Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Sex and the Protests in Cartoons

PART I: Seven, Anonymous, Amber (Wisdom Quarterly)






Welcome Table. Occupy Los Angeles. "We are peaceful, but we are passionate" the hash tag under the FREE CONDOMS sign reads. All these liberals, all these tents, all these Anti-Sex League members.

To put it in context, in the book Nineteen Eighty-Four, Winston lives in a future world, a dystopia. Big Brother is always watching. His job at the Ministry of Truth is redacting, rewriting, and sanitizing history for the current regime (inner party). His only outlet is cheap gin. But his mind is mostly on sex.

And there she was, Julia, beautiful but sporting an "Anti-Sex League" (ASL) sash. Why? Because Big Brother does not want anyone enjoying him or herself or giving allegiance to anything but the state. It's true of Communist regimes. It's true of fascists. It may even be true of über liberal protesters.

"The personal is political, the personal is political," and we are radicals. There she sat on the City Hall steps, cross legged and contemplating the tip of her nose. Pitzer College sophomore. A dreamy Age of Aquarius trippy hipster, a merry hempster, an occupation "hippie." What did I think would happen as rave music blasted from the now barricaded Spring Street next to the occupation?



"No, not again, O, what a man, just who I thought that I wanted to have. O, don't do that....that's all it takes to make me falling flat. No, not again, the loser I am. I love you tonight. You are my knight, pure and assured to make me feel all right, tomorrow you'll find I'm not around, but don't be uptight, because I loved you last night. Vacant and free, yeah that is me...." the Cardigans sing. Is that how it is at Occupy Scandinavia?

This is LA, and the ASL will not stand for it. Maybe in Claremont, but in the (western) Belly of the Beast? Downtown is no Greenwich Village. It's not even Podunk, USA. It is just a megalopolis city center with a City Hall next to a Federal Court building adjacent to a jail and a corporate skyline hovering over what was once a pueblo with a hegemonic church. Cartman was watching. Would we "respect his authoritay," or poke the eye of the War Machine?



"Make love not war, make love not war," I rooted inside my head. She was four inches from my face. Am I supposed to kiss her? Am I supposed to get a room (tent)? Am I supposed to suppose? I chose to just be in the moment. It sounds good. But a plan would have been better.

We'll march to the freeway overpass in the morning and remind commuters, wage slaves, that we're here for them. They'll honk. We'll hug. Maybe we can fingerpaint for freedom in the morning.... TO BE CONTINUED

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