Paul struggled with drug addiction in his past, and has since found ways to express himself through exploring his sexuality and using his imagination. Follow Paul through his exceptional London flat.

1000 LONDONERS

This film is part of 1000 Londoners, a ten-year digital project which aims to create a digital portrait of a city through 1000 of the people who identify themselves with it. The profile contains a 3 minute film that gives an insight into the life of the Londoner, as well as their personal photos of London and some answers to crucial questions about their views on London life. Over the course of the project we aim to reveal as many facets of the capital as possible, seeing city life from 1000 points of view.

www.1000londoners.com
www.youtube.com/1000londoners
www.facebook.com/1000londoners
Twitter @1000_Londoners
Instagram @1000_londoners

1000 Londoners is produced by South London based film production company and social enterprise, Chocolate Films. The filmmakers from Chocolate Films will be both producing the films and providing opportunities to young people and community groups to make their own short documentaries, which will contribute to the 1000 films. Visit www.chocolatefilms.com

TRANSCRIPT

My addiction runs rife in this flat. Some people have described it as museum/psychiatric unit without the medication. Like, I didn't have this emotional vocabulary so I've done it in my, in my home. There's a cow in the garden, a full-size cow.
3 decades I used drugs for and in that time it's a good way of shutting stuff down and the drugs and the alcohol that kind of give me that suit of armour, that protection from my internal feelings and stuff, stuff I couldn't deal with, stripped away. So when I got clean I felt like that 14 year old kid again and those same sexual questions came up, when I got clean, that came up when I was a kid. I would say I'm probably more open-minded to other people's sexuality now than I was growing up in a household dominated by men, that you had to be portrayed in a certain way.
Now there's kinda square people that really kind of, maybe from the old regime, I like to keep them people distant from me. And than ones that are more open-minded and creative and, I mean not kind of concerned about people's sexuality so much, you know I like to draw them towards me.
I think that probably people see me as quite feminine. I think for me dressing is a way of expressing yourself and it's a way of drawing people towards you but also keeping people away as well. Different people see me differently, some people see me as quite expressive, some people see me as really off key, some people are drawn towards me, some people are repulsed by me. It is when I wear ladies clothing, I'm not wearing them because I wanna be a woman, I wanna be perceived feminine, I wear them because I like the style of them, I like the cut of them.
I don't use drugs or alcohol, so I have to still, I still feel I have to kick that barrier between certain people, feel that I can be quite expressive if I express myself in a 'geezery', masculine kinda way or in a feminine way, a sensitive way. Not that I wanna go and bang a fella or bang a bloke. Some guys see me and think: oh, I wish I could be like him. Some guys see me and think: fuck, who wants to be like him.
How I see my sexuality is in how I express me. If you go back and look at me in the last, especially last 5,5 years since I got clean, my image continuously changes, it's like changing the menu. You know because it gets to bland, you know it's like I'm looking for that, you know, little bit of hit somewhere. I can't use drugs and alcohol, I use my imagination.

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