Going Gaga

I can't pretend that I get Gaga.

She's over my head. Notice I say that, not, 'I've seen it all before' yes and no, I prefer, she seems familiar and yet not so, which of course is inevitable. No one transcends their era if you doubt it, a cursory study of the most extremist rebels you can find throughout history and how much you can see they are of their era, will, not catch me in arrogance. Today follows yesterday, which is history, you'd think some people would've noticed.

It's not even that I know nothing about her, I was initially interested in her, from when she came over to the UK and was rather low key in terms of popularity building herself up to her current heights.

I was strangely drawn, by her name Germanotta, I'll bet there's some interesting hidden history there, although one should avoid racial stereotyping like the plague, it seems to kind of some her spirit up in some way. The industry of the Germans own self identity with that of the Italians artistic heritage sorry, what can I say?

Her music did not draw me in particularly, it seemed to be strangely out of keeping with her image to the point where I half thought she was being ironic. It's only when she released other records that I realised.

Nope, that is her sound.

I saw her being interviewed and I thought she came across well, although it was an early one in this country and she was definitely very nervous. It's easy to forget that she's only 24 at times, even though she doesn't look or seem older, particularly.

My opinion of her music, so far as entertaining me changed briefly when I came across her performing let's dance live.

I was taken aback, she really put an almost preternatural amount of focus and energy into it, and could sing really well, that i couldn't resist. I still listen to just dance, purely to help summon up the association with that performance, so I enjoy it, but it doesn't match the space that performance allotted for it so it's a strangely distanced pleasure.

The more recent kerfuffle around Lady G has been stoked by Camille Paglia, silent Z, with an article portentously entitled.

Lady Gaga and the death of sex

Well blow me.

It is a while since I heard something as ridiculous, and hanging out where I do on the nets, that's genuinely saying something.

Inexplicable Madonna lover, don't get me wrong, there are things about her that are impressive, but the fact that she sings like pebbles being dropped in a bucket of water has only recently stopped annoying me very hard.

The thing that struck me about Paglia's opininings was the accusation that Lady Ms G is not sexy.

I'm not kidding you when I say I was stunned.

That had never occurred to me once.

Don't get me wrong, I'd noticed that she was no Scarlett Johansson, but I find her attractive and when she is deliberately not ringing those bells, she's interesting in the way that more beautiful people often aren't.

As I'm often quick to say what I have noticed, it's only fair that I say, it hadn't occurred to me that straight men mightn't find her sexy.

AT ALL.

Whilst I don't feel bad about that, I have a certain reticence about investigating why.

Either way, I cannot see her as unsexy at all, that's what I find so fascinating, when I heard unsexy, my immediate reaction was no, no, no.

So how can I have not notice that she is not sexy to straights (I was going to say, straight men, but let's face it, straight sexuality is their sexuality or what fits around what it's supposed to be). I wonder if this is one of the reasons I feel averse to this fashion for calling yourself queer as a hetero woman. All women's sexuality is in a sense 'queer' in that it's hard for it to make an appearance at all, whatever it is. A suggestion of this is the fact that some are claiming Gaga is supposed to be totally non sexual.

Sexual would be channelling it into some depersonalized alter ego presentation that is supposedly for men until the centre cannot hold and it all falls through the bottom into the odious dirtframing of 'female sexual dysfunction'.

I'll overlook that one for now.

No wonder even men treat women who present their sexuality thus as devoid of any intelligence. It's like they're saying, if you're stupid enough to fall for that, you must be brain dead.

No, just well trained.

And indeed, that's the point, Gaga, is not unsexy, she is not even restrained in her sexuality.

It is integrated and contained.

That means, it is part of the whole of her, not out there de contextualized from her being.

I never thought about it before, but at least for white women, the case of black women is different through all sorts of things that have nothing to do with our actual sexualities, Gaga represents what female sexuality looks like when it is not for what men are supposed to want. Women seem to dig her, the wonderful Rhianna finds her (look) interesting.

And although women do think certain women are pretty and attractive to them, but less to straights. I often don't find them too hot either, but Gaga gives off a sense that she enjoys, if you know what I mean. Whereas Paglia's muse M, I've never felt her sex appeal. Which is interesting, it's never occured, but maybe I didn't find all her writhings convincing. There's a sense that she probably had other things on her mind.

So yeah, maybe she does represent a new generation of women who have a more integrated sexuality. I've noticed around and about that there are a lot more women around who craft a look that is more boyish/garçonne than previously. They are often very attractive, they are at ease with the way they look and compel the attention and those who are into men don't seem to forgo their interest either, so certain media men, perhaps a little defensively should not assume their rejection of part of what Gaga represents is shared by all men.

Why shouldn't a man want a woman who is whole and not just a parody of what a man is supposed to want? In my experience, by no means all men wish to be pandered too by that sort of thing. They'll go with it, but if it's not there they not necessarily missing it.

I say this not because it's something to be said if men like it, or not, it's more, if men are not necessarily demanding a certain kind of sexuality/sexual presentation from women, who/what is?

It's those men who make a show of speaking of their aversion that seem a little off the pace. A bit like Paglia herself.

Speaking of Ms Johansson, she made me laugh a while back when she called her breasts "my girls". I know this is an old one, but I'd either not heard it or forgotten it. Yet, it isn't that funny in repose to describe bits of you as having a separate and distinct existence from yourself.

I'd bet Gaga calls her breasts; breasts.