Queer Dancing at CWSDC (Revelations of a Sort)

This year’s 2017 Caribbean Women and Sexual Diversity Conference (CWSDC) found me in Saint Lucia aboard the Black Pearl boat lulled by rum, dancing and working up a sweat despite the cool ocean breeze, and I have thinking a lot about it and in particular, about queering spaces and what that means and feels like. Before I launch into these observations, a few things: these are just a few thoughts I have mulling around; nothing claims to be empirical. Different people will have varying thoughts about these experiences from that night and that’s okay. And lastly, not all of these thoughts have been well wrung out. Some are still soaking and marinating.

This experience was really important for me because even though I reside in the states, the opportunity for experiencing queer Caribbean spaces in my city is non-existent. Collectives throwing queer dance parties specifically for people of colour like New York’s Papi Juice and Fake Accent or Toronto’s Yes Yes Y’all don’t occur in here. There are gay clubs, then there are Caribbean spots, and there isn’t overlap between the two. While I have enjoyed gay clubs, I really can’t take house music in my head all night long (not even trap all night, sorry), but I deal with it when I have to, whereas the West Indian parties, I can hear all my soca, old kaiso, Afrobeats, dancehall etc. but the space is not queer.

Most of my Caribbean local partying in Florida (and I have done a lot) has been inside heteronormative places (shout-out to Élysse for unpacking the term “heteronormative” at the conference). Like compulsory heterosexuality, social spaces can and are heteronormative because that’s the presumption and expectation: that men will only dance with women, that everyone who looks like a man is and everyone who looks like a woman is. Plus, people can be homophobic assholes and get angry when they feel “visibly” gay people are “pushing their lifestyle” in their faces when they are simply doing the exact same thing as straight people: going out, getting turnt and having a good time with each other.

Queerness as verb: people can and do identify as queer as in the noun and queer can also refer to a verb, the action of queering a space. Is that possible? Yes, I would say so. What does it take to actively queer a space?

Safety is a must. The Black Pearl was a safe space because it felt like a space where you could be safely queer in. I have no idea what the boat is like for other events, but for this party on this night, that’s what it felt like. This is supported by the interaction of other gay, trans and queer individuals. Secondly, queer people of colour simply being in a space doesn’t make it queered though. The space is queered when the queer people inside are actively engaged with each other and using and interacting with the physical space: so yuh wining, can approach someone to dance, can navigate the space and not shirk who you are; you claim and take up space and and are unapologetic for it. If you are in a party and queer and you cannot freely take up space or wine on your preferred dance partner, and you have to stand up whole night for example, the space is not queered. You are just there existing. However, that’s understandable and happens. Sometimes we attend events because we really want to go, but the space is not safe to be queer in.

Ideally, a queered experience is interactive. So there was a Florida soca party I used to attend all the time and there was this one lesbian couple who would show up: a girl with a ras and her girlfriend.  I did not know either of them personally, but I knew through mutual connections that one of them was a Trini; the other girl may have been too. Anyway, so when they showed (which they did often), wining up on each other, being affectionate, very unambiguous about what was taking place and freely moving inside and participating in the party space, even dancing with other people: the space is queered a bit.

Having company in numbers helps with queering any space, and you really can’t do it alone. The other example that comes to mind is during last year’s CWSDC conference in St. Croix in the karaoke bar. That space was likely not normally a queer space by any stretch of the imagination but once we saturated the area with our presence, dancing and interactions — even shout-outs from the resident local lesbian DJ, we were actively queering the space; we also rolled deep. Of course, it is not always safe to do so, and it’s possible also that some people there did not like it either.

Likewise, at the street party in Gros Islet, wherever we were and engaging with the energy of the event and each other, that space was queered. At one point during the night as we walked by, a St. Lucian man addressed me and said, “You’re pretty.” He was polite enough and made no attempt to touch me or move closer, and I graciously told him thank-you. He then said to me, “If yuh was a flower, I woulda pick yuh” or something to that effect, and it is at the point that another woman at the conference who was walking in front of me, interjects, takes my hand and leads me away. With no semblance of possession, she strategically shuts the conversation down.

There were other similar occurrences; effectively, times when we queered a space for ourselves within the open street and the loud music, then men attempted to insert themselves to disrupt what we had created. Some men felt because they wanted to engage us, they were entitled to and they did. When our queerness bucks up against the presumed heteronormativity of a particular space, tension can be created. When men’s access is flagrantly denied by other femme and femme-presenting people, assumptions are challenged. This can also be dangerous in certain instances.

Navigating wines was interesting. As someone who has primarily feted in majority heteronormative party spaces, this was actually my first time like, deeply submerged in a whole queer dancing soca session (among other musical genres) with people I did not know well. Not counting a queer dance party in New York a couple years ago where level vintage reggae and some soca was played or being home earlier this year, and my friends taking me to a club around the corner from where my parents live in St. Augustine, but in both instances I only danced with really good friends of mine. On the Black Pearl, I really break away.

I also learnt that it’s different bracing to receive wines and I definitely have to work on that (ha!). I recognize that my understanding of wining dynamics is couched in the heteronormative, and in that context I am usually always “giving” the wine and throwing it back on someone. In a heteronormative dance space, cishet men pretty much receive the wines all the time which is to say, put ah woman in front and ah man behind is the general guideline. The differences are really subtle inside a queer dance space and I know this sounds like some quasi-essentialist ting: men wine this way vs. women — but at least I’m aware that it’s all constructed.

Really, it’s not so much the wining but the mechanisms of it, surrounding it and some of the assumptions that I am making depending on the “role” I am in, which I am not going to go into much detail at this time. Nevertheless, West Indian women (speaking from a lived Trini experience here) have an existing history of women wining up on each other (see blog pic and maybe your own personal experiences too), that is dancing that may have had nothing to do with anyone’s attractions and orientation/s and was sometimes used as a convenient tool to block nearby annoying dance partners and also, I think, simply as an expression of a kind of camaraderie and vibes among you and your crew.  All of this has given me a lot to think about while making me feel all the feels. There aren’t many things more beautiful than the resilience of queer Caribbean women dancing, thriving and living out loud. My life’s goals include experiencing so much more of that.

*I do not personally know the women in the blog pic or how they identify (but it’s a great pic). Photo credit: Demar Watson via Tumblr. Used under a creative commons license.

Glitterlove

I kind of love glitter. Most Trinis probably have an ambivalent relationship with glitter. You love it sometimes or you hate it other times. But like plumage, feathers, sequins and all things great, sparkly and iridescent, it often evokes images of carnival. Glitter is to carnival as mud is to J’ouvert. I feel a similar way about gold or silver lamé fabric, its scratchiness and rustle taking me back to kiddies carnival and all of the attendant memories. Snow cones topped with condensed milk. Orchard juice boxes, popular soca blaring, and strapping on parts of your costume. And my mother, and all the (mainly) mothers chipping along the route, toting snacks and sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil and beverages that will not stay cold; fixing costumes, fastening safety pins and making sure hair styles stay in place.

Fantastical local lore or deep sea waves, I have been all of this and more. I have been a hooved La Diablesse, a bolt of lighting, Thumbelina, Blight, and one of the Israelites leaving Egypt, among others. There was always some glitter involved. Glitter is the ultimate tactile reminder, to me. Back in the day glitter was rough and made our tender skin itch. The pieces were bigger too, sharply squared and worn by the pound, layered on top of generous smears of petroleum jelly. Carnival meant glitter. Gold or silver, and there was always someone’s mummy or aunty or other mother figure with plenty to share liberally and sprinkle on everyone in the section.

In the 90s, glitter became in vogue again. Club kids and ravers wore glitter. It was always symbolic of revelry and good times — even outside of Trinidad, and a willingness to be celebratory. Glitter embodies a kind of spectacle of the body when worn. Glitter is otherworldy. The disco era worshiped at the high altar of glitter. They say no one would take you seriously wearing glitter but there it was, a kind of style again, outlasting many other trends: suddenly, glitter gels were everywhere, scented and non-scented alike, and rolls-ons. Perfumes and body sprays released shimmery editions. Of course, I wore and continue to wear my fair share, gravitating to the shimmer like a moth dancing towards flames. I was the girl slathering something glimmering on me, just because. I was the girl who rocked starry glitter pieces at the corners of my eyes.

Glitter is stupidly gendered. A friend once famously noted that “Badman doh wear glitter” when I offered to sprinkle some on him, but glitter doesn’t care. If you wine on me, you will get glitter on you anyway. Glitter is deliciously queer. And genderqueer. Glitter is femme. Ethereal. Our attempt at stardust on earth.  Glitter is a fabulously good time. Glitter is subversive on the bodies of men and masculine of center folks.

There was a popular meme passing around once observing how “glitter was the herpes of craft supplies” (no shade to those living with an STI) — but it’s true. Glitter doesn’t go away, not easily at any rate. It clings to your skin like a needy lover. You wore it and it wore you. You’d find remnants of glitter on you, days, maybe even weeks later, on a part of your scalp or in the soft crease of an elbow. A lone, reflective speckle could resurface when you least expected it.

The ground outside of my apartment is a testament to the glitter boots I made for Miami carnival last year. The glitter may never leave. Glitter has trouble letting go. It is the last person to leave the fete. Glitter is waiting for the next event, the next carnival and the next party. Glitter is adding vibes — to poster board or bodies. Glitter is here to stay, maybe for always. I am more than here for that.

Image by Amelia Fletcher via Glorieuse Désordre on Tumblr.

Late emotional writing

Posted this on my Tumblr a while ago and I figured I’d share it here — just ’cause.

I told him, “I just need someone to remove you from me” sweeping my fingers from the swell of pussy, over the navel, up along the length of my torso, to my throat. He looked tortured like the words cut welts into his skin. Me, splendidly triumphant for a moment or two. He recovered his composure as only a young man, smug and sure and deft in the ways of emotional disconnect can. The warmth in his eyes dim; embers flickering, fading, blinds closing in the dark. Me, scrambling with nubs of matches. The muggy Florida rain clanging on your car. Inside smelling like him and Jack Daniel’s from my cup. He take sips too as I rest my foot on the dashboard. He talks about how all he wants to do right now is kiss me, but he knows he shouldn’t. So he doesn’t. And we sit there and we talk. He has no filter. The asshole gene only minutely deactivated if it means he won’t have to see me cry which breaks his heart after he breaks my heart. And so on and so forth. Cyclical. Sisyphean.

Black girls like me are made of words and water.

All I want to do is talk sometimes. Conversational intimacy for air signs like us is magical. Our words enter each other, sit in the moist crevices of skin and joints of bones. You said you are afraid of being vulnerable, of succumbing to the unknown. You and I, we scare each other profoundly at times. I hear your voice in my head when I least expect it: that Trinidadian baritone pouring out of my subconscious, startling me away from what I am doing. You said I remind you of the best parts of home. Like a lot of guys, you want to be nurtured but can’t nurture anyone because you barely know how. Who am I to demand reciprocity? You gathered me in bunches once and laid me down to rest against you, wrapping your legs around and through mine like they were the most precious things right then. Your feet, large, sand papery and in need of some lotion (always). And the ways that we know each other: from breath to breath, the shape of our fears, laughter and anguish. I wanted to scream at the sky some days (and maybe I did).

You texted and I texted. I called and you called and we fell upon each other: sad and angry and hungry and disappointed, cowering under all these burdensome emotional energies. You said you came to help me move that Sunday because you gave me your word once and you couldn’t not come. And you made sure to leave me with a whisper, so cruel and unkind. You wanted to break me which tells me a lot about your fears. And still, I couldn’t hate you then.

And what is it we are meant to learn after all? I suppose it can come down to this: how do I tell someone that sometimes at night, when it’s all quiet in my head—all I want to do is crawl into the base of your throat and sit there, listening to you breathe. And how do you say to someone who is afraid of love and loving that that is exactly what you want to do with them? And what do you say when they tell you no? That they have no courage to love you. Now. Maybe ever.

Emotions aren’t rational. And there is a fissure in my heart caused by you. (Insert the saddest sigh ever.)

More to the point, “What kind of fuckery is this?” (Universe, yes, I am looking at you.)

And what can I say about the end? The bitter taste—betrayal, or was it something else? A lesson forgotten, soft skein slipping away because you had no grip? “Sorry”—but not really sorry, touching but not really touching. We have let the cosmos down or they have let us down. And between us grew spaces we could not fill, fruit fell before it was ripe and our spirits made promises we could not keep to each other.

Epiphany: He has no salve to rub into my raw, tender spots; I will have to do it myself. And I will.