Traumboy

Daniel Hellmann's Traumboy at Counterpulse is largely personal and the personal as political.  Daniel, the happy hooker,  tells his story of becoming a sex worker to support his performance art and how that has come full circle in this production where he now performs about his sex work.   He tells the story of his sex work as a happy hard working young man,  giving pleasure to others for money.   He explains the work life of the modern gay male prostitute, the online advertisements, the negotiation of services and price and the work itself--massage, fucking, blow jobs, rimming etc.   For Hellmann the only issues are prejudices among his family and friends and society at large leading to alienation and an increasingly difficult legal landscape.

In the performance,  Hellmann employs two primary strategies.  The first and most used is that of story telling and direct conversation with the audience.  The conversation begins Hellman's ask to the audience to text him questions which he reads and answers from his phone.  As the performance continues,  Hellmann turns the conversation back to the audience asking the questions of select members of the audience.   Both sides of the conversation are questions and answers about sex, sex work and the relationship of sex and the exchange of things of value.   Hellmann tries to coax out of the audience the understanding that in all kinds of sex there is some exchange of value.

The audience is coy, resistant to acknowledging the indirect commerce of sex,  reluctant to speculate on the experience of buying sex or admit to their own direct transactions.   There are no aha moments and few real engagements with the conversation.   Under the surface is the social stigma Hellmann points to that the buying of sex is a desperate sad act performed by only the most undesirable and unfortunate people.   A group to which none of these audience members want to belong to even in a performance conversation.  This holding back constrains Hellmann' and we become complicit in the prejudice and oppression of the sex workers, of Hellmann.

Despite his charm and getting to know him and his story,  he remains other to us.  And as if to emphasize this persistent/insistent otherness, Hellmann moves from the conversation to performance.  He poses for a photoshoot for his online profile,  has the audience read aloud his online testimonials and even performs a punk cabaret song.   This is the other part of his ask for acceptance and appreciation as a performer not just of sex work but also of song and dance.

He closes with an offer of a three dollar peep at his teaser jerk off video.   An offer taking up by more people than he expects.   The short porn piece like the text questions taking him a degree removed from the realness of his sex work.   Very different than the work of other performers who put their bodies more centrally in the work.   Like the audience conversation, the graphic porn video on his laptop comes off as strangely and ironically prudish.