Mykki Blanco: Art, Music & Identity
Podcast Transcript Season 3 Episode 45
Interviewer: Liz Goldwyn
Illustration BY Black Women Animate
The following is a transcript of the interview from the episode:
Liz Intro:
Hello, and welcome to The Sex Ed podcast. I’m Liz Goldwyn, your host and the founder of The Sex Ed, your #1 source for sex, health, and consciousness education. On our website TheSexEd.com, you can read original essays written by our network of experts, watch live talks and videos, listen to past episodes of this podcast, and sign up for our weekly newsletter. You can also follow us on Instagram @TheSexEd.
The Sex Ed is postively orgasmique to be partnered with GUCCI for your listening pleasure on this season of this podcast. That’s right, oh yes, GUCCI baby! We’re so grateful to GUCCI for sponsoring this episode and helping us answer everything you wanted to know about sex, but were afraid to ask.
Today, my guest is Mykki Blanco. Mykki is an internationally renowned performance artist, LGBTQ activist, and musician who’s worked with the likes of Bjork, Madonna, Kathleen Hanna, Kanye West, Major Lazer and more. I sat down with Mykki in Milan in February shortly before the COVID19 outbreak to chat about how transitioning has changed their sex life; sending letters to their heroes; being HIV positive and touring in the Middle East— which unfortunately, got cut short due to quarantine.
Liz:
This is a very Grace Kelly look today, is that what you were going for?
Mykki:
I feel like I was more channeling... I feel like I've been trying to channel a mixture of Priscilla Presley and Sophia Loren, and Diahann Carroll. Because actually, my mood-board photo for the hair was actually this photo of Diahann Carroll, with this, not this extreme of a bouffant, but... Proportions.
Liz:
To paint a picture for listeners today, Mykki is wearing a gorgeous silk multi-colored scarf wrapped around your head like a babushka, a camel cashmere-blend coat tossed casually over your shoulders, and a yellow, silk slip dress, haphazardly falling off of one shoulder. It's very casual chic.
So you're from California but you were raised in the South.
Mykki:
Yeah, so I was born in Orange County, raised mostly... Well, you know what? It's half and half, because both of my parents are from California, I was raised in California until I was eight, then I moved to North Carolina at eight years old, then I lived in North Carolina from 8 to 16. When I was 16 years old, I ran away from home to New York City. That summer, I ended up also, while being a runaway, getting an internship at Elle Magazine during that time, it had an offshoot called Elle Girl, it was Elle Girl. This was before Teen Vogue. It was Teen Elle, but it was called Elle Girl. And as a runaway, I got an internship at that magazine.
Liz:
How did that happen?
Mykki:
I wrote a letter. I was always a very ambitious child. But I wrote a letter, and then after that situation, because that's a whole other story, but after that, I wasn't allowed to come back to North Carolina. Not because of my family but because the school system was going to hold me back two years. And my mom was like, "No, no, no, no." So then I went to go live with my grandparents back in California when I was 16 because they were only going to hold me back one year for running away from home, from school. Because I ran away before exams, so it's like I didn't take any exams, and you have to take exams. And I already had bad grades as well.
Liz:
Is it true your dad was a psychic, or is a psychic?
Mykki:
Well, growing up... So my dad is psychic, and now he's doing more... I mean, you can come to my dad for a reading. Now he's more so wanting to do more spiritual counseling, and his readings are not really predictive. His readings are more like spiritual counseling, or psychic counseling. When I was younger though, I didn't find out my dad was psychic until I was 17. Growing up, he never shared that with me. My dad's always been super spiritual. I remember when I was six years old, he took me to a person who saw auras and had my aura read, and-
Liz:
What was your aura? What did they say, do you remember?
Mykki:
I don't remember. I don't remember, but-
Liz:
It's a rainbow.
Mykki:
But, yeah, I don't remember but I remember going. But no, growing up my dad actually worked for a company called Siemens. He was basically a tech, a computer tech person, when the huge IBM style computer was still in the room. And my mom worked for the Board of Education. My mom always had high level administrative jobs. She worked for the Board of Education in California, then she worked the Department of Investigations in North Carolina. Then she was basically a Level 3 paralegal for medical malpractice for a bunch of years. Now she is the director of trademarks. So you can't get a trademark unless you go through her for the state of North Carolina.
Liz:
So neither of them were artists?
Mykki:
Neither. But trust me, both of them are creative, but neither of them are artists. But my dad actually, when he was younger in the 70s, was a DJ. Then he was a New Waver. He told me I almost could've been named Nigel because of that song, "They're only making plans for Nigel." So my dad has a huge music bug. I remember my dad listening to Joan Osborne in the car when I was little. Like, "What if god was one of us." And then I remember my little brother actually getting in trouble for singing the lines to Nirvana's Dumb because my little brother was three years old and he'd be like, "I think I'm dumb. I think I'm dumb." My step-mom would be like, "Could you please stop playing him that song, I don't want him singing that song." So my dad is really musical.
My mom, her hobby is actually home decorating and interior design. She's one of those people that HGTV calls a weekend warrior. She lives to literally redo crown molding, and paint, and stain hardwood floors, and put gold filigree on things. So they're both really creative. But my sister, I would say, of the two of them of our family, my sister... I have a brother as well from another marriage, but my sister was the one that I grew up seeing in drama and dance. My sister, when she was younger, was an amazing dancer, and she also was a good actress. She's probably even a stronger actress than she was a dancer, but she was a very good dancer.
Liz:
The other night, you had a hat that you had zhuzhed up, and you had a brooch the other day that I saw that you had made. Did you start making that stuff when you were a kid?
Mykki:
The hat I juj'd, yeah. Well, the brooch I actually got in Tokyo, but I've made things like it. But my childhood actually was... I mean, there were some traumatic moments that have definitely shaped who I am today, but overall, I was very supported. I think that from my relatives that off the bat accepted that I was this queer child... I remember if there's anything I was told the most by everybody across the board, it wasn't a negative thing it was actually a positive thing, people always called me creative. And I think that for some relatives, it was like they didn't know what else to say, so they-
Liz:
They're like, "Oh, he's so creative."
Mykki:
Yeah, "Oh, he's so creative." But they always. I mean, I heard that from a very, very young age. So it's like if you're hearing, "You're so creative," from the age of four, which is maybe, "You're so creative," is actually code for, "You're such a faggot," or, "You're so visibly queer." Even if it's code for that, it's because as a kid, you don't know that, you're just like, "Oh, I am creative." So I think my family didn't even know that they were really encouraging me from a young age to be really far out. And my dad definitely is a very far out person. He is, he's definitely, he's very eccentric. Growing up, he'd take me around Haight-Ashbury, we were in the Bay Area, and Atlanta at little five points, and my dad's always loved Bohemian neighborhoods, and he really actually immersed me in those environments quite young.
So I think, when you're really little, you see something you like, you're like, "Oh, that's really cool." So from a young age, I think I was really attached to this idea of, before I even knew or could know or process what counter-culture or even Bohemian was, I think as a kid I was always drawn to stuff like that. And then also this continual support of me being in the arts. Literally, they all, across the board, even the grouchy uncle was just like, "Oh, you're so artistic." So I was really always encouraged in that way.
Liz:
And then you went to New York City at 16, you ran away.
Mykki:
I ran away. I ended up going back to California, finished high school, applied to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, got a full-ride scholarship, went to Chicago, and then dropped out after my second semester and moved into basically this punk house in... Not the south side of Chicago, but this area called Pilsen, which at that time, it's a predominantly Latino, Mexican neighborhood. And at that time, it's actually very gentrified now, but at that time, it was a bit unsafe. But it was really cool because at that time, this is 2005, 2006, Chicago still had a lot of underground warehouse spaces. They really had a noise music scene.
And Chicago's an odd place because, I mean, it's so conservative. I mean, the city is literally mapped out, one of the most racially segregated cities in the world. But for a time, there's always been this underground... Well, first of all, house music was birthed in Detroit, but obviously they're so close. So it's like you have this house music culture that came over from Detroit, so there's always been this black Latino techno music culture there. Sex work, as far as just... I know, for some reason, I think S&M is huge, and over the years, I've known so many dominatrices from Chicago.
Liz:
Mistress Velvet who was on our season two is a pre-eminent African domme goddess from Chicago.
Mykki:
Yeah, so I mean I wasn't even nearly involved in that scene, but there's just a shit ton of S&M going on in Chicago, and the scene that I got into after I dropped out of college was this very noise punk, I would say almost acid. A culture of people going to noise shows, dropping acid. Hippie freaks, like an offshoot of the freak folk thing that happened with Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart and Vetiver, all those people in the Bay, but more noisy, way more dirty, less hippie. Hippie, but more an acid hippie. I mean, and these people were far out, and I'm so happy that I really fell in with this warehouse punk house Chicago scene after dropping out of college because I didn't know where I was going to land, but I was still only 22. I don't think you have to really start thinking about your future in a serious way until you're 24 or 25. Probably 24 you should start making plans. But at 25, you should-
Liz:
But you had plans much earlier because you were writing letters to get internships at Elle
Mykki:
But you know what? That's the thing is that I didn't... I guess when I hear myself say it, I'm like, "Oh, what kind of kid?" My dad has said this to me. My dad is like, "Even the fact that you ran away from home to New York City." He goes, "That shows a level of independence that most people don't have most of their life." He's like, "The fact that you would run away, not knowing where you were going to sleep, not really thinking about it, just..." You know why I ran away? I ran away because Vincent Gallo had run away from home. Okay, that's the other thing. When I was younger, I used to research all these autobiographies of people that I thought were cool. So Buffalo '66 was the independent movie when I was really little. So I have an obsession with Vincent Gallo, of course, and Christina Ricci. So Vincent Gallo used to have this horrible website and-
Liz:
Oh, I know all about the website.
Mykki:
So he said he was-
Liz:
Where he sells his sperm?
Mykki:
Yes, yeah, but-
Liz:
But only to white women?
Mykki:
Right. So-
Liz:
White, Christian women.
Mykki:
Right, so-
Liz:
Cannot have any Jewish blood.
Mykki:
Yeah, it's... So I was a kid, not knowing this, whatever. And so I remember I emailed Vincent Gallo, this is a true story. I emailed Vincent Gallo, told him that I was going to run away to New York City because he did. And I read about his life, about how he had been in this band Gray with Basquiat and all these things. And he actually, and I no longer have a Hotmail account, but if there was ever some way that we could retrace emails that existed from our old accounts, because you know they can't possibly die, they have to be somewhere in the nether sphere.
Liz:
He wrote you back?
Mykki:
He wrote me back. I don't have his emails anymore, but he wrote me back and I remember it was a one paragraph email that was just like, "Don't come to New York City. You're stupid if you do. Stay at home, stay in school." Then the last line, I'll never forget this, was, "If you do come to New York City, and you get sick, write me again."
Liz:
Wow.
Mykki:
And that, but it was that. The last line, which is like, "If you do." I remember that clear as day. "If you come to New York City and you get sick, write me again."
Liz:
Did you write him again?
Mykki:
No, I didn't write him again. But at that time, do you know who else I was writing? I'm so glad you brought this up. So at that time, I was a big fan of Peter Halley's Index Magazine. At that time, I didn't know it was Index Magazine, but as a kid, I used to go to Barnes & Noble and all the art magazines and all the culture magazines were in one tiny section. And Index actually was sold at the Barnes & Noble in North Carolina. And so Index and Paper... Paper was too, but you would get it every four months or something, it was always very you didn't know when you were going to get it, but... And I was also at that age where I wasn't going to ask my parents for a subscription to this adult culture magazine. But I used to read Index. And so Index is how I learned about a lot of these people, or Blockbuster as well, the independent film section. But Index is how I learned about a lot of this that was way over my head for my time, for my age.
Liz:
Like Alan Vega, Suicide, Vaginal Davis.
Mykki:
Yeah, well so I wrote Vaginal Davis when I-
Liz:
Can we tell our listeners, will you give our listeners a little brief synopsis of who Vaginal Davis is?
Mykki:
Oh yeah. So Vaginal Davis is a contemporary artist and now they are a contemporary artist, professor, and scholar who started in the queercore scene in Los Angeles. Some notable things about Vaginal is that I think she had her own cable network show out in Los Angeles for a time. She was in Bruce LaBruce's film Hustler White. Vaginal has had exhibitions across the world, yeah. And she had a band with Beck's mother, who's the daughter of Al Hansen, the abstract expressionist painter. Her name is Bibbe Hansen. And actually, so Bibbe Hansen also and I exchanged emails.
Liz:
It's clear that you're coming from an artist perspective, from a performance artist perspective. And then it's quite interesting in music, it's almost like with sexuality or gender, that there's a need to put all these labels or genres on something for people to understand it, right? Because people have trouble with things that they can't categorize. And what you're doing is a little bit... It's a bit outside. Because you're coming at it from performance art.
Mykki:
Yeah.
Liz:
So it must've been that tripped people out when you're all of a sudden rapping.
Mykki:
So let me explain Mykki Blanco. So I went to art college, I went to SAIC, dropped out. Did a brief stint in LA, I was a puppy-sitter for some of the top women at American Apparel. A different time. Then got accepted to Parsons on another almost full-scholarship. I'm really good at putting together an art portfolio by the way, if any of you college students, if we want to... What was that whole scandal, the college scandal that just happened?
Liz:
Oh, USC, yeah.
Mykki:
If any of you listeners have an art student that you would like to get into a top college, you can find me on IG and Twitter, I can make a mean portfolio. But anyways, so I got another almost full-ride to Parsons, realized that Parsons is a wonderful school, but is a very technical school. It was even more technical than SAIC, and I dropped out after a month at Parsons. And so Mykki Blanco began because I didn't know what I was going to do, but I was like, "Oh my god." Trust me, I don't come from the kind of background where dropping out of college is okay.
Liz:
Twice.
Mykki:
Twice. And I was like, "Oh my god." And then obviously my family, my mom was, rightfully so, she's a mother and her child has just dropped out of college twice. My mom was fear mongering me so intensely, just like, "You better go back to school, you better. I don't know what you need to do, now you need to work and maybe you need to work on new night classes. You must go back to school, da da da." So I was like, "Okay." I remember one night after crying... And then I remember also feeling sad too. Crying like, "Why can't I do this? Why can't I do school? Why can't I be more studious? I know I'm a smart person, why can't this work for me?" And I got kind of depressed, but then I remember... Oh, that was the other thing. My mom had been supporting me, supporting me, and then it was like, "No, you have to work."
So I got a job, I got a job at a retail store. I think Dick Blick, the art store, or whatever, and I was like, "Okay, I need to start hustling. I got to make this work." So I started trying to apply, I would literally walk around SoHo with my resume trying to get an internship. I ended up getting an internship at José Ferrer's teen gallery.
This was that Dan Colen, Deitch projects, era of New York City. Art stars and... So I, just to be quite honest, I just latched on. I latched on every... I found out who these people were, I found out what the scene was, I knew that... I still didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew that I had ideas, I knew that... You know what I did? I thought I was going to be an installation artist. That's true. I thought I was going to do installation stuff. But then materials are so expensive and anyways, someone who ended up taking me under my wing was this downtown guy, Aaron Bondaroff.
Liz:
I know Aaron.
Mykki:
So it was Aaron Bondaroff, and Aaron was like, "Okay, you're a great kid, you're a smart kid, you're going to end up doing something." So he hired me to first work at his skate shop and zine shop called The New York Thing, and then I also worked for his bookstore, his artist bookstore Ohwow when he had it at the time on Waverly Place in the West Village. During this time, I basically discovered, or re-discovered, that one of my biggest passions was writing. And writing was free, and writing didn't require me to have art supplies, and writing didn't require me to have a studio, and I just had to be real with myself. It's like, I don't have enough money to be a young studio artist in the city, but writing is free.
So I was like, "I'm going to write a book." So I wrote this poetry book, and Aaron read it, and I think he had some other people read it, and then his gallery published it. And, at the time, his gallery was using this really big fashion PR firm called Black Frame, and all of a sudden, I went from being completely unknown to having this book out. And you think, okay yeah, so it's a poetry book. How do people know about this? Well, they knew about it because Black Frame are the people that repped them, so they repped my book. So all of a sudden, I go from being completely unknown to, I had my first editorial in Interview Magazine, I did this video for Italian Vogue, I was doing these poetry events.
Liz:
Reading your-
Mykki:
Poetry events organized by [Stefan Bandel 00:25:10], and people like Rene Ricard. And so I had, in a very minor way, backdoor way, as a babe entered this echelon of people in downtown New York, who were much older than me, probably 10, 15 years, but still. So there I was, just... And the people were starting to know who I was. Like, "Who is this kid? Okay, this is Mikey." And then I would go to Art Basel, intern there, and just that thing. You're a kid, you hang on, and you hang on, and you hang on, and then all of a sudden you get asked to do stuff. You're still hanging on, but now there's a reason for you to be at things. So that happened.
I started making music because I realized nobody reads poetry, or that it's very difficult to get people to read poetry. And so two of my friends, one of them was a sculptor at Barre, he's now an artist in New York City who's still a sculptor installation artist, Jeffrey Joyle, and my friend Daniel Fisher who, as a producer, he goes by the moniker Physical Therapy. We started basically a punk band where they, Daniel would play drums, Jeff would play bass, Daniel could also produce electronic stuff and would do that, and then I would play these loops. And then I would basically scream shout my poetry lyrics. And we had this group called No Fear, and there's videos you can find on Vimeo and YouTube. And so No Fear lasted for about a year, and then one day, I had an idea for a different project.
And so Mykki Blanco started as a character, but it was also the awakening of my trans identity. And we can talk about that after this because it's, at the beginning of Mykki Blanco, I was on my way to transitioning, and then I stopped, I was super fearful, and I stopped, and then five years passed, and I was like, "I wasn't going to do that." It was always something I really though about. "Should I? It's something... I feel like I'm not living my truth." And then now I am transitioning, finally, after six years, but anyway. But Mykki Blanco began as this idea for just something different. And so I think it was during this time when Nicki Minaj was still a new female rapper, and her and Lil Kim were having this very public feud, and I think that feud, that tabloid feud birthed this idea for Mykki Blanco to be a female rapper.
And so the project started out as an interdisciplinary art project, a video art project, and it was my first time ever presenting as femme. And I would be in my room, and I would do my makeup, take me forever, and I would post magazines, because Mykki was also supposed to be weirdly like a senior in high school. So I would post Teen Boop and Teen People, and I would post these posters on-
Liz:
Oh who? Who did Mykki fetishize?
Mykki:
One was Rihanna, one was Drake, 2010 Drake. And I would post these on my wall, and I would just speak directly to the camera in this really diaristic style. And I was trying to make my own nods to Cindy Sherman, and also there was a famous woman and photographer, she is of Asian descent, her name is Nikki S. Lee.
Liz:
Yeah.
Mykki:
And I was obsessed with Nikki S. Lee, and so this was my first time playing with caricature and video, and also Facebook was a pretty new thing. Facebook had only existed for four years, five years, and Instagram didn't even exist yet. I think Mykki was also on MySpace. So I was making these videos, and one day a friend suggested to me, "If Mykki is supposed to be a rapper, why don't you rap? You know how to write poetry." So at 25 years old, never having done music ever in my life besides musical theater as a kid, but not pursuing it. Because I'm not a singer, I'm a rapper, and I can talk-sing, but I can't really sing. So I'm not a singer.
Liz:
But maybe you could do musical theater.
Mykki:
But I can't really sing, but so I started to actually write these raps, and then back when GarageBand on Macs was an extremely rudimentary program, I would make my own little beats on GarageBand, and so that's how Mykki Blanco started. Symbiotically though, what would go on to happen was presenting for femme for the first time in this video art project, eventually that character broke the fourth wall, and I decided one day, and I'll never forget the day that I did it, but I don't know why I did it. I think I just wanted to. But I broke the fourth wall, after doing my makeup and after making the video, I got dressed up, and I went outside.
That day changed my life forever, because that day, it's... And I know this, I know saying this sounds weird because the story of Pandora's box was that Pandora opened the box and all these monsters and all these evil things came out. So that's a weird allegory to use, but it was like Pandora's box opened, and all these flowers, and all this aurora borealis, and comets, and meteors came out of this box. And it was the first time that I realized that I was something, I couldn't name it yet, I didn't know. I didn't have the words for trans, I didn't have the words yet for the trans. But I was like, "Oh." I was like, "I..." This inner feeling of, "Oh. Okay, I'm more than gay. Okay, this is different." And that-
Liz:
Was part of it, when you went outside, other people's reaction or?
Mykki:
Well, yeah. I think that, because I was 25 at that time and I was so much thinner. No, I think that definitely experiencing the male gaze, and even though it's actually quite misogynistic, experiencing the male gaze, if you've never experienced it before, and especially when you grow up an effeminate queer person. It's like when you're an effeminate queer person, I mean, you get, most of the time, ridiculed and bashed most of your life. People say horrible things to you. I'll never forget walking down the street and someone actually screaming at me that I was AIDS bait. Really horrible things, my whole entire life actually. So but this is actually a commonality between a lot of people who are effeminate queer people who grow up unabashedly, or really, I should say, undeniably effeminate.
So I think that all of a sudden presenting as femme, and having now this femininity validated, even if it was through this toxic male gaze of catcalls or people paying you a large amount of unsolicited sexual attention. I think, at that age, where I was at in my consciousness, also having never experienced it, and having my femininity up until that point be an extremely negative thing, it was liberating in ways that I'd never experienced in my entire life. And that really began, I would say, my journey to where I'm at now. And there have been all of these twists and turns because it's... and I feel like I'm jumping around and we can go back to things, but it's like I was going to transition, I was on my way to transitioning. And then the year that I was going to transition, I found out that I was HIV positive.
And when that happened, it was like, "Oh, this is a big deal." Like, "Okay, let's choose." In my mind then, there was no possible way that I could be HIV positive and trans. And so it was like, "Okay, you enjoy dressing up, just keep this compartmentalized here. And the trauma of becoming HIV positive, what that happens, the conversations that happen in your family. It's like, yeah, it just didn't seem feasible at all, to also transition after that. During, at least, at that time frame. So I put it on the back burner.
Liz:
Well, I mean, I read a good quote that was interesting that you said. "How could I be fun and have HIV?" Because you seem, I mean, that very much seems on brand for you, fun. Yeah, I mean fun and turning things that are difficult into that Pandora's box, blooming flowers and comets.
Mykki:
I mean, I'm going to be honest, I would say that my outlook has to do with honestly the people who, in my lifetime, have been much braver, much, much, much braver in their lifetimes. In our maybe combined lifetimes. People that I could look to who were positive and still thriving. And I'm not talking about celebrities because we don't have any, I mean, we have almost no examples. And I'm not talking about celebrities, I'm not talking about famous people, I'm not talking about notable people, I'm talking about the everyday average Joe teacher, lawyer, doctor, therapist. The positive couple that adopts children. If I didn't know that these people existed when I had become positive, I think I would've completely crumbled and fallen apart like so many unfortunate people have. And really allowed it to be something that ruined my life.
Or, I should say this, or to have it unfortunately, how some people are when it's the worst things that's ever happened to them. I think going blind or losing your legs or having something happen really disgusting with your bowel, having you uncomfortable to go to the bathroom for the rest of your life. I think those are all really way worse things. Or having that thing, halitosis, where your breath is horrible and you can't talk to people and your breath is so bad. I think all of those things are all unfortunate things that, god bless the warriors that live each day with it, but I those things would impact me way more than having HIV.
But had I not known that these everyday warriors, these everyday women and men and queer people that are living their lives, that are living their truth openly with HIV. Had they, had these people, our everyday people not blazed this trial of visibility, I would not have known it was possible. And that's what allowed me to keep my head up. I was not public about it for four years or three years. So I became positive in 2011, so that's... I told people in '11, '12, '13, '14, 15. So four years later. So I told my-
Liz:
You told your family?
Mykki:
I told my very close circle, yeah, yeah, yeah. My mom, dad, knew. Funnily enough, when I was negative, I had dated a boy, a really... Well, I won't say his name. But a boy, still one of my really good friends, that was positive. He had unfortunately become positive when he was super young, like 20, and we had really safe sexual relationship the whole entire time we dated. So, I mean, it wasn't him, I know that. But he was so... Seeing his life force and his vitality, and the fact that we were both young, he was positive, and he did everything he wanted to f-ing do. He would run miles a day, he was a health nut.
And having him around also, because I remember a few years ago, he told me, he goes, "I don't think you realized that you were the first person that I dated after becoming positive. And you made me feel so okay." He said, "You were negative then, but you made me feel so okay with who I was. You made me feel loved again, I could be loved again, it was possible." And I was a kid, we were kids, so you don't know you're doing this with someone, you just think, "Oh, okay, you have HIV? Okay, well we're going to use a condom, but you're still hot, I'm going to date you." Do you know what I mean? I mean, that's how I was.
So it was just funny that, I think also, if he had not come into my life... They say the lord works in mysterious ways because I think also dating him for the months that I dated him also prepared me when I became positive, that like, "Okay, yeah, we got this." You know what I mean? Take the medication and just be super healthy, be a health nut, you're going to be fine. Publicly though, oh my god. Because come on, hello, I think my first song was called... The second song, the biggest one of that time, was called “Wavvy”, it was about taking ecstasy and being crazy. And so it's like I was so fearful because there's such a huge stigma. Come on, we know there's so many people in Hollywood, in the music industry, that are positive. But there's such a stigma.
It's like people have to appeal to whatever their audiences that still demonizes and criminalizes HIV. And I'm going to be honest, I think positive women have it the worst. Because at least in the queer community, as far... I should say non-queer, I should say cis positive women, because even within the queer community, especially the cis gay male community, there's... The target of so many advertisements and the queer community, we overall literally have HIV stigma plastered all over us. And educated over and over, but I rarely see cis positive people, especially women, targeted in HIV awareness campaigns and that kind of thing. So-
Liz:
STD campaigns in general. I mean, that's a real big thing in the sex positive community is being positive and open, that you can still have sex with sexually transmitted diseases obviously if you're safe about it and you communicate. But yeah, it's not really... You don't have a lot of celebrities coming out and saying, "I have chlamydia, I have herpes."
Mykki:
Well right, and so then you have... Visual AIDS is a great group that I did something with, and then who else did I do something with that was really wonderful with HIV? Oh, I spoke at the national conference on AIDS this year. But anyway, I did something with AmfAR, oh my god, I'll talk shit about them because they're fucking horrible. They used me for this campaign about people of color and HIV, I did the campaign, and then the whole entire year, okay, that we did this campaign together, they're running the campaign, they wouldn't give me a single invite to the gala. To no gala.
So I remember the day that I blasted them on social media was the day that they literally ran one of my videos, and the amfAR Gallery was happening in New York City, I was sitting in New York City. And I texted my manager like, "Okay, oh, so you want to parade people of color who have HIV around on your social media and use them for your marketing research, but then you have the freaking Hadids and people that are... You're not even having..." I mean, shoutout to the Hadids, I think you guys are fab. But, "you're not even willing to have positive people, a positive person that you're using for your advertisements who's also in the arts and entertainment, at one of your galleries?" Oh my god, absolute nightmare.
So yeah, Hollywood and HIV is a nightmare. HIV period is literally... People are making so many strides. GLAAD are a wonderful group that I worked with. Woo-hoo, go GLAAD. But yeah, there's just... It, honestly, it gives me a headache thinking about how underrepresented people who have HIV are in the media, and then this white-washing that happens, and then also this celeb-washing where it's like you so still willing to prop up celebrities who make generous donations, great, but how awesome would it be if you got with 2020 and the times and actually put positive people, you know what I mean? At the forefront of some of these things. Or even involve them in the dialogue. It's actually beyond me. It actually is beyond me how these groups haven't had a better PR makeover by now.
Liz:
Yeah, I can see why you would put transitioning on hold. Also, it's interesting because I feel like with sexuality and gender, there's such a desire to arrive at the conclusion of something, whereas transitioning in and of itself is a journey, and it doesn't happen overnight. And getting comfortable with having HIV is a process, and learning how that affects your life, and lifestyle changes you need to make. And then flash forward to now, when we were talking the other night, we were talking about orgasms. And you started telling me about your hormone therapy, and some of the unexpected side effects that you've been having.
Mykki:
Yeah, the shudder.
Liz:
One of them has been your orgasms changed, right?
Mykki:
Yeah, they have. They've completely changed which is crazy.
Liz:
What is it now?
Mykki:
I mean, so this is super, super, super common when you're on hormones and testosterone blockers. But it's just that my orgasm used to come from the penis, used to come. It used to come, I would ejaculate and everything would happen there and it would be like, "Oh." And this one final thing. And now, oh my god, now my orgasm is very just in the pit of my stomach, in my intestines, and then shivers up to my lungs, and I actually don't even ejaculate at all. And it's this, "Oh." This full body like, "Oh." Yeah, that's, I mean, yeah. That's been one big change, that's been the biggest change. Well, that's not been the biggest as with others, but that's a big change.
Liz:
Is that exciting? Does that feel like a whole new way of experiencing that kind of pleasure?
Mykki:
Yeah. I mean, it's exciting because I'm only five... So, from February to March, it would be five months. So February to March will be five months. Only in March will I hit the six month mark, and one of the things I did not know about transitioning was that even though certain things take a long ass time, there are other things that happen really, really, really quick. Your body is like, "Oh, this hormone was not here before in this amount, and now it's here and I got to figure out what to do with it." And it goes like, "Woo." there are some things that change really, really, really fast.
Liz:
Like what? You were telling me the other night about your response to anger is different.
Mykki:
Oh, that was an emotional change. Yeah. And that had to do a lot, I think, with estrogen, but also probably more of the testosterone blocker. There are certain characteristics that I associated with being like, "These are my personality." And now that I'm on the f-ing... Can I say "fuck"?
Liz:
Yeah.
Mykki:
I'm like, "The f-ing."
Liz:
This is a show called The Sex Ed, it would be odd if you couldn't say "fuck".
Mykki:
I'm like, now that I'm on fucking 'mones, now that I'm on T-blockers, it's just like, "Ugh." Obviously, I still get angry or whatever, but to the extent that I used to, or even, I don't know, just my emotions, my moods have completely shifted. I would say I feel way more calm, copacetic, I think at peace. I think now, I would say this, before I was more of a hothead. I was definitely more quick to anger. Quick to anger and also quick to cool down. And now, I would say I'm still quick to cool down, but much slower to anger. Much slower to anger. And I think that has a lot to do with shedding my fucking, my f-ing, testosterone down.
Liz:
You know what they say about... There's a saying about women, it's an old fashioned saying, that women are like ovens, and that it takes women a really long time to heat up.
Mykki:
Really?
Liz:
But when they're over it, they cool down real fucking fast.
Mykki:
Yeah. That sounds about right. That sounds about right for most of the women I've known in my life. It sounds about right about my mother. Oh my god, my mother was so funny. She was always like, "Well, I don't know much about staying with a man, but I sure as hell know about leaving one." But what else? My skin changed a lot, my skin changed a lot. There's been minor breast growth. My skin has changed a lot, oh my god, I'm getting fat, but you know what? I'm getting fat, but no I'm not getting fat, I'm starting to just eat... I thought I ate healthy, but estrogen changes all of your... If you're muscular, it changes.
The muscle that you have changes to fat, and redistributes fat. And that started to happen and I was like, "Oh my god, I love my butt." And, "Oh my god, but everything else I'm getting puffy." So now I'm... And actually, I'm going to the Middle East super soon, so now I'm using that trip as an excuse to slim down, to get my weight under control before spring.
Liz:
Well, how is the Middle East going to slim you down?
Mykki:
Well, I mean, it's just me. Basically, I mean, the Middle East is not going to actually do anything to slim me down, it's just going to be me not eating gluten. I don't know.
Liz:
I'm really excited about, you were telling me a little bit about this Middle East tour that you're doing, can you tell us a little about how you've organized this?
Mykki:
So today's gotten even more exciting. Okay, so my friend Sam and I are going to the Middle East, and we... It's been amazing so far, just how we're setting this up. But we got in touch with a woman who's from Beirut but lives in Jordan. She's an artist, a filmmaker, and we met her I think honestly through a post I made online, but she also knows some people I know in London. She has hooked us up with this group in Palestine that run the Palestinian Independent Film Festival, and they also run one of the biggest, I think the biggest, queer underground party in Palestine. And they're also a DJ crew.
So they are organizing our show within Palestine, and I think in Haifa, and they're going to take us around and it's going to be this insane experience there. And it was really important for me to work with... So I come from Jewish descent. My dad's a black Jew, and I've been to Israel twice before, but it was really important for me this time to, if I was going to do anything as far as performance, to definitely have it be centered within the Palestinian community, and only to agree to any kind of performance unless it was promoted and initiated and the venue is Palestinian. And so yeah, that was really, really awesome. Then, we have a show that's being organized like an art museum in Jordan. I actually need to look up the name, the formal name of the museum, but that's going to be awesome, and that's come through this network of people.
And then we are now talking about doing a show in Beirut. And hopefully it will be Beirut and Cairo. So yeah, I just had this desire. And when was it, 2016? 2016, I released... Or 2017, I released, I forget, but I released a documentary with ID directed by Matt Lambert called Out of this World. And we went to South Africa to do a documentary on the queer creatives in South Africa that were thriving, that were making work despite the country's attitudes towards queer people, despite what was happening in the government, the political situation there in South Africa. And it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life, to be able to meet queer people around the world who, despite whatever is happening in their country, whatever the political situation is, that they are continuing to make work. That they are continuing to expand and live these full lives. That's so important to me. That to me has been this amazing thing that I've even seen through my own musical touring.
So yeah, to be able to now go to the Middle East, something I've always dreamed of, and now to be able to go knowing that we're going to have a community there to help us navigate these spaces is super. I am so excited. I sound like Oprah, "I'm excited."
Liz:
I'm excited for you, this is amazing. I'm sure people are really excited that you're coming too.
Mykki:
Well you know what? I don't think people know yet, but they will. Or I should put it like this: the right people will know. It's like being queer in a lot of these countries is not-
Liz:
You got to keep a bit of a low pro.
Mykki:
Yeah, you got to keep a low pro, so.
Liz:
But for the community, I think it's a big message for an artist like you to make an effort, to organize your touring to go to these places.
Mykki:
Well yeah, you just have to, come on, it's like if I go to a country where I know being queer is illegal, it's like, "Okay." I can bite the bullet while I'm there and be a bit less gender non-conforming on the street. And I think I have to be for my safety. But also at the same time, I don't want to even make those assumptions or... That's a big assumption that I'm making, and I'm making it as a foreigner from America. But I do hope when I'm there that some of the assumptions that I'm making about these places, I can become enlightened, because that's what travel does. And that's what meeting people on the ground does. You realize the normalcy of something, or you realize, "Oh, actually, okay, you can be openly queer here. You can't do this, but you can kind of do that." You know what I mean? But you wouldn't know until you're there.
A really good girlfriend of mine, a DJ, she just went to Jamaica. She's Jamaican but she had never spent that much... She spent a month and a half there, almost two months, and she was like, "Okay, so let me tell you the deal." She was like, "There are queer people in Jamaica." She was like, "There are visibly queer people in Jamaica." She was like, "But they know how to navigate their country." She was like, "But the idea that they're all hiding, or cowering in fear, or being burned alive..." I mean, horrible crimes are committed against queer people in Jamaica. But she's like, "The idea that there is not a presence at all," she was like, "It's wrong. Or that presence is hidden is wrong." And I was like, "Yeah, you know what? You know what baby? Rightfully so, you would not have known that unless you were there in person. Seeing it for yourself." So-
Liz:
I just have one more question for you, for today.
Mykki:
I'm spilling so much tea, I feel so vulnerable.
Liz:
You're in a safe place. What are you still learning about sex?
Mykki:
Intimacy. I think coming from a really traumatic sexual background, from having my first sexual experience be so traumatic, and then in my teens there was just a lot of me sleeping with older men when I was 14, 15, 16. And now I realize these men were so predatory, but that the time I thought I knew what I was doing. And so I just come from this background of hardcore trauma. And so I think that, in my late, late, late 20s, in my early 30s, and I'm only 33 so we're talking relatively five years ago. I think just, truthfully, one thing about becoming enlightened about something is that once it happens it's never too late. And once healing happens, once it happens, it changes everything. All the cells in your body and all the nucleuses and atoms in your body shift, and you're like, "Wow, I've had a whole shift, paradigm shift."
So I think once really knowing that sex could be this intimate, spiritual, very... Knowing what it is to have someone really love you beyond a friendship. My first boyfriend, I really, and I still love him and he still loves me, but not in that way anymore, but he just really loved me. Knowing that you're capable of really, that deep, real love, it's changed a lot. And I also think that now, when I have a hookup, I like the hookup to be with someone that at least we've flirted with so much, and it's not this really transactional Grindr hookup. Oh my god, I hate hookup apps now. Oh my god, well I've hated hookup apps for a good six years because I think they're, first of all, I think they're... If you're into spirituality, I think they're low frequency. I think they're super low frequency, I think that you literally are only going to get the worst transactional sex out them, and it's going to be like jack rabbit pound, pound, pound. I think they're bad for your self-esteem. Nowadays, they're just full of drug dealers and drugs.
And yeah, so I don't like that. But I think that yeah, this journey of allowing intimacy to be this spiritual sex consciousness, that it's okay to feel vulnerable and safe and really, really take your time. That's awesome. And I do, I like the fact that one of the most awesome hormonal changes I've experienced thus far is I don't think about sex at all now. And when I do, you got to really turn me on.
Liz:
Thank you, that was amazing. Thank you so much for speaking with me.
Mykki:
Thank you Sex Ed. Thank you Liz. Work. Just coming to you from this hotel in Milan.
Liz:
You've just had a club sandwich.
Mykki:
I've just had a club sandwich. A delicious club sandwich. Thanks.
Liz Outro:
That was my conversation with Mykki Blanco. You can follow Mykki on IG and Twitter @MykkiBlanco. That’s M Y K K I B L A N C O. You can also stream and purchase Mykki’s music on all platforms.
Once again, a huge thank you to GUCCI for sponsoring this episode. You can find all things GUCCI via their website, GUCCI.com, and on instagram, @GUCCI.
Until next time, you can read exclusive content on TheSexEd.com, follow us on instagram @TheSexEd, and listen to past episodes anywhere podcasts are streamed. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Sex Ed is hosted by me, Liz Goldwyn. This episode was recorded and edited by Jeremy Emery and produced by Chloe Cassens. Lewis Lazar made all of our music, including the track you’re listening to right now.
As always, The Sex Ed remains dedicated to expanding your orgasmic health and sexual consciousness.