QUEER WINDOW

Out and (Not) About

by BYRON BECK
bbeck@wweek.com

So begins an email from the voluptuous "Gina Velour." Miss G, an agent provocateur for the schemey side of our fair city, had shot me this missive in the hope that I could give you folks a heads up on her upcoming activities.

Could I? Hell yes, I could!

Gina popped up on my gaydar screen back when she was a partygoing PYT with a penchant for fabulous outfits and friends. But in the past few years, she had escaped my cultural clutches. That is, until I stumbled upon her incredible installation of photographs last year at the Mark Woolley Gallery. Called Pin Up--Velour Girls: Skirts & Skin, it exposed all sorts of fleshy and flashy femmes to an audience of supposedly unflappable art whores. In a town that has more strip clubs per capita than anywhere else in the United States, the show was a brilliant example of how our hamlet has elevated porn to high art.

Now, with her latest show Manwich (at Medusa Tattoo and Gallery), Gina's going to bare it all, once again. But this time out, Velour has replaced boob and beaver shots with bulging crotch rockets and fuzzy butts.

"In 1997 I started posing for men's magazines," says the va-voom-ish Velour. "That's when I realized I wanted to shoot this stuff myself."

Velour's photos often resemble stills from low-budget flicks or glamorous movies of the '50s, as well as the queerific work of '60s icon James Bidgood. She's kept herself busy clicking pictures of naked chicks for the past few years (you might've seen her work in Hustler's Leg World), but it was her gallery pin-up show that gave her the confidence to shoot men with her Dad's old camera.

"It's not about sex for me," Velour says. "It's about intimacy, regardless of gender or sexuality, between people. That fuzzy gray area that falls somewhere between love and fear. That's what I enjoy shooting."

For this particular show, Gina has enjoyed assembling a group of local gay and straight boys who, when they're not being photographed, toil away as snowboarders, go-go dancers, computer programmers, actors and paramedics.

And although this show, named for a sloppy-joe meat extender, doesn't focus on folks who work in the sex biz per se, it does allow us pervs to peek at some well-placed manhood without having to pay for it.

Thank you, Gina!

Meanwhile, on the sexual-revolution forefront, men are also getting their due in the 18th issue of the Portland-based Danzine, a pulpy publication created in 1995 by and for sex workers (the Danzine organization also runs a resource room and two health programs). The issue, titled Male Room, shoots its entire wad on the "boyz" in the backroom, throwing in a few articles for the ladies just for good measure. Not only full of intriguing bedtime stories, this informative mag could also be a lifesaver for dudes who whip it out on stage (and other places). An article called "Don't Drink the Water," for example, written from the perspective of the stripper, warns go-to-it guys to keep an eye on their drinks if they know what's good for them. According to this article, certain "patrons" are more than willing to slip something into a dancer's fuel just to see him slip up.

Who knew?