The perversity of desire

Penny Red has an excellent post on a misogynistic and counter-revolutionary Newsweek article which essentially argued that successful modern women were actually secretly tired of their independence and really wanted to submit to male sexual domination. The author Katie Roiphe's proof. Women fantasize about submission!!!

Laurie Penny does a great job of pointing out the reactionary political implications in this article and connects it to the current right-wing assault on women's reproductive rights and--women's rights in general--especially in the US but also pretty much everywhere all the time. The only thing I want to discuss here is the problem of taking fantasies literally. And drawing any conclusions about what the fantasizer actually wants based on her fantasies...

We are not our fantasies...our fantasies indirectly reveal a lot about...

Our bodies. Our masters. Our enemies...

We do not control our bodies. They control us. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the perversity of desire.

We don't decide what we want. We are seized by desire. We want what we can't have. We want what's bad for us. We are liberated but we want subjugation. We are well-adjusted but we want pain. We are faithful but we want group sex. We are heterosexual but we want the same sex. What is going on here?

Desire is dangerous. Our bodies are not a sanctuary. Of the civil war inside generally and specifically against the biomechanical reduction of sex by 'sexologists', feminist Lynne Segal writes: 'There is no hint or whisper of the often troubling, irrational or 'perverse' nature of sexual desire and fantasy [in mainstream sexology], which may bear little relation to our conscious ideals and commitments as autonomous agents in the world [my italics]. At the very least we might expect some mention of the frequency with which sexual desire does not restrict itself to the most suitable person, in the most suitable place; and its not unfamiliar habit of forsaking us when we find that person (p. 104).' Segal says more about the same thing: 'What arouses desire, as almost any women's fiction can illustrate [Fifty Shades of Grey, anyone?] rarely obeys the dictates of conscious feminist pursuit, but as often includes inappropriately submissive, aggressive, hostile, or in other ways 'deviant' impulses [my italics] (p. 104).'

So welcome to the bizarre and absurd world of desire. Not only is desire strange and contrary and disturbing. Not only does it not work as we might want it to but it doesn't work in our best interest either. And that is key here.

What we desire and fantasize about may not only be against our interest but against our entire self-concept and value system. It may be self-destructive. It may subvert our identity. It may pervert our whole being and being-in-the-world. But how does it actually relate to us? What does it say about us?

As Segal states, fantasies are 'troubling' but the nature of the problem depends on what you think a fantasy reveals. Do fantasies tell us what we really really want?

The Piano Teacher is a book and movie about a middle-aged doctor of music who despite all her artistic and academic success still lives with her domineering and belittling mother, visits porn shops and peepshows to get off and fantasizes about complete and total submission. She is pursued by a young man with whom she cannot have 'normal' sex and reveals her ultimate kinky desires to him in a disturbing letter. The movie climaxes (yes, I know, please indulge me I really have no choice) with her deep dark fantasies of bondage and discipline being translated into sordid and degrading reality when her lover 'acts' them out. The movie is so perverse because it uses erotic titillation as the 'tease' that draws the viewer into the trap of painful and naked un-erotic assault, humiliation and unlawful confinement. It is an anti-epiphany, an anti-consummation.

Which is one of the likely outcomes when we try to realize our fantasies. It isn't just that reality cannot live up to fantasy. There is something about our internal dream-life that simply does not follow us into the real world. That something magical and mystical is precisely what fantasies are all about.

Moreover, those fantasies are internal. No matter how little conscious control we exercise over them, they are still inside us and us alone. No one else is physically involved, so the script stll works with all the safeguards of a Star Trek holodeck. We are secure no matter how dangerous and out of control the fantasy becomes. In short, fantasies don't 'hurt' us physically. Which considering the things we do and have done to us in fantasy is a pretty big deal. Pain and dehumanization, if not life-in-prison or death, are the obvious outcomes of trying to 'realize' at least some of our fantasies.

So fantasies can be extreme and 'troubling' precisely because they are 'fantasies'--internal monologues where we do whatever with whomever however. With no physical consequences.

That doesn't mean fantasies are harmless or have no real-world consequences. It just means that taking them literally doesn't make sense. We want things in our heads that we may not really want in the outside world. They are not deep secrets about ourselves. We may fantasize about things we would never want to come to pass. We may find some imaginary things exciting because they contrast with everything else we stand for and find compelling and meaningful. We may just be curious and like trying on new things. We may have an unresolved issue that we keep working on. We may lust for things we know we can't have. We may lust for things we hope we never do get.

There are any number of explanations for desires and fantasies that don't interpret them as a direct connection with the truth about ourselves. We don't have a self. We don't have an essence that is waiting to be liberated from its imaginary prison. We are not our fantasies.

So women who fantasize about being tied up, beaten, and ravaged are not expressing their conscious wish for inequality and male protection. There is no necessary political or social message there. They could be fantasizing about submission because it scares them so much. Fear is exciting. Even erotic. But does anyone think that our passion for horror movies and dystopian tales says that we want to get eaten by monsters or live in Panem?

Here's hoping your dreams never come true, my dark comrades!

Female androgyny

The lack of female androgyny in the Goth community is a conspicuous absence noted by students of Goth like Dunja Brill, among others. This underrepresentation is especially significant because of the central role of femininity and male androgyny in the subculture. Revealingly, male androgyny has been sexualized with transgressive capital while female androgyny has been ignored or neglected, at best. Treated like it is in the mainstream culture: male androgyny is sexy; female androgyny is just gross. Men win again.

This empty space and the absurd negative assumptions revolving around it needs to be explored. And populated with a genuinely transgressive image of the sexy androgynous female. Sexy on her terms, that is. Now that would really challenge gender stereotypes. And heteronormative views of sexual attractiveness.

Aside from being ignored and neglected, female androgyny is also often dismissed. Women's dress codes are presumably so liberal that there really is no boundary to cross. At first glance, this makes the idea of the 'drag king' nowhere near as gender bending as the 'drag queen'. At first glance, that is.

When female androgyny is not ignored, neglected or dismissed, it is ridiculed. Because it presents a far greater challenge to male dominance and male sexuality. Witness the character of 'Pat' on Saturday Night Live. Pat is of ambiguous gender and that is the meta-joke behind this character. Pat is not a perfect example of an androgynous woman because her (she basically, kinda, sorta, turns out to be a 'she') sex is never clearly identified. That is the whole joke. But her female gender is implicit, if not acknowledged in some scenes. In any case, Pat's androgyny is the butt of the joke. It is meant to be funny, especially Pat's constant frustration of other people's attempts to find out which sex Pat really is. While not hostile or really offensive, the ambivalent (at best) response to Pat's ambiguous female-like gender tells us a lot about the threat female androgyny poses.



It's Pat!
Source: wikipedia

 While male androgyny is easily heterosexualized, female androgyny is far less digestible to mainstream culture. It is not glamorized because it is assumed to be 'ugly' (what is less attractive to 'straight' men than 'masculine' women in the eyes of the Kultur?); and is presented as abject, abnormal and unsettling. In a culture where women are commanded to be feminine and beautiful, any woman who deliberately chooses to be handsome and masculine is incomprehensible and disturbing. Hence, the underlying theme of Pat.

But this norm is being questioned. And British actress Tilda Swinton is one of the gender bending revolutionaries.



Source: Craig McDean

 The sex appeal of Tilda Swinton crosses gender boundaries, if not dimensional ones. Her supernatural beauty troubles, boils and bubbles "sex" as we know it. And we luuuv it. Why? Is she sexy because she is a boiish grrl? Or a grrlish boi? Both? Neither/nor? All? Genderqueer in shades of gorgeous transcendence...?



Source: soundonmars

 My answer could be summed up in her performance as the titular transgender character in Orlando, a wondrous and wonderful adaptation of Virginia Woolf's novel of the same name (if you need a good read, then seriously this is it!). The story follows Orlando as he transforms over history from an androgynous boi in Elizabethan England into an androgynous grrl in Edwardian times. If you haven't seen it, watch it. The movie is amazing. And Swinton is stunning in all her sexually ambiguous glory.

Tilda Swinton as Orlando

Witness, the picture above. Tilda's sex/gender is completely irrelevant. And arbitrarily masculine only because we arbitrarily assign 'masculine' meanings to it.

Quite plainly, gender is as gender does. And Tilda Swinton gives new meaning to both 'masculine' and 'handsome'.

But female androgyny isn't just handsome. It is unearthly. Otherworldly. In short, radical resistance.



Source: Time