Blog of the Week: Raw Pussy
Primary Impulses and Liars: An Introduction
I am inclined to satisfy my preoccupation with the supposed failures of man and the uniqueness of something’s entire existence as one saturated in discord and violence. I find these features constant throughout the history of humanity; every expression of man resonates with the next, there is no progress except that in the art of war, all else is process.
We are always attempting to control the irrepressible, struggling to survive and advance, grasping false hope and illusionary peace in anticipation of just one moment of stillness. But why fight ourselves? As if genocide, greed and lust are products of a degenerate society or the so-called evil individual — some “problem” to be solved. The only “problem” is the total disregard of our disposition which we are not taught to control or respect but rather deny and reject.
Let’s assent to our nature and refuse to shamefully hide ourselves. We can acknowledge and defend our appetites without sacrificing societal accord. We lack passion because we fear the intensity of our primary impulses but there is no dichotomy between gratification and mastery. Let us delight in both the repulsive and gracious within ourselves and accept the full identity of our spirit. These compulsions are inside us all, within mothers, fathers, your priest, the neighbors, strangers in the grocery store, your enemies, your lovers, even your grandma and pep pep and we all want the same thing…raw. fucking. pussy.
This blog was created to illustrate this fact.
What inspired you to start Raw Pussy?
In part, the idea for the blog stemmed from my studies of antiquity. I was spending fifteen hours a day reading classical texts and researching the material record of civilizations that had risen and fallen thousands of years ago. There are striking parallels between our own society and those of the past, and although this is by no means a new concept (“history predicts the future”), it is a notion that is largely ignored. I adopted a sociological perspective and became interested in aspects of human nature that have remained consistent, specifically in comparison to contemporary conceptions of the moral condition, which is generally presumed to be inherent and unchanged. (I know this seems to be deviating from the question but I promise I am getting there.) We live in a culture of shame, our social institutions encourage a repression of individual will and we voluntarily submit to self-proclaimed defenders of the “good” (the social contract). I find this to be highly problematic. Actions and beliefs generally typified as “perverse” are often a result of our natural programming as human beings. Religious ideologies that have shaped our world as if it were law are an attempt to alter the natural. This creates great problems for us. As a society, we are unwilling to accept ourselves as we are. How can we reasonably address issues of violence and war, equality and hate, education, freedom, the justice system, gender etc. if we cannot approach these topics with sensitivity to our nature? As punks, we are often attracted to what is deemed “perverse” by society, by what is destructive and unorthodox. I think it is imperative that we understand the importance of defending our interests, not just because they are ‘extreme’ but also because they are honest. Rather than focusing on music, I wanted to create a resource concentrated on ideas, a forum to expose the perverse side of humanity and embrace it. Raw Pussy, among other things, is a blog dedicated to human nature, the taboo, the erotic and the wild.
What’s your definition of Raw Pussy?
A wildly seductive, organic, lush endowment of pure, unrestrained pleasure; The defining characteristic of our animalistic, shameless, natural selves; The one thing everyone of us craves but most are ashamed to admit; A casualty of a counterfeit moral condition.
What is the thematic focus of your blog?
The focus of the blog began as an attempt to draw attention to the historical narrative of our natural character and to a lack of rationality and logic within our society. It has since evolved to feature artists, videos and essays that comment on more contemporary themes. My goal is to make information easily accessible, I try to remain sensitive to the fact that most people don’t have the time to sit down and read a 15-page essay by Nietzsche on the fly so I often post excerpts from books and poems or post videos of lectures or interviews by someone I think has something significant to say. There is usually a link at the end of each post to allow more ambitious readers a resource for further exploration. I use the blog as a forum to expose our internal, often neglected dispositions and to explore the phenomenon of a distorted and contrived world-reality (Insane Society).
What have been the most bizarre reactions from your friends or internet lurkers?
The search keywords that bring people to the blog are pretty fucking amazing: “harry raw pussy,” “Austrian pussy,” “hand in marecunt,” “self-castration” and “American cunt-fucking.” I have a feeling that I may be letting those individuals down but I’m pleased that I am part of their journey in search of strange, erotic virtual smut.
How often do you update your blog?
I have adopted the philosophy that that quality is better than quantity. Instead of posting daily, I usually chose a topic that I feel has particular substance or that I have worked on or written. However, I have found that although I may be under the impression that a post has some significance, the general trend of blog posts is that they don’t…and in this way most that may stumble upon the page will expect a magnitude of mildly interesting topics to browse and forget within the hour. So, I have since altered my approach and have recently been attempting to update 3 times a week and have begun to include essays and articles that I have found from other sources. I’m not sure if I want to begin appealing to the trend of over-information merely as an attempt to attract more readers but I’m also not convinced that it matters either way.
Does being located in Detroit, Austin, and Boston alter the way your web site is updated and the inspiration behind posts?
Traveling between multiple cities on a regular basis inevitably takes away from the time I have to update. Yet, there is no doubt that this mildly nomadic lifestyle has a great influence on the way my brain is working. For now, all of these cities feel like home but at the same time they don’t. Each place personally embodies a vastly different environment; one is totally academic, another totally chaotic, etc. Our internal dialogue is uncontrollably influenced by external stimulus. The things I post are a product of my interests. If I were fully consumed by one place I think my perspective would become stagnant.
Is your blog intertwined with your academic life?
I returned to school to study archaeology and art history because those are topics that I am inspired by and not because of the social pressures imposed on people my age to do so. Ancient history provides a context in which to consider the state of the modern condition. The study of material culture and the philosophy of thought have provided me with the inspiration to consider the ways in which the punk community creates its own material record. It is impossible to detach one from the other. My gut craves chaos but my head rationalizes these impulses — not as a means of control, but of understanding. Any commentary from my end is inevitably a product of these perspectives.
How and why did you start taxiderming (did I just make that word up)?
(I think you would say “practicing taxidermy.”) My father, grandfather and several other extended family members have all been morticians. As a child I spent a huge amount of time at the funeral home or cemetery. I suppose that I was desensitized to the dead but always retained a fascination for the art of preserving life. I followed up on a job posting for a bird skinner at a natural history museum and landed the job. I applied the training I received skinning birds in attempts to skin other animals and reptiles. I love the ways that we can manipulate the body of a creature to invent a kind of new identity after death…giving it a kind of second life. I started collecting road kill to skin and the hobby has kind of taken off from there. Now I have a freezer packed with dead animals and a garage full of ribcages and pelts hanging from the rafters to dry.
How does your taxidermy play into your blog?
I occasionally share photographs and updates about some of the work I do. I sit alone in a room for 16 hours a week with my arm shoved up the neck of a hawk and something about that activity that has become somewhat mundane to me. However, it seems like the kind of experience that is worth sharing with others.
How does your blog incorporate punk music?
I try to support music-focused blogs but it was never my intention to have this focus myself. However, the inclusion of music seems to happen naturally. I don’t have the energy to invest in posting torrent links to every rad record that I encounter but sometimes when an album or song is making me feel real good, I put it up. I’m a punk, it’s something I can’t avoid.
Do you think female sexuality makes punks uncomfortable?
That’s a complicated question. The topic of female sexuality is broadly multi-dimensional, including sociological, physiological, psychological, cultural and political facets of sexual identity and behavior. Women have often exploited the punk aesthetic as a commentary on female sexualization, whether in an attempt to challenge concepts of femininity or to redefine oversexualized perceptions of the female as a lust-object. This is a difficult concept for non-females to understand just as it is a challenge for women to sympathize with pressures of certain gender roles imposed on males. I think that the punk community is much more tolerant of the feminist conversation as a subversive anarchistic movement as opposed to outsiders but continues to lack cross-gendered support on the merits it’s actual content. The so-called ‘feminist’, or women who openly speak about their sexuality earn much less respect than they deserve within our community, which suggests an attitude of tolerance that lacks support. I think it’s fair to say that a female fronted band that is lyrically aligned with Discharge receives much more attention and support from their community than a female fronted band that is more aligned with Bikini Kill. Feminism has become a dirty word, even within punk. However, sexuality in general is an uncomfortable topic for our society. Beyond casual conversation about the ways in which we have fucked recently, we have very little conversation about our sexual identities among our peers — regardless of gender or sexual orientation. We are all raised within a society that largely teaches us to be ashamed of our bodies and dogmatically promotes “traditional” gender rolls. As punks, I hope that we can discover ways to reject this kind of conditioning and encourage an open conversation about sexuality, regardless of gender.
It’s interesting how you incorporate BDSM imagery and writings into your blog, the topic of bondage has made punks in bondage belts uncomfortable….why do you think that is?
The punk aesthetic has always served as challenge to normative culture. I have always conceived of bondage-fashion as a comment on conventional notions of bondage, either as a metaphor for oppression or as a way to exploit a reality that is habitually ignored. Within this trend, the concept of “bondage’ undergoes a process of re-defining and reappropriation. Bondage, as exploited represents a transgression of the natural and a confrontation of societal and sexual norms. As a female I do not promote the concept that I am in bondage to males…rather that I am in control of my sexuality and that I have the power to do what I want with it. In the context of eroticism, BDSM is traditionally considered “immoral” and “unnatural.” This concept is true-bondage in and of itself! The promotion of such heteronomative/religioerotic limitations imposed by our society through means of shame is insulting to our collective libidos and further, restrictive sexual play is a deeply powerful form of mass-control. We all don’t have to find BDSM sexy, but by no means should we allow our society to cockblock those who find non-traditional ways to get off. It’s one of those taboo topics that people condemn in public but go home and jerk off to because it’s fucking hot. We are in control of our conceptualizations. (For more on this topic, see the essay “Raw Fucking America, aka Shame And Domination: The United States’ War Against Our Libidos, aka There’s Lotsa Ways I Like to Fuck But Being Fucked Over Ain’t One of ’em”)
You mention literary writings such as Orwell’s 1984 and articles that influence may bands’ punk lyrics and a lot of accepted punk politics. What does it feel like going to the source and writing about things like New York Times articles, psychology, and instrumental books versus just repeating something that has been repeated that has been repeated? Do you feel a sense of purity or does it feel odd to intellectualize politics of a scene that can be hostile to anything deemed to be “too academic” or philosophical?
There is an undeniable philosophy of resistance and cultural opposition that is a defining element of our culture even if you have a hard time swallowing the term “punk politics.” Although there is a diversity of enclaves that may differ on interpretation of lifestyle, philosophy and aesthetic we all tend to share this perspective. Regardless of your individual attitude, I think we have a responsibility to think for ourselves and to understand the weight of our convictions. I don’t want to be part of a community that is defined by its fashion and lack of intelligence. To repeat the same catchphrase or trend for no other reason other than it’s merits as “punk” is no better than the mainstream collective vomiting out bat shit spoon-fed to them by the media or in respective houses of worship. “War is shit,” “Huff glue and die,” or whatever moniker any of us choose to live by is up to each individual, but if we can’t defend or explain our own personal philosophies, even to ourselves, then we are fools. I would like the punk culture to be defined by our ability to think for ourselves. That ambition is dead if we neglect our ability to self-educate, it is one of the only freedoms we still truly control.
I think many of us are energized by music when the message is one we agree with. It’s exciting when we find lyrics that express things in ways we couldn’t ourselves. None of those ideas are new, the historical record is full of inspiration and libraries are full of pages written by motherfuckers that were so punk they literally defined who we are without us ever realizing it. 18th century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.” Seneca, a Roman philosopher born in 4 BCE wrote, “Life is warfare,” and in 1944 Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, “Hell is other people.” Goddamn, that’s punk.
Original texts exist in an unfiltered state, I guess in some ways this evokes a sense of purity. These texts contain a writer’s uninterpreted ideas and we are free to understand them in whatever way that we choose to. A good book provides us with the rare opportunity to indulge our individual curiosities within a ceaseless depth of contemplation. If we constantly skim the pages of record sleeves to satisfy our intellectual hunger we will eventually starve to death. It is incredibly important that we do not become disconnected to our convictions. We are collectively responsible for propagating punk ideology, we do it though making music and art, and we do it through our interactions among ourselves and with others. We cannot promote the perception that intellectualizing the movement is negative. It is our responsibility to think.
I understand you deleted your Facebook account. I want to know your inner feelings and thoughts before and after this decision…
The internet is a fucking cult. Social networking is a forum for voyeurs and exhibitionists of personal insignificance. It lacks any real content, the relationships that we maintain are grossly artificial and as a generation we are obsessed with it. I started thinking about this and began paying attention to my own habits and the habits of others. It was like one of those things you never realized before but then couldn’t stop seeing everywhere you went…like all the assholes on their smartphones posting useless bullshit while sitting across the table from one another in real life, effectively disrupting all opportunities to have meaningful conversation. Further, I started to consider the more permanent, deeper implications of social networking, specifically the way in which individuals envision their own reality as part of the virtual. The constant redefining and re-imagining of life in real time is gradually denying its real substance. The illusion of interpersonal connections via the ‘world wide web’ is a scam, a virtual mystification of human relations. We are obsessed with our image, our invented virtual personality. People are unable to accept the reality of their own irrelevance so they invent new and absurd ways to cope with this. In short, I became fed up.
At the time I was becoming really interested in performance art and so I incorporated the action of “deleting my Facebook account” into a fluxus score written by Jed Curtis entitled “Music for Wise Men,” which simply instructs the performer to “commit suicide” — and so, I publicly committed virtual suicide. My intention was to communicate the idea that once I was removed from that community, I would cease to exist within the immediate consciousness of my internet “friends.” My photographs and comments would disappear, our relationships, constructed within this setting would become a fleeting memory. In effect, my virtual identity died… If it seems absurd, it’s because it is. After, I’ve noticed no real difference except that I have more free time, nobody remembers my birthday and I have some cocky undeserved pride in telling someone “I don’t have a Facebook.” Ethically, I”m not sure if I am betraying my perspective by maintaining a blog. However, I”m not sure that I have a problem with the exploitation of the Internet as a resource as opposed to a self-gratifying, meaningless waste of time. The catch-22 is that without a Facebook, nobody reads the blog…which further proves my point: things within the “social network” are the only things that exist. (Read the essay, “Reality is Rapture” on Raw Pussy for a full explanation.)
Do you have any projects in the works? Specifically with Smash Detox?
Zac Tew and I have plans to do another recording in Tokyo within the year.
Did you do zines prior to internet blogging?
I printed a few zines when I was younger but realized quickly that nobody reads anymore. The internet seemed like a better resource to reach a larger audience provided that a manageable amount of information is presented for momentary consumption.
Is your blog vegan friendly?
All of my personal taxidermy photographs are of animals that have died of natural causes. I have never, nor will I ever procure animals unethically.
I hate the word blog.
ME TOO.
Contact info: rawpuss666@gmail.com
rawpussy666.blogspot.com
