(Alternative title to this post: The Right Way & The Wrong Way for Stopping Something with which You Disagree)
Hello, Woody here. It’s an exciting time for the company. Our version of Euripides’ Bacchae will be appearing at the Cockpit Theatre on Monday 9th March. We’re currently in the process of re-writing the text in light of feedback we received after our showing at Senate House Library in 2014 for AMPRAW 2014; don’t worry; it will still be the same show, just even more so.
Secondly, less specifically to By Jove, but relevant to Feminism and Liberality (possibly even more-so than us) are two news stories which have been doing the rounds recently. These will be the body of the blog post.
Our theatre is an attempt to direct the evolution of society, and a commentary on said evolution (and its failure). First up, it seems that the infamous Page 3 of British daily “newspaper” The Sun has stopped. The paper’s tradition of showing pictures of topless women on p.3 of each issue has been discontinued without much fanfare from The Sun itself. The discontinuation came after a years-long campaign by Lucy-Anne Holmes and her team. We here at By Jove HQ view this as a victory. As this is a blog-post on the site of a feminist theatre company, this should come as no surprise. As you, dear reader, are currently skimming said post by said company, you may not need why we hold this opinion to be explained. Just to state our position emphatically for whatever record there might be, I will expound, as briefly as possible, the reasons for our position.
Breasts: Perfectly nice, but not news
First of all: tits aren’t news. Call them what you will: breasts; boobs; tits; jubblies; knorcks; hanging gardens of, as it were, Babylons. It doesn’t matter,they’re still not, per se, news. The fact that young people with them are (depending on one’s own preferences) attractive is not news either. That’s biology. Possibly evolutionary psychology and philosophy.
Pictures of topless young women do not, in and of themselves, have a place in a publication purporting to be an account of national and international events deemed to be relevant to its readers. Secondly, whilst acknowledging that some people enjoy looking at breasts, and others enjoy showing theirs, it’s not for everyone. If you do enjoy either of these things, grand, we support you in your enjoyment entirely of your respective enjoyments of the act. There are publications, websites, and events, wherein those interested in such things can enjoy them. Personal, sexual, aesthetic, or financial reasons – we neither care about, nor discriminate between, your reasons, as long as consent by all parties involved is made an integral part of the act.
That said, not everyone enjoys breasts. Shoving them in people’s faces without their consent is not polite. There’s a reason nude statuary of (for example, that of Ancient Greece, and Rome, or that inspired by the same) is generally maintained either in separate collections, or in separate rooms within collections. There are as many reasons to want to display a thing as there are of not wanting to see it; humans should have the choice.
“But Woody!” I hear you cry – you shouldn’t cry, it’s just a blog-post – “But Woody, people know about The Sun‘s institution of Page 3, it’s been going since the 70’s. If they don’t like it, can’t they simply not buy the paper?!?” They can. That is one of many reasons not to buy The Sun (or any publication). My response brings me on to By Jove’s third reason for supporting this discontinuation. The Sun is a generalist publication.It is not marketing itself on any of the aesthetic, sexual, or academic reasons that pictures of breasts might conceivably be published (apart from their being pictures of breast, which we’ve establashed some people like); and Page 3 does not fall in to the reasons for a general newspaper’s publication.
Related to this status as a general publication is another point. Do you really want Britain’s best-selling daily, national, general newspaper to be promoting the message to men and women (particularly the young humans, into whose hands a copy might inadvertently fall) that a woman’s most important trait is her sexual attractiveness? We here at By Jove HQ don’t. Sexual attractiveness is fine, not least because it’s a key part of sex, which (done right) is rather jolly. It is, however, just one aspect of a person’s value to other people, and should not be promoted as the be-all and end-all of their existence.
Speaking of just one aspect of a person: Religion!
Recently, I’m sure you know, a group of extremist pricks, who cited their interpretation of their religion as their cause, attacked the office of French, leftist, satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people including 10 members of the magazine’s staff. The killers are cunts. By which I don’t mean they are a centre of female physical pleasure and should be celebrated. By calling these extremists “cunts”, I use the word in its more colloquial, Anglo-Saxon meaning of harsh-voiced abuse, and do so for the rest of this post. I am an Atheist and do not believe in any afterlife. If I did, however, I would sacrifice a full half of my wealth to get any deity who’d listen to banish these bell-ends to worst hell available.
“You’re forgiven”
Firstly, they killed a fellow person, which is in no way okay in my book. Secondly they ended the one and only existence of their fellow person in order to try to silence free debate. Fuck that. Fuck that, selfishly, and without consideration for one’s partner’s orgasm. Violence is not for furthering one’s cause. Debate, argument, and convincing one’s peers through informed discussion are for furthering one’s cause. Violence is, AT MOST, for stopping those impotent dicksplashes who would kill, threaten, or coerce those who disagree with them.It doesn’t matter who you are; nor in favour of what argument you are acting; nor what empirically-uncorroborated supernatural being you being you believe supports your cause.
Now that you know this is my view on this topic, *clears throat*: The Pope is a cunt. On a recent plane-ride to a papal tour of The Philippines, in context of the Charlie Hebdo attacks on freedom of speech, Pope Francis said (my source for this is the BBC’s news-site) : “If my good friend Doctor Gasparri [who organises the Pope’s trips] speaks badly of my mother, he can expect to get punched. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others. There is a limit.” Nope. There’s not.
If society is to progress beyond the semi-evolved state in which it now languishes our ideas must improve. I can say whatever I care to. The state can’t arrest me, or shouldn’t be able to – that’s what freedom of speech means. That’s all it means. If I say something factually incorrect, you can disprove me and my writings. If I say something factually incorrect about a person, or in a way which leads to my personal benefit then I can be sued either for libel or under trading standards (seek legal advice over precisely which course to take).
Even if I say or write something which disagreed with what you believe, even if I disagreed in a way you believe to be in the most chthonic depths of poor taste, then you are still not allowed to use more than words, and money against me. You can use your words to try to disprove me. You can use your words to publicly discredit me, and get any financial supporters of mine to distance themselves from me. You can insult me in the vilest way you know. You can create an original work of art describing all the reasons why and how I am a cunt (if you do so, please send me tickets). You can organise a two-and-a-bit-year-long campaign advocating for the discontinuation of my voice in a national platform. You are not (nor is anyone, over any issue) entitled, permitted, or allowed to get away with violence against me or another person whom you deem as being in league with me. One hopes you’re well, yours, ADWoodward
