Slutwalk

[Huguenot]

And you wouldn't ;-)

[Damian H]

RosieH Wrote:

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> Damian, I think there was widespread concern among

> women that the stunt was in fact a grotesque film

> of self-harm that had come on the back of earlier

> sexual abuse. There were serious concerns about

> the state her mental health. The lack of

> precautions taken (no use of condoms / sexual

> health testing of the participants) and her

> comment that she likes to be treated like a piece

Rosie, I doubt that the vast majority of the women who decried Annabel Chong's behaviour did so for any of the reasonable reasons you give - nor were the majority even aware of her past. Their responses were gut level responses to something that offended them for reasons I doubt many of them could have articulated beyond comments along the lines of "She's a complete slut!". To dress up the outcry as being based on legitimate medical concerns is a complete Smokescreen. Let me put this scenario - let's assume Chongqing had got it on with fifty acts instead of 251, or let's cut it even further to twenty acts with a dozen men. Let's assume they had all been carefully screened for STDs and let's assume that she had been psychologically assessed and passed as mentally fully healthy - do you really think any of her critics would have been less vocal? I very much doubt it. The fury evokes was because a woman was openly engaging in casual sex with multiple partners without apparent shame or guilt and that touched something way deeper in many women than a mere concern for the medical implications.

Listen for a moment to the way you are oppressing and second-guessing Chong, claiming to know her motives better than she did, without, I assume having met her. It has elsewhere been claimed that her behaviour was a reaction to being raped - says who? Chong? I don't think so. Whilst responses to rape will be varied and individual I am not aware that pursuing a career in pornography is a common one. This causal 'connection' between Chong's rape and subsequent behaviour has been created by others uncomfortable with any other explanation for her behaviour other than that she was traumatised and mentally ill. I am really shocked at you putting this forward. Throughout the history of male dominated psychiatry (large elements of it damaging to women) this pathologising of female sexuality has been a sorry characteristic. Effectively, many figures in such a psychiatric tradition have made the same abhorrent equation - a woman enjoying sex = mental illness. The only difference between them and your position is that you label her mentally unbalanced and pity and forgive her behaviour whereas a couple of centuries ago male doctors would have labelled her mentally unstable and had her locked up as a danger to right thinking people who needed quarantined.

Where do you go from there? You point out that the blokes who screwed Chong would jot have wanted to marry or date her. How do you know? Assuming that is so, however, you have just seemingly unwittingly championed the very hypocrisy that you seem elsewhere to abhor. Effectively you have said "Because hypocritical men will sexually use but not socially commit to women who are openly sexually liberated and adventurous, women should be assailed and criticised for being sexually liberated and adventurous.". In short, you have endorsed the idea that male double standards should dictate a woman's behaviour, that women's sexual behaviour and expression should be dictated and controlled by whatever criteria is likely to be most acceptable to men seeking a wife!!!

That position is utterly antithetical to any concept of female emancipation. At it's very heart, for example, is the notion that a woman can only achieve acceptance, value and security if she marries and becomes dependent upon a man. Consequently, implicit in your position, she must only be allowed to behave sexually in a way that MEN tell her will make her wife material.

Chong made clear that her motives in what she did were to challenge this notion about what is acceptable sexual behaviour in a woman, thatba woman had a right to be sexually voracious as well as men had. Interestingly, throughout history, the only women who have been easily able to engage in fully liberatednsexual behaviour were those who were independently powerful and wealthy. Others had to play the game (rules written by men) in order to acquirensocial status that offered security. This game has been so lengthy and ingrained in society that most women (yourself included, it seems) have internalized this oppression and now self-oppress. Hence, when someone like Chong, publicly flaunts the rules, she is set upon by other women because she is destabilising the system that they perceive as being the best way for them to get ahead. That is what I mean when I described Chong as "de-basing the currency.". Effectively she said "Guys, we actually like sex for sex's sake. You don't have to marry us or wine and dine us or give us things to get us to shag you.". For many women who unconsciously carry the notion (whether they are aware of it or not) that sex has to be sold at the best possible price in exchange for marriage, partnership, financial security etc, this was a huge threat and they responded to Chong accordingly. The tragic irony is that they felt they were protecting someone from abuse and exploitation, yet their own responses emerged from a deep embracing of the Stockholm Syndrome of their own social disadvantage and inequality. The best prisoner is the prisoner who guards herself and attacks any glimpse of rescue or liberation.

Rosie, you have claimed to know better than Chong herself why she did what she did. That is arrogant. You have thrown two allegations at Chong - that she was mentally I'll when she did what she did and that she had better wise up and behave if she wants tonget herself a husband partner. It is a deep and grim irony that by doing so you have just internalized and endorsed the two classic male strategies that have been used over the centuries to control women and their bodies!

Those are the very prejudices that Chong set out to challenge and she stated that

> of meat, and talking about the pain involved are

> probably pretty instrumental in women's not taking

> a positive view of this as some affirmative piece

> of empowerment theatre. It blatantly wasn't.

>

> And of course the men were blase, 251 of them

> @#$%& her. But would any of those men have

> married or made her their girlfriend subsequently?

> There's the dichotomy.

[Damian H]

It might be useful to look at Women and Madness and He's a Stud, She's a Slut. The first of these looks very clearly at how non-conformist sexuality in women (I.e. Actually enjoying it for it's own sake, rather than as an exchange approved/endorsed by powerful men) has often been used historically as a diagnostic criteria for mental illness in women. And how the full weight of the medical profession with it's power to incarcerate and treat against a patient's will was then engaged to bring these women back under the thumb.

Geoff Masson has also looked at some of these issues in Against Therapy (lots wrong with his book, but some very good observations on the abuse of psychiatric power).

[LadyDeliah]

Thank you DamienH.

I wanted to say something similar, but I doubt I'd have bothered to write such a thorough post.

I was brought up as gender neutral as my 1960's idealist mother was able to manage and have found the disparity between people's views of male and femal sexual promiscuity depressing.

No-one suggests that a man who has many sexual partners is mentally ill. Why must a woman who does the same thing have to be?

The issue of sexual addiction is an interesting one and I think is real, but even this is not seen as gender neutral. If men admit to having a sexual addiction, they are accused of making excuses for cheating, but the few women I can think of who admit to having an addiction to sex are seen as mentally unstable.

Challenging societal sexual norms used to get you sectioned in a mental hospital if you were female. Although we don't seem to be locking up sexually non-conformist women any longer, attitudes towards such women don't seem to have moved on very much.

[RosieH]

LadyD, I'm not accusing women who have many sexual partners of being mentally ill. I'm saying this particular woman had issues: Chong had a history of self-harm after having been gang-raped, and at a time when awareness of AIDS was high, she took no precautions with her health. I would suggest that's another form of self-harm.

And I would suggest that makes Chong a red herring in the argument. Of course women should be able to indulge their sexual appetite without fear of having their womb removed before an audience of slavering men. Or just being called a slut. no brainer, surely?

[LadyDeliah]

Not sure about the lack of testing. I know Wikipdeia is not authority, but it seems to suggest that there was testing and that when she'd had enough of the porn thing she just went off and did web design.

She doesn't seem to be mentally ill from the Wiki page. She seems to have made lucid choices and was highly intelligent. The gang rape must have had an impact, but it doesn't seem that she became some kind of victim as a result.

[DJKillaQueen]

There is research that shows in some people who experience trauma, the brain turns the traumatic experience into fantasy. I suspect that with Miss Chong this is exactly what happened. The rape would have been traumatic at the time but psychologically that trauma became relived as as some kind of pleasurable experience. It's not of course a healthy reconciliation but it does seem to be one way in which some people recover.

[RosieH]

Sex the Annabel Chong Story

[quote name=The documentary reveals to the viewers that she was gang raped as a student living in London and describes her many complex emotional issues, including signs of depression, self harm,and substance abuse.]

I was aware of the event at the time. Initially I thought more power to her elbow, or indeed, vagina. Until I looked into it more, and then I felt sad.

[Huguenot]

I'm guessing that by the time she reached number 4 she'd have felt a bit bruised and battered, so it's unlikely that at 249 she was just doing it for fun ;-)

I can understand the performance art thing, but having trod the boards in the past, I thought most actors were damaged goods anyway.

[Huguenot]

Sorry, that didn't make the point strongly enough. Chong was messed up, remains messed up, and that would be the case regardless of her gender or profile.

[Huguenot]

Oh, and whilst I'm on the subject, I have a male chum who has multiple sexual partners, and the general consensus is that he's mentally ill.

Not loony bin ill, but verging on sociopathic.

So it doesn't just apply to women.

[LadyDeliah]

RosieH Wrote:

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> Sex the Annabel Chong Story

>

> The documentary reveals to the viewers that she

> was gang raped as a student living in London and

> describes her many complex emotional issues,

> including signs of depression, self harm,and

> substance abuse.]

Rosie that is just a piece about the film Which was produced by a young film student. The substance abuse and depression quoted in the piece have no source either.

I'm not sure how you can say she is still messed up Hugo, or that she ever was on the evidence I've seen, when she is living a perfectly normal life with a normal career after deciding to finish with porn.

> I was aware of the event at the time. Initially I

> thought more power to her elbow, or indeed,

> vagina. Until I looked into it more, and then I

> felt sad.

[Huguenot]

I can only imagine you're judging that on hypotheticals LadyDelilah.

Have you ever seen her interviewed?

Eyes and body all over the place, an unhealthy and almost obsessive self regard, a persistent and almost tragic preening, a pathetic almost hyper-stereotyped schoolgirl flirtation (little finger clumsily to mouth and batting of the eyes that has more in common with Anne Robinson than Audrey Hepburn).

Think Tom Cruise on Oprah and multiply by twenty. Everyone agreed that something was wrong in Cruise's head.

She's completely f*cked up.

It's plausible that you can argue that when Britney got her head shaved it was because she was totally rational and exploring her self-determination. If you choose to believe that, then I can never persuade you that Annabel Chong is f*cked up.

Having served on a jury, my experience is that there is always one who wants to concoct the wildest most implausible scenarios to insist that the defendant is innocent and the police are working in the pay of the Catholics.

Annabel Chong is not 'expressing' herself, she is f*cked up.

[RosieH]

LadyD, have you actually seen it? I've seen some of it, but couldn't watch it all: she self-harms IN the film. She slashes her arm with a knife. I'd consider that to be an actual source, wouldn't you?

While I applaud your desire to see every woman in porn or prostitution as positively exploring her sexuality, I think your glasses are more than a little rose tinted.

She doesn't look as though she's enjoying herself, and people who have both seen the film and interviewed her have suggested that in actual fact, she was the one exploited by her film-maker boyfriend.

[RosieH]

Oh, just to add, nice to be on the same side for once, Huge.

[LadyDeliah]

I think it's difficult to judge because of the sensationalist aspect of sex. She might have been fucked up but if you take the sex out of the equation, it makes me think of the type of people who put themselves through all kinds of physical damage to sail single handed around the world or walk to the poles etc. I think there is a bit of insanity in anyone who pushes their bodies that hard to achieve some goal or other.

I think the point about actors etc having problems with mental stability made by Hugo is probably valid too, but how far do we go in protecting people from themselves and why is a woman having a high sex drive and many sexual partners in itself seen as something indicative of mental illness/poor morals/low class etc?

I dont know Annabel Chong so I can't really comment on her mental health, but one thing I'd like to explore is the idea of causation. If she did have damage, was she attracted to a sensationalist sexual act because of any damage or did the attitude of people to her because of her high profile sex life, cause the damage? Or is the act of sex with multiple partners damaging in itself?

I don't think the latter is necessarily true, but I do think the first 2 options are more likely. If you fall off your bike and badly hurt yourself, some of you will never go on a bike again, but others will face their fears and try to relive the painful incident but control the ending. This is the way some people heal themselves after suffering trauma. If That was the choice of Annabel Chong, then did societies' conflicted attitude to women and sex actually cause any further damage (if there was any) and not the acts themselves?

[Huguenot]

Frankly I don't think her problems are anything to do with sex. I think she has an anxiety disorder that manifests itself in compulsive sexual behaviour. No different from being a compulsive w*nker.

The only connection with sex is that society puts a level of importance on it - but I think it would be quite incorrect to judge this as oppression or disapproval.

Sexual mores are pretty liberal in Singapore, and a trip down to the East Coast Park on a Saturday night will encounter hundreds of shaking tents put up by teenagers getting a bit of hanky panky outside the parents home. It's widely accepted, and the subject of plenty of gentle comedy.

I try and avoid Wikipedia, but this put it quite well:

"Because sex carries significant emotional, moral, and religious importance, it often becomes a magnet for obsessions in people predisposed to OCD. Common themes include unfaithfulness, deviant behaviors, paedophilia, the unfaithfulness or suitability of one's partner, and profane thoughts combining religion and sex. People with sexual obsessions may have legitimate concerns about their attractiveness, potency, or partner, which can serve as an unconscious catalyst for the obsessions."

I don't want to get want to get bogged down in the various associations of the word 'deviant', but in the sense that it just means 'unusual', I think I'd classs sex with 251 men in 10 hours to be sufficiently uncomfortable to be classed as deviant.

[Otta]

LadyDeliah Wrote:

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> I think it's difficult to judge because of the

> sensationalist aspect of sex. She might have been

> @#$%& up but if you take the sex out of the

> equation, it makes me think of the type of people

> who put themselves through all kinds of physical

> damage to sail single handed around the world or

> walk to the poles etc. I think there is a bit of

> insanity in anyone who pushes their bodies that

> hard to achieve some goal or other.

I've been reading this with interest, and think both sides are making convincing arguments. Tip however, is bollocks. Sorry Lady D.

[LadyDeliah]

I think you make vaild points Hugo, but she may just have been someone who enjoyed a lot of sex for it's own sake. Who knows?

[ianr]

...or someone with an interest in physiological tribology...

[RosieH]

As I said before, I do think the Annabel Chong story is something of a red herring in this debate, because it's so very extreme.

There are arguments to say that she's a very damaged individual, but even if you don't subscribe to that, a record-breaking 251 sexual acts in 10 hours can polarise opinion in a way that I would argue doesn't help the case of ordinary women who are sick of being judged for having slept with more people than their partners, or even fewer, but still "too many".

The pill with its holy grail promise of the zipless f*ck has come to be something of a double edged sword. At last. all the sex we ever wanted, and no need to cut out our wombs because we can now fuck with impunity so no more hysterical coughs because we fell in love with bearded pervy old men. And then comes the judgment of all and sundry (and yes H, other women as well as men) and we come crashing down like Icarus in lipstick.

[StraferJack]

The tragedy about Icarus was not his descent, but that noone noticed

I don't think things are as polarised as some posts are making out. The impression of men being less chastised than women for sleeping around being a point in case. The men i know who do that are fairly tragic cases. Before ladyD wades in, that's not a reflection on societys treatment of the sexually voracious. These guys are not unhappy because of an external judgement but because they have an itch which won't go away no matter how often they scratch it. For them it's not about quantity or quality of sex but about constant self-congratulation

So male or female, you put yourself at the centre of any equation and unhappiness will result. For a while it will seem as if the sun can't touch you but, come the descent, who will notice ?

[????]

..I think his dad did

[StraferJack]

Ha. And by sleeping around I should qualify and say I'm talking about compulsively. Not me trying to say there is am proscribed amount. Sleep with as many people as you want so long as it makes you happy

[LadyDeliah]

StraferJack Wrote:

> These guys are not

> unhappy because of an external judgement but

> because they have an itch which won't go away no

> matter how often they scratch it. For them it's

> not about quantity or quality of sex but about

> constant self-congratulation

>

> So male or female, you put yourself at the centre

> of any equation and unhappiness will result. For

> a while it will seem as if the sun can't touch you

> but, come the descent, who will notice ?

This is just crying out to be descontructed!

These guys are unhappy because they have an itch that just won't go away - a sex drive higher than their supply of sex, I imagine. And this in your judement makes them unhappy. So what is the solution? To deny ones drives and conform to societal expectations? To find a partner who has an equally high sex drive? To pay for or find multiple partners?

It is a problem in a society where earning a living is more important than having sex. I imagine there was a lot more time for sex in pre-historic societies and a high sex drive would have been advantageous in the spreading of ones genes, and so naturally selected to some extent. But this model of human being probably has less advantage in our modern urban society where production of wealth is prioritised and society moulded to fit around this goal. People who 'waste' a lot of time having sex, are not as sought after (by some!).

For them it's not about quantity or quality of sex but about constant self-congratulation - How do you know people with high sex drives don't want quantity AND quality? And what is your idea of quality in any case? And waht kind of negative moral judgement are you trying to make by claiming that high sex drive individuals are somehow self-congratulatory? I think it is actually the opposite. Most of the people I know who have high sex drives, begin to feel that there is something wrong with them, because that is what is the current 'reality'.

So male or female, you put yourself at the centre of any equation and unhappiness will result. For a while it will seem as if the sun can't touch you but, come the descent, who will notice ? - Oh Dear - you are really being condescending here. Why will looking after ones own happiness and sexual needs result in unhappiness? How very Catholic of you! I think the reverse is actually true. Those who deny themselves sexual release end up unhappy and often quite twisted.

The second part of that sentence is truly hideous. Envy at the people who 'feel the sun cant touch them'? and descent? The fall of Eve? You have a few issues, methinks, with heavy Catholic indoctrination, which appears to be colouring your view of sex, something which is a perfectly natural pastime and which we are all programmed to enjoy.

...and the coup de grace! 'Who will notice' you actually seem to believe that all the people having wonderful sex around the world are doing it for people like you to notice? Is that why so many people feel so repressed they have to sneak around in order to release their sexual energies?

People have sex for many reasons, maybe because when it's amazing they get great orgasms, or feel stronger bonds with their partner, release tension, whatever, but I doubt many do it just to make you feel inadequate.