Category: vice

I don’t know what lesbian culture looked like in the 2000s because I was busy cosplaying a heterosexual, but if you’d asked me to draw it, I might have done a woman with short hair, dungarees and Birkenstocks (I know, but bear with me). As the years went on, maybe I would have quoted The Real L Word or shown you a photo of Ellen and Portia De Rossi, or flung you a copy of something by Sarah Waters. There was obviously more – so much more – but you had to look for it, or at least I did. It didn’t feel as though there were so many cultural hallmarks to cling onto. Lesbian culture wasn’t exactly mainstream.

Lesbian culture today, though, is something else entirely. Or, more specifically, lesbian culture in the past year or so has updated and expanded into something tangible, rather than only existing in niche factions. Lesbian culture today is Villanelle threatening Eve with a knife in her own home. It’s the glove from Carol. It’s the entire cast of Ocean’s 8 and their outfits. It’s Rachel Weisz’s spit. It’s Cara Delevingne’s exes. It’s Janelle Monae’s videos. It’s Chloë Sevigny brandishing an axe and walking slowly down the stairs in Lizzie. It’s cheekbones and vests and monochrome and slicked back hair. It’s Blake Lively’s suits. It’s inviting your exes over for vegan food. It’s comparing Venus placements before you meet. It’s reenacting Duck Butter. It is obviously Cate Blanchett.

It can be neatly summed up via the “reimagined Coachella” tweet below from Jill Gutowitz, which was doing the rounds last week, and which includes references that might look random to Steve down the road, but have an invisible lesbian thread tying the whole thing together, just like Hideko was tied up in The Handmaiden.

First, just in case you are for some reason not a lesbian, I’m going to explain a few of these references:

Rachel Weisz’s spit

Disobedience (2018) is a depressing, grey film that somehow makes north London look even more drab than it already is. There are, however, lesbians in it, one of whom is Rachel McAdams (Regina George coming back as a repressed London lez is a brilliant and astonishing occurrence that nobody talks about enough), and the other is Rachel Weisz. Not much happens, apart from this one sex scene, in which Rachel spits into the other Rachel’s mouth and immediately becomes iconic.

Bent-Neck Lady

If gay culture at large can have The Babadook, then we can have Bent-Neck Lady. Also, she’s fit.

Sandra Oh sobbing

Because Sandra Oh played Eve in the BBC Drama Killing Eve, and I would sob too if I was being stalked by that murderous sociopath Villanelle, just not for the reasons you think.

Blake Lively’s suits

Ally in ‘A Star Is Born’

I can’t explain why Ally in A Star Is Born is lesbian culture. She just is. Maybe it’s because she wears brown biker boots and bootcut jeans and she’s played by Lady Gaga, who we know is not straight. Or maybe because the film is camp as fuck, and as I will get into, lesbian culture and camp aren’t the same, but they are definitely best mates.

*

In an exceptional piece for The Outline, published last spring, Mikaella Clements writes about lesbian culture and the ways in which it overlaps and diverges from that of gay men. She calls it “Dyke camp” and points to it as a burgeoning aesthetic movement in music, film and fashion. “Dyke camp overlaps with camp in some areas, certainly,” she writes. “But in others it is completely different; it has its own electric vision. If camp is the love of the unnatural, dyke camp is the love of the ultra-natural, of nature built up and reclaimed, of clothes that could be extensions of the body, of desire made obsessive, of lesbian gestures or mannerisms maximised by a thousand.”

Clements goes on to explain that what makes “dyke camp” separate from straightforward lesbian eroticism – like, say, Madonna, Britney and Christina snogging on the VMA stage in 2003 – is that it is entirely devoid of the male gaze. “Dyke camp is explicitly dominated by women who know just how to touch and want other women,” she points out. “If straight women put on public displays of lesbianism for male attention, dyke camp takes private lesbian contact and makes it public – for other women. Dyke camp is less about having a hot body, and more about knowing how to use it.”

That piece from Clements arrived in May last year, just as Janelle Monae had dropped Dirty Computer, two months after Hayley Kiyoko released her debut album and a handful of months after St Vincent’s Masseduction. In the time since, we’ve seen the release of Killing Eve, Lizzie, The Favourite, Disobedience, The Miseducation of Cameron Post and Rafiki. What all these things have in common is that they centre queer experiences for the female gaze specifically. Rachel Weisz marching towards Olivia Colman in an 18th century trouser suit and choking her against the bedpost in The Favourite, for example, is a such a queer movement that, in the space of three seconds, it became an iconic moment for lesbian culture.

What I mean to say is that the sheer amount of high-tier lesbian action and storylines that have graced our screens, timelines and headphones over the past year has watered the gardens of a culture that needed it – just like all cultures do. Sure, lesbian iconography has existed long into the past (if you haven’t seen the 1981 film Liquid Sky, or trawled through the archives of cult lez mag On Our Backs then stop what you’re doing immediately and do that), and it will exist long into the future. But arguably, until now, it has never been so mainstream, so accessible, so delivered with a wink and a nudge, rather than presented as niche, underground or almost shameful.

If Chloë Sevigny and Kristen Stewart – two of the most well-known actresses of the 21st century – can have lesbian sex in a literal horse barn in a film that is projected onto cinema screens across the entire world, I’d say that things are looking up. Here’s to 2019.

@daisythejones / @m.parszeniew)

Images: Blake Lively, via; Janelle Monae, via; Jodie Comer, via; Sandra Oh, via; Rachel Weisz, via; Chloë Sevigny, via.

Take a scroll through any gay escort site and you’ll be amazed by the amount of services on offer. Scattered across the UK are thousands of men with detailed profiles explaining exactly what they will and won’t do, from fisting and caning to striptease and cuddling. Think of it as ordering your perfect six-inch Subway, only sexier – and judging by the pictures on some profiles, probably closer to a footlong.

This click-and-go approach might suggest a lack of intimacy, but scan the small print and you’ll find a handful of men offering a more specialised service: “sober sex” – basically a combination of sex work, therapy and guerrilla rehab intended to steer clients away from “H&H” (high and horny) fun and towards the unbridled joy of a clear-headed orgasm.

This idea of sex workers as makeshift therapists is nothing new. Popular services like the “girlfriend experience” are more geared towards conversation and connection than they are straight-up fucking; last year, Annie Lord interviewed a series of cam girls for VICE about the emotional labour involved in their work, which could sometimes involve dealing with overbearing and potentially dangerous clients. “Sex work” is a broad category that’s often under-explored – although landmark books like Revolting Prostitutes are changing this – allowing the emotional heavy lifting often performed by sex workers to be swept under the rug.

“Sober sex” is one of the most literal manifestations of sex work as therapy, and one that’s particularly needed by LGBTQ communities. Addiction rates are higher among queer people for numerous probable reasons, including increased likelihood of mental health issues and abandonment, but one that’s often singled out is chemsex – the practice of using certain drugs (usually GHB, mephedrone or crystal meth) to enhance sexual pleasure.

It’s worth noting that straight people have plenty of sex on drugs, too – as anyone who’s been to literally any festival will have seen in graphic detail – and that plenty of us regularly use alcohol or other drugs as a kind of social lubricant. In some ways, it’s understandable: the road to an earth-shattering orgasm can be paved with toothy blow jobs, accidental farts and “whisky dick”.

Over the years, however, chemsex has been linked to increased likelihood of STI and HIV transmission. Accounts of rape and murder have been reported, generating headlines which then prompt reporters to conduct sinister and occasionally voyeuristic investigations of the gay sex “epidemic” and its “dark side”. Squeaky-clean journalists diving into the murky underworld of queerness sometimes don’t do anyone any favours – they can fuel the sort of fear and judgment which led to landmark HIV treatment PrEP being branded a “lifestyle drug” in a bid for defunding – but they do highlight that chemsex is a problem that needs to be tackled.

This is why gay escorts like Matthew* are so important. Speaking to me over email, Matthew explains that his clients tend to fit one of two general descriptions: “They’re either disabled and therefore treated as asexual or undesirable, or they’re people that now feel reliant on chemsex.”

So, what is the key to helping clients rediscover the joys of sober sex? “Well, my first task is to identify what’s causing them to worry about sober sex, and then to address the heart of it,” Matthew explains. “People often use alcohol or drugs to make the journey from meeting a stranger to having sex with them easier, so I show clients that sexual tension, awkwardness and anxiety are all normal factors. In fact, they’re factors that heighten the experience of intimacy with another person. It’s almost ironic that the cure to fear of sober sex is chemistry, really – it’s about stepping together into that awkwardness of being genuine with one another, and showing them that it’s a challenge they can win.”

This pleasure-focused approach is rarely adopted. Sex education in schools seemingly hasn’t evolved past the Mean Girls “you will get pregnant and die” speech, and slideshows of gory-looking STIs are still more commonplace than infographics on how to find your G-spot. This is also unsurprising, because sex education still isn’t LGBT-inclusive in England – and therefore teachers don’t tell men that their G-spot is actually inside their arsehole, which indicates that God probably wanted us to all have loads of anal.

Matthew believes this unwillingness to educate kids about queer sex and queerness more generally is harmful. “That narrative of ‘straight is normal’ still remains,” he says. “Inclusive sex education could not only show how anal sex can be done safely and hygienically, it could also reduce aspects of homophobia.”

He explains that this lack of information has practical side effects, too. “I’ve had clients with sexual trauma because they’ve tried to put in soap in their body, mistakenly thinking it’s a way to prepare for anal sex; I’ve had clients traumatised by past experiences where partners have been too rough or haven’t maintained ongoing communication. A lot of this could be avoided by equipping developing adults with a better understanding long before they encounter these situations.”

Chemsex obviously can’t be blamed solely on education or homophobia, but it’s no secret that society is still judgmental when it comes to sex, and especially sex work. UK MPs are considering introducing the Nordic Model, which could prove hugely dangerous for sex workers – criminalising clients only makes them far less likely to call for help if something goes wrong. Discussions of an equivalent to the USA’s irresponsible FOSTA-SESTA law – which has already been shown to harm sex workers, despite claiming to protect them – are also floating around. Bills like these not only push workers onto the streets, they eradicate crucial online resources which workers use to vet their clients and share safety tips and advice.

There’s a stigma around sex work which refuses to disappear, but their work can be hugely valuable to numerous clients. “I’d forgotten the joy of sex by itself,” says one client I speak to, who asks to remain anonymous. “My last partner and I loved each other, but we kept ignoring sexual chemistry issues. I knew something was wrong, but I was afraid to make time to discuss it and fix it, so I used chillouts [chemsex hangouts] instead.” He goes on to credit “sober sex” escorts with helping him.

Another I speak to would turn to Tina – a slang term for crystal meth – automatically before sex, but now he describes rediscovering sober sex with the help of an escort. “Connecting with someone person to person without taking anything is intense,” he tells me, “and I’m proud of that connection.” Finally, one client underscores that chemsex is a problem with potentially lethal consequences. “So many of us have lost friends to this,” he laments over email, reiterating his determination to stop having chemsex. “I know it’s going to be a long journey, but I know what I’m looking for again.”

These conversations are tricky to have, not least because they can be subtly weaponised against marginalised communities and scapegoated by conservatives looking to react in disgust to the “underworld” of gay sex. Politicians are knee-deep in the shitshow that is Brexit, and pearl-clutching commentators wheel out the same “think of the children!” commentary whenever sex is mentioned, so it’s ultimately being left to sex workers to clean up the mess that prejudice and austerity policies have made. “Sober sex” might not be single-handedly eradicating drug addiction, but escorts are at least providing support where they can as politicians continue to turn a blind eye.

*Names have been changed for confidentiality.

@jake2103

Hardly a week goes by without more nerve-shredding news of the climate-based crisis facing humanity. The only response seems to be indifference from politicians and directionless catastrophism from the press. Welcome to “Some Like It Hot”, a column about environmental ruin that doesn’t just say, “Oh god we’re all screwed”, but also: “and here’s why”.

Spring of 2018 saw southern Europe covered in snow, as the Arctic basked in warm weather. In the summer, historic storms hit the southern United States, India experienced a major heatwave and a bit of Greater Manchester went on fire.

The science linking extreme weather explicitly to climate change can be nuanced. Pointing out a single event and linking it directly to global warming can be silly. But the bottom line is that, in 2018, extreme events were perceived as less extreme. A new normal began to emerge.

Do we care? Reality may have splashed water in our faces and forced us to wake up, but does that mean we have the resolve to tackle this new crisis?

Our world will change at different rates in different parts of the world. Temperature rises of 1.5 degrees will be extremely perilous to low-lying Pacific Island nations, while more bearable in the west. Summer heatwaves will cause hose pipe bans in northern Europe, while making it difficult to survive in the Middle East.

This July, as temperatures hovered around the high 30s in Europe, it hit 42.6C in Oman overnight. Can you imagine sleeping in that?

There are lots of things that go on in far-away parts of the world that we are aware of, but don’t really care about or understand. The war in Yemen, extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, human rights abuses in the Philippines. All are in some way down to actions taken by the governments, institutions and large companies that make up our economic system. But they are all far-away, and for a few years, the worst impacts of climate change will be too.

So again, do we care? In some parts of the world, the early signs don’t look too promising.

Like some schleppy dude who is about to lose the only woman he’ll ever love, we don’t seem able to gaze passed our collective naval and make a change that will improve our lives. The world is too scary. Reality is too hard to bear. So we just go back to what we know. Silently practicing Football Manager press conferences in the bathroom mirror as we drag a toothbrush across our mouth, eating Coco Pops at 4.15PM and stepping into the voting booth to tick the box that says “back to the 1930s, pls”.

The great tragedy of this moment is that just when the world needs to come together to get a handle on this terrifying threat, much of it has instead turned inwards.

In all the political shit we waded through in 2018, the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil was the turd that really stuck. Brazil is one of the countries that absolutely must be on board if we are to stop global temperatures from rising to civilisation-ruining levels, and they’ve voted for a man who basically wants to turn the Amazon into a soy farm. For a few days, that’s all I could really think about. I found myself going to work and having to remind myself to move my face when people spoke to me. To smile and pay attention. That evening, a friend was telling me a story and then trailed off. I had forgotten to respond in any way to what she was saying.

It’s odd when events make you numb. When the ticker at the bottom of BBC News makes you wonder what the point is. There have been moments this year when I have felt the same way. Reporting on climate change can be really depressing. But whatever I did to make a living, our climate would still be “breaking down“, so why should I? Why should any of us?

One of the things about getting older is that you face increasingly terrible events and surprise yourself by overcoming them. Often, we’re stronger than we realise. The world through most lenses looks pretty terrible right now. Global politics is a mess. Emissions, after plateauing for a few years, are now rising again. Scholars have warned that a “Trump effect” is slowing the momentum sparked by the signing of the Paris agreement three years ago. Brexit continues to sap all the energy from the political process in the UK, weakening the country’s ability to lead on climate.

And yet, we’re still here. Waking up each morning and putting one foot in front of the other.

There is hope out there, opportunities to be grasped and change to be made. The agreement reached at the UN climate conference in Poland last month falls short of what is needed to transform the fossil fuel-driven economy, but it’s something: foundations to be built upon when the political landscape changes.

And there are signs that it is changing all the time. The cost of renewable energy continues to plummet, without, in most places, enjoying state support. In just a few weeks after the midterm elections, congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turned the “Green New Deal”, a jobs and infrastructure scheme to rival President Roosevelt’s flagship policy, from a fringe idea to the front of the Democrats’ agenda. Last year, a new world began to seem possible.

While heroes emerged last year, 2018 was also marked by a clear enemy coming into focus. Climate change is not a nebulous concept. There is nothing intrinsic in humanity that makes tackling it impossible. It is and has been caused by a small section of the global population and a handful of companies. The climate debate, such as there is one, is no longer divided by those who agree with the science and those who ignore it: it is divided by those who have a financial interest in destroying the world and those who want to save it. In the coming year, that divide will become more obvious. We just have to keep going in the meantime.

@JSandlerClarke

Joe Sandler Clarke is a reporter with Unearthed