Скачать или смотреть Polly Superstar: Can Artists Save the World from a Sexual Dystopia? POEM

Polly Superstar hosts Writing With Mermaids: Writing Community for Queerdos and Gender Rebels. www.withmermaids.com

If you feel like the world is going to shit and being an artist is just a big old waste of time, I invite you to check out my latest poem. I wrote it to remind myself (and you) that art is important:

Can artists save the world from a sexual dystopia?
Break through this fear?
You could call it a phobia

Let’s define it

The concept
of sexual dystopia,
rooted in literature.
People in power see sex as a danger
Imagined worlds, set in our future.

Diabolical methods put into place
keep sex and pleasure in check with a measure
Morale is crushed with injustice and suffering
Haunting our minds
The worst of mankind
The terror
The horror
to be faced with a world so cruelly designed

But the thing about sexual dystopia
these stories aren’t what happens next
They’re things that have already happened
right here
in this world
that’s so anti-sex

The Handmaid’s Tale. We all know this one.
Margaret Atwood, the author, was clear
A cautionary tale,
all the ways we can fail
from our past
and our present
the terrible truth
of the ways women
have already been subject to abuse

The classic book by Orwell
1984
meaningful sex as rebellion against the state
Where does this story come from?
It was inspired by a Russian called Zamyatin
His book, relatively obscure
the culture it portrays that we see as cruel
reflects the angst of living under early communist rule

One of my favorites, Octavia Butler
Her trilogy, Lillith’s Brood
A complex emotional, cultural journey
Climate catastrophe!
What’s left of humanity
seized
by seemingly well-meaning
gender non-binary
polyamorous aliens
set
on impregnating humanity.
We’re cured of disease!
But they don’t comprehend what it means to be free.

Is this really about aliens?
Our future? Perhaps.
But this story is built from a map.
Cultural destruction
Colonization
Sexual slavery
These are sadly not new
What we’ve put people through
What we know to be true

One could argue
Revelations
Whore of Babylon
and her adulterations
is the ultimate sexual dystopia
designed to push terrified Christians
to some god fearing, classic design of utopia

But
this cultural obsession we have, right now
is a relatively recent phenomena
The last hundred years
have set the bar
We’ve become fixated with dystopia
and how fucked up we are

We used to make art about good times
the carrot to dystopia’s stick
imagining worlds where’s everything’s great
and we’ve figured out all of our shit

But, let’s face it, nobody’s buying that story
nobody’s that naive
Heaven is designed to deceive

When totalitarian regimes take hold
the first thing they do is burn books
There’s a reason for this
one that they won’t admit
the word that is writ
has Power
makes them cower

Artists and writers, we play a role
Our culture isn’t on cruise control
This isn’t about politics
convincing, persuasion
artists use the tool of imagination
The mirror we hold to the world as we see it
gives the people the option to choose it
to be it

What if we told the stories
to speak to the world
of the truth of the place we inhabit?
Yes, there are hard times, but what about joy?
Lifestyles, expressions and orientations
Morality freed from old fashioned foundations
Accepting ourselves to find liberation

The path out from this sexual dystopia
we’ve been in for thousands of years
is gonna require some artists and writers
take the wheel and steer

With the power to transcend
to connect and to mend
the complex truth of our non-binary reality
dissolves the patriarchy.
This is not gender confusion
This is evolution

Look,
I’m not saying the future is perfect
and everythings gonna be fine
This may be what it looks like
when we reach the end of time
A mad max hellscape
Violence with no escape
Fires we can’t extinguish
Truths we can’t distinguish
Hurricanes
Zombies coming to eat our brains

There is no single answer to solve this conundrum
there are thousands of answers at least
our job as artists and writers
is to dig deep, express and unleash.

Instead of dystopia, I chose a new story
I call it apocaloptimism.
Not the naive hope of utopian glory
Yes, we are fucked
the situation is dire
but we can’t despair
as we watch it transpire

Let’s make art from this collapsing civilization
Rewrite the narrative
Undercut the foundation
Because the reason we can see
how fucked up this is
is because of the mirror
we’ve been given
by artists.