CARNAL CARNIVAL Sex workers lay down some naked truths BY BETH SCHWARTZAPFEL

"Who here’s gay?" Annie Oakley, a pink-curly-haired woman with thigh-high boots and a tattoo of a dagger on her leg, shields her eyes from the spotlight as she scans the audience. Cheers and hoots ring out. "Oh," says Oakley. "Thank God." Thus began the Sex Workers’ Art Show during a stop last month at AS220 in Providence. The carnal carnival, which began as an annual event in Oakley’s hometown of Olympia, Washington, is now so popular that it has toured nationally for the last three years.

The show is a raucous cabaret, with performance art, comedy, music, spoken-word, stripping, and storytelling. The performers have all worked in various aspects of the sex industry, as phone sex operators, peep show performers, exotic dancers, strippers, pornographic film actors — in the words of performer Tre Vasquez, "Hooker, whore, whatever you want to call it." The attentive capacity audience at AS220 responded with laughter and shouts of encouragement.

Sex work is commonly understood to be an occupation of last resort, taken up by people who live on society’s margins. The Sex Workers’ Art Show sets out to dispel those perceptions, and to showcase the ways in which sex workers are in control of their bodies, their careers, and their self-respect. In general, the show and its funny, sex-positive outlook did this successfully, but there were still many uncomfortable moments — some purposely — which left somewhat unresolved the question of whether sex work is demeaning or empowering.

Nomy Lamm, a musician, activist, writer, phone-sex operator, and self-described "badass fat ass Jew dyke amputee," offered several heartfelt accordion-accompanied ballads, as well as a sidesplitting re-enactment of a typical night at work. Lamm’s voice got breathy and high as she answered her fake caller’s questions with blatant lies. "I’m about five three, a hundred and 15 pounds," she breathed. "I have blonde hair. I’m wearing a little tank top with cherries on it." "Uh," she intoned her imaginary caller’s response. "You sound so hot."

Ronica, a New York City-based acupuncturist who has also worked in various aspects of the sex industry, did a stand-up routine that had the audience cracking up — about politics, her customers, and white guilt. She also mused about what it would be like if parts of her body could talk. Ronica made a mouth with her hands in front of her crotch and opened and closed them while reciting the monologue from Michael Jackson’s "Thriller": "Darkness falls across the land. The midnight hour is close at hand."

The laughter, however, was punctuated with moments that were definitely not funny.

Isis Rodriguez, a San Francisco-based exotic dancer and performance artist, was wrapped in an American flag and then bound with rope as the loudspeaker played Taps and a mannequin of George W. Bush looked on. Vasquez, a Tucson hip-hop and spoken-word performer, described his days as a sex worker, in part, as "a fat wad of cash in my hand in exchange for a piece of my dignity." And Naima Lowe, a Philadelphia playwright who previously lived in Providence, had people shifting uncomfortably in their seats. She began her piece in only her underwear and slowly got dressed. A slide show showed scenes from the job she seemed to be preparing for, while the awkward noises of her and a client played overhead.

As to whether sex work is empowering or demeaning, well, like any other job, the answer seems to be, both, depending on the person, the time, and other details.