‘It never frightened me, but I was completely ignorant to the fact that I was having an orgasm’
CAITLIN Stasey is back, and this time, she wants everyone to know what she thinks about feminism, sex and masturbation - and we should listen up.
OH GOD, Caitlin Stasey is at it again.
This is what many who dismiss the former Neighbours actor as bizarre and crazy are thinking as they read her new feminist website, called herself.com, which features an extensive interview with Stasey, flanked by … her naked breasts.
And further down, her vagina. Covered in hair. And not in the shape of a love-heart.
Stasey is passionate. She is angry, she is confused and confusing but most of all, she is sick of apologising for being a woman who likes sex and does not feel good in subscribing to traditional gender roles.
Caitlin Stasey just launched a very feminist (and very NSFW) website: http://t.co/V59EZTaCkt #herselfdotcom pic.twitter.com/1QR7oQZosR
— Styleite (@Styleite) January 12, 2015And after months of being treated as a social pariah bordering on sociopath by some in the mainstream media, Stasey has set up her own website, disparaging slut-shaming, tradition and the silence surrounding masturbation and women.
“When I was younger I remember experiencing an overwhelming tickling, almost painful, sensation between my legs if I touched myself. I didn’t know what it was and would grimace till it was over,” she writes on the website.
“It never frightened me but I was truly and completely ignorant to the fact that I was having an orgasm. Once I eventually learned to enjoy the sensation I quickly figured how to make it happen on purpose.”
OTHER POINTS OF VIEW: Stasey gets it wrong on new website
Not since Sex and the City’s Samantha have we heard such “outrageous” (read: frank) statements discussing anything from polyamory (which she calls “utopia”); feeling “compelled” to sleep with men because you feel like you’ve “led them on, invited them home or kissed them”; or expressing anger about “apologising to men after f***ing”.
“I did that kind of thing all the time, saying: ‘I don’t normally do this kind of thing, I hope you don’t feel think less of me,” Stasey recalls in the interview, surely to the discomfort of many.
Stasey will no doubt cop a mother-load of flak for her honesty. She will be slut-shamed; she will be called crazy, attention-seeking, a femo-Nazi and a man hater. She will be called a myriad of names which will only, in the end, prove her point: that the world we all live in has come to be understood as a “man’s space … where women are only travelling through …. [which is] evidenced by cat calls, street harassment and the constants pursuit of women by strange men”.
And even those women who believe monogamy and marriage are their future — both concepts which Stasey says are “pointless, archaic and painful” — will relate to Stasey’s fears about women servicing men rather them themselves; about saying sorry for liking sex for sex’s sake, and for having to partake in the female beauty ritual that draws them in with a “lilting lady voice ... soothing you into buying THESE cosmetics because we ALL know ‘your crows’ feet are there’ & they are f***ed.”
Stasey, however, does show naivety in her black-and-white labelling of all female staff at the “Daily Mail, News Corp or TMZ” as attempting to discredit feminism and tear[ing] one another down”, engaging in the same rhetoric she seeks to combat throughout her piece: not supporting the sisterhood.
Maybe Stasey is a narcissistic seeker of attention. Maybe, just like other people her age — she is 24, after all — she is prone to outbursts of nonsense to cultivate a following, any following, based on her social media presence. Or maybe she is a staunch feminist who is sick of all the political correctness surrounding all those uncomfortable topics regarding sex, love, religion, politics and being female.
But, here’s a thought: maybe we should cut Caitlin Stacey some slack. Because by focusing on her nude body rather than taking the time to read what is actually quite a strong and interesting interview, we are doing exactly as she says: sexualising her — and others — as merely a sexual object, and dismissing what she has to say, because the imprint of her breasts weighs too heavily on our minds to look beyond their youthful perkiness.