I first came across the poster for Lesberado Productions’ lesbian erotic show in Vancouver 1987 while searching the ArQuives collection. I was taken immediately by the woman in the illustration; her hair wild, the shades, leather bodice unzipped. However, my research to find more archival material regarding the show was a short-lived venture: I found only two brief reviews from Angles, a Vancouver-based gay and lesbian magazine.
I almost abandoned this research, thinking that I was analyzing an event that was too small to be significant. After all, it was not a protest, police raid, or any form of violent suppression against queer life. Rather, it seemed like a fun night, the type to elicit pleasure and joy. Is this why I did not see it as important? Was I giving into the idea that grief is “the proper ticket into historical consciousness” (Freeman 59)? How deeply have I held the belief that the work of pleasure was secondary to the work of grief? Audre Lorde would argue for the erotic as an “open and fearless underlining of [one’s] capacity for joy” (89). Doesn’t queer joy deserve a podium in queer history?
When considered against such a vast landscape of pain, what is one night of queer pleasure?
I assert: It’s everything.
Continue reading “Radical Erotics: Lesberado Productions’ 1987 Lesbian Erotic Show in Vancouver”