“ONE of my key feelings,” says Lou Safire (Lucifer, get it?) - a, tattooed bear-like figure who does burlesque dance acts, sometimes on ballet pointe, occasionally involving feather fans - “is that if you haven’t questioned your sexuality by the time I’ve finished my act I haven’t done my job properly. ”

Safire, who is male and identifies as queer, started out performing burlesque over a decade ago when the scene was still very underground. That has changed – and not only is it possible to find a burlesque show in most towns across the UK, but many acts offer more than the classic traditional showgirls doing stripteases or fan dances.

Safire, for instance, who appears at the upcoming Scotland International Festival of Burlesque, has done shows that involve dipping his buttocks in smashed glass or eating fire. Or there’s Glaswegian “boylesque” (don't worry that's not Susan Boyle-inspired burlesque, it's classic striptease done by men, punning on the word “boy”) star Tom Harlow, a regular at The Riding Room in Glasgow, who dresses up in nipple-tassels and thong and does something very reminiscent of a classic female burlesque act. Or Roxy Stardust, who as well as doing a Glasvegas showgirl act, occasionally puts on her granny outfit, to play a very sassy old dame

Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of neo-burlesque – an art form which has so many sub genres this article demands a lexicon. No longer is it the case that shows just describe themselves as burlesque. Rather, increasingly, they ascribe to a subgenre title ending with the suffix “lesque”. Among these is draglesque – for drag is the biggest trend within burlesque in recent years. But still bigger than that is what’s called queerlesque, an over-arching term for the many queer-influenced acts. As Lou Safire puts it: “The queer scene is taking over. Most shows are now queer. That’s a big political movement happening over the last three or four years. Burlesque is now even more political than it ever was.”

Most people who work in burlesque will tell you that what they do has a political edge to it. It has always been closely allied to gender and sexuality rights movements. Lou Safire says: “Back in the forties and fifties they were fighting for women’s rights. And now we’re fighting for just general rights. For everyone to be accepted for who they are. Burlesque was always and always will be a feminist movement. But it’s now a feminist and queer movement.”

Roxy Stardust, a star of the Glasgow burlesque scene and organiser of the Glasgow Festival of Burlesque echoes this. “Burlesque,” she says, “has always been political. I think it’s always been a huge two fingers up to everybody who will tell you what you can and can’t do with your own body, whether you’re male or female, whether you be a bigger girl or smaller girl.”

Like many of the people I talk to in the industry she identifies as queer. “I always have,” she says. “We all kind of do that. But I just don’t think people really bother about what sexuality you are. It’s not something I really talk about.”

Almost all of the women who perform burlesque see it as some kind of empowering body confidence statement. That’s what Betty Rose Royal, one half of the burlesque power couple that runs the Scottish International Burlesque Festival, argues. She sees it as a “celebration of the body, both male and female...And it is really open to all body types. If you come to any of our shows you’ll see a huge representation, of every single type of body that you can have. And I think when people in the audience see that, it’s very freeing for them, because nowadays so many people have body hang-ups There’s a lot of pressure on women to be that mainstream version of what is sexy – burlesque is an antidote to that.”

Royal has a two year old daughter, and talks of how glad she is to be raising her in such a body positive culture. “I know amazing performers of every body type. Men women gay straight transgender. It’s really made me see the world in a more open-minded way and I’m really proud to be the mother of a young daughter bringing her up in that environment.”

She sees burlesque as “a low brow form of entertainment that is very much self-propelled – with performers choreographing their own acts, making their own costumes, doing their own PR”.

In other words, in burlesque, though women may be objectified, they are getting to be mistresses of their own objectification.

Brandy Montmartre, a Fife-based performer with a penchant for enormous headdresses, agrees with Royal’s argument about body confidence. She sees burlesque as a “celebration of who you are, as you are...It’s quite subversive. It’s going against the beauty standards and poisonousness – it’s saying this is me, I’m amazing, you’re amazing too.”

Tom Harlow, an award winning performer of boylesque, observes that burlesque is in essence about parody. “It’s about subverting the normal, about twisting it. It literally means parody and satire. That is where it comes from in history. So I think there will always be a political subversion or statement in it, even if it’s just a beautiful woman taking off her clothes. That in itself is political. Or it could be a woman doing a whole piece about periods while taking her clothes off. There’s a performer that I know called Scarlet Rivers whose name is exactly a reference to that.”

Harlow is the organiser of Glitter and Grind Revue, which he describes as a “hark back to a good old cabaret show, but with acts that are empowering and a little bit different and can subvert things.” The next revue, on May 26, will be a celebration of drag. One of the biggest trends in burlesque, he says, has been its fusion with drag. “Drag is very big in Glasgow because of Ru Paul. But I do think people don’t know anything about drag other than Ru Paul. It’s a bit harder to showcase different things”.

Particularly noticeable, says Betty Rose Royal, has been a rise in the number of drag king acts, in which women dress as men. “That seems to really be coming through. And it’s really interesting because it’s women engaging with that more masculine side of themselves.”

Roxy Stardust, for instance, performs as a drag king character called Rodeo McGregor. “There’s still,” she says, “a bit of controversy around that within the LGBT community. I mean when I started performing as a drag character I stopped because I was told that I wasn’t a lesbian so I wasn’t allowed to. And now I’ve started doing it a bit more because it’s been a bit more accepted."

Age is also not much of a problem in burlesque. Betty Rose Royal observes that some of her favourite acts are older women, like for instance Lynn Ruth Miller, who first went on stage doing comedy at 71 and it still performing at the age of 84. “I know burlesque artists in their eighties that are still performing. And there’s no reason why not. It’s so silly that a woman’s value is thought of as being less as they age, because we all know that you become so much more interesting as a person as you age and I think that burlesque is really doing a lot to change those perceptions. Older people have as much of a right to sexuality as anyone.”

Burlesque also has a body positivity message for men. Lou Safire, who mostly uses the pronoun “them” rather than "he" or "she" when talking about themself, says: “I’m male, but I’m just non-binary”. Lou Safire has also written a blog about male body issues. It was triggered by a male producer saying Safire was too fat for their audience. “Male performers are still a novelty,” Safire says. “They want us to be like Magic Mike. But if people are looking at me and judging me for my body then they’re there for the wrong reasons.”

Safire observes that burlesque has long reflected the trajectory of the gender and sexuality rights movements. “I think that’s why the scene is going to keep being political. We’re going to find and fight for whatever’s next. Gender neutral and queer is a newish thing in the media, so I guess now we’re protesting that."

WHAT QUEER MEANS

Queer is an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual and/or not cisgender (if you are cisgender you identify as the gender you were born). Queer became an insults directed at gay and lesbian people in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, however, the word began to be reclaimed by those who wanted to assert an identity distinct from the gay identity. People who reject traditional gender identities and seek a broader and deliberately ambiguous alternative to the label LGBT may describe themselves as queer.

A GUIDE TO THE BURLESQUE

Nerdlesque

Nerds can be sexy too. Imagine a bunch of Cosplay geeks transplanted onto a stage and stripping. This is fan fiction, but with a tease, celebrating pop culture, video games and anime. Game Of Thrones, Star Wars, Harry Potter… whatever brings out your naked inner nerd.

Gorelesque

Burlesque gone macabre, with plenty of fake blood and other gore, and possibly some homage to great horror cinema.

Boylesque

No, not Susan Boyle doing a fan dance, lovely as that would be. This is classic style burlesque but done by boys, or rather men. The term it believed to have been created by Tigger, a New York burlesque star who won the first ever King of Boylesque title in 2006.

Draglesque

Where burlesque and drag collide – one of the biggest current trends in the burlesque scene.

Feminist Burlesque

Most burlesque is actually feminist, but some acts are more obviously feminist than others. Shows referencing, for instance, menstruation, like the acts of Scarlet Rivers, or the work of Rubyyy Jones who has hosted shows like “Young Feminist Whores” and run “fatlesque” workshops.

Queerlesque

Burlesque as created by the queer community. Even more than any other sub genre, it’s a case of anything goes - you can forget the labels and not worry about defining yourself.

Polesque

Yes, you got it. Burlesque pole dancing. There are whole shows dedicated to it. Sometimes it even gets competitive.

Metalesque

A rock fan's dream. Stripping to heavy metal.

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