Skip to content

Lessons from Art: Feminism Gets Semen All Over Your Face

Oh, hey! It turns out The British are up to something both pleasant and amusing, for the ladies. It is a “feminist postcard art auction,” with images intended to demonstrate something or other about the state of contemporary feminism. So far, so well-intentioned. Thumbs up, The British!

But have you ever wondered, ladies, what a DUDE ARTIST might contribute to such an auction? Specifically, whether or not he could find a way to make the point that feminism has rendered everything terrible? And also, whether he could work a cum shot into it? Because if your answers are “maybe,” “no,” and “oh, Jesus Christmas, really???!?” I have got your answer! (Fair warning: Your answer is NSFW.) (Because he put a cum shot in it.)

Behold the work of David Rusbatch, as he illustrates the Fall of (Wo)Man!

Before feminism, you see, the ladies were adept in the arts and such. We learned these skills at the feet of great and powerful male Artists, who slept with us, and also occasionally our sisters. Oh, sure! It seemed like a raw deal! But then, the suffering fueled our Art! We were also capable of finding recognition for our work, and of being relatively powerful activists, because that was totally common and not at all a very rare exception to The Rules. We lived in lush and beautiful paintings, and there was some sort of monkey involved.

Then, feminism came. All the ladies were gross and mad, and there was yelling! Like Germaine Greer, who — as has been pointed out by redlightpolitics, our source for this important yelling-related news — was actually kind of regarded as a sex symbol, in her time? Whether or not you like the lady’s politics (I pretty much don’t!) it takes a certain commitment to staying on-message to find the most unflattering photo ever in the world of The Saucy Feminist That Even Men Like and present that as your face of Feminism. And, of course, the message is: Feminism came, and all the ladies were gross and mad, and there was yelling!

Then there is “post-feminism.” Which, as far as I can tell, has so many potential uses that it might not even be a word. Like, it could mean: “Taking place and/or existing in an era that has come after the second wave of feminism, and the change in gender roles second-wave feminism has affected,” in which case I’m post-feminist, and so are you. And so is your mailbox! And your dog, Roscoe! And the band Wavves! OR, “post-feminism” can mean “possessing an ideology significantly informed by and in accordance with many of the tenets of second-wave and first-wave feminism, but standing outside of and possessing freedom to criticize those movements.” In which case, I am also a post-feminist. And so is your dog, maybe, but I have no idea. (“Third wave” basically means this same thing, by the way, but if you type it people will vomit. We are all sick of the wave-talk, right now! We are through with waves, forever!) The other other thing “post-feminism” can mean, however, which is the reason you are ill-advised to use it in polite conversation even if the only other choice is to use the term “third wave,” is “let’s all hit ourselves on the head with bricks until we can take Camille Paglia seriously.” Which, yikes.

So, “post-feminism.” It’s a complicated concept! And in the midst of this confusion, a man — no mere man, but an artist; no mere artist, but David Rusbatch — has come forth, with yet another definition. The definition is: Cum shots.

So, to recap: First, we were geniuses. Then, we were harpies. And now, we’re whores. Such are the works of feminism! Behold them, and tremble!

Fortunately for David Rusbatch, I fancy myself quite an expert on this whole “feminism” deal, as well. In fact, I have created an Internet weblog upon the subject! This is basically the equivalent of several doctoral degrees. As an expert on feminism, I would advance to you, the audience at home, that the whole “pre-feminist/feminist/post-feminist” deal occurs, not only in the macrocosm of world history, but in the microcosm of each individual lady or gentleman’s life. “Pre-feminist” and “post-feminist” are states; “feminism” is the catalyst that takes you from one to the other.

According to this theory, we can imagine each woman’s life as a long plane ride. It is cramped, it is full of obnoxious strangers, and the snacks are always disappointing. Also, there are sexists in it. Flying it! Giving safety instructions in it! Handing out disappointing snacks! Pre-feminism is the point at which the woman comes to think, “you know, I think maybe the arrangements on this plane are unfair? Maybe even sexist?” Feminism is the point at which she realizes, “holy shit! This plane is full of sexism!” And then there is the “post-feminist” stage of life, during which the woman announces to all and sundry, “I AM SICK OF ALL THIS MOTHERFUCKING SEXISM ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING PLANE.” Also, she gains the power to extend jokes several years past their natural life span. It’s just how these things work! I don’t know why!

Accordingly, a woman viewing this Important Piece of Art may have several reactions, depending on where she stands in her own personal plane journey. Allow me to chart them for you!

Pre-Feminism: There’s something off about this. It makes me uncomfortable. I’m tempted to say something, but, you know, I don’t want to be disruptive or sound harsh or anything. It’s art; maybe I don’t get it.

Feminism: Men have occupied a position of unfair privilege within the arts for, lo, this many a century, and have also been granted an unacceptable authority over the truths of women. They craft our narratives; they decide on the merits of our behavior; they are even granted more authority when making proclamations on our essential character and motivations than women are. We, as women, must reclaim our power and our narratives once more! We must not grant men the illusion of authority or expertise when we know they do not possess it in reality!

Post-Feminism: Shut the fuck up, David Rusbatch.

Granted, the first position on this spectrum is where a lady is supposed to find herself. It’s where all ladies are supposed to find themselves in relation to all male artists, and also males in general, forever. It’s nice, it’s appreciative, and nobody has a problem with it. It can get you far. Truly, there is nothing that the “gawrsh, Mister, you mean you’re going to let little old me sit here and listen attentively to your various opinions? Can I nod appreciatively and agree with you sometimes, too? Why, I’m the luckiest gal the whole gee-golly-darn world” attitude can’t buy you. Except for, you know, self-respect. And the possibility that these dudes might shut the fuck up eventually. For that, we have to proceed through Phases Two and Three of the imaginarily jizz-splattered continuum.

And yet, there is a price to pay! The price is that dudes will depict you as a shrieking harpy or jizz-soaked harlot. On a postcard, or maybe just when they’re out with the bros. Also, they’ll get very mad about the “shut the fuck up” dictum, because they were under the impression that they were specifically licensed to talk forever, pausing only to have high-minded debates (which are nothing like the shrill and base accusations hurled by you, Super-Bitch) with their fellow men. So, you know. Harsh!

Except not really. Of all the things in this world that can possibly happen, changing important parts of a violently unjust system and then having an unflattering photo of you put up on a postcard with the implicit accusation that you’ve led every girl in the world straight to a life of non-stop bukkake actually ranks near the top of the list. Never having to take this business seriously at all? Even better. Not having to live in a world where a dude can hand in a bukkake shot taped to a piece of white paper with a caption reading “post-feminism” to an art auction, and have that piece accepted by the curators of said auction, who I imagine to have said something like, “wow, thanks for your totally on-point and innovative contribution; our favorite part is how we can tell you were really trying, and took it seriously as well” — well, that might have to wait until the post-post-feminist era. But that will be the sweetest day of all.

16 Comments

  1. Treefinger wrote:

    @49 re: second sentence

    This is completely true, but Best Coast is an artistic/media representation and thus all the lyrics contribute to a cultural atmosphere of submission being an inherently feminine thing in the way a person’s sexual/relationship choice can’t. And also Best Coast, being as its not a person can be held to a standard of responsibility about what they produce and the messages it sends, whereas it would be unfair to do the same to a person just trying to live their life the way they want.

    From the perspective of a domme who fully supports sub women in expressing and claiming pride in their sexuality, but can’t help but roll her eyes in a club when the 56nd song of the night with such themes comes on and some douchebag who thinks Dom is short for Dominica takes it as his cue to come grind up in a particularly aggressive way, cause that’s what all ladies like.

    But yeah like Best Coast as much as you want, there’s no obligation to boycott something just because it’s problematic.

    Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 5:55 pm | Permalink
  2. anodynelite wrote:

    The obvious narrative of the piece is “how come feminists today aren’t like those other feminists who colored within the lines and had proper respect for manly Authority and Important Patriarchal Values, who played second fiddle to narcissistic men like Diego Rivera with nary a complaint or objection registered?”

    I love me some Frida Kahlo, but if you look at her life, she embodied a lot of the contradictions of her era. Female artists then were ALWAYS second fiddle to male ones, and I think she was aware of her subaltern status, played around with identity a lot trying to subvert this, but was ultimately aware of the limitations society placed on her vis-a-vis her male counterparts.

    The piece also seems to be making a sort of invidious comparison between “high art” (Kahlo) and teh PR0N- as if every feminist today thinks that porn is a lofty aesthetical endeavor.

    Sady is OTM.

    Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 6:54 pm | Permalink
  3. Hugh Ristik wrote:

    Maggie said:

    I don’t really have anything to say about it that anyone else hasn’t said, I’m commenting because, coincidentally, I have just encountered a more extensive albeit less malicious example of Dudes Telling Feminists What Feminism Is, over here: http://www.feministcritics.org/blog/about/seduction-communitypickup-artists

    It, yes, appears to be some sort of unholy hybrid of feminist and pick-up-artist blogs.

    Hi, I’m the author of that post. FeministCritics.org is mostly about criticism of feminism, though one of our 3 bloggers does identify as a feminist, and I consider myself significantly significantly influenced by feminist theory. Don’t worry; if you want the word “feminism,” I’m not going to have a tug of war with you over it; it’s all yours.

    We do run two versions of every thread: one for posters who are interested in having constructive discussion with feminists, and one for posters who aren’t interested in being so charitable with feminists.

    I’ve never seen someone try to start a feminist pickup blog. That would be kind of awesome, and yes, unholy. If you ever see something like that, please drop me a link.

    For now, I’m probably the person who writes the most about pickup who has a value system closest to feminism, though I don’t identify as a feminist. See this post for some ideas in pickup that may be consistent with feminist values.

    Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 9:44 pm | Permalink
  4. Nicolas wrote:

    Thanks. I don’t feel very strongly either way about Marnie Stern, but I found her take on Best Coast to be very Jezebel-y (ladies slammin’ ladies!) or maybe it’s just the way it was reported. But yeah, basically I enjoy it a lot even though it’s triggering my cis-straight-white-dude guilt for the reasons Treefinger outlined.

    Friday, October 8, 2010 at 6:49 am | Permalink
  5. N'Awlins Contrarian wrote:

    @Garland Grey:
    “My moderation policy is that comments should be about 90% TBD Mutual Appreciation Society and 10% people who remind us that stupidity exists in the world.”

    What, no room for the possibility that somebody might disagree with something that is posted on TBD, and actually have a valid, reasonable, intelligent, fair point? If the comment was serious, I’m very disappointed. Because I had put TBD right after Leonard Pitts (Miami Herald syndicated columnist) in the category of having made some very valuable contributions, and usually being a good read, even though I sometimes disagree.

    @Flavia
    @Emilybites
    Is it just me, or does anyone else think it unfortunate that the discussed alternatives seem to be mainly ban-it versus free-for-all, whether we are talking porn, prostitution, drugs, etc.? Am I the only one who hesitates to tell consenting adults what they can do in private, even when their motivation for doing it may be financial, but at the same time thinks light should be shined on the crappiness of the common (which is NOT to say universal) realities of what porn, prostitution, drugs, etc. often mean to the people involved with them? And while not necessarily making laws, nevertheless encouraging practices that tend to make things better for those involved?

    Friday, October 8, 2010 at 10:51 am | Permalink
  6. Sady wrote:

    @N’Awlins: I personally don’t mind people disagreeing with each other, or even with the post itself, in comments. Once upon a time, when this was my personal blog, I just deleted any comment that personally irritated me. But now, the volume’s so high that I think it’s fair for people to fight an issue out amongst themselves, and almost none of our business if they do. People who are gratuitously rude or who clearly Wanna Be Starting Something still get deleted, though. And occasionally they get deleted because their comment personally irritates me. I am not a model of democratic and fair blog-comment-moderation policy. Other editors, like Garland or CL, are both able and entitled to make their own choices about what gets through, too. So basically, it depends on which way the wind’s blowing on any given day.

    Friday, October 8, 2010 at 11:19 am | Permalink
  7. Garland Grey wrote:

    @54 Hugh, by defining yourself as critics of Feminism, don’t you worry you’re allowing your critical faculties to be bounded by Feminism? I understand you aren’t aligned with the “Men’s Rights” movement, but there are already well-established critical movements within and outside of Feminism – why not join one of them? And last, do you believe in Mansplaining?

    @56 Disagreeing doesn’t expel you from the TBDMAS. And I was largely joking.

    Friday, October 8, 2010 at 11:30 am | Permalink
  8. Samantha b. wrote:

    @Nicolas, Stern’s said her words were taken out of context, but she’s also specifically emphasized that she objects to the notion that women can’t be critical of other women. Which strikes me as fair enough. I don’t know why women should be obligated to be somehow lobotomized because the subject in question is another woman.

    Friday, October 8, 2010 at 11:37 am | Permalink
  9. Jane wrote:

    hi

    DOES ANYONE KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THIS ARTIST?…id be intrigued to see more of his work, maybe find out what context this postcard should be read.

    One of my friends in london went to one of his exhibitions once in london that sold all the peices on the first night and the media were declaring him as the s0-called “NEXT BIG THING”, im sure some of you could come up with an alternative name for him?

    Saturday, October 9, 2010 at 9:51 am | Permalink
  10. Hugh Ristik wrote:

    Garland Grey said:

    Hugh, by defining yourself as critics of Feminism, don’t you worry you’re allowing your critical faculties to be bounded by Feminism?

    We do criticize people other than feminists; we are just focused on feminists right now. When we are tired of FeministCritics.org, perhaps we will start up MRACritics.org or PUACritics.org.

    I understand you aren’t aligned with the “Men’s Rights” movement, but there are already well-established critical movements within and outside of Feminism – why not join one of them?

    I don’t feel like I quite fit into any of the current gender political movements.

    And last, do you believe in Mansplaining?

    Yes, and Womansplaining.

    Monday, October 11, 2010 at 1:53 am | Permalink
  11. Bebe wrote:

    I do agree with your (very funny analysis) to a certain extent, but just to be a bit English about the whole thing – in the UK, post-feminist is often how young women who wish to both benefit from and disown feminism’s struggles and achievements identify (as in, ‘don’t worry, I’m not going to make you feel uncomfortable by trying to make you talk about horrid girls and their horrid vaginas. I’m a POST-feminist. Look, I have a pint!’)

    I think this chap made his point very clumsily, but I think he’s suggesting that the bukkake shot is the inevitable result of active rejection of feminism by today’s young women (preferring to take the less threatening label of postfeminist) – so, if young women and girls deny their debt to feminism and only take from it dubious notions of self-empowerment, they will end up with jizz on their faces. I’m not really sure how Frida fits in, this is where my analytical genius runs out.

    Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 5:25 am | Permalink
  12. k-sky wrote:

    This, from Dominic at poetix, was thoughtful:

    The implication here is not, I think, that the young woman in question is a disgusting, thoughtless whore, a traitor to feminism and therefore to her own (unrecognised) best interests. It is rather that, where feminism once sought to intervene at the level of public ideological expression, shattering and interrogating sexist gender ontology, post-feminism now accedes to the unchallengeable common sense of “market ontology”, valorising above all the economic choices of individuals. What this means, simply put, is that if sexual humiliation is what the buyer wants, the seller should be free to enact it for him: post-feminism can find no ideological justification for restraining the commercial freedom of the sex industry. For the post-feminist, the image of a woman drenched in slime represents a valid form of sexual self-expression (valid because validated by money) – rather than an instance of an increasingly ubiquitous form of sexist hate speech.

    The whole thing is interesting — he more or less calls Musbatch a troll, but a smart one.

    Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 1:38 pm | Permalink
  13. anodynelite wrote:

    “I think this chap made his point very clumsily, but I think he’s suggesting that the bukkake shot is the inevitable result of active rejection of feminism by today’s young women (preferring to take the less threatening label of postfeminist) – so, if young women and girls deny their debt to feminism and only take from it dubious notions of self-empowerment, they will end up with jizz on their faces.”

    And how is this not exactly the oldest misogynist lie in the book- that if women leave home and hearth, they will end up ruined and defamed and rejected by “wholesome” folk?

    It’s the oldest, most bald-faced patriarchal load of BS in the book, Bebe. Wake up. If we don’t empower ourselves, and stop giving in to this sort of ridiculous backlasher’s blackmail, then who will do it for us?

    Women with pints, oh noez! Watching porn and appearing in porn and not having husbands! Oh the inhumanity…

    Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 4:00 pm | Permalink
  14. anodynelite wrote:

    “The implication here is not, I think, that the young woman in question is a disgusting, thoughtless whore, a traitor to feminism and therefore to her own (unrecognised) best interests. It is rather that, where feminism once sought to intervene at the level of public ideological expression, shattering and interrogating sexist gender ontology, post-feminism now accedes to the unchallengeable common sense of “market ontology”, valorising above all the economic choices of individuals.”

    A) No, the *implication* is not that the woman in the third panel is a traitor to feminism. The very clear message of the piece is that feminism has followed a linear, narrative unfolding that has lead women straight into a position where they are now “exploiting” themselves by appearing in bukkake porn. The very clear message is that it’s feminism’s fault that some women (a very small minority within a minority of sex workers) choose to enjoy sexual activities that have traditionally been coded as “humiliating” and “dehumanizing” and “wrong” for women. This is classic dyed-in-the-wool conservatism. (See also: Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, or any of Fox News’ pundits for more, if you have a strong stomach).

    B) If you *really* think that feminists don’t exist who have been “intervening” on these and other economic issues, and blame trends in marketing and advertising on “post-feminists” (a term invented by journalists to describe something very nebulous indeed, as Sady points out), then you simply aren’t looking. And you certainly haven’t read much contemporary feminism. Nor have you given a moment’s notice to the huge grassroots movements in the third world.

    I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m sick of the media insisting that “girl power” marketing strategies are somehow the direct result of third wave feminism, and that this has all gone terribly awry, resulting in whoredom 4 all. We’ve heard it all before, and it’s still a lame, toothless argument.

    Tuesday, October 12, 2010 at 4:10 pm | Permalink
  15. Bebe wrote:

    Anodynelite – Misrepresent-much? Rejection of feminism is not a rejection of home and hearth. I don’t particularly like this man’s work, but I don’t think he was saying that taking a load is a punishment for being a feminist – I think he was saying that it is the inevitable result of NOT being one (hence the use of the term post-feminist. Post-feminists say they are not feminists). Thinking that young women should proudly identify as feminists is hardly succumbing to the ‘patriarchal lie’.

    Wednesday, October 13, 2010 at 7:58 am | Permalink
  16. Mazarine wrote:

    i read through the comments, which made me laugh almost as much as the article. I haven’t laughed this much at a blog post in a LONG LONG time.

    Thank you for taking this ridiculous “piece of art” and turning it into something we can put in its proper place!

    (The dustbin, or perhaps, a book on feminist humor?)

    I would buy such a book. So Tiger Beatdown, would you get on this?

    Sincerely,

    Mazarine

    Friday, October 15, 2010 at 11:24 am | Permalink