Vivek Shraya and Christopher Sherman want to talk about Sex Is Sex, baby

Here & Queer is a Canadian Screen Award-winning talk series hosted by Peter Knegt that celebrates and amplifies the work of LGBTQ artists through unfiltered conversations.

Here & Queer is back for a fourth season, and we're kicking things off with a conversation between host Peter Knegt and two of Canada's great queer boundary pushers: Vivek Shraya and Christopher Sherman. 

Shraya and Sherman have joined forces for Sex Is Sex, a video series that challenges assumptions about sexual roles and preferences based on appearance and gender. Divided into six parts (with individual titles like "My Daddy," "My Laundry Boy" and "My Lilith Fair"), the series stars Shraya alongside many other notable Canadian queer artists, like writer Amber Dawn and painter Nicko Cecchini.

Provocative and insightful, Sex Is Sex really challenges assumptions about sexual roles and preferences based on appearance and gender. And it will make its debut  on October 5th as part of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre's Toronto Nuit Blanche festivities before making its way online. 

In the interview, Shraya explains that as a trans person, she feels "in between this weird binary where the right kind of sees me as this hideous man and the left sees me as this mystical, mythical creature." 

"And I'm neither of those," Shraya says. " I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy wanting to make art, wanting to hang out with friends. And also, I like to f**k. So I really wanted to make a project that just really reclaimed my sexuality, especially someone in my forties, because I think that when we think of sexuality, so much of that is tied to youth. I was like, 'I want to show that actually you can be exploring fantasies even in your forties.'"

Sherman added that for him, the project was a great opportunity for him and Shraya to "learn from each other and celebrate one another." 

"Let's be totally honest," he says. "Life is so amazing, but it's also really hard some days. So for me, I always was looking for joy, light and ways to kind of explore what it's like to be alive. Right now I'm obsessed with people who are idea makers, and what Vivek has given to our community and to our country and to all of us is something that we should be super proud of…. I want to work with people who are willing to have uncommon confidence and be like, 'we must be brave and make new art.'" 

You can watch the brave, new art Shraya and Sherman created together at Buddies in Bad Times on October 5th.