Pearl-Clutching Pornographers

Further to the saga of the underpants statue and the subsequent swooning of Wellesley College’s liberated ladies, Fred Reed has more evidence of feminist fortitude: 

It seems that at Columbia University a rat pack of nursery feminists have got their skivvies in a knot because the library, Butler, is named for an, ugh!, man. Yes. It cannot be denied. In protest, these girls, apparently having nothing more important to do, have filmed “feminist pornography” in the library.

Indeed they have. It’s a “guerrilla action” response to “gender tension” and “male-centricity.” And “of course, it is a feminist statement.”  

Anyway, one of these drab libertines, a Sara Grace Powell, says, “Butler is an extremely charged space - the names emblazoned on the stone facade are, for me, a stimulant for resistance.” A stimulant to grow up might be more to the point. She means “stimulus,” of course, but why would a child at an Ivy university be expected to know English? To an extent I have to sympathise with Sara. I grant that seeing a horrible male name “emblazoned” would send me into a decline also. Wouldn’t it you? Never mind that if the man thus emblazoned had not made the money to donate the library, Sara wouldn’t have one in which to make pornography, presumably the purpose of libraries. 

As some readers may be intrigued by the notion of all-female feminist pornography, here’s a brief description:

It begins with a group of girls sitting around a library table taking their shirts off. As the film progresses, the girls engage in activities including kissing, rubbing eggs on their bodies and twerking around a chicken carcass.

The finished political opus, starring the aforementioned Ms Powell and titled Initiation, also features the somewhat lacklustre use of a riding crop, extended scenes of floor-wiping and what feels like an eternity of general aimlessness. It can be savoured at length here. Those hoping for red-blooded boi-oing fuel may, however, be disappointed. One of the film’s makers, Coco Young, has stressed the intent to transgress rather than titillate:

She was happy to see one commenter note that it was “hard to masturbate to this.” After all, the girls aimed to “create a repulsion”; there were naked women onscreen, but “they’re not there to make you sexually aroused.”

Despite dashed hopes and the sheer radicalness of it all, I trust readers will somehow get over it and get on with their lives. 

Comments

[Sam]

Wow. Boring porn. The Patriarchy doesn't stand a chance.

[Sam]

Also, the word boi-oing.

[Jimmy]

I'm quaking in my boots.

[brinster]

What's Columbia University named after? Madame Columbus? The culture war is peaking. I only hope it doesn't involve firearms, but if it does, I'm sure as hell prepared.

[rjmadden]

extended scenes of floor-wiping

The cornerstone of feminist pornography.

[Anna]

the girls engage in activities including kissing, rubbing eggs on their bodies and twerking around a chicken carcass.

Wait a minute. Isn't twerking a racist appropriation of black culture? Something must be done!

[svh]

the girls aimed to “create a repulsion”; there were naked women onscreen, but “they’re not there to make you sexually aroused.”

If they had managed to make a decent porn film at least they'd have some kind of career prospects when they leave university.

[David]

If they had managed to make a decent porn film at least they’d have some kind of career prospects when they leave university.

Ms Powell describes herself as “an artist and independent curator,” one whose work “concentrates on time, solipsism with a sense of humour, fragmentation, and virtuality.” Which bodes well career-wise, obviously. Though if the art thing doesn’t pan out, perhaps she could look for work in the general area of priggishness and hyperbolical pretension, which seems quite fashionable.

[Steve 2: Steveageddon]

Hallo David

I'm still not sure what twerking is, but I hope they cooked that chicken carcass till the juices run clear before they twerked at it.

I also hope nobody tells PETA they collaborated in the Poultry Holocaust and then engaged in avian necrophilia or there could be an epic clash of the mentalists.

the girls aimed to “create a repulsion”

They would have succeeded in that aim even if they hadn't undressed.

[John D]

Not one goddamn pillow fight.

[tempdog]

Move over no alcohol beer; non erotic pornography has arrived!

[tempdog]

Given the number of feminists who think taking their cloths off is a political statement, Would a truly feminist university be not just clothing optional but clothing not allowed? (For women, obviously. Men would be required to wear burkas.)

[David]

It isn’t the first time a feminoid narcissist has railed against the patriarchy by shagging, or pseudo-shagging, in a library. Remember Ms Nadia Cho, a woman whose terribly radical “desecrations” got her all hot and bothered? Though not quite as much as her own self-regard.

[Jon Powers]

Feminist porn that isn't there to make you sexually aroused. Chicks ruin everything.

[mojo]

Pointless and insipid.

Yep, that Feminism, all right.

[witwoud]

Meh. Students.

[pst314]

"One of the film’s makers, Coco Young, has stressed the intent to transgress rather than titillate"

I'm sure Coco would be pleased to hear that this closely resembles the motivations of male exhibitionists. The most important difference is that when men drop their trou at random women it's a crime of sexual aggression, whereas when feminists do so it's a courageous and laudable act of political theater.

[Roseberry]

I am quite sure that the participants manage to "create a repulsion" on a daily basis, but it probably doesn't mean anything unless you have a video.

[Chris S.]

I wonder how they would react if instead of one or two "I can't masturbate to this" but instead got ones about how erotic and sexually effective it was. Combined with creepy requests to make more. Hey, its porn, somewhere there are people for whom this is EXACTLY what they want.

[Steve 2: Steveageddon]

Where can feminist psychodrama go from here? Has it jumped the sharkess?

Vaginal knitting - had us in stitches.
Vagina monologues - all talked out.
Vajazzling panic - all shimmer and no substance.
Doing things to a dead chicken with your vagina - fowl.

Vaginal monkey tennis?

[MikeG81]

Can one contract salmonella through her lady bits?

[David]

What’s funny is how deferential and credulous the IvyGate article is. None of Ms Young’s fanciful assertions are questioned; they’re simply presented as if self-evident. And instead we’re told, “That so many were shocked by the actions of the women onscreen proved her point that women are expected to act in a certain way.”

Well, women don’t generally strip off, flail about and smear themselves with smashed eggs in the middle of a library while supposedly making a half-arsed porn film - but I’m fairly sure that expectation applies to pretty much everyone. Or are we supposed to believe that if male students did something similar, just as badly, with an equally pretentious political excuse - calling it a “guerrilla action” - they’d somehow be spared any trace of surprise and mockery?

[JuliaM]

"...the girls aimed to 'create a repulsion'.."

Yup, succeeded, ladies!

[David]

Julia,

You mean they haven’t convinced you to take seriously the “guerrilla action” of student feminism? But who will save us from buildings named after the men who paid for them?

[Hal]

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Huh? Oh. Yes, I do grant that the commentary here is quite amusing.

Back to sleep.

[tempdog]

Where can feminist psychodrama go from here?

They have yet to explore the full dimensions of feminist transwomen psychodrama.

[Jon Powers]

I renounce everyone here, and in the article, for using the Patriarchy-approved spelling of womyn.

[Hal]

Jon: I renounce everyone here . . .

Renounce? Or denounce?

brinster: What's Columbia University named after? Madame Columbus?

. . . the Legislature stipulated that "the College within the City of New York heretofore called King's College be forever hereafter called and known by the name of Columbia College,"[24] a reference to Columbia, an alternative name for America.

. . . and . .

Columbia is a historical and poetic name used for the United States of America and is also the name of its female personification. . . .

I supposed given that Columbia annually administers the Pulitzer Prize., an upcoming upheaval will prolly be triggered by a next awarding of such to some male . . .

[Steve]

I think they should be congratulated, and thanked, for keeping the fat birds off screen.

[Smudger]

And meanwhile, in other places, lots of people have actual problems.

[Hal]

I think they should be congratulated, and thanked, for keeping the fat birds off screen.

Meh. Details. Consider that there is a market for Everything and what you won't buy---or bother with---another(s) will . . .

[Jimmy]

I finally watched bits of the video, and I all I could think afterwards was I hope those spoilt brats cleaned up all that egg, or it's going to stink the place out!.

[David]

And meanwhile, in other places, lots of people have actual problems.

Quite. Having watched the film several times, which is several times too many, it’s still hard to see what the ladies were hoping to achieve on their own ostensible terms. Stripped of verbiage, their line of reasoning seems to be: “Some trivial aspect of our surroundings doesn’t flatter our ideology. Therefore - therefore - we must draw attention to ourselves by making a pornographic film that isn’t at all erotic and is meant to repulse.”

I mean, it sounds a little unhinged.

[R. Sherman]

I know this is from Wikipedia, but here are the "emblazoned" names which vex Ms. Powell and her minions: Homer, Herodotus, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Tacitus, Saint Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Milton, Voltaire, and Goethe.

[Bloke in Central Illinois]

I think Herodotus was the problem. Perilously close to "Heteronormative".

[WTP]

Meh. Robin Thicke's version was much better.

[Paolo Pagliaro]

I'd suggest to have a look at this interesting specimen of feminist purism: "No woman is heterosexual", the authoress confidently declares.
Commenting on her own piece, she clarifies the underlying methodology (powerful minds don't leave anything to chance): "And I’m not providing any evidence that men are our oppressors here, because that goes without saying.".
The article is also finely illustrated...

[lovegoats]

Radicals love prolixity. Witchwind writes two pages of drivel, then replies to her own post 29 times to elaborate. In real life, you'd not get a word in edgeways.

[Nik White]

I went to art school in London, so this thing in the Columbia U. library is like … pffft! whatever …

At my art school (Goldsmith's), one of the tutors, a performance artist, asked students for volunteers for a performance he was going to do in one of the reading rooms of the Victoria and Albert Museum and myself and about 8 others stepped forward.

The first rehearsal day he said: 'Does anyone mind taking their clothes off for this?'

I was the only one who had a problem with it – I still got to participate, but I did it with my kit firmly on and my eyes closed (at his direction, don't ask – I certainly didn't).

That kind of thing had been around for at least 30 years then, so it's more like 50 now (and after Marinetti and the Futurists, I reckon it's actually more like going on for 100 now).

For all their obsession with 'commodification' of 'signs' etc., they seem not to be aware of the way they have completely commodified and thereby denuded the word 'radical' of any real meaning.

Go figure.

Also, not entirely unrelated, there's this dreadful bit of monstrous posturing and dishonesty if you can stomach it.

PS David – thanks for the Tim Worstall links on the NEF the other day.

[David]

“Does anyone mind taking their clothes off for this?”

It’s curious just how often that crops up.

[Dr. Westerhaus]

Probably because in a large number of cases, if this example is accurate, the majority answer is quite likely to be: 'No, I don't mind - where shall I put them?'...

[Jimmy]

Radicals love prolixity. Witchwind writes two pages of drivel, then replies to her own post 29 times to elaborate. In real life, you'd not get a word in edgeways.

Witchwind seems to attract a lot of attention for writing complete trash. In real life I would be struggling to contain my laughter and pity.

Maybe it's just a trollish hobby of hers.

One can only hope...

[Nik White]

It’s curious just how often that crops up.

… the majority answer is quite likely to be: 'No, I don't mind - where shall I put them?'…

I forgot to mention that one of the other participants (who didn't mind) was this lady, who is now a psychoanalyst and sometime Guardian contributor.

I don't think it was her, but I do remember several other participants being a little sneering at what they presumably saw as my repressed and bourgeois notions concerning public nudity.

If by their willingness to run around naked they thought it was a sign of how tough they were, I thought that was a pretty damn silly way of going about it: there are young men in a part of my hometown who have a strength test which involves them shoulder-barging the poles supporting road signs and some street lamps until they uproot them from their concrete base. Now that is pretty impressive, if somewhat barbaric.

[David]

I now have a mental image of Mary Beard running around naked.

So Nik, thanks for that.

[WTP]

OK, this is off topic, but when I went to the Guardian article there was this banner ad for The Economist that reads "195 countries, 1 interpreter. Get a world view". Really? Through just one interpreter?

[Nik White]

I now have a mental image of Mary Beard running around naked.

Ah! Oops! Sorry, David!

I meant Anouchka Grose (the author of the article) - I'm not quite that old (yet!) - and not Professor Beard (whose books and TV programmes I've actually quite enjoyed on the whole).

[Simen Thoresen]

Nik,

Whenever something comes up about progressives thinking that the way to transgress is to take clothes off, I am reminded of this piece from Der Spiegel (English translation, paper may suddenly be emitted);
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/the-sexual-revolution-and-children-how-the-left-took-things-too-far-a-702679-druck.html

If you really care about breaking the rules of society, you will at some point have to have sex with children.

I guess I'm good as long as they think prancing around nude is transgressive enough.

-S

[Nik White]

Simen,

Ah, yes I'd read that article already - someone (possibly you?) posted it up on a discussion on this site not long ago.

Absolutely and truly appalling.

I'm not offended by nudity in art or theatre as such, but I think it's become so utterly predictable that perhaps practitioners should really think 'Do I really need my performers to do this?' rather than just going ahead and doing it under the mistaken impression that it's edgy or radical etc.