Characterizing themselves as a Satanic Sex Clown and Drag Thing, Pickles LaVey instantly won my heart over when I first witnessed them performing at Oasis Aqua Lounge. It was a burlesque routine with a twist: A sideshow act where they stuck needles in their chest, popped balloons in a state of tranquil lunacy and hammered nails in holes where nails haven’t ventured before.
Originally from small-town Ontario, Pickles left as soon as they were old enough and ventured to various cities like Winnipeg, Vancouver, San Francisco and Berlin. After 10 years of dashing between towns, Pickles decided that “it was necessary to come back somewhere where [they] could be more stable to work on bigger projects.”
Two major hurdles that Pickles had faced earlier on in their career was building and maintaining self-esteem while simultaneously battling stage fright. But performing in front of an audience was “always a necessity”. As a kid, Pickles would re-enact movies with their friends, like Dirty Dancing, and put on shows in class. “I would direct all my friends in these little plays. I would force everyone to rehearse at recess. I was a hard-ass!”
After writing up a character and pretending that they had a career already, Pickles managed to get their first gig performing femme and dove headfirst in a shallow pool before realizing that they could even swim. “I wasn’t offered the option of looking stupid”.
“When I started, to help me rise above stage fright, I would say a beast, a demon, took over. I would feel like I wanted to barf, but I would be on stage and would go wild. When I got off stage, I wouldn’t remember what happened. Now, after doing it a few times, I know how to take control of the stage.”
The first serious burlesque act that Pickles performed was a rendition of David Bowie’s Goblin King from Labyrinth. “It made everything easier; you didn’t need to prove yourself because everyone loved the Goblin King.” While an easy shoo-in for making friends, Pickles eventually grew out of the character and realized a crucial life lesson – the need to transform and to re-invent oneself.
The third hurdle, and perhaps the most challenging one, was Pickles’ understanding of their own gender identity. There was an expectation to follow mainstream gender-roles when performing femme, and in drag, they were often told by other queer-identifying people that they had to be ultra-masculine with facial hair and binding, which left Pickles in a, well, pickle.
“On my 30th birthday, it was the first time I allowed myself to perform with pit-hair. Before, I would shave before a show but let it grow otherwise. If people aren’t dancing on stage the way that they want to be perceived and in what way they feel sexy then people aren’t going to think that it’s sexy. Doing that is important, it’s hard though. As a skinny, white, semi-androgynous person, there is a privilege there because it was hard for me to get corporate gigs but I still pretty much got hired. And that’s not the same case for everybody who does the same thing.”
Pickles didn’t initially know how to personally-identify, but once they were enlightened about what a trans-nonbinary person was, they felt as if they finally fit into a definition that made them feel comfortable. It offered them pride, strength, and an obligation to use their new-found gender-identity to break down the walls of what performing in drag was. For Pickles, drag is less of “putting on a suit and being a crooner” and more about being an alien.
Currently, Pickles has two defining stage-characters. Pawn Waters, their drag persona, is an obvious ode to John Waters in the form of a crustacean who uses humour and references from John Waters’ films. Their Sex Clown is a combination of smut-performance acts and Berlin-style cabaret: “I put some white face paint on and looked within myself. And that’s what came out”.
“I constantly work to try and educate myself and review my own beliefs and biases and try to constantly work on myself to be a better person in society while the world feels like it’s burning down. I try to keep both of my characters the type of people that I would look up to and not be ashamed of in that way.”
Having an alter-ego gives Pickles the opportunity to explore other sides of who they are while deciding what to incorporate into their personal life. “My clown is more hedonistic and less self-reflective. If I need a break from myself and my own mind, I can put this thing on and I can be more in-touch with hedonistic, sensual, act-first”.
The mutual interplay between life and art is consistent in their work and personal life. Pickles had to create characters that were able to network and go on stage, navigating the queer spaces that they encountered and worked in. As time progressed, these personas eventually turned into the authentic version of Pickles, the human being.
“If I removed all the shame and all the issues that came with self-hatred, or figuring yourself out or low self-esteem, the actual stage character was more similar to whom I would become in real life. Eventually, it just bled into everything I was doing… As soon as I started doing drag, it really aligned with being a person and out with my gender identity. Now, who I am on stage is not particularly different than who I am on stage.”
“My personas interact with my daily life on a real surface-level aesthetically. I’m not sure. I think I just click into the different characters as I go about different situations. If I’m going to a party or an event, I click into my Sex Clown character because that person is more social. If I’m more gender-bendy, I click into Prawn Waters.”
Pickles had possessed a clown-fetish from as early as they could remember and very often experimented with different kink-communities throughout their adult life, but they first began to realize that gore-lesque, a sub-culture of burlesque, was their calling after bringing it back to Winnipeg after first being introduced to Zombie burlesque in San Francisco.
Incorporating clown-fetish, also known as Coulrophilia, within their routine was natural for Pickles. They incorporated balloon-fetish and clown-kink 3 or 4 years ago when Pickles first moved back to Toronto.
“Most people are scared of clowns and, as a clown burlesque dancer, people say how much they’re terrified of clowns. But after the show, everyone wants to take you home. Partly, I think, it’s a bit of horror-gasm stuff and I think a lot of it is coulrophobia [the fear of clowns] turning into coulrophilia”.
“Coulerphilia can be a lot of different things. Balloon popping, mostly about the anticipation of being startled, bouncing on balloons, the heart beating is exciting. Mess can be a big thing; foodstuff. Rolling around in mess, smearing makeup can be an exciting quality. There’s also an anonymous factor – the same thing that is scary of not knowing who is under the makeup can also be very exciting”.
Being in the audience at one of Pickles’ Sex Clown performances is certainly not for the faint of heart.
When asked about the most shocking thing they’ve performed on stage, Pickles recounts a time sticking a needle through their cheeks and having a “rather sporty-looking individual in the audience” fainting. “I don’t mean, or want, to make people faint when I’m on stage but I felt like I succeeded at being shocking and doing something that caused THAT much of an effect for somebody.”
“If I do something more grotesque, I try and have that aligned with a character that makes people more at ease. If I do a gruesome act with a gruesome character, I don’t find it to have as much of an effect than it does when I seem lovely and then do something grotesque.”
Although Pickles doesn’t regard what they do on stage as incredibly wild, as they’ve been doing these acts for so long, it might cause one to question if what they do is glorified self-harm. Many people, Pickles argues, haven’t shared this opinion with them, but a lot of people aren’t comfortable watching their sideshow stuff, and “that’s okay”.
“Art is often pushing your boundaries and sometimes art makes you feel uncomfortable. If you don’t want to watch someone stapling something to themselves, then that is okay and you don’t have to watch. It’s what you’re getting from the art you’re consuming.”
“Consent is what differentiates it from glorified self-harm… when you’re doing BDSM stuff that’s consenting adults playing with physical sensation and pain, and being in control and out of control. On stage, if I’m doing pain-proof stuff, I’m not doing it for some fetish pleasure –I’m mainly doing it for art, an idea, doing it for an effect”.
When asked about how one would get started as a performance artist, Pickles showed no hesitation in answering: “Do what feels good. Do what helps you grow as a person”.
“If you want to do burlesque anywhere on the gender spectrum that is not a cis woman, you know, if you do everything as you and who you want to be then that is going to be compelling. You are important. You being there if you are trans-bodies on stage, harry bodies on stage, everybody, people doing boylesque, people doing drag-lesque. Having all of these things in the public eye is important.”
“If it looks like there isn’t you in a scene, still do exactly what you want to do. I want to say there is a scene for you. If you have to go and find other people who do fringe-art and different style then go find those people. Show your own shows, just … I made my way in doing more classical stuff and slowly over the years started [being] who I actually am on stage. But I don’t think that’s necessary – fuck it, just do what you want to do.”
As an avid advocate for classic fun weirdoes, Pickles has really important advice for anyone who lives on the fringes of society, and for anyone who has the privilege of offering these people the spotlight.
“Society is dangerous. You know, if you are being an out weird person… Being out and living openly, it can be very dangerous… You shouldn’t feel pressure; it doesn’t take away you from being all of those things or your identity. You are still all of those things, but take time doing what you need to do and get those supports so you can be secure and do those things. When you ARE secure and comfortable, be weird, be interesting, be yourself. If you feel like you’re in a situation to do that, then do it. Find people like you.”
“My lesson [is] we need different things on stage. We can’t have the same thing that’s been there or else nothing changes. It’s up to performers, but also up to producers and to everyone involved in making the shows… Producers can do what everyone else needs to do – educate and work on themselves.”
“If you’re throwing drag shows and your whole line-up are cis- white men, then you need to rethink that. If your burlesque shows are white skinny women, then you need to rethink that. It’s up to the producer to ensure they’re hiring everyone, not what they perceive will make them more money. Sometimes it’s also important for performers to back down sometimes and give that space to other people!”
I have lost track of how many years we’ve known each other, but the morsels of time spent with Pickles have been tremendously valuable. Pickles is one of those genuine spirits who welcomes strange and doesn’t disqualify a person from hinting on ideologies that don’t initially align with their own – they’re patient, kind, and have a quality of respect that so many of us lack, whether in queer-spaces or not.
You can follow Pickles and Prawn Waters on IG at @pickles.lavey and @ThePrawnWaters; shop some merchandise at their Etsy Shop SexClowns4Satan, and check out their troupe, Clowns Kill Empire, “a collective, always open to queer, non-binary, bi-POC clowns out there who want to take down the patriarchy and destroy the empires of our modern society”, which throws a show the first Monday of the month digitally on Zoom.
Great reporting on a topic is never heard about, love it and you