Sexuality

Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away with Another Spoon

mandy — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:00:00 +0000

Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away With the Spoon review, short version: If you have children, know children, or were ever a child yourself, you need this new coloring book by Jacinta Bunnell and Nathaniel Kusinitz.

Long version: As a child of the Free to Be...You and Me seventies, dressed androgynously by a pair of liberal-minded parents, I never dreamed that I would have difficulty recreating a gender-neutral environment for my first child, born at the turn of the new millennium. What I didn't know was that there was a counter-revolution afoot, and it believed that infants should only wear onesies of blue or pink. Despite great social and legal victories made for GLBTQ civil rights since I was a kid, gender nonconformity remains a huge threat to the status quo—and while grown-ups can get away with picking and choosing their participation in the Gender Games (I have not worn makeup in almost twenty years), the battle lines for children remain fixed. I daresay they've hardened, no thanks to the complete Disney Princessification of childhood culture, as any walk through the kids' aisles at Target will tell you.

What's a parent to do? Why, pick up a copy of Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away With the Spoon, of course! While the title might lead a parent to believe that this is merely a gay re-imagining of old Mother Goose rhymes, the real theme of the book is freedom. A furry, sharp-toothed beast with accessorizes with sparkly gems that Paris Hilton might envy. A “breadwinner in the family” is a man who's the proud winner of a baking contest. A mermaid decides “I am making my way out of this fairy tale and starting a new life with two strong legs and a voice.”

In my favorite picture, an adorable kid in a dinosaur t-shirt holds a to-do list that reads: “1. plant garden 2. fix carburetor in truck 3. start presidential campaign 4. end war.” If either of my children presented such a list to me, I could quite happily drop dead on the spot, knowing that my life's purpose was fulfilled! Really.

My only complaint with the book is its price. I realize that this is an important, educational project from a morally noble, independent publisher, but come on—there is no parent in earth, radical or otherwise, who is going to lay down ten bucks for a coloring book. Coloring books get scribbled on, ripped up, scrunched into backpacks and quickly destroyed. I want to pay three bucks for it, tops. I may be a sellout for suggesting this, but I wouldn't mind if the Human Rights Campaign got behind Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away With the Spoon and lent its considerable financial and political power to making copies available in libraries and classrooms. Every kid deserves to meet this great group of gender-fluid friends and to color outside of these pages' lines.

Written by: Shannon Drury, April 26th 2011

When Did Indians Become Straight?: Kinship, the History of Sexuality, and Native Sovereignty

mandy — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Mark Rifkin

Oxford University Press

In When Did Indians Become Straight?, Mark Rifkin takes on a monumental task, exploring the intersections between sexuality, race, colonization/imperialism, sovereignty and nationhood as they apply to Native American tribes and their struggles over the centuries. As someone who is both of Native descent and gay, I was intrigued.

Queer theory and Native American studies have frequently intersected as examinations of the complex and varied Native American understandings of gender and sexuality have frequently informed both Native and non-Native explorations of what it means and has meant to be queer and what the ideal future situation for queer people would look like. Having read a great deal of these examinations, I expected, perhaps, too much.

Rifkin has some good points to make about how discourses on sexuality and appropriate family structure have affected the construction of race and the recognition of peoples of color as legitimate in the eyes of the nation-state, how “tradition” has frequently been reconstructed to erase those parts of actual tribal tradition and culture that are offensive to outsiders, how the imposition of the nuclear family structure was used in the United States government’s attempts to eradicate Native American tribes as distinct peoples, etc. Unfortunately, he doesn’t make these points very well.

Rifkin’s use of language can only be described as abusive and exploitative. As a writer, I frequently wished to liberate them from his grasp and set them free to follow their natural habits in their natural habitats. Rifkin commits so many of the crimes against the English language common amongst academics that it would be tedious to list them all, but the highest of his crimes is perhaps the misuse of terms, such as heteronormativity, to mean what he needs them to mean rather than what they actually do.

The language alone would be bad enough, but Rifkin also seems to argue points that are valid in a manner that makes them seem invalid or at least suspect. For instance, in exploring the role of the nuclear family ideal in the racialization of Native Americans, Rifkin chooses to explore Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison, the biography of a White woman become Seneca clan mother. Unfortunately, his focus on the circumstances surrounding the sale of Mrs. Jemison’s lands in Seneca territory as evidence for the primacy of her Whiteness glosses over the fact that much of the back and forth as to her identity as White or Seneca had little to do with racial ideology and much to do with pragmatism, land speculators using whatever twist of law and fact would most quickly grant them access to a prime investment opportunity. The evidence is not sufficient to the argument. Ultimately, it seems that in trying to bring so many ideas and theories together into a cohesive whole and to do so by relying heavily on a very limited literary canon, Rifkin’s arguments frequently become muddled and disjointed or simply fall apart at the seams.

As much as I wish that more people would explore these areas of both Native American studies and queer theory, I can’t in good conscience recommend this book.

Written by: Melinda Barton, April 7th 2011

Time Binds: Queer Temporalities, Queer Histories

beth — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Elizabeth Freeman

Duke University Press

In a temporally queer attachment of my own, I was bound to Time Binds before it was even published. With versions of the preface, introduction, and three out of four chapters having already appeared in academic journals, Elizabeth Freeman’s arguments had already made an impression on me. This is not to say that Time Binds is a redundant publication. Bound together, the individual pieces only gain in strength, displaying Freeman’s commitment to theorizing the intersections of temporality, queer theory, and the body.

In what might by now be described as a new turn in queer theory—a more self-reflexive turn, a turn that seems to be a pulling back, a slowing down—Freeman is surely one of the leading voices. She describes feeling as though “the point of queer was to always be ahead of actually existing social possibilities.” Instead of this ‘kind’ of queer theory, Freeman describes her commitment to a politics of “trailing behind,” as being “interested in the tail end of things, willing to be bathed in the fading light of whatever has been declared useless.” Time Binds contains captivating and powerful arguments for the need to understand temporality as physical, history as erotic, and the body as a sight that can challenge the temporal limits of heterosexuality and capitalism.

In the first chapter, Freeman focuses on Diane Bonder’s film The Physics of Love (1998), and Bertha Harris' novel Lover (1976), two texts that explore the mother-daughter dynamic. Freeman considers these texts as they utilize the body and the body’s “bad timing” to present a queer challenge the heterogendered and class-marked temporality of familial intimacy. She unpicks how capitalism and heteronormativity depend on a certain temporality and suggest that the body and its queer pleasures may be a site to contest this keeping of time.

In the second chapter, Freeman turns to Elisabeth Subrin’s Shulie (1997) and the work of Canadian artist Allyson Mitchell to consider how ‘lesbian’ and ‘lesbian feminist’ pull on ‘queer'. She introduces and works through what she calls “temporal drag” to consider how the pasts of movements might productively surface in the present, insisting that there is transformative potential in moments that are not quite past, but not entirely present.

In chapter three, Freeman describes “erotohistoriography” as a method for encountering the past as already in the present and the body as a tool “to effect, figure, or perform that encounter.” The body, and its pleasurable responses, in Freeman’s usage, becomes a “form of understanding,” a means to do history. Through tender readings of Frankenstein and Orlando, Freeman pieces together a history of history as physical and considers how bodies in these texts become sites where history is felt—staging the “very queer possibility that encounters with history are bodily encounters, even that they have revivifying and pleasurable effect.”.

Finally, in the last chapter Freeman analyzes Isaac Julien’s The Attendant (1992), following through with her arguments to a site that, she admits, potentially poses troubling conclusions. Namely, the body in sadomasochistic practices as it iterates the past, particularly the horrors of the slave trade. However, through her reading of Julien’s work and S&M practices more generally, Freeman argues for their role as erotohistoriographic practice, and as such they present erotic means of challenging history and rewriting bodily possibilities.

Concluding her thrilling book with a new queer manifesto, Freeman stakes her claim as an influential voice in contemporary queer theory, and asks us to join her, to “use our historically and presently quite creative work with pleasure, sex, and bodies to jam whatever looks like the inevitable.”

Written by: Sam McBean, April 2nd 2011

Put This on the {Map}: East King County

mandy — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Directed by Megan Kennedy, Sid Jordan Peterson

Revelry Media

Part education, part cinema, all honesty. Put This on the {Map}: East King County gives a youthful face to gender and sexuality through its twenty-six compelling high school narrators. Filmed in Washington State on the east side of Seattle, where there is seemingly no visibility of queer youth, the strength of these young people to comes out on camera. Celebrating who they are is astonishing for any high schooler, let alone a queer one in a community where they are often isolated.

With the explicit goal of “reteaching gender and sexuality," Put This on the {Map} opens by defining the term gender itself. Some of the more useful educational exercises include a visual of a football field to explain the spectrum of gender and clarifying sexuality and gender through personal stories. Biology versus gender is difficult to grasp for many adults in our heteronormative society, and this film explains it to youth in simple yet never patronizing terms.

Shifting from an educational lens to the stories of the youth dealing with many familiar themes like depression, drug abuse, and bullying, one that was especially powerful was of a young, FTM transman explaining the challenges of returning to his school among the classmates who previously knew him as a girl in middle school. The dating difficulties segment in particular seemed really useful and unique. It provided a space to not feel so alone while going through all the trouble of self-discovery and disclosure, and still not being able to find a date.

From the personal to the political, the youth in this film move to speak directly to a wider audience. Peers, parents, friends, families, and the universe are called upon not for pity but receptivity and support, even if folks aren't sure whether a young person truly needs their help. Harboring wisdom beyond their years resulting from deep self-exploration, the young people seek a world where all people can marry in any state, bathrooms no longer succumb to assumptions of sexual violence if a woman’s pants are down within three feet of a man, and a country where comprehensive sex education is the norm. Obvious to some, but it is the privilege of hope amongst youth that gives it so much power. Watching a teenager explain genderqueer as limiting is absolutely phenomenal.

You can find this thirty-four-minute film at www.putthisonthemap.org, with other educational tools soon to follow.

Written by: Nicole Levitz, February 28th 2011

Teacher at Point Blank: Confronting Sexuality, Violence, and Secrets in a Suburban School

alicia — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:00:00 +0000

By Jo Scott-Coe

Aunt Lute Books

When Jo Scott-Coe began teaching in the same suburban California high school she’d graduated from four years earlier, she had to overcome her reluctance to call former teachers by their first names. Once that was accomplished, she set out to bring new life to the literature and writing classes she was assigned.

In seventeen essays Scott-Coe lays bare the disappointments and frustrations that marred her eleven years in the classroom. While the book is highly anecdotal—and cannot be read as a general indictment of the educational system--she does hit several general themes, including the way educators—eighty percent of them female—are mistreated by Boards of Education, parents, and students.

To begin, Scott-Coe notes society’s “schizophrenia of reverence and contempt” for teachers. On one hand, she explains, teachers are presumed to be “angels,” long-suffering nurturers and enablers of youth. On the other, they’re treated with contempt, disparaged as overpaid civil servants or lazy paper pushers. The real issues they face—in terms of educational policy, pedagogical proficiency, and their own personal and professional development—never see the light of day in these discussions.

Nowhere is this clearer than in an essay called "Recovering Teacher." In it, Scott-Coe painstakingly chronicles the decline, and then death, of her colleague Neil Webb. A scholar who began his career as a Latin and German instructor, Webb was arbitrarily reassigned to another discipline once the district gutted language programs in the late 1980s. Scott-Coe posits the shift as the administration’s way of emphasizing “the interchangeable nature of subject matter while also disrespecting his primary expertise.” Whatever the bureaucracy’s motivation, the end result was the same: Webb had no choice but to accept the transfer if he wanted to retain his job.

Still, after the shift ,Webb’s peers and students noticed his discernible decline: He lost weight and, always a heavy drinker, began coming to school drunk. When his driver’s license was suspended, they snickered, sidestepping conversations that might have addressed his out-of-control behavior. When he was finally terminated, people breathed a sign of relief, as if his firing was inevitable.

Somewhat later, his home burned down; not long afterwards he was found dead, alone in a seedy motel room. “I still wonder what might have happened if the school staff, as a community, had confronted Webb,” Scott-Coe writes. “We might have seen him as a struggling human being instead of scapegoating him as the problem employee, the exotic and tortured genius who would never fit in, or the pathetic colleague who made us feel less bad about our own problems.“

It’s a painful, if moving account.

Scott-Coe also writes of sexual tension in the classroom, and of the violent undercurrent noted by most of the teachers she worked with. That she and her colleagues had no forum to discuss these issues is absurd. Even more ridiculous, when legitimate questions were aired, administrators served up meaningless platitudes in lieu of practical advice. On top of this, Scott-Coe had to contend with preparing her students for a multitude of constantly-changing standardized tests and had to counsel them—with little-to-no prior training—for personal problems, from eating disorders, to cutting, to domestic abuse.

Small wonder that Teacher at Point Blank is angst-filled. A deeply personal and sad narrative, Scott-Coe lambastes the enormous commitment that is expected of teachers. It then begs the question: How can their stature be elevated while preparing them to cope more effectively with complex classroom and bureaucratic issues?

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, February 17th 2011

A World Apart (2/4/2011)

mandy — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 09:00:00 +0000

The Flea Theater

New York, New York

As Susan Mosakowski’s A World Apart opens, Mother Augustina, an abbess in a Cistercian monastery, is deeply engrossed in reading a religious text. Once interrupted, she explains that she is searching for answers to a host of troubling questions. Doubts about all kinds of things have begun to creep in, she says. Take the issue of heaven and hell. Common assumptions posit one above and the other below us. But why?

“Heaven and hell do not have that kind of geography,” the abbess (beautifully performed by Antoinette LaVecchia) tells a stunned Sister Cornelia (played with graceful torment by Amelia Workman). “Maybe heaven is right next to us, shoulder to shoulder, or in front of us, or behind, and that anyone who wanted to go to heaven could be there in a minute, if only they had the desire. It’s all about desire.”

Ah yes, desire. When Father Daniel Byrne (an intense Andy Paris) arrives at the convent to lecture the sisters, he and Sister Augustina trade smoldering glances. Not only that, his presentation further ignites the uncertainty that Sister Augustina has been grappling with. She finds one query particularly provocative: “Are we doing more for others by being inside our monastic world, or should we be outside and active, a part of everyday life, a part of every life that needs us?”

In short order Father Byrne confides that he has decided to leave the priesthood and—surprise—after a few brief encounters he asks Sister Augustina to remove her wimple and join him. He presents the option matter-of-factly, as if it’s a no-brainer for her to renounce her vows and leave the cloistered, celibate life she’s led for decades. Much to the priest’s annoyance, the request provokes crises of faith and commitment in Augustina, crises that spill into the lives of the nuns in her care. So what to do?

While A World Apart might have delved into the roots of the Sister Augustina’s angst more deeply—for example, it’s hard to imagine that her lust had been completely dormant before Father Byrne’s arrival or that it took decades for her to become curious about world events—the play raises issues that continue to nag at the Catholic Church. To its credit, A World Apart does not offer an oversimplified resolution of these concerns. Is there a place for monastic life in the twenty-first century? Does requiring celibacy make sense today? You decide.

Lee Savage’s spare set and Mark Barton and Ryan Seelig’s lighting design create a haunting environment for this eighty-minute play. It’s a serious work with ample humor, delving into what it means to be mindful and make conscious choices. Well acted and resonant, A World Apart addresses the human need for authenticity, love, and meaning. In the end, regardless of whether Sister Augustina’s religious order chooses to remain cloistered or opts to frolic in the muck of earthly delights, Father Byrne’s admonition rings true: “Sometimes you have to go outside to get more on the inside.” At the same time, what he doesn’t say is also true: Sometimes quiet contemplation and solitude can be enough.

*A World Apart will run through February 26, 2011 at The Flea Theater in Manhattan. Tickets are $18 and can be ordered by calling 212.352.3101 or by going to theatermania.com.

Photo credit: Jim Baldassare

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, February 7th 2011

The Last Pretence

payal — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

By Sarayu Srivatsa

Harper Collins

In the South Indian town of Machilipatnam, Mallika gives birth to twins, Tara and Siva. Emotionally and psychologically damaged when her daughter dies during childbirth, Mallika finds herself unable to love Siva who is a constant reminder of Tara’s death. Pretending that Siva is Tara, both Mallika and Siva embark on a downward spiral of self-destruction that ends in tragedy. Sarayu Srivatsa’s The Last Pretence tells Mallika and Siva’s stories, their learning and unlearning of love and loss, and attempts to question, through stories of childhood, marriage, and motherhood, how identities and experiences of gender are shaped.

Its book jacket advertises The Last Pretence as a "novel that takes nothing for granted", and that "grapples with notions of love, gender and sexuality", a description that probably attracted readers who were intrigued by the idea that modern Indian-English writing was taking on gender stereotypes, particularly in the specific context of South India, where this theme has been relatively under-explored in contemporary Indian fiction. Alas, The Last Pretence falls far short of being revolutionary, both in craft and in plot.

Unimpressed by the writing, I asked myself if the author’s intentions had any merit. The principal character upon whom Srivatsa’s gender-play is enacted is Siva, who struggles with his gender identity because of his mother’s desperate inability to cope with her daughter’s death. But in what sense are we supposed to find Mallika’s behavior towards Siva troubling? Clearly, some combination of her delusion that her son is her daughter, but also that she sees her son as a girl, and that she treats him as such. Mallika’s ‘disturbing’ behavior includes dressing Siva up in girls' clothes; piercing his ears, and breast-feeding him for longer than necessary, which we are led to believe confuses his self-identity and his notions of what it would mean to be a girl (to be loved by his mother). Ultimately this leads him away from home, fuels his exploration of his own sexuality through his quick and sometimes brutal sexual encounters, and finally leads to his inability to negotiate his personal peace in Srivatsa’s fictionalized world.

In dabbling with issues of gender and sexuality Srivatsa appears like a young child with a stick—gently prodding some fascinating multi-legged creature under a rock. Curious, not intentionally cruel, but ultimately uncomprehending, she speaks as an outsider to the experiences of her characters, making them less believable and more allegorical in order to make broader didactic (but again, superficial) points about gender, culture and the nature of patriarchy.

Perhaps Srivatsa’s biggest failing is the superficiality with which she writes; for example, the historical context of Machilipatnam, a town "where the British first landed to trade in dyes" on the Coromandel coast of southern India – is more or less absent from the book, with limited interweaving of even its fictionalized history through the cursory mythology of George Gibbs and his incestuous relationship with his sister. It also includes a peek into the eunuch sub-culture in India (the stock shining symbols of gender subversion) where half-yawning, half horrified, the reader is dragged into a short (but seemingly necessary) scene of castration involving a sharp knife, hot oil and a grinding stone, cheaply highlighting the cruel repercussions of gender deviance in a straight world.

Marred by poor characterization, predictability, and unproductive diversions (inexplicable inter-religious riots seem to randomly pepper this slim novel) from an otherwise heavy-handed plot driven by unnecessary brutality and an unconvincing lack of detail, I found the long-listing of The Last Pretence for the Man Asian Literary prize undeserving. Lacking in originality and failing to deliver but the most prosaic of prose, The Last Pretence most damningly shrivels before a feminist gaze where it is slowly sucked into the quicksand of the hetero-normative aphorism that any deviations to established gender norms will be ruthlessly punished by society, and ultimately (spoiler alert!) cannot survive.

Written by: Kaavya Asoka, February 4th 2011

Black Swan

mandy — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Darren Aronofsky

Fox Searchlight

The hype had me prepared for Black Swan to be a disturbing and gory movie. But the truth of it is this: even if you’re squeamish, like me, there’s nothing in the film you can’t look at… out of context.

Context is the name of the game for director Darren Aronofsky, in this and his previous films. Aronofsky gives viewers rich, often confusing imagery—the back of someone’s head, for instance; a favorite shot he's borrowed from Hitchcock, Van Sant, and others—and then leaves it up to our minds to interpret his meaning. Example: a physical wound means one thing if it’s accidentally caused, another if it’s created by an external person, and still something else if self-inflicted. But if you only see the wound without its frame of reference, it means nothing beyond blood and guts.

Some viewers find this equivocating pretentious and sadistic, while others enjoy the challenge. With Black Swan, Aronofsky has achieved the ultimate cinematic ambiguity: his film will have us talking about it for years, trying to make heads or tails of what’s really going on with Nina the ballerina (Natalie Portman).

The trailer gives us the narrative framework (no spoilers ahead): Nina is a dedicated dancer who assumes the lead role in Swan Lake, only to end up in torment as she tries to shed her virginal white swan persona in favor of the darker, sensual black swan. Are her demons real or imagined? Can she play both parts, good and evil? Will she dance herself to death, or find fame and glory? Black Swan is a thriller racing to answer these questions. But saying it’s a movie about Swan Lake, or even about ballet in general, is like saying that Swan Lake is about birds.

When the curtain came down, so to speak, I wasn’t disturbed or scared. Instead, I felt mildly exhilarated and happy to go home to a foot massage from my husband. Later that night, however, I tossed and turned to terrifying dreams. I saw Nina’s mother’s icy stare. I dreamed of broken, twisted limbs and skin tearing from my body. The next morning, I received an email from a girlfriend with whom I’d seen the film: she claimed to be having “out of body sensations." What happened to us? How could we have endured viewing the film itself with no terror, only to wind up feeling dizzy and insecure later on? But that’s probably the point, right?

Black Swan transcends its obvious message of self-sacrifice for the sake of art and makes a wider statement about sexuality: it points out that women are intraculturally conditioned to sacrifice their own pleasure in favor of male gratification. We encourage and adopt a meme of female frigidity, forcing young girls to think of their virginity as something fragile, even breakable. We set up an expectation in young women that virginity and subsequent self-sacrifice can result in the “perfect” first time. (That’s according to me. You want a different conclusion? Ask a different critic.)

A review by Danusha Goska on the Internet Movie Database suggests Black Swan “tells us that women are fragile and neurotic and if they do anything remarkable it makes them crazy.” I went looking for this kind of reaction, and I liked finding that viewers are recognizing misogyny in the film. But to say that the filmmakers are sexists is inaccurate; in actuality, they’re pointing to existing rigid demands for women to model ourselves after feminine archetypes. True, Portman and costar Mila Kunis did reportedly lose an enormous amount of weight for their roles as skinny, somewhat masochistic dancers (about 20 lbs. each off already tiny bodies). But the question is: why are ballet dancers skinny, not why are actresses who play ballet dancers skinny?

One of the reasons I braved the supposed gore was because I wanted to gawk at pin thin bodies on screen. Instead of assuming an air of superiority to this trend, however, I found myself envying their ability to achieve a desired aesthetic. (Talk about social and cultural memes: women are supposed to be frigid and skinny, it would seem. And even this feminist, with all of her bravado, can’t get rid of a desire to be outwardly beautiful and adored.)

Okay, now comes the part when I tell you whether or not I recommend the film. I do. Black Swan is beautiful to look at and, at times, campy fun, but only fun for those who don’t mind a few days of psychological indigestion for which there may be no effective antacid.

Written by: Rachel Moehl, January 8th 2011

Monstrous Intimacies: Making Post-Slavery Subjects

payal — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0000

By Christina Sharpe

Duke University Press

Christina Sharpe’s work Monstrous Intimacies is concerned with reading how the Euro-American and African-American post-slavery subjects are constructed. An academic text, and at times quite dense with analysis, this work will be of interest mostly to academics working in the fields of critical race theory, post-colonial theory, or literary and cultural theory. Through compelling and intricate readings of visual and written texts, Sharpe is concerned with unpacking the intersection between violence, sex, and subjectivity in post-slavery subjects. Sharpe’s work is a poignant reflection on historical time and convincingly deals with the ways that the horrors of the past continue to structure the present. In this, Sharpe turns away from ‘freedom’ to consider the “unfreedom in freedom”—or in other words, the way that the “desire to be free requires one to be witness to, participant in, and be silent about scenes of subjection that we rewrite as freedom.”

In the first chapter, Sharpe considers Gayl Jones’ neo-slave narrative Corregidora as a text that deals with the demands of generational witnessing to the horrors of slavery. She considers how the scenes of rape and impregnation at the hands of the slave owner Corregidora become a means of survival for the Corregidora women—the continuation of their family ensures witnesses to their trauma. Sharpe reads this as one way in which the ‘space of enslavement post-enslavement’ is reproduced.

In the second chapter, Sharpe turns to consider Saartjie Baartman or the ‘Hottentot Venus,’ a Khoisan woman who was exhibited around Britain and France in the 19th Century as a sexual oddity, and then dissected upon her death. Sharpe contests that the pleas for the return of Baartman’s remains to South Africa itself continue to objectify Baartman, as she is “once again overwritten with multiple histories and used in the service of a number of national and political agendas that involve not the emergence of history but its repression.” Thus, Sharpe examines how what is ostensibly an act to ‘right’ history, is in fact intimately connected to the monstrous treatment of Baartman under colonialism.

Her third chapter on Isaac Julien’s film The Attendant serves her purposes particularly well and gives her space to continue to flesh out how practices of historical remembrance and display interact with everyday violences of black life. Finally, in perhaps her most engaging chapter, Sharpe looks at Kara Walker’s silhouette art work and its reception to continue to read how the violence of slavery manifests itself in post-slavery subjectivity—particularly concerned with how critics have been reluctant to read Walker’s invocation of whiteness in her work.

Sharpe’s book is an eloquent and at times challenging analysis of the construction of post-slavery subjects as subjects who are by no means ‘post’ but continue to be structured by the past that is not quite past.

Written by: Sam McBean, December 27th 2010

Erotic Revolutionaries: Black Women, Sexuality, and Popular Culture

tina — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Shayne Lee

Hamilton Books

Shayne Lee, an Associate Professor of Sociology and African Diaspora Studies at Tulane University, sets out to make feminism more “chic” and release black women from the shackles of respectability in his latest book Erotic Revolutionaries: Black Women, Sexuality, and Popular Culture. To accomplish these goals, Lee applies a combination of scripting theory and third-wave feminism to numerous women in popular culture whom he sees as models of empowerment, thus diversifying black sexual politics, which he sees as too focused on women’s sexual victimization and objectification.

The introduction presents a clear foundation by providing the reader with background information regarding past and current scholarship in black female sexuality, establishing the methodology for his study, and outlining the overall trajectory for the book. Then, Lee jumps in with a quick rundown of sexuality’s social construction before treating his readers to a succession of eight relatively short chapters, each offering snappy observations of “erotic revolutionaries” from such popular culture arenas as music, sports, comedy, talk shows, and books. A few of these revolutionaries include Beyonce, Serena Williams, Wanda Sykes, Tyra Banks, Karrine Steffans, Mo’Nique, Laila Ali, Zane, and Sheryl Swoopes. Clearly, a strength of Lee’s analysis is the shear variety of women he includes in the study as well as the fact that his focus is not exclusively heterosexual.

However, while I appreciate the breadth of Lee’s scope and number of textual examples, I couldn’t help but want a more nuanced, complex analysis of them. Too often Lee’s discussion of books, songs, videos, images, etc. read more like a review than a careful examination anchored in precise features.

As Lee asserts, such cultural studies are vital contributions to the scholarship of black female sexuality because they are sorely lacking, and a more complex vision of what it means to be an empowered woman who enjoys a healthy and active sex life is needed. For that reason, this book is a notable contribution to the field. Yet, for me, there is a fundamental flaw in Lee’s project. He claims that “flipping the sexual script” ushers in a new discourse of black female sexual expression and in some ways, he’s correct. Women having and talking about sex “like a man” graphically exposes the sexual double standard and denaturalizes conventional gender roles as they relate to sexual practice and expression. This certainly offers women a wider range of roles to play and provides them with venues in which to practice more sexual agency.

That being said, the script seems to essentially remain the same. Sure, the actors performing the script are exchanged, but they are reciting identical lines. So, while “flipping the script” permits black women a greater range of sexual expression and certainly challenges the politics of respectability, I’m left wondering if it’s truly revolutionary. For instance, Lee praises Carmen Bryan’s memoir It’s No Secret because its “vivid descriptions of the physical anatomy and sexual habits of powerful famous men expose how memoirs embolden women with the rare opportunity to objectify men.” This is just one of many such instances where Lee praises men’s objectification. In another example, Lee praises Zane’s novels featuring the secret sorority Alpha Phi Fuckem (APF), whose members treat “men like disposable resources or ‘cum daddies.’”

I, for one, would like to see more representations of female sexuality that don’t walk within the well-established footprints of conventional male sexual expression and don’t rely on using men as a means to an end rather than as equitable partners of pleasure. That said, I’m heartened that the conversation about an empowered and active black female sexual landscape has begin in earnest with Lee’s book, but I am also left wondering: what does an empowered female sexuality look like that doesn’t repeat the vision of sexual agency assigned to men? Give me an expression of female sexuality that is not predicated on acting “like a man” and that would be truly revolutionary.

Written by: Dr. Jennifer A. Smith, November 22nd 2010

Aarekti Premer Galpo (Just Another Love Story)

mandy — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Directed by Kaushik Ganguly

Cinemawalla

Rituparno Ghosh completely reinvents himself from director to actor and delivers a gripping performance in this very lyrical film by Kaushik Ganguly. Just Another Love Story (original Bengali title: Aarekti Premer Galpo) is about a filmmaker Abhiroop Sen (played by Ghosh) who makes a documentary about Chapal Bhaduri, the legendary jatra (Bengali folk theatre) actor who spent his entire career playing female roles on stage, primarily as Goddess Shitala. Thus begins a journey where director and subject learn from one another—on the one hand is Bhaduri (playing himself), who was closeted for fear of social ostracism but openly accepted as a cross-dressing actor, and on the other is the modern urban filmmaker who is open about his sexuality, but still negotiating his gender identity.

The most striking thing about Just Another Love Story is that it doesn’t make a big exhibition about its very brave subject. It’s not a look-how-path-breaking-this-film-is kind of treatment. Instead, the transgender protagonist is introduced into the story with as much casualness as any other character. Ghosh lends to his character, and the story, such a complexity that you can’t help but empathize with his struggle. The film maintains a mature and sensitive treatment throughout, never resorting to unnecessary gestures to prove its point.

The parallel story arc of Chapal Bhaduri is sensitively told and enlightening. Bhaduri plays himself with vulnerability and Ghosh playing Bhaduri in the reenactment of his younger life does a great job of switching back and forth between his character as the documentary filmmaker and a portrayal of Bhaduri. In this way the film becomes multi-layered with each element building on the other. Sen’s relationship with his bisexual cameraman Basu (Indraneil Sengupta) is also handled with maturity and complexity, especially since the latter’s wife is aware (and oddly accepting) of their relationship.

Speaking about the taboo around trans identities in India, the director Ganguly said, “Trans identities, or the third sex, have been around since the mythological times, so this isn’t a new issue at all. We think it’s new because we’re still recovering from the colonial mindset.” Ganguly’s film is an ode to the traditions of jatra, a powerful yet subtle statement on the intrinsic presence of trans identities in Indian society, and another glowing feather in the cap of the talented Ghosh, who makes a stellar acting debut.

Cross-posted at The NRI

Written by: Pulkit Datta, November 8th 2010

Leaving Art: Writings on Performance, Politics, and Publics, 1974-2007

mandy — Sun, 24 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Suzanne Lacy

Duke University Press

A student of Judy Chicago and Allan Kaprow, Suzanne Lacy’s collection of essays about her performance art pieces showcases not only Lacy’s development as a powerhouse feminist artist of her time but also the changing landscape of political art throughout the past four decades. Following a thoughtful introduction by her friend Moira Roth, Leaving Art traces Lacy’s self-criticism, the intended meaning behind her pieces, and reflections about the effectiveness of her work, at times in journal form (e.g., “While I was working on this piece I figured out why it has been so hard for me to consider myself grown up”) and at times as she reflects about the meaning of art more broadly. As an introduction to Lacy’s work, or as an in-depth look at Lacy’s artistic process, the book will appeal both to those newly familiar with Lacy or with those who have long followed her career.

Cleverly titled, Lacy intends Leaving Art as a meditation on the various objects and stories she and her colleagues have left behind; still more, the title implies that their collective departure from the art world—through retirement or even death—looms imminently. Aside from considering what it means to leave art, the volume addresses a startling array of subjects: rape, violence, gender, race, speaking across identities, sexuality, power, injustice, challenging institutions, solitude, connection, friendship, speech acts, performance, and community. Lacy’s impact on feminist art reveals itself throughout the book not by loud proclamations of her importance, but via a layered portrait of how her work chipped away at the injustices she saw happening around her and to her.

During the early days of feminist consciousness raising, Lacy tackled such difficult topics as the role of prostitution in a feminist politics, the dismemberment of women’s bodies (metaphorically and literally), and the process of witnessing a rape narrative. She followed these pieces with sweeping tableau vivant performances where she drew together over 400 performers to converse and dialogue in public view along the shores of La Jolla, CA. Her later pieces, drawing together such disparate subjects as Buddhist philosophy and police brutality, engaged people in performance demonstrations where they confronted each other in order to challenge powerful social ills like racism and sexism. In each decade, Lacy reinvented herself as artist and social critic.

Pushing art as a mechanism for social change, she admitted in the 1990s to questioning “whether it was possible for artists to exert a substantial impact on communities…; whether civic institutions could be significantly recruited for social and aesthetic claims; and how to transform hundreds, even thousands of personal attitudes that might, in turn, be measured through policy outcomes.” Certainly, Lacy’s work responded to these questions by adamantly demanding that art (and artists) continually re-imagine themselves in relation to their political usefulness. In particular, Lacy’s work prioritizes the urgency of listening to marginalized voices just as it delves into content that lies beneath the surface of our lives. Lacy provokes us to consider what has become forcibly out of sight (e.g., stories of cancer, narratives of rape, privilege of Whiteness), and what we drive underground because of fear, shame, and the difficulty of seeing ourselves.

Written by: Breanne Fahs, October 24th 2010

The Pillars of the Earth

gita — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan

Starz

The Pillars of the Earth is the best kind of paint-by-numbers historical fiction: while it exhausts almost every cliché of its period and genre, it is nonetheless entertaining, perfect for lovers of history, action, romance and drama. Set during the twelfth century period in England known as “the Anarchy,” The Pillars of the Earth comes complete with lustful monks, displaced monarchs, incest, power-mongering, jealousy, greed, rape and treachery.

The upside for female viewers, who might normally feel marginalized by run-of-the-mill historical epics, is that despite the fact that its running time of eight hours is jam-packed with said themes, the film still manages to include interesting female characters. And even though all of the characters have been created using a twenty-first century perspective, rather than one contemporary to the story, they pique our interest as to whether or not collective humanity has evolved much since the days of Catholic indulgences.

The central plot revolves around the building of a Gothic cathedral at a priory run by a monk with good intentions. One of Prior Philip’s good deeds is to rescue a resourceful fleece merchant Aliena, a noblewoman who was raised by her mother to choose her own destiny. She not only becomes an entrepreneurial force to be reckoned with, while trying to restore the noble status of herself and her brother, a battling knight; she also attracts the attention of several young men, two with ill intent. Whether it is because they resent or covet her power and independence, Aliena falls victim to rape and violence. This begs the question that modern women have been asking for over a century: can a woman be both independent and loved? Many feminists struggle with reconciling heterosexual love with financial/emotional/intellectual freedom.

Aliena probably would not have thought of her situation in this way, but the series does, especially as it juxtaposes her against two other independent women: Lady Regan Hamleigh, mother to Aliena’s first suitor turned rapist, and Ellen, a supposed witch and mother to Aliena’s true love. Hamleigh, despite a physical deformity that renders her largely unattractive, is able to manipulate the men around her using her sexuality and flattery. She is one of the masterminds behind many of the evil deeds that thwart construction of the cathedral.

Ellen, a disgraced novice who fled her nunnery after conceiving her son Jack, is unique in that she is literate and multilingual. She is thought to be a witch and is consequently feared by many, mainly because she makes a habit of “cursing” those who cross her, and speaks openly about sexuality. When summing up her faith in God to Prior Philip, she says: “I love God, though I don’t worship her quite the same way as you do. My church hasn’t as many rules as yours and is a lot more forgiving. And as for morality, I use love as my compass, which Christ seemed to approve of even if you don’t.”

Conventional motherhood is constantly challenged in The Pillars of the Earth, especially when the most nurturing “mother” turns out to be a monk named Johnny Eightpence, who saves an abandoned baby after his biological mother’s untimely death in childbirth. Eightpence nurses baby Jonathan with goat’s milk and hugs him close during his fledgling years, much to the bewilderment of those around them, masculine stoicism being the social expectation for men. In this story, women rebel against established authorities and men cower under the weight of chaos. It all leaves me wondering if things would have been different were women the wielders of swords?

The acting is generally fine with standout performances from Hayley Atwell (Aliena) and Eddie Redmayne (Jack). The production is atmospheric and sufficiently gritty, though film stock would have brought out the nuances of the sets and costumes better than the HD Video that was employed. The screenplay was adapted by John Pielmeier (Agnes of God) from the novel by Ken Follett; all episodes were directed by Sergio Mimica-Gezzan. The series benefits from the persistence of vision of single creators in both categories as its rhythm and style are consistent throughout. However, Pillars feels pinched for time with many major characters. Pielmeier dwells too long on the details of the war between competing monarchs—background information that viewers can research—and sacrifices quality time with the elaborate fictional world of Kingsbridge. All in all, The Pillars of the Earth is entertaining enough to keep viewers hooked for two months and could have stretched longer.

Written by: Rachel Moehl, October 7th 2010

Cho Dependent Tour (9/23/2010)

mandy — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Margaret Cho

Anaheim, California

Margaret Cho's hour-long set at The Grove began with a story about her recent experiences as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars that parlayed into a story about using a vocal coach from American Idol while touring in support of her newly released album Cho Dependent. Apparently her vocal coach made her drink shots of olive oil when she developed a sore throat, and as a result, Cho suffered from uncontrollable flatulence and diarrhea. This was a reoccurring theme of the night (I actually wasn’t aware Cho had such a penchant for poop jokes), and while I spent half of Cho’s act loving her intensely and laughing out loud, the other half I found myself wondering if she’d lost her edge.

Shitty stories aside, I’m convinced that Cho and I have the potential to be best friends. During her set I learned that we have many of the same concerns (like who will fuck us when we’re old) and interests (e.g., gay men and the American south). I’m considering a move to the south, in fact, but one of my biggest concerns is the lack of multicultural and LGBT communities, two things that are vital to my happiness here in Los Angeles. Cho touched on the south many times, as her Lifetime show Drop Dead Diva is filmed in a small suburb of Atlanta where Cho now spends a great deal of her time. Besides picking up a southern boyfriend with a massive dick (her words, not mine), she’s made a few gay friends as well.

Cho revealed that while living in Georgia she’s encountered many people who feel the need to share their opinions about homosexuality with her, a majority claiming it’s in opposition to their religious beliefs. She says her standard response to this and other statements made by close-minded folks has become, “Well, fuck you then.” I mean, really, when no amount of philosophizing or arguing will get through, what else are you able to say?

Sexuality is always a major part of Cho's performances, and as always, I applaud her candor. At the Anaheim show she expressed her love of the now-defunct Craigslist casual encounters ads, and joked about her many sexual conquests, her desire to be fucking well into her seventies, and her recent attempts at having a baby with a drag queen sperm donor. (Maybe that last one wasn't a joke?)

While listening to Cho, a woman who seemed so badass and ballsy when I was younger, I realized that the forty-one-year-old comedian may very well be less edgy. Although she may be more apt to discuss topics pertinent to her changing lifestyle, her mainstream success, and her audience’s changing demographics, Cho's biting social commentary, brazen sexuality, and championing of the LGBT community will always be enough to keep me coming back for more.

Written by: Tina Vasquez, October 6th 2010

Best Sex Writing 2010

admin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel

Cleis Press

As a fairly obsessive sex educator, S&M activist, and informal researcher, I didn't expect Best Sex Writing 2010 to make me think nearly as much as it did. I'd imagined it as an anthology that would hit all the usual bases and say the usual sex-positive things: Sex work should be decriminalized! Open relationships can work! Fetishes don't have to terrify us! Women deserve to be promiscuous, if that's what we really want, and we must be empowered to say no to sex too!

The first few essays struck me as par for the sex-positive course—though extremely well-written. Indeed, my favorite essay in the book is the sixth (of twenty-five), an absolutely brilliant work by gay escort Kirk Read that made me want to close the book and start selling sex on Craigslist. Still, it didn't actually challenge any of my current preconceptions, it just made me want to cheer.

But then the book surprised me. As editor Rachel Kramer Bussel explains on the anthology's website, "I want writing about sex that makes people think about it in a new way, that confronts sex and sexual stereotypes, that opens people's eyes, that says things people might find uncomfortable." This even applies to perverts like me, I suppose. The chapters that unsettled me most weren't the explicit ones, but rather the ones that don't align with my ideals of positive sexuality: as openly and carefully communicated, for example, or negotiated with an eye to egalitarian ideals. (No matter how extreme the power differential when a gentleman friend whips me, I approach the relationship itself on an equal footing.)

I felt most grossed out by Michelle Perrot's essay on her upcoming affair, in which she writes: "I don’t want an open marriage, where you and your partner agree that you can have sex with other people. I don’t want hurt feelings and jealousy, all the inevitable trouble that would come with such an arrangement..." but then notes that she's discussed the idea of cheating with her husband, and that "if one of us were to have sex—just sex—with another person, we’d just as soon not know."

In other words, Perrot refuses to style herself as one of those open relationship people—and let's not even get into the stereotypes in her description thereof—because having a tacit agreement with your husband that both of you can sleep quietly with other people isn't an open relationship. Huh? At the same time, Perrot published the essay under a pseudonym "to protect her marriage," which would seem to indicate that she's not actually sure about her husband's consent after all.

I don't mean to pick on Perrot, whose essay was quite well-written and gave me a lot to ponder. My point is that Best Sex Writing 2010 has something for everyone, including material to make a jaded sex theorist think twice. It lacks political sensibility by missing some important bases (e.g., trans people, polyamory, and people outside of the US) and makes one or two truly odd editorial choices. (Why on Earth is Mollena Williams' essay on race play, a fetish so transgressive that it unnerves most people even within permissive S&M communities, placed before Betty Dodson's much gentler memoir that could serve as an introduction to S&M? Are we trying to blindside and horrify the newbies?)

Still, lesbians and sex work and sex education and sex biology and safer sex all appear; S&M is comes up a surprising amount, and even manliness gets a mention. Most importantly, Best Sex Writing 2010 is a genuinely layered and challenging book.

Written by: Clarisse Thorn, August 30th 2010