BAsics Bus Tour hits NYC -- AND I'm protesting 50 Shades of Grey tonight!

I am absolutely thrilled that the BAsics Bus Tour is kicking off officially today here in NYC.  This time there are two full 30 foot RV's and two dozen volunteers from around the country.  They are impressive and they are taking out the most liberating and inspiring and practical solution to the problems of the world: all the way communist revolution as re-envisioned by Bob Avakian.  Even more specifically, they are promoting BAsics from Bob Avakian and other work of his.  I know from the last leg of the Tour, which went down South, as well as from my broader experience in and knowledge of the movement for revolution that this opens up tremendous enthusiasm, hopes, profound questions and contributions from many kinds of people.  Stay in touch with the blog: basicsbustour.tumblr.com to stay up to the minute on how this Tour is going.

Also, tonight I will be hitting the streets with a small crew of folks from the movement to End Pornography & Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women to protest an event that is celebrating 50 Shades of Grey.  It is called, "50 Shades of Seduction" sponsored by Sidebar in Manhattan.  They are offering drink specials (50% of Grey-tinis) and a class on S&M.  We will be outside passing out fliers and holding signs which read:

50 Shades of Grey: Bad for Women, Bad for Sex!

As we put it in our announcement for this protest:

We'll be calling on people to reject the view of women and of sex that is promoted in the book, not to imitate and celebrate those views.

50 Shades of Grey glamorizes the story of a powerful man hurting a woman who cares for him using riding whips, chains, paddles and violently degrading sex. This is not 'just fantasy.' This does harm.

Every day millions of women around the world are hurt through the real-world acts of rape, battery, sexual slavery, pornography and sexual abuse.   Women should be fighting to end their oppression and degradation, not celebrating it or seeking to get 'in on' their own objectification, commodification and degradation.

50 Shades of Grey is also bad for sex.  More space needs to be opened up for people to imagine and experience the full richness of sex between mutually respectful and equal partners. Instead, this book pushes people to get over their discomfort and wallow in degradation and enslavement.

May 10: "Good Sex", Abortion & GIRLS!

Come to a discussion inspired by the themes in the new HBO series "Girls"...

Thurs - May 10 - 7:00 - 9:00 pm

at: Revolution Books

146 West 26th Street

[btw 6th-7th Aves., NYC  #1, R, 6 to 28th St. stop]

* Is there such a thing as "good sex"? If so, what makes it "good"?

* Must abortion be an agonizing decision?

* What makes for a "meaningful life"? A career... friends... sex... or something more?

NOTE: You do not have to have seen the show to participate!

Discussion hosted by

Sunsara Taylor

and the project to

End Pornography and Patriarchy: The Enslavement and Degradation of Women.

"It is long past time that this new generation stand up, reject, and RESIST this culture of rape and pornography; this culture that labels women "selfish" if they choose not to become mothers; this culture that reduces women and girls to sexualized objects while denying their full multi-dimensional humanity (including their right-as one essential part of this-to explore their sexuality without shame or stigma); this culture that demonizes and bullies LGBT people.

"Women are not objects. Women are not things to be used for the sexual pleasure of men NOR are they breeders of children. WOMEN ARE HUMAN BEINGS CAPABLE OF FULL EQUALITY IN EVERY REALM!"

 

Call to END PORNOGRAPHY AND PATRIARCHY:

THE ENSLAVEMENT AND DEGRADATION OF WOMEN!

Liquid Plumr Porn Spoof: Making Female Degradation "Cute" and Normalized

Check out this new ad for “Liquid Plumr Double Impact.” As you will quickly recognize it is a spoof on a cliché in porn: the plumber shows up and really the housewife wants nothing more than to be sexually ravaged by him and all his muscular, musky masculinity. Further, this ad includes “double penetration,” (get it, “double impact”?). That is, the woman gets penetrated by two men at once (and indeed, two plumbers show up at her door promising to “snake your drain” and to “flush your pipe.”) During all this, the narrator (in the cliché porn voice) brags about how this “double impact” includes “a long snake to grab deep clogs... and a powerful gel to finish off the rest, baby.”

What is wrong with this ad?

It is further normalizing, and making “cute,” the notion that “everyone is into porn.” In fact, a lot of people are deeply offended by porn – and more people ought to be. It is very damaging to the way that all of society is trained to view the female half of the human race – as well as how people are coarsened and trained to view sex as conquest and domination. But this ad further alienates and silences those who might raise a critique of porn; already many are afraid to do so because they will be called “uptight” or lacking in a sense of humor.

It is portraying this “fantasy” of being “double penetrated” as being the secret fantasy of women. In reality, this is a “fantasy” that was almost wholly created by the porn industry itself. Further, this “fantasy” has nothing to do with actual human intimacy or mutual respect or closeness and pleasure (and I guarantee this is NOT the “fantasy” that is occurring to most women when they are stuck with a backed up sewage system!) – instead, this “fantasy” is all about sexualizing the impersonal ganging up on and overpowering by multiple men of a woman who is reduced to a thing.

All this reinforces the notion – which is the dominant message in pornography as a whole as well as the broader cultural portrayal of women in general – that all women at all times exist to be (and long to be) sexually available to all men. When a woman calls a plumber, she doesn't really need help with her plumbing, she is really harboring a secret fantasy to be sexually ravaged. When a woman walks down the street, she is not really just trying to go from “place a” to “place b,” nor is she enjoying the sun or the atmosphere of the city, she is really seeking to be hit on and objectified by men. All this feeds the notion that any woman who rejects the sexual advances of men is really denying him something he is entitled to, thereby justifying his rage or violence in the service of reclaiming what is “rightfully his.”

Finally, a word to all those who are thinking, “Lighten up, its just a spoof.” Don't be stupid. I don't accept that you can possibly be that dense. The only reason this ad “works” is because it is very closely playing off the typical forms of porn that are very well known and has very broad meaning and impact in the world. I am not “stretching” to link this ad up up with the meaning – and the broad impact – of the very industry (porn) which it is closely mimicking and playing off of.

And let there be no unclarity here: that industry, pornography, is becoming more and more violent, more and more degrading, even as it is becoming more and more mainstream. The normalization of “double penetration” (and even “triple penetration” and more) as well as the mainstreaming of this into the broader public culture (which is exactly what this ad does) is very much a part of this. In the real world, this is having devastating and long-lasting impact on the lives of real women (as well as men). It has created and contributes to reinforcing and bolstering the fact that women cannot go through the world without being constantly reminded that they are viewed – by a very large percentage of men as well as other women and their own views of themselves – as nothing more than a physical object, valued and valuable only so long as it is sexually attractive to and available to men. That is a fucked up and enslaving culture. Rather the opposite of a funny, hah-hah, joke.

"Human Barbie," Sexualization of Girls, and a Call for PROTEST

Just now someone sent this link to me with the subject line, “this is just obscene.” I had to stop and write something because, indeed, it IS obscene – on many levels!

'Human Barbie' Gives 7-Year-Old Daughter Liposuction Voucher

The worst part of this story is not even the fact the mother of this 7 year old would give her a voucher for a future “boob job” and liposuction, it is the fact that this young girl is already herself begging for these procedures.

Obviously, it is outrageous for a parent – or any adult – to give such a gift to a child, but lets not leave this story at criticizing her mother. Even as indicated in the “objective” coverage of this story, the idea that a female should be evaluated primarily in terms of her physical attractiveness (as defined by a dangerously narrow and unhealthy standard) to men is broadly accepted in society. That is not being indicted by the article. What is being called out is that this 7 year old is just too young to be objectified and surgically modified. I agree, she is too young. But just because a girl grows up into a woman doesn't make objectifying and commodifying her body okay (nor does it make it harmless for her to “choose” to objectify and commodify herself!). And this is what is not being called out in this article, or in most of the discussion these days about the very real and very dangerous phenomenon of sexualizing very young girls.

If we treat women like nothing more than sex objects then how is that NOT going to filter down into the psyches and aspirations of very young girls?

To be clear, sexualizing a 7 year old IS a fucking crime, but lets just step back a second so we don't miss the other crimes this is part of.

Read more »

The Thing About Slutwalks... and a World Without Rape

On the occasion of today's Slutwalk in NYC -- I am reposting this piece I did on Slutwalks. Its also available at: http://rwor.org/a/244/thing-about-slutwalks-en.html



by Sunsara Taylor

Posted Thursday, August 25, 2011

I'll admit, when I first heard about Slutwalks I cringed. I hate the word slut. It is too hateful. Too bound up with shaming women for their sexuality. Too linked to the deep trauma experienced by millions of women and young girls every single day. Too much part of the cultural DNA that says, "She deserved it," or, "She was asking for it," or, "She's dirty," or, "You little cunt whore."

To get even more specific, for me the word "slut" was too indelibly linked to a girl named Kelly. She transferred into my junior high school in the middle of the year. She was ridiculed and outcast in that kind of mean-girls way that reduces a young woman to an invisible, despised zero for absolutely no reason except to make others feel like maybe they exist. And really, what could be more lonely and humiliating for a junior high girl than standing in front of a whole cafeteria filled with uproarious laughter carrying your lunch tray from table to table being told that every empty chair is being saved for somebody, anybody, who isn't you?

But, Kelly had big breasts and so a table full of boys called out to her and pulled up a chair. All it took was for her to sit down just that first time.

To be honest, as the weeks rolled on and the rumors rolled with them, I have no idea which—if any—were true. I do know there were parties with lots of drinking where the girls still wouldn't speak to her and the boys would lure her into bedrooms. I also know that a young girl seeking acceptance and desiring some means to explore their own budding sexuality in this highly repressive society can get caught up in—and even, at times, take initiative in—all sorts of behavior that is degrading and demeaning to herself in a very deep and lasting way.

But most of all what I know is that Kelly became someone who wasn't seen by anyone in that entire school as an actual human being. No, Kelly was a "slut."

Read more »

What's Wrong with Catcalling Women?

Recently a young woman asked me, “How do you explain to guys how frustrating it is to be hit on all day long? Whenever I tell them to imagine what it would be like, not to be hit on just once in a while, but every day everywhere you go, they always say, 'That would be great! I'd have sex with every woman who propositioned me!' They just can't imagine why women would find this oppressive.”

Here is my response.

Men: imagine if every time you opened your mouth no one heard what you had to say. Imagine, instead, you were being humored – or ignored – based primarily on whether the listener thought they could get you to have sex with them. Imagine if half your professors or teachers never solicited your thinking in earnest. Imagine if you knew that despite your talents in any particular field – acting, writing, science, singing, or anything else – you would be evaluated on your looks and your perceived sexual availability. Imagine thinking you met someone who took you seriously and found your ideas and talents compelling, only to discover that really they were just “playing you” to get you in bed.

Imagine this happened over and over and over again.

Imagine if every morning you had to calculate – whether fully consciously or not – what clothes to wear based on whether you want to be seen (which means “sexy”) but therefore not taken seriously, or whether you will accept being invisible (ie: not “sexy) which means not even noticed by most. Imagine if all day long you were policed for these clothing choices – by everyone: by religious authorities, by employers, by professors, by your boyfriend or lover, by the men on the street, by the strangers who drive past you, by your girlfriends, by other women, by your parents, by the person who takes your money at the drugstore, by the people you sit next to on public transportation. Imagine none of them really see you; they see a “thing” that they feel entitled to judge. Too little sex appeal and you are invisible. Too much and you are a despised “slut.”

Imagine, in other words, if you walked every day through a world that didn't recognize your humanity.

Read more »

TONIGHT! "Infidelity Keeps Us Together" Really? On what basis and to what end?

FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2011  7:00 PM "Infidelity Keeps Us Together"   Really?  On what basis and to what end? A REVOLUTION BOOKS  Free Wheeling Discussion with Sunsara Taylor & Andy Zee    The New York Times Sunday Magazine Cover Story,  July 3,2011, "reconsiders marriage:" "The mistake that straight people made," Savage told me, "was imposing the monogamous expectation on men. Men were never expected to be monogamous. Men had concubines, mistresses and access to prostitutes, until everybody decided marriage had to be egalitarian and fairsey." In the feminist revolution, rather than extending to women "the same latitude and license and pressure-release valve that men had always enjoyed," we extended to men the confines women had always endured. "And it's been a disaster for marriage."  Sunday NYT Magazine 7/3/11; pg.24. Consider this: " . . . Imagine if, instead of being a place where people's need for love and compassion is so often frustrated and even mocked, families themselves were undergoing a radical transformation. Imagine marriages and partnerships forged on a truly voluntary basis in a context where love, respect, compassion and equality were increasingly characterizing the way people related throughout society. Imagine if people had privacy and ease of mind within their homes, but if, at the same time, everyone knew that if they experienced abuse or other forms of degradation they would be supported by society and its institutions if they came forward to expose it, struggle against it, or leave. Imagine if people were aiming to go even further, developing new forms of community and ways in which people sustained each other, and mutually flourished together, that were increasingly breaking down and creating the basis to finally transcend the institution of family based on the narrow-and narrowing-ties of biological kinship.. . " From "The Declaration for the Liberation of Women and the Emancipation of Humanity" published by Revolution Newspaper And, "In many ways, and particularly for men, the woman question and whether you seek to completely abolish or to preserve the existing property and social relations and corresponding ideology that enslave women (or maybe "just a little bit" of them) is a touchstone question among the oppressed themselves. It is a dividing line between "wanting in" and really "wanting out": between fighting to end all oppression and exploitation-and the very division of society into classes-and seeking in the final analysis to get your part in this."  Bob Avakian, quoted in "BAsics" Chapter 5, #18. Revolution Books / Libros Revolución 146 W. 26th Street (between 6th & 7th Avenues) www.revolutionbooksnyc.org 212-691-3345