The Last NS was staying with me this weekend so I didn’t get to go to Castle Moon’s slutwalk, which I was a bit sad about but given that I only found out about it this week I didn’t have the time to re-organise things.
I guess it’s obvious that SlutWalks are right up my street. It’s another reason I get pissed off with ‘radical’ feminists glorifying the seventies and telling the rest of us we’re all useless (I think my favourite insult has to be ‘fun feminist’) well women worldwide seem to be ready to join together when men make stupid remarks. (See Boobquake for another example) Now before anyone gets pissy with me I’m not saying that it’s just men who make stupid and sexist remarks but simply that in these cases it has been a man.
I’d like to explain why I like SlutWalks, first they’re simple and direct responses to a statement that in order to avoid being raped women should stop dressing like sluts. I like simple and direct. I like genuine feminist action that isn’t over-thought or over-argued and, the exhibitionist inside me likes getting naked. Actually, lets ignore my exhibitionist urges for a moment, I just like getting naked. I feel comfortable in my body and being brought up a naturist means I do feel a lot more comfortable without clothes on. Now bring my exhibitionism in and what we have really is a prediliction for teasing. I discover that someone thinks that respectable, intelligent women don’t get their boobs out on a regular basis and (ideally whilst making an intelligent point during a conversation though alas, this is not always so) I flip my top up/down/to the side. I can’t get over the reaction this usually provokes, they’re boobs for gods sakes, you can kind of make them out under my clothing, this whole weirdness with the naked body…it continues to be hilarious and I’m heading towards my thirties!
So I’m saying that I like getting naked in inappropriate places because of the reaction it often provokes? I’m saying that I deliberately dress provocatively in order to provoke a reaction? Surely I’m just the sort of woman that the nice policeman from Toronto was telling everyone not to be like?
Just as I’m responsible for my behaviour you are responsible for yours. I flash my boobs at you and your reaction is to get horny. What then is a reasonable response on your part? To ask me if I want to go somewhere and act on your horniness or to rape me? What if I say ‘no’ to going somewhere with you for sex? Is that fair? Well, yes, because to my mind getting naked is not a sexual signal. Nudity is a natural state and it has nothing to do with sex without there being other signals too, and given this is me, those signals are most likely to be me saying ‘So, sex?’ ie. not subtle.
The point is, all this crap that people say ‘aha!’ to, all this rubbish in magazines and books about ‘this is how to tell if a woman/man wants it’ is bollocks. The fact that people don’t know it’s bollocks is why policemen in Toronto get to make stupid remarks and don’t understand why they’re stupid. Sexual signals are like everything else ‘signal’-wise in the human repertoire, entirely context-based which means you have to get to know the person to understand the context. If you want to have sex with someone then surely you want to have sex with that person or some aspect of that person – then you have to know their context for it to be as much fun as it could be.
This is why I like SlutWalks, ignore all the people getting confused about messages and worried that women are objectifying themselves, at base it’s simple. The victim is not at fault for the crime. The perpetrator is, the perpetrator lost control and as an adult you don’t get to do that and hurt someone else. You want to get to know the context of the SlutWalks and I salute that but at base, that simple premise is why I like them.
One thing that occurs to me is that a man who "flashes" at women is generally considered to have committed a crime (indecent exposure). Do you think this is simply a matter of breasts vs genitals, is it a matter of power relationships or is there actually a double standard? Or is it just a matter of context i.e. would you get in trouble if you were walking up to old men in a park wearing a long coat?
Public Nudity laws are such that if someone complains that’s the point that I get into trouble.
I think that there is a double standard in that if you were to walk around topless no one would think anything of it, whereas I would run the risk of having my body grabbed by complete strangers (from experience) as I would be being percieved as ‘having asked for it’.
If we were talking about flashing genitalia – male and female then we could have a reasonable conversation but I’m talking breasts…I also do think that context plays a role.
Have you read Tracy’s LJ post on this topic? ("Reducing women to their sexuality = congratulations, you fail feminism")
Throw me a link Jez?
I’d be happy to, but it’s a friends-locked post, so it will only be useful if you’re on her flist!
Ahh, well I have Thiyavat on mine but she never added me back so I can only assume I’m not going to be able to see it.
She hasn’t been using that one for many a moon. Mebbe try her current LJ, ‘sinvokasha’.