Talk dirty to me...embracing your naughty & nasty in a post-Weinstein world
Two things popped up on my radar this morning that made me think about writing this little piece. It's more of a "thinking out loud" moment and "question to the universe at large", than a full-on opinion piece. I'll come back to this in more detail another time I think, I just wanted to get in down on paper while it was at the tips of my typing fingers, and see if anyone else has something to say on what's proving to be a tricky issue...
Sex and Sensuality in Troubling Times. What the hell is going on?
So, this was how it happened: this morning, I was watching Psalm Isadora videos on "the You Tube", and an ad for Fifty Shades Freed popped up. Urrrrrrrgh.
For those not in the know, Fifty Shades Freed (FSF) is.... #justkidding. Everyone knows FSF it's a simply steaming pile of consumerist pretend BDSM misogynistic bullsh*t. There is naught about this that is sexually empowering for women or enlightening for men (don't even start me with the proliferation of Christian wanna-be's on Tinder - that is a separate article for some other time). FSF is trite, it's boring and it's the antithesis of any BDSM community that I know of. It's yawn worthy and horrifying at the same time - how DO they do it?
As one reviewer, TK from www.pajiba.com (link below) described it; the sex scenes are like a tyre fire at the robot handjob factory". HA!! If you do one thing today, and one thing only, read this person's review. Genuinely the best review, of anything, I have ever read. Scream laughter for days.
Now, for those not in the know about Psalm Isadora, the person I mentioned right before I went on to lampoon the living daylights out of Fifty Shades of Noone F*cking Cares, I was about to explain who this extraordinary woman, Psalm Isadora, is.
She is/was a tantrika (a female tantric practitioner), a sex expert, sexual empowerment "guru" and recently sadly a fatal victim of self-harm. She took her own life about a year ago, but her work lives on through the magic of the internet, and I frequently find myself watching her, spellbound. Perhaps all the more so in light of the ferocity and fragility that when combined became too much for her to bear.
She is a fierce warrior for owning your sexuality and sensuality, for both men and women, she espouses sexual healing of trauma, and I really value her teachings (I will write more about her another time BUT I have linked my favourite clip below). She's like the Nigella Lawson of the sexual learning world, hot and smart, and you know, I am totally down with that.
And so, here they sat, these two pieces of mainstream media, a metaphoric Weinstein vs Byrne, beautifully juxtaposed against a backdrop of intense sexual tension (not the good kind either) hanging in the air like a dark raincloud, ready to drench us all at a moment's notice.
I began to think about how these two ideas of sexuality fit together in a sort of ironic way, sort of sordid snapshot of Western sexual society today. Women as objects of men's sexual rage, misguided masculine power and general misogyny as exemplified in FSF, and also women as fully engaged, embodied and enraged sexual beings in their own right in Psalm's teachings. Swinging the sexual sword and claiming their sensual power for themselves in ancient rites of passage as old as time.
But where oh where, I wondered, is the middle ground? Where is the safety so needed in moderation? Where the spaces for the average woman not all revved up with somewhere to go? Yes, I am a sexually empowered woman, yes I love sex, and yes I am comfortable in my sensuality (now), but truthfully, I no longer display my overt sexuality because it feels uncomfortable and unwanted. Not just by men, women are often the worst offenders in rejecting their enhanced versions of their own kind. Like my sexuality when outwardly expressed somehow unwittingly became a statement of defiance against the patriarchy/matriarchy rather an expression of how I was feeling on the day. Like it has to have agenda or it's not worthy of taking up space.
What happened to being sexy or sensual just because you felt like it? When did my body become a billboard for a cause greater than myself? And that's just me, my individual concerns and opinions, now pile in a whole bunch of other confused women with differing views/ethnicities/religious beliefs, like a couple of billion of them, and then what? CHAOS! That's what. Unreserved chaos with people shouting their views willy-nilly into the internet ether making it impossible to hear anything clearly.
I feel at the moment like we have only two disparate narratives to choose from in Western society, each with their own set of serious problems. Victim OR abuser. Masculine OR feminine. Empowered OR enslaved. Enraged or disenfranchised. It's all about polarity right now. What if we are both? What if we are neither? What if we are something else entirely.
Then comes the added complexity of where do men fit into this puzzle? I am absolutely confident they are equally as confused as the rest of us girls. Right now, they too are polarised at every turn. They are either abusers or silent bystanders. Misogynists or emasculated. Sexist or feminist. Dining on feminine misery or a feminist's dinner. The labels are endless right now, and I am sick of it. Worse yet, on reflection, I have done my fair share of slapping them on people, fairly and unfairly, yet for my contribution to the carnage, I am sorry. I feel that hearing the heartbeat of the actual problem is needed now more than endless shouting into nothingness.
I don't have answers, I don't even know if there are any right now. What I do have, and what I would like to start with, is a willingness to listen. To anyone who has something to say. So, let's start a dialogue. Men and women together. It's the only way we are going to wade through this sexual mess. For just like lovers, we cannot make love alone.
To be continued....
Link for hilarious FSF review: http://www.pajiba.com/film_reviews/movie-review-50-shades-freed-is-an-ignorant-poisonous-antifeminist-hate-anthem.php#.Wn3sz5LXHi0.facebook