Why I like the word 'slut'

I am super excited about the London Slutwalk, which is happening on the 4th of June (you should totally go!). I feel really privileged that there's an international movement of feminism happening while I'm alive and able to take part that doesn't (yet) make me feel at all uncomfortable or compromised. I'm especially glad that there are international feminist events happening that make much more sense than Reclaim the Night and allow for what I see as more positive celebration. But I understand that some feminists aren't as comfortable with slutwalks as I am - Laura Woodhouse has written a piece about it in The F Word - and so I wanted to write about why I like the word 'slut' and think it can be a really useful tool for facilitating social change, if feminists feel comfortable using it.

Of course, the word is frequently used in a negative context as a way to marginalise, dismiss, and other women. I would like to posit, though, that this isn't necessarily all bad. I'm not saying that I want to be treated like neither I nor my opinions matter; what I am saying is that being singled out as a problem by disciples of a heteronormative, kyriarchal agenda is something I'm actually pretty happy about. If you look up the word 'slut' on dictionary.com you will see that the definitions given often involve words like 'immoral' and 'dirty' - words that I think are awesome when used by people I disagree with to describe me. Immoral? Great, that means I don't have to keep my sex missionary with men and, more importantly, a shameful secret. Dirty? Fantastic, this means I get to express myself when I dress rather than the preferences of the conservative and (covertly) religiously-informed. Obviously I would rather than nobody found it problematic when I am loud and queer. However, given that we do not live in my ideal world, I aspire to rock the boat when I disagree with something. If people are identifying me as a threat to their restrictive sexual politics, I know I'm doing something right.

I also think that just because a word might have negative connotations to people whose views I find problematic does not mean I shouldn't use those words in a context of reclamation. For instance, sometimes people are confused that I identify as queer. More than once I have been asked, 'isn't that a word people used to discriminate against people like you?' Of course it is. But that doesn't mean we leave that word in the dust. It doesn't mean that we restrict our language, and buy into prejudiced people's definitions without questioning them. I love the word 'queer' because it represents what I deem a win - whenever someone associates it with positive gender and sexuality expression rather than abuse, it kind of means that my team is winning. Moreover, it's a useful word for me. I am neither L nor G nor B nor T. Even though I predominantly identify as a woman and the people I am interested in tend to be (cis)women also, I don't like closing down my options, because sometimes I fancy people who do not situate themselves at the tips of the gender binary, and I certainly don't like subscribing to a gender binary when describing my self or my sexual partners, which is invariably what happens when you use a word that says 'I am one sex and I like people of this sex.' I like leaving room for changes, and I prefer not to identify 'anomalies' as such. The word 'queer' gives me the freedom to do this, just like the word 'slut' gives me the freedom to openly enjoy and explore my sexuality.

By writing this I certainly don't intend to suggest that, because I feel this way, all feminists ought to - that would be extremely entitled. I respect Laura Woodhouse's feelings and rationale, as I do those of any feminist who feels the same. What I wanted to do with this blog post is talk about a differing opinion that I think (hope) might afford people more freedom. This is something I think it's really important to have a dialogue about - so if you have any comments, please make them!

Some more outrage

As with most things I bitch about on here, I know very little about Buck Angel. I first became aware of his existence through Corin, who is a fan of his on Facebook; essentially, he is reportedly the first FtM porn star, and seems pretty popular. From the little of his online presence that I have researched, I've noticed that he sees himself as a success, primarily because of the authenticity he and others perceive in his masculinity. His bio on Facebook is essentially presented as a wrong body narrative; we are encouraged to see him as an ordinary guy who was unfortunate enough to have been born into a female body.

A few days ago Corin read a status from this page to me and it's been troubling me ever since. It reads:

This was sent to me today. Pretty Cool!

"
My ass.
You have not been a woman.
That's impossible.
You have a bitchin mustasche and you could probably beat a wild
animal to death with your
bare hands.
You look like you could star as a villian in a Die Hard film.
You look like you could demolish a house by headbutting it.
You simply look to convincing to have ever been a woman."

Obviously I have several issues with this. For one thing, 'been a woman' is really problematic terminology - I recognise that this is the terminology of the person writing to Buck, but it is also terminology he tacitly supports by publishing it without criticism. The following account leads me as a reader to believe that both Buck's fan and Buck himself believe women to be inherently inferior to men, and this makes me fucking angry.

According to this quote, it is 'impossible' for women to have facial hair or, at least, facial hair that is so socially acceptable as to be 'bitchin'. Similarly, a woman could not possibly 'beat a wild animal to death'; she could not star as a Die Hard villain; she couldn't have the strength to 'demolish a house by headbutting it'. And, by she, I mean we. We, as women, are weaklings and failures. We can't impress people with our plumage (possibly because, since most women feel under pressure to present themselves in a way that indicates great care has been taken over their appearance, it just isn't special when our hair - non-facial, non-armpit, non-pubic - looks good. It's meant to look that way). We can't take on wild animals - we simply don't have the necessary testosterone levels. We are worse than ordinary - we are substandard because, in the grand competition to be entertaining that apparently is life, we barely have half the physical resources of people signified as male, or 'appropriately' masculine. We don't exist in this conversation except by omission and derision. I am not trying to say that conversations about transmasculinity ought to refer to women - sometimes women are not relevant - but, when heteromasculinity is being so revered, women become present through their silent inadequacy.

What is strength in this conversation? It is destruction, brute force, the ability to literally throw your weight around. Fuck childbirth. Fuck existing in a society that constantly undercuts you - Buck Angel has apparently made a safely-unnoticed exit from the parade of fuckery that assaults most of us who are not heteromen on a daily basis, so it's alright for him. He can become an oppressor of those less 'fortunate' (i.e. less outwardly normatively masculine) than him. I feel very self-conscious about coming across, to myself as well as others, as being transphobic in this complaint but, more importantly than that, I cannot subscribe to something that relies on the subordination of femininity to be 'successful'. Because according to this narrative I am not strong, and I do not have strength. While Buck is made a spectacle - which I do not mean to imply is okay: he is a person, not a freakshow - I am fainting somewhere in a corner, where I am either being attended to by another woman behind the scenes or ignored entirely. As is every other woman. And, essentially, it seems to be that we are being ignored because society has not awarded us the resources to throw our weight around.

This is not to say, though, that the only strengths that can be ascribed to women are separate from those ascribed to Buck (or Buck's masculinity): there are strong fucking women. There are women body builders and women wrestlers and women cage-fighters and women who pull cars with their teeth. Corin remarked, and I think this is totally feasible, that working out to the extent that you become a body builder does basically the same things to any body, be it a woman's or a man's, or male or female, or something else. Are woman-identified body builders too 'convincingly' masculine to be considered women? Are other people's gender the properties of outside critics? I find it disturbing that anyone, let alone a queer person, would endorse these ideas.

And what's 'convincing'? What exactly is being celebrated when Buck Angel is seen to pass? To me, this is not about his personal journey, or his comfort. This is about supporting a gender binary. This is about celebrating the idea that even queers can support this myth, this piece of shit idea that seems to permeate everything, that sits in so many people's heads and dictates so much about how they treat people and how they let themselves act: the idea that the genders are the (perceived) sexes and are opposite and entirely different, and that it's of the utmost importance to assert this at all times. It's fucking bullshit and I'm fucked off about it. I feel like I've probably made a lot of oversights in this blog, because there is so much about gender that I do not know, because I'm angry and when I'm angry I tend to throw rationality to the wind and often debase what I am attempting to defend by being too obtuse to understand, let alone defend, it properly. If you're reading this and you want to call me out, please do. I'd like to talk about this with someone.

Cherry cherry boom boom

1. Lady Gaga says 'cherry cherry boom boom' in a lot of songs. I find this intriguing and kind of want to emulate it with a phrase I would find equally confusing if it weren't me singing it.
2. 'Starstruck' is one of my new favourite songs. I love the sprinkly synthy bits so much - they're so pretty <3
3. I have been fantasising a lot about getting a Gaga piano book and playing songs on my (suddenly working in my fantasies) keyboard at a Feline Groovy open mic sesh. So much?
4. I HAVE JUST FOUND OUT THAT ALISON GOLDFRAPP HAS A WOMAN PARTNER?!?! I mean, I just can't explain what that means to me. I love her. So. Much. And obviously this doesn't mean I'm "in with a chance" slash that's a really horrible way to think about people but I like to think it does. Guiltily.
5. It's been troubling me recently that I'm actually really sexist? Case in point: the other day Corin and I went to a computer cluster on campus and there was a fuck-off white van parked in the MIDDLE of the path outside the building we needed with its doors wide open so it was difficult to get through, and there were two men sat inside eating. After sidling past and getting to the cluster it became apparent that it was being refurbished and so totally wasn't open for Facebook-starved us, and as we left (and joined that day's graduation melee - GOD WHY DO THEY ALL DRESS THE SAME I NEVER WANT TO SEE A FLORAL DRESS AGAIN) I complained to Corin that a. the men had parked the car all up in our grill and b. they didn't bother telling us that the cluster was actually closed and were therefore rude, boorish and entitled scum. She asked me if I'd be saying that if they'd been women and I ashamedly looked at the floor. I mean, I relayed this to Dani just now (SHE CAME OVER IT WAS GREAT) and she was like, but, DIY women painters in vans = hawt, which I suppose is correct, but still, I am beginning to feel very guilty and heteromasculine. Which I do not want to be under any circumstances. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME slash how much of a problem is it? Am I exaggerating? I don't even know.

*frown*

So, I recognise it's possible that I'll do a one-eighty turn and not believe a word of this at some point in the future, but I'm going to say it anyway: I'm feeling a bit uncomfortable about a couple of songs that several of my friends see as awesome lesbian icon flagships but I kind of see as ... like name-dropping, but the name is 'I might be a bit queer but not really LOL money.' Then they get money.

Obviously the first example is Rihanna's 'Te Amo.' I mean, it's a nice video, it's an alright song - but it isn't about queer affirmation: it's about getting into a misunderstanding with a queer woman (maybe leading her on?) and then being sad/gyrating about it. That isn't positivity to me. That's just kind of a mention and then a bit of objectifying/convenient examples. And it isn't balls-out saying 'LOOK AT ME KISSIN' LAYDEEZ' but there is a lot of laydee-on-laydee action (that lots of people I know like watching) but I just ... don't feel it.

Then there's Xtina's 'Not Myself Tonight.' I'm only just listening to Bionic now - I did mean to a long time ago because obv I am really excited about JD Samson and Sia and Peaches being on it, but then Lady GaGa happened and I suppose anyone reading this blog knows how that affected my every breath. ANYWAY, I actually find that song a bit boring - admittedly I have only listened to it a few times, but I'm finding it difficult to motivate myself to get to know it or really understanding why I should. And the whole 'I'm kissing all the boys and the girls' alongside 'I'm not myself tonight' feels insincere and appropriating. Like, this is fun and I'm doing it, but I'm not going to take any responsibility for it. And that just reminds me of Katy Perry. I mean, maybe this is just evidence of some normalisation of homosexuality and queerness - that it gets brought up, and maybe this is somewhere on the way to actually being represented without specifically and crucially heterosexist frames - but I don't really feel like I have time for it even if it is. I just feel like I've sat through this before.

On the plus side, though, Elastic Love is awesome.

A sad story

Tonight I went to see Scream Club. After listening to a few too many Robots songs this afternoon I realised that they were actually quite annoying and I was possibly not in the right place to see them, and so Scream Club became all the more the focus of my evening.

I arrived at the O2 Academy and everyone there was a twatty fifteen-year-old girl bleating incessantly and taking MySpace pictures of herself and her friends. Throughout the evening I saw one woman I thought might be gay, barring Scream Club. This isn’t anything to hold against anyone, but it did make me feel a bit more alienated than I was expecting to be; I later found out from Corin that Scream Club had only sent an email saying they were going to be performing in Britain a few days ago, so I guess those who might have been interested probably weren’t aware.

The first band on were fucking dire. They were called 123 something (123 on? 123 go? Something shit like that) and were comprised of lazy fucking ‘pretty’ boys who seemed to believe that being male and wielding a guitar meant that they were worth something. They sounded like an awful mixture of Low Shoulder, Euphoria Audio and Fall Out Boy – they sang in American accents despite being British. The lead singer was only a performer in that he performed privileged male heteronormativity – he was constantly flirting with the audience in a really sickening, authoritative way, and most of the teenage girls were fucking loving it. I felt grossed out and left to rant at Corin for a bit down the phone.

Upon returning to the room I bought some Scream Club merch, feeling more than ever that they were to be my salvation from marginalisation and general extended fury. I spent £22 at their table on a DIY purse and a t-shirt. The t-shirt was an XL women’s size; I did not get it because it was the last size they had; I got it because it was the size that fitted me. I usually wear a size 14, although I can sometimes fit into a 12 depending on the generosity of the sizing. Size 14 is not fucking extra fucking large. I felt a bit grumpy about this but didn’t pursue it, still mostly excited for Scream Club to come on. It was at this point that a girl a couple of people along from me started repeatedly impersonating a rape alarm. I wanted to tell her to stop because it was triggering and trivialising an important issue but I felt like I'd just come across as lecturing and mental. I also hoped she'd just stop. She didn't.

And then Scream Club came to my rescue. They were wearing awesome stripy DIY suit-y things and looked superb. Cindy Wonderful said that Party Time, their opening track, was about everyone, ‘boys, girls, in-betweens’ getting together and having a good time. There was audience participation (SC: What time is it? Everyone: PARTY TIME!). Things were looking promising. But that was literally the queerest moment of the entire gig.

While they didn’t go so far as to remove all references to homosexual feeling from their lyrics, they cut out swear words and more explicit sexual references. This fucked me off because I thought Scream Club were all about sexual liberation, about being able to be explicit without being told you were being inappropriate or wrong. Turns out I was wrong. They still played And You Belong and Girl, You Look Expensive, but the queerness was only visible if you already knew they were queer; the vocals were not particularly clear and their between-song banter indicated nothing.

The worst twist of the knife came when they closed with Revolution. Cindy, who clearly thought she was being inspirational, was talking about how the song was about the importance of challenging injustice. The examples she used were sexism, racism and ablism. Of course I think these are laudable – but they missed out homophobic?! They didn’t even mention the elephant in the fucking room?! I mean, Jesus fucking God, the three –isms mentioned, whilst barely always fully acknowledged, are the most fucking famous ones, and also the ones which many an ignorant person can (to their minds) unproblematically tell themselves they are tastefully avoiding. They did not acknowledge the insidiousness of prejudice; all they did was tell a roomful of twats that ‘revolution’ was flapping around with fake guns and feeling self-satisfied. Of course you can’t hope to convey every complexity of discrimination in one set, but you could try a lot fucking harder, especially if you’re a band whose core fanbase is comprised of queers who felt they had a home in you. That’s what I felt – I thought they were going to relieve me from feeling misplaced, and represent, or even just acknowledge, my values and identity politics. But nothing of the sort happened – they seemed to be far more concerned with appealing to as wide a demographic as possible rather than staying true to the very principles that they purported to support. I was left feeling disenfranchised and really, really let down – particularly when these people eschew playing Sapphic Traffic, a genuinely positive queer night where the audience would really get something out of seeing them and where they could be fucking real and inspirational, in favour of playing with a bunch of penises with guitars and a band whose every output sounds pretty much the same as all the others. Or the fact that they wouldn’t play ST at all if Staffy didn’t pay far more than she was willing, or even able, to do.

Cindy said they were going to be at the merch table after their set to meet people. At first I left the room, feeling like there was nothing I wanted less than to meet those sell-outs, but then I thought that perhaps I could turn the situation into something positive and just try to encourage them to be a bit queerer, maybe. I imagined telling them about how I’d found out about them, that my girlfriend had told me on the first night we met about the bands she was into, about how they were one of the bands she said were her favourites, along with Team Dresch, and that I’d had no idea who these people were and it was really awesome to discover all this queer music I’d never known before, and how she’d put Internationale on the first mix CD she made for me and how we used to listen to Big Deal at her house all the time. I imagined saying this to them and then casually mentioning that I was surprised that their set wasn’t queerer; not berating them, but just sayin’. But after twenty minutes they hadn’t shown up and Robots were going to start their set in ten and there was no way I could even hope to express this to them once they’d started, and I also realised that I was probably far better at expressive myself in writing, so would be better placed to try to email them or something. I left and called Corin and ranted to her all the bus-ride home.

Now I’m in my house with my mother and dog and some wine. I feel a bit less upset, but still rankling. I have £22 worth of merchandise that I am going to have to seriously work to reclaim. I understand that being out is difficult, I do. But when you are, you make a promise, however tacitly, that you will defend your right to be. When you are an out queer artist, you lead your fans to believe that you will represent them, because you are in a far better position than they to do it. I am not naïve; I don’t think that being an out queer artist is going to give you financial security, or that financial gain doesn’t matter to the artist. But there is a fucking line between compromising and selling out, and tonight Scream Club crossed it. 

The Vajayjay Monologues

Last week, the School of Culture and Performance (or whatever) put on The Vagina Monologues. Ryder noticed that it wasn't either week surrounding Valentine's Day, which isn't in keeping with Eve Ensler's seemingly excessive performance rules (apparently she dictates costumes and set and everything? I mean, not that I don't have any understanding of artistic ownership, but let yr frickin' baby grow up, Ensler). Anyway, that's a sidenote. The important thing is what I thought of it. Which was considerably less than I was expecting to.

TVM was quite a formative part of my formative years - I bought a copy of the book from Fopp for about £3 when I was thirteen or so and, for some reason, was pretty interested in it. I especially liked My Short Skirt, and the monologue about all the different types of moans. When I was nineteen and in my gap year some local feminists were putting on a showing, which I auditioned for and got a role in - due to some fuckery, which I won't go into because it's tedious and beaurocratic and long ago and also I'm still a bit cross about it, I didn't end up being in it after all (N.B. this experience is not accountable for any ill-feeling I have towards the play, just FYI).

Then comes Friday night. Corin and I went alongside (not really with - we missed the preceding Old Bar gathering) the feminist society. I was quite looking forward to it, since it'd been present in my consciousness for some time but I'd not seen it before. Then it started and I felt immediately out of place, like I should have been catapulted into the past but actually it was the present and it was actually a bit embarrassing. I mean, some bits were good - the woman who performed the moaning monologue was especially good - but overall it was quite shambolic, which I think was more to do with the script than the actors. It seems to aim to represent women of several different backgrounds, but in this attempt it only really succeeds in othering those who are not straight, white, and middle-class. The attempts to represent queerness where patchy - as before, the moaning monologue was done well, but the woman talking about her seduction by an older woman as a teenager just wasn't convincing, and I don't think that's just because of the performance. (Also, PROBLEMATIC - if that monologue were about a teenage girl's experiences with an older man it wouldn't have been 'acceptable', so I suppose women just can't be sexually predatory or abusive in the same way.) Furthermore, the intermissions of images of acid burn victims in Asia was not made congruent with the rest of the pieces - which mainly amounted to middle-class women voicing concerns - which completely othered them. The assumption seemed to be that these women *should* be in a society like ours, that they would want that. I'm not saying that many people would *want* to be in societies in which 'honour' killings etc are accepted, but our presumed superiority was all over the whole thing.

Also, and I think most importantly, I think something like TVM just doesn't do now what it may have done (or sought to do) when it first came about. Most women in the room were feminists, most women I know know where their clitoris is, and probably more know that they are worthy of liberation. I think we're living in a post-Vagina Monologues state of consciousness, and I don't think it has much political weight, particularly since it is only accessible to people of a very specific group, and fails to offer that group much in the way of feminist realisation that is inaccessible anywhere else.

Let's dance as though it were easy for you to lead me

Yesterday, I was alerted to something on Twitter which, on the plus side, demonstrated to me something of the supportive strength of the queer community but, overall, continues to make me extremely upset. Katy Perry, not that I would expect any better of her, posted a picture of a transman to her feed and encouraged her followers to insult and dehumanise him (if I have anything resembling a reader and you want to see, it's http://twitpic.com/sdf45). Since previous comments appear to be made inaccessible by new ones most of what's there is defence; when I commented it yesterday afternoon it was about half and half with ignorant kneejerk wank. This whole thing makes me feel really vulnerable: I spend practically all my time in Leeds (which is where I spend practically all my time) socialising with queers - in fact, I only ever see other people when I am in seminars or lectures - and I think I forget what the outside world is like. I won't refer to it as the 'real world' because it isn't more valid just because it's bigger; it's just more people's reality than mine, I suppose. The notion that I should be more pragmatic by sticking my neck out of my comfort zone more often is worth considering but I don't think it's any kind of 'solution': whoever I associate with these problems will still exist, and I think it's their existence in the wider world that is more the problem than my direct awareness that not everybody is willing to refrain from participating in gender oppression. Besides, the very fact of the queer community is, as demonstrated in this case, pretty much essential to effectively present outside parties with the sorts of ideas that, for us, are second nature.

But, even though that's obviously positive, I'm still really fucked off. I know I have the privilege of education about these issues, but is it really that difficult to treat people like human beings? Maybe it's pack mentality. Maybe they think they're defending something worth hurting people over.