I
recently met Paola Revenioti, an Athenian tranny-sex
worker, photographer and activist. We
didn't meet on Kavala Avenue where she usually spends her nights
marketing her 'business'. I met her on the sidewalk of Hackney Road
outside one of the sweetest hipster-beaten galleries bars of East
London, the George and Dragon. The place was packed: armies of
elegant arty-but-not-farty people came to enjoy the photographic
profile of another era -- an era during which boys posed for the
camera in bizarrely different ways. They didn't wear sleeveless
shirts in mid-winter and did not perm their mustache. It was a time
when homoerotic sexual excitement did not fit within the confines
of the gay industry - internet , clubs, saunas - or within the
stylistic extravaganzas of fashion designers. It included men who
would not self-identify as gay and would not necessarily dress like
Galliano. They might wear Minerva pants and tank tops. When you
photographed them they would stare at you straight in the eyes with
their dick raised. They were plumbers, punks, builders, anarchists -
unstable, engaged, daydreamers, rogues, vulnerable and moribund.
Laid out in the toilet – the so called White Cubicle Gallery –
these photographs formed a a deafening wallpaper of memories. It all
looked liked a bittersweet visualization of historical and
geographical gap – a chronological fissure of lust, tenderness and
history. There was a time when the homoerotic hunt was an adventure
in 'tzoura' (the public toilets) – a continuous immersion into the
dark holes of the city - the parks, the garages, the porn-cinemas.
Placed inside the toilet of a hip gay club, this collage of
scattered snapshots created a three-dimensional map of
hedonistic--teleportation– a transexual time-machine .
I deeply believe it - and I said it to Paola - that
this epoch is not totally dead - the historical differences – are
not so vast: the romantic vulgaritiy – the uncompromising
hedonismof that era is still here- inside
us. 'I find you very optimistic' she replied smiling. However for one
thing I am sure – when you walked in this photographic space you
felt in your skin the bodiness, binge and romanticism of an archive.
Cooked by the group Queer Archive and Konstantinos
Menelaou, the menu of the exhibition melted the distinguishing line
between visitors and exhibits, creating a genial soup which had it
all: Melancholy, sensuality, smoothness, bubblegum, vulgarity and
nostalgia. It also had: projected slides of ethereal lovers (above
the bar), gay bohemians with beers in their pockets (under the bar),
passionate
neo-dandies with bow and floral jackets (inside and outside the bar).
When you got drunk, the photographic tapestry of the walls opened
around you like twinkling pages of the Kraximo-magazine – the queer
magazine that Paola published in 1980s – an street-elegant
encyclopaedia of transgression
that brought together porn stars, wild poets and interviews with the
likes of Deleuze. In the lounge bar we saw
a drag-perfomance by A Man to Pet whom
released a flamboyantly
anarchic mixer of
national self-sarcasm,
striptease art and musical sensation.
We also saw Bjork(!) dressed in yellow and the awarded animator
Katerina Athanasopoulos in blue. It also had poets , architects,
vampireles and sexy boys
of all colors - and more generally, an extensive social-media
community mired in games of street-cocooning peer-recognition. The
key phrase was '' Where do I know you from? From facebook or from
seminars of clown entertainment for children parties ? (Answer: from
the public toilets of the Zappeio park, dick-friend)
Paola talked to everyone in a gently frenetic pace
– she had the relaxed excitement of ''Exarcheia-sociability'' (the
urban milieu of subservient culture in Athens).
Her sharp and lighthearted immediacy tended to levitate you on top
of things and people - a sort of supersonic pirouette of escapism –
that haunts you gently even when you are pushed at the center of the
world. It is a bodily language that says ' I'm here and elsewhere
simultaneously ' - the unobtrusive glam of the good old
neighborhood-underground which we all know and trust. ' Ok
all this is' very nice --
let us now smoke
something and speak of boys, fascism and the future''.
And
we talked about many things - for fags then and now, Athens and
London, Dilly boys
and cinema ...
Did you see any sexy boys in London?
I saw
very nice boys, but I did not see boys playing with their eyes slyly.
I feel that London despite its open-mindness, it wouldn't be a very
erotic for a trans (except maybe if you went to certain places ) . On
the other hand, once I left Greece , I felt that I was leaving a
prison. Here I saw smiling people --tired from work on the subway –
but still smiling. In Athens people are grumpy – always eager to
cannibalize you. Here I saw kindness.
Beneath
this politeness did you discern any ferocity?
I much prefer
this than dealing with people who are impolite and treat you badly
[I am
thinking about the implied signal here: no matter what ferocity might
loom in the depth, the surface is a value in itself. This thought
radiates somewhat strangely when considering the identity of the
speaker: this is a person who spent her lifetime bringing into the
surface the deepest desires of others –
hers was art of intimacy that collapsed the
disticntion between surface and depth –
an attitude towards life (and decadence)
that encompassed sexual gestures, photographic postures and
street-wise performances]
Doesn't ferocity ignite passion? a kind of power that turn us
on?
With boys
yes, but here we are talking about the average Englishman here, don't
we?
[That is
why a transexual might think politically: As much as she sexualizes
her ' image of ' she does not necessarily sexualize 'society' as a
whole (at least in the same way). You can have a panoramic view of
the social landscape, even if (or especially when) you stand on its
margins]
Don't
you think than excessive politeness can become a sexual prison?
This is what,
my friend, the author Tachtsis used to say (back in the 1970 -80s).
Why do you insist on this 'liberation-thing' when all the (liberated)
English come here to find someone to fuck them? In the end, out of
too much liberation, nobody would fuck you.
I thought
something similar when seeing the pictures of your lovers against
the gay crowd that is gathered here tonight. This crowd seems a
little bit .. incestuous , don't you think ? They give the
impression that they would dare to touch these boys only through a
commemorative frame. But these photographs refer to a world ..
which
is lost. In Greece it got lost since we tried to fit sexuality into
boxes. Once it was impossible for the boys who had sex with you to
believe that they were gay. They considered 'more men' because they
were fucking a tranny. But since internet arrived – since kids
started watching trannies fucking, active trannies – we passed into
a new era... a transitory one.
Sometimes I see how boys hitting you online -- is facebook is the
new cruising playgroynd – a digital kerb-crawling avenue for
prostitutes – like Athenas-Square?
It
is somehow. But look what I do not see today. Today, gays do not
train anymore the dilly boys
.. Once boys were trained by 'the sissies' before coming to us. They
used to go to porn-cinemas where the sissies would offer them a
blow-job, or they would go for a brothel-promenade and when they
didn't have money to pay they would fuck the sissy in the corner. Now
there are no longer these generations of homosexuals to train them in
this way.
[Voice
from the prompt box - but we are here! All that is so nicely
described by Paola (partly) reflects one dimension of the
contemporary homosexual experience. One day we need to talk in detail
about modern Dilly-boys and their trainers. We should map in detail
those intermediate and ambiguous zones of hetero-normativity -- the
kingdom of affectionate thugginess, the eagerness of the taxi
drivers, the multi- sexual rogues.]
I decide to
voice some of these objections:
And yet Paola , there was a generation which was 'trained' by your
poems – your book 'Flip' was a geographical and lexical guide. In
my teens I remember hooking with boys from the bus stop at the end of
Acharnon street, then going around for a 'friendly brothel-promenade'
and finally hang-up at some nearby hotel. Don't you believe that as
long the same type of desire persist, similar types of erotic beings
will come to being -- in one way or another?
(condescending
smile) .. I find you very optimistic
She turns and looks --in a
slightly thoughtful way --towards the carnivalistic crowd that
surrounds us: the homo - hipsters of the London-based Greek Diaspora.
Her gaze -- like the click of a camera – paints a viusal response
to my question. There are some questions which dance like moving
snapshots in our mind-scapes. They never get final answer – they
continuously change in accordance with the mutations of the
historical setting. In our case, this setting is full of elegant
young men who wear diligently torn clothes and look like they have
never been
'torn
apart' – by a soldier..(although nothing is set in stone)
For sure, Paola is today torn apart by a bombardment
of questions. Groups of people approaching her constantly and ask her
opinion about everything. A few minutes ago I heard her speaking
about fascism in Greece: she reffered to the
ability of Golden Dawn to appeal to youngsters,
students and scoolboys. Now a new group attacks
her with a new set questions about the current
political situation.
I decide to leave my own question for later - when each of us will
return to the tranquillity of her/his web-shelter
And
this was a wise decision – it was indeed proved that the best
moment to talk about fascism with Paola is after pointless online
flirting with a man of fascistic charm–
one of those queer princes who
cut their abs in slices, post
poetic and post- Leninist quotes and cross the dancefloors of London
and Berlin (tearing our libido into pieces). One of the things you
can do on this occasion, is to pick up your pieces, abandon your
sexual gods in the heights of their mythical world and search for
your Pythia in the avenues of the web -- the new cruising hubs of
lust and loneliness. It's not an accident that the triumphant
re-emergence of Paola in the public arena relied strongly on the
social media revolution. Overt the last years, the digital world
have been transforming our love life into a non-stop television news
programme -- chat rooms open like televisual screens - and honorary
guest re-appear out the
twilight zone of our adolescent memories, land
in our newsfeed and offer their authorative
opinion on the latest urgent developments
of our erotic life.
Would you say tha the
'hip'
of Golden Dawn suggests (among
other things) a
twisted sexual longing? A disturbed ' nostalgia ' for the erotic
world that is captured
by your photographs – that is,
en epoch during which the man could play the sexual
role of ' fascist ' in a more guilt-free way?
The
men were never playing the fascist in bed. This is only done
over the last years. They just liked to
play the male-macho
fucker. It's only
now that things get more complicated. I
attribute fascism to
the ignorance imposed upon Greek people.
They have no idea about history modern or ancient. We only have the
sun and the sea and we sit on ancient rocks and we think that we are
'someones' and we
never pay attention to
other folks. We are uneducated people –
lousy.
I remember that
in an interview with
the journalist-performer Malvina Karali
you said that you have studied the
hypocrisy of Greek society. But I wonder – don't
you think that hypocrisy, lies and
theater are essential ingredients of
lust? If tranny plays a role – then
the same applies
for the '' man '', the ''
arse-destroyer'',
the ''Dilly boy
or ''the macho-fucker''
? Can there be
sexual excitement without some sort
of hang
up, injury
or posturing ?
I
do not think hypocrisy is necessary for the
erotic life.
Hypocrisy creates
a lot guilts. I did not live with
hypocrisy nor did boys
who were coming with
me. They came for
who I was. Quite
the contrary I believe.
If I had lived with
hypocrisy I would not have had
so many successes . I have no appreciation for
those people who say one thing in broad
day light and
something else at night.
I find it sick.
And
then they come to you to
heal their complexes.
I
do not cure any complex. They know pretty
well what they are doing. They
are well aware . They
are just being trapped within the Greek
society and do not dare to be honest. I tried not to hang out with
such people.
Sometimes
you complain
that fame does not solve the problem of survival. You tend to say
that we use you,
we show off using your one image and
then abandon you in a state of astute
financial strain.
But lately,
you do
not wait for others:
you take the initiative, you tell
your story through
your own voice –
you make your life a
'' movie '' - through facebook, videos
and
photos.
I
only look at my
refrigerator to see if it is full. I was never
pretentiously ambitious. Of
course I am happy
that people know me and love me. But you
cannot live out of
this love. And from
what I can see, at
the moment I cannot do anything in
my country. If I had some money I
would go to Berlin. Here, they
expect to do things
for nothing. They
ask me ' when are going to do your new
video'. And they
never care if I have money to live.
This is why this photographic exhibition was not only an art event –
it also included history of the present -- something of the heroism,
the intensity and the urgency of the current moment. This exhibition
worked as a catalyst not only for what Paola had to say about history
and but also about what historians had to say about Paola. An
informal ' opening ' of her ' history'occurred two
days before the official opening the exhibition -- in a packed lecture hall at the
University of Manchester.
There
a prominent American scholar,
Susan Lanser came to give a lecture on the Sexuality
of History. She talked about the persistent
tendency of scientists, poets and historians to treat homosexuality
as a chronological compass.
From 1600 onwards,
the question ''what is homosexuality'' went
hand in hand with the question '' what is new
? '' Within this historical universe homoeroticism featured as a
disturbed map of weirdness
and novelty. The way
that someone '
violated ' the
norms of sexuality colored
the ways that someone would
' violate ' the dictatorship of time. Under these terms,
a queer dictionary of
time suffusued a
vortex of politics, literature and science.
When Lansen finished her speech I raised my hand to speak . I did not
just want to ask a question . The spontaneous impulse was to turn
that moment into a sort of introduction – an improvisitional
prologue - and why not -- a manifesto of transexual history
This is more
or less what I said:
''Isn't
very interesting that the equation between homosexuality and the
'new' is reversed today? Quite often modern figures of the gay
movemen treat the past as a force of legitimization, experimentation
and ecstasy. There is currenty an exhibition in London aboutr
transexual poet , activist and photographer who in the 80s became
well-known for
publishing a queer fanzine in Athens. She is called Paola
Revenioti. Very often when she talks about the past she describes
herself as lucky. ''We might not have had queer studies departments
but we had mythology - '' Jupiter and Ganymede , Apollo and
Kyparisso ''. She admitted that she used these elements -- with
audacity and grace -- as material of fictionalization, justification
and visibility. (It is no coincidence that a transgexual is usually
called 'goddess ')
This very
appropriation of past reveals how many things we can do with the
concept of 'Sexuality of History' or if you prefer with the
"Transexuality of Historical Time' ?
And I will
explain immediately what I mean by that.
First.
The
testimony of Paola shows tellingly how the experience of '
abnormality ' is in itself an opening towards history – that goes
beyond the confines of academia. History does not only constitute a
field of
pleasures (see how memory becomes a ritual
of fun in Queer Archive). It is something much more
fundamental than parties, exhibitions and galas – it relates to
this simple teenage question : Where there any people like me before
me ? The enigmas of time is first and foremost an
ontological issue - an existential necessity - a way of nailing your
abnormality against the ' normality ' of the present. In this sense,
history is queer abonrmal and transgressive – history is a tranny.
Second.
History is a libinal investment. We usually refer to art and
literature as forms of sexual displacement. Why not historical
writing? If a transexual can happily appropriate the mythologies of
ancient (and personal) past in order to transform herself into a
street-wise spectacle, why not historians? Here comes a genre of
revelation that stimulates the senses - a kind of magical knowledge
that allows you to reinvent yourself as an erotic attraction. History
would be sensual or would not be at all.
And
therefore - third - now it's time to write histories (and stories)
that treat the engagement with the past as a magical trick - to look
for these conjuring narrations that can transfrom our personal
archive intro a frantic game of reflections. After all, this is how
Queer Archive became a sucess. Here comes a heartbreaking collection
of archival material which is organized as a celebratory interplay of
memories and presentness. Let us construct more archives of this kind
-- archives that combine things that
are not meant to be
combined. Let's us engage in transsexual montage of time. Let us
write books that mingle science
fiction and homoerotic punk of the 1980s . Let us do this, not in
order to pinpoint ''structural similarities
and discontinuities '' - but mainly, in
order to make something joyful, interesting
and above all .. sexy ! We are not writing history of sexuality
simply to challenge established rules of truth – we do a sexuality
history mainly because we want to create
new forms of truth
- new possibilities of existence - and new ways of being in time. ''
The
room
sighed indulgently, a lecturer applauded and Lanser replied with
amenity '' Do it! Take the 'sexuality of history' and do whatever you
like with it '' The intervention worked! I left the room in a
uplifiting mood and ran to get a bottle of wine to celebrate the
upcoming weekend in London. Alas, at the cashier of the supermarket I
realized that my bank account was empty - 0 pounds. When
walking back home, however, it was of a wave of euphoria – and not shame
– that
hit me : firstly, because picking up some change from my pockets, I
managed to gather money for two beer, and secondly because, I figured
out one more manifesto.
So
the
bottom line is: The new erotic oppression -- the new stigma - the new
war against subjectivity is poverty. Paola's passionate relationship
with history is not solely defined by the photographic memories of
boys. The sexuality of the present is inextricable from the
humiliation that is brought about by poverty – the horror of social
abandonment - the sense of vertigo that permeates a dead sexual
market, an empty wallet and a ravaged city. Paola (as any other
transexual) lives in the edges of survival. The mix of shame and
elation that hits you at the supermarket (or on the sidewalk or on
facebook-timeline) sets in motion new modes of historical
self-consciousness – new technologies of pleasure (in the face fear) –
news way of subverting the hedonism of time – and finally, new
ways of transexualizing history. A 'Party in the
transxueal Archive' signals the ability to overcome (and transcend)
shame. It is the art of being courageous, honest and resourceful when
you confront the vulgarity of historical time – or esle: it heralds
the ability to 'make love' with history –to eroticize misery – to fight
against defeat.
And
just like that, walking in my neighborhood I felt like I was posturing for a transexual photographer– alongside prostitutes and
dealers-- unemployed women and idle men -- asylym seekers and
homeless drunks – blacks and whites -- egyptians and chinese –
gay and straight. I felt that we do not simply reside in the same geographical area: we
also live and dance in the same transexual ' archive'
even though
some of us consider this cohabitation as temporary – hmm, let me
laugh....
