Welcome one and all (who are knowingly entering into this adult-themed conversation)! This is Fat Sex Week XXL, the second edition of QueerFatFemme.com Fat Sex Week where I explore many facets of fat sex. Named for Magic Mike XXL, which was even better than the first Magic Mike, I’m hoping this edition is louder and fatter than ever before! Check this tag for all of the posts!
Y’all I had such a great conversation with my friend Miss Sparklez today for Fat Sex Week XXL! It feels so good to chat with other Queer Femmes about sex and dating, I find it a really comforting feeling of sharing perspectives and being seen and understood. Sparklez is a brilliant, talented babe. A scholar, a DJ, a Soprano opera singer and a bottom. She’s an out trans woman, queer identified, into leather but not the leather scene, of African descent and originally from Kentucky.
We talked about the leather community feeling masculine and binary, dating on OK Cupid, why telling someone they are a BBW isn’t the best line for picking up someone, and rejection resilience.
She dropped a Foucault concept during our chat and I started weeping for joy, just because I love when folks sweep from sex chat to academia and back again. Michel Foucault is a famous social theorist and philosopher that most folks know from college courses. He was also a queer man who POTSA (Passed On To Something Awesome) in one of the first wave of AIDS-related deaths.
We also learned shower douche 101. “Poop doesn’t live in your anus, it only passes through.” Learn more about identity, sex and sexuality with Sparklez!
Sparklez says in our interview, “Trans women are worth more dead than alive. We have more bio power dead than alive.” Let’s change this and amplify the voices of Black Trans Women! It starts with listening to their perspective (like this interview!) and it moves to giving opportunities for work, housing and community organizing that respects and center their needs and experiences.
I’m posting this on Trans Day of Visibility, which is a great opportunity for folks who are not of trans experience to act in solidarity with gender non conforming and trans folks. Here’s a great thing you can do to be in solidarity with folks: literally never assume someone’s pronouns.
“To be able to self select what your identity is confirming your truth to power… When someone else does that it’s taking away your power.”
Asking someone what pronoun they prefer (especially if you think you know based on looking) is a great way to make the world a little more survivable for trans folks. And if/when you screw up pronouns genuinely apologizing and working to get better. Maybe it feels awkward but you, as an ally, absorbing a little awkward to make the world easier to navigate and helping people who struggle with a lot more oppression than you do feel more at ease is a great way to repair the world.
Thanks so much to Sparklez for our fabulous interview!
Find DJ Sparklez on Mix Cloud (I love listening to mixes while I work!)
She spins at Do You Like Disco last Thursday of the month at Metropolitan Bar in Brooklyn.
Find Sparklez on Vimeo.
Loved listening to this (and the random Foucault reference!) Would you consider captioning or transcribing the video interview? I couldn’t make out some things that Sparklez was saying, plus that would be helpful for accessibility.