Grayson Perry

[madderose]

Interview in the Times:

Who could be more fearless, then, than Perry? So it comes as quite a surprise, within an hour in his company, to find myself beginning to suspect he is self-censoring. The suspicion is confirmed when I ask if he would call himself woke. “Me?” he exclaims. “What a question!” He pauses to choose his words carefully. “Well, I can agree with many of the things that the woke say.” He hesitates again. “But some of the perhaps more arcane campaigns of the woke might fizzle out before they become normal.” Such as? “Oh God, I am so not going there! Because there are certain arguments I keep out of that are real hot-button issues.” So the transgender debate, I begin but he cuts me off quickly, repeating: “There are certain arguments.” And he steers clear because? “I don’t want it to define my public persona. Like it has [with] other people.” Does he mean JK Rowling? He repeats: “Like it has other people”^ which makes us burst out laughing, because he sounds like a politician.^

So basically, he is GC but he's not brave enough to come out and say it like JK has? I've always been a fan of his but feel a little disappointed......

don't understand why he gets a free pass on this and is seen as a national treasure

Although I agree the AGP in public isn’t particularly pleasant, I think he gets away with it because he’s so obviously avant-garde and arty, and therefore comes into the class of individuals that British people embrace as embodying our ‘great British eccentricity’.

Have a listen to his appearance on Richard Herring’s podcast. He’s pretty clear that he is GC and that his cross dressing is something that he knows women could have issues with - he’s very sensitive to it and makes no claims for wanting to be treated as a woman.

This is an interesting read:
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/23/grayson-perry-my-greatest-sort-of-sex-dream-was-to-be-a-housewif/

He says:
*“I’m not feminine at all. I never really have been.

“I have no special insight into being a woman and I would never claim that. I am just a bloke in a dress.”*

I can see why he might have pissed some people off...!

@LordCopper

I think any old man who gets a thrill out of dressing like a young girl is a creep, I don't understand why he gets a free pass on this and is seen as a national treasure.

Because it has nothing to do with him believing young girls are sexual beings. The thrill comes, he has said, of trying to achieve a look that is completely inappropriate in an adult - no one in their right mind would think for a moment that he was a young girl and very, very few would fancy him as Claire - and it's that sense of humiliation, that he's doing something ridiculous and that makes him look foolish, that he seems to get off on. I suppose it's a creative form of masochism.

In my experience listening to wives of AGP men it tends to them who one way or another are persuaded into doing the humiliating.

Greyson Perry did a documentary back in 2005 (ish) entitled Why Men Wear Frocks

You can't watch it in the UK, but it's available to watch in Europe.

In it, he says why can't men wear dresses? Why can't they (eg transvestites) broaden the bandwidth of what it means to be a man?

I don't know why we can't watch this programme in the UK. I suspect its been censored for wrongthink. He questions a transwoman and I couldn't repeat what he said, because now it would get me a strike.

londonist.com/2005/02/tv_sets_and_the_10

OMG, I can't believe ListeningQuietly told Tinsel she 'needs to get out more.'.

I like him. I appreciate him being unapologetically a man-in-a-dress.

My interest in men with a fetish is nil.

GP passes the low bar of understanding that he is not a woman.

I can't see why feminism should need to consider him further than that. Let's centre our energy on the women who deal with unhappy consequences of living with a man with a fetish.

In the days when I did indeed get out more, including to trans clubs with my ex, I saw several other men there dressed as little girls like GP. I doubt broadening the bandwidth of being male was their motivation.

@TinselAngel

In the days when I did indeed get out more, including to trans clubs with my ex, I saw several other men there dressed as little girls like GP. I doubt broadening the bandwidth of being male was their motivation.

Quite.

I really don't want to widen the bandwidth of what it means to be a man if it involves men purposely dressing as little girls to get aroused. Largely by the shocked reaction of others unwittingly involved in the fetish.

That's certainly not what I mean when I say men should be able to wear what they like.

It's not the clothes, it's what they represent. The same way as it's not the spaces, it's the women in them.

Yes. The nature of it does make me feel icky as I said upthread.

Although “Claire’s” outfits don’t look like anything I’ve ever seen any little girl wear. They’re more like a pantomime shepherdess or something - and also he does wear much more normal, smart adult “women’s’ clothes. As I said earlier that’s more what I welcome.

But point taken though.

@WinterAndRoughWeather

Have a listen to his appearance on Richard Herring’s podcast. He’s pretty clear that he is GC and that his cross dressing is something that he knows women could have issues with - he’s very sensitive to it and makes no claims for wanting to be treated as a woman.

I was going to cite that podcast too.

He said something about when he would go to meetings with other ‘cross-dressers’, as they were called then, if someone turned up in something like trousers and a jumper it would be thought that they had gone too far and actually started to think they were a woman.

Grayson Perry's cross dressing affects only his wife and family. I don't know why we're discussing him at all. He hits the low bar of being reality-attached. Great. Nobody needs to fangirl him over it.

I'm frustrated that so often here we centre the males in our discussion. Over and over we argue with people who come here to insist we accept males are women. It's not a slam on the posters here, it's just an expression of frustration. I am so tired of thinking about entitled males.

I suppose I just have a vain wish for a feminism board that got to discuss women and girls, and women and girls only. Ignore me, I just can't handle the intrustion of males into female life and discussion any more.

Intrusion by, oppression by and control by males is kind of one of the central reasons feminism exists though. Trans ideology is a classic example. You have to talk about men to get a handle on what men do and try to do to women.

But I'll stop going on at you! You can start new threads within feminism chat / board that centre and focus women, and I don't mean that in a snarky way.

I like Grayson Perry although not so much when he's done up in his dresses.

He is intelligent, thoughtful.

He is definitely GC and he went as far as he could in that interview without inviting a massive shitshow.

His series on masculinity was really good.

The 'Claire' fetish isn't ok but at least he's bringing it out into plain sight

Why isn't it OK? GP can't help having a fetish. He has a right to wear whatever he wants.

Nobody has a right to air their fetish in public without consent of the public.

He's honest which I appreciate.

The doing things in public because they turn you on, less so.

The dressing up as a woman / girl = humiliating. Also less so.

@Time40

The 'Claire' fetish isn't ok but at least he's bringing it out into plain sight

Why isn't it OK? GP can't help having a fetish. He has a right to wear whatever he wants.

I just don't buy that fetishes are an intrinsic part of you that you have an automatic right to express, like sexuality.

If it's damaging, work on not doing it.

I just don't buy that fetishes are an intrinsic part of you that you have an automatic right to express, like sexuality.

Totally agree. Forcing the public to unwittingly or unwillingly take part in your fetish isn't pleasant behaviour.

I have a visceral reaction to being forced to witness or take part in bloke's sex act or fantasy that I want no part of.

@BlackWaveComing

Grayson Perry's cross dressing affects only his wife and family. I don't know why we're discussing him at all. He hits the low bar of being reality-attached. Great. Nobody needs to fangirl him over it.

I'm frustrated that so often here we centre the males in our discussion. Over and over we argue with people who come here to insist we accept males are women. It's not a slam on the posters here, it's just an expression of frustration. I am so tired of thinking about entitled males.

I suppose I just have a vain wish for a feminism board that got to discuss women and girls, and women and girls only. Ignore me, I just can't handle the intrustion of males into female life and discussion any more.

I think it's worthy of some discussion precisely because it does affect his wife and family- that's what I desperately try and direct threads about him towards.

But lauding him as somehow the better type of fetishist shows a lack of understanding of AGP and it's affect on women.

Having said that, I also enjoyed his series about masculinity. I note though that he didn't dress up as Claire in all those environments he went to that only contained men.