Fashion Week: The Corset Tightens

I grow tired of pictures of human corsets, so here's the latest Bert pic. He's almost four months old now and knows 3 parlor tricks, one of which is space flight.

I know I promised to complain about tiny handbags today, but something's come up. Specifically, a nice comment left by Nassoid on yesterday's Intro To Fashion Week post. So we'll just clear up this little matter, shall we, and then it's on to the fluff!

Yep, I was anticipating the argument that, by offering a critique of the influences of patriarchal hegemony on the behavior of women, I am "patronizing" them. What took you so long, Nassoid?

Nassoid, correctly deducing that I take a dim view of the corset-piercing depicted in the post (a photo so disturbing it made at least two commenters cry, so click at your own risk), wonders if I am not doing women a disservice by suggesting that patriarchy denies them "agency." Women, asserts Nassoid (I paraphrase), are not dumb-bunnies. They are perfectly able to choose what they do with their bodies without any condescension from the spinster aunt camp. "It feels," she says, "like you're characterising a vast group of women as mindless consumer drones, rather than people capable of making their own choices, on the basis that you purport to understand their choices better than they themselves do."

To which I reply, I sympathize, but don't shoot the messenger. Within a system where males dominate a subordinate female sex class,  women's agency is extremely limited. Without full human status, "choice" is an illusion.

A brief review: male dominant culture wouldn't be the superstar it is today without its closely regulated sex class, a class that is rewarded most lavishly when costumed for convenient male titillation. Feminine drag--high heels, corsets, "one-size-slimmer-tummy-technology," tight jeans, tube tops, push-up bras, miniskirts, pantyhose, handbags et al, as the uniform of the subordinate sex class, identifies (a) a woman's subordinate status and (b) her degree of sexual availability. To facilitate male titillation, minute variations within this rigidly enforced dress code--say, a pair of red Candies vs. a pair of alligator Manolos-- conveniently locate the individual within her particular sexbot caste (in this case, redneck ho vs. summer house in the Hamptons). Thus a horndog can tell at a glance whether his object is easy or expensive or chaste or kinky or straight or hard-to-get or an indie rocker or, I suppose, even a spinster aunt.

In male dominant culture, "kinky" is the most prized of all the sexbot sub-classes. Kinky women express the greatest and most dude-affirming allegiance to male supremacy by their willingness to endure the most pain for the dubious pleasure of gratifying male horndoggitude. The better a woman titillates, the better her fortunes are likely to be, and no woman titillates more successfully than one who enthusiastically embraces sadistic male fetishes. I am aware that the body-mod gang are convinced of the supposed transgressive and rebellious nature of their lifestyle, but corset-piercing--a masochistic riff on a primitive misogynist torture device--can only be construed by this spinster aunt as an example of extreme conformity and obeisance to patriarchal oppression.

Clothing--and I mean all clothing, not just the get-ups people use for sexin' it up--clothing itself is invested (there's a pun for young Mandos) with highly symbolic, connotative qualities that reach vastly beyond its primary function as protection from the elements. These connotations inevitably point to some popular fantasy (damsel, hippie, 18th century poet) or widely recognized caste (art student, small-town Wal-Mart granny). Because every outfit comes preloaded with cultural narrative, clothes cannot possibly proclaim "individuality." I assert that, because every human specimen who is not an identical twin is already phenotypically and genetically unique right out of the box, clothing serves only to mask one's natural differences with a display of allegiance, homage, and conformity to the group with which the putative rugged individualist wishes to identify. This is as true of soccer moms as it is of bod-mod chicks. A tattoo doesn't make you an iconoclast, it makes you one of those people with a tattoo.

I further assert that sadomasochism, which glorifies like no other -ism the dominance/submission dynamic, represents the absolute zenithical epitome of patriarchal ideology. Which would be no big whoop if patriarchy were the bee's knees, but  I further further assert that S&M is a totally bogus practice because patriarchal ideology sucks the bag.

A few of you have wondered what I suggest in terms of the patriarchy-blamer's value-neutral wardrobe. Sadly, if my hypothesis is correct, such duds do not exist. Feminism cannot seem to counteract the intoxicating effects of male domination. In our culture it is the moral duty of every woman to be "sexy", and her value remains tied to her success in this painful endeavor. You're either "sexy" or you're a schlub. Fucking patriarchy. I blame it, I do.

Comments

[Nassoid]

Slightly immature, but hurray I have a post sort of about me, or at least mentioning me! I'm also about to go home, but I (surprisingly) don't think your argument is entirely fair to my point of view so, work permitting, I'll try and say something else tomorrow.

[Rene]

This whole question of agency has been on my mind a lot lately, and I've been hoping that you'd write about Lynndie England, who, as I'm sure you know, was just found guilty. Her defense, such as it was -- that she was just some susceptible little idiot in thrall to her Svengali boyfriend -- always made me squeamish, and I'm not sure why. I felt a grim satisfaction when she was convicted, even though I realize that she's just another scapegoat/grunt. Maybe I felt that way because the alternative is worse -- that she's not a sadistic moron, like the rest of the Abu Ghraib crew, but a lovesick robot incapable of thinking for herself? If I were a better feminist, would I have some sympathy for that fucking troll and try to find a way to blame the equally hideous Graney as the embodiment of the patriarchy? I don't know. I can still blame the patriarchy, of course, because the military couldn't exist in its current incarnation without it, but I blame Lynndie England, too. Maybe I can't be a true feminist because I hate people in general.

Bert is really, really cute, though. Those sly black-rimmed eyes get me every time!

Rene

[norbizness]

Now I remember why I dropped that sociology class back in the day.

[WookieMonster]

Blaming the patriarchy seems to me to have a lot to do with seeing the bigger picture. Without considering the causes and consequences of your actions you are merely reacting, not making conscious decisions to act. Fasion as a reactions can feel empowering, but there are all of those unconsidered causes and consequences that are acting like a ground, draining all of your actual power away before it has a chance to harm the patriarchy.

Deja Pseu quoted this in the last thread, but it bears repeating: "when you find you're choosing what the patriarchy is pushing, it's a good thing to sometimes stop and ask yourself why."

[Josef K]

So, Twisty, what do you actually wear? A few commenters asked "so how do you solve the problem?" in response to the most recent post, but my question is less ambitious and more answerable.

I spent too much time today trying to create an 18th-century man's costume from charity shop odds and ends, and I'm totally blaming the patriarchy for that crap.

[Twisty]

Oh, Lynndie England's a douchebag, all right, although I don't think any more so than her Cro-Magnon cohorts. I certainly believe it is possible to be brainwashed by a Svengali, but somehow the notion of England as Graner's mousy minion doesn't jive with the exhilaration she expresses in the infamous photo. She clearly is deriving no small satisfaction from her work.

But really, aren't all those fuckers in thrall to the military? Aren't they, in fact, precisely what the military wants? You aren't going to find too many fine, upstanding, sensitive, hearty American youths who are willing to commit the necessary atrocities.

The whole Abu gang should be in prison, if you ask me, starting with Bush and Rumsfeld. And what the hell, throw in the Svengaliest of'em all, Karl Rove.

There's nothing wrong with a little grim satisfaction in my book. Although, as I discovered in a recent post expressing same with regard to the beheaded Saudi rapists, some people don't like hearing about it.

And I speak from experience when I say it is completely possible to be a feminist and hate people in general. I wouldn't know about being a good feminist, though. I think one of the prerequisites of goodness is, you have to not hate people.

[Hissy Cat]

I'm wondering, Twisty, where men who dress sexy for other men fit into all this? I'm with you on the whole fashion-is-not-empowerment deal, but what about gay men who wear fashoinably tight jeans or who cross-dress in high-heels and minis? Where do they fit into the Twisty analysis?

[res publica]

What a great post. 'Because every outfit comes preloaded with cultural narrative, clothes cannot possibly proclaim "individuality."' is precisely what I wish I'd said. Just try and tell someone that, though. I am constantly amazed at how committed people are (still!) to the concept of their own precious specialness as manifested through their clothing, jewelry, tattoos, piercings, and greenish-black lipstick ("Nobody Understands" by MAC). I know you know, too, because you live in Austin, galactic headquarters of the Terminally Different and Misunderstood.

And as much as today's glossy, skanky neo-feminists love to ignore it, this is a real issue. As a man, I can just not care about clothes and more or less get away with it. I'm a "technology professional" so people expect me to look like a "dork" anyway, and it's completely possible to shop only at Target and still look employable, if not totally great. But I suspect that the long-term socioeconomic consequences are rather severe for women who choose not to play dress-up. It depends somewhat on your profession, I suppose. I guess a female truck driver can wear sweats to work every day. On the other hand, places like sales and upper management are heavily oriented toward appearance (specifically, the appearance of being a highly-disciplined-yet-still-nasty sexbot). I don’t know how far you’d get in that world without towing the line. And most workplaces are probably somewhere between. IT is a great example of a double-standard in this regard. There is no female equivalent of the bearded Unix hippie who is excused from wearing deodorant because he’s such an awesome shell programmer. If you see an unshaven, stinky woman in your office, you call security.

Anyway, I’d also like to express strong agreement with the statement that patriarchal ideology sucks the bag. And I wish I’d said that, too. *sigh*

[Hissy Cat]

Also, cute puppy!

[Twisty]

In response to the urgent query re: my personal wardrobe, I own eleven incarnations of the same outfit, one of which I wear every day. The Twisty uniform consists of a pair of baggy "men's" (for the pockets!) hiking shorts made from some technical fabric that air-dries in about 2 minutes and is made out of recycled soda bottles, an organic cotton T-shirt, and a $2 pair of rubber flip-flops. I have it easier than some, I admit, since I neither work in an office nor give a fuck if people want to sleep with me within 30 seconds of meeting me.

[Q Grrl]

Hissy Cat: gay men are already empowered within the patriarchal/gendered hierarchy in ways that women aren't. Gay men dressing up or dressing sexy for other men is, IMO, a completely different paradigm -- even if there is a particular power imbalance or dynamic within individual gay relationships, gay men have an ability to step outside of that imbalance in the larger society. It is the inverse for women, if even that.

[Twisty]

Poor Norbizness. He only reads this blog for the taco-porn.

[res publica]

Hissy: "sexy" is a game that gay men can play for the night. We still get to be fully human adult professionals in the office the next day. It's no more equivalent to the "sexiness" regime under which women live than is occasional mild bondage-play to actual slavery.

[norbizness]

Check that: deviant taco porn, where the top of the taco is sewn shut with black ribbon.

[Anonymous Today]

"I further further assert that S&M is a totally bogus practice because patriarchal ideology sucks the bag."

Just wondering, Twisty, what you think of S/M when the woman is the dom, or what you think of it when it's two women?

I very much agree that patriachal ideology sucks the bag (and everything else). And I try to avoid reading about male-dom S/M because the power balance is rarely separated from from gender roles enough for me to be comfortable with it. (I wonder if that wasn't Too Much Information.)

It is *kinda* refreshing though, the looks on the faces of kink-loving (i.e. fantasizing-about-submissive-women) sexist pigs when the object of their fantasies insists on equal time (or all the time) with the whip in *her* hand. You can just *see* the satisfaction drain from their faces.

*smirk*

Maybe I shoulda posted this anonymously.

*considers*

In fact I will.

*signs out*

Hmm . . . is the patriarchy to blame for that, too? For making me uneasy about not being completely vanilla?

[Chris Clarke]

Somehow, Norbiz's kink confession reminds me that I have been meaning to submit this as potential fodder for Twisty's brilliant antipatriarchal muttering.

(Not safe-for-work link to disturbing, politically disgusting, and yet metaphorically succinct summation of the whole patriarchy thing with a tie-in to the whole tattoo-S&M fashion trope.)

[Twisty]

Hissy, I'm no gay man, but my hypothesis is that gaydude interactions are not ideologically different from straight ones. Everybody pretty much adheres to the same rules for dominance/submission/masculine/feminine. A gay dude in heels is expressing feminine submission. I just don't see how it could be otherwise. Gay dudes, tell me I'm wrong!

[Jodie]

Who knew that space really DOES look like Peter Max artwork? That's it, I'm applying for astronaut school...is Bert up to teaching yet?

[res publica]

Twisty, I'm not sure it's as simple as that. But that doesn't mean that gay relationships somehow magically escape the nefarious influence of patriarchy, because they definitely don't. Sometimes practices like drag can subvert it, though more often than not they reinscribe it. Sometimes there are clearly gendered power-positions in gay relationships, but even when there aren't, you still have two guys carrying all the bullshit patriarchal baggage every guy grows up with.

[antelope]

Yes, men's outfits tend to be a lot more comfortable (with the exception of neckties, which are horrid), but within any given sub-culture, men's outfits have a lot less variety than women's do. And for that matter, men's permitted range of emotional expression and lifestyle choices within most American sub-cultures have a lot less variety as well.

On the one hand, this means that they have an easier time figuring out the "right" things to do, which gives them either an appealing self-confidence or a boring rigidity depending on your point of view. On the other hand, they don't get as much opportunity to play with their identity by looking different and acting different from day to day and situation to situation.

Maybe there's not much individuality in any one outfit, but I still feel like the range of stuff that I wear over the course of a month says something about who I am, and that it's too bad most guys don't get the chance to play with color, texture, pattern and drape in as many ways.

BTW, I always make a point of complimenting men on ties that deviate from the norm - even the ugly ones (ugly ties or ugly men, that is) - because at least they're doing what they can within the context to perk up the scenery a bit.

[AB]

I still think Nassoid has a point that wasn't quite addressed. It seems like a bit of an over-simplification to say that because women are constrained and don't have complete agency they must have no agency at all.

I mean, clearly any choice about fashion or body modification cannot be made in a vacuum. But do you have any allowance for women to take that little space for choice they do have and try to fashion a response to patriarchy? Of course the end result will always be influenced by oppression. But to say that there is no difference between women making (constrained) choices that mindlessly accomodate patriachy and women making (constrained) choices that are an attempt to subvert or oppose the patriarchy... is really, really depressing to me.

I suppose people may be arguing that the only "right" choice that actually opposes patriarchy is to dress/body-mod in the ways that you would choose if we lived in a world with no male oppression. (I don't necessarily agree that the best path of opposition is to act like the offensive party doesn't exist, but that's just my opinion.) I don't know how to reconcile the fact that what feels profoundly liberating for one woman seems just as profoundly oppressive to another.

[Q Grrl]

I think gay men can slip in and out of roles and still maintain their general/class hierarchy over women. Women who may feel like they are playing a "role" when dressing sexy (or practicing S/M) do not have the option of stepping out of the larger, imposed role of being female in a patriarchal society. Women may have the personal agency to be deviant in their personal relationships, but they lack the agency/autonomy to be deviant as a class (currently). So, in essence, personal deviance is not really that per se, as someone (usually male) is to a great extent allowing that deviance to occur for his benefit. If that deviance moves outside of the personal/private into social realms and norms, it is unacceptable [think back to the thread mentioning toplessness in public or breastfeeding].

A woman may be able to "weild the whip" in an interpersonal relationship with a man, but we have yet to elect a woman president. To me, that's it in a nutshell.

Gay men may be able to replicate submissive roles in interpersonal relationships, but their maleness would never prohibit them from becoming president.

[fayrene]

Fine, fine. I don't doubt your correctness, but I think that you discount the impact of exercising what limited agency we DO have in a patriarchy. Maybe choice is an illusion, but I think that I'll take an illusion of control and limited choice over the alternative, since I can't quite opt out of living in a patriarcal society. The illusion, it keeps me sane - wazoo intact.

[Q Grrl]

Well, so what if you have the choice to dress as you please? What does that mean? What does that choice mean?

If you are raped while wearing something that you chose out of your personal agency, what does that agency amount to when what you are wearing is more important than the fact that a man raped you?

If you are a college educated women vying for a top-level administrative job you can choose what you wear to an interview... but what if your agency costs you the job, especially when your male counterparts only have to choose between the grey, the black, or the blue suit? What if you have to tour a planning site, or a hospital and your male counterparts are in (very) comfortable wingtips, and your fashion choice has you in 2 inch heels -- and the men get tired of slowing down for you? The men certainly aren't going to think that you are expressing agency: They're going to think that *all* women are incapable of filling the job you have.

[Tony Patti]

I see a big difference between an uniformed choice and an informed choice when it comes to fashion. I'm still bewildered by the earnest need to somehow solve this unsolvable problem. I can only see individual solutions, like Twisty freeing herself from any need to deal with it in her own life.

This is what I wish for the women of the world: A male's sense of privilege; in this case, the ability to not care too much what you look like and a certain fatalistic attitude towards the somewhat false or completely false and therefore subversive and fun personas and ideology you are forced to choose from whenever you make a choice about fashion.

Even in male fashions you have this consumer-culture glut of choices out there. Reducing the anxiety imposed by patriarchal assumptions would be one positive action to take.