As we have seen time and time again, two things happen whenever anyone “transgressively” redefines beauty (or sex, or femininity, or motherhood, or anything else popularly believed to be the purview of women). One, the transgressive redefinition only transpires when there is money to be made and flesh to exploit. Two, although it represents only a cosmetic shift in art direction, the new line of sexbot demarcation is touted and accepted as some kind of paradigmatic feminist breakthrough.
This is the type of post we need: razor-sharp, insightful, and informative. This elephant applauds.
Update: Oops, I forgot to say I found out about this post from Pippa.
18 comments:
Yes SE, I see quite a lot of “transgressive” redefinition though it really does not re-define anything-just puts a shiny new wrapper on. They must really think we are gullible and stupid.
Let us define “feminist breakthrough“.
What did she say?
Sparkle-I can't even work up any surprise for the nerve of people looking for a profit to define feminist. Sigh.
Rootie-Welcome, btw. I don't think I said that before.
She basically said that Suicide Girls was nothing but a teen porn site, and criticized their attempt to market themselves as anything different. Supposedly, the girls are of all body types, but not really.
The web site says:
We are an army of 1,318 unconventionally gorgeous pin-up girls devoted to changing your idea of what makes women beautiful.
Well, that sounds like a revolutionary approach, but unfortunately, it just seems to be the same old porn.
SE:
(You must forgive me, I have been celebrating...with jagermister)
I HATE the term sexbot. I know exactly what type of body/look it means, and well, no one likes being bashed for their looks.
I also think beauty, REAL beauty, goes way further than that. I've seen Twisty's photos, you know what, agree or like her or not, the woman has a facial expressions that just make you want to grin, laugh, spit, or say hell yeah...and that is beautiful. I've never even seen you, but the beauty that counts in the long run ain't on the inside...looks fade, in the long run, it's that OTHER beauty that actually matters...
Sorry for getting all personal and emotional on your blog, but, hey, the mood struck.
Ah, Twisty at her finest. I especially like the way she made really explicit her relationship with Bitch PhD. I don't really like BPhD's work, for lots of reasons, but I like to see that we can disagree about certain things and still respect each other. Feminist collegiality, here we come!
Ren,
I agree with hating the term sexbot to describe women. But, the way Twisty used it here (if I understood her correctly), I do agree with: sexbot as the role that men and society at large try to force on all women.
You had Jager, I'm just really tired-am I making sense? I don't like sexbot as a slam at an individual woman, but if you want to use it for the role all women are supposed to play, I'm ok with it.
Amy-Yes, Twisty at her finest. I almost used a title like "No hypocrisy here", but I was afraid it would come across as snotty, and that's not how I meant it at all.
Ditto on her talking about Bitch PhD, and how she has problems with her, but back off, wimmins! :)
SE:
"am I making sense? I don't like sexbot as a slam at an individual woman, but if you want to use it for the role all women are supposed to play, I'm ok with it."
yes, with the making of the sense, and to quote my 6 year old neice "well, sometimes boys are just dumb."
i hate to snark on the parade. but i couldn't disagree more. here's my hint...this statement only works as a universal if queer people don't exist apart from the ways in which they have been commodified.
if this thesis is right, then twisty has just theorized queerness as defined and originating in hetpatrichal oppression.
now, either she really does believe that *all* sexual transgression is ultimately referential and dependant on a harmful system...and thus has placed herself in ideological warfare with all queerdom...
or she's sloppy enough to make a statement universal when it shouldn't have been, revealing a strong internal bias in her thinking towards the erasure of queer people.
are the SG commodified? yeah. no doubt. and the buzz i've heard is that the management there is particularly manipulative and rude to the talent. but why just criticize particular porn when you can make a swipe at queer people too?
as i said over at my place...Stonewall did not have corporate sponsorship. Actup was not done for the money.
SG is particularly nasty to it's "talent" from what I have heard as well....
I have also heard this. May I be rude in this space? Ignore if this is not allowed: I wish the talent would band together more and make porn sites that weren't abusive and shitty to folks. It's not right for people who hate women to always make tons of money off of their bodies.
"It's not right for people who hate women to always make tons of money off of their bodies."
I believe you are in the right place. :)
Ren-I forgot to say, feel free to get personal & emotional here whenever you want. :)
Sly-It's always dangerous to assume what others were getting at, but that's never stopped me before, so:
The way I read her post, she was attacking corporate ownership of activist ideals. So queer people have the right to redefine themselves and their world-just like radical feminists do. It's when some money-grubbing lowlife "redefines" ________ to make a pile of money that it's gross and needs to be called out.
One important way for queer people and feminists to fight the system is through redefining, well, everything. But when it gets twisted into a capitalist wet dream, that has to be torn apart.
Ren-Yeah, she had a link to women who had quit SG, and they were treated like so much trash. I'm guessing women who currently work for them aren't treated fairly either.
Shannon-Yep, feel free to be rude here. I didn't think what you said was rude, but we'll have to agree to disagree. As long as the world is like it currently is, I won't support porn, it's just too destructive for women. But yes, I do wish things would move in a better direction.
I think this post was really sharp and biting! Why I like her writing (but disagree often).
I also really appreciated that she wasn't 'attacking' B Phd (whose site I seldom if ever read).
I think it's become more and more obvious that rather than being taken seriously by other leftists (with some power) - most of us are being taken more seriously by corporations as embodied by pornographers.... Illuminating somewhat that blogging indeed is a type of 'middle-class hobby' (not saying that people who blog are rich, more that it's percieved as being a hobby for those with more 'time/education').
The porn we have now is too bad to be accepted, but the concept of porn is OK. Just the actual porn is really bad, you get me?
so do we say porn is bad, try to fight what's wrong about it now shannon or keep waiting around for this utopian vision of porn to come through? Or we could just do what's happening now and sit with our hands crossed and not talk about the elephant (sorry spotted ele) in the room (or in this case blogosphere).
Blogs for people not porn!!! ;) LOL
AradhanaD-Yes-she didn't attack Bitch PhD, which was crucial, she took issue with what Bitch was *doing*.
I hadn't thought about bloggers being taken more seriously by corporate types, but it makes sense-any niche to be exploited, right?
Shannon-I think I get what you're saying, but I take the stance that porn could be ok ONLY after the patriarchy (and other oppressions) are overthrown. With the power structure the way it is, even if porn actors are unionized and the racist garbage is eliminated, it's still going to be sexist.
I don't know if I'm getting my point out or not. For porn to sell, it's going to have to make the average straight guy's dick hard. The only way that seems to happen is with serious misogyny going on. Someday, hopefully that won't be true, but in this world, I think it is.
Do the first thing of course, but obviously the talent isn't against porn, and might not be....*shifty eyes* feminist at all.
Spotted elephant has good points I can only address after eating food.
I think you made your point very well, SE; as of right now it's power difference that excites, power difference IS sex (I think that's Dworkin) and there's no way to make porn without it.
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