do what you want with your pubes

you'll be free child, once you have died, from the shackles of language and measurable time...

from 'land locked blue' written by conor oberst from the bright eyes album: 'i'm wide awake it's morning' (saddle creek 2005)

last night i was chatting on msn with louise and she asked me if i'd ever heard of peaches. i have and i to be honest i just don't get it.

so, she says cunt and asked people to take pictures of her ungroomed genitalia...i know at first glance something like that can seem amazingly shocking and controversial but look closer...is it really? we live in such a sexualized time and i wonder if we are truly able to be shocked to by the language and visuals of sex anymore...ok, maybe visually...a photo of a girl getting cum shot all over her face may still be a shock.

but words? how many times, on average, do you think the average person hears or says the word fuck, or hears a sexual innuendo in a song? even the evil 'c' word (cunt) no longer holds the power it used to. sure, we think it means something empowering when we hear a woman talk about her cunt, describe in graphic detail how she enjoys being fucked and penetrated and how she loves sucking cock or eating pussy...

did those words even do anything to you? maybe they turned you on but did they offend...i'd be willing to bet, assuming no religious or moral opposition to such language, that you may have flinched a little but probably read most of that they way you're reading this sentence here...am i wrong?

back to what i was saying...is it more subversive for a woman to say such things? do we as women feel empowered by peaches saying the word cunt? i don't.

i think somewhere along the line we've all become victims of language. if a woman says cunt it's empowering; if a man says it it's misogynistic...i heard on the radio the other day a man say the following: (and i paraphrase liberally here) lynching still exists only it isn't called lynching anymore...rodney king was lynched. the only reason we think slavery doesn't exist is because we don't call it that anymore.

so at what point have we been convinced that we as woman are empowered against the patriarchy by using the word cunt? it's acceptable to the mainstream for woman to use that word and is therefore NOT genuinely subversive...at least not anymore.

if you don't like my peaches example think of something a LOT more mainstream then...eminem. when he came out people were mad because he swore a lot and talked about beating up women, blah, blah, blah...right? so, think of eminem now, 5+ years later what's he doing? he's the first rapper to win an oscar, he's one of the most famous people and his 'offensive and subversive' records are FUCKING HUGE HITS! so the christian right hates him...the christian right hates a lot of people! the christian right hates shrek and spongebob...

so, what's my point? is there anything actually and truly subversive in music?

yes!

is it crazy-ass anarchist punk rock? nope.

it's the music that subverts language itself. it's the music that denies language it's believed cultural importance.
we cannot be referred to as anything if we are free of language. we cannot be men, women, gay, straight, smart, dumb, pretty, ugly, fat, skinny...you get the idea. we cannot be negative binary opposites if language doesn't define us as such.

ok...so are there examples of this...i think so...even the fiery furnaces who make up as many words as they use real words and have almost NO structural composition for their words. it can't mean anything when it doesn't mean anything right?

i think this idea that we are so tied to and crippled by language is part of the reason for a general fear in music of all things ambient and free of words. we'll allow nelly or ludacris to sell 500 billion copies of an album that degrades EVERYONE, or at least everyone that isn't a heterosexual male, and yet an amazing group of artists like the dead texan wallow in obscurity and campus radio...or 'noise'...i am listening to a noise set on the radio right now...that'll mind fuck you more than anything i can think of, musically, i mean...

stepping aside from music for a second. we try to capture 'love' with words too...go to the I N T I M A C Y link on the left there and look at the photos (some are explicit) and tell me that love and intimacy isn't made clearer in some of these photos then it could ever be with words...

that's what i got...argue with me. prove me wrong. and peaches, who cares if you don't shave your cunt?

xo alice.