An interview with Penny Arcade, host of NYC’s performance art party Pussy Faggot, invading Berlin on April 9

Penny Arcade appeared in a Warhol film in the 70s, co-starred in The Last Will and Testament of Quentin Crisp in the 80s, and brought her own show to international stages during the 90s. For the last six years, she's hosted the Pussy Faggot party in NYC, which is now touring through Europe. The cult figure and activist muse spoke to SIEGESSÄULE in advance of the Berlin stop, April 9 at Monster Ronson’s

For those unfamiliar, how would you describe Pussy Faggot?
Pussy Faggot is New York's radical queer performance party that I've been hosting since its inception. It's about community-building, a kind of a café society. We're in Berlin to meet friends – friends we haven't met yet.

The title of Bitch! Dyke! Faghag! Whore! – your own stage show musing on taboo topics – was inspired by the insults that you have endured over the years. Likewise, the founder of Pussy Faggot named his party after the words thrown at him during an assault. What is the appeal in reclaiming these epithets?
It's fundamentally different from the current atmosphere in queer culture, which is very protectionist. Younger queers are participating in a kind of infantilization. They consider themselves fierce, but they want a safe space. You can't be fierce and ask for a safe space at the same time, right? The queer world that I came of age in was about not fitting in, and the queer world right now is very much about consensus. “Queer” is a word that came out of a rebellion in the 80s against the politically correct gay community.

Do you think counterculture can have relevance anymore, like it perhaps did in the 60s, 70s and 80s? Or is it just part of the consumer-capitalist cycle, always commodifying the new and rebellious?
You've got it. It's problematic. We're all living in the spectacle. Media has forged its way into everything. Not only are we constantly being advertised to, but we ourselves have become the transmitters of advertising.

Without realizing it.
That's why individuality is so important - it's fraught with danger; it goes against the herd mentality. Communication is so key. One of the ways that communication has been broken is ageism – by breaking the intergenerational connection. Evolution has always taken place with the energy and idealism of the young combined with the wisdom of the old. When I was young, my goal every single night at the bar was to sit at the table with the old queens. I wanted to up my knowledge through other people's experiences. The past 25 years have seen the systematic breaking down of that connection. That's what wisdom is. By the time you really know something from lived experience, it's not useful to yourself – it's information to be passed on. That's how consumerism works within youth identity – it keeps people separate to therefore have less power.

You’ve always prioritized criticizing oppressive power structures even if it has negative effects on your career. Is this ever a difficult choice? Have you ever been tempted to compromise your own values for selfish reasons?
Every single second. That's my message for younger people: Every second, you're in a position to decide whether you are being true to yourself, or selling yourself out just to be comfortable with those around you. It's important to know that that threat to one's individuality never ends. And it hurts. That's why I'm trying to inoculate people, to teach them. Pussy Faggot is like a class, like Bohemia 101.

Joey Hansom

Pussy Faggot w/ Penny Arcade, Needle Jones, MJ Woodbridge, Scotty the Blue Bunny, Sheila Wolf, Rachel Mason, Bourgeois and Maurice and more, Apr. 9, 23:00 at Monster Ronson’s