Daddy

by Madison Young

  Blake placed her black wool scarf around my neck and held me close, rubbing my arms and warming my body. “We’re almost there.” I smiled and we continued on our journey another two blocks. We arrived at Orphan Andy’s at Castro and Market and took a seat at one of the available booths.

  I fell in love with the Castro’s vibrancy and flamboyance when I was seventeen, after visiting San Francisco for a post-graduation getaway with my high school friends. A group of sheltered Ohio kids looking for something new, our entire vacation was spent getting kicked out of bars and people-watching at all-night diners. At this time I discovered there was a culture that I fit into and I started to really embrace my sexual deviancy.

  In Ohio, it was dangerous to be open about your sexuality and there were few places to safely meet other people who also had alternative sexual orientations. It seemed like it was impossible to meet someone and fall in love, but in the Castro I could sit at Orphan Andy’s and chow on fries and milkshakes while drooling over plenty of eye candy. I saw leather Daddies, armored in chaps and leather caps or vests, bears with rough exteriors and wooly faces, pretty boys who looked like Calvin Klein underwear models, butch lesbians, softball dykes, art school lesbians, and beautiful punk rockers decked in leg warmers, short skirts, fishnets, high heels, and pushed up breasts that I couldn’t stop noticing.

  I could gaze at them for hours, and I did. I sat and daydreamed about what our lives would be like when we moved to San Francisco. I imagined packed nightclubs, makeout sessions in dark corners, waking up entangled with our fictional lovers then having breakfast in bed with the sun shining into the bay windows of our Victorian apartments. I watched couples holding hands and kissing tenderly in public, and didn’t see any fear in their eyes. I felt like I could be safe here; I knew this city was my home.

  In late 2000, when I received an acceptance letter from Antioch College for a credited internship in San Francisco, I felt like I had just opened a formal invitation to join my new family at a fabulously gay dinner table. I had proposed to the liberal, anarchist-run university an ambitious set of goals for a twenty year old, as-of-yet-inexperienced community organizer and artist. I would embark on an internship, four semesters long, working to build the infrastructure for a feminist nonprofit art and performance space. I would learn marketing, event coordination, curatorial design of visual art, and how to staff a volunteer run organization. There were no teachers to guide me to success or failure. I would have to gain the experience on my own. Fundraising was perhaps the most challenging of my many tasks. As an artist and as woman, asking for money for a worthy project can be a challenge. I come from a line of women who worked hard for every penny that they earned. As the fourth semester of my internship was coming to an end, I was still struggling to find a way to build my own community space. I had carved out a space in the world for Femina Potens to exist and thrive, but we still lacked stable funding for our programs. I didn’t have all the answers, but I did know I would not be returning to college after my internship concluded. I couldn’t abandon Femina Potens in its infancy. It needed me and I needed it. I needed San Francisco. I was driven and impassioned by a desire to create space for a new family of punks and artists, queers, and allies. It all seemed possible while I was sitting in the diner, sipping on cherry sodas with Blake, reeking of sex and alcohol and come, decimating a steaming plate of fries.

  The gallery was littered with plastic cups holding remnants of cheap wine and empty bowls that once held guacamole, salsa, and hummus. A single fly landed on the chip bowl, considering its options of post-party leftovers.

  Hardware store clamp lights were strapped tightly to the exposed water pipes that ran across the ceiling of Femina Potens, providing the makeshift lighting for the exhibition space. Below, bold reds, traces of deep blue, and spirals of cold steel gray caught my eye on the illuminated canvases and abstract images hanging from the walls. On one thickly painted canvas, an aerial view from a thousand feet over Los Angeles’ maze-like loops revealed highways that tangled into one another, the bright colors beating down on the viewer with the intensity of the Southern California sun. The knots of pavement created a walled-in anxiety, a concrete bubble around those that live within this play land.

  An L.A.-based artist, Kathy Brady, was exhibiting her newest body of work at our gallery alongside the portrait photography of Ace Morgan. Ace was part of the “it” crowd in San Francisco. Artist by day and Lexington Club bartender by night, he lived in San Francisco with his wife who was an artist, professor and founder of the feminist independent record label Mr. Lady Records. The San Francisco-based record label had developed a reputation as the most influential label among the queercore movement with releases like Le Tigre’s Feminist Sweepstakes. The couple attracted a crowd of brilliant theorists, artists, and academics, as well as popular feminist riot grrrl and punk-rock legends.

  This evening was no different. Wynne Greenwood of Tracy + the Plastics and JD Samson of Le Tigre stood in the corner of the gallery with Tammy Rae Carland drinking Two-Buck Chuck, laughing, and listening to Ace comment on his portrait series, “Boys of the Lex.” Larger-than-life photographs of transgender men looked down at the audience, their bodies maps of scars, piercings, branding, and tattoos; physical manifestations of their journeys altering and shifting their bodies to better match their internal identities.

  Kathy’s young daughter, who was about four years old, was running around the gallery while Kathy and her girlfriend trailed after her. The young girl’s blonde curls bounced up and down as she raced around, landing in front of one of Ace’s images of a man on a San Francisco rooftop burying his face in a colorful frosted birthday cake.

  The little girl pointed up at the photograph, “I like this, Mama.”

  Kathy took Parker’s hand and put it down at her side, swaying back and forth with her daughter in a rocking motion meant to calm the excitable child. “Don’t touch, sweetie. I like this one too. Why do you like it?” she asked, smiling, as her daughter squinted hard at the photograph.

  “That boy is messy. He’s got cake face, Mama!” Parker looked up at Kathy, a bit of confusion in her features, as she pondered how this boy could make such a mess all over his face. Earlier that evening her mother had been chasing after her with a damp handkerchief. Hummus and avocado remnants still clung to her tangles.

  “I’d be shy with cake face, Mommy.” Parker smiled “He’s not shy.” She didn’t fully understand why this boy lacked embarrassment with his overt defiance in following the social precepts of cleanliness, but Parker beamed a little as she stared at the picture. “Yeah. I like it. Is there cake, Mama?”

  “Does that photograph make you hungry, Parker?” Her mother laughed and kissed her on the forehead. “Let’s go look.”

  Kathleen Hanna took a swig from a bottle of Red Stripe and turned to the little girl. “Psst…I think I saw a couple of cupcakes next to the chips. You wanna go check it out?” Parker ran to the table excitedly and Kathleen handed her a cupcake, grabbing another for herself.

  “Okay, ready? On the count of three.” Kathleen and Parker stood next to the table full of food, armed with pink frosted cupcakes and bubbling with laughter and delight. They counted off together, “One...two...three!” then smashed their faces into the pink cupcakes, soft cake crumbles falling everywhere and icing sticking to their cheeks.

  “That was good, huh?” Kathleen took a napkin from the table and began to wipe off the little girl’s face.

  “Yeah! Like the picture!” Parker licked her lips, trying to get every trace of sugar with her tongue.

  The party was dying down. Guests started to thin out, heading on to late night dinners or the after-party at the Lexington Club. I had larger problems to solve than which late-night party I planned to attend. The rent for Femina Potens was due in a week. I had seven days to come up with $750 if I was going to keep the doors of the gallery open. Although over a hundred people had circul
ated through the gallery that evening, not one piece of art sold. Our gallery was flooded with hipsters, queers, students, and artists who were all impacted by the unemployment crisis and San Francisco’s exorbitant prices. It made living as an artist nearly impossible. I had to find a way to get the gallery funded, and quickly.

  The gallery was beautiful and at night, once everyone had left. The walls echoed with voices, radiating with a warmth and energy. I felt like I was finally carving out a nook in the world where artists of my own tribe could gather and display outward, unapologetic reflections of their lives. Though there were many places for queers and feminists to indulge in inebriated hook-ups at bars and eighties club nights, Femina Potens provided the only all-ages art gallery and performance space where our lives, our politics, our art, and our identities could be discussed openly. This was a place where on-lookers could see something of themselves, an empathic connection through experiencing our differences.

  I sat down at my desk, located in the back corner of the gallery. I had rescued a beaten-up office chair from the dumpster across the street and scavenged a small wooden desk from the sidewalk. Blake received a new computer from her father for her birthday and generously gifted me with her old one; it was slow but it worked. On the wall next to my desk, taped up with black duct tape, was a neon green paper that read:

  Goals

  Build a space for queer family to gather

  Actively seek mentor (Daddy? Leader in the community?)

  Fund Gathering space

  Document (Don’t want to get lost now, do we?)

  I chewed on my nails, my mind buzzing, trying to find a solution to ever-growing financial obligations. I opened Craigslist to scour through listings for odd jobs and temp work.

  Scrolling down the page I was looking for anything I might be qualified for. With an unfinished theater degree and minimal work experience on my résumé, I had a difficult time standing a chance at any positions other than those waiting tables or working at nonprofit organizations that offered substandard living wages. Besides, I needed a job with a flexible enough schedule that I could keep regular gallery hours and be available for evening events and openings.

  Then I spotted Craigslist Erotic. The link directed me to lists of job postings, everything from posts asking for someone to come over and provide them with a golden shower to asking for the full-on GFE (Girlfriend Experience). Though I found these requests fascinating, I wasn’t really interested in fulfilling them on an up close and personal level.

  After scrolling through a few pages I found a posting that sounded interesting, “Local Kink Porn Company Now Hiring Models”:

  We will do all we can to make your modeling experience as enjoyable as possible. We want to find models who enjoy the activities our sites portray. You can expect us to be respectful and to work strictly within your limits. For any kind of bondage activity you will have a safe word. Word travels fast in the Internet age. If we were to abuse your trust in us, we would quickly find fresh models hard to find.

  It listed the sites it was casting for:

  Whipped Ass: Domination by a dominatrix. Model Rate: $700

  Hogtied: Tight rope Bondage, Male Dominant, gags, hoods, vaginal dildo and finger penetration, flogging, forced orgasms with vibrators. Model Rate: $800

  Water Bondage: Tight rope bondage, gags, floggers, breath play and water submersion. Model Rate: $800

  Please inquire for an interview by emailing our talent director, Mackie.

  I had already modeled for Blake and some of her friends doing pin-up and nude modeling and found it exhilarating. I loved interacting with the camera, collaborating with other artists and further documenting my blooming sexual identity. These were freedoms that, growing up in the heartland, I just didn’t have.

  The sound of the door opening startled me out of an intense state of concentration. Blake appeared, wearing her bike helmet and rolling her single-speed bike into the gallery.

  “Knock, knock. How did the opening go? These paintings are hot. Nice job, T.” Blake’s eyes were wide and approving. She nodded her head, circling the gallery with her bike.

  “Huh? Oh yeah, the exhibit. It’s great isn’t it?” I was still staring, dazed, at the computer, considering whether I should apply for the modeling position at KINK. I considered my choices; performing in front of the camera in BDSM pornography really didn’t seem so different from posing nude or in lingerie for Blake. In fact, some of the imagery on their site reminded me of some of my favorite performance artists. Jenni Lee may have been pulling a butt plug from her anus instead of a yam, but like the performance artist Karen Finely, she used her body as material to say something to the world. I knew I had something to say. Anyway, did it really make a difference if I was being spanked and fucked by a beautiful woman in front of the camera if I was doing the same thing when I went on a date? Won’t I be playing a key role in the documentation of a woman’s sexual pleasure? I had just read feminist sexologist and former sex worker Carol Queen’s Real Live Nude Girl: Chronicles of a Sex-Positive Culture and the concepts behind sex positive feminism in relation to sex work were fresh in my curious young psyche. Besides, packing my bags and heading back to Ohio wasn’t even a consideration. I would rather live on the streets, or on Blake’s couch. Closing down the gallery wasn’t an option, either. It was just starting to gain momentum and recognition. If I had to close the gallery doors, I would have felt like I had failed my community and family for squandering the loan they gave me on an unsuccessful dream.

  “What’s up with you, T? Why don’t you put your work down for a minute and relax? You pulled it off! Femina Potens is open and alive. I heard Kathleen Hanna stopped by.”

  “Yeah. Where did you hear that?”

  “I stopped by the Lex on the way here. Everyone was talking about the new gallery space. You’re on the map, baby! And it’s only been, what? Four months?”

  “Three months,” I corrected her, my voice expressionless, my mind preoccupied.

  “Three months, that’s amazing!” Blake pulled two beers out of her messenger bag, twisted the cap off of one and handed it to me. “Relax and have a drink.”

  I got out of my chair and took a big gulp. Blake collapsed into the office chair and patted her thighs. “Come have a seat on Daddy Blake’s lap and tell me all about it.”

  I curled up in Blake’s lap, nursing my beer and peeling nervously at its label, my shoulders tense and high. I was a young girl in Daddy’s lap looking for answers. I wished I could pull my head back into my shell to wait until the world made sense again.

  Blake looked at the model application and casting call open on my desktop. “Are you thinking about doing porn, Tina?”

  “Yeah…maybe. I’ve gotta figure out how I’m going to pay rent on the gallery. I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “I think you should do it! Sex work is probably responsible for funding more marginalized artists than the National Endowment for the Arts. If you ask me, they should offer a class in art school called Baristas or Brothels: How to fund Art on the Fringe. I know the woman who works in the talent office, in casting. She comes into the Lex all the time. I could give her a call for you.”

  I lifted my head in surprise, I felt like I had just received a surprise treat. “Really? Wow! Okay, yeah. Yeah! I could do this, right? We have kinky sex, it couldn’t be that different, right?”

  “It’s different. But I think you can handle it, T. You’re a pretty tough chick.”

  I liked the thought of being a tough chick. Invincible. Blake’s fingers, meanwhile, were making their way under my dress and into my panties.

  I surfed through the free section of hogtied.com, looking at beautiful curvy women with names like Sasha Monet and Jewelle Marceau. What will my name be? A literary reference perhaps? Zooey Salinger or Sylvia Bell?

  Blake slapped her hand down on my thigh, hard, and I exhaled
with enjoyment as the heat washed over my body. My ass still in her lap, I began to undulate my hips, pressing closer to her as her hand came down on my other thigh. Again, I inhaled and exhaled in an erotic moan on impact. Wetness was dripping down her hand.

  “Can we go back to your place?” Blake breathlessly moaned in my ear, in a heightened state of arousal. “Marie has a date tonight and asked to bring them back to the house, so I could use a place to crash.” Marie was Blake’s wife. They had been dating since college and had been married for two years. Their communication with each other was incredible and was something I really admired about Blake. I had to run through my date book myself to be assured that no other lovers would be at my doorstep when I got home. It appeared I was available, and so was my bed.

  I snapped the browser closed and the pictures disappeared. They seemed far away, somehow not real. Big hair, big breasts, heavy makeup and curves. They looked like women—I was merely a girl. My small 5’2” frame, A-cup breasts, punk hair cut, and numerous piercings didn’t equate to the beauty that was on the kink site. But I am a tough chick, I thought.

  A few days later I walked into the KINK talent office. I expected an office interview with Mackie, Blake’s contact at the talent office, so I arrived makeup-free in moss green cargo pants, flip-flops, and a white A-frame tank top.

  I buzzed the intercom at the Howard Street location on a lively block in the SOMA district. The receptionist asked for my name, and I nervously responded to the intercom, worried maybe Mackie hadn’t put me on the calendar.

  “Tina Butcher. I’m here to see Mackie. I have an eleven a.m. appointment.”

  I entered the air-conditioned lobby and took the elevator up to the third floor office. Around thirty employees sat at cubicles in front of computer screens looking at kinky pornographic imagery. One woman was retouching photos of a woman who was bound and arched back like a seal, her wrists tied to her ankles and a long strand of drool collecting around a red ball gag. She reminded me of a stuffed pig served with a mouth full of apple. A woman with long, golden Rapunzel hair and a thick Australian accent quickly crossed the room holding an electric cattle prod. Her assistant, a young twentysomething wearing glasses and dressed in black, followed closely behind with a plastic container of dildos.