................And of course, there is always an image of
woman, around which they cluster and collude, a claque of cockheads, a rat's
nest of recreants and proto-rapists. For what do they do, these pubrats? They
pass between them the names of the office women and speculate as to how and
where and if they would "fuck" them.. They circulate these names in lieu
of bodies... Sue, Jane, Anne-Marie,
Tracy.. tokens handed round for
commentary.."You'd have to do her from behind.." "...Yea, with a
bag on her head," "No, two bags in case first fell off.."
"Yea but after ten pints.." "No I reckon 7 pints with a
blindfold.." And so on. "I'd do her on the photocopier," chirps
Gavin, a wizened 60 year old weasel with a red shiny beak and collapsed cheeks,
then another interchangeable man, Reg,
stinking of 'cigs', with sepia skin
.."You'd better watch out mate, don't want to leave any evidence.
Your fucking skinny arse in a sheet of A4"... "What you on about
mate, I'd be on top, it'd be her fat arse on the photocopier" "you'd
need two fucking sheets of paper for that mate.." And so on. Each burst of
so called banter is answered by a round of red-faced cackling laughter .. Each quip or comment is copied from a crusty crib sheet of Male speech.. . Or else of course they talk about
sport, using the pronouns "you" and "we" to refer to the
on-field activities of football companies that have nothing to do with them.
"We hammered you at the weekend, eh" ""We were shit mate,
our defence was shocking" and so on, referring to a football match in
North London, conflating the activities of the football team with their own
activities, a form of psychopathology that has sunk into the fabric of their
life. But anyway, this is what Men are actually like, just so you know, this is
what a jocularly titled "night out with the lads or the boys" is like,
just so you know, this is what their drink-soaked back-slapping homosocial
sessions consist in.. the rat's nest in the pub corner, mouthing their lines,
performing their maleness to each other.
People's experience is less the expression of something
inside them than the expression of a great social machine which they are part of. For example, a Catholic, first inflated with guilt and then enjoying the blessed discharge
of confession - is he expressing something about himself or is he expressing
Catholicism? The agonised self-scrutiny and the blessed decompression in the
booth with the hidden priest, this is part of the machine of Catholicism and
expresses not just the man but Catholicism itself. The Victorian woman who, at
the point of orgasm feels also the countervailing cramp of shame, pleasure
twisted into pain by Moral censure, is expressing not herself but the Victorian
machine of sexuality. And similarly, there is a masculine machine. Where others
might see 'blokes' 'having a laugh', I see only this machine of masculinity, which
none of these men invented. And when these men speak they are expressing not
themselves but only this machine which came before them. When they pass between
them the names of women and describe the sex acts they would inflict on these
women, when they discuss also the activities of the football companies under
the idiotic false pronouns 'you' and 'we', they
are expressing nothing individual but only the greater machine. Their laughs are
simply the squeaks and noises of the social machine, with its manifold rules
and prescriptions. Everything that degrades women to the status of matter is
applauded, this is one of the rules of the machine, thus expressions like
"beef curtains" or observations such as 'Her box won't be the same
after she's popped one out, it'll be like a clown's pocket' are actually directives to
laugh which cannot be countermanded or refused.
None dare disobey the peremptory orders of the machine because none can
tolerate the ostracism and isolation they imagine lies outside it. And thus do
they bat around, drunk, in this tiny province, blind to the beauty outside,
stunted and poorer.
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