I’m sure that every queer cultural theorist has thought about it at some point haven’t they?
I was first fucked by Michel Foucault during the nineties when I was a raver/rock star and all round fuck up. It wasn’t until I was a mature student, when I was reading articles on discourse and power, that I thought to myself, I actually love this man.
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| Michel Foucault (1926-1984) |
Anyway, being incredibly vain and sexually unfulfilled as a performer (exclusively top), I naturally thought that in some way my life mirrored his; indeed, as I flounced across stages, and tripped through a myriad of alien, urban sprawls (oh so bohemian and clever); I stupidly imagined myself to be his successor. Yes, I alone would weave the power of his madness into my own duvet of sexual discovery, because I was unique – it was like he was speaking to me, and me alone.
I told you. I can be an idiot sometimes.
I like to indulge my imagination in what Virginia Woolf refers to as, “a room of ones own,” but always the crushing reality of a poor, protestant upbringing dragged me back to earth. I would never be as privileged, rich or arrogant as my heroes. I am just a farm boy who had looked at the stars and fashioned a persona from the gales that had ripped through a patchwork of valleys and muted tones. I was eternally restless and greedy to appropriate any fantasy into my life. I often imagined while sitting on a bench at a cliff – the kind that people install at a favourite spot when somebody dies – that I was communing with the spirits of my long dead mentors.
Instinctively, as many gossipy young queens do, I couldn’t just read their works…No… I had to dissect every nuance of their lives, and in so doing, I felt validated and brave enough to seek out the insalubrious pleasures of whatever I desired. Suddenly, by comparison, my life had seemed rather bland. I hadn’t been thrown out of a country or involved in a passionate exploration of sadistic, violent sex – I hadn’t even contracted a decent STD (crabs don’t count, you can catch them from trying on trousers in Fosters apparently).
I had been fingered by a dirty farm boy in a hay barn once; but then again, who hasn’t?
I had aimlessly lived out the cliché of hating my violent father and loving my mother in a thoroughly boring re-imagination of the oedipal myth. So naturally my imagination and sense of entitlement flourished. My life was a quilt of stolen texts; the lyrics of Lou Reed and David Bowie, the operatic drama of Star Wars, the poise of Isadora Duncan and the mincing of Mick Jagger and Morrisey.
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| "I haven't read Foucault." (Sorry, something went wrong with the link, this picture belongs to the post The Fountain of Geneva, where we talk about the Nubian lovers of Emperor Hadrian (talking about sex and power)) |
Later, after my stint in the limelight, upon formally meeting the mind of Michel Foucault, I was hungry to feed on the faceless fucks of all the dark rooms and orgies and seek out the cervices of the unexplored bottom.
Yes with Foucault by my side, I felt I wasn’t just another dirty, pretentious old, ‘has been’ queen. NO! I was a poet, viciously pounding out a path laid by the philosophers of the past.
Like I said… I can be fucking ridiculous sometimes.
So, now I travel the world passionately professing the virtues of enlightened literary discourse, and I consider myself a very lucky man indeed. How many other people get to do something they love? Indeed, how many people have the luxury to reflect upon a life lived in extremes? I have lived a life most people have dreamed about, and now I am content to revel in the written word. So imagine my joy when I read this:
“Foucault’s Daughter will let herself be fooled no longer. Her life must be at the cost of the death of the father. The death of the author. The reader is the writer. The reader is the critic. The reader is the subject. The reader is the lover. The reader is the killer. The reader is the reader. The reader. The reader. The reader.”
I don’t consider myself a professional writer. It is not my job. There are far too many so called professional writers who litter the world with nothing authentic, just endless dull tropes to pay for their self indulgent lifestyles. I don’t consider myself a critic either, there are far too many of those. I like to consider myself a passionate disciple of the power of the word – however ridiculous that sounds.
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| The quiet riot girl (autoportrait) |
When I read, “Scribbling on Foucault’s walls,” by Quiet Riot Girl, I adored the way that she passionately expresses how reader and writer can be intimately entwined. At times this is so naked and raw that I was taken aback by the bravery. She lays out an intertextual quilt that can be so tender, and then she punches you from between the sheets with a force that is truly breathtaking. She scribbles a jagged line. From an aristocratic, French philosopher, to a young girl finding her way in the world of words, right the way through to an aging, insecure, old queen in Bangkok reading the work in his lunch break.
I felt like she has seen my pilgrimage from Cornwall, to Berlin, to San Francisco, to London, to Paris, to Bangkok and beyond (always in search of the authentic queer fuck) and she has expressed it so much better than I ever could. Indeed, “A Year In Shorts,” seems incredibly guarded and contrived in comparison. Foucault’s Daughter has inspired me to work harder and to take these ideas further, push the boundaries, and for that I am eternally grateful.
Oh yeah…
Also…
She writes gay sex better than many gay men.
In fact, at times, I’d go so far as to say she understands gay sex better than most gay men.
It’s high camp for the literary minded, and yes, il faut toujours qu’il en fasse tout un drame, so I thoroughly enjoyed it; but any lovers of queer culture should consider this a must read. You can download a free copy here from here…
http://quietgirlriot.wordpress.com/books-by-quiet-riot-girl/
Enjoy…
Mr E.
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