sapphic piece of shit

I think it’s important to look at how this played out, not just in the history of straight men policing lesbians but in the lesbian community policing itself. In the 1940s and 50s a bar scene began to develop in cities across the country, marking the first time when lesbians, particularly working-class ones, gathered publicly and in large numbers. During this time a butch/femme culture developed that included strict codes of dress and behavior both in and outside the bedroom. Butch women slicked back their hair, wore suits and jeans, and were, generally, the “givers” of sexual pleasure. Femme women wore dresses and makeup and were the “receivers” of sexual pleasure. In some ways, this culture was liberating, as it represented a powerful, cohesive group aesthetic and safety in numbers. Especially for women who actually identified as butch, it was also a chance to finally adopt masculine dress without being seen as failed or dangerous but rather as sexy and loveable. For others this culture was a trap, pushing women into restrictive sex and gender roles in the same ways heterosexuality had. It is by no means the only lesbian aesthetic, but I think part of the reason it has stuck around for so long in the popular imagination as the way lesbians are is because it allows straight people to again see themselves as the center of the sexual world.

In either case, strap-ons were not widely used, or at least not talked about. In Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold, a book that documents the lives of Black and white lesbians in Buffalo, there is a pretty exhaustive set of interviews about sex acts and terminology, but no one mentions owning, liking, or even trying sex with a strap-on. Indeed, the one mention of a dildo is one of bewilderment as Vic, a self-identified butch, talks about her friend pulling her into the bathroom to show her the new strap-on she got. “Jesus, she whipped this thing out . . . I’m supposed to be butch and my face felt like a neon sign. I could feel the embarrassment. How do you admire a dildo? No seriously, what do you say?”

Butches in the book took great pride “in their own hands and their ability to please,” which “did not dispose them to think that a dildo would improve their lovemaking.” It’s interesting that they considered the dildo less potent and successful than hands. This could be read as displacing the power of the dick, but, coupled with the silence surrounding strap-on use, it also points to a greater fear about the lesbian body. How regulated and small it had to be to exist. How easily it could be diminished by something outside itself, or destroyed altogether.

In the lesbian radical feminist movement of the 1960s and 70s, there was also a great deal of attention focused on creating distance from dicks. Jill Johnston argued in A Lesbian Nation that the only true road to female liberation was the conscious “withdrawal at every level from the man to develop woman supremacy.” This meant that not only butch/femme dynamics but also penetrative sex were out. Anne Koedt developed the theory that the vaginal orgasm was a myth perpetrated by Freud in order to center male sexual desire for penetration, though her evidence for this was a study done by Kinsey—a man—that found the vagina was not particularly sensitive to touch. True orgasms, Koedt argued, only came from the clitoris—even though she interestingly also called the clit “the female equivalent of the penis”—so if women wanted to have enjoyable sex there was no need for penetration, only clitoral stimulation. Andrea Dworkin went so far as to call the penis “a hidden symbol of terror” and argued that “violence is male, the male is the penis.”

Dorothy Allison writes about the effects this had on herself and other lesbians at the time. “No one admitted to using dildos, wanting to be tied up, wanting to be penetrated, or talking dirty—all that male stuff . . . my lover wanted us to perform tribadism, stare into each other’s eyes, and orgasm simultaneously. Egalitarian, female, feminist, revolutionary.” In attempting to free themselves from the penis, in many ways radical lesbians ended up reinscribing the power of the dick and sacrificing the range of sexual pleasure they could experience in the process.

In a counter to this, the lesbian sexual outlaws of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s argued that dildos were actually great, not problematic, but primarily because they didn’t reference the penis at all. Some even argued that wearing a dildo turns a woman into a cyborg, not woman, man, or even human, just a body involved in the mechanistic movements of giving and receiving pleasure. While there is something freeing about this argument, as it gets us out from under the idea that we can’t talk about strap-ons and that a woman wearing a strap-on is only trying to make up for a never-ending lack, it still bypasses the sticky, complicated reality of the gendered/human world we live in and the simple fact that sometimes lesbians want strap-ons to look like penises.

All of this begs the question: can a dyke wear a dick and just have some damn fun?”]

fantastic opening! catchy song, love Utena and Anthy spinning in the roses. ending's not bad too

everything about Utena's introduction & her wanting to be a prince is iconic, the entire story is hyping her up.

Anthy definitely has her own preferences, and everything about the behaviour of those around her (& her own actions) makes them inscrutable and leaves behind only the Rose Bride

Utena tries to do a "Refusal of the Call" and then realizes that Saionji's still an asshole who would hurt Anthy. Saying that she only did it for Chu Chu is kind of messed up, but considering Anthy's earlier insistence that Chu Chu isn't a pet but her friend, that might actually be a good sign? that she actually accounts for it (versus Saionji just kicking it around.)

ohh the imagery of the castle, the stairs, the arena, everything is stunning. the backgrounds are so pretty

interesting too that Utena just slots directly into the role of the duelist? she smiles when she pulls out the sword from Anthy's chest, bending down gracefully as if in a dance, and knows the phrase to say right after. it's like she's been overtaken by the ritual.

FASCINATING thing for her to say... the most straightforward she's been about having her own personality? and it's with her back turned. loss of identity? not being able to distinguish between other people/how obviously others don't see her as a person

the spinning rose frame on characters (and sometimes objects/actions) HAS to mean something. As far as I can tell, it shows up in moments which align with the opening "fairytale" frame? Utena being heroic, Anthy in the dress. It's not always necessarily authentic or good, but whenever it shows up it draws a certain attention to characters as roles.

and on that note WHAT is going on with those shadow play girls??? what is with their increasingly esoteric parables about the events of the story?

man, both of the Kiryuus, Touga and Nanami, are kinda terrible, but they also bleed out of their stereotypes a little? So glad that we wound up with imo the most interesting option to Touga's playboy manipulation, that Utena's existing dreams led her to be interested, but ultimately she didn't sacrifice who she was for him. so far Nanami is a classic "mean girl"

is it just me or is it weird how quickly a lot of these people call each other by their given names? maybe influenced by the very westernized setting (western castle, western uniforms, western swordplay; western fairytale)

Okay, the first three episodes all had antagonists who pose problems and dehumanize Anthy in relatively straightforward ways. Saionji is abusive, Touga is manipulative and somewhat a womanizer, Nanami is mean. The two Sunlit Garden episodes very much delve into something meatier about how Miki, with fine intentions, holds up Anthy as a symbol of his idealized past, and objectifies her until he thinks her freedom means serving as his inspiration.

the "nice moment" music is diegetic! big fan of that

interesting to me that Anthy and Nanami are exact opposites: Anthy (probably) knows the actual context of the duels, but is powerless to act. Nanami schemes and acts powerful, but actually has no idea what's going on, and doesn't even know that.

the other two quadrants are Touga (knows what's going on, has control) and maybe Wakaba (doesn't know what's going on, doesn't have control but also isn't affected by it), with Utena in the centre (kind of knows about the duels but not why they happen, has some control but is also very led along and manipulated)

something strange about the twist about Anthy consistently outweirding Nanami's plots... the story twisting around her? somewhat uncharacteristic that Utena says not to keep them but she does anyway? and the repetition/script-like nature of their responses, especially Miki

I do love Anthy's little mannerisms (laughing at the flipbook, eyes following the metronome) when she's not being as actively scrutinized...

okay. the stopwatch Mickey previously used for the council meetings? In these episodes it seems to be used to... mark out story beats? expected sequences, or common tropes? When people arrive, when they complete actions, all being recorded. Doesn't seem like it's him actually/physically doing it, so maybe it's more a symbolic representation of preservation? There's a very rhythmic pulse to it, I'm kind of fascinated by it.

curious that this is the exact same sentiment that Utena holds about finding her prince? It's more than just nostalgia; their dueling song says "theatre" and "idealized reality", which I think hits on it. If Miki's idealized past never really existed, despite his conviction that he's lost some spark in his piano playing, who's to say that Utena's really did? Her only evidence is the rose seal. Entire storyline warning against living in the past at the cost of seeing the present objectively. At least Utena doesn't put up with his bullshit.

wow Kiryuu Touga is an asshole. Nanami, however, would be almost pitiable if she weren't still so mean

also all the music is truly a banger. the sunlit garden. the elevator music. zettai unmei mokushiroku. perfectly dramatic when it needs to be.

Okay, three duels in and it's definitely a Choice to repeat the lengthy arena-entering sequence for every duel? Something about highlighting how much of a ritual this is, the separation from the world of ostensibly-school to the physical transformation (of both the setting and the people) in the dueling arena, or a reminder of the cycle of people fighting for the Rose Bride, perhaps endlessly.

I think my main takeaways are twofold. 1. The idea that any of these people are going to achieve revolution and "smash the world's shell" by fighting a series of ritualized duels for the purpose of "winning" (i.e. possessing) a real human being who's been forced into the shape of a symbol is fundamentally kind of ridiculous, and that's probably the point.

Forbidding the iranian team coaches from entering the country and forcing them to direct the game from MEXICO through a tv

Players from non european countries being stopped and searched like criminals with dogs

Deporting african referees just because of their nationality

Forbidding interviews from being spoken i'm languages other than English and forbidding journalists and players from speaking their native languages