Cameryn Moore @ Sweet Grassmarket. Fringe 2018

Terrible Sex Tips
 at the 2018 Fringe. It runs at 21:10 every night of the Fringe (except the 14th), also at Sweet Venues in Grassmarket.

World premiere at 2018 Edinburgh Festival Fringe

From unexpected undies to staying out late in Cowgate, professional smut-monger Cameryn Moore has a weird, wonderful sex story for every occasion. Slut-shaming. Capitalism. Substandard dildos… it’s all on the table in Cameryn’s new sex-ed storytelling show, "Terrible Sex Tips: Live & Uncut," making its world premiere this August at Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

In "Terrible Sex Tips," the American phone sex operator-turned-playwright sets her comedic talent loose on cultural norms and awful advice columns, drilling down to their crappy core to illuminate why we need to set those expectations on fire and start from scratch. "Terrible Sex Tips" is brazen yet biting sex ed for any adult who wonders what’s beyond scratchy lingerie and “Tickle His Pickle” (yes, that’s a real book title).

“As often as I might say ‘cock’ or ‘cunt’ in my work, none of these stories are meant to shock,” says Cameryn. “I just want to get people to talk about what they really, really want, and for that I need to talk about the hard and/or wet stuff. Real, rowdy, and a little ridiculous is the best way to go.” 


Would you identify your show as 'gay' or 'queer'? What makes you define the show with this label?

Terrible Sex Tips is queer, because I'm queer and some of the stories included are about my same-sex experience. So there's some hot girl-on-girl action in it (jk, it's not very hot, terrible sex tips, remember?), but there's also a lot of shenanigans with cisgender dudes as well. 

The amount of time that different kinds of sex and kink get play in this show is pretty representative of how much play they have or have had in my life. Which is definitely queer.

What differences do you see between the labels 'gay' and 'queer'?

Gay is pretty much for men only, in my book, unless I'm being ironic and talking in a deliberately simplistic way. Queer is more accessible to people of all genders, and it is inclusive of different experiences of bisexuality and pansexuality. 

It's also got a bit of a political edge, which I like. I came out in the U.S. right around the time that Queer Nation emerged; that was a very formative time for me.

Why do you think I am asking this question, particularly of your show?

Looking at the show write-up and the way that I deliberately reference women's magazines and their terrible sex advice, it would be easy to assume that I am straight. Looking at my picture, people often assume that I'm a lesbian. 

I talk about my past and present relationships with men quite openly, but I also frequently reference the 11 years I lived with a woman. Bisexual invisibility and erasure is a real thing; people frequently jump to conclusions and they are frequently wrong.

Cameryn tells her smut around the world at comedy shows and her own world-infamous Smut Slams (dirty storytelling open mics), which have sold out comedy clubs and performance palaces from Vancouver to Berlin to Wellington, NZ. She is also the creator of five critically acclaimed solo shows and one-woman plays, including the award-winning Phone Whore, slut (r)evolution, and nerdfucker. 

Thoughts on the Big Fire

The internet is the place where serious events - like an iconic Glaswegian building burning down for the second time in the same decade - are subsumed to individuals' desire to variously virtue signal, reveal their ability to identify conspiracies or make it all about them. So here's my take on the fire that has destroyed the Macintosh Building that is round the corner from my house.

Note: I breathed in fumes from the flames and nearly got hit by a massive ember, so my opinion is totally valid.

1. Please don't rebuild it again. Rather, clear up the mess and leave it as a ruin. The amount of money it would cost to rebuild - and I hope that the insurance premiums would cover this - could be better deployed on other projects supporting the students and the art school. Sure, the Mac brings in the tourists, but leaving it as a ruin could do that, especially if it was treated as a site of historic interest. People go to ruined castles all the time, and they aren't so conveniently situated next to a shopping centre.

2. Please don't rebuild it again. I appreciate that the skills needed to restore the building to its former appearance are important to maintain, and I don't want the craftsmen and artists who would get work to lose out. But maybe they could be employed to embellish existing art spaces, or the new ones they could build with the insurance money. Little bits of Macintosh style scattered around the city. I hear that some of the interior work had not been put into the building before the fire, which would mean it is safe. Put it somewhere interesting. A nice wood panel or two would go well in the many contemporary buildings that have a surgical atmosphere. It could even become a tourist trail: find the Macintosh details.

3. Please don't rebuild it again. Contrary to popular opinion, the art school is not a building (cf. a church is its congregation). It was a beautiful building, and any new build on the site would be ugly by comparison (cf. the rebuild of the art school building on the other side of the street). But a complete remake of the Macintosh building would be an imitation, a copy that has more in common with a Disney palace than a slice of heritage (itself a commodified word). Use the insurance money to further the facilities for the students of the art school: do they have enough studios? 

4. Please don't rebuild it again. But don't put student flats in its place. Frankly, Glasgow has a reputation for things burning down. Not getting into the conspiracies about why so much of the architectural heritage of the city has ended up a hollow shell, but that lovely Greek Thompson church on the other side of Sauchiehall Street met Mr Flames not so long ago. There are plenty of spaces - old tenements and that - which could be converted. Use them, and leave the site of the Mac as a ruin. 

5. Please don't rebuild it again. This is a terrible thing to have happened, but I reject the sentimentality about objects - the most important thing is that no-one was injured in the fire, and the bravery of the fire-fighters who are still hanging about my street and keeping an eye on the aftermath (and a big up to the Salvation Army for giving them cups of tea and that from their emergency van). Glasgow has had a rubbish attitude towards its built environment for years - a big motorway through the city-centre, anyone - so the Macintosh has become an icon as one of the last great buildings left. Rebuilding it isn't a way of avoiding hard questions about how we treat the cities that house us, employ us and, sadly, oppress us with a plethora of potato-stamp quality new flats and offices. 

6. Other opinions are available. I understand that this might seem harsh and untimely. I know there is an attachment to the Mac. If it is rebuilt, I won't be sulking: hopefully, I'll be living here when it gets restored to its glory, and get to walk past it on my way to the office. 

7. Other opinions are available. Rebuilding the Mac would show how indefatigable Glasgow is. It could stimulate tourism, represent a pride in the city and a respect for its heritage. Of course.

La JohnJoseph @ Summerhall. Fringe 2018

Would you identify your show as 'gay' or 'queer'? What makes you define the show with this label?

Deffo queer, I always want to flag that up to the audience. I feel that gay theatre very often has a tone between teen drama ("Why doesn't that cute guy call me?) and drawing room melodrama ("Josh, I think we should try an open relationship).  

It's like when women who experienced the sixties say that the sexual revolution was a one way street, that the pill simply allowed and men to fuck whomever they want with no real responsibility. Gay theatre sort of does that doesn't it? Provides the excuse for you to put your baseball cap on backwards, cruise your cast mates, break up with your boyfriend, and dedicate the summer to taking selfies of you and yr new squeeze hungover  at Starbucks, before the whole thing explodes in a fireball of bad drugs and Kat Von D highlighter, like the season finale of A.N.T.M.

What differences do you see between the labels 'gay' and 'queer'?

I see gay as, "I am a person of gender A who is primarily attracted to people also of gender A, in contradiction to the social and cultural norm that I should be attracted to a person of gender B, and this has been my major dislocation from society. 

I demand reparation for that dislocation and concurrently celebrate it when I say I am gay."  How can I, as a person who has no concrete gender, who does not comply with the sex I was assigned at birth (and so can't date/fuck/love people of the "opposite" gender) be gay? Gay needs opposition, it needs binary gender to function. 

Queer isn't seeking fixity, queer is questioning, queer is saying, "Okay so

credit: Attila Kenyeres

you're a trans male drag queen who is pregnant with a baby you are carrying for your two gay best friends - do you want to go to the movies?" You don't actually have to be gay to be queer, that's the kooky thing. 

The problem is of course, eventually queer will reach a point of stasis, and marketability and then we'll all have to go off further into identity politics and fashion more new language, once the Halifax has started offering Queer Mortgages. 

Why do you think I am asking this question, particularly of your show?

Because of my immense sexual charisma surely? 

My Fanzine

The Vile Fanzine

Last year, the Vile Arts produced two fanzines, The Edinburgische Dramaturgie, with financial help from the artists who were featured. This page explains the idea behind the fanzine, and gives a rough idea of what might happen in 2019, as I'd like to have another go at the project.

Why am I doing this?

In the past, I did a 'dramaturgy database' - free to be included, and all a company had to do was answer a series of email questions. It was a great success, allowing artists to speak on their own terms about their show, and giving me a really good idea about which shows were well-considered and vibrant productions, and those made by lazy chancers. I also found out that some PRs are really lazy and don't reply to theatre editors, despite claiming to represent clients.

I've stopped that now, because I don't need it for my research at Glasgow University anymore.

But I am keen to develop my publishing skills this year. So, the fanzine is a solution. I am giving artists a chance to support criticism, and possibly have a lovely souvenir of their time at the world's largest arts festival. There are a few other reasons, but I'll get back to them.

What will it look like?

Ideally, each issue - I shall do up to four, depending on support - will be 24 pages long. The cover will be colour- and have a lovely illustration on it. The inside pages will be in black and white, to keep costs down.

It will be the size of a comic book.

Ideally, each issue will contain four articles of four pages about four companies. That gives me  spare pages for a editor's note (by me or one of my critic pals), think pieces and sundry acknowledgements. 

The articles will be a similar format to the old dramaturgy database: email interview, press release... and little critical commentary from me. It has the same intention as the DD - to let artists speak in their own voice. There will be pictures, too, and probably some of my comic book detournements.

This fanzine will be paid for by contributions from the featured artists. The payment is not for inclusion, but the cost of printing: each company will receive a number of copies, proportionate to the amount that they pay. 

The cost to artists will be in multiples of £130. For each £130, the artist will get 90 copies of the fanzine, which they can distribute in any way they chose. They can sell it at their shows for a couple of quid or so, maybe £2.50. They can give them away in the street instead of flyers. And yes, they will be supporting themselves and the other featured artists. That is what I like: artists helping each other.

There are possible ways of doing this at lower rates: a couple of shorter articles, say 2 pages, for a lower financial contribution and less copies received (perhaps 45 copies for £65). But the important thing is that the payment is for printing and production costs: the fanzine is being made for the companies to distribute. Overall, I want to be able to do reasonable sized runs - it gets very expensive making runs of less 100 copies. 

The cash will go towards paying me a fee, paying other writers I ask to contribute and printing. 

It is about co-operation!

I am not taking adverts, because they are better placed in The List. I won't be quoting other critics in the articles, either. But I like the idea that artists can make an effort to support a bit of critical experimentation, and get a nice thing to have as a kind of programme for their show, and can actually, by distributing the fanzine, show solidarity with other artists, whom they have probably never even met but with whom they will share the pain and pleasure of the Fringe experience.



I am worried about that - it might seem a bit steep. Last year, I did distribute the majority of the copies printed myself. 

But that's why I don't mind people deciding to sell them. That way, they can recoup their expenditure. But each £130 pays towards a print run of at least 400 copies. That means 400 issues featuring a four page (comic book sized) article about the show, and I reckon they are pretty rare in the Fringe. 

Art School Fire II (9)