#we will never escape the cultural concept of biological sex

[tom-bombadil-is-transgender]

One of my current greatest pet peeves with the sci-fi genre is how 99 times out of 100 if a book is marketed as fucking around with gender it's literally just presenting an alien species that has a common third sex or whose life cycles involves switching sexes at some point. Like you read enough of these and it really begins to feel like these authors are imagining a world where trans people are validated by our cultural idea of biological sex and then calling that progressive and diverse. I'm so fucking sick of having to accept that this is what is thought of as queering the gender binary or whatever the fuck when like. Le Guin did this over 50 years ago. Can we stop acting like it's revolutionary. Can we move on and maybe even explore characters who are actually transgender in a meaningful way. By all means do cool things with aliens but don't act like trans people are supposed to bow down and thank you for saying what if transgender was real.

[whereserpentswalk]

Choose a slightly diffrent version of our world to escape to

Weather you're transferring yourself to another dimension or you’re retroactively changing our world is a matter of perspective. Either way, only you will remember the change, and all your loved ones will still exist with as minimal a change to everyone's lives as possible. Transplaner security does not allow the finer details of this process to be understood by mortals.

1- ritual magic and deities are scientifically proven to exist. The exact details on it all are still ambiguous but people know for a fact that these things work and are true. Religious conflict is down, and it's a fact that there's something out there to answer your prayers.

2- the earth is flat and infinite. The seven continents we know are lit by the sun (which is small and goes out at night) which rotates over the equator (the north pole is the center of this map projection). But there are other suns beyond Antarctica, and 21st century civilization is working to contact these other continents. We will never be done expanding our trades routes and exploring for better or for worse.

3- dragons exist. They split off from a difftent fish than other land vertebrates hence the six limbs. There are all different kinds of dragons, living throughout the world. There's nothing magical about them, they just exist.

4- the six continents we know of with humans are just six islands in a vast ocean. Most of human history is the same or similar, just much higher density, thought the same cultures and civilizations developed. Because the population is the same human territory is a single massive city, using unquine technology to harvest food. What exists on the rest of the earth is just starting to be known.

5- necromancers exist as a valid field of art and science. Zombies, ghosts, vampires, liches, shades and other such creatures all exist as functioning members of society. Everyone accepts this as good and normal.

6- humans are capable of using willpower to change their physical sex after completing puberty. The process takes about six months to complete, and is mostly painless. Alongside swapping your sex it's also possible to mix and match traits or completely get rid of the traits of either sex. There is stigma around this, but it's slowly gaining more acceptance as time goes on. Body type and eye color can also be changed similarly, and how old you look is somewhat fluid based on your desires.

7- every rocky planet in our solar system and most large moons have sentient life. We are slowly making further and further contact with those civilizations.

8- the world is slightly more progressive on basically every issue. It's far from perfect but our world looks like an exacerbated parody of their world's political and social problems.

9- humans don't make contact when they mate, like fish or scorpians. Nobody has sex or desires sex in any way, and human bodies have a lot less sexual dimorphism. Gender is more fluid, sexual assault and harassment can't happen, and physical affection is way more common.

10- humans live longer (the oldest people are in their 900s) and resist illness much better. They have stronger mote athletic bodies, and have appearances that resemble closer what they individually think is pretty. They also need to sleep a lot less and have higher pain tolerance.

11- gender as a concept doesn't exist. People are biologically the same, they just don't have any social construct of male and female. People generally dress similarly to what we'd consider masculine, and he is the default pronoun, but feminine things aren't rejected, or even categorized as feminine. Relationships also aren't considered platonic romantic or family, people are just close to eachother and there's no special word for certain kind of close relationship that's different from others in a socially enforced way.

12- there's a whole new complex set of social constructs that didn't exist in the world you know. This is bad mabye.

Reblog to begin the transportation. Like to awake one of your freinds to the reality of the changes.

[hellomynameisbisexual]

Bisexual Basics

— Karin Baker

THE MOST BASIC thing about bisexuality is that it unlinks what most cultures see as a fundamental connection: sex and gender. If you can understand that for some people sexual attraction is not tied to a specific gender, then you understand the most important thing about bisexuality.

At least in the United States, separating sexuality and gender is difficult. While public attention—negative and positive—has recently been focused on homosexuality, the idea that it is not the only alternative to heterosexuality is less often recognized. This is not surprising, given that here as in most western cultures, there is a tendency to organize concepts dualistically, to see only opposites.

Heterosexuality and homosexuality as related ideas are one example. Thus, even while homosexuality is not an acceptable alternative to heterosexuality for many people, it is clearly fixed in their minds as the other option. Few conceive that there could be a third option, or even a continuum of possibilities.

This or That

Bisexuals sometimes refer to society’s tendency to dichotomize as an “either/or” approach. You must be attracted to either women or men, be either heterosexual or homosexual—what bisexuals sometimes lump together and call “monosexual.” Similarly, in our society, no matter what your actual racial background, you are seen as either white, or a person of color.

In contrast, some of us see bisexuals as having an approach to sexuality that could be called “both/and.” We are heterosexual and homosexual, both at the same time—which actually adds up to something completely different.

The woman whose parents are respectively white and African American is not racially or culturally half one and half the other. She is a blending of the two, in which neither aspect can be separated out. Similarly, bisexuals are not “part” queer, or “part” straight—we are what we are.

The Continuum of Sexuality

Maybe the idea that sexual attraction actually falls on a continuum, rather than clumping around homosexuality and heterosexuality, seems obvious. As a bisexual person, it is certainly obvious to me. However, I have come to realize that some are confounded by the idea.

This inability to imagine that someone could truly be attracted to more than one gender is probably the origin of myths such as “bisexuals don’t really exist,” and “bisexuals just haven’t made up their minds yet.” For some, sex means desire for women or men, but never both.

In a recent example, a bisexual friend of mine overheard a conversation between a lesbian and a gay man in which both commented on how confused bisexuals were. One of them said, “sooner or later bisexuals have to make up their minds!”

I wish I’d been there to ask them, why? Can you explain the basis for your reasoning? Why can’t we have already made up our minds—to be bisexual?

It seems to be hard to escape the assumption that there are only two choices, and everyone must ultimately settle for one of them. I have never heard a logical argument, or any biological law that explains why this choice is so unavoidable.

I have an easier time with this when I think about how hard it is for me to grasp attraction to one gender only, whether gay/lesbian or straight attraction. Because sexuality and gender aren’t linked for me, I’m surprised when I hear about people who are only attracted to women, or only attracted to men.

As a feminist I can understand why some women would choose not to be with men. I can also see that a person might want something in a sexual relationship that is more typically found with one gender or the other. But how could one gender always fall outside the boundaries of sexual possibility?

I believe that it happens, because people tell me that it’s true for them. It’s just extremely hard to imagine.

In fact, we bisexuals have a tendency (which I resist in myself) to think that all people are potentially bisexual. If they haven’t acted on it yet, monosexuals must either be repressed, or they just haven’t found the “right man”/“right woman” yet.

I suppose this is the bisexual equivalent of the monosexual perception that bisexuals are just going through a phase and haven’t made up our minds yet.

Gender in Bisexual Attraction

Although gender is not a limiting factor for bisexuals, it does sometimes play a role in bisexual attraction.

Some bisexuals that I know are attracted to women and men for gender-specific reasons. For instance, they like women because they see them as: easy to talk to, or nurturing, or soft and curvy; and they like men because they find them: straightforward, or more assertive, or hard and muscular (or some such gendered reasons).

So in this case, gender is part of the formula, but not a limiting factor.

Other bisexuals I have spoken with are also attracted to women and men differently, but they turn the previous specifications upside down. These bis say they find they like butch women and effeminate men. In a way this comes down to appreciating people to the extent that they escape genderedness.

But there are also many bis, such as myself, for whom gender has no place in the list of things that attract them to a person. For instance, I like people who are good listeners, who understand me and have interests similar to mine, and I am attracted to people with a little padding here and there, who have fair skin and dark hair (although I’m pretty flexible when it comes to looks).

“Male” or “female” are not anywhere to be found in the list of qualities I find attractive.

Monosexual Misconceptions

Bisexuals in the United States often experience hostility from lesbians and gay men, as in the incident described above. Lesbians and gay men, like heterosexuals, are often uncomfortable with breaking out of a dualistic way of looking at things.

Bisexuals blur boundaries thought to be fixed in stone, and this is disturbing.

Actually, bisexuals may appear to pose a more direct threat for lesbians and gay men than this general social disturbance. Lesbians and gay men who a in our society have almost always gone through a long process of leaving their family and heterosexual friends, as they leave the closet.

The community that rejected them is replaced by the one they join when they come out; the lesbian and gay community becomes their new family and friends, the place where they feel security and belonging.

Bisexuals who pop up in their new community blur its boundaries, making it feel less safe, less apart from the rejecting heterosexual community. Especially for those who believe that a bisexual has a fifty-fifty chance of finally choosing heterosexuality, a bisexual may well appear as the enemy within their midst.

Bisexuals often face misconceptions shared by lesbians, gay men, and heterosexual people. One of these is mentioned above: that bisexuals are confused people who havent made up their minds yet.

Undoubtedly some bisexuals are in a transitional phase between heterosexuality and homosexuality, but this is not necessarily so. And even when it is true, why should transition be seen as problematic?

Another common myth is that bisexuals are not committed to the struggle against queer oppression. Like many stereotypes, this may have some basis in reality. There are bisexuals who stay in the closet, who gravitate toward opposite gender relationships, marriage, and whatever else it takes to fit in.

Of course, many gay men and lesbians also never make it out of the closet. In fact, the lesbian and gay movement has always included bisexuals. Some have been openly bi, while others haven’t felt it worth the struggle to be open in the face of disapproval from the community that is so important to them.

Today, some bisexuals, like some gay men and lesbians, are not interested in getting involved in political struggle, but many others are very active within the queer community.

Another misconception is the idea that to be bisexual you must be sleeping with both women and men, and along with this, probably cheating on your partner. This is like saying that you cannot call yourself a lesbian (or gay, or straight) if you are single and celibate.

I believe that you’re bisexual (homosexual, heterosexual) if that’s what you call yourself. Your orientation stays the same, you still feel attraction, whatever your current actions.

Now it’s true, there are bisexuals who feel more fulfilled if they have relationships with a woman and a man. Some of these may have an agreement with their partner(s), and some not, but bisexuals are not the only sexual orientation where unorthodox relationships can be found, or where some cheat on their partners.

Bisexual Oppression?

A lesbian once told me that bisexuals experience oppression only to the extent that we “are homosexual.” She used this as an argument for leaving the name “bisexual” off titles of marches, community centers, newspapers, etc.

Who is included in group names has been a controversy for years (going back at least to the time when including the word “lesbian” was controversial because “gay” could supposedly count for both).

I don’t agree that bisexuals face only homosexual oppression. It’s true that when we are in same-sex relationships, one of the things we experience is heterosexism (and also, in our opposite sex relationships we do not as directly face the oppression gay men and lesbians face, although if we are openly bisexual we never completely escape heterosexism).

However, bisexuals confront forms of oppression that lesbians and gay men do not. Bisexual oppression includes compulsory monosexuality and the invisibility that is a result of monosexism. We are made invisible when people can’t conceive of sexual attraction that isn’t tied to one gender or the other, thereby denying our existence.

Even face to face, there is nothing about us that says we’re bisexual—if we’re with the same gender it’s assumed we’re lesbian/gay, and we must be straight if our partner is of the opposite gender.

Unless we happen to be holding hands and kissing a woman and a man simultaneously, an either/or way of seeing things means most people will automatically categorize us as either homosexual or heterosexual. This is monosexism at work.

In recent years some things have changed for bisexuals in the United States. We have started to find each other and form organizations and small communities. Conferences happen regularly in different parts of the country, and a national network exists.

Books about bisexuals multiply, as we tell our stories and develop theories about how we fit in. Much to the discomfort of some lesbians and gay men, we have been increasing the pressure to have our presence within the queer community acknowledged.

It seems inevitable that we will have an impact on how the people of this country view sexuality. Will this go further and affect the fundamental tendency toward dualistic categorizing, the either/or mindset?

[bookfreaky]

LOVE DOING - The Analysis

Intro:

I try to never analyse my work while still working on it, because I believe that the painting must be born from an image in your head, or a feeling, and not from a concrete idea. That is the foundation of abstractionism. Then when you’re finished and you are kind of star-gazing your own work, you try to find what made you create all that, what made you use that colour or this shape. I did that and I saw that all the dots were connected in the same theme: Love.  

Love as a broad concept and my experience with that. I think love is a very liquid sentiment, like water, it takes the shape of its every container you put it, but pretty much it’s still love. That same impulse is there. It can be like water also in the way it reflects the sun light, how it changes colours and distorts shapes. Love can be illusory; it can be lysergic but it can also be the answer to many simple questions in life. In its gas form it can be contagious and performative as it inhabits imagination, but it can also become solid when under pressure, just like water becomes ice under high pressures. In difficult situations, the love you feel for that person may be the only thing that keeps you going. I experienced that, and I think many people did too with so many people getting ill and dying during the Covid pandemic.

Like water it nurtures, like water it drowns. Love can be represented as a substance, like it just did, but also it persists as an action, an abstract action at so, an actual verb. In abstractionism, it’s to be said that colour is verb while shape is noun (I won’t remember to said that), for that reason I focused in this collection mainly in two colours in their variations, red and blue. Without the political branding aesthetic, red is seen in psychoanalysis as a active colour, the colour of human blood. Blue could be described as a “calmer” colour, but not so lacking in action. As Rebecca Solnit said, I quote:

“Water is colourless, shallow water appears to be the colour of whatever lies underneath it, but deep water is full of this scattered light, the purer the water the deeper the blue. The sky is blue for the same reason, but the blue at the horizon, the blue of land that seems to be dissolving into the sky, is a deeper, dreamier, melancholy blue, the blue at the farthest reaches of the places where you see for miles, the blue of distance.”

So I dedicate this four paintings to the people I love and whomever loves things, but also to all the feelings that come about with love. Some of these paintings are capable of calming me and I could keep looking at them for hours, forgetting about myself. Others make me feel angsty, uncomfortable and looking at them oblige me to think about my own existence and fear my future.

I really hope you look at the paintings before you read the whole thing, and suffer through the same. Thank you.  

Love Escaping Into the Blue:

This one was the first painting I made, before I imagined it to be a collection, and it was born from the experience of decompressing love from a place of deep passion; where you are taken by this sudden and enormous sadness but also relief. I felt free, really. I read this biology paper from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, called “Light in the Deep Sea”, and it explains that there’s some uniformity of colour in the ocean animals according to how deep in the water they inhabit. Animals living in the great depths of the sea, between 6,000 and 11,000 meters deep, have commonly a very vivid red colour, but closer to the surface of the water, between 200 and 1,000 meters deep, most animals are silver and grey. That’s because in this depth the brightness of sunlight is fragmented into a blue colour, and grey reflects the blue light creating the illusion that the animal is, in fact, blue. A Blue Whale is actually grey, not blue.

[Seadevil Fish (Cryptosaras couesii), left. Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus), right.]

The painting shows a leak of red coming into blue and bluer space, which is this feeling of infatuation and selfish desire, possession, fear and jealousy that is very red in colour and has connotations of violence and anger, moving into a place that is not so deep in the water but clearer and wider as the open sea, illuminated by this navy-blue light. It’s like you can finally breathe and see that your love is still there, but it has changed. In hope by being closer to the atmosphere it is also somehow closer to the divine. I imagine some people might feel lost when love escapes into the blue, and I get this sensation too, but it’s about loving freely, learning how not to feel love so deeply into ourselves, but widely like the ocean.

Love Growing in the Pit of the Stomach: 

When I looked at this painting in particular after it was done, I had this sensation of angst that was difficult for me to name. It’s about desire, it’s about this feeling growing inside of you that you know it will be something more than what you want, but what you need. I’ve become obsessed with the image of holes, looking like they are piercing the canvas; I think they show this emptiness I feel, like a window showing how hollow I am inside, but also, they give me this satisfying feeling by looking at them, like opening a wound and poking a bubble. I think this emptiness comes from the idea most trans women cannot take away from the back of their heads, which is if you do or do not have a “female genitalia”. Gender in our culture is very centred around genitals and biological sex, for centuries being a woman has been defined by the person who’s able to carry a man’s child. There is this little fantasy of mine where women have this little hole in them that can swallow the world. The idea of it, for me, has grown into a very real desire very much like the desire for sex. Actually, very close to sex too. But the roots growing out of the hole, in green and blue, represent pain and fear, because I’m not sure if I’m okay with the idea of having to undergo a surgical procedure to fulfil this fantasy, neither I am sure if it is a fantasy or a need.

Most of my work resembles yonic shapes (resembling the form of a vulva), either in this work or in former ones, and it’s never intentional, it sort of just slips from my subconscious. I believe that the vulva, as well as the womb, are under-shadowed symbols of power. Phallic shapes are very common in art and what-not, they are usually associated with offense and aggression. Like when school boys draw a dick on the toilet stalls as if marking their territory. The vulva, however, is never quite portrayed like that.

I read about this Japanese visual artist, Megumi Igarashi, who made several pieces of art shaped after her own vagina, including a yellow vagina-boat (which I absolutely loved) and she got arrested and fined for “obscenity”. I think that for her subversive art-form she should be considered a national hero. Many man-made constructions are phallic images, look at the Washington Obelisk, or the Eiffel Tower, but in nature we most commonly find yonic shapes, like the Grand Canyon.

There is a profound violence in desiring this, feeling as if a part of your own anatomy is lacking, but you can’t grow it naturally, you can’t do it in a god-intended way. The bright red colour represents violence and sex, and in this case both. It’s way more complicated than the concept of having kids and being a mom, it’s a lot more than to be seen as sexual beings, and sexuality, and to feel loved; it’s about symbols of power and somehow getting that denied. It’s about learning how to love this new body, a body that is foreign, infertile, obscene and unconventional. That love is hard to achieve and it is violent because women, and especially trans women, have been taught to hate their bodies.  

Love Falls In The Bathroom:

This one took the longest to finish and left me with the most unsure brush-strokes, much perhaps because it isn’t based off on an idea but on a memory, on dream. In three more years I’ll be the same age my mother had and she had me, 29 years old. Somehow it feels like a looming date. Having kids and getting pregnant, specifically, have been sporadic subjects of therapy sessions – the antithesis is always the same: you are not lesser of a woman for not being able to get pregnant, you can still be a mom through other means, you are not even sure if you want kids or marriage, you can always adopt – Those answers feel reasonable, but none of them ever could appease the deep feeling of something missing in me, like something is perpetually wrong with me. Then I understood that in this painting, I was trying to evoke these feelings. Love and grief.

[My mother, pregnant with me, in the 90s.] 

My friends tell me I seem to be older than I actually am, and sometimes I wonder if that’s not because I had never been a happy child. I feel like I had my childhood robbed from me. I mean, I had an okay, comfortable childhood, and a problematic teenage-hood, but I never had a girlhood. I am still grieving it. I had been assigned male at birth, I’m still grieving that too.

In July of this year, I experienced a very vivid dream, in which although short all the images and the sensations were, felt very real. I was taking a shower in my bathroom, I close off the water, wrap myself around a towel, my usual pink one, and when I’m stepping out of the shower stall I fell. I hit my right elbow against the toilet lid as I fell with my legs open in opposite directions, a sharp pain struck me under my thighs, close to my groin, and a light string of blood followed right after that. It wasn’t menstruation blood, thin and clear red, but thick and dark. It was all very quick but I knew, right then, right there, exactly everything that was happening. I was pregnant, 13 weeks, alone in the bathroom floor, surrounded by blood. I wonder how many days of my recent life, how many hours a day, I am really just sitting down alone on my bathroom’s floor surrounded by blood. I woke up and it still felt very real. I had spent the next two days very quiet, not wanting to speak to anyone. I wanted to tell someone as soon as I was back from the dream, but I couldn’t do it. I wanted to call someone, a friend, anyone, and say “I lost it. I lost my baby”. I realised then, in that post-dreamy state, that I have been silently grieving for a lot of things, things I haven’t yet allowed myself to grieve for. Things I still did not have a chance.

Love Lost In Imagination:

This one is the only one what doesn’t forecast red and blue colours, but instead in red and blue paint mixed together in a royal purple colour. It was the last one I made, and it’s the one that differs the most in shape. I like to imagine it was love in it’s gas form, vaping inside your brain like Nitrous-oxide, with white-coloured cloud shapes and yellow peacock eye-feathers. It’s about how sometimes love can only exist in imagination, how we often elaborate better scenarios in our heads, and we think “what if things were different?”. I believe to be okay to fantasize, anyway the utopia is what moves us towards a reality, but sometimes we can get lost in imagination, and in questioning the same questions over and over. “What if I hadn’t done this and done that?”; “What if I hadn’t said no?”; “What if I had stayed longer to watch that movie?”; “What if had come out as trans earlier?”; “What if I had become a professional writer?”; “What if I had born a woman?”. Is love real if it perpetrates only in thought?

I would be more than happy to quote some of Saint Augustine here, and his theological virtues, love being one of them, but I wouldn’t like to make this essay even longer and complicated.

I think to myself sometimes, when was it that I started to prefer having peace then pleasure. My head has always been very noisy, very noisy, and I wanted it to stop. Now it feels like I’m constantly too quiet about everything. That somehow, like the Little Mermaid by Hans Christensen Andersen, when transitioning into a woman I exchanged my legs (my body) for my voice, and now I can’t voice or even pinpoint what I want. I’m just so tired. So, so tired. My mental health hasn’t been great for more than one year, and the pandemic didn’t help. I’m constantly anxious around people, even the closest ones to me (especially the closest ones to me), I’ve been eating like a bird and sleeping like a cat. Still, sometimes I imagine what future I would like, and I imagine myself living somewhere with open space, trees, breeding horses just like my grandfather did, space for dogs, musical instruments and the kids. Space for being big.

The painting makes me think that sometimes I can only love myself in this imaginary place. Otherwise, it just looks slightly like a chicken’s head. You decide.    

- Original work, G.L. Alódio.

[carlyraejepstein]

potentially upsetting topics: sui, gender dysphoria, abuse and parents, sex

Elliot Page’s coming out rescued an awful day. Its wording is unbelievably powerful, a comment I have made once before and will continue to do so. In it, he so strongly encompasses the fears, the sorrow, the rage, but most importantly the determination and the defiance of not only him but every trans person. I hesitate to use the word “community” because it implies a certain connection that might just not be there; I play a bit of Counter-Strike but I don’t consider myself part of the Counter-Strike community; yet when I read Elliot’s words I feel solidarity, I feel a pull to the trans community that I often don’t feel I pay my dues to, and it feels good, really good. Like I said on Twitter once, other trans people being, existing, living, is just rad. Inspiring, even, despite how that word has been worn out by cis people.

However, there’s a certain something that Elliot didn’t write, for Elliot never wrote “I am a man”; only his name, and pronouns, how he wishes to be referred to. Of course, we cannot possibly know what this omission means or does not mean to Elliot, but it’s something that concurred with a shift in how I perceive my own gender.

I remember first properly ruminating on gender in 2012 or 2013. My understanding was primitive, coming from Wikipedia. Once I knew what transgender or, given the time period, transsexual, the curiosity never really went away. I knew at this point about transition, and I knew about deed polls because of my resentment of my parents, I knew about HRT and I even knew about the GICs. I felt compelled to be an ally in that turbulent period in both my life and in the online culture I immersed myself in from around 2015 to 2017. At this time a friend was going through their own transition and seeing them gave me pause for thought; partly pride, partly worry but a small kernel of imagination, wondering if that could ever be me. It was when I went to sixth form, with its environment permitting greater yet still constrained self expression, that I felt gender dysphoria hit me with its full weight. Thinking, wondering, worrying about being transgender has been the central dialogue of my internal and external monologue ever since. Not a day passes where I don’t think about the dysphoria I feel over my continued closet-dwelling and the malignantly gendered properties of my body. On a January morning in 2019, at my very lowest point, motionless under the covers, I gave myself a choice between transition and death, and I chose transition.

It’s been a complex journey. When I was 13 I shortened my gender neutral name to make it more masc (which I have now happily embraced as my middle name). I leant into the deepening of my voice because I thought it gave me authority, conditioned through the harsh words of people from public Team Fortress 2 servers. I’ve done almost everything under the sun that gets people to say “I’d never have known!” when you come out to them; I worry that I still do and that nothing has changed. I’ve gone and cross-dressed when my parents were out, and I’ve been traumatised by Susan’s Place. I am autistic, no one who has met me can escape that fact; not that I would want to, and as a consequence I am so much more confident in my presence on the internet than I ever have been in the flesh, despite me still not knowing how to make friends; hence I’ve ended up trying to piece my transition together through 4chan (I know, bad) and Reddit and Twitter.

Perhaps the biggest reason I am not out is the time when I decided I would come out to my mother as trans. When we were in Munich we had walked past a pride parade, and when we got back to the apartment I revealed off hand that I was bi. My mother chided me for not telling them before hand since it was “polite” to do so, as if it were not my choice to make because, as I still believe to this day, it’s not a big deal and it’s none of their business. But I decided this time it was important, and that I could trust her. It turns out that just like every other time, trusting my mother is a bad idea that is guaranteed to cause me pain every time I make that mistake. She told me that because she “knows more about [me] than [I] do”, that she thought that I was just straight up wrong, couched it in rhetoric about how she thought that I was too weak to be trans, and quoted the shockingly offensive “autism is extreme male brain” theory to me. It was really devastating at the time and I think it still affects me to this day, especially as she constantly tries to worm her tendrils back into my life after I moved out.

But enough about my mother; she is a fucking flat out abuser. She has emotionally abused me, and undoubtedly my brother, all our lives. I was relieved that my dad chose not to react aggressively as she did, but with a modicum of respect and agreement not to make such a big deal out of it, something I would never expect my mother to match. In the middle of writing this piece I had to decide that I could not do it any longer, and I would never let her back into my life again.

Where that conversation in late 2018 relates to Elliot Page’s statement is my mother’s purported belief that “you don’t have to define yourself as a man or a woman”. Going past the fact that she is lying, since her tolerance for all trans people is thinner than the grey hairs on her head going on the basis that she couldn’t bring herself to say one positive thing to her own daughter that afternoon, it struck me recently that I can more eloquently describe my gender through elimination rather than a label. I am happy to call myself a woman, a trans woman, and I don’t feel as if I really am wavering in or around the binary. But what I can say for definite is that while I have been a boy for almost all my life, and am holding onto that, I am not, and never will be, a man.

Where that leaves me is that I am not a man, but must I be a woman? If I am perhaps not a woman, am I non-binary? No; it doesn’t feel right. However, if I attach just a convenience to the label woman, I can give myself that flexibility in how I feel and how I present myself, and perhaps the biggest example of that is how in recent months I have made peace with my voice. It is not really a femme voice; I hit vocal fry just speaking normally. But I know how to be expressive with it; it is my voice that I have honed over 19 years after all. One day I want to find someone who will help me upgrade my voice (and yes, upgrade) but keeping it means I fulfil one cool thing about being trans, and that is saying fuck you to the very existence of the gender binary. I keep this voice out of necessity, but I’m still trans femme, I am still a woman and I still want my facial hair zapped off.

As well, I reserve the right to say I used to be a boy. Not a man, but a boy. That’s why they call it boymoding, right? How else can I describe the first 17 years of my life? I can be a boy all the same now, although I may be pushing it aged 20, and at the point at which I am really stretching that concept which at this point I am adhering to solely for my safety and comfort, I shouldn’t need to use it anymore. Wishful thinking, of course.

I think we should consider why we use “man” and “woman” in the first place. From my perspective they are simply words to describe people with two different sets of primary and secondary sexual characteristics, convenient because, well, being cis is unavoidably common. But they are not discrete, as we so often have to reiterate using intersex people as an unwilling crutch, where one does not occur in the other they are so often analogous and often they overlap! Supposedly 60% of teenage boys develop further breast tissue, and 40% of women have some form of facial hair. Thinking that the two are discrete gives rise to the idea of “biological sex”, a concept developed by cis people either to misgender trans people in a way they think is philosophically rigorous, or to reconcile their tenuous support for trans people with a continuing belief in the gender binary. Personally I would like to smash the concept of biological sex to bits because it is not useful to us. At the very least it may describe one’s primary sexual characteristics but bottom surgery exists, and I don’t happen to think that it is “mutilation”. I don’t need to argue that “biological sex can be changed”; they are not discrete categories, and I don’t need to move between them, or seek validation for having moved between them. It is not a helpful generalisation for bodies, diverse as they are.

I must add that as a trans woman the fact that I may have a penis doesn’t mean that I use it in the same way as a man. I use mine to pee, primarily, and it’s definitely not going inside anyone except myself any time soon; a whole zine was written about how trans women fuck and use their bits to fuck, so I definitely don’t need to anyway.

Another bullshit concept is “biological destiny” or “biological reality”, although I will give less breath to this one because at it’s core it is fundamentally misogynistic, and it so often is divorced from any sensible definition of reality. It’s like if I had to have my arm amputated and then someone came up to me and said “you’ll always have two arms, you were born with them and you’ll die with them”.

I’ve heard and thought a lot about gender abolition but it seems to me that its proponents expect that like the state, gendered differences will just disappear over time. But I don’t want that to happen. If the binary is done away with I don’t want gender to disappear I want it to flourish! Because gender is beautiful, men are beautiful, women are beautiful, and everyone in between or outwith are beautiful. On the other hand, me and you don’t need to be men, or women, or call ourselves non-binary to be beautiful. Being trans is about cultivating your own beauty and your own identity. When cissiety demands that the only identity and presentation we’re allowed is one that corresponds to what they decided was between our legs when we were born, why give ourselves only one other choice?

I don’t really know how to end this piece because I wrote one half of it one day and the other half a couple of weeks later. At the very least I’m glad I can attribute my peace with not necessarily being a woman but a femme to Elliot Page, and not my rotten bastard mother.

[aion-rsa]

How Lovecraft Country Silences Yahima

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This Lovecraft Country review contains spoilers.

Lovecraft Country is a rapturously violent dramatic horror series where pain and death are par for the course. And while the show delights in depicting wickedness, the violence always feels purposeful. Even with that in mind, however, last week’s episode, “A History of Violence,” makes the disappointing choice to unceremoniously kill Yahima, an indigenous, gender-variant character. 

After an Indiana Jones-esque journey through a booby-trapped tunnel Tic, Leti, and Montrose enter Titus Braithwhite’s underwater vault, a room full of the remains of indigenous people —made apparent by their regalia—  and a corpse holding Titus’ pages from the Book of Adam. When Montrose attempts to grasp the pages, the corpse reanimates. The camera lingers on the naked figure, and Montrose asks “what are you?” The recently-reanimated individual introduces themselves as Yahima, “Woman—and man, two-spirit. Neither. Both. All”

Yahima is an Arawak, the indigenous ancestors of modern-day Taino people. They’re from Guyana —”the land of many waters”— a country in the Carribean region of South America. They are Two-Spirit, which is an exclusive Indigenous-American umbrella term —like LGBTQ— for a unique gender identity that encompasses gay, lesbian, nonbinary, intersex, transgender, and other queer or gender-nonconforming identities. (Two-spirit as a term was coined in 1990, so Yahima would not use it as an identifier.) Physically, Yahima presents as intersex, a person who is born with a combination of male and female biological traits. They may also read as trans. As such they represent both the native community and the gender-variant one.

European colonization and Christian indoctrination reconceptualized the definitions and functions of gender and sex in indigenous communities in the Americas and around the world. Still, many native tribes recognize a Third Gender, while some acknowledge as many as five genders or more. The Navajo, for example, have four distinct genders. More traditional tribes reject the term Two-Spirit as it reinforces the binary of “male” and “female” which is thought to be a Western construct. Gender and sex are complex concepts, but the Two-Spirit identity and the spiritual/gender identities it encompasses, is rich with native cultural significance.

The inclusion of an indigenous character and an intersex character in a high profile show is momentous because those identities are grossly underrepresented. It should be noted that the actress portraying Yahima, Monique Candelaria, is a cisgender woman, who uses she/her pronouns, and describes herself as ”ethnically mixed with Spanish, French, Aztec and Apache Indian.” Characters who occupy very specific cultural identities should be played by performers who share those identities, especially when there are so few opportunities for gender-nonconforming roles. But the inclusion itself is creditable.

Tic is magically able to understand Yahima —who speaks Lokono, an Arawak language— and we learn Yahima’s story through Tic’s interpretation, instead of directly from Yahima through use of subtitles. We learn that Titus Braithwhite came to their land looking for people to translate the Book of Adam. Yahima recognized the symbols from the caves of Alomun Kundi, and with no reason to distrust Titus, agreed to decipher the pages. When they saw Titus for what he was, they refused to continue their translation. Titus murdered their entire family, then imprisoned them in a grave. Yahima used the pages to protect themself.

Yahima tells Tic,“You are not guilty of your forefather’s sins, But I do not know your spirit. I will not help you.” So Montrose grabs for the scroll, again, this time triggering the vault to flood. Montrose and Leti make way toward the elevator, but Tic pauses to save Yahima, even amidst Yahima’s refusal to help decipher the pages. As the elevator ascends, Yahima attempts to speak, but instead unleashes a piercing scream. They are made into a siren, so they cannot speak if they escape Titus’ vault, which effectively silences them. Later, after Montrose has failed to sabotage Tic by losing the scroll, he takes away Tic’s only chance to decipher the pages by slitting Yahima’s throat. This is an egregious act of violence on an indigenous, gender-variant person by a Black, queer-coded man.

In the episode we see Titus’ literal history of violence in both his public trophies of conquest on display at the museum, and his private collection of stolen legacy locked away in his vault. The episode speaks to the lasting harm of colonialism and the specific violence visited upon the indigenous communities whose land, resources, people, and cultures were systematically stripped from them. Through Yahima, that violence could be confronted in a way that empowers indigenous and/or gender-variant viewers, the way Black viewers are empowered when Tic collapses a house on a group of racist white men. Yahima has survived for centuries, and may well be able to survive this. But unless and until that possibility is realized, we have to sit with the gratuitous murder of a potentially groudbreaking native, gender-variant character.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Gender nonconforming people —and intersex, trans, androgynous, two-spirit people— are some of the most vulnerable of the population, especially if they are BIPOC. Depictions of gender variant people in entertainment media often otherizes them, and their stories frequently comprise of violence, and end in death. Introducing Yahima only to immediately kill them off in a brutal, callous way perpetuates this tired and harmful trope and normalizes violence against these groups. It also deprives underrepresented people the ability to be reflected, and respected, in the stories they consume.

Lovecraft Country gives its Black characters the tools to fight their demons and their oppressors, and it works so well because it punches up. Black characters visiting the same violence on other marginalized folks that their oppressors visit on them is not empowerment. “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” — Audre Lorde

The post How Lovecraft Country Silences Yahima appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[blog-of-a-multitude-of-fandoms]

Randomly something about the world will just piss me off and I feel like I need a mini rant about it. Today this is sex positivity and sex education.

A little backstory, I grew up in a small English town that although my primary and secondary schools were not religious, they were heavily biased by Protestant Christianity. (This is going to be shitting on religion, just to let you know the bias of the education, specifically sex education)

We had some form of sex education from probably the age of seven or eight, discussing relationships, biology and the like. Throughout primary school it was a focus on learning the mechanics and science behind it (definitely 100% important but definitely not the only aspect that needs to be taught), learning about puberty and periods and having a lot of diagrams of the Male and female sexual organs. Very little past that was taught, just what puberty is giving you and a vague concept of the fact of penetrative sex along with pregnancy.

Into secondary school, very little beyond this was explored. We were encouraged to believe in sex being the same as gender, and that sexual intercourse was for a man and woman whom had an emotional bond (although sex before marriage wasn’t taught as wrong). We learnt about contraception, heavily focused of abstinence with a light peppering of condoms and the pill with the vague mention of a few others. In discussing contraception we were separated and only the girls learnt about the importance of it and encouraged to carry condoms if they were thinking of having sex as boys were unlikely to do so.

We also learnt of STIs although very little was touched on it other than the only way to be sure to not get one was not having sex and to visit clinics regularly if there are concerns.

Past this we weren’t taught too much. I cannot speak much about what boys learnt other than what friends have told me. All I truly know is for anyone who experienced my sex education, wasn’t given anything remotely useful.

I don’t know how things have changed now but some key things that certainly in secondary school sex education should be included.

Actually being taught by a trained professional whom has extensive knowledge on human biology, sexually transmitted diseases (prevention and treatement) and the social elements that come with such a thing. We were taught by random teachers without additional training past their subject speciality.

The class should not be split. Boys need to learn about periods as much as girls. They may not have to experience them but a lot of people in their lives will. Periods should be normalised and not considered something to fear. I had a male friend go in my bag and find a sanitary towel tin (I’ve never heard of anyone else using one but my mum bought me a little tin to hide a pad in) and when he found out what was inside he threw it, grossed out by it.

Puberty affects people differently but everyone should learn about this, not split by biological sex. Transgender, non-binary and gender dysmorphia should be taught, even if not in a great amount of detail.

Sex shouldn’t be taught as something incorrect. Sex should be taught in a way to explain healthy relationships with it (regardless of if it is within a relationship) and consent should be taught predominantly.

Rape and rape culture should be taught. The quicker it is discouraged, the quicker people realise how wrong it is. There should also be clear information about how to handle if you are or someone else is raped or sexually assaulted, including helplines and information about whom you can talk to for help in the matter.

Contraception should be taught to all in detail along with how to access it as most forms underage people can receive it from clinics or even GPs without parental consent.

Abstinence shouldn’t be taught as the only right way. It can be suggested as an option but certainly not put above all else.

Pregnancy, abortion and adoption. Options should be explained and further information should be given to some form of planned parenthood and whom people can go to to get help if they need it.

Masturbation should be taught as more than a joke pointed towards boys. We were told it was what dirty teenage boys do, when it is really a completely natural thing for men and woman alike.

Sex positivity as a key element. Sex isn’t inherently bad by any means and not having it is as equally valid. Your choice should be what is taught and that having sex in or out of a relationship or not having sex at all are all perfectly fine as long as that is your choice.

LGBT. Learning about different sexualities, the spectrum of them and that not knowing is okay. At such a vulnerable time teenagers should be shown support in exploring their sexuality and knowing whatever they choose along with being uncertain is valid. And simply discussing anything other than heterosexual sex. Along with this, information on help against prosecution to do with sexuality should be given.

Gender vs biological sex. Learning about different genders beyond the binary, giving access to help if needing to discuss such things or to escape prosecution of them along with learning how complex gender and sex are beyond what is noted at birth.

Homophobia and transphobia Discouraging bullying and hatred for people whom are not heterosexual and cis. Discussing that they are things that people have to face but with the correct education on the matters there is no reason to fear or show prejudice to how someone lives their lives as long as they are not harming themselves or others.

Most importantly, opening a discussion and encouraging conversations. Talking about sex is normal and should be welcomed. It shouldn’t be something taboo and we should be able to discuss sex openly when needed or wanted.

I’ve probably missed some vital points but this is just my sleepy haze of annoyance. Please message me if something needs to be added or if you want to have a productive discussion.

[moon--mama]

Themes in 1Q84

Just my thoughts, writing this down for later reflection. Long post, you don’t need to read. Probably some of my ideas won’t even make much sense in this format.

Death - the greatest and final accomplishment of a human being, something that must be honored properly and respected, something that cannot be reversed, something that can be overcome with enough purpose, something that leaves a hole which must be filled or else other things could fall into it.

Love - soulmates and true love exist, there is a separation between physical love and emotional love and probably spiritual love as well, people who are too self absorbed are unable to truly love or appreciate others, love cannot conquer all

Belief - believing in some sort of god no matter how you define it gives life meaning and order and provides a moral compass, fanatical belief and organized religion can be a terrifying and destructive force in the world and in people’s lives, naming something gives it power while divulging all of the secrets can take that power away (without mystery there is no power)

Sexuality - people are not necessarily bianary, sexuality is something that develops beginning in childhood, sex serves a biological purpose and can be viewed as a part of humanity’s natural routine, women often sacrifice themselves to the culture of sex and sexuality (literally being injured or strangled by its demands)

Justice - the forces of karma outweigh any worldly laws established by society, everyone gets what is coming to them, some crimes are forgiven by circumstance

Beauty - even beautiful people have complex problems that don’t reflect on the surface, beauty can be blinding in more ways than one, beauty and intelligence can compliment one another, beauty is dependent on the perspective of the observer, beauty should not define the life of a woman

The NHK collector was the ghost of Tengo’s father, knocking on the doors of Aomame, Ushikawa, and Tengo (perhaps to bring them together? Or pressure them because of their instabilities in terms of their moral conviction?) Tengo was tortured by the past and not knowing the truth of his parentage, while Ushikawa was also tortured by his past and wondering if memories of his former family were real, and Aomame found it difficult to let go of the memories of the women she had loved while being driven forward by her romantic ideas concerning Tengo. At that point in the novel, the Dowager has already lost the anger fueling her quest to avenge her daughter (she’s come to terms with her past) and therefore she receives no ghostly visitor warning her to move on. Tengo’s father has a simple funeral as a message to the characters he visits—reminding them to live their lives, meet their purposes, and cast aside unnecessary baggage.

Koyoko was strangled by her husband. The bathrobe strangler made two appearances in the novel—killing Ayumi, and killing Tengo’s mother. Aomame repeatedly observed that Ayumi’a killer has not been brought to justice. Tengo learns that Koyoko is irretrievably lost to him. He considers this when he receives the photograph of his mother. The reader comes to find out from Ushikawa that Tengo’s mother was strangled to death. Infer: Koyoko was as well. A theme emerges about domestic violence—perhaps that unhealthy or dutiful sexual relationships can consume the lives of women until they are no longer able to interact with others, perhaps dying in a metaphorical sense. The bathrobe killer may not literally be a punishable character, which is why the dowager and Aomame cannot track them down and deal out justice. Are these women dying because they have sexual experiences they are not allowed to have (affairs, bondage)? Leader ultimately dies as well—the only main male character to be punished for having an affair (Aomame’s balding man may or may not die as a result of his affair—he leaves the view of the reader).

Archetypally, the novel mirrors Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland. Since Aomame went down the rabbit hole, the only way to escape was to go back up. She never fired the gun because reality isn’t the same in the rabbit hole, though the taxi driver pointed out in the beginning of the novel that there’s only one reality. Aomame never experiences anything that isn’t REAL, but she experiences several paradigm shifts in the way she perceives the world. That’s why the tiger still isn’t right at the end—she can never go back to the reality she came from. She will always look at the world as if she’s on the other side of the looking glass, even though she has returned in a sense.

The dialogue of the Little People suggests that since they can bend reality within the plot of the novel, they can break the third wall of the novel as well. They are not just participants alongside the characters, they are observing the story alongside the reader. They emerge from dead symbols to weave meaning out of their role in the story. That’s why Ushikawa’s air chrysalis wasn’t completed in the narrative—as he observed in life, there has always been a part of his DNA on the planet, coming from his distant uncle. The plucked hair and sense of urgency just indicates that the Little People (and the reader) understand that he will be reincarnated as a character once again.

He’s almost comically archetypal, described as more of a cartoon villain than a real person. As he wonders whether or not his memories of his wife and daughters are real, and thinks of his stupid dog in his final moments, he still hasn’t come to terms with the concept of his own existence. He even recognizes that he’s too exaggerated to exist. As a character, he’s not believable. His deus ex machina-like conjectures about Aomame and Tengo prove that too—he’s a convenient device for the author, and he helps the readers (and the Little People) see the other characters in a different light. The pieces of his backstory seem fake to him because in a literary sense they are fake—we never encounter this wife or daughters, like seeing a cardboard cutout from a distance. He brings to light an important theme about beauty, which Aomame’s storyline foils—that ugly people have a way of looking at the truth of the world, because they cannot be superficial in the way that the rest of Ushikawa’s family was as he was growing up.

[ommadusk]

On 13 March I received by email details of an investigation into complaints made against me to the Labour Party  here follows the complains and my response which was emailed the week after  as at today’s date, 7 April, I have had no response. There was a piece published on this in The Times today.

I was asked what I thought about the prospect of expulsion from the Labour Party. My response was:

It would tell me that the Labour Party has moved away from identifying and fighting material class-based oppression to championing the rights of the individual and their personal identity. This would position the Labour Party both socially and economically as neoliberal. It would also demonstrate that as well as being incapable of listening to women and taking their concerns seriously, the Party does not care for transsexuals.

I have redacted superfluous and personal information, to that the latter makes any difference as a bunch of transgender men’s sexual rights activists have plastered my home address and other personal details all over the internet anyway  anyway, on with the show…I can confirm the account @TerrorizerMir is my Twitter account;

I can confirm I posted all of the above statements;

I would respond to each as follows:

“Peak transing” is when someone supportive of the ideological transgender movement, realizes their claims and demands are unreasonable, divorced from reality or unjust. This is often because of the way transgender culture defines men and women by sexist stereotypes; justifies physical or sexual violence, particularly against women; and shows unbelievable levels of misogyny. Other incidences provoking that “peak trans” moment would be, for example, “transgender women” (by biological definition, males) occupying political positions set aside to champion the rights of women, who are disadvantaged because they are female.

In the context of the Labour Party this would include such self-described transgender males taking places as Women’s Office in CLPs, taking advantage of all-women shortlists and occupying places on the Jo Cox Leadership program. Apropos Lily Madigan, it should be obvious the presence of a twenty year old misogynist male as women’s officer is inflammatory. I have attached several pages of tweets from Madigan where he described women as ‘TERF’; this is a homophobic, misogynistic and dehumanising slur against women, which has been already used to incite violence against women – as in the Speaker’s Corner assault and the recent picket-line threats against BECTU senior executive committee member Paula Lamont.

Madigan’s claim to womanhood is based upon the unprovable quasi-religious claim he ‘feels he is a woman’. In contrast, he has no material or even social claim to womanhood: his sexed body is male, and he has never experienced the material oppression from being born a member of the female class (see Engels’ ‘The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State’).

I am a transsexual who disagrees with the racist, sexist and homophobic ideology known as ‘transgenderism’, as it threatens to mandate my distinctive identity out of existence. Transgender activists want to obliterate laws which recognize gender reassignment as a protected class. For example, see 2016’s ‘Transgender Equality Enquiry Report’ or the recent leaked NEC statement which seeks to erase the word ‘transsexual’. I encourage everyone to see how toxic this ideology actually is.

The word ‘misogyny’ has been appropriated by transgender activists to claim ‘transmisogyny’ as ‘the intersection of transphobia and misogyny’. However, ‘trans women’ are male and not subject to misogyny. Ironically, some of the most obvious perpetrators of misogyny today are transgender activists themselves, who seek to redefine women into nonexistence and claim womanhood by the appropriation of cultural signifiers. Likewise, these activists have appropriated violence carried out against a high-risk population of minority-ethnic transsexuals in order to falsely claim victimhood and push a political agenda that cannot stand honest scrutiny. It is violent homophobic men who threaten transsexuals, not women and certainly not feminists. A more appropriate definition of transmisogyny would centre on it being used to identify the cultural misogyny of transgender males, like the individual identified in this tweet and the tweet above. The quotes here show Madigan using the misogynistic slur ‘TERF’, and more generally, demonstrate Madigan’s full participation in the misogynist online trans activist community.

As for the play on Madigan’s name, satire is a predictable outcome of one being involved in public life.

Biological sex is an immutable bodily fact, determined at conception. Mammals do not change sex. Madigan identifies himself as a ‘trans woman’ thus is by definition male; he is also over 18 years of age, thus an adult human male, which is the dictionary definition of a man. Further, s212 Equality Act 2010 defines ‘man’ as ‘a male of any age’, thus Madigan is both biologically and legally a man. If saying a male person is ‘a man’ is offensive, the corollary is that there’s something wrong with being a man. This is sexism.

Human beings are sexually dimorphic mammals. We have two sexes, female and male, whose bodies evolved to produce ova and sperm respectively. One definition of “gender” is taken to be sex-coded cultural stereotypes. In a reactionary and conservative way, some on the Left have decided that sexist stereotypes of men and women are important after all, so important that they supplant sex. They have decided to define men and women by those stereotypes. They then defined themselves as “non-binary” to escape the categories they’ve reified with their own ideology of gender. Any reasonable person would say none of us are walking stereotypes of masculinity or femininity; we are all “non-binary”. Adherence to this ‘identity’ is thus a kind of fashion statement:

The individual is neither male nor female, which is unscientific as we do not have a third sex and there is no third gamete after sperm and ova; or

The individual ‘identifies’ as being neither male nor female, which is runs counter to reality as we are all either male or female; or

The individual’s character traits are neither exclusively male nor female. This is clearly absurd as none of us are one-dimensional behavioural stereotypes..

I stand by my words.

Please explain in what way you believe my tweets contravene rule 2.1.8 of the Party’s rulebook.

Moreover, I note this rule mentions both sex and gender reassignment as protected classes. Recognition of “gender identity” beliefs, obliterates both categories.

I regret nothing.

As a transsexual who stands with women, who has a critical analysis of gender as a power hierarchy and who believes passionately in the core values of fighting class oppression, I guarantee I shall be sharing more content like the above.

Within this reply I enclosed a number of screen captures showing Madigan’s use of the misogynistic, homophobic and dehumanising pejorative ‘TERF’.

POSTSCRIPT: RULE 2.1.8

It is worth noting the dramatic change in the Labour Party rules between 2017 and 2018. The new expanded rules appear to make someone’s claims based on the thoughts and feelings of ‘gender identity’ immune from question or criticism. The claim of innate gender identity by genderists is unsupported by science and a rule that makes this claim unassailable is akin to having a rule that others have to share someone’s faith or religions belief, as the statement by a male that’s they are female because of their ‘gender identity’ is itself a statement of blind faith. So much for progress and the material analysis of class oppression.

How Transgender Ideology Is Destroying The Labour Party On 13 March I received by email details of an investigation into complaints made against me to the Labour Party  here follows the complains and my response which was emailed the week after  as at today’s date, 7 April, I have had no response.

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY Former NYPD Captain Dewey Wilson is brought back to the force and assigned to solve a bizarre string of violent murders after high-profile magnate Christopher Van der Veer, his wife and his bodyguard are slain in Battery Park. Executive Security, the private firm employed by Van der Veer, blames the murders on terrorists, but knowing that the victim’s bodyguard was a 300-pound Haitian with voodoo ties makes Wilson skeptical. With pressure to solve the case coming from both the Police Commissioner and the Mayor, Wilson is partnered with criminal psychologist Rebecca Neff.

Elsewhere, in the South Bronx, a homeless man explores an abandoned church that is scheduled to be demolished by Van der Veer’s development company. He is killed by an unseen monstrous being. Wilson and Neff investigate his murder. At the church, apparent sounds of a baby crying lure Neff up to the bell tower. Wilson follows her but does not hear the crying; once Neff is separated from him, he hears a wolf howl. He goes up after Neff and drags her to safety. Later that night, a bridge worker is apparently murdered by the same creature.

Coroner Whittington discovers non-human hairs on several victims and consults a zoologist named Ferguson, who identifies the hairs as belonging to an unknown subspecies of Canis lupus. Ferguson compares wolves to Indians. Inspired, Wilson finds Eddie Holt, a militant Native activist he arrested some years previously, working in construction. While Wilson interrogates Holt on top of the Manhattan Bridge, Holt claims to be a shapeshifter, which implicates him as the killer. Wilson opts to leave Holt alone and tail him that night.

Following animal clues, Ferguson goes to Central Park, where the killer ambushes him in a tunnel. Wilson spends the remainder of his night with Neff where they have sex. The following morning, a man in a jogging suit rides Ferguson’s motorcycle past Wilson as he leaves Neff’s apartment. Whittington and Wilson stake out the church, armed with sniper rifles and sound equipment; after Whittington almost blows his ears out by opening a beer can near a parabolic microphone, an animal that appears to be a wolf kills him. Meanwhile, Executive Security apprehends a “Götterdämmerung” terrorist cell in connection with the Van der Veer slaying.

A traumatized Wilson escapes the church and finds himself at the nearby Wigwam Bar, where Holt and his friends are drinking. The group of Natives reveal the true nature of the killer as “Wolfen”, the wolf spirit. They explain that the Wolfen have extraordinary abilities and “might be gods”. Holt tells Wilson that he cannot fight the Wolfen, stating: “You don’t have the eyes of the hunter, you have the eyes of the dead”. The leader of the group, the Old Indian, informs Wilson that Wolfen kill to protect their hunting ground. Wilson resolves to end his involvement in the Van der Veer case but he, Neff and Wilson’s superior, Warren, are cornered on Wall Street by the Wolfen pack. Warren is decapitated while Wilson and Neff flee.

Wilson and Neff are cornered in Van der Veer’s penthouse by the pack, led by its white alpha male. Wilson smashes the model of the construction project that threatened their hunting ground, trying to communicate that the threat no longer exists and that he and Neff are not enemies. The Wolfen vanish just as the police barge in. Wilson claims the attack was made by terrorists. In a voiceover, Wilson explains that Wolfen will continue preying on weak and isolated members of the human herd as humans do to each other through class conflict. Wolfen will continue being invisible to humanity because of their nature; not that of spirits but predators, who are higher on the food chain than humans. The last scene is Eddie and his friends looking at the city from the bridge.

DEVELOPMENT/PRE-PRODUCTION In adapting The Wolfen, director Michael Wadleigh and co-screenwriter David Eyre decided to expand freely upon Whitley Streiber’s original prose. Streiber’s novel worked well as a “police procedural,” but they felt his storyline needed to become more impassioned for celluloid. And, although the basic plot remains the same, Wadleigh wanted to make his film more “socially relevant.”

“What appealed to me about Wolfen was its underlying allegory about nature,” Wadleigh says. “I wanted to play that up much more in the film. The genesis of the Wolfen’s culture is that when white man first came to America, he came as a farmer. His two basic enemies were the hunting tribes: wolves and Indians. The wolves and Indians were simpatico, and accommodated each other. White farming man wiped them, the forest, and the great American buffalo out. We reduced the wolf population from a high point of two million to fewer than one thousand. What’s fictional in our screenplay is that the wolfen are the product of biological/artificial selection. When we destroyed the original wolf population, only the smartest survived. The bright ones got even smarter. Their forests were all gone, so they moved into the new wilderness: the slum areas of the major cities. For survival, they hunt at night. For protection, they only eat people that our society doesn’t give a shit about, the inhabitants of the slums. These people are never missed, so their murderers are never looked for.”

A possible hole in Wadleigh’s concept is that since his wolfen have a special understanding with Indians, they would probably also recognize impoverished blacks and Puerto ricans as “brother” victims of modern society.

“Being humanitarians or ‘wolfitarians, explains the director, “as they also are in Whitely’s book, the Wolfen only take people who are essentially ready to die. It’s almost an eastern philosophy of euthanasia. They would not kill a healthy black man. They would kill an ancient derelict who was ready to die. First, the Wolfen would check him out very carefully to make sure he wanted to give up his life. The Wolfen have a tremendous empathy for the people they kill.”

By putting the Wolfen on the same level as Indians, Wadleigh seems to be reducing Indians to yet another stereotype.

“I avoided that by making our Indians real,” defends Wadleigh. “I’ve lived with them as neighbors in Wyoming, so I know what they’re like. Indians are not the kind of preachy, sanctimonious crowd that so often gets horribly portrayed in films. The Indians that I know are incredibly clever and have a great sense of humor. What happens early in Wolfen is that Wilson is led to believe that Christopher VanderVeer’s murder might have been done by radical Indians. He goes to see Eddie Holt [Edward James Olmos], whom he’s busted before, where he’s working on fixing something on top of the Manhattan Bridge. At the foot of the construction site, Wilson tells an old Indian to bring Eddie down for questioning. The Indian says, ‘Screw you. You want him, go on up there yourself.’ Wilson precariously makes his way up to the bridge by walking up its suspension cable. When he gets to the top, there’s a great dialogue between him and Holt that I ripped off from things I’ve heard Indians say in real life. Wilson asks, ‘Are you in touch?’ Holt answers, ‘With what, my mother?’ Wilson says, ‘No, with mother nature.’ Holt says, ‘Sure. I swim like a fish and screw like a bunny.’ Olmos, after people see him as Holt, is going to be a big star. People will be left with envy of Indians. It’s a whole other subculture that they’ll want to get into. It’s not Eddie’s speeches they’ll remember, but his being.”

Olmos enhances the performances of movie veteran Albert Finney as Wilson. Finney, a two-time Academy Award nominee, decided to make Wolfen his first film in five years due to his love for the character” and the project.

“David Eyre and I changed the Wilson character from the book,” reveals Wadleigh. “Now, he’s a cop in his forties who’s the best homicide detective around. What he’s begun to realize, however, is that his professional life is a fraud. He’s a hunter for society but he only stalks small game. The real criminals, the people who control society, are never brought to justice because they set up the law to protect themselves. Wilson’s become much more of a 1960s type of character, which allowed me to work out a lot of my own personal philosophy. I was thrilled when Albert decided to play him, because in my opinion, he’s one of the greatest living actors.”

A less significant character alteration was changing Wilson’s first name from the novel’s George to Dewey.

“That was for a clever line of dialogue that is representative of my bad jokes and corny puns that riddle the film,” Wadleigh grins. “Rebecca Neff is sitting in Wilson’s office and she looks at his coffee cup and says, ‘Dewey.’ He says, ‘Yeah. I was named for one of Donald Duck’s nephews. I was the middle duck.’I mean, what could we have done with the name George?

“There’s another scene that’s been driving people up the walls. It occurs towards the end of the film when the main characters are staking out the Wolfen in the South Bronx. Wilson’s up in one building and Gregory Hines, as the black medical examiner, Whittington, is in one across the street from him. Wilson is trying to call Whittington on his walkie-talkie and he isn’t answering. Wilson starts panning his infra-red sniper scope-the way in which man sees at night-over these burned, wrecked buildings and doesn’t see anything. The audience will become convinced that Whittington’s been offed. Finally, Wilson’s scope comes upon one window where Whittington is standing with his pants down, mooning him. Wilson says over the walkie-talkie, ‘Very funny. Whittington turns around with a big shit. eating grin on his face and says, ‘Black moon over Manhattan.’ Some of the executives at Orion were saying. “What is mooning?’ I told them, “Don’t worry about it. The moviegoers will understand.’ The scene is doubly funny because of the legend of the full moon and werewolves. In fact, I suggested to Orion that part of Wolfen’s logo could be Gregory Hines’ ass. I don’t think that they took that too seriously, though.”

Wolfen’s cast enjoyed Wadleigh’s offbeat sense of humor. But since the director had previously only been a documentarian and this was his first dramatic movie, he might have run into trouble with his cast whenever he suggested to them that they modify elements of their portrayals.

“We avoided those clashes,” Wadleigh states, “because we were all united in believing that we were there solely to do the best we could. Every one of the actors got involved to the extent that they did for two reasons: their character and the film. They opted for a personal choice. They always made sure that not only was something that they were doing going to be good for their part, but for the picture as a whole as well. Since they had a basic respect for the project, they weren’t dealing with glorifying my ego, but Wolfen itself.”

PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY/LIVE WOLVES When it came time to use actual wolves, Wadleigh ran into difficulties because he was shooting on location. The majority of Wolfen was shot in New York City, utilizing Staten Island, Central Park, the New York Stock Exchange, the Manhattan Bridge, the Fulton Fish Market, Battery Park, the South Bronx, and the historic sound stages of Queens’ Astoria Studios.

“Not only did we have to fence in the area where we were shooting our wolf scenes,” he discloses, “but Manhattan sent down police sharp shooters. They were under orders to shoot to kill if the wolves got out of the fenced-in area. The other side-effect of using the wolves was that, naturally the cast and crew were afraid of them. The mythology that the wolf is the devil is absolutely permeated through everyone’s conscious and subconscious. We make use of that in the film by having a church in the Dresden part of the South Bronx. By association, the audience will automatically think that the devil is somehow involved with the murders. The other thing that’s scary about the wolves is that they’re large. We were working with a 150 pound animal that when it stands up has its head six feet and six inches above the ground. What assuaged everyone’s fear was that the wolves are beautiful creatures. Their elegance is disarming. We used that element in the film as well. I think that throughout Wolfen, people will expect that the murderer is going to be a hideous werewolf or Alien-type creature. What they finally see are these gorgeous, noble animals. The audience will wind up with empathy for them.”

Wadleigh avoided the problems normally associated with dealing with animals in movie making by turning to expert trainer George Toth.

“I think we had the best wolves in America,” Wadleigh says. “George raised his wolves so that they think that they’re humans or that humans are wolves. Therefore, they have a respect for us. A very significant point, however, is that a wolf is not a dog. Wolves’ intelligence ranks just beneath the great ape’s, the whale’s, and the dolphin’s. We were dealing with a high powered rifle. You can’t really order a wolf to do anything, you have to ask him. If one of our wolves didn’t feel like doing something, there was no way we were going to force him. Since we were dealing with an animal that was essentially its own person, we had to wait for the mood to do something to hit him which consumed time and patience. In the end, though, they always came through amazingly well.

“As good as our wolves and techniques for showing their senses were, though,” Wadleigh continues, “they didn’t allow us to illustrate what I thought was Whitely Streiber’s greatest creation: the Wolfen’s internal thought processes. We solved that problem by introducing Indians to the story. Who better could explain the dignity of the Wolfen and their point of view? The particular irony of the Indians, this destroyed race of people, is that they are the best high steel construction workers in the world and are now building the white man’s great monuments: bridges, the World Trade Center … They, like the Wolfen, look upon the white man with incredible disdain, yet the both of them are forced to live in our great, corrupt cities.”

Michael Wadleigh

Interview with Michael Wadleigh You’ve expressed frustration in the past that Wolfen has been labeled a horror film. Do you have something against the genre? Michael Wadleigh: Yes, but that’s not the point. I never thought I was making a horror film. I thought I was making a political thriller about a detective investigating activists who are killing off very rich people, and have a political and social agenda that is still made very clear in the movie. The way I photographed and presented the wolves, they never, ever growled or snarled, because that would demean their intelligence and make them stupid in my view. I wanted to make them this shadowy e presence that was very much in control of the situation, and even more frightening. I mean, I was all for killing everyone in sight! [Laughs] That didn’t bother me at all.

The Baader-Meinhof Gang is mentioned in it, and other terrorist organizations, and even recently, when the Twin Towers went down, a number of people read about Wolfen and said, “That was a film about terrorists.” There were critics who well-recognized the parallels between my film and, as Barack Obama’s ex-minister Jeremiah Wright said, “The chickens coming home to roost.” America had done many things abroad that were against its own ideals, and of course it had been done in the way we treated the American Indians. I don’t think there is anyone who disputes, with hindsight, the fact that we just stole their land and murdered them and drove them out of business-completely unacceptable behavior today. I’m just giving you an example of the anger and injustice that Eddie Holt (Edward James Olmos] well expresses to Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney).

The whole backdrop is what we did to the Indians, and the reason I killed off Van der Veer is also made clear: that his great-great-ancestor reputedly brought the first machine to America—the windmill-and that machine stands for the Industrial Age and the supposedly superior technology of the Europeans that just wiped out the Indians. They really couldn’t compete. I mean, doesn’t that sound right? It was all there in the film.

But you yourself once famously described Wolfen as “a thinking man’s horror film.” Michael Wadleigh: I don’t recall those words, but if I did, you obviously know what I mean because I just said what I thought of it. Maybe at one point I did say that, but I must insist that my memory isn’t that bad and I always thought this film was a political thriller-and why political? Well, I’ve just explained to you. I mean, we’ve got American Indians vs. white people.

What were the main difficulties for you and co-writer David Eyre in adapting Whitley Strieber’s novel? Michael Wadleigh: During the discussions I had with [Orion topper] Mike Medavoy, 1 talked about the wolves in terms of Moby Dick—which was not to be pretentious, but just to try to get an idea in there that Ahab was a kind of detective or hunter for his society, so to speak, who was obsessed with tracking down and killing the whale. As most people read Moby Dick, the whale stands for nature and Ahab’s obsession is misplaced, and he goes to his death not realizing it.

Well, I pitched the idea that the character of Dewey Wilson is sort of disconnected from nature, but then gets obsessed with tracking down the wolves. Eddie Holt shakes him up and says, “Well, you’ve pretty much destroyed nature in America, haven’t you? Look at the city look at the South Bronx area that resembles Dresden and the end of civilization. Aren’t you on the wrong side? Why annihilate the last of nature?” And in the end, Dewey quits the police force. He literally, in my screenplay, throws his gun and badge away and says, “F**k it!”

He can no longer uphold the values of a society that he feels is unjust, and now begins to question his own role as a defender of those values and a protector of people like Van der Veer. That’s what I pitched as kind of a way through the piece. Of course, there are no Indians at all in Whitley’s novel, and no political agenda, so you can see that the things I added were very strongly along the lines of a political thriller.

Much was made of the “alienvision” that represents the point of view of the marauding Wolfen. How difficult was that concept to realize? Michael Wadleigh: I’m speaking for cinematographer Gerry Fisher, Steadicam operator Garrett Brown and myself when I say that we were never entirely happy with that, but we were never too disappointed either. We kept playing around with various things, infrared photography and reprinting the colored layers and so on. Garrett, who not only invented the Steadicam but is considered the best operator by everybody, is 6 feet 8 inches tall and a very athletic guy who can run like crazy. He is also very smart, and so the first thing we got was the terrific Steadicam photography that makes you think there’s a mind behind the point of view, that we are actually looking out of somebody or something’s eyes. Next we added the coloration, the strangeness of the vision, and then we had the soundtrack and sound effects and all of those elements that—so the critics thought were put together well and added up to very intriguing and scary sequences.

Actually, I always thought that Wolfen was set in the future that it was a little bit of a science fiction film as well with the advanced hi-tech security force and the parallel that they were using infrared photography for their remote lie-detection systems. That was all deliberate, to compare nature and technology and have them sort of meeting in the future.

One of the best scenes is right after Gregory Hines is killed by the Wolfen, when Dewey stumbles into the Indians’ local bar. Michael Wadleigh: Well, that was the scene that I longed for, though it is a bit expositional. Eddie Olmos played the hell out of that, and the other Indians too, who were not real actors. They all did a good job, but Eddie, especially in a few words, conveyed the essence of the scene and then the way they all just laugh it off and so on. By the way, that was a real bar—not that it matters—but for authenticity that was the real steelworkers’ bar where the Indians hung out. We didn’t redecorate it or anything. I guess as a documentarian, I thought that was interesting, and would maybe lend something to it. Whatever was there and whatever they were dressed in, that was it. I’ve never been satisfied by the way Indians are sometimes portrayed in films, but they seem very real in that scene very dignified and eloquent and funny. Eddie had hung out with the Indians for quite a while and tried to get the cadence of how they spoke in that kind of clipped way of using very few words.

They did very good makeup on Finney, and I think he brought a lot of concentration to that scene—but it was slightly recut as well, so I wince a little bit. Nonetheless, I won’t complain. I believe that scene is great, and one can judge that all the general qualities of the film are there.

What was the difference in your version of that scene? Michael Wadleigh: Uh, let’s not go into that. Let’s be…I don’t want an alibi for anything. I’ll tell you the thing that still most upsets me, which is the marketing of Wolfen in general. I really thought that it could have had the horror film audience because the word would get out, but I also believed it would have captured those people who appreciated the Robert Ludlum sort of thing—a film that was a more of a sophisticated international thriller/detective story—but of course, that wasn’t the advertising campaign at all. All of the wolf material and general treatment that they added brought it more toward what I thought was a simplified horror film-and they thought so too. They thought that if they went that route, it would make more money. As a matter of fact, you may know that Orion was having trouble at the time and was, in my view and I said it at the time, a little bit desperate for a hit. I believe the critics, for one thing, think they made a mistake. They probably could have made more money going the other way. So that’s what I’d prefer to comment on. I only wish that it had gone that way.

The actual look of the Wolfen in your movie has aroused much debate. Michael Wadleigh: I felt that the film was much more of a nature allegory, and therefore I was never interested in making an artificial creature. What I decided to do was put the Indians and the wolves together as a team, so to speak, and therefore create a new creature by imagining an intimate association and communication between them. An amazing thing that I believe is mentioned in the film is that the Dutch colonists who first settled in New York actually used the same word “wolfen” to describe both the Indians and wolves. They of course knew the difference, but there were quite a few wolves around at that time, and those early colonists denigrated the Indians as savages and really felt they were different from full human beings. They felt that the wolves were so scary and powerful and this fear came out of European mythology as well—that they actually elevated the wolves’ intelligence and lessened the Indians, and in doing so sort of drove them together so that they were pack animals that were wild and ferocious and almost anti-real human beings.

That was the central interesting issue for me, that the Dutch were pushing the Indians and wolves together. Therefore you kind of had a bifurcated personality, and they were after all shape shifters. Well, we put it in the film when Eddie Holt shapeshifts on the beach. You have them sometimes looking like Indians and sometimes like wolves.

Legend has it that you once considered using midgets in masks to portray the Wolfen. Michael Wadleigh: Never! I can’t imagine where you got that from. That’s outrageous. Ask anyone who worked on the project. Anyone! As you know, we used real wolves, and what separates them from dogs is their elegance and concentration. Those damn things would look at you, and you would break your stare away from them. They had tremendous power and could really stare you down, and it scared the shit out of you. That worked as a strong setup to then go-pow! There’s a shadow, a splash of blood and you are gone! You unsettle the audience by using surreal sound effects, and watching a wolf’s jaws come up into frame and that kind of thing, but I still say that one of [the producers’] huge mistakes was going more animal with them. They should have stayed with the heightened surreal factor I intended, but instead they inserted shots I didn’t do and didn’t approve of, of the wolves growling. I was trying to convince the audience that these creatures had not only a powerful physique capable of delivering instant death, but an elevated intelligence—not to telegraph their presence to their victims ahead of time! I don’t want to go on about it, but I still feel very strongly about that one.

Was it difficult shooting with real wolves? Michael Wadleigh: Not at all, except that the paranoia of human beings is extreme. I mean, wolves are presented in all the movies as evil, and we have associated them in our mythologies with the devil and all of that kind of thing, but there are relatively few instances of a pack of wolves wiping out a human being. You should find some of the production stills from when we filmed the wolves in New York City. They had like a dozen armed policemen, you know, sharpshooters—I’m not kidding you—positioned all over the place because the wolves were considered wild, uncontrollable animals. I’m very serious. The police had their orders to shoot to kill if a wolf got out of the enclosure. They weren’t about to have one running around New York City! We all thought that was amusing, we who were used to dealing with animals. Their paranoia was, to my mind, unjustified.

You submitted a cut of Wolfen to Orion that was four hours and four minutes long and had over 36 SCENE MISSING cards spliced into it. Michael Wadleigh: Yes, but that was not the director’s cut I proposed to show to the public. What you are referring to is a cut that I had to supply to Orion and (producer) Rupert Hitzig and what have you. Bear in mind, Richard Chew is one of the most honored editors of all time. I mean, he’s won two or three Oscars for Star Wars and all that. You are not dealing with somebody walking in off the street. Richard took a position as well that we had simply not had adequate time, because the effects hadn’t been prepared and all sorts of other things had not been done.

Remember, I had shot the approved screenplay. I had not shot anything other than the script that was submitted, so that wasn’t the issue at all. We simply were not given enough time and, well, you can say that I’m an amateur, but this was Richard Chew—the editor they were delighted to get and had approved. And of course, it’s a matter of record that when Rupert wouldn’t go on with me, Richard just quit. He wouldn’t continue on the film. It’s just not correct that we were going to put a four-hour version out before the public.

No, I wasn’t implying that. I’m referring to the cut that was screened for Orion head Medavoy, Hitzig and others at the studio. Michael Wadleigh: That’s correct, but that had to happen. I told you before, it is well known that Orion was in deep trouble with all sorts of other films-check it out-and many people felt they were abnormally leaning on Richard and me to get this film out at any cost. You know, to hell with art! Just get it out there. Of course, a lot of things did go over budget-you better believe it—but I had no control over that. I was not the producer. I simply accepted all of these people and was mainly interested in the actors. I did want as the director to choose the actors, but hey, I’m just saying it’s a matter of public record that the whole crew was professional and that Orion selected them. I wanted pros, not amateurs, F#3 and many people took the position that it was Paul Sylbert, who was a celebrated production designer, who went nuts and really put the budget over the top with the sets and so forth and they were always consulting with him. I was a nobody by comparison.

So if the next step you might be going to is budget, then I think it was pretty well established in the Directors Guild arbitration that any overbudgetings were hardly my fault based on the information they brought forward. It didn’t seem to have any effect on whether I should be able to preview my cut of Wolfen.

Some critics complained that the subplot involving the security organization pursuing terrorists isn’t fully resolved in the film. Michael Wadleigh: That’s correct. I believe it is in David Eyre’s and my screenplay. We had a far greater integration of all the elements that were thrown out there, particularly two threads that I was interested in, and still am: the corporate vs. the government. After all, religion has gone, so the two great powers we have left are government and those companies. My sympathies have always been with government, and here Dewey (Albert Finney) is a representative of that. The film was always supposed to display the disdain that the corporations had for public gumshoes like him, the inadequacies of their financing and the smallness and shabbiness of even Dewey’s boss (Dick O’Neil] compared with the slickness of the privatization of law enforcement. That was supposed to be a big deal, but then those guys in private security can’t figure out dip-shit even with all their hi-tech stuff. They are completely on the wrong track, and ultimately it was supposed to be a vindication of government hunters over corporate hunters, so it tied up far more at the end than it did in the re-edited version.

None of those things were really pointed up in the cut that came out-and by the way, the other, more interesting parallel was maybe nature vs. technology. The wolves had that wolf-vision and when you saw them they were all very organic, and here the corporations were using all this hi-tech equipment and nature was still outperforming them. Also, you have Eddie Holt and the Indians compared to the people you see in the private security force, and the steelworkers’ bar compared to the austereness of Van der Veer’s office. All of those threads I’ve laid out were supposed to be yin-yang things which would tie together in the end-the one side losing and the other side winning in clever and different ways—and I believe the critics would have been much more satisfied by the version I would have completed. Yet at the time, certainly a number of critics did recognize those elements.

You have expressed satisfaction with Wolfen, even though it was recut. Michael Wadleigh: As it stands, I directed every scene in Wolfen except for the inserts they did. I believe it’s a matter of record that the additional photography they did to get the wolves growling and a few other things were a relatively small part of the movie. So in terms of writing and directing and even, as you know, I did some cinematography there is a lot of Michael Wadleigh in there, right? Everybody agrees with that. So how can I complain about it? Movies are a collective effort, and the set designer and the cinematographer and so many people contributed tremendous amounts to it.

Were you ever offered another horror film on the strength of Wolfen? Michael Wadleigh: A couple. As I recall, the offers were pretty serious. I’m told that Stephen King really liked Wolfen, though I don’t recall that I ever talked to him, but there were a number of inquiries made. It never came to a script being sent out, because I always said, “I’m just not interested.” Stephen personally got someone to phone me, and then I was going to see him in Maine-I still have a house there to this day—but somehow we never met. Mike Medavoy immediately said, “Well, why don’t we do another horror film?” A number of other people did too. I turned them all down.

Would you welcome the opportunity to release a director’s cut of Wolfen today? Michael Wadleigh: I wouldn’t know how to do it! It was so long ago that I don’t think it can be done. I would welcome a re-release as it is right now, because I think, as I gather you do, that it’s a hell of a film, no matter whether it was recut or not. It’s got a lot of innovative stuff in it, and beautiful photography and thrills and chills, and I think that people might be amazed at the success it could have.

SPECIAL EFFECTS/WOLFEN-VISION When producers Rupert Hitzig and Alan King snapped up the rights to Whitley Striber’s shaggy wolf story back in 1978, they knew it would be difficult to translate the book’s unusual Wolfen point-of-view to the screen. In fact, when production on Orion Picture’s WOLFEN began back in October, 1979, the only thing that then-director Michael Wadleigh was certain of was that nothing about the so-called “alien vision” was certain.

But it’s doubtful that Hitzig, King or Wadleigh could have possibly conceived that their self-proclaimed “thinking man’s horror film” would still be mired in a expensive eleventh hour production launch just weeks before the scheduled release. Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of WOLFEN-at least to its makers-is that after 20 months, $15 million, four screenwriters, two directors and several special effects houses, crucial effects sequences remained incomplete. Just six weeks prior to its July 24 opening. a topnotch effects crew headed by STAR WARS alumnus Robbie Blalack-was still working frantically to complete WOLFEN’S opticals on time.

“We knew from the outset that filming the Wolfen point-of-view, or ‘alienvision’ as we call it, was going to be one elusive son of a gun,” said Rupert Hitzig during a break from a musical scoring session. “Nobody really went in with a master plan as to how to shoot the thing in a way that would give us complete manipulative editing and color control. Let’s just say that the whole thing has been at a great cost to my sanity, my family life and certainly my pocketbook.”

In preproduction, WOLFEN’S producers authorized a tidy $80,000 in seed money to effects houses on both coasts for generating footage that would approximate how the extraordinarily intelligent and sensorial-tuned Wolfen perceived the world.

“When we started, we had a technical consultant who we assumed knew what he was talking about,” Hitzig said. “We were assured that they had this phenomenal new computer printout device with the capacity to generate 235 different shades of grey. Well, I found that astronomical amounts of money for start-up and programming were being asked for without anyone being willing to prove that it actually could be done! We wanted to do things that had never been done before on straight optical printers, but the footage looked all grey and colors fell off into nothingness. So we shut it down, looked around and went with Blalack’s company, Praxis.”

Praxis is among the new crop of small, sophisticated special effects houses that have sprung up in recent years. Blalack, who set up the shop after splitting with former partner Jamie Shourt, first met with Wadleigh and Hitzig in August, 1980, and was given ten weeks to show the producers what they could do. “I showed them ten years of work,” Blalack said, “right through to STAR WARS. At that point, Michael and Rupert were fairly specific about what they were after, but they were extraordinarily open to our input.”

Praxis was originally hired for three months of work, but due to several changes in concept and personnel-most important the replacement of Wadleigh with John Hancock late in 1980-they worked on WOLFEN for fully nine months. “They have tremendous fiscal responsibility and concern, and they’re crealive,” said Hitzig of Blalack and his crew. “Frankly, it was a welcome breath of fresh air.”

The first “alienvision” technique that Praxis explored was “smell-o-vision,” a Michael Wadleigh brainchild that centered on the Wolfen’s ability to sniff out their prey. “Since we obviously couldn’t hand out sniff cards to audiences, we tried to convey the idea that the Wolfen could snifftranslation: see-images of dozens of people who had recently passed through a particular setting,” explained Praxis’ optical supervisor Beth Block. “The Wolfen would sift through these images and seize on the person they’re tracking. The backgrounds would always be visible through and behind the rapidly moving images of extraneous people. When the Wolfen locate the person, the image would lock in and become intensely focused.”

“To show their sense of smell, we used ghosted images. For example, when clues lead Wilson to the South Bronx, the Wolfen see him and make the connection that he’s on their trail. After he’s gone, they go to the spot where he parked his car. We see a series of ghosted images of things that have been there in the past: people, automobiles … That’s indicative of the smells that have been left behind. After all, smells are just molecules.”

Wadleigh’s “point of view shots” and “ghosted images” are bound to confuse audiences. “What can I say?” admits Director Wadleigh. “At first, it will be confusing, but I think it will sort itself out. People will go with it and not understand what it is until one of the characters explains it in the movie. It’ll be a healthy ambiguity. In my humble estimation, filmmakers don’t try enough interesting ideas.”

The “smell-o-vision” effects involved ghost-printing black and white figures over a color background. Though promising, the technique proved a backbreaker, since shots lasting only five to ten seconds were so image-dense that they required the equivalent of five minutes of film. “Smell-o-vision’ was a good idea, but the footage never really proved clear enough from an audience’s standpoint,” Beth Block explained “It just looked flashy.” When Michael Wadleigh exited WOLFEN “for political reasons” (the exact reasons are still unclear), “smell-o-vision” breathed its last.

Praxis next began work on a suitable means of achieving the Wollen’s night vision, which is used to hunt their human prey. After rejecting footage simply shot night-for-night, Blalack began experimenting with the use of false color and color substitution. The results, according to those who saw the early tests, were judged phenomenal,” but it was decided that it looked too phenomenal for the film’s purposes.

“To this day, Robbie probably disagrees with the choices that have been made,” Hitzig explained. “I know he would just as soon have had a strawberry-pink sky and shimmering iridescent lights-gorgeous stuff-but it certainly placed the Wolfen at a distance from the poor mortal viewing the film. Blalack wanted to place the Wolfen’s sensory capacities in a world of utopian color. Orion Pictures and I just felt the footage was too radical a departure from normal vision. It was particularly jarring in the number of cuts we have that shift from objective camera to ‘alienvision.’ We held that the juxtaposition would distance the audience’s subconscious identification with the Wolfen, and in turn, with the picture itself. Obviously, that was something we did not want to do.”

The rejection of the color replacement technique was a huge disappointment for Blalack and his crew, who felt they had come up with a truly startling visual scheme. “It was beautiful. It was really something special,” said Beth Block. “But did it approximate the way the Wolfen see? Maybe not. So we went with another approach that audiences could relate to, was filmically exciting and that worked within the story context. We realized that though some effects may seem old hat to us, they’re not to most movie audiences. And you don’t do effects to show off for other optical houses.”

The final “alienvision” design is still startling: a dark sky, a bright image and a sharp, jagged photographic outline on a figure in a color that signifies whether or not the Wolfen sees a human as prey. Blalack began with the assumption that the Wolfen could sense different emotional states as various colors; anger, fear and aggression would all be visibly different.

To properly isolate the desired foreground elements from the rest of the footage– which was shot without consideration to post production needs-contrast separations were frequently used, a technique also used in ALTERED STATES to add opticals to conventionally photographed footage. Using a wide range of film stocks and filters at various contrast levels, Beth Block was able to separate the flesh tones in a particular shot, alter it to taste, and recombine the footage to good effect. For several sequences, it was necessary to rotoscope the desired areas of the frame, a tedious chore handled by artist Pete Von Sholly.

Optical work was also required to enhance the actual look of the Wolfen. “At one point, Michael and I considered using midgets with masks.” Hitzig said, “but that would have undermined the allegorical feel we were after and take the picture into the realm of the grotesque. It’s true we were both anxious not to lay any of the Wolfen’s attributes to real wolves, a species that’s already pretty maligned. But in the end, we decided to go with real wolves, doctoring them to be totally black. I also felt strongly that Robbie and his crew should work on giving the Wolfen a light energy-an aura, almost-that separates them from looking like normal wolves.”

Praxis began experimenting on this “aura” in May, 1981, using new footage of the beasts that had been reshot by John Hancock. One option Praxis developed, dubbed the “searchlight mode,” involved shooting two beams of light against a black velvet drop, and then superimposing that onto the footage. The result, according to many at Praxis, was as nerve jangling as a lighthouse. Another attempt had animators tinting the eyes of the animals a violent blue, The “ole blue eyes” approach was torpedoed too, as were experiments with pinpoint lasers, which gave the Wolfen a semi-intentional VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED look. Eventually, Blalack, Hitzig and Hancock agreed on a white, milky glow of filaments around the Wolfen’s orbs, accomplished by tedious rotoscoping that was finally completed just five weeks before the film opened nationally.

Wolf Attacks/Make Up Effects WOLFEN’s makeup effects also went through several major changes during the course of filming, contributing to the film’s expense and delay. Makeup artist Carl Fullerton had signed up on the project back in the summer of 1979, having just completed a stint on ALTERED STATES assisting Dick Smith. But when Orion Pictures ordered a halt to principal photography in February, 1980, several makeup effects had yet to be filmed and several others had to be rushed to completion.

“Although I was given plenty of time to generate and test the specific effects that were called for, two of the major effects were left until the last day of New York locations, so it was a rush job,” Fullerton explained. “I had to ship a lot of effects out to the West Coast and wasn’t there to supervise that shooting. Initially the word was that the horror and gore were going to be soft-peddled, so they left that for the last thing to be shot. Later the approach changed so the shock stuff was in demand again.”

Fullerton, who had yet to see a final cut of the film at the time of his interview, had many lengthy meetings with Wadleigh to discuss the specific effects required. “Unlike many directors who never tell you what they’re after until they’re ready to shoot, Michael would sketch ideas on paper. He wanted to do things that had never been done on camera, and he made that process so much more open.”

Early in the film, the Wolfen murder two wealthy New Yorkers, Christopher and Pauline Vandervere (Max Brown and Ann Marie Pahtako) in New York City’s Battery Park. “Michael didn’t want the audience to fully see the creatures or to see that they were actually ripping out their victim’s throats,” Fullerton said. “He decided just to show blood dribbling from the man’s mouth. I wasn’t pleased with that. Not only was it boring and a cliche, it isn’t medically feasible.”

Instead, Fullerton suggested-and Wadleigh adopted-a spurting flow of blood from actor Max Brown’s mouth. “Dick Smith gave me some helpful advice,” Fullerton said, adding that the effect was somewhat similar to Smith’s torrent of pea soup in THE EXORCIST. “Smith suggested I attach a denture clip into the actor’s mouth, then attach tubing to it. I later found a way to actually direct the blood flow.” The tubing came up the back of the neck under Brown’s hair, over his cheek and into the corners of his mouth. Latex appliances camouflaged the mechanics. To film blood flowing from Brown’s nose, Fullerton had him lie down on a large platform to which a camera had been attached. The platform could tilt up and down like a teeter-totter, but the camera would see no such movement. Open-ended blood capsules were inserted into Brown’s nostrils while his head was near the ground; when the platform was tilted upwards, gravity caused the blood to flow realistically.

The script also called for the Wolfen to tear the hand off of Syad (John McCurry), the Vandervere’s Haitian bodyguard. When a false arm proved impractical, Fullerton devised a clever, on-camera effect. “We had the actor reach into his jacket with his own hand, grabbing for a gun in a shoulder strap,” he said. *The camera point-of-view is a wolf charging at him and the actor aims the gun at the ‘wolf.’ Meanwhile, something from the left side of the screen pushes into him and knocks his hand out of the frame. While out of view, I clipped an appliance over his arm-a flexible fiberglass stump spewing blood on his face and upper chest. We avoided a cutaway and the man ostensibly loses his hand on camera.”

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More grisly effects were required for the death of a derelict named Mule, whose throat is ripped out by the Wolfen. It was one of several makeup sequences designed by Fullerton but shot during post production in Los Angeles because of his commitments on EYEWITNESS and FRIDAY THE 13TH-PART II. Unlike simple wounds, ripping out a throat required an appliance with substantial depth to it. Fullerton conducted extensive tests on himself before developing an appliance built up with fiberglass, epoxy and latex. “I actually remade the neck area.” Fullerton said. “The appliance fits under the jawline to simulate the whole neck and upper chest area. It had to allow the performer plenty of facial and body mobility-his only limitation would be really fast movements. The appliance was strapped to the actor’s chest and carefully glued to the lower jaw and neck.

“I have to say it was more successful on me,” Fullerton added. “I have a stronger jawline than the actor used in the scene.”

But the most demanding makeup assignment of all involved the Wolfen’s bold decapitation of a New York police commissioner (Dick O’Neill) in the middle of Wall Street. Although most of the sequence had been filmed on location in the financial district, the closeup of the Wolfen attack was to be shot in the studio. Though it’s a key sequence, it was left for the last day of shooting.

“Since there was really no other way to do the scene, I built a dummy head.” Fullerton said, “But a rigid dummy head would look just terrible if it wasn’t animated.” To provide the needed movement, Fullerton built a flexible neck out of gelatin and supported the head with an aluminum rod connected to a universal joint. The mouth was able to open and close, and a simple flick of the wrist on a control handle allowed an operator to move the head realistically in any number of ways.

But problems arose when Fullerton’s dummy head met Eoin Sprott’s puppet wolf: it was difficult to get the wolf to attack both on target and at the proper speed. After several unsuccessful attempts, the plan was scrapped and Fullerton was forced to devise a solution on the spot, since filming had to wrap that day.

“Originally, Michael did not want a decapitation,” Fullerton said, “he just wanted to see the neck being bitten off and pushed out in front of the camera. After doing a shot, Michael decided that he wanted to change it and have a decapitation, but the dummy wasn’t built for that. So we had to do some surgery on it: open up the back of the neck, cut the whole supporting structure out and resupport it using a tongue depressor! The neck was prescored and had piano wires at the base of the skull. We had Eoin Sprott’s puppet head lunge at the neck of the dummy. At that point, I whirled the head off!”

In addition to filming the complex decapitation on the last, hectic day, Fullerton also set up and filmed an insert shot of Dick O’Neill poking his head through a section of fake pavement and rolling his eyes. In addition, the bloody death of Christopher Vandevere was also shot in that same day. But other planned effects could not be squeezed in and were executed in post production by makeup artist Allen Weisinger: the ripping out of the vagrant’s throat, described above; a close-up of John McCurry’s severed hand lying on the ground, the fingers twitching and still clutching the gun, achieved by having an actor stick his hand through a section of fake pavement and adding a latex stump; and a shot of Dick O’Neill’s head flying through the air spewing blood from its nose and mouth, achieved with a false head with built in canisters of stage blood and compressed air that was literally tossed up and down for the camera.

“The terrific thing was working with Michael,” Fullerton said. “But I have to admit that the pressure of doing everything at the last minute made it pretty frustrating. I can’t wait to see the movie, though, to see what got left in and what got left out.”

New York as one of the films Main Characters (Great Article @ NYC In Film about NY during the production of Wolfen)

PROMOTIONAL/ADVERTISING

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SCORE/SOUNDTRACK Wolfen (1981) The Unused Score by Craig Safan

Composer Craig Safan wrote an original score for this film and was replaced at the last minute by future Academy Award winner James Horner, who had only 12 days to write and record his score.

CAST/CREW Directed Michael Wadleigh

Produced Rupert Hitzig

Screenplay David M. Eyre, Jr. Michael Wadleigh Uncredited:Eric Roth

Story by David M. Eyre, Jr. Michael Wadleigh

Based on The Wolfen by Whitley Strieber

Albert Finney as Dewey Wilson Diane Venora as Rebecca Neff Edward James Olmos as Eddie Holt Gregory Hines as Whittington Tom Noonan as Ferguson Dick O’Neill as Warren Dehl Berti as Old Indian Peter Michael Goetz as Ross Reginald VelJohnson as Morgue Attendant James Tolkan as Baldy Donald Symington as Lawyer Tom Waits as Drunken Bar Owner (uncredited)

Makeup Department Frank Bianco Carl Fullerton Allen Weisinger Michael R. Thomas

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Cinefantastique V11n03 Fangoria#028 Fangoria#013 Fangoria#301

Thanks to Mark E. Phillips@nycinfilm.wordpress.com for allowing me to link his great informative article on old school NY.

Wolfen (1981) Retrospective SUMMARY Former NYPD Captain Dewey Wilson is brought back to the force and assigned to solve a bizarre string of violent murders after high-profile magnate Christopher Van der Veer, his wife and his bodyguard are slain in Battery Park.

[photographynotes]

About: Becoming a woman

Another great article dealing with becoming a woman an Simone de Beauvoir’s work is Becoming A Woman: Simone de Beauvoir on Female Embodiment  by Felicity Joseph.

Here is the entire article with favorite excerpts in bold.

Becoming A Woman: Simone de Beauvoir on Female Embodiment Felicity Joseph finds that sometimes it’s hard to become a woman.

“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” Simone de Beauvoir

Generally for existentialists, one is not born anything: everything we are is the result of our choices, as we build ourselves out of our own resources and those which society gives us. We don ’t only create our own values, we create ourselves. Simone de Beauvoir, although an avowed life-long existentialist, posits limits to this central existentialist idea of self-creation and self-definition, qualifying the absolute freedom Jean-Paul Sartre posited in Being and Nothingness. By contrast de Beauvoir presents an ambiguous picture of human freedom, in which women struggle against the apparent disadvantages of the female body.

In The Second Sex, her most famous work, de Beauvoir sketches a kind of existential history of a woman ’s life: a story of how a woman’s attitude towards her body and bodily functions changes over the years, and of how society influences this attitude. Here de Beauvoir raises the core question of female embodiment: Are the supposed disadvantages of the female body actual disadvantages which exist objectively in all societies, or are they merely judged to be disadvantages by our society? She answers this question by exploring case studies of the various stages of female life. In these case studies the female body is presented as both positive and negative, and women as both oppressed and free. A woman ’s body is the site of this ambiguity, for she can use it as a vehicle for her freedom and feel oppressed by it. There is no essential truth of the matter: it depends upon the extent to which a woman sees herself as a free subject rather than as the object of society ’s gaze.

Sartre observed that whatever we perceive, including other people, is rendered as an ‘object’ to our gaze and is defined by us. De Beauvoir takes up this idea and applies it to men’s perception of women. The very concept of ‘woman’, de Beauvoir argues, is a male concept: woman is always ‘other’ because the male is the ‘seer’: he is the subject and she the object – the meaning of what it is to be a woman is given by men.

De Beauvoir argues that it is not the biological condition of women per se that constitutes a handicap: it is how a woman construes this condition which renders it positive or negative. None of the uniquely female experiences – the development of female sex organs, menstruation, pregnancy, menopause – have a meaning in themselves; but in a hostile or oppressive society they can come to take on the meaning of being a burden and disadvantage, as women come to accept the meanings a patriarchal society accords them.

De Beauvoir points out that pre-adolescent boys and girls are really not very different: they “have the same interests and the same pleasures” (The Second Sex, p295, Translation and Ed, H.M. Parshley, Vintage, 1997). If the initial psychological differences between young boys and girls are relatively trivial, what then causes them to become important? If one ‘becomes’ a woman, how does this ‘becoming’ happen?

The Flesh and the Feminine

De Beauvoir argues that as a girl’s bodily development occurs, each new stage is experienced as traumatic and demarcates her more and more sharply from the opposite sex. As the girl ’s body matures, society reacts in an increasingly hostile and threatening manner. De Beauvoir talks about the process of ‘becoming flesh’, which is the process whereby one comes to experience oneself as a sexual, bodily being exposed to another ’s gaze. This does not have to be a bad thing; but unfortunately, young girls are often forced to become flesh against their will:

“The young girl feels that her body is getting away from her… on the street men follow her with their eyes and comment on her anatomy. She would like to be invisible; it frightens her to become flesh and to show flesh” (p333).

There are many more such events in a growing girl’s life which reinforce the belief that it is bad luck to be born with a female body. The female body is such a nuisance, a pain, an embarrassment, a problem to deal with, ugly, awkward, and so on. Even if a girl tries to forget that she has a female body, society will soon remind her. De Beauvoir gives several examples of this: the mother who frequently criticises her daughter ’s body and posture, thus making her feel self-conscious; the ‘man on the street’ who makes a sexual comment about a young girl’s body, making her feel ashamed; and a girl’s embarrassment as male relatives make jokes about her menstruation.

However, de Beauvoir also gives positive examples of having a female body. She shows us that there are situations in which young women can be comfortable in their bodies – indeed, not only comfortable, but joyous and proud. Consider a girl who enjoys walking in the fields and woods, feeling a profound connection to nature. She has a great sense of happiness and freedom in her body which she doesn ’t feel in a social environment. In nature there are no males to gaze upon her, there are no mothers to criticise her. She no longer sees herself through others ’ eyes, and thus is finally free to define her body for herself.

But she cannot escape to the natural world forever. As part of belonging to a patriarchal society she must eventually undergo a further traumatic event – initiation into sexual intercourse. Intercourse is physically more traumatic for girls because it involves penetration and usually some corresponding pain. Culturally it is more traumatic because girls are kept in a greater state of ignorance than boys, and are often ill-prepared for what is to come. Culturally too, there are certain techniques of sexual intercourse which predominate, which may not be ideal for female enjoyment and orgasm (for instance, man on top). De Beauvoir points out that girls ’ sexual education tends to be mainly of the ‘romantic’ sort, which emphasises the courtship period and the pleasure of gentle caresses, but never the penetration. Thus when sex finally happens, it seems a world away from the romantic fantasies a girl has grown up with. De Beauvoir dryly observes that for the shocked young woman “love assumes the aspect of a surgical operation” (p404).

Ultimately, is it the biological penetration itself which causes the distress, or is it the culturally-engineered ignorance of young women? De Beauvoir thinks the biological facts need not be traumatic: the distress is due to a lack of generosity in the man ’s sexual behaviour, combined with the woman’s fear of being objectified before an aggressive sexual gaze. She suggests that the way to a more positive sexual experience for both genders is through each partner acting in ‘erotic generosity’ towards the other, rather than in selfish sensuality.

The experience of pregnancy is more positive, yet still an ambiguous one for women: it can be both an unfair invasion of her body and at the same time a wonderful enrichment. As a woman ’s pregnancy develops, society tends to consider her less sexually attractive, as no longer sexually available. This means that she temporarily escapes man ’s sexual gaze. This is a positive development for a woman, de Beauvoir argues, because “now she is no longer in service as a sexual object, but she is the incarnation of her species, she represents the promise of life, of eternity ” (p518).

What about as a woman gets older? The aging woman is described by de Beauvoir as “intent on struggling against a misfortune that was mysteriously disfiguring and deforming her ” (p595). This is a very negative description of the aging process. It evokes the tone of a cosmetics advert which pressures women to buy their products to struggle against time. Nevertheless, de Beauvoir ’s description is an honest one. We know from her autobiographical writings that she really struggled to come to terms with her aging body: she liked clothes, was considered attractive, and felt upset when she thought she was losing her looks. Yet as a philosopher she was able to step back and see that this attitude was due to an inordinate value placed by society on such ephemeral assets. She had accepted society ’s definition of her worth as her own definition.

De Beauvoir does admit that as a woman persists through the oncoming of age, she may find herself in a more positive stage of life: “She can also permit herself defiance of fashion and of ‘what people will say’, she is freed from social obligations, dieting, and the care of her beauty” (p595). So although old age has many negative aspects, it can provide a kind of escape from society ’s pressure. The desire to conform is lifted, and freedom increases. De Beauvoir’s point is that freedom needs space to move. In the case of female embodiment, there is often no room for women to really ‘see their bodies through their own gaze’, since the male gaze permeates everywhere.

Free Space

The intertwinedness of body and mind helps explain women’s oppression. Women do not choose to think about their bodies and bodily processes negatively; rather they are forced to do so as a result of being embedded in a hostile patriarchal society. On this view the body is not just the thing we can prod and poke, it is shaped by a plethora of perceptions: if we feel bad about it, it becomes a ‘bad thing’; if we feel good about it, it becomes a ‘good thing’. But the way we think about it is not a matter of free choice unless we live in a society which gives space for that freedom. What feminist philosophers like de Beauvoir aim to do is to open up a space for that freedom to flourish.

© Felicity Joseph 2008

[coalachristina-blog]

Race and Gender in the Media

              Social construction is the concept of society forming ideas, opinions, theories, etc. that have nothing to do with biological means and are derived from social needs for organization. In terms of race, the social constructionist view according to Kolko, Nakamura, and Rodman argues that “there is no biological or genetic basis for dividing the world's population into distinct racial groups. As a matter of fact, race according to the reading “Race – The Power of allusion” race is a modern idea. We learn from this list that there was not even a word for the concept of race initially in the English language. Lorber describes gender as “a cultural overlay that modifies physiological sex differences.” This definition of gender comes from the accepted feminist perspective. Lorber deepens the argument by explaining that bodies vary physically in many ways, but are ‘transformed’ by social expectation to fit either one gender role or the other. Gender roles are performed on the daily in many ways. To list just a few, we perform gender roles through the clothes we wear, the color choices we make, even in our body language.

               There are definitely similar stereotypes in media. Being someone who watches way too much reality T.V. I follow the MTV show catfish about people in online profiles who are not who they say they are. In 90% of the episodes, the person acting as the catfish is lying in order to escape gender expectations and racial stereotypes. Many of the females who catfish lie about their physical appearance on social media using other women’s photographs who they feel represent the ‘ideal’ form of beauty that media portrays. In a recent episode, and African American man who describes his tendency to be attracted white women actually made a fake face book page and portrayed himself as a white man to avoid the consequences of racial profiling.  

               Race and gender play out in the social media spaces in a variety of ways. The dominant race and gender of a particular social media site plays into the culture that is created for that site by accommodating to the cultural needs of that particular race. This might be a little bit of a stretch but I am going to use Christian Mingle as an example. For those of you who have never heard of Christian Mingle it is an online dating website that was created for individuals who share an interest in the Christian faith. The needs of this dating site are catered to primarily white heterosexual culture. It might be very difficult for a Christian homosexual individual for example to identify with the culture on this site as a minority. The same concept applies to dating sites like black people meet and other dating sites where a specific kind of culture is dominant.

[red-stocking]

What in your opinion are the upsides and downsides to both radical feminist theory and Marxist feminist theory? :)

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT QUESTION THANK YOU (as always i apologize for the hella long response)

First, i want to start off by saying that I would really define marxist feminism as kind of a sub-category of radical feminism. There is just such a tremendous overlap in theory, and quite a few radical feminists were also socialists, and vice versa. The real difference is kind of the plan-of-action, the ‘how to actually concretely fight the patriarchy’ part, and then kind of the in-practice cultures of marxist feminism and radical feminism.

I also wanna say that, in a perfect world, marxist feminist is a redundant phrase. Marx, Engels, Lenin and Zetkin all agreed that women’s rights must be part of a socialist program, without it you do not have socialism. That Marxism makes feminism unnecessary, because socialism is already fighting for equal rights for all, power to the people, no worker’s voice is stronger than another’s. There are many women marxists who do believe it is redundant and so they don’t apply the feminist label to themselves, Not because they are at all anti-feminist, and not out of condemnation to feminists of any kind, but because they see their ideas both as encompassing of the women’s struggle and not inclusive at all to the bourgeois feminist movement. If that makes sense. Anyway, I call myself a Marxist feminist because I don’t wish to distance myself from feminism, especially on this site, because I want to engage feminists and i want other feminists to see that we have ideas in common immediately, without me having to explain several marxist pillars. Both marxist and radical feminism look at the roots of womens oppression, they both analyze the social contexts in which patriarchy exists, and both recognize that femininity and masculinity are not innate, biological facts but culturally relative tools of oppression. 

So- the major pillars (or what I think they are) of radical feminism are included in marxism/marxist feminism. They differ then, in how we must dismantle the patriarchy. It has never been clear to me what the plan is in radical feminism. As far as I have been able to tell, its just analysis and like, growing consciousness or awareness at the socialization we as women experience. Or I have also seen separatism as a way to escape patriarchy. But otherwise, just suggestions of donating time and money to women’s shelters and charities, but none of these things actually change the system, none will deliver that huge blow that will take patriarchy down for good. If there is a radical feminist that knows differently, please do comment! I am not the most well-read person on the subject, so I could be wrong and just haven’t learned what that plan is yet. But yeah, as far as I know, that’s the plan.

The ultimate goal of marxism is to establish socialism. The idea behind marxism is that society changes when the people’s relationship to the means of production changed, and this is confirmed by what we know of archaeological history. When private property was first developed as a concept (and there was enough surplus from what people were producing to claim ownership on things) that was when women’s oppression began. Prior to that, there was what we call primitive communism, where resources were shared because there was not enough to go around anyway- communism for survival. There were divisions of labor between the sexes in most primitive communist societies (the whole hunter-gatherer idea) but there is a lot of evidence that these divisions were hardly strict, and not as pervasive as once thought. Then of course, under feudalism slavery was developed, and then later, with the transition to capitalism, racism really took hold. (there is a LOT of debate about when racism really ‘began’- but it did more or less coincide with the transition from feudalism to capitalism i believe.)

Sorry, that background was necessary. Basically, social relations in society change when the economics of society change.  Marxists then apply that idea to the future of humankind as well. They say, well if we want to dismantle these systems of oppression -sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism, etc) we have to change the relationship of the people to the means of production. We have to dismantle capitalism, and establish socialism. Giving women economic equality is the first step to dismantling patriarchy, and that cannot be done under capitalism. 

Now of course, no marxist/marxist feminist believes that all we need to do is have a socialist revolution and then Boom, we r done. After all, we still have the oppression of women, something that could have been dismantled with the transition from feudalism to capitalism, but wasn’t. There needs to be active intervention to ensure women’s equality under socialism after the revolution. After the Russian Revolution (which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, and started with a women’s strike 100 years ago this wednesday!) there were programs established that gave access to free childcare, healthcare, contraception was legalized, it was easier for women to get divorced, women were given the right to vote and equal status to men was given immediately, and at one point the sciences had an equal representation of women- even almost tipping to give women a majority. This was the nation engaged in the space race with the US, remember. (I dont want to sound like I am in anyway romanticizing the USSR and I absolutely am NOT a Stalinist, but they got a couple things right in the early days and those are worth pointing out).So that is what I consider the ‘upside’ to marxist feminism, or the ‘downside’ to radical feminism. WOW OK ALMOST THERE STAY WITH ME YALL.

The other way in which radical feminism and marxist feminism differ is the communities. Marxism is dominated by men. So fucking dominated by men. i have found a leftist group that is very welcoming, aware of women’s oppression, and I feel very comfortable speaking up in the group- but I am the ‘token’ female, the only one. And this is not just my group, but the national and international organizations my group belongs to. There’s an LGBT Rights pamphlet but they really only talk about the G and the T. And I do know it isn’t out of maliciousness, I have met the guy who wrote that pamphlet. Its just. Out of sight out of mind. The representation of women is just appallingly low. They are aware of it and really do want to change it, they are working on making women’s issues more prominent in discussions, making their spaces more welcoming to women, etc. But at the moment, my sex sometimes can feel like a burden, or extra responsibility. Like I have to represent an entire half of the world by myself. There isnt really a ‘marxist feminist’ community, just marxists.

In radical feminist circles, obviously it is men who are the minority if they are at all present. Its a very different community than marxism. Obviously it’s not perfect, there are issues that the radfem community needs to work out, but I appreciate things like how open i can be about my menstrual cycle, I can vent about men a little more viciously than i would with my male comrades- though they are pretty accepting of anti-men rants, I gotta say. It’s just nice to talk to women and the culture in radical feminism is just- being a woman and an asshole is more acceptable lol. I don’t have to be on my tiptoes with what words I use. I am not even sure how to explain it tbh. So that’s the upside of radical feminism/ the downside of marxism. I talked about a ton of different stuff and touched on a lot more things, so if you or anyone wants to ask me any follow up q’s i welcome asks. anon is always on. sorry for the essay.

[32flavasshoetique]

Reasons Ladies Might Not want sex that is casual Have Nothing In Connection With ‘Biology’

Reasons Ladies Might Not want sex that is casual Have Nothing In Connection With ‘Biology’

Once I first began college, we felt like a youngster in a candy shop. The tradition sexuality that is surrounding additionally various. While I’d heard ladies in senior high school labelled “sluts” for having sex that is casual many people within my university had a liberal mindset toward intimate expression and comprehended the harmful impacts of sex-shaming.

I desired a relationship that could satisfy me emotionally, intellectually, and physically – and solely real relationships were enjoyable, but beginning to feel incomplete.

I came across the women-get-attached concept a little insulting to judgment that is women’s. As being a cognitive neuroscience major, we occurred to understand that sex can launch hormones that are bonding-related individuals of all genders.

And from actually feeling like I knew someone well or he’d make a good boyfriend while I sometimes recognized this reaction in myself, I could separate it.

But I’ve invested the years since thinking, reading, and referring to this problem, and I’ve encountered some theories that produce a hell of far more feeling in my experience than “women get attached.”

Gender Minorities, Like Women, Have More Protection Concerns

One possibility we first discovered through the guide “The Ethical Slut” is the fact that women can be less likely to want to take part in casual hookups since they include being in a romantic environment with some one they might never be in a position to trust.

Despite the fact that many people are intimately assaulted by some one they do know and trust, it is nevertheless typical to become more wary of strangers, especially since we’re taught become.

Also it’s difficult to be in the feeling whenever you’re wondering if someone’s planning to sexually assault you.

The likelihood of having assaulted had been positively back at my head once I searched for hookups. My buddies and I also would text the other person to be sure we had been ok whenever we ever went house or apartment with anybody after an event. We’dn’t keep our products unattended.

Considering that one out of three ladies and two in five trans and gender people that are non-conforming intimate misconduct during university, we knew it can probably occur to one or more of us – probably more. And it also did.

Inside my freshmen 12 months, my relative and I also came across a team of dudes at an event. We thought one really was pretty. We endured outside and chatted for a time. Afterwards, we excitedly went back once again to their apartment.

After making away for some time, he told us to provide him sex that is oral. We said no. He begged me personally. We said no again. He pressed my head downward. We told him to not push me. He stated he never ever forced me personally. He insisted once again.

When this occurs, we felt just like a pain that is royal the ass. It ended up being felt by me was simpler to simply do so rather than keep arguing. And so I did. And I also told myself we liked it.

Afterwards, once we chatted to his roomie, he got behind me personally making a humping movement showing down. “It’s a thing that is masculinity” he said. The weekend that is next we attempted to call him, and then he explained he’d since gotten a gf.

We invested a number of years believing that this encounter had been consensual. We thought being pressured into intercourse ended up being simply one thing ladies had to handle.

But I was made by it more wary of future hookups. In the end, that man huge tits asianbabecams had felt therefore innocent and sweet. Whom else could unexpectedly stress me personally, embarrass me, and treat me personally just like a conquest?

My experience is incredibly typical. Even though women can be maybe perhaps not intimately assaulted, they frequently handle lovers whom treat them like items.

Hookup Community Deprioritizes Women’s Pleasure

Without a doubt that casual hookups to my experience, especially in university, exists within a set of cultural norms that use especially to cisgender gents and ladies setting up with one another.

While queer relationships truly can include hookups that are casual they don’t always have a similar gendered objectives and energy characteristics, although they are often imitated and reified in those relationships.

And in the hookup culture that I’ve experienced, guys, especially, are likely to take the driver’s seat. They’re designed to start intimate encounters, they’re likely to determine what takes place, and they’re likely to get the maximum benefit from the jawhorse.

Keep in mind the man whom insisted we perform dental intercourse on him? He declined to do it on me personally – which he previously the best to do , nevertheless the asymmetry of their objectives had been telling. And a complete great deal of females I knew had skilled the exact same.

The oral intercourse space could partially give an explanation for orgasm space between right people, which can be bigger in casual hookups compared to relationships. In hookups, males have actually three sexual climaxes for each one a female has. In relationships, the ratio is just 1.25:1.

It is because the principal, cis hookup that is heteronormative prioritizes men’s pleasure over women’s.

Therefore, whenever a lady adopts a hookup, one feasible scenario is she’ll be assaulted, and if she escapes that, she reaches be addressed being an afterthought. There aren’t that lots of choices that are good.

Women Are Taught Not to Have Too Many Sexual Lovers

Sex-shaming is quite genuine, and contains extreme results on women’s everyday lives. When women can be clear of BS societal norms, they act “like men” – which causes it to be all the less believable that men are innately interested in casual hookups. That belief stigmatizes normal behavior that is human one sex.

Funny sufficient, however, the explanation that is sex-shamingn’t resonate beside me at first. I’ve definitely heard individuals concern-troll ladies, including myself, about their casual hookups, but i did son’t think it impacted my very own behavior. I was thinking I’d brushed it down. In the end, I’m a intercourse and relationships journalist. We don’t also place my adult sex toys away whenever my buddies come over.

At age 25, though, I’m finally coming to terms with just just just how sex-shaming that is much impacted me. Because even within my “sluttiest” stage, I imposed a restriction on myself: I would personallyn’t have penis-in-vagina sexual intercourse unless I happened to be in love plus in a committed relationship.

This strain of pity will be based upon a heteronormative concept of intercourse in which anything else “doesn’t count.” Hand material had been ok. Mouth material had been fine. But a penis would “change” me personally.

Throughout my adulthood, I’ve strived to keep this quantity low to feel self-disciplined as well as in control, and if it were to be high, I’d feel just like a unsuccessful woman. As an anorexia survivor, i could say there is a large number of similarities between just just how I’ve idea of my amount of intimate lovers and exactly how I’ve idea of my fat.

I’m nevertheless wanting to detangle my lack that is genuine of in casual hookups with my irrational feeling that each and every brand brand new penis introduced into my own body will somehow change it.

We keep that there was clearly more to my choice to forgo casual hookups than sex-shaming, however the more i do believe about any of it, the greater amount of We understand exactly how much the sexual double-standard played involved with it.

That’s Simply Not the type or kind of Union They Need

Eventually, it does not actually make a difference why a female does not wish to have casual intercourse. She must be able to determine she’s perhaps perhaps not involved with it without her choice used to show point about sex distinctions.

In my experience, abstaining from casual hookups is not a manifestation of femininity, plus it’s maybe not really results of biological instincts. My reasons are much much much much deeper than that.

I favor more intellectually stimulating, emotionally intimate, trusting, secure, communicative relationships. Other people’ reasons may be various.

Whatever a woman’s reasons, she gets the straight to have them addressed as her reasons, maybe maybe not forced into a narrative of why females ignore sex that is casual.

I’m nevertheless determining exactly what types of relationships perform best for me personally and probing why I’ve made the decisions I’ve made, and it’ll be a process that is ongoing. But we deserve the opportunity to proceed through that procedure and progress to understand myself, perhaps not just a stereotype that is flattened of behavior.

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[queermediastudies]

Terror in Falls City, Nebraska

In the 1999 film, Boys Don’t Cry, director Kimberly Pierce illustrates the tragic true story of Brandon Teena’s murder in Falls City, Nebraska in 1993. Brandon Teena was born female, under the name Teena Brandon, but is a transgender male. The film gives the audience insight into the events that occurred leading up to his murder. The movie itself is a breakout text seeking to humanize those who are transgender, instead of villainizing them, while also raising awareness to the violence committed against transgender people.

From the start of the movie, it is made clear that Brandon is male. We see him getting ready to go out for a night on the town. He stuffs a sock into his pants, to make him appear as though he has a bulge. 

(Source: Tumblr.com)

We then see Brandon meet a girl, who he spends the remainder on his night with. They make out before he drops her off at home. The brother of the young lady Brandon had spent time with find out about what happened and chase Brandon to his houses. We then meet Brandon’s cousin, who is begging him to admit that “she’s a dyke” to which she replies that she is not.  After receiving threats from the young woman’s brother, Brandon leaves and arrives in Falls City, Nebraska. There, he meets a young woman named Candice and her ex-con friends Thomas and John. Brandon hits it off with them and moves in with Candice. He later meets and develops strong feelings for a friend of theirs named Lana.While she is unaware of his true identity, Lana and Brandon develop a romantic relationship together. Eventually, during a date which leads to sex, Lana discovers Brandon is biologically female, but continues to be intimate with him.

(Image: http://www.zimbio.com/Movie+Couples+That+Scorch+the+Sheets/articles/nAFO-guGSCY/Brandon+Teena+and+Lana+Tisdel )

Brandon had an existing warrant out for his arrest from his prior town, and ends up being detained by the police. He is put in the Women’s holding cell in the Falls City prison. Lana comes to bail him out, but asks why he is in the women’s prison. After trying to lie to her, Lana stops him and declares she loves him no matter what gender he is. This scene is important, in that it shows love is love no matter your gender. 

However, while Brandon was locked up, Candice found evidence of his real birth name, Teena Brandon. She tells John and Thomas who aggressively confront Brandon about his identity. They strip him of this clothes and try to force Lana to watch. After this, John and Thomas take Brandon to an isolated area of town, where they beat him and both take turns raping him. They warn him he must keep quiet and take him back home with them. There, Brandon escapes through the bathroom window. He then reports the crimes to the police, who question him about his “sexual identity crisis” and give him a hard time about the incident. This scene demonstrates how cruel the justice system can be to trans people. Even though a brutal rape had occurred, it was overlooked by the sexuality of the victim. 

(Image: https://aaronshanekatz.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/blog-5-boys-dont-cry-or-do-they/) 

Later, after being warned that the incident was reported, John and Thomas get drunk and decide to kill Brandon.

(Image: https://hoomanfilm.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/boys-dont-cry-a-review-blog-5/ )

 Lana tries to stop them, but they find Brandon at Candice’s house. John shoots Brandon in the chin, killing him instantly. Thomas then shoots Candice in the head and kills her. Tom begins stabbing Brandon’s dead body and tries to kill Lana, but John stops him. The two flee the scene, leaving Lana sobbing on Brandon’s corpse. She falls asleep on him and wakes up in the morning only to relive the shock and horror of the previous night. The film ends with Lana driving out of Falls City, as a letter Brandon wrote to her is heard as a voiceover.

(Image: http://enigmii.tumblr.com/post/136666179525/chloesevignyonline-chloë-sevigny-and-hilary)

“..the history of gay and lesbian cultures and politics has shown that there are many times and places where the theoretical can have real social impact. Enough lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and other queers taking and making enough of these moments can create a more consistent awareness within the general public of queer cultural and political spaces, as these theory-in-the-flesh moments are concerned with making what has been for the most part publicly invisible and silent visible and vocal” (Doty 4). 

The film Boys Don’t Cry was historic in that it humanized Brandon Teena’s story. For one of the first times, a transgender man was shown not as a deceptive criminal, but as a flawed yet complex character we could all relate to. 

I was first shown this film in my Human Sexuality class while attending community college in Arizona my freshman year. I found the story compelling and heartbreaking after watching it for the first time. I had not really been too exposed to what comes along with being transgender. The movie made an emotional impact on me, but I did not really give the concept of transgender much thought. Fast forwarding to current times, I have grown up and learned quite a bit about gender and sexuality throughout my college experience. I decided that I would watch the film again, to see how my perceptions of it may have changed.  

As a straight, white, and college educated student, I realize I do not have any personal experience with being transgender. However, after taking this course and doing my own research, I feel as though I have a better grasp of the struggles transgender people face on a daily basis. After re-watching this film, I realized just how groundbreaking it was for the late 90’s.

“The success of New Queer Cinema in the early 1990s led Hollywood to briefly and unsuccessfully) to market a few films that explored more open parameters of sexuality, such as “Three of Hearts” (1993) and “Threesome” (1994). Hollywood moviegoers were more comfortable with films that deployed the usual stereotypes. Drag Queens were central characters in the Hollywood comedies…but the films used them more for comedic effect than a queer deconstruction of gender roles” (Benshoff & Griffin 12).

(Image: http://equalitync.org/actontrans) 

Instead of using his transgender identity to make him the butt of the film’s jokes, the film uses Brandon’s sexual identity as a factor than humanizes him to the audience.  “The film broke out into the cultural mainstream, offering wide visibility to a marginalized group, and broke away from 20th-century filmic traditions that routinely dehumanized and trivialized transgender characters. As one discussant noted, Boys Don’t Cry was similar to Will & Grace in that “mainstream America saw it and realized they didn’t have to be scared of us” (Cavalcante, 2). The film also gave the real Brandon Teena a voice. His story was perpetuated by the news, and since the stories were written post-mortem, Brandon never got a chance to tell his side of the story. The film allows the audience to see the story from the victim’s perspective, which further humanizes him.

 Getting the film made was a challenge in itself. With a first time filmmaker, the film was independently funded and filmed outside the major film studio system. The project took 5 years to complete, but now we know was worth it. Not only does the movie depict Brandon as a complex character, but also shows sex scenes between he and Lana. Showing this kind of sexuality is usually unseen in Hollywood films. This topic remains important to me because I believe in the fair treatment of all, no matter gender or sexual orientation they are. Even though this movie has a tragic ending, I think the representation and humanization of Brandon Teena still has a huge impact on transgender people who are struggling with their identity, as well as setting a positive model for depictions of trans people there after. 

By: Sabrina Jankovic

1. Doty, Alexander. 1993. Making Things Perfectly Queer. 

2. Benshoff, Harry & Griffin, Sean. 2004. Queer Cinema, The Film Reader.

3. Cavalcante, Andre. 2017. Breaking Into Transgender Life: Transgender Audience’s Experiences With “First of Its Kind” Visibility in Popular Media. 

[a-s-a-p-hki]

A way of existence.

Here’s a text that has been spread in the SURVIVING THE SCENE event in Helsinki some years back.

We define gender as a very solid social construction: A way of existence. Gender is a complex result of a history of differently developed ways of thoughts and feelings, body praxis, the climate in a society and its institutions: It’s a historically defined way of how to exist. (1) We think it is correct to refer to ones own (gender-)identity in a political way as long as it is clear that this identity is rather consistent nor natural. Our political aim is not reformation, but the abolishment of gender. That is why we will not support a positive reference to maleness. (This does not mean all male- coded attributes are always, or in general, bad.) To learn to live with “another” maleness is for us a pragmatic necessity. Attempts to live transgendered, or somehow beyond gender, is massively limited in most parts of the world by insurmountable political, economic and psychic resistance. Under the current circumstances a total escape from the gender system is as impossible as living a class-less or non-racial existence. But still we will direct our personal / political efforts to the subversion of maleness. We need [positive?] de-maleing / emasculation strategies. In the current (partial) liberalization of the relation between (biological) sex and (social) gender, we see an ambivalent development. As we are not naive enough to think a few “housemen” and “GI-janes” plus some cross-dressing in the metropoles is really questioning the foundation of global patriarchal exploitation and dominance. On the contrary, it seems like the nice image of the new gender (un)order is tolerated to conceal the continuous stability of patriarchal hegemony. Still, we think the transition to a more flexible gender that is happening in some places can be a starting point for anti-patriarchal politics. The reason for the aforementioned ambivalence is - even though it carries the potential for a radical breach of the patriarchal gender system - it is much more likely will just lead to a modernization of it. Of course, what will really happen in the future depends on our social struggle; Now. Because our existence as men is a solid social fact, we think it is important to deal with our given gender identity in a political way, for example by organizing autonomous groups of anti-patriarchal men (anti-pat groups). (2) These groups are problematic on the one hand and good and useful on the other. Problematic, because they allow avoidance of direct discussion with wimmin; because they may result in the stabilization of a only slightly renovated male identity; and because every group of this kind has the tendency to become a “männerbund” (german word for a group of elite-men following the goal of conserving their hegemony). But these are not reasons for us to give up the idea of the anti-pat groups, but we will definitely encounter problems, and hopefully will be able to deal with them. These groups are useful, as they allow processes of personal change that might not be possible in mixed groups, because of anger, trauma (triggers) and even more complex “problems of understanding” between genders. They are an alternative to the common structure of emotional exploitation of wimmin by men and force (heterosexual) men to deal with (and care for) each other. This can liberate a hidden longing for closeness (especially between heterosexual men) and additionally help to tackle another strong pillar of patriarchal socialization, namely: homophobia. To prevent wimmin from having to give “private lessons” in feminist theory, the reproduction of common speech and behavior patterns, or the paralyzation of a discussion because of a “trigger-fear”, we think it makes sense that a lot of necessary discussions, especially when it get’s more personal (e.g. desire structures, internalized beauty ideals and so on). This does not at all mean that we don’t want to have mixed group discussions about maleness, gender and patriarchy. This will always be extremely necessary. It is merely one more tool we have to work on regarding the issue of patriarchal hegemony. We do not think “Anti-Pat” is a political subdomain, that has to be handled by specialists. For us the question of gender is part of all political domains and we try to confront the classic, abstract-male idea of politics. We are interested in the adventurous relation between therapy and politics, aesthetics and politics, without turning our backs to the classic forms of public agitation. Why is gender for us - especially for us males - a central political category? And how does it communicate with other social hegemonies? Emancipation is not only the liberation from external forces, but also from internal ones. Emancipation does not only consist of the transformation of the relational structures between people (and we should include non-human animals and the rest of the world(s) here as well), but also of the [social?] structures within people. In general it makes little sense to divide between external and internal structures of individuals, that’s a bourgeoisie illusion. For us, emancipation includes the liberation from socially constructed system conformity (or pathological spoken: addictions)and the development of a new desire to transgress the system. In this context, being radical means to act AGAINST our inherent interests and desires - as men, as white - and to fight FOR our utopia of autonomy and collectivity.We think that it is important for men to problematize their maleness, whites their whiteness, and in general for everybody who is privileged to question their seemingly normal and universal unmarked difference, by making it a political issue.This does not mean to constantly complain about our own identity problems. On the contrary, it means to realistically estimate our own position in this society (and for the grief and suffering this realization might bring, we have the anti-pat groups). We do not have an answer, but we reject any overarching or singular answer, that reduces all political issues into ONE logic or lines up different segments of social suppression in an equalizing manner. For us it is a given that we have to analyze the patriarchal gender-structure in a global context, integrating the national, racial and ethnic aspects that form mainstream society. We believe that in the discussion about big political issues like capitalism, class, racism, speciecism and so on we should never leave out the question of patriarchal suppression and exploitation. Every gender-blind view on these issues is just wrong. Society’s concept of nature, the state, nation, antisemitism, racism and ethnicity can not be understand in a gender-neutral way. Gender has a central role in the organization of human emotionality and physicality. And these are crucial aspects in the process of transforming society, because the affirmation of the status quo is not only anchored “in the heads”, but also in the fact that the ruling hegemony is part of our bodies and our desires. That is why gender is such an important political issue. This is not about the hype of a cult of emotionality and physicality, we do not speak for naive romanticism nor bourgeoisie culture-criticism. Neither is it about claiming that the socially constructed relation between femaleness and emotionality / physicality is natural or reproducing other patriarchal stereotypes of femaleness.This is about breaking free from patriarchal dichotomies like: Nature / culture, body / mind, emotion / rationality, female / male, ... (3) We think that the construction of a radical front, forming durable opposition of social communities against patriarchal hegemony, needs another way, than the common rational suppression of emotionality and physicality, that is so common in political groups. We need to be practical and critical in understanding our selves / bodies as zones of political struggle.

------ [ This text is based on a german text by “Die 3 Avangardisten” from the `90s. ]

(1) the concept of “a way of existence” tries to find a balance between the structure of society and the speciality of individuals. Furthermore, understanding gender as “a way of existence” avoids the reduction of gender to a mere phenomenon of the consciousness, a psychic event or something of an external impulse (e.g. gender roles) triggers in an individual . We consider individual responsibility [to be...].

(2) actually, it would be better to speak more precisely here and call it what it is: a white, privileged,heterosexual, anti-patriarchal male socialized men’s group.

(3) this means for us absolute antipodes, in which one pole is set to a higher hierarchy level.