Modern Day Asian Sex Slavery: The Musical (2/18/11)

brittany — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Long Beach, California

Each year CSULB has Sex Positive Week, presented by various feminist and queer student groups. Mariko Passion, activist, artist, and out and proud sex worker, kicked off the week of festivities with her one-woman show, Modern Day Asian Sex Slavery: The Musical.

Passion is a champion of what she refers to as the Whore Revolution, a phrase coined by fellow activist Emi Koyama. According to Koyama, the Whore Revolution begins with the acknowledgment that not all sex work is voluntary or safe and it aspires to create a world in which they are. After getting to know Passion a bit and attending an event thrown by the Sex Workers Outreach Program in Los Angeles (SWOP-LA), it has been brought to my attention that there is an entire generation of young women who do not feel victimized by their work. There are literally thousands of women who are not ashamed of how they make their money. These are women who are passionate, empowered, intelligent, and fighting for the most basic of human rights. As Jessie Nicole, director or SWOP-LA told me at an event earlier this month, sex workers see their work as just that—work. The average person doesn’t have to worry about being beaten, raped, or robbed while at the office and sex workers don’t want to have to worry about these things either.

Passion began her one woman show explaining to the audience that she starts each session with a massage. Straddling a pink Hello Kitty body pillow, Passion described how she uses her small hands to rub and coax her client into a safe, submissive state. This quiet before the storm also assists her in preparing to be intimate. According to Passion, eighty-five percent of the time she is not sexually attracted to the men she services and her sensual, slow massage enables her to “establish a genuine connection” while getting in the mood.

Her show was off to a strong start but was interrupted by various technical glitches and a few awkward on-stage costume changes that resulted in the audience getting a glimpse of Passion’s goods. It was obvious that Passion, who is Chinese and Japanese, hoped to tell the story of the plight of the Asian sex worker and the many ridiculous sound bits and pop culture tidbits she’s been reduced to. As a matter of fact, one of the most compelling moments of Passion’s show was when it appeared as if she broke away from the script, cursing, saying how much the infamous scene from Full Metal Jacket fucked with her childhood, how often she heard, “Me so horny, me love you long time.” As a virginal child completely unaware of sex work, it proved a rude introduction to the stereotypes Asian women must deal with.

Using old news clips and radio broadcasts, music, slides, and songs, it was an admiral attempt to cover decade’s worth of racism and sexual politics stemming from the Vietnam War, but it simply seemed like Passion didn’t have enough time to tell the story that was in her heart. Though entertaining and containing flashes of genius (traipsing around stage using a pink dildo as a mic and singing a dirty version of “I Enjoy Being a Girl"), we’ll have to call this a precocious work in progress with a lot of potential.

Photo courtesy of Stefan Agregado, photographer and photo editor at The Daily 49er.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, February 28th 2011

Crazy Enough (6/12/2009)

admin — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:12:00 +0000

Portland Center Stage

Portland, Oregon

Her mother tried to poison her with turquoise "chicken noodle" soup, she tried to become a "dick whisperer" at age twelve, and she was addicted to heroin by age twenty-one. Is Storm Large "Crazy Enough?"

Decide for yourself before this show ends August 16, or spend the rest of the summer regretting that you missed her. Large, who starred on CBS's Rockstar: Supernova in 2006 and whose band Storm and the Balls had a Top 10 hit with "Ladylike" that same year, lets everything hang out in this one-woman show—including her boobs, which she refers to as a "$4,000 growth spurt."

She is agonizingly honest about life with a mentally ill mother and a geographically and emotionally distant father; about trying to find love through nasty sex with much older men; about what it felt like to get addicted to heroin and go through withdrawal on her bathroom floor—think feeling like your skin is being scraped by a cheese grater as you watch her perform. All the while growing up, she's also terrified of becoming "crazy" like her mom. But in the end, her message is one of enormous strength—one that I believe is reaffirming for girls and women of all ages. She's six feet tall, sexually omnivorous (Large's preference to the noun "bisexual"), and yes, (Susan) Storm Large is her real name! If you don't like it, too fucking bad for you.

Despite having a voice like gorgeous dynamite, Large was told by mostly male record talent scouts that she was "too aggressive," "too old" at age twenty-seven, but did she mind giving them a blow job while she was there?

This incredible performance will make you fucking pissed off, might very well make you cry, and will definitely make you roar with laughter—who else can pull off singing a song about an eight-mile-wide vagina? If you don't live close to Portland, Oregon, you should definitely check out the play's soundtrack. Just don't start humming it at work.

Photo by Owen Carey via Flickr

Written by: M.L. Madison, July 9th 2009