(S)exhibition

The Museum of Sex Objects presents a collaborative installation and a series of workshops and talks with LGBTQ+ Sex Workers.

Open to the public Thursday through Sunday from 1pm to 6 pm throughout May. Candlelit guided tours every Wednesday evening, hosted by The Keeper.

This installation explores the normalcy of sex work and the performative nature of pleasure. Representing the duality of identity that many sex workers experience due to the nature of their work, it offers insight into where those competing personas clash.

As many sex workers practise from home, the exhibition draws on the ordinariness of home juxtaposed with the theatre of sex work. Banal household objects, such as a chest of drawers and fridge doors, are co-opted as canvases to tell these artists’ stories. These objects mirror the duality in a sex worker’s life, the “pressures of curating and performing fake identities” with the real queer women outside of the male gaze. In doing so, our wish is to provide a more holistic and whole identity to sex workers as a way of nurturing empathy and understanding, leading to a more united sisterhood.

The exhibition opens to the public on May 3rd and runs until the end of May. Alongside the installation, we will be hosting a variety of events and workshops to explore themes relating to the history of sex work and identity more deeply.

This show would not have been possible without our fine fellowship of collaborators and the generosity of Lyall (Vogue Fabrics Dalston) in hosting the (S)exhibition.

Tours, talks and workshops

The Keeper’s Candlelight Tours
Wednesdays 8th, 15th and 22nd May
7-8.30pm

Join the Keeper for guided tours of the (S)exhibition and delve deep into the history of the show. What better way to spend a Wednesday evening?

Tickets: £10 or £15 with a glass of wine or beer.

Talk: To weaponise, to fetishise
Friday 10th May, 7-9pm

Extrapolating from the piece Narratives, Counternarratives, Chao-Ying Rao (Betty) will be speaking about her personal experiences growing up as an East Asian woman in Scotland and how she learned to weaponise and manipulate being fetishised as a form of survival. She will discuss feminism in relation to sex work, as well as her own experiences as a way of providing context for her instillation. Unpacking the nuances around objectification – an often-uncompromising word which requires some deeper analysis – she will talk about objectification as escapism through ritual and performance.

Workshop: East London STripper Collective host life-drawing
Saturday 11th May, 2-5pm

Life Drawing with ELSC launched in 2013 as a natural progression from the age-old practice of hiring professional harlots and hussies as models for art. This fast-paced class often involves high-octane aerial pole poses. The workshop will incorporate some traditional life drawing with a couple of 5, 10, and 15-minute poses. No experience needed — newcomers welcome!

Talk: Histories of Sapphism, sex
and Sorcery
friday 17th May, 7-8.30pm

From persecution to Pride, sapphic women have always been intertwined with histories of witchcraft. But why? Join sapphic scholar Mara Gold on a magical journey through the ages, exploring how spirituality and spellcasting became entrenched in sapphic culture. From communing with lesbians of antiquity to sex rituals, you don’t have to look far to find magic in sapphic history.

Talk: Fallen women
Saturday 18th May, 7-8.30pm

A night of sexually charged enchantment with Folk singer-songwriter Liz Overs in conversation with Museum of Sex Objects storyteller The Keeper. They explore through music and objects, the unsung folk hero: the sex worker. Chasing this spirited, cruel beauty, carrier of disease, fair maid, poor young girl, and wronged woman across time. She is the container of all society's projected fears. What a burden to bear!

Hopefully, by shining a light on her, the wrongs she has endured for millennia will go a small way to being righted.

workshop: self-defence saturday specialFallen women
saturday 25th May, 2-5.30pm

Forced underground and denied the protection afforded to most members of society, marginalised groups have had to find a means of resistance that not only keeps them safe, but builds community in the process. Sex workers are no different, and as some of society’s most vulnerable people, have historically used all the tools available - physical, mental and social – to protect us from harm.

Part 1

Join Black Venus in a self-defence workshop for sex-workers and survivors. Learn basic, tried and tested techniques that both protect and empower. Learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai striking techniques that can be employed in self-defence situations on the ground, standing up and in confined spaces. The workshop will be integrated with conversations led by Venus on the topic of who deserves to be protected and how stigma influences policies that harm sex workers, survivors, women and GNC people from all walks of life.

Part 2

Did you know sex workers in the 15th Century used makeshift pepper spray to defend themselves? Join Fiona Carroll to delve deeper into the role self-defence has in the history of sex work. This talk will explore the methods of social protection and defence employed against persecution and how community was used as a form of protection.

Workshop: Writing Intimacy
Sunday 26th May, 2-4pm

This writing workshop will explore how to write intimacy authentically. Hosted by two sex worker writers and artists, Annabelle and Bella, for whom intimacy represents the primary tool of their trades, both in the sex and creative industries. Intimacy isn’t one specific thought or action, it is the feeling of knowing and being known, and a lot of the best writing situates this experience in surprising places. In this workshop, we will use writing to explore experiences of intimacy. Some may be sexual, but they can also be as subtle as revealing just a tiny detail of your inner world, such as a small habit or ritual.