Bonfire Night

Paper flies to the fire.
Hair stings. Fingers gather up
a posy, a coin, a string.

The star burns down
to unreadable ashes.
The harvest swings at my hip.

The estuary wind sucks my skirt.
Water meets earth
with a whooshing hymn.

They splinter my door,
brutal and wary,
clattering into my room.

I have no cunning.
I am barely wise,
and definitely not a devil.

Yet here I am;
no more than driftwood,
and much too damp to kindle.

Inspiration for the Poem:

An extract from Gyn/Ecology by Mary Daly:

European Witchburnings: Purifying the Body of Christ

Just as social historian Baroja has recourse in the end to feeble psychologizing so also does moralist WEH Lecky in his two-volume History of European Morals. He writes revealingly (in the sense of unveiling and re-veiling at the same time) of the conditions that drove some witches to suicide:

In Europe the act was very common among the witches, who underwent all the sufferings with none of the consolations of martydom.

Without enthusiasm, without hope, without even the consciousness of innocence, decrepit in body and distracted in mind, compelled in this world to endure tortures, before which the most impassioned heroism might quail, and doomed, as they often believed, to eternal damnation in the next, they not unfrequently killed themselves in the agony of their despair.

This is a perfect description of the condition to which the lords of patriarchy desire to see defiant women reduced. It is an announcement of androcratic intent. How would Lecky know that the witches were “without even the consciousness of innocence”? The expressions “decrepit in body” and “distracted in mind” are deceptive because not accompanied by any description of the christian torturers’ methods.

On the following page, this “historian of morals,” having admitted the fact of unspeakable torture of witches, actually manages to write that “epidemics of purely insanesuicide…not infrequently occurred.” Lecky here refers specifically to the women of Marseilles and of Lyons. He then goes on:

In that strange mania which raged in Neapolitan districts from the end of the fifteenth to the end of the seventeenth century, and which was attributed to the bite of the tarantula, the patients thronged in multitudes towards the sea, and often, as the blue waters opened to their view, they chanted a wild hymn of welcome, and rushed with passion into the waves.

By naming this phenomenon a “mania” and failing to note the significance of the dates, Lecky makes its meaning invisible to most readers. Hags, however, knowing something about the history of The Burning Times, can see that this was a completely sane decision. Multitudes of women rushed into the sea, precisely because they refused to be “patients” for the witch doctors/torturers and chose to be agents of the one Self-affirming act possible under the Reign of Infernal Justice.

The words of the hymn , according to Hecker’s Epidemics of the Middle Ages (London, 1844), are:

Take me to the sea
If you are willing that I be healed,
To the sea, to the way
Thus does my lady love me,
To the sea, to the sea,
While I live, I must love you.

End extract.

by Debi Crow

It’s inevitable
He’ll deny everything, of course he will
He wasn’t even there, he’s never seen her before
He only bought her a drink, and then
the silly bitch drank too much, didn’t she?

He wasn’t even there, though, so, you know, I don’t know
What are you going to do? Accuse
him of something? He’s never seen you!
What are you going to do? What are you going to do?

choke, stab, choke, stab, choke, stab, choke, stab…
There is a life in there, but where, but where, he
pulled it out and laid it in the air
Stretched it over the bonnet of his car
and rode her, bragging into her hair…

Telling of the affair, and pulling at her hair, until
she’s choked and stabbed and Only She Remembers.

by Debi Crow

Youth is innocence
Age is beauty
If we can age in our
own bodies, in our own
skin
Unaltered, unadulterated, untouched
by the dogmas of patriarchy,

We can truly subvert.

That ageing in ourselves and as our Selves is an act of subversion
is perverse, but
subversion it is, and
subvert we must.

I subvert and we subvert.
We re-fuse, and re-
wire, re-connect and
re-define

beauty.

by Debi Crow

Prologue

It was a cold day when Ever dug up the first body. In the first instance of discovery she had no idea that it was a body. The remains were obscured, wrapped as they were in shrouds several layers thick. And Ever had not uncovered much. Just part of an arm. Which she did not know was an arm until she tore the shroud back. The material of the wrappings was as thick as the heavy duty tarp Ever’s mother kept for camping and it took Ever a long time to hack through even a little of it with her Stanley knife. But after a long time of hacking she saw the arm. Not much of it. Merely the pallid, greyish elbow.

That was enough, more than enough to have Ever reeling away. She surprised herself by not vomiting. In a way she rather wished that she would just vomit. Her stomach had shrivelled and curdled and she was sure that any food in there was unsettled and desperately wanted to come out. It felt like it desperately wanted to come out. The words ‘contaminating crime scene’ came to her. They were disjointed as though it had been an effort for her brain to throw the idea out there. But the idea stuck, held, took root, and Ever dragged herself away from the body, back into her house.

At the time she did not think to call her mother. Ashley Deroux was at home that bleak afternoon but Ever was used to being on her own and to taking care of things on her own. So she called the police and cautiously stated her issue. Claret Fall was not as small a town as it’s crime rate seemed to suggest, so a response was immediate.

When Ashley walked into the kitchen, still patting her hair dry with a large, fluffy towel Ever looked up from the table and said, “Oh, mum, I completely forgot to tell you. There’s a body in the back yard. I’ve called the police.”

There was little cause, Ashley had always thought, to worry about Ever. She did worry, of course, in the normal way that mothers worried. But Ever had never given her a reason to. That had been a good thing. A very good thing, for Ever as well as for Ashley. Even now, Ever gave no indication that there was a need to worry. There was a body in the back yard and she had done what needed doing.

The police arrived as Ever explained the situation to her mother. They took them out to the back, and Ever seemed calm even if she stayed well away from the half buried body that was bound up like a mummy. She and her mother returned to the house as quickly as they could. There was no want to stay in a garden with the murdered dead. It took very little nudging for Ashley to get the rest of the story, small that it was. Ever omitted far more than she told, though the account was not long. It would take a different person than her to recount the way the flesh hung loosely from the bones, and the smell – not so much of rot after so long but of death and neglect and loneliness. They were things she did not want to remember. And she had only seen the arm for the barest second and should not remember the detail of it so well, but it had melded to her memory and seeped into all of its cracks so that even when she tried to block it by bringing up another memory, it would filter through.

Four bodies more were found into that late afternoon. Very old bodies, a progressively more hysterical Ashley was assured. Ashley was not by nature a hysterical woman and she had taken the news of the first body well enough, but there were limits. Very old bodies, very old murders. Ever was sorry that it had been such a god-awful cloudy day. Forgotten and underground for maybe fifty years and they had to come up on a day when they couldn’t even see the sun. It was like they had been cheated out of life all over again.

As dusk set in the last of the bodies was brought up. The entire yard hadn’t been dug up. There hadn’t been a need. Not with the ground surveying device the crime scene team had brought in. Ever had seen them on crime shows, and under normal circumstances would have been interested. But these circumstances were not normal. She retired to her room as the team did one more sweep of her yard.

All wearing jewellery so all women,” she heard one of the female detectives say softly to her partner as she started up the stairs. And for the second time that day she would have really liked to vomit.

Chapter One

Wind

Fire

Water &

Earth

And betwixt the four stands Life.

To Ever that day was the most horrific she had yet lived. She could not imagine worse. Well, having been one of those women was worse. For her almost seventeen year old self, though, this surpassed a bad day. And, oh, she had had her share of bad days. The only consolation was that at least it could not get worse. And that was a small but real consolation until worse it did get.

Ashley Deroux was as good a mother as she was able. And she was able to be very good. But she worked often, for long periods of time. She was tired much of the time. Too tired to put as much effort into Ever as perhaps she would have liked. Generally she thought that Ever understood. And perhaps it was true but if it was true Ever understood a little too well. Despite being sad that she could never seem to close the distance between Ever and herself with the little time she had, Ashley was very proud that Ever always seemed to know the right thing to do. What she didn’t realise was that Ever was very good at seeming.

For instance, she seemed ok with having found a body in the back yard. Ashley would have desperately liked to have had that kind of composure. She seemed fine with going to bed on her own. Ashley herself couldn’t sleep, but she didn’t for a moment think to check on Ever. Ever simply seemed too mature. Like she had always had a deep well of understanding to dip into for any circumstance.

Only she didn’t. Ever was good at seeming. Whether it be capable or unaffected or calm or mature. She had grown used to it. Her body responded to stimuli so quickly that almost no one could tell it was a lie. But she knew. She always knew. No matter how long she faked, how well she pretended, there was a part of her that remained true to the real her. The real her that had been cowering in bed, too frightened to so much as roll over for the past half hour. And that had been before things went bad.

Sleep did come. Despite the fear sleep did come. And then it began. The first inkling Ever had that something was wrong – more wrong than dead bodies in the garden – was an hard-ice shiver trailing the length of her spine. Her eyes flew open and, even in the dull light of the outside streetlamp she could see the old ragged remains of a female body dressed in the old ragged remains of a grey dress, hanging directly above her. Biting down a harsh cry, Ever started to roll sharply to the left. She stopped abruptly when she saw that another body stood by that side of the bed. Before she could react the body above her grabbed both her hands, held her steady and pressed its dry leathery lips against hers. Ever tried to close her mouth and, failing that, tried to scream. Around the bed the four other murdered women began a chant.

The chant lasted longer than the kiss for which Ever was grateful. That in no way made Ever feel fortunate. For a time she spat out the feel of the lips, thankful that there had been no accompanying bad taste. And abruptly the chant ended and the women, just as abruptly, were gone.

Come morning the crime scene investigators were back in the yard. Ever made herself a coffee, and sipped at it, watching them through the kitchen window over the rim of the mug. A hand brushed across the back of her short blond hair and she turned to see her mother.

Hi, honey, I don’t know how you could sleep so well. I barely managed an hour,” said Ashley, planting a brief, slightly awkward kiss on her daughter’s hair.

“I didn’t… Did you hear anything last night?” asked Ever somewhat listlessly.

Ashley pursed her lips as she did when she was worried and shot Ever an uncertain look. “Like what?” she asked.

“I dunno,” Evan’s voice was barely a mumble and she shrugged her shoulders to accompany the statement. “Like maybe – voices? Women’s voices?”

Now Ashley looked shocked. They may not have been so very close, mother and daughter, but Ashley did understand things without being told. “No, should I have?” she asked carefully.

After draining the last of her coffee Evan shook her head. “Bad dream,” she said quietly.

“God,” said Ashley, running her hands through her hair. “I should have checked on you. I should have known you’d be scared.”

Ever smiled carelessly. “Honestly, mum. What would you do? You can’t chase my dreams away no matter how many times you check on me.”

Surprise gave way to amusement and Ashley shook her head with a laugh. “Alright, will you be ok today? I can stay home if you want the day off school.”

Smiling again and wrinkling her nose in distaste, Ever indicated the back yard with a jerk of her chin. “Won’t make me feel any better about things, will it?” she commented.

Shaking her head, Ashley laughed again. “I guess not. Thank God anyway. I don’t want to be here today. What say we have dinner out tonight?”

Ever nodded her agreement and trotted out of the room to find her school bag. It was by her bed and she went across to pick it up almost cautiously. The room held none of the threat it had the night before though. Ever looked around slowly at the same room she had seen every day for most of her life. Nothing was out of place. Yesterday’s school uniform was still lying discarded on the floor, undisturbed. Looking around, Ever could almost believe that last night had been a dream. Almost, but not quite. It had been too vivid. Too authentic. She could still feel the lips. Cracked and dry with age and almost papery-thin. Shuddering, Ever wiped at her mouth with the back of her arm.

Then she shook her head and glanced at the window that faced her neighbour’s house. Next door Michelle Harrison was scooping up a massive cream Persian and cooing to it. Her long silky black hair was already pulled back into a high pony-tail and as Ever watched her mother came in to give her a cup of coffee. Michelle hugged her mother, one-armed, kissed her cheek and took the coffee. Shaking her head, Ever snatched up her school bag and headed downstairs. It was a morning ritual of the Harrison’s, so familiar that Ever had it memorised. And every time she saw it her stomach twisted, part in irritation but part in envy. It wasn’t that she wanted Michelle’s life, that wasn’t it at all. The thought of having to hug your mother every morning out of ritual rather than love was vulgar. But she envied that every morning Michelle woke up, knowing that someone was there. To talk to, laugh with, maybe just sit with. But there. And that Michelle could so easily hug her parents, kiss her parents, and know that it would be accepted without reserve or surprise every time.

That morning was one of the rare ones in which Ashley was starting work late enough to give Ever a lift to school. Though Ever did quite strongly suspect that Ashley had called in late so that she could give Ever a lift. Death rattled Ashley. Possibly more than most things. And those deaths had been close, even if they were fifty years old or older. Understanding was one thing that Ever had, and she understood that on occasions such as this her mother was forcibly reminded of the unsaid things between them. Things that were felt but not put into words. Things that may never be put into words. Ashley was not demonstrative. Ever wasn’t sure if she herself was, but her mother’s lack of did moderate any that Ever might naturally have felt.

But that was ok on days like these. Because it was on days like these that Ever could read all the unsaid things from her mother’s fear.

That fear had Ashley drive Ever all the way into the school parking lot rather than just dropping her at the gate as she usually did.

“Thanks mum,” said Ever, getting out of the car.

“Do you have lunch money?” asked Ashley, which was more or less a mum equivalent of ‘I love you, don’t cark it.’

“Yeah mum,” said Ever who used the word ‘mum’ as a term of endearment. She’d been known to scatter it thrice in a single sentence when she was feeling particularly affectionate. And when she and her mother fought the word would disappear as though it were sucked from the face of the planet – or possibly even the galaxy.

As the Mazda drove away, Ever slung her bag on her shoulder and jogged up the front steps. She squared her shoulders before walking into the school.

School was a tomb for Ever. It sucked her lungs free of breath and left her tense and jittery. It was worse for some, she knew. She wasn’t one of the ones who went home and cried for hours every day. But she wasn’t one of the ones who showed up three quarters of an hour early every day, ready to enjoy herself either. Lessons weren’t what she hated. Several of them she even quite enjoyed. But they didn’t make school bearable.

“Oh my God, she was totally staring through my window to check me out in my underwear this morning,” said Michelle in a high angry voice as Ever veered around her to get to her locker.

Becky, a less gorgeous version of Michelle, shot Ever a dirty look. “Why do they let people like her in here?” she asked coolly.

May nodded in silent agreement.

Ever slammed her books into her locker and turned to glare at the three girls. “Close your fucking curtains if it worries you so much,” she said in a short, clipped tone.

Michelle barely paused to glare at her before saying in pained tones. “I can’t believe my parents won’t let me change rooms with them. It’s so disgusting. It’s almost like they don’t care if I’m being violated every morning. And she probably watches me while I sleep.”

Ever slung her bag ferociously over her shoulder and stormed towards her first class. Usually Michelle and her ilk wouldn’t bother her. What they thought didn’t matter to her. But having dreams of dead women seemed to lower her tolerance level. Having dead women in her back yard seemed to lower her tolerance level.

“I’d laugh if you did swap rooms and your mum got violated instead,” said May with a significant look at Ever’s now retreating back.

That made Michelle laugh a laugh that was every bit as pretty as herself. “She probably would be that desperate too,” she mused.

The longer Ever thought about it the less certain she was that the murdered women had been a dream. There was no valid reason to suspect that they had been real, but Ever couldn’t help the feeling she got that they were real whenever she thought about it.

“Lesbo,” said an impatiently calm voice and Ever looked up startled. She wondered wryly when exactly she had started responding to that name as though it was her own. Not that the name really bothered her as much as it was intended to, but still.

Delia stared back at her, dark and stunning. “I said you’re on my team.”

Ever looked around a little uncertainly. Oh, gym. Basketball.

“But she’s…” began Justine, looking slightly panicked.

The glare Ever shot her might not have shut her up, but Delia’s raised eyebrow did. “Yes,” said Delia easily. “She’s lesbisexual. They’re good at sports, lesbians. Besides, if she’s on our team she’s not blocking us, which makes us safe from her depraved little advances.”

The standard response anyone in the school gave to anything Delia said was ‘bitch.’ Ever could have used it too, but she would only be one of the many of the day, and she was rather sure that Delia collected them and did not want to add to Delia’s collection. So she moved up to Delia’s team, deciding not to play at all.

That would have felt better if the red haired Roberts twin hadn’t elbowed her and hissed, “You’re killing us,” halfway through.

The day was over finally and Ever was surprised to find her mother’s car at the gate when she got out.

“I’m starved,” Ashley announced as Ever tossed her bag into the car and crawled in after it. “You look fine. You don’t want to change before we have dinner do you?”

Never having been one for vanity, Ever shook her head.

Perhaps it was nerves, though Ever would have thought it was more like intuition, but either way Ever turned her web-cam on and aimed it at her bed before going to sleep that night. Should the dead women return she would not be left without evidence. And at least then she would know for sure whether it was a dream or not.

Chapter Two

Wind is nothing without resolve.

But with resolve can conquer worlds.

Or change them.

The day hadn’t been so good. For some reason Becky was annoyed with Michelle. Generally that was ok, there was always a bit of squabbling amongst them. The last time it had been over the skirt Michelle had borrowed. Sure, she’d given it back with a huge grass stain on it, but Michelle expected that Becky had been more upset that the skirt had been looser on Michelle than it had been on her. That fight hadn’t been as terse as Michelle and Becky were now. The worst of it was that Michelle had no idea what this was about. The only thing she knew was that when she walked over Becky and May would cut themselves off and look at her as though she were interrupting – or even spoiling something important. After a few attempts she could get them to talk and May was being fine, but Becky was holding back.

Sighing, Michelle rolled over on her bed. She’d already kissed both her parents goodnight downstairs because she hadn’t wanted them to come in to say goodnight. Even that was a problem today. She shook herself a little and reached out to switch the bedside lamp off. Tomorrow she could deal with it. Tonight she could not be bothered.

But, try as she may, sleep would not come. And finally as it did creep down upon her, Michelle was distantly aware that the door to her bedroom slid silently open and a figure stepped in, clothed in equal silence. Before Michelle could rouse herself sufficiently to scream, her hands were arrested and lips pressed against her open mouth. The lips did not move but stayed stationary and open against her mouth. Then the lips pulled back and the figure turned and left the room.

Michelle lay shuddering for several moments before finally screaming enough to make her lungs ache.

Perhaps it was the recent discovery of five bodies, or perhaps Michelle’s case simply did not seem high priority, but the police took longer to arrive than Michelle would have liked and when they did arrive Michelle was frantically brushing her teeth.

“Someone broke in…” Wesley Harrison explained, showing the two officers through to the kitchen.

“No really, dad?” demanded Michelle furiously. “It was that lesbian from next door,” she exclaimed, motioning at the Deroux residence with her toothbrush. “Are you going to arrest her?”

“They’ll get a statement first, princess,” said Wesley.

“Oh, ok, how’s this? Statement: the trashy lesbian from next door was overcome by her unnatural hormones and broke into my room to attack me,” explode Michelle. “Now go arrest her, go now.”

“Poor pumpkin, she was terribly frightened,” said Wesley.

“I’m not frightened! I’m angry!” Michelle spluttered around the toothbrush before pulling it free of her mouth and spitting into the kitchen sink. “I’m furious.”

Patting her head Wesley explained, “This is how she always handles fear.”

Michelle heaved a sigh. “Are you going to arrest her now?” she asked.

Much to her annoyance, the police did not run off and immediately arrest Ever. They took statements, collected prints from the doorknobs, took photos of the trail of muddy footprints that led from the front door to Michelle’s room and checked Michelle’s room for more evidence. Arms folded over her chest, Michelle glared at her parents.

It was morning before the police even went across to the Deroux residence. Watching, narrow-eyed through the kitchen window, Michelle saw Ever open the front door, looking tousled and sleepy. She couldn’t hear what the taller officer said, there was too much distance. But Ever’s response she heard.

“What?” The voice was louder and sharper than Michelle was used to. It was also utterly astounded. So much so that Michelle would have believed it if she hadn’t known better. “Are you fucking with me?” Ever almost exploded and then turned to shoot a furious glare at Michelle.

“Fuck up, bitch! You knew I wasn’t like that!” Michelle yelled in equal fury.

“I can’t believe you!” Ever screamed back. “I can’t believe that you would stoop to this just to get your parent’s room! What is wrong with you?”

Michelle was almost spluttering with fury. So much so that she didn’t see that the officers were now regarding her suspiciously. “What’s this about your parent’s room?” asked the tall, and Michelle realised now, very dumb-looking one.

Her mouth fell open. “I can’t… you can’t possibly think…” she hissed.

But apparently the officers could and, after further questioning of Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, they left, throwing very dirty looks at Michelle on their way.

Mr. and Mrs. Harrison didn’t say anything. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, very obviously didn’t say anything. They sat and regarded Michelle for long, silent moments. With effort she held her head high.

“This was not about a room,” she spat with the kind of conviction usually reserved for the religious.

Mr. and Mrs. Harrison didn’t say anything. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, very obviously didn’t say anything. They sat and regarded Michelle for long, silent moments. Her chin dipped, just a little.

“I was attacked,” she said, hating the whine that leaked into her voice.

Mr. and Mrs. Harrison didn’t say anything. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, very obviously didn’t say anything. They sat and regarded Michelle for long, silent moments. Her shoulders gave way as though under a great weight.

“You could try believing me,” she tried to say without choking. Her success was dubious at best.

Mr. and Mrs. Harrison didn’t say anything. Mr. and Mrs. Harrison, very obviously didn’t say anything. They sat and regarded Michelle for long, silent moments.

“We will believe you when you deserve it,” said Wesley finally. His tone was very cold, indicating the level of disappointment he felt.

Michelle could do little else but nod at that and creep slowly away at that. There was no cup of coffee and no hug that morning. Michelle caught up her bag and ran out of the house as though running from her life really was that easy.

Chapter Three

Water is changeable as a Sprite.

Its body may alter as much as its soul.

Strong as a flash flood, gentle as rain.

Muddied tracks led from Lilith’s bedroom door to her sister, James’. Lilith stood in the doorway, studying them with a mildly puzzled look on her face. Before she could make up her mind about what they meant James threw her room door open and walked into the hall, her hair ruffled with sleep.

“’Ey,” she mumbled, her voice a little rusty with sleep too.

Lilith frowned down at the muddy footprints. “Did she kiss you too?” she asked slowly.

“Huh?” James eyes shot open to comical levels. “Who? What? Excuse me?”

Lilith shook her head. “Nothing. Don’t worry. I just thought…because the footprints lead to your room too…” she said, indicating weakly.

For the first time James looked down. “What the..?” she said in surprise.

“It rained last night,” Lilith explained wanly, walking over and gazing past her sister through the window. The skies still hung heavy and dark with clouds. Pursing her lips a little Lilith turned away.

“Well, evidently, but what does that…I mean, who dragged this mud in? Are you trying to say mum went slushing through the rain and then came in to kiss us goodnight?” James demanded, still staring down at the floor, and wiping her feet on clean carpet to get the worst of the mud off her toes.

“No,” said Lilith. “Not mum.” She turned to her sister. James was a heavy sleeper, but surely even she would have woken for this? “It probably wasn’t her fault,” she said finally. “I think she’s lonely. I never see her with anyone.”

“Who?” demanded James.

“Uhm…the girl. From school,” said Lilith.

“God’s sakes, Lilith! There are hundreds of them! Which one?”

“You know…the… Well, the…”

For a moment James looked like she would explode from frustration. “No, I don’t know the! I have no idea of the!” she cried, waving her arms about.

Blushing a dull red Lilith met her twin’s gaze. “The gay one. You know, the lesbian,” she said resolutely.

A blank look of incomprehension crossed James’ features before colour flooded her freckled face. “She kissed you? She what? Just broke into the house, went into your room and kissed you?” she demanded furiously.

“Well,” said Lilith, looking pointedly at the mud. “I think she came into your room too.”

“But she didn’t kiss me!” James yelled. “I’m going to bash her so hard!”

Shaking her head, Lilith turned from the window to look at James. “I’m ok with it. Or at least I don’t want anything to come of it,” she said.

“I don’t care what you want! People cannot just come into my house and molest my sister!” James exploded.

Lilith rolled her eyes in exasperation. It was odd how if the situation were reversed it would have been James saying everything was ok and Lilith declaring bloody vengeance. But then, Lilith thought, looking down at the mud again. There was no indication that the situation was not a two-way street. The muddied prints did lead straight to the bed and then back to the door.

“I didn’t feel threatened,” she said at last. “I mean, perhaps I should have, but I didn’t. And I think that girl’s sad enough. So drop it.”

The tone conveyed meaning, as much as the words and James leant back on her heels and studied her sister for some moments. Lilith knew she had given in before the words, “Ok, ok, but it’s creepy, Lilth,” were spoken.

Creepy probably didn’t cover it. On the twins’ arrival at school there was, it seemed, an uproar about Ever having broken into Michelle’s house and kissed her. Lilith determinedly avoided James’ gaze. This was not helping matters.

To be continued…

by Dragort

Hagar:

Hagar tied a knot
and slipped through it

she tapped her
skull to
her son’s

and together they
dipped into the
river of life.

She could lead a battalion
to a place of
naked peace
if not for her flesh,
wrapped in butcher’s paper.

She was unvisited by grace
and so she spelled it out
in the sand.

We are rent from her now,
God’s own beauty

strong only by breaks
in every conscience.

Sarah:

Sarah
you know you
are the one
broken lines
make straight in your wake
and
synonyms are hushed.

Sarah made of fathers
blood and
wooden temples

you are my mother
horned or winged
I am in love with you.
Sara is flexed
she is taut as gums
she is ready for
the king’s house
the new testament
and ungodly pain.

Sarah you could
rule us all
but you lay down
in dirt and
said:
‘action’.

When the body collapses
Sarah alone remains
to taste and see
what damage you have done

she will set your face beside stone
and call you beautful.

My piece is a tribute to Sarah and Hagar, women of ancient times. Their story is known well by most women of Jewish, Christian and Muslim backgrounds. Sarah and Hagar were wives of Abraham. Their descendants are Jews, Christians and Muslims. Muslims are said to be the descendants of Abraham and Hagar; Jews are said to be the descendants of Sarah and Abraham.

I wrote these poems one right after the other, as an attempt to stand squarely in the midst of illusory divides between women, divides which are age-old, enforced dichotomous paradigms that were meant to and do divide and conquer womankind as a class.

These dichotomous paradigms are meant to divide us from each other and to divide us from our selves.

They include the notions of the virgin and the whore, the pure and the defiled, the indentured servant and the slave, the childless and the childbearing, among others. All of these states and titles are, in varying degrees, the exact same thing. As long as they are accepted, promoted, or indulged to whatever degree, no woman is free.

by Jennifer Wildflower

There’s been some discussion about the Channel 4 makeover programme How to Look Good Naked (HTLGN) over at the F-Word and I’m going to add some of my thoughts here.

I’ve seen the show a couple of times and that’s all I’ve needed to see to know that this is the kind of telly produced to piss me off.

First things first, I don’t care how it’s ‘differenttoallthoseothermakeoverprogrammes’ because it doesn’t lead its female subjects to the cosmetic surgeon’s operating table or because it’s not got some ‘female fashion toff’ telling women how to dress, but a ‘gay male style guru’.

As far as I’m concerned, any programme that strives to make women look and feel good, whether it be via liposuction or lipstick, isn’t going to have my backing, because they are all about making a woman look/feel good via her appearance, nothing more (I mean, it’s not as if these programmes talk about their female subjects’ education, jobs, politics, hobbies or other interests which could perhaps also boost their self-esteem, is it?).

And what, gay men can’t also perpetuate the sexist beauty myth? That just because a man isn’t sexually attracted to women it means gender relations are transformed? Yeah, right.

Gok Wan may be gay, but the man dominant/woman subordinate dynamic is still maintained in HTLGN. This is made most obvious when Gok says things such as, ‘this is how to look good, ladies’ and ‘this is what you should wear, girls’ as if all us ‘girls’ were just gagging for his advice so we can all be in his special, ‘hey, don’t we look fucking-fantastically-feminine’ club. Man instructing woman on how to look good? That’s a step backwards for makeover tv, not a step forward.

What I really loathe about the show though, is its relentless emphasis on getting the female subject- and the female viewer- to look ‘feminine’ (which always equates to being a ‘real woman’ in makeover tv land). I can’t stand that homogenous dictate- that for a woman to look good, to feel good, to make the most of herself, she should subscribe to that arbitrary standard, ‘femininity’. Feminine beauty standards are constructs of hetero-patriarchy, (gasp!, did I just invoke an over-simplistic, totalising concept there? Oh, well…) produced so that women can a) keep quiet, occupied and contained and b) be attractive to men.

Now, hearing anyone brandishing the femininity dictate pisses me off. But when it’s a male style guru on a makeover programme doing it, there’s something else to question.

What we have with HTLGN is a male fashion/image ‘expert’; this very concept is a subversion of stereotypical masculinity which rejects associations with obsessing over appearance, fashion and shopping etc. The man running the show can get away with crossing the gender line, he can disavow the dictates of stereotypical masculine appearance/manner.

Not so for the women who appear on the show. They have to stay very much within the gender line, they have to work at becoming a traditional feminine stereotype. The female subject cannot disavow femininity.

So, HTLGN turns out to be just like allthoseothermakeoverprogrammes. A woman’s ‘failure’ to be feminine isn’t taken as an opportunity to say, ‘well, fuck all that anyway’, it means she must work at fitting into femininity, because otherwise she ain’t good enough, she’s unacceptable.

Also, this show is about making women look good naked. It’s not a celebration or affirmation of genuinely naked women. If it was, what’s with getting the face-paint and hair extensions out all of a sudden for the naked reveal? Neither is it a celebration or affirmation of women in all their genuine shapes and sizes. If it was, what’s with hiding all the ugly bits, but making the most of the flattering bits with the ‘right’ clothing? What’s with all the emphasis on doing this, buying that, putting that on there, wearing this like that, standing like this, doing your hair like that?

So, just like allthoseothermakeoverprogrammes, HTLGN tells its female subjects/viewers how to fit the same ol’ standard. It tells us we have to squeeze into the high heels, breathe in and belt up to accentuate our curves and clip in some hair extensions.

It tells us we have to fit femininity; femininity cannot be re-defined to fit us.

by Michelle

I was abused for too many years, I learnt to survive by never allowing it in. I was obsessed with film and TV, so I made it fiction.
Then I thought none of the pain and humiliation would go into me. It was not me that was being treated like a piece of dirt. It was an actress.
I thought if it was a only a film, then I could make a happy ending.
I thought I had that much control.

Now I want to cry as see me needing that control so much. I see me vanishing piece by piece as the violence increases.
I love that I try to make myself dream. I love that I could still believe in hope.

I had always loved films. Before I was abused, films brought me close to adults that I loved. I felt safe watching musicals with my grandmother. I had chats with my Dad and his brothers about old Westerns. Film was my happiness.
I was the same with TV, it was like a comfort blanket. I would watch with my sister, laughing at children’s telly, hiding behind the sofa at Star Trek.
It was so normal. It was lovely.

And it would be bombed away.

When my stepdad entered my life, he came with a camera. He worked in advertising, and was continually filming still or moving pictures.

I slowly learnt to hate the camera.

He would photograph me when I was relaxed. He would photograph me climbing trees.
Camera angled to show my knickers,
He photographed me eating. Me in the bath. Me sleeping. Me painting.

The camera followed me everywhere. I could not breathe without another photo being taken.
I felt trapped.

Even now, I still hate having my photo taken. I feel I lose control unless I really know the person taking the photo.

I try to imagine the photos my stepdad took were innocent images. I had always liked my real dad taking snapshots of me.
I try hard to imagine my stepdad filmed me coz I was such a jolly child. It must be just fun.

Only I know, my stomach knotted with sickness each time he asked me to stay still. I know as more and more he posed my body. I know as he kept waiting, taking too many shots of me.
I know I was being stolen by the camera.

When I saw him pass around photos of me to other men, who passed him more photos, I was not surprised.
I just went dead inside. Then pretended I had not seen what I saw.

Years later, he phoned saying there was pictures of me on internet.
I choose not to believe that. But inside I feel exhausted thinking maybe pictures of me trying to be a child are being wanked over by men like my stepdad.
I can’t bear to know if the images are there or not.

I was growing to fear film, when he brought in pictures of hard-core porn.

This destroyed my dreams that the camera could ever be safe, as I saw trapped behind the lens images that burnt through my whole body.

I looked and I saw my future in those images.
I looked and saw that hope was a wasted emotion.

When I looked as briefly as I could get away with, I saw pain going straight into my heart. So, I chose to deaden my heart.
What I saw was pure torture, and I was told it was acting. But, I looked hard and knew it was real.
For as looked I saw the fear of knowing there is nothing that can be done to stop it.

Hard-core porn killed my love affair with film. It replaced it with entering world where the camera entered my nightmares. It suffocated me when I shut my eyes.

I learnt to not sleep too much. As I dreamt of the images they changed and my face was on each torture victim. I would wake sweating, as I heard -
Smile for the camera.

I was right to believe that those images were my future. When I reached my teens and twenties, I had become real-life porn for violent men.
I had become nothing but an image they had seen in a photo or a film.

They would pose my body as the images they had seen. I was told not to move, to be silent. This made it not real, it was just part of some film in their head.
As they fucked me, other men would stand round watching like an audience. As each man poured his images of hate into me, I had to vanish.

Desperately, I cling on my memories of films. As I was beaten up, raped and tortured, I would disappear to my imagination. I thought I was Betty Davis alone smoking a cigarette. I became Scarlett O’Hara speaking back to men. I was Joan Crawford smacking a man in his face.

I had to have some dreams, or I would have died.

I had to not know my reality. To know that the men who were destroying me had planned everything they did, that was too much to bear. To know that each time I thought they had done the worst I could imagine to my body, there was always yet another form of torture. That was too much to bear.

And that to them I was not some glamourous actress, but a common whore. I could not bear that.

I choose not to accept that I was prostituted. Even when I got money, free drinks and food. Even when each man that used me had no name, I hardly know what they looked like. Even when I was with many men in one night. Even when I know I could not say no to any sick idea they had. Even when I know I was being passed around by men.

I could not see myself as a prostitute. That was never in any film I had loved. In my film, women have strength and were listened to. No-one would dare to rape the actresses I imagined I was.

But, in the end I could dream no more. It was beaten out of me. In the end, the only way I could survive was emptying my mind of any idea of hope.

I had to be dead to live. As the violence increased, I felt less.

In the end, I lose myself. All I was, was a fuck-object. I was what my stepdad trained me to be. I was part of the photos in hard-core porn.
I had disappeared.

Now, that was many years ago, but the impact is massive.

I have lost my vision imagination. I have stopped seeing films in my head, so I choose to see nothing. I still find it hard to take photos of people, or have my photo taken. I am very cynical about filming.

But on a positive note to end. I have back my love of films and TV. Now, I watch and can escape.

It was stolen from me for many years, but in the end my love for the fun of film and TV stayed in my heart.

Men try to destroy my heart, but they had no idea how to reach it.

by Rebecca Mott

Introduction

I am writing this piece, because I want to show how I learned to connect my different types of abuses. By making these connections, I was able to live with hope, not just to live by remembering to breathe.

Like many people who have survived multiple types of abuse, I survived by living moment by moment. For much of my life, I would see that there were connections which made me suicidal. I could not face my own reality so I learned to freeze it out.

I have decided to separate out parts of my life. I will always remember that each abuse led to the next piece of abuse.

Meeting my Stepdad

I was seven when I met my stepdad. He unnerved me. I felt a fear which I did understand, for I had not feared an adult before.

It was the way that he looked at me. He would look at my body - up and down, down and up. As he looked I felt he had me.

But I knew how to smile. After all my mum liked him. I would learn how to like him too.

One Night

In this part I write of an event, that my stepdad denies. For most of my life I have blanked this event out, for it was too confusing and painful to recollect. I lived in a family where I was told that I was a liar, or that I was mentally ill. So, when I recall my experiences, I still can find it difficult to believe. All I can say, is when I think of this event I get massive body memories, and a great desire to run away from myself.

There was a night when my stepdad was putting me to bed. After he had turned out the light he came back to tuck me in. I began to feel nervous, for his hands reached under my bedclothes. I remember it was the first time I froze. I remember his fingers going into me. The pain is still there. As he finger-fucked me I tried to imagine that I was not there. No, I had entered a world underwater and I was safe as I joined mermaids. In this world adults were not allowed. In this world I could cry and no-one would know. Only in reality, I lie in the wet he had left me in. I was bleeding. There was yellow stuff, that I know was my piss. I was scared. Scared that my bed was wet. Scared that I was in pain. Scared that I was bad. I knew how to clean the bed for I did not want my mum to be angry with me.

His Stash of Porn

My stepdad was obsessed with hard-core porn. He made me look at his collection. It caused me a great deal of mental damage. I look back and know hard-core porn taught me how not to complain when I was sexually abused. I was taught to be submissive. And always to look as if I was having fun. These lessons did lots of damage to much of my life. My stepdad’s interests included Hustler, images of true-sex murders, images of S/M enactments, images with children or models dressed as children. This is what I can remember, although I find the memories so frightening that I have blanked many of these images from my mind. He enjoyed my fear, because it made him believe that he owned me. I felt like I was inside the images. I could feel their pain and terror. I could feel men’s hatred as they viewed these children’s and women’s suffering. As I was forced to look and look again at these images, I thought I was entering hell.

The thing I feared the most was the look in eyes of the women and children in the images. It was a look that had lost all hope. It was a look that was dead.

As I grew older, I learned to understand and imitate that look.

Chester the Molester

What upsets me the most about hard-core porn is that it is meant to be funny. At an early age I learned women had no sense of humour. The worst thing is when it comes to the cartoons in hard-core porn. They attacked and wanted to offend everything. A child seeing this hatred, can only feel fear. Whilst this is happening to a child, an adult is laughing saying “they are only pictures.” For me the worst was the series of “Chester the Molester” in Hustler. This is a world which celebrates sexual violence committed against children, and the instigators find it funny to mentally abuse children.

For much of my childhood, I had loved reading cartoons and comics. I was brought up on my grandmother’s collection of Charles Adams. I loved English comics. I read Marvel comics, especially Spiderman. Cartoons were a world I loved to disappear into. I thought I understood the rules of the cartoon world.

But seeing “Chester the Molester” destroyed my love of cartoons. I could not understand this world. I just understood that it would become my world. A world where I would be watched as an object wherever or whatever I was doing. I could be sitting on a toilet and a man would staring at me. As I walked to school, abusers would hide in bushes. Always, men would watch in order to wank. In some of the series, there were images which made it clear a man had sexually abused a young girl by putting his penis in her vagina and it was shown as if the girl was either scared or she had enjoyed the man sexually abusing her. The messages I received from these cartoons made me go silent and still. I felt resistance was futile because a molester would wait until I was too tired to protect myself.

When He Thought the Abuse Began

All families make their own myths to destroy the truth. My family’s myth is that my stepdad began to sexually abuse me when I was 12. This supposedly makes it all right. I suppose I was seen as being old enough to say no or to fight back.

But, I know that I was abused before I was 12, for my body revolts with sickness as it remembers. Also when I was 12, I knew how to behave and how to obey him. I can remember feeling completely empty as he abused me. I knew that I should not protest, only be still and quiet. When I was 12 I felt no surprise as he reached into me. The abuse had become a habit with my stepdad. Although he still would finger me or French kiss when he thought no one was watching, it became an enjoyable routine for him. He would have a bath with me each Friday night.

In the bath he would be slow and gentle, nothing like the images I had seen. He would make me wash his penis, letting it go hard. He would wash me. He would wash all over my skin. And, he would wash inside of me. It would scare me, but I didn’t understand why. He was not meaning to hurt, instead it was accidental. I didn’t understand why it made me feel so sad, I was shaking, but I wanted to freeze.

I Became His Sex Object

My stepdad knew the most damaging way that he could abuse was by gradually building up the violence. He brainwashed me into thinking each time he increased the sexual torture that I endured, I was lucky because it was not as bad as I had imagined. After seeing so many images of hard-core porn, I thought I was going to be murdered by my stepdad. Looking back, I feel great anger at his mental abuse of me. By showing me violent porn, I was taught to accept the unacceptable.

The main effect that my stepdad had on me was that I became dead inside. I felt his presence all the time, whether he was in the house or not. I felt that I belonged to him and had no will of my own. He abused me until I left at 19. By the end, I would lie in his bed dead still. I had found that he did not need to speak to me, for me to know how to obey him. For instance, I would get undressed by him just looking at me. By the end, my stepdad would touch me wherever he wanted. His pleasure was my torture. He would rub all over as slowly as possible. Often he did this in the dark and in silence. He enjoyed doing oral sex on me. He would put his hand into me.

I felt I was dead, that my existence meant nothing. When my stepdad made me come, I was angry for it meant I was alive. Part of his mental and sexual abuse was get me to climax and then to blame me for making him go too far. I felt that I was his whore.

Doing It for Money

My entrance into prostitution overlapped with my stepdad’s sexual abuse of me. For me, it was a logical move, after all I was already having sex and getting gifts. I knew I was nothing more than some holes for men to use. So when I stayed up late and went to clubs, I was attracted to sleaze. I wanted to be the “bad girl” because being good never stopped the pain.

From a young age, round about 7 or 8, I had run away from home and school. When young, I would hang around in areas where prostitutes were common. I felt oddly safe in those areas. This was ridiculous, for they were very dangerous areas. Life was cheap. Looking back, I see how warped my home life was, that I was more relaxed in red-light districts. As a child, I looked up to prostitutes. I still don’t know why, but it was a seed in my head. Maybe I thought being a prostitute would force my mother to take care of me.

From aged 12, I had started drinking. It deadened my pain. It made me not care how I was treated. I drank because than I forgot for a while. It was also a slow way of killing myself. It was within this head-space that I entered into paid sex. I was aged 14 when I first had sex for money. I thought I knew what I was doing but I had no idea.

Eye to Eye with Hate

I went to a club which let in under aged girls for free after midnight. It was exciting for a young teen to be entering an adult world. Only I refused to it see as it was. In my imagination it was glamourous, like entering a James Bond film set. I couldn’t face the truth because it would destroy me.

What I remember is the darkness of the place, and that it was cramped. I remember that it was full of men, mostly middle-aged or older. I remember sitting by the bar, drinking free cocktails. I remember young girls sitting up at the bar. We were silent. I remember we always left with some men. All I see is a haze because when I see I do not want to remember. I know it happened, but it makes me feel so worthless.

I would go to some man’s flat. Usually there was a group of men. Once the door was shut I knew what they wanted. I knew to be naked and how to lie as still as I could. All this I learned from my stepdad. But it went further.

They would speak to me as if I was a piece of shit. Calling me a “dirty whore and bitch”, saying they would give what I deserved. They sometimes tied me up, often to do anal sex. Often as one raped me, the others would stand round the bed watching. Then, they would rape in turn. I had to suck them all off. If I was not quick enough or if I spoke I was battered. This is how I remember, but because the men committed so much sexual cruelty against me I have blanked it out. My brain has created its own safety blanket, not letting in the full horror of their actions. I just know that my body remembers the pain because now I am safe to feel. I feel pain in every cell of my body. I hate who those men were. Men who thought throwing a small amount of money at a girl or woman, entitles them to use her body as a dustbin for their hatred. Such men use prostituted women because they pretend their actions are not violent. Because prostituted women have no feelings and will never say no. Since these men knew I was a child it was a bonus for them. It meant that they could pay me less.

I Had Lost Hope

By the time I was 17, I had given up on hope. I thought my only worth was in sexually servicing men. I could not understand a “normal life” any more. I was doing as much self- harm as I could.

I had first cut myself when I was 9. I loved seeing the blood, for I felt I had some control. I fall in love with the idea of death. I felt Death was a friend. Maybe, it was because I read Edgar Allan Poe, but I thought death would so calm. Looking back, I don’t think I wanted to commit suicide rather I just wanted everything to stop.

By the time I was 17 I was an alcoholic, I ate little and then only trash food. I was trying not to sleep. I was scared to stop, in case I felt something. I thought I was mad but I thought it did not matter since I was just a piece of trash.

Sex Until I Die

I was having sex too much. I had sex, but I had no love or affection. I had decided I was just an object for men to fuck. I had lost who I was. Now, I had hit on a form of self-harm that fitted me. I find it so hard to see that time, for I was so scared and abandoned. I see that time, and all I think is that I was recreating the images I had seen in hard-core porn. For, as I was being raped over and over again by these men, I had learned to act as if I was enjoying it.

I was so dead inside, that after many acts of violence, I would “act normal” afterward. I could not allow myself to think of what had happened, because then I would lose my mind.

I Woke Up

I had become a zombie. Nothing seemed to matter any more. My body and mind was so used to abuse that it could not remember to care.

I was pushing the barriers of pain and degradation. I thought one day I may shock myself into caring. And I did.

I thought myself worthy of the male violence I was put though, because I believed I was scum. Only, somewhere deep inside was a voice speaking to me – “There is more to life than this. Please, stop it now. Or you will die.” I heard this voice and tried to ignore it, but in my twenties it got louder and louder. I know I had to save myself, but I had no idea how.

Gone Too Far

The time near the end of the violence was terrifying. I was beginning to know what was happening to and I was starting to feel outrage. I needed an end, but I felt powerless. I felt vulnerable. In that state, the last few acts of sexual violence left deep scars. I was seeing how my rapes were re-enactments of pornified minds.

One man, who I thought was a friend, raped me for 6 hours. Because I attempted to take some control by not allowing him to penetrate me, he used extreme sexual and mental violence on me. Although I prevented him from putting his penis into my vagina, he put his penis in every other orifice he could find. This included my left ear which affected my hearing, especially when I am stressed. If I did not do what he wanted, he would hit so hard that I lost who I was. At one point, he put a pillow over my eyes, his penis in my mouth and fisted my anus. The pain was so horrific. But I could not move, I could not scream. But, I could die. I stopped breathing.

At the time, I exited my body. I remember that I looked at me being raped, and thought nothing. Only, I felt so peaceful, and the pain had gone.

But, he brought me back to life -

“Don’t die on me, bitch.”

I came back, and the pain went on.

Beginning of an End

The day-to-day violence in my life came to an end when I reached my limit.

I still worked as a part-time prostituted woman. I went towards paid sex, as my way of killing myself. I did not need the money. I was not trapped by a pimp. I just saw myself as a sex object. In my low self-esteem and anger I thought that if men were to have sex with me, I may as well get something out of it. I was so stupid because these thoughts ignored the danger.

My last punter was the most dangerous, for he hated everything about women. I was in my early twenties, he was in his late sixties. He paid more than I could ever have imagined but he treated me so violently and cruelly. I would take the money and try to blank out his hatred.

His habit was for anal sex but not as I had experienced it.

He would force me to face against a wall, and pull down my trousers a little. Just enough to keep my legs together. He would hold my hands above my head. Then without warning, he would force his penis into my anus. The shock was so intense that I felt I was going to get a heart attack. Often I would faint.

Each time I saw him I would drink whisky, in the hope it would deaden the pain he inflicted on me. But each time the fear and pain always sobered me up. I ended up one night with severe injuries.

I went to hospital because I couldn’t stop bleeding and could not sit down. There I was treated badly by a female nurse because she had decided I was a slut and did not deserve decent treatment. So, when she sewed up my anus, she did not give me a painkiller. Although I was supposed to spend the night in hospital, I ran away to my own bed.

Choosing to Live

The next time I woke up, I found that I could not move, only my eyes. I tried to turn on my radio but I could not reach it. I was still in pain, but immobile. At first I was not worried, but as time went by I still could not move. I thought this is how I will die. Not murder or suicide - just a slow death as my body gives up hope.

I had always thought that you could will yourself to die. When I was young I had seen a kitten refuse to live. It had stopped eating, ceased cleaning itself. It had just decided there was no point to its life. So the kitten lay down in the corner of a drawer and died.

As I lay on my bed, I knew I had to make a choice whether I could live. My choices were to stay in my home-town, and continue living with violence. Or, to run away and maybe find that there could be hope. I knew if I stayed I would die soon. I would be “accidentally killed” if a man went too far.

Or I could lose the will to live since my body could not live with so much pain any more - so I would die. I had no choice but to leave. I left, and very slowly I built a new life.

Conclusion

As I write this piece I see with compassion how trapped I was.

When I view my past I see how pornography brainwashed me into believing I deserved all the pain men inflicted on me. At the time it was safer to blame myself than to recognise how men chose to sexually torture me. When I write, I write against those who believe that pornography is harmless. I know the men who raped me brought into and accepted the culture of porn.

They saw me as an object to be used and used again, until they decided to throw me away. What they did to me was not personal. It could have been any girl or woman they chose to abuse, for they believe that all women and girls are objects for their sexual gratification. For much of my life, I almost drove myself mad by trying to understand why I was so constantly abused. I thought I must have made these men commit acts of sexual torture on me. Now, I can see that I did nothing, but being in the wrong place.

One thing that help built myself a life, was finding feminism. As I began to regain myself I read Andrea Dworkin, and found she gave me a voice. No, she allowed me to scream. As the years became more secure, I learned to grieve for my past. I feel my past killed the child who could trust. But I was transformed by my past. It has made me stronger, for I had to discover how to live. I find that I have empathy with others who have extreme trauma. I feel that I am a fighter, especially in showing the truth of male violence to women and children.

I hope my story can show the harms of a porn culture. Also that it can remind the reader that prostituted women are individuals who deserve safety and compassion.

Finally. I write to thank my past self for living, when death was so welcoming.

by Rebecca Mott

Q. The creation and reproduction of gender roles causes the prevalence of rape. Discuss in relation to pornography and prostitution.

I have attempted where possible to describe my experience of rape with appropriate language. However, it is an important point that my rape was not mutual sex, nor does the word sex do what he did to me justice. Therefore I have used the term ‘fucked’ instead to convey the violent way he treated me. In addition, I have used Louis’ name in this essay despite the fact that hearing it continues to cause me great pain because I wanted to humanise him, as a normal man who represents many other men who do similar things to many other women.

Radical feminists have written extensively on how gender roles lead to the prevalence of female victimisation, including rape, pornography and prostitution. Chancer (199 and Schwendinger, J.R and H. Schwendinger (1983) criticise radical feminism as claiming that rape and sexual inequality is a result of the ‘natural’ aggression of men. Rather, radical feminism argues that gender roles are learned through socialisation and reinforced through social institutions (such as the legal system) (Bourque 1989:15). In this essay I will focus on western women, gender roles and societies. Winter, Thompson and Jeffreys (2002) define the West as “the industrialised, urbanised, wealthy nations with high GDPs and per capita incomes, which have been shaped, culturally, economically and politically, by western European liberal capitalist philosophy: namely the USA, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand”. Russell (1975:260) defines western masculine characteristics as including aggression, force, power, strength, dominance, competitiveness and virility. Masculinity depends on its opposite: femininity which is described as including traits like submissiveness, passivity, weakness, and masochism (Russell 1975:268). In this essay I will focus on the feminine traits of masochism and submissiveness, and the masculine “virility mystique” to show how these are created and reproduced in pornography, and as such lead to rape. Pornography is the most extreme method by which harmful gender roles are created and reproduced, and can therefore be seen to cause the prevalence of the extreme sexist practices of rape and prostitution. I will also address how dominant discourses in society serve to systematically disempower female rape victims and silence their voices. Dworkin (Evans 1991) argues that there is a need to hear the victim’s stories in order to get beyond the intellectual argument. One cannot do justice to the issues involved without listening to the victim’s voices, as the nature of the violation of rape is not well enough known (Brison 1998:15). In order to illustrate my argument effectively I will therefore use my own experience of acquaintance rape.

The depiction of femininity as inherently masochistic has existed for centuries. Daly (1978:66) describes how men fabricate the plot of women needing to “lose their self in order to find it” through pain and self-denial which recurs throughout history in the form of feminine Christian masochism, devotion to Higher Causes, or through the torture of S and M rituals. This has led to the perception of some that rape can be a liberating experience for women (Wood 1975:199). Early male theorists such as Freud, Ellis and Kraft-Ebing argued that female desire was inherently masochistic and that females have a love of force (Sanday 1996). In this way, sadomasochism is seen as the extreme versions of masculine (as the sado) and feminine (as the masochist) traits (Sanday 1996:126). Ellis argued that women say ‘no’ to turn both themselves and men on more (Sanday 1996:126). Masochism, like all feminine characteristics, is a man-made construct, which serves to describe the woman’s will as what men wish it was (Dworkin 1997:127). This is exemplified in pornography, where women are shown to love penetration, especially violent penetration. Pornography depicts the normal woman as demanding force, violence, and pain (Dworkin 1981:165). In this way, women resisting sex is seen as part of the female game in which they desire to be overcome (Russell 1975:258). This leads to the assertion that women are so inherently masochistic that rape can be a pleasurable event. Thus the victim is blamed for unconsciously taking unnecessary risks and placing herself in dangerous situations in order to provoke men to rape her (Wood 1975:200). Such depictions of femininity lead to the justification of rape and prostitution (where the prostitute is seen to enjoy and choose her ‘profession’), in addition to blaming the victim and silencing her voice.

Dworkin (1981:167) has argued that men believe what pornography says about women. Louis was an average guy, who got lucky with a school-girl he met in the state library who agreed to go on an overnight camping trip with him. I knew that there would be sex involved, and thought that I needed the experience so that I would be good enough in bed when my boyfriend finally made the move. However, the sex was not what I expected it to be. Louis never bothered much with foreplay, or with pleasuring me. Instead, he violently penetrated me in all three holes: mouth, vagina and anus. He had a large penis and I was a virgin, so the pain involved for me was almost unbearable. Louis slapped my bottom and was rough while he fucked me, occasionally saying things like, “you like that, don’t you, you dirty slut?”. I believe that he thought that I was enjoying myself, and that I wanted what he wanted me to like: violent penetration and dominance. Jeffreys (1997) describes the popularity of ‘3-Hole’ prostitutes or brothels, and how women are shown to desire ‘3-Hole’ penetration in their mouth, vagina and anus (sometimes simultaneously) in pornography. It is clear that Louis, whether he watched pornography or not, was influenced by the discourse of women being inherently masochistic and desiring pain and force in sex.

Femininity is based on submission. Freud argued that the more passive a woman is, the more feminine she is, and the more the man is turned on (Sanday 1996:130). Ideas that women are essentially passionless and that normal women have little sexual desire have been dominant in western history. In addition, women are taught not to fight, and not to learn how. This causes women to become afraid to fight a man off as they become unduly intimidated by the rapist through lifelong conditioning to be submissive (Russell 1975:268). Rape victims are then blamed by men (and women) for not making their non-consent clear enough. As a result of this, in all states in Australia except for Victoria, if a man is found to have honestly believed there was consent then he must be acquitted (Bronitt & McSherry 2005:592). In addition, some women have been oppressed so thoroughly that they do not clarify their desire not to have sex, and so are not recognised by the legal system as rape victims. Rather than try to resist sex, women often do not make their feelings clear because of their conditioning to be submissive, or because they do not want to be accused of leading the man on (Russell 1975:272). Finally, women are often ‘broken’ by their rape to become totally docile and submissive after (and during) the act. Dworkin (1981) describes some examples of pornography that depict the white woman as the totally submissive woman. White women are predominantly portrayed in pornography, and they become the standard for all other women (Dworkin 1981:164). The rape victim arguably fills the most passive and submissive role of all.

When Louis pulled up in the car park to pick me up, I knew that it was all a mistake and that I did not want to get into that car. However, I reasoned to myself that I had gotten myself in this situation and could not back out now. I did not want to be a ‘tease’. Instead I resigned myself to counting down the hours until it would all be over, and concentrating on surviving until then. It was easier for me to shut myself down than it was to resist. Later, while he put up the tent I was filled with a sick dread and panic, because I could not see a way out and I did not know how to avoid what was coming. While he fucked me, I tried to float away, and distract myself with day-dreams. Louis kept on fucking me for what seemed like forever, and sometimes it would get so painful that I could not ignore what was happening, and then I tried to temporarily die inside, so that I felt nothing. This feeling of being totally helpless, and passive continues to overwhelm me at times. I did not tell anybody about what happened for years because I was so embarrassed that I had caused such a dangerous situation. Because of my passive way of dealing with the situation, I did not state clearly that I did not want to have sex. I blamed myself for the situation because of the narrow definition of rape. My example is one which demonstrates how rape discourses disadvantage the most oppressed women of all - those who are so submissive they can not say ‘no’.

An aspect of masculinity that dominates in pornography and leads to rape and prostitution is what Russell (1975) coins the virility mystique. The sexual socialisation of men trains them to separate desire from caring, respecting, liking, or loving (Russell 1975:263). This can cause them to regard women as sexual objects, rather than full human beings (Russell 1975:263). Dworkin (1997:129) argues that even pornography without visible violence is cruel because of the sexualisation and dehumanisation of the women that in effect tells them that they are worth nothing, and are only good to be penetrated. In addition, Jeffreys (1997:3) argues that men’s behaviour in choosing to use prostitutes is socially constructed by the idea that the woman exists to be used, and that this is an appropriate way to use her. Rape is justified by men believing that they have the right to have sex with women whether the woman wants to or not, because that is her natural function. In addition, this training to separate sex from love means that men are able to get sexual satisfaction from fucking a nameless, faceless, and as such worthless, woman. Louis made me feel like I was just an available cunt (or mouth, or anus) by making me give him oral sex while he drove the car, and by calling me a bitch and a whore while he fucked me. For two years afterwards I regarded my body as only useful to be fucked by men. A couple of times I was picked up by men in strange cars to have ‘consensual’ sex with them. This clearly shows how the dehumanising of women encouraged by masculinity, exemplified in pornography, leads to rape and prostitution.

Pornography is not the only institution that creates and reinforces gender roles that cause the prevalence of rape and prostitution. There is a strong backlash against radical feminist arguments in the media and academia. I will focus on the backlash against the move to expand the definition of rape to include all non-consensual sex. Katie Roiphe is one of the backlash bestsellers, with her book The Morning After (1993). In her chapter on acquaintance rape, Roiphe systematically undermines the radical feminist position and contests statistics on the prevalence of rape (see Russell (2000) and Dragiewicz (2000) for an extensive critique of backlash techniques). Dominant discourses “prescribe the boundaries of the lives we might imagine and will ourselves to live” (Dragiewicz 2000:197). Dominant discourses on rape serve to maintain the dominant power relations by attempting to define what rape is and isn’t, while silencing alternative discourses on rape, gender roles, and sexual norms (Dragiewicz 2000:217). In this way, dominant discourses on rape and the widespread acceptance of rape myths (such as all rapists are psychopaths, or rape victims are ‘bad’ women) serve to cause women not to recognise that they are victims of rape, despite the trauma that they may suffer (Russell 1975:259). Language is central to individual attempts to understand and communicate our experiences (Dragiewicz 2000:216). My experience of rape is a good example of this.

Despite the trauma that I continue to suffer, I am only now beginning to lay most of the blame on Louis. I remain uncertain in naming my experience rape, as I do not want to exaggerate my experience when there are other rape victims who seem to deserve the definition more. I am afraid of not taking enough responsibility. In my eagerness to blame myself, I never realised that what happened could have been rape. I forgot that I was under the consent age and that Louis was 11 years older than me (I was 15, Louis was 26). I forgot that Louis had the power, and he abused it by humiliating me and fucking me without giving any pleasure back. It must have been obvious to Louis that I was hurting, but he never asked, and he never checked if I still wanted to have sex. The fact that I forgot these important facts demonstrates the power of dominant discourses of gender roles in silencing the victims of sexual abuse. There is no vocabulary for expressing the many varied experiences of rape, and the result is that victims blame themselves, and others are silent, or also blame the victim (Brison 1998:20). Feminism provides the tools for creating new discourses that give victims the language to express their experiences, and to alleviate their blame with an analysis of wider structural pressures. Feminism has taught me that no man has the right to use his power over me to ‘have’ me or humiliate me in the way Louis did.

Possible solutions to the problems gender roles create proposed by radical feminists are many and varied. Jeffreys (1997), Russell (1975) and Dworkin (1997) all argue that rape, pornography and prostitution are an abuse of power, and therefore there is a need to get rid of power differences between the sexes. In addition, from my above examples of how gender roles cause harm towards women it is clear that the roles of masculinity and femininity in the West need to be challenged. Russell (1975) argues that a sex-role liberation would mix the elements of masculinity and femininity together, so that certain characteristics that create and reproduce power differences are not only ascribed to women nor men. In order to debunk rape myths and give victims a voice and language to express their experiences, a consent based concept of rape needs to be developed (Dragiewicz 2000:217). This has been implemented in NSW with all non-consensual sexual acts being classified as Sexual Assault or Sexual Harassment (Bronitt & McSherry 2005:604). Finally, as pornography is the most extreme and harmful institution that is creating and promoting gender roles, it must be heavily regulated both in Australia and internationally. This could include allowing only pornography that does not entrench inequality, possible trade sanctions against countries who do not regulate pornography, or heavy taxes on pornography that use the money raised to combat related problems. Internet jamming such as flooding the net with false pornography postings that cut to graphic descriptions of the problems caused by pornography would also be effective in fighting the industry.

Pornography, in its representations of gender roles, socialises men to rape and use prostitutes. Without that socialisation, it is not inevitable that men will rape. I believe that there is the possibility of real change, because if we can change the institutions that create and reinforce gender roles, men will cease to have the same kind of sexual pleasure in dominating and objectifying women. Dworkin (1981:23) illustrates this connection between the patriarchy, male violence, and sex: “the conquering of the woman is acted out in fucking, her possession, her use as a thing, which is the scenario that is endlessly repeated, with or without direct reference to fucking, throughout the culture”. The connections between pornography, rape, and prostitution were illustrated in my experience. The discourses of pornography influenced my experience of rape, which made me feel like a prostitute, while my socialisation into femininity stole my voice so that not only did I not resist, but I blamed myself for my own rape. Continuing to disregard or treat as inevitable the epidemic of rape and sexual victimisation of women is gender discrimination, especially while the resources exist to stop it.

Bibliography

Bourque, Linda Brookover. “Feminist Theory and Victims of Rape.” In Defining Rape, 14-20. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1989.

Brison, Susan J. “Surviving Sexual Violence: A Philosophical Perspective.” In Violence Against Women: Philosophical Perspectives, edited by Standley G. French, Wanda Teays and Laura M. Purdy, 11-26. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998.

Bronitt, Simon, and Bernadette McSherry. “Sexual Offences.” In Principles of Criminal Law. 2nd Ed, 545-630. Pyrmont: Thomson Lawbook Co., 2005.

Chancer, Lynn S. “Victim Feminism or No Feminism?” In Reconcilable differences: Confronting Beauty, Pornography, and the Future of Feminism, 229-240. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1998.

Daly, Mary. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon Press, 1978.

Dragiewicz, Molly. “Women’s Voices, Women’s Words: Reading Acquaintance Rape Discourse.” In Feminist Interpretations of Mary Daly, edited by Sarah Lucia Hoagland and Marilyn Frye, 194-221. Pennslyvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.

Dworkin, Andrea. Life and Death. New York and London: The Free Press, 1997.

Dworkin, Andrea. Pornography: Men Possessing Women. London: The Woman’s Press Ltd., 1981.

Evans, David. Against Pornography [videorecording]: The Feminism of Andrea Dworkin. BBC, 1991.

Jeffreys, Sheila. “Conclusion: universalising prostitution.” In The Idea of Prostitution, 339-348. Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 1997.

Jeffreys, Sheila. “Introduction.” In The Idea of Prostitution, 1-6. Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 1997.

Roiphe, Katie. “The Rape Crisis, or ‘Is Dating Dangerous?’.” In The Morning After: Sex Fear, and Feminism on Campus, 51-84. Boston and New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1993.

Russell, Diana E.H. “Rape and the Feminine Mystique.” In The Politics of Rape: The Victim’s Perspective, 266-275. New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1975.

Russell, Diana E.H. “Rape and the Masculine Mystique.” In The Politics of Rape: The Victim’s Perspective, 257-265. New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1975.

Russell, Diana E.H. “Sexual Liberation without Sex-Role Liberation Can Get You Raped.” In The Politics of Rape: The Victim’s Perspective, 208-220. New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1975.

Russell, Diana E.H. “Conclusion.” In The Epidemic of Rape and Child Sexual Abuse in the United States, edited by Diana E.H. Russell and Rebecca M. Bolen, 239-267. London and New Delhi: Sage Publications Inc., 2000.

Sanday, Peggy Reeves. “Construction of Modern Sexual Stereotypes.” In A Woman Scorned: Acquaintance Rape on Trial, 121-139. New York and London: Doubleday, 1996.

Schwendinger, Julia R. and Herman Schwendinger. “Radical Feminist Theories.” In Rape and Inequality, 77-90. Beverly Hills, London and New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1983.

Winter, Bronwyn, Denise Thompson and Sheila Jeffreys. “The UN Approach to Harmful Traditional Practices.” International Feminist Journal of Politics. Vol. 4. No. 1 (April 2002): pp.72-94.

Wood, Pamela Lakes. “The Victim in a Forcible Rape Case: A Feminist View.” In Rape Victimology, edited by Leroy G. Schultz, 194-220. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 1975.

by Gertrude Green

I have been studying fanfiction and slash fanfiction from a radical feminist perspective for several years now, and these definitions are the culmination of much reading, writing and thinking on the subject. I believe understanding the phenomenon of fanfiction and slash fanfiction within a radical feminist framework is extremely important, due to the sheer numbers of women who are now engaged in this kind of fan culture, and also because the current dominant understanding of fan writing is inaccurate, pronouncing fanfiction and slash fanfiction as radical and progressive, when in fact fan culture is highly conservative, and bolsters and propagates male supremacist ideas.

Thanks to allecto, Dragort and Demonista for many intelligent and helpful comments on my earlier slash essays, and for listening to me go on and on about this subject. I am probably still not finished with it.

Fanfiction – Fanfiction is a conservative and worshipful genre of writing, increasingly dominated by women, which involves writing original stories based on texts that are already in existence, for example, novels, movies, TV shows etc. Some popular fandoms include those of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, Stargate, Buffy and Pirates of the Caribbean, though there are many more as well. Prior to the existence of the internet, fanfiction writers were only a small part of the wider phenomenon of fan culture, partly because it was very difficult to effectively distribute fanfiction to large audiences, with the most common method pre-internet being the publication and sale of small fanzines. These days, however, most fanfiction is published on the internet, easily accessible to thousands of people all over the world, which has encouraged the exponential growth of fanfiction and has also led to the development of countless online fanfiction communities. Fanfic writers pride themselves on their respect for and fidelity to their original source material, and in their writing they rarely, if ever, do anything that questions or contradicts the ideologies underwriting the original texts. As, in most cases, these original texts are steeped in patriarchal ideologies, this means that fanfiction, likewise, is strongly patriarchal and almost always woman-hating, despite the fact that women are now the main authors of fanfiction.

Slash Fanfiction – Slash fanfiction is a sub-genre of fanfiction, though it is increasingly coming to dominate fanfiction as a whole, that takes characters, generally male, from books, movies, etc., and portrays them as being in homosexual relationships with each other. Slash is almost always written and read by heterosexual women. Pre-internet, slash fanfiction was only a tiny sub-section of the fanfiction community, being written by small groups of women at a time when most other kinds of fanfiction were male dominated. (This is no longer the case in contemporary times; I would say that now women are the main authors of all the different sorts of fanfiction). Like other kinds of fanfiction, slash experienced a huge explosion in size and popularity with the advent of the internet, so much so that it has now practically become the norm of fanfiction, whereas ‘general’ or ‘gen’ fanfiction (as non-slash writing is usually called) has declined.

There is a basic misconception about slash writing, shared both by those who participate in the genre, and academics who have written analyses of the phenomenon. It is believed that slash writers often bring to the surface the ‘gay subtext’ or ‘homoerotic subtext’ that exists in a given text by portraying male characters who are ostensibly heterosexual in the original as being ‘gay’ in their fanfiction. Most usually, two male characters who are ‘friends’ in the original text will be portrayed as being in a ‘gay relationship’ in slash. However, as radical feminists have long known, erotically charged homosocialism has always been a necessary fixture of male supremacist and heterosexual culture. Men can only view other men as human, and it is therefore perfectly logical for men to develop deep, complex and even erotic relationships with each other, whilst still being ‘heterosexual’ to maintain sexual and emotional dominance over women, since, under patriarchy, sexual relationships can only follow a dominance/submission model, and most men hardly want to give up their right to the position of dominance over women by ‘turning’ gay. (Although, of course, gay men continue to be dominant over women in other ways).

So what slash writers are actually doing is merely recognising the homosocialism that exists in film and literature, as well as everywhere else in our society. To say they are drawing out a ‘gay subtext,’ and to attempt to attach revolutionary potential to this act is highly inaccurate, since homosocialism is one of the foundation stones of male supremacy, and fanfic authors who endorse and strengthen the homosocial relationships of male fictional characters by portraying them as homosexual are committing an act in support of patriarchy, not against it. (Even though these authors are unknowingly breaking social taboos by recognising that erotically charged homosocialism between men exists in the first place).

Nevertheless, slash is still often disguised as, or mistaken for, radical feminist rewriting, or at least radical rewriting of some kind, and I would like to explicate in more detail why this is simply not the case. Like fanfiction (see above), slash fanfiction is a conservative genre written by women who conform to patriarchal ways of thinking, and which is characterized by lesbophobia, homophobia, woman-hatred and severe phallocentricity, both in terms of its erotic content and intellectual ideas. The same-sex male relationships portrayed in slash stories are usually thinly veiled versions of heterosexual relationships, with one character taking on masculine characteristics and the other feminine, and with the ensuing power imbalances and abusive and destructive behaviours that result from this. Sex is generally portrayed pornographically, with an emphasis on penetration, force and pain, and the overwhelming/uncontrollable need the masculine character has for the feminine character, and the feminine character’s need to be needed by the masculine character in order to have a legitimate identity. Descriptions of sex tend to focus only on the physical side of the encounter, using an excess of violent imagery, and with characters often reduced to a collection of sexualized body parts devoid of emotions or humanity. Furthermore, the same-sex male relationships portrayed in most slash stories have a use-by date: sooner or later most of the characters ‘turn’ heterosexual and get married, it apparently being beyond the ability of most slash writers to imagine anyone actually choosing a non-heterosexual identity permanently. It is evidence of in-built lesbophobia and homophobia, since this use-by date mentality means that same sex relationships in slash are generally portrayed as being illegitimate, transient, unstable, and not able to last. Only heterosexual relationships are capable of doing that, apparently. (As evidenced in the real world by 50% divorce statistics).

Female characters often do not appear in slash stories at all, and if they do, they are portrayed as vapid, stupid, cold, calculating, grasping, unfairly demanding, physically disgusting, and generally lacking in any desire at all except for an overwhelming need to get married and have children. Women’s sexual desires are never mentioned, and presumably do not exist. No hint of lesbianism is ever permitted.

In the final analysis, women who write slash are not seeking to resist or disrupt patriarchal ideas; on the contrary, they are the disciples of Male Artists, and the slash they write is written in homage to their male idols, whether that be Joss Whedon, Gene Roddenberry, Peter Jackson, J.R.R. Tolkien or any other number of men whose primary goal is to bolster patriarchy and male supremacy in all its ugly forms. This makes it impossible for slash to be in any way a revolutionary or transformative genre of writing. Stories which engage critically with men and their works should therefore not be called slash, or fanfiction, but more rightly Radical Feminist Rewriting (see below).

The Psychology of Slash – The psychology of how and why women come to write slash fanfiction goes something like this. There are thousands of women, all over the world, who, thanks to our wonderful friend male supremacy, cannot relate to themselves as women. They can only relate to men, because only men are considered to be fully human. So they fall in love with the heroes of film and literature, and the ‘geniuses’ who create these texts, and they fool themselves into believing that these men speak universal truths, that they are speaking to everybody and about everybody, women included, when of course they are not, they are only speaking to men in the language of male supremacy that is death and poison to women.

In the cases of some women, usually educated, western women, this worship takes the form of fanfiction, even slash. Imagine it. Thousands of women, all around the world, writing millions of words about the trials and tribulations of men, laying their offerings humbly at the feet of their hundreds of male cultural gurus. Truly it is a terrifying thought.

Slash comes about because women under patriarchy cannot recognise their own sexual desires, or the possibility of a female-centric sexuality, and they therefore take to writing erotic stories about homosexual men as a way to deal with and relieve all of those sexual desires they supposedly don’t have, though of course, the very existence and popularity of slash proves the existence of female sexual desire, albeit a female sexual desire that is still trapped within patriarchal (non)understanding.

The second great irony of slash is that most women who read and write slash are not only heterosexual, but defensively so. Despite writing about gay men, and sometimes claiming to be ‘for gay rights’ (whatever that means), most women involved in slash communities would choke in horror if they were ever to be mistaken for, or tainted as, lesbian, and on their blogs etc. they are often at pains to point out that, yes, they greatly enjoy the idea of men together (because, you know, they’re heterosexual and they like men), but they are not in the least turned on by the idea of two women together, and therefore never, never, never, never, ever, read female/female fanfiction (which does exist, in very small amounts). Yet what do we have with slash fanfiction? Hundreds and hundreds of heterosexual women writing erotic stories for each other in order to turn one another on…is it just me, or is that starting to sound a bit lesbian?

It should also be noted that the women who read and write slash are surprisingly diverse. They do tend to have some factors in common, like generally being well educated and well off economically, these two factors combining to mean they are often also white, they are almost always heterosexual, and they are generally living in western countries where it is easy to access technology like computers and the internet. But other than this, women in slash communities can be married or single, old or young, conservative Christians or progressive liberals. Slash is friend to them all, and I think its very appeal to different women across these divides is further evidence of its ultimately conservative nature. Speaking personally, I have read essays in which slash is interpreted as radical and progressive; as feminist; as pro-homosexuality; and even as disseminating Christian values; it just depends on which part of the patriarchal spectrum the woman reading/writing the genre has allied herself to. But the fact that these women engage with slash in the first place in and of itself is proof that it does not contradict their internalised patriarchal ideologies, as most women invested in patriarchal ways of thinking manage very efficiently to avoid material that has the potential to meaningfully challenge their patriarchal allegiance. Therefore, slash does not do these things.

Radical Feminist Rewriting – taking characters, events and/or scenarios from literature, history and/or legend which are portrayed misogynistically, and rewriting and reimagining those characters and/or events in a radically feminist way. Radical Feminist Rewriting differs essentially from fanfiction and slash fanfiction in that it critically engages with the original text, for example by denouncing patriarchal assumptions, reclaiming poorly portrayed female characters, reinterpreting the meaning of events and situations in the text in feminist ways, and reclaiming male characters by making them the allies of women and feminism. (These are just some examples of how one might go about Radical Feminist Rewriting. There are many other ways).

There are examples of Radical Feminist Rewriting in published literature as well as on the internet. Published novels include those like Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) by Jean Rhys, which reclaims the mad woman from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847); Rebecca’s Tale (2001) by Sally Beauman, which reclaims the ‘evil’ Rebecca from Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (1938); Alias Grace (1996) by Margaret Atwood which reinterprets the historical Canadian figure of Grace Marks; and a number of short stories in Isobelle Carmody’s collection Green Monkey Dreams (1996) that involve feminist rewritings of fairytales.

Some examples of Radical Feminist Rewriting that can be found on Spinning Spinsters are Water Lilies in Her Hair, my own reinterpretation of Tom Bombadil’s and Goldberry’s supposedly ‘happy’ marriage from J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (1954-1955), and allecto’s stories The Blood of Women and Lot’s Wife, which critically engage with Greek myths and Christian myths respectively.

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