Sexually Assualted in Hoxton!

That's right lady sisters, I was grasped, groped and grabbed as I was innocently ascending from the ladies loos in what I thought was an upmarket drinkery on Saturday night! I was demurely, even elegantly attired, wearing a nigh Dallas-esq shoulder padded cream blouse with strings of diamante baubles wound around my neck, trendy single stripe gentleman's dress trousers (the American choice I know, but I was in a hurry!) and sturdy leather walking boots - hardly an arousing combination for any but the most discerning fellow! But obviously my raging good looks spoke too, too loudly to be quieted by even the most humble attire. I was too tempting a filly for the vile, leather jacketed philanderer who passed me on the stairs to being able to avoid reaching out for a grope. That's what you get for going out in Hoxton, obviously.

Let me set the scene. I, Posie Rider, looking like a paid extra from such films as Brideshead Revisited, Gosford Park and Bright Young Things, am innocently exiting the ladies loos in a HOXTON BAR [which, may I add, had no mirrors. Now, I'm all in favour of women being given one less opportunity to stare at themselves, vanity being on the of the most deadly of the Deadly Sins and obsession with one's looks being obviously poisonous to the Modern Feminist (despite being constantly endorsed by those bloody Third Wavers) BUT when it has been raining, and when one's adorable masculine quiff, which one has spent the better part of half and hour and two Gin Fizzes crafting, has been utterly flummoxed, the presence of a mirror becomes more than a necessity. It becomes a RIGHT. I mean, how on earth is one to go forth for Women's Liberation with a bodged barnet? Have you ever seen a picture of a Suffragette? Now, those Sisters had style.]

I digress. So, attired as thus, I was ascending the stairs. Now, ahead of me was lolloping a much less wittily clothed young woman. Wearing a zebra print clingy 'thing', legs up to her eyebrows and teetering silver heels, this lady was clearly the lowest common denominator in terms of taste, and to all intents and purposes, a crowd-pleaser. So it was with disgust, although not with surprise, that I watched as an odious toad of a male descending the stairs reached out his vile mits, touched her shoulder and said in the most grotesque way possible "Alright darling, you're looking nice" followed by slurring and some obscenities I daren't repeat for risk of nutting the computer screen (which was quite expensive).

Now, all hail to the blond ahead of me, she shook him off and swore very righteously in his face. Hurrah! Thought I. She may be dressed like a slattern, but at least she knows how to deal with a man. BUT, this is when the really surprising thing happened. For as I was passing him on the stairs, rather than marking me for the high class sinorita I patently am, he addressed me in exactly the same terms! "Alright darling, pwoar looking nice" excetara ad nauseum ad a hand on my shoulder ad a shotgun.

Had I been in possession of a shotgun, I would have had no reservations about using it. Had I been prepared for such an attack I would undoubtedly have been able to respond in a fitting way, but you see I wasn't! How COULD I have been. And, Lady Readers, I'm rather ashamed. As all I could think to say in response, in sudden and spontaneous response, was a simple and rather hurried moniker, which was:

"You! Piss off now!"

Hardly fitting such a vicious attack, right? Now, as I rejoined my table (a group of far more enlightened fellows, and rather tough looking too, I'll add) I couldn't help but play out the various ways I'd have rather the scene had went.

And here's my question to you - would it have been so wrong for me to grab his tiny little head in my powerful hands, shake it from side to side to unbalance him, and then fling him headfirst down the stairs (they were sort of concretey, I mean I think it's pretty obvious he wouldn't have been altogether OK afterwards. Like more close to dead, really). I mean, that could pass as self-defense, right? Because if it happens again that's how I'm going to play it.

Answers on a postcard! My freedom depends on you, Lady Readers!

Terry update...

Girlies. Having doubts about Terry. I think he considers himself a bit of an 'alpha male' (probably compensating for something, no doubt) and I cast off the burden of the patriarch long ago.

I think I'm going to call it a day. Yesterday he explained the Reformation to me! To ME, Posie Bloody Rider. Like I don't know what the Lutheran Reformation is! PL-ease.

I was so annoyed it inspired Dead Bannana (see below).

Will let you know. Toodles xxxx

Robot Rapist! It still counts you know!

Can you believe this? This rapist jerk is sexually assualting this robot! He even said he built her (just for his raping pleasure!) I am disgusted. This is wrong. Why isn't anyone stopping him? Give the poor girl some pepper spray!

Refer to Donna Harroway, you Sexist Twat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Cyborg_Manifesto

Vagina Cake

Hi Gals! It's christmas time and as a little treat I'm sharing my special recipe for vagina cake! It was passed down through generations of the Rider family, I learnt it from my Aunt Lilly on the day I got my first period!



Posie's Recipe for Vagina Cake
Don't forget you need a Vagina to make these, else the recipe won't work (no boys allowed!)

Ingredients
110g (4oz) butter or margarine
110g (4oz) caster sugar
2 medium size eggs
75g (3oz) self-raising flour, sieved
2 – 3 drops Dr. Oetker Natural Vanilla Extract
Dr. Oetker Baking Cases

For the icing
75g (3oz) unsalted butter
175g (6oz) icing sugar
warm water

MIXED TOGETHER WITH 2 DROPS OF PINK FOOD COLOURING (this is very important lady readers!)

Vaginal Decoration
Sieved icing sugar
RED / PINK FOOD COLOURING

Pre-heat oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas Mark 4. Place the Baking Cases into a cupcake tin.
Well done - you've completed the first task (have a gin and fizz!)
Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. (how cute!)
Gradually beat in the eggs and the buter and stuff, if the mixture starts to curdle, add a little flour.
Fold in the remaining flour with a metal spoon. Put in one drop of PINK FOOD COLOURING AND STIR. (yummy!)
Place spoonfuls of the mixture into the Baking Cases and bake for 15 - 20 minutes until well risen and firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a cooling rack.
Take a sharp knife and cut a circle out of the top of each cake at an angle about 1cm (½ inch) from the edge.
Cut each circle in half and set aside.
Fill each cake with the butter and stuff. (Vagina City- here we come!) Place the butter AND TWO DROPS OF RED FOOD COLOURING in a bowl and beat until soft.
Gradually sift and beat in the icing sugar.
Mix in STRAWBERRY Extract and enough milk / water to make the icing fluffy and spreadable and use as above.
Place two half circles of cake on top to resemble THE LABIA.
Dust the top of each cake lightly with the sieved icing sugar.


Well done lady readers, or should I say chefs! you have created an authetic looking vagina that you can eat even if you're not a lesbian (or a man). LOVE YOURSELF and a merry Posie Christmas to each and every woman!

Dead Bannana: An Elegy

Dead Bannana, you are cut, you are my broken vein of yellow blood
(The wizard the wizard the wizard)
You broke my fucking road you bastard.
You are dead and I'm not wed
Same thing you said.
(patiarchy patriarchy patriarchy)
Left you rotting in ice-cream of servitude,
Lifted you out gave you a wash.
(Over and over an over)
No innocent smoothie
No pie
No more you fruit to rest my violets on my cunt, a feast:
Dead Bannana.

Blood soaked tampon et al - the movie

SOMEhow, Melody, Lara and I managed to find time in our hectic editorial schedule to produce this arthouse short - a filmic extension to my series blood soaked tampon et al.

It's got everything a film needs - action, tits and a LOT of blood, if you're interested.

xxx

I heart Andrea

Morning Lady Readers. I am researching for my latest publication 'I've lost my Arm, A Magazine' and have decided that the first issue 'New Wave Suffrage: This Time it's Personal'
(Spring 2009) will be dedicated to my militant sister Andrea Dworkin. This woman means business. If any of you can share any loving memories of Andrea please write in: you can do an opinion piece.

Here's a quote:

Sitting with Ricki, talking with Ricki, I made a vow to her: that I would use everything I knew, including from prostitution, to make the women's movement stronger and better; that I'd give my life to the movement and for the movement. I promised to be honor-bound to the well-being of women, to do anything necessary for that well-being. I promised to live and to die if need be for women. I made that vow some thirty years ago, and I have not betrayed it yet.

– Andrea Dworkin, Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant, 122.

Go Sister! Getting together with Melody Wittgenstein and some others from the editorial team this weekend So expect some more news here on MY blog (slash on the website too)

Hugs and Pugs xx

The working classes..

Very open minded singing along with the servants. A REAL WOMAN!

Sister Suffragettes! It's the sing along version!

Anorexic or FAKE-orexic?

I am utterly SICK, sick sick sick of fake-orexics! Or fanorexics, I can’t decide which meme to engender yet. I am as SICK of fanorexics as they are sick all over themselves. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to disparage those proper anorexics out there, you know, the frightening skeletal ones that you see wheeling suitcases around the underground and fear for their lives. Obviously this is a crippling disease which is depressingly endemic amongst young girls, and a symptom of untold external and internal pressures in this hideous thing we call society. But really, credit where credit’s due – if you’re going to go around telling everyone about your terrible eating disorder, you’re going to have to be really, exceptionally thin, that is if you don’t want to look like a complete idiot.

I’m not just talking out of the air: this is something I noticed just last night when I went to a canapes and nibbles reception with my ladyfriends, Melody Wittgenstein and Lara Buckerton.

It was the usual thing, glam literary types, authors, feminists like me and the girls – or so I thought! They were more than happy to swig at the free wine (very fattening, so I’ve heard), but everything fell apart when I moved swiftly towards the buffet.

‘Munch munch munch’, went Posie, eating her mini-quiche like a PROPER WOMAN. ‘This is species being!’ cried I, ‘this is liberation’. And down went another eight or nine mini-quiches (honestly the things were the size of chocolate buttons, it was like eating a packet of chocolate buttons). But not so for Melody and Lara.

First there were disapproving looks. Then there were raised eyebrows. Finally, they turned to one another and began the most heart-wrenching, attention destroying conversation I have ever heard in my life. Melody has very low self-esteem. She is very, very depressed. She thinks she’s fat and skips meals. If she ate a mini-quiche, even just the one (may I remind you they were the size of chocolate buttons) she would just hate herself. And, it turns out, Lara is bulemic. Buleeemic? She could have fooled me. Oh sure, everyone was bulemic in school (we went to school together, the usual thing: boarding, tartan, lax pitch, orchard) but then there was precious little else to DO. But now? Honestly, can anyone be that bored?

The problem with women like that is it’s never enough to be quietly, humbly pathological. It always has to become a public annoucement. This also includes getting a female friend drunk, waiting until she is good and drunk, and then boring her half to tears with emotional renditions of how you’re bodily dismorphed and instead of seeing a gorgeous, 20-something year old supermodel (that’s you Melody, Lara not so much) you see a big fat trout. This is especially unacceptable when the friend in whom you’re confiding a) is less attractive than you b) less thin than you and c) isn’t nearly as idiotic and vain as you are.

Being a bit depressed is fine, it can be extremely creative. When I was in hospital over the summer for self-harm with a bic disposable razor (shh, don’t tell Terry Blackteeth! I don’t want him to think I’m a psychopath – it’s our little secret) I was at my creative peak – writing the first 20 chapters of my novel Sally: An Independent Woman; A Fiction in only 2 months! Do you think Coleridge wasn’t depressed when he wrote the Prelude? Do you not think Blake was a little on the blue side of the mind when he wrote those funny little poems of his? How about Van Gogh? You see what I mean.

But unless you’re going to sublimate your melancholy into great works of art like me, which, let's face it, most of you aren’t, you really owe it to humanity to accept your position of utterly unearnt and undeserved social priviledge and opportunity and use it to do something useful. Talking about your ‘issues’ a) incessantly b) as if it hurt you to do so and c) as if there was something beautifully poignant about them only makes you look chronically self-obsessed and, yes I’m GOING to say it, vain.

So, here are my requests, oh women of the extra pound!: Don’t you make me valorise your vanity, and don’t you dare try to make me identify with you. I don’t. You are what is ruining women. I can’t remember the last time a manfriend (and admittedly I don’t have very many) commented negatively on a woman’s body. Most of them are utterly astonished if a woman so much as looks at them, and are far too grateful to concern themselves with whether said woman has ‘muffin tops’, flappy arms or thick ankles. ‘I don’t like flabby women’ says the chauvinist. ‘We don’t like you!’ the flabby woman should reply. Instead she cries, skips a meal, faints, cries, writes a blog post, tells her friends, reads Slyvia Plath, cries, wanders around in a stupor, etc ad nausea. If she can fit in time to binge-eat a pizza then vom it up, well that’s all to the good.

Or she sees a picture of a very pretty women. ‘Why is that not me?’ she asks. Because it is a picture. Of someone else. Not you. You may as well ask, ‘Why is that picture of a chair not me?’ Because it is not you. It is a chair. It is a discrete object. There are lots of discrete objects in the world. Not all of them can be you. Only one of them is you. You are it. Google Ontology. Have a read. Grow up.

And how, how have I have managed to keep my head, when all about me are loosing there’s? How have I managed to stay sane in a crazy mixed up world? How have I managed to keep slim and trim without skulking around gyms like a paedophile round a playground, complusive self-starvation or vomiting up my soup? Worthy questions, sisters. I’ll tell you: a positive mental attitude, a healthy, varied diet and a very fast metabolism. Those are the kinds of things that money can’t buy. Neither can shame.

(Some names have been kept the same in order to NAME AND SHAME)

Talking Vaginas

My new look blog!

What do you think of my new look web log, Ladies (and Gents - new look blog, new look Posie!)

I thought I was getting a little behind the times with all that drab old pink. I had a look at a counter culture magazine, some sort of anarchist thing, God only knows, the other day, and it occured to me - what a hideous front cover! Really, it was AWFUL? How on earth they think they're going to affect a world revolution with such a poor grasp of font I don't know! What I do know is, when the revolution comes, I'll be picking the side with the best wallpaper.

Anyway, here it is! Pretty pretty Posie Posty!

Vote below to let me know if you like the change, read 'Pankhurst' as 'Classic', 'de Beauvoir' as 'Hot hot hot' and 'Boycott' as a total load of 'Wank'. But then, you didn't need me to tell you that!

Terry Blackteeth

Went on my date. AWFUL art: photos of Transvestites drinking Capri Sun. I think you are right female readers: I must harness the power of my Quim once more and embrace his shortness, or rather my tallness.

He is a nice 'boy' and we are going to watch the film 'Body of Lies' starring Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio this Wednesday. I know, I know: I'm going to bring the latest Emmeline Pankhurst Biography with me.

Toodles and kisses x

Things to think about today...

This one's for the ladies...

Smoothies.
My hair.
Why am I so much more intelligent than everyone else?
My teeth.
How to avoid fats while still eating the same quantity of food.
Starch.
Camp X ray.
Picasso's blue period.
Whether tampax is sexist.
Whether the 'pax' in 'tampax' is sourced from the Latin 'pax' meaning 'peace', in which case what is the root of 'tam' and does it signify some sort of menstrual armistice?
Are women at war with their own bodies?
My legs - to wax or not to wax?
Does a hybrid art form (poetry and film, art and dance) demand that both disciplines justify themselves according to their own aesthetic or is it acceptable for them to be a bit rubbish and justify themselves through their novelty alone?
Is 'Dance without Words' a good title for a novel?
Gyms.
Should I join a gym?
Caterpillars.
Bonnie Langford.
Perms.
Writing, writing, writing!
What to write?
If Jane Austen was alive now would she be writing chick lit?
Am I the Jane Austen of the twenty first century????
Chris Hollins.
Genocide.
Aspartame - don' believe the hype.
If I'm going to lose weight, will it take more than drinking slimline tonic and semi-skimmed milk?
Base/superstructure.
That Baudrillard thing.
How short is TOO short?

Women - What NOW?

Last night I had the privilege of attending a debate on the future of Women's Rights at the British Library (followed by some Jaegermaister with Marxists at the London Student's Union - how subversive!). The panel, chaired by Polly Toynbee (hiss) consisted of the fabulous Nicola Brewer of the EHRC, novelist Tahmima Anam and some sort of student, Emily Beardsmore. The panel was one woman short, in that Helena Kennedy QC didn't turn up (probably doing something more important ‘in the House’). I think Polly took that rather well, although without Ms Kennedy the panel unfortunately consisted of 50% moron rather than a more conducive 40%. Thank God for the delightful Nicola and Tahmima. Polly and Emily are idiots.

Panellists were gifted with eight minutes of talk, followed by debate, followed by floor questions. Brewer glided effortlessly through a range of issues concerning equal pay, parental leave, affirmative action in employment and access to childcare. Anam described the situation of the women’s movement in Bangladesh, which is alive and well but meeting the frustrations of religious opposition. The she wooed us with excerpts from the delightful Sultana’s Dream (1905) by the Bangladeshi feminist, Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain. Acknowledged as the first literary depiction of a feminist Utopia, it depicts the scientifically sophisticated Ladyland in which men are locked away and Women rule through reason alone –

‘I became very curious to know where the men were. I met more than a hundred women while walking there, but not a single man.
'Where are the men?' I asked her.
'In their proper places, where they ought to be.'
'Pray let me know what you mean by "their proper places".'
'O, I see my mistake, you cannot know our customs, as you were never here before. We shut our men indoors.'
…
'But my dear Sister Sara, if we do everything by ourselves, what will the men do then?'
'They should not do anything, excuse me; they are fit for nothing. Only catch them and put them into the zenana.'

This was, of course, met with rapturous delight amongst the audience. Food for thought ladies.

Finally, and here is where the evening took a plunge towards the inane, the idiot Beardsley told us ‘wot da kidz fink’ about feminism (Lord knows how, she is 23, by which age I’d acquired a proper job in journalism and a coke habit to rival that of any college upstart).

Now, far be it from me to discourage a young woman to assert herself, or to scoff at her involvement in the Girl Guides (!!) which I'm sure is really 'right on' nowadays (Brown Owl...sitting on a oversized papier mache mushroom...jumping the broomstick...the 'Entertaining' badge which I REFUSED to accept, even though my table setting was by far the prettiest. You gotta make some sacrifices, ladies.)

But if I knew I was going to be partaking in a panel with PollybloodyToynbee from the Guardian, I'd make sure I had some facts on my side, or at least an opinion or two. Relating moronic anecdotes of how you "decided not to be rubbish like all the other girls," or how "a man told me I couldn't do something, gasp!" is as pathetic as it is unhelpful. I was on the Tube the other day and a guy looked at my breast 'area'.

And.

What?

Every woman has a rinky-dink story to share about the day 'when bigger boys came'. Moaning over our knitting only makes feminists look self-involved and dangerously unsystematic - which those in the camp Beardy are.

Now, as ever, thick is a feminist issue.

At one point, while the red faced Emily was avoiding answering yet another question from the floor concerning sex workers, religious fundamentalism or social welfare, by spouting nonsensical rhetoric about 'empowering young women' and 'education' and… um… 'empowering young women', Polly's eyes glazed over. As did her entire face. If it is possible for a person to glaze with their entire body, then that is what Polly would have done. And I knew what she was thinking, because it's what all of us were thinking, especially those of us who were involved in the Women's movement in the 90s (like myself), which was "If this is the future of feminism, we're screwed."

And why? Because Beardsmore’s wishy-washy, softly-softly brand of identity politics will never get Feminism anywhere. Nor will adopting a lamely quietist approach to such pathologies of culture as lap-dancing and the compulsory sexualisation of young women. Not being attractive is NOT an excuse to exempt yourself from arguments concerning the commoditisation of the body, nor is pointing out your own credentials as an ‘empowered young woman’ (find/replace “career-hungry-moraliser”) a recognisable political act. Occupying a position such as Ms Beardsleys (Head of some kind of Youth Club, I gather) must entail the responsibility of voicing difficult and outspoken opinions on the state of young women today, rather than limply condoning the kind of behaviour (lap-dancing, whoring, being a bit crap) that you find personally and theoretically reprehensible. Ms Beardsmore, however, clearly sees her position as a back-road into journalism, possibly imagining herself writing a column on her Vaio whilst supping on a Fair Trade Chai latte in a few years time. As such did little more than suck Polly Toynbee’s arse.

She was probably bullied at school. And because she was crap, not ‘different’.

After the lecture, when I rushed into the loo to look for the gloves I dropped during a clandestine pee when Polly was doing her introduction (Pink Leather Dents, size 8, if you found them please let me know!) something rather interesting happened. As a throng of ladies queued all the way out the door and into the halls, and the few menfolk who had bothered to attend cruised into the Gents in record time (nice work providing adequate facilities for the ladies, Brit Lib, or shall I say Brit No-Women’s-Lib-Thanks) I heard the voices of the crowd, speaking as if in one voice, to one another, over one another at times, and they were saying – "We should use the Gents! Let’s use the Gents, sisters! Why should we wait to pee any longer? That was a bloody long talk, and I drank a lot of water. I am absolutely desperate to pee. Now is our moment!"

And do you know what? Not one of them did.

I myself went to the loos in Euston.

Now, what do you think that means??
.

Too Short, or Not Too Short?

Oh ladies forgot to say- I am going on another date!

DATE
DATE
DATE
DATE
DATATATATATATATATA

His name is Terry Blackteeth. I know how weird... anyway he's taking me to an art opening this Friday. He's an art dealer and everything!

He is A LOT shorter than me though: is that cool?

Turner Prize? Turner Lies, you mean.

I quite agree with this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/dec/03/turner-prize-female-winner

Why should some jumped up man win it just because he's from the North? Come on artists don;t you think we should be hurdling over those class divides? It's not their fault they are well turned out and he's a scag.

Maybe I will enter the Turner Prize next year- anyone know where I can get a form? My great friend Melody Wittgenstein had offered to do the filming for my new grapefruit video depicting the period: I shall call it 'Forbidden Fruit'. I think it's stands a good chance of winning!

I am also going to be launching a collection of still life shots: 'Fucking a Mango' and 'Peach Poof', exploring queer theory in the fruit bowl.

Watch this space...