Welcome to Maoist Orange Cake. Each week one of our Divas posts a thoughtful (but not necessarily serious) essay on whatever calls forth her Voice or strikes her Fancy. We invite you to join us wherever the discussion leads.
Motto of the MOC: Sincere, yes. Serious? Never!

"I would also like to add that ‘Maoist Orange Cake is possibly the best name for a blog ever. Just my twopence." -- The Sixth Carnival of Radical Feminists, 1 October 2007


The Twelfth Carnival of Radical Feminists is up at The Burning Times blog and mentions one of our posts, Helen 'Wheels' Keller, for recommendation. Orangeists spreading our zest!

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Guest Post Challenge from Aunt Soozie



Dear MOC Friends,

I put forth a challenge to youse. (non-gendered plural of 'you')

Maggie and I were recently lamenting the paucity of fabulous Drag King names. This lamentation occurred after we became aware of a Drag Queen named Suppositori Spelling.

We adore that name.

So, here's the challenge: collect or invent fabulous Drag King names and post 'em right here. If you post the name of an actual King a link to info about him would be grand.

Namaste.

Aunt Soozie
Your 2007 Beaver Queen
Beaver Lodge Local 1504
"World Peace"

34 comments:

Kellan said...

The only one who immediately comes to mind is Elvis Herselvis, a mean Elvis clone who performs (or at least used to) with a backup group called The Straight White Males.

I've always wanted to go to more dag king shows than I have (exactly two, plus one drag queen show at some random pub in the dreary London suburb of Ealing that wasn't very good), and I always knew my lack of a clue would come back to haunt me some day.

Kellan said...

A picture: http://www.aeroplastics.net/FT/08.html

shadocat said...

Hmmm...

"Rod Sirloin?"

"Brit Tenyspears?"

"Andy Dick?" (Oh wait; that one's taken).

Remember the old formula for your "porn star" and/or "stripper" name? You take the name of your first pet, and couple it with the first street you lived on. For me, I thought this worked out rather well--my name would be "Trixie Bell". But then my mother pointed out we had lived in an apartment for about 6 months before we moved to Bell St., and we had a cat. So technically, my name should be "Muggsy Pennsylvania"

Maggie Jochild said...

I took a nap and apparently my subconscious went to work on this challenge, 'cause I woke up with several names in my head. All those year of drag rehearsals sat through for an ex, I guess. Lip-syncing is only one step up from mime for me. And their appellations never seemed to catch the perversity, the linguistic dystrophy of drag queen names. Here's my try at it:

Les Oh
Boxa Hammers
E.P. Diddymus
Buddy Hollow
Male Volent
P. Machoor Jack
Junior Ment
Benny Dick Shun
Carew D.M.A. Tayshun

Kellan said...

Shadocat and Maggie - see, I knew I was way out of my league. Where do you two GET these things??

I think "Benny Dick Shun" is my favorite.

For what it's worth, "Sid D'Licious" is one I ran across awhile ago.

Maggie Jochild said...

Kellan, as Alix sang, I got "special kinda grooves running through my brain", I guess. And Shado, I LOVE Brit Tenyspears. Elvis Herselvis also fucks with the paradigm in a thoughtful way.

On a tangent, perhaps -- Speaking of assumed names for purposes of political or performative statement: A dyke I knew in the Bay Area used to print flyers and post them on the ubiquitous bulletin boards that then served as the internet does now for the Lesbian community. These statements would concern political issues of the day, offering viewpoint and analysis. She signed them "Kaylinda S. Kooba", and I was always astonished at how many women quoted her, asking each other if they knew her, without tumbling to the meaning of the name.

The most famous of these pseudonymous broadsiders was likely The Red Queen, who in later years we found out was Arthur Evans. (I used to counsel with his roommate Naftali.) The Red Queen was a Radical Fairy who focused on the Castro, and it was in one of his bright red handbills that I first read about AIDS (then called GRID, gay-related immune disorder) being infectious. Way before it hit the mainstream press. I remember we laughed about it, standing there on the street corner, saying "The Red Queen has gone too far this time -- everybody knows cancer isn't contagious." Because at that time, the focus was still on KS (Karposi's sarcoma), and even Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia or mycobacteria avium intracellulare infections hadn't yet been linked to AIDS.

Political pseudonyms were a way to speak the unpopular without being targeted by the FBI. We knew our groups were infiltrated, and often knew who the plant was, especially in Lesbian radical organizations -- one of the strengths of having poor personal boundaries, we knew way too much about each other. They would be the ones mouthing off and urging inflammatory action, new to town, claiming membership in groups from other places, flirting heavily with young or inexperienced women but never quite following through. We left them in place, usually, and fed them disinformation from time to time. I don't see queer groups now even considering the possibility of infiltration, much less doing something effective about those in their midst who are wrecking their ability to form meaningful alliances. But it's going on now just as much as it was then.

One time, the group I was in, Lesbians Against Police Violence, shelled out disinformation to the feds on a grand scale. The Klan had gotten a permit to hold a rally in Contra Costa county, a Bay Area outlying community. Contrary to people's perception of California, many less urban areas on the edge of cities were strongholds for the Klan, having higher memberships than most of the South. We joined a coalition of several Lesbian or mostly Lesbian organizations to protest and try to disrupt the rally. As usual, gay men were indifferent to it, just as too many gay and so-called queer organizations are still single-issue entities.

As we met in coalitions, I learned that the real value of recruitment for such rallies was not the few locals who might attend, but the cordon of police who had to surround them and would be facing furious protesters -- police officers joined the Klan in large numbers after rallies, having liked what they heard at their backs while being confronted with dykes. So, we tried to work around that strategy by doing public education about tactics.

We also found out that in the name of "security", the Klan would be inside a fenced sports field and to protest them, we would have to go through a cordon where we would be searched for weapons, then be enclosed with them behind the same barriers. This was the first time such a tactic was used by the cops, although it's common practice now. We adamantlly opposed it, not just because of the extreme physical risk it involved -- NEVER let them get you behind a fence -- but also because of the psychological change it would impose on us. Nowadays, it seems common to allow them to fence us away for so-called pride events as well as protests. But then, we didn't politely seek parade permits a lot of the time, either. Protest loses much of its transformative and bonding effect if it's done within meek barricades.

During this coalition meetings between savvy dykes and savvy people of color (not mutually exclusive), we decided to surround the outside of the fence, which would thwart their intended containment but also remove us from face-to-face confrontation with cops. A small group of us worked hard on chants that would cross over class and race together, ideas and lines that might reach the working-class cops. That was my specialty. Someone in a journal I have the notes of that meeting. We did a good job. We took our own bullhorns, drowned them out with our clever chants, and the Klan left their rally early.

But, one woman (Diana Robbins, Brooklyn Jew and one of my chief mentors, rest in peace) and I took things a step further. We were doing final work on the call-to-gather flyer agreed upon by the coalition of groups, some of whom were okay about their names being attached, some of whom were not. At the last minute, we made up the names of a dozen groups and added them to the bottom of the flyer, names which were plausible and yet had a punch. We gleefully imagined the feds trying to track down these groups later. Occasionally after that rally, one of our names would come up in meetings, such as someone asking "Is so-and-so in that Dykes Opposing Imperialism Tribunal [DOIT], does anybody know?" Diana and I kept our secret.

A few years ago, I was tracked by a woman's studies graduate student at some Ivy League school who was doing her dissertation on Lesbians Against Police Violence. During the course of interviews by her, she read off the names of other dyke political groups in the Bay Area at that time to see what I remembered about them. Sure enough, on the list were all those bogus groups. I finally revealed our subterfuge, which totally delighted her. I'm passing it on now in case you want to steal the idea.

shadocat said...

Christina A. Guerrilla?

Lindsay Low-hand?

Nick Holerichie?

Anonymous said...

My faves so far...
Nick Holerichie
and
Benny Dick Shun
I'll try to get my subconscious to work on this since I haven't contributed any yet!

shadocat said...

Madonna Banonna?

shadocat said...

Okay, I just realized that some of those names I just spun out were more appropriate for "Queens" than "Kings".

Whoops--my bad.

But what do ya think of these???

Kelly Ripped-Up (Ripa)?

Rowe C. O'Dickell?

Alan DeGenerate?

little gator said...

York Hunt belongs in there somewhere.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Shado...
we're working on Drag King names cause the Queens seem to have some good ones already.

York Hunt... is FAB... I like that.

Still...Suppositori Spelling is tough competition.

Kellan, the actor in the photo with Elvis Herselvis...he/she was in that movie about two transexual people...i forget the name of it...good movie.

Blue said...

Alan DeGenerate is AWESOME!

In the mid 90's there was a clever dragster back in Northamton who went by "Dr.Gender Chainsaw".

Daisy Deadhead said...

Brad Clitt!

You absolutely CAN NOT top that.

A real person! Here he is:

http://www.pipeline.com/~jordinyc/kings.htm

Daisy Deadhead said...

Drift, apologies: Small world, Maggie! I looked at your website, wondered where I'd seen you before, then read that you did that amazing workshop at the West Coast Women's Festival in 1981! I WAS THERE! :) It was historical, and I have often thought you deserved credit for opening the shutters and letting the light shine in.

I also briefly worked on PLEXUS, the Bay Area newspaper, under the auspices of Kelly Eve, who was just so amazing.

/drift

Maggie Jochild said...

Daisy! How on earth did you recognize me?

I remember the West Coast Women's Music Festival experience vividly. I/we did three workshops there, not just one, and after each one I went back to my tent and vomited for an hour. Hadn't yet learned how to channel what I was hearing, women's first-time tellings of their stories. So, I want to hear from you about what you remember, details -- and how it impacted you.

Were you at the workshop where the Native/Latina dyke told the story about how she was afraid to tell her beloved mother about her uncle molesting her because she was afraid it would kill her mother? She finally got up the courage to write her mother (back on the rez in New Mexico), caught the next bus back home to follow up on the letter, had to hitchhike the last part of it because it was so remote, and got home to find her mother dead of a heart attack? I don't know how audible the last part of her telling was, but you might remember because she was a big woman and I pulled her onto my lap, held her while her heart broke, and my co-leader (Shelley Clearwaters) did the rest of the workshop without me. Anyhow, that story convinced me I could never tell my mother, who did have a serious heart condition. But it was less than a month later that Mama called me and asked me point blank if I had been molested -- she put it all together. And I got to come out to her, after all. The saving of my life and our relationship.

And yes, I remember Plexus well. Our political group, LAPV, had a lot of trouble getting them to publish our statements and ads as written -- we were deemed too radical.

I went to your excellent blog and would like to direct others there. Check it out at
Daisy's Dead Air

So, write me, either here (if you want to tell stories for public viewing) or at my private e-mail if you'd druther. Wow. So unbelievably good to hear from you.

Anonymous said...

Phillipe Sil LeCanne Deaque III

Anonymous said...

Watson Miapanze

Anonymous said...

Daniel Didier Dildo
(from Montreal)

Pierre Hardon

Anonymous said...

Jean-Claude Coq Au Van Damme

Chester A. Binder, Esq.

Lord of the Flatbush

Lord of the Fly

Rand E. Neudick

shadocat said...

okay,this guy plays for the KC Royals, but I always thought he had a great drag king name:

Mike Sweeney

Daisy Deadhead said...

Actually, what really impacted me at the festival that year was the whole Robin Tyler fiasco, the issue of race and organizing, which was also, not coincidentally, the issue at Plexus. When Robin got up there and screamed "You are trying to kill me!" and all that stuff, well, it kinda blew my mind. She was so butch, and here she was, freaking-out in a manner I felt was stereotypically very "white-feminine"--what the WOC at their meeting later that day called "pearl-clutching." It started a lifelong habit of self-examination about race; I decided there and then, that I would not be the kind of white woman who hyperventilates at the mention of racism or when my own racism is pointed out to me. Either a group is mostly white or it isn't. Fact. Deal. If memory serves, all of the festival leadership was white? I mean, good lord! Unbelievably, the undercurrent (at the time) was that WOC were uncool or just plain wrong for pointing that out. I did a whole lot of thinking over that, for years, and even now.

That workshop was scary to me, since I really didn't think I "needed" to be there, but well oh well, I thought, I'll just go check it out and if it's too "clinical" (*snort* I think I expected a bunch of social workers or something!), then I'll leave. The fact that it was HUGE, was another of those turning points: hey, this isn't just my private thing; what the hell is going on????? We didn't consider incest part of the "agenda" back then, as you remember, so I was just FLOORED. The whole thing scared me to death, too. I didn't say a word, and still don't say much. I can hardly remember what anyone else said, either. It was just the safety of us all sitting there, just looking at each other, and knowing...knowing...knowing...we were all together as women in that place. I found it spiritual, as truth-telling always is. I always learned, the truth shall set you free, but somehow, I forgot to apply that to myself.

I do remember, lots of touching, patting on the back, unconditional approval and then, the shock that these women intuitively knew we needed that! I have never forgotten it. You still look like yourself, Maggie!

PLEXUS turned into a lot of in-fighting about porn and SM, as so much of second wave feminist endeavors did. I left at one point, to go to Florida and have a nervous breakdown, but that's a whole nother story. ;)

Thanks for the plug, my poor-ass blog is doing well to even get Judy Garland spam! :D

little gator said...

Cervix Merchandise.

shadocat said...

Thank you, Blue!

And Brad Clit, Cervix Merchandise; hard to (ahem) beat...

Maggie Jochild said...

Daisy, I'd forgotten about the racism controversy that year. I went more than one year, and can't always tell them apart. I had a close friend who was close friends with China Bear, the African-American woman who got called the N-word. I didn't go back after that year -- once the racism was out in the open, I realized it had gone hand-in-hand with the classism of that particular festival. It cost much, much more to attend than MWMF or other, smaller festivals, and there was no real sliding scale; there was a big class divide in terms of accommodations (based on what you could afford); and policy decisions were made not by the volunteers or part-time staff who created the event, but by a small group who viewed it as a business rather than a cultural expression.

What was particularly painful in the Bay Area is that a lot of the women who defended women of color in the controversy resorted to anti-Semitism, just as some of the Jewism women defending Robin Tyler resorted to racism. We had a lot of community meetings trying to get at the root of that divide. But almost never addressed was class, as the common denominator -- never effectively brought out into the open.

Still isn't. Too many women with money and privilege hide it, still, or claim re-invention: like born-again virgins, only in this case, a year or two of living without the parents' money means you are now working class. Or you have money from your folks, but you're not "rich" so you conceal it. Or you make a bundle in some way, but you cover that up, too. And the rest of us, who somehow can't pull off the big trips or the health or the education or whatever, are confused about our apparent failure.

At least once a year, I go read "Eat rice have faith in women" by Fran Winant, who nailed what was going to happen to our movement with regard to class.

How funny, that you attended our workshop just to "check it out". I bet that happened often. That's how I came out as an incest survivor, in fact. I had gone to the WAVPM national conference in SF in November 1978 and volunteered as a security worker, which had two functions: One was to keep out the men who were issuing death threats because we were anti-porn, and the other was to watch carefully for signs of meltdown among the attendees, because what we were talking about/looking at was extremely triggering. I remember listening to Andrea Dworkin speak, then went to a workshop by Florence Rush on child pornography. That's when I blanked out. I mean, literally.

Somehow I got home and went to bed, sleeping over 24 hours -- my roommate couldn't wake me up. The next night, my girlfriend came home from her weekend out of the city, crawled into bed with me and began trying to make love with me, without making sure I was awake yet. I sat up screaming and literally dragged her to the front door, throwing her down the front steps, shrieking she was not to touch me. Woke up the whole building. My roommate got my girlfriend her clothes and told her to leave for the time being. But my girlfriend was furious and spread it all over the community that I had attacked her for no reason at all.

Fortunately, a friend of mine, Kata Orndorff, who was also in LAPV, came to me when she heard the story and asked my side of it. I was not clear what had happened, told her the pieces as best I could, and she said she had just begun meeting with a group of women who were incest survivors. She asked me to come with her to a meeting. I refused vociferously -- said it was not my issue, I didn't have anything wrong with me, etc. She heard me out, then gently crawled into my lap and said softly "Would you do it for me? Only one meeting. If it's not something you need, I'll never ask again." That's how I got in the Pleiades, because at that first meeting, I tried to choke a woman who was asking me questions about what happened to me and put her hand on my arm. Clearly, I had some issues.

Half my friends who turned out to be abuse survivors went into S/M, and I gave it a try myself. The girlfriend above was the daughter of a dyke who helped found Samois, San Francisco's first lesbian S/M group. But role-playing just ground the crap in deeper for me. I wanted freedom, not another kind of limits, even with safewords.

By the time you met me, I had left that girlfriend (worst relationship of my life, and that's saying something), stopped S/M, figured out that porn is to sex and intimacy as McDonald's is to food, and was moving away from compulsion into the best erotic and emotional connections of my life. Being a parent helped a lot. What was scornfully called "vanilla" is what you hope your kids can find, love and tenderness and eternal passion without wiping their confusion and power issues onto each other. Letting a child view certain images, hear about certain activities or messages was unthinkeable because it clearly meant influencing them rather than simply informing them. I believe this holds just as true for adults. Playing "Doom" on my computer made me more aggressive instead of draining away my anger and aggression. Looking at objectification makes me less able to relate to other people openly. And anti-sex is a code word for being anti-male-defined sex. Anybody who had trouble getting laid during the late 70's/early 80's -- well, I just wouldn't admit it, if I were you. Sex was easy to come by. But meaningful, vulnerable without power-over, intense erotic connection: That takes work.

On another note, except not really: Some of these drag names are fucking brilliant. And I begin to see the sensibility behind it. Drag is too often a one-trick pony: Dressing up in the clothes of another gender, imitating another gender, is an ancient practice that seldom actually challenges the status quo. But sometimes it rattles the bars, when real art is behind it. "Paris is Burning" sidestepped all the lame, classist shit in drag (if I see one more middle-to-owning class white girl from the Northeast pretend to be a cowboy -- ) and instead took on businessmen as a gender and class expression. Brilliant beyond description. Likewise, in "Third Antenna", which looks at drag outside the boundaries of passing and entertaining, a group of four Asian drag kings come out in uniforms of the American military to the usual slobbering sexual frenzy at these performances, but slowly indict the racism, female-objectification and institutionaled rape behavior of our armies as they dominate the rest of the world. Suddenly the sailor outfit doesn't look "hot" any more, and you realize the point of our occupation in other countries.

I don't see why art, including and especially theatrical art, can't convey several things at once and carry a political/cultural/emotional punch that engages more than one portion of our brains as well. Cervix Merchandise, Alan Degenerate, Elvis Herselvis, Brit Tenyspears, Brad Clitt, Watson Miapanze, Jean-Claude Coq Au Van Damme, and of course York Hunt all do more than just riff on girl pretending to be boy. They contain commentary that either pokes at rather than reinforces male on female power dynamics (I mean, all the variations out there on Jack Hoff are just crude and offer no vision beyond the squirty variety) and/or conflates more than target/nontarget issue into a funny, pointed linguistic exercise.

I have a question though: When you announce York Hunt, you're actually referring to Mike Hunt. How do we get past this confusion?

And, lastly -- On Monday our Diva Jana is going to create a delicious new post, so check back and be prepared to hare off in another direction.

Daisy Deadhead said...

Maggie, speaking of class, I gotta go to work now (yes, even here in the religious south, they make me work on SUNDAY! Capitalism and retail wait for no man/woman!)-- but I certainly want to answer your post, especially re: class and feminism, which also helped blow up Plexus.

One of my housemates was in Samois, too, which I didn't fully get until I came home one evening and they were giving demonstrations in the dining room. (Toto, you're not in... etc.) I was still something of a clueless hayseed, but prided myself on my open mind, so I never would have raised a peep in objection.

If you ever went to Samois meetings on Kempton Ave in Oakland, 1981, it is likely I also saw you there; another reason you look familiar? (Very large old Victorian house, which we eventually all got evicted from when they gentrified Oakland.) My housemate then called herself Nilos, but I think she now uses her given name?

Ah, memory lane! ;)

little gator said...

I think York and Mike are identical twins.

Maggie Jochild said...

Uh, no, Daisy, I wasn't in Samois -- not the same group as my GF's mother, no way. She was a Jew who wore black leather and sometimes Nazi symbols, I could never wrap my mind around that. And Nilos doesn't ring a bell for me.

Aside from the Pleiades and LAPV, here's my roster, let's see if we have overlap: Lesbians Under 21, All Age Lesbians, Lesbian Schoolworkers, some SF city-sponsored committee on working with Lesbian and gay youth whose name I can no longer remember (with Blackberri, remember him?), the Southern Women's Alliance, WAVPM (sometimes helping with the tours of porn stores in the Tenderloin), Take Back The Night, and New Bridges anti-racism camps. LAPV worked in collaboration with the Stonewall Coalition and a few other dyke groups whose names I can't recall. LAPV also did skits at L/G Pride Marches, dances, and other community events, and I usually performed in those -- the skits were about resisting gentrification and racist cooptation of the Mission District and about not talking to the Grand Jury after the White Night Riot. I had girlfriends or close friends in Amazon Kung Fu, ASPC/Burning Spear, the Women's Building, Wages Due Lesbians, the Women's Chorus, War Tax Resisters, protesting Diablo Canyon, and organizing for the Jewish Lesbian Conference (more than one year). I was drawn or photographed naked for flyers and calendars a few times. I regularly attended Theater Rhinoceros, Valencia Rose, Dos Lesbos, Didi Glitz, the Mime Troupe, Pickle Family Circus, Fat Lip, Mother Tongue, La Pena, Swing Shift, the Dance Brigade, Carry It On, the Roxie Theater (especially Jewish and Lesbian film festivals), Quaker Lesbian Retreats near Santa Cruz, and I went to the Castro Theater at least once a week. I read my poetry at various venues including Old Wives' Tales and Modern Times. I seldom missed a live performance of women's music up through 1984. I danced at the Ashkenaz, ate regularly at the Brick Hut and Artemis, but did not go to bars. I hung out with Jean Swallow a lot, and did a lot of support work for Old Wives' Tales. I got acupuncture from Misha Cohen at Quan Yin. Plus I was in RC and attended support groups for disability, working class, incest survivors, no limits for women, allies of Jews, men's liberation, owning class theory, Southern pride, ESM, Lesbian liberation, artists, and parents.

Whew.

Daisy Deadhead said...

Maggie, several points of overlap, particularly WAVPM, the SF Women's Building and Take Back the Night.

Here's the thing: I sometimes felt pretty uncomfortable around lesbian events, since I was still undecided about "political lesbianism" and wanted to respect the lesbian-only intent. At that time, many feminists were saying "all women are lesbians" and I was heartily encouraged to attend, then felt out-of-place and intrusive. In the end, I didn't change teams, as they say.

And along these lines, I got pretty pissed off over some of the things you mentioned, regarding class. I have an undeveloped theory that a major component of the so-called lesbian-straight split in 70s radical feminism had a class element. I became furious when I copped to my het privilege, while others would not cop to THEIR privilege. Lesbian separatism, when one has a rich daddy or trust fund, is no more PC than coupling with a poor male. As you say, many feminists had money, cars and educations provided by rich papas. Wasn't that a facet of het privilege, too? I did not have a father who contributed to my well-beingin any way and I certainly wasn't as financially well off as many of the feminists who repeatedly blasted me for het privilege. So, you can see the dilemma, and why I eventually had my nervous breakdown. ;)

A recent thread at Twisty's blog (I blame the patriarchy) regarding het marriage ended up with several women saying the only way to have a good marriage is to hire someone else to do the housework (!!!), which caused the thread to go up in flames. If I had commented (which I was far too intimidated to do), it would be to offer the observation that virtually ALL of the women in the thread seemed to be educated and white, and didn't seem to realize that male/female is not the only class difference; partnering with someone of a "lower" class than you are could serve to equalize a het relationship and increase awareness. Women are trained to "marry up"--higher class than you, more money, older, able-bodied, tall, professional, etc. What would happen if women decided to uniformly marry "down"? What would happen? Why won't het women, particularly FEMINISTS, choose (for example) a really short guy, younger man, poor man, disabled man, unemployed guy? (or some combination of these?) Why is this a totally INVISIBLE option to so many het women? (my answer: classism, of various types)

And why is it somehow UNDERSTOOD that men simply will not do housework? I confess to being horrified at hiring someone to clean up my personal mess, which is considerable. But you know, it's MINE, and I wouldn't feel right asking someone else (besides my family!) to clean it. I wondered, what kind of feminist thinks it's A GOOD THING to hire WOC to clean your toilet? Dayum. I got very upset by the whole thing. Some women even trotted out the old "we pay them very well" and "if we didn't hire them, they'd stay in Mexico and be poor" stuff, which is when I just had to STOP READING.

Under-developed ideas and theories, but thanks for listening. It's such a pleasure to talk to someone from the old-school. :)

little gator said...

So many male names are used to describe a penis.

John Thomas, Willie, Lance, Rod, Woody, Dick, Peter...

yet for girlparts all I can think of is the British/Australian Fanny(considered very rude), while in the US fanny means bottom and is usually considered harmless baby talk.

What we USans call fanny packs Aussies call bum bags.

Cervix Merchandise is the name I plan to give my sex toy shop if I never have one, not that I expect to.

Boston has a women-owned sex toy shop called Grand Opening. I wish I'd thought of that.

little gator said...

George Parker would be my stripper name.

Though a more complicated formula gives you more choice.

First name-first street or pet.
Last name-either grandmother's maiden name.

I like Parker Lyons better.

hammerwoman said...

Hmmm, little gator. . ."I think York and Mike are identical twins." So, of course, I thought, no, more like fraternal, but no, they couldn't, because that means brotherly, so I checked the online thesaurus for "sisterly", but, of course, there was no sisterly, so they thoughtfully offered me a choice of words they thought I might have meant, and I thought, yeah, "disorderly," now we're getting somewhere. . . 'cause Mike and York sure can wind up disorderly when they're together.

There's a co-op run sex shop on Queen Street -gotta love that- in Toronto that's my fave, Come As You Are (comeasyouare.com). Low key, fully wheelchair-accessible (and very disability-positive), very fun website.

Anonymous said...

Maggie!
something went horribly wrong when I tried to send you the box of british cookies and such a few months ago. I don't know what the hell the postal service was doing, but the box ended up back at my place just a couple of weeks ago looking like it had been bludgeoned!

I can try again if you like. I think I put enough bubble wrap or whatever that they won't have gotten too crushed.

yours,
kat (from Alison Bechdel's blog)

Maggie Jochild said...

KAT! Yes, yes, yes, I WANT those McVities and Penguins! Have dreamed about them. I wondered what had happened.

I'm premenstrual and menopausal both, so the idea of chocolate is making me shiver in my knickers. Bless you, my SF hera!