Monday, May 17, 2010

Chics with dicks, or, Hypermasculinity/Shannon Bell

Always interesting and provocative, here's an interview with Associate Professor Shannon Bell who has used some of my writings in her 'Politics of Cyberspace' Courses at York University. I met Shannon ~ a performance philosopher, when she was in Australia about five years ago. Ex-girlfriend of Stelarc, Shannon continues her performances and writing about what she terms 'Fast Feminisms'. Yes, yes, I know that when I was interviewed by Roger Taylor on his 'High and Low' radio arts program in 1995 about my interview with the transgender performance artist/academic Allucquere Rosanne Stone, I said, in relation to her genital reconstruction surgery (from male to female) that it would have been interesting to have a penis and what I meant by that was exactly the notion of being other than what one is, to experience that difference of being male, and that means many different things to different people. I don't believe that strapping on a harness and dildo makes a woman male, but enacting the performative aspects of the masculine in sexual activity is imagined by some to be emancipating. I still prefer the middle ground, understanding that traditional characteristics ascribed as masculine and feminine are found within both genders and it is that, which we might embrace.
My interview with Allucquere Rosanne Stone

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