Diana Oh & Company in {my lingerie play}. QUEER THE WORLD
93. keep fucking / infinite love party: quickie with the [boundless artist] behind {my lingerie play}
This is a podcast about intimate relationships of all kinds. It’s Slow Radio, consensual eavesdropping. It’s us lying down, sharing secrets, in your ears. Each full-length recording is between 3 and 5 hours long, divided into two episodes. Part one: available in all the podcast places.
Review their show; Buy them a sex toy.
Diana: I came up with this theory that it’s like, for every review, that a heterosexual white cisgendered critic writes about a queer Person Of Color’s work: That critic owes them a sex toy. Like that is a reparation! That’s like reparative damage. For all the triggering shit you say, all the stuff that keeps us caged, all that like—
If you are not in the business of liberation with me, then like, just get the fuck out of my way.
Lila & Diana during this recording, at the horizontal storytelling pajama party. Image by Valerie Zimmer Photography. February 2018
horizontal with lila is a podcast about intimate relationships of all kinds. It’s Slow Radio, consensual eavesdropping. It’s us lying down, sharing secrets, in your ears.
Each full-length recording is between 3 and 5 hours long, divided into two episodes. Part one: available in all the podcast places. Part two: available exclusively to patrons of the horizontal arts. And at the very end of the part twos, I ask my guest to tell me a story…
Occasionally, I release a quickie episode. A quickie is just the story (or in this case, stories, as she was feeling inspired).
This particular quickie episode was recorded live at my horizontal storytelling pajama party of February 2018.
Hellohhh Diana!
In this quickie, I lie down with Diana Oh. Diana Oh is a Force.
An instigator, an activist, an actress, a musician, a singer, a creator of myriad kinds.
She is an Interpreter, and also, a Maker – a sensual, gutsy, and glorious queer theatre-maker, happening-curator, and music-creator. Since Diana uses both she and they pronouns, I will use them interchangeably.
They are the architect of {my lingerie play}, a series of installations, performances, and concerts profiled in places like Upworthy and The New York Times, which includes public declarations of lingerie, body positivity, and standing for the right to walk down the fucking street without being harassed.
Recently they hosted a series of slumber parties – can you see why she’s a woman after my own heart?! – and called them The Infinite Love Party. I love that. I love that so much.
I’ve had a horizontal sleepover in the works for a while, and this coming Sunday, September 29th from 5-8pm at Hacienda Studio in Brooklyn, I’m hosting:
horizontal + chill: #notaplayparty
It’s a 3-hour sleepover!
We’ll have connection games, a cheeky film screening, massage toys, a hot tub, and surprises (which may or may not include a serenade or two). And, you know, things like this might happen.
It tastes better when they feed it to you. Intimacy Warriors Photoshoot. Image by Valerie Zimmer Photography. July 2018
I first saw Diana perform in a staged reading of a musical over a decade ago, in a teeny tiny black box theatre in the very West Village. I don’t remember the plot. I don’t recall the music. I only vaguely remember who I was with. What I *do* have memory of, vividly, viscerally, is Diana’s sensuality. As she sang and flipped her hair to the side and cocked her head, smiled and rocked her body to the beat, her sensuality penetrated every crevice of that space….. and I wondered, “Do I want to be her? Do I want to kiss her?”
I mean…
I think what I admire the most about Diana is her refusal to color in the lines of your medium. Her whole career seems to say, “Why can’t these things go together? Obviously they fucking can. I’m gonna put them together and see what happens.”
Is it a play?
Is it a concert?
Performance art?
An installation?
A happening?
Yes. Yes it is.
Find all things Diana at dianaoh.co (It rhymes.)
For the visuals, point yourself to her Instagram: oh yea Diana
(As usual, everything will be linked in the blog post on horizontalwithlila.com)
You can be a part of her multidisciplinary glory by becoming her patron at Patreon.com/dianaoh
And in order to receive access to all the part two episodes of horizontal, as well as a personal Happy Dance video and monthly intimacy tips, become a patron of the horizontal arts by navigating directly to Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila.
You have to navigate there directly from the link, or type it in perfectly to your web browser, because unlike Diana (lucky!) I am relegated to the ghetto of sex-positive creators on Patreon.
It doesn’t matter if we are providing sex ed. It doesn’t matter if our work is not explicit. It doesn’t matter if we hide all our content and only make it available to patrons, as I have done, after they froze my account last year— Patreon hides our profiles and makes it impossible to search for our work, because we are categorized as “adult” creators.
So, in order to support our sensual, sensory work, find us on Patreon.com/dianaoh … And Patreon.com/horizontalwithlila:
{my lingerie play}
In this quickie, Diana tells us stories about queer liberation, reparations, sex in a theatre, and inviting a roomful of NPR subscribers out on a date.
Until next time: may you have someone to love, something to do, and something to look forward to. This week, I’m looking forward to experimenting with co-working at The Wing, and seeing some immersive theatre!
Now! Come lie down with us at horizontal storytelling, in Bushwick, Brooklyn.
{And thank you for getting horizontal.}
horizontal with Diana Oh at the horizontal storytelling pajama party. Image: Valerie Zimmer Photography. February 2018
Links to Things:
Diana’s website, for all things Diana Oh
Her Instagram, ohyeadiana
Her Patreon, to support her Radical Independent Queer Visceral Badass Important Work
{my lingerie play} specifically — a New York Times critic’s pick
Get your tickets for this Sunday night’s horizontal + chill!
Show Notes (if you share, please link to the post or the Patreon!):
[8:31] {my lingerie play}
[9:27] The Super Sexy Hot Enthusiastic Consent workshop segment of the show
Diana: Part of the concert— there’s a section in it where we do these Super Sexy Hot Enthusiastic Consent workshops—
enthusiastic consent (noun) = the clear, explicit agreement — mutual, keenly-expressed, freely-given in sound mind, and revocable at any time — to engage in an act (often, a sexual and/or kinky one), free of coercion, manipulation, physical force, or deception.
— And I bring an audience member on stage who raises their hand, volunteering to make out with me on stage. And I walk them through consent. And we like, do it, and it’s hot, and we make out. And… it’s… best time of my life.
Read this Instagram post. Talk about holding complexities. #dialecticalintelligence
[9:54] On stage make-out with JonLeeAlex
[10:25] Diana unicorns with JonLeeAlex & RobynBillieSam
[11:41] On being a sex-positive theatre maker & the sterility of modern theatre.
Diana: I have to say, being a sex-positive theatre maker is, holding so many complexities and so many different identities, and they’re— it’s so at odds with each other… that I’m constantly like, I have— like I just don’t know where I fit in to the theatre world, because I… I think that it’s, it’s become, sterile in so many ways, and when I read theatre critique, I’m like, They have sterilized it.
[12:07] {my lingerie play} was a New York Times critic’s pick. Reviews poured in from cis white men on Diana’s work.
Diana: And all these reviews were coming out, and all this positive stuff was happening, you know, and like The New York Times Critics Pick thing happened. And, and I was still having this problem with all these like, cisgendered, heteronormative writers— white. Writing about my work, as a queer, nonbinary, femme-presenting artist of color. And it— when you have people from a different paradigm writing about your work…
heteronormative (adjective) = characterizing or relating to a societal worldview in which heterosexuality, and the customs, behaviors and practices surrounding it (e.g. marriage), is considered the acceptable, preferred, and normal way.
queer (noun) = the Q in LGBTQ, a person who either rejects sexuality labels entirely, or identifies outside of heteronormativity, the gender binary, binary genitalia, and/or the sexual spectrum. For example the spectrum could include Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Pansexual, Polysexual, & Heterosexual, and Asexuality may exist outside of those identities.
[12:36] A theory on the reparations owed queer POC (Person Of Color) theatre-makers by the hetero- cis- white men who review their work!
Diana: I came up with this theory that it’s like, for every review, that a s— heternor— that a heterosexual white cisgendered critic writes about a queer Person Of Color’s work: That critic owes them a sex toy. (Lila and the audience giggle) Like that is a reparation! That’s like reparative damage. For all the triggering shit you say, all the stuff that keeps us caged, all that like— If you are not in the business of liberation with me, then like, just get the fuck out of my way.
[13:56] How Diana reclaimed her space in the theatre.
Diana: I just thought: The only way I can claim my space, and reclaim my space, is by actually claiming my space, and I need to fuck on stage.
I mean. Image by Valerie Zimmer Photography. February 2018
[15:57]
Diana: I do feel like every time I have sex, it’s a radical act of queering space and liberation and all that good stuff! So: Keep Fucking, is the moral of that story.
[16:27] Story #2: How Diana turned an audience into a dating pool.
Diana: I’m looking for a hot date.
[17:25] What does hot sex mean? Lila tries to define it for herself.
Lila: So I’m a little bit on the demisexual spectrum. So to be— to be connected with someone in a way that is beyond the physical, that feels either… cosmic or emotional or energetic… in a way that there’s something else vibrating besides my physical features. That’s hot sex to me.
Diana: Agreed… agreed. (Diana, Lila, & the audience laugh)
[19:07]
Diana: I just ended up passing out my number to people that I thought were sexy. And the result of the post-it experiment is…
93. keep fucking / infinite love party: quickie with the [boundless artist] behind {my lingerie play}
This is a podcast about intimate relationships of all kinds. It’s Slow Radio, consensual eavesdropping. It’s us lying down, sharing secrets, in your ears. Each full-length recording is between 3 and 5 hours long, divided into two episodes. Part one: available in all the podcast places.
