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30 day song challenge, day 2: A song you don’t like.
Where do I start? Katy Perry’s little bicurious adventure put into a three chord pop song does nothing to turn me on. Far from being sexually liberating, this song reinforces a nasty little pocket within homophobia that’s made to look innocent, but in fact reinforces lesbianism as deviant, as ‘not real’ and as inferior to heterosexuality.
Let’s start with the first verse:
This was never the way I planned, not my intention
I got so brave, drink in hand, lost my discretion
It’s not what I’m used to, just wanna try you on
I’m curious for you caught my attention
Well, it’s nice to know that you had to get brave drinking to broach this subject in the first place, Katy. Also, thanks for making your intention clear – you’re purely curious and using a random to act on your curiosities
I kissed a girl and I liked it, the taste of her cherry chapstick
I kissed a girl just to try it, I hope my boyfriend don’t mind it
It felt so wrong, it felt so right, don’t mean I’m in love tonight
I kissed a girl and I liked it, I liked it
Wait a second – you hope your boyfriend don’t mind it? Looks like you probably should have thought of that before kissing someone else – ie. cheating… oh but wait, I guess if it’s with a girl it doesn’t matter. right? And “it felt so wrong?” … enough said.
No, I don’t even know your name, it doesn’t matter
You’re my experimental game, just human nature
It’s not what good girls do, not how they should behave
My head gets so confused, hard to obey
Not what good girls do? Yeah, I guess good girls don’t use other random people for their ‘experiemental games’
Us girls we are so magical, soft skin, red lips, so kissable
Hard to resist, so touchable, too good to deny it
It ain’t no big deal, it’s innocent
Well, I’m glad it’s no big deal/innocent… tell me, would that be the case if you were an actual lesbian? Huh. Zero out of ten. Thanks for reinforcing to the population that lesbianism is only a game, and at the end of the day you can stay in the safety of heteroseuxality by disavowing it and running back to your boyfriend. Congrats.
On Femininity.
To the doctor who asked me if I cut my hair short because of issues with my identity as a woman. Where do you find your identity as a woman? You told me your clinic’s interest was in womanhood, in what it means to be a woman. Does that mean growing your hair long, manicuring your nails, walking around in heels and a dress, like you were on the day we met? Or is it about the body – about the system of reproduction that sits inside of us, the hormones, invisible to the eye, that demarcate our difference? Is it this invisible thing called estrogen that means I ought to grow my hair long? What is it about the female sex that automatically dictates our outward appearance; ‘femininity’? And how have you come to distinguish ‘womanhood’ from ‘femininity’? Or are they one and the same to you, after all your years of study? Have I thought more about what it means to be a woman that you have, despite all your qualifications? Can you explain that to me, doctor?
And to the girls on my netball team – the one that wore tracksuit pants one day because her ‘legs weren’t shaved’, and the other one, who reminded us all to shave our underarms before we wore the sleeveless uniforms. Tell me, why do we all do that? Why do we rush to the chemist, by ourselves a pink Venus razor and spend time removing things from our body that we’ve come to believe shouldn’t be there? Why do we put up with the itchy, little raised red lumps that come from taking away what was meant to be there? Why do we spend our income on products to make ourselves acceptable, make ourselves feel clean, feel attractive? What is it about our bodies in their natural state that has come to be so repulsive, so aberrant, that it’s a crime for them to see the light of day? And why have we come to feel dirty, to feel ugly, to feel unfeminine, if we don’t subscribe?
I thought about all of this on Saturday night, when the girl in the ‘femme-slut’ performance stood before me on stage. Here we were, celebrating ‘femme’, throwing off the weight of oppression, denying femininity as a product of patriarchy, appropriating it for ourselves. And you stood before me, bare-breasted and unashamed in stiletto’s with unshaven legs, a wild mop of hair and harsh eye-makeup, heralding a new identity, claiming power in words that have come to denote our oppression, the inequality of sexual exchange, the hatred that has been written onto the female body. The slut. And I wondered, could you really be right? Is there really scope to discard the hatred of this old word, to erase the way we as men and women have come to despise the image of promiscuous womanhood? Or are we only kidding ourselves, pretending that re-appropriation really has the ability to change an image of femininity central to our culture of sexual exchange? Without the slut, there can be no virgin. Without the slut, man is held accountable for his violence, for calling out words of disgust and blame on the street, for keeping on going when she told him to stop. No, not the slut. She is the scapegoat, the deceiver, the scarlet letter. Can there really be any power in that?
And then of course, perhaps most importantly in this labyrinth of contradiction, is the woman across the room, holding the glass of red. Long hair, eyes painted with liquid, smile ruby red. The one that makes my stomach twist and leap and drop, who makes me burn with desire and cry driving home in the morning. The sophisticated, elegant woman of my dreams, the one I constructed from films and magazines, the one who appears in accordance with Mulvey and male fantasy. The woman I want, the woman I dream about lying beside. The woman, paradoxically, who is the picture of the oppression I yearn to throw off. How torn I am. And how utterly wretched and ruined is my desire, my enjoyment of an image I know I ought to despise. How much of my desire has been structured by a masculine gaze? How can I escape what I have been taught I (shouldn’t) desire; a mask that is sold off as an essence, as truth? I desire a lie, a lie that I hate. And herein lies my utmost contradiction.
But this is not about them, in truth. It’s about the days I wake up in the morning with the urge to attack my closet, to throw out every dress I own, every tapered shirt, every item of clothing that denotes my difference. How I long to burn every article that is used to prop up a false image I have bought into, every object that is used to shape and tailor and mould this body of mine into something other. There are the days I want to shave my head, to make forever disappear the accoutrements of the feminine that I have collected unquestioningly since puberty, that I have sheltered in, found favour with, have structured a false identity around. But what of the days when I wake with a yearning? With a desperate desire to become the image? To paint and shade and cover my face, to feel the smoothness of bare legs, the gleam of red nails, the click of shoes that cut and destroy my feet? What of the days when nothing will quell my desperate hatred of my body but to encase it with the signifiers of this other that I am? The day I both want to be the woman across the room, as well as devour her? What is this contradiction, this agony, this fetish, this desire that can never be satisfied?
I met you only recently, the girl who’s desire has ruined her. The girl who starves, cuts, destroys, with the most obvious cruelty and loathing. I pitied you, in times past. Pitied your hatred, your distorted view of yourself, your weakness in believing the lies the world sold you – lies that you weren’t good enough, that you deserved nothing less than pain. And yet I find myself beside you – fearing I will become you, fearing that what I thought was so aberrant is in fact only a state of inversion, the opposite, but the same, of the doctor who purports to help you. She who sit on the other side of the desk, diagnosing our ails within a logic that has been set up to destroy us either way. Whether doctor or patient, we are all cripples. Whatever space we have marked out for ourselves still lies within an economy of loss. It will always be a space in which, whatever we perform, however we present, we lose.
So what remains, when in the space I am given to occupy leaves me with only an illusion of choice? Of performing an accepted illusion or becoming nothing? This is what happens, when a twenty year old woman walks into a university lecture hall, is told by one that she is the bearer of the bleeding wound, and by another that she is the abject? Who tells us what to do with this information, how to sit with it, where to process it, and what, after all the processing is done, the result will be? Instead she is told that there are more important things to worry about, that these questions are inessential, that the third world is dying and capitalism is destroying us. But isn’t this where much of it starts? Where the self is constructed and modified and finally projected? Where the laws are put in place and the lies begin? And if she cannot work this part out, then there is certainly no hope for the rest.
If I become the image I desire, I become the image I despise. And without it, I am absent altogether.
So I haven’t blogged in a while, and I’m sure you’ve all missed my witty and insightful prose. I recently started my Honours year at uni, but that’s actually a rubbish excuse for not writing, since I did very little of it in the six months I sat on my ass and watched Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill. I’m only just getting back into the swing of reading and essay writing, and the fact that this year, there is actually a subject, and umpteen brochures and handouts about how to write ‘academic’ prose, is a bit intimidating. Writing in the academic is something that I never really thought about, I just did. In year 12, my english teacher constantly told us to avoid using the personal pronoun, the ever subjective ‘I’. It seemed a bent of the VCE english program that all subjectivity must be erased, distance and objectivity were essential in getting a high study score. I think at Uni this idea changes a little. You are, perhaps, allowed to state that “it is my intention to argue that … blah does not indicate blah but rather I think that it shows us blah, and opens up new avenues for rethinking blah.” Rather than the year 12 “The aim of this essay is…” bit. However this year is a new thing altogether. Not only are you encouraged to use personal pronouns, you’re encouraged to have an opinion. Not just that, you’re required to invent something new, to put your thoughts out there, to argue them, to take a stand. In 12,000 words, or thereabout, in a structured thesis with an appropriately academic tone. But hey, say what you feel, an claim it as your own, don’t fob it off onto someone else. Sounds cool. Except I think in the last few years, I’ve become an expert in doing the exact opposite.
In general, I’m a pretty non-confrontational person. I don’t like conflict. So instead, if somebody is bugging me, I bottle it up inside and then end up doing the dreaded confronting, and having it out with them. Sometimes, if they bug me right off, and I’m so mad there’s steam pouring out my ears, then yes, I will have it out with them then and there. I have a history of marching up to teachers, school principals (my friend Marita will vouch for this), church pastors, conservative liberals, and shooting my mouth off. But I don’t generally feel any better after doing it. So what gives?
I’ve been thinking lately about another area that not only do I not confront, I actively avoid. And that is, telling the people that I love how I feel about them. Why is it easier to tell some red-neck american that they’re a racist twat and you’d like to see them bludgeoned than telling somebody you love that you love them? I mean, love is good thing, right? It’s a positive emotion. So why is that the thought of this kind of confrontation, this use of the subjective I, of giving my opinion, makes me want to wither into dust and disappear? Why does it make me feel so effing terrible? I mean, if somebody came up to me and told me they loved me, or were in love with me (which has pretty much never happened), I can’t imagine feeling bad about it. I mean, I might feel bad that I didn’t reciprocate, if that was the case, but in general, I’d probably be pretty chuffed. Yet somehow, when confronted with the thought of doing this very thing, I balk. My personal pronoun just isn’t going to spout out the words ‘I have feelings for you’. Instead, I’ll stick to an objective tone, telling them that they’re a great person, that what they’re wearing looks good, that that guy totally doesn’t know what he’s missing out on if he doesn’t go for them. But ‘I love you?’. Hell, no.
Part of me wonders if there isn’t a bit more to this. Like, the fact that the people I tend to fall in love with are highly inappropriate people to fall in love with. They are, in general, the wrong age, have the wrong kind of relationship with me to even go there, they’re the ‘wrong’ gender, and of the wrong sexual orientation to reciprocate. So, I keep my mouth shut, and listen to songs like the one I just posted on facebook, Mace Spray, by the Jezabel’s, and let my feelings float over me. But they don’t really go away. And so I wonder, would I feel a whole lot better if I just fronted up and told these people how I feel? Part of me feels like it would be a weight off my chest, but then I remember the red-neck pastor and the school principal and think that perhaps I am better off refraining. Maybe the aim of this essay isn’t to give my opinion, after all.
I don’t have any answers to these questions. This wasn’t a statement that I’m going to break this cycle. In fact, I realise that this blog, as far as structure goes, is a pile of shit. How did I get from year twelve essays to inappropriate crushes? Well, never mind. Sometimes it’s nice to write things out, then post them for the whole internet world to see. Even if you’ve just admitted something highly inappropriate.
I’m pretty sure that there’s somebody, (theorist, philosopher, etc) that thinks that unless something is spoken, it doesn’t exist in actuality. And I think it’s a common belief that talking about something makes it more real. Once something is said, it can’t be unsaid. There’s power in having a voice, that’s certainly true. So I’m not going to take back what I’ve said, because at least, in this part of the world, I do have a voice. And even if I don’t tell my totally babe-ing neighbor that they’re hot, or close friend that I have feelings for them, or tutor that I’d like to mind-fuck-them – directly, this might be a step towards doing something about it.
(As my friend’s Robyn and Sarah will vouch for, Gigola (which screened last week at MQFF) was an effing terrible movie. But I have to say, the part where she seduces her psychiatrist was hot. Especially since her psychiatrist was a highly inappropriate person for Gigola to fall in love with. So despite it getting a rating of shit out of ten in terms of narrative, it might have scored a point or two in that department. Hello, Ana Padrao.)
After kicking over the Christianity / homosexuality thing for a fair while, things seemed to come to an ugly head for me at the conference the other night.
I’d been talking about it with a couple of people, testing the waters to see if there was any hope of reconciling my feminist / gay rights beliefs with any kind of ‘christian’ faith. It seems I kind of took a step out in both directions – into the gay world, and back into the Christian one. It wasn’t until last week that I became convinced I was doing the splits.
Now though, that may have changed. I chanced across Tim’s new blog: Rite of Reply, and happily spilled my guts. I’m glad I did. Not only did his response suddenly make me feel a whole lot less alone and a whole lot more hopeful, he also referred me to the blog of Anthony Venn-Brown, a Christian GLBT activist. With a bit of jumping I also got to this:
http://www.recycleyourfaith.com/2010/06/14/reconsidering-the-bible-and-homosexuality/
After doing gender studies at Uni it’sbecome impossible for me to look at this issue with the old Christian ignorance any more. Christians, those who are supposed to be agents of love, acceptance and non-judgement, have been some of the most oppressive agents of harm to GLBTI’s.
While I want to believe in God, it is Christians that seems to make it impossible for me. Since finishing my degree I’ve moved home only to have two world collide. I’ve felt utter hopelessness at the possibility of reconciling being a Christian as well as a feminist and LGBT advocate (ok, so I’m not an ‘advocate’ advocate, but I did go to the Gay marriage rights rally, and I do openly call people on their homophobia. That makes me an advocate, right??)
It is so uplifting to suddenly see, when I thought there was no hope of that, that it is possible.
I can’t quite explain how exciting this is for me to hear. I feel like I’ve been on this hideous lonely journey of trying to assimilate my feminist/gender studies with Christianity. The more I’ve dug the more incompatible they’ve seemed, not from a “gospel” point of view, but from the responses I’ve got from people. Over the last 3 years of steadily getting further and further away from the traditional church point of view, “Christian” has come to mean for me “Upholders of the patriarchal heterosexual nuclear family.” Every conversation I had with family or christian friends about feminism, or especially, homosexuality, has resulted in an “awkward silence” or a blatant “shut-down” …
Most feminists and GLBTI activists that I’ve encountered at Uni seem to be atheists, probably for the very reasons that religion has been a massively oppressive force for both women and gay rights. (which was nastily confirmed to be at the recent conference).
I’ve been asking the question over and over: “If Christianity is so all-accepting, why aren’t our churches full of gay and lesbian people? Or not even full…. why aren’t their ANY openly GLBT people in our churches?” It doesn’t say much for the whole diversity in the church thing.
Now I see there are people out there actively trying to change this.It feels like somebody just wrote “THERE IS HOPE” in the sky with a skywriter….
The L Word.
Woop!
OK, so I’m incredibly biased. This film got shitty to mediocre reviews. But I really don’t care – I was hooked. Chloe is an erotic thriller set in Toronto, Canada, starring Amanda Seyfried, Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson. The cinematography is quite stunning – Toronto is crisp and beautiful, a city made of icicles and cool, glassy architecture. The camera angles situate you as a spy, hovering above the scenes and peering through sheer panes of glass, around corners, through fences and mirrors.
Chloe (Seyfried) is an escort hired by Catherine (Moore) to seduce her husband David (Neeson) whom she suspects is cheating on her. Chloe reports back to Catherine, describing her and David’s intimate encounters, while the camera takes us back to depict some of them visually. Catherine listens, gradually getting more and more obsessed with knowing the details of her husbands affair.
Their meetings culminate in an erotic sex scene which Catherine instigates in the name of feeling closer to her husband, after Chloe attempts to kiss her earlier that same day.
Then comes the twist. What (and who) has Chloe really been doing? And why?
Despite the “bad lesbian must die to reunite the heterosexual family” angle that I should probably criticise the film for, I’m afraid I have to let it slide. Julianne Moore is just too damn hot, and the sexual tension between her and Seyfried did work for me, despite the fact that both of them said how odd and “different” it was acting it out. Now I’m looking forward to seeing her in another lesbian relationship with Annette Bening in “The Kids are Alright”.
Go, J. Moore.
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