Bulkhead’s Back… Disturbing the Peace!

The posters showed up around town, around Santa Cruz — striking black posters with white lettering and a white skeleton in a cocky pose, skull in one hand, looking jauntily at itself.

From February 1989 to December 1990, “The Head” was an interesting addition to the Santa Cruz scene, a small gallery and performance space that sponsored a series of diverse and unusual shows and events, featuring art and artists outside the artistic mainstream. Shows at the Bulkhead developed a deserved reputation for often dealing with radical sexual themes: gay and lesbian issues, cross-dressing, s/m. The gallery became a gathering place for a diverse group of artists and sexual explorers — mostly young, dramatic, anarchistic, politically aware — and a public presence for a sexual/political evolution that might otherwise go unnoticed and unacknowledged by the community at large.

One more group of exiled individuals was defining itself as a culture, that curious shift that comes about when a phenomenon reaches critical mass and becomes identifiable as something to which individual people can refer. Once there is a visible culture, individuals can be sure they are not alone in their thoughts, their points of view, their desires. Once there is a culture, people can begin to explore and refine the issues in question, rather than simply struggling for personal and emotional survival. “The Head” wasn’t the only manifestation of radical sexual culture in laid-back Santa Cruz (there is an undergraduate s/m support group at the university, an official campus organization, for example). But it was an important catalyst in the Santa Cruz radsex cultural alchemy, and when it folded last December, losing its lease after there were objections to some of its gay and lesbian focus, something significant had disappeared.

Six months later, Bulkhead was proudly back, its core organizers recovered from overwork and burnout, once again bringing to town writers, artists and performers that would otherwise have no way of being produced locally. “The entire series of events… is intended to challenge the notion that America is currently ‘at peace,'” they stated. “Especially for minority populations in this country, including ethnic and sexual minorities, ‘war’ is ongoing. Each of these events also serves to celebrate First Amendment rights and to challenge political moves toward increasing censorship. The series highlights the often hidden culture and arts of the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community and strives to consciously reflect its class, race, and gender diversity.”

Gathering financial support from some 30 businesses and individuals, The Head leased the best theatre in town for a six-week program of events. There was a series of Thursday night Writer’s Riots, featuring readings by such notables as Dorothy Allison, Pat Califia, Danielle Willis, Dodie Bellamy, Lily Braindrop, D-L Alvarez, Lani Kaahumanu, and the Bulkhead’s own Gabriel. Hidden: A Gender, Kate Bornstein’s challenging play about gender roles and sex change, and Permission, Catherine Harrison’s inside look at the world of the professional dominatrix were produced as a theatrical double-feature. There was Night of the Living Drag, a cross-dressing extravaganza; a benefit poetry reading for Santa Cruz’s Latina/o Lesbian and Gay Organization; and Berlin Cabaret, a delightful recreation of the decadence of 1920s Germany, featuring local singer Rebecca Adams in drag, “breathtakingly beautiful” Tommy in a bawdy fan dance, “wild and forbidden poetry,” and “a chorus line that sizzles and sparkles in just barely enough clothing.” And on Friday, May 17th, there was Fakir Musafar’s Torture Circus, a collection of dramatic and ritualized presentations featuring Fakir, Cleo DuBois, and friends, addressing the issues of pain, pleasure, body alteration, trance, and the empowerment that comes from using these devices to expand our perception of the possible.

The Torture Circus was a sellout. The first act features Fakir Musafar, world renown spiritual explorer of body alteration, ritual, trance, and altered states of mind (most widely known, perhaps, for his enlightening interview in the Modern Primitives issue of Re-Search). Fakir inserts hooks through the permanent piercings in his chest, attaches these through a pulley in the ceiling to a series of suitcases labeled “Fear of Pain,” “Fear of the Unknown,” “Ego” and so on. He walks slowly backwards, lifting the suitcases off the ground, one by one, the hooks straining the skin on his chest. “I’m tired of carrying around all this excess baggage,” he bellows in mock agony. “I want to be able to fly.” An assistant appears. “Do you want to be released?” he asks. “Oh, yes,” Fakir responds. The assistant cuts the ropes, the suitcases clatter to the ground, Fakir smiles in relief. The audience laughs and applauds.

Cleo DuBois follows, leading a young woman on a leash, who begs to have her body covered with a long string of white-feathered clothespins. Cleo cuts the woman’s dress off with a knife, looking deeply into her eyes, and applies the clothespins, accompanied by the song “White Bird.” Long lines of white feathers sweep down the woman’s arms, along the ridges of her shoulderblades, along the curve of her breasts. Under blacklight, the feathers glow — the woman has indeed been transformed into a white bird. She dances around the stage, then swoons repeatedly as the clothespins are removed.

Two men come on stage. One, in a leather harness, gives the other a light whipping while drummers create a sense of ritual. It is a basic demonstration of loving, careful administration of pain for those who have never seen such a thing before. It ends well before building to any kind of real intensity.

Then Fakir returns and, to the hypnotic drumming and flute playing of the musicians, enacts the Native American rite of Kovandi bearing. The Kovandi is a large metal brace that sits on the subject’s shoulders. Some 40 metal spears are passed through the frame, each inserted about 1/8″ into the subject’s skin. It is a ritual of gradually increasing sensation, designed to induce altered consciousness, to trigger the bearer into states of ecstasy. It takes over half an hour just to place the spears. Then Fakir dances around the stage, up and down the aisle, each movement increasing the sensation he feels from the spearpoints. His assistants shake the frame lightly, also increasing the sensation. The entire audience seems to have been transported into the created sense of trance and wonder. There is long and heartfelt applause when the ritual ends.

Enter Ann Simonton and Media Watch, Santa Cruz’s erstwhile anti-porn activists. Simonton is probably best known for her protests of the Miss California Beauty Pageant silliness, before the pageant fled to San Diego to escape her annual confrontations. Seems she attended the Torture Circus. Seems she didn’t like it. Seems she equates s/m with violence against women (and men). Seems the issue of consensuality is irrelevant to her. “What’s most dangerous and damaging is when they show a woman enjoying sexual abuse,” she said. “I’m not attacking the homosexuality involved, it’s the glamorization of sexual violence that is presented to the public. This is not an appropriate way to entertain or eroticize our lives.”

Outraged by the Torture Circus, Simonton contacted each of the Bulkhead’s sponsors, threatening them with protests and boycotts unless they withdrew their support. Her strategy was the same as Jesse Helms’ with regard to the National Endowment for the Arts: If you’re offended by the content of the a work of art, try to cut off its funding. Like Helms, she denies that her goal is censorship — literally, to make it illegal to have the work performed. It’s just that, again like Helms, she feels that offensive art should be denied outside funding.

Bulkhead sponsors, mostly small businesses still struggling with the economic aftermath of the Loma Prieta earthquake, were nervous.

The issue hit the local media on May 23rd, via an extensive article in The Santa Cruz Sentinel (complete with picture of Fakir bearing the Kovandi, to intrigue or horrify 15- and 50-year-old readers alike) and a comprehensive feature story on listener-sponsored radio station KUSP. The core issue was in the public eye, being discussed and debated openly for the first time: Is s/m sexual violence? How do we feel about s/m done by consenting adults in private? What about public works of art, literature, and theatre that deal with s/m-related themes?

Rather than go into hiding, offer disclaimers, or try to water down the issues at hand, the people at the Bulkhead stood unapologetically behind their presentations, defended consensual s/m as a legitimate and appropriate sexual practice, and shifted the issue to why Simonton and Media Watch wanted to isolate and suppress an already beleaguered sexual minority group. Wendy Chapkis, a Bulkhead mainstay and longtime feminist activist, was eloquent in emphasizing the issue of consent. For a person to want to be whipped, want to have clothespins applied to their body, or want to pursue ecstasy by performing the Kovandi ritual, she said, has nothing to do violence against women, or with nonconsensual brutality, sexual or otherwise. Joe Schultz, Ann Simonton’s husband and owner of India Joze, a restaurant which withdrew its Bulkhead support to protest the Circus, argued that there is no way people can truly consent to such things. He compared the belief that people really consent in s/m to George Bush wanting Americans to believe that the Iraqi people consented to having the U.S. bomb them into oblivion. In what was probably the most far-reaching rhetorical sally of the entire affair, he concluded that the U.S. missiles used on Iraq were “nothing more than high-tech nipple rings.”

Bulkhead organizers mobilized quickly and effectively. They contacted their sponsors, explained the content of the Torture Circus, and affirmed the controversial and confrontative content as the very reason the event was important and valuable. Individual Bulkhead supporters called sponsors as well, demonstrating their own concern and urging sponsors not to be intimidated by Media Watch threats. If sponsors were going to worry about public opinion, they were made to know that there was strongly felt opinion on both sides.

The sponsors themselves seemed to resent the pressure being applied by Media Watch. Neil Coonerty, owner of Santa Cruz’s best-known bookstore, stated strongly, “We are going to support [The Bulkhead]…. This is an alternative voice that has trouble getting funding.”

Chapkis called a meeting of all Bulkhead sponsors, including Schultz. A videotape of the Torture Circus was played. The reaction of the sponsors was unanimous, except for Schultz: While some found the show confrontative and others questioned its theatrical quality, no one felt that the material was objectionable. All reaffirmed their support for the Bulkhead.

Simonton turned her efforts to organizing a protest demonstration at the Bulkhead’s June 6th Writer’s Riot, a reading that included Pat Califia, the noted lesbian s/m author and journalist. The threat of a demonstration provoked deep concern among the shopowners whose stores are adjacent to the theatre, despite Bulkhead reassurances that there would be no violence. The shopkeepers’ concern was not entirely paranoid, however. Simonton has in the past walked into retail stores to tear up or deface material she felt was pornographic, and has disrupted erotic theatre programs she interpreted as supporting violence against women. In this case, however, Simonton apparently had lost the support of even her usual followers. No protest materialized.

Simonton’s threat of retaliation against Bulkhead sponsors also failed to materialize for the most part. She did leaflet one sponsor, the politically sensitive Santa Cruz Community Credit Union, accusing them of supporting violence against women. (Media Watch had targeted the Credit Union once previously, objecting to their financial support for Santa Cruz’s lone sex toy store.)

At the Writer’s Riot, Simonton appeared with a single supporter, handing out leaflets entitled “Why Is Torture Trendy?” It juxtaposed Amnesty International statements by torture victims from various parts of the world (“I have experienced the fate of the victim. I have seen the torturer’s face at close quarters”) with provocative statements about s/m (“Why work for world peace if we are acting out war themes in our bedroom?” “Why evaluate or criticize fascism in our government and not in the bedroom?” “Do we have the courage to undermine the sadomasochistic trend and create our very own alternative sexuality?”). “Make the connection,” the leaflet urged.

In the end, the bruhaha may have actually worked in favor of the Bulkhead. Without doubt, the controversy overturned the lives of Bulkhead organizers as they rushed to counter Simonton’s charges, and it continues to make them aware that they will have to be prepared to deal with these sorts of attacks whenever they present sexually controversial programs. On the other hand, newspaper and radio coverage announced the Bulkhead to the general Santa Cruz community as a thoughtful, dedicated, and provocative collection of avant-garde artists and performers raising relevant, if controversial, sex-related issues. While Chapkis notes that the Bulkhead series was doing well even before Media Watch came along, after the controversy almost all the remaining programs were complete sellouts. And, significantly, the process of mobilizing in response to the Media Watch attacks has brought a new sense of cohesion, dedication, and purpose to the Santa Cruz radsex community. There is even an informal boycott of India Joze in the radsex community, nothing official, and nothing encouraged by the Bulkhead itself. As one woman put it, “I love the food at Joze, but it bothers me to eat there knowing that they pulled all this shit.” Perhaps this is a new, political, incarnation of “Queers Bash Back.”

New Bulkhead events are being planned for Santa Cruz (“I would like to do something outside,” muses Gabriel), and there is hope of having the Berlin Cabaret produced for the first time in San Francisco.