The next installment
in my...
"BROTHERLY LOVE"
art series
Inspired by:
The HAWT AF men of...
@voyr.bsky.social
#WOOF.
XxX
Papi Rico
(CJ in SF)
🍌... 💦
#BrotherlyLove
#MadeInBrazil
#VOYR (dot com)
#CJKnight
#PapiRico
The Inside Story of Black British Queer Pioneer, Ajamu X: CL Mayers has an audience with Ajamu X, the underground artist and archivist, who has an exhibition and book both around the corner Published via AnOther magazine - 02/08/21 - By CL Mayers “I would argue that predominantly white gay men have colonized what fetish wear is” – Ajamu X In the basement of 9 Brighton Terrace in Brixton, the nightclub and cruise-bar Substation South used to host an underwear-themed event called Attitude. Monday nights here would witness an audience comprised of “99 per cent white men,” Ajamu X begins. “Roughly, at the end of the night, Black men would always congregate in a corner having sex with each other. White guys were slightly on the outside.” Suzie Kruger’s monthly fetish club night Fist, established in February 1994, would also hold its “sleaze pit for dicks and clits” – as advertised on their flyers – at Substation South too. Now though, the long-gone venue is an assortment of co-working spaces touted as a “vibrant, cool and contemporary workplace, a creative social campus – a landmark in the heart of Brixton”. In reality, it’s another queer venue fallen victim to a wave of high rises and higher rents. But an oral history, one which Ajamu recounts with glee, isn’t as easy to erase. “I tried to get into Fist one night, and I was dressed in a full-length garment – you could just see my eyes,” he remembers. “The guy on the door was in a Nazi uniform. On one level, I found the image problematic but I could kind of work with it because it was in that space. I was dealing with it in the context of fantasy. This guy in the Nazi uniform then says to me, ’I cannot come in because I am not in fetish gear.’ I said to him, ’Call your manager!’ I’m not going to have somebody tell me what my fetish is or (what it) can’t be. I would argue that predominantly white gay men have colonized what fetish wear is. From the 1960s onwards, there has been a specific type of look.”
Ajamu is alluding to the dickprint-inducing Levi 501 jeans immortalised by urban gay men in the big cities and trickling up to films such as Cruising (1980). Or the leather-festooned folk captured in the photography of Hal Fischer and Robert Mapplethorpe – then shocking images that penetrated the public imagination and dominate the fetish and kink identity in the mainstream to this day. Ajamu feverishly notes that fetish goes beyond the stereotypes: “I think anything can be a fetish, period,” he offers curtly. In the early 90s, Ajamu visited America and attended Black Jacks, an event hosted by Alan Bell. Formed in 1986, this space was a safe place for Black gay men to meet up and engage in safer sex parties on the first Friday and third Saturday of each month. “I came back to London fired up thinking about how I and Black men take up spaces in white gay clubs and issues around having to justify one’s fetish at a fetish club.” I’ve nestled myself in the corner of Ajamu’s sofa, flicking through piles of memorabilia. Ajamu had invited me over to his place for our chat, granting me access to a daunting array of material: stacks of porn magazines from decades prior; queer and kinky zines; a ceiling-skimming bookcase and some notable documents and paraphernalia. Trains whizz past his back window, punctuating moments of silence in which he weighs his choice of words. He is charismatic, cheeky and mischievously flirtatious, but all in good nature. He pays complete attention throughout our time together and manages to jump between flippant quips and real earnestness – indulging me in a multitude of stories and histories. Every so often he retrieves books and artefacts from his encyclopaedic shelves to illustrate the conversation. Sensational Flesh by Amber Jamilla Musser, he tells me, is a “must-read”. As is Coldness & Cruelty by Gilles Deleuze.
There is an audacious confidence about Ajamu as he details the scenes of his more radical endeavours. An audacity that you must need to establish a community like the Black Perverts Network. “My politics have always been to create the space that I needed to step into first and then create a space whereby Black men could come and talk, connect, play, fuck, eat, drink, get tied up, get pissed on if they wanted to” Founded in 1996 and operational until 2000, Black Perverts Network (BPN) was an organisation founded by Ajamu as a form of resistance against a community which he often felt ostracised from. It was a place of liberation for a cohort of Black and Brown gay men who felt isolated by their kinks and fetishes. The artist James Belasco illustrated all of their flyers with all events held within the same Brixton residence he currently resides in. “It was not only about creating this space for Black men into leather, rubber, PVC and water sports, it was also about playing around with this double negative. Black, I would argue, is still a word that has negative connotations. And then pervert is a seriously loaded word. So, Black Perverts Network! My politics have always been to create the space that I needed to step into first and then create a space whereby Black men could come and talk, connect, play, fuck, eat, drink, get tied up, get pissed on if they wanted to. Without being judged. That was the Black Perverts Network.” Flyers were handed out to friends, fuck-buddies, and men met at saunas and cruising grounds, which have long ceased to exist. It was strictly invitation-only with the number of tops and bottoms needed for a successful night worked out by mood and day.
Friends could invite friends, although he tells me that “If somebody just turned up it’s because they’ve heard through the grapevine ... I would turn them away because it is still private property.” Some of the attendees would ask if they could bring their partners who were not Black or Brown men. Ajamu would tell them that it is a space for Black and Brown men only and rejects any claim of reverse racism with a poignant “Bollocks!” “I think sometimes we have a fear of creating our own spaces because people push back against Black and Brown folks. A question is why are Black and Brown folks creating their own spaces?” On one hand, the majority of Black British spaces cater to heterosexual audiences predominantly. Here in the UK, a majority of queer spaces are often overwhelmingly white. It is equally as tricky within the context of kink and fetish. “The Black Perverts Network space was about me feeling less isolated as a Black gay man into kink and BDSM,” he starts “For me, when I have 25 Black men from the States, from Europe, in a room talking, some fucking or whatever – that proves why this space is needed. It’s as simple as that. It’s just there and for me, part of my politics. I’ve never been one about waiting for someone else to come along and do the space. I’m not from the school where I need permission, where I need validation, I just create the spaces that I need to create. Those who come, come. Those who don’t, they don’t. And that’s OK.” “I recognise that lots of us don’t have our own spaces to bring men back to, and so once again, that’s part of my activism – to create a space where brothers can have pleasure” – Ajamu Original story link: https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/13098/the-inside-story-of-black-british-queer-pioneer-ajamu-x-archive-interview
SATUR-GAY
SNIPPETS 🎉
PRESENTS ...
A Portrait of:
"BLACK BRIT QUEER
PIONEER AJAMU X" 🦋
Remastered art by lil' ol' me 🎨
From original self-portraits by the artist.
Bonus~! 🤑
Read more about:
Ajamu X in Alt Text 🥊
XxX
Papi Rico 🫠
(CJ in SF)
#BritQueerPioneer
#AjamuX 🍒
#CJKnight
🍌💦
SEXXXY SUN-GAZE… ☀️☀️☀️
Presented by PAPI RICO
Art by CJ KNIGHT — in San Francisco
“SO GOOD, DADDY!!!”
SEXXXY 👀
SUN—GAZE
PRESENTS…
“DADDY AIMS 🎯
TO PLEASE.” 🫡🖖🏽
💫 starring the fine—ass men of:
@voyr.bsky.social #WOOF!!! ❣️❣️
#yaaaaasssss
#DaddyGetsIt
XxX
Papi Rico
aka CJ in SF
❣️
“LOVE YOU(R) LOADS!”
🍌💦
#gaysex
#blowjob
#asseating
#queerart
#papirico
#cjknight
