Cameryn Moore

Facilitator of smut - Series 1, Episode 9

In this episode of Queers & Co., I’m joined by Cameryn Moore, an award-winning playwright/performer with seven solo shows under her belt but perhaps best known as the founder of Smut Slam, a global network of community dirty-storytelling events.

We chat about becoming an activist in the mid-80s, the power of learning to dance later in life, sex positivity versus being sex aware, how people who have a problem with sex work really have a problem with capitalism, growing up Mormon and undoing our issues around sex. Plus, the joys of creating personalised smut on the street for passers by!

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Find out more about Gem Kennedy and Queers & Co.

Podcast Artwork by Gemma D’Souza

Resources

Check out Cameryn’s website to find out about upcoming performances and events.

Follow Cameryn on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

Follow Smut Slam London on Facebook here and Smut Slam International here

Watch Juno Mac’s TED Talk - The Laws that Sex Workers Really Want here

Cameryn’s recommendation: Little Women (2019)

More info on performer and fat activist Heather McAllister can be found here and here

Photo of Cameryn by Ed Barnas

Full Transcription

Gem: Hi Cameryn, thank you so much for joining me.

Cameryn:  Oh, it’s good to be here. Thank you!

Gem: So, it’ll be really great if you just tell us a bit more about you and how you identify.

Cameryn: I am a playwright and a performer and a facilitator of smut. That’s kind of my professional designation I guess. I identify as an activist in a lot of ways around sex and fat and sex work. And phew, I’m just a middle-aged lady that didn’t really get the memo on how to be middle-aged sometimes is how I’m feeling like, yeah.

Gem:  And so, there’s lots to explore there. I’m just wondering how you first got into activism.

Cameryn:  I first got into activism when I was 16 actually. This was back in the mid-80s, so 1986. Nuclear war was kind of the constant looming thing. I don’t know how it was for other places, but certainly in the US, there was this constant sort of—it just hung over everything right? I started a peace activist group at my high school in a very conservative town. And that was probably also the time when I started shedding my introvert tendencies and found myself becoming an extrovert in support of causes that I felt strongly about.

Before that, I was very shy and definitely still the same geek that you see before you today. But I was really shy and not wanting to put myself forward. And nuclear disarmament was something I felt so strongly about that I just made myself go out and do things. And I think that I definitely had become that extrovert in real life. But most of the causes that I’m loud and brassy about are… they’re causes. They’re not just me. It’s things that I feel strongly about.

So, that all started when I was 16. It’s gone from nuclear disarmament to queer rights. I came of age as a little baby queer in the late ‘90s when Queer Nation was big on the scene in North America. And so, I moved through that into fat activism as well in the mid-90s in the San Francisco Bay area which is kind of the epicenter at that time for North American fat activism certainly.

So, I’ve been fortunate to be in areas where there’s kind of high visibility activism already happening that I can get involved with. And the activism has definitely moved around. It’s not to say that I leave those beliefs behind. But where I had put my activism has definitely changed over time a lot.

Gem: Yeah. And how is that developed in terms of what you were actually doing, what forms it took, and then also the different themes?

Cameryn: I would have to say, at first, it was almost more of an intellectual pursuit—not abstract, but I used my words. I wrote about it. Sometimes, I would speak. But mostly, it was in writing—either in paper writing, print writing, or when the internet came about, then I would do that. As a journalist when I started in the mid-90s, I would write about fat acceptance for a magazine there in the Bay area.

So, it was all very—yeah, I would say almost of the mind. It was activism of the mind—which is an important kind of activism. I’m not dismissing it. But that’s where I got my start a lot.

And then, what really shifted for me, one thing that really shifted everything for me was when I started dancing at the age of 28. It was just purely—I’ll confess, at the beginning, it was my last ditch attempt to try to lose weight. I tried out some things at a gym where I was living. And I couldn't stick with the gym at all. Gyms are terrible sometimes. But I was exploring the different classes offered, and I found a cardio hip-hop class. There was a rocky start, to begin with certainly. I definitely almost did not continue. But my teacher saved me. My teacher came out and said, “Look, don’t give up. Give this a month. I guarantee, you’re going to love it.” And she was right! I kept dancing.

And then, finding the strength in myself to just dance and move and function as a dancer was life-changing for me. It helped me get really into my body in a way that I had not in the decade before that. That was all the life of the mind. I was not really present in my body. And dancing and learning how to get my body do what I want it to do artistically and functionally was such a mind-blowing connection for me to make. And it changed my sense of fat activism. It changed my sense of “Am I worth being on a stage? Do I have value as a performer? And where does that value lie? And what can I do as a performer?”

Through dance, I found that I wanted to perform. Before that, I was always kind of in the orchestra. I never danced! I was playing French horn in the orchestra in high school. So, I was always backstage, off the side. And through dance, I found that I could perform, I could be present, and that my presence was striking to people and entertaining and good.

And so, I had to say, the pure act of learning to dance and feel good in my body has affected almost all the activism that comes after.

Gem: Yeah. So, I don’t want to dwell on it, but I guess, just quickly, you mentioned that that was your last ditch attempt to lose weight. And then, through getting into the world of dance, am I right in thinking that then you became more involved in fat activism and left behind that desire to lose weight?

Cameryn: Yeah! Just to get clear on the timeline, even while I was thinking, “Oh, I’m going to try doing this gym to ‘get fit’”—and that’s in quotation marks, right?—only in retrospect do I realize that that was my last ditch attempt to lose weight. I was really covering that under layers of euphemism: “I just want to ‘get fit!’”

I had gone on for the whole eight or nine years before that definitely intellectually involved in fat activism. But this was kind of me being sneaky to myself. And after this, I definitely was like, “Oh, I’m fine like this. This is great! I can do this.”  And it definitely, at that point, shifted entirely away from “Oh, I’d like to get fit” to “Oh, I’d like to learn how to do a double pirouette… oh, I’d like to train myself so I can drop to the floor and do this move, and then get back up quickly.”

So, for me, I learned to associate what it was that I wanted to do with the training and with that kind of focus rather than be like, “I need to lose weight, and then I can do what I want to do.”

Gem: Yeah, absolutely.

Cameryn: And so, learning that I could bypass this other harmful, ridiculous step and go straight to the “This is the shit that I want to do,” that’s a very radical piece of knowledge that we can have, that you don’t need to set aside things for this mystical, magical day that will almost certainly never come. Just go for what you want now because life is too short to spend it going after that mirage.

Gem: Absolutely! It’s so empowering as well, that idea of like, “Oh, hold on! I have a shortcut here. I just don’t have to do that anymore.”

Cameryn: Exactly, exactly.

Gem: And so then you went on to write—I think you said eight plays of different themes. And you’ve won awards for those. What has that been like? You’ve gone from I guess being very much behind-the-scenes potentially as a journalist and having your work for people to come along and you won awards for it?

Cameryn: There’s some stuff we’re skipping for the sake of space. But I did work for quite a while doing community dance and theatre with fat people, with other fat people, in size diverse groups. And that was community-based. We weren’t striving in a professional way in that group.

When I went off on my own and started doing a solo career and working on those pieces, that was a real test of personal stamina. Before that, I had been working in a group and I had other people to work with. I had other people’s bodies to work with as a canvass for like dance work or whatever. And when you go off on your own to do the performances, when you’re onstage, it’s all on you. So I would have to say I developed a rather strong streak of independence or contrariness. I don’t know what it is. It’s not always easy for me to work with groups now because I’ve gotten so used to being solo.

But what it also does is it puts me and my body in focus all the time on the stage. And other people are focusing on that, but that’s just the nature of the stage. And that’s the nature of the stage lights. And so it becomes yet another step of like, “I am worth this. I am worth your attention. I am worth the awards. I am worth listening to because the things that I do can change you.” And so, coming to accept that kind of power has been great… challenging, but also great!

Gem: And you’re continuing to make work. So, how has your work evolved with that learning, like learning that you have power and that people are captivated by you when you’re performing?

Cameryn: I go back and forth… So, what I’ve tried to do is go with the themes that definitely interests me at the time. I’m not trying to stick to one area because that’s professionally where I’m known. But I will confess, the first, I don’t know, five or six or seven, like a good chunk of my pieces, they are about sex. That is to say they use the language of sex to explore other things.

So, that’s been an interesting thing, to put myself out there as a person who has a voice and experience in those matters. Sometimes, when I’m performing in festivals, and I’m talking about sex, and there are mainstream people in the audience, you can almost feel their sense of disbelief like, “Who does she think she is? She’s a fat person. How can she possibly have anything to say about the subject of sex and desire and lovers, multiple lovers?” People don’t always get my authority at first.

I still d… occasionally, I’ll do standup comedy as a way to reach new audiences. I’ll do short, little pieces that are more funny. And this thing that I was just talking about, people’s disbelief, that I could have anything to say, one time, I got onstage at a comedy open mic, the room was quite full, but this person was loud enough for me to hear them from all the way in the back, they said, “Oh, my God!” when I got onstage, and all I could think of in the moment was like, “I know! It’s amazing, right?”

But that’s the sort of thing where people don’t quite—I don’t know what was going through her mind, the idea that someone could come up and be onstage and speak with authority about these subjects. It kind of is mind-blowing to people. And that, in itself, is enough to kind of already push people.

So, I guess what I mean by that is like, in a lot of my plays, I don’t directly address my body necessarily as a fat body. I’m just present as I am. When I was working with community theatre, we did mostly stuff that was explicitly about fat acceptance and body positivity. And that was the space that I was in then.

When I went on to do solo stuff, most of my stuff doesn’t really talk about it at all. I’ll mention it in passing. But it’s never self-deprecating. It’s just mentioning it as a thing. And I feel that, for myself, the space where I am now is this sort of place where— I don’t know if you know Heather McCallister. Do you know that name, Heather McCallister?

Gem: No, I don’t think so.

Cameryn: Okay. She founded, she was one of the pioneers of fat acceptance in—I would say “second wave” maybe, fat acceptance in the San Francisco Bay area, North America. And she did a plus size burlesque troop that I collaborated with very early on. And she said once that just the act of being onstage as a fat person without being the butt of a joke or deprecating yourself, that in itself is revolutionary.

Gem: Yeah, I’ve also come across that before.

Cameryn: There’s different kind of places where that comes from. And that’s definitely paraphrasing, but that’s the sentiment that I have been approaching a lot of these with. It’s enough for me to go up on there, stand tall, deliver what I have to say about sex or relationships or about the geek cultures or about—mostly, yeah, those are the ones. What about phone sex and sex work? And I just deliver that without a whole lot of reference to this body.

And it’s not that I’m ignoring it because I’m up there sometimes in clothes that are revealing, sometimes quite naked. I’m up there and moving through that. But I’m not going to spend my time talking about it very much because I don’t spend my time worrying about it very much anymore. There are other things that I want to talk about too. And I have just as much authority to talk about those things.

Gem: Yeah. And I think for some people, it’s the idea that fat people can’t be three dimensional. They have to just be constantly explaining about their fatness or justifying it before they can actually then do anything that they actually want to do.

Cameryn: Right, right, right. It’s also one of the reasons why I… Because people have asked me, “Why don’t you audition for other plays? Why don’t you get out there…?” Because I know what’s out there. I know what’s out there for people my size. I will be cast in jolly friend roles. I will be cast as comic relief. I will be cast for roles that are 20 years older than me. I want to write the work that I perform. I want to create the roles that I can because no one else is going to create these roles for me.

Gem: Yeah. And you mentioned that your activism has taken different forms around fat and around sex as well. I just wondered where did that first come about for you? Do you identify as being sex positive? Is that a term that you’d use? And if so, when did that come about?

Cameryn: I used to identify as sex positive. I now call it more as sex aware, so that people—

For me, my feeling about that is like sex positivity carries with it the burden of being positive all the time. And I know that that’s not true. But it’s kind of the tinge that it’s taken on. I prefer sex aware in that I’m being aware of all the ways that sex can impact our lives—it can be negative, it can be positive. And there’s room under that umbrella for that whole range of experience. In more mainstream environments, I will say “sex positive,” but I prefer, for myself, “sex aware.”

Gem: It’s not a term I’ve heard before. And it makes so much more sense. It’s the same with body positivity, this idea of like you’re supposed to love your body all the time. It just is completely unrealistic. Whereas, yeah, if it just makes it more neutral, like it’s a subject that I’m aware of and working on, that sounds really…

Cameryn: Yeah…

Gem: There’s some kind of relief in that.

Cameryn: Yeah, I think it gives it a little more room. For body positivity, what I prefer always is fat liberation, body liberation and fat liberation, because that’s where the body positivity movement kind of grew out from. They conveniently forget that that’s where it’s from. But fat liberation is my kind of background where you’re talking not about the need for individuals to find their own self-help solutions, but the need to address systemic structural problems and inequities and stigma, things that really fuck you up.

So, in the world of sex awareness, I would say that I’ve always been kind of along that path. I came out as queer when I was 19 and kind of moved through that space. And I figured out that I might be kinky quite late in life, like early thirties (late twenties, early thirties).

But really, everything came to a strong head when I started doing phone sex work when I was 39. And I ended up learning a lot at that job. And I ended up, I would say, developing most of my current kind of perspective around how people can be fluid and how people can change and how people can want one thing but do another… and all these things. That’s a lot of where I developed that perspective on for sex awareness, through my work doing phone sex.

Gem: And what was that experience like for you? I guess there was a lot of learning in that?

Cameryn: It was seven or eight years of rather intense immersion in other people’s heads, right? That’s what phone sex is. Whether you’re getting paid for it or not, you’re in someone else’s head. And I was spending a lot of time there, being kind of confused by it because my adult sex life has been a pretty mixed bag in terms of being with women, being with cisgendered men. I honestly had not spent that much time in the heads of men. There I was like, “Oh, God!” all day, you know… all day being on call and talking to men about the dicks and about what was going on in their heads.

I spent a lot of time blogging about it and talking with other people about it and trying to figure out what the hell was all these stuff because there’s nothing out in the world that prepares you for it. We don’t talk about our inner sex lives very much at all in our world.

We talk about how to do sex better and how to do it stronger and make it last longer. But we don’t talk about what’s actually happening in our heads. And that’s where I was spending a lot of time when I was doing the phone work.

And that’s what I wrote my first play about. The phone work is actually what led me to my first solo play, Phone Whore. It was a very intense “life is art is life” period for me.

Gem: And so, people who maybe haven’t come across whether sex positivity or sex awareness—hold on, sorry. I have an annoying cough, sorry about that—or whether it’s just people who haven’t come across the concept of sex work as a thing, it’s important to make a distinction I think that—

Hmmm… so what I’m trying to say? People will, for example, use the word prostitution to talk about sex work. That is a very negative way of discussing what it is. And so, this idea of lots of left-leaning people are left-leaning, but they’re not pro-sex work. I just wondered if you have anything to kind of say about that to those people.

Cameryn: I’d say something like, “Get it together!” People make choices. There is no ethical sex or kink under capitalism, we could almost say. We make choices to deal with where we are.

So, people who have problems with sex work are really having problems with capitalism is what’s going on. We can object to all work that’s done. You don’t have to like your work to just do your work. People talk about the horrible conditions and feeling oppressed. It’s like I felt so oppressed in my nine to five jobs. I left those jobs crying more often than I ever cried about my work on phone sex.

So, that’s that on that basically. I don’t have a lot of time for those people. It’s like you got to respect people’s—given the overall constraints of capitalism (and there are many, and they are heavy), you have to respect people’s choices and their best decisions for themselves where they are. Support workers as workers. Give us a good safety net in society. And let people sort some of that out for themselves. You cannot just assume that you know best for people… you don’t.

Gem: And this idea of maybe wanting to “save” people from doing something.

Cameryn: Yeah, yup!

Gem: How could people actually be a good ally to sex workers rather than feeling sorry for them in some way or like it’s some kind of moral thing that needs to be solved?

Cameryn: You can be an ally by lobbying for decriminalisation. You can be an ally by listening. You can be an ally by supporting workers’ rights and unions in all fields, including sex work. Those are the ways that you can be an ally. 

There’s a really good TEDTalk by Juno Mac about what sex workers really want. It’s a TEDTalk by Juno Mac, What Sex Workers Really Want. She lays it out quite clearly, the case for decriminalization, other ways that sex workers are handled around the world and why decriminalization is the best option. International organizations have done those studies, and they agree.

But people get really wrought up about it because they do elevate sex as something beyond what it is. They do hold it sacred in a way that is just not appropriate. People get wound up about it. And they need to stop.

Gem: Yeah, I have so many thoughts around that. It’s so interesting. I’m just thinking… I’m really intrigued that you’ve talked about being sex aware. And I think, most definitely, your term, I would prefer to use going forward. But I guess, historically, I’ve identified as being sex positive. And interestingly, people around me very much aren’t often.

I have access to a community that is. But it’s very interesting noticing that sex is still something that is so uncomfortable for people to talk about or so avoided. It’s just funny, kind of straddling those two worlds maybe. In some ways, you’re with people who are like kinky and really pro-sex; and then, on other areas, people who just won’t even talk about it and it’s completely taboo and uncomfortable. I don’t even know what I’m asking. I guess I’m just saying that it’s weird.

Cameryn: And I hate to go back to this because, actually, I’m not very well-researched in the area of economics and socioeconomics. But I feel like what you’re talking about here, you’re talking about people’s external behaviors. You’re talking about people’s social behaviors—you know, that kink is a community, queer is a community. Queer doesn’t equal sex necessarily. But kink and sex play and party, party… those are community activities, community events.

You’re also talking about people who dress up. We’re talking about people who’ve got the gear, who go to the events. And that’s like an economic activity. These are things that require resources and money. But more importantly, they are often activities and displays that are mediated by money. This is something that we are told we should like if we want to be part of this group. And then, we do it to be part of the group. It’s as much, I should say, about where do we want to belong as it is about what’s actually going on in our heads, in our hearts, in our groins.

And so, people are used to just like spending money and going out to events. And they’re less used to like, “Oh, my God! I have to dip into this and actually express what I want and use my words and say the thing?”

This is why consent is often still really hard for many people to handle because we are not mind-readers. Most of us are not so good at reading subtle body language. And body language can be misleading anyway. When it comes to tapping our own truth, and expressing it to others, we don’t have a lot of training or experience in it. And it’s not something that our society has really valued very much. So of course, we’re not that good at it. And of course, people feel awkward and weird about it.

Gem: Yeah… and the fact that sex education is crap.

Cameryn: It’s crap! It is crap. Oh, man! Yeah…

Gem: I mean, I’m a parent. And seeing it through the lens of now, as a parent, what do I want to pass on to my children, what do I want them to know and feel prepared for, consent is a huge thing in our family. But it’s so interesting noticing that where you’re in that position. You realize you actually know fuck all from the traditional paths that you would expect to learn things from—whether it’s from the people around you, from school. It just does not prepare you at all.

Cameryn: It doesn’t, it does not. The people who are the most consent-driven now are either very young folks who have grown up in those rare households where this is a strong thing or we’re going to therapy and finding our own way to it.

Gem: And it’s all that undoing. It takes so much time, doesn’t it?

I was watching a Youtube video that you did earlier where someone had said—it was around the kind of guilt and shame potentially that people might be feeling around doing something. You were saying, “Is that because you don’t want to do the thing? Or is it because you feel you should be doing it? What is it?” And I guess it’s that unpacking of we have so much in a way—some people more than others. But generally, I think a lot of people have trauma around sex, whether it’s an uncomfortable experience, being shamed for some kind of kink that they didn’t realize was a kink at the time.

There’s so much unpacking to do. How has that been for you? Is it something you had to unpack? Or did you grow up maybe in a more sex-aware family?

Cameryn: No! No… I grew up Mormon. I was raised Mormon. I left the Mormon church at the age of 14. I stayed at home. I was still living at home for another four years. So I had to deal with that fallout. But I was raised Mormon.

And part of the reason why l left the church is that I was already starting to unpack the bullshit at the age of 12 or 13 and going, “Wait! I like this. Why is my church like this?” Sex was definitely part of the reason why I left because I was like, “This makes no sense. Also, this feels great. And I don’t see any problems with this.” So, that was a very sudden and abrupt way for me to get out of this sex negative culture.

No one’s perfectly self-actualized. It’s a process, not a destination, right? But I’ve had several levels of having to work through my own stuff. And definitely sitting down and consciously either journaling or talking to a therapist or talking intensely with a couple of supportive friends, you have to take the time to get that shit out of your head in some way and examine it. You can’t just go with the flow.

I think that, a lot of times where sometimes it’s problematic. And what would you call sex positive events? You have people who are encouraged to just go with it and do what you feel. There’s not as much kind of self-examination as I would want. That can be dangerous because then you have a lot of feelings feelings feelings, but wait, what actually is going on? So, I personally keep checking in with what I want, what I desire. I keep checking in.

Gem: And I guess for anyone who’s looking to work through that stuff, definitely, a good port of call is consent to go along to just non-sexual consent workshops to learn—and you can read as well, it doesn’t have to be a workshop. But just to be in a place where you actually learn like, if someone says, “Is it okay if I touch your hand?”, you can actually say yes/no/maybe or “in this way/not in this way.” It’s revolutionary I think.

Cameryn: Ah, okay, yeah. I’ve never done one of those. But I have heard about them.  And I definitely know that learning to assert boundaries happens in every part of your life, not just sex for sure.

Gem: So, with that in mind, with sex in mind, you talk about being a facilitator of smut I think you said at the beginning?

Cameryn: Yes!

Gem: …which is awesome. So, you have these different streams. There’s two different things actually that I was looking to talk about. So Smut Slam is this amazing event that you run in all corners of the world almost; and also, Sidewalk Smut which I think is just genius!

Cameryn: Ah, thank you.

Gem: And I would like to find you in a street near me please.

Cameryn: Hmmm…

Gem: So really quickly, if you could maybe tell anyone what Sidewalk Smut is… and then, we can talk about Smut Slam.

Cameryn: Yes, okay. So, Sidewalk Smut is kind of a side hustle that I do when I’m at festivals or I’m at home here in Berlin for any time and the weather is good. I will take a manual typewriter out on a street, set it up on a little, tiny table. I’ll have some signs taped to the table that say like “abrupt erotica – smut while you wait.” And the bigger festivals like Edinburgh Fringe, I’ll have a big pull-up banner behind me that says the same sort of thing. And then, I just type away and I wait for people to come up and ask what the hell I’m doing. That’s really just the start of it.

I do I guess you’d call it flash erotica on commission. So, I interview the person for a couple of minutes. They step away for 15 minutes. They come back. And I have a half of a page of a dirty story that I think they would like based on the interview.

Gem: Amazing! And what are the reactions? So cool!

Cameryn: Yeah… now the reactions of… Like I don’t see the reactions of people who are just walking by. I had the good fortune a few years ago to have a photographer who was really interested in photographing the Smut stand. He came out and took pictures of people’s reactions while I was typing—because I can’t see those people, I’m focusing on the page.

And oh, my God, it was fantastic—the shock and the laughter and the disbelief and all that stuff. The amazement, it’s like, “Ah, that’s exactly what I want!” because these are people who don’t stop, they just keep going, but I’ve done something to their consciousness that day. “What is this thing? What?”

When people do stop, and get a piece done, I have a money back guarantee, and I’ve never had anyone to take me up on that in eight or nine years of doing it. So in that sense, the reaction is very good but I think the process of having to tell me their thing, having to talk with me about their sex life—because I ask them! Some of it is about fantasy. Some of it is about what kind of sex toys you like. Some of it is like what are your favorite things. The number of people who when asked what their three things they like to do in bed, they get really stumped! And it’s like I know they’re sitting there having a good time in bed, but they’ve never sat there and said like, “What are my favorite things?”

It just goes along with what you’re saying about how people are not used to talking about it. And so, this act of talking about their sex life with a stranger on the street, I feel so honored when people trust me to do that. And that’s a really awesome space to occupy with them.

For those three minutes, it’s like… if there are passers-by, they make comments or whatever, I just let them go because I’m talking to this one person or this couple. And the attention that that…

Like people aren’t used to that kind of serious attention given either. I’m listening to you seriously—not laughing, not mocking, not smirking or being smug. I’m just taking it in because I have to write a story about it when you leave. They’re not used to that kind of focused respect for their own sex lives. And that’s fantastic!

Gem: Yeah, I can imagine, that’s really powerful to experience and to facilitate for people.

Cameryn: Mm-hmmm… mm-hmmm…

Gem: Yeah, I could take about let’s talk about Smut Slam.

Cameryn: Well, I was going to say, for Sidewalk Smut, if you want to find me, I usually am in Edinburgh every August for the Fringe festival. And so, if people are there, and they want to look for me on Grassmarket—just say go to the Grassmarket. When the weather is good, I’m usually out there.  So yeah…

Gem: Great!

Cameryn: And so, the other thing you mentioned, the Smut Slam. We’re talking about the Smut Slam that I do even more around the world than Sidewalk Smut because it’s an indoor activity.

Gem: All weathers!

Cameryn: All weather! And that is a community dirty storytelling open mic format where I, as the host, encourage audience members to come up and tell their own real-life sex stories. So, it’s 5-minute sex stories. There’s usually a theme. We have judges. We have prizes. We have anonymous confessions and questions that people can throw into the fuck bucket. It’s just a bucket for… yeah, I’m good with naming things. 

But it’s a way for people to participate without having to go up to the microphone. So, when they put in anonymous things, at least, that way, it’s like they’re still building the event because I will read those between stories. So I can express your truth or your questions even if you’re feeling afraid to. It’s still out there.

And then, the stories themselves, I have no idea what’s going to happen because, usually, I’m doing them in a place where I don’t know hardly anybody if anybody at all. And so it’s a real magical rollercoaster ride that, over the years of doing this since 2011—again, this is a lot of my good stuff started 2010 or 2011—I have developed a strong code of conduct for Smut Slams, a kind of guidance and rules for storytellers and listeners. And that’s kind of the thing that keeps it from descending into mad chaos and anarchy.

Again, we have strangers coming from all walks of life with all kinds of backgrounds with all kinds of experiences. And me stating upfront “here’s what’s acceptable, here’s what you should reconsider, here is what absolutely is not allowed, and here are the consequences if you go against those in your story…”

It’s really clear. And it’s fantastic. Once you set the container that way and set people loose to share what they want, it’s amazing what comes out. These are non-professionals for the most part. These are not performers. These are not public speakers. They are just people who, for whatever reason, felt safe enough to come up and put their name in the hat. And now they’re telling a roomful of strangers.

Gem: Yeah. And I know you say that you’ve never had an evening where people have just not contributed anything. So it’s never been just crickets.

Cameryn: Right! No, nope, there’s never been. Now, there have been evenings where it starts out very slow. And in those cases, I always start the show out with one of my stories. I ask one of the judges to be ready with a story. I ask one of the crew members, like my co-producer or one of the volunteers if they might like to tell a story. So, I try to get a few things ready to go. And there’s the confession bucket which is almost always flowing with stuff, overflowing.

So, all it usually takes is for one or two stories to go down. And then, people are like, “Oh… oh… I can totally do that!”

I deliberately, for my stories that I tell, I often will tell stories I’ve never told anywhere, that I’ve never practiced, that I’ve just remembered 10 minutes before I got up onstage. I would just tell it because that keeps the bar low. That makes people feel like, “Oh, I don’t have to polish the story.”

I can polish. I’ve got my plays. I’ve got my monologues. I can polish up a set of standup comedy just fine. I know how to do that. But for the purposes of Smut Slam, when I’m trying to encourage people to just feel moved by the spirit and get up there and say something, it’s better for me to bring my raw unstudied life story up there.

Gem: You’re just modeling that for everyone else to do.

Cameryn: Yeah. And so, I get up there and tell. And then, maybe there’s one person who would enter to tell a story beforehand. But at the intermission, there’s always going to be five, six or seven people who suddenly feel empowered to step up with their own. And that’s amazing!

Gem: Amazing!

Cameryn: Yeah, it is really amazing… mm-hmmm…

Gem: I know there are I think—did you say 17 chapters across…?

Cameryn: Eighteen by now I think…

Gem: Oh, 18? Amazing! So, in the UK, Europe, North America and Australasia. And you run I believe 11 of those events...?

Cameryn: Twelve…

Gem: Oh, 12 now? Okay. You’re super busy!

Cameryn:  Yeah, yeah.

Gem: You’ve traveled obviously across different regions doing the events. So do you notice variations in what people are coming out with? Or are there like really big universal themes or…?

Cameryn: I think the audiences self-select pretty well for my events generally—for my plays and for Smut Slam. So you’re not going to get prudes generally. You’re going to get shy people. But you’re not going to get people who are completely disgusted with sex, for example.

And so, who comes out and what kind of stories come out, that depends a lot on who I’m working with in that area. So I’m based in Berlin. That’s fine. Berlin has its own thing. But in other locations, say I have someone representing more of a polyamory scene, the ethical non-monogamy scene in one city…

In Munich, for example, my co-producer is the producer of a big BDSM and kink film festival there. So, many of his local contacts are kinksters. And so that is going to determine—

Up in Copenhagen, my first contacts there have been a lot in the burner community. So there’s a lot of burners that show up at the Smut Slam there.

Gem: What is a burner? I don’t know.

Cameryn: Oh, sorry, Burning Man! So Burning Man is a festival that’s in Nevada. And it’s like art and music and sex and camping out in the desert. And a lot of other burns, a lot of other festivals, have come up based on that model.

Gem: Oh, okay. I see…

Cameryn: So, I guess I’m just saying that the flavor of the event depends on who the local co-producer is. But a lot of the same stories, a lot of the same themes do come up. It’s a lot of first times. It’s a lot of awkward moments and “fuck-up’s”—quote, fuck-ups, but sometimes actual fuck up’s.

Actually, those two… like first times and fucking awkward. Those are like the two very common themes for the kind of stories are that people bring because they stand out in people’s heads, whether it’s a good or bad first time, whether it was super awkward. That always stands out. If you’re having just a steady stream of awesome sex, that story isn’t going to stand out as much as if, occasionally, you have something truly terrifying happen.

But we do welcome stuff from all across the range of sexual experiences. Just as long as it’s consensual, it’s all good, right?

Gem: So, what’s next with that? Obviously, it’s growing still.

Cameryn:  Yes, I don’t know what’s next with it. I mean, I definitely am always interested in trying out new cities, coming in and bringing the Slut Slam to new places. I can’t guarantee that it’s going to be a regular thing in those places. But I am testing things out. I am also looking at doing it more in a festival environment.

Gem: Yeah, that would be so fun!

Cameryn: Yeah, as opposed to like a standalone event, but within a festival. And there are concerns that come up around protecting space and keeping it from people to just kind of meandering through as it happens in festivals. But there are ways, there are yurts and there are things to do around that. So, those are the things… 

I’m very interested in bringing the Smut Slam to a more mainstream audience because I do have a line with polyamory people and kinky people and spoken word people. I know how to find those people. But I want to get it out to—I guess what I would just call mainstream audiences and make that talking about your sex life something that is safe to do.

Gem: Yeah, just have those conversations in less expected spaces.

Cameryn: Mm-hmmm… mm-hmmm, mm-hmmm…

Gem: So I’m conscious that we’re coming to the end of our time together. I just wondered if you’ve thought of anything that you’re really enjoying at the moment that you would recommend anyone else check out—and definitely, they should come along to Smut Slam.

Cameryn: Well, yeah, you should come along to Smut Slam. We talked about this earlier. I’ve been so one-tracked on developing the Smut Slam route that it’s really difficult for me to find time to unplug and enjoy. I know I’m looking forward to seeing the movie Little Women. That’s something that I’d like to get on there. Other than that, I just want to get back home and bake some more.

Gem: Oh, yes… you have amazing food updates actually. I’m always intrigued in what you’ve eaten and what you’ve cooked that day.

Cameryn: Yes, yeah. So, I guess I dread questions like that actually because I end up feeling like I’m such a megalomaniac around the one thing. I got so one-tracked around performing in Smut Slam. And that’s a humble brag. I really worry that I’m not as three-dimensional as I want to be! But there it is…

Gem: Yeah! Well, I think it’s just also when you love what you do, right? It’s hard to draw yourself away from that. Anyway, I think Little Women and baking are pretty good recommendations!

Cameryn: Yeah!

Gem: Preferably together…

Cameryn: And the baking, I have always found feeding other people, whether it’s my partner or large groups of people, I’ve always found that very therapeutic and meditative—you know, whether it’s just chopping up vegetables or stirring things. The motion is very calming to me. And then, the satisfaction of feeding someone well is very healing to me.

So, if I have any pursuits, it’s like… let’s feed people well.

Gem: Yeah, yeah. And we mentioned earlier that people can support you by coming along to Smut Slam. They can also check out any new plays that you’re releasing in the future.

And I know that you have a Patreon.  So how can people support you through that?

Cameryn: Patreon, right now, you can just set like a monthly amount that you would throw down. It’s under reconstruction right now. But basically, I am asking people to kind of support the touring activities of Smut Slam to enable me to just travel, so I’m not always having to buy the earliest train ticket out of somewhere for the cheap price. I am doing seven or eight slams a month.

Gem: Wow!

Cameryn: And that’s a lot of travel. And I realized that if I don’t want to burn out that I need to occasionally not get up for a 6:30 train, for example. So these are the things that monetary support goes to.

And also, for the development activities like possibly doing a podcast around Smut Slam and also getting a grant consultant to work with me on German national and also international and European-wide grant projects.

So, definitely, there’s expansion and development in mind. And Patreon is one way to kind of get me on a more sturdy footing to go even bigger.

Gem: Yeah, and I think people can make one-off donations too can’t they? 

Cameryn: They can also, mm-hmmm…

Gem: So, if you’ve enjoyed listening to Cameryn, then maybe you can consider going and making a one-off donation even if you can’t make an ongoing one.

Cameryn: Yes! Exactly, exactly…

Gem: And everyone will be able to find the links to the things we’ve talked about in the events in the shownotes. And they should come and check out your work. Are you on Instagram and Facebook?

Cameryn: I am on Instagram now. Individually, my Smut Slam chapters, I’ve got locals that I’m working with in all these different locations. And some of them are more Instagram-savvy than others. And most of them are more Instagram-savvy than I am.

So, I have my own personal account. And then, you’ll find like Smut Slam Berlin and Smut Slam Cardiff. It’s starting to start up in a regional way. There’s no Smut Slam International.

Mostly, on Facebook, people can find me doing a lot of my stuff on Facebook. I know that’s really old-school, but whatever. Yeah, it’s there, it’s there.

Gem: Okay, amazing! Thank you.

Cameryn: Yeah!

Gem: Thank you so much for taking part. It’s been brilliant to chat to you. I’ve really enjoyed it.

Cameryn: Thank you! I have too!