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Ask Dr Shaz

Ask Dr Shaz

Our latest party brunch to join our Sunday disco brunch series comes from none other than co-creator of Naked Boys Reading / Dragercize boss / actual PhD-holding Doctor, Dr Sharon Husbands! She is embarking on new project Ask Dr Shaz, adding the title of (Dr)Agony Aunt to her already very impressive resume. We caught up to find out what to expect at the debut of Ask Dr Shaz on Sunday 26 February!  

Hello Dr Shaz! We can’t wait to unleash all of our unsolvable questions on you at your Dragony Aunt brunch! Can you tell us a bit about who you are for those who might not have had the pleasure?

Hi Dalston Superstore!!

My name is Dr Sharon Husbands and I’m everyone’s favourite know-it-all drag queen. I have hosted parties like TALL GAY AGENDA and NAKED BOYS READING:BRUNCH here at Superstore before. I’m an American, a pisces and, like, super fucking good at giving advice. Also I like to dress like I’m that crazy aunt with stained wine-lips who just chaperoned your school dance. Looking the part is basically half of doing stuff, especially in Dalston!

Who will be providing the soundtrack to your brunch?

I’m bringing the absolute bottom to my total top, The Duchess of Pork! She’s my co-producer for Naked Boys Reading and has DJed for parties like DIRTBOX, DICK & FANNY, Kimono Krush and a host of other disgusting pig-fucker type things. She loves Barbara Streisand, Fleetwood Mac, and poppers. So, she’s perfect for a brunch DJ.

What inspired you to embark on your journey as dragony aunt?

Well I spent the past many years on the door, hosting or running clubs and performance events. And people LOVE to a) tell me really disgusting things about themselves and b) ask my advice on any host of issues. I think it’s ‘cause I’m tall (and pretty-ish).

AND I mean I’m a Pisces. You always go to the ANUS of the zodiac for answers right? 

AND I have a lot of degrees and weird jobs and like I’m not a player but a crush a lot.

AND I don’t know if you knew this but Alanis Morissette got a gig giving advice in the Guardian. If that Canadian child tv-star turned movie-time-head giver can do it – I certainly can.

Where do you get your boundless knowledge from?

That’s SUCH a good question. As I said, I mean, I’ve been around the block. I’m an old soul, a powerful witch and a fucking drunk. With these powers combined I’m your god-damned best option outside of the failing NHS to get some fucking answers. And no one can ACTUALLY afford analysis.

But for those who might still be skeptical I can say this:

I believe in constructive listening and critical inquiry. I believe in queering notions of normativity. I believe in solutions not problems. I believe that the world is fucked and so you might as well listen to me cause I’m fucking listening and not just some person you’d let fuck you at 3am in the toilet who double-tapped your stupid Instagram picture of you “not looking hot or dorky.”

Who is your favourite agony aunt (apart from yourself of course)?

Dr Ruth was probably my favourite honest bitch. She knew how to make you feel ok about turning the dirtiest trick. She also made you realize that your gran was kinky AF and that maybe sexuality and life were more complex than you were really ready for.

What can we expect at your brunch?

We’re gonna keep it real simple: delightful tunes to dine on delicious food. Some advice sessions including some live one-to-one (public) advice session and two rounds of “the perfect answer” where I will solve your deepest problems in just one word. I’m that good (or that lazy – no one can tell).

And now for some quickfire advice from anonymous sources…
Dear Dr Shaz, All this masc4masc nonsense is driving me insane – will anyone ever love me for my gorgeous, power-femme self?

Dear Glamazon,

Omg. Yas. QWEEEEEEN.

This is an important queen. Timely in fact as my drag-sister, Cybil War, is running a night on the very theme!

Normative and normalizing ideals of gender and sex/sexuality are really problematic. Masc4Masc operates, like all collectives, by exclusion. In this case it excludes any space for the female of feminitity. Now this is usually down to the fear of the already emasculated that their position could deteriorate further. You see, sexual minorities (non-breeders) are always already assumed in patricarchy to be feminine – to be “less than” the proscribed norm.

To exclude femininity from this already feminized position provides a false sense of security for men that they aren’t less than – something they may have felt their entire lives (save when a deep thick dick is squirting up their “just this once it’s ok I’m on prep” anuses).  It falsely reinstates a sense of self that sexuality as an identifier is probably not offering.  Sexuality is a new idea – really. It’s not something we’ve described this way for as long as people would like to believe and it’s fucking limiting when we start to reinforce hegemonic norms of how bodies should act/live/be/fuck.

Now my parenthetical before was a bit harsh. BUT, I’m also someone whose been dealing with this sort of gendered jockeying for years. As a skanky old ugly-queen on the scene I’ve had men approach me as a “boy” and mock me as “Shaz.” (MIND BLOWN! I KNOW?! WHO WOULD DO THIS?!)

Masc4Masc can’t be countered, simply, with glamour and glitz. But it must be presented with it at every opportunity. Don’t let such a binary force you into a position where you Empress powers become either cliché or a cage. We should wish the exact same for those that would wish to enslave queers in normative gender identities. We all swallow cum the same fucking way.

Am I right, ladies?!

Love you long time,
Dr Shaz

Dear Dr Shaz, despite being a lifelong ‘mo, my gaydar is hopelessy broken. How do I fix it?

Dear All Queered Up and No Place to Go,

I’m cutting to this one real quick: you’ve got nothing to fix. Move on. Worry about the lighting in your flat or what emoji to send next time you’re super horny on Sunday and all your friends are like “omg let’s get roast” and you instantly conjour up images of two EricVideo dudes spit roasting you till Tuesday afternoon.

Fur realz tho: gaydar was a great website, but it’s not something you need to acquire.

Queerness operates through subtly because it has had to over centuries. Those who feel outside of heterosexual normativity (whether they be gay, bi, trans, asexual etc) have always had to interpret signs and symbols in very unique ways. That some people seem to always know which queen is werqing in which context is down to two things: 1) an approach to living always at the margin of the norm and figuring out how to do things differently and 2) a projection of their own desires.

I have a friend who things everyone is bi. Not because they might actually all be bi (thanks Freud) but because he despereately wants them all to be. His bi-dar sucks, but let’s applaud his engagement with other bodies that doesn’t hold them in some sort of horrid heteronormative cage that they couldn’t just want a little piss-play with him of-a-Thursday.

Calm down. Find out more about people than if they’re a qween. And barring that just go to DSS on Saturday – it’s pretty damn gay.

Love your semiotic analyst,

Dr Shaz

Dear Dr Shaz, I think my addiction to fun is killing me – help!

Dear Courtney,

I believe I have a very clear restraining order on all contact with me?

What did we learn after the whole Kurt thing and then that damned American Sweetheart debacle? Our relationship is as toxic as a Vauxhall queen’s piss on Monday.

I’ll say what I’ve said to you TOO MANY TIMES:

All things in moderation. Moderation is not 2 lines an hour starting on Tuesday. It’s also not “just one more Aldi bottle of wine with dinner” – it’s a unique equation formed out of your own social relations and personal needs.

No one likes drunks or drugs or people on them unless they too are in that situation – know your audience. Take care of others (to do this you gotta keep some of your shit together).

If the fun stops when the drugs, dick, dykes or drinks run out then you’re not having fun.

Love your pussy,
Dr Shaz.


Catch Dr Shaz at her Ask Dr Shaz Dragony Aunt Brunch this Sunday 26 Feb from 12-4pm at Dalston Superstore!

 

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Ask Dr Shaz

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