Grayson Perry and Kirsty Young speaking sense

[LunaNorth]

On the BBC no less!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001wqf2?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

The tension in the room is palpable, though.

Some very uncomfortable moments listening to that. He strikes me as charming however he's a tricky character. I feel like the openess about his childhood and sexual preferences is almost a barrier - look how open I am, you can't possibly question me further. Very interesting character. Felt sorry for Kirsty in that interview.

I find the pictures of him dressed like a bizarre nursery rhyme characatures of a little girl repulsive.

But that's what he gets off on. The reaction of other people.

He is saying the right things at the moment, but maybe it's because so many AGP men are now so emboldened to bring their fetish out in public, it kind of ruins it for him.

Doesn't work when he's not the only man in a dress.

I think he works hard on being charming. Its easy to confuse that for being likeable, but once you realise why he is doing it the charm wears off.

I hadn’t realised the black strap on was worn at a children’s charity event.

Oh dear.

The whole thing is so dysfunctional and abusive that I find it just vile. Other people are just pawns in his sexual fetish. He describes his mother as a hysterical narcissist - well Greyson narcissism often runs in the family don't you know.

I went off him (was somewhat indifferent to him previously) when I saw him on a Channel 4 series where a comedian (cant remember who, Irish bloke with a beard) took him on a cycle ride, the series was about the comedian taking his friends/people he admired on a cycle ride around the UK. It was a great series until this episode, Perry was hugely aggressive in presentation and tone, not funny or friendly or kind. I think the comedian was not friends with him or such, I think he was an admirer and wondered whether it was a case of 'never meet your idols'.

There are things I like and respect about him, including his honesty about this issue. I'm not okay with the nature of some of his public exhibitionism, but I'm almost more angry that we as a society let him get away with it.

'I asked my sister can I borrow a couple of dresses. She seemed cool about it she [inaudible] you know, and then I moved on to my mother's clothes. Risk is a big aphrodisiac, you know, and I mean the first time I went out in my mum's
clothes was very very exciting.'

I went to an exhibition 20 yrs ago that included one of his baby girl dresses, where GP gave a personal tour. The dress was covered in hundreds of ‘daisies’ that he took great delight in pointing out were actually spurts of jizz from tiny penis stalks.

I mean when people show you who they are right? He specifically gets his rocks off on using shocking SA associations with very or vulnerable young children - including the strap on episode already mentioned. It’s in plain sight but he’s everyone’s media darling because so charming.

I transcribed the section about consent. Any errors mine:

KY: ‘When people have a … an uncomfortable or a negative reaction to a man wearing a woman’s clothes, do you think it might be because they understand that they are participative in something that is quasi sexual and they haven’t consented to that?’
GP: ‘Yeah, yeah’
KY: ‘and they haven’t consented to that?”
GP: ‘Yeah, yeah. Yeah.’
…
‘But then again, a couple walking down the street holding hands is sort of charged with sexuality as well, so it’s sort of like, where do you draw the line, you know …
KY: ‘There is I suppose - a person might say a straightforwardness about that, you can just see what it is , which is it’s two people being affectionate towards each other, there’s a straightforwardness to that that’s far from –‘
GP: ‘Yeah, I think it’s got to be faced up to, yeah’
‘yeah’
GP ‘yeah’
KY: ‘And how do you think …’
GP: ‘‘Well, you know, for me, it’s like: ooh, there’s a bit of darkness in the old dog yet. [laughs]’

I also want to come back to this comment from upthread:

'I remember he's married to Philippa Perry. An eminently sensible, compassionate, sane woman who I trust. I don't think she'd be associated with him if he were a wrong'un.'

Sensible, compassionate, sane women are just as susceptible to abuse as any other women.

I'm not obviously making any comment on the Perrys' relationship. I just want to point out that abuse can and does happen to anyone.

When I think about him, and wonder if I should be pandering to his obvious and blatant kink that he's very upfront about, I remember he's married to Philippa Perry. An eminently sensible, compassionate, sane woman who I trust. I don't think she'd be associated with him if he were a wrong'un.

So women who do end up married to "wrong 'un"s (like us trans widows), are less sensible, compassionate and sane?

I wonder if people would have been so accepting if he didn’t have a wife in a very middle class profession who is also in the media. Or maybe it’s just that he’s an artist there’s a free pass. It feels a bit “oh we’re so much more sexually open and it’s very nuanced” rather than just grubby and non-consenting.

I’ll be honest I’m another person who didn’t know the extent of what he wore and in which context.

Given he was taking his mother's clothes at an early age to dress for sexual excitement, and apparently spent many years dressing 'to pass', he seems much the same as any other transvestite fetishist. Only couple with fame, his proclivity seems to have been feted, celebrated, so that he was finding it 'boring', and then escalated to ever more outrageous and outlandish outfits. The outfits changed so that he could keep chasing the high of humiliation/shock/discomfort of other people's responses.

Wow came online to see if this was here. It's on at the moment on radio 4.

Kirsty young is BRILLIANT!!!!

And yes the reductionist.....

Being transed if it was now.

"no a man in a dress..."

No one has stronger gender norms than a transvestite...

Wow.

I need to turn it off to go Do Things but want to hear where it goes.

"I don't think trousers are men's clothes" ky.

Its soooo much a sexual thing for him isn't it. And openly so. At least he's telling it like it is?!?!? Instead of pretending.

I've not heard him interviewed before...

True.

https://twitter.com/JournalistJill/status/1779594291800613030
Someone on Twitter/X found this interview. It is definitely an interesting listen 😬

Does he mean that the whole thing is less attractive to him now that people have cottoned on to the sexual motivation?

I actually quite like Perry’s art but all of it (including his outfits) should be contained behind a sectioned off, over 18s only area in an art gallery with a sexually explicit content warning).

That he was invited to a children’s charity event and he thought it appropriate to attend in that outfit is no different to inviting say, the late, great art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe to turn up at a kiddie charity gala wearing a leather studded cock&ball torture contraption.

The boundaries between the adult world and children have always been eroded by the adults who seek to exploit others for their own sexual thrills, but I like to think we used to be better at recognising those boundary transgressions and challenging them (back when porn lived in peep shows, dirty movie picture houses and on top shelves, rather than on phones in pockets?)

Am I just being naive and it’s always been as bad as it is now?

That is what I thought he was hinting at.

The 'mystique' is lost.

I enjoy Grayson Perry’s art and I appreciate his honesty and self-awareness about his AGP and his disdain for the whole gender woo brigade.

I also think forcing your kink on others is disgusting.

Fortunately, because I don’t think the world is black and white, I can think those two conflicting things at the same time. One of the prime movers of the TRA movement and similar contemporary cults/causes is that it requires the world to be divided into goodies and baddies, as if we were all five years old. I can agree with GP on some things and also think his behaviour is vile, and it feels like this mindset is completely alien to a large minority of people at the moment.