Marmite, ménages and Big Brother

Big Brother is like Marmite. You either love it or hate it. The programme works out a matrix of three players: housemates, TV audience and the programme’s production team. It is a media ménage à trois. Each of us tries to stay one step ahead of ‘the game’. For some of the housemates this means the mistaken belief that there is no game or at least that they are not playing one. Anyone who cannot be all things to all people is quickly nominated by fellow housemates. Insincerity (aka gossiping) is unforgivable in the eyes of the public. Eviction ensues. Those who manage to survive guarantee themselves further time in which their public persona will be gradually eroded. Just like a good game of cricket the shine gets knocked off. In this case it is not by willow on leather but by constant multiple camera attention on any and all residual practised polish. As viewers we bray for sincerity. If we don’t get it then the many suggestion boxes littered around the back of set of Big Brother will ensure that the various tasks push the housemates further and further into a seemingly endless combination of hunger and drunken exhaustion. The shine wears off. You are more than the three seconds it takes to make instant attraction in a nanosecond's first impression. Love it or hate it we are reminded we are real. Ruthless manipulation it may be but it is also an antidote to celebrity gloss – no matter how much store the participants put by hair straighteners.

Sexuality Workshops for Autumn/Winter Season

I am running three workshops in September/October/December:

Born Free

An ungendered exploration

of self, society, sex and
sexuality
September 19/20 or 26/27 2008
Venue: probably in Norwich

Why Does My Rabbit Know Best?

Orgasmic potency

for women: its achievement and communication
October 4 or 11 2008
Venue: SE (London)

How to Feel Good Naked

Get into emotional trim

for Christmas
(with no apologies to Gok Wan)
December 2008 dates to be announced
Venue: SE

Further details to be announced

020 8144 0636

Sexual Gravity

Sexual gravity. We are fascinated by the Rolling Stones because they defy it. In Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese’s documentary filmed in 2006, we see that it is possible to be old and sexy. Yet this is a rare example of inclusive commodification. The commercial zeitgeist edicts that we can be wrinkly or beautiful but not both. Is binary conformity escapable? In Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity, Matt Bernstein Sycamore’s theme is the defiance of social stereotypes. Yet those with gender identity issues are still considered within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as being mentally ill. Stephen Whittle of Press for Change suggests that those who are categorised with Gender Identity Dysphoria are not mentally ill but simply confused. Is ‘gender confused’ more socially acceptable? In a world where sexual attraction is iconic and gay is fashionable we must be either male or female in order to remain benign to family and friends, (or better still stick with the gender we were born into). It’s only rock n’ roll when Jagger sings ‘You got the silver and the gold’. Binary societal conformism does not permit a gender appearance which is a fusion of both. That means forfeiting one gender identity for a transother rather than a defiance of the stereotype. The term ‘queer’, (In a Queer Time and Place: Transgender Bodies, Subcultural Lives) much as ‘feminist’ once was, has become a political rallying cry for something more than mere tolerance or a legitimised looksism. Genderality. May we shine a light.