Grayson Perry interview

[Shewholovedthethebanhills]

I thought his answer to the question on gender stereotypes was refreshing: “As a transvestite, I’m heavily invested in gender stereotypes, because otherwise I wouldn’t have a barrier to cross. It would just be dressing.”

@WingsOfGahan

I think when people are coming for artists and writers, we are in trouble. Artists and writers are not just pissing around trying to be famous, they are trying to get in to the depths of things. You all might not think that matters but it does matter.

Artists don't get a pass because they're artists!

No, they don't.

ferret, fine, butI don't care.

He is someone who challenges gender stereotypes.

He finds the most humiliating thing you can be is a girl child. Which he sexually exploits to the point of orgasm. Whilst frequently dressed as a grotesque parody of a girl child, and finds shocking the general public highly arousing.

It couldn't be less of a challenge to gender stereotyping if it tried.

seriously don't know why I'm even arguing for Perry, he can stand up for himself I expect.

I don't understand why there is an artificial divide being created in this thread with "it's 100% fine" on one side and "it's 100% awful" on the other, as if those were the only two options, when most posts recognise that it is nuanced. It is valid to debate art and it is valid to debate behaviour and it is valid to debate the area where they intersect as performance art.

You can want to preserve artistic freedom while also recognising that there are certain lines which must not be crossed (for example, as a society we do not condone the slavery of another human being in the name of art). And we can disagree about where those lines are. I think most of the debate in this thread is about people's views on where the lines are.

Rego's art - horrible stuff happening. I fully support it.

If Grayson Perry didn't dress like a little girl his career would be no where. He's a transvestite to further his career - It's a way of distinguishing himself from everyone else selling art. His pottery is of little objective artistic merit.
He does seem like a nice chap though.

She is pinning people down and slitting their throats.

I don't think he even does dress like a little girl any more though does he? That was ages ago. It's a kind of Margaret Thatcher woman now?

*Have you read the thread?

He finds the idea of little girls sexually humiliating. And sexually arousing, if he dresses as a parody of one himself. And he finds the idea of the general public, including little girls, being shocked by himself dressed like this also sexually arousing.

And you would be thrilled if he did all of this in front of your children?*

Yes I’ve read the thread. Have you?

He doesn’t dress like that to visit schools. He’s not dressed like a little girl, he’s dressed like a conventional older woman. So that’s just a straw man argument.

Also I don’t think it’s correct to say he finds the idea of little girls sexually humiliating. What he finds humiliating is the idea of himself being dressed as a little girl.

A male artist freely admits in print that he has had erections in public which he has hidden under his costumes when making appearances; and people are prudes or censors or whatever for thinking he might not be the best person to invite in to a primary school? Really?

What next, Polanski in to do a bit of film studies? Why not, eh?

He’s not dressed like a little girl, he’s dressed like a conventional older woman.

You've got a funny idea of how conventional older women dress! He stands/sits there with the children, wearing his sticky-out erection-hiding big petticoated skirts (whether they are little-girl style or not), having admitted in umpteen interviews that it's a fetish and that the public seeing him dressing like that is a turn-on. Talk about hiding in plain sight! Why do you think it's ok for him to do that? In a room full of children? Is it that you think it's ok because the children are (hopefully) too young to have read his interview comments so they won't know he's probably standing there with an erection?

Cross-posted. Exactly, @foxgoosefinch. If I were one of those kids and in a few years time I read about GP and his fetishes, I'd be thinking 'Wtf were those adults thinking, fawning over him and inviting him to come and talk to us?!'

I saw him in the flesh once face to face at a National trust place, didn’t know who he was but when he came stomping towards me dressed like some creepy Victorian doll crossed with Lizzy Dripping, I can’t explain the level of utter revulsion he created in me.
I can’t stand him because he gets off on peoples reaction to him and it’s a violation, I DO NOT consent to being a prop in his fetish.

@Datun

He is someone who challenges gender stereotypes.

He finds the most humiliating thing you can be is a girl child. Which he sexually exploits to the point of orgasm. Whilst frequently dressed as a grotesque parody of a girl child, and finds shocking the general public highly arousing.

It couldn't be less of a challenge to gender stereotyping if it tried.

Datun nails it (again!)

I’ve seen him live recently. Not content with the toddler-style romper suit, he was pushing another fetish in his show with pictures on screen. He definitely enjoys transgressing boundaries.

I can't explain the level of utter revulsion he created in me
I feel the same way about my Chief Executive Officer, much lauded and entirely respectable.

He doesn’t dress like that to visit schools. He’s not dressed like a little girl, he’s dressed like a conventional older woman. So that’s just a straw man argument.

Dressing like a little girl or dressing like a woman is a sexual fetish for him. He's getting a sexual kick out of people being discomfited by his presentation. To the point, where the clothes he wears have to accommodate his erection.

If a child, later on, discovers that all the adults around them encouraged a man with a well known sexual fetish, who gets off on shocking them, to enter their orbit, don't you think that is wrong? A terrible violation of safeguarding? Of trust?

Also I don’t think it’s correct to say he finds the idea of little girls sexually humiliating. What he finds humiliating is the idea of himself being dressed as a little girl.

He finds the vulnerability of little girls being overpowered sexually exciting, if he imagines himself to be one.

It’s the emotional scenario of being overpowered and humiliated that’s the turn-on.

This is a man, who has managed to convince everyone that his overwhelmingly male and incredibly public sexual fetish, involving men women and children, is fairly harmless.

Vulnerable he isn't.

It's a similar thing that many AGP men describe as sissification.

The idea that women are there to be subjugated and they can leverage that for their own sexual pleasure.

but when he came stomping towards me dressed like some creepy Victorian doll crossed with Lizzy Dripping, I can’t explain the level of utter revulsion he created in me.

Which is the point. He is enjoying the humiliation. It's a lose, lose. If you get angry or upset with him, it's all part of the fun.

I don’t see why that post was deleted?

He doesn’t dress like that to visit schools. He’s not dressed like a little girl, he’s dressed like a conventional older woman. So that’s just a straw man argument.

Also I don’t think it’s correct to say he finds the idea of little girls sexually humiliating. What he finds humiliating is the idea of himself being dressed as a little girl.

Again, in saying that you are dismissing him and what he has said about his choices to cross dress. Nobody here is making stuff up - we would be deleted for that. What we are posting is a direct reflection of what he himself has said, many times, over many years. Which is why MNHQ can let most of it stand.

@foxgoosefinch

I don’t see why that post was deleted?

I missed it, but assumed it was something daft. Now I assume otherwise

Hoarding, are you a little bit bonkers?

Oh just ignore me, I've read it again and it's fine

I was going to say yes, just so's there'd be no bun fight on my behalf!