Slutwalk Chicago DIY Poster Contest: Yr Doing It Wrong

(This article also appears on School for Scandal)

So, I'm pretty stoked about SlutWalk Chicago.

For the uninitiated, Slutwalk is an international feminist movement that began in Toronto, that promotes dissolution of "Rape Culture" by emphasizing that men should be taught NOT TO RAPE instead of all the emphasis on teaching women how to "protect themselves from rapists" with advice ranging from don't wear a ponytail, don't go out alone at night, and most horrifying "don't dress like a slut," the comment that sparked the movement in the first place.
This sort of mindset teaches women to view themselves as "victims waiting to happen" (reminds me of that horrible "potentially pregnant" fracas a few years ago.) I think that self defense education for women is important, but so is anti-rape education for EVERYONE.

All around awesome chick Diamanda Galas once said something along the lines of "Women need to stop thinking like prey and starting thinking like predators," and I think that's what SlutWalk is all about. Driving home the point that even if you're walking down the street in a G string and lucite heels, it doesn't mean you "deserve" to be raped. Nobody should be blamed for their sexual assault. Our culture needs to shift in a way that rape is never considered ok, and that there is more support and less victim blaming and stigmatization of survivors.

The following is a list of things that SlutWalk aren't about (to my understanding):

1. Reclaiming "slut" as a positive label or celebrating "slut pride"

2. Dressing/acting "slutty" in public Girls Gone Wild style (participants are encouraged to wear whatever they feel comfortable in, whether that's a mini skirt or sweatpants)

3. Speaking out against labeling women as sluts. (Well, this one is a gray area because of #1. I think this movement is very anti-slut shaming but not necessarily dismissive of positive sluthood and general sex positivity. But people are still wildly divided on whether or not being called slut is a good thing, and I don't think SlutWalk is intended as a debate on the validity of the slut label.)

None of the above are necessarily bad things and possibly incidental to this event, but I don't think they should be the emphasized in promoting this event. I think a lot of people misunderstand the purpose of this event because "slut" is such a loaded word. That's why I'm a little perturbed by the results of the SlutWalk DIY Poster Contest.

I feel bad picking apart the entries, because to be fair, I DIDN'T enter a design. And it's unfair for me to criticize the works of people who did, because they took the time and effort and put themselves out there, but I do feel like I need to speak out when images seem inappropriate/problematic to the aims of a movement I am a part of. I realize this is my subjective opinion, and if you want to argue WHY you think these posters are great, be my guest as long as you are willing keep dialogue open and respectful.

I will not be reposting images here, but you can click here to see them. I like the idea of a DIY poster contest instead of hiring an ad firm, but I am sad to say that I feel like the majority of these posters miss the point of SlutWalk entirely, and some are just flat out creepy to me.

Of the ten submissions, six feature sexualized images of women's bodies where you cannot see her face. With one exception, they are pictures of extremely thin "conventionally attractive" white women. Four are of women with their lingerie-clad asses in sexually available positions, two ONLY show the ass and no other part of the woman, with catchy taglines like "I think you're sexy but I don't want to rape you," and "Slut Yeah Fuck Yeah." I might be ok with pictures of a sexy REAL people where you could see faces as well as bodies, but these pictures appear to be lifted from mainstream advertising/pornography and I suspect that other people might find them alienating/triggering as well.

I am saying all this as sex positive feminist who loves porn, lingerie, and copious fucking. I don't currently identify as a slut, but I have in the past. I probably will wear something sexy to Slut Walk, because I enjoy dressing up. All this said, these posters leave a bad taste in my mouth. This imagery might make *some* sense if the event was actually focused on "slut pride" instead of rape prevention, but instead I see a feminist movement getting the American Apparel treatment, and it bugs me.

The other side of the coin is a poster that says "Don't call me a slut/other perjorative implying promiscuity" (which flies in the face of the women who do self-identify as sluts, and I don't believe SlutWalk strives to takes a hard stance either way.) Another poster features yet another headless woman in a demure, girlish powder blue dress clutching daisies (it's objectification of a different flavor) with the catchphrase: "Virgin or Slut? Love Who You Are." I understand the positive message that the slogan is trying to convey, but it falls down the Madonna/Whore rabbit hole all over again. Many of us fall outside of that limited dichotomy altogether.

This is about the only poster that I feel accurately represents SlutWalk, so it got my vote. I confess I am let down by the way entrants chose to interpret the meaning of SlutWalk (especially since the movement has been so distorted by the media already) and I hope the winning entry will accurately reflect a movement of women who don't necessarily wish to be labeled in black and white as hyper-sexualized "sluts" or sex-negative "prudes", but complex human beings committed to creating a culture without rape.

"Post-Out" Post #1: Johnny Weir as Post-Out Poster Child

Despite our open-mindedness, there is definitely a dogma that exists as an undercurrent to almost any discussion on sexuality within progressive, queer-friendly circles.  I'll name a few: biology is destiny; identity is orientation and vice-versa; there are three distinct, non-overlapping categories of sexual orientation; female sexuality is fluid, whereas male sexuality is not; queer celebrities "owe" it to "the movement" to be out yet every out queer celebrity has been accused and will continue to be accused of using their identity for attention.

It's obvious that I don't agree with many of these "truths" -  the intersection of what we call "orientation" - assumed to be inborn (and probably is in many cases) with "identity" (a social category if there ever was one) is so complicated, yet due to the gay rights movement shaping the language of visibility, the distinction between these two separate markers and what they mean has often become blurred.  This isn't necessarily a bad thing - the gay rights movement as we know it started in a time, not all that long ago, when visibility was very low, due to culturally-enforced messages of shame and the ever-present threat of violence (which still exists today).  Having a movement that dared to state that "we're here and we're queer," was incredibly important when most same-sex behavior was conducted secretly.  And as a result, we get the concept of  being "out."

This will be the first of several posts examining the concept of being out and how it relates to identity and a changing cultural landscape.  As a disclaimer, I'd like to state that personally, neither one of us are one of those assholes who claim that identity politics are pointless or useless.  Without identity politics, we wouldn't have any of the modern liberation movements.  I think we can acknowledge identity politics as a tool that is still useful, while also critiquing what aspects are limiting or no longer applicable to everyone.  Hence: Johnny Weir.

For those of you living under a rock, Johnny Weir is a world-class figure skater and phenomenal athlete whose "flamboyant" style and "outrageous" personality get more attention than his actual performance in various competitions.  Weir is androgynous - not in the the sexless, aloof sense, but in the visceral "Mick-Jagger-and-Alan-Cumming's- lovechild-but-with-more-sequins" kind of way.  He exudes sexuality, masculinity, and yes, femininity as well.  He's not the "safe" kind of male figure skater who attempts to butch up his routines and costumes in an attempt to prove how very "not gay" figure skating is (and in the process, makes it seem perhaps even more gay - Evan Lysacek anyone?  Regardless of Lysacek's orientation, there's something  macho yet queer about his Village People style of masculine performance).

The problem, however, is that Weir is not "out" in the traditional sense.  He has never said, "I am a gay American," or "I am proud to say I am a fortunate homosexual man." 

And yet the reaction in the queer blog world is not to condemn Weir for not being out, the way recently out Ricky Martin and Sean Hayes, or not-yet-out Anderson Cooper have been condemned, but rather to celebrate his snazzy yet thoughtful statements on the media's attempts to categorize him.

In response to critics who claim he's too gay or feminine, Weir has said:

"I hope that more children have the same opportunities as me, with the same parents as me, that let me be an individual, who gave me freedom, and taught me to believe in myself before anyone else would believe in me.
I hope more young boys and girls can grow up to have that love and support from their families, and it's very clear to me that those two men talking on that program did not have that kind of upbringing."

He has also said:
"Figure skating is thought of as a female sport, something that only girly men compete in. I don't feel the need to express my sexual being because it's not part of my sport and it's private. I can sleep with whomever I choose and it doesn't affect what I'm doing on the ice, so speculation is speculation. I like nice things, and beautiful things, so if that is the only way people are determining that I swing one way or the other, then to me, that's sad. You can't judge a book by it's cover, ever. I never get angry about things because it's human nature to be jealous and rip people to shreds if you don't like them, regardless of the subject. I am who I am, and I don't need to justify anything to anyone."

There's multiple awesome examples across the Internet of Weir defending his right to be his own bad self, and plenty of examples of the media fixating on his orientation and gender presentation as well.  I haven't seen a single gay site demanding that Weir out himself, however, yet plenty of sites do the same for other rumored gay celebs.  The difference?  I suspect it has something to do with Weir's "flamboyance" and "fierceness" - that is, his lack of conformity to masculine gender norms.  The idea is, nobody who wears that much fur and poses in heels could be straight.  And it's apparently irrelevant that Anderson Cooper's reasons for not commenting on his orientation are as valid as Weir's - Cooper is gender-conforming, Weir is not.  The former is perceived as having a responsibility to out himself, the latter isn't seen as needing to, we already know - have you seen the photoshoots?  OMG!!  He wears mascara, like, ALL THE TIME!

Of course, the notion that an androgynous or feminine gender expression automatically renders a man gay is an inherently problematic one.  For all we know, Weir is bisexual, or has a serious political aversion to labels, and who knows, he could even possibly not like the cock.  It would not be the first time a flamboyant guy was into pussy. The aforementioned Jagger, Bowie, and half of my high school drama club all fit into that category.  As a woman long known for loving, in the biblical sense, men who don't conform to gender roles, I can assure you there are many flamboyant guys who dig the vag, regardless of how they identify.  The conflation of gender expression with sexual orientation and/or identity is a useless trope yet still ever-present.

I don't know Weir's motivations for not commenting on his orientation - I can only guess.  But in a world were people are still assumed to be straight unless their expression of gender deviates slightly in which case they're the gayest thing to ever have gayed, it looks like he's giving the mostly-straight sports world, as well as the media, the middle finger.  After all, they're the ones going nuts attempting to comment on his sexual orientation without the ability to actually identify him as a homo.  Weir has positioned himself to be a role model to every gender non-conforming kid out there, but actually declaring himself "out" while already being perceived as gay wouldn't benefit him, or even the queer rights movement - it would just benefit a straight society and media intent on categorizing him.  And he doesn't seem particularly interested in giving them the satisfaction.

So the question shouldn't be, "Is he?" or even necessarily, "Does it need to be said?"  but rather, "Does it matter?"  Celebs and people in general are not expected to comment on how straight they are unless they are perceived as being gay - Hugh Jackman and his famous love for musicals comes to mind, and the rumors swirl despite a decades-long marriage to a lady.  It's true that people are more likely to care about queer civil rights if they know someone who is out, but I don't think anyone can seriously argue that it matters to gay liberation if someone as non-conforming as Weir is out or not.  So does it matter when queer celebs such as Cooper, or pre-outting Rick Martin live their lives without hiding their queerness, if they're not shouting it from the rooftops?  I'm not sure, yet, but I think the more important question at this point is who, exactly, does the outing of assumed-gay or unofficially-gay celebs serve? 

More importantly, this video is basically the best thing of all time:

Cookware and Ambidexerity

First off, it didn't turn out to be a twink I spent the night with. The twink and self-described former fratboy stood me up. Instead I ended up with a guy, who while sweet and a good lay, spoke exactly like Wallace Shawn. Luckily, he didn't speak during sex. Otherwise, I couldn't have helped myself from blurting, “Anybody want a penis?”

Back to the point, as I assure you I have one. Bisexuality was gaining ground in the 1970s, 80s and 90s as a real identity. Somewhere along the line, people looked at the flawed label and pointed out that it really didn't encompass the spectrum of human desire, as if that failing was unique to the bisexual label. Thus we got self-described pansexuals, ambisexuals, pomosexuals, polysexuals, sapiosexuals, etc. The most often cited reason was that these people could love and date people who were transgendered, intersex, or in some way gender queer.

While I don't want to shit on inclusiveness, I find the reasoning to contain an element of exclusiveness and othering, in addition to a dose of third-gendering. Yes, the prefix bi does mean two. That's a language issue, not an issue residing with the people taking the label. When one says, “I'm pan because I'd sleep with/date/love a transgendered person, one is implying that other, non-pansexual people would never get involved. It's also making transfolk to be some weird other. Many transfolks identify as having a specific gender identity. If you're a person assigned male gender at birth and now live and thrive as a woman, then why should you feel flattered by having someone effectively say, “I could love you, not because I am attracted to women, but because I can see past what other people of your desired gender cannot”?

Finally, there's an element of terribly misplaced elitism in these labels. Lord knows, many bisexuals have been guilty of sitting on the “I see people, not genders” horse. That trope needs to be retired. So do labels such as sapiosexual. So you only screw the thinking? How deep you are. You'd pass on a hot piece of (non-gender specific) ass if the person doesn't share you're nuanced understanding of Heinlein's science fiction? Geek, please. Ambisexual is just as useless. It implies the same duality as bisexual, but also sounds like you can do your one-handed typing with either hand. And pansexual. Whenever I hear it, I think of my unhealthy obsession with Creuset cookware. It's also the most othering of the lot, if only by virtue of being the most popular.

As my old drill instructor used to say, “Suck it up, snowflake!”

And with that, I'm off to go watch a “My Dinner With Andre” and “Princess Bride” double feature.