For those of you who don’t know, the ‘Fade to Grey’ song that all of you know was by Visage. Bonus points to those of you who can match Steve Strange with the image in the banner above.
Steve Strange was the lead singer of Visage. He was like Boy George in an alternate synthpop post-punk universe (wait, early ’80s London?) plus cocaine. He was part of the New Romantic scene, a movement which spanned from the late ’70s to the early ’80s and encapsulated an art form in various media which included androgynous dress and makeup, new electronic sounds in music, and an obsession with Vivienne Westwood’s casual ‘pirate’ look, which we can see if we simply YouTube Dead Or Alive singing ‘Misty Circles’ live.
It was that era that introduced elegantly-executed androgyny to the masses. Though short-lived (at least in the underground), it influenced the course of the ’80s by challenging people’s thoughts about gender roles, and what men and women should be. Was Annie Lennox a man, or a woman? I mean, do we seriously think this is weird nowadays? She had short hair and wore a fucking suit. Can’t a woman do that?? That’s exactly the point behind artists like the New Romantics. You, the viewer, are appalled by the fact that a short-haired ginger woman can wear a suit while dancing around in a field of cows, but you stare on in bovine wonder.
Everything weird and upturned is good.
I am sharing these videos (above and below) because:
A) Steve Strange, the tortured but talented lead singer of Visage, recently died of heart failure in hospital in Egypt (I will never accept this–it can’t be),
B) ‘She’s Electric’ is perhaps one of the greatest synthpop/dance anthems ever composed (how sublimely pulsing and ethereal?),
C) I am a big, fat, slutty whore for New Romantic music, and
D) I just bought the CD single for ‘She’s Electric’ online! SO can’t wait to hear all the mixes. I’m especially excited about the extended mix. (Usually I like the original mix better than any of the shitty club mixes, so an extended mix of the original is like a diamond in my vagina.)
R.I.P. Steve Strange. Who cares about all your coke benders at the Blitz Club? You were a genius songwriter and performer. And you left us with what might be Visage’s best album. You left us with fashions which confuse people, makeup which makes a straight man blanch, artistic ideas which make the queerest heart quiver, and a renewed purpose behind showy spectacles like RuPaul’s Drag Race. If anybody went out in style, it was vous.
K, synthpop whores! It’s Erasure time again. For a lot of people, the release of a new album by a veteran band means, ‘Oh, fuck! All three remaining members of the Beatles are getting back together again to record…a re-recording of a 1994 compilation of…their number-one hits from, um, the 1960s, which is the only decade they made music!’ So, basically, nothing new.
Erasure are not like that. They consistently release a new album once every two to three years, often with delicious re-releases interspersed with new, original material, and re-inventing their style of synthpop with the latest producers. Most bands that originated in the ’80s can’t boast that, even if some rapper is using a synthesiser riff from their main hit in their latest song.
Erasure’s new album is a masterwork of electronic dance pop. And I say this as a hardcore fan who has criticised the band in the past for producing work which could be judged as marginal because it relied too much on trends in acoustic folk rock (which I deplore). This is entirely different:
My least-favourite album (Loveboat) was highly synthesised, well-written, well-thought-out, and expertly executed. So I am speaking in relative terms.
The band’s two previous albums, Light At The End Of The World and Tomorrow’s World (minus the Christmas album released last year) were very good and had very coherent, well-written dance anthems, but if we are talking about coherent, well-written dance anthems, The Violet Flame blows them out of the water. It is absolutely majestic in its scope. The lead singer, Andy Bell, boasts an incredibly fluid and nimble voice, synthesiser wizard Vince Clarke creates the most beautifully subtle, lush synthesiser arrangements, and producer Richard X polishes it off with his own HI-NRG take. The result is the perfect melodic dance-pop album.
Let’s talk about songs. ‘Under The Waves’ immediately stands out as an infectious bubblegum tune. It is the catchiest song I have heard in years. ‘Oh-oooh-oh-oooh-oh’, goes the chorus, on and on, against a thick, up-and-down italo-disco bassline. Also notable is the tune ‘Sacred’, which celebrates the extent to which love will realise itself. The most infectious and important of these transcendent dance songs, though, is the sinister and roiling ‘Paradise’. It is all about throwing away everything anybody thought about you and following your passion. It is about being true to yourself. And it’s a dance anthem! To me, this is perfection.
The Violet Flame is perhaps the best dance album I have ever heard. I hate most club mixes—they sound boring and monotonous to me. This album offers dance music that satisfies several important criteria: lyricism, melody, danceability, content. It is lyrical, melodic, danceable, and offers remotely intelligible insight into modern-day relationships and social issues. Erasure have outdone themselves with this album.
It is one of the most striking films I have ever seen. Vampires Eve and Adam re-unite after a few decades, and the younger sister, Ava, tries to shatter their dreams by acting like a no-good Angelena. The premise is bizarre, yet fascinating.
Eve and Adam text about Adam’s depression, and she, the ever-sprightly one, decides to travel from her base in Tangier to his place in Detroit, where she attempts to soothe him. Everything is weird—she is texting her lover on an iPhone via her Moroccan boudoir, which is decorated in embroidered fabrics and is probably suffused with various exotic scents. Gold, blue, and white are the main colours. He is consumed in a mess of guitars and violins in a decaying Detroit mansion.
Eve and Adam are humane vampires who acquire blood by bribing hospital staff and local friends to quench their thirst. They have no desire to feed on humans unless necessary. Much like modern-day human vegans refuse to consume animal products unless necessary. Until Eve’s younger sister, Ava, arrives and starts acting like a total douche-bag. She drinks Adam’s musical assistant to death, and Eve and Adam have to dispose of his corpse in a vat of acid somewhere in an abandoned building in Detroit.
After kicking Ava out on her own, Eve and Adam decide to return to Eve’s favourite place—Tangier. Unfortunately, Tangier is infected with contaminated blood. Even Eve’s reliable source of blood—Marlowe—lies dying of contaminated blood. Eve delicately lays her hand on the head of his human care-taker. It is actually a quite moving scene.
The last scene is amazing. Since Marlowe and his special source of blood are gone, Eve and Adam are forced to walk the streets of Tangier, seeking a source of blood. They are starving. Eve in particular catches the scent of blood. It is a couple making out. She convinces Adam to turn them. He acquiesces. The look in their glassy eyes is disturbing.
Only Lovers Left Alive is amazing not only because it is so cryptic and peaceful, but also because it forces the viewer to re-imagine the vampire as a creature with human emotions. After all, humans are just cattle in the eyes of the vampire.
Isn’t it funny how musical styles come and go? I remember 1950s rock ‘n’ roll being popular when I was growing up in the early ’80s, mainly because of Grease and Grease II. Michelle Pfeiffer straddling a ladder was one of my most cherished memories (and her electrocuting Christopher Walken to death in Batman Returns was perhaps my favourite scene in cinematic history). Everything ’50s was cool then, from the turned-up cuffs to the white socks. One of the first songs I learned to sing was ‘Rock Around The Clock’, but that was in 1982, long after the original song had been played on the radio, let alone penned. I was flooded with images of Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and Boy George. The same era had a peculiar dance beat which nobody had ever heard before—a 4-4 dance beat–with synthesiser arrangements.
In the early ’80s a new sound flooded the dance clubs of Europe and trickled down to America (as usual—new sounds happen in Europe first). It was a style of dance music with a rich, heavy, persistent bassline and simple yet elegant melody. It originated in Italy, with musicians like Giorgio Moroder, who produced music not only for Donna Summer, but also for films like Midnight Express and iconic ’80s fantasy films like The Never Ending Story. It clearly derived from 1970s disco, but reinvented itself with modern synthesisers. It became known as Italo-disco.
Probably my favourite italo-disco tune is ‘Hypnotic Tango’, by My Mine:
Isn’t it absolutely gorgeous?
One of my other favourite italo-disco tunes is ‘Orient Express’, by Wish Key:
Isn’t that the most seductive dance tune you’ve ever heard?
Glass Candy basically aced the whole italo-disco revival with the following tune:
How beautiful is that? Ida No, the singer of Glass Candy, is totally awesome.
New italo-disco style music is being created by Sally Shapiro:
Absolutely sublime.
Italo-disco is a gorgeous dance style. You just have to love dance, melody, and rhythm.
What are ‘men’s rights activists’? Men’s rights activists are men who claim to be victimised by the modern feminist movement. MRAs suggest that women have more power over men because of prejudice against men.
On the surface, a lot of MRA concerns are understandable. Divorced or separated couples should both have equal access to their children, all else being equal. Fathers shouldn’t be portrayed as goofy idiots. Men can be victims of domestic violence, too.
Seems right, right?
The first problem is the incoherency of the Men’s Rights Activist movement. Recently, a publication called A Voice for Men sponsored the first International Conference on Men’s Rights in suburban Detroit. The city of Detroit was picked because it was an ‘iconic testament to masculinity’. I guess that means tough, industrious, and down-to-earth? (God, what would that make Seattle? The effete queen of the northwest?) But if you believe that manhood is defined by these things, why would you then act sensitive about women’s assaults against you? Why are you complaining that women are hurting you if you are such a big, burly man? The imagery of traditional manhood contrasted with modern sensitivity doesn’t make sense. At least make up your mind.
But the Men’s Right’s Movement isn’t just incoherent and insecure in its masculine identity–it is also misogynistic. The head of A Voice for Men, Paul Elam, who organised the Detroit conference, declared the month of October to be ‘Bash a Violent Bitch’ month: ‘I mean literally grab them by the hair and smash their face against the wall’. Suddenly, moaning about equal child-care rights turns into an ugly assault on women. And while his rhetoric has ‘toned down substantially’, he claims his movement ‘doesn’t depend on mainstream approval. It’s a subculture’. Sorry, but I don’t care if you’re suddenly cool now because you’ve toned down your rhetoric on assaulting women. You remain a fucking asshole.
Putting aside claims of incoherency and misogyny, the fact is, the Men’s Rights Movement is fundamentally flawed because, in real life, women still have fewer rights than men. And women are less represented than men, even though they constitute about half the population. Right about now, 20% of U.S. senators are female, while 18% of U.S. representatives are female. In the United States, there has never been a female president. How can you complain that women are systemically dominating men? It is purely unbelievable.
Here is the question I meet whenever I venture to broach this subject: ‘Brandon, why should you care? You’re a man.’ The reason I care so much about this subject is that it affects everybody. Everybody. I view misogyny as the ultimate root of evil and prejudice. Obviously lesbians are affected by it, but gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people are affected by it, too, because it derives from patriarchy, which states that men have to be macho and dominate and fuck women and make them walking incubators for their own spermload, which is fucking stupid and not just retrogressive–it is abhorrent. I completely deny this doctrine of life.
Men’s Rights Activism seems to pull from the shady pseudo-science of John Gray, while feminism seems to pull from the substantiated philosophy of Cordelia Fine.
Recently, RuPaul’s Drag Race came under fire for its usage of the word she-male in a skit in which contestants had to guess whether a picture of a person’s legs were those of a ‘male’ or those of a ‘she-male’. The complaint by transgender advocates was that such language denigrates transgender people by invalidating their gender identity.
Some transgender women, such as model Carmen Carrera, have denounced the usage as unequivocally pejorative, while other transgender women, such as classical pianist and musician Our Lady J, have defended it as artistically meaningful and provocative.
This whole fiasco has forced me to wonder how transgender people are being treated in the everyday world. Just as some transgender people are entertainers, some are also athletes. While the dialogue over usage of she-male in Drag Race heats up, transgender people are also facing obstacles in the world of sports.
Recently, personal trainer and Crossfit athlete Chloie Jonsson, who is a transgender woman, sued Crossfit for discrimination on the basis of gender identity. The fitness company allegedly barred Jonsson from competing in the women’s division of the CrossFit Games. In defense of Jonsson, GLAAD created a petition requesting that CrossFit change its policy to allow ‘transgender athletes to compete under their consistent, lived identity’.
CrossFit responded with this less-than-sympathetic and doggedly deterministic statement:
The fundamental, ineluctable fact is that a male competitor who has a sex reassignment procedure still has the genetic makeup that confers a physical and physiological advantage over women. That Chloie may have felt herself emotionally, and very conscientiously, to be a woman in her heart, and that she ultimately underwent the legal and other surgical procedures to carry that out, cannot change that reality. Further, the timing of her sex reassignment surgery (and any subsequent hormone therapy) does not change this discussion.
…
Our decision has nothing to do with ‘ignorance’ or being bigots — it has to do with a very real understanding of the human genome, of fundamental biology, that you are either intentionally ignoring or missed in high school.
How positively decisive and ‘scientific’. But CrossFit’s decision is not necessarily based on an ineluctable fact about biology, at least in regard to transgender women who have undergone gender reassignment surgery. Rather, they seem preoccupied with black-and-white ideas about sex biology. Consider this argument by an anonymous Facebook user in response to a cisgender woman’s attack on transgender model Carmen Carrera:
With the removal of the testicles, plus 2 or more years of hormone therapy, she is at a disadvantage, not an advantage. Her testosterone levels are nearly zero, BELOW cisgender females, whose ovaries do produce some testosterone. Plus
with the loss of testosterone, muscle mass reverts to female structure. Genes (XY or XX) have zero to do with this. Did you know that 1 in 30,000 females at birth is XY, has a vagina, and grows up to be a girl like any other girl? Did you know that 1 in 100,000 males at birth is XX, has a penis, and grows up to be a guy like any other guy?
The truth is far more complex than grade school biology might assume and there is zero evidence that trans women have any substantive advantage in sports.
Who should I believe? You? Or the medical professionals who analyzed all this data and said that transwomen are biologically women for the purposes of competition? I think I’ll stick with the opinions of the experts.
The woman in question does not “still have testosterone”, meaning your entire line of reasoning rests of false assumptions. I would suggest you reconsider your logic, because by starting with erroneous assumptions, you have reached an erroneous conclusion.
Another anonymous Facebook user showed how it is profoundly insulting and biologically inaccurate to deny transgender people their identity, especially after transitioning (although whether or not one has transitioned does not affect their identity):
No, she’s not. She’s not male; especially after going through HRT and (presumably) surgery. Everyone has testosterone in them. Everyone also has estrogen and progesterone. EVERYONE. It just so happens that these hormones are present in someone’s body in different levels based on their designation at birth. When someone goes on HRT, the hormone levels in their body change – if someone AMAB goes on estrogen, their muscles shrink and weaken, bone density goes up, fat distribution changes, body hair and skin softens. Same with someone AFAB going on testosterone – their muscles get bigger, faster; bone density goes down, body hair increases and their body fat moves to cis male patterns.
The fact that someone was AMAB or AFAB has no standing after they’ve been on HRT for extended periods of time. Like someone said in the comments elsewhere, trans women often end up weaker than cis women due to the estrogen they’re taking (which can knock their testosterone levels way below what a woman is supposed to have).
This isn’t an attack, it’s a biology lesson.
Would you tell someone who was AFAB and is naturally 6’2″, 320 lbs.+, who has been on testosterone for over a year, that he shouldn’t compete with cis men just because he had been born with a vagina?
Same basic principle. This isn’t a matter of “she was designated male at birth so she has all the advantages a cis male would have competing with cis women!” – it’s transphobia and transmisogyny.
Obviously the point is that transgender women should be able to compete in women’s sports alongside cisgender women, and, also, that transgender men should be able to compete in men’s sports alongside cisgender men. It seems that when surgery and hormone treatments permit, transgender women might actually have a disadvantage compared with cisgender women. Perhaps research will reveal something similar about transgender men.
There are four things to take away from this.
First, if a transgender person is denied participation in all sports, where are they to play sports? In a special Transgender Olympics? I suppose they could, but it doesn’t seem very fair, does it? Transgender women are women, and transgender men are men. I understand this might seem strange, but think about it. Is it fair?
Second, why do companies like CrossFit still believe that men are like this, and women are like that? It’s pseudoscientific bullshit. Cordelia Fine proves so many of these ideas wrong in Delusions of Gender. It is not enough to challenge the notion that gender is ‘ineluctable’. We have to call out pseudo-science purveyors of gender like John Gray on their bullshit.
Third, how are males superior to females? I can understand physical contact sports like football. Yes, most men are physically stronger than women. But what about sports like golf, or tennis, or badminton, or running? What about archery, balance, flexibility, and agility? Women are superior to men in some of these areas. How can you say that men are physically superior to women? You can’t, because they are not.
Fourth, some people of some ethnic descents have an advantage over some people of other ethnic descents. Should you discriminate against Asian men because they are shorter than African men? Where are you going to draw the line?
I will leave you with a superb fight scene featuring Gina Carano in Haywire:
Remember the whole ‘men are from Mars, women are from Venus’ craze that swept the ’90s? Some people still believe in it. I consider it the bilgewater of popular myth. I view it as part of a larger machine in which right-wing conspiracy theorists enshrine old-fashioned ideas about gender difference through pop-culture vehicles like John Gray and Leonard Sax. Even the paranormal radio programme CoasttoCoastAM invites John Gray as a regular guest, but not people who disagree with him.
The notion that male and female brains are fundamentally different has been challenged by neuroscientist Gina Rippon, of Aston University in Birmingham, England. Rippon does not claim that male and female brains are the same—she claims that they are different because of environmental influences. In other words, she suggests, everything children learn, and everything they absorb from their youngest years, informs their concepts of gender. Isn’t that a pioneering concept? Cordelia Fine echoes the same ideas in her acclaimed book Delusions of Gender. However, there are armchair theorists in every family who want to slap down anybody who rocks the uncomfortably comfortable boat.
At the core of Rippon’s argument is the concept of brain plasticity. She points out studies which show that the brains of London taxi-cab drivers changed after they acquired knowledge of the streets and landmarks of London. After an extended period of time, the cab drivers had created new neural networks to meet the demands of the environment. The point is that the brain is not just a ready-made piece of meat, but a tool to meet the needs of the user. Just as a taxi-cab driver moulds her brain to fit the streets of London, a young boy moulds his brain to suit the needs of an exacting stepfather. That stepfather might try to shut down dolls in a boy, or he might try to shut down cars in a girl.
It is important to note that criticisms of the gender binary do not preclude the fact of transgender identity. Just as any cisgender person identifies with one or another gender, so does a transgender person. Gender is a spectrum, and transgender people can claim any space a cisgender person does along this spectrum (or wagon-wheel/Venn diagram, as I like to think of it).
The point is that it is wrong to assign roles on the basis of gender identity. I understand that in sports we assign roles to traditionally feminine or masculine physiques–like football–but that is an exception. And besides, even then, don’t ‘women’ have a better sense of balance and a better track record of completing long-distance treks? So why do we judge ‘male’ abilities better than ‘female’ ones? All of that aside, we need to form a better standard for treating people on the basis of their gender. Because the fake idea of equality, that men are from Mars, and women are from Venus–without allowing women what men have–constitutes an insult to everybody’s intelligence.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer recently vetoed (for largely economic reasons) a bill passed by the Arizona legislature to allow business owners to discriminate against people on the basis of religious belief. Senate Bill 1062 would have allowed business owners to deny service to members of the LGBT community on the basis of personal religious faith. (The pro-business Brewer was pushed to her decision largely by corporations threatening to leave Arizona if the bill was passed.)
The bill also could have allowed business owners to deny service to Muslims, pagans, very many women, and others who do not subscribe to the religious doctrines of the business owner. If a business owner passed by a restaurant booth and overheard a conversation by a Muslim woman saying she was seeking or had sought an abortion, the bill, if passed, would have given that business owner the right to deny that woman service (if the business owner could prove their religious conviction in accordance with the re-written law).
This whole fiasco drew opponents to homosexuality out of the woodwork, and they populated social media in force. They hemmed and hawed against religious restrictions, while LGBT advocates hemmed and hawed about equal protection (which is also a constitutional right in the United States).
So, with that in mind, I am going to focus here on the attitudes of people I have encountered in social media who supported the bill because it would have allowed business owners to discriminate against LGBT people. I am going to expose their fallacies and destroy them one-by-one. I cannot connect a single argument with a single person, but I can say I encountered these arguments commonly (and you have probably encountered them, too).
1) ‘Why should I serve people who flaunt their sexuality at the restaurant table?’
Why should I serve people who flaunt their sexuality at the restaurant table? Oh, wait, you are talking about LGBT people, and I am talking about straight people. Why do you think that gay people flaunt their sexuality at a restaurant table any more than straight people? Is it just the fact that you know they’re LGBT? As opposed to straight? How is there a difference? I am confused.
2) ‘What’s next? Allowing swingers and people in BD/SM gear to enter my establishment and demand to be served?’
Wait, what? So you equate LGBT people with swinging and BD/SM more than you do straight people? That’s silly, since straight people probably have just as much interest in BD/SM as LGBT people. If you shun LGBT people because of their scary sexual experimentations, why don’t you shun straight people as much for the same reason? It doesn’t make sense.
3) ‘You can’t compare LGBT rights with black rights.’
This is a false dilemma. You are saying that LGBT rights do not compare with black rights because LGBT people choose to be who they are, while black people do not. First, how do you know that LGBT people choose to be who they are? Give me the evidence. Second, even if they did choose to be who they are, natural does not equal right, and unnatural does not equal wrong. Third, it is wrong to say that LGBT rights and black rights are entirely separate just because LGBT identities are based on sexuality, and not skin colour. No, LGBT and black rights are similar because both LGBT and black people have experienced institutional and/or systemic discrimination based on their status. Obviously their experiences overlap. Ask Audre Lorde.
4) ‘Gays and atheists and what-not will discriminate against me!’
No, they won’t! What they want is a compromise. The gay-theists will take wedding photos of you, because state law says they should, and you will take wedding photos of gay-theists, because state law says you should. Doesn’t it all work out to a magical equilibrium?
5) ‘Religion trumps everybody else’s rights’
No, it doesn’t. True religious freedom means the right to exercise your religion in peace and harmony while also respecting the freedoms of others. It does not mean steamrolling over their freedoms; it does not mean controlling every aspect of their lives; and it is not a free pass to do whatever you want on the grounds of personal faith. Religious freedom ends when it seeks dominion over the basic freedoms of others.
So that is my response to attitudes about the recent decision in Arizona. I know I will not reach the heart of truly devout Christians who believe what they believe, but I hope something like this will make a dent in the beliefs of people who are on the fence. If you truly believe that God made Adam and Eve to procreate, you have to ask yourself why there are post-menopausal women who have sex, women who have had hysterectomies but have sex, sterile women who have sex, and women who simply choose not to have children but have sex. How is that any different from a gay person having sex? Obviously it is about love and devotion toward another human being. How is that wrong?
Let me make this clear right away: I love Conan O’Brien. He is the funniest late-night television show host I have ever watched. He is refreshingly, self-deprecatingly wacky and off-the-wall. It is fun to watch Irish gingers make fun of themselves, too. Most late-night hosts don’t do that—Conan is uncannily British in his farcical humour, which is probably why he’s so popular in so many countries outside the United States. But he doesn’t write his own monologues—he works behind the scenes with writers and then delivers the final product on stage. He is not entirely at fault for the jokes he delivers in his monologues.
While I normally slap my knee uproariously over Conan’s crazy introductory monologues, I’ve been a little bit peeved lately at the show’s jokes about Valentine’s Day because of their retrogressive direction. One of the jokes was about how McDonald’s has offered discounts to Valentine’s Day couples, and how all the tables will be filled only by one person—presumably a man who was abandoned by his female lover for taking her to such an awful place for the most important date in her calendar. Another joke was about how Valentine’s Day bla bla bla men don’t care bla bla bla women love it bla bla bla therefore punchline about how men don’t care about Valentine’s Day, and just want to get their dicks sucked as payment.
OK. I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, and I totally appreciate the overall vibe of the Conan show and other commercial outlets for St Valentine’s Day, but the whole ‘man pays woman with chocolates for sex’ thing is just kind of annoying because it reinforces several very unfair things that many of us automatically assume about the ritual of love and romance. And it shouldn’t be this way; it should be about romantic love and devotion between consenting partners.
First, there is the assumption that men don’t care about Valentine’s Day as much as women do. Really? What kind of evidence do you have to support this assumption? I’m curious to know. The typical narrative is that the man gives the woman flowers and chocolates in exchange for sex. This suggests that men don’t care as much as women do about romantic love, for that is what Valentine’s Day is all about. It is an incredibly special day in which couples celebrate their love for one another. If you don’t believe the man cares as much about romantic love as the woman does, doesn’t this deserve explaining? Why do you think the man shouldn’t care as much? Men feel romantic desires too, don’t they?
Second, there is the assumption that women don’t care as much about sex as men do on Valentine’s Day. Again, really? Give me hardcore reasons for your assumption. We all know the drill: the man gives the woman chocolates and flowers as an expression of his love and devotion (like some brain-dead, sex-crazed zombie), and the woman rewards him by performing fellatio on him. Or more. This whole scenario suggests that sex is a form of payment to a man by a woman. No. If St Valentine’s Day means anything, it is that couples merge consensually in perfect, harmonic sexual love. There is perfectly good reason to believe that Valentine’s Day should be as sexually pleasing for the woman as for the man. It isn’t her fault that you don’t know where the clitoris is. Maybe that’s why she asked for chocolates.
My intent is not to ruin your joy—there is nothing more precious than true love—but it is to shatter the myth that St Valentine’s Day is an excuse to make a profit off some ill-conceived battle of the sexes. It is not the case that men have to earn sex by giving women flowers and chocolates, and it is not the case that women have to earn love by denying their own sexuality and gratifying a mate. It is far more egalitarian than that. Both women and men acknowledge that they both experience love and lust, and want to share it with one another. How fucking complicated is that? It sounds like a fun time to me!
And with that, I leave you with ‘Welcome to my VD’, by my favourite comedienne, Deven Green:
I am tired of members of the LGBT community griping about how people who support them shouldn’t support them. It makes no sense. It is embarrassing to much of the LGBT community, and it makes them look like spoiled ingrates.
Macklemore recently performed at the 56th Grammy Awards alongside Mary Lambert (an open lesbian), Queen Latifah, and Madonna. He performed a song you would think all the gays would be grateful for: ‘Same Love’. Well, apparently that wasn’t good enough.
Some gays were up-in-arms over his performance. I can’t even begin to enumerate the asinine reasons why.
Let’s start with this superb piece by Arielle Scarcella:
Um, how can you refute any of these points? Please tell me how.
These are the types of arguments I encountered subsequent to Macklemore’s performance:
1) Straights cannot understand what it’s like to be gay.
Exactly! That is why Macklemore’s statement is so important. He doesn’t know. And yet he is still supportive, because he knows it’s wrong. He shows empathy. Isn’t it a good thing when a non-member shows empathy for a member of a group? Or are you just divisive?
2) I didn’t ask for help.
He didn’t give it because you asked. He gave it out of magnanimity because young people needed it. Nobody is forcing your hand to accept his help. You can take it or leave it. Are you really going to take him to task for such a noble gesture? What is really annoying is that you suggest he’s forcing you to appreciate him. That is just disingenuous.
3) Privilege isn’t a shield.
He isn’t creating privilege as a shield! He is challenging his own privilege, and those of other straight men, by rapping about it! Do you really think he’s leveraging his fame to defend himself against criticism? Of what? Defending you? Now you’re just starting to sound like a paranoid conspiracy theorist.
4) He’s white
And? I understand some black people might not identify with his music, but surely we cannot ignore the black people who do identify with it, or invalidate the content of his argument on the basis of his race alone.
5) He’s a man
So, what? He is trying to dismantle gender roles based on sexual orientation. Isn’t that one of the most gender-subversive things a man (or anybody) can do? He is unusual among men for that reason, and that does deserve appreciation.
6) He’s exploitative.
How? He has leveraged his fame to advocate for gay rights. How is that exploitative? It can only be beneficial to the gay rights movement. He could donate to a gay charity, but that wouldn’t have the same visible impact. The mainstreaming of gay rights does require some commercialisation. It really isn’t a big deal.
7) You have to look at the context.
What context? These are Macklemore’s lyrics. What else are you looking for? A swastika? We are being challenged on so many sides, and occasionally a beam of supportive light shines in through a grand lunette window. It is a ray of hope, and it is from a privileged person. That is our context. How can it hurt, then, to accept the help of an ally??
8) He can’t speak for us queer people.
He can’t? What would you rather he do? Stand on the sidelines and let Pat Robertson take over? Or outright oppose you like Pat Robertson? That is just ridiculous. No, you don’t have to know exactly what it’s like to be queer in order to support queer rights, and, yes, the majority can speak for the minority–out of basic human empathy, compassion, and solid ethical reasoning.
9) I’m just going to couch the terms of my argument in newfangled rhetoric.
This is perhaps the most intellectually disingenuous and disrespectful attitude I have encountered. I don’t know if it is rooted in some queer radical movement or what, but it has no business in honest dialectic. Underprivileged. What does that mean? That you can get away with saying anything you want, regardless of the illogic of your argument, just because you happen to belong to a so-called ‘underprivileged’ group? Because it doesn’t. You still need to abide by the laws of reason and open, honest debate. The fact that you may be less privileged than a member of another group does not automatically make your argument valid. It is just as likely that you are leveraging your own status as ‘underprivileged’ to bitch about people who are actually trying to help you. Which makes no sense.
It is perfectly possible for underprivileged people to begin to assume the position of the privileged by taking their current position for granted (French Revolution).
The point is this: yes, LGBT people are underprivileged. However, being underprivileged does not protect you from being a total, complete asshole. The fact is we do need allies, and we start to look like real shitheads when we refuse to acknowledge our allies’ hard work to redress the crimes of the past. As Arielle Scarcella says in her video above, allies are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. Personally, I am shit-holy grateful as an effeminate gay man. I will be damned if I don’t show my allies the gratitude they deserve. If you don’t like that, so be it—but keep in mind, we are not so privileged as you may think.
Oh, and during the Grammy Awards ceremony, Queen Latifah herself performed a mass wedding ceremony for both gay and straight couples, so what the fuck are you motherfuckers complaining about? Hm?
For those of you who don’t know, the ‘Fade to Grey’ song that all of you know was by Visage. Bonus points to those of you who can match Steve Strange with the image in the banner above.
advantage over women. That Chloie may have felt herself emotionally, and very conscientiously, to be a woman in her heart, and that she ultimately underwent the legal and other surgical procedures to carry that out, cannot change that reality. Further, the timing of her sex reassignment surgery (and any subsequent hormone therapy) does not change this discussion.
that he shouldn’t compete with cis men just because he had been born with a vagina?
brandon arkell 