Lips, Hips and Whips: The Place of Drag in the Kink Community

Peanut butter and apple slices. Ewoks and the Rebel Alliance. Paul McCartney and Rihanna. Sometimes, subjectively unlikely pairings can end in a rousing success. In this article, let’s explore why we can add drag artists and the kink scene to that list.

Drag? Oh, Like the Cars?

Drag in the layman’s sense is mostly understood to be dressing and performing as another gender, mostly cisgender men zhuzhing themselves up in fabulous frocks and hyper-feminine makeup (think Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Paris is Burning or To Wong Foo). In recent years, thanks to the televised representation of RuPaul’s Drag Race and The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula, its mainstream definition has exploded to mean basically any gender or sexuality expressing themselves in a subversive way through performance and costume. Though it has always and will continue to evolve, queer identity and gender-fuckery remain core pillars of the modern drag world.

I’ve Been to Nice, and the Isle of Greece…

An underreported experience of drag is the freedom of discovery. Some transgender people, especially trans women, dabble in drag to freely explore the gender spectrum in a fun, accessible and safer way, which can lead to revelations and affirmations of their identity. Some also describe the intersectionality of gender malleability and kink. When asked about her experience in the Atlanta BDSM dungeons, genderfluid Drag Race season 7 winner Violet Chachki had this to offer:

“I was primarily doing ‘forced feminization’, which is basically taking a straight dude and putting him up in drag as a form of humiliation, as a form of subversive dom. I worked under a dominatrix and helped her dress up these dudes and parade them around as a kink of theirs, which I think is amazing. It’s really cool to see the role reversal and have the masculine businessman be demasculinised and paraded around. It’s actually an amazing thing to be a part of.”

Our Own Little Queendom

Let’s bring things a little closer to home. We sat down two fabulous Melbourne drag icons, Polly Filla and Uff, to speak on their experiences intersecting drag and the kink community.

Originally from Germany, Uff brings her subversive and eye-catching drag to events such as nude night mainstay ADAM, Lust, and Homo Erotica, which she produces with her partner. Always captivating her crowds, she is currently working with the Folsom Down Under team in their mission to make the space more inclusive for trans and genderqueer people.

And Kiwi-transplant-turned-Melbourne-icon-turned-Bendigo-housewife, Polly Filla is the epitome of a local legend, a household name and seasoned workhorse who’s the first on anyone’s mind for camp entertainment, unabashed queer hilarity and incredible costume design. As the self-described “Drag Queen of the Melbourne Fetish Scene”, she’s hosted Fetish Expo, Hellfire Resurrection, and the Saints and Sinners Ball, both here and back in New Zealand.

Have you ever worked in or hosted a kink event while in drag (leather nights, nude nights, Fantastic, Trough, etc)? Could you tell me a little about that experience?

Uff: I’ve mainly produced and hosted events with kink elements for the last four years since I started doing drag and producing events. Last year I left Australia to go back to Germany, to visit family and explore opportunities to bring our events to Europe.

Before that I regularly hosted ADAM events, plus Lust and Homo Erotica parties. Once a month at ADAM, we invited drag artists to the stage to give a performance incorporating nudity. Pretty much all our guest entertainers shared with us how liberating the experience was. As a performer, it’s quite a validating moment when you’re able to capture and hold the attention in a room full of hundreds of naked people.

Homo Erotica has also organically evolved into quite a kink-heavy event. At our first edition for Midsumma in 2020, we flew over RuPaul’s Drag Race finalist Pearl, who gave us a fierce number in an all-black latex and harness ensemble. We are continuing to give drag artists a stage to explore their most risqué side.

Polly: My relationship with drag and kink is an interesting one. Outside of drag, I definitely identify as a kinkster in my sex life. My first job when I arrived in Melbourne in 2006 was at Eagle Leather, where I was hired not only for my customer skills and abilities, but for my experience and knowledge of the kink scene, awareness of fetishes, and health and safety standards attached to them in order to facilitate safe practices amongst our clientele.

For the majority of kinksters, a fetish store is the place (second to the internet) newer members of the kink community go to start exploring their kinks, to find out information and ask questions about various products, practices and fetishes. Our job was to create a safe environment where people could feel comfortable discussing their fantasies with us; in turn, we provided the community with information and products they required to make their fantasies reality. It’s as much a service to the leather / kink community as it is a business.

I often think of drag and leather being flip sides of the same coin – essentially both are a performance of the extremes of gender and sexuality. Polly is my extreme feminine side, and Colin (in kink mode) is my extreme masculine side. The yin and yang. And having an outlet for both definitely makes me feel more “balanced”. I've always been community-oriented, so I think it was natural that my experience as a drag performer and MC, and my experience with the kink scene would eventually cross over.

When I lived in NZ, I hosted the Fetish Ball in Christchurch for several years in the early 2000s – we’d have international fetish performers and educators like Satomi, Midori, Kumi Monster, etc come to perform and hold workshops as part of the weekend of fetish festivities. And as “Mistress Polly”, I would host and keep the performances and best-dressed competitions running smoothly.

Once I moved to Melbourne and started working at Eagle Leather, I quickly discovered the Melbourne and Australasian fetish scenes and community, and within a year I'd met Mistress Mallice, who produces the annual Oz Kink Fetish Festival, and I began hosting and MC’ing the Fetish Expo, the Hellfire Resurrection Fetish Ball, and Saints and Sinners.

I really enjoy being a part of these events – they're quite different from most of the regular events in the queer community. And although they involve the queer community, I’ve found that generally men who have sex with men want to play in an exclusively male-only environment.

Does being in drag in that environment inform your kink experience any differently – or vice versa, does being in a kink environment inform your drag any differently?

Uff: Whenever I’m attending an event, I usually respect the dress code. That is no different to when I attend or perform in drag. It’s also comforting to dress a bit sexier and kinkier when you know you’re in a safe space and your outfit will be appreciated.

Polly: It's funny – although I am kinky in my life outside of drag which informs my awareness of the leather and kink community, drag isn’t actually one of my fetishes, and I think that a lot of gay men definitely get that misconstrued about me.

As a costume designer and image maker, I enjoy playing with different fabrics and silhouettes. I like the striking visual power of someone in a corseted, avant-garde costume, strutting around in a high pair of platform stiletto heels, makeup and hair complementing and completing the aesthetic look. As a performance artist, the overall sense of achievement I get from using my body as a canvas to achieve that visual transformation – once the costume, hair, makeup and heels are on and as I step back from the mirror, I can see my vision come to life. I enjoy the power of commanding the room with the microphone, much like a dominant wielding a flogger in session, and I feel validated being able to support and contribute to our wonderful leather and kink community.

Does it turn me on, or do I get sexual gratification from wearing drag? No, I don’t. That's not to say that there's anything inherently wrong with anyone who enjoys crossdressing as a fetish, kink or sexual activity. I have lots of friends who enjoy it, but for me personally, it’s just not my cup of tea. I’ve tried having sex in drag once, and just found it to be the most uncomfortable, awkward thing ever, and knew it wasn’t a turn-on for me. I felt like Krusty the Clown!

Which brings us to an interesting intersection of where my drag crosses with the kink community. Lots of gay men in the leather community LOVE RuPaul’s Drag Race – they LIVE for it! I’ve been at the Laird on a full fetish night and overheard numerous conversations about that week’s episode. Yet when it comes to dating, most gay men are averse to dating a gay man who works as a drag performer, yet seem to love Drag Race more than drag performers?

Whereas in the kink community outside of the gay scene, everyone else is so accepting of me as a drag performer that they all just assume drag is my fetish, because that’s what they see when they see me hosting events. It’s not something that upsets or offends me anymore – just an interesting observation.

Have you experienced any overt opposition to bringing drag into the kink world, or have people mostly embraced it?

Uff: I’ve personally haven’t experienced any opposition to me bringing drag into kink spaces. Quite the opposite — usually the kinksters love it! Maybe that’s because some of them see the drag getup as a kink, as subculture, as heteronormative rebellion, and they want to help celebrate that. But that’s just a theory. For me personally, drag is not a kink though.

Polly: I've been keen to host a Mr Leather / Rubber pageant, because it's my community and I LOVE a pageant! I’ve produced several Mx Drag and Mr Gay pageants back in New Zealand, and as a skilled MC and producer, I know I'd bring my hosting skills and be able to contribute to supporting and making the contestants relaxed and hyping up the audience to make the event a really fun one. However, there are certain spaces that people want to keep as a masculine environment and free from drag. That’s not my decision, but I accept it – although if anyone wants to look more masculine, just stand next to a drag queen!

Do you think it's important for drag to have a presence in the kink / BDSM scene, outside of being fetishised?

Uff: For me drag is more than a costume or an act, it is part of my gender expression and identity as a genderqueer person. So in general, I hope all spaces become more inclusive and inviting for people who express their gender and sexuality in their own and in different ways. With drag having a big platform in recent years and going quite mainstream, there is an opportunity to uplift and demystify other subcultures through its art.

I do acknowledge though that some kink events are primarily sexual, so I’m not sure how much drag fits in at those spaces – unless drag is a kink for the person doing it, or where perhaps an artist wants to express their sexual freedom or incorporate their own sexual kink into their drag. Generally, I’m always supportive of including queer performances at events; it makes the event more entertaining and fabulous. And we as producers can support artists in our community.

Polly: I've always felt like drag performers are the shamans of our tribe – the storytellers of our community. I've been involved in the drag and kink scenes for over 25 years now. To some, that's a long time; to others, not a long time at all. I came out and was “brought up” in a time where people were still dying of HIV/AIDS. It was instilled in me that part of my role as a drag performer was to help our community, and that's something I've tried to live by and instil in future generations of performers. I’ve sewn three AIDS memorial quilts for three incredible people our community lost, and performed at more wakes and funerals than I can remember. Drag performers were the ones getting on stage and performing for free, shaking buckets and asking for donations in full drag for street appeals and fundraisers, and using their time and space with mic-in-hand to spread information and awareness to audiences in bars and clubs all over the world.

We have always been there, and we will still be there. To exclude drag from the kink scene would be erasure of history. That said, there are a lot of drag performers who don't understand kink, and there are a lot of kinksters who don't fully understand drag. The conversation is incredibly nuanced and never ends.

Have you ever brought drag into a more heterosexual kink environment (Sexpo, etc), and if so, was that any different to doing it in LGBTQ+ atmospheres?

Uff: I haven’t yet brought my drag to more heterosexual kink environments, but I’d be confident that the reaction would be pretty positive if I did. I’ve had invitations from heterosexual kink event producers, so I know they and their audiences are keen to have more crossover with me and other drag performers.

Polly: An interesting observation I've made over the years is that you can almost divide the Australian leather and kink community into four sections: gay and queer men who have sex with men exclusively, lesbians and queer women who have sex with women exclusively, heterosexuals, and the bi / pan / poly community. Fetish events in the queer community seem to be predominantly for the first quarter “pie slice”: men who have sex with men (Beyond, Trough etc), and other events are mainly patronised by the remaining quarters of the community. It’s only at events such as the Oz Kink Fetish Expo, Hellfire Resurrection and Northside Bizarre that we actually see everyone from the kink community all socialising together.

Gay/queer men didn't seem to want women “watching”. It’s somewhat old guard – maybe it comes from misogyny? Maybe it comes from some sort of unfounded fear that women will run in and “spoil the mood”? I'm not sure, as working in the alt and pan kink scenes, it’s never been an issue for me personally. Although I feel that this general attitude is changing – you just need to have attended the past few Fantastic parties to see that everyone, regardless of gender or sexuality or sexual kink, were all quite happy to cohabitate a space, party together and gas each other up. It’s 2021 and it’s definitely time for inclusivity on all fronts.

Blog image photography by Matto Lucas from BARBA Presents and Telepathic.