"A woman schlemiel".

In light of Singapore's imminent general elections this year, and the ugliness of sexist dissections people feel entitled to enact upon candidates (e.g. Tin Pei Ling), I thought it'd be timely to share some passages from the Rebecca Traister's Big Girls Don't Cry (an interview with the author), which discusses the sexism and misogyny faced by vice- and presidential candidates - Sarah Palin and Hillary Rodham Clinton, respectively - in the 2008 United States elections.

Breaking from writing conventions, I'm just going to paste the relevant passages without comment or leads. This all seems quite self-explanatory:

It's not that male politicians escaped related evaluation (based on looks) ... The scrutiny was much more intense for Clinton, because women value is intrinsically tied to desirability and attractiveness .... For those who supported her had to downplay her feminine attributes lest she be diminished by objectification. For those who hated her the goal was to humiliate her, and at the same time affirm that she held no alluring power over them. As Shirley Chisholm said decades before, "One distressing thing is the way men react to women who assert their equality: their ultimate weapon is to call them unfeminine. They think she is anti-male; they even whisper that she's probably a lesbian..." (pp76-77)

These points of recognition (of sexism) were about identifying with a certain strain of ill treatment, something feminists are loath to do lest they be accused of capitalising on victimhood. But feminism was born precisely because women faced gendered injustices. To identify and overcome obstacles and resistance was to advance the project of female empowerment ... To see a woman get taunted for being simultaneously frigid and lachrymose and then get teased for her smarts was not to ascribe to her inherently feminine qualities of frigidity, sentimentality, or unsociability. Rather it was to witness femininity as it has historically been cast, especially when it threatened male power structures: as a laughable, silly, unpleasant, or devalued condition. Women had watched a popular version of Hillary Clinton, a front-running candidate with whom they may have had a complicated or cool relationship but whose strengths, weaknesses, achievements, and mistakes had never been traditional or one-dimensional, manipulated to fit into retro molds of lightweight (peevish, unpopular, calculating, shrill) feminine illegitimacy. In a cartoon drawn by Pat Oliphant in the days after New Hampshire a bubbling Clinton is shown at a desk, facing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Osama bin Laden, Lim Jong Il and other menacing men murmuring "Aww, she's sensitive--I had no idea"; "Was it something we said?"; and "Buy her flowers." A thought bubble above Hillary's head reads, "You guys are mean!" and in the corner, a miniature Bill remarks, "This is when PMS goes nuclear." In the face of plenty of good reasons to criticise Hillary Clinton, women now realized that for some it still came down to this: the same twisted characterizations used for centuries to bolster the idea that women were unfit to lead. (pp104-106)

Letters to left-leaning publications and blogs bubbled with enmity toward Clinton. As Katha Pollitt wrote, "Vats of sexist nastiness splattered across the Comments section of hundreds of blogs and websites. It's as if every obscene phone caller and every exhibitionist in America decided to become an amateur political pundit." ... The trouble was that because everyone was liberal and officially down with female empowerment, that many women who couldn't cite actual uses of the words bitch or cunt found themselves troubled by their inability to specify the sexism they sensed. "I don't think anyone in my (progressive) peer group ... would be comfortable saying, 'I'm not ready for a woman president,'" said Alex Seggerman, a twenty-four-year-old art history Ph.D. student. Seggerman was an Obama voter but noticed people making remarks like "She's had plastic surgery" or "Her attitude is off-putting," which she heard as "expressions of some deeper issues with the fact that she is a woman." People can always come up with reasons they don't like the candidate they're not supporting," said Dana Lossia, the Obama-supporting labor lawyer. "But no one disliked Joe Biden or Chris Dodd as much as they dislike Hillary." She's never heard her friends say anything explicit: "[They never say] anything where I could say, 'That's a sexist comment.' It's just that I can't understand why they hate her so much."

It was a contemporary iteration of Betty Friedan's problem that had no name, a maddening cycle of vague hunches and self-righteous denials that left many of us feeling as though we were going insane. Even (Jessica) Valenti was disoriented by it; she was particularly hamstrung because, as she pointed out, she made her living identifying sexism. "You'd think I'd be able to find an example," she said, adding, "Because it's not [always] explicit sexism, it makes it impossible to argue with people, because if you say something, then you're the wackadoo feminist." (pp169-170)

The liberalish radio host Ed Schultz, who had said on air that (Sarah) Palin set off a "bimbo alert", who asked, in conversation with Larry King and Republican Susan Molinari, "What kind of mother is she? Is she prepared to be the vice president? Is she going to be totally focused on the issues?" The Washington Post's Sally Quinn asked if Palin was "prepared for the all-consuming nature of the job ... Her first priority has to be her children. When the phone rings at three in the morning and one of her children is really sick what choice will she make?"

... The feminist writer and lawyer Susan Estrich weighed in, remarking, "No one would be asking these questions if she were a man. No one asked whether Arnold Schwarzenegger should run for governor because he has four children ... This is how the double standard works ... I have no doubt that Barack Obama can count on his fingers the number of times he has been home in the last 19 months to put his two beautiful daughters to bed ... Does this make him a 'bad father'? Should it undercut his claim to the presidency? Of course not?" (pp233-234)

[Palin] was a bad vice-presidential candidate, like bad vice-presidential candidates before her, and her communications team had allowed a prank caller to get through. She was ill-prepared and inarticulate, and her chattiness about how much she liked Sarkozy's model wife, Carla Bruni, was cringey. But progress takes all sorts, and in the pantheon of political leadership there has been thousands of craven, ill-intentioned, pompous, and stupid men. There was no rule that said that in order to make history Palin had to be a decent, honest politician, nor that she was a rocket scientist. Were we to envision true equality in politics, it would involve as many Sarah Palins as it would Hillary Clintons. As Bella Abzug had said, "[The goal is not to see a] female Einstein become an assistant professor. We want a woman schlemiel to get promoted as quickly as a male schlemiel." (p280)

And just to be clear, this farm also attributes sexism as the cause for the imbalance of attention spent between demolishing Tin's political aspiration and other candidates. Head over to Weekday Blues' post to find out why.

When you say or do something sexist and/or misogynistic towards one person, man or woman, you do it to everyone else because you remind us, the everyone else, that we are supposed to have a restrictive place in life too. Don't try to make this them versus us; exceptionalising the hated as someone deserving of discriminatory and violent scorn, then especialising everyone else as different from the pack, like as if we're supposed to feel good about your not being directly bigoted towards us. Oh, looky, Brownie cookies for us! We have your favour and approval. How lovely!

Though the real beauty of exceptionalising it is that it muddles it for us. Makes it difficult for us to call you out, because people don't like to be associated with the scorn, and then be scorned too. Especially not when a large group of people are the culprits of it. Especially not when we least expect our immediate network best friends, greatly admired people, closest of family members, or supposedly most progressive of internet blogs--all of whom supposed to protect and stand with us from all this grotesque discrimination--be the ones promulgating this bullshit.

Don't kid yourself, there's no us and there's no them in social injustices. It hurts every-fucking-one.

Why not Morrissey?

There's a certain buzz going around outside of our farm regarding former-Smiths musician, Morrissey's racist remark about Chinese people:

Did you see the thing on the news about their treatment of animals and animal welfare? Absolutely horrific. You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies." (Sauce.)

Here at the barn, we are well aware that everyone farts up once in a while, and hold no illusion -- especially since child rapist Roman Polanski walked free, TWICE -- that even the cutest, most talented, smartest and even most cuddly sorts are saved from being fucked up. Little surprise, hence, that there's very little I care to say about who and what Morrissey is, and why his racism is any more or less egregious than if uttered by mere mortals.

On the other hand, there is much to be said about how fellow concerned life form can deal with famous assholes, much of it brought on by a Guardian commentary by Tom Clark, in which Clark calmly urges Morrissey's fans to "not feel obliged to disown the music we love" and that "nothing Morrissey says or does now would taint my enjoyment of the songs". Obviously the mileage varies between Clark and this male, unfeminist, gay Chinese pig, because I don't see why it's so impossible for offended fans to renounce their loyalty to any artist for the latter's assholicism.

In fact, I think any fan or music lover who gives a flying fuck about making the world a better place has every right to exercise some consumer discretion for an embargo. Here at the farm, we care to do something.

And just why fucking not?

My taking pleasure in one's art rings the latter's cash register, and in Morrissey's case it is precisely because his records are still selling that he feels his artistry will forever save him from truly being held accountable, or being remembered as a racist (apart from a good musician) long past his death. If his being popular from our listening to his music is empowering him to express his racism without contriteness, which is the case, then the obvious key to some humility may very well be in a boycott.

Then Morrissey's music wouldn't live forever. Maybe some day Someone will ask, "Hey, what happened to all the Morrissey songs that you liked?" And you can go, "I stopped listening to them because he turns out to be such a racist asshole that it pains me to even listen to him pluck his guitar." Then maybe when Someone listens to Morrissey on the speakers at your favourite bar, zie will share the racist factoid with hir friends, and they in turn can remind others that this brand of good music is spun from some moral bankruptcy--warning label reads "Enjoy at your own risk."

Personally, I don't have a problem with forgoing some good art for the sake of some humanity. I would rather the holocaust not have occurred and forgo "Schindler's List", than appreciate the impetus for art that Nazism provided. I would rather we didn't live in a kyriarchy and be writing about fluffy bunnies than exercising my writing chops here. Likewise, I would rather a musician not be a racist than have to exercise mental acrobatics over the fact that his racism is somehow an intrinsic part of some very complex, very profound whole, from which good music apparently stems, and which a simpleton like Bacon Bits here will never possess or understand.

Pftt.

Newsflash: greater people have lived without being assholes.

Why not Morrissey? Why not Polanski? Why couldn't Larkin? Why couldn't Churchill even?

The best art simply cannot justify the diminishing of human decency. And if you choose to ignore that, then don't mind if I stop listening to you too.

"We meant it exactly the way you meant it".

"Theatricality," Glee, Season 1 Episode 20, first aired May 25 2010.

KURT: “It’s just a room, Finn! We can redecorate it if you want to!”
FINN: “Okay, good! Well, then the first thing that needs to go is that faggy lamp, a-and then, we need to get rid of this faggy couch blan-“
BURT: “Hey! What did you just call him?”
FINN: “Oh, no, no; I didn’t call him anything. I was talking to the blanket.”
BURT: “No, you used that word; you’re talking about him.”
KURT: “Relax, Dad, I didn’t take it that way.”
BURT (to Kurt): “Yeah, that’s because you’re sixteen and you still assume the best in people. You live a few years, you start seeing the hate in peoples’ hearts. Even the best people.”
BURT (to Finn): “You use the ‘N’ word?”
KURT: “Uh, of course not.”
KURT: “Well how ‘bout ‘retard’? You call that nice girl in Cheerios with Kurt, you call her a ‘retard’?”
FINN: “Becky, no, she’s my friend. She’s got down-syndrome. I’d never call her that; that’s cruel.”
BURT: “But you think it’s okay to come in my house and say ‘faggy’?”
FINN: “That’s not what it meant…”
BURT: “I know what you meant! What, you think I didn’t use that word when I was your age? You know, some kid gets clocked in practice, we tell him to ‘stop being such a fag’ ‘shake it off’… we meant it exactly the way YOU meant it. That being gay is wrong and it’s some kind of punishable offense.”
BURT: “I really thought you were different, Finn. You know, I thought that being in Glee Club and being rased by YOUR mom, meant that you were some, you know, new generation of dude who saw things differently, who just kinda, you know, came into the world knowing what has taken me years of struggling to figure out. I guess I was wrong.”
BURT: “I’m sorry, Finn. But, you can’t… you can’t stay here.”
KURT: “Dad!”
BURT (to Finn): “I love your mom. And maybe this is gonna cost me her, but my family comes first. I can’t have that kind of poison around.”
BURT (to Kurt): “This is our home, Kurt.”
BURT (to Finn): “He is my son! Out in the world, you do what you want; not under my roof.”
BURT (to Kurt): “The place looks great.”

(from The Jumping Off Point.)

4 Non Blondes - What's Up?

I admit, sometimes I forget that International Women's Day is on March 8, because Porkchop here lives with an astounding privilege on a farm with his two and four-legged friends as if every day is International Women's Day. Such an existence, contrary to popular disbelief, really isn't difficult when you respect everyone as a full entity deserving the full range of common human rights. Two of the prerequisites to achieving that is in fully understanding and practising the concept of equality (hint: you either have it, or you don't), and knowing how to keep your unsolicited trotters and objectification club member privilege discount card to yourself.

Consider me naive, recalcitrant, wistful, slow, emotional, but whenever shit happens, I do often find myself affected, thinking "what's going on??????"

Twenty-five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination
And I realized quickly when I knew I should
That the world was made up of this brotherhood of man
For whatever that means

And so I cry sometimes
When I'm lying in bed
Just to get it all out
What's in my head
And I am feeling a little peculiar

And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream at the top of my lungs
What's going on?

And I say, hey hey hey hey
I said hey, what's going on?
ooh, ooh ooh

And I try, oh my god do I try
I try all the time, in this institution
And I pray, oh my god do I pray
I pray every single day
For a revolution

And so I cry sometimes
When I'm lying in bed
Just to get it all out
What's in my head
And I am feeling a little peculiar

And so I wake in the morning
And I step outside
And I take a deep breath and I get real high
And I scream at the top of my lungs
What's going on?

And I say, hey hey hey hey
I said hey, what's going on?

Twenty-five years and my life is still
Trying to get up that great big hill of hope
For a destination

Skin Lightening Creams Work - But They Also Cause Permanent Damage

Pam Spaulding from Pandagon has a piece up that delves deeply into the phenomenon of skin-lightening creams, the racial politics behind it and the quite terrible consequences for long-term users of such products. A quote:

This whole melanin thing is quite complicated, and cultures around the world are obsessed with it, as human beings follow natural inclinations to categorize and organize things, including people. The assignment of other humans into easy visual cubbyholes by those in dominant cultures makes it infinitely easier to give political and economic power to (or withhold from) whole classes of people. It all spirals down into a pitiful morass of bigotry and insane systems of repression that are also accepted and perpetuated within those populations deemed racially "inferior."

Her jumping off point is a New York Times article that is also well worth a read. We have discussed this here before in a piece by the Poultrygeist wherein a reader asks about the efficacy of such creams (qualifying zirself for my patented missing the point award, but that's a story for another day).

Don't stereotype, yo! Just don't!

Yes, that woman in her drop-neck, low-back halter dress doesn't need you to undress her with your eyes, or be told how horny she's made you feel.

Yes, her showing skin doesn't mean she's out to have "good time" with your scruffy hands, nor does she want your money.

Yes, that Malay person is not mathematically-challenged, ze's also doesn't own a guitar nor want to rock out with you.

Yes, that woman doesn't believe her 'yes' or 'I do' at the altar means a 'yes' and 'I do' everytime her husband wants to have sex with her.

Yes, that Indian woman doesn't speak Tamil, Hindi or whatever limited knowledge of Indian languages you have.

Yes, that Indian guy who's really interested in you isn't going to be a drunkard deadbeat who plummets you when he returns home late at night.

Yes, this Chinese guy doesn't speak no Chinese not because he's an elitist bastard, but because he's just not very good at languages.

Yes, that Chinese guy who speaks Chinese doesn't mean he's wrapped up in his own world and doesn't really want to connect to other people.

Yes, just because they're Filipino and Mainlanders, it doesn't mean they're not going to be able to do their jobs well as service staff.

Yes, just because they don't speak much English doesn't mean that they can't do their jobs!

Yes, that pious Christian friend isn't a homosexual-hating, pro-life fundamentalist.

Yes, that Muslim man isn't out to marry multiple wives to save sex workers and single women from some elusive plight.

Yes, this fat people isn't an indolent creature who lacks resolve and self-esteem to look like everyone else.

Yes, fat people are quite aware of their being fat.

Yes, that gay person isn't seeking the next quick-fuck or out to turn your kids gay.

Yes, this effeminate man isn't gay.

Yes, that effeminate gay man isn't seeking a guy who'd make him feel like a natural woman.

Yes, that bisexual person isn't sitting on the fence because ze wants an easy out of ostracisation.

Yes, this feminist has a 2.1-kids-two-heterosexually-married-couple home.

Yes, that feminist is not looking for something to get angry about.

Yes, that gay person doesn't actually have liberal opinions.

Yes, your big fat dick isn't something people all want to worship.

Yes, my sub-par intellect doesn't mean that I'm an empty vase.

Yes, ze's really good looking, but it doesn't mean ze doesn't have anything interesting to tell you.

Yes, her speaking lousy English doesn't mean that the content of her message isn't itself good.

Yes, that single person doesn't actually care to hook up with your cousin's cousin, friend's friend, mother's friend's or colleague's neighbour's loin-fruit.

Yes, that single person has quite a full and happy life because ze's single.

The reality is that no stereotype can be considered light-hearted and humorous. A stereotype is defined as “an often oversimplified or biased mental picture held to characterize the typical individual of a group.” Stereotypes are negative. Even “positive” stereotypes are ultimately detrimental to the groups that struggle to find a sense of self within the narrow parameters of society’s vision. (Latoya Peterson from Racialicious).

Resolution for 2010: don't stereotype, yo! Just don't!

Happy 2010!

ETA:
Commenters have chimed in with their stereotypes (thanks!). Everyone's encouraged to add zie's in our comments section! :)

BREAKING: More women say: I deserve justice by my own terms, I'm worth it.

[Ed - This post may be read in conjunction with "Investigating and prosecuting sexual offences" and "Addenda and Clarifications".]

No, that's not really what was said. Instead, what we have today is "More women say: touch me, pay me".


(Image scanned from Straits Times, 24 December 2009, P A10.
Hover for ST Online image tag.)
Indeed, in its neverending quest to introduce insightful and/or exciting journalism and opinion FAIL to readers, The New Paper The Straits Times decides to play the wildly popular Womenz Iz Hysterically Wily, Money-Grubbing card. This Christmas Eve Special Edition comes complete with resplendent trimmings of a mood picture; spanning half a broadsheet, it really conveys our humanity's eternal battle of the sexes--men dodging women scorned, rational reason vs irrational emotion, advancing dude vs his coy mistress.

You can read the whole art-icle after the cut, but here's my male, unfeminist, pigheaded summary in pointed fashion:

• Opening hook: Honorable Professional (engineer) claims to have paid 8K out-of-court settlement to 23 year-old woman who accused him of molesting her in a club.
  
  
• Lawyers claim that more cases of molestation have come up and are settled out of court, and -gasp- defendants are paying "more cash" as well.
  
  
• Worries that milking men with molestation claims has become a full-time occupation by Wily Womenz. (I kid, though not really.)
  
  
• Not one, not two, but SIXXXXXX lawyers corroborate that drunk men are being accused by women in their early 20s (because early 20s need money, yo, for erm.... Their Louis Vuitton up-keeping?!?) of molestation!
  
  
• Men claim to settle "to avoid the saga", even though they're drunk and don't actually remember manhandling the plaintiffs.
  
  
• Accusations normally happen in the wee hours of the morning, and accused are normally alone.
  
  
• Local lawyer-cum-clairvoyant Subhas Anandan "believes that there are so-called 'victims' out there trying to make easy money".
  
  
• Local arbiter of modesty-to-cash exchange rates cum lawyer, Radakrishnan said some compensatory sums are "extortionate sums of between $20,000 and $50,000".
  
  
• All examples accused are of Nice Guys™, decent, high-profile/ paying Honorable Profession, like engineer, CEO of listed company, dentist, OBGY, etc.
  
  
• Lawyers want a registry of victims to be set up, so that "it's not the same people who make these claims" as gatekeeper and local Batman-of-molestation-crimes-cum-lawyer Ravinderpal Singh will ensure that women who get molested once will be personally protected from ever being sexually assaulted again.
  
  
• Divination Masters cum lawyers opine that The Real Victims are usually those who [a] don't want money, [b] demand public apology, and/or [c] "insist on their day in court, no matter what".

The world in which Straits Times resides, is sadly empty of barnyard realities of women such as: women in their early 20s being an immensely big demographic of club-goers; the key demographic of club-goers (not to mention, young women) may naturally receive the most inappropriate attention from people; they may not take your being abused without a fight because they know better or want to stand up for themselves; they may naturally be the most reported victims of abuse; young (or old) women may possess the right to determine for themselves what is appropriate or inappropriate social contact, bodily or otherwise, from anyone; they may also possess the spirit of confidence, self-esteem, sense of justice and self-worth, to decide *she* deserves high reparations for her outraged modesty; she can decide for herself whether or not she wants to bring her perpetrator to court or seek compensatory justice equivocal to her sense of self-worth; a compensated victim of molest, sexual assault, abuse, violence is not impervious to repeated attacks.

In the world in which Straits Times resides, drunk men who don't remember if they behaved badly are given the benefit of the doubt because they're estimable men of great professions (freed any child rapists lately, yo?), and were just reduced to boys behaving as boys. (Drunk women, on the other hand, are obviously just asking for it.) And any woman who would put a high price to her abuse because she highly values her personhood is... erm... a victim of her own self-esteem, worth, and sense of justice.

In this very sad world outside of the barn, women remain the sex class whose bodily ownership must always be within reach of men's favour.

In this wo... Ah, FUCK YOU LA STRAITS TIMES!

+++

13 Myths of Homosexuality.

This badly drawn pig is trying to close his previous one-pig soapbox, so he will be importing some of its material over here.

One of my favourite is this snarky lists of debunkers for gay marriage. It's been floating about Teh Interwebz for a while now, but I think it's especially timely given the Ugandan anti-gay bill, and failure of New York senate to pass the gay marriage bill (see our feline friend's post for a senate debate by Senator Diane Savino). Closer to home, we're still dealing with crazy [WARNING: CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!] unaccompanied ursidaes inciting more prejudices and hatefulness* for "howling gays", and "pro-gay, anti-family feminists" (his favourite candidate is "Notoraper" Jolene Tan)--although of late the interest is in debasing The Online Citizen, anti-death penalty campaigners and Teh Easter Bunny knows which other remotely motivated egalitarian.

13 Myths of Homosexuality.

1. Homosexuality is not natural, much like eyeglasses, polyester, and birth control are not natural.

2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. Infertile couples and old people cannot get legally married because the world needs more children.

3. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children because straight parents only raise straight children.

4. Straight marriage will be less meaningful, since Britney Spears's 55-hour just-for-fun marriage was meaningful.

5. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and it hasn't changed at all: women are property, Blacks can't marry Whites, and divorce is illegal.

6. Gay marriage should be decided by the people, not the courts, because the majority-elected legislatures, not courts, have historically protected the rights of minorities.

7. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are always imposed on the entire country. That's why we only have one religion in America.

8. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people makes you tall.

9. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage license.

10. Children can never succeed without both male and female role models at home. That's why single parents are forbidden to raise children.

11. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society. Heterosexual marriage has been around for a long time, and we could never adapt to new social norms because we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

12. Civil unions, providing most of the same benefits as marriage with a different name are better, because a "separate but equal" institution is always constitutional. Separate schools for African-Americans worked just as well as separate marriages will for gays & lesbians.

13. Marriage is a religious institution, defined by churches. This is why atheists do not marry. Christians also never get a divorce.

ETA:
* I'm trying to make a more substantive distance from using "hate" as freely as before, for philosophical reasons. But in this case I don't think "hate" is too liberal an application.

Ban of transgender women at local clubs.

Reader Mark wrote to us with an unpublished letter to the Straits Time Forum written by his friend, SM. The letter seeks clarification from the people at Zouk on an apparent blanket ban on transgender women at the establishment's Velvet Underground: (dated 21 Jul 2009)

Last Friday night, my friends and went clubbing at Zouk's Velvet Underground. However, arriving at the club's entrance, I was shocked to learn that my transgender friend was not allowed into one of Singapore's most well-known clubs.

Upon clarification with the bouncer, it was explained that a policy of disallowing all transgender patrons applies, although only to Velvet.

These patrons are still welcome to merry-making in the other parts of the greater establishment, including the main Zouk club, Phuture and Winebar.

I would very much like to know why Velvet Underground has such a blatantly discriminatory blanket ban in place, that denies entry to a whole class of people.

A bar-ban may be an entertainment spot's prerogative, but it is usually applied individually to patrons who have without mitigating factors incurred serious transgressions that disrupt the enjoyment or prove to be a threat to the safety of patrons, staff or the environment.

Does Velvet Underground mean to suggest that all transgender people are disruptive or threatening simply by existing or being present? This belief has no justification. Zouk should know this from direct experience since transgender people are, under its own policy, able to access the rest of the club.

Also, by what criteria does Velvet Underground determine whether a potential patron is transgender?

SM

In his letter to us, Mark relates that he knows of "another big club frequented by Caucasian expatriates, at CHIJMES" that has a similar discriminatory policy in place. His understanding is that these bans have been argued to be "purely for the pecuniary benefit of their shareholders, and that it was within their power to exclude any (class of) people they deem unsavory."

Exclusionary policies are fine if indeed "unsavory" people are banned individually as SM points out above. The problem with a blanket ban, however, is a matter of ignorantly playing to stereotypes that are difficult to justify or in fact enforce. It is the case for race in a predominantly White countries, race in early education, race on the dumbbox, reasons for adultery and children of wedlock, what makes a feminist, and fat people.

In this case, Mark notes:

Firstly, all transwomen are necessarily made out to be sex workers [by the ban], when obviously this isn't the case.

Practically speaking, clubs have no real way of excluding other sex workers of any gender, except by doing it the good old traditional way--when someone gets reported, they ban the individual.

Just as how clubs can't exclude all cis sex workers, there's no real way the bouncers are capable of excluding all transwomen just by looks. This means that the management really only excludes better-known transwomen, or/and any (trans)woman who does or doesn't fit certain bills.

I make especial note on "certain bills" to maybe mean what transphobic feminist, Julie Bindel calls “fuck-me-boots and birds-nest hair”?

We at the barn are very disturbed by this, and fully agree that this needs to be aired. Not only so that, as Mark hopes, "everyone who gives a damn might consider bringing their buying power to more inclusive venues", but also that we can avoid places where the likely intolerant types maybe concentrate.

Voice Out. I encourage concerned readers to write in to Zouk to demand they change their policies: email them at zoukclub@zoukclub.com, or call them at (+65) 6738 2988.

Tell Us More. If anyone else knows of other non-inclusive venues, please write to us (email address on the side) so that we can compile a list.

Thanks to Mark and SM for bringing this to the table! You're welcome to party in the barn with us any day!!!

Authentic Azian Senzation™

In both Poultrygeist's awesome post on early absorption of racism and a comment left at Complaining Cow's missive on the embracement of insensitivity by certain people, it is proposed that the majority class will only begin to understand the problem with "harmless" stereotyping when the tables are turned on them.

I think they're absolutely right.

I'm totally reminded of an Australia and New Zealand Bank (ANZ Bank) TV commercial that ran on the Australian free-to-air when I was there as part of a Animals Are Friends, Not Food world tour a year ago.

The entire campaign peddled ANZ's apparently superior credit card security tracking system that picked up suspicious spending trends. In this particular ad, the example was Fiona Tyler's credit card that was used simultaneously in both Melbourne and Singapore. It starts from inside the ANZ security oversight office, before cutting to a scene of "Singapore" where the credit card fraud perpetrator is attacked by ANZ's campaign mascot.

Their idea of Singapore? Shops with large chinese signboards, hanging red lanterns, food hawkers along pedestrian walkways and what looks like our preferred mode of transport, the trishaw. Complete with old-school, yellow tint to the film and cue Chinese New Year-esque, chirpy Chinese mandolin and drum soundtrack for maximum Authentic Azian Senzation™!


(Er... I don't think Singapore has looked like that since the 1970s.)

And I really don't think it does anything to inform people of the realities outside of Australia. Information that, I figure, might be useful for its people since I learnt some things while I was there:

- Some people have impressions that Singapore is in South China, populated by only yellow-skinned people. And yellow-skinned people are bad in English.

- Being bad in English receives similar warmth (typically yellow-skinned) Singaporeans accord (other typically yellow-skinned) migrants in Singapore: leave the country if "you speaky no ingrish".

I got pats on the head and cookies for "speaking such good but accented English" and possessing "a really wide vocabulary". ("Why, thank you! Your English isn't too bad too! Where'cha learn to speak like that?") I'm "not like the other Asians"--you know, the two or three other Asian data points with whom your interlocutor has had extensive conversations to speak so authoritatively on. (No worries that I, a badly drawn, male unfeminist barnyard animal can talk at all, yo!)

- Some have anxieties quite alike Singaporeans--a loud quarter wants migrants to just "go back to your own country!" (I will, mate, once you return to your own country, since most of you shouting can't rightfully claim to be native.)

- It's hard to absorb that there're other skin tones from Singapore. If you're a slight shade of brown, then you must be from Malaysia or Indonesia. Darker and you're from India, and if you're from India then you have a whole different subset of problems. Somewhere between and maybe your family are boat people, and that you probably were a delinquent mall rat at some point. All in all, everyone gets treated with suspicion at some retail or F&B outlets, if not by staff then maybe clientele.

- Being Asian also means that if, like me, you shop at Alternative Lifestyle™, then you're a docile, subservient boytoy who only wants it up his ass, and wishes to be either dominated by an apparently white(r) partner, or handed with extreme care like an exotic, delicate flower that bruises to touch. Oh yeah... You also worship MONSTER COCK. (By the way, I don't think Magical Chicken appreciates her boyfriend being referred to as "monster".) All of which points to a really troubling conception of femininity and gender roles pegged to your race.

- Certain strangers feel they can take liberties with you like publicly manhandle you (lift you up, pinch your cheeks, pat your head, even touch you on more inappropriate spots etc), comment on your Asian cuteness, and how much they like your food. It doesn't matter if you're Singaporean, because that's just part of Asia and it's all the same since they can't tell all you people apart. (Though, seriously, why do you need to tell us apart? So that you can be selectively racist?) If you insist that being Singaporean should mean something--because we on the island like to tell ourselves that we're better than our Asian counterparts--but all you receive is knowledge that the interlocutor has been to Singapore too, "and it has a really nice airport."

Stereotypes don't only trap you in a certain mould complete with often false expectations of what and who you are. They also trap people absorbing it with a certain image of how you should be treated. For every person who thinks these images innocuous, there're many others who can't or won't quite differentiate fact from fiction. And unless you're out there convincing everyone that your approved stereotype is actually not wholly safe for consumption, then I suggest you jolly well not encourage it at all. Because so far, I haven't found a stereotype that benefits anyone.

Public Service Annoucement: "To have self-esteem."

My turkey spectral pal's really awesome and very sad moving tale of her first encounter with pedestrian racism has really put me in such a horrible mood. I'm bowled over by the sort of shitty things parents, guardians and mentors can teach children in the name of love and the latter's self-interest. As I said in the comment section there, I'm reminded of my own experience in having to listen to the sort of bullshit about race and "bad animals" that my elders tried to inculcate in me, which for some reason never really stuck because I was and continue to be doubtful of authority figure and authoritative--and worse, authoritarian--tones.

Unlike many other people, I was always in the company of authority figures who fought a lot with each other, make all sorts of mistakes and cause all forms of hurt behind closed doors. That slightly dysfunctional background led me to understand intuitively that even purported role models are not always right. As my feline friend discovers, older people are not necessarily relevant in their 'wisdom'. By all means respect your elders as you should other people, especially with the common decency that we should accord all human beings (see: Human Rights), but screw that listen to your elders unremittingly bullshit.

This is going to be hard to accept, but even we on the barn makes mistakes for the simple reason that nobody's perfect. (Though, we're still pretty damn close to cutesy perfection, yo!)

So dear searching kid, teenager, jia-buey-tua (literally: eat no big) adult who feels different and alienated from the majority, please find delight in the fact that the sagely ones and even your media bigwigs might be wrong, but that you are capable of change and differing from them. Therein making you a little more real (human or otherwise), and a little more prepared for a life of infinite betterment.

Finally, I dedicate the following clip to Poultrygeist and all the other barnmates for showing us that one can actually wade through all the misogynistic, anti-gay, racist, et al bullshit to come out stronger, wiser and brimming with such admirable self-esteem. This is by yet another American comedienne, Margaret Cho, whom I mostly piggishly love, from her stand-up "Notorious C.H.O." (2002):

And I have a lot of self-esteem, which is amazing 'cause I'm probably somebody who wouldn't necessarily have a lot of self-esteem as I am considered a minority.

And if you are a woman; if you are a person of color; if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender; if you are a person of size; if you are person of intelligence; if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world.

And it's going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere, especially women's and gay men's culture. It's all about how you have to a look certain way, or else you're worthless. You know when you look in the mirror, and you think: Urgh! I'm so ugly! I'm so fat! I'm so old!

Don't you know? That's not your authentic self?

But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising, magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself, so that you will take your hard-earned money, and spend it at the mall, on some turn-around cream that doesn't turn around shit!

If you don't have self-esteem, you'd hesitate before you do anything in your life.

You'd hesitate to go for the job you really wanna go for.

You'd hesitate to ask for a raise.

You'd hesitate to call yourself an American. [BDP: please feel free to substitute this with your appropriate nationality.]

You'd hesitate to report a rape.

You'd hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender.

You'd hesitate to vote. You'd hesitate to dream.

For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution, and our revolution is long overdue.

XOXO

"If your marriage is fucked up, it's because you fucked it."

Oh Holy Jeshua Christ! What the bug-eating-Rafflesia is with so much male-cow dropping of patronising condescension from institutions (you cleared up nothing because nothing's been "misperceived", but thanks for making it pointedly clear how you know we see the road to hell you pave with your good intentions; see Redux tackled by brilliant Leona Lo) and a sympathetic married woman!?

Is this, as Complaining Cow says, "wing-nut week at the ST Forum editor's desk"?

I'm in no mood to get further upset after yesterday's hogwash parading as magnanimity (as reader, Madhairday, notes in the comment section, "the HONOUR of the tolerance [Jerkface] has bestowed upon us lower beings") and if people don't see what's essentially wrong with the positions they hold, I think we're just going to have to pretend to agree to disagree, but silently know that my Magical friend is onto them and in all its infinite and magical wisdom sees them for the "nasty, contemptuous assclown" that they are.

To ease tensions, I'll let the wonderful comedienne, Wanda Sykes, share some incisive humour on the seemingly delicate institution of marriage and--by its extension--Traditional Family Valuez. The very illusions of problems brought on by people whose complex lives have led them down different, yet functional and surprisingly mostly happy (if not for your constant shitting on them) paths from your "classicist" structures.

From her 2006 "Sick and Tired" stand-up comedy show:

If you don't believe in same-sex marriage, then don't bother marrying somebody of the same sex. How does someone else's marriage affect your marriage? If your marriage is fucked up, it's because you fucked it.

Are straight couples in marriage counsel now; "we just ain't been working together since Bill and Ted hooked up. We just can't get along."

I don't know. "We got to protect marriage", that's what they say. "We got to protect marriage." I don't think same-sex couples, I don't think they're the biggest threat to marriage. I think the biggest threat to marriage is divorce.

That's what fucked up my marriage.

So if they're so concerned about preserving marriage, and the sanctity of marriage, they want to protect marriage, what they should is ban divorce. Make marriage like the mafia; once you're in, you're in.

...

What is the fear? What are people afraid of? What you're scared that gay marriage is going to be better than your marriage?

"Look at them happy-ass gays..."

You're scared your wives will nag you and stuff like, "Honey, honey, look at Bill and Ted. Oh my god, I love those guys. They sat on that porch for hours and talk. I run into them all the time at the mall, I see them shopping. I mean they spend a lot of quality time together. I wish we could do that. I wish we could be a little more like Bill and Ted."

[In husband tone] "Really? Well, maybe if you let me fuck you in your ass a couple of times, that could be me and you right there, baby--we could have that."

The Holy Gospel of the Easter Bunny

(Cross-posted from my blog earlier.)


The Easter Bunny is said to be "born from the pastel coloured egg of a virgin hen, while others suggest he was found in a basket of cellophane grass". He died in the window of a butcher shop in Chinatown for our sins, just right before he was sold to a Ukrainian family and eaten.

Have you been saved by our Lord Animal Christ Jeshua Cottontail, my friends?

(Watch to learn why chocolates are dangerous for dogs.)

My recipe for This Befuddling Gay Love (AKA "How do you know you're gay?").

This set of pork trotters hasn't seen much keyboard action lately because they've been busy wandering the outer limits of the farm seeking solace. The truth is, Porkchop here is in a badly drawn state of mind due to affairs of this pig's heart. A heart that he's seriously considering serving to his readers in a double-boiler, brewed with dried dates, Chinese lycium and aged ginseng.

It might be broken, but damn will it taste good...

The topic of gay love, or rather the question "How do you know you're gay?", is a constant point of interest for the new animals and people this pig constantly meets at his socials. So while in this pensive, lovelorn mood, I think I'll take this mopey opportunity to share with our dear readers--those of non-gay, but inquisitive persuasions--my recipe for This Befuddling Gay Love (AKA "How do you know you're gay").

I shall refer to the first time I fell in love.


Ingredients
1 x Pig A - Gay male, unfeminist and badly drawn pig,
1 x Pig B - Male pig (preferably gay; but unfeminist and badly drawn optional),

(For taste)
A lot of Time
A lot of Patience

Step 1: Discovering Pig B.
One pig has to discover the other pig. This occurs in various permutations: at work, socials, schools, random places, on the Charlotte's Interwebz, etc.

In this case, I met Pig B at work. He used to bother me all the time because he was annoyingly free and needed to skive outside of his own office. We talked a bit but I was always too busy to entertain him for extended periods, so it took months before we became slow and unexpected friends.

Step 2: Getting to Know You
*cue music*

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you.
Getting to like you, getting to hope you like me.
Getting to know you, putting it in my way but nicely,
You are precisely my cup of tea.

Getting to know you, getting to feel free and easy,
When I am with you, getting to know what to say.
Haven't you noticed, suddenly I'm bright and breezy?
Because of all the beautiful and new things
I'm learning about you
Day by day.

Step 3: Think of You, Much?
This is an extremely delicate part of the process, and well difficult to master.

I started to think about Pig B a lot, but with a very curious and serious intensity that I have never cultivated for any of my other close friends--and I have a couple of them, both male and female, porcine and otherwise. It didn't occur to me that it was happening until I began to notice how I'm asking him out a lot, text messaging him countless times a day, and would be surprised or worried if I didn't hear from him at all. The times when we weren't together, I wondered how he was doing.

For the first time, I felt like I irrationally missed someone a lot. It was a very confusing time, not because I suspected that I was in love with him--no inkling whatsoever, but because I already knew when we were going to meet and when we weren't, so what's up with all this anticipation and missing?

Step 4: Figuring out.
This is actually a two-part process.

The first part is talking it out with others. Because I hadn't any experience in this arena prior to this, and I had no particular sexual attraction to either the male or female species, I couldn't recognise the signs. But when my constant minding became apparent to other friends, some suggested to me that maybe I was in love with Pig B!

Good brown chocolate bunnies in the sky!

I R IN LUV!?!?!?11111!ONE!!ELEVENTY1111!!

What does that even mean!?!??! I had to know, so I queried a lot of people from my extended network to tell me their experiences of falling in love, and how they knew when they had non-platonic attraction for someone.

Then you come to some realisation: I have never met anyone else whom I felt such warmth, care and concern for. Never felt like I needed that person so much that it was unbearable not having him in my life. Our casual touch was very different in effect. It didn't give me Porkchop wood, but it transmitted a strange sense of comfort and joy that made me quite unreasonably want to always be some contact.

It never crossed my mind that I'd want to have sex with him at all. I couldn't! The sense of belonging just felt so pure, yet at the same time so different. To say he didn't turn me on is untrue, but he just didn't turn me on that raw, sexual level.

Step 5: Head-on Collision (Optional).
This is not recommended for the faint of heart. Actually, it isn't recommended at all for anyone, although I do think it really does make one confront the reality of the attraction, and dare I say it, of love.

Pig B began his attraction for a pig--not me, some other pig. I couldn't do anything. When I saw them together holding trotters, I quietly left the vicinity for some other place, where I ended up sobbing uncontrollably.

I fully realised then that I wanted to be that pig with which he would hold trotters. With that, I knew I was madly and deeply in love with Pig B.

Step 6: Realising You're Gay
This might seem misplaced a step, but trust me it isn't. You often don't consider the socio-political aspects of your fondness for someone while you're in the throes of it. It took me a long time before I finally came to grasp that all my emotional up's and down's was emblematic of a greater fight for acceptance in a culture that longs to eradicate every trace of experiences others may have similar to mine--not only to prevent the sort of heartaches unrequited love imposes, but even those that actually bloom fairy-tale results of happily ever after.

The realisation of my being gay is sadly fortified by the fact that there will always be people who are never sure that you are gay. Not because you look like everyone else, but for reasons like they think you are just rebelling, incapable of effectively controlling your urges, haven't met the right opposite sex partner, have had a terrible childhood, are perverted, have taken on the wrong path, etc.

Realising that you're gay is realising that there always will be people who don't want you in their families, circle of friends, military, religious institutions, organisations and countries. People don't hate you, they just hate your lifestyle.

And if you can handle all that...

*ta-da*

You're now gay!

(Gotcha!)

Well, not really.

You'd have only figured out somewhat how my gay love works and what makes me gay... My story isn't going to be representative of every gay person's discovery of hir own sexual inclinations. I speak only for me, but I do hope it lends some clues nevertheless that I think the point is this: gay love is very much like straight love, in both its common uneventfulness but brilliant, warm, fuzzy splendour.

When you're too good not to be white(r).

This is a post on three instances when you're too good not to be whiter.


(Taken from Otago Daily Times.)
Story 1 - That's Jeff Ma on the left.

He was a very smart Asian-American kid, who at some point of his life at MIT decided that he could outsmart the the game of 21 by counting cards. So he and some other very smart Asian-American mates bandied together, headed down to Las Vegas to count their way to riches.

It was. A. Lot. Of. Money.

Enough of a-lot for someone to write a book about him, which led to Hollywood making a movie about the book, lead starring the very cute Jim Sturgess, who's on the right in the photo. Resemblance between Ma and Sturgess?

Not much.

Because somewhere along the line, someone exercised a little creative genius and rewrote the story: Kevin Lewis (in-book)/ Ben Campbell (in-movie) is a very smart Caucasian-American kid, who at some point of his life at college decided that he could outsmart the game of 21 by counting cards. So he and some other mates (mostly Caucasian-American) bandied together, headed down to Las Vegas to count their way to riches.

It was. A. Lot. Of. Money.

Enough of a-lot for people to want to rewrite your identity into something more palatable for the general masses who have been told that only certain identities and looks have more selling power.

Well, at least they kept the penises. Farmer help us should they'd gone all crazy by reimagining a woman there instead.


Story 2 - In a more fictitious universe, there's the Nickelodeon cartoon series, "Avatar: The Last Airbender". The story has all sorts of culturally period Asian settings and mysticism, with the key character, Aang, looking quite a bit like a Shaolin monk (see picture above; dude who looks quite a bit like a Shaolin monk--yeah, doesn't take a PhD in anthropology to spot, ya?). Not to mention, Chinese calligraphy and pugilistic moves are featured throughout the show. There's also a strong hint of Inuit identity in two of the major 'Water Tribe' characters as well.

It's a very popular show, so like any popular work of art, book, cartoon, comic, video game, stage performance that has an inkling of a narrative, it has to translate into a celluloid blockbuster. (Of course, it has to! What do you mean why!? Question does not compute...) However, during that translation, Asian and coloured actors and actresses died of what comedienne, Margaret Cho, terms SARS (Severe Asian Racism Syndrome), so the producers and casting crew ended up with this:


(Image from Racebending.com.)
Oh.... All the coloured artistes who could have more important roles died, but lots survived for the minor roles of bad guys, of course. As is anti-hero Zuko's role, played by Dev Patel of "Slumdog Millionaire" (2008) fame. Because darker-skinned people evoke more terror in the hearts of many people, ya?

(Question: who scares darker-skinned people? Racists, I wager.)


Story 3 - That's a movie-still of the most divine Jake Gyllenhaal and the very pretty English actress Emma Arterton, in their respective role as a Persian prince and Indian princess. (True fact: Persia's current day Iran.) They're from the movie "Prince of Persia" (2010), which is based on--if you have been following my point about 'good anything = good movie'--the very popular computer game of the same name from the 1990s.

(Images taken from Jordan Mechner.)
True, the computer game was no history lesson to take home to your kids. In fact, judging by the cover art of the game itself, this was just some Orientalist's dream, where you get all the culture and food of an exotic place without having to actually have the burden of factoring in the people from this place too much. (Maybe video games really aren't all that good for kids?) But in the two decades between 1989 and 2010, you'd think people have figured out that there's something really wrong about the Prince of Persia arch.

Oh, by the way, they did of course cast Sir Ben Kingsley, of half-Indian, half-white parentage as Teh Ev!l guy Nizam in the movie. He gets the dark under-eye liner, menacing goatee and doubly ornate wardrobe evil exotica treatment. Kinda like Boris Karioff's Fu Man Chu from the "The Mask of Fu Manchu" (1932).


(Nizam from IMDB; Fu Man Chu from Racebending.com.)
The problem here is that Hollywood is a really big machine that churns out so much material that is so widely marketed and shown everywhere. The Hollywood content is not some accidental, small option at the movies, instead they are the main spread in our movie culture for a lot of people. That sort of long-term normalising is the reason why, even though we still don't have a lot of Caucasians in our midst, it is really difficult to not factor them in our imagination, hence the prevalence in seeing Caucasian models selling anything and everything. And it has seeped so deeply into our consciousness that it's actually not a big deal when we do meet them living in our neighbourhoods or working alongside us as well.


Nigerian novelist, Chimamanda Adichie, spoke quite recently about her experience with "the single story", of growing up reading English books by English and American authors, meeting other people outside of the Nigeria who have perplexing impressions of her and where she comes from. In the middle of it, she points out quite correctly, I think, the (suggestion) of power that gets embedded in the narrative, which really isn't a new idea but I guess it bears minding:

It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think about whenever I think about the power structures of the world, and it is "nkali." It's a noun that loosely translates to "to be greater than another." Like our economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principle of nkali. How they are told, who tells them, when they're told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power.

Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. The Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti writes that if you want to dispossess a people, the simplest way to do it is to tell their story, and to start with, "secondly." Start the story with the arrows of the Native Americans, and not with the arrival of the British, and you have and entirely different story. Start the story with the failure of the African state, and not with the colonial creation of the African state, and you have an entirely different story.

I recently spoke at a university where a student told me that it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had just read a novel called "American Psycho" and that it was such a shame that young Americans were serial murderers. Now, obviously I said this in a fit of mild irritation.

I would never have occurred to me to think that just because I had read a novel in which a character was a serial killer that he was somehow representative of all Americans. And now, this is not because I am a better person than that student, but, because of America's cultural and economic power, I had many stories of America. I had read Tyler and Updike and Steinbeck and Gaitskill. I did not have a single story of America. ("The danger of a single story," Jul 2009)

In summary, don't be a Stupid Gherkin you people in your boardrooms talking up ideas about the next movie, television and story. The world is full of stories to be told, and contrary to what you think, a good story can probably sell itself without your white-washing it--not just simply by putting only white people on screen, but also making everyone look a certain type, or talk a certain way (Singapore, I'm looking at you too!). The exposure to more representation can only be a good thing, then maybe brown spectre turkeys don't have to protest against the rail-thin, snow-white fair beauty regiment of contemporary culture, cats don't have to deal with daily racists pretending that they're beyond racism (or "micro aggressive racism", if you will), and you wouldn't have to change a goat's name because it doesn't fit right inside your little non-United Colours of Benetton world. And a badly-drawn, male unfeminist pig feels obliged to write a whole meandering blog post, on top of looking for matching pictured about this.

Now, imagine that!

+++

Racebending.com is the official international protest movement that's calling for a boycott of the movie "Avatar: The Last Airbender". Pledge your boycott if you agree that the movie-makers have quite a serious case of all-sort-of-fucked-up, and believe that there's room for other coloured folks to take up screen time in more diverse roles.

18 Mighty Mountain Warriors urges best in this skit:

too brown for this town

This spectral turkey went shopping the other day and was not impressed. Though considered "white meat", it must be said that The Poultrygeist is more a glorious shade of brown. A bit like teh tarik if you will. However, even us spectral turkeys have to look professional on a day to day basis.

But enough of the third person narrative.

I started attempting to use make-up at the ripe old age of 19. Since then, i've scoured the country for a foundation suitable for my skin tone. Each suitable shade has since been discontinued - because it's "too dark, so not popular". I've noticed that stores (all, save one) here don't stock foundation or concealer for the darker skinned. In fact, they are blissfully unaware that darker shades even exist, to the point that they pig-headedly (sorry!) insist that a particular popular brand does not manufacture that dark a shade. Yes, they do you guys! They're just not stocked in Singapore.

Now mind you, i'm not even that dark, in the grand scheme of things. But what exactly is our society's obsession with being fair-skinned? The very fact that I am not quite on the right side of beige automatically makes me a target for peddlers of "instant skin whitening" products. Isn't there something wrong with the ideal that's being projected all over Singapore in the form of advertisements, television shows and even celebrity endorsements? Just once, I'd like to see our racial minorities cast in mainstream television as something other than the usual stereotypical policemen, makciks and overly protective wide-girthed mothers with a flair for the melodramatic.

The ideal of beauty has taken the form of a thin, pale complexioned straight-haired mannequin of homogenised chinese/japanese/korean descent. And so i get repeatedly asked if i'd like to tame my stubborn curls with a re-bonding treatment; or if i'd like a skin whitening facial; or informed peremptorily that i need to lose 15 kilograms.

The irony is that it is only in Singapore, the place I grew up in, and which purports to be my "home" that I have felt conscious about my appearance and the colour of my skin. We are repeatedly reminded during the annual build up to the 9th of August that it is Singapore's diversity that makes her unique.

Save for those 2 months out of a year, I see very little celebration of this allegedly revered "diversity".

Our state of best interest.

I was thinking more about my last entry on the censoring of "Paper Hearts", when I realised something quite startling: the reflexive reaction I had with the cutting of Teh Gayz was to accuse the latter of something deplorable, like talking about "sticking straws into nostrils or something", which I think speaks of the power of the censorship veil--that it has been normalised to suggest that it only beneficially covers and hides what is necessarily detrimentally sordid and immoral. Even if we don't know the content that's been smothered, we are prone and trained to automatically assume the worst, and exercise faith that a few people on our censorship board have done what is to be considered in our best interest.

Nudity,
explicit violence,
foul language,
explicit sex,
pornography,
religious-hate,
racial-hate,
the abject grotesque:
human shitting,
human pissing,
human birthing,
anti-government sentiments, which in Singapore parlance,
political oppositional parties,
etc.

Singapore's stand is that homosexual content can only be presented in our local media in a "balanced" manner, entailing both 'yes' and 'no' arguments. For every argument that homosexuality is genetic, we must argue that nature is not morally deterministic. For every argument that there's little difference between homosex and heterosex, we have to talk about the high incident rates of gay men acquiring HIV, even if they forget that gay women exist too. We are led to believe that this act of balancing is to prevent Singapore's seemingly tenuous family bonds and values from being disturbed by the forces of homosexuality.

But in our search for balance, do we demand that anti-gay sentiments be balanced with positive portrayal of gay people?

No.

Because this "balance" that we espouse is one born of anti-gay sentiments. In a society where anti-sodomy laws are maintained as symbolic gesturing of our societal disapproval, the balance of our status quo is default negativity towards gay people. In that light, we are mistaken to believe that positive portrayal of homosexuality will be the countervailing influence that we need, since Singapore's need for balance hinges on a untraditional definition that tips the scales to a specific side.

So we can't have a couple talking quite casually about how they fell in love, decided to set themselves in a committed relationship--not unlike a straight marriage, and suggest that they'll live happily ever after without ever planning to destroy our (straight) family values or turn your children gay.

In a piece that wants such punishing "balance", we are supposed to accept that the censor's cuts are indeed the force of balance, insofar as in removing this encounter of a perfectly functional and traditional gay couple, we are returned to our state of best interest in hate, fear and ignorance towards gay people.

I regret that even I, a gay male unfeminist pig, have internalised this homophobia so seamlessly.

"Paper Heart" - Teh Gayz = Singapore's "Paper Heart".

(Original image from Reel Movie Critic.)
So occasionally this badly drawn, gay male unfeminist pig ventures out of this lovely barn and into the city--not unlike the original pig in the city, Babe. I did it a week ago to watch Paper Heart, a mockumentary about people falling and staying in love. From the internet reviews, I learnt that film involves the central character, Charlyne Yi, interviewing friends, bikers, lawyers, scientists and even a gay couple on their respective definition or experience of love.

People talking about love sounds harmless enough, I thought. Except when I trotted to the cinema did I realise that the movie was rated NC-16.

"Oh dear," I thought, "them gays must have talked about sticking straws into nostrils or something." Little did I realise that it was worse than that, because throughout the movie, there was no gay couple at all! The censors had to eradicate the entire segment, yet stuck an NC-16 rating for reasons unbeknownst to me.

Just what was so offensive about the gay people in the movie?

My cursory research reveals Teh Horraz: they "plug for gay marriage... are also white and male"; in their interview, "the word "sex" goes unmentioned"; the two are "long committed... [though one of them] has an "urn containing the ashes of [his] late boyfriend (referred to as an “ex in a box”)"; he actually "describes the death of [that] boyfriend, his voice breaking as he attempts to lighten the moment with a quip"; the film also doesn't "dramatise the romance of [the] two burly gay New Yorkers the same way" other interviewees were in a puppet-theatre setup mastered by Yi (see picture below).

(Picture from Paper Heart Official Website)
So this is just how we roll in conservatism-loving Singapore.

Two years ago, when an NTU research on Singaporean receptivity of media representation of gay people in the media surfaced in the Straits Times, with the findings that "68.6per cent of respondents 'generally held negative attitudes', 22.9per cent had positive attitudes and 8.5per cent were neutral", these results were used to justify Singapore not repealing its anti-sodomy law, Penal Code Section 377A. The rationale, which a lot of people used, hinged on the findings obtained from this study, suggesting that Singaporeans were far too conservative to accept homosexuals content on their television, much less in real-life.

Well and good, except for the question of just how much gay representation does the average Singaporean receive in our local media in the first place? Accounting the fact that the media authorities exercise such a heavy-hand at not only preventing positive homosexual content from appearing, but also quick to penalise the media providers who rock the boat with a hefty fine.

People obviously need to be shielded from the terrorising images of gay people because of their homosexual lifestyle and agenda. Just read this subversive description of an average day in gay-agenda manoeuvring undertaken by this gay man:

I work my ass off at an unfulfilling job. I pay my bills. I pay my taxes. I do my best to keep my house in order. I try to be a good citizen. I try to be a good neighbor. I worry about the future of the planet. I recycle. I'm usually in bed by 10:00 PM. I give to charity. I help others in need. I just want to have a comforting home. I feed the cat. I visit with the elderly. I go to Mass. I work in my garden. I argue with my spouse. I support high school sports. I just want to have a few good friends who understand and appreciate me. And on the weekend, I watch a film, drink a few beers, and go to bed. (Source.)

Appalling, simply appalling!!!

Clearly, Singaporeans' negative reactions to homosexual content--however imagined--supports the case of continuing the status quo, because we all know that positive or neutral representation of homosexuals in the media will not actually help to educate people's image of gay people. We are after all moving away from a conservative society, where the idea of open and accepted homosexuality is simply new to a lot of people and wrought with misconceptions--like all new things, get old and familiar with time, to a Conservative society, where the idea of open and accepted homosexuality must actively be kept new and wrought with misconceptions for its people--eternally other, never familiar.

So that's why Teh Gayz had to go in the movie. Flying Spaghetti Monsters forbid that we might actually uncover the essential point that makes gay people gay: the heart, which strangely enough isn't so different as it is similar to the average, straight Singaporean.