Real Cannibals

The 1980 Italian film Cannibal Holocaust includes an extended rape scene in which two white Western men rape a young indigenous-Amazonian (Yanomamo) woman in a muddy field while their white Western female counterpart films them.

The film is supposed to be a commentary on the state of modern “civilization”, wherein wealthy, white privileged Westerners manipulate, abuse, and exploit the “uncivilized” of the so-called developing world/Third World/Global South/etc.

While the film fails on multiple levels to sincerely translate its theme of “who are the real savages, anyway?”, that scene has always stuck with me. Similarly in The Last King of Scotland, the terrifying Idi Amin calls out his Scottish physician as only having come to Africa “to fuck and to take away”.

The global hierarchy is sort of a large-scale parallel of the social human hierarchy composed of individuals. The patriarchal hierarchy tells us who is allowed to rape whom, and where, and when, and to what extent they can get away with it. In the global patriarchal scheme, the “West” is at the top of this hierarchy. America can rape nearly whoever it likes, whenever it likes, and never stand to account for its actions.

Why should I be surprised, then, when its individual parts, its people, behave the same way. White Westerns (men particularly) come to Southeast Asia feeling completely entitled to buy other human beings. They have little or no shame in it. They sit across from me at a hang bai (rice shop) eating their loc lac with one emotionally detached, casual arm draped over the shoulders of a girl half, a third their age. We can talk more about that girl later (a whole post unto herself, she is), but for now let’s look closer at that man.

He might be British, Australian, American, New Zealander, or from somewhere in Europe. He doesn’t need to be wealthy where he’s from; being white makes him wealthy enough here. He could be 20, or 40, or 75; it’s inconsequential in determining the age of the girls, boys, women he will purchase.

He probably feels like he’s doing nothing wrong (yeah, yeah, it’s a crime, it’s illegal, but he was driven to this!); he justifies to himself that “a man’s got needs” and he only flew halfway around the world to satisfy those needs because there wasn’t a cheaper, easier source accessible in his own country. Besides, the real perk of Cambodia is that being here makes him feel like a god. All the locals seem to revere his white skin, his pocketbook. He is taller, richer, whiter, smarter, better than everyone in this godforsakencountry.

He might not be a backpacker or a sex tourist. He might be a teacher at a nearby school. He might be in charge of classes of children aged 6 to 18. He might friend some of them on Facebook and meet some of them off school grounds, after school hours.

He might establish himself as a member of the community by marrying– purchasing– a Khmer woman (not legally, necessarily, but only ceremonially) and having children with her. He might confide to total strangers like me that his wife’s culture annoys him, and that she is ignorant (At least you have something in common? I want to offer, but I wouldn’t degrade his wife by comparing her with him like that).

Taking a long, close look at this man helps me understand myself, my own hypocrisy. Our familiarity ends at the point where I realize we don’t deal in the same currency. This man, like the men in Cannibal Holocaust, see Cambodians (Africans, South Americans) as subhuman. They are purchasable, expendable, replaceable items. They are like animals. Sometimes I fixate on the way Khmer people occasionally treat me like an animal, like the Other, and the way they do it to other Cambodians. But in the hierarchical scheme of things, their Othering will never be as sinister, never as dehumanizing, and never inflict the same level of damage as That Man’s will. He has too much power to compare with them. He’s out of our league. He can get away with almost Anything.

And I’m making it a point to find a way to stop him.

This Just In! Ad Industry Exploits Women and Implies Sexual Violence is Funny!

(Warning: graphic images follow.)

Okay, just kidding, that’s old news. And yet it’s not.

Virgin Mobile USA thought better of a clearly inappropriate holiday ad that had gone up online after Richard Branson was like, “Um, no.”

When I think “Christmas Surprise” I think “Chloroform your partner”. In all seriousness, though… I get such a kick out of Mad Men because the absurdly misogynist caricatures of the advertising moguls of Madison Avenue seem exactly that: absurd. But then one realizes: they are still making ads. Only now some people have the good sense to get pissed off when those ads attempt to derive humor from the suggestion of sexual violence.

On the production side of things, however, seemingly little has changed. Take American Apparel ads, for example. I have despised AA ads since their store came to East Lansing while I was in undergrad there. This was how they debuted their new store to Michigan State University students back in 2005.

These ads were banned by the ASA in the UK, as they were considered exploitative and practically pornographic. Getting banned is nothing new for AA. A visit to the AA website reveals that this is not just the theme of their outdoor and print ads; virtually every single [female] item for sale on the site is model in the same pornographic fashion.

For whom are the commodities in these ads intended? Women: does this ad make you want to buy this t-shirt? Why or why not?

These ads scream: MALE GAZE.

American Apparel has long claimed that their ads are unique, progressive, and inventive, because they portray women who are not necessarily professional models, who are not airbrushed or digitally perfected. (Apparently they believe that this promotes self-esteem.) If anything, all that says is that any woman can be turned into a personality-less fuck object. Now that’s progressive.

What has always struck me about AA ads are their resemblance to pornography: vapid, inane expressions, sexually-laden yet childlike behaviors, suggestive postures, faces off an assembly line. How can these ads claim to be a celebration of the natural female body when a) all of these women are of a very particular look, shape, and size and b) their target audience is voyeuristic men and insecure women?

AA is telling us that fat or flat are both repulsive, even “natural” women require makeup, and the only hair you should have is on your head.

I suppose all of this is unsurprising given the kind of person AA’s founder is.

There is nothing unique, progressive, or inventive about what AA does. The “Mad Men” were doing it long before AA ever arrived, and they’ll be doing it long after it’s dead.

Make yourself heard with a survey.

The Return of Vishnu

The following is the transcript of a dialogue I, Lee Solomon, had with my feathered friend, Vishnu. In case you missed our first conversation, Vishnu is a hen empowered to speak through a machine that translates Vishnu’s chicken thoughts into human language. *Warning: Links are to Graphic Images*

[Transcript Opens]

LS: Hello, hello…

V: Hearing you loud and clear.

LS: Great, it works. So, how are you, Vishnu?

V: Amused.

LS: Eh? How’s that?

V: I’ve just been reading something on this organization called PETA.

LS: Ah, yes– People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. What’s amusing?

V: Well, that they lobby so ardently against animal testing and experimentation, fur, animal products in the food industry, animals used for entertainment, and so on, when their very presence on Earth is a serious threat to the health and well-being of other animals around them. That, and that they distinguish between “people” [makes quote motion with wings] and “animals”. We…animals are always the Other, you know?

LS: So I have come to realize. Well, don’t you think they’re doing some good work?

V: I guess it’s better than doing nothing.

LS: Oh, come on, they have achieved some pretty admirable things, don’t you agree?

V: Such as?

LS: Such as… Well, getting some pretty famous celebrities not only to stop wearing fur, but also to campaign against the killing of animals for fur. That’s pretty remarkable, yeah?

V: Oh, you’re talking about this. [Holds up ipad.]

LS: Since when did you get an ipad?

V: Since I started saving money by selling my eggs.

LS: [pause] Oh. [Takes ipad; browses webpage.] What…the f***?!

V: Ha ha!

LS: [Shouting.] Vishnu, you’re not funny! I know you think you’re funny, but you’re not!

V: Come on, you have to admit, this is pretty funny. [Pause.] In an ironic way.

LS: [Shaking head.] Yeah, or it just makes me nauseous. Campaigning for animal rights by fetishizing and commodifying women? W-T-F?

V: It’s rather incredible…[sarcastically] don’t you think?

LS: [Frowning.] Sometimes you’re just mean.

V: So what do you think is wrong with this ad campaign. Doesn’t it serve a good purpose?

LS: If they reinforce the idea that the female body can and should be use to sell something, then to me it defeats the purpose. The ends does not justify the means.

V: Maybe, but it’s not so bad, is it– how exactly are they commodifying women?

LS: By depicting their bodies as hypersexualized, passive, consumable objects, slung with slogans and brands.

V: It is disturbing the way they are posing nude with those rabbits… [Shudders visibly.]

LS: Both the women and the various animals posing in these pictures look really vapid and devoid of thought.

V: They look rather stupid, yes.

LS: The women– oh wait, and this one guy, too [holds up ipad]… But even this picture is not hypersexualized, the pose is not erotic or suggestive, he is just standing on a runway with this sign. Anyway, the women in these ads are not on a level with animals, or as you say, V, the Other– they are like pieces of meat. The underlying tone of these ads, [makes quote motion] “CONSUME ME”, speaks louder than their so-called “good message”.

V: That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?

LS: What’s dramatic are these stupid taglines. Is sexual double entendre really necessary to convince people to respect animals, even if it worked? Which it doesn’t, by the way. The idea that PETA, who are supposedly all about the rights of animals, would use tactics so degrading the rights of human beings makes me doubt that any outsider would possibly take the issue seriously. When has that ever worked? [Mimicking a man's voice.] Oh, well, this sexy ad has caused me to reevaluate my moral position on eating animals. [Scoffs.] Yeah, right. Not to mention it’s playing on detrimental norm-enforcing dogma. I mean, look at this one. [Holds up ipad.] Masculine stereotypes are also being reinforced in these ads, though virtually never in a sexual way– no, no, that would be too feminizing, emasculating. The men are necessarily shown in strong, powerful poses with forceful, aggressive expressions. Or they just general look like bad-asses. The women, on the other hand, are posed suggestively with seductive looks. I’m sorry, but how does soft-core porn encourage one to become a vegan?

V: [Smiles.] Indeed. It is surprising that a group so devoted to the rights of animals would not see a problem in their using this particular kind of animal– female humans, I mean– in such a way… [Silence for some moments.]

LS: [Browsing with ipad.] What the– really? Not all…? [Sighs.] Here’s your ipad. [Hands back ipad.] Let’s watch a movie or something.

V: Sure.

[End of Transcript]

Addendum: A brilliantly written article from Lucy Uprichard on Huffington Post Students. The real problem with PETA– couldn’t agree more.

Fresh Bites

Gang rape remains a popular [male] pastime in Cambodia, and people say stupid shit like, “We shouldn’t blame the perpetrators because they’re Cambodia’s hope for a developed future.” Nevermind that their victims should also be considered Cambodia’s hope for a better future.
Even as Cambodia’s rainy season started much, much earlier than usual, droughts are laying the Midwest low back home. Sure climate change is normal, but even if you don’t agree we’re accelerating it, isn’t it safe to say we are completely unprepared for it?

The Navy opts for neutral urination. Won’t dude sailors miss the time they spend glancing awkwardly at their mates’ penises when nature calls?
And this makes me feel real good that my first-ever credit card that I’ve actually used is from Capital One… >_<

The Importance of Being Earnest (at least digitally-speaking)

Lately I feel very interested in the secrets and secret thoughts people have, especially about other people, particularly as relates to sex and/or violence.

Usually one is hard-pressed to get earnest, open insight into such secrets, thoughts and fantasies, but thanks to the [seeming] anonymity of the Web, sometimes such honesty just comes pouring forth. It’s hardly tempting to hold back the thoughts which would always be checked in, er, polite company when there is no one to police you (e.g. peers, friends, family members, etc.), or when there is an [again, seemingly] infinite barrier of cyberspace between you and the Real World. I think there is also a Web-induced narcissism at work; people feel not only obliged to throw in their two cents, but also entitled to do so, exacerbated by the great ease with which one can do so on today’s Web. (See me demonstrate this phenomenon as we speak.)

Reading up on the Secret Service scandal in Colombia, I noticed just such a treasure trove of open, honest remarks in the comments section. Find a few of my selected favourites below.

They’re Not Commodity, Either

As promised, the “male counterpart”, so to speak, to the last post on commodification. Hah.

I should clarify up front that I believe the fetishization, hypersexualization, and sexual commodification of any person is wrong, regardless of their gender, age, race, location, etc. My ideal world would be one in which we choose to learn about and relate to other people, celebrating diversity while exploring commonalities– which means, sexual objectification has got to go. I know, you love your shirtless firefighter calendars and your semi-pornographic “news” websites, but that shit got to go. (Non-sexual idolatry, admittedly, is still one of my major weaknesses, but putting someone on a pedestal of aesthetic appreciation, amazement, and/or worship is still rather othering, isn’t it? What are people’s thoughts on this?)

The fact of the matter is that every group of people gets objectified. Sometimes it’s racist. Sometimes it’s pedophilic. And sometimes it happens to men. In fact, it probably happens to men more than we acknowledge it does.

Men are not immune to being portrayed as fetishized accessories. It may stand out to us as unusual, however, when we see them posed in ways that reduce their dominance or emasculate them. Male sexual objectification typically idealizes the male body as strong, powerful, visceral, whereas the female body is merely a prop or confection. Male bodies can be admired and envied, and are consumed by males and females alike, whereas female sexual objectification is chiefly for male consumption and female bodies are desired for consumptive (and thus disposable) purposes. Also, it is not so much male sexuality that is being commandeered as it is the male body. It is more common for female sexuality to be appropriated for consumption and sale in conjunction with the appropriation of their bodies and body parts.

Cisgender, straight males may even be offended by the overly effeminate or emasculated portrayal of their gender; it is socially abnormal, even unacceptable. The female body, however, is perceived socially as much more aesthetically pliable, and can be feature in situations which play up either hyperfeminine or masculine traits– so long as the woman is still visually sexually consumable. It’s also common to see the blatant pricing of female sexual entities, but this form of commodification would still be perceived as offensive by cisgender straight males.

It remains, however, that “real” men do the consuming, and aren’t consumed. If you are consumable, you are something less than a man– maybe you don’t even deserve that penis, which is why society semantically castrate you by calling you emasculated. Emasculated men are consumed, real men consume.

One could rephrase Rich Zubaty’s extremely effed-up quote, “Our job is not to get along with the Goddess. Our job is to fuck the Goddess.” as “It’s not our job to accept mutual consumption with the Goddess. Our job is to consume the Goddess.”

So, at the end of the day, everyone is commodified and everyone suffers. As commodification is an unsurprising side effect of Patriarchy, we should really say, everyone suffers under Patriarchy. But some people definitely suffer more than others. Maybe that calls for a post about the particularly horrid depiction of the black female entity.

I’m Not Commodity

For some unexplainable reason, I woke up at 5 this morning with R.E.M.’s “King of Comedy” (from the Monster album) stuck in my head. Obviously that means I need to write about the commodification and objectification of women.

Let’s start with objectification. Objectification is simply the process of recreating or using a person as a thing. We do this all the time. Some time ago, a friend told me that I was objectifying them by resting my head on them; I had turned them into a pillow. It is objectification to lean on someone when exhausted, as if they are a crutch. It quickly becomes apparent that some objectification is fairly mundane or benign, and other kinds of objectification are harmful. Sexual objectification is an obvious example of this.

Sexual objectification means turning a person into an object, accessory, or tool for sex. If you like sex in which either you or your partner is not an active participant, not giving and receiving pleasure mutually, then sexual objectification is probably gratifying to you. If sex is more than you using another person as a means to an end (your own sexual satisfaction), or being used to this end, then this kind of objectification is problematic.

The traditional view of heterosexual sex is deeply entrenched in objectification. The man is the pursuer, the initiator; he is necessarily aggressive, maybe even forceful. The woman is the pursued, the “end goal”, the object; she is passive, submissive, although in many ideal fantasies she also secretly wants to be pursued and caught. This view is reinforced in mass media the world over, in magazines, TV shows, movies, music videos, books, advertisements, video games. It is no wonder that lots of boys and young men are both confused and resolute about their understanding of a girl or woman who says no as just playing a role, and of girls and women who say yes as breaking that role (that is, as being sluttish).

Sexual objectification unavoidably sets the stage for the commodification of sex. Commodification is the process of recreating or portraying someone or something as a commodity– a good, an object for consumption. The ways in which sex is commodified still conform neatly to traditional views of heterosexual sex, which are also patriarchal. In this situation, men are the subjects and women are the objects. Patriarchy holds that sexual pleasure is naturally (or should be) centered around men; there is an emphasis on the uncontrollable nature of male sexual desire, whereas women are either passive recipients of this desire, or objects used to cater to it.

Women, specifically, have long been commodified as sexual objects (and men have, too, in a different fashion and to different ends). We aren’t just used to sell things, but we are things; we are figuratively “on sale” for consumption all the time. Although women are hypersexualized in this process of commodification, as individuals they are stripped of their own sexuality. If an object has a perspective on its own sexuality, its sexual identity or desires, it is in danger of becoming real, a subject. Commodification thus also means the smothering or eradication of female subjectivity.

I think a lot of men find all of this difficult to swallow. On the one hand, I guess I can see why it would be challenging to view things from such a different perspective– if you have always been the buyer, the consumer, there has probably never been much reason or incentive to view things from the perspective of the good/commodity. On the other hand, I think men can understand this perfectly; a large number of them are sexually objectifying and commodifying females all the time. I have a large number of very close guy friends who would adamantly deny this, but even if they truly see all human beings as, well, human beings, they surely experience their peers doing this much of the time.

What surprises me is when men have absolutely no qualms about doing this blatantly and shamelessly in front of women. I think this is because they feel either there is nothing wrong with it, or that there will be no consequences for doing it. For example, I was fundraising outside of a supermarket (for a project to end gender-based violence, no less) not too long ago, and I was observing a security guard as he was…observing a young woman coming out of the store. She was loading her groceries into a tuk tuk. She was wearing a dress, though by American standards I can’t say it was “too short” or what have you. The security guard was standing not far from her, staring at her– no, not staring at her, but staring at her behind. His stare was long and open, and at one point he even licked his lips. I had been talking to him earlier about the project I was helping fundraise for, so I felt it was not too out of place for me to ask, “What are you doing?” His answer was phrased completely innocently: “She’s a beautiful girl, why shouldn’t I look? Why is she wearing that dress if she doesn’t want me to look?”

This is an argument that I’ve heard time and again. Women secretly desire the male pornographic gaze on them. It’s what compels women and girls to wear make-up, to dress like the models on magazine covers, ultimately to sexualize themselves. Under the surface, all women really want to appeal to male sexual desire.

If that woman wanted that security guard to stare at her while licking his lips, I’ll eat my hat.

But that’s besides the point. This idea of women’s secret desire for men to visually consume them is based on a much more sinister myth: the idea that women secretly want men to fuck them. This sounds so absurdly egotistic and narcissistic as to be unbelievable, but when I look around myself I can see how it sort of…makes sense, in a sort of droll, male-centered way.

In high school I had a friend whose room was covered with large, glossy posters of Playboy Bunnies. There was one at the head of his bed that I can’t seem to forget; whenever I think about this person, I inevitably think of this poster. In it, a typical white, blonde “Bunny” is positioned on the floor with her butt high in the air, her knees bent, and she is propped up on her elbows. She is looking at the camera with an ecstatic, childish expression, and she is wearing nothing but bubbles. Yes, only soap bubbles, on her breasts and her crotch. I remember feeling horribly uncomfortable when I would go to this friend’s house to play video games with him and our other friends– all of whom were Good Christian Boys who regularly attended church and youth group. And stuff. Only one of my guy friends had the nerve to ask him if it wasn’t such a great idea to put up posters of mostly naked women on your walls– wouldn’t God be offended? (God definitely would be offended, since the Christian God hates women, after all. Ho ho ho, surely I’m just kidding…)

When I look around myself right at this moment, I am in an internet cafe in which every computer besides this one is occupied by a young man or boy. I am tempted to check each screen to see how many of them are watching porn, but I don’t want to get kicked out. Don’t worry, most of the younger guys are just playing WoW… Well, I guess that’s sort of the same as watching porn, isn’t it? Anyway, on the walls are posters advertising various Khmer and other Asian websites, mostly for games. Almost all of them feature partially-naked women, even the cartoon ones. The one behind me features two realistic-looking cartoon women with guns posed between two bulky men in armor; both women have huge breasts and long, skinny bodies. One is wearing a low-cut top with her midriff showing, and the other is wearing shiny black leather (she sorta looks like a dominatrix with that nazi hat on).

I could describe the other posters in here, but I won’t bother. You get the idea. Anyway, from your own experience, you already have an idea, I’m sure. Just looking around us at other people, at billboards and posters, at book covers and album covers, at music videos… We are constantly being inundated by this shit, all the time. Taking all this in, it isn’t hard to see why girls and women are so easily recreated as personality-less, consumable objects devoid of agency.

Perhaps the absolute worst part is that it is not only men who recreate and consume women as sex objects, but women recreate and consume women as sex objects, as well. Actually I think that’s why it is such an immense challenge to confront and negate these processes of commodification and objectification. Women and girls commodify themselves, early on and often for their entire lives. We hypersexualize and objectify our bodies, our sexual identities, but to what end? Ultimately it seems entirely dissatisfying, time-consuming, and hurtful. The results are a preoccupation with unattainable “beauty” standards, self-loathing of our own persons, and jealousy and contempt for other women whom we perceive as surpassing our own efforts. If you fail, all you get is some really low self-esteem; if you succeed, you get to be a sexually-consumable object for male-centered pleasure, which really only holds if you are available for consumption 24/7. Congratulations.

What I would like for us to do, then, is to reject our own commodification. Question yourself, question others, question culture, when you feel compelled to do something, go somewhere, dress some way, say something. I don’t believe this is easy, but I have learned multitudes about myself through such self-reflection and critical thinking of my surroundings. But it is as they say: once you’ve seen, you can’t un-see. Maybe ignorance is bliss, but transcendence is better.

I’m not king of comedy,
I’m not your magazine,
I’m not your television,
I’m not your movie screen
I’m not commodity
I’m not commodity

[R.E.M., "King of Comedy]

p.s. This is a really aesthetically-shit but highly informative website on some particulars of how women are portrayed as sex objects in certain media.

p.s.s Post on the sexual commodification of men forthcoming.