Performers in the adult film industry are breaking one of the biggest taboos a woman can break: having sex on camera for money. Louisa Achille made her documentary The Naked Feminist to give them a voice.
By Laura Nathan-Garner
A still from The Naked Feminist, a documentary directed by Louisa Achille. Louisa Achille
I became inspired to make The Naked Feminist after reading a magazine article on the famous porn star, Nina Hartley, declaring her feminist sensibilities and strengths as a sex entertainer and educator — a career spanning over seventeen years. I wanted to know if Nina was a rare exception in this male-dominated industry.
Feminism‚ is a somewhat contentious term that different people define in different ways. From your film, I get the sense that you define it in terms of being empowered and in control of oneself. Would you say that’s a pretty accurate characterization of your definition?
I think feminism for many women means different things, but for me it is essentially about choice and giving women a voice. I think once a woman has her voice and can make choices for herself, then empowerment, self-identity, and courage will follow.
Why did you choose the particular actresses you used in your film? They seem like a fairly close-knit group, which I found very interesting. It made the pornography film industry seem much smaller than I imagined.
It was important for me to interview women who had a number of years experience in the industry so I could gauge the progress (or lack of progress) women had made in the adult entertainment industry.
Once I met Jane Hamilton and read about CLUB 90, I became completely inspired by this group of renegade female sex performers. They had created the first porn-star support group for women. They have not only created a strong sisterhood amongst themselves, but [they] also have become incredible mentors and role models to other women in the industry. I consider these women to be the first feminists in the industry, and of course their voices are a crucial element in a film depicting feminist sensibilities within the world of adult entertainment. Nina Hartley, Sharon Mitchell, and Christi Lake [have] all made incredible strides within the industry – Nina as a sex radical, performer, educator, and mentor, Sharon cofounding the first medical clinic devoted to the health and emotional needs of people in the industry, and Christi through her political activism and entrepreneurial insight.
All industries are much smaller and [more] tightly knit than they seem, and this is fairly evident once you start working within mainstream Hollywood, and similarly with the adult entertainment industry — especially within the same country. However, I think it is even more so with the adult entertainment industry, as the people within that industry have been under attack from legislators, the government, and the public far more than any other industry, and thus have banded together to fight for freedom of speech and other essential rights such as freedom of expression.
The adult entertainment industry is also an industry where the performers, especially the women, are breaking one of the biggest taboos a woman can break — that is, having sex on camera for money … Since only a small percentage of women enter into this occupation, they are going to get to know each other, and some will form bonds.
There is a peculiar absence of men in your film — aside from Seymour Butts — even though men are an integral component of the porn industry as both producers and consumers. The absence of men in The Naked Feminist seems to be a smart stylistic move to depict women as the agents of the porn industry and their stories. Did you consider interviewing other men besides Seymour, and if so, why are they not included in the edited version of the film? And what is so special about Seymour that caused him to make the cut?
I interviewed a number of men — journalists, directors, writers, and performers in the adult entertainment industry — and they were included in every cut except for my final cut … I made this film to give women in the industry a voice, and I didn’t want to lose sight of that. Thus, if a woman spoke about a similar experience or point of view as a man [I interviewed], I chose to keep [it] in the woman’s voice. This film is about [the women in the pornography industry] and their experiences, not the men’s. Even though I do consider [the men’s] viewpoints and experiences to also be incredibly valid, they essentially didn’t belong in this film.
Seymour Butts has one big specialty, in my opinion. No, only joking. The reason I was so interested in keeping Seymour in the film was because of his huge female fan base. Even though his main target audience is men, he has all these women that love him and his porn films. When you go to the big adult entertainment conventions, it is always astounding to see the number of women — of all ages and nationalities — waiting to get autographs from him. It was nice to illustrate this role reversal and disprove the right-wing feminist mantra that no women like pornography.
I noticed that The Naked Feminist doesn’t explicitly address homosexuality and lesbian erotica. However, from what I have read, queer porn is particularly important for women and men who are questioning their sexuality or who are insecure about being involved with members of the same sex. Do you think there is any particular reason why your film ended up having a heterosexual slant?
I don’t think The Naked Feminist explicitly addresses heterosexual erotica either, but you are right, that it is the main genre of pornography that is delved into. That is mainly because heterosexual pornography is the most popular and most historic type of pornography out there. But this was not at all intentional. I did not look at sexual orientation when I made this film. I was more interested in the female sexual pioneers and entrepreneurs who had made an impact on the industry and made working conditions for women better, or who were making strides in today’s mainstream porn world. There are so many subgenres in pornography, and I am sure that many women and men are empowered by the different types. However, that discussion is, I believe, for another film…. I would like to add that many of the women interviewed are gay, bisexual, polysexual, and heterosexual. A wonderful mix, really.
Your documentary argues that some pornography is, in fact, misogynistic and that such films are not the type of porn that the women you interviewed condone. How can one differentiate between misogynistic and nonmisogynistic porn? The presence of violence? Consent (or the lack thereof)? Women both in front of and behind the camera? Or just the gut reaction of women involved in the film?
Subjectivity, taste, and consent will always creep into discussions regarding pornography, and especially pornography and misogyny. I don’t think there is one exact definition of misogynist porn, and I don’t think there is a subgenre [that] supports it. However, when I was making this film, I did encounter a disturbing trend in the industry to push the boundaries of sexual violence towards women as far as possible. I think this is mainly a knee-jerk shock tactic to gain notoriety in the business, and it might possibly exist as a backlash against the positive strides that women have made in the industry. I don’t believe that the companies making this stuff represent the industry as a whole. However, the fact that this type of material (e.g., women being beaten to a pulp whilst being gang-raped, made to vomit whilst giving oral [sex], and [being] punched around the head) is being produced saddens me, and in my opinion, it is misogynist, as it is illustrating a hatred towards women.
Do you sense some urgency to disrupt the taboo associated with pornography in general, or is your goal merely to enable the women you interviewed to speak their stories and perspectives? What is it that you seek to contribute to the ongoing dialogue regarding sex and sexuality in Western culture (if anything)?
I made The Naked Feminist to give the women in pornography a voice. To me, the film is less about breaking down the taboo associated with pornography and more about breaking down the taboo associated with women who chose to be sexual educators and entertainers. When a man chooses to work in pornography, he is rarely viewed as being exploited or objectified. In reality, the money shot and the penis are the most objectified aspects of the genre. I really think it is time to get rid of this antiquated double standard.
What, if anything, do you hope to contribute to the independent film industry with The Naked Feminist? Is there anything you hope other filmmakers (adult entertainment or otherwise) will take from seeing your film? Is there anything you hope viewers will take from seeing it?
I would like to contribute tolerance and acceptance to the [feminist] movement. It would be nice if some of the dominant women’s groups would accept these women’s choices, help them to change the system, and make it safer for women instead of denying them their voice and validity.
Best of In The Fray 2004. Being a female sex symbol isn’t easy, but Christi Lake likes to do it. A conversation with the adult film star about reclaiming sex—on and off the camera.
By Laura Nathan-Garner
Christi Lake flirts with a fan-turned-actor on the set.
If sex is supposed to be a bad thing, then why did God make it feel so good?” Christi Lake asks as she puts on her mascara and gets ready for work. If you didn’t know Christi, her remark might sound like the battle cry of the 1960s sexual revolution. But for Christi, who is readying herself for another day at the office—that is, nude before a video camera, where she will have sex with one or two other men or women—this maxim cannot be repeated often enough.
Despite the prolific number of people who use pornography—or, as Christi prefers to call it, “adult materials”—and the virtual disappearance of cultural norms shunning the expression of female sexuality, women who earn their living through sex continue to be stigmatized. Subjected to a double standard that regards men who work in the adult entertainment industry as “real men,” women in the industry are typically characterized as inferior, powerless, and morally bankrupt—at least by outsiders.
Inside the industry, though, the women tell another story. As Christi and her colleagues suggest in Australian filmmaker Louisa Achille’s documentary, The Naked Feminist, just because women like sex and do it for a living doesn’t mean they’re oppressed. It would also be shortsighted to believe that these women were just getting paid to have sex, or that men were directing their every move. In fact, many women, including Christi, are executives, directors, actresses, mentors to other women in the industry, and advocates for safe sex, public health, and free speech. In the wake of the recent HIV outbreak in the industry, many of these women have been promoting condom use and safe sex, encouraging the temporary shutdown of film studios, and calling for change in the industry.
Christi, meanwhile, has taken a leave of absence from her work both in front of and behind the camera. But when I spoke with her recently—over two months after I first met Christi and her mom—her determination and her commitment to her colleagues, her fans, and the right to make and watch adult materials was as strong as ever.
Why did you choose this particular line of work?
Purely [out of] curiosity. I was a connoisseur [of adult entertainment]. I had watched adult videos for my own pleasure for a long time, but this became my profession purely by accident … It wasn’t a chosen direction; it just happened. I was a dancer; I went to a convention, went to some photographers, went to New York and did a photo shoot, and then after the photo shoot, I went to another convention where I met the videographers, and they asked me to come out and do a video for them. So it was really just a chain reaction, not planned. To be honest with you, when [a colleague] and I discussed how many videos we thought we’d do in a year, I thought, “I don’t know—eight? Ten? Fifteen at the most?”
It’s seventy-five.We were very new at this and had no clue what we were getting into. Little did I know.
So it wasn’t a chosen [career path]. It was destiny. I was destined to [be an adult entertainer]. Maybe somewhere down the line, someone watching one of my films sees that I have safe sex with a condom, and next time she is getting ready to have sex and her boyfriend wants to [have sex] without using [a condom], she will say, “No, I saw that film, and Christi used a condom.”
Many of the women in The Naked Feminist argue that one of the reasons adult film is so empowering is that it enables creativity. Is it simply that you’re acting, or do you think there are other reasons why you consider it to foster creativity?
Well, we love ripping off movie titles from the mainstream … and doing parodies. But we also feed the mainstream in a lot of ways. When you get a really bad movie, and they’re all talking about the pizza delivery boy—back in the 1970s, almost every other scene was about the pizza delivery boy. We play into mainstream parodies … and make fun of their movies.
[HBO’s] Six Feet Under is a classic example. When I got the script [for an episode of Six Feet Under‘s second season], I remember it said, “cheesy porno music playing in the background, female star moans and groans …” They were making fun of bad adult films, and I just kind of laughed. And when I did my read for them, I think the reason I got the part was because I have been in these sorts of films, I know what some of the cue words are … When it said “V.O.”—voice over—“moans and groans,” I said, “Is this where you want me to do ‘oh oh oh’ [imitates moaning sounds]?” And I started doing it really loudly and was really funny, and they all laughed. They couldn’t believe I went to that next stage. That had to be the reason they hired me for the part—because I made people laugh … I realize they’re making fun of us, and it gives them something to laugh about, and it was cool.
So [adult filmmaking] is art. It might not be high art, obviously, but some of it can be very creative … I just met a friend who did some of the most beautifully artistically done work with the foot fetish, pouring chocolate over a woman’s toes. And I [said], “You need to put this on somewhere. You need to have people see this; this is beautiful.” It’s so artistic because of the way it’s done. You don’t have to appreciate a foot fetish to appreciate the eroticism of it. So I think we have a very artistic way of doing things …
Many people argue that pornography is oppressive to women because it is used solely for men’s pleasure. What is your response to that criticism?
First off, I hate the word “pornography.” I prefer the term “adult entertainment” … because [people typically associate the term] “pornography” [with] little kids being abused. They don’t remember or think that it’s adult entertainment. They just think of child abuse.
So when people argue that adult material is made for men, well, that’s just not true. I was a viewer myself before I got in the business. I meet more female fans that say, “My boyfriend and I just had a great time. We watched your movie—well, we sort of watched your movie, we watched it for five minutes …” It’s not oppressive to us. Women watch it all the time. I have a huge following of females, so I don’t believe that. I’ve had women say, “Of course we enjoy watching it. We like looking at the hot guys.”
… People use [adult materials] to stimulate foreplay; they use it to spice up their sex lives. Women watch it. They might watch different types of things—maybe—but not necessarily all the time. Because of the Internet and mail-order catalogs, there are at least as many women buying adult materials as there are men.
Many critics of pornography deem your line of work as misogynistic, as degrading toward women, and as targeted at securing pleasure solely for men’s purposes. As a woman in this industry who considers herself a feminist, how do you respond to these charges? Where do you draw the line between misogynistic and nonmisogynistic pornography?
[If the entertainment is] degrading toward the woman, [if it] manipulates [the women involved], then I consider it misogynistic.
If you’re in this industry, you’re told in advance how to approach this. You get an AIDS test, you watch Porno 101, and it is in your hands to decide whether you want to do this particular job or not. When the phone rings and someone says, “I want you to work for me, and I’m going to pay you this amount, and I want you to do this, that, and the other,” you have a right to say no at any moment in that conversation. And I’ve said, “No, I don’t do that type of work.”
[There’s] a man I enjoy spending time with—Max Hardcore. I have not ever worked for him as such, but we’re connected, we joke around. I support him insofar as he has the right to free speech and the right to make whatever he wants to make. Would I work for him? No. Why? Because I don’t enjoy the type of things he provides [for audiences]. He interviewed me to work with him once; he showed me his films. He told me exactly what he expected of me, and he told me he wanted me to do “this, this, and this,” and I looked at him and said, “Oh, no. I don’t think so. I don’t think I can do that. Let me sleep on this.”
I left, went to my boyfriend, who is wonderful, and called the guy the next day and said, “Thank you for the job offer, but that’s really not my thing, and I’m not comfortable doing that.” End of story. I’ve seen him many times since then, and there’s nothing different.
Unfortunately, people who are in this business for the money often make bad choices and then regret [making those choices] later on. And I feel bad for them, but it’s the same thing with someone going into a construction business when he had a bad back already. Well, that’s a bad choice, and you made it, and you have to pay the price.
So [for me] it’s not about doing something for the money. Yes, I do this for a living, but you have to draw the line somewhere in your value system. And most of us do, we really do. We have to. [But] you always hear the stories about “Well, that’s not what I agreed to.” If something makes you uncomfortable, then you should have stopped the film from going on and say, “Stop, that’s not what we agreed to,” and walk away or back it up, and say, “This is what we originally agreed to, and this is what I will do, and either we do this, or I stop.”
… I know girls who enjoy those types of choking holds and all that other stuff. Those are the types of girls who need to work for those types of people. But if you’re not doing it in your private life, you shouldn’t be doing it for your job. Period. That goes for everything. Unless you’ve done it at home and enjoyed the hell out of it, don’t do it for the camera because it’s not worth it.
Christi’s mom: Nightline [did a] documentary following this girl when she first started in the industry, and I was so upset when I saw that. She was into drugs and violence. She was a very extreme case. I had to call Christi and say, “This isn’t true, is it? This is horrible!” It really scared me.
Why do you think those sorts of negative characterizations of women in the adult entertainment industry are more prominent than positive representations of women like yourself, Christi?
Because that’s what people think it is. You have a right to your opinion, and your opinion is somewhat valid. You’re right. That’s one perspective, but there’s another perspective, and that’s that they want ratings. [Adult entertainer] Jenna Jameson has done some wonderful things [helping out with the current HIV crisis in the industry and doing fundraisers], and to me, her work is a true Hollywood story. But you don’t see her on Nightline. You saw the other girl on Nightline because that’s what the news people want to talk about. Who wants to see a happy porn star? It’s like a car accident. [No one wants to pay] attention to the traffic.
I’ve been asked to do many news interviews … but I say, “Unless you can tell me what the questions are going to be in advance and what your tone is going to be for the story, I’m not doing it.” Because if it’s going to be a negative piece, I’ve been burned too many times … I’ve done interviews where I was told this was going to be a positive thing or a mostly positive thing, and it came out negative with very little positive, and I was furious.
Once the guy actually called me to forewarn me that he’d screwed up and that he’d had no choice but to make it this way, and I was like, “Well, I’ll see it; I’ll watch it tonight.” I got phone calls from other girls who had seen it [complaining about the story and its characterization of the industry], and I was so angry and called his machine and filled it up twice. I told him, “I’m never trusting the news media again because of what you’ve done to me. You’ve betrayed me and my friends. How can you do this? You blatantly lied.”
So I think that the media tells people the bad stories [about the pornography industry] because that’s what they want to hear, that’s how they think it is. And by [misrepresenting the pornography industry], their poor little children will be safe at home watching cartoons, even though most cartoons are more violent than anything I’ve ever seen.
How do your parents feel about your line of work?
You know, maybe it’s not the first thing they ever wanted me to do in life—they’ll tell you. Mom?
Christi’s mom: [shakes her head] No.
Christi: But as my dad said when I told my parents what I do for a living, “Why would we be upset about you doing something that we actually watch ourselves?”
And I’m safe. I have a head on my shoulders. I don’t do drugs. I don’t drink alcohol in dangerous amounts. I teach a positive thing. I teach people how to be safe. I help people enhance their pleasure.
And I stand up for what I think is a fundamental right for everybody. It’s like the Mel Gibson movie, [The Passion of the Christ], that just came out … I’m not into religion in any way, shape, or form, but I know the story. I went to see the movie the opening weekend—not to support the Christian bandwagon, but to support Mel Gibson as an artist and to say, “You have every right, whatever your audience thinks, whatever you believe, to put this out there.” And that’s why I went. I always support other people’s [right] to make art. I might not like it. I watched [The Passion of the Christ with my hands] covering the violence and reading the words, and I sat through it. I did see most of it; there were just certain points where I couldn’t watch the violence, where I couldn’t take any more. But that’s okay. He had the right to make and distribute that film.
Tell me a little bit about your boyfriend’s feelings about your career. From The Naked Feminist, I got the impression that he’s perfectly fine with your job.
Yep. When we met, he owned a magazine, and he was interviewing me for his magazine a few years back—five or six years ago. I was already in a relationship, but [that relationship] was on its way out. We had our differences of opinions in terms of the way I wanted to see my career go, and as strong-minded as I am, I decided it was time to go my own way. And it worked out for the best; I’m confident of that. My ex-boyfriend and I are actually now friends and talk as colleagues in the business. We’re not best friends, but we’re colleagues in the business.
But then I kept running into [my current boyfriend] at charity events … so we started dating. And then the magazine wasn’t doing so great, and we were getting more serious. So then I asked him to work for me, taught him how to run the
camera. He already did photography for his magazine, so I taught him how to do the videography part, and he became partners with me.
He was already in the business when he met me, so there were no surprises. I wasn’t trying to say, “By the way, this is what I do.” He already knew, and he accepted it. He looks at me kind of like my mom [does]. I’m an actress. Whatever my job entails is just part of what I do. When the camera stops and the paycheck comes, I go home to him, and he knows that.
One of the things that struck me about The Naked Feminist was that all of the women – all of the adult entertainers – interviewed in the documentary seem to be very close. Tell me a little bit about your relationship with the other women in the industry.
… I’m not sure if I told Janie Hamilton that I was interviewing with Louisa [Achille, director of The Naked Feminist], or if it was the other way around. I don’t remember which way it happened. But either way, because we are friends, [we all ended up being interviewed].
Jane Hamilton is a director I’ve worked for many, many times, and I highly respect Candida Royalle for her initiative, business savvy, and enthusiasm. I mean, [these women] laid the path for my future … and so I know all of them very, very well, as people who respect our industry.
And we’ve taught other girls. Whenever a new girl comes into the industry and … is going through the dilemmas of “Do I want to do this? Do I not want to do this,” I’ll be the first one to take her aside and say, “Look, this is forever. If you have any doubts, walk out of this room right now. Don’t do it. Don’t ever regret your decision to be in this industry because the minute you have a regret, the vultures will tear you up and spit you out.” And I’m honest about that because it’s just like Howard Stern—if he has a guest on his show, and he can find a weakness, he will tear [that person] apart. Our industry is very similar to that … There’s good and bad in everything that you do, but you find the one with more good, the one that works for you.
At my first photo shoot, I met Nina Hartley. I sat and talked to her for a couple of hours. [I said], “Well, I’m thinking about it; I don’t know. I’m just going to do some photos today and see.” And she gave me her wisdom of who I should see if I ever did decide to go further and do films: “If you ever go to California, you’re going to need this, you’re going to need a test.” She informed me of all of the things I would need in advance. So I’m now like the heir apparent to Nina Hartley … and I guess someday [they’ll] need to find an heir apparent to me. [Laughs] So she taught me all of that, and now I make it a point to [mentor] other new women.
Tell me a little bit about why you agreed to be interviewed for The Naked Feminist.
… Actually, I’ve been interviewed for a lot of documentaries that have not seen the light of day, and I’m pretty sure that they were all for personal consumption, to say “look what I got someone to do,” or whatever the case may be. Basically a huge waste of my time.
So when Louisa said she wanted to interview me, I asked, “Well, okay, what is it that you want to accomplish with this?” … After [Louisa and I had spoken] for a while, I said, “I’d be happy to take some time to interview with you.” I met her and found that to be an interesting, wonderful experience in and of itself. We became good friends. It wasn’t about the documentary anymore. It was more about creating the friendship to me. And that’s why I’m here [in Austin at the South-by-Southwest Film Festival]. I normally require a fee for me to do appearances like this, but I told Louisa, “If there’s anything I can do for you, to help you promote your movie …” I would even email her suggestions because I wanted to help her get [The Naked Feminist] out there … And that was when I hadn’t seen the movie yet completed … So now she’s made this wonderful, interesting documentary that I want the world to see for her.
Making The Naked Feminist was a bit of a family affair for you. Your mother is also interviewed in the film. Did she want to be?
Oh, no, I didn’t offer my mother up as a sacrificial lamb. [Louisa] asked if I would ask my mother if she was willing to be interviewed. [My mom has] done radio stuff with me, when I’ve [been] interviewed on the radio, so I said, “Well, I’ll ask her.” So I asked her if she was [willing to be] interviewed on camera. It took her about forty seconds to think about it, then she said, “Well, sure, we’re going to be in town anyway.”
Were you nervous about what they were going to ask you?
Christi’s mom: Well, somewhat. But it wasn’t exactly the first time I’d done something like this. When she got the award a few years ago, she had my husband and I come up on stage with her to receive her award with her.
Christi:[Laughs] Yeah, it was a very proud moment. Every year the Free Speech Coalition presents an award to someone in the industry who has set a positive [example], an activist who has done good work to promote the positive face of adult entertainment.
Four years ago I was the recipient of [the award], and I asked my parents to come out and be there for me. But when it came time to receive my award, I looked at my mom and said, “Mom, do you want to come onstage with me to get this award? Because you’re the one who taught me right from wrong, and who I am, and what I’ve become today.”
And she said, “I don’t know, ask your father.” So I said, “Dad, do you and Mom want to come onstage with me when I [receive] my award?” And my dad said, “Hell, yeah!” He’d already had a couple of drinks, and he did the Rocky thing [putting arms up in the air] …
What is it that you would like viewers to take from seeing The Naked Feminist?
The United States was created due to a lack of tolerance. And then we come over here, and we’ve started becoming more stringent … now we’re back where we started.
These days there isn’t really a single definition of what it means to be a feminist. There just isn’t; it’s an individual interpretation of what feminism means. It’s the same thing with religion and anything else. But you have to tolerate the other person, [whether that person] is a lesbian, is gay, or whatever. If someone is straight as an arrow and has five kids, they aren’t any better than a lesbian. They just have different lifestyles, and we have to tolerate each other’s differences as such.
So when everyone walks in to see this movie, they’re going to have a set mindset. They’ll have their values and opinions. I want them to leave with a broader sense of tolerance and acceptance of other people for who and what they are no matter who and what they are. I hope viewers will be enlightened and more tolerant after seeing The Naked Feminist.
On November 2, queer Democrats put our personal interests aside in deference to the Big Picture. Our loss and the subsequent calls for a rightward track by the Democratic party leave us with a tough choice: Abandon the party that would abandon us or stick with the Democrats to change their strategy from within.
For progressives everywhere, November 3, 2004, was a dark day. But in my little gay corner of my little gay neighborhood in Park Slope, Brooklyn, it felt like those Red State voters had delivered me a stinging bitch-slap before heading back to church in their flag-festooned minivans. It felt that personal.
I wasn’t prepared for a second Bush victory. The Bush administration’s blundering policies seemed so outrageous that no rational person could cast a ballot in their favor. Even my father, a lifelong Republican, held his nose and voted for Kerry. “At least Kerry’s a professional,” he said. “I didn’t want to vote for somebody who just swaggers around the world carrying a big stick.”
And so did I, as a lesbian and a hard-line liberal, despite Kerry’s disavowal of my right to marry and transparent discomfort with homosexuality.
The decision wasn’t easy. On political blogs like DailyKos.com, I defended my choice to would-be Nader voters who believed a Kerry vote was selling out. I was frequently the first to confront anyone advocating a ‘protest vote.’ This election, I argued, was too important. We had to put our ideals into perspective, and save the marriage issue for another time when wars were not being waged on false premises and when rich people were not lining their pockets with money skimmed from schools and healthcare cuts.
My rationale was that if we liberals could swallow our distaste for Kerry’s quasi-conservative social outlook, he would be forced to recognize us and our ideals for the sake of party unity after he was safely installed in the White House. Just as Republicans had made a sharp right turn in response to the realization that they could not win without their ‘conservative Christians,’ I believed that the Democrats would see that they needed to address the values of gay liberals to maintain power. I could never contemplate a loss long enough to wonder what would happen if Kerry didn’t make it.
Despite the endless election cycle nattering of “moderate” Democrats who worried that “the gays” were the new Greens, it was still a shock to wake up November 3 and find myself on the sacrificial altar of political strategy. In the time it took the pundits to declare that the election had turned on “moral values,” gay Democrats had been branded as traitorous wraiths who had robbed Kerry of the presidency. The “gay marriage movement” was blamed for the Democrats’ loss, and Democrats were angry — in the elegant words of one irate blogger: “Thanks homos, it won’t happen again.”
Everyone from the armchair activists in the blogosphere to party luminaries including Senator Dianne Feinstein and openly gay Representative Barney Frank were urging the party to “move right” on social issues to become electable for the next round. America is not ready for gay marriage, they argued. Feinstein claimed that gay marriage “energize[d] a very conservative vote,” saying “The whole issue has been too much, too fast, too soon.”
It is hard to say when exactly a society is ready to correct the injustices of ingrained prejudice. America certainly was not ready to abolish slavery in 1860, when Abraham Lincoln was elected; nor to grant women suffrage in 1872, when Susan B. Anthony was arrested for voting; nor for interracial marriage, even after the 1967 Supreme Court ruling that declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional. These social revolutions were brought about by the tenacity and conviction of their most passionate advocates, leaders — Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, to name a few — who emerged from the crowd to focus a movement and achieve its objectives.
I know Kerry would not have been a revolutionary, but I believed he would have assumed leadership with a sense of fairness that is utterly lacking in Bush’s far-right radicalism. More importantly, I believed the he would have allowed change to happen, even if he did not openly advocate it. But in the wake of the election fiasco, the Democratic hand-wringing turned to blood-letting, and rather than reacquainting themselves with their core values of social justice and civil rights, Democrats tacked even harder right, attempting to capture the ever-elusive “swing-voter,” and leaving the rest of us dangling.
It is a painful place to be. Being treated as a pariah in my own party felt like the sucker-punch follow-up to that Red State bitch-slap. But in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and across the country on websites and in cafes, we are licking our wounds and trying to regroup. We are discussing strategy, getting involved in local politics where our voices can be heard, and strengthening our own ties in order to fortify us for the long battle ahead.
Perhaps it was foolish to hope that a radical shift in the cultural bias against gays was so near at hand. But it is easy to forget how far we’ve come. When I was born, homosexuality was a mental illness. Now it is the subject of a popular sitcom. Gay couples have gotten married with varying degrees of legality across the nation, and we have innumerable pop-culture icons that are openly gay. These small things signify a greater cultural shift, and when a critical mass is reached, new leaders will emerge as they have in the past.
It took a bloody war to end slavery, the better part of a century for women to win the right to vote, and the fight for Civil Rights continues today. These battles were fought with bayonets and horses across the Mason-Dixie line, over kitchen tables in homes, and at lunch counters in the segregated South. Now, they’re taking place on the steps of City Hall. Last year thousands of gay couples lined up to be married in San Francisco, California; New Paltz, New York; Sandoval County, New Mexico; Portland, Oregon; Asbury, New Jersey; and across the state of Massachusetts.
Like any good homo, I know when the party’s over, but I am not quite ready to leave the Democratic one, despite the ugly turn it has taken. I can’t shake the feeling that enough of us minorities together make up a majority. I can’t stop thinking that this party could get rocking again if Democrats would look back to their own ideals of protecting the rights of minorities and promoting equality for all, rather than routing out those voters who pulled the lever for Bush because the idea of two fags getting married made their skin crawl. I want to be there when it does.
Hands. White hands. They wipe my face, pulling my eyes like tears, reaching, clawing, gripping my skin, fingerprints sapping my breath. I am thrown down, thrown back, over thrown, hair splayed, marking the ground with sweat and salt. I want to whimper and laugh and explode. I am pressed down, held like a ball underwater, struggling, pushing up and out like a flower about to burst, spilling bloody petals on the ground. I turn my head. There is my apron and coat, my underwear, torn now amid the ashes, petals and faded paper dolls. All my pieces scattered. I am raveling and undone, dying a little more with every breath, nerves surging, tingling, numb and dead, and then alive. So this is what it feels like to bleed.
1 a.m.
That sign — “Welcome to Tony’s! Please wait to be seated!” — stands like a barrier between two selves. Inside, apron covered in the conglomerate filth of bleach water, finger smears, and clumsy spills, you are the waitress, the server, the sweet smiling slave. You are “Sugar,” “Peaches,” “Hon,” “Miss,” “Sweet Thing,” “Girl,” and “Little Lady.” You nod. You say, “Excuse me, sir,” and “Will there be anything else, sir?” Manners all aglow.
A snide remark about a glass of water — why can’t you seem to find one? Meanwhile, you are remembering that table 22 and 24 both need refills, the little girl at 5 wants color crayons, no mushrooms in the omelette to 32, and could you please get the change for 25’s $20 bill? Simple glass of water? You’re waiting 13 tables, remembering the details of 28 food orders and carrying seven plates in your two hands. But you want a lemon wedge with your water. “I’m sorry, sir, it will be just a moment.” Smile. Your happiness is my only concern.
A snap of the fingers, the bang of a coffee cup, tight tug at the strings of your apron. Passed around like a million sirs’ play thing. “Excuse me, miss. Excuse me, miss.”And you smile, nod, acquiesce. It’s what you have to do for that fifty cent tip that means you can still make this month’s rent.
The slap on the ass (“Damn, ain’t you still just a spring chicken”), the leering, the propositions (“And how much for a side of you after my meal, Sugar?), and you laugh coyly, feign a stolen naivety, pretend to be flattered. You’re their sweet-assed, long-legged, firm-breasted meat for eight hours a day.
Behind the line you’ll cringe at the crap-covered napkins that wiped their grease and snot and spit. You’ll whisper all the curses and smart-assed comebacks that would get you fired out on the floor. You’ll hate that unctuous bastard, pray for salmonella in his eggs, imagine burning his ass the next time he touches yours.
But right now, you smile and nod and acquiesce, because you have to. For these few moments, this is who you are. Under skin and smile and nod, you’re their chosen play toy for a penny — their bartender, cook, their mother, maid and whore.
3 a.m.
The room inside Tony’s diner was a world unto itself at three in the morning. The yellowed lights and cigarette smoke hovered stagnant, blending the bacon grease and coffee smells into a solitary haze. Reflections bounced off the windows, hollow shadows echoing between the walls.
I watched a lazy taxi pull away, hoisting off the last of the drunks. No doubt he was already regretting his omelette and French toast as he stumbled, nauseous, into the seat. Somewhere out there, in that void beyond those two double doors (“Welcome to Tony’s!”) his wife had long given up on waiting for him, sighed, and rolled over, cradled in the sheets. He waved luxuriously at the glass, trying to peer past the maze of reflections. From out there, his hopeful fingers could not reach through to bang his coffee cup with an obnoxious grunt and graze my ass as I walk by him. I flinched. Even now, restaurant empty except for the lingering coffee drinkers, I could still feel those sloppy blue eyes and white fingertips scratching at the windows and cracks under the door. They were always trying to get in.
“C’mere, brown shu-gar,” smile curved up too far. “Can’t drink ’n em’ty cup ya know.”
4 a.m.
It was her fifth hour here and her 18th cup of coffee. She’d come in dragging her stack of notebooks, pencils and charcoal, and plopped down at the counter. Her loose jeans barely clung to her hip bones, two inches above that waistline — damn — a worn Lakers t-shirt, tight to her chest, nipples sneaking through. Auburn curls splayed out and traced the nape of her neck — guilty. Behind my bronze the color rose to my cheeks.
Art student, definitely. With that carefree funk and darting eyes, cigarette smoking itself in the ashtray, small fingers handling the pencil roughly then caressing, teasing the paper. She sat amid the smoke in a world of curly cues and shadows. Her eyes were heavy on me, pinning me down, drawing me out. She looked up smiling warmer than the streaming caffeine, inviting me into her eyes of shape, form, and shadow. I swallowed slowly, even though I knew her white smile was not a request but a demand. Stare, desire, worship. I gasped, turned away, dripping errant drops on the table.
Eavesdropping (the waitress’s curse), I subtly browsed her portrait with every refill, assembling the details like a puzzle pieced together with graphite lines. It was a pixie or some other angelic fairy creature, skin shaded so darkly it shamed the black coffee she’d been drinking. The pixie splayed her limbs placidly on an altar, wings hanging limply, bare breasts only small mounds at this angle. Her face was twisted coyly as if on fire, either from fear or anticipation. I blushed as I caught myself staring a little too long at the eyes mirrored back. Pupils like the dying petals scattered loosely on the ground.
“Coffee?” I whispered. She jumped shyly at the shimmer in the quiet, hand instinctively covering the perfect V between the pixie’s thighs.
5:55 a.m.
And then she was gone. She must have slipped out the door as I clocked out in the back. She’d left a pile of change to cover her tab, but it didn’t matter. I’d bought her meal hours ago under that enchanting gaze. With a tinge of regret that I couldn’t explain, I cleared the crumpled napkins and discarded sketches, flipping through the chaotic scribbles and pencil shavings.
I moved to throw these away and stopped, stared at the fiery black altar, limp wings and disheveled petals. I felt my face grow warm at the tiny points and curves — the petal eyes, the coy face on fire, the thighs’ V were all my own, reflected back. I shivered at this charcoal mirror, skin tingling, breath short. I shuddered as if naked, tensed my hands into fists and then breathing in, grasped for calm. I stood for a moment, stilling the tremors and then folded the page and hid it in the pocket of my apron.
6 a.m.
Outside, I light a cigarette, roll my apron into a tight bundle and set off into the murky fog of dawn. Not enough tips to call a taxi today. Inside Tony’s, the fingers scratched and pounded at the glass — angry men trapped inside. Powerless. I’m not their whore anymore. I’m me out here — the strong, beautiful, capable young woman my dad always told me I’d be. I laughed. Now, who the fuck is that?
I hear a car slow behind me. My breath catches; I hug my coat around me tighter, and do not turn my head. Please go on. Go away. Please leave me alone. My apron is off. I’m not your waitress, not your friend, not your lover. Please, sir, you cannot see me here — not past that sign, not through those windows. You cannot touch me here — there are people all around, sure to hear me scream. There are cars driving all along this road. They’re sure to stop and help.
Sir, I told you. Don’t. Don’t slow your car and lower your window. I’m off the clock. I’m not yours any more. I won’t be your whore. (“How much for a side of you after my meal?“) You cannot see me. I’m not a woman, not a body at all. I have no legs, no ass, no breasts, no curves — see — look — I’m invisible, a shadow. You cannot touch me. I will slip through your fingers with my non-body. I will disappear unharmed, and you won’t be able to find me. Go away, sir, please. I am nobody. I am no body. I am no woman. I am… not.
I still couldn’t say why I got in that car. Maybe it’s because I could not escape into a shadow, could not lose this form, divorce this body and slip through their fingers. I am a body; I bleed. Deep in deep I am woman — it’s written all over my skin, curves and softness and moist salty petals. I am a woman. I do what I have to do. I nod. I smile. I acquiesce. And sometimes I have it my way.
Maybe I was crazy — too much smoke and coffee — and suddenly looking into the car I saw the most beautifully distorted creature God ever made. Maybe I wanted to be delirious for that face. Maybe God never made any of us. Maybe this seemed safer, easier, purer than all the others. Maybe this would feel okay. Maybe this would comfort. Maybe I could forget to breathe for just a moment.
Or maybe this was me, this was my life, this was my choice and lack of it. This was my body, my meat, my blood. And so this was my beauty, my chance, my lust. Maybe.
She rolled down the window and peering in cautiously, I hardly hesitated a moment — opened the door without a word, and sat breathless as she drove away with her white hands on the wheel, auburn curls screening her eyes.
“You left this.”
She smiled. I fell, breaking shadows into pieces, looking down in horror at all those parts of me laid bare. I wept silently, staring down in frightened disbelief, no hope of piecing this back together — not with all this shattered glass and ashes — my own urn, filled with the little blisters I never let them see. The pencil stubs and ash trays, the faded paper dolls and bloody petals, torn underwear and white face I couldn’t see.
She pulled into the driveway. I followed her inside and tossing my apron and coat to the floor, felt the strength of her hand wiping my face, pulling my eyes like tears. I wanted to whimper and laugh and explode. She smiled. And it all fell away there, poured like blood down an altar, or scattered like little pixie petals on the ground.
Adding fervor to the religious conservatism debate engulfing the United States, ABC, NBC, and CBS have all rejected a commercial about religious tolerance. Produced by the United Church of Christ (UCC), the 30-second ad implies that other denominations exclude gays and other minorities.
When the Cleveland-based Church conducted focus groups and test market research last spring, the Church found that many people throughout the country feel alienated by churches. It says that the ad is geared toward bringing those people into the Church.
A voiceover in the commercial says, “Jesus didn’t turn away people and neither do we,” as two bouncers standing in front of a church admit only select while people. They turn away a young black woman, a Hispanic-looking man, and two men some may interpret as gay.
The UCC originally pitched the commercial to the networks nine months ago. But the Church decided to try its hand again this fall after the ad was rejected the first time.
Network executives suspect that the Church, one of the most liberal Christian denominations in the U.S., may have been looking to ignite controversy and make a political statement about Bush’s domestic agenda the second time around.
When the Political Action Committee MoveOn pitched an advertisement for CBS to air during the Super Bowl last year, the PAC received just as much or more publicity from the controversy than it would have had the commercial been aired.
NBC simply told the UCC that the advertisement was “too controversial.”
NBC’s head of broadcast standards Alan Wurtzel told reporters, however, that the network would have aired the commercial had the Church emphasized its own inclusiveness without casting others as anti-gay and anti-minorities.
CBS told the UCC’s advertising agency that the network believes the ad’s statement on gays in the church is linked to the controversial debate on gay marriage. The network said it does not accept advertising “on one side of a current controversial issue of public importance.”
This is consistent with what CBS told the liberal Political Action Committee MoveOn last year when the group pitched a commercial for the network to run on Super Bowl Sunday. CBS told MoveOn that it will not advertise commercials with a political agenda.
ABC told the Church that it generally does not accept any religious advertising. The specificity of ABC’s basis for rejection has insulated it from criticism by the UCC.
The Rev. John H. Thomas, the church’s general minister and president, dismisses NBC and CBS’s arguments that the ad is controversial. He says the advertisement had been broadcast in several parts of the country, like Oklahoma City, central Pennsylvania and Florida, “without generating a negative response.”
The UCC has criticized NBC and CBS for playing into the hands of conservative political and religious groups.
Part of me thinks this is true, though I also wonder whether airing a commercial that seems to alienate people of other religions has the potential to play into religious conservatives’ hands, allowing them to say, “Hey, see, we really are compassionate conservatives!”
Maybe this is why Fox News Channel, which consistently casts itself as the pro-Bush conservative arm of the American media, is the only broadcast network airing the commercial. Or maybe Fox is just trying to liberalize its ways…
Nearly a month has gone by since John Kerry did something great for this country: He lost the election and admitted it. Listening to his concession speech, he was so much greater, more majestic and even classier than he seemed before. If only the rest of the Democratic Party could follow his example.
John Kerry in his concession speech told the world of his conversation with President Bush on election day and expressed his wish for a bipartisan country. Will the real John Kerry please stand up! Then, not even two weeks later, the defeated democratic challenger responded to a question posed by Fox News Reporter Geraldo Rivera about why he lost:
“It was that Osama tape, it scared them [the American people],” he said.
Message: The American People are gullible twits, too scared of their own shadows to stand up to Osama bin Laden. And did I mention that I served in Vietnam? It was the John Kerry I had seen for the past year, back in black.
For months, the democratic demagogues both in Washington and the press had lodged a sustained carpet bomb-style assault on both President Bush’s policies and even his character. MoveOn.org likened him to Hitler, and Michael Moore and the Hollywood crap machine churned out propaganda so vile it would make Lenny Riefenstahl shake her head in disgust. Teddy Kennedy and Terry McAuliffe, the tag team of trash talk, have yelled so hard and so long that President Bush is a liar that their lungs now have the capacity to sustain each of them during the next Boston Marathon. Surely, they thought, their campaign of smear and fear would be enough to pull Kerry past the finish line. After all, the war in Iraq is so bad. One thousand soldiers have died and we are still there. It’s been a year and a half and we haven’t built Iraq into the land of milk and honey! Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, he isn’t weighted down by chains in a dungeon or being flogged by angry soldiers with wet, rolled-up American flags.
And what about Bush’s pathetic domestic policies? The Kerry campaign hammered for months that Bush had turned America into some sort of wasteland and with confidence bordering on arrogance, thought that they somehow convinced all Americans to believe that the economy was the worst since the Great Depression and that President Bush has lost more jobs than Herbert Hoover. Kerry and clan thought they convinced everyone that Bush wants to have state-sanctioned gay stompings in the streets and that a Bush victory would mean a return to slavery for blacks. They thought they had convinced parents that their kids are getting dumber by the second and that Bush has bankrupted the education system. And for some reason, they believed they had convinced the primarily Christian population of this country that somehow Bush’s personal faith in God is a weakness that should be laughed at in the halls of Congress and the streets of capitols around the world.
John Kerry thought that he had convinced the youth of the country that they would be torn away from their mommies and daddies and be shipped off to Iraq with nothing but a musket and a pat on the back if the president were re-elected; and John Edwards was confident in saying that if they were in office now instead of the Republicans, Christopher Reeve would not only have lived but would be doing a foxtrot with Michael J. Fox at the Kerry victory rally.
So what went wrong? They had more money than they ever had. They had Hollywood with Susan Sarandon, Ben Affleck, and Leonardo DiCaprio planting yard signs and giving speeches. They had Michael Moore and Robert Redford making and airing every hate-Bush movie ever made. They had scores of books, tons of magazines, and newspapers. They had the music industry, MTV, and even the Boss himself, Bruce Springstein, touring with Kerry like he was a rock star to get the vote out. They had the billions of George Soros and his wife’s ketchup empire, and the support of the Canadians, the French, and the Germans. So why did it all go wrong? It went wrong because the American people can’t be bought. It went wrong because the American people cannot be tricked. It went wrong because although Democrats seem to think anybody who believes in God deserves a seat on the short bus, they continue year after year to forget that the majority of this country believes in God. They continue to forget that the American people, like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic, are not in politics. They forget that people want the news, not what certain people think is the news, and that The New York Times somehow forgot how to be The New York Times. And they forget that Americans love the fact that Bruce Springstein was “born in the USA,” but also love the fact that he doesn’t run the USA.
The Democrats cry every year that the Republican campaign machine makes issues out of the same things every year: God, gays, guns, and government interference. The problem is that Democrats never seem to get hip to the fact that Republicans aren’t making these things the issues, but that they ARE the issues. They reflect the concerns and the character of the people, of the people! So until Democrats finally do get the idea that Americans care more about America than they do with the issues of self-interest that Democrats think that they should, it would behoove the left to learn how to lose more graciously.
Is the Anglican Church headed for a 21st century schism? Apparently yes, if traditionalist evangelicals have their way.
The controversy stems, most immediately, from the issue of whether gay bishops may be installed in Anglican churches. There has been a furor since Gene Robinson was installed as the ninth Bishop of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop to have such an honor, and the more traditional elements of the Anglican Church are threatening to split from the rest of the church. Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria has gone so far as to declare that homosexuality is “an aberration unknown even in animal relationships.”
In stark contrast to Archbishop Peter Akinola, the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, the Welshman Dr. Rowan Williams, recently declared to the world’s Anglican churches: “Any words that could make it easier for someone to attack or abuse a homosexual person are words of which we must repent … Do not think repentance is always something others are called to, but acknowledge the failings we all share, sinful and struggling disciples as we are.”
With 70 million baptized Anglicans who belong to 43 autonomous churches across the world having riotous disagreements, we might well witness a 21st century schism within the Anglican Church, and the split will certainly not be an amicable one.
“I think it’s unthinkable that we’re debating what a family is, a man married to a woman. They’ve got that right in the barnyard. We’ve had that for 6,000 years and to think that we’re trying to redefine families.”
— Reverend Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, speaking today on NBC’s Meet the Press.
The Liberty University School of Law, in Lynchburg, Virginia — the new branch of the university founded by Jerry Falwell in 1971 — opened its doors this year to its first class of law students. According to Mr. Falwell, among the school’s missions is the desire to prepare “conservative warriors” for the “important battles against the anti-religious zealots at the American Civil Liberties Union.”
It looks as though Europe is beginning to play a “forceful and distinctive role” in global politics. If so, how will it affect the foreign policy of the United States? In his International Herald Tribune article, “Europa: EU diplomacy, the way it’s supposed to happen,” Richard Bernstein draws attention to recent political events in which the European Union has braved the footlights.
This may be due to the increasing solidarity of the European Union, as its constitution nears adoption. Perhaps EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana’s ability to improv with the best of them has something to do with it. And then any media archive will show that, while Europe may have taken a supporting role in the past, where leadership of political actions is concerned, its think tanks and diplomatic relations have been hardworking members of the repertory.
Bernstein credits Solana for having taken the “clearest practical initiative” by “pointing both to a penalty and a possible way out for Ukraine” this Wednesday. Solana succeeded in obtaining a formal request for the EU to conduct a political mediation in Ukraine, after warning Moscow and Kiev the Ukrainian election results would remain unacknowledged by the 25 members of the EU should the request be denied.
John Palmer, the political director of the European Policy Centre, notes that the diversity of cultures, languages, and opinions among EU members seems to stimulate the EU’s motivation to reach a common understanding about which issues take priority and how to address them.
“You might think that because of the split in Europe over Iraq, the attempt to create common defense and foreign policies has been aborted. But that is not the view here. In fact, it’s partly because of the split that a serious effort is under way to find collective solutions.”
The United States might do well to observe the behavior of its eastward neighbor over the next four years; the publicized divisions along our nation’s racial, class, and political lines are proving as unnecessarily paralyzing and hazardous to the United States as harmful gossip hurts any earnest actor.
Picture this: you’re standing in line at customs in JFK International Airport, the duty free bottle of wine in your hands growing increasingly heavier, when a customs official walks up to you with a bar code scanner and says, “Okay, Ms. Louison, you can go ahead now.” As you walk through the gates and leave the other unlucky souls behind, you thank God and the State Department for the $8 computer chip in your passport.
According to The New York Times, the State Department will soon begin issuing a new style of passport — one that carries your facial measurements and identifying information in a computer chip embedded in its front cover and pages. Following in the steps of Australia, these new passports are meant to combat identity theft and passport fraud, but privacy watchdog groups like the The American Civil Liberties Union are concerned that the new technology will both violate individuals’ rights and leave American travelers open to potentially hostile electronic spying.
“This is like putting an invisible bull’s-eye on Americans that can be seen only by the terrorists,” said Barry Steinhardt, the director of the ACLU Technology and Liberty Program.
Laboratory tests, as yet substantiated in the field, indicate that the chips may be readable up to 30 feet. “Skimming” (electronic snooping) may be combated by carrying passports in a foil envelope or encrypting and password-protecting the data — but despite these measures, the ACLU sees the new technology as evidence of the United States’ increasing evolution into a surveillance society. The combination of ever smarter technology and post 9-11 security measures increasingly beg the question: when do our individual liberties outweigh our national security?
And, on a personal level, will my new passport put me in greater individual risk in order to protect our country? When I first moved to the Middle East, I was repeatedly warned not to show anyone my passport unless absolutely necessary — both to avoid being overcharged, but also to avoid being targeted as American. The possibility that someone could walk next to me in the street and identify me instantly is unsettling, to say the least. In our current climate of hostage-taking, unless the State Department can guarantee my anonymity, I’ll avoid replacing my passport for as long as possible.
Yet somehow, Ron Artest, NBA sideshow and professional thug managed to take barbarism to new heights. After leaping into the stands to choke a kid in the third-row bleachers and coldcocking a Pistons fan mouthing off to him, the Pacers forward made a conciliatory appearance on the Today show.
Or did he?
Matt Lauer, who seemed to be engaged more in heavyweight shadowboxing than anything, asked Artest what should be done about his reckless and violent behavior. It’s hard to imagine how this overpaid primadonna might respond. Luckily for everyone he cleared everything up: It’s the fans’ fault!
“It was the third time I had been hit with something in the crowd,” he said. “They should hold off. They shouldn’t have been throwing stuff.”
Phew! It’s a good thing he cleared that up. Rule 1: Fans should expect to be assaulted by any athlete that has paper cups thrown at him. This isn’t as ridiculous as it may seem; after all, it was self-defense.
“The cup almost hit me in the eye,” said Artest. And how exactly did a cup almost hit him in the eye? He was lying down on the scorers’ table. Rule 2: NBA players can lie down anywhere they please. This includes scorers’ tables, fans’ laps, and even the middle of the court.
But in moves that have even John Kerry scratching his head, Artest, despite the 24-hour replay of the videotape, says, “I’ve never hurt anybody, and I think that’s important.”
Among the other notable quotables that Artest flung around like dirty socks during the Today interview were:
“I’ve really tried to change the image of the league,” (which is true — the NBA used to be a place where world-class athletes and sportsmen like Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson met, and now it’s just another playground where tattooed hoods play streetball for big bucks).
“I respect David Stern’s decisions but I don’t think I should be out for the whole season. I really want to play this year.” And he shouldn’t be out for the rest of the season, he should be out of the league completely and in a jail cell. Only in America can you punch someone on camera and not be charged with a crime.
“Sometimes things happen … people go to war, but we don’t want to go to war; nobody wants to die you know, but things happen and you try to make everything positive.” Maybe Artest does know John Kerry. He has an interesting penchant for changing the subject and blaming other people for his failures, as well as aggrandizing his self-victimization. Artest is comparing his predicament to those now “forced” to fight in Iraq.
But Ron Artest is trying to stay positive. He’s got a new album coming out.
“My skin was rough like a snake’s and then it started peeling off. It was very painful, so I had to go to the hospital,” says Latifa Myinyikwale. While Latifa wasn’t bargaining for a chemical peel in her quest for beauty, that’s literally what she got — after two years of using skin-lightening creams, Latifa, a black Tanzanian, has scars, rashes, and blotches all over her body.
Black is not beautiful in Tanzania and in other African nations; many women seek to look and become whiter since, as a result of social conditioning and media imagery, whiteness is often perceived as the epitome of beauty. Latifa explains: “You hear that if you want to look beautiful, then you have to look like a white person and to look like a white person you have to use these creams. Of course it is natural that women want to be beautiful.”
Women like Latifa spend a significant amount of their meager income on skin-lightening creams. Products range between four and six American dollars, and with the gross national income at $290 per capita, the pursuit of beauty is costly, dangerous, and disfiguring. Women also suffer from fertility problems and cancers of the skin and liver as a result of the hazardous chemicals, such as mercury and hydroquinone, that may be in the skin-lightening products. The Tanzania Food and Drugs Authority successfully banned 83 of these skin-lightening creams in 2003, and they are now attempting to enforce that ban.
While Tanzania is taking a proactive approach to curb the use of hazardous skin-bleaching products, the practice is by no means confined to Tanzania — approximately half the women in Mali bleach their skin.
As much as ever before, there is now a sense of urgency to convince people that black is most definitely beautiful.
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