Charm, style, tousled hair: is it any surprise we lust after Tories?
Pick of the comments (not mine):
Not only that, but Paris Lees, with her characteristic confessional incontinence (are there pads for that?) encased by an apparently bulletproof certainty in her endlessly fascinating existence, could have dispensed with the pretence implied in the article that her political convictions run counter to those of the men over whose reactionary fervour she seems so much to lust. I can understand the appeal of a deception that interpolates antagonisms into relations where none actually exist; it generates a delicious frisson of perversity amidst entirely conventional sexual encounters. But, on the whole, I think I'd prefer to be frank.
This is, after all, an author who expressed her support for the legalisation of prostitution in terms that could be summarised as, "this is the world we live in, there's always been the sale of sex, women can choose, therefore they should be allowed to do what they want" (along with pimps, brothel managers and trafficking gangs, presumably). This kind of middlebrow casuistry should be familiar since it forms a large part of liberal discourse in general, which never tires of mistaking a description of things with irrefutable insight into their origins and operations. Likewise the charming capitalist totem that sees that all's well in the world as long as individuals are at liberty to choose freely their own commodification, exploitation and violation. We know they are free to choose this because they are also free to choose the alternatives, which might include homelessness and starvation.
And if that piece of capitalist apologetics sounds familiar, it might be because it is the exact same argument advanced by Vox's Matt Yglesias following the Bangladeshi sweatshop factory collapse that killed over 1000 workers. The one where he wrote that such catastrophes shouldn't generate too much anger or dismay, since the crushed workers freely chose to take jobs in a dangerously built sweatshop knowing that they would be compensated financially for the greater risk to their health. This, Yglesias purred, constituted the "collective calculus" according to which poorer nations resisted regulations or workers rights in order to attain an edge over those they compete against for the right to be exploited the most by vampiric Western manufacturers.
There is of course nothing progressive about extreme narcissism and individualism, which almost certainly explains why Lees found herself repeatedly drawn to right-wing trouser snakes. The fleshpots of the Western world are filled with men who indulge their vices at night to relax from trampling on workers during the day. But then, I suppose, an article right-wing postmodern identitarian hacks fucking neoliberal men wouldn't allow for quite the same level of self-regard, which aside from delight at the objectifying male gaze appears to be the generative force behind most of Lees' work.