Maybe there was a problem with my upbringing; perhaps I was born under a bad sign . . . But I have never been able to stomach the idea that a government should decide what I can and cannot say, can and cannot do.
When anyone tells me I can’t say fuck, I am suddenly stricken with Tourette’s and screaming “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” If they tell me I can’t masturbate onstage, I am overcome with the urge to strip with a vibrator up my ass.
Now, certain words and actions I like to steer clear of; as a matter of taste I prefer not to overuse the words “nigger,” “kyke,” and “boyfriend.” I resist the temptation to murder and rape not because anyone tells me to, but because I have nurtured a morality that senses these things are unkind. Still, if The Man tells me not to rape or murder or scream “nigger Jew” or “Christian cunt,” my natural disposition is to ask “Why the fuck not?”
I recently heard in the news the sad tale of a woman who was ordered off a plane for wearing a t-shirt that criticized the current presidential administration with the word “Fuck.” So now I have to find a shirt that says “Fuck You You Fucking Fuck” before I board my flight to Hawaii tomorrow morning. Some people call this speech offensive. I call it a speech un-impediment.
Although all Americans are entitled to the First Amendment’s protections of “speech” and “expression,” many states have ruled that certain types of speech and expression are too offensive or obscene to be permissible. In fact many states find boobs and vaginas obscene, in spite of the fact that nearly every woman on earth has ‘em.
As far as I can tell, what these states are saying is that MY BODY is offensive. And, after a cursory glance at any teen clothing store, one could surmise that these states find my body more offensive than a t-shirt that reads “Fuck You You Fucking Fuck.”
Which is half the reason I live in Oregon. In Oregon my naked parts are viewed as “possibly distasteful to a large segment of society,” but still entitled to protection and expression under the Oregon Constitution. Which is awesome.
I didn’t fully understand just how awesome this was until I moved to NYC and had to slap a g-string on my stuff. Overnight my vagina and asshole were obscene, dangerous and a threat to polite society. And you better believe I fuckin’ felt it! There is an implicit shame in requiring a woman to keep any part of her—brain or body—under wraps, whether it’s a tit some kid is sucking on at a restaurant or a flash of gash at the corner strip club.
In Seattle, strippers were recently required to cover up, turn up the lights, and step four feet away from customers during table dances. This—to me—begs the question: if it is unseemly/ obscene/ illegal to be 3 feet 11 inches from a customer, why is it suddenly ok to be one inch further away? And WHAT IF your pretty high heels and head are the full four feet away, but your well-endowed ass is six inches into the danger zone? Then what? The city shuts down the place and opens another Starbucks?
Here’s what I find obscene, distasteful and harmful to society: Jessica Simpson, Western medicine, bad movies, not-free-range meat, President George W. Bush and the Christian right. Put a fuckin’ g-string on those fuckers!
Ahem. Since it’s Thanksgiving time, I’d like to close with some of that Christian bullshit I’ve been raving about. Thank you, God, for my friends, for strippers, for my beau and my brother; thank you for my cats, the Shins and my health; thank you for Yves St. Laurent mascara, retarded dwarves and Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know. And thank you, sweet Jesus, for the Oregon Constitution and the Oregon Supreme Court, which last month decided two cases in favor of nude dancing. Amen.