Give Venus Some Clothes!

Written By Pink Flowers

I really think it’s time to stop struggling and queer this shit up y’all — for realz!

Spent the morning reading about Aphrodite and Venus. Aph my patron goddess. She rule pretty much every aspect my life. Plus a film maker pal might use me as Venus in one o’ they projects, so I was doing a little research. Aphrodite started out a lot more than a pretty chick on a half shell. Girlfriend was born o’ Gaia getting sick of Sun frisky every morning. Gaia had Sun’s dick chopped off chucked into the sea. Fiery love shaft bubbled cooling in the waters came out as the being now known goddess o’ love, bringing new meaning to “being a prick.”

Used to be, a lot of mo’ fo’s saw Aphrodite the major deity damn near monotheistic, Cyprus and a lot of places around the Mediterranean and North Africa. She was (actually “they” were — Aphrodite was non-binary) a bad ass bitch resided over human passion (all of them) and human relationships (not just sexual ones). She/They also encourage experimenting with all kinds of ways people come together (pun intended).

Greed, relationships with material things, and rejecting the human connection changed how people saw Aphrodite. ‘Stead of Venus guiding better interaction, men use brute force coerce other people reduce everyone and everything into commodities. Venus became a definite “female” commodity and got her clothes stripped off, eventually getting domesticated into Virgin Mary (yes, the Virgin Mary is the concession for folks who prefer praying to a woman for guidance).

Interactions today still be framed conquests, coercion and making people “act right” getting in they face making noise (including with prisons, guns and bombs). We accept this as how the world works and keep things the same continuing to buy into that belief. We keep feeding the monster that lives off aggression, rage and fear. Somehow we grown addicted that mode of being with each other, even though we ain’t seen it work long-term, ever!

Let’s bring the “girl” back into our movements. I say we start gender nonconforming when we think about how to make the world a better place. Bring the art o’ lovemaking back into the center of our everything and stop all this damn pushing and shoving, even when it’s pushing and shoving back. We don’t have to turn the other cheek, but maybe we can show our asses a little more.

Pink Flowers

Pink Flowers is a Black trans artist, peacemaker, educator, and pleasure activist whose work lives at the intersection of embodiment, governance, and cultural transformation. Trained in Theater of the Oppressed, Art of Hosting, and Navajo-informed Peacemaking practices, Pink designs spaces where conflict can be addressed, power can be examined, and joy can be reclaimed.

Her artistic and pedagogical practice draws from African trickster cosmology, Brazilian Joker traditions, shamanic ritual, and cooperative economics. She is the founder of the award-winning Falconworks Theater Company (2005–2021), which used popular theater to build civic capacity and participatory leadership in historically marginalized communities.

Pink served for over five years as a trained Peacemaker in the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, facilitating restorative processes within the New York City court system. From 2015–2018, she worked in cooperative business development with the Center for Family Life, supporting worker-owned enterprises in immigrant communities.

She currently serves as Director of Education and Training for the Inter-Cooperative Council in Ann Arbor, where she leads leadership development and conflict engagement initiatives. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally, including at the Stretch Festival in Berlin and the Pedagogy and Theatre of the Oppressed Conference.

Across ritual, performance, mediation, and institutional design, Pink’s work asks a central question:

What becomes possible when we refuse shame and choose conscious power instead?

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