"from the cunt to the head is/ a Mobius strip/ that connects us to death" --Eleni Sikelianos, excerpted from "Notes Toward the Township of Cause of Trouble (Venus Cabinet Revealed)"
I knew it! Way back last summer, when I first started watching Californication, I drafted a post in which I got all soggy over Mr. Duchovny. I meant to discuss the show, and not so much the actor... but I got carried away and never posted it. However, in re-reading it today, I'm totally amused that my feelings for the man haven't shifted one iota-- except to get bigger and doubtlessly more nauseating to all who aren't me.
And so, because I'm deep into Duchovny lust at the moment, I think it's only right that I publish my old draft now. Enjoy!
****
He has the mind of the haute pornographer. He makes grammar jokes.* He's probably perfect. "Perfect" in that he's really a mess of accidentally happy imperfections.
I've been watching Season 1 of Californication.
His nose is all fleshy. His eyes are too squinty. He does a lot of pantsless acting, thus showing off his comically knobby knees. He's starting to get a little middle-aged dough about the gut. His voice cracks from the cigarettes. And he perpetually sports haircuts that are just about 10 years too young to be "age-appropriate."
But there is not one part of this man's corpus that I would not put in my mouth.
I don't put much stock in celebrity crushes-- it's pretty hard to deem actual depth of sexual attraction when you never get within pheromonal range of these people. Nonetheless, I will occasional 'fess up to tingly feelings being aroused by the mere visage of certain actorly types. Among them have been Zack Braff with his soulful pratfalls, James McEvoy with his smirking Scottish pastiness, Hal Sparks horny, impish smart-assedness... and I'm sure there have been others.
But none of them are David Duchovny.
I searched high and low looking for just the right image to accompany this post. It strikes me that he's not actually all that photogenic. As is often true, the magic is to be found in the man in motion. His lackadaisical gesture. His loose-kneed strut. The way his hands look when he's reaching for something female to pull into him. All that's lost in the still shots-- you lose the shrewdness of his gaze and the amused despair in his demeanor. In fact, he often just looks older and a little pudding-faced in still shots.
And frankly, I think he gives his stylist too much free rein. Here he is, sporting a head-to-toe dolphin-gray silk ensemble, like Angelina in Esquire. Please compare:
I think she's pulling it off better than he is. And I found others in which he was wearing leather pants and trying to look like Bono. Or giggling undecorously while shading the important parts with nothing but a teacup.
I know I'm not the only one who thinks he's molten sex, but why gild this lily? He's at his best in a pair of boutique-washed Rock and Republic jeans, little black t-shirt and 2 days worth of beard scruff. With that hair all falling in his eyes.
Tada! This one pretty much steals my words. I think this picture might singlehandedly bring irony back into vogue.
* Please note that when this was written, he hadn't yet gone into sex-addiction rehab. Were I writing this today, I would add the sentence "He claims to be afflicted with the dubious malady of sex addiction." to that paragraph.
Last weekend, I couldn't look at any porn. Or rather, I couldn't read any of the blogs that the fancy new firewall my building's internet dude installed on our system thought were porn. I mean, I couldn't see all the largely innocuous internet offerings of an esoteric but sexual nature-- like Sex and The Ivy, Beautiful and Depraved, debauchette-- all my favorites. I was pissed. Imagine my chagrin at having to bitch to my building manager and my building's association president about how much I resented my internet freedoms being limited. OK, I wasn't so much chagrined as amused, but were I the sort of person to feel less prideful, and more sheepish, about my pornish habits... well...
What would my poor, shy neighbors do without me, their friendly neighborhood Porn-for-all Crusader? Because, I mean, if you can't read sex blogs at home, where can you read them? And same goes for real porn too, right?
Needless to say, when I informed the internet dude about the blocks he'd forgotten to turn off, he, of course, sent me a porn link. "To test it." Dude! What do you not understand about my complaint that I can't look at porn?
Huh. It's not weird that my building's internet dude sends me porn links, is it?
Anyway, then, this weekend, the whole internet system went down again (I pay for this crap?). I couldn't load anything-- NC-17-rated or otherwise. I had big plans to hole myself up all weekend to write. I've got a pretty serious backlog of stuff about which I'm thinking. I have been remiss in simply setting aside the time it takes to commit it all to print. But then my internet goes down and gives me all the more excuse to melt into the sofa, rather than the desk chair.
So, for most of the day today, I alternated between watching episodes from Season 2 of Californication and fuming on the phone with the porn aficionado/internet dude. Certainly, the former was more pleasurable.
I love Californication. Love. It. And not just because I think fresh-from-sex-addict-rehab David Duchovny has just got to be ripe for the picking right about now. About a year ago, Michelle, my lovely lesbian ex clued me into this show, swearing that I'd love it... and that she loved it too. It's not surprising that I love it-- it's full of cocks and tits and big words and contemporary literature jokes and an exuberant, happy casualness with regard to monogamy. But it is a little surprising that my ex, consummate clitlicker that she is, loves it so-- because, in a million ways, the show doesn't amount to much more than a testosterone-fueled joyride-- something I would have thought she would disdain as puerile and ookily boy-like. But then, I guess that serves me right for underestimating her, eh?
True enough, the show gets its fair share of internet thrashings from "feminists" still stuck in their Second Wave mindsets. Often, the Hank Moody character (a man who so oozes the Duchovny persona, the person of David and the character of Hank may as well merge to form one big drunk phallus) draws all the best name-calling arrows. He's self-indulgent. He's lecherous. He's a pig. He fucks improbably beautiful woman after improbably beautiful woman and really doesn't much have to suffer for his bullheaded refusal to participate in the social mindset that would have him nursing his heartbreak alone and celibate. But to me? I think the bloggers who hate Hank Moody just don't understand him. Not like I do. Not like I do.
Hank Moody probably comes closest to fulfilling all my fantasies of what a perfect man might be like of any fictional character I have encountered to date. Now, that feels like a big statement and some readers might be prompted to wonder that I could say such a thing only because Hank Moody is wrapped in the delectably dilapidated body of one Mr. David Duchovny.
And it's true. I love to look at David Duchovny. His hair often looks a little greasy (though it falls into his eyes with perfect puppy grace). His schnoz is definitely too prominent for his face and his eyes are too small. He's a little barrel-chested and his legs are surely too skinny. He hasn't much of an ass. His pants ride too low. He's aging-- he's had crows walking all over his temples and his voice cracks from all the cigarettes. He always looks a little dirty, a little paunchy, a little comically hobo-clown-ish. All of which inspires a desire deep within me to put my mouth on him. And to smell all that rank, smoky man smell that simply must emanate from him. So sure, the package certainly helps. Hank wouldn't be Hank if he didn't look like David.
Oh, but there's more. Hank is a writer. The man knows his way around a thesaurus. Never before have I heard more synonyms for "erection," "semen," and "vagina" from any one potty mouth. Never before have I heard a broader ranging personal lexicon--with regard to every other (non-dirty) concept articulable in the English language-- from any man since Shakespeare. He is so goddamn fluent that any girl who fancies language in the slightest has really no defense against him.
He is also fearlessly foul-mouthed. Regardless of social situation, Hank quips profane. And it isn't so much that he lacks a filter as it is that he gets off on the tiny instant of rebellion that billows like a little fart behind every obscene image he conjures. The people around him, the ones who love him, are duly inured but he can't stop himself from testing their limits. And despite the famous deadpan Duchovny delivery, he twinkles ebulliently from within with every dirty word. I love how funny Hank Moody thinks he is. He is always just on the verge of laughing at his own jokes. Which, in turn, makes me laugh all the more at all his little nasty nuggets.
But the best part of Hank Moody is that he isn't a depraved womanizer at all. He doesn't fuck every pussy that crosses his path because he's a cruel manipulator on a power trip or because he's an insecure child with an penchant for instant gratification. Critics who assume he is one or the other or both have completely missed the soul of Hank Moody. Because Hank Moody loves not just the vaginae, but the women to whom the vaginae belong-- every last one of them, even if it's only for ten minutes at a time.
More than once, Hank laments the ubiquitous hairless pussy, favored by so many young Los Angeleno women. He revels, not only in lush thickets of pubic hair, but also in the blood of "crime-scene" sex and the gush that accompanies the mythic g-spot orgasm. Truly, this is remarkable. Here is a man who loves not only all that is pretty and presentable about his many, many women, but also that which is messy, smelly, bloody, gooey and wet about them. I mean that both literally and metaphorically, as he is, to my thinking, one of the few fictional men who I could consider an authentic, unabashed, unconflicted woman-lover. Oh, to be fucked by that sort of devotee. Only in my wildest fantasies-- I'm telling you.
Now, sure. He's got an alcohol problem. He's hung up on a woman with whom he's acquired entirely too much shared baggage. He's a little overly invested in protecting his teen-age daughter's virginity for my taste. And he has a little bit of a problem anticipating the consequences of his assorted debaucheries. But even with all the big, broad bravado and stupid, thoughtless stumbling, he's such a freaking sap. He is, at once, disgusting and sweet. Very manly, very id-driven, yet an embodiment of emotional availability. And he's not polite about any of it.
If the universe can devise a fictional character like Hank Moody, surely it can cough up a reasonable real-life facsimile for me. Can't it? Which is to say: all you Hank Moodys out there-- come find me! You're it for me. I'm telling you.
***
Now that my internet is working again, I'm hoping to be getting back on track in short order. In the meantime, thank you, readers, for indulging my paean to Hank Moody. I just couldn't help myself.
Female body parts that typically elicit chiding when displayed in the workplace:
1. Boobs
2. Asses
3. Bellies/midriffs
4. Upper thighs
Female body parts/aspects of general demeanor for which I've been chided for displaying in the workplace(presupposing all the body parts listed above have already been covered):
1. My clavicle/upper sternum
2. My shoulders/upper arms
3. My knees/calves
4. The shape of my ass through clothing
5. The shape of my tits through clothing
6. The shape of my waist through clothing
7. My ankles when wearing high heels
8. The way I walk
9. The way I stand
10. The way I sit (presupposing my legs are closed)
11. The look on my face that denotes the fact that a sexual thought might have crossed my mind in recent history
So, I'm thinking that when a girl continually gets in trouble for her clothing, again assuming that she does not wear anything that displays any of the parts from the first list up there, it's not so much the clothing as it is the girl inside the clothing. Clearly, there is something about that girl that no burkha on Earth can disguise.
I'm wondering what exactly it is about unashamed, though dutifully contained, female sexuality that is so threatening in the workplace?
At the dawn of the feminist movement, many forward-thinking women felt that dressing and behaving in a so-called "manly" fashion was the only way to be taken seriously as they ventured forth out of their kitchens. This proved to be problematic, seeing as most women (myself included) are pretty darn gender-identified and don't WANT to be man-like. Put another way, that variety of proto-feminist thought presupposes a standard of maleness to which all, male and female alike, should aspire. Well, dammit! I have no desire to look or be male, in any sort of way. Nor do I define the things that make me outwardly feminine (wearing make-up, leg-shaving, wearing bras, etc.) to be things imposed on me by a culture that has developed around men's desire to look at pretty women. I do those things because I feel MORE like myself with make-up on and my legs shaved and my boobs positioned at a flattering angle, such as might be determined by the aforementioned undergarment. My aspirations towards outward girliness do not make me feel "objectified" (to borrow some outdated terminology from my foremothers), but rather, they allow me to own the fact that I feel no shame about my female-hood. Nor do those aspirations prevent me from circumventing other aspects of proscribed gender roles (I've posted on this a-plenty!). So, really, I'm not trying to be overly womanly or manly, either one, but I'm just not interested in following gender-role-related rules that seem ultimately arbitrary.
But, in the interest of getting back to my question about female sexuality in the workplace, I still cannot figure out why it's so scary for so many people in this day and age. In the Middle Ages, the only way a woman got to be a Catholic saint was for her to be sexually mutilated in some way, like, for instance, a brutal rape that rendered her nether-regions useless, the lopping off of her breasts-- or some other horrific event that rendered her completely sexually unappealing to men. And here, I'll offer a sloppy explanation for why this was the case (based on my medieval humanities class in college and the writings of charismatic Catholic, Margaret Starbird): the going philosophy in monasteries (thriving metropolises of medieval queer culture, by the way) dictated that the relationship between priest/monk and God/Jesus was an ecstatic one-- i.e., tinged with sexuality. God was the man and the priest/monk/church-as-a-whole was the woman, in this particular relational theology. Hence, anyone who might deign to tempt the priest/monk away from his devotion to God was monstrous and scary and in desperate need of taming. And aren't women just ripe-to-the-point-of-bursting with temptations? And so, the only way to sanctify a soul tragically trapped inside a female body was to remove, destroy or somehow irreparably damage the outward signifiers of her femininity. Seriously. If you look it up, you'll find that this was the fate of most of the women canonized from 1300-1600 A.D. Does anyone else find this to be really and truly saddening?
And yet, I think the heart of this attitude continues to pervade. And that's really what my problem with being a quasi-cute girl trying to make her way in corporate America really is. I mean, I honestly do put forth an effort to not bash anyone over the head with my sexuality, but, at the same time, I'm wholly unashamed of it, too. And here's the message that is repeatedly dropped on my head, like so many steel anvils*:
1. Hide it.
2. Cover it.
3. Don't intimidate other women.
4. Don't like it when men look at you.
5. Don't do anything to attract attention.
6. Be quiet unless someone speaks to you directly.
7. Don't walk THAT way.
8. Be asexual.
9. Hide your personality, particularly if that personality contains any elements of smart-assedness, feistiness, irreverence or moxie.
10. Be demure and accommodating. *Follow these ten simple rules and you'll be a successful corporate whore! (but you'll look like the perfect prairie housewife!)
A colleague recently said to me something about how part of my job is to "be an actress--to act the part of the professional." My auto-response mechanism quickly queries back, Who the fuck says a consummate professional is wholly asexual (or need compartmentalize his/her sexuality to such a degree that it is undetectable during work hours)???!! And I can't help but think, NO! That's NOT my job. I'm actually halfway decent at doing the stuff that IS required for my job, and nowhere does my contract stipulate that I must somehow entirely reconfigure my persona so as to perform my job well. And I certainly don't think that feeling comfortable with actually having a sexual identity impedes my job performance in any way. On the contrary, I would argue the pressure to be someone other than myself WOULD, in fact, provide such great distraction that I would NOT perform my job very well at all!
This colleague went on to say, "Well, maybe you're just not cut out for a corporate atmosphere." And, well, I agree with her there... but not because I do not think there is room for a girl to be a girl in the workplace. Truly, there are a million different reason why I'm ill-suited for my current job. But, when I'm not whining about it, I really do appreciate all that I'm learning from it. And among the things that I'm learning is that it still sucks to have to support yourself if you're a woman. Despite whatever social progress we've made on this front since World War II, being a woman and being a professional are most certainly NOT confluent concepts. I can't help but perpetually feel the pressure to forgo one for the other. And that makes me feel angry. And demoralized. And stagnant.
One last list for the record: Things I really do like about my job:
1. I get to edit stuff-- and not just proofreading and copyediting, but real content editing.
2. I work with a whole gaggle of dynamite, brilliant, capable, funny and caring women.
3. I can pay my rent every month.
4. When I eventually leave this job, I know I will remain friends with several of the people I've met here.
5. This job is helping me with that goal about learning humility that I mentioned a couple posts ago.
Last week, I acquired my very own single office at work. When I first learned about this, I was quite sad as my former officemate is adorable and often offered me a much-desired distraction from work by sharing the ongoing tribulations of planning her wedding with me. And though I miss her (well, really, she's now next door to the communal printer and I can get a Celeste fix whenever I really need one), I've realized I can decorate my office with all manner of weirdness and no one can say a word!
This weekend, I bought some images for my walls with the idea that having weird things around me will contantly remind me that I'm weird myself, and will prevent me from assimilating into the corporate morass, even though I feel it licking hungrily at my heels every day.
Here's a list of my purchases:
Symphony for Felicia, Joan Snyder.
Snyder's a neo-abstract-expressionist lesbian painter... and the painting officially lives at the High Museum in Atlanta, a place that I love. This particular painting has slightly more subtle vaginal imagery than most of Snyder's other work, so I figured it wouldn't offend anyone. And hey, one of my colleagues has her little Georgia O'Keefes all over her office... a few more pictures of vaginae aren't gonna hurt anybody.
Blue Mountain, Vassily Kandinsky
This is a really gorgeous early, more representational Kandinsky than most. As I love to read the first books of poets, I find that I often also love the earlier, more formative work of big deal painters-- the stuff that shows where and how they learned their lessons, the stuff that's a little less iconic. Pasiphae, that transitional Pollock painting, has always been my favorite of his... mostly because it so obviously shows all his growing pains. I think this work shows a similar stage in Kandinsky's development.
I, and the Village, Marc Chagall
I once spent an entire afternoon at MoMA stairing at nothing but this painting. I mean, I made a special trip into NYC just to go spend time with it. I love it for all its otherworldliness, its nostalgia, and also because Chagall uses more green in the composition than one can usually get away with. A predominately green painting will, more often than not, fall flat. Trust me, I've tried -- green paintings are just hard to pull off. But this one totally glitters.
Albino Sword Swallower at a Carnival, Maryland, Diane Arbus
Who doesn't need a picture of a circus freak on her wall at work to remind her of her own freakishness?
publicity poster for Cremaster 5, Matthew Barney
Really, this is just a big, slightly creepy photo of some severed doll heads and Barney himself covered in some white powder. However, it has the word "cremaster" in large typeface across the bottom of it. And though I doubt anyone would actually make a big deal about it, I'm really putting it on my wall because not too many people actually know what the cremaster is... and because I know a few folks from my office read my blog, I'll allow their curiosity to goad them into googling it themselves, instead of spelling it out here. They all pretty much know I have the dirtiest mind in the building anyway. But god knows I love the fact that artists like Barney exist (see my July 25th, 2006 post for more about Barney)-- because someone has to do that purposefully rarified, whacked-out stuff, right?
And so, in this way, I hope to not lose track of myself.
