SEXORCIZE

Roaring has demanded that I review RiRi’s ‘S&M’, recently exhibited on a screen near you, claiming that she is going to write some ‘theology’. I think this is code for climbing into bed with a Chinese take-away, a bottle of wine and Gone With the Wind (again).

Having been banned in 11 countries, with MTV apparently considering a re-edit, and suffering a pre-7pm anti-curfew by

Radio 1, I was ready for a Massive Spontaneous Orgasm upon pressing the play button.

I think though The Mirror captured it quite nicely with their insightful comment:

“Oo-er!”

Aside from the mild hilarity of actually seeing that expression caught in print, it’s not exactly the response you’d be pleased to receive if you’d burgled Ann Summers and pulled all the Valentine stops out for when your man gets home.

"Oo-er" is a bit more Carry on Camping.

The Carry On movies weren’t sexy for a whole different reason though. After all Rihanna is more attractive than Kenneth Williams and Barbara Windsor combined. (Just imagine.) S&M is actually an anti-sex video, which I’m afraid can only be explained by reference to a Roland Barthes essay on strip-tease as the exorcism of sex.


Writing in 1957, he observes how the props of the music hall and the exoticism of the dress imply the unreality of what lies beneath:


‘the nakedness which follows remains itself unreal, smooth and enclosed like a beautiful slippery object, withdrawn by its very extravagance from use.’

And this is before the Advent of Photoshopping.


And speaking of the allegedly erotic dancing of strip-tease, he points out that the ritual gestures and the constant motion actually conceal nudity and the fear of immobility. The ease and seamless nature of the act make them remote and non-erotic - a fact immediately verified by considering amateurs or our own partially bungled, awkward and embarrassed attempts, which by their fear and vulnerability actually succeed in being erotic. Provided we don’t fall over and start crying.

So through all her different poses, which bring to light in silly ridiculousness all kinds of fetish (even her Scary Spice impression from the video... [sorry this was Roaring's observation which my shameful lack of interest in Spice Girls videos is unable to corroborate]) that depend upon being secret, shameful, forbidden &c. for their allure, she magically weaves a vacuum of anti-sex through her flawless, glazed hips, sexorcising the world. Except presumably for teenage boys who wank off to it anyway because it’s apparently a WOMAN, although a WOMBAT would probably do the trick in a fix.

Also, the oft-repeated line: “Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it.”

Seriously. Oo-er.

Barthes essay is most amusing because what he really hates is the amateur strip-tease competitions; that stripping can now be thought of as a career, that it is made ‘familiar and bourgeois’, that we ‘could not conceive eroticism except as a household property, sanctioned by the alibi of weekly sport’.

Pole-dancing classes anyone?

The story gets even weirder though when you read in today’s Guardian Joy Nilsson, postgraduate student at a London university, on a protest march against the closing of lap-dancing clubs: “If they close the clubs many women will drop out of higher education... I love my job and I’m very proud of what I do - it fits perfectly with my studying, it’s very flexible and you get your money up front. What other jobs give you that kind of freedom?”

Apparently 1 in 3 lap-dancers in Leeds are doing it to fund their education. This presumably fits in to the government's “Big Tits Society” area of policy.

So what MTV tells us is that our culture has successfully exorcised itself of sex for money. Culturally sex has become banal. Just think of Bridget Jones’ casual reference to anal sex - you probably didn’t even notice it. This hasn’t in anyway diminished the fact that sex is still sold everywhere for money and that bodies in poverty are exploited. But in a sexless culture this ceases to be a moral concern, it becomes simply an economic concern.

Incidentally, these themes come together in Mike Figgis’ production of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia. The libretto is vicious to poor Lucrezia and throughout we are treated to the ENO's garrulous shouts of “WHORE WHORE WHORE EVIL WHORE EVIL INCARNATE &c.” Figgis has worthily sought to combat this misogyny by interspersing a series of films, which speculate on her earlier life with mood pieces suggesting a decadent, incestuous and violent family life through which her later actions become the result of familial abuse.

Although this does at least introduce some complexity into this flatly evil woman, these short pieces all have the soft lighting, arty posing and mannequin-actors of soft-porn movies - or a music video. The distance this builds from reality destroys the actual vulnerability of Lucrezia and we’re left with LuLu sucking her brother’s finger in a sort of unreal sexless incest. It is somehow both non-erotic and sexually abusive.

Which really is the worst of all possible worlds.

Really fabulous singing though.

What's that coming over the hill?

(Trigger warning)

When I first saw the (leaked, probably unfinished) video for Kanye West’s ‘Monster’, I felt a bit sick. Then I thought, Kanye is an asshole. Everyone knows he’s an asshole. And the concept for the video is not that original. Basically, monsters have jumped the shark.

BIG SOCIETY Vs little society

What is becoming apparent is that, as promised, The Big Society is terribly fair.

And the Emperor Coalition has now pretty much guaranteed us a terribly fair approach to higher education. After all their bleeting and foot stamping, anyone who has looked at the proposal cannot but agree it is terribly fair. You pay for your education when you can afford it. How reasonable.

The problem with the little society is that they don’t think Big. I’ve been into the poorest schools in Devon and Dorset doing widening participation work and this is the main issue. In the Big Society a university education costing the individual £50,000-£60,000 is an investment; a transaction. The figures are comprehensible, the pay-off is a known commodity (from their own experience), and there is a safety net of savings, salaries, and contacts to fall back upon.

If only the little society could see beyond the size of the figures and the pressure of debt, they could man-up and break into that terribly fair Big Society.

Still, even for The Big Society, it’s hard times when you’re down to your last five million and isn’t everyone feeling the squeeze?

It’s only money anyway.

And it's all terribly fair.

What’s particularly fair about this education policy though is that it’s based upon a perfectly measurable equation: education=earning potential. Because higher education is not a right, it is not a good to be pursued for its own sake and it doesn’t necessarily benefit society itself (this is not the Good society! Lol). Education is something that improves the earning potential of the education-client (EC). The EC makes an investment and thereby sees returns for which the EC will pay later. Given the significance of these returns it is natural that the EC should pay upfront. It is a little gamble upon the EC’s ability to get ahead. The Big Society is a marvellous melee of confident competitive individuals and the fittest will flourish. The runts will stay runts forever! Ha. That’s just the law of nature.

The other fair thing about the fee rise is that it allows all universities the chance to better themselves and for this to be transparent. So Oxbridge will naturally as top dogs immediately raise fees to the max. The Russell group will all be in the +£6000 bracket and will play off in friendly competition the bargain vs. prestige of having lower or higher fees than one another. It will be like a marketplace of education! How exciting. And the genius is that even if the public school children go to the most expensive university, it’s still cheaper than their school fees.

BARGAIN!

And for the rest it's about time there was a bit more teaching on debt management. This system ensures a life-time's training on the job. Wooooooo!!!

Of course there will be closures - but only of the little society universities. And there were too many of these quasi-universities anyway.

The Big Society is about playing with The Big Boys. Like King Cameron and Sir Cleggalot.

And it all echoes delightfully with that blueprint for society, found in the Gospel:

“To those who have, more will be given, and to those who have not, even what they have will be taken from them.”

The Lord’s prayer, on the other hand is of no use to our terribly fair Big Society:

“Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us.”

Admittedly, they strip, but it's witty, like a quip...

I was very excited to see so much female empowerment on display at the X Factor Final.

Screw the Daily Mail! Burlesque is totally ironic.

It's confusing though. I can't decide whether to be liberated by wearing no trousers, or by being as self-deprecatingly shy as Rebecca "Don't look at me" Ferguson. The two options seem to be mutually exclusive.

How to get into the final: don't be as gobby as Cher Lloyd.

Anyway, congratulations must go to Matt Cardle, who won the competition, and, it seems, a cat.

Or possibly many cats? I can't quite seem to lipread exactly what Harry from One Direction is saying to him here.




Remember Matt, no matter how famous your Christmas no.2 makes you, a pussy is for life, not just the festive season.

Must be... Bob Dylan!

Early morning. Must be to serve cava to a bunch of friends. I hope the party doesn't turn out like this....*

Who's got a big red cherry nose?

Hooray for Christmas! (and Advent, but I totally don't want to get in that argument).

And yes, La Maison Roaring definitely has columns too. Men with wigs, come to my party!




*I'm very sorry, but Bob in his wisdom has decided I can't embed the video. Which puts me in a bad mood. I'd better watch it again.