Anti-Feminist

This is a reminder to myself. About what happens when you go against your nature. Or rather, that which has been imposed and prescribed as your ‘nature’. It is a reminder that I let the ‘team’ down. I have been called a ‘colluder’ and an ‘Uncle Tom’ and accused of ‘brownnosing’ who? Men? The ‘enemy’? [...]

Down To You

You go down to the pick up station craving warmth and beauty You settle for less than fascination, a few drinks later you’re not so choosy When the closing lights strip off the shadows on this strange new flesh you’ve found Clutching the night to you like a figleaf you hurry to the blackness and [...]

Safe Spaces, ‘Silencing’, Sisterhood

If you are not much of a participant on the feminist or transgender politics blogospheres, you might not know what a Safe Space is. I wish I didn’t. According to wiki, A safe space ‘is a term for an area or forum where either a marginalised group are not supposed to face standard mainstream stereotypes [...]

‘Suck My Dick, Sigmund…’

Mr Fuck Theory doesn’t like Mr Freud very much. And I don’t like Mr Fuck Theory. But I want to put our emotional responses aside to try and explain why I disagree with Fuck Theory’s ‘critique’ of Freud’s ‘conceptual violence’ in relation to femininity and homosexuality. Here is Fuck Theory’s post: http://fucktheory.tumblr.com/post/4070969035/the-blind-spot-of-an-old-dream-of-symmetry-the ‘The Blind Spot [...]

MEN! JD Samson Of Le Tigre Fame…

If you don’t know who Le Tigre were you need to do some Riot Grrrl homework people! JD Samson was part of this electronica/punk/screamo/post-disco/whateveryouwanttocallit trio in the 1990s and 2000s. Le Tigre ROCKED! But also, they played with gender identities.  I think the whole of Riot Grrl did. As soon as you have seen a [...]

Letters From An Alien: The Brink Of Life

“If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting both for us and for her” This was in A Room With A View which I read when I was 17 (and saw the film, and had this poster above my bed).  I played the piano, like Lucy Honeychurch (pretty [...]

Sex, Lies and Neuroscience: The Gaga Effect

I found out that Gaga’s latest album and single were to be called ‘Born This Way’ towards the end of last year. My heart sank.  I knew it was going to become, if not a popular gay anthem, at least a symbol of the worst kind of essentialist thinking around sexuality. Unfortunately my fears have [...]

On Openness

”Openness isn’t simply about frank and open sharing or transparency. Openness is a willing invitation for connection with someone else through a shared encounter. Physical, virtual, memorial, material. Written or spoken. Even if the other is unseen. Even if the other is imagined. Even if they have not yet arrived. If you remain open to [...]

A Community of Cocks

It’s Budget Day, in the UK, and the piece of information that has stuck in my rather addled, one-track mind is this: The Office for National Statistics has now begun to include Dating Website revenue in its calculations on inflation. A sign, according to The Times newspaper, of just how ‘mainstream’ online dating has become [...]

The Rite Of Faghood And Fagly Feminists

I recently had one of my blogposts reposted on an ‘MRA’ website: http://www.misandryreview.com/the-rights-of-man/2011/03/13/international-womens-day-should-be-renamed-international-men-bashing-day/ Men’s Rights Activists are, in many ways, feminism’s alter-ego. The other side of the coin. The Dr Jekyll to feminism’s Mr Hyde. Where feminists prioritise the rights and troubles of women, MRAs focus all their attention on the terrible lot of men [...]