People say to me, "You're so confident." But there are good days and bad days. Usually it's "This is me and I can't do anything to change it, so I'm gonna have to enjoy it." And then there are days when I'm like, "This is awesome – I'm fat and tattooed!"
All of my tattoos are kind of stupid and silly. [A sampling: "JUNK FOOD" on her knuckles, a T. Rex dressed up like Marc Bolan, and portraits of Weird Al Yankovic and John Waters.] One day I'm going to wake up and be like, "Well, that sure was a decision you made!" But I would rather have ones that are funny as opposed to ones that start out really meaningful and then you stop caring about them.
The biggest compliment I ever got came from John Waters while he was doing a talk here. He came over, gestured at me and was like, "This is everything. You look like you belong in one of my movies."
When I'm wrestling, that's a good [self-esteem] day. I look the least conventionally attractive when I wrestle, but I'm like, "This fits. I'm dressed like a cartoon character and nobody can say anything about it."
I found out about the League of Lady Wrestlers and was asked to join, and somehow I've become one of the draws. I decided to be the big, fat monster character. Making people boo you is weirdly powerful, and almost more gratifying than trying to get them to like you.
I've always been a big fan of wrestling, but there's a really sexist, racist, homophobic culture around it. I started training full-time and loved it, but I eventually left. I had to deal with people making rape jokes in class and being told I was overreacting. Now I'm in a space where I feel like I fit in, but that's a subset of a sport where women don't belong. We put on and sell out shows, and it's kind of a huge fuck-you to wrestlers and promoters who don't have respect for women.
I still do seminars and classes. I was training in Texas and went to pick up this guy for a power slam. He was like, "You're throwing me effortlessly!" A dude might be twice my size and ripped, but I can knock him down because of my build. I'm short and have a low centre of gravity and I'm really hard to move.
I'm also chronically ill and have fibromyalgia and a bunch of other stuff, and people ask, "How do you do this if you're in pain?" And I say, "I'm already in pain, so I may as well throw someone by their hair into a pole and have people cheer – or boo – me for it."
More
- Introduction
- Prince Amponsah, actor, social work student at Ryerson University
- Monique Mojica, actor, playwright, artistic director of Chocolate Woman Collective
- Heidi Hawkins, mother and voice-over actor
- Paul Lancaric, voice-over artist
- Catherine Hernandez, author of the novel Scarborough, out soon, and mother
- Acacia Christensen, also known as Doughnut Messaround, wrestler, League Of lady Wrestlers
- Jasbina Justice, activist, yoga teacher, coordinator and performer with feminist porn company Spit
- Ted Hallett, improviser/writer, Date Me, Next Stage Festival
- Jewelz Mazzei, body activist and model
See last year's Body Issue here.