The Gaze…
The gaze is male. Ah, how that brings back memories. Theoretical bane of my existence during my college years, concept that makes me want to smack whoever invented it over the head with a mallet…oh, how I loathe that phrase.
Here’s why. I am, by nature, a lustful creature. I am also very, very visual. Trust me, you don’t even want to know how much space on my hard drive is dedicated to picture of sexy people (mostly men, a few women) being their sexy selves. None of this is actually porn per se, but I’m not so sure that one could say that the way I look at those pictures isn’t pornographic in some sense. And if anyone were to offer me actual porn featuring the same people…why thank you kindly, sir/madam, I’ll be happy to take that off your hands.
To be perfectly blunt I’m fairly certain that the only reason my hard drive doesn’t have any actual porn on it is that most porn does not cater to my specific tastes, and they are indeed rather specific. When it comes to men I have a very specific type, and that type is not commonly featured in either het or gay porn, although I’m fairly certain that if I was able and willing to really do some digging in Japan I could find things that do cater to my particular tastes. There are after all VK host bars (and no, I’m not kidding).
So, I’m a visual person. I like to look at people I find attractive. I’m also bisexual, which may give me a somewhat unusual perspective on the whole gaze issue that may be worth listening to.
Firstly, a definition. From Wikipedia…(whole page is here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_gaze)

“Laura Mulvey, in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema", introduced the concept of the gaze as a symptom of power asymmetry, hypothesizing about what she called the "male gaze". The theory of the male gaze has been hugely influential in feminist film theory and in media studies.
The defining characteristic of the male gaze is that the audience is forced to regard the action and characters of a text through the perspective of a heterosexual man; the camera lingers on the curves of the female body, and events which occur to women are presented largely in the context of a man's reaction to these events. The male gaze denies women agency, relegating them to the status of objects. The female reader or viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male.
Mulvey's essay was one of the first to articulate the idea that sexism can exist not only in the content of a text, but in the way that text is presented, and in its implications about its expected audience.
Some theorists also have noted the degrees to which persons are encouraged to gaze upon women in advertising, sexualizing the female body even in situations where female sexiness has nothing to do with the product being advertised.

And if this theory had stayed in the realm of film theory it would have been fine, but they had to go and generalize, didn’t they?
Now, first of all…how charmingly hetero-normative. What about lesbians, you may ask? And what about gay men, who have no particular reason to wish to gaze upon the female body in such a manner? Well, as always, a good academic can explain away any amount of reality that doesn’t fit their nice, neat little theory. And yes, I’m being snarky, but really, I’m willing to bet I’m not the first person who sat through every class in which this theory was discussed rolling their eyes, and I’m willing to bet that I won’t be the last either.
Basically I think this theory is bunk. Not because of the idea that sexism can lie hidden in subtext, mind – I’m with them on that part. The part of the theory I have a problem with is the idea of objectification.
At the risk of being thrown out of the sisterhood forever I’m going to say it – I objectify people. In fact, I look at people in an objectifying way all the time. By this I don’t mean “I look at people I find sexy”, I really do mean I watch people passing in the street and think “nice ass, shame about the face”. I do exactly what those evil, objectifying men supposedly do – I pick out specific body parts to admire with no regard for the personhood of the individual they are attached to. I look at people in movies, in music videos, in magazines, and to be honest, I’m looking at them as objects, not as people. I do it in the street, too – there’s a little running tally in my head of fuckable versus unfuckable into which every man I pass falls, and a goodly number of the women. And I do this all the damn time. Anyone who knows me in real life knows this, since I have a habit of sharing my internal monologue with my buddies. For some reason it seems that gay men are the most comfortable with this, proving to me at least once more that the prissy straight folk could learn a lot from gay culture if they could just get over their homophobia.
So, there you have it. From the point of view of this theory, I am essentially a man. The fact that I am lacking a penis and blessed with an abundance of boobage makes this a little confusing, but here’s the thing.
I think that everyone objectifies people. Not all the time maybe, and not people we actually know and have relationships with – in fact one’s ability to truly objectify another person may well be inversely related to how well one knows that person – but in some circumstances and at some times we all do it. I don’t think it’s a male thing particularly – I think it’s a human thing.
I also think that society does it’s best to program women not to do it, but that in the end there’s a limit to the extent that programming can override biology. The messages are definitely there, though, but here’s the interesting part (and the part that academic theory about The Gaze does a lousy job of explaining) – lesbians are apparently immune.
I remember that part of class quite clearly. It was printed right there in the textbook – women do not have the gaze, unless they are lesbians.
My reaction was basically, WTF? Lesbians are women too, why should such a basic, fundamental thing be different just because they’re attracted to women? So I started asking questions. It seems that my professor wasn’t used to students who asked questions, because she got rather cross with me. Basically she told me that women aren’t like that (nasty, superficial, objectifying), to which I replied, if that’s the case then what about the lesbians? Are you saying they’re not women? Or that the fact they supposedly have The Gaze makes them evil? Because I’m bi and if that’s what you’re saying…
Then she changed her tune. It’s because lesbians grew up in the same society as everyone else that they have learned to act like men, she said. To which I said – hang on a minute. Why do you assume that these women are just exhibiting learned behavior? How do you know that’s what’s going on? Have you asked them what it feels like from their perspective? And if that were the case, why wouldn’t straight women pick up the same behavior, being raised in the same society and all?
Well, no, apparently. Which is when things got really nasty. I said, what gives you (meaning the generic you as in academics) the right to speak for a group of people without even asking them how they feel, or what their lives are really like? Would it kill you to ask and then listen to what they have to say?
The conversation pretty much ended at that point – stuttering professor saved by the bell. The rest of the seminar group had basically been sitting around staring the whole time, mouths agape. Apparently people didn’t argue with that particular professor very often.
So then I went away and mulled it over for a while, digested if you will. And here’s the conclusion I came to.
None of this actually has anything to do with the gaze being inherently male, really, or else lesbians wouldn’t “have it” no matter how much brainwashing they were exposed to. Also note that how gay men look at each other is glossed over, although there’s plenty of theory about them being trained to look at women in an objectifying way.
What I think is really going on here is a prohibition against anyone looking at men in an objectifying way. The idea seems to be that being the object of The Gaze is demeaning, therefore it shouldn’t be directed at men – that in fact the very idea of it being directed at men is inconceivable. There’s also the idea that women don’t have enough sexual agency of their own to have any desire to look at other people in that way (except lesbians, somehow, don’t forget them!). The theory of The Gaze reinforces that idea, in my opinion, that women are without agency in a sexual sense, that we’re naturally receptive rather than active, that we’re not visually oriented, and I think that idea is nonsense. Sexist nonsense, too, which is why it continues to irk me that so many feminists accept it.
The other unspoken thing here is that if one is to be judged as an object, one can then be judged as an object that is flawed, or damaged, that doesn’t measure up, and I think that’s really at the heart of this theory. Male sociologists love it because it allows them to bask in the illusion that they are not being assessed and sized up on a daily basis, and in many cases found wanting. I actually had this conversation with my male professor in another seminar group, and it drove both him and several of the male students to frothing at the mouth fury. Now note, I’m not a very physically imposing or threatening person – I’m small, I’m soft and girly looking, I smile a lot. And yet those men reacted as if I was actively threatening them. Why?
I think it’s because I’m onto something. Because really, the idea that women don’t look at men in exactly the same lustful, objectifying, thoroughly lacking in regard for the content of their characters way that men look at women? Ridiculous. Go to any boy band show and watch the audience if you don’t believe me. Pick up a teen magazine. Tweener and teenage girls most definitely have the gaze, they just get taught to suppress it as they get older. It’s still there, though, just below the surface, waiting for its chance to break free, and in some of us it never got suppressed at all. Personally I think that’s a good thing.
So, to sum up this long and rambling entry…women have The Gaze. It’s not a male thing, it’s a human thing. Furthermore, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing either. It’s just how human sexuality works. Sure, at a certain point we form pair bonds and all that good stuff, but the initial impulse? Purely physical. And there’s nothing wrong with that at all. The only reason we think there is anything wrong with it is because we’re all steeped in weird dualistic ideas about the body being in opposition to the mind, soul versus flesh and all that crap, and the sooner we realize that in the end we’re all flesh the better off everyone will be.


And for those who share my tastes, something to gaze upon, produced for and marketed at women.

Still think we don’t have The Gaze?

A terrible oversight that must be remedied immediately.
It just occurred to me that during female desire week I posted dozens of pictures of Dir en Grey and somehow neglected to give my darling Zan a copy of her theme song/video! I mean come on, wouldn’t we all like to have a theme song?
The first time I saw her screen-name I assumed that it was taken from this song, being the hopeless music geek that I am. Apparently that is not the case, but I’ve been meaning to send her a copy of the song anyway. I’m too lazy to upload anything myself, though, so since Trin liked the last video I’m going to do this the easy way. Behold the wonder that is YouTube!

Zan - The song, not the person.




I’m kind of ho-hum about the song itself – it’s from the first album, the drummer was only 18 and hadn’t really learned how to play yet, I hate the production etc …but the video is all kinds of twisted fun. Cross-dressing drummer and bassist, three band-members in thigh-high boots, decapitated singer’s head on an altar, still singing merrily away, one guitarist in inexplicable sci-fi garb, the other one done up as some sort of strange gargoyle/fairy creature with wings, weird-ass demonic children, some kind of…thing in a bathtub. And don’t forget the undead-looking dudes wrapped in Christmas lights for no apparent reason! And the skull!
I especially love the part where a leather-clad Die approaches a little girl sitting in a chair and it looks like things are about to get predictably kiddie-porn-ish…and then she straps him to a wall and electrocutes him.
Completely demented, which is why I love these guys. And I love Zan too, since she’s kind enough to keep letting me live in her brain.
Mwah!

PS I promise I’ll do a real post again soon. I’m in a silly mood right now.

Damn Trinity, making me think all the time…
(WARNING - NSFW pics below the text)
Trinity posted an interesting comment a couple of posts down that I though was worthy of it’s own post. All week we’ve been celebrating female desire, and this is a good thing, but most of us have stuck to desires of a fairly uncontroversial nature. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but…what about those other desires? The ones we don’t mention in polite company. The ones we only mention to our nearest and dearest. The ones we sometimes don’t mention at all, the ones we keep locked inside, safe from public scrutiny? What about those ones?
I’m fairly open about mine, actually, here in the safety of my internet anonymity. There’s not much there that my dear readers can’t already guess at. I’m a little kinky, I like tying people up and dominating them, I like a little blood (other people’s blood, not mine) and a little pain (again, mostly other people’s, although I do have this thing for being bitten…). No biggies, as far as I’m concerned, but then I’m a pretty open-minded person.
But what about the other stuff? The really freaky stuff, the stuff that treads on real taboos, the stuff that can freak out even the freakiest of us? Want to talk about that stuff? Trin does, and since she wasn’t getting any responses over at her place I thought I’d throw it out to the peanut gallery here.
For what it’s worth, my take is this. Whatever happens in the privacy of your own mind? I don’t care. How ever weird it may be, your mind is your own, to do with as you will. It’s none of my business what anyone else fantasizes about, as long as they don’t insist on telling me about it after I politely ask them to shut up. What does everyone else think? Are some ideas so awful that we shouldn’t even be thinking about them? Most religions would say yes. I say no, but then I’m an atheist and I’m weird.
What about when we take those ideas and act them out in the real world? In other words, what happens when it’s not just something happening in the privacy of one’s own imagination? What about when other people are involved? Is that OK as long as the other people are consenting adults, or are some things so vile that they should never be acted out, even in a highly controlled environment?
To provide some context…I used to spend a lot of time in BSDM clubs and at parties. In some of those places I saw a few things that I, personally, cannot tolerate. I can’t stand any of the myriad fetishy things usually referred to as “watersports”. Not at all, not in any way. If I see such a thing I will exit the scene immediately.
That doesn’t mean I think it’s not OK for other people to do those things, though. I just don’t want to watch or participate.
Then there’s the Nazi stuff. Anyone who’s ever spent any time around the BSDM scene has seen this at some point. Me? I fucking hate it. Not only do I not want to watch it, I don’t want to play with anyone who does it even if they don’t do it when I’m involved. It tweaks something in me that cannot be suppressed. Every time I see it I want to beat the crap out of people.
But then again, that’s me. Does that mean that other people don’t have a right to do it? No. Although one some level I really, really wish they didn’t. And it bothers me.

The thing is, the idea of categorically forbidding the acting out of certain fantasies worries me. It seems like a slippery slope. I’m reluctant to forbid ANYTHING between consenting adults, because you know the old saying…if you’re silent when they come for this group, and then that one, what about when they come for you?


As an example and to give an idea of where I fit on the old kink meter…this should give a general idea of my preferred kind of play, although I have a REALLY strong preference for leather straps. These particular pics are from the music video I was talking about a couple of posts down, since I know that the people depicted are OK with being thus depicted and I have no intention of posting pics of myself (and also so that if anyone comes and complains about my supporting porn I can say “hey, it’s a fucking music video, people - I KNOW all the people involved in this one were OK with it”). Now here’s the thing – think about the stuff that squicks me out, like the watersports stuff. If one were to make my personal “icky” reflex the standard by which things are allowed or not allowed, what about all the people who like that stuff and happily participate in it together with no harm done to anyone involved? What about all the people who find the stuff I like horrifying and would love to be able to ban it? People’s standards vary…they vary a lot. If we’re not going to say “everything consensual is OK”, who gets to set the standards? Who would YOU trust to make that call?
(Note – pics NSFW because of blood, boobs and general kinkiness)

Discuss at will.

Saturday's lust post, continued...scroll down for part one.

So where were we? The strange point where Cassandra's subcultural preferences all come together. Dir en grey babes part 3. Kaoru. The real genius behind the whole thing. Referred to by fans as leader-sama for a reason – he’s running the show, and always has been. I’m never quite sure how much of my adoration for this one is pure lechery and how much is admiration for his awesome creative mojo and impressive work ethic. But on a physical level….



The sense of stillness, the wry little smile, the intelligence in the eyes. The pouty lower lip, and the sexy little goatee. The perfect cheekbones, the ridiculously cool hair, the pointy little nose, the deep gravelly voice. The overwhelming sense of intensity.

Normally not a fan of dyed blond hair, but on him…

So digging the new full sleeve tattoo.

The leather pants…damn, I love those pants.

The tattoos…pretty hands covered in beautiful tattoos. Not to mention that a man with great hands is the gift that keeps on giving.

There’s something about those lips…that’s Die in the background in the middle pic, by the way.

Looks sexier smoking than any other man I can think of.

Moody

Dig the coat, and the purple hair...this is from about 2000

There's also something about that jawline...

One of the rare shots where you can see the tattoo on his neck. One of these days he’s going to run out of skin…

Pretty boy Kaoru, in the old days.

He even looks good in glasses. Really, it's not fair.

Then there’s the fact that as he’s gotten older he’s slowly become more masculine without developing a trace of bluster or false bravado (by which I mean that he’s masculine NOW - a few years ago, not so much, though he always looked damn silly in drag). I’ve seen men twice his age bow to Kaoru, and industry veterans with far more experience than him. Something about him commands respect – there’s a kind of quiet confidence there that’s, well, very sexy. The ones who really have it don’t need to shout about it. I would LOVE to get my hands on this one.

There is also the fact that he bears a not-inconsiderable resemblance to Mr Cassandra. Check out this shot from last month’s tour. A friend actually walked by when I had this pic up on my screen and said “hey, I didn’t know that Mr Cassandra played the guitar!”. I guess that’s kind of sweet, huh? That one of my personal lust objects looks like my husband? This may explain why there are some days where I am in a very, very good mood…

Also more gratuitous Toshiya lust pics, just because I can!

OK, time for some more lust…
(In two parts due to Blogger’s hatred of pic-heavy posts)
You know how I keep going on and on about my favorite band? Now, there are many reasons I love Dir en grey. I first fell in love with their music ten years ago after being given an indie single by my beloved Noriko…did I mention how great she was? Anyway, at that point it was all about the music…the Japanese rock scene was going through an odd phase from a stylistic point of view, and DEG were among the oddest of the lot. I loved their sound, but I thought they looked ridiculous. I was willing to overlook that, however, because that sound…that sound sent chills down my spine. Ten years later it still does.
The second thing I fell in love with was the videos…and here’s where some of the radfems throw me out of the sisterhood forever. There was this video, you see…it was for the song Raison D’Etre, from the first major label album. Now that video…to all intents and purposes it’s softcore BSDM porn with a really great soundtrack. And Cassandra loved it to the depths of her kinky little soul.
And those videos just kept getting better and better, and so did the music, and I was hooked.
I still didn’t really find the guys sexy, per se, more interesting than anything else, until a couple of years later. They toned the make-up down a bit, to the point where you could actually see their faces, and discarded the sillier costumes, and then…well, then Cassandra discovered 3 of the sexiest men she’s ever seen. Bizarre that they’re all in the same band, especially for me – most of the bands I love were hit with the ugly stick pretty hard. I love Metallica, but from an aesthetic point of view – blech! Al Jorgenson’s a genius, but I wouldn’t touch him with someone else’s body. Pantera…surely you jest. The Ramones…Joey looked like Howard Stern, and that’s REALLY not a compliment. But these guys…
Well, let’s put it this way. It’s still about the music, that never changed. But the fact that three out of five guys are so sexy I never get tired of looking at them? That’s a pretty sweet bonus feature. And I’m a generous girl, so given that it’s lust week and all I thought I’d share.


Toshiya I already posted, but you want some more? As if I needed an excuse when it comes to my favourite lust object…gratuitous pics from last month’s Inward Scream tour.





See, Zan, told you you should have gone.

And then there’s Die. Who has recently toned down his trademark red hair, much to my disappointment – it’s kind of a dark auburn now. I miss the letterbox red hair. He’s still sexy as hell, though. I met this one last summer, and he’s even sexier in person. Funny story – the woman I went to see them with last summer is, well, kind of racist (which is why I no longer hang out with her – that day was a very illuminating experience). She is famously disdainful towards Asian men. But when this guy walked out on the stage…she grabbed my arm and said “Holy shit he’s hot!”.

Wanna see why?

That says it all, really. The libido beats people’s deeply ingrained stupidity every time. He’s a lot taller than I expected him to be. With an amazing smile. Playful, funny, sometimes annoying, but never boring. He’s kind of the token regular guy. Seems to derive his greatest pleasure in life from torturing their drummer, the poor little lamb. Drinks too much. Has always looked great in clothes – except for the brief and very unfortunate period where they tried to put him in a dress. He looked like Great Aunt Matilda. Drag was not a good look for him – the way he moves is all wrong. Let’s all be very glad they don’t do that any more.

Did I mention that he’s really sexy? Tall, thin but not too thin, oddly round nose that for some reason I find terribly cute, prettiest lips I’ve ever seen. Gorgeous skin, even in his thirties.

I’m not digging the new hair color (below, Inward Scream tour again), but yep, he’s still hot.

Fear of fat, fear of food, fear of sex
There’s something that’s been stewing in the back of my mind for a while, and it has to do with the relationship between food and sex. I’m convinced that there is one – both are pleasures of the body, both are best experienced in good company, both have a role in cementing our bonds with other people.
I’ve never encountered a truly sexual person who wasn’t also a foodie. I don’t mean that in the sense of “eats a lot” so much as in the sense of a person who takes a clear and visible pleasure in eating, who is passionate about food, who makes the effort to seek out foods that they love. Food has always been a part of courtship for me – not just in the sense of going out to dinner together as part of the official script for dating, but also in the sense of the pleasure I take in sharing food with others, in discovering new places, in cooking together, in satisfying shared cravings.
See, it’s already starting to sound kind of sexy. And it is – eating together can be a profoundly sensual experience. Watching another person eat can also give you clues as to what they will be like in bed. Oddly enough the first time I heard this clearly articulated was by my mother in law. When Mr Cassandra was a teenager she told him that if he wanted to find a woman who loved sex he should watch how she ate. If a woman seemed enthusiastic about food, seemed to take pleasure in flavor and texture trying new things, well, that would probably be reflected in the way she made love, too.
She’s right, at least in my experience. I always observed men eat and thought the same things, I just didn’t realize what I was doing. I never put it into words, but I did it right from when I started dating, and you know what? The information I gleaned from watching my dates eat was never wrong. The one who gulped down his food without even tasting it? Hasty and lacking in sensuality in bed. The one whose table manners were horrifying, who shoveled food into his mouth with no regard for taste or subtlety? Lousy technique, poor ability to read others. As subtle as a sledgehammer. Whereas Mr Cassandra, with whom I tried half a dozen cusines that neither of us had ever sampled before, who savours every morsel, and who loves both sweetness and spice...well, he's another matter entirely.
And so it has always gone, for me.
Where this ties into desire week is this – our society teaches women not to take pleasure in food. It teaches us that food is our enemy, to be approached with distrust and suspicion. It teaches us to count calories and fat grams, to count carbs, whatever the fad of the moment is. What it doesn’t teach us is to listen to our bodies, let them tell us what they want and what they need.
I wonder how this ties in to the way people think about sex in this society. Especially women, who get the brunt of the “be careful what you eat” brainwashing. If we lose the ability to see food as a source of joy, as something that we need, what does that do to the way we see our bodies in general? To the way we see sex?
And that, my friends, is yet another reason why fat is a feminist issue. Fear of one natural bodily process bleeds into fear of another, and that’s not good for any of us.
Now I’m off to make dinner. A spicy Indian curry with chicken and garbanzos and coconut milk. And Mr Cassandra and I shall enjoy it together. And then, after he does the dishes…well, we shall see. Food does set the mood after all.

Here at female desire week central we have been neglecting our lovely sisters, and that will not do. Belle and Zan have already covered the basics, but there were a few obvious omissions. So, here’s my roundup of those I love to gaze upon that have not been mentioned thus far.

Lena Olin. Remember Romeo is Bleeding? Remember that thing she did with her thighs? Did you see her walk all over wimpy, insipid little moppet Jennifer Garner on Alias?
I love her. Even though she could unquestionably kick my ass – in fact, partly because of it.
Best movie role – The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Romeo is Bleeding






Anita Mui – The great female icon of Hong Kong cinema, lost to breast cancer far too young. A powerful woman in her industry who was never afraid to speak her mind. Her funeral was one of the most intense outpourings of public grief I’ve ever seen.
Best movie role – Rouge. There’s a reason that movie won almost every Hong Movie award it was eligible for.





Monica Belluci – Italian actress. My vote for the sexiest woman on the face of the earth. She’s just…indescribable. The only reason to sit through Brotherhood of the Wolf. Tragically under-utilized in the Matrix movies.