XXBN Broadcast Network  

Mariko Passion, Educated Whore and Urban Geisha

www.marikopassion.wordpress.com

Mariko Passion is a performance artist | activist | educator | whore revolutionary.  She sings and rhymes her experiences and reality over beats, produces and edits documentary videos,  and educates the community across the U.S and internationally on issues related to sex worker rights.  She is also an accomplished visual artist, most recently participating in a groundbreaking show on sex workers of Asian descent in San Francisco, entitled “We, Asian Sex Workers.”  Her work attempts to integrate sex work,  performance art and outright protest of the criminalization of prostitution through her gallery installations and the participation of the art buyer.

The community she hopes to reach includes current and potential clients (any men listening basically), current, former and previous workers; the queer community, college classes, feminists, women of color, and more.  She panels at conferences in the U.S and internationally and has been published in $pread, SF Examiner, interviewed on KPFA, Shake Radio, and Radio Suzy 1.  She is available to create a workshop, presentation, or performance for groups

Ms. Passion has 10 years of experience in sex work.  She has worked as a stripclub stripper, private dancer, agency escort, independent escort, Mistress/Dominant,  and sensual masseuse.  

She is currently a sex worker in Los Angeles under a different name and running the LA chapter of Sex Workers Outreach Project Los Angeles (SWOP-LA).

Ethnically half Japanese,  Mariko the self titled “urban geisha” follows the tradition of being well versed in conversation, fine art, music, singing and story telling as it was with the geisha of traditional Japan.  Working as a call girl in the big wild city of LA, is a LOT different than a Kyoto tea house or even Tokyo a couple of centuries or even decades back.  “I used to shudder at the idea of being compared to a geisha, but I realized in my own sort of way, Mariko Passion is exactly that minus the submissive part.  But perhaps in the same way that some sex workers today are seen as submissive objects who aren’t that at all, perhaps it was that same way with the traditional geisha. “

She began doing outcall stripping work four years ago and then "turned out" as a full service prostitute two years ago.  She has been recording her analysis and adventures on her mini DV camera for the last 2 years and has been exhibiting her art in galleries and speaking at colleges around the U.S for the last two years through her invovlement with Sex Workers Outreach Project-LA.