DISCLAIMER: Apparently when I’m drunk I like to write like some pseudo-deep guardian reviewer. I tried not to edit this too much, just corrected some mistakes and removed some word vomit. Short n sweet.
A. x
Somewhere below the bustling traffic of the streets lays an alcove of pure decadence cascaded in violet lights. While tourist laden coaches pass overhead the red brickwork archways of disused railway tunnels muffles the noise slightly, but behind the curtain exists a whole new world. (I’m writing this drunk in my hotel right after the event so please forgive my rose coloured glasses, but this was honestly as magic as it sounds).
Sexquisite events represents something that we need in our community; it’s a safe space, a place to celebrate, and it felt like a haven. One thing that always strikes me when I attend an event like this is the ease at which I’m accepted into the fold – within twenty minutes of arriving I was talking to people who were strangers who now felt like friends – something we don’t really experience in the day to day when our jobs are vilified to such an extent. My own sex work community exists up North, so being down in Bristol was new territory for me completely, it’s testament to the inclusivity of the sex work community and the event itself that no matter where you are, the community is still yours.
At sexquisite there is no right and wrong (within reason of course), there is no judgment, and everyone is there for a common purpose – to celebrate our community and enjoy a little debauchery along the way. I’m not doing the ethics of the event a lot of justice here so please do have a look at their sites and attend for yourself if you can (you won’t regret it), it’s an entirely sex worker led co-op and put together by a group of incredibly passionate people – which was clear by the love and thought that’s been poured into the event in spades. From powerful spoken word about shitty ex boyfriends and the perfect bookings, country songs about riding cowboys and androcide, physics defying jiggling and bending, to the sparkliest bedazzled jockstrap you will ever see in your life, sexquisite literally had it all. It’s hard to explain quite how seen I felt going into this event, more so than I have at many others. The individuals on stage spoke with such evocation that it was hard to comprehend that we had not all lived the same life in that moment. It was a kind of acceptance that from speaking to others attending had become the norm at these events, the ease at which everyone melds together.
The beauty of this event is that the talent of sex workers is celebrated in all mediums, not only the nude performance aspect that is often seen in non sex worker led events. While yes there was plenty of nudity, how could there not be, it was clear that we were all there to enjoy the cabaret, the choreography, the work, not to gawk and stare in the way that chino-clad client does with his sweaty fivers in hand. It was sex work presented as art. That sounds so fucking pretentious but I don’t mean it in that privileged neo-sex work way that forgets the history of the community – it embraced the reality of the sex worker experience while saying that there is beauty in all of it. There is beauty in the uncensored self-expression, the weird shit we put up with in our jobs, and the connections we make with each other along the way. The night embodied this feeling.
CYBER HARLOT 