Mother Fucker –the leather Mummy and the sexual, childless maternal body (a scholarly dissertation) & Lolly Poppins (a novel) Holly Zwalf A thesis submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of the Arts & Media Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences March 2014 Abstract This thesis is comprised of two components: a novel titled “Lolly Poppins” and a scholarly dissertation titled “Mother Fucker”. Despite a long history of feminist engagement with motherhood as an institution, an essentialist definition of the maternal prevails in popular social dialogues. These essentialist discourses are both scientifically invalid and theoretically untenable, yet they operate to circumscribe the social expectations of women, restricting not only mothers but also those who are excluded from this definition, such as trans* people, men, and childless women. Additionally, in keeping with the long-established and culturally imposed Madonna/whore dichotomy the maternal body continues to be subjected to intense public scrutiny and is heavily censored and regulated, particularly in relation to sexuality. My dissertation explores this sexual/maternal dichotomy as well as the problem of essentialism through a study of queer, women and trans* leather Mummies. Leather Mummies are people who engage in dominant maternal role-play in a BDSM context, in effect eroticising the omnipotent, nurturing force of the mother. Using a queer feminist framework I engage Butler’s theory of performativity in conjunction with maternal theory and femme/butch politics in order to examine whether the leather Mummy is able to succeed in subverting dominant maternal discourses, or whether she too ends up simply reinforcing maternal essentialism. Through an ethnographic study of the San Francisco leather Mummy community I have observed the leather Mummy’s ability to (re)negotiate the interplay between maternal expression and sexuality, feminism, and queer politics. It is my contention that by transgressing the taboo of the sexual maternal the leather Mummy offers a fresh critique of essentialism by challenging the way we currently define and limit the maternal. My novel “Lolly Poppins” expands on these questions by addressing the commodification of the mother through the sexualisation of childless maternal figures such as the nanny or the babysitter, and further complicating the relationship between motherhood and the sexually empowered female body. The main protagonist and narrator is Meg, a queer kinky nanny who moonlights as a sex worker and who is planning to have a child. Through a queer reproduction of the classic chick-lit trope of the single woman’s quest to net a husband and start a family, Meg’s unconventional journey into motherhood explores the intersections of queer identity, feminism, and the maternal, highlighting the at times uneasy relationship between the three and raising the question of how sexuality might be successfully integrated with motherhood. Damn, I wish I was your lover I'd rock you till the daylight comes Make sure you are smiling and warm I am everything Tonight I'll be your mother I'll do such things to ease your pain Free your mind and you won't feel ashamed (Sophie B. Hawkins) Gillian, if you weren’t my mother I would make you my wife (The Waifs) To Mum, as always, for making me choose between boob and books nearly thirty- one momentous years ago. To Kath. You’re right—Mummy always knows best. And to Dad...I know how proud you would have been to see me finish this. xxx This thesis has been written in at least seven different countries: in caravans, windowsills, farm houses, and log cabins; on beaches, houseboats, aeroplanes and trains; beside roaring fires, waterfalls, swimming pools and dusty paddocks; up giant trees and down jungle tracks; under the dryer at the hairdressers’; in the homes of numerous different friends. In particular I’d like to thank the following people for providing me not only with a room of one’s own, but also with a fabulous view: No and Trappa, Patty and Melania, Aunty Jo-Jo, Joshua, Yvette, Ken, Faith and Co., the Humphreys’, Paulzo, Cindy, Grets and Ross, and Laura. Thank you to Baddie and Shannon for reading it, Elli for fixing it, and to Anna for going first. Special thanks go to Alix for sharing his passion with me and for letting me dry my undies on his flatscreen tv, to Zoo for zier magnificent breasts, and to Willy for doing a poo on the final bound copy. Table of Contents Mother Fucker (a dissertation) 8 Glossary of terms 9 Introduction 12 Chapter One—A Method to the Madness 31 Chapter Two—The S/Mother 64 Chapter Three—Becoming Mummy 105 Conclusion 139 Bibliography 148 Appendix A 168 Appendix B 172 Appendix C 174 Appendix D 177 Lolly Poppins (a novel) 178 Mother Fucker –the leather Mummy and the sexual, childless maternal body (a scholarly dissertation) Glossary BDSM: An umbrella term which stands for bondage, domination/submission (often abbreviated to D/s), and sado-masochism (SM or S/M). The BDSM community embraces a wide variety of diverse practices and sexual lifestyles, including the eroticising and exchange of power, the inflicting or receiving of pain, fetishes, humiliation, sensation play, role-playing, and the sexual identities and practices which are involved with this kind of play. Throughout this thesis “BDSM” will at times be abbreviated to “SM” and will be used interchangeably with “kink”, a less formal term used within the BDSM community which carries the same or similar meaning, and also with “leather”, a word used to define people who are active in the BDSM community that has its roots in gay male culture, being used to denote an alternative sexual subculture. cis-gendered: “Cis” refers to people who identify with the gender they are assigned at birth. femme and butch: Femme and butch are self-determined identities concerned with adopting those characteristics and styles of dress that are traditionally considered feminine or masculine, respectively. These gender identities are most common in the queer women and lesbian community, but are terms that are also sometimes used by gay men, and occasionally in the straight world. In the lesbian/queer women’s community femme can mean adopting any number of those aesthetics or behavioural characteristics generally ascribed to femininity, commonly relating to clothing, makeup, hair styles, accessories, and/or generally acting “girly”. Butches may wear men’s clothing, have their hair cut in a masculine style, and/or adopt characteristics generally ascribed to the masculine end of the behaviour spectrum, such as acting physically strong, emotionally reserved, and being generally “boyish” in behaviour. play: A term which refers to the act of taking part in BDSM practices. play party: A party where people generally attend with the purpose of engaging in BDSM play, and where the space is set up largely for this purpose. pro-dom: An abbreviation of “professional dominatrix”: someone who provides their services professionally as a dominant, in exchange for pay. queer: “Queer” is a difficult identity to describe—essentially all terms are inadequate to define this community, as the one fixed point that unites the queer community is the rejecting of any restrictive definitions or binaries. Loosely, “queer” refers to those sexual identities and gender orientations that exist outside of heteronormativity and which, as opposed to gay and lesbian culture, consider themselves to be fluid and unfixed. “Queer” as a sexual identity also implies a political engagement with the impact of patriarchal culture on gender and sexuality. “Queer” also refers to an academic concept and a methodology, the details of which are discussed in Chapter One—Ethnography. scene: “A scene” refers to a BDSM scenario between two or more people, often pre-arranged and negotiated, and which most likely involves some level of power exchange, role-playing, SM, and/or various other erotic activities. “The scene” refers to the BDSM community, a network of people who engage in BDSM and who might loosely associate together either virtually, through internet chat rooms and email lists, or in the real world, attending play parties and various other BDSM-specific or kink-friendly events. However, the community also extends beyond this to refer to people who may never meet but who are still connected by a common interest in BDSM. sub/bottom: The person who is playing the submissive role in a Dominant/ submissive dynamic. switch: Someone who is open to both topping and bottoming. top/dom: The person who is playing the dominant role in a Dominant/submissive dynamic. They may also be called “mistress” or “master”, among other titles. trans*: I use the term “trans*” to encompass the wide spectrum of identities which fall under this umbrella term, including (but by no means limited to) transsexuals, transgender people, trans men, trans women, and genderqueers. vanilla: A term used within the BDSM community to describe those who do not engage in any BDSM practices. Introduction I was standing in aisle three at ten o’clock on a Thursday morning when I got my calling. I was wearing a 1950s American diner dress and a fluoro-pink wig I’d pinched from my housemate’s bedroom on my way out the night before, I had a pair of heels in one hand and a tin of red kidney beans in the other, and I was still positively, unquestionably, without a doubt still drunk. I had yet to make it home from the Sly Fox, the local queer/lesbian hangout where I had been the night before for the double celebration of handing in a full draft of my Honours thesis, and to herald in my 27th birthday. It took me a good ten seconds to realise that the ringing sound in my ears was in fact my mobile phone— a friend calling to wish me a happy birthday.