Woke

by Titania McGrath

  But thanks to the #MeToo movement, more men than ever have been called out for their sexual misconduct. The right-wing commentariat has, inevitably, argued that we have created a culture in which due process has been reversed, and men are presumed guilty from the outset.

  Good.

  I believe all women. All of them. Under all circumstances.

  Let’s take the example of Roxanne Pallett, an actor who appeared in the 2018 television series Celebrity Big Brother, in which a group of well-loved public figures, along with the psychic Sally Morgan, resided together for two weeks in full view of the cameras. Controversy ensued when Pallett claimed that fellow actor Ryan Thomas had repeatedly punched her. Many were sceptical.

  I believed Roxanne. I still believe Roxanne. Even when footage was released which made it clear that there was barely any physical contact, I still believed Roxanne. Even when she apologised for lying, I still believed Roxanne. Video evidence has got fuck all to do with her lived experience.

  As feminists, we have a responsibility to believe women. The stakes are too high. If Roxanne is not to be believed, other women who haven’t been punched might not have the courage to come forward.

  In any case, no man is innocent. Even though Thomas didn’t hit her in a physical sense, you can be sure he has transgressed in other ways during his lifetime. I think feminist filmmaker Emily Lindin put it best when she said, ‘I’m actually not at all concerned about innocent men losing their jobs over false sexual assault harassment allegations. If some innocent men’s reputations have to take a hit in the process of undoing the patriarchy, that is a price I am absolutely willing to pay.’

  Lindin should be congratulated. Few individuals would be brave enough to see other people’s lives ruined for the sake of a greater cause.

  Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court justice whose nomination procedure was dogged by allegations of sexual assault, is a further case in point. I was very impressed with the novelist Stephen King, who during the hearing simply tweeted ‘I believe the woman.’ I’m assuming, of course, that this was in reference to the accusations against Kavanaugh, because if it was a review of To Kill a Mockingbird then frankly it’s in very poor taste.

  There is nothing natural about male sexuality. I remember distinctly when I was a very young girl my grandfather used to hug me. Thanks to an article by Rebecca Leys on the Everyday Feminism website – ‘9 Intersectional Parenting Tips for Parents with Privilege’ – I now realise what a predatory old creep he really was.

  Leys stresses the importance of ‘informed consent’ when it comes to raising children. There should be ‘no hugs for relatives, no sitting on Santa’s lap, no kisses for mummy unless they understand what is being asked of them and they want to do it’. I am prepared to concede that this might be a tad overprotective. Sitting on Santa’s lap is fairly harmless on the whole, so long as in advance a parent or guardian checks thoroughly that Santa hasn’t got an erection.

  Boys are taught to lust after women early in life, mostly through video games and demeaning images in advertising, such as the scantily clad women on the Protein World posters, or that slut rabbit who used to sell Cadbury’s Caramel.

  Children’s television is similarly insidious. The Smurfs may have been people of colour, but theirs was an unforgivably male culture. When the first female Smurf was introduced into the series, she was given the debasing name of ‘Smurfette’, as though her entire identity was based on the negation of manhood. Likewise, He-Man in the Masters of the Universe cartoons, with his rippling muscles and phallic sword, reeked of toxic masculinity.

  On the plus side, He-Man was at least progressive enough to announce his pronouns.

  Part of the problem is that men won’t even attempt to address their own misogyny. Writer and activist Talia Lavin has shown how ‘most men view women as members of a separate, inscrutable & ultimately inferior species, even if they would never say so’. For the majority, women are ‘beyond the barrier of empathetic imagination’. What I love about Lavin is not only that she’s a fierce feminist, but that she can read the minds of all men. She’s like a cross between Lena Dunham and The Amazing Kreskin.

  And it isn’t wholly a matter of lasciviousness. Males are intrinsically aggressive creatures; in any difficult situation, their first instinct is to resort to violence. How many times have you seen a man kick a garden gnome in frustration, or throw boulders at a passing owl? Ninety-five per cent of prisoners in the UK are male, and of those one hundred percent have criminal records. The implications of these statistics should require no further elucidation.

  Even those males who resist their base compulsions and manage to stay within the law are merely thugs in waiting. Recently I was travelling on the Underground in London, because Daddy’s driver was off work with gout, and I happened to see a woman struggling on the stairs with a large suitcase. A man in his early thirties stopped and asked whether she would like some assistance.

  Naturally, I stepped right in there and called him out for his disgusting sexism. Imagine being so entitled, I told him, to think that women need help in order to lift heavy items. He was genuinely shocked, which plainly reveals how accustomed he must have been to getting his own way. This patriarchal technique used to be known as ‘chivalry’, but it’s really a means by which men can further prove their dominance.

  As I watched that woman straining to lift her suitcase, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride that I had saved her from the indignity of succumbing to male arrogance. I would have helped her myself, but I had a train to catch.

  The essence of toxic masculinity, then, is the preservation of a phallocentric hierarchy. And this can be enacted through violence, rape or the passive-aggressive carrying of luggage.

  Ecosexuality

  I’d quite happily fuck a hedge.

  St Francis of Assisi

  We all know how romantic entanglements with males can go. One minute he’s inviting you into his home for an innocent cup of coffee, the next you’re at the bottom of a well in his basement applying copious quantities of lotion.

  Men are predators. This is the nature of toxic masculinity. As Laurie Penny puts it, ‘nice guys rape, and they do it often’. Some of the nicest men I’ve ever known have been serial rapists.

  Heterosexuality, in any case, is a seriously repugnant lifestyle choice. No woman should accept the tyranny of male attention. Some radical feminists such as Sheila Jeffreys have long advocated ‘political lesbianism’, which suggests that even those women who find men attractive should eschew them in favour of their own sex. It’s a concept I explored in my poem ‘Haphazard Death Minge’, which was published on my friend’s online blog Yonic Reverberations. Do check it out: it’s mostly a combination of feminist crosswords and various black and white stills of Carol Decker.

  From my perspective, political lesbianism was never really an option. For one thing I could never get the hang of billiards, which I’m told is a lesbian sport. Nor was I much cop at cunnilingus, possibly due to my mild claustrophobia. Apart from my love of poetry there is very little about me that qualifies as sapphic.

  Which brings me on to ecosexuality. Some have accused me of indulging in a fad, but in actual fact I have always found plantlife to be inherently erotic. As a young teenager I would feel an inexplicable frisson whenever I passed through a garden centre. The Japanese anemones I considered particularly sensual, and I would often tickle their stamens when nobody was looking.

  Ecosexuality is not a choice, but if it were it would be a choice that I would freely make. Plants are so much more accommodating than men. I am currently in a very fulfilling relationship with a cactus called Josh. The sex is difficult, but not impossible. That’s what tweezers were invented for.

  And it’s not just about carnal fulfilment. Our relationship is far more cerebral than anything I have ever experienced with the opposite sex. The mucilage that Josh secretes from time to time is far smarter than the average male.

  People claim that ecosex
uality is merely an indulgence of bourgeois leftists who have become obsessed with the politics of identity. In fact, ecosexuality has a long history, dating back to early 2017.

  It was pioneered by former porn star turned sex educator Annie Sprinkle and art professor Beth Stephens. These visionary women have rejected the concept of Nature as a mother, and see her instead as a lover. As Stephens says, ‘in a misogynistic society, when people imagine the Earth as a “she”, they think she is less important than a he. So, the mostly all-male polluting corporate heads think they can treat the Earth badly.’ Climate change, in other words, has only come about because men see the earth as a woman, and wish to punish her for being such an uppity wench.

  But sex can also be a form of activism. This is why it is imperative that we reject male sexual attention. The penis is a phallic symbol. As such, when women choose to commit sexual intercourse with a male, they are literally allowing themselves to be fucked by the patriarchy. Conventional sex is an act of violence. But there is nothing more sublime than the sight of a Marxist cultural critic shoving chrysanthemums into her twat.

  Let us not forget that plants are essentially more progressive than human beings. Many flowers, for instance, are bisexual, with both stamens and ovaries. That the LBGTQIA+ community hasn’t yet fully accepted its floral allies is a travesty.

  I lost my virginity to a bonsai tree; quite by accident, I’ll admit, but that hardly matters. Ever since then I have understood the need to embrace Nature in all her glorious voluptuousness. Those who dismiss ecosexual urges as a perversion of the modern left are typically the kind of unreconstructed bigots who believe that there are only two genders, or that Islam is not a race.

  Although utterly marginalised in popular culture, there are signs that ecosexuality is likely to infiltrate the mainstream in the not-too-distant future. In Japan, hentai pornography often includes depictions of women being penetrated by tendrils, and in most cases they seem genuinely to enjoy it. There are rumours that a new Hollywood adaptation of John Wyndham’s novel The Day of the Triffids is currently in production, but with a radical alteration to the plot; instead of murdering the earth’s inhabitants, the alien plants invest in second-hand Ford Escorts for the purposes of dogging.

  In addition, applications to botany courses at universities are at an all-time high, doubtless owing to the erotic appeal of the curriculum. Kew Gardens in London has seen steadily increasing attendance figures over the past decade, with many visitors showing signs of overt sexual arousal; acts of frottage are not uncommon in the arboretum. Better still, topiary is becoming more explicitly sexual, with many shrubs in public parks being refashioned into suggestive shapes.

  Ecosexual celebrities are becoming more and more vocal. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow has recently announced her intention to become the first woman to be impregnated by a western skunk cabbage. The physiological details have yet to be ironed out, but her publicist is liaising with geneticists to see what can realistically be achieved.

  Many of my readers will be sceptical, but take a moment to think about it. Virtually all of us at some point in our lives will have dabbled in bestiality, whether that be a long-term monogamous relationship with a favourite whippet or simply the occasional digit drunkenly inserted into a vole on a night out.

  Why, then, is this kind of sexual experimentation considered socially acceptable, when a fling with a climbing hydrangea would be universally condemned?

  Ecosexuality is essential for all those who are motivated by social justice, because without it we are merely perpetuating the vile hypocrisy that underpins the conventional sexual mores dictated by our patriarchal overlords.

  Find a plant and fuck it. It’s not so much a choice as a duty.

  Brexit and the Rise of the Fourth Reich

  I fear Brexit could be the beginning of the destruction of not only the EU but also Western political civilisation in its entirety.

  Donald Tusk, President of the European Council

  We are living through a dangerous period in British history. Acid attacks, knife crime, female genital mutilation, grooming gangs, terrorism; all of these things are now commonplace thanks to the referendum that resulted in a decision to leave the European Union.

  The EU is a wonderful thing. It seeks to promote a socialist utopia by masquerading as an exponent of aggressively pro-corporate neoliberalism. It might appear to be a horribly right-wing bureaucratic protectionist bloc that prioritises a ruthlessly capitalistic worldview, but this is part of its genius. That’s why any socialist worth her salt will have voted Remain. If Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky and Jesus Christ could have got their heads together to invent the ideal political system to promote their values, the EU would have been the outcome.

  If anyone is still in any doubt that the far right is enjoying a resurgence, then Brexit should have settled that question once and for all. It never ceases to amaze me how defensive Brexit voters get when you point out that they’re fascists. The question on the ballot paper may as well have been ‘Do you hate foreigners?’

  To borrow the words of Eddie Izzard, this ‘hate-fuelled’ and ‘vicious’ Brexit was caused by ‘the whining right’. As an ageing cross-dressing professional clown, there can be no one better qualified than Izzard to teach us about the intricacies of international politics.

  As Izzard observes: ‘Winston Churchill had a dream of a Europe of united countries. He had to fight the extreme right to try and make it happen back in the 1940s, as we have to fight them now to try and make it happen again.’ I’ve been told that there was also a well-known politician called Sir Oswald Mosley who urged us to create a United States of Europe. I must confess I hadn’t heard of him before, but he sounds like the kind of visionary we need right now.

  If nothing else, this entire mess has prompted a new debate about the validity of democracy, which only works if people vote the right way. The year 2018 saw the centenary of the suffragettes’ successful campaign to win the vote for those groups who had been previously disenfranchised: women and working-class men. It turns out they got it half-right. It was the working classes that tipped the scales in favour of leaving the EU. Hindsight is a brutal governess.

  The referendum result was baffling for many reasons, not least because the electorate were explicitly told how they were meant to vote and still managed to fuck it up. There’s really no helping some people.

  The UK government had even gone to the trouble of spending ten million pounds of taxpayers’ money on leaflets, dispatched to every household in the country, explaining exactly why we needed to stay in the EU. Afterwards, a lot of people were angry about the inclusion of the words: ‘This is your decision. The government will implement what you decide.’ Admittedly, the phrasing was clumsy. What they actually meant to write was: ‘This vote is advisory. The government will ignore your advice.’ This isn’t the first time that typographical errors have caused confusion.

  Democracy is not, and has never been, about accepting the will of the majority. As Winston Churchill put it, ‘The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.’ Or, as Labour MP David Lammy said, ‘the government’s “will of the people” mantra is bollocks’.

  But there may be a solution to this mess. I’ve recently discovered that the population of Syria is roughly the same as the number of people who voted for Brexit. Why don’t we simply do a swap? This would not only eliminate racism in Britain overnight, but by relocating the entire population of Syria to the UK it would also mean that those millions of people would no longer have to live in a country ravaged by civil war.

  By the time this book is published, I am confident that there will have been a second referendum. After all, only 1,269,501 more people voted to Leave than to Remain. No serious mathematician would consider that any kind of ‘majority’.

  Of course, we can’t be sure that a second vote would go our way, so really we’d better start campaigning for a third referendum right now. We need to be one ste
p ahead of these scheming Brexiteers.

  The movement for a second referendum has received unprecedented support from a number of beloved public figures, including Tracey Ullman, Deborah Meaden, Gabby Logan, John Oliver and Sir Patrick Stewart. One of the unwritten rules of a democracy is that referendums can be overturned if a sufficient number of rich celebrities demand it.

  Sting, Bob Geldof and B jörn Ulvaeus from ABBA have also stated their opposition to Brexit. Still no word from Sinitta or Duran Duran. Their silence is deafening.

  The most influential proponent for a ‘People’s Vote’ is, of course, the ex-footballer Gary Lineker. As one Twitter activist put it, ‘Brexiteers are terrified of Linekar [sic] because he’s got broad appeal.’ It is undeniable that Lineker always inspired terror. That’s what made him so perfect for advertising crisps.

  In any case, the first result was invalid. The number of people who participated in the referendum was 33,551,983. If we break down the support for Leave by demographic, there are some interesting findings: 36.7 per cent of the voters are elderly, and will be dead fairly soon; 49.9 per cent were below average intelligence; 29.1 per cent were what Guardian columnists have described as ‘low-information’ (also known as ‘working-class’); and 14.5 per cent had gone into the polling booth by accident and just ticked a box to avoid embarrassment. When all of this is taken into account, it would seem that only 2.4 per cent of the population legitimately voted Leave, which to my mind nullifies the entire process.

  People are far too sentimental about the elderly. I am no longer helping them to cross the street. They opted for Brexit, so as far as I’m concerned they can take their chances with the traffic. Remember, too, that these are the people who fought in the Second World War. How can shooting at Germans be anything other than xenophobic?