C’Lick Me Festival, Amsterdam
Posted on behalf of Marije Janssen
New Times, Old sex, Dutch Women and their Playboy Vaginas…
[The last couple of months the discussion about pornification and the
objectification of women have been a hot issue in the Netherlands. Old
feminist issues are once again debated when Dutch documentary maker Sunny
Bergman produced her documentary ‘Beperkt Houdbaar’ (Limited Usability)
about the Playboy image that women feel they need to live up to. She
states that women are still extremely sexualised and objectified and finds a
soulmate in Ariel Levy with her book ‘Female Chauvinist Pigs’. This book
also raised a lot of controversy in the feminist debate in a country that is
regarded as openminded but still is underdeveloped in thinking about
contemporary sexuality and media. In the Netherlands, the only alternative
voice comes from Dutch lingerie designer Marlies Dekkers with her book
‘Stout’ (Naughty) where she states that the main power of women lies in her
sexuality and she should be naughty to get what she wants. In this
pro/contra discussion the C’lick Me stimulators try to provide an
alternative in their open letter to the main Dutch newspapers. Below you can
read the translation for all non-dutch speakers.
In the netherlands we seem to be living the old days of angry feminists who
want to take the streets. In every corner of society women are discussing
sex and porn, but in the mass media we find only a polarized portrait. Is
that the reason why we have landed back in the 1970s? Our “bimbo” culture,
the pornification of society, the limited perseverance of the body, are
these really the themes that stir us? If we can believe the media, one is
either against any impulse towards public sex culture, and one babbles
endlessly about the victim position, or one expresses a vital femininity by
means of sexuality. Other nuances seem to be lost.
This is the reason why all discussions about womanhood in relation to porn
do not the go beyond the female victim position and the misery that it
engenders. Of course we cannot deny that women are sex objects because of
stereotyping, unrealistic beauty standards, and the male gaze which they
cannot satisfy. But why do we find endless tirades about victimization in
the 21 st century? It does not make us feel any better.
Let us have a look at how we think differently. Of course porn is arousing,
sexually stimulating, thought-provoking. Of course we can even participate
in DIY (Do-It-Yourself) porn culture. Of course we are beyond attitudes of
radical fear and hidden prudery. The alternatives in the Netherlands don’t
seem to go much further than the sexual liberation of Marleen Dekkers and
Heleen van Royen and their book ‘Stout’ (Naughty). In this book they reduce
the position of a strong female sexual identity to a SBS6 format. Women are
supposed to use their sexuality as a means of power and to be naughty to get
what they want. And if we take this suggestion one step further we become
like bimbos.
What seems to be lost in this discussion is that there are also women who
look for a sexuality that is grounded in different values. For instance, we
still have to make a Kinsey-style inventory of what women and men, old and
young, like to do, and what they find exciting. We also have to look at the
evolution of sexuality, instead of constanty looking back at what has gone
wrong. The commotion going on the Netherland shows that people are willing
to consider evolution, but falling back into jaded pro-porn/anti-porn
debates. Of course we cannot always avoid the porno fight as these are
discussions that do touch us, and the ideas come close to our personal
dreams, aspirations and frustations.
It is a most interesting tendency that these personal sensibilities are now
surfacing in the online environments. The internet offers
opportunities for people from different backgrounds to look for arousing
materials. One does not have to follow mainstream taste, but one can look a
for a personal touch. One does not have search according to a
one-dimensional ideal, and this makes the search more confusing and
exciting. Online it is not about the intention of the spectator but that of
the provider, so mainstream beauty standards play a smaller role.
This is a theme that we want to discuss as curators of the C’lick Me
festival, which is about the role of Internet Pornography in formulating
sexual selves and relations. If we look beyond commercial porn, we find a
multi-faceted underground that is concerned with other values than
satisfying fleshly lusts. Womens, queers and transgender communities may
find each other in new reality body standards and playfulness. No more
silocone breasts and playboyvaginas, but an environment that criticizes the
mainstream heterosexual ideals of sexuality and aesthetics. Through digital
networks we can reach a quirky individualism and critical-playful masses,
and these are some the “netporn” and “post-porn” objectives, which are also
called indieporn, altporn or DIY porn movements. These are open to women and
men, and have in mind a cross-fertilization between art and porn, between
queer and hetero sex. But these tendencies are to be found beyond commercial
porn, and this culture has not surfaced in the Dutch debates. We look at
alternative websites such a nofauxxx.com, where porn is interwoven with a
positive and creative activism. This site has meanwhile been linked to many
other sites, and these are social zones for people who may be sick of beauty
standards or who don’t care about the demands of commodity culture. These
sites offer alternatives to common ways of framing the porn body and power
roles and they do not start from heterosexual ideals.
These were the themes of the 2005 conference ‘Art and Politics of Netporn,’
organized by the Institute of Network Cultures in collaboration with Matteo
Pasquinelli and Katrien Jacobs. It seemed to be an urgent task to host
artistic and academic-activist perspectives on netporn. We deem it important
to carry out this progressive porn research and to further create an
international censor-free zone where porn can be discussed and shown,
because we do not just want to rely on galleries and discussions in
cyberspace. We want to meet in an actual space and time. The C’Lick me
Festival will continue where ‘Art and politics of Netporn’ ended, and will
once again discuss alternative porn zones by inviting partcipants and
experts from different backgrounds. The conclusion is that we want to look
forward to these netporn circuits. If we are going back in time, lets us go
back the erotic sensibilities of our (bi) curious (grand)mothers and
whatever they were into in their avid masturbations or sexual affairs with
others. Because it is also bout a deep sexual feeling and urge for erotica
that remains constant throughout centuries of porn, despite the fluctuating
media. It is about the joys of being naughty and disciplined. Because we
cannot spend all our time with
cranky conversation partners.
Marije Janssen and Katrien Jacobs
For more info, take a look at the C’Lick Me websites
http://www.c-lickme.nl
http:///myspace.com/clickmeamsterdam
|
