Day: February 26, 2018

Lyrics from “I’m Not a Loser” by The Descendents

Though these are lyrics to a song, I chose them as a visual element due to their poignant resonance when taken out of context on a lyrics sheet. The lyrics to “I’m Not a Loser” exemplify the heteronormative, queerphobic, cis narrative of early US hardcore punk, pairing aggressive, outward lyrics with simplistic and fast instrumentation to get the words across as feelings more than poetry. This is a good example of sexual panic, though, because of how the words (both in the music and out) represent genuine fear on the part of a straight, cis, man of queer people who pose no threat other than having sexual lifestyles that deviate from the supposed norm. To impressionable high school-aged kids (the age at which I began enjoying this music before noticing the very queerphobic tendencies), these words fly by in a song but have power to queer listeners when presented on paper.

On another note, words like “gay” and “homos” being used to discuss strictly sexual feelings erases homoromanticism and subsequently asexual tendencies from the narrative. This is seen through the usage of “your pants are too tight” and “Mr. Buttfuck”, limiting queerness to supposed stereotypes and sexual roles that are harmful in this context due to their supposed threat to the narrator.

REFERENCE

The Descendents. “I’m Not a Loser.” 1982. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiltQYlNot0

 

The above photograph depicts one protest as a part of the feminist anti-pornography movement. This directly relates to Rubin’s term “sex panic” due to the moral, social, and political panic that was happening around the porn industry. The moral panic of pornography was that children would be subjected to these pornographic images and that pornography is objectifying to women. Further, the right does not support pornography due to their belief in family values and the use of sex for procreation. This resulted in multiple protests and calls for legislation to prevent pornography.

Asexuality complicates this objection of pornography because asexuality does not conform to sexual hierarchical roles and can be seen as deviant. At the same time, asexuality is a lack of sexual behavior and therefore would likely not partake in the watching of or production of pornography.

Image from http://www.ownzee.com/cschmid

Gayle Rubin, “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” in Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality , ed. Carole S. Vance (Boston: Routledge,1992), 143-172.

Ela Przybylo, “Introducing Asexuality, Unthinking Sex,” in Introducing the New Sexuality Studies , 3rd ed., eds. Nancy L. Fischer and Steven Seidman (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), 181-189.

 In focusing on “Less Birth Control More Self-Control” which is the first thing that jumps out, it is implying that women need to control and restrain themselves and their bodies from engaging in sex. This image contains a variety of larger societal implications and relates directly to the concept of “sex panic” as it serves as propaganda for women to prevent themselves from expressing their sexuality. The image also attempts to attack women and accuses them for being killers as it also serves as an anti- abortion and blames their lack of control. This image displaying “sex panic” might have been something imposed by the Church as it is a potential way to implement some sort of control by invoking a sense of shame or guilt in women when it comes to their sexuality.

Asexuality complicates the heteronormative message of this image.  Its focal point is on the what Przybylo would call the “centralization of sex and sexuality in Western contexts” (Pryzbylo, Chapter 21).  Sex, as explained in the text, is “used in the service of building intimacy and creating and maintaining social bonds” (Pryzbylo, Chapter 21).  This image portrays the dominant narrative of Western heterosexuality and that women should only be having sex with men if it is for the purposes of procreation and condemns women having sex simply for pleasure. Asexuality disrupts this pervasive narrative as there is no sexual inclination, hence, self-control is not an issue nor is it even existent when it comes to asexuality.

Sources:

Image, “Less Birth Control More Self-Control.” Life News, www.lifenews.com/2014/01/27/black-media-shills-for-big-abortion-planned-parenthood/.

Ela Przybylo, Introducing Asexuality, Unthinking Sex.

I believe that the image presented here perfectly exemplifies what Gayle Rubin termed “sex panic.” In Rubin’s own terms, “Right-wing opposition to sex education, homosexuality, pornography, abortion, and premarital sex moved from the fringes to the political center stage after 1977, when right-wing strategists and fundamentalist religious crusaders discovered that these issues had mass appeal.” It is exactly this opposition to sex education and anti-homosexual sentiment (as well as media sensationalism) that led to the misidentification of this flag of dildos and sex toys as an ISIS flag. It is essentially the stigma against the erotic that caused this misidentification, and demonstrates the true nature of “sex panic.” However, Rubin’s arguments about sex panic are entirely hinged upon the Western emphasis on the “sexual imperative,” as Ela Przybylo puts it. There is no mention of asexual erasure, e.g. insisting that asexuality cannot exist, or that the asexual experience is not valid. The image I present is innately sexual as the objects depicted on the flag are for the sole purpose of sexual acts. This complicates sex panic in the context of everyone within society as not everyone in society has sexually driven thoughts and / or feelings. 

 

Asexuality and The Sexual Imperative: An Interview with Ela Przybylo

Thinking Sex