Cammie Toloui: 5 Dollard for 3 Minutes

Cammie Toloui: 5 Dollars for 3 Minutes

CREDITS

GUP Author

Linda Zhengová

Artist

Cammie Toloui

Title

Hardcover, 165 x 240 mm, 144 pages

Publisher

VOID

Format

Hardcover, 165 x 240 mm, 144 pages

Price

€38

‘5 Dollars for 3 Minutes’ is one of the latest and perhaps one of the most daring releases by VOID. The artist, Cammie Toloui, known as a member of a feminist punk band Yeastie Girlz, has now compiled a book from a series of images from the 1990s showcasing her experience as a sex worker in a San Francisco strip club Lusty Lady. Interestingly, her lens captured her customers who gave her permission to be photographed during her performances. As a treat, they then received a dildo show for free. A sort of win-win situation for both sides…

Toloui started working in the strip club during her studies at San Francisco State University in order to be able to pay the expensive tuition fees and sustain herself. She was taking a course in photojournalism there and once she received an assignment to photograph her own life, her profession also became her project. To her surprise, numerous customers agreed to be photographed, presenting their vulnerable and horny selves to Toloui’s camera.

Mostly men but sometimes also couples, are photographed when masturbating or while pursuing their kinks. They were shot in the Private Pleasures booth where Toloui was performing as “Tasha”, separated by a glass screen yet connected via a microphone. The screen then created an intriguing visual aspect of what is seen and what is not. Sometimes, one can observe Toloui’s blurry reflection while on other images the other ambient lights seem to distort the customer. In any case, the vision is always fragmented, still leaving up space for imagination despite the sexually explicit content.

The book contains many layers where the artist’s personal life intertwines with a more general social aspect of male versus female representation in correspondence with specific places, such as the strip club. Toloui’s black-and-white and grainy images manage to capture something quite rare to see – men with their penises out, completely vulnerable and trusting, stripped off their macho façade.

‘5 Dollars for 3 Minutes’ is certainly a title that sparks the viewer’s curiosity. Regardless of the time when the images were taken, the title presents a unique insight into the strip club world from a refreshing female perspective, finally escaping traditional depictions of such places through a patriarchal lens.

 

5 Dollars for 3 Minutes was published by VOID and is available for purchase here.