For the past three days, the Guardian has been running some very interesting excerpts here here and here from the new book by Oxford language professor Deborah Cameron.
In this book, The Myth of Mars and Venus, she is looking at how women and men do and don't communicate, and has discovered that really we are not so very different. But "men and women pretty much the same really" doesn't, as she rightly points out, sell books and get their authors on lucrative book tours and chat shows. She particularly has it in for the grand-daddy of the genre: Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, by John Gray, which I won't link to because far too many people have copies already.
There are plenty more though: for instance, the fragrant Allan and Barbara Pease "internationally renowned experts in human relations and body language" have a whole slew of books with nonsense titles like Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps. Mr Pease gained this expertise as the youngest person in Australia to sell $1m of life assurance and Mrs Pease by modelling and selling advertising. Real experts, then.
How I hate these books. With their glib little catch-phrases, their wacky cartoons, and their ability to over-simplify the most complex arguments, they are an insult to the intelligence, and it always surprises me that people who seem to have triple-figure IQs believe them. “Men want power, achievement and sex. Women want relationships, stability and love,” they say. What all of them? Always?
Not, sadly, that all of those people talking about men and women being "hard-wired" are dimwits. In the first excerpt from her book, she discusses some who aren't. But they are still mistaken - perhaps in a similar way to Simon LeVay who, when looking for the "gay brain", was mistaken not least because he knowingly and deliberately ignored the fact that some men are bisexual. His initial hypothesis - men are gay or straight - was wrong.
Cameron has a political explanation as to why so many people are keen on these differences being "natural". As she says, people have never been less at the mercy of biology, or men and women less different from each other. However, much of this simplistic writing implies that - because differences are "natural" - we'd all be happier and less frustrated if we reverted to the way things used to be.
But things in the western world have changed so much in the past 100 years: even in the past 20, which they couldn't have done if the previous way of being was wholly natural. Men and women relate differently from when I was a young woman; expectations of how we should live our lives are radically different. Anyone with any sense of history or geography knows that gender expectations vary from from place and time. But those changes that do still exist seem more stubborn.
I think people like these pat explanations because they are easy. Because they don't have to struggle with their partners, because they don't have to make any changes; they don't have to think or challenge anything. Society, in the abstract, doesn't have to transform itself to take these changes into account. We can all go round complaining and tutting about the "opposite sex" as per usual.
Personally, I have also never bought into these man = A, woman = B divisions myself - I can read maps pretty well and have lived with men who iron far more than I do. I hate spending long periods of time chatting on the phone, and I am extremely self-sufficient. No doubt, to some people, I have a male brain. How would that tie in with my interest in the domestic arts, I wonder?
But if you like women, how can you like men?
So what has this to do with bisexuality? Several things in particular. If men and women are so very very different, then other people will perhaps find it impossible that one could be sexually or romantically attracted to both. (Although of course, the difference is precisely what some people like about being bisexual!)
Of course, there is also the all women are bi, no men are bi nonsense which I have written about before. That has a societal explanation too, but again, the "we are hard-wired to X" pops up again and again.
In sexual behaviour, the idea that men and women are very different dies hard. But in my 18 years' experience of interviewing many women about sexuality, and now interviewing men too, I would say that there are far greater differences within any group of women than between men and women. Some people need lots of sex with lots of different people lots of the time. Others are more or less celibate for ever. You can say that men or women tend to do something, but that's it.
These people who simplify sexual differences are likely to have similar views on homosexuality: the Peases, for instance. Headings in their books such as “Why gays and lesbians seem obsessed with sex” give a hint of their agenda. The answer to that question, in case you needed to know, is because men are men and lesbians have higher testosterone levels, making lesbians’ sex drive higher. But is it? Is it really? How do they know - have they done tests themselves? Has anyone ever done any research? I think not. And clearly they have never heard of lesbian bed death either.
So where does bisexuality fit into their world view? Apparently, the “mating centre” in the hypothalamus decides which sex we will be attracted to. In males it needs dosing in male hormones so they will be attracted to women; if insufficient, there will be a greater or lesser (bisexuals, I presume?) attraction to other men.
Hm. Twaddle. Who do you believe - an Oxford professor of language or a salesman and model? Complicated things made not too simple. Differences not so very different after all.
Showing posts with label Feminism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feminism. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Friday, September 07, 2007
Further reading
Two reports on books on bisexuality today – not reviews exactly, rather some observations about them…
Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics is by Jennifer Baumgardner. She’s prominent in the Third Wave feminist movement that seems to be quite lively in the US.
[On one British feminist mailing list I am on, come International Women’s Day, US feminists who happen to be in London always ask why they can’t find out what’s happening. Answer, always, comes there none: nothing is happening, that’s why. If there is anything it’s usually along the lines of “Businesswoman’s association tells you how to reach empowerment through setting up a highly profitable pampering organisation”. Which, to me, isn’t feminism at all. Of course, some sort of feminist movement does exist – see the Observer Woman section of the Observer newspaper section this Sunday (perhaps it will be online too, via www.guardian.co.uk) where a range of young feminists aged 19-26 talk about what they are doing. Heartening stuff. Still and all, feminism is in a lull before an inevitable storm comes up in the future. Politics goes in cycles, I believe.]
Look Both Ways is a memoir first and foremost – reminiscences about Baumgardner's own experience of bisexuality and how it has and hasn’t fitted in to her life and where it does and doesn’t fit into feminism. She also interviews some famous feminists of the 60s and 70s era to see how having relationships with women was seen and the impact it had on those feminists who had them. But her main argument, I suppose, is that young women these days are embracing a certain sort of light-hearted bisexuality as a positive way-station to being a complete person. Hmm… possibly. Some of them.
What it isn’t about is about bisexual politics. Although she mentions prominent bi activists Robyn Ochs and Lani Ka’ahumanu(both of whom are feminists who have edited books on bisexuality), and the organisation BiNet, she never once mentions the Bi community. I find that baffling… It seems as if she only perceives of the politics of bisexuality within the feminist movement. Indeed, she seems quite clear that there is no bi movement, even though she lives in New York City where I would have thought the most casual search would have found her a group.
Bi America: Myths, Truths and Struggles of an Invisible Community, by William Burleson, is the polar opposite of this – being only about the bi community – in particular in the Minneapolis-St Paul area where the writer lives. Indeed, it discusses exactly what it says on the cover. I just wonder about the many bi people who aren’t in that community: what do they think? “Bi people” and the “bi community” are not synonymous terms, even in the US. Of course, he does mention this, and mentions where else you might find bi people, what exactly the community consists of and where it’s going to. I suppose trying to find out what these “non-community” even more invisible bisexuals think is one of my own hobbyhorses. There’s a lot in here and it certainly would be a helpful book for someone coming out as bi or their loved ones who want to understand them.
These books are also both “very American” – relevant only up to a point to people who aren’t in the US. They’re both enjoyable, interesting and readable books, but they feel to me like they’re written about a very foreign country.
Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics is by Jennifer Baumgardner. She’s prominent in the Third Wave feminist movement that seems to be quite lively in the US.
[On one British feminist mailing list I am on, come International Women’s Day, US feminists who happen to be in London always ask why they can’t find out what’s happening. Answer, always, comes there none: nothing is happening, that’s why. If there is anything it’s usually along the lines of “Businesswoman’s association tells you how to reach empowerment through setting up a highly profitable pampering organisation”. Which, to me, isn’t feminism at all. Of course, some sort of feminist movement does exist – see the Observer Woman section of the Observer newspaper section this Sunday (perhaps it will be online too, via www.guardian.co.uk) where a range of young feminists aged 19-26 talk about what they are doing. Heartening stuff. Still and all, feminism is in a lull before an inevitable storm comes up in the future. Politics goes in cycles, I believe.]
Look Both Ways is a memoir first and foremost – reminiscences about Baumgardner's own experience of bisexuality and how it has and hasn’t fitted in to her life and where it does and doesn’t fit into feminism. She also interviews some famous feminists of the 60s and 70s era to see how having relationships with women was seen and the impact it had on those feminists who had them. But her main argument, I suppose, is that young women these days are embracing a certain sort of light-hearted bisexuality as a positive way-station to being a complete person. Hmm… possibly. Some of them.
What it isn’t about is about bisexual politics. Although she mentions prominent bi activists Robyn Ochs and Lani Ka’ahumanu(both of whom are feminists who have edited books on bisexuality), and the organisation BiNet, she never once mentions the Bi community. I find that baffling… It seems as if she only perceives of the politics of bisexuality within the feminist movement. Indeed, she seems quite clear that there is no bi movement, even though she lives in New York City where I would have thought the most casual search would have found her a group.
Bi America: Myths, Truths and Struggles of an Invisible Community, by William Burleson, is the polar opposite of this – being only about the bi community – in particular in the Minneapolis-St Paul area where the writer lives. Indeed, it discusses exactly what it says on the cover. I just wonder about the many bi people who aren’t in that community: what do they think? “Bi people” and the “bi community” are not synonymous terms, even in the US. Of course, he does mention this, and mentions where else you might find bi people, what exactly the community consists of and where it’s going to. I suppose trying to find out what these “non-community” even more invisible bisexuals think is one of my own hobbyhorses. There’s a lot in here and it certainly would be a helpful book for someone coming out as bi or their loved ones who want to understand them.
These books are also both “very American” – relevant only up to a point to people who aren’t in the US. They’re both enjoyable, interesting and readable books, but they feel to me like they’re written about a very foreign country.
Monday, September 11, 2006
How Kate Millett turned me on
Or: bisexuals I never met, part one
In the autumn of 1976, I was an au pair in Paris. Dizzyingly lonely, harassed by men every time I set food outside the front door, pretty much centimeless (due to my own inability to negotiate - or mention even - the fact that I was expecting to get paid) I spent a lot of time hanging out at the Drugstore du Rond Point des Champs Elysees. It was a kind of bookshop/newsagents - probably more too, but that's what springs to mind - and there I clapped eyes on the book Flying, by Kate Millett.
Realistically, it was probably the fact that it was a book in English that made me notice it. Perhaps there was more. Perhaps I knew that she was an influential and controversial feminist thinker, author of Sexual Politics, but more probably that came later. I know why I spent day after day in that bookshop, with no money to pay for the book, just reading it standing there propped against the magazine shelves.
The clue is in the blurb on the back:
"Flying is her extraordinary, frank account of the tumultous period when both her book and her own acknowledged bi-sexuality [sic] outraged the public and triggered some of the most violent, far-reaching aspects of the women's movement."
That word, that one word, made me know I had to read it. And I wasn't disappointed. In this, her autobiography. KM - artist, writer, academic, intellectual, wife and lover of women - gives a fearless, naked in all senses, account of her life and loves up till that point (38). Her writing is extraordinarly vivid and personal; she does a lot, mixes with fascinating people at a fascinating time, but there's every sense that she is suffering too.
The book starts with a trip to London, where she recalls her sudden, unwanted rise to fame after the publication of Sexual Politics - an interview in Life magazine, on the cover of Time, being asked in public if she was a lesbian, the pain and guilt of hurting her religious mother.
Sexual Politics, after all, was essentially the first work of feminist literary analysis, and the mainstream was very keen to slap down the new women's movement. The book looked at misogyny in American literature, to illustrate how men in general use sex to degrade women. The work - and KM herself - were overtly against monogamy and the family. In the late 1960s, that was heretical to almost everyone.
Still true today
Unfortunately, some of what she writes is still quite true today: "The line goes, flexible as a fascist edict, that bisexuality is a cop-out. Yes, I said, yes I am a Lesbian. It was the last strength I had."
She was vilified as a result of this enforced coming out – by the heterosexual women's movement for being queer, by radical lesbians for not being enough of lesbian, by straight society for supposedly hating men. She can't, mustn't, write about sex. Just like now. See this post. Yup, I will repeat, women aren't allowed to talk about their sexual feelings and remain intellectuals of good standing.
More than that, though, what I found moving, and could relate to, were her struggles: to find love, to not feel rejected, to keep on creating - through a film of fairly consistent low-level depression and relentless introspection.
People are always talking about the need for role models and KM - wild woman, artist, bohemian - was the perfect role model for me. She was very consciously, openly bisexual. Feminism might have been going hell for leather in 1976, but not where I was and I certainly didn't know where to find it. But she did, she was doing all those things I wanted to do and be, in my tiny, solitary Parisian room.
I didn't meet any women in Paris, 1976. I didn't meet much of anybody: everyone (apart from the men who wanted a piece of my body) kept themselves to themselves, and I was too scared to go to a lesbian club although I walked up and down outside plenty of times. In fact, I couldn't wait to come home.
I finally bought the book myself in 1980 (I wrote the date inside) by which time I was officially a "practising bisexual". I also read some of the others: Sexual Politics (of course), Sita, the Basement, but it was Flying that really blew me away.
Where she is now
The 1980s and 1990s weren't particularly kind to Kate Millett: her influence faded and she had periods of serious mental illness, which she wrote about in The Loony Bin Trip. I was really pleased when I heard she was coming to London to give a talk in the 1990s but her mother was ill, and she never made it. The next time I heard of her, was in an article in the Guardian in 1998 - where she was apparently selling Christmas trees to make a living. Cue righteous shock about what happened to our feminist heroines; certainly from me. Apparently, though, this article - which she wrote - had all the wit and humour taken out by the editor and her life was not nearly as pitiful as it sounded. See here.
Lots of her books are available now, being reissued in 2000 after being out of print for years. The farm (where the Christmas trees came from) she bought in upstate New York with the proceeds of Sexual Politics is now a centre for women writers, artists and musicians around the world. KM herself conducts masterclasses in writing from time to time.
I was so pleased to read this when I did an internet search while doing this post. You can find out more about her by looking at her website
Thank you Kate Millett. You helped me become myself.
In the autumn of 1976, I was an au pair in Paris. Dizzyingly lonely, harassed by men every time I set food outside the front door, pretty much centimeless (due to my own inability to negotiate - or mention even - the fact that I was expecting to get paid) I spent a lot of time hanging out at the Drugstore du Rond Point des Champs Elysees. It was a kind of bookshop/newsagents - probably more too, but that's what springs to mind - and there I clapped eyes on the book Flying, by Kate Millett.
Realistically, it was probably the fact that it was a book in English that made me notice it. Perhaps there was more. Perhaps I knew that she was an influential and controversial feminist thinker, author of Sexual Politics, but more probably that came later. I know why I spent day after day in that bookshop, with no money to pay for the book, just reading it standing there propped against the magazine shelves.
The clue is in the blurb on the back:
"Flying is her extraordinary, frank account of the tumultous period when both her book and her own acknowledged bi-sexuality [sic] outraged the public and triggered some of the most violent, far-reaching aspects of the women's movement."
That word, that one word, made me know I had to read it. And I wasn't disappointed. In this, her autobiography. KM - artist, writer, academic, intellectual, wife and lover of women - gives a fearless, naked in all senses, account of her life and loves up till that point (38). Her writing is extraordinarly vivid and personal; she does a lot, mixes with fascinating people at a fascinating time, but there's every sense that she is suffering too.
The book starts with a trip to London, where she recalls her sudden, unwanted rise to fame after the publication of Sexual Politics - an interview in Life magazine, on the cover of Time, being asked in public if she was a lesbian, the pain and guilt of hurting her religious mother.
Sexual Politics, after all, was essentially the first work of feminist literary analysis, and the mainstream was very keen to slap down the new women's movement. The book looked at misogyny in American literature, to illustrate how men in general use sex to degrade women. The work - and KM herself - were overtly against monogamy and the family. In the late 1960s, that was heretical to almost everyone.
Still true today
Unfortunately, some of what she writes is still quite true today: "The line goes, flexible as a fascist edict, that bisexuality is a cop-out. Yes, I said, yes I am a Lesbian. It was the last strength I had."
She was vilified as a result of this enforced coming out – by the heterosexual women's movement for being queer, by radical lesbians for not being enough of lesbian, by straight society for supposedly hating men. She can't, mustn't, write about sex. Just like now. See this post. Yup, I will repeat, women aren't allowed to talk about their sexual feelings and remain intellectuals of good standing.
More than that, though, what I found moving, and could relate to, were her struggles: to find love, to not feel rejected, to keep on creating - through a film of fairly consistent low-level depression and relentless introspection.
People are always talking about the need for role models and KM - wild woman, artist, bohemian - was the perfect role model for me. She was very consciously, openly bisexual. Feminism might have been going hell for leather in 1976, but not where I was and I certainly didn't know where to find it. But she did, she was doing all those things I wanted to do and be, in my tiny, solitary Parisian room.
I didn't meet any women in Paris, 1976. I didn't meet much of anybody: everyone (apart from the men who wanted a piece of my body) kept themselves to themselves, and I was too scared to go to a lesbian club although I walked up and down outside plenty of times. In fact, I couldn't wait to come home.
I finally bought the book myself in 1980 (I wrote the date inside) by which time I was officially a "practising bisexual". I also read some of the others: Sexual Politics (of course), Sita, the Basement, but it was Flying that really blew me away.
Where she is now
The 1980s and 1990s weren't particularly kind to Kate Millett: her influence faded and she had periods of serious mental illness, which she wrote about in The Loony Bin Trip. I was really pleased when I heard she was coming to London to give a talk in the 1990s but her mother was ill, and she never made it. The next time I heard of her, was in an article in the Guardian in 1998 - where she was apparently selling Christmas trees to make a living. Cue righteous shock about what happened to our feminist heroines; certainly from me. Apparently, though, this article - which she wrote - had all the wit and humour taken out by the editor and her life was not nearly as pitiful as it sounded. See here.
Lots of her books are available now, being reissued in 2000 after being out of print for years. The farm (where the Christmas trees came from) she bought in upstate New York with the proceeds of Sexual Politics is now a centre for women writers, artists and musicians around the world. KM herself conducts masterclasses in writing from time to time.
I was so pleased to read this when I did an internet search while doing this post. You can find out more about her by looking at her website
Thank you Kate Millett. You helped me become myself.
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Let's not talk about sex
So, Abby Lee - author of the brilliantly entertaining blog "the girl with the one track mind", which led to a book of the same name - is probably stopping her blog. The reason: her real identity (Zoe Margolis) was "outed" by a gutter publication masquerading as a Sunday newspaper.
As a result, not only has she had to leave home, but all her friends, family, lovers, work colleagues and passing acquaintances, know what she does, who she does it with, and when and where she masturbates. Being outed means she can't write candidly any more.
This brilliant blog details the attempts of a 33-year-old single woman to find sexual partners. She thinks about sex a lot (ie has a one track mind) and writes about what she does and who she does it with in a witty and engaging way.
What's happened to her has certainly given me pause for thought, both for myself and as a feminist. Now I've made it a personal rule that I won't write about anything here that I wouldn't want my family or my (obviously liberal) employer to see. This blog is about the politics of sex, not actual shagging - especially not any that I've ever done myself! I post under my real name: given that I'm a career journalist/writer, it would be stupid not to. Still, if I ever slip up and say something that isn't in the public domain - that I identify as bisexual, am in a long-term relationship with a man and have had relationships in the past with women and men - then I might have problems.
It's partly because I am a journalist that I am so disgusted by what's happened. Many of us try to be ethical in our dealings with other people. Ms Anna Mikhailova, however, the author of this "expos", is obviously motivated entirely by ambition. While knowing full well that Abby/Zoe is worried about her perfectly legal and moral exploits being known to the world, she goes ahead and does it anyway.
The undivine Ms M throws around plenty of damning words: "shameless", "commitment-free", "low-brow pornography". She also throws into doubt the fact that Zoe actually wrote the book. "Much of its commercial value depends on readers believing it is the true account of a sexually liberated women". Why would anyone think it wasn't? Abby/Zoe writes about fancying some of the actors she works with. Well, why wouldn't she? Anna M hides her prissy moralism very badly.
Of course, she is obviously trying to make her mark - an internet search of her name reveals four pieces done at the Sunday Times (two as a joint byline) and many others at a publication called Oxford Student, so perhaps she was on work experience at the ST.
The ST, a Murdoch-owned paper, has behaved really hypocritically - they published a piece by Abby/Zoe, and excerpted her book. Then, a few weeks later, they do this to her. Why? It seems needlessly mean, particularly as Abby/Zoe writes at length about how worried she is that she will be "found out".
There is no reason for the public to know the real identity of Abby/Zoe. In fact, I doubt if the public is actually interested. She is not a public figure, a celebrity, a member of parliament. She's an ordinary woman on the crew of British films. Or she was. Now, she's not getting any work.
Women, know your place
So for me, this issue has some led to some pretty thumping political conclusions. 1) If you (a woman) want to be taken seriously or have a career, don't write about sex. 2) don't believe for a second that you can think about, or act like, men do when it comes to sex.
The media has decided there are two acceptable ways for women to be sexually - and everyone knows that when women try to be sexual in unacceptable ways, they have to be punished. The first is: woman who wants a long-term relationship, or is already in one, and within that wants sex. If she is young and innocent, or has been married for a long time, fine. If she is over-30 and single, it's going to be tough because there is cellulite and weight gain, men who won't commit, the biological clock, and career demands to worry about. She will have to resort to some kind of manipulation - or at least bloody good luck - to get a man. It's the Bridget Jones scenario. But Bridget Jones started off as a satire.
The second is: kiss and tell girl, who has sex with footballers, and as a career goal wants to be famous, which she will achieve by posing naked for men's magazines. She is invariably under 25. Most of the women in Big Brother fall into this category.
If you might in any way fall into this latter camp, then you can forget any idea that you have the right to think. After all, a one-track mind can only focus on sex; women's poor little brains are much too small to actually have an intellect too. If you think about/write about sex - and especially if you are involved in the sex industry at all, in any way, ever - then you are necesssarily a stupid victim, probably not knowing what is good for you due to sexual abuse or other abuse by men. Look at all the hoo-hah surrounding the Belle de Jour blog/book. BdJ is or was an escort who blogged about it, and the supposition is and was that it couldn't be a real prostitute writing it because it was too well done. Now, I have no idea who BdJ is, whether it is a female escort or a male jobbing hack or a team of people, but in a way it doesn't matter. It's the supposition that all prostitutes are dimwits, incapable of stringing a sentence together / no intelligent woman (who wasn't a junkie) would ever be in the sex industry that I object to. And good liberal journalists (like me) are as likely to believe that as anyone crawling up the posterior of Rupert Murdoch. Perhaps they should check out a blog like this.
But anyway, Abby/Zoe is not in the sex industry. She is simply a woman trying to follow her own desires, writing about wanting sex in a way that many women can recognise. I certainly can. She doesn't write about wanting a boyfriend, about being insecure, about wanting to settle down. Occasionally, she even writes about having sex with women. But in no sense is she a victim in her search for sex.
What a man can do
If she was a man, no one would be remotely interested. I presume there are blogs about straight(ish) men pursuing sex with women, but no one gives them book deals or is interested in knowing who they really are. And gay men are almost expected to talk about/write about casual sex: Mark Simpson, for instance, who among other things writes fascinating stuff about having sex with "straight" men, is perfectly explicit.
But Abby/Zoe is a woman, and she has not played by the rules. She specifically says that she started blogging to write about sex a progressive, feminist, sex-positive way, something she didn't see covered elsewhere. Interestingly, some of the reviews on the amazon site also think she is pandering to male fantasies. But there are mentally healthy women who are interested in casual sex. There are!
"The idea that men use love to get sex and women use sex to get love is a myth," she says. "In my experience, men want and need love just as much as women, and women seek sexual pleasure just as much as men do. The difference is that it's still unacceptable for men to admit to that emotional need, in case they are labelled weak or feminine, and if a woman is open about her sexual desires, she's instantly labelled a slut." As she has clearly been.
As Natalie Angier, Pulitzer-prize winning science correspondent puts it "Women are said to have lower sex drives than men, yet they are universally punished if they display evidence to the contrary."
Just like Abby Lee/Zoe Margolis is being punished right now. And Anna Mikhailova, traitor to women who want to play by their own rules, has her reward: a byline, a few hundred pounds, and a leg up on a very slippery career ladder.
As a result, not only has she had to leave home, but all her friends, family, lovers, work colleagues and passing acquaintances, know what she does, who she does it with, and when and where she masturbates. Being outed means she can't write candidly any more.
This brilliant blog details the attempts of a 33-year-old single woman to find sexual partners. She thinks about sex a lot (ie has a one track mind) and writes about what she does and who she does it with in a witty and engaging way.
What's happened to her has certainly given me pause for thought, both for myself and as a feminist. Now I've made it a personal rule that I won't write about anything here that I wouldn't want my family or my (obviously liberal) employer to see. This blog is about the politics of sex, not actual shagging - especially not any that I've ever done myself! I post under my real name: given that I'm a career journalist/writer, it would be stupid not to. Still, if I ever slip up and say something that isn't in the public domain - that I identify as bisexual, am in a long-term relationship with a man and have had relationships in the past with women and men - then I might have problems.
It's partly because I am a journalist that I am so disgusted by what's happened. Many of us try to be ethical in our dealings with other people. Ms Anna Mikhailova, however, the author of this "expos", is obviously motivated entirely by ambition. While knowing full well that Abby/Zoe is worried about her perfectly legal and moral exploits being known to the world, she goes ahead and does it anyway.
The undivine Ms M throws around plenty of damning words: "shameless", "commitment-free", "low-brow pornography". She also throws into doubt the fact that Zoe actually wrote the book. "Much of its commercial value depends on readers believing it is the true account of a sexually liberated women". Why would anyone think it wasn't? Abby/Zoe writes about fancying some of the actors she works with. Well, why wouldn't she? Anna M hides her prissy moralism very badly.
Of course, she is obviously trying to make her mark - an internet search of her name reveals four pieces done at the Sunday Times (two as a joint byline) and many others at a publication called Oxford Student, so perhaps she was on work experience at the ST.
The ST, a Murdoch-owned paper, has behaved really hypocritically - they published a piece by Abby/Zoe, and excerpted her book. Then, a few weeks later, they do this to her. Why? It seems needlessly mean, particularly as Abby/Zoe writes at length about how worried she is that she will be "found out".
There is no reason for the public to know the real identity of Abby/Zoe. In fact, I doubt if the public is actually interested. She is not a public figure, a celebrity, a member of parliament. She's an ordinary woman on the crew of British films. Or she was. Now, she's not getting any work.
Women, know your place
So for me, this issue has some led to some pretty thumping political conclusions. 1) If you (a woman) want to be taken seriously or have a career, don't write about sex. 2) don't believe for a second that you can think about, or act like, men do when it comes to sex.
The media has decided there are two acceptable ways for women to be sexually - and everyone knows that when women try to be sexual in unacceptable ways, they have to be punished. The first is: woman who wants a long-term relationship, or is already in one, and within that wants sex. If she is young and innocent, or has been married for a long time, fine. If she is over-30 and single, it's going to be tough because there is cellulite and weight gain, men who won't commit, the biological clock, and career demands to worry about. She will have to resort to some kind of manipulation - or at least bloody good luck - to get a man. It's the Bridget Jones scenario. But Bridget Jones started off as a satire.
The second is: kiss and tell girl, who has sex with footballers, and as a career goal wants to be famous, which she will achieve by posing naked for men's magazines. She is invariably under 25. Most of the women in Big Brother fall into this category.
If you might in any way fall into this latter camp, then you can forget any idea that you have the right to think. After all, a one-track mind can only focus on sex; women's poor little brains are much too small to actually have an intellect too. If you think about/write about sex - and especially if you are involved in the sex industry at all, in any way, ever - then you are necesssarily a stupid victim, probably not knowing what is good for you due to sexual abuse or other abuse by men. Look at all the hoo-hah surrounding the Belle de Jour blog/book. BdJ is or was an escort who blogged about it, and the supposition is and was that it couldn't be a real prostitute writing it because it was too well done. Now, I have no idea who BdJ is, whether it is a female escort or a male jobbing hack or a team of people, but in a way it doesn't matter. It's the supposition that all prostitutes are dimwits, incapable of stringing a sentence together / no intelligent woman (who wasn't a junkie) would ever be in the sex industry that I object to. And good liberal journalists (like me) are as likely to believe that as anyone crawling up the posterior of Rupert Murdoch. Perhaps they should check out a blog like this.
But anyway, Abby/Zoe is not in the sex industry. She is simply a woman trying to follow her own desires, writing about wanting sex in a way that many women can recognise. I certainly can. She doesn't write about wanting a boyfriend, about being insecure, about wanting to settle down. Occasionally, she even writes about having sex with women. But in no sense is she a victim in her search for sex.
What a man can do
If she was a man, no one would be remotely interested. I presume there are blogs about straight(ish) men pursuing sex with women, but no one gives them book deals or is interested in knowing who they really are. And gay men are almost expected to talk about/write about casual sex: Mark Simpson, for instance, who among other things writes fascinating stuff about having sex with "straight" men, is perfectly explicit.
But Abby/Zoe is a woman, and she has not played by the rules. She specifically says that she started blogging to write about sex a progressive, feminist, sex-positive way, something she didn't see covered elsewhere. Interestingly, some of the reviews on the amazon site also think she is pandering to male fantasies. But there are mentally healthy women who are interested in casual sex. There are!
"The idea that men use love to get sex and women use sex to get love is a myth," she says. "In my experience, men want and need love just as much as women, and women seek sexual pleasure just as much as men do. The difference is that it's still unacceptable for men to admit to that emotional need, in case they are labelled weak or feminine, and if a woman is open about her sexual desires, she's instantly labelled a slut." As she has clearly been.
As Natalie Angier, Pulitzer-prize winning science correspondent puts it "Women are said to have lower sex drives than men, yet they are universally punished if they display evidence to the contrary."
Just like Abby Lee/Zoe Margolis is being punished right now. And Anna Mikhailova, traitor to women who want to play by their own rules, has her reward: a byline, a few hundred pounds, and a leg up on a very slippery career ladder.
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