Rapey lyrics, Thicke and the dangers of oversimplifying

So, I hate pretty much everything about Robin Thicke's song and video, Blurred Lines. What feminist doesn't, right? I don't need to go into everything that's creepy, douchebaggy and borderline rapey about the song and video, because plenty of writers have already helpfully outlined it for me. I don't even need to bother satirising its tired, predictable retro-sexism and insidious endorsement of rape myths, because plenty of humourists have already created their own parody videos, and freakin' hilarious they are too. However, when I read this article, which draws links between the song lyrics and the words of actual rapists, I began to wonder if the Thicke-bashing has gotten a little out of hand.

 

Not that the twatty-sunglassed one doesn't deserve every term of abuse in the book every time he purrs 'I know you want it/But you're a good girl' and endorses the concept of 'blurred lines' that every vile git who claims women all mean 'yes' when they say 'no' uses to justify their misogynistic behaviour. But, I get a little uncomfortable when I read the following - "women, according to Blurred Lines, want to be treated badly.

Nothing like your last guy, he too square for you.
He don’t smack your ass and pull your hair like that.

In this misogynistic fantasy, a woman doesn’t want a “square” who’ll treat her like a human being and with respect. She would rather be degraded and abused for a man’s gratification and amusement."

Yes, I bridle at the notion that it's 'square' not to want to have rough sex - I've written extensively about how being 'vanilla' should not be a source of shame, mockery or used as evidence that you are somehow less sexually 'cool' than people who like it ker-razy in the bedroom. Shaming men who don't want to play rough with their female partners definitely seems to be part of a toxic cult of masculinity that defines manhood only in relation to violence. However, I object to the notion that a guy smacking a woman's backside and pulling her hair equals 'degradation and abuse'. I object to the notion that this could only be done 'for a man's gratification and amusement'. I object to the assumption that this is necessarily non-consensual. I object, overall, to the idea that rough sex is something that is degrading, only ever initiated by men, and only ever forced, non-consensually on female 'victims'. (And yes, I've written about that).

Now, I'd rather spend eternity chewing on broken glass than ever consider sex with a douchebag in Ray-bans who comes on to me by saying 'You're an animal, baby it's in your nature', but that doesn't mean that every single word that said douchebag sings must necessarily be sick, wrong and misogynistic. I also feel that to equate Thicke's lyrics with words that rape victims actually had to hear during their assault (even if some victims were happy to collaborate in this article) is to trivialise their ordeal somewhat. It's also just a bit meaningless. If I say 'I know you want it' next time I temptingly offer a spoonful of ice cream to a friend seated next to me at a restaurant table, am I also guilty of perpetuating rape culture? If one of my roller derby teammates calls me a 'good girl' when I finally get a skating move right after the 74th attempt, is that simply bolstering the 'Madonna/whore' divide? I'm being facetious of course, and I know that what happens in life and what happens in sex can't necessarily be conflated (I know also, of course, that rape is not 'sex'). But Thicke's video isn't sex, either. It's media. Dumbass, lowest-common-denominator media at that. It's three men and three scantily-clad women twatting around in a studio. And whatever terrible things we feel it may reflect or encourage in our society, it's not the worst, or the only perpetrator.

Just off the top of my head, I can straight away think of probably ten different lyrics from popular songs that contain potentially shitty attitudes to women. How's about "Turn around bitch, I got a use for you" from Guns n' Roses It's So Easy? Or the same band's Used to Love Her, subtitled But I Had to Kill Her? We could argue about whether the fact the latter song was apparently written not about a woman, but Axl Rose's pet dog, negates the fact it sounds like an endorsement for murdering your spouse, for as long as we can argue about whether the 'ass-smacking' in Thicke's lyrics is consensual or forced, and I guess we might not get very far. But if, like the author of the Sociological Images article seems to be saying, we're not going to give artists the benefit of the doubt, then I guess I'd better start deleting all my G n' R MP3s. By this logic, I guess we'd better ban Britney Spears' I Was Born To Make You Happy too, not just because it's a godawful song, but because of the female subservience that its title and lyrics are advocating. We should probably also go after Alice Cooper's big-haired, chains n' whips-themed 80s classic, Poison, for the lines "I wanna hurt you just to hear you screaming my name". And maybe we should also take to task Wham's Edge of Heaven for the moment where young George Michael trills, "I would strap you up, but don't worry baby - you know I wouldn't hurt you unless you wanted me to" although at least the violence there is premised on consent and desire.

Which makes me think, where do we draw the lines (and not fuckin' blurred lines, either)? If we're going to cite any song with remotely rapey lyrics as intricately bound up with the traumas of real live women who have been assaulted, it's going to be a very long and sickening journey. Jason DeRulo made the charts in 2010 with a song that contained the lyrics "You'll be screaming 'no'''. Not long after, Dizzee Rascal rapped "I'm not forceful but I'm still hardcore/You're gonna give me everything I ask for". And if we assume that the line "I'm gonna give you something to tear your ass in two" must necessarily refer to 'violent, non-consensual sodomy', then we're gonna have to retrospectively condemn pretty little Pharrell Williams for promising to 'tear your ass up', 10 years ago in his duet with Jay-Z 'Frontin'. Personally, I think this assumption says more about the author's determination to wring every last drop of rapey-ness out of Blurred Lines than it does the actual song. Taken in the context of all the other rapey lyrics, I can see why one would assign this meaning to that particular line, but I don't think the lyric refers to anal rape any more than I think the line 'Burn this woman down' in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest means that McMurphy is actually encouraging Billy Bibbit to set fire to his sexual partner.

 

It sometimes feels like feminists are required to take one of two very simplistic sides when it comes to sexist media - either condemning it utterly, as the SI article does, or jumping to its defence and claming that said media can somehow be twisted to be 'empowering', however much evidence there is to the contrary. I don't want to do either. I want to encourage people to see the utter pile of bollocks that is Robin Thicke, his songs and his videos, in a wider context. I don't think it's helpful or wise to employ the shock tactics of placing rape victims' real-life trauma alongside silly lyrics from a shitty song that is one shitty song amongst millions that will be infecting the airwaves this week. I also don't think it's helpful to anyone, male or female, who enjoys consensual BDSM and is tired of what they enjoy being immediately labelled abuse.

 

Pop culture is powerful, insidious and can influence us all in ways we may never be fully aware of. But like a short skirt or a flirtatious smile, it doesn't cause rape, and neither does a stupid hashtag or a douchebag in sunglasses.

Violence, vengeance and punishment

"I am so full of hate that I'm scaring myself. Is there a word to describe wanting to kill people who are already dead? Because that's what's in my heart...I want to kill the killers, and I just can't believe that this would be a sin.

 

...I guess my question to You is whether or not You get to torture those evil bastards who did the killings, or if it's purely the devil's job and You subcontract it out. Is there any way I can help torture them from down here on earth? Just give me a sign and I'm in."

 

Douglas Coupland, "Hey Nostradamus!"

 

On hearing that the four men found guilty of raping and murdering a female student in Delhi last December have been sentenced to death, it's inevitable that some of our most uncharitable thoughts will seep in. It's hard not to think "GOOD." It's hard not to think "Yes, let them suffer like she did." It's hard not to think "Good riddance to bad rubbish." And many more, less printable, more sadistic thoughts. When the world is so infected with such savagery, I think it's a natural response to feel glad when fitting punishments are finally meted out to those who perpetrate acts that far too often go undetected and unaddressed.

 

I had similar thoughts when I heard that Ariel Castro, the man convicted of kidnapping, imprisoning and repeatedly raping three young women for over 10 years, had killed himself while in prison. Good riddance. There's another unsalveagable human being that society no longer has to deal with. No one's tax dollars have to be wasted keeping him alive. He's gone. Great. His victims might finally feel free.

 

But I know in my heart that these attitudes, while understandable, are far too simplistic to deal with the nuances of these cases, and of the surrounding society that allowed them to happen. Castro's death does not negate his victim's torment, and may even exacerbate it - Gina Dejesus, Michelle Knight and Amanda Berry have to live the rest of their lives with the memory of their decade-long ordeal. By comparison, Castro has got off easy. It also does not negate the fact that three women were let down so badly by a justice system which allowed them to disappear off the map for 10 years, and that theirs is by no means an isolated case. We are all well too aware of the names Jaycee Dugard, Natascha Kampusch and Elisabeth Fritzl. Whenever we hear about these cases, our media bandies around words like 'monster', 'horrific' and 'torment', as if to imply these stories are so unique and terrible that they're almost the stuff of fiction. We're meant to think that these things are so awful that they're almost unreal. But that's the twist - they are very real. And our societies keep letting them happen over, and over again.

 

And therein lies the uncomfortable truth of the Delhi case. For all the 'strong messages' that the death sentence on the four rapists are meant to send, it won't be strong enough. In a country where a rape is reported every 21 minutes, and thousands more attacks go unreported due to victim-blaming attitudes and social stigma, one landmark trial isn't going to change the landscape overnight. Yes, it's positive that as a result of the protests and outcry over India's shameful record on sexual violence, more victims are coming forward. Yes, it's positive that men are taking to the streets as well as women, and are condemning their fellow men who perpetrate, excuse and justify sexual violence (something that still needs to happen much, much more often in the West too). But killing the killers is, as several commentators have pointed out, a quick fix. A placatory gesture towards an understandably baying mob. Will this death sentence make the next rapist stop and consider his actions? I doubt it. What has to be stopped is the society that creates that rapist in the first place. And if we in the supposedly 'advanced' West - where we pay lip service to female autonomy and yet every adult woman can still tell you a story of being harassed, molested or assaulted in the street, at home or at work - can't stop creating men who think women need to be 'put in their place', then what hope for the developing world, where religion, patriarchy and poverty combine to keep women in a perpetual state of subordination and fear? 

 

I think a lot of it has to do with our inability to decide what 'punishment' should really mean. If it's about cold blooded vengeance, then the appropriate response would surely be to subject the rapists to hours of torture, penetrating their orifices with an iron bar and beating them until their innards are hanging out of their bodies. An eye for an eye, right? But in the name of 'civilisation', the proposed response is merely to hang them. So to what end? To make them suffer? One broken neck and presumably their suffering is over, unless you believe in an afterlife. To remove them from society? Prison serves that purpose, albeit at public expense. There can certainly be no argument that the death penalty is going to 'rehabilitate' the rapists, and as I've suggested above, I don't see it reforming any other miscreants out there either.

 

Regardless of any of these ethical debates, a lot of people - including the victim's family - remain very satisfied with the sentence, and still want the perpetrators dead. I can understand that. I can feel it myself, to an extent. But what I won't pretend is that killing is an answer to anything. Castro's suicide, the four rapists' hanging (if it does come to pass), mean very little in a society where thousands of other abusers of women are just waiting to take their place. Somewhere in India, a woman is being raped, beaten or murdered. So is a woman in Europe, in America, in Africa, anywhere on an atlas you'd care to stick a pin. What solace will the ridding of four rapists from this planet bring those women?

Latest Writing By Me

A piece for Women's Views on News on the story that Cardiff City footballer Kevin Sainte-Luce was spared jail for punching a woman unconscious, because the judge wanted to protect Sainte-Luce's "promising career".

And a good news piece (for a change!) for Ms. Magazine, on the news that the bill to legalise gay marriage passed the UK House of Commons with an overwhelming majority.

Saving Face - Acid Attacks and Violence Against Women

"The face is the most important asset of any woman. That is why the face is the first thing a man damages ... Once he knows a woman cannot be his, he wants to make sure that no one else wants her."

 

Jatoi, Field Manager of the Acid Survivors Foundation

 

I recently wrote for Women's Views on News about the latest victim of an acid attack, 15 year-old Tuba Tabussum, who had acid thrown on her face by four men as she walked home from school. It's hard to describe the rage and impotence one feels when describing this kind of deliberate and vicious form of violence against women - even harder to come to terms with the fact that acid attacks are a serious problem in the developing world, especially countries such as Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, and that they are still all too rarely punished.

 

So it was particularly upsetting to watch the HBO documentary Saving Face, which premiered on British television last week, and which followed the stories of several acid attack victims in Pakistan. The documentary also focused on the work of Dr Mohammad Jawad, a British cosmetic surgeon born in Pakistan who regularly returns to his home country to carry out surgery on acid attack victims. Despite his previous experience helping acid attack victim Katie Piper, Jawad is still visibly shocked by the calculated sadism he hears about. One of his patients, Zakia, describes how her husband drank and took drugs, stole money from her and regularly beat her. When she decided to file for divorce, he followed her to the courthouse. When she emerged, he said "So you want to divorce me? I'll make a spectacle out of you for the whole world to see," and threw acid on her face.

 

"It took one second to ruin my life completely," says Zakia, who is effectively missing one side of her face after the attack. She is one of the 'lucky' ones though - her husband was caught and is in jail awaiting the case against him. As the Asian Human Rights Commission states [TRIGGER WARNING for distressing images], "perpetrators... have often been able to walk away in total impunity". Zakia's husband is not going quietly though - he claims the allegations against him are a 'conspiracy' and that someone else carried out the attack. His father accuses Zakia of having had an affair, and then chillingly implies that acid attacks are somehow inevitable - "This was bound to happen...women are all over the place".

 

We're all familiar with this kind of language. Deny, deflect and shift blame - that's what we're used to seeing men do to women all over the world, even in our own supposedly civilised Western culture, when it comes to the horrendous violence that men commit. Men call women crazy, they call them liars, they call them sluts. They imply women's motives are only ever money or a misplaced desire to wreak vengeance upon the male sex. It happens in the UK whenever we talk about rape. I know, because I'm the one who is routinely met with victim-blaming comments whenever I write that sexual violence should only ever be blamed on the perpetrator. So I suppose we shouldn't be surprised that it's happening in the less developed world. The husband of Rukhsana - another victim who says her husband threw acid on her before her sister- and mother-in-law doused her in gasoline and set her on fire - sits in front of the camera with obvious acid burns on his hands and almost grinning, states "She lost her mind and threw [it] on herself". Amazingly, he goes on to say that 99% of women burn victims have inflicted their injuries upon themselves. This is 'gaslighting' at its most sinister - and it's what so often happens to women who dare to speak up about male violence.

 

"Men's minds have gone really perverse. They think they are God! I wonder why though. They can get away with anything. Women are blamed for every small thing." - Zakia

 

The documentary goes on to show the work of the Acid Survivors Foundation, and their fight to get new tough legislation passed. Marvi Memon MP is seen listening to survivors' stories and putting forward a bill to the Pakistani parliament that mandates life sentences for all acid attacks. It passes unanimously, and Zakia's husband is the first attacker to be convicted under the new law - he is given two life sentences. Meanwhile Dr Jawad struggles with the limitations of his ability to help victims. Rukhsana, who is forced to remain living with her husband and his relatives who maimed her so badly, is pregnant and cannot have reconstructive surgery on her damaged face. It is frustrating to see her chance at treatment delayed by an unplanned pregnancy which she has no option but to go ahead with, but it is clear that she sees a baby as an ally against her hostile family. She hopes for a boy, saying "A girl's future gets risky after marriage,", a very revealing choice of words considering that Pakistani society views a girl's future as risky if she does not marry. Rukhsana unwittingly reveals how mandatory attachment to a man is no 'protection' at all for a woman in a society that overlooks or downright condones violence against them. After her experience with her husband, no wonder she sees marriage as 'risky'.

 

"In our society boys live well. A girl's life is often unhappy" - Rukhsana

 

Dr Jawad also finds he cannot fix Zakia's face to the extent he would like, as her eyeball has been too damaged to save and her eye socket cannot support a glass eye. He has to settle for having a prosthesis made, but the improvement to her appearance and the boost of her husband's conviction are still clearly more than she ever hoped for. Jawad does lose patience with the inefficient Pakistani medical system at times, shouting at bumbling doctors "You idiots can make a nuclear bomb but you can't do this?!". Were he a white doctor we would of course accuse him of racism and cultural imperialism, but since he is a Pakistani native himself, and someone who is making an altruistic gesture in the face of massive apathy, it is easier to sympathise with his frustration.

 

I'm not sure what the lessons of Saving Face are, and perhaps it's simply too early to tell seeing as the new law in Pakistan was only passed in 2010. Similar measures in Bangladesh - restricting access to acid and introducing tougher punishments for attackers - have apparently brought about great reduction in the number of acid attacks. So perhaps there is hope for a similar change in Pakistan. But I can't help but think a law treats symptoms rather than causes. Acid attacks would not be occurring if women weren't seen as property, or as mentally unstable, intellectually deficient, sexually wild creatures that have to be controlled and subdued. Acid attacks would also not be occurring if a woman's worth was not measured by her beauty and disfigurement treated as a fate worse than death. Acid attacks would not be occurring if society did not insist that women's futures can only be secured via marriage, therefore meaning that to ruin a woman's chance of marriage is to ruin their whole life. And acid attacks would definitely not be occurring if men did not see women as objects they are entitled to. As Zakia's husband responds when asked why he would not grant a divorce, his words are simple but sinister - "I married her. She's mine."

 

Clearly the ill-treatment of women has roots that go much deeper than any law can reach, and where to start in dismantling a society that so often sanctions misogyny is anyone's guess. But as Dr Jawad states, change begins with number one. "In a way, I'm saving my own face" he says of performing surgery on acid victims. "Because I'm part of the society which has this disease."

 

You can donate to the Acid Survivors Foundation here.

Chris Brown, Trolling and Forgiveness

(This piece was also reprinted over at Independent Voices)

Anyone who has a passing association with social media will probably be aware that singer Chris Brown has suspended his Twitter account after hurling misogynistic and sexualised insults at comedian Jenny Johnson. To see the full transcript of Brown's NSFW tweets, you can go here, and it's likely you will be pretty disgusted. A few brave commentators have pointed out that Johnson has been aiming derogatory comments at Brown ever since his 2009 conviction for his vicious assault against then-partner Rihanna, and that she started this particular exchange by calling him a 'worthless piece of shit'. Others have added that this is mere publicity-seeking on the part of Johnson. But even if it is, Brown's reponse - where he threatens to defecate in Johnson's eye/mouth, calls her a 'worthless bitch' 'a bushpig' and tells her to 'suck my dick YOU HOE' (sic) - has proven exactly what Johnson and countless other appalled women and men have been saying for years. Namely that, far from being a 'reformed character' just because he 'served his sentence' (and more on why that's SUCH an inadequate defence, later), Brown remains a total misogynist, and one with a frightening lack of self-awareness to boot.

Twitter trolls are at best annoying, and at worst severely disruptive to one's life and sanity. However, the solution to them remains in our hands - ignore and block. Brown could have blocked Johnson long ago, but egotist that he is, he chose to engage and show his true colours instead. He could have responded with some dignity or at least attempted to defend himself in a reasoned way. But I guess a man who bites, punches and throttles a woman while screaming "I'm going to kill you!" perhaps isn't particularly schooled in the nuances of having a mature debate with another person, and not using any excuse to rise to the bait. While I don't believe in 'trial by social media', I do believe in winding your bloody neck in when the thing you're most renowned for is a vile, violent, inexcusable assault on the person you're supposed to love, rather than repeatedly behaving like an obnoxious twat and then making out you're just soooo bafflingly oppressed by 'haterz'. And don't even get me started on Brown's use of social media to label his legion of followers 'Team Breezy', as if to somehow imply that his crimes are something that we should all be 'super casual' and 'mellow' about.

To those then, who will inevitably come back with the 'He served his sentence and said he was sorry' defence, sorry but no dice. That defence will only stand when we live in a world where violence against women is adequately punished, and all the evidence at hand shows that this is far from the case. I remember over a decade ago, how Mike Tyson's supporters clamoured to defend him when he was barred from entering Britain on grounds of his rape conviction. Women and men were vox-popped on the evening news bleating 'But he's done his time, forget it, move on'. Oh sure, Tyson did his time for raping Desiree Washington. He was sentenced to 6 years, but served 3. If you were an average sized woman forced into sex by someone with the physical strength, power and capacity for violence of Mike Tyson, would you think that an adequate sentence? Not to mention if you had to go through the media circus and complete annihilation of your character that would follow the (extremely brave) action of accusing one of the world's most famous and admired men, as Tyson was at the time? It's pitiful, that out of the very few rape cases that actually reach court, sentences remain so light, and it defies logic to think that a man who thinks he can use force to dominate a woman is going to be magically reformed by undergoing such a sentence.

This is illustrated perfectly by Chris Brown's behaviour. His sentence was a joke, and whatever public 'apology' he was forced to issue for PR reasons, his behaviour since 2009 implies he is utterly unremorseful. He served no jail time, and got a mere 5 year's probation with 6 months community labour. Reading the description of the frenzied, possibly murderous assault Brown unleashed on Rihanna, I think most of us would agree that this is in no way proportionate to the terror and pain his victim underwent and will probably continue to undergo in the aftermath. When someone punches you repeatedly in the head and then squeezes on your carotid artery while you scream for help, you don't just get over that overnight, or in a year, or even five years. I'd wager it stays with you for life. 

And whether Rihanna herself appears forgiving of Brown is irrelevant. We've all heard the term Stockholm Syndrome, and anyone who has done the slightest bit of research on domestic violence, or worse, experienced it themselves, will tell you that victims regularly defend and make excuses for their attacker. Even if Rihanna and Brown actually do start up a relationship again, this is in no way evidence that Brown is magically 'reformed', and could end up being quite the opposite - the average domestic abuse victim will leave their abuser only to return to them 7 times before managing to leave for good. It's also worth bearing in mind that domestic abuse victims will usually endure repeated beatings before even calling the police. Had Brown's attack on Rihanna not occurred in public, whereby worried bystanders overheard Rihanna's screams and called the police, the story could have played out very differently. Brown's victim deciding she wants to forgive him or still wants to be in a relationship with him does not negate what he did, or improve his character, or erase the surrounding culture of victim-blaming and apologism for violence against women.

Ah yes, that culture. That culture whereby a rich, powerful man who is looked up to by millions describes another man's violence against a woman as a 'mistake' and demands that we give that man 'a break'. That culture whereby Rihanna being punched, choked and bitten is merely a punchline in a primetime panel quiz show  (which was also tastefully broadcast on International Stop Violence Against Women Day), and where complaints against such filth are dismissed on grounds of 'varying tastes of humour'. In such a culture, there is no punishment harsh enough, no disgust deep enough, no grudge held long enough against the likes of Brown. Served his time, my backside. And if you think I'm being unfair, imagine what happened to Rihanna happening to your wife, girlfriend, sister, daughter, mother or friend, and tell me how forgiving you'd feel four years later, when the man who had beaten, strangled and bloodied the woman you care about is rich, successful and hurling vile abuse at another woman on social media. Somehow I doubt you'd be rushing to defend delusional misogynist Brown either.

Read more celebrity gossip at: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2009/08/chris-brown-assault-rihanna-details-domestic-violence-history-past/#ixzz2DKWx0hNn

her mouth to fill with blood and blood to splatter over her clothing and the inside of the car."

Read more celebrity gossip at: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2009/08/chris-brown-assault-rihanna-details-domestic-violence-history-past/#ixzz2DKWx0hNn

her mouth to fill with blood and blood to splatter over her clothing and the inside of the car."

Read more celebrity gossip at: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2009/08/chris-brown-assault-rihanna-details-domestic-violence-history-past/#ixzz2DKWx0hN"I'm going to kill you!"

50 Shades of Kink-Shaming

In a blog post where she sets out why she feels the Canadian police force were right to investigate Cpl Jim Brown, an officer 'outed' as participating in BDSM, Meghan Murphy starts by saying "I really don’t care about ‘kink’ or about ‘kinky people’. It just doesn’t interest me. I don’t give a shit about your leather fetish." Kinksters might feel those words provide them with carte blanche to then say, "Well, I guess I don't give a shit about what Meghan Murphy thinks of my lifestyle then", but as both a feminist and a kinkster, I'm not prepared to walk away quite so easily.

Murphy does make some points in her article that I agree with, such as:

- "Just because you really, really like something doesn’t mean that it is or should be free from deconstruction or critique."

- "Just because you are a feminist or because you consider yourself to be a progressive guy, doesn’t make everything you do a feminist or progressive practice."

 I am definitely sick and tired of the rhetoric of 'choice' being invoked to justify all behaviour, no matter how retrogressive. I will definitely slap the next person who tells me that there's nothing anti-feminist about a woman getting breast implants 'because it's her choice'. That said, I think the depiction of all women as victims and all men as abusers (real or by proxy) is equally unhelpful to any feminist conversation. Unfortunately, when we think about kink, those seem to be the only two sides of the argument that get presented.

"So Brown was looking into the disappearance and sadistic murder of dozens of women. He also happens to be turned on by dominating women and playing out sadistic fantasies in his private life. Does that necessarily make him a murderer? No." OK, I'm with Murphy so far on this point. However, she pretty much loses my support with her next point

"Is it worth exploring the fact that a man in a position of power who was a part of a force that made it pretty clear that they didn’t give two shits about the women who were going missing from the DTES until they were forced to pay attention AND that he liked to play out misogynist, violent fantasies in his private time? Yes."

It's the 'AND' that does it. The conflating of Cpl Jim Brown's taste for BDSM (evidenced by a few photos which sound to me pretty mild considering the stuff you can see on Fetlife) with police failure to take women's disappearances seriously is an unjustified leap to make. To make the link between to the two is a deliberately emotive tactic to imply that men liking sadomasochistic erotica is basically responsible for institutional failures in taking violence against women seriously. Sorry, but I'm going to need to see a little more evidence for that. One man's private sexual preferences do not result in an entire police force of women-hating sadists.

This brings me on to two further points that Murphy seems unwilling to countenance:

- that it is possible to separate the personal from the professional

- and that kink is not violence. I know she spends a great deal of the piece saying she's 'not interested' in hearing about BDSM, and even admits she is not particularly well-educated on the matter. But let's face it, her whole piece IS about kink, albeit in a roundabout way, even if she doesn't want to admit it. We wouldn't even be talking about the Jim Brown case if kink didn't make so many people uneasy and apt to judge.

So, first point - "Women are subjected to violence at the hands of men on a daily basis. The missing and murdered women were killed by men. That’s why the sexualization of inequity matters and that’s why images of an RCMP officer posing in sadistic scenes with submissive women matters."

Sorry, but no. Just like we wouldn't take a lesbian officer off a case because it involves a gay couple, or a white officer off a case that involved racism, we cannot start policing the bedroom and stating that officers are not sufficiently objective in cases that involve sexual/gendered violence, just because they might enjoy - and please read this carefully - CONSENSUAL MIMICKING OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE, NOT SEXUAL VIOLENCE ITSELF. If Brown had actually ever committed violence against a woman, I would agree he should be bannned from law enforcement for the rest of his life. But unless we're going to start telling meat-eaters that they can't work for animal protection charities, dentists that they can't ever eat candy, and doctors that they shouldn't smoke (Ha! every the medical establishment in the country would be deserted in minutes), we cannot demand that invidual's private lives be dragged into their workplaces and used to condemn them on entirely spurious grounds.

This brings me to my second point. Murphy regularly fails to differentiate between actual non-consensual activities and fantasy 'consensual non-consent'. She seems convinced that our culture is so unequal, so hell-bent on abusing, silencing and even killing women, that women who enjoy sexual submission "are unable to clearly differentiate between free will and internalized self-hatred" (Mollena Williams), and that there's just no possibility of enjoying things like rape fantasies without automatically being a sad victim of the patriarchy. But Murphy offers no actual evidence for this beyond her own distaste for Jim Brown's activities, and her own hatred of a culture of sexual violence. Well, funnily enough I hate the way our culture hides, apologises for and blames women for sexual violence too. But I also hate being condescended to by feminists who assume they have the key to the One True Enlightened Way of having sex, and write me off as a brainwashed dupe of rape culture who is incapable of self-examination, just because I participate in BDSM.

And no, I don't believe the 'free will defence' is adequate when it comes to explaining tastes for BDSM - but what I do find interesting is that I'm required to defend it at all, whereas the feminists who are judging me are never asked to turn the mirror back on themselves and analyse their own conditioning at the hands of society. What makes the likes of Murphy think she is any more objective than a feminist kinkster who has done her reading and her research, gone on the marches and waved the placards, but still wants to be sexually submissive at the end of the day? As Cliff Pervocracy puts it "It's impossible for anyone to make a decision free from harmful social influences. Why single out kinky women?"

Murphy's analogy of wearing make-up but not claiming it as a feminist act is an interesting one which I think actually shows that you can participate in an activity, be aware of why you're doing it, be aware of the social influences that have contributed to it, and be OK with it. Murphy doesn't say whether her own make-up habit causes her to call women without make-up ugly, or go out into the streets and force lipstick onto unsuspecting girl's faces, but I'm guessing it probably doesn't. However, whilst awarding herself the ability to be self-critical, at the same time she is implying that Cpl Jim Brown's penchant for BDSM means he is incapable of intelligent self-examination or separating his private life from his work. And I think that's a really fucking patronising assumption to make.

To think that men who dominate consenting female partners just go ahead and start tying up and beating women without a second thought is to show just how little you know about kink. I've spoken to many male doms who describe the guilt and shame they went through in processing their desire to tie up, spank or 'force' a woman into sex (PLEASE note quote marks, they are there for a very important reason). Many say their desires felt at odds with their culture and upbringing, where they were taught to respect and never harm women. So much for this idea that we're always constantly bombarded with messages that tell us to hurt, degrade and discard women. Jay Wiseman even writes that he considered suicide if his desires did not subside, and it was only by finding a willing female partner that he began to understand the difference between actually harming women, and enacting erotic power struggles in a safe and respectful environment.

Of course, the kink-hating feminists will probably be sneering 'Oh boo hoo, poor guy, what about teh menz, god forbid they have to stop and consider their privilege for a second!'. I guess suggesting that men might have the ability to be self-critical as well as us feminists is a bridge too far for some, and I would venture that the reason Murphy and other anti-kink feminists snort at the idea Jim Brown could be a 'man of integrity' is that perhaps they just don't associate men with integrity full stop. The notion that male dom/fem sub BDSM must originate from a patriarchal model of contempt for women assumes a) that erotic power play is synonymous with violence and hatred, and b) that only a man who hates or wishes to degrade women could participate in it. I think you've got to have a pretty fucking low opinion of men in the first place to make that assumption.

Ultimately, if you believe that eroticising power dynamics which may or may not have their root in sexism (many would argue that BDSM can mimic all kinds of power dynamics - racial, class-based, familial, academic, workplace, human-to-animal - and that male/female roles are just one of many that can be chosen) is dangerous for society and women as a whole, you're not going to see Jim Brown as fit for investigating crimes against women. But if Meghan Murphy is asking me to stop harping on about 'my kink' as a defence for the likes of Brown, then in return I'm demanding that anti-kink feminists stop using their own sexual prejudices as a means to condemn him.

Round-Up - Latest Posts By Me

If you haven't already, get yourself hence to Bitch and check out my blog series on BDSM and pop culture.

Still blogging for Ms., this time about fashion editors claiming black eyes on women are somehow 'beautiful'.

And reporting for Women's Views on News why those who dislike abortion need to start throwing their weight behind contraceptive access.

Round-Up

Latest post by me for Women's Views on News, about the Greek MP who assaulted two women live on TV and says they should apologise to him.

Fantastic comic strip on why one woman is refusing to justify her feminism any longer.

A response to internet trolls in the form of a camp musical number? You know you're going to love it.

Lauren Barbato on those pesky nuns who've been disciplined for not spending all their time harrassing gays and taking away women's reproductive rights.

Latest Blog Posts By Me

One for Women's Views On News, about the Republican attempt to narrow the scope of VAWA.

And one for the Women's Media Center, on how best to respond to sexist advertising.

Degrees of sexism - my university adventures in feminism

After reading this excellent post by Cherry Morris for The F Word about how universities, far from being the enlightened, sexism-free seats of learning you might expect, are often rife with anti-feminist attitudes, I started thinking about my own time at university. I went to a high-ranking modern university, which I partially chose out of instinct that a newer university would be free of the shackles of traditions which seem to ensure centuries-old unis remain nepotistic moneyed old boys' clubs. I was there from 2002 to 2005, and had a great time. It's fair to say that, although my feminist leanings had been in place since I was in single digits, university did 'raise my consciousness' and cemented the feminist beliefs that were already dormant within me. Having access to a vast library where I could go at any time and pick up books written by academics dissecting the issues of porn, prostitution, rape, body image, work and countless more was amazing, and I could often be found amongst Sociology shelves filling my brain for fun, even though my degree wasn't even in Sociology! I did take elective courses from the Sociology department since I found my chosen subject - Philosophy - less than fulfilling, and taught entirely in a style that I thought I'd escaped by not going to Oxbridge. My course seemed to consist of being taught to regurgitate what old white men thought about the world, and little else. Apart from one week on Carol Gilligan's Ethics of Care (which could be argued is about the least feminist text in the world, labelling women 'naturally nurturing' and suggesting ethical theories based on our tendency to hug small children), there was no feminist philosophy, or even female philosophers. In fact there was no philosophy that didn't come straight out of the white western world, and usually from the mouths of those who studied at Oxford or Cambridge. But I digress.

Like Cherry Morris, I found myself differentiated from my female peers fairly quickly. The wave of familiarity that hits me when Cherry writes "I disliked it when my bum was pinched in a 'playful' manner, while other girls simply squealed and flapped" is something of a relief - to know that I wasn't the only one amazed at the casual sexism that went unchallenged amongst (allegedly) the brightest minds in the country. Although no one was audacious enough to physically harass me, my peers clearly enjoyed seeing my enraged reaction on showing me, say, an email forward of "100 things women are incapable of doing" and accusing me of being 'OTT' when I went apoplectic at a point on the list that said "Understand why flirting leads to violence". Boys laughed and pulled cute puppy-dog faces when I shouted at them for telling me jokes such as (genuine example) "What do you say to a woman with two black eyes?" "Nothing you haven't told her twice already". I usually felt completely alone in challenging such vile misogyny, especially during my first year when I lived in halls of residence with only 8 other girls and 17 boys. It wasn't that I minded being in the minority; more that I was dismayed that none of my alleged 'sisters' were willing to fight the good fight with me. Instead I got long-suffering eye rolls, patronising smiles, and arm-pats that said '"Oh dear, Chas has gone 'all intense' again".

I did have at least one friend I considered as strident as me, and when I lived with her and another smart, savvy female friend in our second and third years, I felt more cushioned from the provocations of casual sexism from over-privileged boys, and the disappointing acquiescence of blinkered girls. However, it was hard not to feel alone and discouraged in caring about feminism. The on-campus newsagent assaulted your eyes with Nuts, Zoo et all manner of sexist crap the moment you walked in to buy a paper, and it was only in my 3rd year at uni that I saw this challenged by an emerging anti-sexism group. Boys and girls in our hall of residence regularly referred to a female acquaintance as a 'streetwalker' because on nights out she wore a lot of make-up and thigh-high boots. Attitudes towards sexual violence were frighteningly pedestrian - when a foreign student was raped and beaten so badly she was hospitalised during our first year, the onus was on girls to surrender their independence, and men to 'look after them'. Cue a rash of 'white knights' offering to walk girls home after nights out, blissfully unaware that the men most likely to attack a woman are the ones she lives with and knows best.

I remember having bitter rows with a well-meaning male friend who, if I dared to leave a nightclub alone, would chase after me and insist on walking me home. When I put forward the theory that statistically, he and the boys I lived with were far more likely to rape me than any stranger lurking behind a bush, he became deeply aggressive. I remember having to explain to a male sociology PhD student how all men benefit from the threat of rape as a form of social control, even those who consider themselves 'the good guys' for not raping anyone, because it keeps all women in a state of fear and hence beholden to men for 'protection'. In his 5-plus years studying sociology, this sensitive, thoughtful, well-educated man genuinely hadn't come across this theory once. I found that very telling, both about the teaching priorities of his department, but also about the culture of our university - you just weren't encouraged to think about or question sexism, and you were often loudly shouted down when you attempted to.

I still think about the student who was raped, and how it later transpired that another student had been assaulted on the same pathway a week earlier, yet the university had 'covered up' this story. The campus newspaper rightly made a stink about how in prioritising its reputation, the university had effectively let another assault happen when publicising the first attack would probably have meant all girls avoided that pathway like the plague, and saved that second student from a horrific and brutal rape. However, I felt like this only dealt with such a tiny fragment of the problem. I felt the usual outrage at the suggestion that it is down to women to adjust our behaviour to avoid rape, and wondered why no one else ever questioned or kicked against this. Why were my fellow students happy to be treated like children, pets or invalids, herded around at night by protective males as if our freedom was a mere indulgence, and only to be granted us in daylight? Furthermore, what would highlighting the site of one rape as a danger zone really achieve? What was to stop the rapist reappearing on a different path, in the student union, in halls of residence? I wondered how many unreported attacks had occurred not in the stereotypical setting of a darkened alley, but in students' own rooms, where statistics tell us rapes are far more likely to take place?

It wasn't all shite - the anti-sexism society that started in 2004 when I was in my last year at university is still going strong there. Since I graduated in 2005 I've seen a resurgence of interest in feminism from young women, and a visit to Feministing.com or The F Word confirms that I'm not the only woman in her 20s to give a shit any more. Activism in the form of Reclaim The Night/Million Women Rise marches, the Feminism In London conventions, the growth of feminist networks up and down the country, and the countless feminist voices in the blogosphere, is greatly heartening to a 27 year-old who was once a 19 year-old wondering if she was the only one. Still, that's not to say students today are likely to have it much easier - I would not want to be navigating the world of sexual politics amongst boys who are likely to have drawn their sex education from porn, and girls who have been taught to be as apolitical and ruthlessly individualistic as possible. But university can teach you so much that's not in the course materials - and sometimes the main thing you end up learning is what you don't want to be.

***Update added 15.10.2015. The campus rape I mention earlier took place in 2003. A man was arrested and charged with the crime in December 2014, although there have been no further updates on the case since.***

Pah.

A few weeks ago, I sent a complaint to the BBC after watching David Walliams on 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' make a joke about the Chris Brown/Rihanna domestic violence situation. His words were "Unlucky things for Rihanna include black cats, walking under ladders, and burning Chris Brown's dinner" - a reference to the fact that earlier this year, Brown attacked Rihanna, biting and punching her in the face until her mouth filled with blood. Nice work, Mr Walliams. Not only have you made light of an issue that kills two women a week in this country, perpetuated gender stereotypes about female servitude and implied that domestic violence is the fault of some minor 'slight' on the part of the victim, but you managed to do it on International Stop Violence Against Women day. I don't care if he's an 'alternative comedian' with a reputation for 'edgy jokes'. I don't care if he spends most of his comedic career mocking or caricaturing the female form. But I do care when he thinks that taking the piss out of an issue that is already not taken seriously enough, is funny and OK. So I complained in the strongest terms.

Here's the response I received:

Dear Ms Scott

Thanks for your e-mail regarding 'Never Mind the Buzzcocks' broadcast on 25 November.

I understand you felt David Walliams made light of domestic violence, making a joke about Rihanna being assaulted by Chris Brown. I note you felt it was particularly wrong as it was broadcast on International Stop Violence Against Women day.

As a public service financed by the licence fee we must provide programmes which cater for the whole range of tastes in humour. We believe that there's no single set of standards in this area on which the whole of society can agree, and it's inevitable that programmes which are acceptable to some will occasionally strike others as distasteful. The only realistic and fair approach for us is to ensure that the range of comedy is broad enough for all viewers to feel that they're catered for at least some of the time.

Nevertheless I assure you that it was never our intention to case any offence and I regret any you may've been caused. With your complaint in mind I'd like to take this opportunity to assure you that I've recorded your comments onto our audience log. This is an internal daily report of audience feedback which is circulated to many BBC staff including senior management, producers and channel controllers.

The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content.

Thanks again for contacting us with your thoughts.

Regards

Ciaran McConnell
BBC Complaints

 

So, apart from one tiny concession in the form of a vague promise that my comments might be seen by senior management and used to 'shape decisions about future programming', I get diddly squat in the way of actual redress. Had Walliams' comments been racist or homophobic, I can see them causing much more of a furore. When Anton Du Beke told Laila Rouass she 'looked like a Paki' on an episode of Strictly Come Dancing, the stink made the front page of several newspapers, and Du Beke was forced to make a statement apologising. There was no attempt by the BBC to defend Du Beke on the grounds that 'there's no single set of standards upon which society can agree' ergo racism is fine, no recourse to this disingenuous form of cultural relativism that the media resorts to in defence of misogyny time and again. Just because there'll always be a vile minority who thinks that racism, homophobia or misogyny are fine, does not absolve the rest of us from all responsibility from challenging them. Yes, the BNP had to be given a spot on Question Time if we really do consider ourselves to have a free press in this country, but that also meant they were thrown open to the powerful challenges, and sometimes outright abuse, that they deserved and so rightly got. Why, then, is a powerful and popular comedian, allowed to go unchallenged in his mockery of violence against women? Is being anti-misogyny not chic or 'edgy' enough for the BBC? Are they less afraid of being seen to be misogynist because feminists aren't likely to send a suicide bomber round their way, whereas racism and religious hatred has already been seen to generate plenty of extreme violence?

I'm disappointed, but in no way surprised. A cowardly response from a cowardly organisation, and an insult to women from a man who has, ironically, spent his career appropriating femininity and effeminate behaviour for his own ends.