Garwood

Yet Tyre stands in glorious violation of all these norms. An object of admiration, not dismay, she is presented to us as an intimidatingly sophisticated, ruthless and efficient manager as well as a stunningly attractive domme. An outrageously fantastic figure, something akin to a kinky fairy godmother, like so many male heroes she is initially introduced through the (feminised) trappings of an otherwise habitually masculine power. Her limousine (that traditional male status symbol) has been painted ‘periwinkle blue’; she is ‘handed out’ (usually a gesture of respect for a woman performed by a man) by a chauffeur whose precise gender construction remains ambiguous.²⁴ Her physical presence is joyously melodramatic: albino, ‘just over six feet tall’ with ‘perfectly white hair that falls to [her] knees’, her outfit both exaggerates her womanhood in traditionally fetishised terms (‘skin-tight hot pink jumpsuit’, silver pumps with ‘six-inch heels’) and incorporates devices to emphasize her toughness (heels like blades; zippers and studs reflecting both fetish practices and the leatherman culture whose dominance is established in the opening paragraphs).²⁵

Tyre is undoubtedly powerful, with elements of the divinity and androgyny implied by her name and her habitually covered eyes, but her power is explicitly based on and concerned with femininity. Compared to her, even Roxanne, the ‘ultimate bar-femme’, feels ‘lacking in she-ness, clumsy and without grace.’²⁶ Tyre is ‘a feminist, but the fun kind’, asserting the relative universality of specifically feminine desire as not only the raison d’etre behind the Isis but the driving force between a widespread shift in lesbian sexual relations.²⁷ Similarly, much of Califia’s political writing is concerned with reclaiming and defending the concept of open sexual desire for women, particularly fetishists, BDSM practitioners and other minority groups whose particular interests are not catered to by the mainstream.²⁸

As Tyre says, summing up much of Califia’s politics, everyone ‘ha[s] a right to their own version of a good time,’ and this is demonstrated to be true gastronomically as well as sexually.²⁹ Her attitude to food could not be further from the self-denying means by which women in contemporary culture traditionally assert power; through denying need or desire for it.³⁰ She is actively enthusiastic about food, praising Georgia’s efforts (‘this looks heavenly’) and ‘encouraged’ to ‘make it through the morning’ by the prospect of lunch. Nor is Tyre the only powerful woman in ‘Isis’ to enjoy eating. ‘Luncheon’ provides an occasion for her initial encounter with Alex, perhaps the two most significant models of dominance in the text.³¹ Both unashamedly appreciate their food, and their ongoing power struggle moves seamlessly from the enthusiastic devouring of Mexican food to that of each other. Their meal is generous, cooperatively served and lovingly described, and performs several important functions in the narrative. Shared eating offers an image of co-operation and communion.³² Serving food is equably divided, and nowhere does it carry the hierarchical or gendered connotations of service it does elsewhere. Service in this world has an entirely different meaning, openly chosen for reasons of psychosexual need or desire rather than imposed by gender identity or social position. Califia reclaims traditional imaging of women as food – the object of consumption – just as she reclaims traditional feminine terms and images of respect. Georgia is a ‘hot dish’ to be ‘uncover[ed] and devour[ed]’ by Simba, and this is a self-assumed implication of attractiveness shared with other women, no more denigrating than Alex’s referring to Tyre as the ‘madam’ – to Alex’s concern about possible offence, Tyre responds ‘It is an honorific, after all.’).³³

Alex is perhaps the most stereotypically ‘masculine’ of the three: the owner of a motorbike dealership, she is ‘tall’ with ‘the thick neck of a bodybuilder’, dressed uncompromisingly in ‘black-leather pants with a studded crotch piece, engineer boots, and an old, cracked black-leather jacket.’³⁴ Food is used to heighten this effect: she declares herself a ‘confirmed carnivore’, itself a trait much more culturally associated with the masculine than the feminine, in keeping with her ‘butch[ness]’.³⁵ She ‘grins’ at Tyre, ‘digging her spoon into the soft custard’, whilst asking questions that can only be described as penetrating.³⁶ Yet the women converse on a basis of absolute sexual equality, without reference to how they choose to present their genders, and Tyre’s simultaneous appreciation of Alex’s ‘defiant, deviant beauty’ alongside the ‘carnivor[ous]’ meal indicates the invalidity of such preconceptions.³⁷ Moreover, their mutual enthusiastic and sensual enjoyment of food works as a political statement in a number of ways.³⁸

First of all, appreciation is entirely mutual: eating represents neither competition nor rivalry. Neither woman stints herself in an attempt to gain cultural supremacy. Their battle for pre-eminence is fought outside any culturally determined concern about excessive food intake, and thus the existence of such implicit restrictions is criticised. Secondly, there is open enjoyment in ‘getting a buzz on’ and ‘stuff[ing] themselves silly’, whilst ‘wicked’ implies the transgressive pleasure gained from indulgence. Unabashed desire for food reflects the unabashed sexual desire they share; both women’s appetites are echoed by their aggressive and intensely mutual lust.³⁹Sex is even described using pabular terminology: Tyre ‘split [Alex’s] legs and ate her with fast hard strokes.’⁴⁰ Of course, the symbolic similarity between sexual penetration and eating has been a cultural truism for centuries, but its use here perhaps reflects the rejection in Califia’s work of the common contemporary assumption that ‘sex’ equals (heterosexual) phallic/vaginal penetration.⁴¹ Physical pleasure, be it sexual or gastronomic, is a universal good, and honest appreciation an unequivocally admirable quality regardless of gender. Much has been written about the problematic and repressive contemporary cultural insistence on feminine self-denial as an index of virtue, and here Califia tackles such assumptions and their implications head on.⁴²

Rather than present a typical blazon, Califia introduces his characters by dissecting their cultural iconography (Alex as a ‘leatherwoman’, Chris as a tattooed punk, Roxanne as a ‘flashy piece of trash’) and emphasising their varied appeal and mutual appreciation.⁴³ Whilst we learn that Tyre and Alex’s ‘breasts were nearly the same size’, that Chris ‘didn’t have Alex’s height’ but that ‘her rangy body looked hard, strong and fast’, that Roxanne is pretty, descriptions of the players either depict intentionally assumed cultural characteristics or focus on intimately detailed sensory depictions of sexual acts.⁴⁴ EZ and Kay, for example, ‘bikers’ who habitually prey on ‘young faggots’, both wear ‘501s’, ‘leather chaps’ and leather jackets, but Kay signals her seniority and greater femininity (EZ is a ‘young, very cute, boy-punk’) by wearing her jeans blue rather than ‘faded and faded until they were nearly white’.⁴⁵ Joy wears an untreated leather bikini to indicate her tribal spirituality; Michael’s Marine Corps dress blues reflect her androgyny and her role; Anne-Marie conveys her ‘invincible authority’ with an ‘old-fashioned doctor’s bag and [...] nurse’s uniform’ made from white latex.⁴⁶ All these elements of identity, whatever their gendered implications, are consciously assumed, underlining the extent to which the violence and power play of their sex lives is also a conscious choice. Food is used similarly to signal gender and social positioning – Alex and EZ, the most ‘butch’, drink beer, whilst aristocratic Tyre insists on sherry.

In between erotic play, in contradistinction to the simplistic arousal-to-climax structure of much pornography with its absence of food, the women break for coffee and sushi. ‘Pretty’ Roxanne responds to the compliment ‘You’re a hot fuck, for such a little girl’ by saying ‘I’m hungry’: again, desire for food is not only justified but completely unrelated to body type, shape or attractiveness.⁴⁷ Feeding reinforces the sexual power dynamic: Roxanne is chained, the dommes maintaining their group identity and rights to enter her by taking turns to feed their slave just as they take it in turns to fuck her. Feeding is fucking; swallowing is sex. The sharing of food and feeding, like the sharing of Roxanne’s body, reflects the group’s cohesion, the ‘pack’ identity essential for Alex’s plan and Roxanne’s fantasy.⁴⁸ Their function as the single ‘entity’ of Roxanne’s perception is evident not only in the teamwork they establish in their various combinations, but their evident mutual respect and care of one another.⁴⁹ Anne-Marie, caning expert, praises Tyre’s technique and encourages her victim to do the same; Chris hastes to disabuse Joy of the notion that she’s ‘casting aspersions’ on her skills.⁵⁰ Similarly, the care they take of one another is amply demonstrated in the aftermath of Chris’s flogging of Roxanne and the latter’s declaration of love. Alex’s jealousy doesn’t prevent her from briefly allowing Chris the space with Roxanne that both obviously need; Tyre and Michael ‘filter over, their bouncer-instincts warning them trouble was brewing’; Anne-Marie ‘defuses the situation’ by summoning Joy; Kay ‘saves’ Roxanne from her ‘dilemma’; ‘everyone trie[s] to be handy and inconspicuous at the same time’, and when Chris tries to attack Alex for punishing Roxanne, Tyre and Michael reason with her (‘She don’t belong to you, man…’/’I’m sure you’ll have another chance’) while Anne-Marie blocks her view of the spanking and Kay makes her coffee. In fact, it is Kay’s chiding of Anne-Marie that breaks Chris’s intense focus on Roxanne: when Anne-Marie becomes ‘terribly distressed’, she immediately leaps to her defence.⁵¹ Only EZ formulates intragroup relations as hierarchical or rivalrous, or objectifies Roxanne (‘it’s a nice piece’), deliberately antagonising both Alex and Chris.⁵² She implicitly attempts to impose upon them the constraints of convention by reducing them to a ‘bunch of girls’; [Roxanne]’s nothing but a whore, and you’re all just pussy to me. Tryin to act tough and important, and you’re nothing but a bunch of girls.’⁵³

Her reward is to be excised entirely from the ‘pack’, who resolve the problem by forcing her, like Roxanne, to ‘bottom’, deep-throating Michael until she vomits, and submitting to a caning from the formidable Anne-Marie.⁵⁴ The resulting ‘double gang-fuck’ and the sharing of food, both forms of communion, finally resolve all these conflicts, enabling Roxanne’s piercing ceremony and the group’s harmonious departure.⁵⁵

24. A ‘woman’, referred to as ‘her’ throughout, she nevertheless appears to live largely as a man. Named Michael and possessed of a moustache, her contributions to the sex scene all involve a strap-on penis. [↩]
25. ‘Isis’, p. 86; p. 96. [↩]
26. ‘Isis’, p. 122; p. 169. [↩]
27. ‘Isis’, p. 93, see also pp. 92-6. The availability of ‘anonymous sex… on a commercial basis’ has ‘changed what it means to be a lesbian’, offering the ‘choice to be really promiscuous if that’s what [you] want to do’, ‘promoting female bonding’ even among those who ‘don’t consider themselves to be lesbians.’ [↩]
28. See, eg., Pat Califia, Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex, Second Edition (San Franciso: Cleis Press, 2000); Speaking Sex to Power: The Politics of Queer Sex (Los Angeles: Cleis Press, 2002). [↩]
29. ‘Isis’, p. 106. [↩]
30. See Carole M. Counhian, The Anthropology of Food and Body: Gender, Meaning and Power (London: Routledge, 1999), esp. pp. 113-129; Susie Orbach, Hunger Strike, op. cit.; Kim Chernaik, Womansize: The Tyranny of Slenderness (London: The Women’s Press, 1981). [↩]
31. ‘Isis’, p. 91. [↩]
32. Counihan, Anthropology, pp. 1-25, pp. 43-61, pp. 113-129; ‘Isis’, p.92. [↩]
33. ‘Isis’, Macho Sluts, op cit. [↩]
34. Ibid, p. 91. [↩]
35. Ibid, p. 91. [↩]
36. Ibid, p. 95. [↩]
37. Ibid, p. 92. [↩]
38. Ibid, p. 92. [↩]
39. ‘Isis’, Macho Sluts, op cit, p. 101. [↩]
40. Ibid. p. 101. [↩]
41. Regardless of participants’ gender, such intercourse remains only one of a number of pleasurable options: those with penises are as likely to be entered, and those without as likely to penetrate others with dildos or fists as they are to be penetrated themselves. [↩]
42. See, eg., Susie Orbach, Hunger Strike, op. cit., Fat is a feminist issue: the anti-diet guide for women, (London: Arrow, 1998); Kim Chernin, Womansize: The Tyranny of Slenderness, The Hungry Self: Women, Eating and Identity (New York: Times Books, 1985); Naomi Wolf, TheBeauty Myth: How Images of Female Beauty Are Used Again Women (London: William Morrow, 1991); Courtney Martin, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters (London: Piatkus, 2007); Helen Malson, The Thin Woman: feminism, post-structuralism and the social psychology of anorexia nervosa (London: Routledge 1998); M. Gard and J. Wright (eds.), Obesity Epideic: Science, Morality and  Ideology (New York: Taylor&Francis, 2005); Harriet Brown (ed.), Feed Me!: Writers Dish About Food, Eating, Weight, and Body Image (New York: Ballantyne, 2009), Carole M Counihan, ‘Food Rules in the United States’ in Counihan, The Anthopology of Food and Body: Gender, Meaning and Power (London: Routledge, 1999, pp. 13-128), www.the-f-word.org.uk; Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body(California, University of California Press, revised edition 2003);Abigail C. Saguy and Kevin W. Riley ‘Weighing Both Sides: Morality, Mortality, and Framing Contests over Obesity’, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 30(5) (2005), 869-923; DOI:10.1215/03616878-30-5-869 ; Kathleen   L LeBesco ‘Weight Managegement, good health and the will to normality’ in Malson/Burns, (eds.), Critical Feminist Approaches (op. cit.);Janet Sayers ‘Feeding the Body’ (op. cit.)and Michael Gard ‘Understanding obesity by understanding desire’ (op. cit.); Peter N Stearns, Fat History: bodies and beauty in the modern west (New York: NYUP, 2002); Jana  Evans Braziel, Kathleen LeBesco, (eds.), Bodies out ofbounds: fatness and transgression (California: University of California Press, 2001). [↩]
43. ‘Isis’, p. 96; p. 122. [↩]
44. Ibid, p. 99; p. 110; p. 121. [↩]
45. Ibid., p. 104, p. 107. [↩]
46. Ibid., p. 111; p. 108; p. 109. [↩]
47. ‘Isis’, Macho Sluts, op cit, p. 138. [↩]
48. Ibid., p. 97. [↩]
49. Ibid., 141. [↩]
50. Ibid., p. 128, p. 148. [↩]
51. All Ibid., pp. 155-9. [↩]
52. Ibid., p. 159. [↩]
53. Ibid., p. 160. [↩]
54. Ibid., eg., 97, pp. 160-4. [↩]
55. Ibid., pp.164-5. [↩]