The Wall of Tits: A Neverending Philosophical Battle
For about a month now, Mitch & Murray have lived in a new home in the same block of lock-ups that we’ve hired since January. We moved three doors down to a room with a window, a lower ceiling and working electrics. We also moved into a room that has a possibly unique feature in this building: a wall of tits. The wall is covered with with photographs of naked or semi-naked young women, dare I say, even girls. Most of them look teenage; all of them are showing breasts or arse. All of them are of an “alternative” subcultural style (all dyed hair, heavy eye makeup and those child-like pants that emo girls choose to wear). If the guys we are sharing with weren’t of a similar age, I’d be thinking that there was something distinctly Fritzl about the whole affair. Look at the precision with which they are attached to the wall: there are four or five neat rows where each piece of A4 lines up perfectly with the next in order to provide a clear tessellation of soft porn. There’s something quite Norman Bates about the detail to the point where I wouldn’t be surprised if a closer inspection would reveal that the pictures of the nymphs were actually laser printed onto the tanned hides of the girls in question.
What actually disturbed us most was the speed at which we became accustomed to it. The initial reaction was one of shock. I hadn’t seen that much pornography on a wall since….well, ever. We all went to see the room together and there was a definite intake of breath from Charlotte and Lydia, although now they don’t seem too bothered. As we played last week, I found myself scanning the pictures and not really taking in the sexual content. I was just seeing who was up there and trying to match the girls up to see where the pictures were from the same shoot (one girl was identifiable by the presence of a grey hoodie, regardless of what she was/wasn’t wearing along with it). What was also startling was the bizarre way that the sexual fantasy element crept in without being blatant. For example, each girl was interviewed about their interests- sometimes in a series of either/or questions- that revealed their personalities and characters. This seems like a step away from objectification until you realise that the questions were the kind you’d expect from a hairy-palmed adolescent making small talk with a girl he’s hoping to cop off with at the end of the unofficially-underage-night at the local rock club (ours was Thursday at JBs. You’ll have your own). Each girl was asked to list their likes and dislikes in a way that would make a young boy wank himself into a frenzy about how she also prefers Deus Ex and Mastodon to Bioshock and My Chemical Romance. Oh yes, and they also managed to get questions in there about sex, which always ended up with the girl talking about how she likes to get tied up (yawn), finds guys with tattoos to be a turn on (sigh) and how she has a “thing” for vampires (fuck sake). Sadly, in a world containing the internet, the bland fetishes of yesteryear really don’t stack up- except to a teenage boy.
All of this really came at a time when I was going back over my own values and seeing if I was the person I thought I was. My post last week about offensive humour was a part of that, I suppose. As I said then, I still find jokes that are far too distasteful to be quite funny sometimes. My problem has always been with the responsibility I think people have to take when telling them in public places. In the same way, I was flung back to a time when I was accused of being a misogynist. I never took the charge seriously (and still don’t) as my explanation is the same now as it was then: I don’t dislike women, I just disliked that woman. I won’t go into details but her gender had absolutely nothing to do with my feelings towards her. Her behaviour, attitude and lack of personal responsibility made me so critical of her, but it was taken as a general criticism of women. Not so. It was a lazy attack based upon the fact that I’d happily call her out on certain things that other people were too polite to. I didn’t apply a single standard that I wouldn’t apply to a male, friend or stranger.
On the other hand, I can see how some of my previous actions could be seen as being sexist. If you didn’t know that the body of songs about her were about a single person and not a range of people then you may think that each song only picked out what was worst about females. If you then look at the songs I’ve written since about other people I’ve had relationships then they vary in content, but they’re by no means as vitriolic as those early tunes. Why? Because I didn’t feel the same way about those people. Any lyrics I write about my current relationship can’t be said to explore my feelings on gender per se even if they do give hints.
I think they may give hints because nothing occurs in isolation. There is no bubble or vacuum within which the actions of individuals are preformed, separated and distinct from the outside world. The implications and meanings of our actions are embedded in a world whether we like it or not. This is why I had to stop and think about myself. I don’t intend to be sexist, but is what I’m doing the product of a deeply patriarchal culture? What message will I spread if I fling particular ideas out there? They won’t be heard by unbiased ears. They’ll enter into a whole conversation bubbling through society whether or not people are aware of that fact.
Take as an example one of the things I did end up changing my mind about over the year (and this is bound to lose me some followers): burlesque. I went to see Bearlesque during Pride one year and had a great time. I previously thought that burlesque was a bunch of strippers getting above their station, but after seeing them and their accompanying performers, I completely changed my mind. I then attended other burlesque shows with the mindset that what was happening was a liberating and entertaining piece of high camp that transcended the seedy world of the sex industry. I bought into the usual arguments: 1) It has changed since it first started, 2) it is self aware, 3) the women are “real women” and thus don’t buy into the models forced upon us by society…and so on. Then I took some time to think about it, and I changed my mind.
Firstly, if burlesque were to happen in isolation outside of the world as it is then I would maybe concede a few of those points. However, it happens within a world where men are paid more than women, where female voices are still unheard and overlooked simply for being deemed too emotional, and where I can happily pick up a magazine filled with women satisfying my lurid desires for a couple of quid from my local newsagent. And then make a wall of tits. As such, it has to be viewed through that lens, and I’d argue that it does little more for female emancipation than lap dancing does. The philosopher in me argues as follows: a woman decides to take her clothes off for money. A man chooses to pay. Who is in control? In a neutral environment, neither as it is simple supply and demand. However, it does favour the buyer because he can take his money elsewhere. If we’re in our current state, then the man is definitely in control. The woman is reduced to selling herself as a sexual commodity for the guy. It doesn’t matter how much the woman tells herself “I’m in control: he wants me but he can’t touch, and I get his money”, it completely ignores the fact that he is choosing to pay you. He could go to a hooker if he wanted to touch someone. And I don’t see how a man saying “dance for me” and passing you money is somehow liberating.
In the same way, the music industry copies this by making women into sexual objects and thus making men desire them and women aspire to be them. Even Jessie J and Lady Gaga manage to be feminism-lite in the sense that they reinforce as they challenge. Jessie J sings about anti-consumerism and “doing it like a dude” as she gyrates her leotard clad crotch at the camera and sits in the judge’s houses on X-Factor. Rather than become successful on her own terms, she does it through mass market strategies and raunchy videos. Lady Gaga is apparently a very eloquent individual, but tragically wastes it by wearing odd costumes that she didn’t design and making music that is sub-Madonna circa 1988. Tragically, the message that to rebel against patriarchy one must simple become successful by becoming more male than men (aping rather than overturning) is the one which melts into the background and really structures everything.
This means that the wall of tits exists and why burlesque exists. It plays up to every stereotype going without challenging it and yet sees itself as something distinct and powerful. Women getting their tits out for money, regardless of their obsession with reminding you that it’s a bit of fun or “it’s more about the tease” doesn’t mean that a guy isn’t giving you money to show your tits. It doesn’t mean that the audience isn’t saving up fodder for the wank bank. And just because women are in the audience, it doesn’t mean that this is a sisterly thing. It’s simply the tragic blindness of another generation who are born into accepting a role that bolsters their own misery. You can tell by the fact that skinny women receive abuse for not being “real” women. My brother once told me about a woman in his office who had jokes made about her akin to “you want to eat some more pies love”. She responded by saying that if she was overweight and someone told her to cut down on the pies, they’d be fired. As events are not isolated, we have to seriously consider how we think and speak about everyone.
The wall of tits works in the same way. By framing empowerment as being ownership of your own exploitation, the soft porn industry has turned women from objectified playthings of men into something distanced from them and made into fantasy- yet that fantasy was what sustained the very attitude that they had before. Just because men can’t touch now, it doesn’t mean that their attitudes have changed. In fact, this is a great victory for patriarchy: women don’t just get to be sex objects- they get to enjoy it too! Tragically, unless things are changed dramatically from the bottom up then emancipation just means incorporation into the very system which produced the inequality. The whip changes hands or is struck from a different angle.
I, on the other hand, will probably continue to write songs about girlfriends because they’re part of what matters to me. Relationships are always there and I try to make sure I’m not degrading women in general by speaking ill of some of the people I go out with. I expect that if any girlfriends end up being songwriters, poets or playwrights then I may end up in there as some sinful dwarf- but so be it. It’s the price you pay for your actions and we certainly shouldn’t stop dragging each other up on the things we get wrong. We have to be responsible at some point in our lives.
The Man From Mitch and Murray 