AUDIOSMUT 3: LEFTOVERS (it’s exam time for some and just plain busy time for others)
December 3rd
Here’s the rundown:
****PLEASURES**** Episode 3: The Case of the Missing Vibrator!
Ceasar and Fanny are at it again—Ceasar has moved out of Betty’s apartment so he and Fanny can fornicate in peace on Fanny’s pull-out couch. Sugarmuffin turns to her vibrator in an attempt to alleviate her newfound frustrations, only to find. . .
[dum dum DUUUUM]
The Long Lost Shame Doc!
Documentary is a strong word.
This is an audio-collage of 10-12 interviews Kaitlin and Linda did with friends and family asking about SEXUAL SHAME….sources, experiences, and strategies for evading, surmounting, extinguishing, or ignoring it.
Highlights: mortifying sexual experiences—talk about it? Yeah right. / masturbation—guilt, and changeroom bitchfights / BAGAGGE. / “talking about sex is like talking about music”: division between the mind and the body** / lots of intellectualizing
What’s missing:
One interviewee spoke about his experience of sexuality as an Asian male, and how he often feels de-sexualized as a result of images and values of masculinity imposed and reinforced in North American media.
In our discussions of sexual shame, the Audiosmut collective pontificated on whether shame could be sexy: “can it be hot in that it might add to the lustiness of an encounter when we see one another’s vulnerabilities translated through feelings/expressions of shame in our desires, facilitating bonding?” Britt wonders…..what do you think?
Kaitlin’s little rant:
***Two of the interviewees attributed their difficulty in talking openly about sex to the fact that its such a physical act—”sex is not a conversation.” This made me think of the way our language is structured to exclude the experiences deemed irrelevant to a rational/western/patriarchal system of values. Traditions of western rationalist thought have made a habit of relegating the reality of the body, the female, and the emotional to the negative side of the binary (in contrast with the mind, the male, and the rational). I couldn’t help but ponder whether this recurring annoyance is one of the sources of our cultural difficulty in confronting, expressing, and discussing sex. As sex lies within the sphere of the physical, it has therefore been rendered indecent because it reminds us that we are animals and not gods. While things are slowly changing, there is still a long way to go before mind/body, man/woman, human/animal, positive/negative binaries are abandonned and we realize that everything is the same but different. As a result of this modernist debris, many still lack linguistic and social avenues to speak comfortably about our animal urges.
Linda and Nora discuss queer and trans politics with THE Mattilda Berstein Sycamore in a diner at 1 AM.
Here in Montreal to promote their NEW BOOK: So Many Ways to Sleep Badly Mattilda was cornered after a talk at McGill by Linda and Nora. Mattilda is the author of several other assumption-shattering books such as : Nobody Passes: Rejecting Rules of Gender and Conformity and That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation among others. (Check out their website for more info!!! http://www.mattildabernsteinsycamore.com/ )
Even Mattilda was surprised at the wieght of discussion topics they covered in the wee hours of the morning—ranging from identity politics to the questionable nature of marriage as an institution, Audiosmut (in the form of Linda and Nora) debates the landscape of queer activism today and captures some of Mattilda’s insights. The 20 minute clip we aired is—to put it bluntly—heavy, laden with all sorts of specific terms.
We provide for you a small and by no means definitive glossary just in case a few words fell dead on your ears:
Gender queer: an individual or an act that that challenges the little boxes labelled ‘male’ and ‘female’ that are wrapped accordingly . These boxes come without labels and in a wide variety of wrapping paper.
butch: also having to do with the wrapping paper. Someone who likes to wrap themselves up in what is generally thought of as a MALE aesthetic.
trans : people that break away from one or more of the society’s expectations around sex and gender. These expectations include that everyone is either a man or a woman, that one’s gender is fixed, that gender is rooted in their physiological sex, and that our behaviors are linked to our gender.
scene (bdsm context): a division of time that encapsulates a BDSM activity, ranging from a few minutes to several hours. Also used as a verb, as to “scene” with someone implies that you have been or will be involved with someone for the scene. Alternatively, this term has been applied to the BDSM community’s more public gatherings or the state the community is in. ["The scene around Houston is very active."]
Domsub.info: http://www.domsub.info/glossary.shtml
femme: also having to do with the wrapping paper. Someone who likes to wrap themselves up in what is generally thought of as a FEMALE aesthetic.
pass/passing: is the ability of a person to be regarded as a member of a combination of sociological groups other than his or her own, such as a different race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and/or disability status, generally with the purpose of gaining social acceptance. (wikipedia.org)
A critique of the this term’s use:
“the crux of the problem is that the words ‘pass and ‘passing’ are active verbs. So when we say that a transsexual is ‘passing,’ it gives the false impression that they are the only active participant in this scenario (i.e, the transsexual is working hard to achieve a certain gendered appearance and everyone else is passively being duped or not duped by the transsexual’s ‘performance’). However, I would argue that the reverse is true: The public is the primary participant by virtue of their incessant need to gender every person they see as either female or male” Julia Serano
http://questioningtransphobia.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/evolving-a-trans-vocabulary-passing/
cultural capital: For Bourdieu [the guy who coined this term], capital acts as a social relation within a system of exchange, and the term is extended ‘to all the goods material and symbolic, without distinction, that present themselves as rare and worthy of being sought after in a particular social formation (cited in Harker, 1990:13) and cultural capital acts as a social relation within a system of exchange that includes the accumulated cultural knowledge that confers power AND status. Wikipedia.org
m to fs/f to ms: MtF(male-to-female, masculine-to-feminine) and “FtM” (female-to-male, feminine-to-masculine) are two of the common ways trans people describe themselves.
assimilated: a pretty complicated concept. Mat/tilda wrote a book about it actually. Check out their website 
proposition 8: ELIMINATES RIGHT OF SAME–SEX COUPLES TO MARRY. INITIATIVE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. as articulated on the 2008 offical voter information page for the California general elections
If you feel your intelligence is being insulted or that ours is lacking, please email us some of your own interpretations of these terms! audiosmut@ckut.ca
