You really can’t say it better than the queen herself: LaWhore Vagistan is here to “put the whore back in LaWhore.” And she came to the University—invited by the Global South Asian Studies faculty and staff—to help us do just that on Wednesday, Sept. 27, 2023.

LaWhore Vagistan, whom you can—according to her—refer to either with she/her/hers pronouns or simply as Aunty (both as a pronoun and a title), is well-known for her recurring drag show, “Lessons in Drag.” In it, she hosts an educational performance, intent on both gagging her audience and educating them on South Asia. Don’t be fooled by her name. LaWhore Vagistan is a seriously influential scholar, particularly on queer and drag-related topics. Her academic essays are widely read in queer studies across the country. Vagistan gives “Can the Submissive Bottom Speak?” as an example, but please note that this title was part of a joke. All jokes aside, the “Dr.” on her posters isn’t for show.

“I moonlight as a professor,” Aunty said. 

Her performance certainly showed that. Though the Ring Family Theater isn’t the most ideal place for a drag show—for one, it’s completely missing strobe lights, LEDs, and a disco ball—when LaWhore Vagistan entered in a swirl of silk, fluttering her fan, she lit up the entire room with her energy. “Lessons in Drag” opened with a lip sync to a mashup of several songs, including Teyana Taylor’s “WTP” and “Dilbar,” from the movie “Sathyameva Jayathe Malayam” (2000). From there, all bets were off. At one point during the lip sync, Aunty stripped off her outer robe, to reveal a hot pink, sequined bodysuit, and proceeded to strut up and down the aisles. The crowd ate it up; Director of the Resource Center Demetrius Colvin could be heard screaming in delight several times over the course of the opening lip sync. 

After the opening, LaWhore proceeded to break down her lecture. Aside from giving us absolutely insane drag performances, LaWhore was also here to educate us about South Asia. She highlights how Aunties like herself are fundamental to the education of young queer folks and the maintenance of vibrant queer communities.

Before we could be taught, Aunty insisted that we all find our own drag names. There were several stand-out drag names from the crowd. Ranging from the absurdly mundane, like Sage Dining Room, to the hilariously obscene, like Scruffy Vagina, the crowd had plenty of names to share, and Aunty had plenty of opinions. She also brought on a volunteer from the crowd to help field questions and make quick costume changes. Shanti Hinkin ’26, drag name Shantitties, did a great job running back and forth between the stage and seats as the show went on.

“It was so fun, exhilarating, and I was so engrossed in the show that I couldn’t help jumping up all the time when it was my turn,” Hinkin said. “As a South Asian student and a performing arts student, it was a great honor to be a part of the show, and a great inspiration to see something from a culture that matters to me a lot.” 

The event’s focus on South Asian culture was wide-ranging, expanding beyond queer spaces and experiences. The first lecture of the night was on globalization, focusing specifically on call centers in New Delhi and culture training classes’ links to geographical and class mobility. This was taught through the age-old medium of a lip-synced Jersey mix, which is a song mashup with spoken word mixed in. LaWhore Vagistan taught us everything we needed to know about globalization through a mashup of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone,” Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” and Adele’s “Hello,” among other songs. Spoken over these songs, though, was a real recording of a call center employee answering an American customer’s questions. Can you tell the difference between a call center employee in New Delhi, and a call center employee in Idaho? We definitely couldn’t. 

We were also taught about transnational feminism, over a multilingual cover of “I Will Survive.” All of the covers featured on the mix were sung by women of color who are famous for their contributions to queer culture. This included the original singer of “I Will Survive” herself, Gloria Gaynor, whose song has been used as an AIDs survival anthem since the height of the crisis. 

There was also plenty of audience interaction. Aside from the drag name portion of the show, Aunty brought audience volunteers on stage to do what she deemed to be an extremely Aunty activity: zumba. Five audience members had to try and keep up with LaWhore Vagistan as she led them through what looked like a fairly intense zumba workout. All I can say is that I’m happy to not have volunteered.

LaWhore Vagistan closed out “Lessons in Drag” with a bang: a cover of “A Whole New World,” from Disney’s “Aladdin” (1992). Bringing the whitest white man I’d ever seen onto stage with her to stand in for Aladdin, LaWhore Vagistan ended our tour of a whole new world with a hilarious aerial montage of Wesleyan, while also snapping a hot pink glove on one hand to very graphically mime fisting, in order to show them another whole new world. She even sent her lip sync partner off with a gift: the very same hot pink latex glove, pulled from her own hand.

We all begged for an encore. And Aunty delivered, both lip-syncing to and dancing the choreography from “Silsila Ya Chaahat Ka,” from “Devdas” (2002). It wouldn’t be LaWhore Vagistan if it wasn’t a little bit camp, though, so the performance consisted of her climbing over audience members to get to a table in the very back of the Ring Family Theater, where a massive eggplant had been stashed. She also proceeded to throw lemons and limes at the audience, pulling them from her décolletage. 

It was a performance to remember. And audience members certainly seemed to agree. 

“I thought it was awesome to see and hear on stage, and also get the actual meta understanding of what’s going on globally, and also resisting and creating new imaginations, which is what performance art at its best does,” Colvin said. 

But I had to ask the Aunty herself what she thought of her performance, and how it felt to perform here at Wesleyan. But, as it turns out, this isn’t her first time showing Wesleyan how it’s done. 

“I did a really early iteration of this show five years ago, in one of the dance spaces,” Vagistan said. “It was a chance to workshop the show, it was really exciting to bring it back. The audience asked really intelligent, interesting questions. It was a really thoughtful and enthusiastic audience.”

Unfortunately, you won’t be able “Lessons on Drag” back on campus anytime soon. If you want a dose of Aunty realness, you can find LaWhore Vagistan on her Instagram, @lawhorevagistan, where she posts both gorgeous photos and posters for her latest appearances and workshops. 

 

Nicole Lee can be reached at nlee@wesleyan.edu.

Correction: This article mistakenly described the department that invited LaWhore Vagistan as Global South East Asian Studies. The correct name of the department is Global South Asian Studies. This article has been updated.