A very close friend of mine is currently working on a project regarding sexting and the legal issues associated with it. For a little run down of said legal issues, the quickhit is this: any photographs of people under 18 that are distributed in anyway fall under "child pornography". Therefore, in some cases, young people who "distribute" nude or partially nude photographs could protentially, and in a rare cases have, been charged (read exhibit a, and b) with child pornography (which, naturally, has pretty hard punishments including being on a list of child predators and lengthy sentencing).
The other big advocacy side of this is awareness-- just as ill-equiped as young people are regarding their sexual health due to glaring missed opportunities on the part of American public policy, young men and women are also not taught to understand legal issues that pertain to our lifestyles. And let's face it, sexting is one of these facets of young America's lifestyle. A few recent cases have documented the suicides of young women who are taunted and humiliated because of photographs that they send to boys.
And after the "scandals" with Carrie Prejean and Rhianna, I've decided that legality aside, there is something else that America desperately needs: a little compassion!
According to (a pretty un-trustworthy) website, TMZ:
"Carrie Prejean demanded more than a million dollars during her settlement negotiations with Miss California USA Pageant officials -- that is, until the lawyer for the Pageant showed Carrie an XXX home video of her handiwork.
The video the lawyer showed Carrie is extremely graphic and has never been released publicly. We know that, because TMZ obtained the video months ago but decided not to post it because it was so racy. Let's just say, Carrie has a promising solo career.
We're told it took about 15 seconds for Carrie to jettison her demand and essentially walk away with nothing. As we first reported, the Pageant is paying around $100,000 to her lawyers and publicist -- a fraction of her bills. She pockets nothing in the settlement."
When I first read this I was shocked, not because Prejean had a "solo" sex tape, but because she was basically blackmailed out of her settlement (not to say that I think she had any right to win get what she wanted, since I think she was "wrong", but blackmail is illegal).
And then this whole Rhianna thing. And the Hutchinson naked photo. I don't understand why all of this is a big deal? Why being nude can ruin someone's career is crazy to me? Why is it only okay when the nuditiy happens in the context of a film, but when the nudity is via a phone message it is all the sudden steamy? It is the same naked body. And the sex tapes.. who the fuck cares?
My questions for you are:
Do you have a body?
Have you ever taken a shower?
Are you not blind?
Then you too have seen a naked body! OMG! Your career deserves to be constantly questioned because your too slutty to be a good person, smut face!
Finally, today ont The Frisky, I saw something that actually made sense in this whole "she's naked, omg" fiasco:
Susannah Breslin wrote: "Recently, Rihanna spoke out about nude photographs of herself that found their way to the internet. The leaking of photos she had sent to her boyfriend at the time (Chris Brown, perhaps), she continued, was the "was the worst thing that could possibly ever happen to me." That got me and Amelia wondering whatever happened to those nude photos we took of each other. Kidding! No, it got us wondering how many women have nude photos of themselves somewhere out there, and if they worry those sexy pics may ever end up on the internet for all to see."
While the "Kidding! No.." statement completely undercuts the positivity of the post, I think it still get's at something important-- who hasn't taken nude or at least partially nude photographs of themselves? Or at least posed in the mirror for your own viewing pleasure? I think there are certain issues associated with sending these photos, but mainly those are LEGAL issues, not "worth" issues. Even the most puritanically virtuous of people have human bodies... and I don't see why capturing the image of that body is a signal of depravity.
And it makes me especially sad to see that women are pressured by under duress to negotiate in ways that they don't want to-- like Prejean walking away from settlement negotiations with nothing, and the women who has committed suicide after seeing no way out of the slutshamming hell holes of their hometowns-- all because we, the public, possessors of bodies just the same, torment them and call them names and make them feel worthless.
Actually, I think "sad" is an understatement.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Good Hair, African American Woman, and Chris Rock
This is my final project for my Black Music and the Media class. It is not about the media or music, but it is about race and gender in America, which is also very interesting. But really, it is just a long article on Good Hair.
______
“Just yesterday my daughter came into the house and said, ‘daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?’ I wonder how she came up with that idea,” says Chris Rock during the opening scenes of his 2009 film Good Hair. The full-length documentary examines the multifaceted relationships between the African American community and their hair. By focusing exclusively on black women’s hairstyles, Rock’s film takes on a topic that is deeply ensnared in issues not only of race, but also of gender, capitalism, and commodification.
Beginning his journey at a Bronner Brother’s hair show in Atlanta, traversing across the U.S. while conducting interviews, and ending up at a sacrificial ritual at a temple in India—Good Hair exposes many dimensions of the black hair economy that were previously under-known in mainstream American culture. But three of the most memorable parts of the story that Rock tells in Good Hair include answers to important questions like, ‘how much are African American women spending on the maintenance of their hair, and whose pockets does that money go into?’, ‘what are the health risks associated with chemical relaxers?’ and ‘where exactly does the hair that weaves (and other extensions) are made of originate?’.
The black hair industry redistributes about $9 billion annually, according to research Rock presented in his film. To get a better sense of how this number fits in to the larger sphere of “hair economy”, one of the Bronner Brothers told Rock that, “African-Americans represent 12 percent of the population, but buy 80 percent of the hair products”.
To get a sense of what all of this money is being spent on, Rock enlisted to a variety of performers and stars from the African American community to partake in interviews that he juxtaposed with shorter interview scenes with black hair professionals-- stylists, manufacturers, and distributors.
“If you’re hair’s relaxed, white people are relaxed,” said Paul Mooney in his interview with Rock. “If it’s nappy, they ain’t happy.” In many ways, Mooney’s statements sets the stage for the discussion Rock has with the other stars he interviews, including T Pain, Andre Harrell, Ice T, KRS One, Nia Long, Eve, Dr. Maya Angelou, Rev. Al Sharpton, Raven Symone, Tracie Thomas, Sandra Denton and Cheryl James of Salt ‘n Pepa, and many other influential men and women from the African American community. Paul Mooney’s statement attests to the difficulty of the situation—he himself attributes the perils of relaxing treatments conducted on black women to white blame. But throughout the film this assertion is questioned.
Tracie Thomas, Dr. Maya Angelou, and Rev. Al Sharpton were the most noticeably dissident voices in the film. Tracie Thomas, the only woman interviewed in the piece who actually styled her hair naturally (although she does admit that she used to be “addicted to the creamy crack”, a.k.a. she used to chemically relax her hair) spoke of the difficulties of styling one’s hair naturally in the black community. By sharing her story, we see a bit of the black-on-black and female-on-female pressures of conforming to social norms.
In Dr. Maya Angelou’s segment, Dr. Angelou makes a wonderful statement on how hair is to be shared in one’s family, that hair care is a tradition passed on from parent to child and that it can be a beautiful tradition of love. Rev. Al Sharpton is one of the few recurring voices in the film, and while his opinions vacillate throughout, Sharpton does seem sure that he thinks that the “white hair” tradition among black women is “oppressive”. The rest of the interviews reinforce predictable views from African American men and women concerning black women’s hairstyling.
The men interviewed were almost always in consensus that a) weave is annoying (because it get’s in the way of sex) and expensive, and b) that they prefer smooth hair, while the women interviewed were almost always in consensus that a) relaxed hair looks nicer, b) that weave was necessary to achieve the full look they wanted, and c) that no one should touch their weave (ever). Since weave came up in almost every interview, Rock went out in search of the origin of these tracks of hair… and he found himself in India.
According to Rock’s research, most of the hair sold to African American women comes from ritual hair-sacrifices that Indian women participate in habitually every time their hair grows to a length between 10 and 14 inches. This hair is gathered daily from temples with no compensation given to either the temple or the women involved in the sacrifice. From the temple, the hair is taken to a weave-making factory where workers make very little money. From the factory, the hair is sent to America where it is sold to African American women for large sums of money. One female owner of a neighborhood hair salon here in America said that her clients often use “layaway plans” in order to afford their human hair weaves.
Throughout Good Hair, Rock also investigates the safety of chemical hair relaxers. And to few people’s surprise, chemical relaxing agents are not very healthy. Burns, rashes, and a sundry of other problems can be affected by relaxer use. And yet, Rock documented girls as young as three years old being brought into salons by their mothers in order to get their hair straightened, an image that starkly juxtaposes with Dr. Angelou’s eloquent words about sharing love through familial hair traditions.
Good Hair closes with ending remarks from various interview participants, but Rock does not make any overriding ideological demand. Although the unstated, aim of the film seemed to be to dissuade African American women from using relaxers and weave, Rock does not really shove the idea down viewers throat. Instead, the film leaves lots of questions unanswered.
These unanswered questions were often times the focus of both popular and critical responses to the film. These responses demonstrate the diversity of the issues presented in Good Hair. By examining the responses to Good Hair and clarifying some of the cultural issues that Rock touches on in the film, I think we can get a better understanding of the ‘why?’ questions that Rock seemed to avoid.
“Content to avoid the issue's knottier roots”: Popular and Critical Responses to Good Hair
Grossing only a little over $4 million in the film’s first two months in the box office, Good Hair did not do particularly well with mainstream audiences. Reasons for the lack of interest in Good Hair among wide audiences are mixed. Considering Chris Rock’s established fame, Rock’s anticipatory media blitz , the Sundance Film Festival buzz, and humor of the film (which makes it stand out against other more conventionally “boring” documentaries), it would seem predictable that Good Hair should have been a success. Nevertheless, Good Hair flopped at the box office.
Voices from the blogosphere give a clearer sense of why the film may not have been so well received by the public, especially it’s presumably intended audience: the black female community. Sandra Rose, an established blogger on celebrity culture, commented on Good Hair’s fledgling box office existence in her October 20th post, “’Good Hair’ Bombs at The Box Office”.
“A thread on AOL Black Voices forums titled ‘who wants good hair to fail’ summed up the feelings of black women everywhere who were offended by Chris Rock’s documentary and complained that he pandered to white women who, themselves wear weave and clips,” wrote Rose. Similarly, when Ann Brown, another long-standing blogger of the African American community, reviewed Good Hair from her perspective as a black female, she unpacked a few more specific issues that she had with the film.
In a post on her blog, A-List Magazine, “Movie Review: Good Hair” , Brown notes four primary ideological problems with Good Hair. First, Brown points out that, “[Rock] proclaims that Black women are doing this to ‘look White.’ Not having any formal training or study in the true psychological drive behind all this, it is a dangerous stance that he takes and should be pointed out.” In addition to the un-scholarly background with which Rock approached the themes of his film, Brown also took issue with the filmmaker’s failure to mention the increasing popularity of natural hairstyles in the black community and his assumption that a woman’s hair regiment is a signifier of her oppression. With a keen eye for the production participants, Brown points to the fact that many of these failures could be attributed to the lack of women on the filmmaking team. A fact that seems especially strange for a documentary that is specifically examining a trend in the hairstyles of black women.
“The film misses the fact that changing hair texture or length - similar to dying one's hair, changing nail color or wearing stilettos is not necessarily a form of self-hatred but perhaps self-expression. Not necessarily a barrier to intimacy but rather part of the process to get to intimacy. But then, if there were any seasoned women of note asked to be producers on Good Hair, we may not have the product we have,” wrote Brown (emphasis mine).
Rose Afriyie -- a contributor to feminist clearinghouse blog Feministing.com, and president of the University of Michigan’s chapter of Campus Coalition for Sexual Literacy (a national student organization funded by the National Sexuality Resource Center)—ran into similar problems with Good Hair when she hosted a screening of the film on her college campus. Afriyie shared her views in an October 26th post on Feministing, “Reactions to Good Hair”. In her critique, Afriyie wrote,
The sexist comments and the framing of black hair issues was striking. In addition, the portrait of Black hair excluded some important voices that were equally vital to the black hair conversation. […] What do I mean by sexist? I am not just referring to Andre Harrell, music executive, referring to women as broads. I am talking about the fact that Rock never used his interviewing time to pose a moral question to black men about their role in promoting the straight-haired standard of beauty. Instead, he asks them about how they feel about having to fork over money for weaves and relaxers. And this just seemed like a totally irrelevant question. […]It was interesting to me that he spotlighted Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama and Condoleezza Rice's hair as linked to their success. However, it also means something that congresswomen who have risen to prominence in the DC Metropolitan area, such as Eleanor Holmes Norton and Donna Edwards have their hair cut short in Ceaseresque styles. Additionally, rural black women and their hair stories simply had little to no representation in the film.
Afriyie was not the only person who noticed these weak spots in Good Hair. Professional reviewers from National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, to the New York Times all stated similar qualms with the films inability to ask to meta-questions that become so obvious when watching Good Hair.
“[Rock is] content to avoid the issue's knottier roots. Why is straight white or Asian hair so popular? Black hair less so? Answers will have to be teased out elsewhere. Good Hair isn't selling anything but a good time,” remarked National Public Radio’s Bob Mondello in his review of the film. Washington Post reviewer, Ann Hornaday, poses a related concern, “If the audience misses anything in Good Hair, it might be more testimony from African American women who have let their hair grow naturally, for whatever reason -- aesthetic, philosophical or practical.”
The reviewers at The Village Voice and Time Out New York both mentioned their concerns with the film’s glib tone. In her review, Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice wrote, “Rock is certainly a sympathetic and curious observer, [but] including Ice-T's remark that ‘a real pimp can tell what a woman looks like baldheaded’ betrays some of the gender politics that remain vigorously unexamined in this breezy, superficial doc.” Similarly, Time Out New York’s Keith Ulhich stated, “...Our tour guide through this sociopolitical miasma, Chris Rock, merely sees it as an opportunity to crack wise.” While humor could only be expected in Rock production, there are historical and socioeconomic issues that might have made these reviewers judge the subject of Good Hair as more apt for thoughtful introspection and questioning rather than quick (and often stereotype-reinforcing) wise cracks.
“Creamy Crack”: Capitalism and the Black Hair Economy
African Americans are estimated to spend approximately $6.5 billion dollars annually on “personal care products and services”, according to statistics from Target Market News’s 2004 report “The Buying Power of Black America”. Although this number is quite a bit lower than Rock’s estimated $9 billion, it is still significant when compared to the annual $16 billion that hair care manufacturers are estimated to profit annually in the United States, according to a 2009 study “Hair Care Services” published by First Research, Inc.
The cultural conceptions of “good hair” are stringent for all Americans regardless of sex and gender. From magazines, television shows, newsprint, and advertisements, the way the beautiful people look is usually much different from the masses. For this reason, many men and women pay for beauty treatments. This means that both men and women participate in a capitalist endeavor to appear more like the ideal.
However, it is undeniable that women bear a significantly larger portion of this burden for two reasons. First of all, American women are conditioned more harshly by media content to associate self worth and ability to achieve success with their outward appearance. Secondly, there is simply more that is required of women, who are pressured to conform in terms of clothing, make-up, nail care, body care, as well as hair care.
Considering that in all of the above categories there are certain and specific looks that are praised more than others: the unquestionably non-ethnic ones. When you turn on the television (to watch anything from a music video to MSNBC news) you are bound to see a woman-- regardless of skin color-- with silky, straight, and most likely, long hair. As the majority of American women are spending money in order to conform to the expectations of our society, the financial burden of maintaining such styles is almost infinitely more expensive for women of color.
For example, the typical hair care routine for a Caucasian woman may include a cut every 6 weeks and perhaps a color treatment. The annual cost of this can range anywhere between $100 to a few thousand dollars. There are a lot of affordable options for Caucasian women to refer to in times of economic strain—at home treatments or the ability to cut back on hair color regimens because without the hair color, white womens hair can usually still be styled in some culturally acceptable way. However, for African American women who aspire to look similarly, the price is much higher.
As Rock uncovered in the film, a quality weave usually runs for about one thousand dollars, and the less expensive option, relaxer treatments, cannot be skimped on the same way that Caucasian women could potentially skip a coloring appointment. This is because once hair has been treated with relaxer, the juxtaposition of relaxed hair with natural roots can be extremely harmful to a woman’s self esteem because of the glaring difference between the two in texture and manageability (for the styles these women are trying to achieve). In other words, hair care becomes a necessity, not a luxury. Despite its expensive nature, it is needed by women in order to maintain their sense of belonging. The coinage of hair relaxer as “creamy crack” by many women Chris Rock interviews in his film, in many ways accurately captures the cyclical and addictive nature of relaxer-usage. In Good Hair, Rev. Al Sharpton likens black womens hair styling addiction to “wearing their oppression”. But the reality is much more complicated than simply wanting to racial subjugate oneself. Theories abound as to the “real” roots of black women’s financial support of their “hair oppression,” as Rev. Sharpton would call it.
One of the theories, that Rock does manage to touch on briefly in his film, is that of assimilation to white ideals as a means of ascent in mainstream society. For example, when Rock interviews a group of African American female high school students-- three of whom wear their hair “relaxed” while only one chooses to style her hair in a natural Afro-- one of the students with relaxed hair said that she chooses to relax her hair because women with relaxed hair are taken more “seriously in the workplace” and are considered more attractive and more intelligent than African American women who wear their hair in natural styles.
Another popular theory is the factor of sexual pressure. This theory is critically ignored, and in many ways socially perpetuated, in Rock’s film. After watching Chris Rock’s media appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, BV Hair Talk blogger Patricia Grell Yursik commented on Rock’s contradictory message regarding men’s participation in pressuring black women to conform to mainstream hair styling expectations in her October 2nd post, “Oprah And Good Hair”.
At one point, Chris Rock declares that, "women relax their hair for other women, because men don't care about hair." Then he goes on and on about when he's dates Asian and white women in the past, how his hands have been thirsty, and he's enjoyed running his fingers through their hair. So... which is it? Pick one and stick with it, Chris. […]In my experience, men DO care about hair. They just try to convince you that they don't. They may not notice if you subtly change your style. But in general --and in my experience --men will express anguish if you start talking about cutting your hair off, or changing the style dramatically.
But just as Rock found during the filming of Good Hair, the theories are numerous and there really is no “right” side in the debate over black women’s hair styling practices.
****
Good Hair only scratches the surface of the topics it confronts. And the responses and critiques that the film received reflect the multidimensional, and often problematic, aspects of the relationship between African American women and hair. Since the Good Hair’s debut at the Sundance Film Festival, critics and bloggers alike have voiced a similar refrain—that the movie avoided the topic’s “knottier” issues.
But the fact of the matter is that Good Hair has, tangentially at least, gotten to those tougher issues if only by through the discussions it has provoked amongst reviewers and the public. If Chris Rock’s documentary had covered every single angle of the relationship between black women and their hair, it couldn’t be a film—it would have to be a lifetime of discourse and deconstruction. In many ways, no single film could practically encompass the mosaic of voices and experiences that accurately reflect the focus of Good Hair.
Furthermore, the issue does not need an authoritative voice of command. If anything, what is actually needed in this discussion is for more for diversity in the black hair community, and our society’s conception of beauty overall. Good Hair is Chris Rock’s attempt to rally the black community around the idea that hair is inherently good, no matter one’s race or ethnicity.
Despite the tinges of sexism, Rock’s simplistic view of who is involved in “the community”, and multiple other problems that critics have cited, Good Hair has been a positively influential milestone in film. Even though Rock didn’t do it perfectly, the fact that an influential man would stand up against the popular current of social norms and advocate for an issue that is commonly conceived of as a strictly female issue is a very valuable phenomena.
______
“Just yesterday my daughter came into the house and said, ‘daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?’ I wonder how she came up with that idea,” says Chris Rock during the opening scenes of his 2009 film Good Hair. The full-length documentary examines the multifaceted relationships between the African American community and their hair. By focusing exclusively on black women’s hairstyles, Rock’s film takes on a topic that is deeply ensnared in issues not only of race, but also of gender, capitalism, and commodification.
Beginning his journey at a Bronner Brother’s hair show in Atlanta, traversing across the U.S. while conducting interviews, and ending up at a sacrificial ritual at a temple in India—Good Hair exposes many dimensions of the black hair economy that were previously under-known in mainstream American culture. But three of the most memorable parts of the story that Rock tells in Good Hair include answers to important questions like, ‘how much are African American women spending on the maintenance of their hair, and whose pockets does that money go into?’, ‘what are the health risks associated with chemical relaxers?’ and ‘where exactly does the hair that weaves (and other extensions) are made of originate?’.
The black hair industry redistributes about $9 billion annually, according to research Rock presented in his film. To get a better sense of how this number fits in to the larger sphere of “hair economy”, one of the Bronner Brothers told Rock that, “African-Americans represent 12 percent of the population, but buy 80 percent of the hair products”.
To get a sense of what all of this money is being spent on, Rock enlisted to a variety of performers and stars from the African American community to partake in interviews that he juxtaposed with shorter interview scenes with black hair professionals-- stylists, manufacturers, and distributors.
“If you’re hair’s relaxed, white people are relaxed,” said Paul Mooney in his interview with Rock. “If it’s nappy, they ain’t happy.” In many ways, Mooney’s statements sets the stage for the discussion Rock has with the other stars he interviews, including T Pain, Andre Harrell, Ice T, KRS One, Nia Long, Eve, Dr. Maya Angelou, Rev. Al Sharpton, Raven Symone, Tracie Thomas, Sandra Denton and Cheryl James of Salt ‘n Pepa, and many other influential men and women from the African American community. Paul Mooney’s statement attests to the difficulty of the situation—he himself attributes the perils of relaxing treatments conducted on black women to white blame. But throughout the film this assertion is questioned.
Tracie Thomas, Dr. Maya Angelou, and Rev. Al Sharpton were the most noticeably dissident voices in the film. Tracie Thomas, the only woman interviewed in the piece who actually styled her hair naturally (although she does admit that she used to be “addicted to the creamy crack”, a.k.a. she used to chemically relax her hair) spoke of the difficulties of styling one’s hair naturally in the black community. By sharing her story, we see a bit of the black-on-black and female-on-female pressures of conforming to social norms.
In Dr. Maya Angelou’s segment, Dr. Angelou makes a wonderful statement on how hair is to be shared in one’s family, that hair care is a tradition passed on from parent to child and that it can be a beautiful tradition of love. Rev. Al Sharpton is one of the few recurring voices in the film, and while his opinions vacillate throughout, Sharpton does seem sure that he thinks that the “white hair” tradition among black women is “oppressive”. The rest of the interviews reinforce predictable views from African American men and women concerning black women’s hairstyling.
The men interviewed were almost always in consensus that a) weave is annoying (because it get’s in the way of sex) and expensive, and b) that they prefer smooth hair, while the women interviewed were almost always in consensus that a) relaxed hair looks nicer, b) that weave was necessary to achieve the full look they wanted, and c) that no one should touch their weave (ever). Since weave came up in almost every interview, Rock went out in search of the origin of these tracks of hair… and he found himself in India.
According to Rock’s research, most of the hair sold to African American women comes from ritual hair-sacrifices that Indian women participate in habitually every time their hair grows to a length between 10 and 14 inches. This hair is gathered daily from temples with no compensation given to either the temple or the women involved in the sacrifice. From the temple, the hair is taken to a weave-making factory where workers make very little money. From the factory, the hair is sent to America where it is sold to African American women for large sums of money. One female owner of a neighborhood hair salon here in America said that her clients often use “layaway plans” in order to afford their human hair weaves.
Throughout Good Hair, Rock also investigates the safety of chemical hair relaxers. And to few people’s surprise, chemical relaxing agents are not very healthy. Burns, rashes, and a sundry of other problems can be affected by relaxer use. And yet, Rock documented girls as young as three years old being brought into salons by their mothers in order to get their hair straightened, an image that starkly juxtaposes with Dr. Angelou’s eloquent words about sharing love through familial hair traditions.
Good Hair closes with ending remarks from various interview participants, but Rock does not make any overriding ideological demand. Although the unstated, aim of the film seemed to be to dissuade African American women from using relaxers and weave, Rock does not really shove the idea down viewers throat. Instead, the film leaves lots of questions unanswered.
These unanswered questions were often times the focus of both popular and critical responses to the film. These responses demonstrate the diversity of the issues presented in Good Hair. By examining the responses to Good Hair and clarifying some of the cultural issues that Rock touches on in the film, I think we can get a better understanding of the ‘why?’ questions that Rock seemed to avoid.
“Content to avoid the issue's knottier roots”: Popular and Critical Responses to Good Hair
Grossing only a little over $4 million in the film’s first two months in the box office, Good Hair did not do particularly well with mainstream audiences. Reasons for the lack of interest in Good Hair among wide audiences are mixed. Considering Chris Rock’s established fame, Rock’s anticipatory media blitz , the Sundance Film Festival buzz, and humor of the film (which makes it stand out against other more conventionally “boring” documentaries), it would seem predictable that Good Hair should have been a success. Nevertheless, Good Hair flopped at the box office.
Voices from the blogosphere give a clearer sense of why the film may not have been so well received by the public, especially it’s presumably intended audience: the black female community. Sandra Rose, an established blogger on celebrity culture, commented on Good Hair’s fledgling box office existence in her October 20th post, “’Good Hair’ Bombs at The Box Office”.
“A thread on AOL Black Voices forums titled ‘who wants good hair to fail’ summed up the feelings of black women everywhere who were offended by Chris Rock’s documentary and complained that he pandered to white women who, themselves wear weave and clips,” wrote Rose. Similarly, when Ann Brown, another long-standing blogger of the African American community, reviewed Good Hair from her perspective as a black female, she unpacked a few more specific issues that she had with the film.
In a post on her blog, A-List Magazine, “Movie Review: Good Hair” , Brown notes four primary ideological problems with Good Hair. First, Brown points out that, “[Rock] proclaims that Black women are doing this to ‘look White.’ Not having any formal training or study in the true psychological drive behind all this, it is a dangerous stance that he takes and should be pointed out.” In addition to the un-scholarly background with which Rock approached the themes of his film, Brown also took issue with the filmmaker’s failure to mention the increasing popularity of natural hairstyles in the black community and his assumption that a woman’s hair regiment is a signifier of her oppression. With a keen eye for the production participants, Brown points to the fact that many of these failures could be attributed to the lack of women on the filmmaking team. A fact that seems especially strange for a documentary that is specifically examining a trend in the hairstyles of black women.
“The film misses the fact that changing hair texture or length - similar to dying one's hair, changing nail color or wearing stilettos is not necessarily a form of self-hatred but perhaps self-expression. Not necessarily a barrier to intimacy but rather part of the process to get to intimacy. But then, if there were any seasoned women of note asked to be producers on Good Hair, we may not have the product we have,” wrote Brown (emphasis mine).
Rose Afriyie -- a contributor to feminist clearinghouse blog Feministing.com, and president of the University of Michigan’s chapter of Campus Coalition for Sexual Literacy (a national student organization funded by the National Sexuality Resource Center)—ran into similar problems with Good Hair when she hosted a screening of the film on her college campus. Afriyie shared her views in an October 26th post on Feministing, “Reactions to Good Hair”. In her critique, Afriyie wrote,
The sexist comments and the framing of black hair issues was striking. In addition, the portrait of Black hair excluded some important voices that were equally vital to the black hair conversation. […] What do I mean by sexist? I am not just referring to Andre Harrell, music executive, referring to women as broads. I am talking about the fact that Rock never used his interviewing time to pose a moral question to black men about their role in promoting the straight-haired standard of beauty. Instead, he asks them about how they feel about having to fork over money for weaves and relaxers. And this just seemed like a totally irrelevant question. […]It was interesting to me that he spotlighted Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama and Condoleezza Rice's hair as linked to their success. However, it also means something that congresswomen who have risen to prominence in the DC Metropolitan area, such as Eleanor Holmes Norton and Donna Edwards have their hair cut short in Ceaseresque styles. Additionally, rural black women and their hair stories simply had little to no representation in the film.
Afriyie was not the only person who noticed these weak spots in Good Hair. Professional reviewers from National Public Radio, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, to the New York Times all stated similar qualms with the films inability to ask to meta-questions that become so obvious when watching Good Hair.
“[Rock is] content to avoid the issue's knottier roots. Why is straight white or Asian hair so popular? Black hair less so? Answers will have to be teased out elsewhere. Good Hair isn't selling anything but a good time,” remarked National Public Radio’s Bob Mondello in his review of the film. Washington Post reviewer, Ann Hornaday, poses a related concern, “If the audience misses anything in Good Hair, it might be more testimony from African American women who have let their hair grow naturally, for whatever reason -- aesthetic, philosophical or practical.”
The reviewers at The Village Voice and Time Out New York both mentioned their concerns with the film’s glib tone. In her review, Melissa Anderson of The Village Voice wrote, “Rock is certainly a sympathetic and curious observer, [but] including Ice-T's remark that ‘a real pimp can tell what a woman looks like baldheaded’ betrays some of the gender politics that remain vigorously unexamined in this breezy, superficial doc.” Similarly, Time Out New York’s Keith Ulhich stated, “...Our tour guide through this sociopolitical miasma, Chris Rock, merely sees it as an opportunity to crack wise.” While humor could only be expected in Rock production, there are historical and socioeconomic issues that might have made these reviewers judge the subject of Good Hair as more apt for thoughtful introspection and questioning rather than quick (and often stereotype-reinforcing) wise cracks.
“Creamy Crack”: Capitalism and the Black Hair Economy
African Americans are estimated to spend approximately $6.5 billion dollars annually on “personal care products and services”, according to statistics from Target Market News’s 2004 report “The Buying Power of Black America”. Although this number is quite a bit lower than Rock’s estimated $9 billion, it is still significant when compared to the annual $16 billion that hair care manufacturers are estimated to profit annually in the United States, according to a 2009 study “Hair Care Services” published by First Research, Inc.
The cultural conceptions of “good hair” are stringent for all Americans regardless of sex and gender. From magazines, television shows, newsprint, and advertisements, the way the beautiful people look is usually much different from the masses. For this reason, many men and women pay for beauty treatments. This means that both men and women participate in a capitalist endeavor to appear more like the ideal.
However, it is undeniable that women bear a significantly larger portion of this burden for two reasons. First of all, American women are conditioned more harshly by media content to associate self worth and ability to achieve success with their outward appearance. Secondly, there is simply more that is required of women, who are pressured to conform in terms of clothing, make-up, nail care, body care, as well as hair care.
Considering that in all of the above categories there are certain and specific looks that are praised more than others: the unquestionably non-ethnic ones. When you turn on the television (to watch anything from a music video to MSNBC news) you are bound to see a woman-- regardless of skin color-- with silky, straight, and most likely, long hair. As the majority of American women are spending money in order to conform to the expectations of our society, the financial burden of maintaining such styles is almost infinitely more expensive for women of color.
For example, the typical hair care routine for a Caucasian woman may include a cut every 6 weeks and perhaps a color treatment. The annual cost of this can range anywhere between $100 to a few thousand dollars. There are a lot of affordable options for Caucasian women to refer to in times of economic strain—at home treatments or the ability to cut back on hair color regimens because without the hair color, white womens hair can usually still be styled in some culturally acceptable way. However, for African American women who aspire to look similarly, the price is much higher.
As Rock uncovered in the film, a quality weave usually runs for about one thousand dollars, and the less expensive option, relaxer treatments, cannot be skimped on the same way that Caucasian women could potentially skip a coloring appointment. This is because once hair has been treated with relaxer, the juxtaposition of relaxed hair with natural roots can be extremely harmful to a woman’s self esteem because of the glaring difference between the two in texture and manageability (for the styles these women are trying to achieve). In other words, hair care becomes a necessity, not a luxury. Despite its expensive nature, it is needed by women in order to maintain their sense of belonging. The coinage of hair relaxer as “creamy crack” by many women Chris Rock interviews in his film, in many ways accurately captures the cyclical and addictive nature of relaxer-usage. In Good Hair, Rev. Al Sharpton likens black womens hair styling addiction to “wearing their oppression”. But the reality is much more complicated than simply wanting to racial subjugate oneself. Theories abound as to the “real” roots of black women’s financial support of their “hair oppression,” as Rev. Sharpton would call it.
One of the theories, that Rock does manage to touch on briefly in his film, is that of assimilation to white ideals as a means of ascent in mainstream society. For example, when Rock interviews a group of African American female high school students-- three of whom wear their hair “relaxed” while only one chooses to style her hair in a natural Afro-- one of the students with relaxed hair said that she chooses to relax her hair because women with relaxed hair are taken more “seriously in the workplace” and are considered more attractive and more intelligent than African American women who wear their hair in natural styles.
Another popular theory is the factor of sexual pressure. This theory is critically ignored, and in many ways socially perpetuated, in Rock’s film. After watching Chris Rock’s media appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show, BV Hair Talk blogger Patricia Grell Yursik commented on Rock’s contradictory message regarding men’s participation in pressuring black women to conform to mainstream hair styling expectations in her October 2nd post, “Oprah And Good Hair”.
At one point, Chris Rock declares that, "women relax their hair for other women, because men don't care about hair." Then he goes on and on about when he's dates Asian and white women in the past, how his hands have been thirsty, and he's enjoyed running his fingers through their hair. So... which is it? Pick one and stick with it, Chris. […]In my experience, men DO care about hair. They just try to convince you that they don't. They may not notice if you subtly change your style. But in general --and in my experience --men will express anguish if you start talking about cutting your hair off, or changing the style dramatically.
But just as Rock found during the filming of Good Hair, the theories are numerous and there really is no “right” side in the debate over black women’s hair styling practices.
****
Good Hair only scratches the surface of the topics it confronts. And the responses and critiques that the film received reflect the multidimensional, and often problematic, aspects of the relationship between African American women and hair. Since the Good Hair’s debut at the Sundance Film Festival, critics and bloggers alike have voiced a similar refrain—that the movie avoided the topic’s “knottier” issues.
But the fact of the matter is that Good Hair has, tangentially at least, gotten to those tougher issues if only by through the discussions it has provoked amongst reviewers and the public. If Chris Rock’s documentary had covered every single angle of the relationship between black women and their hair, it couldn’t be a film—it would have to be a lifetime of discourse and deconstruction. In many ways, no single film could practically encompass the mosaic of voices and experiences that accurately reflect the focus of Good Hair.
Furthermore, the issue does not need an authoritative voice of command. If anything, what is actually needed in this discussion is for more for diversity in the black hair community, and our society’s conception of beauty overall. Good Hair is Chris Rock’s attempt to rally the black community around the idea that hair is inherently good, no matter one’s race or ethnicity.
Despite the tinges of sexism, Rock’s simplistic view of who is involved in “the community”, and multiple other problems that critics have cited, Good Hair has been a positively influential milestone in film. Even though Rock didn’t do it perfectly, the fact that an influential man would stand up against the popular current of social norms and advocate for an issue that is commonly conceived of as a strictly female issue is a very valuable phenomena.
Stories from this week!
Hello!
I am finally finished with school.
Practically.. I do have my finals, but whatever.
So I'll be back on here a lot more. I wrote a bit this week and here are the links:
Local Shopping Guide (Austin specific).
and
Humpday on Fetlife.com
See ya soon!,
Mary
I am finally finished with school.
Practically.. I do have my finals, but whatever.
So I'll be back on here a lot more. I wrote a bit this week and here are the links:
Local Shopping Guide (Austin specific).
and
Humpday on Fetlife.com
See ya soon!,
Mary
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Pushed Back but for the Best
Dearest Pariahs,
Today, in edits, my BDSM story died. Well it flatlined for a moment at least, but don't get dismayed, it came to shortly after. HOWEVER, the BDSM feature will now be held until next semester, the first week, so don't get too upset... and might even be extended into a two part feature.
With that being said, a Humpday is still running. But this humpday will be exclusively on Fetlife.com, a social networking website similar to Facebook but made for the BDSM community. Interesting in it's own right. Butttt.. the fabulous photography of Caleb Miller will be held until that story runs.
The great news is that I get more time to talk to more people. Let me know if you know someone you think I should interview. I have a few people up my sleeve, but as always, I am completely open to any and all suggestions.
Much love,
Mary
Today, in edits, my BDSM story died. Well it flatlined for a moment at least, but don't get dismayed, it came to shortly after. HOWEVER, the BDSM feature will now be held until next semester, the first week, so don't get too upset... and might even be extended into a two part feature.
With that being said, a Humpday is still running. But this humpday will be exclusively on Fetlife.com, a social networking website similar to Facebook but made for the BDSM community. Interesting in it's own right. Butttt.. the fabulous photography of Caleb Miller will be held until that story runs.
The great news is that I get more time to talk to more people. Let me know if you know someone you think I should interview. I have a few people up my sleeve, but as always, I am completely open to any and all suggestions.
Much love,
Mary
Feedback: curious with only a touch of creepy
Last week I wrote about pornography "for women", I guess. Here is the link to the Daily Texan article online and here are two of the comments I got.. and one very long and strange e-mail from an admittedly "older than dirt" man.
Here are the comments:
"porn watcher": Since you didn't say what you were looking for, you might go here, it's where I go to watch really free porn (honestly)! www.myfreepaysite.com all you do is make an account and it's free. I find the porn I like there, of course since I'm a guy, what I like is probbly not what you like, but it wouldn't hurt to look around it to see if what you do like is there...
"annon": You didn't say what you *are* looking for in porn. Can you specify content or specific movies that provide what you want? you.
First of all, what is a "free" and "pay" site? This is stupid. But on to the important(er/ish) topics brought up in these comments... As much as that story included my own feelings, the point is not about me. The point I apparently failed making was that women who are looking for anything *different*-- be it what I, personally, am looking for, or something else entirely-- are not being served by this multi-billion dollar industry. See?
Now for this letter... I don't even know where to start. This man has a looott to say, so I figure I'll let you all check it out:
Ms.Lingwall:
I've routinely read your column because you often have some interesting and useful things to say, and I don't have to wade through the usual Daily Texan grammar howlers.
Your take on women's porn was interesting for what it didn't say: you don't like the "down on your knees, bitch" stuff; the romantic soft core leaves you cold; the free youtube material is too guycentric. But that still leaves the question, to paraphrase Freud, "what do women want?". So you have a problem... you can't really say in print what sort of porn attracts you personally (which is fair enough- porn expresses deeply embarrassing yearnings, and please note I'm not letting on about me either), but you know you are not finding it. Which is definitely an interesting subject to explore. So you are reporting quite well on the hottest subject of your generation... sex... and hit the personal glitch when you discuss pornography.
This comment is not some sort of come-on on my part- I'm older than dirt. But I'm mystified by what has changed and what has not. One of the monitors at the swim center where I swim with a Masters group is obsessively looking at pages of diamond rings... ring porn I call it. The woman I'm slowly getting involved with is into animal rescue and can't pass a picture of a cute puppy or kitten without melting- kitty porn.
As soon as it came into office in 1992, the Clinton administration decided to eliminate federal porn prosecutions... just as the internet arrived, so your generation has been exposed to an unprecedented flood of porn, with some interesting results (great cock sucking is everywhere, a huge number of girls shave their pussys like porn stars, the jump-of-the-cliff-and-hope hook-up has replaced the date, and absolutely everyone thinks they are missing out something).
Here are some random ideas for you to explore . Yaoi, which has a huge secret following among straight girls. Edward... the troubled young vampire is the heathcliff of our age and has them standing in line at midnight. The Harvard/Wellesley/MIT fml sites are too funny and sad for words- smart, perfect homework boys and girls under stress. Likewise talking to female veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq will tell you what the non-college-girl crowd does under stress (stuffed animals and girl-on-girl cuddling I'm told)- you should interview some of them; they're on campus and seriously interesting people. Then there is Robert Jenson also right here on campus- actually he is almost a perfect parody of a Doonesbury/Sensitive New Age Guy college prof trying to organize the masses, but he is seriously trying to understand what porn is, and the women who show up at his lecture are really thinking about the whole subject, often in unconventional ways. I wonder what they would tell you. Finally, the frat boys on Craiglist hunting for a late-night cock to suck in the PCL are surely worth a few very quiet little coffee dates for you- there must be a whole subculture out there dying to talk about the boys and the unsuspecting girlfriends.
There is one thing the girls here at UT do know- which guys and girls they find hot, although they may not want to admit why they find them hot or even be able to articulate the reasons. So put out the word in your column... "I want to hear from you girls on hotness in guys... images, buns, clothing, voices, songs, tats and who-knows-what else.".
Finally, I know what the kinks of my era, 1962- 75, were ( I know a Federal judge whose girlfriend 40 years ago used to flagellate him with a bunny skin filled with beans). The generation of guys before mine spent entirely too much time obsessing over garter belts, furs and spanking (come to think about it, the spanking thing was big among girls I knew). Kinks are very specific and very generational; we get imprinted like little ducklings and the results stay with us until the grave. So what are the kinks of your generation? I don't have a clue. And if you ask confidentially you might get some real surprises from the girls- and guys-around.
___________
So I'll let you digest that with you afternoon espresso. I'll be here. Trying not to fall asleep while my physics professor "lecture". Also, look at this awesome book I get to read for his class... BIOGRAPHY OF WATER. I know you're jealous!
Here are the comments:
"porn watcher": Since you didn't say what you were looking for, you might go here, it's where I go to watch really free porn (honestly)! www.myfreepaysite.com all you do is make an account and it's free. I find the porn I like there, of course since I'm a guy, what I like is probbly not what you like, but it wouldn't hurt to look around it to see if what you do like is there...
"annon": You didn't say what you *are* looking for in porn. Can you specify content or specific movies that provide what you want? you.
First of all, what is a "free" and "pay" site? This is stupid. But on to the important(er/ish) topics brought up in these comments... As much as that story included my own feelings, the point is not about me. The point I apparently failed making was that women who are looking for anything *different*-- be it what I, personally, am looking for, or something else entirely-- are not being served by this multi-billion dollar industry. See?
Now for this letter... I don't even know where to start. This man has a looott to say, so I figure I'll let you all check it out:
Ms.Lingwall:
I've routinely read your column because you often have some interesting and useful things to say, and I don't have to wade through the usual Daily Texan grammar howlers.
Your take on women's porn was interesting for what it didn't say: you don't like the "down on your knees, bitch" stuff; the romantic soft core leaves you cold; the free youtube material is too guycentric. But that still leaves the question, to paraphrase Freud, "what do women want?". So you have a problem... you can't really say in print what sort of porn attracts you personally (which is fair enough- porn expresses deeply embarrassing yearnings, and please note I'm not letting on about me either), but you know you are not finding it. Which is definitely an interesting subject to explore. So you are reporting quite well on the hottest subject of your generation... sex... and hit the personal glitch when you discuss pornography.
This comment is not some sort of come-on on my part- I'm older than dirt. But I'm mystified by what has changed and what has not. One of the monitors at the swim center where I swim with a Masters group is obsessively looking at pages of diamond rings... ring porn I call it. The woman I'm slowly getting involved with is into animal rescue and can't pass a picture of a cute puppy or kitten without melting- kitty porn.
As soon as it came into office in 1992, the Clinton administration decided to eliminate federal porn prosecutions... just as the internet arrived, so your generation has been exposed to an unprecedented flood of porn, with some interesting results (great cock sucking is everywhere, a huge number of girls shave their pussys like porn stars, the jump-of-the-cliff-and-hope hook-up has replaced the date, and absolutely everyone thinks they are missing out something).
Here are some random ideas for you to explore . Yaoi, which has a huge secret following among straight girls. Edward... the troubled young vampire is the heathcliff of our age and has them standing in line at midnight. The Harvard/Wellesley/MIT fml sites are too funny and sad for words- smart, perfect homework boys and girls under stress. Likewise talking to female veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq will tell you what the non-college-girl crowd does under stress (stuffed animals and girl-on-girl cuddling I'm told)- you should interview some of them; they're on campus and seriously interesting people. Then there is Robert Jenson also right here on campus- actually he is almost a perfect parody of a Doonesbury/Sensitive New Age Guy college prof trying to organize the masses, but he is seriously trying to understand what porn is, and the women who show up at his lecture are really thinking about the whole subject, often in unconventional ways. I wonder what they would tell you. Finally, the frat boys on Craiglist hunting for a late-night cock to suck in the PCL are surely worth a few very quiet little coffee dates for you- there must be a whole subculture out there dying to talk about the boys and the unsuspecting girlfriends.
There is one thing the girls here at UT do know- which guys and girls they find hot, although they may not want to admit why they find them hot or even be able to articulate the reasons. So put out the word in your column... "I want to hear from you girls on hotness in guys... images, buns, clothing, voices, songs, tats and who-knows-what else.".
Finally, I know what the kinks of my era, 1962- 75, were ( I know a Federal judge whose girlfriend 40 years ago used to flagellate him with a bunny skin filled with beans). The generation of guys before mine spent entirely too much time obsessing over garter belts, furs and spanking (come to think about it, the spanking thing was big among girls I knew). Kinks are very specific and very generational; we get imprinted like little ducklings and the results stay with us until the grave. So what are the kinks of your generation? I don't have a clue. And if you ask confidentially you might get some real surprises from the girls- and guys-around.
___________
So I'll let you digest that with you afternoon espresso. I'll be here. Trying not to fall asleep while my physics professor "lecture". Also, look at this awesome book I get to read for his class... BIOGRAPHY OF WATER. I know you're jealous!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Interview with "Elyse"
To research my latest Humpday story, I sat down with a few very interesting people. One of which was "Elyse", Elyse is young, active in the BDSM subculture here in Austin, and is fantastically self-aware. Her interview is a pretty fun read, so if you're interested... keep reading!
__________
Me: So can you tell me how you came to realize that you were "BDSM"? Was this something you grew into or did you sort of always know?
Elyse: I really cannot remember a specific point at which I said to myself “well I’m really interested in X”. I’ve always thought of it as very appealing to me I thought that... bondage and other things were interesting when I was growing up and you know how some of the stories.. like even Beauty and the Beast involved power and stuff in the relationships.
Me: It is often assumed that kinky-ness is a response to trauma, how to you respond to that stereotype?
Elyse: I feel like I had a perfectly healthy childhood with no trauma whatsoever and I feel like it’s a completely natural desire and many people feel it but some feel it more deeply or strongly than others.
Me: I say that because I have had the non-pleasure of Dr. Drew's new VH1 show on "sex addiction" and in the into he loves to point out that all fetishes (like choking, for example) as "bad" and necessarily a symptom of trauma...
Elyse:... I’ve always thought that it was completely natural and healthy… not a symptom, nothing is wrong. [Now,] when someone [does] have a fear, they might fetishize it to cope with the trauma.. but I don’t think that is the typifying experience for everyone involved in BDSM.
Me: Most of my story is involved with the idea of how a closeted BDSM-interested UT student could get involved with the underground culture. At first it was kind of hard for me to find a group, can you tell me a little bit about how to find a group and why it is sometimes difficult to find one?
Elyse: I absolutely agree that it is hard to find a BDSM group because it is so intimate and I don’t think that people would publicly post to join a group based on a sexual preference, so no wonder its hard to find, but with the internet it is [now] possible to find.. The internet really made it so much easier because these people that used to go through covert channels, like friends of friends.. now no one really has to out themselves in front of their friends.. now we can join groups and e-mail lists on the internet...and websites that help connect with people... Fetlife.com is kind of like facebook for kinksters.
Me: I notice alot of open relationships in the BDSM community, what is that about?
Elyse: First of all I think that BDSM tends to be an older subculture, more mature, as in, there are people that are more mature, even older in years, who might have been married or even have kids and realize that "Hey I’m into this", but they didn’t have the internet or anything like that back then and so it’s open now and they just happen to be married or with some other attachment and not want to leave their wives or husbands so they are going to compromise. Also, because these people are kinky, and sort of sexually liberated, because they already know that they are doing something that isn’t mainstream or status quo, sort of deviant behavior and they’ve accepted it so it is easier for them to take that step and think more openly about their sexuality, generally. At least in my opinion, I know BDSM is something that can be done consensually with great satisfaction with everyone involved, so many people outside of the culture seem to think that BDSM activities can’t be don’t consensually and is about hurting somebody… but now that you know it can be done consensually you can understand that open relationship, polyamorous relationships can be conducted with the satisfaction of everyone involved.
Me: So BDSM tends to be an older subculture, but what about the people, like me, who might be interested, but want to stick with people who are closer in age.. are there specific places to find that?
Elyse: It’s a bit tricky. There is a local Austin BDSM group that only caters to people 18 to 35, and if you are over 35 you can’t be in it. So it attracts younger people; however, you do tend to find people that are still pretty up there in age. It just tends to be older people, I don’t really know why. Maybe it takes people age to realize they like certain things, or boredom with vanilla sex. It is difficult to find people close to your age. But with that said, there are people there. I am I’m here and I know I’m not the only one. It’s just that the largest section of the BDSM subculture are older.
Me: I have lost my train of thought, so while I think of the next quesiton, is there anything you want me to make sure I cover in the story?
Elyse: What BDSM is…
Me: and how would you describe or define BDSM?
Elyse:...well BDSM, it is a acronym that means bondage, discipline, domination and submission and sadism and masochism, it's a double barreled acronym, there's a specific word for that kind of acronym.. you can probably look it up... [Anyways], that’s what it is and it just involves a lot of people who consider themselves kinky, sexual deviants that enjoy bondage and different aspects of power… even enjoying pain, those are also things that go along witth yhat theme and the overwhelming theme is that in sex, there is often a power exchange, you might want the man to ravish you fiercely or take you in his powerful arms because he just likes you so much...Now the people into BDSM will capitalize on this and say "hey lets willingly take this power thing to the limit and enjoy it sexually". And it generally makes sex for them and for me, a more gratifying of an activity.
Me: Have you ever had any "bad" experiences within the BDSM community?
Elyse: There have been a couple, but it’s only been in situations where the person I was involved with didn’t really understand what BDSM was about. The consensual nature of BDSM is always an issue and the BDSM community is always emphasizing that no matter what you do it has to be consensual, you have to agree to everything before hand and you can’t take advantage of another person and there are still some people who don’t understand this idea and they are looked down heavily in the BDSM community.
Me: I saw this guy on Fetlife whose interests include really dominating things that are borderline dangerous and they are always about him getting to do the "doing".. fisting, anal, slapping, etc. Do you think that places like Fetlife could or does serve as an outlet for violent men to pray on people?
Elyse: You’ve got to acknowledge that there is a person who loves being fisted, who loves having anal sex now a lot of people can’t think from that perspective… [They think] ‘Oh my gosh! That [man] is a misogynist’ and [they think] that no [woman could want that], but there are. And when a man discloses his interest in [that kind of domination play] in the first place and attracts only people who are equally interested in receiving what he is interested in giving it can actually be an even exchange
Me: The openness and necessity for disclose is really convenient for BDSM dating, what do you think that is about?
Elyse: I think that is is great that the BDSM community is open about what they are into and that they acknowledge that maybe not a lot of people are into it so they really have to put themselves out there and disclose from the outset what they are into and they are specific and it makes it a lot easier.. because you know what you are looking for and you can see what others are looking for.
Me: Do you think the "vanilla" community can learn from this?
Elyse: I feel that what the vanilla community can learn from the BDSM community is this honesty. On “normal” personal adds there isn’t much information.. if some guys into anal, anal is not necessarily BDSM-related, if he can’t get off without getting some anal action or he wants a partner that will anticipate it in, he should be able to say it up front. So many dating sites try to play around the idea that sex will happen. They talk about all these non sexual aspects of relationships, but if successful, a lot of people want sex in a relationship, so wouldn’t it be nice if people could be upfront about what they want to do. But it might be different because there are just less surprises with regard to what they want to do, but.. still.
Me: What is your favorite part about the community aspect of BDSM activities as opposed to more discrete things that closeted BDSM-interested people tend to use, like Craigslist ads?
Elyse: I think in the community specifically they emphasize a lot of education and people learn things that could potentially be very gratifiying, they just never knew how or they never knew anyone who would do it with them. You can get so much more out of your sex life and your life overall…
_____________________
Thanks Elyse!
If this kind of thing interests you, then come back soon for the next interview installment with Lynn Raridon!
Love,
Mary
__________
Me: So can you tell me how you came to realize that you were "BDSM"? Was this something you grew into or did you sort of always know?
Elyse: I really cannot remember a specific point at which I said to myself “well I’m really interested in X”. I’ve always thought of it as very appealing to me I thought that... bondage and other things were interesting when I was growing up and you know how some of the stories.. like even Beauty and the Beast involved power and stuff in the relationships.
Me: It is often assumed that kinky-ness is a response to trauma, how to you respond to that stereotype?
Elyse: I feel like I had a perfectly healthy childhood with no trauma whatsoever and I feel like it’s a completely natural desire and many people feel it but some feel it more deeply or strongly than others.
Me: I say that because I have had the non-pleasure of Dr. Drew's new VH1 show on "sex addiction" and in the into he loves to point out that all fetishes (like choking, for example) as "bad" and necessarily a symptom of trauma...
Elyse:... I’ve always thought that it was completely natural and healthy… not a symptom, nothing is wrong. [Now,] when someone [does] have a fear, they might fetishize it to cope with the trauma.. but I don’t think that is the typifying experience for everyone involved in BDSM.
Me: Most of my story is involved with the idea of how a closeted BDSM-interested UT student could get involved with the underground culture. At first it was kind of hard for me to find a group, can you tell me a little bit about how to find a group and why it is sometimes difficult to find one?
Elyse: I absolutely agree that it is hard to find a BDSM group because it is so intimate and I don’t think that people would publicly post to join a group based on a sexual preference, so no wonder its hard to find, but with the internet it is [now] possible to find.. The internet really made it so much easier because these people that used to go through covert channels, like friends of friends.. now no one really has to out themselves in front of their friends.. now we can join groups and e-mail lists on the internet...and websites that help connect with people... Fetlife.com is kind of like facebook for kinksters.
Me: I notice alot of open relationships in the BDSM community, what is that about?
Elyse: First of all I think that BDSM tends to be an older subculture, more mature, as in, there are people that are more mature, even older in years, who might have been married or even have kids and realize that "Hey I’m into this", but they didn’t have the internet or anything like that back then and so it’s open now and they just happen to be married or with some other attachment and not want to leave their wives or husbands so they are going to compromise. Also, because these people are kinky, and sort of sexually liberated, because they already know that they are doing something that isn’t mainstream or status quo, sort of deviant behavior and they’ve accepted it so it is easier for them to take that step and think more openly about their sexuality, generally. At least in my opinion, I know BDSM is something that can be done consensually with great satisfaction with everyone involved, so many people outside of the culture seem to think that BDSM activities can’t be don’t consensually and is about hurting somebody… but now that you know it can be done consensually you can understand that open relationship, polyamorous relationships can be conducted with the satisfaction of everyone involved.
Me: So BDSM tends to be an older subculture, but what about the people, like me, who might be interested, but want to stick with people who are closer in age.. are there specific places to find that?
Elyse: It’s a bit tricky. There is a local Austin BDSM group that only caters to people 18 to 35, and if you are over 35 you can’t be in it. So it attracts younger people; however, you do tend to find people that are still pretty up there in age. It just tends to be older people, I don’t really know why. Maybe it takes people age to realize they like certain things, or boredom with vanilla sex. It is difficult to find people close to your age. But with that said, there are people there. I am I’m here and I know I’m not the only one. It’s just that the largest section of the BDSM subculture are older.
Me: I have lost my train of thought, so while I think of the next quesiton, is there anything you want me to make sure I cover in the story?
Elyse: What BDSM is…
Me: and how would you describe or define BDSM?
Elyse:...well BDSM, it is a acronym that means bondage, discipline, domination and submission and sadism and masochism, it's a double barreled acronym, there's a specific word for that kind of acronym.. you can probably look it up... [Anyways], that’s what it is and it just involves a lot of people who consider themselves kinky, sexual deviants that enjoy bondage and different aspects of power… even enjoying pain, those are also things that go along witth yhat theme and the overwhelming theme is that in sex, there is often a power exchange, you might want the man to ravish you fiercely or take you in his powerful arms because he just likes you so much...Now the people into BDSM will capitalize on this and say "hey lets willingly take this power thing to the limit and enjoy it sexually". And it generally makes sex for them and for me, a more gratifying of an activity.
Me: Have you ever had any "bad" experiences within the BDSM community?
Elyse: There have been a couple, but it’s only been in situations where the person I was involved with didn’t really understand what BDSM was about. The consensual nature of BDSM is always an issue and the BDSM community is always emphasizing that no matter what you do it has to be consensual, you have to agree to everything before hand and you can’t take advantage of another person and there are still some people who don’t understand this idea and they are looked down heavily in the BDSM community.
Me: I saw this guy on Fetlife whose interests include really dominating things that are borderline dangerous and they are always about him getting to do the "doing".. fisting, anal, slapping, etc. Do you think that places like Fetlife could or does serve as an outlet for violent men to pray on people?
Elyse: You’ve got to acknowledge that there is a person who loves being fisted, who loves having anal sex now a lot of people can’t think from that perspective… [They think] ‘Oh my gosh! That [man] is a misogynist’ and [they think] that no [woman could want that], but there are. And when a man discloses his interest in [that kind of domination play] in the first place and attracts only people who are equally interested in receiving what he is interested in giving it can actually be an even exchange
Me: The openness and necessity for disclose is really convenient for BDSM dating, what do you think that is about?
Elyse: I think that is is great that the BDSM community is open about what they are into and that they acknowledge that maybe not a lot of people are into it so they really have to put themselves out there and disclose from the outset what they are into and they are specific and it makes it a lot easier.. because you know what you are looking for and you can see what others are looking for.
Me: Do you think the "vanilla" community can learn from this?
Elyse: I feel that what the vanilla community can learn from the BDSM community is this honesty. On “normal” personal adds there isn’t much information.. if some guys into anal, anal is not necessarily BDSM-related, if he can’t get off without getting some anal action or he wants a partner that will anticipate it in, he should be able to say it up front. So many dating sites try to play around the idea that sex will happen. They talk about all these non sexual aspects of relationships, but if successful, a lot of people want sex in a relationship, so wouldn’t it be nice if people could be upfront about what they want to do. But it might be different because there are just less surprises with regard to what they want to do, but.. still.
Me: What is your favorite part about the community aspect of BDSM activities as opposed to more discrete things that closeted BDSM-interested people tend to use, like Craigslist ads?
Elyse: I think in the community specifically they emphasize a lot of education and people learn things that could potentially be very gratifiying, they just never knew how or they never knew anyone who would do it with them. You can get so much more out of your sex life and your life overall…
_____________________
Thanks Elyse!
If this kind of thing interests you, then come back soon for the next interview installment with Lynn Raridon!
Love,
Mary
Japanese Rope Bondage
So I am working on the finishing touches of my BDSM feature and for said feature Caleb Miller and I worked on a photo illustration. While I didn't look quite as fantastic as the woman pictured above, the shoot was fun.. albeit it was kind of awkward. The rope work was done by Casey at Forbidden Fruit and it was a biggener's knot, not quite as intricate as the own picture here... but did you know that when you googleimage search "japanese rope bondage" that most of the pictures are of an GameBoy being tied up?
Weird, huh?
Well I'm avoiding my real work so I'll post the interviews I did with "Elyse" and Lynn Raridon, also of Forbidden Fruit in a minute.
Much love,
Mary
Check out Caleb Millers stuff here: CalebMillerPhoto
I Don't Give a "Hoot"!
This morning I realized that Glenn Beck is ruffling a lot of feathers.
Feministing said this: "Glenn Beck on Sarah Palin"
The Sexist said this: "Beck Too Sexist To Be Palin's VP"
And here is the clip that is so "infuriating," according to Feminsting's Samhita:
But really, I couldn't give less of a "hoot"! Because, really, is anyone even surprised that Glenn Beck would be sexist? We already know he is a card-carrying clown.. and proud of it. And even more surprising coming from me.. I dare say that I think he was trying to make fun of stereotypes of conservatism in a way that would specifically enrage feminists and other progressives eaves dropping without context.
But even more importantly.. who in the hell cares what Glenn beck and his cronies think about gender? he is a farce and even republicans with half a brain think so.
So anyways, ladies and gents looking toward gender equality, let's turn our heads away from the riff raff and concentrate on things that matter. Glenn Beck isn't even a cultural norm or a symbol of accepted mores.
Moving on.
Feministing said this: "Glenn Beck on Sarah Palin"
The Sexist said this: "Beck Too Sexist To Be Palin's VP"
And here is the clip that is so "infuriating," according to Feminsting's Samhita:
But really, I couldn't give less of a "hoot"! Because, really, is anyone even surprised that Glenn Beck would be sexist? We already know he is a card-carrying clown.. and proud of it. And even more surprising coming from me.. I dare say that I think he was trying to make fun of stereotypes of conservatism in a way that would specifically enrage feminists and other progressives eaves dropping without context.
But even more importantly.. who in the hell cares what Glenn beck and his cronies think about gender? he is a farce and even republicans with half a brain think so.
So anyways, ladies and gents looking toward gender equality, let's turn our heads away from the riff raff and concentrate on things that matter. Glenn Beck isn't even a cultural norm or a symbol of accepted mores.
Moving on.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Gender Equality... for men? Feminists discuss
I have always had a deep interest in this subject and of course, Courtney Martin of Feministing got to it before me. But over Thanksgiving break I hope to get a full grasp on the issue and how it pertains to UT. Look forward to it. But in the meantime, here are some of the relevant articles I've found so far. Feel free to post other articles, if you've found any!
"What's the Alternative to Tucker Max?," Courtney Martin at the American Prospect
"Feminist Masculinity Roundup," Courtney Martin at Feministing
"Men's Rights," Cathy Young at Reason
Jezebel's response to Young.
"Men's rights groups have become frighteningly effective," Kathryn Joyce at XX
Jezebel's response to Joyce.
I'm sure I'll be adding more soon.
Xoxo,
Mary
"What's the Alternative to Tucker Max?," Courtney Martin at the American Prospect
"Feminist Masculinity Roundup," Courtney Martin at Feministing
"Men's Rights," Cathy Young at Reason
Jezebel's response to Young.
"Men's rights groups have become frighteningly effective," Kathryn Joyce at XX
Jezebel's response to Joyce.
I'm sure I'll be adding more soon.
Xoxo,
Mary
Porn, still disappoints
As lame as this stupid photo.
In the show Oprah tackled the growing consumption of porn by female viewers. And while Lisa Long’s in depth investigation of the porn industry’s growing female clientele “The Evolution of Porn and Erotica” (available on the OprahWinfreyShow.com) is full of interesting changes in the demographics of porn users, there was one idea repeated throughout the piece that caused me to sigh in disbelief: that women who enjoy watching porn prefer porn with “romance”.
“Americans spend up to $10 billion a year on porn, and men aren't the only ones supporting this highly profitable industry,” reported Long.
And approximately “30 to 40 percent of the market is female,” according to Steve Hirsch, the CEO of Vivid Entertainment (one of the largest producers of pornography in the U.S.).
Long also posits that, “"Now there is porn that is being produced specifically for women by women, in some cases, and it just looks different. It feels different. There's more of a storyline. It's more romantic."
Storylines?
Romance?
Perhaps Long and Oprah’s female audience is a little older than I am and perhaps that demographic is more conditioned to look to romance and storyline for their arousal ques, but as far as I’m concerned “more storyline…more romance” is not quite what I am looking for in porn.
And I don’t think I am alone.
As someone who has perused quite a few adult film aisles in search for the kind of pornography that I can really enjoy, I must say that the adult film industry has not adapted well to their growing female audiences.
Just a few months ago I made a trek down 290 in search of the Mecca of adult stores. And even though an entire half of the warehouse full of films, for me, the selection was scant. I ended up spending over 40 bucks for Nurses (because it featured Sasha Grey one of my favorite porn actresses).
When I got home and put the DVD in, my viewing experience was a kin to my roommates forcing me to watch The Notebook-- lame lines, bad acting, and extreme dryness. After skipping through all of the scenes that weren’t doing it for me, I realized that I had fast-forwarded through the entire movie.
There was too much talking, too much of the storyline-making that Long and Oprah seem to think I want, or the actors were simply looking too disgusting looking for me to concentrate (the men in this film looked like they were addicts with extreme weight and hygiene issues and the women all looked like Barbie, except, of course, for the all-natural beauty of Sasha Grey, but she was only in one short scene).
So here is my predicament: most of the porn that is marketed for men, and the porn that dominates what is available for free on the internet, is not what I am looking for, but at the same time, the porn marketed to women is just as disappointing.
It seems that we are offered two options—to either be degraded by violence and man-centered sex or to be treated like dainty little princesses who prefers kissing, caressing, and sweet talk to the actual sex part of sex.
Maybe I am in the minority and maybe most women do identify more with the “romantic” sides of sex when they search for porn. But something tells me I’m not alone.
And that something is the sense I get from the statements made by outspoken intellectually astute porn actresses like Sasha Grey (who has claimed in multiple interviews that she entered the porn industry because she couldn’t find anything in mainstream porn that actually aroused her) and the work of women making erotica and pornographic videos for female audiences, like Tristan Taormino.
But the underlying problem remains the same, in the world of free, cheap, or available porn, women like me are not taken seriously as a demographic.
Taormino’s videos are not as readily available to the public and even Grey’s career has been influenced by the popularity of certain genres that are marketed for primarily male audiences (i.e. the graphic violence against women that she sometimes partakes in, and by this I mean it is way past “rough sex” and doesn’t even fit into the realm of BDSM).
While Oprah’s show made me a little hopeful about the future of the porn industry, something tells me that the changes that are being made aren’t exactly what porn really needs in order to capitalize and please their growing female audiences.
_________
p.s. I think I am going to be on All Things Considered on NPR on either Thursday or Friday. I'll letchya know.
xoxo,
mary
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