Machine Gun Fellatio has become a household name after the band's second show at Melbourne University was cancelled by the Student Union, on the grounds that the show was sexist. The RMIT and Swinburne University of Technology student unions have followed suit.
The accusation of sexism mainly concerned the fact that, during the performance, the singer stripped off her top to reveal two moustached breasts. She then proceeded to cartwheel across the quadrangle while still singing. One of the male band members also performs naked during the show.
In a letter to the RMIT student newspaper Catalyst, the student union presidents from RMIT and Melbourne and Swinburne universities wrote: "[we] felt that the actions of the band, in particular a striptease by a female band member initially wearing a tiny nurses' outfit was inappropriate for lunchtime entertainment in that it presented women as sexualised objects and could easily have been taken out of context by the culturally diverse student population ... We realise that there is a fine line between art and pornography or the subversive and offensive but the themes of visual entertainment were undoubtedly based on a stereotyped male fantasy."
Singer Christa Hughes responded: "It's not like I'm prancing across the stage in something sexy, leaning over to boys and saying 'here are my boosies'; it's just a bit of silliness. I paint moustaches on them and it is all a bit of a Benny Hill piss-take."
The arguments put by student union officials have triggered an important discussion in the pages of student newspapers debate about art, sexism and censorship.
I do not agree with the a student union officials view that female nudity equals sexism.
However, I should first make my position clear that I don't agree that the unions' decision to cancel Machine Gun Fellatio's shows is political "censorship". All student unions make decisions about what they spend their resources on. These resources should be used to fight sexism, not to reinforce it. It is entitled to cancel a show if it thinks its is sexist. A student union is not the state. Deciding not to spend it's resources on sexist material is not the same as the state attempting to deny public access to such material.
Of course, deciding how to protest best depends on what will raise people's understanding of what sexism is and how it demeans women.
Sometimes, cancelling a performance may be the best means of doing this, provided the reasons are clearly communicated to the broader public. At other times, it might be better to distribute information at the performance on why it is sexist, or to openly protest during the performance.
It seems that the unions are not protesting against sexism but nudity. Did the student officials who yelled "sexist" at nudity in the Machine Gun Fellatio performance have the same response to the two women at the S11 anti-corporate protests who started a nude marathon? Or the woman who presented awards at the Queer Film festival while naked? Or the nudity at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras?
In a sexist society, most images of women are sexist. Sexual imagery is no more, or less, sexist than other images of women. To argue that female nudity (or explicit sexual imagery) is always more sexist than other images of women is to argue that it is sexist to consider a woman a sexual being. This can easily fall into the false view that sexist attitudes and violence are caused by the public display of women's bodies, and that the victims of sexual assault bring on the attacks upon themselves by what are wear.
Sexism results from an institutionalised social practice in which women are valued only in terms of their role within the family — as mothers, daughters and wives. This leads to female sexuality being seen as worthless for anything other than men's sexual desire.
Sexist imagery that does not include explicit nudity (on advertising billboards, in magazines, at sports events, in films and television programs) is far more widespread and influential.
Feminism should be about challenging the restrictions placed on women's sexuality by capitalist morality. Feminists needs to reaffirm that women (and men) are sexual beings and our sexuality is not confined to our "assigned" roles within the heterosexual family. Capitalist society cannot encourage women to challenge their oppression — feminism must.
Only by opening public discussion about sexism — its manifestations, impacts and causes — can we begin to deal with the distortions of human sexuality under capitalism.
We need to reaffirm and support the development of feminist erotica, and celebrations of female sexuality. Stifling all images of female nudity is not a step forwards, it is a step backwards. More often than not, "feminist" arguments in favour of this are nothing but reflections of ruling-class prudery masquerading as anti-sexism.
BY SARAH PEART
[Sarah Peart is a Melbourne district organiser for the Democratic Socialist Party.]