Sverige och kultur och journalism...

Har tänkt mycket på klimatet inom kultur och journalism i Sverige. Det som stör mig är att folk i allmänhet har svårt att tänka utanför boxen - det finns liksom ett korrekt sätt att göra saker på - och om en gör något utanför det så har en svårt att nå fram. Så mycket inom scenkonst, performance konst, konst, journalistiska artiklar, akademiska artiklar som tar det säkra före det osäkra. Det är liksom tabu mot att tänka fritt och blanda mellan genrer - nejnej, det finns ETT korrekt sätt att göra saker på - och därför blir så mycket så sjukt likriktat i landet lagom. Du kan inte blanda mellan krönika och manifestskrivande och akademiska teorier - nej, du får välja - antingen är det en krönika eller så är det en akademisk artikel med torrt språk. Nej. Det är tråkigt. Vill ej ha det så här. Det är bland annat därför Virginie Despentes King Kong-Theory är så bra, för den blandar mellan manifest, egna erfarenheter och akademiska teorier - en helhet som blir sjukt inspirerande och givande att läsa.

PS The red warmth in the flow of blood - will my body one day grow cold and stale? Poor me, who dies so often already. I follow the crooked path where the roots explode through the ground. I have the gift of passion, when the storm comes around my roots tighten their grip and the lightning strikes fail to burn down the whole tree. A scar. I give my existence a hidden meaning that exceeds me and my ribs burst open exposing all my internal organs as I surround myself with meat-eating plants and plant-eating animals. Delicate, Vulnerable, Fearless - A pulsating pounding heart - So beautiful to slowly kiss, So easy to quickly tear apart. But I travel by steady, slow foot and the roots... the roots...

Nina Simone's intensitet i Stars/Feelings:


Amy Winehouse är fantastiskt underbar i Never Mind The Buzzcocks:

Part 2: Sex positive spaces are not inclusive enough for survivors of sexual assault - Discussion on how sex positive-queerfeminist spaces can become broader and deeper in their politics on sex/sexuality

Sex positivity and sex positive-culture have the potential to be extremely important and empowering spaces for healing from sexual assault. In a society that says that sexual assault means you can not have a positive sexuality for the rest of your life, sex positivity can offer a different pathway, an empowering pathway and break the taboos of opening up about the experience. When we start to talk about it we can start to heal and discuss the many different ways of handling it. But sex positive spaces in general have failed to be this type of space.


A big part of sex positivity is breaking taboos and shame around sexuality – being able to speak openly about sexual experiences, even the ones that are outside of the norm – BDSM, Group sex, anonymous sex etc. We can attend workshops where we can experiment with expanding our horizons and it is made clear that Consent is important and that it is ok to leave if you feel triggered etc. This makes the spaces safer. But there is something missing. In all the years I have been active in sex positive-culture I have never encountered a workshop for survivors of sexual assault, I’ve never heard a discussion on how sexual avversion and sexual compulsion are frequent coping mechanisms and how you can get out of it, I’ve never once encountered even a discussion at all on healing from sexual assault from a sex positive perspective. It’s so quiet about it, that it would make you think it never happened.. The experience is silenced and this means those survivors of sexual assault who have issues to work through (many of us) feel excluded, like ”The Other”, a freak among the freaks – less liberated, less sex positive – than those who seemingly have no issues. Who love BDSM, Group sex, anonymous sex and going to sex parties. But having negative sexual experiences does not make us sex negative. And instead of being inspired by being in sex positive-spaces I have often felt excluded, uncomfortable, stressed out, pressured, too complicated, boring, not sure-footed enough in my sexuality to be sexy, AND what is worse, that if I talked about why I felt this way, and was open about my experiences I would be raining on the parade, a party pooper – and that by being open about my experiences as a survivor of rape, assaults and so much sexual harrasment, I would make people afraid of starting a sexual relationship with me. It would be a turn off. And if one feels left-out as queer sexual assault survivor in a queer community, will you be able to find any community at all?

A few months ago I finally encountered the first (only?) books I’ve ever heard of that combine sexpositivity with discussions on sexual assault: ”King Kong-Theory” by Virginie Despentes AND especially ”Healing sex” by Staci Haines. While King Kong-Theory deals more with the right to be a noisy victim, Healing sex talks more about how sexuality, somatics and sex positivity can and should be an empowering part of healing from sexual assault. At the same time she addresses how sexual assault is not discussed in sex positive-spaces. The discussion is ”consent is important”, but it rarely goes any deeper than that. As much fantastic knowledge as there is on sexuality within sex positive-spaces, there is almost none on sexual assault. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that many people in the sex positive feminist community have supported Julian Assange, despite the existing feminist problem that women (and people of all genders really) are not believed when they say that they’ve been assaulted. Being a revolutionary computer hacker and being a rapist isn’t an anomaly.


My goal is for sex positive-spaces to become inclusive, inspirational and growing-in-your-own-tempo spaces, for survivors of sexual assault and, really, for everybody who feels they have a lot of healing to do in their sexuality. My goal is for sex positive feminism to provide a sanctuary for survivors who have been told that their life in general and especially their sexuality is over. My goal is for sex positive-spaces to expand the discussion of ”sex is not holy” to including a discussion on why sexual assault doesn’t mean your worth, your everything has been stolen from you. We have a lot of work to do. And we have to ask ourselves how we talk about sex, what assumptions are made and why we are talking about sex in the way we do.


We live in a capitalist society where we are taught to flaunt our successes and keep a happy face, while hiding our failures and negative experiences. Spend an hour scrolling through your facebook feed and you’ll understand we’re always busy reproducing this picture of us as happy and successful, making everyone feel further alone with their unhappiness and failures – although they are just as abundant as the successes – everyone just feels the dumb need to hide them… And in sex positive queerfeminist-spaces the discussions are usually: I love BDSM , I love group sex, I love sex parties, I love fisting - Not I’m insecure about my sexuality because I’ve been raped but I want to experiment slowly to find a path to healing and a space for sexuality to become an empowering and positive part of my life instead of one associated with pain and trauma. And to be truthful – while it’s lovely that people can be vocal about their love of fisting, BDSM etc. – when it’s the only way we’re discussing sex, sex positive culture turns into a very exclusive elitist place for the few. For those who are healing from trauma or from sex negative culture in general (and that is A LOT of us) it is more inspiring to hear about journeys. People who continually talk as if they’ve always just loved group sex and BDSM tend to instead make other people feel left out, boring or stressed-"why can't I be like them"? And if everyone is talking about how happy and healthy their sex life/drive is while you are dealing with triggers and dissociation and all kinds of issues - you may be happy for them (or understandably jealous and/or envious that things seem to come so easy for them), but the problem is you are not in a space that encourages you to make your voice heard.


Sex positive-culture must break taboos surrounding sexuality - when we are not talking about something it still resides in a place of shame. But to be honest, as much shame and taboos as there are surrounding BDSM and Anonymous sex, the shame and taboos surrounding sexual assault are larger and need to be worked on atleast as much in sex positive culture. Because right now everything BUT negative experiences are being discussed, when really there should be no taboos. I think that’s the road to a true sex positive world, instead of celebrating the positive experiences while putting a lid on the negative experiences. Openness and honesty always wins the race and one-dimensional must be replaced with multi-dimensional.


It is sometimes taken for granted that everybody already is, wants to become or has the same possibilities to have the sexual lifestyle that matches ”the sexpositive norm”, which means that the position of privilege works as the starting point. I would instead like to see a sex positive space where all experiences can come forth - the fears, the anxietys, the assaults, the overcomings, the pleasures, the exhilarations – the heights, the lows and most of all the depths. I want to hear more about journeys. I get much more inspired by hearing about somebodies journey to a sexuality that they are comfortable and thriving in – the hindrances, the assaults, the fears, the anxieties – The Realness that makes us human beings – it brings another depth to it – a depth that I much too often feel is lacking within sex positive spaces. It would mean that we would be creating a more mature, broadly political discussion and inclusive space in which sex positivity could flourish beyond where it is today – into a lair where we dare to expose ourselves to the beautiful power of vulnerability – and travel beyond ”the person who's fucked the most is the coolest”.

How often do we allow ourselves to be emotional and vulnerable in sex positive queer spaces? How often do we put our fears, emotions, negative experiences, neurosis etc. on display – or how often are we expected to just smile and uninhibitedly speak about our sexual escapades in a completely emotionally detached way - in order to be crowned the coolest most sex positive-queer? Why are we following the capitalist discourse of positive experiences=public, negative experiences=private?


And from there we have to start discussing common coping mechanisms, without essentializing and saying that every survivor of sexual assault has to go through the same processes. We have to discuss dissociation, triggers, PTSD – like how I once realized that I had an easier time relaxing and falling asleep beside someone who had basically tried to rape me than next to someone who I had sex with, because I was used to sex as trauma, but not sex as pleasure.


Sexual avversion is a common coping mechanism – and I’ve had a long period of that behind me – and it made me feel totally alienated and stressed in sex positive-spaces and I didn’t feel like I had a forum where I could discuss it. Sexual compulsion is just as common as a coping strategy, and I’ve had shorter periods of this as well. This isn’t discussed much in sex positive-spaces, instead sex is often discussed in terms of: ”Sex is fantastic, it’s fun, the more sex you have the better”. I understand why sex is being discussed in this way, because we live in a slut-shaming world, where having sex a lot and with a lot of people, especially if you are a woman, is seen as most definitely self-destructive. We must show that it doesn’t have to be that way, that it can be about opening up to desire and pleasure. But at the same time we can not deny that it can be that way. It’s common for survivors of sexual assault to go into a self-destructive and emotionally detached mode of compulsive sexuality where you see yourself as only good for one thing: Sex - not as a whole human being. After all, that was what the abusers message was to us. And since sex positive culture rarely discusses feelings around sex and tends more to just say that SEX IS FANTASTIC – we get a space where compulsive sexuality isn’t discussed or problematized, but instead easily can become something that is celebrated. We should never judge anybody’s sexual behaviour, but by having an open, multi-dimensional discussion on all the complex (especially complex for many survivors of sexual assault) different aspects of sexuality we can create an atmosphere where people can heal and get their anxieties of off their shoulders.


We need specific sex positive spaces and workshops for survivors of sexual assault. I think one of the reasons this hasn’t been happening is that many survivors of sexual assault haven’t felt that sex positive-spaces are welcoming spaces for talking about traumas and therefore just hasn’t been for us. I wrote this text because I strongly believe that sexpositivity that includes experiences and problems that many survivors of sexual assault have, has the potential to become a fantastic and welcoming place for sexual healing and empowerment, where survivors (And many other people!) feel that we get the support and inspiration we need in order to find a sexuality that feels good, life-affirming and positive for us – no matter if that means BDSM, fisting, anonymous sex, group sex, sex with a person we have a strong emotional connection with – or all or none of the above.


More info:


Healing Sex - Staci Haines
King Kong-Theory - Virginie Despentes
Tumblr-thread on being a sex positive rape survivor


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This text is part 2 in a 5 part series on my thoughts on how sex positive-queerfeminist spaces can become broader and deeper in their politics on sex/sexuality. Part 3 will be coming soon. Here is a list of the five parts:

1. Lookism (click the link to read this text)

2. Sex positive spaces not being inclusive for survivors of sexual assault. 

3. Criticism of power dynamics within sexuality 

4. Femininity and Masculinity 

5. Many different ways of interacting with our bodies and our emotions.

Debatten kring Pride och Queerbegreppet

Jag är trött på den här debatten kring Pride där det klagas på protester mot Migrationsverket, Polisen och Försvaret. Vi skalla alla samlas och vara glada under regnbågsflaggan och släppa all maktperspektiv och intersektionell analys. Migrationsverket avvisar HBTQ-personer som riskerar att dödas, men jaja, De måste få lov att sprida propaganda på Pride, samt gå med i paraden och visa hur otroooooligt HBTQ-vänliga de är!! Gosigt! AFA är kontroversiella för att de använder våld, men polisen och försvaret de är så fina så - aldrig använder de våld - och aldrig skulle polisens närvaro innebära att HBTQ-papperslösa inte kan vara med - och det är viktigt att vi ställer oss på maktens sida. OFOG sägs vara ett "hot" mot Pride trots att alla deras protester utgår från icke-våld. Får de inte protestera mot försvarets deltagande i prideparaden, ska det inte ifrågasättas? Försvaret dödar, ok, men förstås är det värre när AFA slår ned nazister. Visst, AFA är kanske inte den organisationen som jag tycker är den mest reflekterande inom vänstern, men i jämförelse med Försvaret och Polisen så ÄLSKAR jag AFA. Och att tala om AFA eller OFOG som hot mot Pridefestivalen är bara befängt. Menmen liberalismen lär oss, Försvaret och Polisen = fina och legitima i sin våldsanvändning. AFA = hemska. Men vem är det som dödar civilbefolkning och avvisar flyktingar?

Och queerbegreppet, säger cis-homosexuella i DN idag är överflödig. Petter Wallenberg, maskulint presenterande bög, menar att det är en pronomensörja och att en måste utgå från "verklig förtryck". Jag skulle vilja berätta för Petter Wallenberg om "verkligt förtryck" då jag som femme genderqueer bög möter en helt annan verklighet när jag går nedför gatan (och är i HBTQ-sammanhang) än maskulint presenterande cis-bögar. Och jag behöver queer för att klara av att leva.

Det var allt för mig om det här ämnet idag. Ska bli intressant att se vad den här debatten kommer leda till. När intersektionaliteten saknas och rosa pengar premieras så är det inte min kamp.

PS Fiona Apple är underbarast i världen:

‎"This concert is like, ahh, let's imagine I just invited all these people over and I want to be a good host and the only house rule is anybody wants to cry here or go to sleep or whatever, please just let that happen. And if you feel like you want to to leave than leave, we understand, but if you want to stay, but feel like you shouldn't cuz you're crying, STAY, Cry. Alright" ♥

Och de sista 30 sekunderna här: 

‎

"For all we talk about how much we share with one another these days, it remains unsettling when we encounter someone who really does seem to be sharing everything. Reality television isn't real, and we're not revealing ourselves on Facebook. We're self-editing. Everyone wants to be perceived as coolly confident. Hardly anyone is brave enough to open up as much as Fiona Apple"

Part 1: Lookism - Discussion on how sex positive-queerfeminist spaces can become broader and deeper in their politics on sex/sexuality

I have been an active part of the sex positive-queerfeminist community for nearly 5 years and have hung out in sex positive queerfeminist-spaces in Sweden, Copenhagen, Berlin, San Francisco and to some extent in New York and Delhi (though the queer scene in Delhi didn’t stress me out at all in the way that many other queer scenes have).

For many reasons I have never felt entirely at home, some of the reasons are only personal, but some of the reasons are both personal and political. The latter are my focus point in this essay/manifesto. Since I am very verbose I have decided to split it up in 5 parts, so as to not throw 12 pages of text out at once: 

1. Lookism 

2. Sex positive spaces not being inclusive for survivors of sexual assault. 

3. Criticism of power dynamics within sexuality 

4. Femininity and Masculinity 

5. Many different ways of interacting with our bodies and our emotions.

My critique of sex positive-culture is done with love, because it is a movement I am invested in and in many ways love – at the same time if certain things do not change I do not think I will continue to invest in it. I believe in the radical possibilities of pleasure, I do also believe that the issue is complex and extra hard for some of us given our experiences. I recognize that thought processes, ideas and action always come with flaws, often even more so when done in a collective movement. The more people involved in a discussion the harder it is to muster the reflection and nuances of an inner dialogue or an open and intimate dialogue between two people. This is one of the reasons why I have moved more and more away from larger group processes and more and more into revolution through introvert processes of writing and art, and living my life through an intimate relationship with myself and a few others. However I do also recognize that collective social movements are essential for creating change in the world and therefore extremely necessary – and they need to be critiqued, with love, in order to not grow into non-reflective and stupid mobs that move in a straight line formed by knee jerk-reactions. So, it is from this perspective I am critiqueing parts of the sexpositive queerfeminist movement (globally with maybe extra focus on San Francisco, umm Lookism for example, in some parts and extra focus on Berlin, umm femme-phobia for example, in some parts), a movement I love and a politic which I very much identify with.

So, the first issue to be discussed, LOOKISM:

I first heard of the term lookism when I was in Berlin three years ago. I was introduced through a poster with a picture of Snow White with an AK 47 and lyrics from Bikini Kill: ”Mirror Mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all? I don’t I don’t really care, like it doesn’t fucking matter at all”. Since than I have been irritated with how often people comment on and evaluate appearances and bodies in sex positive queerfeminist-spaces. ”Oh my god this and that person is sooo hot and sexy” etc. etc. Sure, we aren’t calling people ugly, but that’s just like facebook doesn’t have an unlike button, but getting 0 likes means…

In general gender standards and gender norms are getting criticized in sex positive queerfeminist spaces, but not beauty standards and norms, except for fat-phobia, and while it’s great that one form of lookism is being criticized (and not even fat-phobia is addressed nearly enough) there is so much more to the issue than that, beauty standards are not just about body size.

Antilookism is one of many strategies of resistance in failing to become the ideal capitalist person. Lookism is classism. It is fat-phobia. It is racism. It is ageism, ableism, sexism, heteronormativity, cisism – all these power dynamics wrapped up in one telling us who is hot and not. The ideal appearance is to be white (there is a whole industry dedicated to products that make people of color more white), young, heterosexual, able-bodied and upper middle class. Power. In the song ”Pretty on the inside” Courtney Love screamed, ”There is no power like the pretty power” and she has a point. Being beautiful is considered very important in todays society. For women it is often considered to be the most important thing. We categorize people as pretty and ugly and we give people attention according to how attractive their appearance is considered. If you are seen as conventionally beautiful you have an easier time getting good jobs (A study shows that people who are considered ”good-looking” make 5-10 percent more money than people who aren’t considered ”good-looking”), more friends, more relationship-choices and more sex. Being ”good-looking” increases your market worth considerably. It gives you power, although oppressed groups, such as women, people of color, femmes of all genders etc, run the risk of being objectified or exotisized and therefore punished for their beauty. If somebody is put up on a pedestal for their body it can be hard for them to get attention for anything other than their looks.

This ties very well in to how I feel a queerfeminist sexpositive intersectional and anticapitalist movement should be working. Unfourtanetely we do not speak much about lookism, instead we are often times just as busy as the rest of society in speaking about who is good-looking and hot. Because sexpositivism is about being positive to the body and it’s capacity to experience pleasure. But in order to be truly radical it has to be positive to ALL bodies and not distribute attraction and attention in accordance to the status quo of what a sexy body and a beautiful face is. Otherwise it is shallow and objectifying – not radical politics – and there is a big difference between the two! We have to stop evalutating and rating peoples looks and bodies. Why can’t our bodies just be bodies – neither pretty nor ugly? And why can’t physical desire be felt towards a persons insides more than their bodies, and when, for example, looking for casual sex, can’t we just be happy to find another desiring individual instead of rating looks?

Always striving to become more and more beautiful is to accept the status climbing of capitalism. And everybody will fail. After 30 our appearance-capital goes down. We can do everything in our power to keep it up through botox, creams and face lifts – but in the end we will all lose. And we are afraid of getting older because we won’t be as pretty. Says who? That smooth skin is more beautiful than wrinkles is socially constructed. Every single beauty standard is socially constructed. Us feminists are usually very good at criticizing gender as a social construction and we must start criticizing the beauty standards just as much – from youth to skininess to big eyes, little nose and no pimples. And a queerfeminist and anticapitalist sexpositivism must show that sexiness has nothing to do with beauty standards. That peoples bodies are not to be rated differently and categorized in pretty and ugly, attractive and unattractive. No body is more beautiful than another and age is not a ranking system where 18-30 always wins the beauty pageant.

The queerfeminist movement has done some criticizing of beauty standards, fat positive-activism is for example extremely important. At the same time we often cling to the importance of being viewed as beautiful. Ofcourse it is great if this beauty is beyond the beauty standard – but why should beauty be viewed as important at all? Does being pretty make us better people? It gives us more power and status – yes – but should we really be looking for power and status through our looks? Should we be looking for power and status at all?

I also want to tie in this issue to femme-activism, because saying that queerfemmes are the queers that focus the most on their appearances is an extreme over-simplification. If you wear a suit and tie nobody will accuse you of being fixated with your looks, but in a dress you always run that risk! And to be honest, in the queer world andro-masculine attributes, looks and bodies are seen as the most desirable. Being femme lowers the capital your looks bare with them. When us femmes put on our make-up and dresses we are failing to be conventionally queer-hot, even if that isn’t necessarily the intention. Being femme doesn’t give you more status, but we keep on fighting, because a world and an activist movement that upgrades the masculine and downplays the feminine is a patriarchal world/movement. We are not interested in being successful according to the status quo. Masculinities are given loads of status, should they really be allowed to both be seen as the hottest and get credit for being the least fixated with looks? Having a style that looks like you don’t care about your appearance is usually also a conscious style – and anti-lookism doesn’t mean we can’t be creative with our appearances, it just means we have to stop evaluating appearances in a hierarchy.

Ultimately the issue of lookism is about what we want to value as important in society. Is it our looks? Is it our shells – shells that (usually) are something we are born with. Shells that we are taught to do everything we can to improve upon, a huge cause for stress. Shells that say nothing about our inner-worlds, our personality, but a whole lot about our priviledges and oppression that should be erradicated. Do we want to give people attention mostly for their exteriors or for their interiors – their empathy, their intelligence, their energy, their solidarity, their caring, their fiery dedication to the creation of a better world? Why is it so important for us to be seen as beautiful? Why should we rate peoples looks? How hard are we working on the deconstruction of beauty standards and norms? How much are we objecitifying? To put it poetically: We are taught to drown in reflections in shallow puddles, but instead maybe we should be exploring the depths of the ocean.

An important starting point is the usage of language - trying to stop using a lookist language - this is an important starting point for social change, as Foucault would say! Anti-lookism is not about being anti-sex or anti-desire it is being body positive – ALL bodies – not rating them and especially not rating them in a hierarchy. The stress about looks that are so frequent in lifestyle magazines, tabloids and womens/mens magazines should be eliminated from our circles. I would like to burn these magazines, together with self help-books, financial magazines and other publications that tell us that the problem exists in ourselves, not in the system. That we all can become rich, happy and gorgeous if we just change our point of view. But we didn’t write the rules to begin with. The rules state that 1 % succeed at the cost of the failure of 99 %. Why should we waste our time reforming, rewriting these rules so they fit us a little bit better? Instead we should clear the whole board and create something new. A new world – A magical world – A just world – A free world – From each according to their abilities and passions, to each according to their needs and desires – A world full of pleasure, where our faces and our bodies do not give us status, power or attention. Or to paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr. – A world where we are not judged by hot or not, but by the content of our character.

Read More:

King Kong-Theory - Virginie Despentes

The power of looks  - Bonnie Berry

Anti-lookism activist group in Berlin - http://www.lookism.info/BACKUP/eng/index2.html

Amy Winehouse-kvällen

Amy Winehouse-kvällen blev himla lyckad och jag är jättenöjd med min performance och sång. Video kommer upp senare!

Liv Strömquist läste också sin serie om Amy och Duffy, som säger så himla mycket om samhället idag. Jag älskar den.

"‎"Det var en gång två flickor, olika som få
fast de var Engelska soulsångerskor båda två.
En var ljus och blond och fin.
Den andra var svarthårig och åt kokain
De var olika i humöret som en bipolär.
En var gullig och en var till besvär
Egentligen sysslade de med samma grej,
alltså sjöng sextiotalslåtar och var en snygg tjej.
Först tyckte alla om Amy - hon var så kittlande politiskt inkorrekt.
Men sen blev hon så freakad att hälften hade räckt.
Alla som sa att hon var psyko fick vatten på sin kvarn.
Hon var som ett för gammalt emobarn.
Ingen gillar en ledsen tjej, det är sant men trist
Det är därför det är så populärt att vara Folkpartist.
Man vill ge henne läxor, privatisera hennes bostad
Och sen ligga med henne när hon har blivit glad.
Amy hade faktiskt kunnat vara gullig istället.
Man kan inte ha denna smärta mitt i samhället.
Hon var svag på ett sätt som ingen orkar med.
Man vill att hon ska sluta ringa och lämna en ifred.
Därför var det så bra att Duffy gav ut sin musik.
Hon sjöng likadant men var inget freak.
Hon hade likadant smink, men var en bättre person.
Hon var helt enkelt Amy i en renare version.
Duffy gjorde jättebra låtar, de kunde man sätta på
på jobbet om man jobbade på reklambyrå,
i sin I-pod när man köpte bostadsrätt,
eller på parmiddagen när man serverade efterrätt.
Man kunde lyssna när man powerwalkade för att bli smal,
när man softade på kontoret efter att ha avskedat personal,
på en myskväll med tjejen och tända ljus,
eller när man letade på blocket efter Höganäskrus.
Duffy var som ett brev från nån man ville höra av.
Amy var som ett inkassokrav.
Efter applådderna sa Duffy tack.
Amy var inte ens där, hon var och köpte tjack.
Det är inte konstigt att man föredrar en tjej som mår bra,
det får man lära sig redan i Psykologi A!
Undermedvetet föredrar man framtida barn som är glada.
Det handlar om biologi och... yada yada
Så tänk nu noga på ...om
Vem av de två du vill vara som.
Välj själv: Joyeux ou triste?
Med vänlig hälsning Liv Strömquist!"

Radio-interview about Amy Winehouse on P4

I was interviewed on the radio today about the Amy Winehouse-tribute on monday. I talk about Amy, the beauty of daring to show ALL emotions, the terribleness of the stigmatization of addictions and the usage of the word "junkie" and at the end I get to sing the chorus of Back to Black as a sample of my performance on monday ♥ Listen to it here.

PS There is a big difference between falling and climbing. Falling feels easier and goes faster but leads you to a worse place, climbing feels gruesome, aching and terrible. It goes slow, leads to so many uncomfortable positions and also means that you need to ask for helping hands. But finally you will end up in a better place than where you started.

PS 2 Intensity and emotional honesty, especially when it involves being open about pain or trauma, is only seen as pretty from a far like a shooting star, furthering the pain, shame and stigma, when really our scars need to be kissed in order for us to have the strength to heal.

Amy Winehouse tribute på Moriska Paviljongen 23:e juli

Den 23:e juli 2011 dog en av vår samtids största artister: Amy Winehouse - en tidlös legend med säregen stil. Vi hedrar denna världsstjärna med en stor fest ett år efter hennes bortgång.

▸ VAR: Moriska Paviljongen
▸ NÄR: Måndag 23 juli · kl 19-23
▸ ENTRÉ: 50kr

Amy som slog igenom globalt med albumet Back to Black 2006 och sedan blev mer och mer känd både på grund av sin briljanta musik, unika röst, träffande låttexter och på grund av sitt stormiga privatliv.

Amy Winehouse dolde inte sina känslor - varken på eller av scenen vilket hon både blev hyllad och bestraffad för. När beskedet kom ut att hon hade dött fylldes området utanför hennes bostad med blommor, gåvor och meddelanden som visade hur mycket hon hade berört. Denna kändis som inte brydde sig ett dugg om att vara kändis eller spela en roll.

Nu har det gått ett år sedan Amy Winehouse dog och därför tillägnar vi en afton till henne på Moriska Paviljongen måndagen den 23:e juli. Aftonen kommer fyllas med mängder av olika hyllningar till artisten från Camden Town i London.

Det hela inleds med en DOKUMENTÄR om Amy Winehouse's liv och karriär och fortsätter med att LIV STRÖMQUIST läser sin serie om Amy Winehouse och Duffy från hennes seriealbum "Ja till Liv". Sedan kommer ALEXANDER ALVINA CHAMBERLAND att köra dragperformance där hen, uppklädd till Amy, sjunger ett par av hennes låtar - därefter blir det OPEN STAGE och karaoke där alla får lov att göra sina egna hyllningar till Amy Winehouse! Emellan akterna spelas låtar från Amy Winehouse's tre album, Frank (2003), Back to Black (2006) och Lioness: Hidden Treasures (2011).

- Dokumentär
- Liv Stömquist läser serie
- Alexander Alvina Chamberland dragar till och sjunger Amy Winehouse
- Open Stage och Karaoke
- Musik från Amy Winehouse's album

Kom och delta i firandet Amy Winehouse's liv och hyllandet av hennes musik och röst!

Healing can feel like dying.

The ice has melted

Drowning the body in scars.

I can not flee from the message of the fig-yew tree

Once again it comes back to haunt me

It has covered the world in its shadow

I must chop it down

I see the axe is caught at the top

I climb.

But the branches are too thin

They snap

I am no longer light as a child

But my will is relentlessly stubborn

Always the full moon

So I believe I can pull the sea

But this time I must be able to escape the shadow and reach the tree top.

Nevertheless failing to succeed

I only attract bees

The heart once a hornets nest

It is repetitive

Its trip to the ground

Hell hath no fury like losing another home

How could you forget to lock the door?

One thousand stings let in - just a few more small nips

I am a temporary arrangement.

Swelling up like an allergy

Forced to expose my open wounds

They are frightened away by the sight of blood

The honey does not matter anymore

In a few years time it will have evaporated

No more sweetness

Just a stickiness that has me glued to the ground

Starving till the Queen Bee flies down my throat

She knows what is a happy ending.

A marriage of two ”too much” such similar spirits.

No longer yearning for connection

The sting is the wedding ring.

At last pain equates pleasure

Eternally joined at the soul in death.

And all these apartments with their balconies

Sustaining separate lives

Overwhelmed faint.

Object permanence

Rape Jokes are not funny.

Rape jokes are bad. Read this aggravating story about the comedian Daniel Tosh.

At the same time one of the responses against rape jokes is making me angry. This article is example 2 831 of somebody in the discussion on rape who is meaning well, but just gets something terribly wrong. Yes I do like the ending of the article and I do hate rape jokes, HOWEVER, comparing rape to cutting of someones genitals?!? So all of a sudden if you are raped you don't have any genitals for the rest of your life??? We need the sex positive-movement to start discussing rape and healing on a much larger scale, I'm sooo tired of people getting away with these types of comparison.


PS Intressant artikel om homosexualitet, klass och historia.

Alexander Alvina Chamberland reads from their audio poetry-collection and sings Fiona Apple @ The Queertopia Festival

The queerfemme-inist performance poet Alexander Alvina Chamberland reads poetry from their collection “The revolutionary audacious fruition of the strength, knowledge and broader empathy gained from swimming through quicksand not sinking or taking the straight road to status quo. Do not fear the abyss. Do not fear bliss” an audio-collection of 21 of their poems available on itunes, amazon.com, spotify etc.:http://open.spotify.com/album/2IADggpybL70ppWpcqASok Alexander Alvina will also be singing cover versions of songs by Fiona Apple. Originally hailing from Northern California Chamberland is now based in Sweden and has performed in cities like New York, Berlin, Amsterdam, London, Copenhagen, San Francisco and Stockholm. “The revolutionary audacious fruition…” is the first release of their poetry. The recording explores a vast variety of themes such as capitalism, money, beauty standards, ”The Queer Art of Failure” (Questioning the heteronormative, capitalist and lookist definition of success, as well as emotional honesty about failures and negative experiences to make people feel less alone with their failures and to not buy into the capitalist notion of hiding failures and flaunting successes), objectification, “too-muchness”, suicide, apocalypse, femme-activism, homo and transphobia, US Imperialism, the capitalist ego/the human-as-robot-capitalist, Sex workers rights, twosomeness, family, sexual assault and harassment, independence, religion and god, fighting inner-demons, existentialism, processing and healing from rape, anarchist resistance and liberation, and femme-on-femme queer sexuality – always with a great deal of intensity, indignation and energy. http://open.spotify.com/album/2IADggpybL70ppWpcqASok -------- Book tickets for Queertopia here - You won't regret coming to festival ♥ ♥ ♥:http://www.queertopia.nu/?page_id=1475 Other performances: This song is my new anthem and I love anthems, it kind of sums up what it means to be extremely intense and allow yourself to feel everything and have really deep interactions: "SEEK ME OUT, LOOK AT LOOK AT LOOK AT ME - I'M ALL THE FISHES IN THE SEA. WAKE ME UP - GIVE ME GIVE ME GIVE ME WHAT YOU GOT IN YOUR MIND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT"

Antony - Future Feminism

I agree with much of what they are saying and some of the things, I just love it... ♥ Antony Hegarty ♥

PS Lookism is going down!!! 

May your life some day be as awesome as you pretend it is on facebook

Dedicating this one to J. Jack Halberstams "The Queer Art of Failure" and the politics of failing to be successful in a society where success is defined by heteronormative capitalism. Social media is turnings us into self-marketing little robots with smiles firmly planted on our faces... As human beings one day we might evolve towards realness, instead of flaunting successes and hiding failures, but capitalism sure is taking us in the opposite direction...

 "People shouldn't have to always appear stable and content because people aren't always stable and content and it makes us harder and as a majority more unstable and more discontent, cuz we feel more alone and don't have the freedom to express the darker sides of our emotions, cuz we're supposed to keep everything friendly, polite and appropriate, but I think that every emotion is appropriate" - Fiona Apple

Links, clips and happenings.

Meow! Will be giving a lecture in Malmö on Lookism on Wednesday. The link to the event is here. "Mirror-Mirror on the wall who's the fairest of them all? I don't I don't really care you know - like it doesn't (shouldn't) fucking matter AT ALL!" Who made the rules? Who wrote the script? Smash it this is an important political issue that has everything to do with power, hierarchy, racism, sexism, heterosexism, classism, femme-phobia, sizeism, AGEISM, ableism etc.

Speaking of ableism, take the time to read this article from the magazine Ottar on sexuality and ableism (in Swedish).

I'm also getting ready for some performances now - Poetry reading and singing Fiona Apple @ Queertopia on the 21rst and dressing as Amy Winehouse and singing a few of her songs at the Amy Winehouse-tribute in Malmö on the 23rd.

A very relevant clip on the different types of discrimination facing transwomen in comparison to transmen:

PS It's a good thing I don't go out dancing that often right now, because every time I do I rip open the ass of my jeans...

PS 2: When I do yoga I always score a goal for Team Orotund in my inner-game vs. Team Moribund ♥ I get myself into considerably less trouble and self-destructiveness when I'm doing yoga. "Madonna does it for the buff, I do it for the crazies" - Courtney Love. 

"You may think that feeling bad means you aren't making progress in your healing. This is often a mistake. We all hope that healing will feel good, but mostly, it doesn't. Healing can feel more like dying-dying and being transformed, and then finding yourself changed for the better, with a life of your own"

Performance Art putting the horrors of Animal Testing on display.

Animal Liberation NOW!

"Elephants that ''work'' in Thailand and other tourist destinations have to go through a ritual called phajaan, or “crush”. It begins with the baby elephants (usually three to four years old) being taken from their mothers and placed in a small, wooden pen. To get them securely in the pen, these babies are beaten with bamboo, sticks with nails attached to the tip and bull hooks. Once in place, the crush lasts for roughly a week. During this time, they are beaten, bludgeoned, have hooks attached to their sensitive ears, and are deprived of food and water as well as sleep, all in the name of breaking ties with their mothers and becoming domesticated. While in the crush, through the infliction of pain, they learn how to accept riders, do circus tricks and paint. This is designed to break the animal's spirit which it certainly achieves, often taking its sanity too.

Used for centuries to domesticate wild elephants, this torture training method is still accepted as the only viable training method for elephant handlers and is used in almost every elephant attraction in Thailand.
And, once they have their souls stomped out, they are simply vessels entertaining people. They are chained. They don’t eat enough.

Like humans, elephants have the capability to form relationships and have emotions. But, not the elephants working for the tourists.

People who visit Thailand — and other countries with elephant tourism — don’t realize the damage they cause these elephants when they support trekking camps, go to circuses or buy the paintings done by these creatures. Without knowing, they send a clear message to the elephant tourism industry that shows they support the torture these animals go through early in their life, as well as the horrific conditions they live in as cogs in the tourism wheel. Please never support this horrible practice, never ride an elephant. (Andres Grijalva)
Please sign the letter on here http://action.petaasiapacific.com/ea-campaign/clientcampaign.do?ea.client.id=110&ea.campaign.id=2644&fb_source=message and for more impact please send emails to
The Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra: soc@soc.go.th (the Secretariat to the Cabinet)
The Minister of Commerce: webmaster@moc.go.th
The Public Relations Depertment: prforeign@thailand.prd.go.th
Ministry of Foreign Affairs: webmaster@mfa.go.th
Email block.... soc@soc.go.th, webmaster@moc.go.th, prforeign@thailand.prd.go.th, webmaster@mfa.go.th
(jb)"

Frances Farmer

The first time I saw the movie on Frances Farmer I was 16 and I had been invited to a party for once but being there didn't change my feeling of being left out, so I went home early and saw this movie and felt fulfilled emotionally in a completely different way. I saw it again today and cried my way through it all just as much - the lofty sense of injustice, the unwillingness to fear conflict, the steely inner will, the fight with the psychiatrist where she screams "I will not be what you want me to be - a doll, average, normal" and the ending - most of all the ending, the lobotomy - Ohhh like the Nirvana-song goes FRANCES FARMER WILL HAVE HER REVENGE ON SEATTLE, and on her mother, on Hollywood, on the world.

I'm crying a lot tonight, in a good way, well, mostly a good way, cuz things never really are that simple. And I see the full moon, it's a blaze in yellow shining almost as if it was a sun. Amongst the tears I wish I could just take a short walk and reach it. The full moon is my best friend, it knows my correct element and suits my temperament. We used to be so satisfied in keeping this,and what we ate,who we met,what we did,and so on to ourselves and the ones we cared about - or maybe we could reflect upon it and turn it into meaningful art - than along came social media and the project of self-marketing ourselves as happy and successful. But facebook will never eclipse the full moon! Never. Same goes for twitter, tumblr, instagram bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla - seems like the more modern you are the more you are thinking "I have to post this on my facebook, tumblr, instagram, blog, twitter" till it's almost all you think about and your ego has exploded.

Transfobi och våldtäkt!

Alltså! Den här artikeln och det här rättsfallet är bara så transfobt och rättsvidrigt så att det inte finns.

Never Is A Promise

Freedom from fear - Just let me fly as often as I fall.

Free to fly and fall - Courage bares with it the richness of colors, shades and shadows undulate with your perceptions, feelings swell and stretch and you see from greater heights.

The depths in the heat of this soul and the wounds in the world. I feel like singing and drinking and stuff and I don't care if I stumble or cry. Handle me like family and that will be enough to keep me from dying when I want to die. The more I let myself feel everything and allow my heart to be made of parts of all that's around me, the more I understand that the feelings of oneness with all our surroundings are more true than the feelings of aloneness. Freedom from fear - Just let me fly as often as I fall and through this intensity fit 500 years worth of life into 47.

Must read article's!!!!!!

Jasbir Puar writes spot on about Israel's pinkwashing in The Guardian: While Israel may blatantly disregard global outrage about its wartime activities, it nonetheless has deep stakes in projecting its image as a liberal society of tolerance, in particular homosexual tolerance. These two tendencies should not be seen as contradictory, rather constitutive of the very mechanisms by which a liberal democracy sanctions its own totalitarian regimes.

Great blog on poly and how poly and/or fucking a lot of people in itself isn't radical - it's doing it in a respectful, accountable, communicative, consensual and emotionally responsible way that makes it political. Also brings up power dynamics between masculinities and femininities. ♥ ♥ ♥ Read here.

Interesting article in bitch magazine on the definition of queer and feminist films in India.