On the first floor, a performer sang the Crystals’ “He Hit Me (and It Felt Like a Kiss)” while perched atop a bank of mailboxes:
He hit me And it felt like a kiss He hit me And I knew he loved me
On the second floor, in what seemed to be a daycare room, a woman sang “Under My Thumb,” by the Rolling Stones, near a wall of little kids’ cubbies.
Under my thumb It’s a squirmin’ dog who’s just had her day… The way she does just what she’s told, down to me
Around the corner on a trellis, I heard the British Invasion’s nice guys, the Beatles, represented by “Run For Your Life.“
Let this be a sermon I mean everything I’ve said Baby, I’m determined And I’d rather see you dead.
In a bright classroom on the third floor, I found a woman singing Lil Wayne’s “Love Me,” backlit by the afternoon’s grey-orange sky.
She said ‘I never want to make you mad, I just want to make you proud’ I said ‘Baby just make me cum, then don’t make no sound’
I watched this song, perhaps the project’s most explicit, for a full two loops, as groups of three to four people filtered into the room, stared helplessly for a few moments—the discomfort palpable—then backed out.
By the time I reached the fourth floor—Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer,” Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man,” The Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” among others—I felt vaguely as if someone had just removed all my skin with a potato peeler. I made brief eye contact with two women silently sobbing in front of a performer doing Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed.” (“He slaps you once in a while / And you live and love in pain…”)
He made it with filmmaker and BLM activist Sol Guy and you wouldn’t know from the title, but it’s actually a short film, not a documentary, about Darren Wilson being a fucking liar.
Tumblr completely erasing the work of a Black activist/artist while simultaneously finding ways to slander an LGBTQ Jewish person at the same time due to literally not bothering to find out what the film was about in the first place? I’m shocked.
What happens to the young men who don’t want to have sex the moment they hit adolescence?
What happens to the young men who aren’t attracted to the women they’re told they must pursue in order to be a “real man”?
What space is there for young men who are experiencing hormonal surges and sexual attraction but who want to wait, or who desire emotional intimacy and even love before they explore sex with someone else?
How does the construct of masculinity accommodate men who don’t want to have sex at all? And, finally, how can boys and young men be empowered to challenge the potentially sexually abusive behaviour of their friends and male peers if they fear the fallout that might come from standing up against them?
I'm Still Kicking 