Art Sluts Radio Episode 2 -- Feminism Then and Now

Join Art Sluts while they discuss feminism then and now, censorship, evolving language and our own history.  Featured songs are Nice Girls, Clinging Boyfriends and We are Not Equal. All proceeds go to support Planned Parenthood.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
So we fucked it.
Because it was there We're our floods
Can you say a little bit about what you do now, Ann, because you're in Georgia and youhave a music store, Yes, 25 years music store and I play instrumental music with my

(00:28):
husband, Jeff Perkins.
you know, we've been playing, doing that, which I think is incredibly ironic.
But that made me think of another story when I was, like I said, writing the novel.
So if you don't if you all don't mind me sharing.
You know, we had talked early on when we first started talking about doing this about, youknow, sensitivity to lyrics, comedy being misunderstood, etc.

(00:59):
And I remember that Sheila and I were doing these comic books.
there was do you remember ABBA?
Yeah, worked at Ragstock.
no person.
No, I don't remember.
Okay, it must have been after you, Terry.
So we did this whole rag stock, we did this whole thing called the Dough of Doug comicbook, and the very beginning was like Men We Have Known, and it was different pictures of

(01:27):
penises.
And then at the end, there was like, we kind of went off on a tangent, and there was thisone page, and it was the rag stop graveyard, and it had little gravestones for everybody
who had worked there.
There was a really tasteless joke that I did, which was I had one gravestone and it said,Abba's fat friend, Amy.

(01:48):
I didn't think a thing of it at the time.
And then we opened, I opened, what's this?
And I had those in there and she came in and she opened it up and she read it in front ofme.
just like, I mean, I just saw her face, the color pull.
And it was just like, all of a sudden it was like a realization of like, we're powerful.

(02:10):
and you have to really have an awareness of how you use your social power.
Yeah, exactly.
And you can't just be completely reckless.
I mean, you can, but there's consequences.
That's right.
So that was coincidentally right about the time when I stopped doing lyrical music.
Because you were concerned about what you were going to say the wrong thing.

(02:33):
I think so.
Like I like that I had done damage and like.
And it was fine too because I don't think my voice is that great.
know, and one of things I realized about why my voice is different, really different, whenI was in, I was in Japan when I was 16 for a year and I acquired some of the way that

(02:58):
Japanese sounds spoken in my English and then I also studied Japanese folk singing whichis completely different scale.
And so when I was listening back to the live show that we did, I heard it.
I was like, my God, I'm still, I have Japanese inflections and it sounded so strange tome.
So anyway, sorry to monopolize the conversation.

(03:21):
No, you don't have monopolization.
sharing there.
Here's a song I wrote called, Clinging Boyfriends.
I always loved that song.
You guys, this is sort of a joke song.
I wasn't gonna do this, I think it's appropriate.

(03:42):
You know, I don't think people really know how to deal with their anger.
You know, like they see it as a negative thing.
And yes, kill some, no, no.
No, see what I do is, Sheila and I keep a tape recorder near all the time.
And there are times that a song comes out and we pop in a tape.
And this was one of those times that a song came out and it's called Clinging Boyfriend.

(04:10):
Take it for what it is.
Terry's gonna play drums.
Nevermind.
Okay, anyway, clean boyfriend.

(04:49):
Me the bad guy.
Yeah
It's not me.

(05:20):
Be friends!
But you don't listen!
I don't want to have a relationship!
I can deal with this shit.
You don't understand!

(05:43):
I have no choice at this point

(06:16):
Anyway, but anyway, so yeah, so I've been doing instrumental music ever since, which Ialso think is interesting because it's like communicating without saying things, which is
almost completely opposite of what we were doing, which we were using language.
Yeah, over communicating using language to cause a reaction in the listener, you know, howthey respond.

(06:41):
And maybe this is a good time to just kind of for those people who don't know, are it'slet's to explain what are they?
What we do, our goal or or what we were really trying to do with our music.
Well, we were trying to shock people for sure.
Or I was for sure.
Tried to shock people, trying to express our power.

(07:05):
Don't you think, Terry?
Definitely.
But I also think we were imitating
masculine forms of power, especially we were trying on being casual about sex and, youknow, with sluts, right?
I mean, we were we were reclaiming instead of being slut shaming.

(07:28):
We were creating slut pride, which in 1980s, Missouri was a very big deal.
Right.
And certainly could not have happened without me.
gaining a feminist education first, right?
So there's still very much monogamous, very fucking Christian Columbia, Missouri.

(07:49):
We just joke and say it was the belly button of the Bible belt, right?
That was a real thing that we said.
And we'd all been to these institutions of learning, right?
That were very tightly controlled.
When I got my master's degree in 1986 at the UMC, my professors who were male asked me,
what I read, science fiction, and I said, no, actually I'm a theologist by including, butyou know, there was open mocking of women trying to gain any kind of, and having any kind

(08:18):
of ontological knowledge or understanding or having any kind of spiritual or educationalauthority or, it just didn't exist.
Well, I just wanted to say that I think that, you know, there's one type of misogynythat's like very blatant, you know, but the
The one that I think is the most insidious is the not knowing what you don't know.

(08:43):
Like not even understanding enough to know that you're saying something.
When we first opened the store, they had a series of books.
was literally a book came out called Trombone for Girls.
Right.
Like what?
That's like a not know.
And I remember I could Why do you have to have special instructions for girls to play atrombone?

(09:06):
Right, Exactly.
And the same thing like, you know, playing guitar, it's changed quite a bit in the lastdecade.
But, you know, people would say you play guitar like it's it's not like weightlifting orsomething, you know.
Right.

(09:26):
You know, to me, a lot of what we were doing, she's not satisfied.
She just wants attention.
Come and get petted.
She won't come over here.
Let your mama speak.
She'll only come to me in a couple different places in the house.
She won't come to the kitchen table because that's a place where I shoo her away from.

(09:51):
to me, was when, you know, as a whole, I saw it more as we were or in addition to as, youknow, calling out all the taboo.
things that weren't talked about, like menstruation, masturbation, abortion, you know, allof these things that were related very closely to women's lives, that all of the

(10:14):
conversations around these were basically determined by how men talked about them and nothow women talked about them.
I felt like a lot of what we were doing is saying, well, part of it was the shock thing,but also part of it was
casual conversation about, you know, here's, what it's really like in our lives.

(10:37):
And we can make this, we can pull out these things that are hidden in the shadows and, youknow, shed some light on them and start bringing them into conversation.
So all women out there can see, Hey, you know, these things are okay to talk about.
And re like you were saying, reclaiming certain, you know, words like slut.

(11:00):
And here's an early song that we wrote called Nice Girls.
you're out there, you'll know it.

(11:24):
They all wear brassieres They have since age 12 and they will for years
Yes, get bummed out by zits They like to show off their brand new outfits from Fashion GalThey wear clear as silk In flesh tone, of course, huh?

(11:57):
Nice girls like to babysit And do the laundry for their boyfriendship Nice girls Even asunderwear is stripped with shit They'll give anything a whirl In a dryer or a dime at a
laundromat
Nice girls do it missionary They got initials on their stationary To write home for moremoney And they get it They take orgasms Who are the big old?

(12:31):
Nice girls they all think they're whales They do aerobics and they stand on scales Nicegirls Big hair with curls
They carry aspirin in their purses They need it too, they're just like nurses Those nicegirls, same all over the world

(13:05):
So this is probably a good time for us to talk about Lori Creason, who was in very earlystages of the arts sluts and she actually was responsible for our name, but she did
contribute a lot of good lines to the Nice Girls song.
And Terry, I'm let you launch because you have such a good memory.

(13:27):
Well, I also remember the cellulite fortress.
Like there was a song, think that Pam wrote that she.
but that had a setup that we could do a different ram.
Anyway, it just, there's a lot of stuff about body shame.
And I remember Pam gave me a book by Kim something, Chernan.

(13:48):
was about You have such a good memory for the first - That was the, you know, graduateschool, you must cite your sources training.
So the hungry self was the name of the book.
And it was about the exploitation of the diet industry.
And I know that that got, we had
open discussions about it when we were hanging out baking in the freaking bakery at thesub shop across from Ernie's.

(14:14):
Where did Lori work?
Well, we all worked at the sub shop at some point.
she was at the sub shop think that Pam and Lori were on a baking shift.
the bread.
In the early morning.
Right?
In the early morning.
so baking bread and talking about diet and body, I mean, it's perfect feminine, right?
Like, remember I did the, in 2010, I
Was that the Women Who Rock Conference that I did a workshop called Arts, Let's in theKitchen?

(14:38):
Because part of the premise is that women's work is where women's creativity and women'sart and women's craft and women's, right?
Our culture is based in the kitchen, in the home.
Right?
So that all fits together for me.
So anyway, yeah, Lori was, because we were all tall or large women, right?

(15:01):
In the case of, you know.
And we all already had body issues, not because there was anything wrong with our bodies,but because the culture so effin misogynist that the female form is an aberration instead
of what's normal.
So those sorts of things come out of that.
What I remember about Lori is that before the Arts Lutz, I was working on this really justan incredibly depressing end of the world poem.

(15:30):
And we were taking like sound clips to add, because I was going to do kind of like a stillmovie thing.
And we just went around town for several days.
And that was before the art sluts started.
But then, Terry, you had the creativity part.
had the creativity.
I have photographs of Lori and you and me at that party.

(15:52):
And Sheila too.
Yeah.
Really early.
What was that like 82, 83?
83.
I think it was 83 and wasn't it everybody had to show up at a different time.
Yeah.
People came at a different time and they got half of a yin yang symbol.
I made a whole bunch of different colored yin yang symbols and cut them in half.
And then when you came in the party, I put a sheet over your head and had you sit insilence and darkness to create like a null pause in your sensory input.

(16:23):
And then you came in the door.
This is the beginning of my Aphrodite temple.
And you came in the door, you'd have to pick out of the bowl one half of a yin yang time.
And then you had to go and find the person that had the other part of the symbol.
And you were instructed to bring five sensory objects and then sit with that person andshare those sensations.

(16:45):
And people brought like oranges or stones or texture items.
was brilliant fun.
And then we sat in a big circle and all shared the things again.
And the party just kind of went from there.
Well, know Sheila and I were on the hunt at that point in time.
We were just stalking various guys around town.

(17:06):
Yeah.
Eric Wood was there.
think that was partly where Eric and Sheila got together.
No, think that might've been a little bit later.
we're heads in that.
definitely doing our haircut thing with the dog trimmers.
Cause there's a picture of you and Eric Wood.

(17:28):
shaving each other's heads, I think.
Exactly.
And so we were having the artists paint our t -shirts and Lori said, you guys are such artslots.
That's right.
And that's how the name, you know, and I, I'm not even sure if, I just liked that wedidn't, we took it as a compliment right away.
weren't like, we were like, yeah, that's cool.

(17:50):
I know.
And then she, she was the first show that was before Pam came on Pam, you were in theaudience at the first show, right?
Sure.
Yes.
I was in the audience thinking, then there were, these are such cool women.
and then we were lucky enough to with center show.

(18:12):
That was Chautauqua center.
That was the very first one, right?
We, yeah.
And we made it just downstairs in the basement.
Yeah.
Basement.
Yeah.
And we made, I think it was $50.
Yeah, something like that.
There was enough beer or something and cigarettes, probably.
No, we we saved it and and used it to go into the studio with Ed Herman.

(18:35):
right.
But when I called Lori, when we first started this project way during Covid, she said sheremembered leaving the band.
And I am a little fuzzy on what I remember happening.
You can let's just leave it right now.
I think that's about right.
And
But Pam, there was no crossover, right?

(18:58):
You know, the only thing I remember is I remember at one point we were all in my livingroom, there on Walnut, past the, you know, at the end of that dead end in my living room,
all singing together.
And I remember singing with Laurie then, but I don't remember performing with her.
I think that you didn't perform.

(19:19):
And what I'm remembering about cellulite forest is the rehearsal where we were trying todecide how to fit your
pieces and her pieces together in that one song.
Because both of us, we were all lit up about the conversations we'd had at the sub shopabout that Kim chernan book and like, this is so relevant.
And there was one recording of we're not equal that she's in the, I'm not your barb.

(19:45):
That's right.
Yeah.
She's her voice is on one of those early ones.
Yeah.
And you might both be on that.
I'm not your Barbie doll.
I'm not.
I am not your mother.
I am not your whole.
I am not your secretary.
I am not your analyst.

(20:05):
I am not your maid.
I am not your pet.
I am not a girl.
We are not equal.
I am a woman.
I am a woman.
I am not.
You're Barbie doll.
am not.
You're a beast.
You're a I'm not.
You're I'm not.
You're secretary.
I'm not.
You're an analyst.
I'm I'm We're not I'm one.

(20:42):
I am a am not.
You're Barbie doll.
I am not.
I am not.
You're girl.
I am You're a am not.
You're enlist.
am not.
You're a maid.
I am You're am not a We are not equal.

(21:08):
In parts of Africa, they still cut out women's clitorises and sew up their vaginas so mencan have a tight fit.
In 20th century America, we have high -heeled shoes so we can run, so we can't run fromdanger, so we slip on ice.
We wear clothes that bind so we can't move freely.
And we are constantly reminded, through the media and each other, that thin is attractive.

(21:30):
During the Renaissance, women were portrayed as being -figured and voluptuous.
A woman with fat on her body was considered attractive.
A woman who is thin obviously was too poor to eat well.
Today in America, a woman who is fat either hates herself or has hormone problems or isusing it as a defense mechanism against men.

(21:51):
A woman who literally starves herself to fit the ideal image of success
who eats diet pills, speed, who works out for the sole reason of losing weight.
This is what is attractive in America.
For those of us who can never attain this ideal, we hate our bodies.
We look in the mirror and groan.

(22:12):
We will for the rest of our lives feel uncomfortable in a body given to us by nature.
Isn't it strange that at a time when women are becoming stronger, when we are finallybecoming more vocal, when we are standing up for what we believe in, the push is on not
only to be equal to them and act like them to get along in their world, but to look likethem.
Bind those breasts, flatten that stomach, build up those muscles, but not too much, and dosomething about those hips.

(22:39):
Be thin, be childlike, but don't be a woman.
A woman's body is disgusting.
It makes babies and it bleeds.
We cannot accept the fact that we have women's bodies, that we have rounded bellies,breasts, rounded hips, that we are soft and fleshy.
In 20th century America, we have anorexia nervosa and bulimia, diseases common among womentoday.

(23:04):
How many women do know that aren't on a diet?
How many women do you know that don't know exactly how much they weigh?
We are obsessed.
While people in Ethiopia literally die from lack of food, we die because we're afraid ofit.
We feel guilty for eating it.
Food sustains our bodies.
Food makes us healthy.

(23:25):
Food is for the living.
I refuse to become an image of man.
I don't want to be equal to that.
I will not act like men or look like them.
At a time when women finally have their foot in the door, that foot cannot be attached toa wasted life starving for acceptance.
We are all products of our environment.
I will no longer be a product of victim mentality.

(23:47):
It's real and it's wrong and what needs to be changed will be changed because we do notgive up that easy.
I am transforming.
I am the giver of life.
I am a woman.
I am not your maid.
I am not your pet.
I am not a girl.
We are not equal.
I am a woman.

(24:08):
I am a woman.
You want to tell us about how you came up with We Are Not Equal, the poem for it, Pam?
Well, yeah, I think it was just part of those conversations we would have about our bodiesand the influence of culture on our bodies and this whole Barbie twiggy, you know.

(24:35):
ideal that we were supposed to be thin and shaped a certain way and you know, not tootall.
Right.
You know, all sorts of things that we were not.
Right.
And this idea that, you know, women were kind of seeking equality with men and justthinking about that a lot and thinking about the differences, you know, that, you know,

(25:00):
what I was struggling with in terms of what I thought about my place.
in the world and how I saw myself in relationship in relations to men and thinking youknow what no we're not equal and I just felt like I really wanted to call out

(25:22):
you know, take a look at some of those really misconceptions about women in our cultureand try to, you know, find ways to call that out and then also empower myself, I guess.
I wasn't really prepared to describe that actually at the moment, but that's what I'mcoming up with.

(25:44):
So powerful.
And one thing that we had there that doesn't exist now, as far as I know,
was public radio.
Yes.
You know, so we had KOPN, public radio station, and that's where Pam, you and I interacteda lot.
Like you took me up there and introduced me to David, right?
And to Patrice Kainer and to the whole.

(26:06):
There was a collective of women called the Crystal Set Feminists, you know, because radiosets used to be run by crystals.
And we thought that was kind of new agey hippie, right?
And was a they have a separate show.
they had six shows.
There was the feminist news.
That ran.
yeah, I remember that weekend.
was part of the collective of six women that ran the moon of Artemis show.

(26:28):
I remember that explicitly dikey, right?
Yeah, and I played only women and mostly experimental women like that's how I got intoKate Bush and Laurie Anderson and also I've looked up the other day I was like, what was
the earliest radical thing and I remember going up there during my orientation and Davidwhat's his name?
it's Owens pulling out Jane Cortez

(26:51):
and her song, Your Drum is a Woman, then why do you beat your drum?
And there it is.
And there it is.
know, some early Black Panther, Latino, Black, radical feminist stuff.
Yeah, you turned me on.
You turned me, you gave me a cassette comp that was the Mean Mama Blues.
Yes.
It was amazing.

(27:11):
la la la la la.
What's the matter with you?
That's right.
Stop your hanging around.
my bun and all that.
That's right.
All these.
30s and four and Viper blues, blues that were about getting high when you're a Viper.
Remember?
Yes.
For a while we were going to do another band that was an acapella blues band that was justabout getting high and we were practicing things.

(27:35):
I found a folder the other day.
I have a folder from all these where we printed out the lyrics from these songs and wewere practicing.
It might have been me and Sheila because I definitely remember getting high with Sheilaand focusing on it.
know, so and then there was.
Sorry.
No, go ahead.
I want to say one other thing.
People like Nikki Giovanni reading poetry.
Yes.

(27:56):
Right.
And then I started doing with the Crystal South Feminist Women's Weekend.
And you started that?
Yeah.
We it was didn't know that.
It was a day or they had a couple of hours and I was like, no, we need a weekend.
And then I went to Stevens.
We got Castlebury and Dupree to come and perform at Stevens College as part of Women'sWeekend.

(28:17):
And we went from having
you know, two hours to a whole weekend of live broadcast with local performers.
We did that.
That's like my first thing that I ever did on an organ.
Yeah.
And you remember Debo and the Hetros?
Yeah, I totally do.
I was, I was...
I love Debo fucking great.

(28:38):
I called her last year in the middle of pandemic.
She's near you.
Yeah, she's in Charleston.
Yeah, I've of reconnected a little bit with her.
There was I was part of that rotation with Moon of Artemis and Shalda.
OK, right.
Shalda and Jay.
So we would each take one weekend or whatever a month.
I had the fourth weekend.
I the fourth weekend.

(28:59):
I still have cassette tapes.
That music is rad as hell.
It's still really good.
you know, Terry, if you want me to transfer some of that, you know, yeah, I'll I'll mailthem to you.
Pam, something before we run you over again.
I was going to say, and the feminist news, which is where I learned how to splice tapeand, you know, edit reel to reel.

(29:27):
then they also had as part of that the late night women's punk show that I did withMaureen O'Day.
Yeah, didn't you do like a three in the morning?
Yeah, in the morning.
We played, it was like 90 % women punk artists.
Yeah, the slits, the cramps, crafts.
I should have written down people that you introduced me Yeah, you turned me on to all ofthat.

(29:50):
The raincoats.
Yeah.
I saw the raincoats in Seattle, you guys.
Yeah, before I left Seattle in like 2010.
It was great.
In fact, there's a really good documentary out about polystyrene.
yeah.
I was thinking, Terry, you sent us an email yesterday, you know, with all that stuff and Iwas reading about the woman, that first artist.

(30:16):
And it reminded me of that Mary on Faithful song, Lucy Jordan.
Yeah.
In the eyes of where she's she's just the housewife that ends up going naked, screaming,running down the street and.
I don't think I heard that album.
it's a great.
Very good.
The working class hero album.
think it's on there.
That is.

(30:36):
it?
OK.
Yeah, it's on there.
she's got that.
Why'd you do what you did?
Why'd you let that trash get a hold of your cock?
Get stoned on my hat.
That's her song to fucking.
I know.
What's his name?
Mick Jagger.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, that's her fuck you to Mick Jagger.
And I was like, this is cool.
And then there's a song about witches on that album.

(30:56):
That album is really radically instrumental.
Thank you, Mary Ann Faithful.
And then she played God on that hilarious show.
And I knew who she was because of that.
With that show with the absolutely fabulous, Sweetie Dolly.
She plays God in a dream scene on Absolutely Fabulous.
And got this beautiful young black guy with wings playing an angel, playing the bass, andshe sings and she's God.

(31:21):
You have to look it up.
I'll try to find it for you.
That's great.
I'll write that up.
Mary Anne, faithful and absolutely fabulous.
This is so good because I mean, all our memories are so different and there's things thatI did not know about both of you that I'm just learning now, which is really amazing.
Kaopian was it was a fabulous thing between Kaopian and the Chautauqua Center and the SheaCoffee House.

(31:46):
Yeah.
I mean.
And also the co -op, the food co -op, because was going to the food crop.
-op and the catalpatry.
The time at Debo and all those It just all of these, all of this community, overlappingcommunity, you know, and just places to go to be around people who were thinking
differently about their lives in the world.

(32:10):
would be helpful if we made a little map, sometimes like a board game of where they were,because we were also
That's a great idea.
We walked or we rode our bikes.
I remember riding my bike, smoking.
yeah, totally, totally, totally.
Wearing nothing.
I saw a photograph of myself in this white see -through caftan with no underwear on.

(32:31):
I was like, what was I thinking?
I need to see that photo.
Should we?
I'll try to it.
reminds me so of the park when we took off our shirts.
Yep, the shirtless.
In 1986, we did a shirt free action and Geode got her photo taken with her beautiful titsand the sign, we take back our bodies, that got on the AP wire.

(32:56):
today we would have said it went viral.
Right.
It was on all the new shows.
And it was like such a big thing.
And that was because I went to the Haymarket 100th year anniversary anarchist event andmet Nikki Page.
And Nikki Page was telling us to be sex positive feminist.

(33:17):
This is the very beginning of the split in feminist second and third wave where there wasa sex positive feminism and a sex negative feminism.
And I've had to do a lot of research and understanding around that.
It's pretty important.
I understand the sex positive.
What's the sex negative faction of feminism?
Andia Dworkin and who is?

(33:38):
It's like anti -sex worker, anti -pronography.
Yeah, and that all sex is exploitation of women, which I mean, it's not that far wrong.
But that women weren't ever in a position, because of the frame of patriarchy, womenaren't actually in the position to ever truly consent.
Because all of our economic reliance and dependency, which is created and entrapped by thewhole system, right?

(34:04):
Like, you know, we've got three master's degrees, people.
And my husband doesn't have a degree.
but he knows math and he makes 150 to $175 ,000 a year because of math and because my workis taking care of the environment or taking care of people.
The culture doesn't pay for that, right?
So it just creates, it enforces and requires financial dependency of women.

(34:28):
And as long as it does that, and then this is why we're art sluts, right?
This is the, this, right?
If you're an sexually autonomous woman, that means you're a slut, no matter what, becauseyou're not.
Your identity isn't reliant on a male and the male gaze and all of that stuff.
The other thing you did, Pam, is you gave me Kim Chirnan's book about the hungry self.

(34:51):
You gave me all this early political analysis, right?
The Anatomy of Freedom, Robin Morgan.
The Starhawk books.
just remember whenever I would get my paycheck, can't remember, I worked very manydifferent.
I would buy either feminist poetry or...
you know, one of these feminist writers and I'd always buy a Dr.

(35:12):
Seuss book because I love Dr.
Seuss.
that's great.
Yeah.
So I would always do that.
So the sex negative feminists were people that were saying and aligning with the religiousright and saying that all pornography and all explicit images were exploitation and
domination of women.
And then there was this tiny little fragment that got bigger and bigger that AnnieSprinkle really represents to me.

(35:36):
Right.
of women who are like, my sexual agency is that I'm going to use this thing thatpatriarchy has made taboo to make money.
And then when I have enough money, I'm going have my own identity and I get to make my ownporn and right then I'm in charge of it.
And this is her art form, right?
So that's the thing.

(35:57):
And so Nikki Page was an anarchist woman who was teaching women to have shirt free actionsin order to show liberation and to underscore
how misogynist the culture was because it was in like in the thirties and forties, men hadto petition to have shirt free, like to be able to go swimming in the ocean in America
without a shirt on men had to pass laws.

(36:21):
And so she was saying, why did men get this in the thirties and forties?
And we didn't.
And so this whole campaign was worked out from there.
we were already playing shirt free volleyball and third Avenue.
Right.
And and we had decided, I can't remember what
caused us to actually create that action.
it from your visit with her that?
it's me.

(36:41):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then so we went to the thing and then we went to the Midwest women's.
Well, first, don't skip over this.
Yeah, I want to go back for just a second because I just remember and I think that wasaround the time was that when Rocky Horror was released, because I just remember we'd be
parading through town with our very scant costumes and our boobs hanging out, you know,but it was OK because it was Rocky Horror and

(37:06):
It was night and we were walking down the street and it must have been around that timebecause I remember when we went to that event that the most powerful thing about that that
I just don't want to skip over this, you know, since we're talking about it is there wereall these frat guys and all these men in town that that's
came over because they wanted to see all these shirtless women.

(37:28):
And we started out by being in a circle facing one another because we also weren't surehow we were going to feel, how intimidating it was going to be.
And we felt so empowered in that circle.
And then when we got up, not everybody did this, but I was one of them, got up and startedwalking towards people to hand out our leaflets that talked about why we were doing this.

(37:52):
And I remember almost every one of those frat boys that I walked up to to handle leafletturned around and ran away.
was like they could not handle.
That's right.
They could not handle a naked woman.
We weren't naked, but we were shirtless walking up to them, looking them in the eye.
was too much.
And I just felt, you know, so empowered.

(38:14):
And it was also just so unexpected.
I didn't expect that.
Right.
Like you flip the script of power.
This is what happened, Pam, because
That's something that when I met Nikki Page at the Haymarket event, right?
And then I had to hitchhike there and didn't couldn't get back and they shoved me back inthe, you know, I was living at Third Avenue then.
So they showed me back in the car and we were all squished in there.

(38:35):
And then I started corresponding with her and I said, I really want to be a part of the,she was one of the people that was showing the slideshow of violence against women being
like the.
Rolling Stones and Black and Blue all over it, right?
She was a person that had put together one of those slideshows that showed there was acollapse between violence and sex.
And then she's like, look, we want sex, but we don't want the violence.

(38:56):
And let's be clear, we can distinguish these two things.
So then she went around and pointed out the hypocrisy, right?
That women should be able to own their own bodies and be shirt free when it's hot outside.
And they had already done a series of these actions in other places.
There was a float of women in Minnesota.
that dressed up like the Statue of Liberty without shirts on, and then they were handingout.

(39:18):
So we had, and they had the praying mantis collective where they were also, and we didthis at KOPN during women's weekend.
They read off the names of women's rapists where women had accused people of raping themand nobody had done anything.
And that was called the praying mantis collective, right?
So the shirt reactions happened and then we would go to the quarry and skinny dip naked inmud.

(39:42):
Afterwards, I have the photos of us doing that afterwards.
So what happened was we did a, my friend Pam Hoffman came from Ohio to visit me with herdaughter.
We're sitting in the lawn outside the third Avenue and an interviewer came, took photos ofus and they put in the paper that we were going to have this shirt free action at Peace
Park.
And because that was in the paper, an AM radio host that was a Republican, you know, aconservative Christian made announcements that they would give free six packs of beer.

(40:11):
to any guys that showed up to watch us in the Rush Limbaugh is from Missouri.
That's where he started.
I didn't know that.
Yes.
And were you at that event?
At that action?
that action?
Which one?
It was in 1986, a shirt -free action that we did in Peace Park.
Yes, yes, I was.
I was there.

(40:31):
it made me think of another thing that kind of related to nudity, the comparison betweenmen and women.
Because I don't know if you remember this, Terry, but when University of Missouri banned apainting of a man because it was showed his penis, and yet, of course, in art, fine arts,

(40:55):
forever on and on and on.
So I did this protest at University of Missouri against the art department.
think that's.
right around the time I met Stuart.
I'm trying to place I was gonna say Stuart, right?
Yeah, yeah.
dumb it.
Yeah, think so.
But yeah, it's just the, I don't know, it's just constant, right?

(41:18):
Yeah, so I do have photographs of that shirt -free I would love to see those because I wastrying to look up in the newspaper archives, but I couldn't find anything.
I have it documented.
have a whole bunch of articles.
I'd love to get those.
So there's 30 of us sitting in a circle.
Right?
And then there's all these people staring at us.

(41:39):
And then we had those little handouts and we went and I had the same experience.
We'd walk up and make eye contact and they would just freak out and run away.
And we would say, looks like you're, cause there's double when I going together.
like you're pretty interested in what we're doing today, sir.
Would you like to have some literally?
Yeah, it was great.
It was really great.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, that's the thing, courage in women is so intimidating.

(42:04):
to some men, you know, it's like.
And was that art protest, was that with just yourself or others that were part of it?
Yeah, I just, you know, it like one of these things where I just was like, this can'tstand, you know, made my poster and went down.
I think there was some other people, but yeah, I mean, I remember the topless.

(42:24):
I don't know if I was, I can't remember if I participated, but I know that I was there.
I remember it pretty vividly, but the.
The other one I remember was protesting in front of the abortion clinic.
yeah.
Or we used to glue the locks of the old un -theater together.
you did?

(42:44):
stuck glue in.
And what were you?
And I did a whole bunch of shit like that.
And what were you doing there?
Well, so they had, there was a, and I hate to call them pro -lifers, but anti -choicewhatever.
started protesting around that time, you know, that was the really the birth of the moralmajority was shortly before there.

(43:04):
And, and so I thought, well, there has to we have to have a counter protest.
And it was me and cash.
I'm trying to remember who else was there wasn't a lot of people, but it was a smallerone.
But I'm so proud because I got a thank you note from the president of Neyron.
It's like, yeah, I know is how cool is that?
But yeah, yeah, I just thought you well, we got to have we got to have

(43:27):
We've got to our voice out there.
Until next time.
We are.
We are.
Okay.
One more time.
right.
Thanks for listening to Art Sluts radio.
Hey, if you identify with the art sluts, explore our herstory at arts.

(43:52):
Dot net.
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(44:18):
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(44:40):
It's just my music, baby