Breathplay, an introduction

Most of you will know BDSM Studio LUX as a space for engaging in BDSM Play, learn in our workshops or enjoy our clips, but we are so much more. For me personally it is really important to open LUX up for sexworkers and projects that are connected to sexwork. In this spirit I was delighted when my dear friend & fellow activist Ricardo Sarmiento asked, if it was maybe possible to host the defense of Ricardos master thesis at the studio. Ricardo is also kind enough to contribute this text, so all of you who have not been here through the successful defense can get some insight in the topic of research. Please be aware that this text is not light hearted, as the murder of a sexworker will be discussed.

Lady Velvet Steel

In July 2023, my conception of what would be my master’s thesis for Raumstrategien changed completely. After being involved with Berlin’s sex worker community since 2020, I, along with my colleague Karina Pino, developed the platform www.mundauf.net, focusing on the situation of migrant sex workers in the city. The scope of this investigative work indicated that my thesis would continue along this path, delving into emerging issues that demanded attention.

Issues floating like bodies, such was the case of Malina N.¹, whose lifeless body was found in a Leipzig hotel in November 2022, and that of a sex worker murdered ² in April 2023, whose name was never revealed to the media even after the body was identified. It became imperative to delve more deeply into the epicentre of this violence.

And then, in July 2023, the murderer Tobias Pick (32 years old) was deported to Germany after being charged with manslaughter for taking the life of sex worker Jingai Zhang (49 years old at the time of the crime). Worldwide news portrayed an undignified image of Jingai Zhang, emphasizing the role of the white German male backpacker who had simply made a mistake.
Within the colleagues’ group, debates arose about why it was impossible to see the killer’s face in the news. How would sex workers protect themselves from him in the future? Was that even his real name? Could it be possible to trace the areas he would move to and tend to seek sex workers in the future if that were the case?

The situation filled me with rage. I became furious. This was another news story about a murdered sex worker. And I decided not to take it lightly. Not to let it pass. “See your trigger as a gift,” a friend told me in those days, and that’s how I made this case the focus of my research. Knowing that such an investigation would bring me face to face with authorities and powers which I was unsure if I had the necessary preparation to protect myself. But rage outweighed caution. If I didn’t go to the heart of this matter, I would never forgive myself.

And that brought us to Lux on Friday 12th of January 2024. I wanted to hold a discussion about the actual conditions of sex workers in Germany and Europe, in an academic frame, within the space of work and policy making of a brothel.

Luis Carricaburu

On the given day of my thesis discussion, friends, colleagues, academics, professors, lovers and artists arrived with curiosity. I could see the excitement in their eyes. Most of them had never been in a space like this: a sheltered and prepared space where sex work happens. And where the exchange could take place in safer ways.

I opened the defense explaining the case I was talking about in the theatre play I had written. All English news media were distributing images of Jingai Zhang, but none of Tobias Pick.
Although it is easy to imagine what Tobias Pick looks like, his face is not visible on any web search. In contrast, the construction of the identity of the murdered person, Jingai Zhang, was entirely based on negative and dehumanizing aspects. While Pick was treated with positive adjectives, Zhang’s dignity and humanity are stripped away, appealing to situations of low morality. She is depicted as a 49-year-old Asian sex worker, married to a man who did not know she was a sex worker, and that Zhang had a boyfriend who found her body. On top of that, it is insisted that Zhang asked Pick to choke her for erotic purposes, and he, after refusing the first time, agreed the second time and the situation got out of hand.

Although Pick regretted stealing over a thousand dollars and Zhang’s phone, as well as regretting unwillingly killing Zhang, the judge’s move to change the charge from murder to manslaughter completely supports the construction of the image of a confused man, not only the Western and Australian justice system but also the media and society empathize with. A face to protect, a face not to harm. A face with a future.

The images of Zhang disseminated in the media are low-quality, often cropped or close-ups, a visual strategy that seeks to remove the body from the context and landscape and isolate it from the scrutinizing gaze of the reader. It is not convenient for the Western power having Zhang’s image to appear alongside McDonald’s or Starbucks in the media, because that would make her a human being among us, human beings who go to McDonald’s or Starbucks. The strategy of power aims from media to dehumanize, isolate from common reality and point out axes of the life of Mrs. Zhang in a history of racial profiling. Furthermore, Zhang’s husband’s face is also shared, a man who, according to the justice system, knew nothing about this and was shocked by the news. Was the life of this man considered? The consequences of the public identification of an individual who probably does not want to be associated with a story like the one we are working on? On the other hand, Tobias Pick’s girlfriend is not mentioned in several news articles, and her image is not shared either.

This brief analysis shows the partiality of the legal approach to this case and the exquisite elaboration of an easy and successful way out for a murderer.
The PhD student Chang Gao, working on censorship and media, was present during the debate. She brought up questions that directed the conversation towards the legitimacy media and power give to each other, in a discussion where the media’s story and the Judicial System records are based and biased by the experience of the murderer and no one could reconstruct or use the testimony of the murdered person other than what he said about her. And the Judicial System decided to believe.

Luis Carricaburu

Professor Tonderai Koschke, who accompanied me through the process, made a point about the breath play session I carried out with Master Timotheus, my colleague, worker and activist, and the presence of breath play in the text I had written. The idea of this brief performance was to bring people closer to the experience of having your breath literally taken away, controlled, and understand it not only from the murdering situation, but also as an erotic play and even a very clear metaphor of the struggle many people have developed in this constant battle for sex workers right all around the world: it feels as if a non-consensual breath play was being performed on sex workers, and then I rather call it asphyxiation.

During that evening, an exercise of raising awareness and look deeper into our actions took place. As we discussed the Nordic Model –gaining popularity in Germany by the day- we also discussed a viable alternative and demand: the full decriminalization of sex work, proven to be working and active since years in New Zealand.
In times where AfD is gaining strength and making alliances with other German powerful entities for mass deportation and stricter migration control, I feel a lot of hate emerges in German society. The ongoing genocide of Israel in Palestine and the tense atmosphere it has created add up to that layer of uncertainty. Nie Wieder ist Jetzt, I read on social media and in the streets. But… Nie Wieder ist Jetzt… ist jetzt? As James Baldwin said: I can’t believe you say, because I see what you do.

In days like this I feel heavily commanded to understand hate and violence. Where is that coming from? The hate I felt towards Tobias Pick, the hate other people felt towards Jingai Zhang. How do we get out of the hate circle? My Professor Dr. Bonaventure Ndikung brought up at the end of the defense the importance of thinking in togetherness instead of hate, and remarked that the value of my piece was also residing in the fact that I decided to move out of the initial hate I felt and started looking into the humanity and the monstrosity of my characters equally. Which is to me the only way we can sit at the table together and have a conversation.

How to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t see you as an equal? It is hard. But not impossible. A rehearsal of that, born out of love and companionship, happened in Lux that Friday. May the rolling year bring us a lot of it.

Ricardo Sarmiento
mundaufprojekt@protonmail.com

Feature pic by Tamara Margvelashvili