In Conversation: Elizabeth Waterman Part 2
It’s fun that we have movies like Hustler and that we have celebs like Cardi B and Amber Rose and that is all great because it creates awareness and celebration of strippers, but you have to remember to give credit where credit is due.
Elizabeth Waterman (c) Reflection in mirror, 2017.
A dancer does her makeup for the night at a nude club in Long Island City, Queens.
After years of photographing backstage and behind the scenes, portrait photographer Elizabeth Waterman has thousands of images accumulating for her Dark Angels project. I wanted to know, how has Dark Angels evolved from its conception?
“A couple years into the project I started photographing the strippers in their homes. I focused on that for 6 or 8 months and that was an eye-opener and really interesting,” Elizabeth tells me. “As a portrait photographer, I feel like when you are comfortable and you have a rapport, that's when you have moments where you get a great photo. As much as it’s about them feeling comfortable, it is also about getting me comfortable being there. Sometimes I am the uncomfortable one!"
Elizabeth’s shift to shooting their personal spaces allowed her to open up communication; sharing with them, talking with them, seeing their homes and even becoming friends with the girls.
“It is these moments where you get more interesting pictures. All of my photoshoots are about building relationships to get the picture. You don’t just take a picture of someone, at least that’s not how I take pictures,” she confesses.
Given the length and complexity of the project, it’s safe to assume there were surprises along the journey. For Elizabeth, the biggest shock was discovering the common creative threads that were so closely intertwined amongst those who crossed her path. “I really had no idea that so many strippers are different kinds of creatives,” she exclaims and continues. “There was a girl, Charlie is the Bronx, she was also an actress; Mona Marie, who danced for Snoop Dog’s videos; Danielle was a script writer. There was a dancer in Long Island City who was supporting herself while being in a pretty successful band. There was a wide range of creatives; burlesque dancers at Jumbo’s the infamous LA strip club, and many of the Miami girls were influencers producing creative content for themselves as a brand.” Elizabeth was pleasantly surprised by this as she is drawn to shooting artists and wound up photographing more of them without realizing it at first. “A lot of them really do enjoy their job. A lot of them are there because they like to party and they have fun; that is their lifestyle and they are into it. I didn't expect that and it is really cool,” she shares.
Spending so much time around sexual entertainers must be educational on a few different levels. I wanted to know, did she herself learn any seduction techniques to take home to her own bedroom (or wherever she likes to have sex)? “Yes. Fucking totally. Are you kidding me!?” We have a laugh and she continues, “One of the reasons I got into this project was because I wanted to get more in touch with my own sexuality. I am drawn to how expressed they are sexually. I wanted to be more like that.”
So what was the biggest takeaway? “One thing you learn is that you have to have fun. The girls have fun; they are providing entertainment. There is a dancer called Jalapeno and she would hold a beer bottle between her ass cheeks and have guys try to throw stuff in it. Other girls would do handstands and land with their crotches onto people's faces. You realize, stop taking yourself so seriously and have fun with it! I laugh more now when having sex than I ever have. Laugh and have fun. It’s just sex,” says Elizabeth.
Elizabeth also really discovered the power of flirting and femininity. She tells me, “Your feminine power is like a fucking rocket and it’s your birthright. You’ve got it forever; it’s yours and you can use it or not and it can be fun to use. There is no harm in that.”
Some of you are experienced veterans when it comes to a night out at a strip club. For those of you who think you know, and those looking to discover the scene, Elizabeth breaks down strip club etiquette.
Rule No. 1: “Ultimately the main thing is to tip; you need to factor in bringing money to tip the girls. If you want to go and you don’t want to spend a lot of money, and you want to sit and watch the girls on stage, you still need to bring money to tip them on stage,” she says very seriously. “In your brain when you’re going to the strip club you need to add on at least $50-100 dollars in tip money as part of the cost of the experience,” she breaks it down bluntly. The takeaway? Bring that cash money. “It’s fine if you want to tip the girls on stage and be more modest, but you need to tip. If you want to do lap dances and you want to get into a VIP you need to tip more significantly and you need to think about it as part of going out for the night.”
Rule No. 2: “Respect the girls; everyone, be it a stripper or not, wants respect. They don’t want you to touch them when you are not supposed to. They want you to listen to the rules and enjoy yourself and have fun,” she says and then adds, “Ask permission when you are getting a lap dance, ‘can I touch your boobs, can I touch your butt?’ Every club has different rules, every state has different rules. They’ll fucking tell you.” Remember party people, you’re buying a service, you are buying sexual entertainment. They are there to serve. According to Elizabeth, “Ask for their opinion! It’s okay to ask, ‘what should I do, what do you recommend? Which dance tricks are you really good at?’” Bottom line, they are experts so treat them as such. Let them be the sexual entertainers that they are!
Elizabeth Waterman (c) In your face, 2017.
An experienced Bronx dancer gives a club goer the dance of a lifetime.
What is Elizabeth’s ultimate goal in creating the Dark Angels project? “I personally got such a kick out of when the girls saw the images of themselves from the week before. The girls were blown away by how beautiful and amazing they looked. It changed their perception of themselves. Any good portrait should do that; any good portrait should show that person in a beautiful way that leaves them with a different experience of who they are,” says Elizabeth.
“I’ve had dancers say, ‘wow you’ve really captured our world.’ If I can have dancers look at this book and feel more beautiful, more recognized and more elevated, that would thrill me. I feel like I’m indebted to the dancers more than anything else and I would want them to have that experience,” she says proudly.
If this work can contribute even a subtle shift in other people’s perceptions of strippers, Elizabeth will be pleased with her contribution to the shift in the cultural understanding of something. “There are movies that shift the way people see strippers. There are also articles and there is a shift happening to the perspective and I want to contribute to that,” she says. Her goal is to have people be accepting and respecting strippers, while dismantling negative stereotypes. The hope for Elizabeth is that her work will allow people to come to further appreciate strippers and put a higher value on female sexuality in general.
For Elizabeth, this work is centered around creating more value around feminine sexuality instead of deteriorating it. “This is a beautiful thing, this is an asset, this is monetizable, this is valuable; don’t fuck with it,” she says with confidence.
Elizabeth started out wanting to capture something special. She wanted to see this world of strippers and learn to be more sexually self-expressed. She tells me, “I wanted a new adventure. I was so curious and I wanted the thrill of being out late at night and I wanted to push myself. In another life I would be a stripper. I think that world is so cool and I saw some part of myself in it that I had to go explore.” We are so grateful that she did as the images are beautiful, thoughtful, fun and sexy. They are sexual without sexualizing, they are glossy while still being raw.
The work is targeted toward people who like art, and each image stands alone on its artistic merit. Anyone who wants to celebrate women’s sexuality and nightlife will be drawn in by this body of work.
In general, but also especially because of the Covid-19 pandemic, there is a lot of movement right now to get workers’ rights for strippers. “Historically strippers have been discriminated against by the clubs in terms of their employment status, and oftentimes there are celebrities that will capitalize on strip club culture but not really credit the strippers or kick back to the strippers,” Elizabeth recounts. “It’s fun that we have movies like Hustler and that we have celebs like Cardi B and Amber Rose and that is all great because it creates awareness and celebration of strippers, but you have to remember to give credit where credit is due.”
The fact is that actual strippers need some help in terms of getting status as employees rather than contractors. “There is stupid shit that goes down, like with Covid the federal loans for small businesses excluded sex workers. It excluded business that present live performances of a prurient sexual nature, like what the fuck is that!?” she exclaims.
“It is not okay for us as a culture to think strippers are cool and great and say we want to be like Cardi B and watch J Lo dance in the movies and listen to Lil Jon rap songs about ‘dancing like a stripper’, but the actual strippers need to be taken care of as well,” Elizabeth is as passionate about workers’ rights as she is about her art. “There are some organizations out there that are doing great work to change laws and provide support for strippers during the shut down.”
Check out and support organizations like Soldiers of Pole. It is run by two women Elizabeth knows personally and a trusted source for creating change and doing work on the ground.
Elizabeth Waterman (c) Laughing, 2018.
A dancer laughs in the VIP section of a Las Vegas gentlemen's club.
How are celebs stepping up? “FKA Twigs, a British pop artist was getting a lot of flack for using the stripper culture in her music videos and she responded well and put together a fundraiser on her Instagram to benefit British strippers and that is really great. It’s important to champion that kind of activity where influencers are helping the communities that they are capitalizing on. That should be celebrated and given more attention,” says Elizabeth.
In the post-Covid world, how have things changed in the industry? Elizabeth was just in Vegas and popped into Sapphire, one of the largest strip clubs in the world. They have been able to reopen by doing daytime pool parties. “They were offering cabana services and opening up to a limited degree,” she tells me. “Normally, on a busy night there could be 400 girls working there and there are definitely not 400 girls there now! Maybe 20 or 30 in the pool area. I talked to one girl who works as a stripper and does porn, so she has shifted strictly to porn for now.”
So how does the business side actually work? “In a majority of clubs these girls are contractors and their money is made when a client is there,” Elizabeth explains. “They are there to provide a service in exchange for money, however they often pay a fee to work at the club to cover management costs; they start the night in a deficit.”
If you are mediocre how do you fare? “You’re still going to be making more than minimum wage. If you want to make a career out of it and you’re good at sales and you are strategic, you can do quite well, you can do 6 figures absolutely,” says Elizabeth, “But that's not easy to do. You don't just walk in and make 6 figures.”
After all, this is a business and like all business, hard work and determination are key!
Have fun, play hard and remember, things will be opening up again soon and we want you to be prepared.
Elizabeth’s 6 favorite places to visit as soon as the doors open:
New York
Long Island City, right across the bridge from Manhattan, is one of the classiest clubs around (think chandeliers). It’s all-nude and open till 6 am. It’s going full-blast between 2 and 4 am, when the other clubs are winding down. No booze, but hey, if you want to stay up late enough, they’ll serve you breakfast (they have a full kitchen!).
Los Angeles
You simply must go! It features some of the city’s most accomplished burlesque dancers and contortionists.
On LaBrea, the steamy performances there are on the wild side; the girls even hang from the ceiling! You’ll also see quite a few two-dancer tag-team shows. There’s nothing else like it in LA.
Miami
The stunning, fully naked dancers will leave you more than a little breathless. Many are practically celebrities - some have millions of followers on Instagram. I’ve never seen so many $200 manicures in one place!
New Orleans
Located on Bourbon Street, this place is a kick with its refreshingly wide variety of dancers and performance styles. And yeah, a really, really tall pole. So you can throw dollars from the second story. Who doesn’t want to do that?
Las Vegas
The biggest club in the world. On some nights you’ll witness hundreds of dancers. And if you’re rolling in cash, get a Skybox and you can see the whole club scene from above, (with a sexy lady on your lap!). Nothing else compares.
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Features photograph from Elizabeth Waterman Dark Angels project on strippers.
In Conversation: Maitree Muzumdar Part 2
What now for the sexually-liberated artist? Maitree and I talk about life after making nude poetry music videos with The KitKatClub founder, Simon Thaur, in Berlin.
Photo by: Boris Eldagsen (c) BOOTBLACK Maitree Muzumdar
What now for the sexually-liberated artist? Maitree and I talk about life after making nude poetry music videos with The KitKatClub founder, Simon Thaur, in Berlin (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read last week’s post HERE).
Maitree’s focus is on BOOTBLACK, a compilation of the first and only feminist digital sexual archive in India. It is a self-documentation of and by real people exploring their kinks, fetishes, and sexuality. To sum it up, Maitree tells me BOOTBLACK is, “A playart of pleasure, rich with the concepts of consent, pleasure, and clear communication, that is constantly updated as the ideologies progress. The idea is to break the taboo associated with topics of sexuality and nudity, which is a direct effect of the patriarchal system.”
For Maitree, the archive disrupts the references so commonly available and gives opportunity to access fresh, new-age sexual references that are more in sync with how society could be as opposed to how it is supposed to be. It gives as much liberty and freedom one desires in exploring with multiple forms of relationships, touch and explorations with the mind and body.
Her efforts are about shifting the conversations around sex away from fear and morality and traditional social obligations. “Had I been born in any other conservative family, I might have been lynched by now,” she confesses.
As an artist in the alternative domain, she feels the need to detach from familial obligations. There is a delicate balance of keeping her family in the loop regarding her work, while still maintaining a sense of detachment; her family understands that as being necessary for her to explore. “Thankfully, I am privileged to have a family that remains open to conversations and is supportive. They try to understand and evolve and I keep reminding them that the best form of evolution for any Indian family is the one that is guided by the women in the family,” she shares with me.
Being raised in a conservative land, Maitree felt like clothing and colour schemes were another tool used to shame. “As a dark-skinned girl, I was once asked by elites donned in fairer pastel colour schemes why I wore white clothes with my skin colour. Wasn’t I scared of leaving my dirty colour on it?” She recounts the life lesson and then continued, “That was the day I understood how even colour schemes have so cleverly been manipulated. The elite Indians are still obsessed with fairer colour palettes and often it seeps from the ingrained ideas of wanting to be as far away from dirt as possible. In a way, associating fairer colour palettes with traditional norms of beauty and purity. With the ‘innocence of a virgin girl’ or ‘distance from the labour class’.” Now she sees the naked body as a canvas and clothing as a possible form of expression of personal politics.
“Even within the kink community, if the kinkster is not heavily aware and well-versed, there is the possibility of clever manipulation,” according to Maitree. For her, the result of such manipulation is that instead of using BDSM aspects to disrupt the power dynamics in the real patriarchal world, we end up enforcing the patriarchal pyramid structures inside the BDSM world. She tells me, “For instance, ideally, the dominant is the dominant because of the innate ability to guide and direct. Dominants prefer being teachers and submissives prefer being learners. When the submissive feels confident enough, the submissive also starts practicing dominance.”
We look at a dominatrix in porn content, as an example. “Often, the dominatrix will be seen as having typically manly behavioral patterns associated with dominating males, and is also adorned to please the submissive male or the male viewer. The dominatrix here is not the real dominant. One might say, look, the submissive man is submitting to her! As true as it may seem to the layman, the dominatrix might be physically topping, but in this particular scenario, she is not the dominant. The male viewer is!” She breaks it down thoughtfully.
Maitree continues, “Traditionally, a woman’s weakness lies in the fact that she can give birth. If today, Elon Musk manages to create a technology whereby men can be carriers of babies, we’ll celebrate him, seeing ourselves as above and beyond nature. When nature bestows women with unique abilities, we choose to see it as a weakness. Even the maternal idea of taking care of a child is not a weakness, it is the patriarchal parenting system that is the real weakness of the system! We are in no way superior than nature. Our knowledge is a function of the intelligence of the ecosystem we are a part of! Nature has not been unjust to humans. Nature just did its function. We humans have conjured the very idea of ‘motive’ in nature. The unique differences in each one of us should be cherished!”
Maitree is particularly interested in topping from the bottom, “I was surprised to see there is not much research on this topic. Even in the BDSM community, topping from the bottom is seen as a grey area where the dominant or submissive is not able to choose where they belong at that moment. But that’s in Berlin; in a third world country like India, it can be interestingly applied.” The recent anti-secular amendments in the citizenship act has led to widespread protests across the country. Muslim women have been at the forefront of these protests. In Maitree’s opinion, “Men would have created war. When a woman from a conservative family protests, she is topping from the bottom.”
So how is it for Maitree to be back in India? She sees her Berlin journey as her secret weapon.
For Maitree, directness removes the shock value. This is why her work building the BOOTBLACK archive is integral to achieve change. It is her understanding that, “Young and old people being able to see a plethora of versions of what is acceptable is what will build the foundation for a more inclusive, loving, intersectional society. Removing the shame around bodies and sex is fundamental to shifting the culture.”
The big issue that holds her back is a legal one. Pornography and content with nudity remains in the grey zone in India because of its censorship laws and the political regime. This makes it both difficult to get submissions and host the platform online. Then there are rigid familial values and morality regimes. “Our gods also become a party to the scene,” she adds.
Finally, funding… finding funders for a topic as controversial as this is not easy. Especially since she desires to not just restrict BOOTBLACK to the digital medium. With her background in law and her passion for a more open society, Maitree is working with lawyers in India and abroad to find the best platform to launch the project and work within the system to change it (feel free to chime in with ideas, sexy people).
Beyond the sexual archive, Maitree is exploring how to translate body positivity, choice, consent and fundamental rights into early childhood education. It’s tough because a digital platform in India is still elitist and not accessible for many. She is working on the right format through a more feasible option like new age bedtime stories, nursery rhymes and games.
What can we expect to see from her once the power-structures-that-be loosen their grip on the throat that is India’s sexual suppression? “Porn that is not classist, sexist, and that doesn’t look down on aspects of vulnerability. Porn needs to be made by an oppressed group; by the labour class and by the degenerates. I would love to direct porn someday!” Maitree is also interested in the psychological and spiritual aspects from a non-binary point of view. She looks at kink as a form of 'emotional release' from gendered expectations. “It's a great starting point for many mental and sexual health conversations!” she tells me, with the kind of love in her voice that is needed to get a project like this off the ground.
For Maitree there is more merit in mainstream operating. Growing slowly rather than trying to make it big, and creating something that lasts and is constantly updated, rather than just another fad.
Now that we’ve gone deep into the feminism and patriarchy themes surrounding this arena, let’s get back to the juicy BDSM goodness. I’m sure more than a handful of you reading this are thinking... How can I let my kinky side out? So I asked, for those of us with the good fortune to live in places where it’s accessible, what’s the best way to get involved in the kink BDSM scene?
According to this rising star, “Look for people operating on their own identities. Understand their principles and make sure you understand the nature of the experimental zone. It is based on trial and error. They will take time to trust you because they have already reached where they are after putting in a lot of blood and sweat. Consent and communication is very important. Do not look down on personalities playing in aliases. They are in the same mode, just using a different approach. We all are pushing in different ways and the beauty lies in the fact that the methods are different but the agenda is the same”. Simple, right?
For Maitree, the best research comes from experience and communication. For those of you who would like to start with some light reading before getting your leather on, her advice is to stay away from the classics and go for something more current, and ideally engage in practicals whenever possible. The underground level is heavy on experimental and needs a lot of trust to enter. There are kinksters who like it for its taboo nature and then there are the kinksters looking to make it more mainstream. Whatever be your approach, play it safe and consensually and with a lot of constant communication and kindness.
Maitree’s current reading list:
Xenofeminism : A Politics of Alienation by Laboria Cuboniks
A Cyborg Manifesto by Donna Haraway
Other cyberfeminist artists, writers, and works to check out include: Radhika Gajjala, Mary Maggic, VNS Matrix, The Old Boys Network.
The biggest takeaway... Google isn’t helpful in this instance (it’s okay, Millennials, there are just some things in life that are better left to the real world). Happy hunting, kinksters.
In Conversation: Maitree Muzumdar Part 1
After saving enough money on her indie artist salary, she headed to Germany for 18 days to dive head-first into the land of hedonism and all things BDSM and kink. What she found surprised, delighted, and very much turned her on.
Photo by: Boris Eldagsen (c) BOOTBLACK Maitree Muzumdar
From law to film, Ahmedabad to Goa, Maitree Muzumdar has her work cut out for her when it comes to shifting India’s traditional cultural norms accepting and embracing sexual politics in all its many forms. It’s a challenge she has accepted, and isn’t backing down.
While most of you spent Sunday morning making pancakes and poaching eggs, I had the immense pleasure of spending the morning in conversation with the feminist Indian artist about her work in the BDSM and hedonist world of Berlin.
Maitree’s more ‘mainstream’ work focuses on counter culture and bringing awareness to the systems in place that keep us complacent. In these times of pandemic, her Instagram profile is populated with cyberfeminist short videos that are a part of her digital series ‘UNMUTE’. The UNMUTE videos are made using open source, freely available graphics, photos and images, which Instagram and WhatsApp tactfully provide as a means to communicate, while also ensuring distance from any controversial or protest-friendly visuals. The idea behind UNMUTE is to surpass the censorship laws and use their own content to create protest-friendly socio-political material through a process she refers to as ‘digital manipulation’. As Maitree puts it, “India has been pushing for digitization even more furiously because of the lockdown. We must not forget the class-dividing material realities that under-ride a digital world. And to not mention, digitization today gives the right immense digital advantage to control and release information based on what suits their motives better.”
Her foray into the world of BDSM began innocently enough when houseguests from Germany introduced her to their work in fetish leather crafts. From there it’s a BDSM fairytale so-to-speak.
Maitree was connected with Simon Thaur and Kirsten Krüger of the infamous KitKatClub in Berlin and multiple other experienced and highly knowledgeable kink explorers. After saving enough money on her indie artist salary, she headed to Germany for 18 days to dive head-first into the land of hedonism and all things BDSM and kink. What she found surprised, delighted, and very much turned her on.
“As a third world country, India is still struggling with several hurdles because of its ingrained centuries-old class system. I see feminism as a subset of the class struggle, because we, the women, are the labour class too! In such a system, a woman putting her sexuality in the public domain becomes a political statement,” she tells me during our Sunday morning call.
“India is called the land of the Kamasutra and we keep citing it as the code of conduct on sexuality. What is it really? A text by upper-class elite men who were privileged to learn Sanskrit. It fits in the power dynamics of the Bhramanical patriarchy. A Shudra woman would have written differently. I was more interested in a new-age Indian archival on sexuality that had been created with awareness, keeping the ideas of consent, pleasure and feminist class struggle in mind. A documentation of individuals and communities exploring sexuality further and further in India. Constantly updating and constantly evolving. So I started working on BOOTBLACK, an archival of sexual journeys of forward-thinking people. I wanted to blend these newer, updated references on sexuality with the older references, slowly normalizing these.”
Maitree had not gone to Berlin with the intention of being on camera. However, to kickstart BOOTBLACK, it was important to her for an Indian body to be exploring the Berlin scene. With no other Indian with whom she was connected around in Berlin at that time, she felt that being in the film herself was the simplest solution. Or rather the toughest. “I wish I had documented more of my kink journey, but there was so much information to consume that several times I just went with the flow, deciding that I would come back again to document. That second trip remains pending still.”
Usually behind the camera, Maitree found herself on camera in two of Simon‘s music videos as well. “He creates what feels like genderless nude poetry,” she explains. In her Berlin explorations, several talented artists ever so kindly agreed support her - “like Boris Eldagsen with his camera and light work expertise, Tamandua for Kinbaku, CoCoKatsura for feminist discourses, Espectra Negra for introducing me to industrial sound and the punk scene, Luhmen D’Arc for much sexual explorations through intimacy with multiple bodies, and countless other artists, kinksters, theorists, prostitutes and comrades who influenced me.”
Performing under her own name without the creation of an alternative experimental alias allowed Maitree to claim and empower her own identity, while stripping away the compulsive identities that had been imposed onto hers. “Being naked in front of the camera made me feel powerful, not shameful. It really hits you - each aspect of conditioning that has gone into creating the identity you so proudly assume.”
All the while Maitree was confronted with the question, “Why the particular interest in alternative cultures?” From a young age women are told that their body and all its natural functions are against them. The ideas of consent, pleasure and communication remain in the dark. Sex tapes in India are used to manipulate and humiliate women and families. Virginity of a woman is associated with purity. Gender-based violence, marital rape, online harassment, child abuse and forced child marriage are some of the many other brutal realities in India. Bringing in aspects of religion, morality and familial pressure ensure strict creation of the woman the patriarchal society desires. Of men, for men, by men. The birth of a woman, de facto, is a glitch in the system! The subculture prides in being the glitch. Which is why I connected with it ever so smoothly and have been deeply interested in exploring further in this domain.”
In BOOTBLACK, Maitree explores several issues, “How can one create a panic situation in traditional hierarchical power pyramid structure? Can the aspects of dominance and submission in the BDSM world be used as a clever lens to understand power dynamics and create a disruption? Can topping from the bottom be a useful tactic? Can the theory of how dominance should be versus how dominance is supposed to be rethought? If one masters the kink of humiliation, can the patriarchal idea of punishment ever remain a punishment if they are actually getting pleasure out of it?”
“Exposure, or lack thereof, is what holds people back. Some of the films Simon is heavily infamous for are scat porn, where fecal waste is seen as a form of pleasure. From the outsider’s perspective it feels gross, dirty and disgusting. From the insider’s perspective, it is a revolutionary political statement. Who plays in garbage? The degenerate class. By playing in shit, your perspective changes. You question all the privileges you are born with. You become the degenerate. Especially as a woman, playing in dirt, disgust and gross aspects also keeps ‘em misogynists away. They want nothing to do with degenerates like me. It's a great filter system!”
In Berlin, Maitree was equally, if not more, interested in the philosophical and psychological aspects of bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism. She especially thrived when playing in the more feared and subversive fetishes. All these practices used to be a mode and tool to oppress at some time - like Kinbaku (rope tying), whipping, spanking, chains, golden shower, scat, etc. The alternative culture has managed to completely flip the power dynamics by introducing them as kinks, and by mandating consent, communication and pleasure. BDSM is not just a play of the bodies, but also the mind. Each form of play is constantly challenging the traditional norms of gender, class and power dynamics.
I had to ask, “Why not stay in Berlin?”
Maitree knows that even though she has found her community there in Berlin, staying wouldn’t allow her to bring the much-needed change back to India. The oppressed class in India is, in whatever means possible, pushing for a feminist revolution; in homes, on the streets, in relationships, at workplaces, in communities. “I have to do my part, here!” she declares.
And then we had to go there... this world, our world; it is defined through the man’s gaze. The real question for Maitree: “How do I find out what a woman's gaze is?”
She tells me, “All the books I have devoured, films I have watched, art that I have been influenced by, have been by men. So unfortunately, I believe even my gaze is still a male’s gaze based on the influences I had while growing up. But I’m more aware and conscious now. I feel that only when I can manage to strip away all the conditioning and look objectively at all the references I have had till now, can I find my gaze. It’s a long and continuous process. And a tough one. And often we slip and make mistakes, but each slip is just the stepping stone to reach the next level of awareness. Thankfully I work and live in a safe space in Goa with peers and friends who lovingly guide me. They have been a solid backbone for me.”
So you’re probably wondering like I was... given India’s closed attitude towards sexuality in general, what is the BDSM scene like there, or rather, is there even a scene there?
“In Berlin, kinksters are proud to openly proclaim themselves as kinksters; the same formula would not apply here. While I decided to blend kink into my work, I wouldn’t want to impose the same on the other individuals exploring here, because that means bringing in a form of colonization back from Berlin to India.” Says Maitree. She has managed to discover some amazing experimental people in Goa, Bangalore, Kolkata, Bombay, Delhi and Ahmedabad. She says that the form and process of kink play is different, but is moving fast. So what now? For Maitree, “The hunt is on to connect to kinksters in the other cities. I am especially interested in exploring the North Eastern states.”
We have faith the kinksters will come out to play where ever she goes.
Photo by: Boris Eldagsen (c) BOOTBLACK Maitree Muzumdar
