Naked On Sex, Work, and Other Burlesques

In Naked, a celebrated burlesque performer, sex educator, and social worker bares it all, with incisive and hilarious essays about selling, performing, and consuming desire.

Fancy Feast draws back the curtain to reveal a world that most denizens of the daytime never see. Part exclusive backstage pass, part long-form literary striptease, these essays confront our culture’s tightly held beliefs—like so many clutched pearls—about sex, communication, power, and the messiness of life on the margins of respectability. In “Dildo Lady,” Fancy recounts her time compensating for the failures of the American sex education system while working retail at a sex toy store. In “Doing Yourself,” Fancy tackles fatphobia and dating, self-love, and fantasies. In “Yes/No/Maybe,” Fancy brings the reader from sex parties to polyamorous relationships as she contrasts the undeniable sexiness of enthusiastic consent with the devastating effects of miscommunication and entitlement.

Fancy Feast does this all as a fat woman who makes a living taking off her clothes—a triumphant punch-back at a culture that wants fat people to be self-hating or sexless. For fans of Lindy West and Melissa Febos, Naked is by turns splashy, vulnerable, and always powerful.
 

Fancy Feast is a Brooklyn-based burlesque performer, writer, and sex educator. She holds the title of Miss Coney Island 2016 and is the recipient of the Revolutionary Award at the 2017 New York Burlesque Festival. She has performed at venues including The Whitney, the Brooklyn Museum, St. Ann's Warehouse, the Metropolitan Opera, and Meow Wolf in Santa Fe. She is the subject of Leon Chase's documentary, Character NYC. She regularly contributes essays to Buzzfeed, and her burlesque work has been profiled by NPR, Refinery29, and the Huffington Post.