"Polar bear mixed with a cat" at Sultry Sessions, Grand, Wednesday
Every chair and couch cushion is filled by the singles, couples, and probably some throuples that have come out for “Sultry Sessions,” an open mic focused on fucking. I'd seen it advertised on a lightpost on Grand Ave, and while every kind of performance was invited, mostly poets turned up.
The unsexy work of getting a tantruming five-year-old to bed makes me late, but I still find a seat, upstairs in one of those old Oakland buildings with raw wooden rafters. The vibe is laid-back house party with a stage and active consent check-ins. The performers I get to hear are the bartender, out from behind the bar and sitting on a stool wearing black, her hair a dark halo. And Reno-the-poet, host of another open mic at the same spot, who repeats her name enough times that I finally get it. With the most significant of pauses, Reno declares: “I'm gonna fuck ... up your entire situation ... ship.” She leads a call and response: “I wanna fuck all the time” she says and we all say back “All the time I wanna fuck.” Then she substitutes “love.” We want both.
Performance poetry is a juicy genre, and usually gets explicit at some point. And anyway, every writer, whether they read here tonight or not, has been both voyeur and exhibitionist. We watch and we listen, and do you see who I am, now that I’ve written some of myself down just for you (all of you) to love? This night says: you want my attention and I want yours. Let’s hear how we give love and give fucks. Publish, be public, be louder, talk into the mic, hit record. This city needs us together in space, heat rising up from our bodies in the rooms, to exist at all.
Skirts are short. A person I know in the audience is wearing a lace bodysuit and a starry bed jacket. After a drink break, the hosts conduct an “intimate interview” finale, basically truth or dare combined. All three people who speak are Black men; on the whole, the audience and readers here are Black and femme, with some men and many other people of color showing up too. I am white. The only people I encounter who I already know are two other white folks; we’re listening from around the edges. The paleness of my Oakland’s literary scene hits me like a very obvious hammer; It can feel like you're finally home when you keep running into folks you know, when you go out; you can also be running a loop.
The truest wife guy I’ve ever encountered, whose t-shirt says “Just Did It,” offers tales of conjugal titillation. The man after him, named Wallace, describes his wildest moment as like a “polar bear mixed with a cat, when somebody, I don’t know who, was biting my shoulder while I was fucking somebody else.” This also served to answer the host’s next set of questions: whether he’d ever been at (yes), participated in (yes), and enjoyed (clearly) a sex party.
My weather app sends me an alert: Heat advisory. My pink voile shirt, the thinnest piece of fabric I own, is stuck to my skin.
I had been nervous about what I was walking into, but it’s a night of joy and tender safety, and not awkward at all. At the end of the night, the two hosts, Ada and Melanie, thank everyone for the sense of welcome and ease created for the performers and for each other. They’ll be doing this again next month, they announce, and an appreciator of everyone’s art has bought twenty shots of tequila for the crowd. True patronage. Opening the door, walking out down Broadway, the night air is cool enough for leather. Quiet like I should go home already. Oakland feels shy outside tonight, but warm and full once you open the door.
