Laws of Desire
Media Round-Up
IDLES - Crawler: These boys never stop experimenting and I gotta respect them for that! I think I’ve still got to give a few more listens before I have Conclusive Thoughts on it though!
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba: This show is aesthetically badass and not in the Attack on Titan way of looking Expensive, but in the Uses Colours and Has A Distinctive Style Way on top of also looking very expensive. Also, some really cool monster designs and some intriguing attempts at morality/empathy stuff going on make this feel just-about-different enough to be worth a watch.
But I’m A Cheerleader: I feel a similar way to this film and its cultural reception as I feel about Showgirls
Four Days In July: Shamefully my first Mike Leigh and I am already OBSESSED, the way it balances the focus on these families with the shadow of the broader societal issues looming over is so subtle and brilliant.
7p., cuis., s. de b., … à saisir: AGNES VARDA! This is my first of hers too and I need to watch more - but this was a hell of a place to start. The character work is incredible, sets are stunning and there are a lot of fascinating layers.
A little past 5 am at a warehouse in North London. I was exhausted. I knew this because my feet couldn't find the rhythm like they normally do. The eyes of my friends looked...worried. I'd been asked if I was okay 5 times in the last hour. A South Asian gay man sidled up to me. I don't remember what he wore but I remember him being skinny and moustached. He said something into my ear about the chains I was wearing. I couldn't understand him. Tiredness and (surprisingly good) white oontz-oontz music aren't a recipe for clear communication. I gave a weak smile and said “thank you”, doing the courteous thing and assuming he gave a compliment. His face made it clear that it wasn't. He tried again and this time it was " [MUFFLED] [MUFFLED] [MUFFLED] I wouldn't have known you were gay!"
This piece is a lot of different strands coming together around my experiences in clubs. Ironically while writing it I thought of different ways to represent this whole thing, through poetry, or a reported feature, or some audio fuckshit. All of that might still happen, but I’m making myself stay true to the task of writing directly and frankly about my own experiences and emotions - something I don’t do nearly enough. So here is that:
Sweat. Spit. Deviants in close proximity. Unidentifiable genders. Home-made hazardous lights reflect off glossy clothing with irregular cutouts. Ingesting various substances - mostly illegal. One Deviant sat on the floor, with another bringing them water in a cup stained by lips coated in vibrant colours. Gloved hands move down to [ERROR]. Mouth widens and teeth show, giving an expression of [ERROR]. Deviant bodies flail, full of [ERROR]
The drone’s camera captures it all.
There is a version of the club that exists in my head that does something magical.
It's close to the masterful scene in Lovers Rock where everyone comes together in an outburst of feeling - but on a much bigger scale. Bodies blur together in the beat, and while it isn't frictionless, there is a sense of connection that emerges from desire. Alongside that desire is also a sense of community, without the need to draw harsh lines between the two.
Outside of a utopian vision I just like putting on a cute outfit and going out to dance with random people!
Yet the reality is consistently different. There’s no big communal connection and a dirty look or maybe a mumbled politeness is the closest thing to engagement with my existence 90% of the time - even when I do my best to be social and approachable.
However, the magical and freeing version of the club clearly does exist to an extent.! Some friends have had no problem with being engaged by even the most random of strangers, and it's kind of jarring to realise the problem is not that everyone is having a shit time - it’s just you. There’s almost a grim camaraderie in misery (that Brits love) when you’re all in a shit situation together, but that isn’t what I get here.
In the blue/green light, you can almost see/hear them - those drowned men/boys. It would perhaps be easier to imagine them as men who made choices. Who went venturing into the sea as brave heroes searching for adventure and glory for their home and their people. But in the eerie light/sound of this dim bar/club by the sea, where spirits/vengeance reach out to construct/warp each haunted/cursed girl/boy the reality becomes clear/heavy. These were kids and they never had a choice.
The factor which has become increasingly clear to me is that I am doing gender wrong.
Due to the very intentional construction of Gender, Black bodies can only ever be seen as ungendered or hyper gendered things. If you want to be engaged with as a Black queer person with a body that is read as male, you have to be prepared to carve yourself into being:
A) High femme (lightskint/skinny) and ready to slay kween mama boots the house down snatch my wig make him feel like he's cheating your way through the night.
Or
B) Hypermasculine (muscular/cis*). A heaving mass of muscle with none of the gristle, ready to break a twink over your knee at any moment.
I have never been a person who easily fits into either of those categories.
The former is largely inaccessible to me given how I have always been larger and darker. And even if it was accessible, that's just not really how I like to express myself and operate in the world - even as someone who can be extremely limp wristed given the right context.
The latter is something that has been grafted onto me and I've constantly been trying to escape. It's what constantly marks me out as some violent threat. It's the sort of position where you attract white eyes on the dancefloor and can't tell if they want to run from you, fuck you or serve you on a platter at their afters.
In either case, to get the pittance that passes for acceptance you have to become a dedicated jester/sexual curiosity from The Dark Continent, shaping your body, aesthetics and mannerisms for the role - and that just seems kind of sad to me?
Marlon and Brandon caught eachother's eyes, each thinking they'd found the moment to surreptitiously glance at the other queen on the hunt. Both thought the other was copying their tricks and crowding their hunting ground. Both thought they'd found the moment to look at the other without being detected. They were wrong. Now each of the two tongue-tied queens was looking into the other's eyes, waiting for someone to flinch. They give eachother the I-could-kill-you-right-now-like-Cain-did-Abel-and-there's-no-God-here-to-condemn-me look. It doesn't work. Of course it doesn't. Instead in the window of the soul, each queen sees a boy, the mirror image of himself and he looks sad. Sad and tired.
A weird side of these expectations is that when you get the novelty of another Negro there is the little game of figuring out what the vibe is between you two. It could be hostility? After all, they’ve marked their ground and the exotic is only erotic when it's hard to access. Maybe a little pity, for one of my niggas stuck depending on boring people for validation. But I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit there was a tiny nugget of jealousy. It’s like - you figured it out! You cracked the code! Maybe getting attention from the dullest fucks on the planet is more fun than being mopey and analysing desirability politics as a coping mechanism.
In any case, to choose (or be forced into) existence outside of these performances is to be invisible and that's my experience. It's not just about whether people want to get with me, I think it is incredibly fucked to demand that any given individual should be forced to be attracted to you. The problem is that when you exist outside of Desirability (as structure) in these spaces, you also exist outside of personhood and so the only reason for People to engage is to get you (a not-Person) out of the way.
In many ways Desirability also demarcates access to resources and platforms beyond The Club - see how the main players British New MediaTM are almost exclusively skinny and/or lighter-skinned (if not white). This creates a situation where issues (esp structural ones) relating to people deemed Undesirable are ignored (try searching the word ‘fatphobia’ on your favourite left-wing website). It also means pieces like my friend Jackson's essential article on medical fatphobia in relation to gender-affirming surgeries are somehow the first of their kind in a mainstream queer platform in the UK - despite the issues he covered being common knowledge for anyone who cared to pay attention.
But let's not indulge my habit of moving into 3rd person analytics to avoid my own perspective. Beyond the structural and the intellectual it just feels shit? It is exhausting that every time I'm asked to go somewhere I have to do a social media investigation into the demographics of the place after asking my (well-intended) friends:
What's the vibe?
Okay, but what's the crowd?
Yeah but that's the scene?
Dear friend, have you invited me to a place where I am going to feel like a fucking gorilla to be ogled or an obstacle to be moved around on the way to something better? (I tend not to say that one)
Crucially it's not even a case of going to the right night? It might be less actively hostile in the alt nightlife where I have spent most of my time (can you imagine me in G-A-Y?) but many of the same structures still exist!
In spite of all the inclusive language that accompanies them, when you look at the Instagram pages of Jungle Kitty, Pxssy Palace, HOWL, Adonis, Queer Bruk etc, none of their photographers actually take pictures of the (few) fat people who attend their events - especially if those people aren’t read as cis women. They also don’t often take pictures of transfemmes who aren’t doing hyperfemininity. So even if these spaces weren’t hostile for people who aren’t doing the aforementioned performances, a clear message is being sent and a specific audience is being constructed.
I don't have a good answer to any of this. No magic bullet. No 5 step plan that fits neatly into a Canva infographic. It all sucks, but it's also not my job to figure that shit out - I'll just stick to where I'm wanted (wherever that may be).
Home now, our trio strips off and enters the shower. Together they are bare and exposed. No glitter, makeup, or bandanas, just the present reality of their bodies. As they wash eachother’s backs, they scrub off the sweat of the night. The product of dancing in a queer flurry, of walking through backstreets, of piercing police headlights pools and circles the drain. A cleansing and a rebirth - ready for the new day.
P.S. Shoutout to Ife, Ben, and Jackson in particular, but also a bunch of other people for the conversations which helped me formulate many of the thoughts here. Also if you have any thoughts do hit me up, because there are some elements I might be interested in developing further if I can find the time/energy.
As always you can hit me up @naijaprince21 on Twitter if you have any thoughts and feelings about this! Always appreciate your support whether that’s verbal, financial (ko-fi.com/tayowrites) or whatever else.