SLEZSKÁ UNIVERZITA V OPAVĚ Filozoficko-přírodovědecká fakulta v Opavě

Bc. Jan Tomíček

Obor: Angličtina (jednooborové)

Image of Sexuality in Contemporary Lyrics

Diplomová práce

Opava 2021 Vedoucí diplomové práce doc. PhDr. Michaela Weiss, Ph.D Abstract

This master’s thesis explores the representation of sexuality in contemporary music in the context of feminism and queer studies. It focuses on sexual stigma, gender stereotypes, hegemonic and hybrid masculinity as well as erotic motifs metaphorically and symbolically expressed and thus reflecting the issues associated with human sexuality and gender the authors refer to in their lyrics.

Keywords: lyrics, sexuality, gender, feminism, queer studies

Abstrakt Tato diplomová práce zkoumá způsoby ztvárnění sexuality v současné hudbě v kontextu feminismu a queer studies. Zaměřuje se na sexuální stigma, genderové stereotypy, hegemonní a hybridní maskulinitu, stejně jako na metaforické a symbolické vyjádření erotických motivů, a reflektuje hlavní problémy spojené s lidskou sexualitou a genderem, na které autoři ve svých textech poukazují.

Klíčová slova: hudební texty, sexualita, gender, feminismus, queer studies

Prohlašuji, že jsem tuhle práci vypracoval samostatně. Veškeré prameny a literatura, které jsem pro vyhotovení práce využil, řádně cituji a uvádím v seznamu použité literatury a internetových zdrojů.

V Opavě dne 21. dubna 2021 Bc. Jan Tomíček Contents

Authorʼs note Discography

Introduction 1

1 Jenny Hval, Feminist Provocateur 7 1.1 Vampire Sexuality on Blood Bitch 7 1.2 Investigation of Blood on Blood Bitch 13 1.3 Manifesto of Feminism and Sexuality on Apocalypse, Girl 17 1.4 Intimate Confessions on Viscera 24

2 Perfume Genius, the Gender Norms Breaker 27 2.1 Display of Queer Stereotypes in “Queenˮ 27 2.2 Violation of Heteronormativity in “Foolˮ 30

3 Fiona Appleʼs Powerful Language 33 3.1 Metaphors for Lovemaking in “The First Tasteˮ 33 3.2 The Aftermath of the Sexual Assault on Fetch the Bolt Cutters 34

4 Anna Calvi, the One Who Goes Beyond Gender 38 4.1 The Idea of Dislocating Masculinity in “As a Manˮ 40 4.2 The Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity in “Alphaˮ 41 4.3 Hybrid Masculinities in “Don't Beat the Girl Out of My Boyˮ 45 4.4 “Swimming Poolˮ as a Potential Setting For Voyeurism 48 4.5 Gender Policing in “Edenˮ 50

5 Magnetic Presence of FKA Twigs 55 5.1 Celebration of Femininity in Religious Context on MAGDALENE 55 5.2 Self-discovering in “daybedˮ 57

Conclusion 59

Bibliography 62

Authorʼs note: For the purposes of this thesis and due to its nature, examples of lyrics mentioned within the text are not cited. It is due to the fact that the names of the songs and its authors are mentioned directly in the part of the text to which the examples belong. For completeness, the discography of the included songs is listed below.

Discography (in order of appearance in the text): “Notˮ by Big Thief from the album Two Hands (© 2019 4AD Ltd). (p. 2) “1950ˮ King Princess, Make My Bed (© 2018 Zelig Music, LLC). (p. 3) “Golden G Stringˮ Miley Cyrus, Plastic Hearts (© 2020 RCA Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment). (p. 3) “Indulge Meˮ Moses Sumney, Aromanticism (© 2017 Jagjaguwar). (p. 4) “Virileˮ Moses Sumney, Aromanticism (© 2017 Jagjaguwar). (p. 4) “Ritual Awakeningˮ Jenny Hval, Blood Bitch (© 2016 Sacred Bones Records). (p. 8) “Female Vampireˮ Jenny Hval, Blood Bitch (© 2016 Sacred Bones Records). (p. 9) “Conceptual Romanceˮ Jenny Hval, Blood Bitch (© 2016 Sacred Bones Records). (p. 10) “Secret Touchˮ Jenny Hval, Blood Bitch (© 2016 Sacred Bones Records). (p. 11, 12, 13) “The Plagueˮ Jenny Hval, Blood Bitch (© 2016 Sacred Bones Records). (p. 14) “Lornaˮ Jenny Hval, Blood Bitch (© 2016 Sacred Bones Records). (p. 14, 15) “Untamed Regionˮ Jenny Hval, Blood Bitch (© 2016 Sacred Bones Records). (p. 15, 16) “Period Pieceˮ Jenny Hval, Blood Bitch (© 2016 Sacred Bones Records). (p. 16, 17) “Take Care of Yourselfˮ Jenny Hval, Apocalypse, Girl (© 2015 Sacred Bones Records). (p. 18, 19) “Me and My Husbandˮ by Mitski, Be the Cowboy (© 2018 Dead Oceans). (p. 20) “The Battle is Overˮ Jenny Hval, Apocalypse, Girl (© 2015 Sacred Bones Records). (p. 21) “Sabbathˮ Jenny Hval, Apocalypse, Girl (© 2015 Sacred Bones Records). (p. 22, 23) “Portrait of the Young Girl as an Artistˮ Jenny Hval, Viscera (© 2011 Rune Grammofon). (p. 24) “Engines in the Cityˮ Jenny Hval, Apocalypse, Girl (© 2015 Sacred Bones Records). (p. 25, 26) “Queenˮ Perfume Genius, Too Bright (© Matador Records). (p. 27, 28, 29, 30) “Foolˮ Perfume Genius, Too Bright (© Matador Records). (p. 31, 32) “The First Tasteˮ Fiona Apple, Tidal (© 1996 Epic Records). (p. 33) “Sullen Girlˮ Fiona Apple, Tidal (© 1996 Epic Records). (p. 35) “Relayˮ Fiona Apple, Fetch the Bolt Cutters (© 2020 Epic Records). (p. 35) “Heavy Ballonˮ Fiona Apple, Fetch the Bolt Cutters (© 2020 Epic Records). (p. 36) “Under the Tableˮ Fiona Apple, Fetch the Bolt Cutters (© 2020 Epic Records). (p. 36) “Fetch the Bolt Cuttersˮ Fiona Apple, Fetch the Bolt Cutters (© 2020 Epic Records). (p. 36) “As a Manˮ Anna Calvi, Hunter (© 2018 Domino Recording Co Ltd). (p. 40, 41) “Alphaˮ Anna Calvi, Hunter (© 2018 Domino Recording Co Ltd). (p. 41, 42) “Manˮ Neko Case, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You (© 2013 Neko Case, Under exclusive license to Anti, Inc.). (p. 43) “Night Still Comesˮ Neko Case, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You (© 2013 Neko Case, Under exclusive license to Anti, Inc.). (p. 43) “Iʼm From Nowhereˮ Neko Case, The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You (© 2013 Neko Case, Under exclusive license to Anti, Inc.). (p. 44) “Just One of the Guysˮ Jenny Lewis, The Voyager (© 2014 Warner Records Inc.). (p. 44) “Donʼt Beat the Girl Out of My Boyˮ Anna Calvi, Hunter (© 2018 Domino Recording Co Ltd). (p. 46) “Swimming Poolˮ Anna Calvi, Hunter (© 2018 Domino Recording Co Ltd). (p. 49) “Edenˮ Anna Calvi, Hunter (© 2018 Domino Recording Co Ltd). (p. 51, 52, 53) “mary magdaleneˮ FKA twigs, MAGDALENE (© 2019 Young). (p. 56) “holy tarrainˮ FKA twigs, MAGDALENE (© 2019 Young). (p. 56, 57) “Kicksˮ FKA twigs, LP1 (© 2014 Young). (p. 57) “daybedˮ FKA twigs, MAGDALENE (© 2019 Young). (p. 57, 58) 1

Introduction

“For me, the only way to write lyrics is to not think about other people at all. You have to just be completely honest. Otherwise, what you’re feeling loses its meaning. If you write a song that’s trying to be universally relatable, it won’t mean anything.” - Waxahatcheeʼs Katie Crutchfield

Every era and the people who live in it, face and solve certain problems, which are reflected in the creative production, be it art, film, literature, and music. This does not necessarily suggest emergence of new protest songs, but, alternatively, original controversial works that express peopleʼs feelings and often present their attitude and view of the world. At the forefront is the battle between sex and gender which offers new opportunities for music in the 21st century and deserves critical attention. This century is characterized by constant sensory stimulation and hypersexual behaviour. Sexuality orbits the music industry and the human body, which is commodified and commercialized to great extents. Technology mediates sexualisation on demand through various applications and devices. Pornography and pornographic content are so omnipresent that it is almost impossible to avoid them. Sexual behaviour is stigmatized by a vast number of tropes and induced values. Latest research also suggests that interactive web technologies, including social networking sites (Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr) pose a threat to its usersʼ perceptions of their body and attitudes towards their sexual life.1 Sexual stigma and gender stereotypes, as being examined in following chapters, are horizonless in our modern culture and they are easily to be encountered in an everyday life. Even such fundamental item as a food has its gender-based stereotypes. It means that there is a food which is considered to be a symbolic marker of masculinity (meat) or femininity (vegetables, fruit, dairy products, fish).2 Along with this fact,

1 See Eric Filice, Amanda Raffoul, Samantha B. Meyer and Elena Neiterman, “The Impact of Social Media on Body Image Perceptions and Bodily Practices among Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men: A Critical Rewiew of the Literature and Extension of Theory,ˮ Sex Roles 82 (2020): 387. 2 See Anna Rita Graziani, Margherita Guidetti and Nicoletta Cavazza, “Food for Boys and Food for Girls: Do Preschool Children Hold Gender Stereotypes about Food?,ˮ Sex Roles 83 (2021): 491-492. 2

Adam Podhola, a Czech expert on food waste, said that about 20% of food is thrown away and never got a chance to get on the shelves of supermarkets due to its unusual shapes. The reason behind it is that retail chains consider the customer is not ready for it.3 If our citizens are not ready for unusual shapes of fruit or vegetables, how can they be ready for challenges we face in context of human sexuality? The notion of gender and sexuality effects also the music industry. Considering the rock music scene, often understood to be more male oriented area and often holds the premise which is based on the assumption that it is predominantly a masculinist tradition.4 The theme associated with, for example, gender diversity has been slowly but markedly appearing for some time. In 2014, the band Arcade Fire made a controversial music video for the song “We Existˮ with the main character who has just discovered his gender identity. While in the music video of the Chicago trio Dehd for one of the most significant rock songs of 2020 “Loner,ˮ the male character personifies the female character as an angel/stripper who yields submissively to the devil. If we keep focus on the rock music scene, the nomination for the 63rd Grammy Awards (2019-2020) in the Best Rock Performance category surprisingly featured purely women artists nominations, given the fact that the nominated Big Thiefʼs leader is also a woman. In fact, Big Thiefʼs nominated song “Notˮ is more or less the work of the bandʼs front woman Adrianne Lenker herself. In addition, the composition of the song is a significant lyrical act with the concept which is constructed entirely with the use of the rhetorical strategy of apophasis, or so called paralepsis, in which the author defines an emotional state by saying what it is not:

“Itʼs not the formless being Nor the cry in the air Nor the boy Iʼm seeing With her long black hairˮ

In the last couplet of the example above, Lenker deliberately confuses possessive pronoun “herˮ relating to a particular gender, and thus essentially downplays the importance or relevance of the actual gender (“the boyˮ) of her love interest, thus

3 See Adam Podhola interviewed by Václav Moravec, “Fokus Václava Moravce: Moc jídla,ˮ video, 1:29:18 to 1:30:52, August 22, 2020, https://www.ceskatelevize.cz/porady/11054978064-fokus-vaclava- moravce/219411030530007/. 4 See Marion Leonard, Gender in the Music Industry (Cornwall: Ashgate, 2007), 23. 3

erasing gender differences and attaching greater importance to her love feelings. Conceptually, the lyrics have similar rhetorical strategy to some of Emily Dickinsonʼs poems, most visible for example in the poem “It was not Death, for I stood up.ˮ Moving on from rock music, there is a song released in 2018 that is at the forefront of queer music and due to its inventive formulations it can serve as a modern anthem of this subculture. The song is called “1950ˮ written by an American singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist known as King Princess. “1950ˮ refers to a time when all affection of two people of the same sex expressed in public was unacceptable. In the lines:

“I love it when we play 1950 Itʼs so cold that your stareʼs ʼbout to kill me Iʼm surprised when you kiss me,ˮ the author expresses the change in societyʼs attitude towards sexual orientation and that pretending to keep her love hidden from public is now just a game she plays for fun. There has also been a great shift in the expression of sexuality through lyrics in the field of popular music. Due to the huge visual commercialization, sex helps to popularize and sell the work of some artists. One of the most flamboyantly stentorian personalities of this music genre in recent years is Miley Cyrus, who is, despite the fact being a pop star, very creative in her authorial work, which proves her musically most interesting experimental album Miley Cyrus and Her Dead Petz, co-produced by members of The Flaming Lips band. Her attitude towards the human body makes her statements about human sexuality and nudity a natural thing. On her latest album Plastic Hearts in the song “Golden G String,ˮ she interpose a moment of open confession, which maps out her efforts to freely express her approach to sexuality:

“There are layers to this body Primal sex and primal shame They told me I should cover it So I went the other wayˮ

In recent years, we have also witnessed eye-catching album covers that exposed natural nudity in a very gentle and decent way without extreme effort to make a huge sales. Album covers like The Hoteliersʼ Goodness (showing a group of nudists standing 4

naked in the summer time in the meadow) and Kristín Annaʼs I Must Be the Devil (showing the author sitting among a group of naked men) are the evidence of the authorsʼ perspective on nudity and human body. It shows the natural and yet artistic aspect of it. Another example of approach to sexualisation of a human body can be found in the work of Moses Sumney. The North Carolina based singer-songwriter debuted in 2017 with the studio album Aromanticism which echoed the melancholy for romantic encounter. This theme could be best visible on a poetically expressed verse of the song “Indulge Me.ˮ Here, the author expounds his loneliness and points out the failure of intimacy:

“All my old lovers have found others, I was lost in the rapture. Dead Sea as barren as a stutter And colored laughter. I donʼt trouble nobody, Nobody troubles my body after. All my old others have found lovers.ˮ

The most peculiar song concerning the theme of human sexuality can be then found on his second studio album græ in the song “Virile.ˮ In these lines:

“Desperate for passing grades The virility fades, Youʼve got the wrong guy. You wanna slip right in, Amp up the masculine, Youʼve got the wrong I.ˮ

The author delivers his view on the effort to gain a certain social status by using physical attributes and activities which marks the stereotypical definition of masculinity. The music video, partly shot in a meat factory, displays an interesting portrayal of a battle between beauty and brutality of a masculine male body, as being an advantage the author benefits from. 5

All the examples mentioned above hint at the major tendencies in the lyrics of 21st century with reference to sexuality. This era enables the authors to explicitly express topics that were previously unthinkable. We are witnessing explicitly vulgar musical texts but at the same time artistic lyrical compositions that celebrate human sexuality and treat it with respect. Therefore, the purpose of this masterʼs thesis is to locate and analyze sexual themes and sexuality expressed in selected contemporary lyrics, especially in connection with their often metaphorical or generally indirect expression. The introduction to this thesis provides a general overview of a portrayal of human sexuality in lyrics in the 21st century across genres and authors. In it, sexual themes are rather slightly outlined with references to various interesting lines and poetic elements through which they are expressed. It also serves as a preface to the following chapters and offers a glimpse of the applied methodology. The second chapter deals with work of the author Jenny Hval and her albums Blood Bitch; Apocalypse, Girl and Viscera. The theme of vampire sexuality will be introduced as well as artistic expressions of menstrual blood, being a part of stigmatized phenomena. The focus will then continue on lyrics which maps out certain feminist manifestations and the authorʼs attempt to find some equal place in society as well as her sexual independence. The third chapter examines two major works from the album Too Bright written by the author Michael Hadreas known under his stage name as Perfume Genius. In his lyrics to the song “Queenˮ there will be explored the authorʼs attitude towards prejudices aimed at gay men as well as stigmas and stereotypes which are lyrically captured in it. In the second examined song called “Fool,ˮ the focus will be on the stereotyping of sexual identity and stigmatization of a social status due to it. The fourth chapter is devoted to the lyrics taken from the recent album Fetch the Bolt Cutters and Tidal by American songwriter Fiona Apple. This chapter will bring closer look on the context of a personal liberation, self-empowerment and freedom of sexual identity which is all to be found within her lyrics. The following chapter explores how Anna Calvi, singer and songwriter born in London, demonstrates her approach to sexual freedom and diversity. By going beyond gender, Calvi refers to the idea of dislocating masculinity, the concept of hegemonic 6

and hybrid masculinity, gender policing and erotic motifs, which are the matters examined in this chapter. The last chapter reveals the feminist and religious context on the album MAGDALENE written by FKA twigs. It will also contain an analysis of a song “daybedˮ which refers to sexual self-discovering as an escape of emotional tension.

7

1 Jenny Hval, Feminist Provocateur

Iʼm inspired by that rawness in very direct communication. My work is not meant to keep people happy or give them an escape—I don’t want to use those Instagram effects. - Jenny Hval

Jenny Hval is a recording artist, songwriter, musician, but with three books to her credit she is also a novelist (e.g. Paradise Rot, 2018). She studied creative writing and performing at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Due to the transgressive content of her lyrics, she is often referred to as a feminist provocateur. The musical genre in which Hval creates is somewhere between avant-garde pop and experimental art-rock. Her music and lyrics evoke a curious and passionate look at art, feminism and sexuality, which is expressed by provocative and often outrageous statements. Hval first released two albums under the pseudonym Rockettothesky and then she began to work under her own name and so far released another five albums and one EP. In this thesis, attention will only be paid to the lyrics from albums that are released under her name Jenny Hval.

1.1 Vampire Sexuality on Blood Bitch

In 2016, Hval released a concept album called Blood Bitch. A concept album “revolves around a theme or some unifying musical structure,ˮ5 in this case the theme is narrative and lyrical. The main theme, within the lyrics, is additionally also demonstrated on the booklet of the album: “Blood Bitch is an investigation of blood... The purest and most powerful, yet most trivial, and most terrifying blood.ˮ The blood in connection with vampirism plays a big role in the image of the album and forms a substantial part of its symbolism. This image carries a certain message because “the association between vampirism and sexuality and gender is related to the violation of taboos, allowing for identification with the other. Vampirism,

5 Marcel Danesi, “Album,ˮ in Concise Dictionary Of Popular Culture, (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), 15. 8

or the sexuality associated with vampirism, is a forbidden act for the woman who is constrained by patriarchy to suppress her sexuality.ˮ6 Whether it is the visual aspect of the cover and booklet, or the music arrangement, both evoke as if we were in a very dark place somewhere in Transylvania. Hval opens her investigation with a song for which she could not choose a better title: “Ritual Awakening,ˮ whose content really carries a certain amount of awareness / awakening. The text depicts the storyteller holding a cell phone in her hand and her subsequent realization that she actually holds a “coffin for her heart.ˮ This designation criticizes a social interaction and with it connected feelings being perceived through social media and mobile phone. In this case, mobile devices delete all the feelings necessary for a real relationship and becomes a coffin in which feelings are deposited, but already dead. “Female Vampireˮ is the second song on the album and it narrates the story from the perspective of a woman vampire. Gina Wisker in her article “Female Vampirismˮ states that female vampires are “creatures of myth and cultural metamorphosis, a metaphor for disruption, enable a critique of what is feared and desired at different times: women’s sexuality, foreign invasion, cultural difference, homosexuality, fear of blood-borne disease, AIDS.ˮ7 This statement points out that the character of a vampire, thanks to its diversity of features, can be quite functionally applied in contemporary literature and thus still reflect the very current issues of today. If we look at some general awareness of female vampires as presented in the literature, we find that their depictions and character have changed over time. Characters of a female vampire in Victorian novel Dracula (Bram Stoker, 1897) were portrayed as “threats to women’s chastity, purity and maternal instincts and through them, a danger to male sexual self-management, heredity and blood purity.ˮ8 On the other hand, we have contemporary characters of female vampires in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series that suggests that “the female vampire, at least in the

6 Brigid Cherry, Petr Howell, and Caroline Ruddell, “Introduction: Twenty-First-Century Gothic,ˮ in Twenty-First-Century Gothic, ed. Brigid Cherry, Petr Howell, and Caroline Ruddell (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 4. 7 Gina Wisker, “Female Vampirism,ˮ in Women and the Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion, ed. Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), 151. 8 Wisker, “Female Vampirism,ˮ 153. 9

United States, has been reclaimed for neo-conservatism as her Young Adult vampire romance endorses both eternal (quite chaste) romantic love and family values.ˮ9 Additionally, there is a representation of female vampires in film Byzantium (directed by Neil Jordan, 2013) which “does not celebrate vampire sexuality as radical freedom. Instead, it sees these women as survivors, imaginative, learning to change, living as they must according to how society constructs them, becoming agents in a depressingly seedy, continuously abusive cultural society.ˮ10 On the basis of above mentioned representations of female vampires, the last example is closest to how Hval expresses her character in the song. She starts with the line “Transient, restless. I'm not there, or not there yet.ˮ reflecting the current state of her mind. “Transientˮ meaning fugitive, on the run from society where she obviously does not belong and still “restlessˮ because of the craving for human blood. The tone of the lyrics of “Female Vampire,ˮ from the emotional point of view, is rather melancholic and balances on the edge between denial and longing. Immediately she confesses “I'm so tired of subjectivity, I must justify my presence by losing it, must not keep a steady gaze.ˮ With the reference to subjectivity she points to the quality of her desire to taste the blood of a particular human, while such taste was so far existing only in her mind and was not based on previous experience. This desire is also an explanation of the main reason of her presence. She is fully aware of her appetite and realizes she must not show her eagerness by desirous staring. Furthermore, the theme of desire continues through the whole song and is visible also in the line “The body as a subconscious. And desire takes place somewhere, everywhere. Here it comes...ˮ She admits that in the heat of the whole act, she loses control over her body and her consciousness and is under a spell of her needs. She ends the story with “... in the dampness of winter air between us, in the restlessness of hotel rooms, in the smell of Spanish wetlands, in the way you say: It hurts everywhere,ˮ naming all things this female vampire could find exciting. In relation to sexuality, it is important to mention that a vampire, due to its nature, is incapable of genital sex. Their sexual intercourse consists of vampiric activities involving teeth, lips and tongue. This may isolate an individual apart from

9 Wisker, “Female Vampirism,ˮ 150. 10 Wisker, “Female Vampirism,ˮ 161. 10

society because the sexual act is something that brings people close to each other and unites them.11 Therefore, Hval on her album also refers to the longing for some kind of a romantic relationship. It is visible in the song called “Conceptual Romanceˮ which stands out for a bit of a romantic note but still carries profundity and a certain strength in its statements. It depicts a story of a woman in never ending struggle with her body and sexuality and finds her in self-doubt. The song starts slightly angry with “And sometimes I dream youʼve left me, and Iʼm so lost I wake up high. High on madness, a sexual holding pattern, stuck in erotic self-oscillation.ˮ showing that a narrator of the story had a very bad dream about being left by her lover which caused her having negative feelings. She immediately realizes the potential lack of sexual connection and compares it to a state of waiting, expressed in collocation “holding pattern,ˮ as she sees herself as a pendulum oscillating between being sexually self-satisfied and being not. In other words, “erotic self-oscillationˮ manifests the period when she reaches the peak of the need to satisfy herself, then she does satisfy herself and waits for another peak and all over again. Simply put, she is oscillating between her self-sufficient orgasms. Despite the heated beginning, she calms down saying: “Conceptual romance is on my mind. I call it abstract romanticism. Conceptual romance is you and I.ˮ She rethinks this idea of being in truly romantic relationship, then just being bound sexually to each other, and plays with thought of a romance, however, this design still has an imaginary aspect and it is difficult for her to understand it completely. That is why she calls her romance only conceptual and abstract. The explanation of her thoughts lies in the next line: “I lose myself in the rituals of bad art, in failure, I want to give up but I can tell my heartbreak is too sentimental for you.ˮ After a few failures and disappointments, she wants to give up and confess her feelings to her lover, but she knows that her emotional breakdown is something that can only drive the lover away from her. Besides, it is confirmed later in the lyrical climax of the song: “I understand infatuation, rejection, they can connect and become everything, everything thatʼs torn up in your life.ˮ Hval brings together two important elements that are a part of the concept of desire, infatuation and rejection, realizing how fragile it is to built her dreams

11 See Lloyd Worley, “Loving Death: The Meaning of Male Sexual Impotence in Vampire Literature,ˮ Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 2, no. 1 (5) (1989): 29. 11

or life around somebody else and how mentally destructive it can be, once she is rejected. “Secret Touchˮ is a song very noticeably influenced by a vampire horror theme and its surreal lyrical form transcends the boundaries of human existence. The lyrics has such mysterious tenor and occupies a question of death and morals. Hval shows what happens when her mind becomes a site of a conflict. The narrator reveals her relationship with a vampire and describes the act of transformation into a vampire as well as the aftermath that follows this event. Right at the beginning she gives us a warning and foreshadows really dark narration by saying that somebody who is not alive anymore, a vampire, is the only one who can support her in this confession and with who she is fraternize in her mind: “As I write this I must pretend someoneʼs holding my hand, probably someone dead (would be the only one to hold me now, ice cold).ˮ The story of the “Secret Touchˮ could basically be divided into three phases. In the first phase, the author comes into contact with a vampire, who transforms her. She recounts “I was waiting forbidden, no one knew I was waiting, not even you, I was not speakingˮ declaring the state of isolation she got trapped into and the way of life she was living before she met the vampire - refusing all sexual attention, living in loneliness. We can notice the use of hyperbole through the lyrics, for example, when she says that she was not speaking to compare herself to someone who sits in a dark corner without making a sound. By that she just wants to exaggerate that her longing for the lover was extreme. Then she meets with the vampire as stated in the next line: “You were travelling, and you came to me as if someone just died.ˮ Travelling is an activity that perfectly corresponds with vampires due to their hunting nature. Apart from this, when someone returns from a journey, hearty welcome is expected, but not in this case. The following line “Consolidation, but violently felt, like kissing through a glass windowˮ also testifies that the encounter was not quite idyllic, although she let the vampire to “consolidateˮ her. It may seem that for a lonely woman, meeting a vampire can be exciting, which is why she was willing to submit. However, the “glass windowˮ marks an invisible obstacle between them, which stands in the way of her satisfaction and removes all passion. Hval masterfully describes how it must feel to be bitten by a vampire, what a woman like her must feel when expecting some kind of a sexual 12

satisfaction but gets only a “glass windowˮ experience, like the one compared to visiting a lover in prison, when there is a plexiglass between the two. In the text, she returns to this event with more references to ʻconsolidation:ʼ “Consolidation of violence.ˮ or “Consolidation when itʼs an excuse.ˮ reflecting her feelings about the realization that the vampire did not choose her because of her qualities, or that she would be somewhat special to him, but because it was just a matter of satisfying the vampireʼs desire for blood, moreover, not in a quite gentle way. As has been demonstrated above, the first part of the lyrics is about being bitten, the second is about being transformed into a vampire. In this part she explains her confusion and realizes what actually happened, as in the line: “For a short moment in time I let you wipe out my facial features. But flesh is the loneliest creature.ˮ The vampire sucked her dry and due to her physical death she lost human characteristics for a while. Then she wakes up to realize that she needs human blood, without which she is just a flesh. The author then portrays her first experience with drinking human blood which quenches her thirst:

“And itʼs suddenly silenced by the most sudden unlawful act of infinity / infidelity / when I on a whim followed her suddenly into her room, and kissed like blood intinction to avoid thinking of death.ˮ

Although religion terrifies vampires and hurts them, she paradoxically compares the ritual of sucking blood to a ritual typical of Christians, the reception of the sacrament - intinction. There is also given a notice that although as a vampire she is now distant from sexual intercourse, her verbal expression of the blood-sucking ritual is still close to the human expression for love and affection - kissing. In the last phase of the storyline she fully accepts the life of a vampire and this passage, which, despite the initial uncertainty about her feelings from the beginning, sets up an imaginary celebration of her new identity: “There comes a certain point in our lives when we more or less desperately want to be bad, and we gladly exchange the good things just for a short moment to feel alive.ˮ Such a statement, of course, goes hand in hand with the subsequent regret, which shows precisely a certain conflict and a hint of hesitation in the end: 13

“later we regret it, because we have no language to express that it was both ravishing, destructive and most of all: Absolutely necessary. These things! to feel alive. Free! To die, to die! In whoeverʼs innocent arms.ˮ

Rather paradoxical play on words in this case reflects her journey and that it was necessary for her to die in order to be fulfilled and to satisfy the desire hidden in her.

1.2 Investigation of Blood on Blood Bitch

It is not only blood connected with vampirism, but evident part in the symbolism of the album Blood Bitch also has a blood connected with menstruation. No matter how controversial this topic may seem, it is not the first time that menstrual blood has formed the basis of a work of art. The American artist Vanessa Tiegs and the German artist Petra Paul are known for collecting their menstrual blood and then making paintings of it by using different techniques of sprinkling, splashing, and brushing their blood on their canvases. This kind of art is called Menstrala.12 The Canadian poet and artist Rupi Kaur uploaded a photo from her art collection on her Instagram in March 2015. The photo showed a blood stain between her legs and also on the bedding. The photo was taken down by the Instagram claiming that it violated their terms of service.13 Additionally, Julia Kristeva, the author of Powers of Horror, an essay on abjection, points to menstrual blood in relation to abjection as something that “threatens the relationship between the sexes within a social aggregate.ˮ14 On the basis of the above observations it is possible to suggest that there are many artists who put menstrual blood at the forefront of their works of art and leave their consumers shocked, but do not always meet with a positive response. This fact can be caused by stigmatization of womenʼs body fluids, such as menstrual blood, or breast milk. When taking a closer look at the original interpretation of the word ʻstigma,ʼ as

12 See Ingrid Johnston-Robledo and Joan C. Chrisler, “The Menstrual Mark: Menstruation As Social Stigma,” Sex Roles 68 (2013): 9. 13 See Gretchen Faust, "Hair, Blood and the Nipple: Instagram Censorship and the Female Body," in Digital Environments: Ethnographic Perspectives Across Global Online and Offline Spaces, ed. Frömming Urte Undine, Köhn Steffen, Fox Samantha, and Terry Mike (Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag, 2017), 164. 14 Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 71. 14

described by Goffman in 1963, it comes from ancient Greece and refers to “bodily signs designed to expose something unusual and bad about the moral status of the signifier.ˮ15 Today, however, it is widely acknowledged that these aspects of the female body should not be stigmatized, and modern art thus seeks ways how to support this proposition. What is important, is social awareness of a stigma and subsequent awareness of the extent to which a stigmatized individual, group or thing is eligible for its condition. For example, lesbians and gay men are better received by people who realize that their sexual orientation is biologically based rather than based on their own choices,16 or in our case, that menstruation is a process associated with the origin of human life, and is not a manifestation of oneʼs own will. Musical lyrics and literature are slowly destigmatizing the topic of menstruation, as it is in the case with the album Blood Bitch, thus breaking the taboo associated with it. This taboo is associated in the world with many euphemisms that Virginia L. Ernster put together in her collection. It lists a wide range of American terms that women use in connection with menstruation, such as references to nature (e.g. Iʼm having flowers), to red and blood (e.g. Wearing red shoes today), or negative references to illness or pain. (e.g. The curse, Lady troubles, The red plague).17 The latter example mentioned above is related to a song on the album Blood Bitch called “The Plague.ˮ This song is lyrically and also musically divided into several passages. In the first part, the author begins to feel confused about her feelings and realizes that she has never loved anyone, which is important for the next passage later in the lyrics, where she shows her relief after finding out that she is not pregnant. Then comes the passage, which is more poetic. Due to non-pregnancy, menstruation can occur, the process which can be found in the lyrics and refers to the colour which stands here as a symbol of menstruation blood: “Itʼs still dawn, but the sun is rising, shapes are appearing, and colours are slowly being painted onto the cars in the parking lot and on her internal organs.ˮ Another lyrics in which menstruation is represented by euphemism is the lyrics to the song “Lorna.ˮ In this text, Hval asks what desire is. She refers to it as “biting, eating into another person.ˮ which is a reference to vampirism, where a vampire has an

15 Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes On The Management Of Spoiled Identity (London: Penguin Group, 1990), 1. 16 See Johnston-Robledo and Chrisler, “The Menstrual Mark,” 10. 17 See Virginia L. Ernster, “American Menstrual Expressions,ˮ Sex Roles, 1 (1975): 6-7. 15

irrepressible craving for human blood. Then she continues “and when I wake up, I see red flowers on the bedˮ - here again she uses euphemism “red flowersˮ to express the presence of menstruation blood. This is the point where Hval describes the moment when a girl becomes a woman, unintentionally, out of nowhere, it just happened one morning and suddenly the world is different for her now, when she feels a desire. Influenced by the fact that she is now aware of the feeling of desire, it raises certain questions in her about the whole essence of desire itself, and she realizes that it is something that is often put aside by people and no one gives it too much weight as if the desire itself should have. With “I donʼt think anyone ever talked to me using the word desire at all. No one ever told me or taught me how to contain it. It kept existing but there was no language.ˮ she polemizes with the whole nature of desire and ends with the emergence of a rather philosophical question “Does anyone have a language for it? Can we find it?ˮ which leaves oneʼs thoughts open. So far, the above-mentioned examples of lyrics that follow the theme of menstruation on the album Blood Bitch contained euphemisms and rather a poetic expression of this theme. However, there are also lyrics containing more straightforward expressions of this topic. One of those examples can be found in the lyrics to the song “Untamed Region,ˮ which acts as a confession of a girl who has just experienced menarche (first menstrual bleeding). It is interesting to watch how Hval, in contrast to composition of “Lorna,ˮ changed the expression of the presence of menstrual blood: “I'm in a big house, having big dreams. The next time I wake up thereʼs blood on the bed.ˮ In this case she does not use any of the euphemisms but leads directly to the point, clearly and concisely, that not only those who are initiated into the world of euphemisms will understand it. The female confessor then questions the timing of the whole event using the phrase cliché “Didn't know it was time yetˮ and expresses her uncertainty about the whole life-changing experience: “I feel old in this hotel ... and yet so youngˮ. And then comes the part that testifies to the ingenious quality of Hval's stylistics and which achieves the same quality as parts of Ian McEwanʼs The Cement Garden. Hval describes immediate feelings and sensations after the first period with the same intimate confusion as McEwan, who describes how the protagonist of his book first encounters 16

his own ejaculation, which he had only heard about from school lessons.18 Hval declaims “I dip my finger in it. Smells like warm winterˮ using simile when describing the smell of menstrual blood. She continues: “Then I feel the need to touch everything in this room. Like a dog Iʼm marking everything that belongs to no one. Bringing it close to me.ˮ She stands in front of new life choices and she has this need to touch everything, to make sure if things around her also feel different now after this transition. This need she is describing could refer to the power that a menstrual blood reflects. This girl now has a power to bring a new life, she has a power to make such decision. By claiming “I have big dreams. And blood powers.ˮ at the end, she is fully aware of her capabilities. In addition, when going back to the title of this song, it can now be better understood the poetic expression the “Untamed Regionˮ carries within. The region in this case indicates female private parts and the adjective “untamedˮ is chosen in connection with menstruation and refers to the uncontrollability of the process, controlled only by the force of nature and female hormones. Last but not least is the song called “Period Piece.ˮ The title, as well as other previously mentioned, suggests a foreshadowing of what will come next. “Periodˮ refers correspondingly to a common euphemism for menstruation but Hval plays with words again and use a collocation with the word “piece.ˮ This collocation carries a meaning of “a work (as of literature, art, furniture, cinema, or music) whose special value lies in its evocation of a historical period.ˮ19 However, the poetic meaning follows the concept of the album and refers to menstruation, even though, there is a connection with the dictionary definition of period piece and the poetic meaning and it lies in the line: “There must be some kind of art form where I can call my blood.ˮ The line demonstrates the need to make an art form (in a shape of a period piece) of a menstrual blood, same need as above mentioned Rupi Kaur or Vanessa Tiegs had, when they made their work of art by using menstrual blood. Then she urges “Donʼt be afraid, itʼs only blood.ˮ as if she wanted to break the stigma around it. What is also interesting about the lyrics is that it portrays a scene of visiting a gynecologist:

18 To get a more detailed picture, see the first chapter in Ian McEwan, The Cement Garden (London: Jonathan Cape Ltd., 1978). 19 Definition of a period piece in Merriam-Webster dictionary https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/period%20piece 17

“In the doctorʼs office the speculum pulls me open. Spacing the space. Accidental sci-fi. Regulating my aperture, vagine savant.ˮ

Hval indirectly compares the speculum, a gynecologistʼs tool, to some kind of a spaceship that makes a way through her genitals, and in its view she finds comparison with to cosmic vistas that could be seen in sci-fi movies. On the album Blood Bitch Jenny Hval breaks the menstruation taboo and puts menstrual activism on pedestal. The stigma surrounding this topic has caused in todayʼs society the spread of the message that “it is okay to menstruate as long as you do not mention it and no one knows you are doing it,ˮ20 which Hval completely reverses and makes a breakthrough in contemporary lyrics.

1.3 Manifesto of Feminism and Sexuality on Apocalypse, Girl

Gym is a center of capitalist breakdown, and everything is focused on the individual. - Jenny Hval

In 1862, Christina Rossetti, one of the best Victorian poets, published the poem “No, Thank You, Johnˮ21 in which she celebrates female empowerment, thus underlining women as an independent and persistent individual who sets boundaries in a matter of her own sexual decisions. In 2015, Jenny Hval tries to follow this trend in her album Apocalypse, Girl but comes across several problems that a woman in the 21st century encounters within feminist battles. The foremost songs on the album, which deepens the authorʼs uncertainty about her role in society and longing for sexual independence, are called “Take Care of Yourselfˮ and “That Battle Is Over.ˮ These two songs are connected to each other by a theme and their storylines directly follows each other. These songs mainly criticize gender roles ingrained in society and shaped by culture. Besides, they allows us to see the authorʼs attitude towards sexuality with slight resistance to the concept of heterosexism along with the concept of sexual and gendered division in traditional relationship.

20 Joan C. Chrisler, “Leaks, Lumps, and Lines: Stigma and Women’s Bodies,” Psychology of Women Quarterly 35 (2) (2011): 202, DOI: 10.1177/0361684310397698. 21 Christina Rossetti, Poems and Prose (New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 2006), 122-123. 18

The lyrics take the form of a dramatic monologue narrated from the perspective of a woman living in not exactly idyllic relationship with a man. She lies with him in bed, in which they lie down every night and spend their routine together. He sleeps while she wonders if this is the life she wants to live. In the first lines of the “Take Care of Yourselfˮ she asks what is it to take care of herself, and by that she is basically asking what is it to live by the rules of others:

“What is it to take care of yourself? Getting paid? Getting laid? Getting married? Getting pregnant? Fighting for visibility in your market? Realizing your potential? Being healthy, being clean, not making a fool of yourself, not hurting yourself? Shaving in all the right places?ˮ

The author encounters several questions, one of them is that of domestication with which she cannot identify. She undermines the division of “the nuclear family with its male-provider-protector and female-domestic-child-care.ˮ22 What also bothers her is the stereotypical concept of “partnering,ˮ described as “living in households, raising children, establishing long-term relationships, transmitting valuables to offspring, and other social behaviours associated with ʻfamily.ʼˮ23 Marriage, being constructed cultural invention, seems to be something that does not give her the satisfaction she expects from life. It should be noted, that “gender norms and cultural expectations around sexuality clearly influence women’s understanding of their own desire.ˮ24 She realizes this disappointment as well as does the character of Virginia Woolfʼs book To the Lighthouse when sighs: “So that is marriage, Lily thought, a man and a woman looking at a girl throwing a ball.ˮ In addition, Hval is aware of the pressure of social conventions to shave the intimate and other parts of the body in order to fit into the modern concept of sexual attractiveness. The second part of the lyrics is more straightforward and insistent:

“What am I taking care of? Iʼm lying in our bed unable to sleep, reaching a state of absolute dependence. In a restless half-dream, like the jam without a spoon, and

22 Carol C. Mukhopadhyay, Tami Blumenfield, Susan Harper and Abby Gondek, Gender and Sexuality, (Arlington: American Anthropological Association, 2017), 17. 23 Mukhopadhyay, Blumenfield, Harper and Gondek, Gender and Sexuality, 17. 24 Breanne Fahs, Eric Swank, Ayanna Shambe, “ʻI Just Go with Itʼ: Negotiating Sexual Desire Discrepancies for Women in Partnered Relationships,ˮ Sex Roles 83 (2019): 227. 19

I grab my cunt with my hand that isnʼt clean. Am I loving myself now? Am I mothering myself? Am I taking care of myself now?ˮ

Lying in bed in half-sleep, she begins to touch herself and thus breaking her sexual dependence on her partner with the greatest level of independence. “Women’s bodies are assumed to be available to men, which impacts women’s ability to internally evaluate or negotiate their sexual desiresˮ25 but here, only she can give herself what no one else can give her, no society and no partner - self-satisfaction. She provocatively asks again if this meets the conventional requirements she should take care of. Then she goes:

“I imagine youʼre doing the same, holding onto your soft dick. It lies in the hand where it dares to stay soft. Could I be that for you? That cupping hand on your soft dick? Could I give you that, that which sometimes expects nothing? Accepting restlessness, accepting no direction, accepting this fearful wanting that isnʼt desire?ˮ

In these lines, she fantasizes about being a hand of her partner holding his genitals, when he paradoxically feels no excitement while doing so. Being the hand holding a non-erect penis is for her a reflection of a calm state in which nothing is expected of her and which calms her. In her mind, the author tries to find ways of indirect rejection of sexual activities. The narrator suggests her struggle with the sexual desire discrepancy, that is “when one partner wants more sex than the other partner.ˮ26 She is frightened of becoming one of those women who “cannot or do not refuse sex outright and instead engage in sexual compliance and sexual acquiescence where they agree to unwanted sex because they feel they must do so, either to please a partner or because of societal expectations.ˮ27 The lyrics end with Hval repeating her suggestion “I give you this hand. I give you this hand.ˮ further emphasizing diverse ability of her idiosyncratic comparisons, which she manages with bravura. This final repetition altogether stresses

25 Fahs, “Negotiating Sexual Desire,ˮ 228. 26 Fahs, “Negotiating Sexual Desire,ˮ 226. 27 Fahs, “Negotiating Sexual Desire,ˮ 228. 20

the authorʼs sexual compliance which is described as involvement in sex based on a consensual decision and completely lacking sexual desire.28 Differing from Hvalʼs refusal attitude to marriage, there is an evidence of the opposite approach which can be found in the lyrics to the song “Me and My Husbandˮ written by singer-songwriter Mitski on her fifth studio album called Be the Cowboy released in 2018. This vanguard of indie rock brings a surprising look at the fondness that can stem from the relationship between wife and husband. Even though the author of the text is not married, the text contains clear image of what she thinks about life in marriage and eternal domesticity:

“I steal a few breaths from the world for a minute and then Iʼll be nothing forever and all of my memories and all of the things I have seen will be gone with my eyes, with my body, with me but me and my husband we are doing better itʼs always been just him and me togetherˮ

She manifests the idea that being in a relationship that lasts for a long time, sometimes a lifetime, love and desire at some point eventually disappears, but in spite of it, the reliance on each other still remains along with a feeling of connection, which provides some support in the journey of life. The author therefore points out that, in essence, marriage at a certain point becomes a commodity, which a person keeps for some beneficial purpose, either from a social or financial principle. Moving back to Apocalypse, Girl, another song that follows on the album is the already mentioned “That Battle is Overˮ which further projects the suffering of a woman who is trying to understand preconceptions and conventions of modern culture.

28 See Avigail Moor, Yael Haimov and Shaked Shreiber, “When Desire Fades: Women Talk About Their Subjective Experience of Declining Sexual Desire in Loving Long-term Relationships,ˮ The Journal of Sex Research 58 (2) (2021): 161. 21

Through these lyrics, the author expresses the malaises she faces in deciding between how she wants to live and how society wants her to live. The first verse continues where Hval in the searching for the essence of her cultural participation in connection with partnership of two people ended. With the idea of being a “cupping handˮ she keeps asking “What is it to take care of yourself? What are we taking care of?ˮ and still insinuates the sexual framework of a heterosexual relationship where a mutual satisfaction being a central task. The sexual activity is then metaphorically expressed as an empty commitment, “calmˮ and without a sign of excitement: “A million bedrooms with hands softly lulling our divine cocks and cunts without telling anyone, million ships come alone out on the calmest seas.ˮ In the second verse she faces the facts presented in the media and science:

“Statistics and newspapers tell me I am unhappy and dying That I need man and child to fulfil me, that I'm more likely to get breast cancer And itʼs biology, itʼs my own fault, itʼs divine punishment of the unrulyˮ

This verse is written a little ironically with a certain criticism of those who theoretically determine the direction a woman should go in todayʼs society, specifically, to have a husband and a family. Hval feels that this option is often presented as the only right one and is the only way to her own happiness. Under the pressure, she even feels some guilt for the way she lives and realizes that biology is taking its toll. Cheerless mood continues in the third verse, where it is further deepened by thoughts of aging: “But I keep growing older, eight years since 25 now and all that ages now is the body.ˮ It is much harder for a woman to age than for a man. The omnipresent advertisements for anti-aging creams, plastic surgery treatments and all sorts of masking imperfections brings her into a war with aging. In particular, Hval encounters that it is only the body that is aging but that her mind is at the top. The message of the whole song culminates in a verse where Hval mentions the attitude of her partner:

“You say Iʼm free now, that battle is over And feminismʼs over and socialismʼs over I can consume what I want nowˮ 22

Her partner does not attribute such importance to her problems and claims that all the battles she faces, whether for political or gender reasons, have long been won, and that a woman in the 21st century is free from any doubt to set her own direction. Hval wants to emphasize through these allusive lyrics that although women may still be considered as hysterical when fighting for their rights, these battles are far from over. In contrast to the songs that manifest feminism on the album Apocalypse, Girl in a way of criticizing contemporary society, there is also a song that pays homage to sexuality by means of hallucinatory narrative. The song is called “Sabbathˮ and its abstract lyrics uses stream of consciousness. Eric Torres, editorial producer of Pitchfork music server, wrote that “Sabbathˮ is “intense and erotic and exigent, a disorienting song in which dogs are wolves, rocks are cliffs, boys are girls and girls are horses.ˮ29 The lyrics also celebrates sexual imagination and hidden desire that lies in dreams. Hval in the text begins with the interpretation of her dream, in which she is someone else: “Iʼm six or seven and dreaming that Iʼm a boy. I emerged out of the water and went into the garden with a small silver hand between my thighs.ˮ Even though she imagines to be of the opposite sex, at her young age she does not know what differences exist between their bodies, respectively, what the male genitalia look like. She has no idea based on previous experience and she therefore depicts herself in the dream as Adam in Eden with a leaf covering his loins. However, this image changes when the heroine experiences a shower incident which is described in the next line:

“Later, in the shower, I see a boy naked. He is contagious... I was told not to stare then, but my eyes have never been larger, in and out of my body, my stare kept growing.ˮ

Curiosity escalated in her, her inner interest was noticeable even outside and caused a shameless and daring stare. The image of the naked body is fixed in her memory and is referred to as “I guess thatʼs whatʼs called flesh memory.ˮ Her imagination is so vivid and her ability to convey the image of the naked body of the opposite sex to her own nature is so intense that she deracinated the aspects of her own body in her mind and turned into another one. “Oh, how I wanted to tell him that we had switched places!ˮ she confirms and later adds: “Iʼve always been like this.ˮ The next lines then evoke a

29 Eric Torres, “S abbath by Jenny Hval Reviewˮ, 2015, https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/17426-jenny- hval-sabbath/. 23

scene from a dream that Hval is experiencing and in which two girls are playing together, transforming, changing roles and discovering their sexuality. She explains: “I told her the dog was a wolf and the rock was a cliff, and youʼre a horse!ˮ Suddenly, her dream turns into an engaging story with farrago of passion and absurdity:

“We ran willingly, horse-like, girl-like, boy-like. Her voice neighing in the back of her throat and when I came closer we collided and kissed in the passing, on the mouth, like horses do. Her thin lips over enamel and steel. I felt the outline of her braces against my own, little silver arms reaching for each other.ˮ

Erotic tension in rather chaste form noticeable in this description, represented by accidental kiss and diversified by comparisons to the characteristics of a horse, although quite irrationally applied, purposefully arouses the sentiment of mixed emotions of curious youth within testing the boundaries. Her female companionʼs braces remind her of a horseʼs bridle and are also metaphorically expressed as small silver hands. When they unintentionally kiss each other, it is precisely the braces that the author is conscious of and their orthodontic wires scrubbing against her own ones. This contact between them suggest the radiant power of their sexual tension, which the author perceives and at a certain moment expects that these “hands,ˮ these wires, would come together and get caught for a while in the heat of the ongoing horseplay. In addition to the interpretation of the dream, Hval mentions in one verse of the song “Sabbathˮ a submissive idea of her existence:

“Some days I feel like my body is straightened, held up by thin braces, metal spikes embrace my spine, my face, my cunt. I can feel myself from above, but I canʼt see whoʼs holding them. It would be easy to think about submission, but I donʼt think itʼs about submission, itʼs about holding and being heldˮ

She sees herself in the state that mirrors her subconscious, in which she does not have complete control over herself and is driven by her own needs. Hval gives rise to the idea that people are not always subject to their desires which seem to be coming out of nowhere in the mind, but that their actions are essentially caused by an agent that acts on them and evokes the passion they are driven by. There is always someone who wakes that appetency up, be it boy she sees in a shower or a girl she plays with. 24

1.4 Intimate Confessions on Viscera

The album Viscera was released in 2010 and its formula was simple, lyrically suggesting strongly bold and daringly titillating pronouncements as a courageous invitation to take a look at what is under the surface. The songs themselves are powerfully plainspoken in the authorʼs needs and desires, yet with an air of crisis. The centrepiece is the song “Portrait of the Young Girl as an Artistˮ which symbolically depicts the sexual smog spreading throughout the album. In the first verse, Hval argues over human limbs and attributes positional and motion characteristics to them:

“Not all limbs have erections Sometimes even you have to decide Which is up and which is down Which travels and which is stationary Which travels to stations and which travels aimlessly And whether desire can perhaps best be described As a train running into a tunnelˮ

Hval suggests that it is essential, in the context of social intercourse, to recognize when and by whom one is perceived as an object of sexual desire. This interpretation can be considered perhaps as a critique of social practices leading to sex. It is at the same time a statement of the existing lust, which is sometimes driven only by the vision of increasing the number of sexual partners, while on the other hand, it is sometimes exclusively driven by the idea of settling down. Nevertheless, the last two lines indicate that despite the fact that satisfaction of sexual desire is often associated with genital sex between male and female, here expressed by “train and tunnelˮ euphemism, the author suggests that this may not always be the only option. The opening song “Engines in the Cityˮ with its lyrics belongs to the most provoking on the album. Thanks to its intimate openness, it is one of the example of explicit expressions of self-satisfaction and it represents a demonstration of independent female sexuality. Hval overthrows the subsided paradigm of conventional expectations 25

of femininity and the female sexual role which both characterize women as passive sexual gatekeepers.30 In the lyrics, the author describes her stopover in the city to which she arrives and in which her sexual life is now taking place, however, in quite limited form:

“I arrived in town With an electric toothbrush Pressed against my clitoris. After a few weeks I run out of batteries, Humming silently between my lips.ˮ

In this verse, the author freely and openly expresses her sexual drive. It would seem quite ironic that in many middle-age cultures, especially in European Christianity, society have seen a woman as someone with a very strong sexual appetite and almost unquenchable eroticism. In the nineteenth century, however, this view changed and female sexuality was expressed only in connection with reproduction. Similarly, even the late human sexuality texts of the twentieth century, in which female sexuality is expressed, are associated more with genitals as reproductive organs and blacklists other female organs predominantly connected with pleasure that had nothing to do with bringing new life into the world. In short, we can observe that in such literature, the foremost purpose of female sexuality was reproduction.31 In colonial times, All kinds of non-reproductive satisfaction (such as solo masturbation, heterosexual fellatio, cunnilingus and anal sex) were under the threat of accusations of sodomy and thus considered as breaking the laws. The subsequent alternation of science and medicine as an authority over religion in the 19th and 20th centuries brought more balance between reproductive and non-reproductive sexuality and almost displaced the earlier stigma.32 In addition, in Victorian England, clitoral orgasms were viewed as nonsexual and regarded as paroxysms. Doctors used vibrators only to cause these paroxysms to

30 See Nicola Curtin , L. Monique Ward , Ann Merriwether & Allison Caruthers, “Femininity Ideology and Sexual Health in Young Women: A focus on Sexual Knowledge, Embodiment, and Agency,ˮ International Journal of Sexual Health 23 (2011): 50. 31 See Mukhopadhyay, Blumenfield, Harper and Gondek, Gender and Sexuality, 3. 32 See Jonathan Branfman and Susan Ekberg Stiritz, “Teaching Menʼs Anal Pleasure: Challenging Gender Norms with “Prostageˮ Education,ˮ American Journal of Sexuality Education 7 (2012): 406. 26

treat hysteria. It was not until the twentieth century that the trend towards womenʼs sexuality changed, but clitoral stimulation was considered lesbian and therefore many women, at least officially, avoided it. Evidence indicates that this misconception was also supported by the scientific authorities together with Sigmund Freud.33 However, “the symbolic and cultural repression of women’s sexuality has persisted and remains deeply embedded in today’s society.ˮ34 In contrast to these observations, Hval is basically trying to do what the second wave feminists have been doing when they “were beginning to demand the right to be sexually active without censure and to find ways to portray women as desiring subjects rather than as objects of desire.ˮ35 In addition to this, within the same sexual framework was also consequential pamphlet The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm (1968) written by Anne Koedt, which publicized the clitoris as the centrality of female sexual excitement, even though contemporary critics state her claims went too far and were inaccurate.36 The authorʼs sexual drive does not quieten down even in the next part of the text, when she likens herself to an agent performing the satisfaction of her sexual desires:

“I am the engine now, I learned how to make that humming sound. Together we make it in the city, Silently brushing against each other.ˮ

Then she also points out that such a method of sexual satisfaction is useful, but only to the extent that one does not expect the participation of emotions:

“We share things, but not language. My humming is alone, My humming is my own.ˮ

33 See Branfman and Stiritz, “Teaching Men's Anal Pleasure,ˮ 406. 34 Laurence Cobbaert, Australian Alcohol Advertising, Gender Stereotypes, and Alcohol-involved Sexual Assault (Adelaide: The University of Adelaide, 2019), 16. 35 Jane Pilcher and Imelda Whelehan, 50 Key Concepts in Gender Studies (Wiltshire: The Cromwell Press Ltd, 2004), 156. 36 See Pilcher and Whelehan, 50 Key Concepts, 157. 27

2 Perfume Genius, the Gender Norms Breaker

“Despite the current influence of the antifemininity mandate, it seems that there have never been so many ways to be a man, or at least to look like one.ˮ - Islam Borinca

Michael Hadreas, performing under the stage name Perfume Genius, is a Seattle singer and songwriter who started his career in 2010 with arrestingly intimate album Learning, including songs such as “Mr. Peterson,ˮ telling the story of a devastating sexual relationship between teenager and his teacher ending in death. His second album Put Your Back N 2 It was in the same dark spirit. On this album, Hadreas suggests topics such as drug addiction and personal wounds caused by struggles for acceptance.

2.1 Display of Queer Stereotypes in “Queenˮ

His more significant breakthrough came in 2014 with the release of the album Too Bright, which achieved a very positive critical acclaim. The most monumental song on the album, which provocatively expresses the authorʼs attitude towards prejudices aimed at gay men, is called “Queen.ˮ This song lyrically captures the stigmas that homosexuals face within society and rejects gay stereotypes. The ʻqueenʼ is a metaphor through which the author ironically expresses the typical features of queers perceived by the public. In the first stanza “Donʼt you know your queen? / Whipped / Heaving / Flower bloom at my feetˮ he describes himself as a person with striking motions, deliberately affected and uttering it with such an effort that makes distinct sound as a sigh of relief. He uses metaphor of flowers to suggest the ease of his walk and to point out the notion of femininity of a queer person which is stereotypically deep-rooted in public. Earlier, homosexuality “was depicted not just as a sexual preference but as gender-inappropriate role behavior, down to gestures and color of clothing. This is apparent in old stereotypes of gay men as ʻeffeminate.ʼ”37

37 Mukhopadhyay, Blumenfield, Harper and Gondek, Gender and Sexuality, 3. 28

Besides, he is taking into account the generalized gender belief system which influences beliefs about homosexuality and peopleʼs expectations about gender associated attributes with regard to masculine and feminine traits. This fact has been argued by Lisa LaMar and Mary Kite in their journal article, saying that “men who are described in stereotypically feminine terms are more likely to be judged homosexual than are men described in stereotypically masculine terms.ˮ38 Therefore, there is a conviction, that gay people cause the violation of traditional gender roles. Sigmund Freud termed it “gender inversion theoryˮ which stated that “gay men are more similar to heterosexual females than they are to heterosexual males, whereas lesbians are more similar to heterosexual males than to heterosexual females.ˮ39 What is also bring into focus are cultural codes embedded in society. One of many examples could be, for instance, doing the dishes. As Donovan states: “There is nothing particularly male or female about doing the dishes. Men engaged in the manliest, riskiest, all-male activities—on whaling ships, in the military, on the frontier—have washed their own cups and plates. However, in married households, women have traditionally ended up with that bit of labor, so there is a lingering cultural association that regards doing the dishes as ʻwomen’s work.ʼˮ40 More expressions insinuating remarks of a stereotypical queer image are to be found later in the lyrics: “Cracked / Peelin' / Riddled with disease.ˮ He mentions the very hostile qualities attributed to gay men such as mental disturbance and the threat of sexually transmitted diseases, for example HIV and AIDS, which became “issues of stigma, discrimination and denial.ˮ41 In contrast to that, “Gleaming / Wrapped in golden leafˮ does not evoke such negative effect but rather provokes the refinement which later changes again by exposing “Rank / Ragged / Skin sewn on sheets.ˮ This line refers to how members of

38 Lisa LaMar and Mary Kite, “Sex Differences in Attitudes Toward Gay Men and Lesbians: A Multidimensional Perspective,ˮ The Journal of Sex Research 35 (2) (1998): 189. 39 Aaron J. Blashill and Kimberly K. Powlishta, “Gay Stereotypes: The Use of Sexual Orientation as a Cue for Gender-Related Attributes,ˮ Sex Roles, 61 (2009): 784. 40 Jack Donovan, No Man's Land: Masculinity Maligned, Reimagined and Misrepresented (Published online: Jack Donovan, 2011), 31. 41 Richard Parker and Peter Aggleton, “HIV- and AIDS-related stigma and discrimination: A conceptual framework and implications for action,ˮ in Culture, Society and Sexuality, ed. Richard Parker and Peter Aggleton (Abingdon: Routledge, 2007), 443. 29

LGBTQA42 community can be also viewed, while being in a row of people fighting for or celebrating their sexuality and legal rights in louche clothing on pride parades. Hadreas goes even further in his provocation when he mentions the topic of homosexuality within military service: “Casing the barracks for an ass to break and harness into the fold.ˮ This line demonstrates the frustration faced by homosexuals in the military. When the “Don't Ask, Don't Tellˮ policy ended in 2011, gays and lesbians serving in the military could openly express their sexuality. Even so, Hadreas points out that this group of people is still under a pressure because of the institutionalized hegemonic masculinity. It is because military service is often viewed as “a masculine pursuit in many culturesˮ43 and it “traditionally looked for “real men” to serve, which presents challenges for women, gays, and anyone who is gender nonconforming.ˮ44 In general, among broader society it is perceived that “armies and their core business, war and violence, are literally and symbolically masculinist practices. Symbolically, the acts of invasion, killing and violation are masculinist.ˮ45 Additionally, the issue of masculinity and homosexuality in military service is also depicted in an African-British movie Moffie, directed by Oliver Hermanus and based on a novel by André Carl van der Merwe. The film takes place in South Africa during the time of apartheid, a system of institutionalized racial segregation. In practice, the countryʼs policy was based on white supremacy and young white boys had to enter military service and defend the border with Communist Angola. It not only deals with another war conflict, but also narrates the story of a boy becoming a man in an alarmingly unhealthy environment. On the basis of the above observations it is understandable and not surprising that homosexuals as a minority in military will under this dogmatised masculinities face the problems Hadreas points out. The explanation can be reflected on the very example of the apartheid which “produced unifying gendered connections which gave South Africa’s white men a set of traits that came to be recognized internationally – physically

42 An acronym for: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender/ Transsexual, Queer/Questioning, and Allied. 43 Matthew F. Kerrigan, “TRANSGENDER DISCRIMINATION IN THE MILITARY: The New Don't Ask, Don't Tell,ˮ Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 18/3 (2012): 505. 44 Kerrigan, “TRANSGENDER DISCRIMINATION IN THE MILITARY,ˮ 505. 45 Ben Wadham, “Armies,ˮ in International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities, ed. Michael Flood, Judith Kegan Gardiner, Bob Pease and Keith Pringle (Abingdon: Taylor & Francis Group, 2007), 24. 30

big, hardy, sporty, tough and intolerant.ˮ46 This led to the intolerance of people inside the barracks, who showed some differences in the institutionalized masculinity or their different sexual orientation. It should also be noted that the song “Queenˮ has a chorus which despite its length is of a great significance. The chorus triumphantly captures the panic among people, when meeting a gay man, by saying: “No family is safe, when I sashay.ˮ The author points out the time when a gay man was “portrayed as some sinister pervert lurking in alleyways, a threat to ‘public morality,’ ‘our children’ and ‘traditional family life.’ˮ47 Hadreas suggests that all the stigmas surrounding people with different sexual orientation, mentioned in the verses of this song, create a fear of danger and outrage, as if it were some spreading disease. It is because “we experience gender and sexuality largely through the prism of the culture or cultures to which we have been exposed and in which we have been raised.ˮ48 Taking into consideration the impact of mass media on sexual minorities, showing them as even evil or corrupt and furthermore excluding the existence of normal,49 the author is certainly aware of how his surroundings perceive him and that his presence makes everyone around him eminently unpleasant. After all, he benefits from this negative energy which gives him the power to make such strong statements.

2.2 The Violation of Heteronormativity in “Foolˮ

The song that follows the “Queenˮ on the album Too Bright is called “Fool.ˮ In essence, Hadreas continues with the idea of stereotypes associated with sexual orientation as in the previous song, but this time he does so in a less intense form. The lyrics of the song can be perceived as a narration of the author with a description of his inner feelings, which he experiences in society influenced by the stereotyping of his sexual identity.

46 Robert Morrell and Penny Morrell, “Men in/and Gender Equality: A Conversation from South Africa,ˮ in Men and Development: Politicising Masculinities, ed. Andrea Cornwall, Jerker Edström and Alan Greig (London: Zed Books, 2011), 113. 47 David Forrest, “‘We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going shopping’: changing gay male identities in contemporary Britain,ˮ in Dislocating masculinity: Comparative ethnographies, ed. Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfarne (London: Routledge, 2005), 99. 48 Mukhopadhyay, Blumenfield, Harper and Gondek, Gender and Sexuality, 2. 49 See Larry Gross, Up From Invisibility: Lesbians, Gay Men and Media in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 16. 31

As the first stanza demonstrates below, the author attributes the characteristics that are perceived as more typical for a woman:

“I made your dress, I laid it out. On the couch you bought, That I picked out.“

When we analyse these lines, we have to consider the fact based on the research on stereotypes of gay men. Such research has continually shown that gay men are expected to be more feminine and less masculine than their heterosexual counterparts and in comparison with them, gay men were seen as less likely to have traditionally masculine physical characteristics, traits, roles, and occupations and more likely to have traditionally feminine physical characteristics, traits, roles, and occupations.50 That is why the relationship in which the author finds himself is under the influence of social beliefs and even without revealing his sexuality, he would immediately be considered as the one who plays the ʻfemale roleʼ because of choosing clothes and picking furniture, whether it is a relationship with a woman or a man. Therefore, the one the author is talking to may be a woman who uses his stereotyped sexual identity to her advantage. In the second verse of the lyrics, the authorʼs awareness of his behaviour increases:

“I titter and coo Like a cartoon. I congratulate you, Then I leave the room.ˮ

He uses words like “titterˮ and “coo,ˮ words bearing more feminine qualities, to express grimaces that serve as expressions of compliments to the person he is talking to. The most important line is the second one, in which he is aware of his comic and rather unnatural behaviour, which is, however, what is stereotypically expected of him. He may act this way in order to adapt to his stigmatized status. Such stigmatized status is a part of people witch same-sex attraction and romantic relationships due to

50 Adam W. Fingerhut and Letitia Anne Peplau, “The Impact of Social Roles on Stereotypes of Gay Men,ˮ Sex Roles 55 (2006): 273. 32

marginalization in most cultures.51 In view of the fact that “a central process of adaptation to stigma is the development of a positive identity as a member of an oppressed group,ˮ52 he tries to present characteristics that would please his female companion. The breaking point comes in the third stanza:

“I made your dress Iʼm bleeding out On the couch you bought That I picked outˮ

This stanza is basically a repetition of the first one, but with one fundamental change in the second line. It reveals the authorʼs pain over the whole situation, and shows the emotions that are hidden behind the poses. However, this is the only hint of exposed inner emotions, as in the next verse he further describes, through grotesque demeanour, his facade he hides behind:

“I do a little move To a giggling flute I preen and I plume Like a buffoonˮ

As is emphasized above, thanks to sarcastic suggestions towards his own behaviour, that he himself is aware of, the lyrics to the song “Foolˮ serves as a metaphor for a gay man facing the challenges of todayʼs society and struggles to get used to the stigmatized status of his sexual identity.

51 See Kimberly F. Balsam and Jonathan J. Mohr, “Adaptation to Sexual Orientation Stigma: A Comparison of Bisexual and Lesbian/Gay Adults,ˮ Journal of Counseling Psychology 54 (3) (2007): 306. 52 Balsam and Mohr, “Adaptation to Sexual Orientation Stigma,ˮ 307. 33

3 Fiona Appleʼs Powerful Language

If we look at the most significant albums of the year 2020, which offer a lively field that thrives on closer examination, they include an album called Fetch the Bolt Cutters by the American songwriter Fiona Apple. She released her first album Tidal in the summer of 1996. At that time, the single “Criminalˮ and its controversial video brought the artist to the forefront of the public. The music video was suggestive and quite cheaply sexual - a path notably avoided by the author afterwards. During her acceptance speech at 1997 MTV Video Music Awards she said goodbye to the world of the mainstream music and show business through statements that harshly criticized it. The great artistic ambition of Fiona Apple is also evidenced by the choice of titles for her albums. The full title of her second album was a 90-word poem, commonly abbreviated to When the Pawn...53 Furthermore, her fourth album was proudly entitled: The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do.

3.1 Metaphors for Lovemaking in “The First Tasteˮ

On her 1996 debut Tidal the author succeeded in putting together erotic, yet very poetic lyrics as to be seen in a song called “The First Taste.ˮ The lyrics offer the comparison of the authorʼs potential lover to a spider and the act of love to a spider attack:

“I lie in an early bed thinking late thoughts Waiting for the black to replace my blue I do not struggle in your web Because it was my aim to get caught But daddy longlegs, I feel That Iʼm finally growing weary Of waiting to be consumed by youˮ

53 The full title is: When the Pawn Hits the Conflicts He Thinks Like a King What He Knows Throws the Blows When He Goes to the Fight and He'll Win the Whole Thing 'fore He Enters the Ring There's No Body to Batter When Your Mind Is Your Might So When You Go Solo, You Hold Your Own Hand and Remember That Depth Is the Greatest of Heights and If You Know Where You Stand, Then You Know Where to Land and If You Fall It Won't Matter, Cuz You'll Know That You're Right 34

The verse reveals the authorʼs strong sexual drive for intimacy with her lover from the very beginning of the day. Her thoughts are fixed on when the darkness finally replaces the blue sky and the night will occur. The night is important here because it sets the natural setting for intimacy and it is also the time when spiders come out of their shelters and begin to chase after the prey. The authorʼs approach in this verse is intentionally submissive when wanting to be a sexual target and the lover to be a predator who hunts her. She expresses her sexual availability by admitting her intention to be voluntarily caught, to be seduced. Apple then likens her lover to a species of spider commonly known as Daddy long-legs spider or Daddy long-legger and expresses a growing weariness while waiting for him to consume her which serves as a metaphor for lovemaking. Interestingly, this interpretation suggests some connection with why the author compares the lover to this certain kind of species. Even though the daddy-long-legsʼ sexual relations are quite sociable as they usually copulate in a face-to-face position,54 according to a legend, it was or still may be believed that these spiders seem to have the most potent venom of all spiders but their fangs, due to its weakness, simply cannot get through the human skin.55 It is reasonable then to conclude that the authorʼs designation is based on a fact that her lover hesitates over being involved in the experience she longs for because she is too much for him to handle.

3.2 The Aftermath of the Sexual Assault on Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Fiona Apple began writing her own music when she was very young in response to a traumatic experience that affected her childhood when she was raped at the age of 12. Consequently, the song like “Sullen Girlˮ on the debut Tidal serves as a testimony of this intimidating event and turns it into poetry. The song explains why Apple has been often seen as being morose and a person having an instant anger within her. She draws on the analogy of the value of a pearl to express the value of her purity. Apple uses this metaphor of a highly treasured gemstone and object of beauty to emphasize the worth of virginity which was taken away from her:

54 See William A. Shear, “Harvestmen: Opiliones - which include daddy-long-legs - are as exotic as they are familiar,ˮ American Scientist 97 (2009), 473. 55 See Shear, “Harvestmen,ˮ 468. 35

“Is that why they call me a sullen girl? They donʼt know how I used to sail the deep and tranquil sea But he washed me ashore And he took my pearl And left an empty shell of meˮ

Even after many years, this theme of a sexual assault is mentioned as well on her latest opus Fetch the Bolt Cutters, but there is a tendency of happy celebrations of recovery rather than mournful recollection. Thanks to this, the lyrics on the album contains one of the strongest formulations of its time in the context of an identity liberation, self-empowerment and freedom of sexuality. The strongest moment on the album, which deals with the unpleasing feelings that the author had to deal with during her life, is captured in the song “Relay.ˮ In the chorus of the song she repeats:

“Evil is a relay sport, when the one whoʼs burned turns to pass the torchˮ

In this line, the author explains that if something bad or evil is done to somebody, it becomes something like a baton, and hatred then spreads if the individual on whom the crime was committed decides to talk about it or do something about it, respectively, to come up and deal with it publicly. Besides, in this song, she also clarifies her hatred of the rapist and blames him for a list of things such as: “I resent you presenting your life like a fucking propaganda brochure.ˮ Despite the fact that the abuser has committed an act that Apple is dealing with and that is afflicting her emotional state, he continues to live his life, presenting himself publicly as innocent and denies his responsibility, thus refuting her avowal. Taking into account gender, the authorʼs anger can be justified by the fact that “the natural aggression of men and the natural reluctance of women somehow make rape understandable [and] underlies a number of prevalent myths about rape and human sexuality.ˮ56 And with regard to these rape myths, defined as “culturally situated and socially learned ideologies that excuse sexual violence against women and advocate that women should accept responsibility for their sexual

56 Lois Pineau, “Date rape: A feminist analysis,ˮ Law and Philosophy 8 (1989): 226. 36

victimization,ˮ57 it is fair to say that women do not have it easy in their fight against violence. For this reason, Apple makes her statements even louder and engaging to make sure she will be heard. Nevertheless, Apple is really trying to build respect and appreciation and does not want to get intimidated by the aftermath which is visible in the song “Heavy Balloon.ˮ It is a metaphor for a difficult situation, a heavy burden that is weighing a personʼs feelings down and which tends to drag her emotionally to the ground. Yet, Apple shows its feminine determination and strength and gives rise to a liberating anthem:

“But you know what? I spread like strawberries I climb like peas and beans Iʼve been sucking it in so long That Iʼm busting at the seamsˮ

The motif of self-empowerment keeps reappearing also throughout the song “Under the Table.ˮ In the stentorian chorus of the song, she refuses to be silent and emphasizes that she will not be someone who submits to whether social conventions or prohibition of expressing her own identity. She confabulates with a frisson of confidence: “Kick me under the table all you want / I wonʼt shut up.ˮ Another song worth mentioning is the title song “Fetch the Bolt Cutters.ˮ The message behind its lyrics is basically about the manifestation of liberation from any type of mental prison that the author has been experiencing for some time.

“Fetch the bolt cutters, Iʼve been in here too long Fetch the bolt cutters, whatever happensˮ

These “bolt cuttersˮ is a metaphor for her determination to break all the locks to get free and with regard to sexuality, be it also discovering a sexual identity and a way how to come up with it publicly. She also suggest that it is about time to face the abuser if necessary. Additionally, the line “I grew up in the shoes they told me I could fillˮ only

57 Michelle E. Deming, Eleanor Krassen Covan, Suzanne C. Swan, and Deborah L. Billings, “Exploring Rape Myths, Gendered Norms, Group Processing, and the Social Context of Rape Among College Women: A Qualitative Analysis,ˮ Violence Against Women 19(4) (2013): 467. 37

proves the authorʼs negative life experience towards social conventions which she is no longer willing to follow.

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4 Anna Calvi, The One Who Goes Beyond Gender

I believe in the female protagonist, who isn’t simply responding to a man’s story. - Anna Calvi

Anna Calvi is a singer and songwriter born in London, where she started playing the violin and guitar as a child. She later studied these two musical instruments at the University of Southampton. Her favourite genres include classical music and opera, along with rock and pop. These genres are also reflected later in her work. Her self- titled debut album Anna Calvi was released in early 2011 and earned the artist a Mercury Prize and Brit Awards nominations. Her second album One Breath was released two years later in 2013. Although, the quality of the second album was affected by the speed of its recording (completed in six weeks), it was only slightly less successful. It has been five years since her second album, when Calvi released her latest musical piece called Hunter. This album is the most significant of her lyrics so far, and even though songs like “Iʼll Be Your Manˮ have appeared in her work before, this time sexual identity and gender are the main thematic focus. On her Instagram account, Calvi said about the album:

“Iʼm hunting for something - I want experiences, I want agency, I want sexual freedom, I want intimacy, I want to feel strong, I want to feel protected and I want to find something beautiful in all the mess. I want to go beyond gender. I don’t want to have to chose between the male and female in me. I’m fighting against feeling an outsider and trying to find a place that feels like home.ˮ58

This contemporary topic, the author deals with in her lyrics, falls under the context of this thesis with its direction to Queer theory, which considers the idea of shifting across sex and gender classification and “celebrates a radical diversity that encourages a free flow of desire without concerns about what sex/gender the object of desire is.ˮ59

58 Anna Calvi (@annacalvi), “Iʼm hunting for something...,ˮ Instagram, June 4, 2018, https://www.instagram.com/p/BjnGpCLBHqb/?taken-by=annacalvi. 59 Mary Holmes, Gender and Everyday Life (Oxon: Routledge, 2009), 121. 39

As will be argued below, Calvi in her lyrics attempts to cause “gender troubleˮ by trying to break down the contradictions between masculine and feminine. This issue is in detail described in a book “Gender Troubleˮ written by Judith Butler in 1990. In her book Butler breaks the boundaries between genders by asserting the idea of femininity and masculinity as being unnatural. Moreover, she does not see femininity and masculinity as mutually exclusive categories.60 In the light of the above suggestions, Calvi on her Instagram post continues:

“I believe that gender is a spectrum. I believe that if we were allowed to be somewhere in the middle, not pushed to the extremes of performed masculinity and femininity, we would all be more free. I want to explore how to be something other than just what Iʼve been assigned to be. I want to explore a more subversive sexuality, which goes further than what is expected of a woman in our patriarchal heteronormative society. I want to repeat the words “girl boy, woman manˮ, over and over, to find the limits of these words, against the vastness of human experience.ˮ61

As has been demonstrated above, the author does not see masculinity and femininity as exclusive identities. She suggests to get rid of conventional view of behaviours associated with only one particular gender. In addition, the author refuses the heteronormative pattern. The term “heteronormativeˮ is known mainly from Michel Foucault and expresses “the often-unnoticed system of rights and privileges that accompany normative sexual choices and family formation.ˮ62 The most common example of such heteronormative pattern is when a biological woman forms a relationship and then also follows to marry a biological man she is attracted to. In this case such woman continues to follow the social expectations associated with gender and sexuality. Furthermore, with formalization of her relationship, she allows the state involvement in her love life.63 Anna Calvi is a gender opportunist. She tries to abandon the old ideas about the sexes with an attempt to find some independent gender label. It may seem that she is for

60 See Holmes, Gender and Everyday Life, 103. 61 Anna Calvi (@annacalvi), “Iʼm hunting for something...,ˮ Instagram, June 4, 2018, https://www.instagram.com/p/BjnGpCLBHqb/?taken-by=annacalvi. 62 Mukhopadhyay, Blumenfield, Harper and Gondek, Gender and Sexuality, 33. 63 See Mukhopadhyay, Blumenfield, Harper and Gondek, Gender and Sexuality, 33. 40

Queer music someone like Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya for Belarus - a liberating personality, with a proper dose of hope of freedom and the Messiah of modern thoughts.

4.1 The Idea of Dislocating Masculinity in “As a Manˮ

The album opener is the song called “As a Manˮ which strikingly sets the tone of the album with its flamboyant exhortation to gender equality. It carries the idea that traditional gender ideology, which includes a strict division into female and male, is just a social construct that stands in a way of a mutual understanding. Besides, the author draws upon the fact that “human sexuality, rather than being simply natural is one of the most culturally significant, shaped, regulated, and symbolic of all human capacities.ˮ64 In the first verse she starts with:

“If I was a man in all but my body Oh would I now understand you completely If I was walking and talking As a manˮ

Calvi asks if having the characteristics typical of men would make her to be able to empathize or better understand someone of the opposite sex. In other words, she tries to decipher whether a change of her behaviour would bring a change in her mind as well. Moreover, she questions if a woman who adopted masculine qualities considered to be ʻmale,ʼ can also think as a male. This suggestion may point out the authorʼs attitude towards masculinity, which corresponds with the idea of dislocating masculinity put down by Cornwall and Lindisfarne. Their theory is that “masculinity appears as an essence or commodity that can be measured, possessed or lost.ˮ65 If we are about to locate what is feminine and what is masculine, we need to bear in mind certain premises, explicit or implicit, that determine the perception of what is masculine and what is feminine. Such perception is caused by social acquisition

64 Mukhopadhyay, Blumenfield, Harper and Gondek, Gender and Sexuality, 1. 65 Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfarne, “Dislocating masculinity: gender, power and anthropology,ˮ in Dislocating masculinity: Comparative ethnographies, ed. Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfarne (London: Routledge, 2005), 12. 41

which is happening on the basis of appropriate attributes, as well as socially learned behaviour or desire, being undoubtedly a part of the idea of masculinity.66 According to these facts, in the second verse of the lyrics, it can be seen that the author perceives the theory that masculinity is tied up with social conventions rather than with biological attributes:

“Oh it is dark And now you will meet me Something has changed I feel it discreetly Oh now I feel now I feel you completely When youʼre not walking and talking As a manˮ

The loss of socially acclaimed characteristics, defining what is masculine and what derives women from men, is an liberating outcome that caused the author to fully understand the opposite sex. Those conventions that divided humans, and at the same time marked them with ʻmasculineʼ and ʻfeminineʼ labels, were something that stood between her and the object to who she is talking to. Also, the verse may suggest that her companion is more emotionally opened, now when he got rid of the masculine poses.

4.2 The Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity in “Alphaˮ

In the same fashion of deleting the differences between genders, there is a song called “Alpha,ˮ in which the author takes on the attributes mostly ascribed to men. On the topic of limitations of gender she said in the interview for The Independent: “I hate the fact that strong words about going into the world and taking what’s yours are so male- gendered.”67 Through the lyrics she makes a claim to be socially dominant and suggests that such domination is not just a male thing:

“Electrified statuette against the high rise I wanna know if I can feel alive

66 See Cornwall and Lindisfarne, “Dislocating masculinity,ˮ 12. 67 Alexandra Pollard, “Anna Calvi: ‘Being queer isn’t the new counter-culture. We’re talking about life and death’ˮ, 2019, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/anna-calvi- mercury-prize-sexuality-interview-trump-shortlist-hunter-album-a9110856.html

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I wanna know cause Iʼm an alpha I divide and conquerˮ

As is suggested, the lyrics are a demonstration of masculinities the author performs and at the same time denies them as only a male privilege. Within the lyrics she creates her own alternative masculinity. With performing such dominant masculinity there is also connected the idea of a concept of hegemonic masculinity. In gender relations, hegemonic masculinity is considered to be on top of social hierarchy and represents the normative type.68 Such type is predominantly represented by “heterosexuality, economic autonomy and professional success, emotional restraint (stoicism), rationality, and the avoidance of any behaviour considered ‘feminine.’ˮ69 However, Calvi feels like she can also become an ʻalphaʼ and make a profit from performing hegemonic masculinity because it “does not resemble an actual type of man. It is rather a discursive practice, which implies that someone can perform it at one moment, whereas at another moment the same person does not.ˮ70 Such playing with genders is not uncommon in contemporary lyrics, and female authors often identify themselves with the male gender. We can easily observe this tendency for example in the song written by Jehnny Beth for her latest album To Love Is To Live called simply “Iʼm the Man.ˮ With its more evocative lyrics, rather than descriptive or narrative, she can pungently capture the messiness, contradictions and even ugliness of life, including also the usage of obscene language.71 The author said that the song is:

“an attempted study on humankind, what we define as evil and the inner conflict of morality, because it is much easier to label the people who are clearly tormented by obsessions as monsters than to discern the universal human background that is visible behind them. However, this song has not even a remote

68 See Max Baoshi Christiaan de Blank, “Because it's 2015: Feminism, Male Politicians, and Subversions and Reproductions of Hegemonic Masculinity,ˮ (Nijmegen: Radboud University, 2017), 9. 69 Cobbaert, Australian Alcohol Advertising, 19. 70 De Blank, “Because it's 2015,ˮ 9. 71 See Olivia Horn, “TO LOVE IS TO LIVE by Jehnny Beth Reviewˮ, June 16, 2020, https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/jehnny-beth-to-love-is-to-live/. 43

connection with a sociological study, collective psychology, or present politics. It is a poetic work first and foremost. Its aim is to make you feel, not think.”72

Another example of a female author writing lyrics from a male perspective is a song called “Manˮ written by American singer/songwriter Neko Case for her Grammy nominated album with a poetic title The Worse Things Get, The Harder I Fight, The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You. The lyrics are a great reflection of the authorʼs own belief that gender identity is not just a matter of sex:

“Iʼm a man Thatʼs what you raised me to be Iʼm not an identity crisis This was plannedˮ

This verse offers the authorʼs completely liberal approach to gender identity and admits her intention in choosing gender roles. Besides, she confirms this idea in the interview with Robin Hilton:

“I donʼt really think of myself specifically as a woman, you know? Iʼm kind of a critter. Iʼm an animal. Everyoneʼs an animal. And I find Iʼm much happier and well-balanced if I think of myself that way because you know, Iʼm a straight white female or whatever at the gynecologist, but the rest of the time, you know, I feel pretty all over the place. [...] Iʼm probably a little imbalanced in that if you were to look at a human creature as kind of a vase or something my glass is a little bit more full of the man stuff, than the woman stuff.ˮ73

In another song called “Night Still Comesˮ Case also comments on her attitude towards gender division by expressing her rather negative experience and mistrust in the line: “Did they poison my food? Is it ʼcause Iʼm a girl? / If I puked up some sonnets, would you call me a miracle?ˮ She indicates the fact that being a woman has a certain disadvantageous effect on her position in society and that as a woman she has to try harder to achieve some recognition.

72 Emily Zemler, “See Jehnny Beth Hit the Streets in ‘I’m the Man’ Video,ˮ December 3, 2019, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/jehnny-beth-im-the-man-video-920891/ 73 Robin Hilton, “ʻThe Worse Things Getʼ: Life Lessons From Neko Case,ˮ August 29, 2013, https://www.npr.org/sections/allsongs/2013/08/29/216800848/neko-case-opens-up-about-latest-album

44

Following the examples above, Neko Case keeps challenging gender conceptions also in the song called “Iʼm From Nowhere:ˮ

“I was surprised When you called me a lady ʼCause Iʼm still not so sure if thatʼs what I wanna be ʼCause I remember the 80s And I remember its puffy sleeves You say Iʼm lucky to be here Then maybe you can take this over And Iʼll gladly wear the pants into the next century Past the scanners with easeˮ

The author is aware of the meaning and value of the term “ladyˮ perceived in society and the expected attributes associated with certain behaviour, which she herself voluntarily refuses to accept. We can also note the liberating statement by which Case underlines the progress on gender stereotypes. By wearing pants, which were previously taken as an expression of masculinity, she expresses the change that took place at the turn of the century, and this allows her to proudly style herself in whatever clothes she wants. The last line is a reference to the doubts that can arouse in people when looking at her appearance. As if telling those who have these doubts, that looking at her body through an X-ray scanner while passing through an airport checking, the images reveal that everything concerning her sex is as it should be. The battle between biology and gender identity is captured also in a song “Just One of the Guysˮ by Las Vegas based singer-songwriter Jenny Lewis from the album The Voyager released in 2014. In her lyrics she states:

“No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys Thereʼs a little something inside that wonʼt let me No matter how hard I try to have an open mind Thereʼs a little voice inside that prevents meˮ

Here, Lewis captures her lifelong effort to socially compete with men, and thus benefit from their social status. Despite her exertion, there is always something that interfere with her expenditure. This little something may be a metaphor for her inner awareness, 45

that despite all the benefits men can have, her own identity is so valuable to her that she is unable to get rid of it completely. As has been demonstrated above, the authors of the lyrics in which they try to express their inner masculinities, basically point to the hierarchy that organizes gender roles. For them, being masculine offers a new opportunity to interpret their sexuality as well as gender identity and, especially, contributes to gender equality.

4.3 Hybrid Masculinities in “Donʼt Beat the Girl Out of My Boyˮ

“Donʼt Beat the Girl Out of My Boyˮ is a song that carries the foremost straightforward massage directly in its title. The title is taken from the refrain of the lyrics and in it Calvi refers to the feminine side of her male companion which is often in disagreement with the external environment due to conflicting social conventions. The author says that “it’s really difficult when we have a culture that just keeps on reinforcing these stereotypes that actually don’t have any relation to any real people.ˮ74 Her experience is based on gender stereotypes that consider men and women as opposite correlative puzzle pieces with clearly defined predispositions in behaviour and appearance (i.e., strong/weak, dominant/submissive, aggressive/nurturing, stoic/emotional, sex subject/sex object) and also designed for one and only sexual destiny.75 Additionally, with gender stereotypes, particularly femininity and masculinity, are also connected social “expectations of appropriate and acceptable thoughts, feelings, professions, clothing, physical appearances, activities, and behaviours.ˮ76 These expectations are called gender norms and are defined as “a set of culturally prescribed rules or ideas about how each gender should behave.ˮ77 Because “femininity and masculinity have been discursively created as each other’s direct opposites and therefore the two can only exist in relation to each other,ˮ78 the authorʼs main idea is therefore to touch upon the hybrid masculinities which “refers to men’s selective incorporation of performances and identity elements associated with

74 Zoë Radas, “An interview with Anna Calvi,ˮ 2018, https://stack.com.au/music/music-interview/an- interview-with-anna-calvi/ 75 See Branfman and Stiritz, “Teaching Menʼs Anal Pleasure,ˮ 415-17. 76 Cobbaert, Australian Alcohol Advertising, 12. 77 Cobbaert, Australian Alcohol Advertising, 11. 78 De Blank, Reproductions of Hegemonic Masculinity, 6. 46

marginalized and subordinated masculinities and femininities.ˮ79 She leaves an open space for her boy to decide what identity elements he wants to accomplish more and which less. As a result, the boy challenges the social boundaries between what is considered to be masculine versus feminine. Furthermore, the boy challenges also the distinction between what is regarded as gay versus straight. Evidence indicates that “feminine males and masculine females are often assumed to be gay and that gay men and lesbians are generally believed to possess cross-gendered attributes.ˮ80 His feminine side breaks the stereotypical rules of masculinity and he is conveniently viewed as being gay.81 Consequently, he meets with “anti-gay attitudes [that] may be at least partially driven by negative reactions to [his] gender atypicality.ˮ82 As has been proposed by researchers studying discrimination against gays and lesbians, the anti-gay attitude does not only exist because of their sexual orientation, but also due to the negative perception of the violation of traditional gender roles.83 Because of diverseness in traditional masculine stereotypes, “both homosexual and unconventional heterosexual men and boys are often direct targets of anger and anxiety related to the gendered social practices of men.ˮ84 That is the reason of Calviʼs persistent insistence on neutralizing aggression towards her male companion. Alternatively, in the third stanza “Youʼre so fine / In our wanderlust we ride / Weʼre so wild / Like the darkest waves at nightˮ she suggests to appreciate the qualities that makes him a pleasant comrade, rather than looking on his gender attributes. Calviʼs protagonist can as well meet with the fear of being considered gay when performing hybrid masculinities and that can cause the unnatural suppression of such. It should be noted, that in their article on hybrid masculinities, Bridges and Pascoe mention Eric Andersonʼs term homohysteria, which is described as a fear of being homosexualized. It takes into account three considerations: “popular awareness of gay identity, cultural disapproval of homosexuality, and the cultural association of masculinity with heterosexuality.ˮ85 Anderson further argues that with the growing

79 Tristan Bridges and C. J. Pascoe, “Hybrid Masculinities: New Directions in the Sociology of Men and Masculinities,ˮ Sociology Compass 8/3 (2014): 246. 80 Blashill and Powlishta, “Gay Stereotypes,ˮ 783. 81 See Branfman and Ekberg Stiritz, “Challenging Gender Norms,ˮ 417. 82 Blashill and Powlishta, “Gay Stereotypes,ˮ 783. 83 Blashill and Powlishta, “Gay Stereotypes,ˮ 783. 84 Stephen Tomsen, “Masculinity and Homophobic Violance in Australiaʼs Recent Past,ˮ Sexuality & Culture 21(3) (2017): 816. 85 Bridges and Pascoe, “Hybrid Masculinities,ˮ 248. 47

awareness of gay identity, the negative reaction to it is declining, as is the association of masculinity connected only with heterosexuality. With the exception of compulsory masculinity, contemporary masculinities are represented by an increasing degree of equality and a tendency towards a more balanced hierarchy.86 Branfman and Stiritz in their article suggest that “European and American cultures historically define masculinity as “the repudiation of femininity” and the inverse of “feminine” traits like weakness, dependence, and emotionality.ˮ87 However, the rules of masculinity are changing and evolving along with social and cultural changes in society. We can notice the most significant contrasts in the perception of masculinity during the reign of the King Louis XIV in France. In this era “masculinity required a starched wig, red lipstick, and shapely legs. Boys were once expected to dote on the color pink and shun blue.ˮ88 Similarly, there is also the ʻnew sensitive manʼ that became to be popular in 1970s and was intelligent, passionate and culturally oriented. Later, between 1980 and 2000 during the Reagan–Thatcher era, this ideal model of masculinity was replaced by the idea of a man with traditionally assertive, dominant and to some extent misogynistic attitude. The perception of masculinity inextricably reflects the social and cultural changes that may, as a consequence, lead to the violation based on its differences.89 From these facts it can be assumed that, for instance, wearing make-up and to dress in pink colours (pink turned to be considered as feminine in 1940s)90 are nowadays the things that would cause the violation of the current stereotypes of masculinity and led to the possibility of a physical attack that Calvi in her lyrics refers to. However, there is also and evidence of a current shift in traditional gender stereotypes that challenges them but at the same time does not cause their violation. It can be found in the Kristen Barberʼs study91 that examines heterosexual hairdressers working in professional men’s hair salons, focusing on their distance from feminization and approach to masculinity in a profession formerly coded as feminine. She discovered

86 See Bridges and Pascoe, “Hybrid Masculinities,ˮ 248. 87 Branfman and Ekberg Stiritz, “Challenging Gender Norms,ˮ 416. 88 Jeffery P. Dennis, “Men, Masculinities, and the Cave Man,ˮ in The Handbook of Gender, Sex and Media, ed. Karen Ross (West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2012), 109-110. 89 See Dennis, “Men, Masculinities, and the Cave Man,ˮ 110. 90 See Dennis, “Men, Masculinities, and the Cave Man,ˮ 110. 91 See Kristen Barber, “The Well-Coiffed Man: Class, Race, and Heterosexual Masculinity in the Hair Salon,ˮ Gender & Society 22(4) (2008): 455-76. 48

that “these men rely on a rhetoric of expectations associated with professional-class masculinities to justify their participation in the beauty industry while simultaneously naturalizing distinctions between themselves and working-class men, framing the latter as misogynistic and reproducing gender inequality.ˮ92 Thanks to this fact, these men are not in most cases subject of an attack by other men because of the violation of traditional gender roles, rather, they are often seen as a good company to spent some time with. They create masculine-friendly environment in their barber shops with serving whiskey on the rocks or having a punching bag hanging from the ceiling. As well as that, Michael Messner conducted an analysis studying the transformations of masculinity among American men with regard to their emotional expressions. He views these changes, for example, in “men’s increasing involvement as parents, and an increase in the number of high-status men crying in public.ˮ93 Even though masculinity “tends also to become a (gender) “thing” which we have learned, understood, imported, conveyed, [and] tried to change,ˮ94 these shifts in stereotypical perception of masculinities help to eliminate the potential aggression towards men performing gender differences and serve as a satisfaction for Calviʼs demands.

4.4 “Swimming Poolˮ as a Potential Setting For Voyeurism

The symbolical ne plus ultra of the album is the lyrics to the dreamlike song “Swimming Poolˮ extensively inspired by works of the English painter David Hockney. He made multitudinous paintings of swimming pools after he moved to California and discovered a secret passion in them. For him, a swimming pool was a place that provided him a space for explicit desire. Besides, in his paintings called “Peter Getting Out of Nickʼs Poolˮ and “Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)ˮ - both achieved an iconic status - he uses swimming pools as a potential setting for voyeurism.95 Anna Calvi said about this inspiration: “I really love the way he depicted his desire for men –

92 Bridges and Pascoe, “Hybrid Masculinities,ˮ 251. 93 Bridges and Pascoe, “Hybrid Masculinities,ˮ 248. 94 Maria Stern and Marysia Zalewski, “Feminist fatigue(s): reflections on feminism and familiar fables of militarisation,ˮ Review of International Studies 35(3) (2009): 619. 95 See Brodie Lancaster, “Hunted by Anna Calvi Reviewˮ, 2020, https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/anna-calvi-hunted/ 49

completely unshamefully [...] It’s just about his pleasure and his enjoyment, and I found that really beautiful.ˮ96 As will be argued below, it serves as imagery lyrics and offers the same dose of imagination and elusive mystery as, for example, one of the most important imagist poems ever written - The Pool by Hilda Doolittle. The swimming pool is a metaphor which, the same as with Hockney, expresses a place where all her passions are concentrated. Calvi tries to put this visualisation in her lyrics and forms a picture made from words:

“Waves of desire Waves of desire on the earth Come down to the swimming poolˮ

In this verse, for the purposes of imagery, there is the usage of anaphora to create emphasis on what is happening in the swimming pool. It symbolizes the force of desires surrounding the author and comes to her like waves, one after the other, in repetitive sequences. All her desires are now compressed into the area of her imaginary pool. The usage of anaphora continues to be effective, for the purpose of rhythm and cadence, also in the next verse. In particular, the repetition of the word “downˮ emphasizes the activity of falling or jumping into the water, and then the sinking that follows, down deeper to the bottom due to the weight of her own body:

“Shadows of light Shadows divide on the earth Come down to the swimming pool Down we will dive Down to the night of the earth Come down to the swimming poolˮ

Just as water reflects the rays of sunlight and casts shadows, so does the authorʼs desire in a figurative sense. In the swimming pool environment, the same rules do not apply as on the earth. She is aware of the fact that her desires are judged among people and divided within interpersonal context into good and bad from the moral point of

96 Radas, “An interview with Anna Calviˮ. 50

view. In this case, the swimming pool again serves as a sanctuary, where all desires are in balance. It also suggests that if her companion pursues these desires and follows her into the pool, they will be immersed together in the deepness of their satisfaction. As critic Brodie Lancester says: “Her swimming pool wasn’t vivid and clear like Hockney’s, but a shadowy and eerie space where desire could be contained.ˮ97

4.5 Gender Policing in “Edenˮ

“Edenˮ is the closing song on the album Hunter, which with its rhyming lyrics and remarkable leitmotif, dignifiedly closes the sinuous way towards Calviʼs melioristic attempt at gender and sexual equality. It demonstrates contemporary issues of a queer love through a combination of modern elements with biblical dogmas and thus displays the incorporation of the ordinary into a mysterious intimacy. As will be argued below, the lyrics refer to a biblical theme of the Edenic story from The Book of Genesis, the story of Adam and Eve. The Garden story and its key elements are widely acknowledged as well as the interpretation that describes it as the story of the Fall. Adam and Eve took a part in a great sin in which sexuality, temptation and the desire for knowledge played its role, and eventually it resulted in exile from this kind of a paradise. In fact, “the Garden story in Genesis teaches about humanity’s forfeiture of an ideal relationship with God and about the origins of sexuality and lust in acts of disobedience and rebellion against him.ˮ98 It should be noted, that because Adam is in the Bible the representative of masculinity, which was originally believed to be the result of a cosmic orgasm, and Eve is the embodiment of the femininity that was the recipient of this action, the story “has historically been taken to endorse male normativity, especially in sexuality.ˮ99 It means, that “Adam is the normative sexual being to whom Eve is subordinate. This, in turn, has helped to shaped gender attitudes for the Western religious tradition.ˮ100 In addition, this biblical story is also an evidence of a normative relationship, that is, a relationship between different-sex couples. To be more specific, “the normative standard that evolved over the course of human history

97 Lancaster, “Hunter by Anna Calvi Reviewˮ. 98 Ziony Zevit, What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 3. 99 Jerome Gellman, “Gender and Sexuality in the Garden of Eden,ˮ Theology & Sexuality 12(3) (2006): 320. 100 Gellman, “Gender and Sexuality in Eden,ˮ 320. 51

across cultures has been the ideal of two individuals of different binary cisgender identities, namely male and female.ˮ101 Following the theme of the original story, Anna Calvi builds a new one which is adapted to a contemporary issue of non-normative relationship and its problematic explicitness of sexuality within society. Her “Edenˮ is a story of a queer love; the love that remains hidden due to fears of confrontation with the outside world; the love, which is like a forbidden fruit, told not to draw from its qualities, but at the same time it is the only option how to break free. As with the metaphor of a pool in the lyrics to the song “Swimming Pool,ˮ the Garden of Eden is another one through which the author expresses the place that has a special meaning in connection to her sexuality. The lyrics tell the story of a relationship between the author and her lover, which they, for some reasons, try to keep in secret:

“I tell a lie Iʼm a needle in the heart Youʼre a shadow in the dark In a woodchip house In the garden we hide With our shoes untiedˮ

In the first verse, the author introduces us to her problematic relationship. She admits to concealing her romance, hiding it behind made up stories and causing pain to her relatives that resembles the pain of stabbing a needle into a heart. She can cause such pain to her relatives because she knows that her love affair will never be approved by people around her and to publicly come up with it will cause even more destruction. Her romance has aspects of something forbidden, her lover only shows up at night, in a place that gives them sufficient privacy. The last line of this stanza also indicates certain intimacy between those two, that involves taking at least some of their clothes off. The chorus of the lyrics brings a certain escalating moment of their intimacy that crashes into tragic reality happening in ʻEden:ʼ

“The storm rising up

101 Phillip L. Hammack, David M. Frost and Sam D. Hughes, “Queer intimacies: A new paradigm for the study of relationship diversity,ˮ The Journal of Sex Research 56(4-5) (2019): 563. 52

Our hair tangled up My words are tangled up The home weʼre thinking of Weʼll fall soon enough Weʼll fall through the groundˮ

The chorus signifies that there is something in the air, the social as well as the sexual tension of their relationship continues to escalate, and the gathering storm clouds over their ʻgardenʼ predict a forthcoming crisis. They have a vision of a common future, but there is a catch, something that will cause their mutual plan to collapse. As in the story of the Garden of Eden, due to their sin, Adam and Eve became the creatures of the Fall. Calvi in the last two lines mentions the forthcoming fall which refers to the fear of a failure of a relationship that usually comes to jeopardize oneʼs fortune after several successful rendezvous. To clarify, according to the biblical story, when Adam and Eve were harshly punished after their sin, they were exiled and had to leave the utopian Garden, they went to the world that we now live in. It means they knew there would never be anything as good as what they could have had, because they felt there was something inherently wrong with them. They have become fallen creatures.102 This interpretation offers Calvi a space to adapt her romance into the utopian environment, which, after its revelation, undergoes an irreversible change and, due to the romanceʼs nature, evokes in her an impression of a guilt. There is a simple explanation of why a romance between same-sex partners brings into their lives so much fear about its revelation. This is due to stereotypes about the intimacy of sexual minorities which suppress their relationships. For this reason, “the lack of full public support for equal relationship recognition, which remains the case even in countries with legal equality, illustrates that society constructs same-sex relationships as lesser than different-sex relationships not just on a political or legal level but on a moral level as well.ˮ103 The authorʼs desire for a lifestyle that includes things that are common to normative relationships, such as a common home and family, is overshadowed by the fear of revealing her relationship which is perceived by society as negative. She might even meet with stigmatization that sexual minorities in same-sex

102 See Zevit, What Happened in Eden, 3. 103 Hammack, Frost and Hughes, “Queer intimacies,ˮ 562. 53

relationships experience on an interpersonal level. It includes not being accepted and being misunderstood by their family and other people in their lives.104 To demonstrate, Rhea Ashley Hoskin in her research on experiences of discrimination among sexual and gender minorities presents a statement put down by one of the participants:

“I feel accepted by mainstream culture but not included. They accept me because they perceive me as one of them, but I know Iʼm not one of them and often donʼt feel like I relate well to non-queer people. (Becky)ˮ105

What can be observed here is that the participant as well as the author of the lyrics became a victims of what is described as gender policing. This term relates to “the regulation and enforcement of gender norms that target an individual who is perceived as transgressing normative rules or the heterosexual matrix.ˮ106 Such matrix considers certain coextensive features, attributes, embodiments or desires assigned to specific gender, and according to them, it can shape a picture of what is reckon as belonging to a particular gender. The heterosexual matrix has an immediate influence on what is perceived as dichotomy between heterosexuality and homosexuality and it threatens the quality of non-heterosexual relationships and also deepens gender and sexual inequality.107 The lyrics end up with two closing lines repeating a phrase: “Eden night.ˮ In this case, the closing line does not emphasize the place as much as the certain activity that is happening in that place. Eden night is the night when a reversal will occur; it is a night that will change everything and will make the lovers the two disgraced individuals who could not stand firmly behind their sexual identity. As if it was their sin to hide their sexuality behind the conventions of society. Altogether, Anna Calvi calls for changes in paradigm of human relationships. She expresses the need for “paradigm that is not allied with hegemonic discourses of intimacy that have historically privileged certain

104 See Hammack, Frost and Hughes, “Queer intimacies,ˮ 562. 105 Rhea Ashley Hoskin, “Femmephobia: The Role of Anti-Femininity and Gender Policing in LGBTQ+ Peopleʼs Experiences of Discrimination,ˮ Sex Roles 81 (2019): 698. 106 Hoskin, “Femmephobia,ˮ 687-688. 107 See Hoskin, “Femmephobia,ˮ 688. 54

relational forms (e.g., heterosexuality, monogamy).ˮ108 The meaning that lies behind the song “Edenˮ considers the idea of the more unrestrained pattern for perceiving diversity in human relationships.

108 See Hammack, Frost and Hughes, “Queer intimacies,ˮ 583. 55

5 Magnetic Presence of FKA Twigs

Half of my life, Iʼve had people staring at me because they think Iʼm funny-looking and ugly. The other half of my life, Iʼve had people staring at me because they think Iʼm fascinating. Everything neutralises. - FKA twigs

Tahliah Debrett Barnett, known under her stage name as FKA twigs, is a British singer, songwriter, dancer and producer. In 2012 and 2013, she released two extended plays called simply EP1 and EP2. Her first studio album LP1 was subsequently released in 2014, and the singer received the worldwide positive attention of music critics and became one of the most extraordinary artists of the United Kingdom. In the centre of attention was the leading single “Two Weeksˮ which is, as Pitchfork review contributor Patric Fallon describes it, “a commanding blast of raw sexual power.ˮ109 In addition, the closing song “Kicksˮ celebrated sexual independence and self-satisfaction all wrapped in sensual melody. She continued in the light of this success even in 2019, when her second studio album called MAGDALENE was released. The most important lyrics from the album will be explored in the following chapters.

5.1 Celebration of Femininity in Religious Context on MAGDALENE

The inspiration behind the theme of the album MAGDALENE resides in the story of one of the most popular Biblical figure - Mary Magdalene. She was the embodiment of female sexuality and thus earned the title of a sinful woman. For a long time it was believed that she was a prostitute but despite all the controversy, she is considered to be a saint by Catholics. This faithful follower of Jesus has become one of the most misunderstood figures in the New Testament, and perhaps FKA twigs, also often misapprehended, feels a similar connection with her in a present world. There is a song called straightforwardly “mary magdaleneˮ in which the author personifies herself into this Biblical persona. The verses of the song are a celebration of femininity by describing womenʼs virtues. It can be most significantly seen in the lines:

109 Patric Fallon, “Two Weeks by FKA twigs Review,ˮ 2020, https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/16971- twigs-two-weeks/. 56

“A womanʼs touch, a sacred geometryˮ or “A womanʼs hands, so dark and provocative.ˮ This almost enigmatic description of the womanʼs attributes evokes the power that emanates from them. The author considers the womanʼs touch as the important mechanism and even though it can be kind, nursing and healing, it can also be mistaken for a poisonous, indecent act of sexual matters and therefore damages the image of womanʼs holiness. In the chorus of the song, she refers to her true nature, being a woman with a natural sexual desire, and equally as Mary Magdalene, being a target of sexual oppression for who she is:

“Iʼm fever for the fire True as Mary Magdalene Creature of desire Come just a little bit closer till we collideˮ

Mary Magdalene was victimized for just being in close touch with Jesus and because of being a woman. As a consequence of this reasons, it resulted in a social exile and acceptation of a stigmatized status. The author here in the very last line of the example above calls for another collision, which stands here as a metaphor bearing a sexual content, this time free from social prejudice. Additionally, an uncertainty about the womanʼs holiness, being discussed above, is also delivered in the song called “holy tarrain.ˮ In this song, the author narrates the story of an early stage of her relationship and shows certain scepticism about her loverʼs devotion which can put her sexuality in danger:

“Will you still be there for me, now Iʼm yours to obtain? Now my fruits are for taking and your fingers are stained? Do you still think Iʼm beautiful, when you light me in flames?ˮ

The author expresses the attitude of doubt concerning decrease in sexual desire of her partner after their first sexual experience, and the impact it has on their relationship. The author uses metaphor of fruits as a symbol of sexual organs and signifies her sexual accessibility which her partner already benefits from. In the third line, the fear of being rejected and forsaken due to fading sexual desire of her partner resonates through authorʼs mind. 57

In fact, present research indicates the decline in desires occurs even in the loving relationships and may differ according to gender.110 The early stage of a relationship is marked by high sexual drive and desire which both serve as a motivational factor for intimate connection.111 Nevertheless, in advanced stages of the relationship the ambition for mutual intimacy is lowered and both partners experience decrease of sexual desire. This change is a result of a relationship development from a passionate love stage to a companionate love stage. The first stage is rather oversexed with high level of sexual contentment, whereas the second shows more concentration on a friendship and tenderness and less on eroticism.112 Of interest is that relative to men, this discrepancy of sexual desire is more often experienced by women. To conclude, from the point of view of the present research, this suggests that the author should be more concerned for leaving her partner first rather than being left alone by him. However, the key to her long-term relationship is the infinity of her love she is offering to her partner, the one who will celebrate the womanʼs individuality, as stated in the line: “My love is so bountiful for a man who can follow his heart [...] and stand up in my holy tarrain.ˮ

5.2 Self-discovering in “daybedˮ

The number eight on the album MAGDALENE is the peaceful ballad called “daybed.ˮ This song is similar to the song “Kicksˮ from FKA twigʼs first album LP1. “Kicksˮ is overall very erotic in every aspect of it and it refers to sexual self-discovering and gaining all the potential from a loverʼs separation. In it, the author searches for an answer to her lonesomeness, asking “Tell me what do I do when youʼre not here? I get my kicks like you.ˮ The song “daybedˮ is comparable with “Kicksˮ because they both share the same theme which relates to the emotional state the author finds herself in when being alone and isolated from her lover. The concept of the lyrics is mainly based on a frequent use of juxtapositions as being visible in the opening lines “Silent are my heart strings / Icy is my body heatˮ where she introduces the calm atmosphere that resonates

110 See Moor, Haimov and Shreiber, “When Desire Fades,ˮ 161. 111 See Sarah H. Murray and Robin R. Milhausen, “Sexual Desire and Relationship Duration in Young Men and Woman,ˮ Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 38 (2012): 28. 112 See Murray and Milhausen, “Sexual Desire,ˮ 29. 58

throughout the whole song. In her stillness the author then continues with the journey by zooming on different senses and activities that represents her feelings. To clarify, the concept of the lyrics shares very similar tone of piece versus concern with the poem “Tulipsˮ by American poet Sylvia Plath. To compare those two texts, Plath spends her time on a hospital bed and her only ambition is “To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty,ˮ113 while FKA twigs is trapped in her daybed but still finding ways how to make it through. The escape from the emotional tension and a response to a state of peacefulness offers the second verse where the author states:

“Lower is my ceiling, Pressing are my feelings. Active are my fingers, Faux my cunnilingus. Dirty are my dishes, Many are my wishes. Fearless are my cacti, Friendly are the fruit flies.ˮ

In the very first lines of this extract above, the author refers to the effects of isolation through the feeling of lowering ceiling and causing depression. Subsequently, there is a moment that protects the author from falling into disturbing mental devastation and it is when she starts to pretend to have a sexual experience with her lover. After having this sexual fantasy, she had found such peace, that everything around her seemed friendly and calm. Her daybed pulled her down and forced her to rest. Now she cares more about her desires and wants instead of being concerned for housework duties or simply whether her dishes are clean. On top of that, she does not care about the flora (and also the insects) around her any longer. Tulips were for Plath cruel and nightmarish memento of the world she wanted to escape but for FKA twigs the cacti remind her of bravery and give her some new positive energy to be fearless just like them, because that is what they are and what they represent - not being afraid of death despite the isolation and confinement of the one who waters them.

113 Sylvia Plath, “Tulips,ˮ Collected Poems, ed. Ted Hughes (Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1981), 161. 59

Conclusion

The aim of this master’s thesis explored the representation of sexuality in contemporary lyrics in the context of feminism, gender and queer studies. The major attention was paid to erotic motifs used on metaphorical and symbolical levels that reflect the issues associated with human sexuality and gender the authors refer to. Except the introductory chapter, each chapter dealt with one selected author and the phenomenon that was linked with or referred to human sexuality. Opening with Jenny Hval, the main focus was on her 2016 Blood Bitch, the album which contained theme of female vampirism intertwined with inseparable bound to human sexuality. The author sets her passion into the imaginative world of vampires lusting for human blood in order to unveil her own sexual desire which she sometimes does not know how to manage or handle in a way that would seem appropriate for others. As Hval suggests, sexuality and lust are sometimes, despite of their natural essence, perceived inaccurately within the culture and the person who yield to them is seen as an intruder, a vampire. The concept of vampirism is closely linked with the representation of menstruation. As has been discovered, the author uses several euphemisms but also more straightforward expressions of this topic. Altogether, with this album Hval stands at the cutting edge of a menstrual activism and breaks the menstruation taboo, moreover, by refusing the stigma surrounding menstruation, she makes a breakthrough in contemporary lyrics. Hvalʼs next album Apocalypse, Girl demonstrates how are gender roles deeply ingrained in society and shaped by culture. Apart from her critical attitude towards stereotypical idea of partnering and domestication, Hval also struggles with sexual desire discrepancy. Apocalypse, Girl is an album which projects the suffering of a woman living in 21st century, when trying to understand preconceptions and conventions of the modern culture she lives in. It is a battle between deciding how she wants to live and how society wants her to live. The next chapter features Michael Hadreas who is standing behind the project called Perfume Genius and songs from his album Too Bright. In the songs “Queenˮ and “Foolˮ he expresses the attitude towards gay prejudices and stereotypes by capturing the homosexual stigma. Evidence indicated the authorʼs concern about cultural codes, as 60

well as the impact of institutionalized masculinity on people with different sexual orientation, causing what is thought as violation of gender roles. The analysis of Fiona Appleʼs lyrics opened with the song “The First Tasteˮ which contains erotic context and shows the authorʼs sexual drive for intimacy. Further reflection indicated rather submissive approach to sexual experience which significantly differs from the Fetch the Bolt Cutters, where she reminisces the fragments of a sexual assault and rebelliously puts them together on her way to emotional recovery and self- empowerment. In the fifth chapter, the focus shifted to Anna Calvi and her album Hunter. The analysis of this album brought several findings in different concepts connected to sexual identity. It pointed out, the author does not see masculinity and femininity as mutually exclusive categories. On the basis of this fact, I closely examined different discourses within different songs on the album. The author referred to dislocation of masculinity as she sees it as a social construct that stands in a way of mutual understanding. The album further reflected the issue of hegemonic masculinity, considered to be on top of social hierarchy as a normative type in gender relations discourse. Calvi challenged the dominant masculinity and male privilege and proposed her own alternative. Her position is closely related to the matter of hybrid masculinities which challenge social boundaries between what is considered to be feminine and masculine. The songwriter also reflected the struggle of non-normative relationships and stereotypes about the intimacy of sexual minorities through the metaphor of Garden of Eden. These observations suggest the issue of gender policing the author is concerned about and calls for a change in paradigm of human relationships. Last but not least the analysis discussed the view on a swimming pool as a place of desire and a potential setting for voyeurism. In the last chapter the analysis concentrated on the lyrics from the album MAGDALENE written by the British author known as FKA twigs. As a result, it revealed a meaning of the feminist concept of the album connected with religious dogma, particularly, the story of Mary Magdalene as the embodiment of female sexuality and her problematic image of a sinful woman. The results of the analyses serve as a contribution to - as well as a better understanding of - issues concerning feminism, gender stereotypes, sexual stigma, 61

hegemonic and hybrid masculinity or others sexual themes in contemporary lyrics. Above all, they show that the artists challenge the normative perception of sexuality.

62

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