Gothing the rural lifestyle: rubber boots

In which the Author predicts the insect apocalypse and advises on the most appropriate rainboots to wade through said disaster

What is the primary Goth fashion dilemma in the spring? How to stay dark and dry--specifically, how to keep your feet dark and dry and delighted--during the monsoons and the accompanying mosquito infestation/invasion. Yes, spring is not just about rain rain rain. Spring is also the season of insects ascendant. From the huge black beetles scuttling and scurrying in the freshly turned soil to the gorgeous Swallowtails waiting hungrily for the lilacs to bloom (tip to Walt Whitman) to the ladybugs like medieval engines of war (tip to Leonardo da Vinci) lurking about the underbelly of the vegetable world to the various shades of grey winged vampires...

Ever since reading The Scar my opinion of mosquitoes and insects in general has gone up. I've become convinced by certain entomological heresies and eschatologies of the superiority of insects. Cockroaches, among others, will survive the  apocalypse like bleak and implacable hoplites of the left behind. Come famine, war, pestilence and death. Insects will inherit the earth. They have exoskeletons! Oh how I adore chitin! And probosces! What's not to love!

China Mieville is the prophet of breaking down barriers between the species. First he did it in the Perdito Street Station with his scarab-headed khepri. Who didn't find the artist Lin fascinating, talented and beautiful?


Source: Justin Oakford


And then you read The Scar and you encounter the anophelii. Scientist/pacifist sphincter-mouthed males and brilliant females tragically mad with blood lust. So poignant. But I digress.


Source: Haberdashery


It is the time of mosquitoes. Not the end times. Even though with the rain rain rain, you might worry you've entered the postapocalyptic world of The Road. But anyway how do you keep your feet spooky but not sopping in the spring? Well, if you're feminine there are no end of options. Masculine...you may have to improvise and compromise.

Goth punk purveyors of whimsical doom and gloom Iron Fist have conjured up some delightfully witchy wet wear. Since San Diego's rainy season is around Xmas, none of these boots are currently in stock at the Iron Fist website. You'll have to search the web for them. Good luck! But here are a few seductive samples...Shoe fetish alert! For real!!!

You could go Old School Goth with skull glam Ruff Rider Rainboots:




Source: brokencherry.com

 Or doll up in these Lolita-esque "Society Cropped" ones:



Source: amazon.co.uk

 Or go all Deathrock/Gothabilly in these Zombie Stompers:



Source: Kaboodle

Just gory-geous!!!

Aside from Iron Fist, the wild web is full of rubber/rain boots for the feminine-inclined. Among others, Chookaboot has a boot for every style...

From plain old Goth black:

Source: chookaboot

To hardcore dark elegance:

Source: chookaboot



Source: chookaboot

 To cybersnakeskin decadence:

Source: chookaboot



Source: chookaboot

With Gothy gear like these, rainboots may no longer be just for rainy days!

Now for the masculine...hmmm...you will have to look for the weird in the everyday...

Tretorn has some passable rubber boots. Of the understated dark gentleman kind:

Source: Tretorn

Source: Tretorn

Columbia Sportswear has some warmer, wilder boots that would compliment a dark faery or black forest mori or even steampunk look:

Source: Columbia

And finally, Muckboots has rain/work boots that might go with a dark cyber-style:




The Muckmaster
Source: muckboots4sale




Hoser Classic
Source: muckboots4sale

So good luck and stay dark, dry and delightful this spring, my pretties!

Subverting the femme fatale

So was that the last word on the femme fatale? Is she--can she be--nothing more than a tool of male dominance? Well...there's no such thing as last words now is there...?

The femme fatale is ultrawoman in patriarchal ideology. She is 'woman as sex' laid bare in minimalist style. Worse, she is 'woman' completely objectified. Without identity. A zombie predator intent on consuming men. Her sex nothing but a lure like the bright, shiny knob of flesh dangling from an angler fish.

If that's true, then how could the femme fatale be recycled and mobilized against her makers? Against male dominance. If she is ultrawoman is there any way the hyperfeminine can be occupied and used by women? Or is she hopelessly compromised? Any female appropriation a delusion? A visual and sexual gift to male supremacy...?

In Goth Culture, Dunja Brill relates this anecdote:

      Leipzig, June 2003, the annual Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival...I am on my way to the tram station
      to travel to the Agra, the main festival site, when a group of scantily clad girls catches my eye. All
      of them are wearing skimpy black PVC skirts or hot pants, with one even dressed in nothing but a
      skin-tight PVC bodice, torn mesh stockings and extreme high heels. Obviously I am not the only
      one to notice these women; their charms seem anything but lost on the group of male youths
      standing at the tram station, whose outfits mark them out a what Goths tend to call 'townies'. I
      overhear how one of them, a tall guy with a white baseball cap and baggy jeans, tries to talk the
      others into chatting up the girls. They ogle the one in the PVC bodice, making saucy comments
      about her body and dress. Prompted by their obstrusive stares and sexual banter, all of a sudden
      she walks up to them and starts eying the tall guy in a confident, almost aggressive way. I think I
      can even see a slight smile around her eyes. The boys instantly stop their boastful banter and fall
      silent, seeming rather uncomfortable with the situation. The tall one tries hard to avoid the
      woman's gaze and obviously does not feel like showing any more interest in the ample cleavage
      displayed right in front of him. As she walks back to her friends, her subdued smile turns into a
      broad grin--a contagious grin, it seems, as I still have it on my face when the tram finally comes
      (p. 59)

So when the female 'object' becomes an 'actor', the male viewer is no longer in possession of the view. And that inverts the object-objectifier relation. What does that have to do with the hyperfeminine? Or the femme fatale?

In many ways, the hyperfeminine turns the femme fatale on its head. It is a self-reflexive 'masquerade' of the most extreme signs of femininity turned against male-imposed stereotypes. As Brill writes, the 'feminine masquerade...stresses the subversive, disruptive potential of women who reappropriate traditionally feminine clothes with an ironic twist (p. 60).' As the anecdote above illustrates, '[f]launted as a masquerade, such a parodic excess of femininity can work to disrupt the male-defined scopic regimes of voyeuristic and fetishistic looking at women so deeply ingrained in our visual culture...This line of argument suggests that hyperfemininity can be a form of resistance, a strategy for deconstructing the patriarchal ideal of femininity from within rather than from an impossible position outside gender discourse (p. 60).'

As an ironic masquerade, the hyperfeminine walks a fine line between parody and parade. Porn and the male gaze can colonize anything. Feminine goth style can easily degenerate into mere stroke material. The ambiguous nature of the hyperfeminine is pretty clear. So while Joshua Gunn writes, 'gothic women deliberately warp dominant images of the female sex-object as a strategy of empowerment. As the goth female confronts women's traditional role as an object of male fantasy, the subculture helps her to devise ways to gain more control. As the most conspicuous example of resistant femininity found in the goth scene...the female dominatrix takes charge of her objectification by turning the sadistic gaze back upon itself, averaging voyeurism with (consensual) teasing and abuse (p. 52).' Dunja Brill reminds us that goth women self-report that the main reason they choose to dress in hyperfeminine styles is to 'look pretty' (Brill, p. 60). And that in itself could mean many things, some rather positive. Some male-centred and negative. But then that is what ambiguity means.

These very ambiguities, however, can be explored and exploited in a particularly subversive, brilliant and uncanny way by a skilled artist like, say, Emilie Autumn. If the hyperfeminine turns the stereotype of the femme fatale on its head, then Miss Autumn takes on both and twists their heads right off! Her campy eroticism is so ironically aggressive that it is disturbingly antisexual. She takes a stereotype and she takes it just a little too far beyond the sexy. Like a doll doing a lap dance.

For example, she dresses like a deconstructed Victorian school girl in ragged overly skimpy outfits that underline the pedophilia theme behind this whole 'fetish'. The thick clownish-girlish makeup has the same kind of innocence a zombie has when it feasts on its prey. The overall effect is not sexy because it identifies every 'normal' trait of sexiness--revealing clothing, bare skin, come-hither posturing, exaggerrated makeup--and vamps it up so the erotic gloss is ripped off . And 'nudity' becomes true nakedness. Something just a little too real for comfort. Or patriarchal re-appropriation.




Source: Battered Rose




Source: Battered Rose

 Miss Autumn does much the same with other iconic male chauvinist tropes and stereotypes. Each one equally broken down to the leering mocking mask that conceals nothing for desire to latch onto. And thereby defies and confounds the consuming/objectifying lust of the male viewer. There is no understood game here between the audience and the actor. The rules that normally let a man act out his fantasy are not followed. The puppet has cut its strings. And nothing is more terrifying and discomfitting than an autonomous automaton...which Miss Autumn pretty much represents in this image:



Source: Battered Rose

And as for tearing up iconic images, here is Miss Autumn's demented take on the showgirl:

Source: Battered Rose



Source: Kerrang

 And her subversive verion of the sexy woman in an animal costume writhing around as a rat:


Source: Battered Rose



Source: Battered Rose

 Or the sexy woman with an animal burlesque routine...repeated with that mostest sexy animal, the rat!



Source: Bizarre Magazine



Source: Bizarre Magazine

 And from here to the just-not-right scene at the little girl's tea party:



Source: Battered Rose

 Oh, and what about the innocent girl playing with her dolls in her toy room?

Source: Battered Rose

Or that same innocent girl now trapped in a madhouse?



Source: Battered Rose

 Or that most sacred stock character of male romance--the damsel-in-distress?



Source: Battered Rose

 I could continue and show you more and more icons cut up and rewired but the above twists and turns demolish heteronormative sexiness. The semi-nudity is not titillating but aggressive. And anti-sexual. Beyond the sexual. Outside sex. However you want to describe a body that doesn't conform to the dictates of 'sexuality' as we know it.

Common criticisms of burlesque performance do not work here. While it is often true that one person's irony is another's pornography. Miss Autumn's appropriation of male supremacist stereotypes works because her versions are sarcastic, mocking and sardonic takes on the standard pin-up cliches. She demon sings of how she wants her innocence back. Not like a victim. But like a monster avenger. For contained within each of her versions of these sexist cliches is this wicked Joker smile:

Source: Battered Rose

Miss Autumn's performance is about taking back power for women. Power to define their own feminine symbols. Power to present their own aesthetic, social and political agenda. Power to control their own bodies and what they do with them.

And she defines her goal in as Gothy a way as possible. Speaking of women in general, Miss Autumn says in an interview with Curve magazine: 'we can't just sit and wait for our freedom and our right to live without fear to be handed to us by anyone. We need to demand it, and we need to be prepared to fight.

'We need to get scary.'

Vive le Quebec libre!

Soure: Molly Crabapple

And vive Molly Crabapple! The steampunk neoVictorian artist of the Revolution!

Yes, yes, yes. Dark comrades! Quebec is on fire!!! Les Quebecois are at the barricades wielding the pots and pans of liberte, egalite, solidarite!!! Against austerity, autocracy and neocon double standards of corporate/bourgeois subsidization at the cost of emiseration for the rest of us.

We have paid for the greed, venality and incompetence of the 1% long enough. Demand the impossible! Support les Quebecois! Down with Charest! Down with Harper! Down with global austerity!!!

the queen of diamonds

Liza Windsor is currently celebrating her diamond jubilee which is, unsurprisingly, based upon austerity and class oppression for the rest of us. Liza is the time-serving mediocrity better known by her pompous title: Queen Elizabeth the Second of too many places to really take seriously. She is still the Defender of the Faith in some!!! Unfortunately, one of those places includes my country, Canada. So the Queen of Canada lives in London, Great Britain. And she has ruled Canada for 60 years as our constitutional monarch and head of state.

All I can say is--it's the 21st century. Why the fuck do we still put up with this anachronistic shit?!!! Why do we tolerate an unelected and hereditary monarch as our head of state? And why, for fuck's sake, do we not only tolerate it but perform ecstatic analingus on Her Majesty in tribute to the beauty and glory of this ancien regime? Are we serfs?

Last year, we celebrated Bill and Kate's contract for the use of each other's genitals (that's Immanuel Kant's definition, not mine, but I ask--what else is this marriage thang all about but fucking with formal state approval?), as if it was leading up to the orgasm of the millenia. And now the diamond jubilee. So once again we all become pro-imperialist monarchists joyfully applauding monocle-and-crinoline fascism and white supremacy under the disavowing guise of tea, crumpets and Little Englandism.

And it isn't just harmless fun and bloodless nostalgia. And I'm not just engaging in radical party-poopery. This isn't a cute little anachronism like outdated weights and measures or steak-and-kidney pie. No, the Queen is an evil relic of the revolution/interrupted stasis that is Great Britain and its Commonwealth spawn.

Because of the Queen and her foul brood, the UK retains an outrageously unequal class system. The monarchy is crucial to the existence of that inequality. A system where large landowners are routinely delegated state authority such as the responsibility to manage wild pigs and badgers. Indeed, where the aristocracy appears to be back in charge of the countryside in total--and the public fucking subsidizes these entitled assholes!

Meanwhile, in the city some extraparliamentary outfit called 'The City' rules a tiny geographical but huge regulatory expanse like some medieval guild.  Actually, it is partially composed of medieval guilds. And it is be based on massive financial inequality, in addition to being secretive and anti-democratic. It may even be largely responsible for the financial meltdown because of its 'liberalised' regulatory policies.

This is the hideous patchwork and reactionary constitutional system Her Royal Highness represents and maintains. What else does a monarchy do but keep back revolution (minor land reform and redistribution) and protect and preserve unearned privilege?

But that's indirect you say. Not her fault. Well, what about the 'effective veto' Chuckie has over some legislation? Makes you wonder what kinda veto Liza has...? I'm sure I could come up with more examples of royal perfidy. Like how much she actually costs Commonwealth taxpayers. Like how how many unearned perqs she and her ilk enjoy. Like the time she tried to get a subsidy meant for the poor to heat her many mansions!!! But I'm going to end up with an esoteric structural and constitutional issue that constitutional monarchy leads to...one that effectively ended up in a coup d'etat in Canada back in 2008...and one that doesn't require the Queen to be personally responsible. No, it isn't her. It's the system she helps keep going!!!

Now let's go back to that benighted time. The Great American Bank Meltdown had already happened and the Great American Recession was well underway. But in Canada, according to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, all was fine and any problems could be resolved by ending pay equity, the public sector's right to strike and public subsidy for federal political parties. But hey, seriously guys, everything is aok.

Well, the opposition parties disagreed and since it was a minority government their disagreement was a big deal. But Harper had played this game of brinkmanship manfully many a time already: 'You have no choice but to support even my worst legislation because otherwise you're responsible for an election. So I dare you. I freaking double dog dare you! Have a vote of non-confidence. See how the public likes that!!!'

Then the opposition did something unheard of. They threatened to form a coalition government!!! Oh the horrors! Harper had been outmanouevred. He hadn't expected that. So he cried foul. He cried French separatism. He cried all the way to Queenie's representative in Ottawa. Michaelle Jean. And he said that he needed to progrogue parliament and call the very election he had held over the heads of the opposition for almost a year.

For those unfamiliar with proroguing. When parliament has completed all its scheduled events ahead of schedule. It prorogues--or ends the session early. It is a technicality that is commonly used because parliament really doesn't do enough to occupy the third of the year it is in session.

What was unusual about Harper's use of proroguing was the simple fact that it was unnecessary. Unethical. Unconstitutional. Undemocratic. (Their was a Liberal-NDP coalition government with a majority of seats and a majority of the popular vote waiting to assume leadership once Harper and his Cons had lost a vote of non-confidence.) He asked Her Majesty's representative if she would kindly save his ass from being handed to him gilded on a platter by the opposition. So rather than face the fact that he was a fucking jackass, he decided to circumvent the technical rules of parliamentary procedure and shut down the normal process of government--that is, when a minority government does something so stupid that it must step aside for another government who can maintain the confidence of the House. And Michaelle Jean did as she was asked. And shut down parliament and held an unnecessary, unethical, unconstitutional and undemocratic election. All to save Harper's worthless government.

So what does that have to do with the Queen. Well, she is the head of state of our constitutional monarchy. And one of her duties is calling elections. Usually, that means nothing beyond yadda-yadda ceremonial banter. But every once in a while, it involves a constitutional crisis. And when that happens--do you really want an unelected and hereditary placeholder or the placeholder's placeholding representative to be making such a significant decision?

And it is her fault. She could abdicate. She could do the decent thing in a democratic age and fucking abdicate.

So Liza, as you reflect on your diamond jubilee please decide that it is time for you to become the normal person you are in title as well as flesh and join the rest of us by renouncing your positions and privileges and suggesting to the British PM that he do the same in perpetuity. Now that is the kinda constitutional crisis I can sink my fangs into!!!

And if she doesn't do that unlikely deed then let the rest of us end our serfdom--and get rid of her!!! Republic now!!!

Down with the queen and her fascist regime, my dark comrades!!!

Blackout in Canada

Technicalities! Technicalities! Everyone hates technicalities. The supposed joy of pedants and bureaucrats and bane of all right-thinking freedom-loving folk everywhere. Red tape strangles commerce and justice alike. We all know that!!!

Except...technicalities exist for a reason. Oh how I hate writing that! But technicalities are about more than dotting i's and crossing t's and filling out form after form after form...Yes, technicalities protect justice and freedom and democracy.

What keeps the police in check? Technicalities. What enforces our rights? Technicalities. What ensures the people have a voice in government? Technicalities.

But technicalities make the perfect arch-demon. Because those who would abuse the system know we all loathe it. They can introduce injustice and tyranny bit-by-bit simply by streamlining and reforming away all those pesky technicalities that give formless power its democratic form.

And the Stephen Harper government is the dungeon master of dismising technicalities while introducing counter-revolution. They've done it before. They came as close as possible to committing a coup d'etat without actually eliminating democracy when they ignored the technicalities around proroguing parliament and ended a session and called an election all to avoid a vote of non-confidence on their brutal, dishonest and disastrous budget in November of 2008. And, let's not forget, to also avoid a Liberal-NDP coalition government.

Right now, they're about to do it again. But this time with a majority government. The Harper government is introducing massive reforms of Canada's environmental laws in its spring budget. In a budget! Oh the technicalities!!! So many will not care. So many will not do a thing to save our precious techicalities.

So for good measure. Here is the reason why you should care. Rather than debating huge changes to Canada's environmental laws and various regulations, the Harper government will simply sneak a whole new regime through the budget backdoor. Because we all hate technicalities like parliamentary debate, full and open reviews, public participation and, well, democracy. It's all so messy and inefficient and gets in the way of letting multinational corporations make a profit while they destroy the planet and the economy.

If you want more information and/or want to do something, please visit: http://www.blackoutspeakout.ca/. Help stop Harper's creepy creeping tyranny...

Cthulhu Barbie: expanding women's rights...?

It's always fun to Goth the talk and walk the Goth...so when horror and politics meet, we need to spread the dark glamour of spooky subversion...




Source: Introverted Wife

 Yes! You can make your own Cthulhu Barbie. Introverted Wife has step-by-step destructions to show you how to cow, terrify and drive the rest of your dark doll collection insane. Move over Monster High, Barbie's inner beast goddess is coming to claim the chaos back as her own




Source: Introverted Wife

 ...and maybe take back the night, too...? Is there, perhaps, a deeper message than just the black abyss in cult-crazed Cthulhu Barbie? Is it more than a maddening joke/gimmick?

That's exactly what Introverted Wife says:




Source: Introverted Wife

 "I would offer up some commentary on how this isn't born from the old hat idea of "ooh isn't it funny making Barbie ugly" but more a plea to all those costume makers who think women's only worth is looking hot at all times.

A woman can never be scary, or terrifying, or even truly ugly even if that is the homage she wishes to make. She must at all times be in a state of giving men boners.

So...Cthulhu Barbie. If she disturbs you, I've done my job. Also, I love any excuse to play with latex."

As women's bodies and women's minds get ever more constricted and constrained by the head-to-toe veil of corporate Kultur in its ever-expanding war on the female gender, spreading alternative images is more than just culture jamming. Everywhere, women must be skinny but full-breasted sexy but clean and fresh-smelling flirty but any carnal intent must be disavowed and covered up under powder and push-up bras and perfume. No stain, no scent, no bulge of the real body can be allowed. Only the illusion of the ideal of womanhood.

And what does Cthulhu Barbie have to say to this sterilized and sanitized version of womanhood? What does representing images of women as scary and ugly have to do with gender equality? Well, the ties that bind women to the beauty myth need to be cut. Ugly, scary representations of the feminine are part of the rupture.

Representing scary images of women can help make women scary. Powerful. In a way that isn't sexualized like the femme fatale. In a way that doesn't titillate and tease the male gaze. But rather terrifies it. Like the Furies. Like Medusa and the Gorgons. Like all the female spirits of vengeance and death and destruction that kept the male gaze in check, if only in a small way. We can bring them back. We can recreate them.

So go out and deconstruct Barbie and spread a little black magic, my pretties

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!