug-addled, and drenched with perilous lust. But sure, it was cute — as long as I don’t have to do it again.

I’m in an editing phase of my work, which means I’m not producing as many new pieces. I’ve been taking breaks from the chapter I’m rearranging (so. much. rearranging.) to revisit some of my Patreon posts from a few years ago, and the following one caught my eye:

Research takes me down many rabbit holes, some of which are relevant to my work and others more tangential.

A reader sent me an email about a person they’d discovered in a museum exhibition. They had just watched my presentation, “A History of Striptease,” in which I defined striptease as “undressing with an audience in mind.” They sent me a photo of a museum panel that told briefly of Hannah Degoe, an 18th-century thief who was sentenced to hanging at Newgate. On her way to her death she fought with the guards, stabbing one (with what, I don’t know), and had to be wrestled up to the gallows. After having the noose fitted around her neck, she punched the executioner in the chest, ripped off her clothes and threw them to the observing crowd, then jumped off the edge of the platform, executing herself. Because her clothing was part of the executioner’s fee, she had just deprived him not only of doing the execution but of the value of reselling the clothing.

I researched her and found scans of the incident reports from 1763, so I feel I’ve checked enough that I'm comfortable retelling the story as presumably true.

The element I’m still researching is the practice of giving the criminal’s clothes to the executioner as part of his fee. It makes sense that used clothes might have had value, since this predates mass production and the invention of electric sewing machines. All fabric would have been worth a bit, even if only a few pennies from the ragpicker. I’m now looking for more information about the practice itself – whether it was standard where she was executed, how widespread it was, in which eras it was common, etc.

That’s probably not the best use of my time right now, but I thought you’d enjoy hearing how bizarre striptease research can get, leading down new avenues every time I try out a different definition.

I’m trying to pin down why this story captured me. My research is into the intersections of sex work with fashion and culture, and there’s no sign that this woman was a sex worker, or that her clothing was fashionable. I’m deeply fascinated by this story, even without have much information about her, knowing full well that I’m projecting. I love that she chose these final moments for rebellion. She not only refused to go quietly, but she also put on a show on her way out. She let the forces of authority know her utter contempt for them, even in the face of their life-and-death command over her. I think above all it’s her disinterest in dignity. She valued her rage and resistance more than the appearance of respectability, and I identify with that on every level.

Image of Hannah Gedoe resisting execution from the Newgate Calendar archives

https://www.exclassics.com/newgate/ngillus.htm

A record of the execution in 1763 according to newspapers.com, saying that she threw the clothes to her friends:

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28065383/hannah-degoe-hung-for-house-robbery-1763/

More articles:

https://www.executedtoday.com/2008/05/04/

http://www.britishexecutions.co.uk/execution-content.php?key=2161

Note–I came across the execution of another Hanna Degoe in the same century in 1710, but they are decidedly not referring to the same incidents, as for example they might be if someone had just accidentally given the wrong years in one of the articles.

Then I also went down another set of rabbit holes looking up what executioners wore and how much they were paid, which is TOTALLY irrelevant to my work but was fascinating.

Tomorrow morning I’m performing at Judson Memorial Church for Sex Worker Sunday. It’s being shown live online here.

• Sunday, May 31, 2026

• 11:00 AM 4:00 PM

• Judson Memorial Church

• 55 Washington Square SouthNew York, NY, 10012

Free! Plus a free lunch after.

And June 13th I’m doing my first performance of the season at Coney Island in:

FLAPDOODLE!

Burlesque Anitics & Shenanigans with Blanche DeBris & Jonny Porkpie

JUNE 13 at CONEY ISLAND USA

What do you get when you cross two neo-vaudevillians—who have been infusing classic comedy with contemporary sensibilities since 2014—with six seductive superstars performing their most sidesplitting stripteases? A night of hilarious sexiness (and sexy hilarity) that could only be called FLAPDOODLE!

12 Years Ago, two burlesque emcees took the stage together for the first time at the Burlesque Hall of Fame Reunion: Blanche DeBris , “American treasure, always high class,” a Queens gal who moved out West, and Jonny Porkpie , the burlesque mayor of New York City, a Manhattanite by birth. These two city kids have been performing together for over a decade, but never in Brooklyn… Until now.

More details and ticketing link

My classes are always listed on my page

I’m planning to offer a new presentation in the next month or so.. I’ve been working hard on my survey of sex work and fashion on film. It’s going slow, but it’s sooooo juicy…

Dolores' Book , 1988

Dolores with Rupaul in the 1980s

I created a website, swimw.org, which can still be accessed via archive.org. This website, created through some online posting and an email list called whorenet, predated even the most seminal versions of Facebook and Instagram. The goal was to identify media that required our attention, write scripts for outreach, and develop mail and phone campaigns. I had been trained in media analysis and had studied journalism ethics, having just retired from the Society of Professional Journalists to pursue activism (see their current ethics here). SWIMW never quite became that, but it got a lot of conversations going about how the media represented us in news, documentaries, movies, and television. It also provided resources about sex worker events. The page I’m copying below lists conferences and festivals. Looking back at it, for me, is an interesting capsule of that era of sex worker activism, just when I was getting involved. The descriptions are as given to me. As I recall, not all events had websites when their organizers requested a listing. I suspect that the one on Global Sex Trade was not exactly a sex workers’ rights event, but I believe some allies were speaking there, and that’s why the event was listed. Or it’s possible that my lingering journalism training, which required me to “tell all sides,” motivated me to add it.

Here’s what we added to the page in 2001:

Festivals, Conferences, and More

If you would like a link to your event added or removed, please email SWIMW

Law Women and the International Law Society invite interested persons to attend a symposium:
Prostitution, Trafficking, and the Global Sex Trade in Women
Friday, March 2, 2001
9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Vanderbilt Hall, Greenberg Lounge

Sex Worker Carnival in Calcutta March 3, 4, 5
“Some 5000 sex workers have already registered from all over the world - and this in addition to the 60,000 sex workers who are members of DMSC. It is a very unique event and hugely exciting. More information will be posted once it is finished.”

Sex Work, or They Work Hard for Their Money (Film Series)
March 15, March 18
Real Art Ways, Hartford, Connecticut
Films include: Whipped (Professional Domination); Rate X: A Journey Through Porn; Live Nude Girls Unite (Strippers form a union in San Francisco); Creature (Transgender); Tokyo Girls; American Pimp (Pimps); “Vice (a courtroom drama about a stripper who is charged for indecent exposure); and Straight for the Money, a film about lesbian strippers, prostitutes and dancers). The panel discussion is Sunday, March 18, at 2:30 p.m. For more information and showtimes call Real Art Ways at (860) 232-1006.”

Exotic Dancer’s Conference and Fundraiser for Exotic World - Museum of Burlesque
“On March 20, 2001, UnTamed Elegance - UT Publications of Los Angeles, California will present ‘the first’ Exotic Dancer’s Conference and Fundraiser for Exotic World - Museum of Burlesque. The event will be held at the Hollywood Park Pavilion - Racetrack & Casino. We will contribute a portion of the ticket sales to the museum....sorry GUYS, the convention is serious business and GIRLS ONLY, we’ll see you at the exciting Dinner and After Party!”

The San Francisco Sex Worker Film Festival
San Francisco Sex Worker Film and Video Festival
At The Roxie Cinema
16th and Valencia St, San Francisco, CA
May 25 & 26, Additional Events May 27
sponsored by ISWFACE, COYOTE and Exotic Dancers’ Alliance
“The San Francisco Sex Workers’ Film and Video Festival was established to provide a forum for the accomplishments of sex worker film and video makers in contemporary cinema and to screen works about sex workers and the sex industries from around the world. Prostitutes, strippers and other sex workers have historically been a dynamic part of arts communities, but they work with little support and little recognition. A growing number of sex workers are funding independent projects. This festival will provide an opportunity to view new works and rarely seen works of the past. Films and videos will focus on sex workers’ rights; organizing efforts and working conditions for strippers; global sex work and sex work as a labor issue on the international agenda; sex workers as artists; queer sex workers; sex work and gender identities; sex education, sex art, porn and erotica; portraits of strippers, prostitutes, doms, madams and more. We encourage diverse participation and diverse perspectives.”

ASIA PACIFIC SEX WORKER CULTURE FESTIVAL
3RD - 13TH October 2001
Melbourne, Australia

You can see more of this archived site at:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040616111423/http://www.swimw.org/events.html

As far as “media watch” is concerned, the sex worker activist network now has all of social media available to create campaigns and address the media (and, of course, to bicker, but that’s part of activism, as anyone who’s ever been on a non-profit board can tell you). In fact, one of the most exciting things for me when I first got onto Twitter 15 years ago was the ability to tag an anti-sex-work activist who was misquoting me and affirm, “That’s not what I actually said, Janice.” Still, I often picture a more analog version in which an avalanche of telegrams overwhelms a newspaper that has misrepresented our movement.

Dolores will always be my mentor in more ways than one, even when we don’t speak for long periods. I’ll never forget when she told me I’d done something really well, and I said I really hadn’t, and she told me I’d insulted her insight, and I needed to learn to take a compliment with grace. I think about it every time someone gives me praise. I still speak with her occasionally, and she still has ideas beyond the project we started over two decades ago.

I didn’t keep the website going for long, just a few years. I loved the idea, but when it didn’t gain much traction, I didn’t keep pushing. I didn’t get as much done as I originally had in mind, and I’ve never heard anyone mention this project when they talk about the history of sex work activism, but I’m still proud of it. I think its presence on archive.org is important, and I believe in what we meant to do.

It seems like so much gets buried in the avalanche of information. I often wonder what I’ve missed.

On April 17, I presented a paper at the Queer-Class Relations Conference at CLAGS: The Center for LGBTQ Studies at CUNY on a panel curated by Dale Corvino. We’d discussed his idea for a panel on sex work and the subversion of class when I bought his book at Elyssa Maxx Goodman’s Miss-Manhattan non-fiction reading series. His proposal was accepted by the conference committee, and I’d been looking forward to it for months. I thought it would be easy-breezy lemon squeezy because I already had the paper on sex work and class that I had published in the Radical History Review in 2024. It was finished, it was related to the topic of the conference, and it had been published, so I could refer people to it. So uncomplicated! No stress at all!

Except that a week before the conference, I was looking at a head of romanesco cauliflower, and I suddenly got obsessed with all the hierarchies I’d observed within the sex industry.

Above: a head of romanesco. It’s a Fibonacci fractal. It is tasty. Also, as a metaphor for class hierarchies, it’s pretty valid.

So, two days before the conference, I started an entirely new essay, driven by the sight of this vegetable. I stressed, but I got it done. I wrote about five thousand words and cut it down to two thousand, partly by putting most of my parentheticals into the footnotes.

I wasn’t able to attend as much of the conference as I would have liked because I was in the midst of producing a student showcase taking place on April 19. However, I made it on the 17th in time for lunch in the central hall before our 1.30 session. I bought books, starting with a book by Judy Grahn, who was one of my favorite poets in the 1970s and whose work still holds up for me. I also bought a book on women in the circus.

Above: A bit of the marvelous book table from Hive Mind Books.

While I was eating and chatting with Dale and burlesque star and academic Alyssa Kitt, a fabulous young person in a super stylish black denim dress and metallic green shoes – just SO MUCH GORGEOUS STYLE – came over to me and said, “Are you Jo Weldon?” I said yes. They went on, “I love your work! I’m talking about your article about class in my presentation.” “No!” That was the very article I’d been planning to read before the vegetable took over my brain. They couldn’t come to my panel because the panel they were on was at the same time as our panel, so it felt like I was going to be in two places at once.

This young person said the nicest things, and made me feel like a rock star. I do not usually feel like a rock star in academic spaces, as I’m not an academic, and I’m constantly concerned about letting the dedicated academics know I respect the work that goes into what they do. I know I know things, and I know I can share information and ideas in meaningful ways, but do I know the current literature on a topic? Sadly, not really. As much as I’d like to do more, I am rarely a member of the conference-going class. I don’t know who-all is doing what. When Alyssa told me that super-smart people had already written about the same problems I’d had with Ariel Levy’s attitude about “female chauvinist pigs,” I’d had no idea — though of course I was relieved to hear it. (Notice I did not link to Levy’s work.)

Two members of our panel weren’t able to make it, because one wasn’t feeling well and one was afraid to travel to the US, so it was just Dale and me. It felt a little awkward at first, but Dale talked about them and showed them onscreen. While he was reading his paper, he invited me to talk with him during his presentation. I loved this – I like interaction. I recently gave my lecture on the history of leopard print at SAGE, and many in the audience interjected with knowledge and questions throughout my presentation; instead of feeling invasive or like heckling, it felt participatory. I hope to make interaction a bigger part of my next presentations.

However, Dale and I did so much back-and-forth, and answered so many questions, that I realized I was running out of time to read my paper, so I reminded him and started reading it. I got about five minutes in and asked the moderator how much time I had left, and she said, “About a minute.” (She wasn’t a bad moderator; she just thought that Dale and I were co-presenting and didn’t realize I had a paper as well.) I was actually kind of relieved, because I had mainly been worried about my paper being too long, so I jumped to the last page and wrapped it up.

You can read it if you like. It still hasn’t had a proper edit, so feel free to make suggestions.

I got to see other panels on sex work, each remarkable in its own way. Notably, trans people and people of color were leading them. While trans people aren’t the majority of people doing sex work, their contributions have been overlooked, and their vulnerability in this industry needs to be understood, so this warmed my heart. I’ve worked with trans people my entire adult life, and it’s powerful to see them get their due and get their speaking time. Everything they had to say got me thinking about that romanesco all over again.

The final panel of the day was a roundtable about Amber Hollibaugh. I had met Amber back in the 1990s, when I was participating in my first conferences and meeting other sex workers who were out about the work, both at the conferences and through the networks. I had attended both the International Conference on Prostitution and the First World Pornography Conference in 1997. This was something big for me – I’d been treated like a crackpot and a traitor to my gender, and it was very uplifting for me to meet all of these people who had some of the same ideas and values I did, who felt oppressed (and I was, since they literally prevented me from speaking on occasion, and said I was lying or brainwashed when I did speak) by some of the anti-porn-feminist folks who were given such absolute credibility at the time. There had already been reactions against them, but they definitely held sway over the discourse.

The panel on Amber’s legacy brought that feeling back again – the relief that my experiences weren’t unique, accompanied by the sorrow that they weren’t. The sense that listening to each other and being heard outside of our intimate circles truly mattered. The idea that we deserve a quality of life, just like anybody, and we know it. The fact that the needle had moved because of these activists’ work. The knowledge that someone like Amber was appreciated and celebrated.

I haven’t yet found a recording of this panel, but I found this panel from a remembrance of her:

I wanted to see the final panel at the conference, but I had a dizzy spell (I’ve been having some hearing and vision issues and they are truly fucking me up) and had to go home. I was curious to hear whether they discussed how integral sex work was to the conference, and to the history of queer spaces and queer histories. It felt to me like an already accepted fact, and in all my lifetime, I never expected to feel this way.

Above: Me subverting class in The Strand’s Rare Book Room, 2012?. Photo by David Henry Sterry.

In case you’re curious, here’s the paper I didn’t read: “Whatever Happened to Class?”

Sistaaz of the Castle is one of the most original, delightful, and stunning fashion projects I’ve learned about in the past several years. It’s a fashion photography project based on a collective of sex workers in Cape Town, South Africa, known for their style, with design assistance by Duran Lantink and images by Jan Hoek. Just this month, I finally got to see the book, which was published in 2019. I had ordered it during the 2020 lockdown, and it disappeared into the chaos that was our pandemic mail. Now that I’m seeing the beauty of it, I plan to order it again and hope for the best — it’s so beautiful, so tough and elegant, so fierce and fabulous. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! I’m including some photos of the pages I got to view, a link to buy the book, and some videos about these fashion activists.

The blurb reads, “In this publication reality and the Sistaaz’ dreams are woven together into a new universe.”

The book is in the format of a heavy, gorgeously-printed glossy high-fashion magazine. The opening spread shows some of the Sistaaz, saying, “Spring & Summer & Autumn & Winter In Forever Time And Space,” referring to the timelessness of the collective’s spirit and sense of style, and perhaps to the endless cycle of oppression, resistance, and celebration.

It begins with a foreword by Leigh Davids, who unfortunately died before the magazine’s release.

“Leigh Davids is a fearless, trail-blazing, black (sic), transgender, sex worker activist based in Cape Town, South Africa.” She describes the “violent exclusion” she and her fellow workers experienced. She tells of working the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce , an organization that has supported sex workers in the region for over three decades. Through SWEAT, she was contacted by Jan Hoek, a Dutch photographer with a media project in mind. Leigh says, “We are quite used to getting requests from the media and artists and researchers and anthropologists and sociologists and students and photographers and filmmakers and activists and so on….But still we sleep huddled together under the bridge, covered by plastic….So we are wary of requests and we always discuss them thoroughly, trying to establish if the project will benefit us as much as we will benefit the project.” Italics mine. I think this is the central question sex workers always find ourselves asking when someone offers a platform or some form of assistance!

Leigh continues, “We liked the principle that this would be a collective and interactive project, and that Jan and Duran (avant-garde fashion designer Duran Lantink) were going to make our ideas, our life stories and our fantasies come to life int he portraits….[The project] has meant a lot to us, as a group, on an advocacy level, and on a financial level, and also on an emotional level….We want people to see that we ar amazing, we are talented, we are smart, we are funny, and we are gorgeous and badass.”

Leigh’s foreword is followed by an introduction to the history of the modern LGBT community in South Africa, and the challenges and dangers they currently face. It concludes, “Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International state that the decriminalization of sex work would significantly increase sex workers’ human rights….[SWEAT is] changing negative perceptions and paving the way to a safe environment for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people.”

The rest of the book presents photos created in collaboration with the Sistaaz, Jan Hoek, and Duran Lantink. They combine joy, anger, glamour, resistance, dreams of wealth and fame, and capitalist critique. The interviews, written by Gerda van de Glind, combine true-life stories and fantasies of celebrity success so seamlessly that the reader may have to do a web search to see whether Celine Dion and Lady Gaga actually worked with them. (Spoiler: sadly, no, or at least not yet.)

The final interview is with Netta, the mother of SistaazHood, who proclaims, “I can see and feel this change coming. In the old system there was no space for us, but the tides are turning. I believe one day we will be treated as equals.”

At the end of the book, a series of photos printed on non-glossy pink paper gathers unposed photographs of the Sistaaz going about their daily lives. The contrast between the glamour of the photos and their homelessness is shocking, even as it’s expected, but their sense of love and community for each other, made plain, is glorious.

SUPPORT SISTAAZHOOD

Purchase the book

Often, the sex workers’ rights movement is portrayed by its opponents as a purely privileged, academic movement that excludes survival workers, non-European workers, and workers of color. While it’s important to watch any movement for these tendencies, especially since government funding tends to reward organizations that comply with respectability, police, and organized religion, it’s also important to refrain from erasing the practical, theoretical, and aesthetic work done by workers in the margins of the margins. This is not because the diversity or credibility of something called “the sex workers’ rights movement” is at stake, but because these voices have inestimable value within and without the larger movement. I can’t recommend this book enough. It is a heart-blasting joy.

I wrote a little poem for the Sistaaz:

What is fashion?

Wearing what feels like love.

What is glamour?

Wearing what feels like sparkle.

What is sparkle?

Receiving light and instantly shining it back to anyone who desires to see.

What is beauty?

Being seen and understood in the light of love.

Today on my way to the research center orientation I got off the subway at Grand Central and stopped at the MTA Museum to see this train setup:

I exited Grand Central on Lexington. Unexpectedly, I found myself looking across the street at a fashion exhibition!

“Art History 101: A Brush With Fashion” was the work of BFA students at SVA, who designed garments – many not wearable, it appeared – inspired by art movements. They were set up in the windows of an empty commercial space. While I was trying to take decent pictures through the smudgy windows, a young woman directed me to more of them further along the block. “It’s really inspiring,” she said. “I’m trying to get into fashion too.” We had a brief conversation, and it turned out she had moved to NYC from Texas six months ago, and she didn’t really know where to begin. She said she could sew and had some other skills, but she knew it was complicated. I said, “I’m a teacher, and I always recommend to people to start with what they’re good at and build that muscle memory for confidence and success.” “Yes, Ma’am,” she said. I said, “You didn’t ask me for advice,” and laughed, and she grinned and said, “It’s okay, I’m going to take that to heart.” Then she asked if she could hug me, and I said, “Of course.” It was so sweet!

Here are some of my terrible photos of the wonderful exhibition:

I haven’t found a website for the current version, but here’s a webpage for the 2023 exhibition:

https://madisonavenuebid.org/store-happening/sva-art-history-101-a-brush-with-fashion/

Then I went to the library and got my new shelf in the research rooms. What a great start to my work day at the library! Model trains, a new exhibition I didn’t know was there, a charming exchange with a lovely stranger, and lots of juicy whore research.

I’ll be sharing parts of my research journals here this month. I’m having a blast. I love New York.

Above: Michelle Pfeiffer as Elvira in Scarface.

Content notice: drug abuse, self-harm.

Content notice: drug abuse, self-harm.

The first time I did crystal meth (1979? 80?), I sequestered myself, put pen to paper, and spent hours ranting like an incel at a friend with whom I had an unrequited passion. I wrote over 20 pages, discussing our complicated relationship, explaining to him why he was doing both of us a disservice by not courting me romantically. We were, I declared, meant to do great things together. I told him how he would write music on his guitar while I would write lyrics (something we had already been doing together), and we’d revolutionize music – nay, the world! – with our unique insights and socialist politics. I told him I understood why he was afraid to be a weirdo outcast like me when he had a chance to be one of the popular people, but I, wise weirdo that I was, would free him of that fear and set his creativity loose, and then he’d never have to play in another cover band.

I never gave him the pages, fortunately. The next morning, I was so embarrassed by them that I couldn’t read past the first page, and I unceremoniously burned them. Four decades later, after I had experienced an inexplicable reprieve from addiction and he had not, he committed suicide. We’d been out of touch for three of those decades, so I could hardly have had anything to do with it, but I wished I could have done something to help. Evidently, I still held traces of my belief that we were meaningfully connected.

That fervent night of useless writing is the earliest example I remember of how stimulants helped me lean into my most grandiose tendencies. During what I considered the best part of a speed high, I had the power of my convictions, founded or not, though it would always devolve into paranoia and grievance. I spent years chasing that golden hour when it felt as if I had infinite wisdom, that everything I said mattered, and that everybody wanted to hear it. I was willing to accept a proportion of unpleasantness as the price of euphoria.

I still feel bad for the people who had to share those golden hours with me.

I would have kept doing speed, but the bikers from whom I was getting it got busted, and in the interim, I developed a preference for crystal meth’s swankier cousin, cocaine. I did so much blow in the 1980s that I still can’t believe there’s any left for anyone else.

In Atlanta nightlife, cocaine was common as grits. I lived in a blizzard of the stuff (cocaine, not grits). While working, I’d often get tipped a tiny baggie wrapped in a bill. I would take a tampon out of its cardboard applicator (what we elegantly called “a trail”) from which I had removed the tampon. I would keep it in the broken tampon machine in the bathroom at the classy cat, periodically (ha) going back to take a bump. I was also spending a lot of my spare time partying in bars, and I was a cute young thing, and people were giving me coke left and right. My friends and I had ample access, and we imbibed liberally.

I cocained all day and all night. Once, a friend and I snorted at least two grams between noon, when we woke up, and 2 PM, and then went to an afternoon matinee of Scarface. We sat there, vibrating with paranoia, drinking whiskey sours from a thermos, and finally emerged, deeply harrowed, into the late-afternoon sun. People heading into the theater asked us how Scarface was, and we told them it was great, very relatable.

I kept doing cocaine.

I was briefly a tarot reader for a guy who was flying pristine powder into the city from I-don’t remember-where, and we would sit up for hours smoking cigarettes and cocaine while talking about what I was seeing in the cards. I remember a reading during which I told him he was going to feel betrayed by someone and that, even if he couldn’t trust them personally, he needed to continue to trust them in business. Shortly thereafter, he found out his wife was sleeping with one of his pilots, fired the guy, and then accidentally hired an undercover agent to replace his former friend. He went to jail, and that was the end of that gig, but I didn’t stop doing cocaine.

There was a guy (different guy) at the club who would pay a group of strippers $3000 to drive his car to a hotel in Florida, park the car, promise not to use it for three days, and then drive it back. This practice ended when, after a few fun and easy trips, three of the girls were found in pieces in the trunk. I didn’t stop doing cocaine.

Not long after, I spent a few days with a girlfriend, two men we were dating casually, and an unmeasured amount of blow in a hotel room on Cheshire Bridge Road with foil taped over the windows. We’d order food from the restaurant next door, then not eat it. Open boxes of chicken fingers and uneaten French fries were piled up on every surface, including the bathroom vanity. I thought it was so rock n roll. I felt like I had arrived. I thought, “I’ll be telling this story for years to come.” I kept doing cocaine.

At some point during these years, I read an interview with Pete Townsend in Rolling Stone in which he was talking about how he was glad he quit drinking and doing drugs. He described how he would get really drunk, do cocaine to get sober enough to stay conscious, get drunker, do more cocaine, and keep the cycle going for days at a time. I hadn’t yet hit my drug-using peak, and I thought it sounded fabulous. I should have heard a warning; instead, I felt inspired.

That is how twisted being an addict was. In search of intensity, the worst ideas sounded divine. At about the time I read that interview, the proportions of pleasure to punishment began to change, with the price of euphoria rising while its supply decreased. I was so out of control that I would get thrown out of a bar, then go stand in the parking lot till they threw me out of the parking lot, then go stand across the street and yell at them until they called the cops, and then I would get in my car and, horrifyingly, drive home. I didn’t stop doing cocaine.

As I began approaching the end of my cocaine career, I didn’t want to share my cocaine with anybody, and ended up hoarding it by myself in bathrooms all over the city. I don’t think anybody who wasn’t doing cocaine would have wanted to hang out with me, but now I didn’t want to hang out with anybody who might want some of my cocaine. Finally, I started paying for it, thinking that then fewer people would know I had it. This led to some lonely lows. At least once or twice a week, after five in the morning when drug dealers would no longer take my calls, and I was too tweaked to tolerate the jovial ambience of after-hours clubs, there were a few skincrawling hours of comedown between the night’s final access to cocaine and the day’s first access to alcohol. Because the convenience stores within walking distance of my apartment would not sell any wine before its time – if I remember rightly, there was some law that kept them from selling alcohol between four and ten am -- I would be frantic. I would show up at the door of the convenience store half an hour before they were allowed to sell booze. My eyes would be spinning as I prowled and paced, while they watched nervously. Finally, they’d sell me some California Coolers, and I would drink a few so I could get some sleep and then get up and start acquiring cocaine again. And I kept on doing cocaine.

One morning at around 10 AM, sometime in the late 1980s, I suddenly realized I was alone in a hotel room outside the city, but not su’t sure where. I had arrived with people, but they had all gradually left. Eventually, there had been just one guy left, who tried to get me to let him masturbate in front of me, which I could not accept at that level of tweak. He went out to get cigarettes and didn’t come back (I experienced this regularly in those days). I was smoking two packs a night and was very upset he didn’t return with my smokes, which were part of my rigorous drug consumption ritual. I wanted to get home, where a carton was waiting. I knew I was still probably in the Atlanta environs, but I was so high I couldn’t read the stationery to figure out exactly where. I called the desk, and they told me I was in [memory fails me]. They called a cab for me, and somehow that ride back to my apartment cost me as much as a gram of coke. To pay the driver, I had to leave my purse in the car while I went into my apartment and got cash from a baggie I kept hidden in my toilet tank so that when my fellow drug fiends were using my bathroom, they couldn’t find it.

Something happened once I got home from that hotel room. It was a banal night out compared to many that preceded it, but something in me changed. I realized that I had not, in a very long time, achieved any satisfaction from cocaine. I realized that there was no more pleasure to be had. This kind of insight is unlikely to happen for an addict, generally speaking, but it happened for me, and it was a true white light moment.

And I stopped doing cocaine.

This was a miracle. It wasn’t the last miracle I needed, as I kept drinking and drugging (sans cocaine – I maxed out on plenty of other drugs) for a few more years. But it was a miracle.

After a few more disastrous events, I got entirely sober. When I quit, nobody ever said, “Gee, I didn’t think you had a problem.” One of my co-partying stripper friends who also sobered up told me, “We thought everybody else was getting wasted too, but everybody else thought of us as the girls who got wasted.” We were the last to know.

I stayed sober while working in strip clubs for over a decade, and then I moved on to the dungeons of New York, where I had a brief foray into fine wines before I got sober again and stayed that way. I haven’t had a drink or a toot or a tab in about 20 years. The longer I’ve been sober, the more I realize how unusual it is for an addict at the levels I descended to to realize a particular drug isn’t working, decide to stop, and be able to JUST STOP, while still spending eight hours in a bar several nights a week. I didn’t do it alone. So many people pitched in to make sure I stayed afloat. My co-workers, my bosses, and even some customers were there for me when sobriety felt impossible. I was then, and I am now, grateful for all of the people who helped me, both in AA and in the bars.

Cocaine was never again remotely tempting to me. Even now, I can’t look at it without immediately feeling those hours between four and ten AM.

Like many recovering addicts, I have a fair amount of survivor’s guilt. I know many people who are not okay in a range of ways, including in jail or dead. I make my living amends by not using drugs, doing my evolving best to not be an asshole, and telling my story so other people know a change is possible.

If you’re trying to stop using and someone offers you your drug of choice and you feel tempted, try remembering not the golden hour, but the crash, that sense of being interminably trapped in twisted wreckage. I wasn’t in a position to offer help to my old friend, but I hope I can help somebody, so drop me a line — just not a line of cocaine – and I’ll remind you what it’s really like. I’m pretty sure I can take the fun out of it.

I’ve been fortunate to spend many, many hours in the company of what my burlesque community calls “Legends.” Within this community, the term generally refers to people who did burlesque before the 1980s. When I started visiting Exotic World in 2004, it usually meant people who had performed before the 1970s. I suppose it will keep moving up as we lose generations; so many of the legends I knew in 2004 are gone now. I started working as a stripper in 1980, and as a feature dancer doing what we’re calling burlesque in 1991. I’m also on the verge of being a senior citizen, so I’ll likely qualify as a Legend, whether or not I think of myself as such, before the end of this decade.

When my community members talk about Legends, they are often referring to retired performers who’ve attended the annual Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekender, whether as audience members, panel members (the panels are, sadly, under-recorded), teachers (and the organizers of the classes, since I left, have moved on to including “title holders”), or performers. However, but all performers who knew about BHoF wanted to come to the Weekender, for a variety of reasons. My close friend Sherry Britton, who began her career as a teenager in the 1930s, was never well enough to go.

Stephanie Johnson, better known to the world as Tanqueray, became internationally famous through Humans of New York, but we in NYC knew her as Stevie, as did people in her neighborhood. She showed up to shows decked out in her finest 1980s gear, including a spectacular rhinestoned and studded cowboy hat, and she had OPINIONS. And she knew so much — she had been a top feature stripper, had worked in the fetish community dressing adult babies, and was a stage costumer. She did mentor at least one person I knew of, but overall, she wasn’t as into what we were doing as some expected her to be. And she was not very interested in going to the BHOF Weekender. Whether it was because travel was hard, she’d heard negative things about the event (it’s fair to say that some younger members of our community have simultaneously admired, and yet been dismissive of the opinions of, some of our Legends), or simply because she preferred to stand alone rather than be one of many Legends, she never told me. I wondered if, because she was very sure of herself and her value and didn’t care about the potential validation, she wasn’t interested in being part of a crowd of Legends. She was always prepared to stand alone.

When Humans of New York interviewed her, her incredible stories, featuring her trademark confidence and rawness, went viral. I’ve been promoting the history of burlesque and striptease for decades, and I’ve never seen anyone capture the public imagination the way she did. She wasn’t motherly; she represented herself, rather than herself in relation to other people. She held nothing back, and it was riveting to hundreds of thousands of people. Her fans raised over $2 million for her health care. She published a best-selling book. Her death made The New York Times.

Stevie absolutely stood alone in the level of appreciation and recognition she received. It was incredibly gratifying to watch a stripper finally get her flowers. It was especially important because Black women have so often been left out of burlesque histories, and they’ve had so much to do with its development. From the perspective of the burlesque community, she wasn’t much interested in our culture, but she was sure of her place in the world at large. It was miraculous to see.

When she passed away on October 11, she was mourned on an unprecedented scale. Most spectacularly, she was honored at Grand Central Station as part of the “Dear New York” exhibition from HONY, which Brandon Stanton called “a love letter to New York.” On October from midnight to 8-midnight, the main hall of Grand Central was dedicated to her.

I wanted to celebrate her life, even though we were never close, and wanted to share about the exhibition so that those who didn’t know about it or weren’t able to go see it could experience some of it. Here’s what I saw.

Thank you for all your stories, Stevie.

As always, I’m working on my own with no editor, so feel free to make suggestions and corrections.

I always forget to tell people what I’m up to, and this month I’m trying to do better. As it happens, I have a few things going on!

This weekend is the 23rd annual New York Burlesque Festival. It’s one of the oldest festivals in neo-burlesque, and I’ve participated in it in one way or another — not always by performing — every year. I’ve gotten to do some wild-ass numbers on that stage, including my bride-to-be unicorn bukake number. If you weren’t there, you missed it.

This year I’m doing two things at NYBF. Friday night I’m playing my concerned-citizen character, Miss Pearl Clutcher, in my partner Jonny Porkpie’s number. It’s not exactly a burlesque routine, but it’s burlesque humor, and it’s fun, and I get to twirl tassels in it.

I’m also hosting a panel at the New York Public Library in the East Village at 1.30 pm. on Saturday. It features Fem Appeal, Miss Frankie Eleanor, Little Brooklyn, Mia the MVP, Peekaboo Pointe, Queerly Femmetastic, Tigger, and Veronica Viper. We’ll be talking about the past, present, and potential future of burlesque, and sharing our reading recommendations.

On October 17, there will be a gallery opening at Dollhaus, where the doll I created for Joe Coleman’s Carnival will be featured.

I’m hosting a student showcase on October 19. I watched the students run their numbers yesterday and I can’t wait to see the audience lose their minds over them! They are so good!

October 27 I’ll be performing in Las Vegas in Jonny and Blanche Debris’s show Flapdoodle.

Then, in November, I’m taking some time off to go to a miniatures convention, where I won’t be working at all. I’ll be taking a class on how to make miniature lingerie, and then walking around looking at dollhouses and other miniatures.

If I’m forgetting something, I’ll come back and add it! But for once, I let people know where I’ll be next, and I’m happy about that!

I’m taking an online class called “Re-Enchanting The World Through Research” through Morbid Anatomy, taught by Bess Lovejoy, whose book Rest in Pieces is my October read for 2025 (it’s gruesome and hilarious).

I took the class because I had been experiencing research burnout, was feeling stuck, and wanted to revive my research skills. However, when ABC News contacted me out of the blue (see yesterday’s post), I wanted to review the history of showgirls. I’ve already read a few books on the topic, but there was no time for that. I didn’t have time to go deep, but I had a good time on Newspapers.com, where I found this event listing in The Gloucester Journal from September 27, 1851, page 3:

“BARTON FAIR — The increasing coldness of the weather, as well as the arrival of the well-known canary-coloured caravans, which are announced to contain “The Greatest Wonder of the Age,” and other astounding marvels, are harbingers of this far-famed event. It would be curious to note the show-girls of today, perhaps the dirtiest of all dirty creatures, contrasted with the show-girl of Monday, whens he will be arrayed in all her tinsel finery, and be dignified with the title of “the Lady of the silver locks,” or some other epithet equally romantic, when doubtless she will gull the “yokels,” and as many of the town-born lovers of the marvellous as usual.”

Well! My goodness. Is this sexist? Xenophobic? Whorephobic? Classist? Who is this writer? What is their gender? What else have they written, and was it equally snarky?

I did what I usually do when I read something like this, which is to research the author for context. There was no byline, however, and this took me down such a rabbit hole.

I discovered, and had had no idea, that bylines were uncommon before the early 20th century. Again, I didn’t have much time, so I read the Wikipedia entry for “byline.” Wiki is always a good place to start, though not to end, according to Bess. However, I had to end there since I had less than 48 hours, during which I was already busy, to prepare for the interview.

Substack is all about bylines, so that’s super interesting to me. I invite you to explore the wiki link above, especially if you are also a writer who can’t imagine what it’s like to live in a time when it was considered unethical to give you credit for your work.

I am off to teach a new crop of showgirls, who have their showcase in two weeks. As always, I look forward to making the world a dirtier place.

Above: My monster showgirl costume. Photo by Whitney Ward at Exotic World.

Above: My standard burlesque showgirl costume. Photo by Scott Shuster for World Dance New York.

Yesterday I was interviewed for ABC News for a piece about the release of Taylor Swift’s “Life of a Showgirl” album.

It was fun, because they asked me a lot of questions about burlesque and showgirl history, and I had answers. However, they also asked me a few times about my opinion of Taylor Swift, and I don’t have much of one, and I was a little awkward. I hope they end up getting those questions answered by a Swiftie, because I’m not sure my opinion (or relative lack thereof) is important. I did a quick bit of research before the interview, but no deep dives. She’s a celebrity who, until this showgirl thing, popped up on my periphery here and there, but I can only name a couple of songs by her. I know that both her fans and her detractors are intense. I know that she’s a billionaire, which is something no one should be, but it came up in my research that she endorsed Kamala Harris and is engaged to Travis Kelce, whose name I was familiar with only because he knelt in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick. Trump hates her. Maybe good signs? The other searches turned up a bunch of histrionic debates I didn’t have time to scour, and a lot of fake memes that made her look either much better or much worse than I expected her to be, so I used the time I could have spent studying Swift to reach out to people in the NYC community to see if there was any way they could take advantage of this opportunity with me. I also spent it finding videos and photos and getting image permissions. I worked hard to share this platform with people whom I know have a lot to offer.

The team at ABC was incredibly nice, and they reached out to a real burlesque person (ME, I’m a real burlesque person) for the segment, so I took advantage of the opportunity to talk about the art form I love. I was there to promote burlesque, not to promote Swift, and I wasn’t very prepared for their questions with regard to her and her music, but I hope I wasn’t too stupid about it. I don’t know if I even said anything coherent about her. (Swifties might roast me! Burlesquers might roast me! The internet is one big oven set to roast me!)

I wore my Sherry Britton earrings to the ABC interview, knowing they’d ask about them, so I got to talk about how burlesque performers connect to and honor our forebears.

Above: Sherry and I at the National Arts Club, with one of her favorite pictures on the wall behind us.

Since I will probably be on air for only a few seconds, I did my best to promote burlesque as an independent art form that embodies a great deal of joy. I talked about how there are different kinds of showgirls, including Las Vegas casino dancers, drag queens and kings, and burlesque performers (just to name a few). I acknowledged how many singers have been engaging in showgirl style, and that this is nothing new.

We’ve seen this showgirl style in the stage costumes of performers like Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Kylie Minogue, and Beyoncé, who have really revelled in this aesthetic at various points in their careers. We’ve seen it on Dolly Parton, Carol Burnett, Diana Ross, Elton John, and Cher, all of whom have worked with Bob Mackie — and Mackie is getting a lot of attention right now, because Swift is wearing one of his costumes on one of her album covers. The styles and histories of drag, burlesque, showgirls, and popular singers cross paths repeatedly throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. They’re already symbiotic.

I also explained how Vegas casino dancers and burlesque performers often differ. I talked about how Las Vegas showgirls were usually auditioned and chosen for their height and slenderness, and how burlesque performers, in contrast, choose themselves – whether they style themselves as showgirls, clowns, monsters, or whatever else matters to them. They can be a range of sizes, ages, etc., and still get the audience to scream with delight. I pointed out that showgirls, like burlesque performers, are, and always have been, of every gender. I pointed out a difference between a Vegas showgirl and a touring burlesque stripteaser in the 1950s: the Vegas showgirl came onstage topless, while the burlesque dancer stripped off her costume – and you know me, I’m all about the striptease. Dita Von Teese, who is also using Mackie costumes from Jubilee (as did Pam Anderson in The Last Showgirl), said that she’s not quite a showgirl — and she’s wants to honor the Vegas showgirl’s legacy, which is unique among showgirls. But they aren’t the only showgirls.

When I have an opportunity to promote burlesque, I promote it. It’s too important to me to gatekeep. I want people to think of burlesque as a place they can enjoy, that just might be for them. I always loved doing a bachelorette party, handing them a ten-dollar boa, and watching them transform. They may not ever have done burlesque again, but they’ll speak fondly of it. They might pay to go to a show. I have plenty of issues and concerns, but I want to attract an audience more than I want to lecture them about how misunderstood burlesque is — they’ll get it when they see it! I want potential audiences to see our best side. I make sure they know there are many styles of burlesque, that it’s more than rhinestones and peeling gloves. I want to attract everybody that it’s right for, not just the people who are interested in corsets and feathers! Burlesque is glamourous subversion. It can be done without corsets and feathers. But I’m happy to talk about corsets and feathers, because I love them, too.

Once someone gets involved in burlesque, there will be plenty of time to share history resources with them, and I always do. I describe burlesque’s history as something relevant, valuable, and fun to study, not as homework they must do before I’ll consider them worthy of my regard. I care about this history. I’ve dedicated decades of my life to it. I want it to attract more people to it.

A few weeks ago, when Swift announced the title of the album and showed herself in a vintage rhinestone costume from Jubilee!, which was the last mid-twentieth-century styled show in Vegas until it ended in 2017, some folks in the burlesque community were hostile. Some said she was appropriating their aesthetic and should be donating to BHOF. I would love to see her donate to BHOF, but I was a bit confused, because Las Vegas showgirls, whose aesthetic — literally their costumes — I saw her wearing, have their own history and legacy organizations and museums. Plus, there are still showgirls wearing giant headdresses and backpacks in Paris. I’m still pondering this.

The history of burlesque costumes in the 1950s and 60s had its own appropriations from sex work and drag, partly because the communities weren’t entirely separate. Furthermore, some early 20th-century showgirl costumes, which evolved in the US from Parisian showgirl costumes, were influenced by Asian, Middle Eastern, and Indigenous costumes, both real and imagined. Our aesthetic history is complicated!

While I want to be gracious, I wouldn’t be willing to pander or say anything I don’t believe. I am willing to say that I think Swift, whatever else she does right or wrong, did the right thing by going to the source. She went to Dita Von Teese for burlesque, and she went to the original vintage Jubilee! costumes for a showgirl aesthetic. I think that for burlesquers and showgirls, they can take comfort in that and see it as a signal of respect, that she didn’t just ask someone to glue a bunch of rhinestones to a bra. If she suddenly comes out as MAGA, I’ll feel differently, and then she can’t sit with me, but right now, I think she did all right.

The thing is, though, I’m not there to tell people how to feel about Swift. I’m there to tell them about how fun and exciting and timely and welcoming burlesque can be. I’m inviting them to try out this performing art, whether as an audience member or artist. Where did each of us begin? Did we wear the feathers and rhinestones before we started doing burlesque? Did we wait for permission? Did we even know that asking permission could be required?

I think most burlesquers know that this will inspire many people to seek us out. When they find us, I want burlesque to appear welcoming enough that they’ll go to a show. We need audiences more than we need hot takes. A lot of burlesque people I respect had a different view of what Swift’s “showgirl” means to them and how it affects them, and I don’t want to invalidate them at all — mine isn’t the only important perspective. It is, however, a very considered view, very concerned about the future of burlesque, and very concerned that people who do burlesque have a chance — once they’re hooked — to get to know it in all its variations, in all its possibilities, in all its glamour, grit, meaning, and mythology. I know they’ll Google it, and I want them to get interested in it for what it is: an independent art form that features showgirls of all kinds. I love how Aquarius Moon is encouraging folks who are inspired by the aesthetic to invest in the burlesque community and hire existing showgirls. It’s true — people don’t have to see Taylor Swift live or go to Vegas to see showgirls. We’re in your town right now! And that’s what I wanted to get across on ABC. It will be interesting to see how it actually turns out.

Above: Josephine Baker, showgirl, iconoclast, and resistance fighter. There’s no such thing as “just a showgirl.”

There’s one very personal reason I accepted the invitation to do the interview, even though I don’t know much about Taylor Swift.

Some weeks ago, my friend Judith reached out to me. She’s a most dear human to my heart, and was instrumental in my moving to New York and in my development as a sex worker activist and scholar. I don’t get to talk to her very often, as she’s currently living elsewhere, but she’s been a huge part of who I am now, as an advocate and writer. Being a philosophy professor, she taught me how to do diligent independent research. She gave me the confidence to talk to intimidating academics, to value my lived experience over uninformed ideologies, and helped me learn how to identify true allies.

She’s got stage four lymphoma, as it turns out. And, as it also turns out, she’s a Swiftie. I’ll let her know the interview is supposed to be aired on October 6.

I hope she’s enjoying the new album.

PS I’m writing without an editor, so corrections and suggestions are welcome!

The exhibition is about a pair of private resorts run by Susanna Velenti, a cross-dresser, and her wife, Marie Tornell, exclusively for cross-dressers, in the early 1960s. The tenderness and happiness in these photos almost brought me to tears. They had their own stage for performances and their own magazine for them to model their styles. Having worked with many clients who identified as cross-dressers, having seen how thrilled they were when they saw themselves in femme clothes and makeup, I know how important this can be. The placards in the exhibition share stories from the people who frequented the resort, describing the risks they took and the humiliation they endured when caught, and how the resorts were their only safe havens, the only refuges where they felt understood.

From the exhibition website:

“Casa Susanna brings together photographs and publications created by and for a community of cross-dressers who met regularly in New York City and the Catskill Mountains throughout the 1960s. Two modest resorts run by Susanna Valenti and her wife, Marie Tornell, provided safe spaces for guests to freely cross-dress en femme during an era of strictly defined gender roles. They used the camera to create and affirm their femme identities, exchanging photographs at gatherings or sharing them by mail. These snapshots—some candid, others playfully performative—were rediscovered at a Manhattan flea market in 2004 and have come to be known as the Casa Susanna photographs. The exhibition also features issues of Transvestia, an underground magazine that published the photographs along with fiction, poetry, makeup and clothing advice, and autobiographical essays by members of the community.”

A documentary about the resort

As always, when I look at images of cross-dressers from the past, I think about some of my clients who wanted to be “sissified” or “forcibly feminized.” They weren’t “out” to anyone; my knowledge of their fantasies was precious cargo. I don’t know how they’d identify now that so much more gender-inclusive terminology has reached the mainstream through the internet and social media. I do know that many of them would have cried with joy at the chance to visit a place like Casa Susanna. I wish for them, so much, that they found this freedom somewhere. I hope I provided a bit of it. I hope they know how much I enjoyed, appreciated, and respected them.

The opening, showing how rich white people dressed the Black people they enslaved in luxurious livery to reflect their own wealth and status, would have been enough to make it worth attending and meditating upon, but there was so much more. Some of my personal highlights included Prince’s shirt, Sly Stallone’s jacket, Frederick Douglass’s actual clothing and accessories, the juxtaposition of Grace Jones and Josephine Baker in tuxedos, and a Black Panther’s beret.

Below are a few photos I took:

Livery

Livery placard

Prince’s shirt and Sly’s jacket

Josephine Baker in a tuxedo

Grace Jones’ tux and hat

Frederick Douglass items

Frederick Douglass placard

Black Panthers items

Black Panthers beret

A tiny hat, practically a fascinator. I love a tiny hat.

It’s a landmark exhibition that shouldn’t be missed. As a white woman, I don’t have the correct perspective to review it deeply, so I recommend this article by Shelton Boyd-Griffith:

Superfine: an Ode to Black Fashion at the Met Costume Institute

If I can, I’ll go see it again before it ends in October.

Did you see it? If so, what stood out for you?

I spent part of the pandemic researching incidences of fashion designers either explicitly referencing sex workers, or being accused of doing so. I was fascinated by Yves St Larent’s January 1971 Spring collection, which shocked the world with its references to Paris style during the German occupation of the city from 1940-1944. I had studied the occupation a bit while writing Fierce, but I hadn’t studied the 1971 fashion scandal that erupted during my lifetime. Fortunately, there’s a whole book about it.

The book contains clippings criticizing the show, which was deemed in extremely bad taste. An article from The Lorain Journal gasps:

“One mannequin [model] in roughed [sic] cheeks and lips looked like Lili Marlene waiting under a lamp post [the pole ost associated with sex work before pole dancing reached the mainstream] near a red light district….The show stopper was a series of gowns printed with pornographic scenes from Greek vase paintings.”

Above: Yves St Laurent hetaraie-print gown. Source: VMFA Museum.

The chubby fur jacket, often associated with 1970s street walkers, was popularized by this collection. An article from The San Bernardino Sun, May 1971, says:

“Chubby jackets, mostly of the silver fox variety, have been reinstated (but not revamped) from the pin-ups of the 1940s to high-camp-fashion today. Yves St Laurent brought out the chubbies in January only to be clobbered by the fashion press, but today, a few months later, they are popping up in every big-name collection.”

Retro on retro on retro: the chubby fur jacket continues to evoke sex work in the American imagination. This is Maggie Gyllenhall (love her!) as a 1970s streetwalker in The Deuce, 2017. Costumes by Anna Terrazas

There’s just so much to unpack here.

As I’ve done my research, I’ve most frequently encountered two opinions about fashion influenced by sex work: the abolish-sex-work take, which suggests that pornification is forcing innocent young women and girls to dress like whores, and all women to be treated with contempt; and the culturally appropriation take, usually by sex workers and people attempting to support them, which states that fashion influenced by sex worker aesthetics is offensive, because those who aren’t erotic laborers but wear styles associated with sex work aren’t experiencing the dangers and stigma that sex workers do. So it sounds like disrespect rubs off off on nice girls, but nice girl cachet doesn’t rub off on sex workers — except when it does, and dilutes their aesthetics.

For me, the YSL Scandal shows how complicated these things can be. He’s inspired by certain disreputable women, who in turn were dressing according to the designers in Paris in the late 1930s and the early 1940. These representations influenced what people thought sex workers looked like, and how they were therefore portrayed in film and other media, which influenced both what customers expected to see and what sex workers thought they should wear. It’s an ouroboros made of the serpent that tempted Eve.

You can unpack it all day, but the suitcase stays full of questions. I stay fascinated.

As always, I’m working without an editor, so feel free to suggest edits or corrections!

Above: a campaign by AMMAR, a sex workers’ rights organization in Argentina. They use street corners, often a site of transactions, to show how the woman in the tight clothes and platform shoes is often working to fulfill her responsibilities to her family, and deserves rights and protections that enable her to do so safely. Source: Ads of the World.

Right now I’m in the midst of completely rewriting a chapter in my book project. I’ve been puzzling over its structure for years. It’s essentially an essay on sex work, fashion, and protest. I’ve presented versions of it at international fashion conferences, and those felt as if they went well. My goal there was to introduce the attendees to the very idea that a sex worker could be culturally aware enough, and have enough agency, to use dress and style in political ways, and it always felt as if I accomplished my goal.

As a book chapter, however, it’s a bit more complex. I’ll be talking about how I learned about these activists and how I was inspired by them. Since the book is a memoir, it’s appropriate that it’s personal. The challenge for a book chapter, as opposed to the challenge of showing a slideshow presentation and saying, “This is what’s happening, and this is my informed opinion about what it means,” is that it’s in the context of other information. It’s preceded by my experiences with anti-sex-work activists, having to talk and present and dress “respectably” to get a seat at the same tables they did, and how once I got there and they understood who I really was, all that code-switching didn’t gain me any of their respect. If you’ve seen my show, you’ve seen how I compare this to the false promise that if women dress respectably, they won’t get assaulted.

I then move into my own as someone who presents openly and shamelessly as a sex worker, at times exaggerating the aspects of my speech and appearance that are associated with sex work to drive home that I’m looking for *human rights,* which I believe people deserve no matter how they present culturally and aesthetically, not *respectability.* Showing up for the Women’s March with a bunch of other sex workers in red outfits was an amazing experience, even though I got stuck in the foot traffic along Central Park for several hours and didn’t get to march at all. At least I was a red pixel in any overhead photos.

I’ve had a ton of fun exploring all of this, and the chapter is finally coming together. It’s the most global chapter in the book, and the one that, while I was researching it, brought me the most new revelations. It’s also the chapter for which I’ve done the most interviews, since it’s particularly important to me that the activists get to say for themselves what their intentions and goals are.

I’m posting this for accountability. I know some writers do better if they don’t talk about their work, but I’m just the opposite. If I let the world know I’m doing it, it gives me a kind of deadline. I need that peer pressure. Pressure me, baby!

Above: A waterlogged copy of Pandora’s Box, 1996. I talk about working for this magazine, and its editor, Pagan Vegas, in my piece in BARE. Cover photo of Pagan, and many interior photos, by Misa Martin.

From the journal’s website:

"Where do sex workers come from?” This question is frequently asked but most often answered by lawmakers and moralists too far removed from the reality of the work. BARE, a new literary journal dedicated to uplifting sex worker voices, steps in to emancipate this question from those ill-equipped to answer it.

Fifteen origin stories, vivid with detail and rich with humanity, are gathered here to reveal the diversity of motivation, aspiration, and experience, shared among those taking their first steps into the world of erotic labor.”

You can get the e-journal here.