“Royally Fucked” — a “three-part performance and visual-art event” — began with an exhibit at the Dietrich Gallery in Allston a week ago Thursday and continued with performances headlined by Karen Finley on Friday at the Paradise and Nicole Blackman on Saturday at the ICA. Like much of the work emanating from the Dietrich Gallery and its ringmistress, Cynthia von Buhler, the material was playfully sex-and-death-obsessed (the “artists-as-royalty” theme seemed secondary). One of the interactive objects at the gallery even allowed you a glimpse of your own death’s head amid a roar of light and sound.

Finley is at this point an old hand at shock, and she didn’t disappoint. Her Shut Up and Love Me was an uproarious send-up of contemporary sexuality. She charged on stage for a mock-striptease dressed in ruby red camisole, black stockings, and high heels, bumping and grinding while Barry White pumped over the PA. She grabbed her breasts by the nipples and contorted them in a travesty of eroticism, jumped into the audience, and virtually assaulted the first knowing wise-ass who thought he’d get in on the joke by stuffing a couple of bucks into her bra. Instead of complying with a “sensual” lap dance, she beat the guy about the head and face with her tits and then moved on, humping someone’s shoulder here, plugging her nipples into the curls of someone’s hairdo there.

Finley is propelled by her own spontaneous riffs, and it took her a while to settle into the “text” of Shut Up and Love Me (about her affairs with two different men, and their dallying ways). Lounging on a purple divan, she channeled any number of voices: the Wicked Witch of the West, Katharine Hepburn (“You’ve nevah, evah loved me”), Blanche DuBois, John Wayne. Meanwhile she couldn’t get over the surprise of being in Boston: she kept breaking off into riffs about the city’s oppressive sense of history and culture. When she got to Harvard’s Peabody Museum, she seemed to be reliving the trauma of a protracted postgraduate career as an art student: “The glass flowers, the glass flowers, the glass flowers!” she moaned.

Finley’s greatest notoriety has come from the juxtaposition of foodstuffs and her naked body. The food of choice these days is honey, and after six volunteers poured large bottles of the stuff on a white mat, she flopped and danced nude to more Barry White, mimed masturbation for a segment called “Pooh Unplugged” (“Be careful, Piglet, I don’t want to get any on your scarf”), and generally made the sex act look pretty ridiculous. She was the first to admit from the stage that one of her stories had “no resolution,” but you don’t go to one of her shows for resolution; you go to see Karen Finley be here now.

Monologuist Nicole Blackman was Finley’s inverse: text-centered, with a precise dramatic delivery. In a piece called Bloodwork, a 24-year-old woman talked about the twin sister she lost when she was nine. Another young woman spoke (from beyond the grave) about her own abduction and murder. Another communicated with her dead grandfather. Blackman was dressed in a form-fitting ankle-length sleeveless white dress that suggested a shroud. Over the course of the evening, she became a kind of sexy medium or priestess, her theater a convincing ritual of catharsis. Her texts, backed by a throbbing electronic score, flowed with detail and wit, sometimes coming to a climax of rhymed verse. It became apparent only gradually that her last piece was about Matthew Shepard, and by the end she had covered her face and torso with blood. At the conclusion she turned her bloody palms outward, then clasped hands with members of the audience sitting in the front row, completing her sacrament.

Finley’s appearance was preceded by Buhler’s Countess, a satirical rock narrative about the rise and fall of a celebrity-obsessed singer. Blackman’s performance concluded a long variety show of skits (including a performance of Amanda Palmer’s Oedipus Wretch), poetry, storytelling, and song (including beautiful renditions of Bulgarian and Gaelic folk material) — a Your Show of Shows for the goth-and-alternative-sex set. Kudos to Buhler’s vast volunteer cast and crew for creating this platform for seasoned shock-theater pros like Finley and Blackman.