weekly recs, reviews, & appreciations.

thoughts on Bryon Noem's bimbo fetish, the new femme comedy-horror FORBIDDEN FRUITS, & more!

Hello friends. I’m still experimenting a bit, but for now the Reading/Watching/Listening recs will be free for all subscribers, and the Joy & Attention section will be paywalled. Not that I think so many people will want to pay for what I’m feeling grateful for in any given week, but because sometimes those shares feel tender and personal, and even memoirists who have been naked on the internet have boundaries and desires for slightly less exposure. :) Longer essay is coming soon. So glad you’re here, ty!

Reading.

Because it lives at the intersection of sex and politics, I’ve been following the Bryon Noem “bimbofication” scandal closely. I haven’t seen any substantive writing about it yet, but I appreciate the sex educator and SWer content creators who are working to make several things clear: 1) kinks and fetishes are not inherently harmful nor deserving of ridicule; 2) it IS harmful when right wing “family values” Christians married to fascist politicians feel entitled to engage in the same communities they criminalize and violence, and it’s pretty fun to make fun of those assholes; 3) “bimbofication” is distinct from “sissy fetish” and neither of those things are necessarily related to transness/trans identity. Bimbofication doesn’t have to be explored in a fetish or kink capacity; many bimbos just want to inhabit the aesthetic in their everyday life, and it’s not directly related to a sexual turn-on (though is frequently linked to their sexuality, the way a lot of femmes understand their gender as overlapping with queerness, for example). There are also cis men who get turned on by being feminized by a partner (hired or otherwise), and for Noem, it appears that he desires a feminization that is bimbo-like. Fwiw, I don’t think Noem is trans, but I do think gender is a socially constructed spectrum, and so he maybe also isn’t entirely cis (whatever that means). Still, it’s important to make these distinctions during sex panics, which are historically and contemporarily wielded against people on the gender and sexual margins as a way to distract the public’s attention away from real perpetrators of harm. (There is a whole chapter about this in my forthcoming book!) Last thing I’ll say because I think it’s important: SWers are usually incredibly discreet and trustworthy with client info & photos, but the cam model who exposed him said she was frustrated by the Republican husband’s hypocrisy. Understandable since the Noem family is part of a regime that protects actual rapists while making it harder for SWers and trans people to stay safe.

This week my students read about the Guerilla Girls, anonymity, and feminist agency; and also about Alisa Shvartz’s controversial abortion performance art. (And if the school hadn’t lost power during the storm, on Wednesday we would’ve also been watching and discussing Born in Flames!)

Friend of the newsletter/femme writer extraordinaire Ava Robinson sent me a gorgeous care package full of seeds and magic and love and also a copy of Open Throat: A Novel. I had heard of this book about a queer mountain lion and felt skeptical. I’ve only recently allowed myself to enjoy fiction again and as a “I prefer real human things to sci fi and spec fic” person, I thought a mountain lion POV would be too weird for me. But the cover was hot pink, and my sweet femmeship offered it, so I dove in. And goodness, I was blown away. The prose are terse and poetic and somehow all at once simple and complex. The affective tenor, though, is so potent. I was gripped by the unsocialized observations of this creature who explained humans so plainly, so accurately. I was absurdly moved when our protagonist faced environmental and human devastation, when they felt love, when they felt vengeance. It’s a quick read and such a powerful one. I know I’m late on this, so please comment if you’re another lover of this simultaneously rageful and tender little book!

Watching.

Babe, huge news. (Pick your generational reference) New Heathers just dropped/ new Jawbreaker just dropped/ new Jennifer’s Body just dropped. Forbidden Fruits is the Zoomer femme girls behaving murderously comedy-horror, and I am so happy for all the teens who get to claim this as their cult classic. The story is familiar: a tale of young women trying desperately to find belonging within and against the backdrop of patriarchal violence. Unfortunately, all that patriarchy (and capitalism & white supremacy & general family trauma) has led them to sometimes be not so nice to one another. We learn early on that there is usually a team of four salespeople on the floor of the boutique fashion store, Free Eden, but they are down to three, with the fourth (Pickle) mysteriously gone. The remaining staff includes Apple, Cherry, and Fig. Auspiciously, the mall’s pretzel store sample girl is named Pumpkin and is invited to join the Free Eden crew, which turns out to be a coven. Pumpkin is initiated by drinking blood and tears out of a rhinestone bedazzled cowboy boot. Natch. The jokes begin immediately and almost don’t stop—nearly every line is a quippy zinger and somehow it doesn’t feel like too much. Or maybe it is a bit too much, but in a femme excess way; an intentional piling it on, just like Cherry’s lipgloss. (supplemental reading rec: “High Femme Camp Antics”.)

It becomes clear that Apple is the ring leader and Pumpkin is trying to do some detective work about her by earning Fig and Cherry’s trust. We learn that Apple doesn’t let the girls have boyfriends (they can only communicate with boys via emoji), and though she tolerates that her friends have sex, it is forbidden on Wednesdays. Though the camp never wanes, we also feel a depth to the characters—there is dark pain in their respective pasts, and all of their bad choices and codependency and controlling behavior is so clearly a result of trauma.

No wonder it ends in horror. I won’t spoil anything, but for the fellow scaredy cats, I will say that the paranormal scares are extremely low (they are spooky witches, but no ghost conjuring, other than their weekly confessions to the spirit of Marilyn Monroe). But it does get extremely bloody and gory; however, none of the gore comes until the third act. I closed my eyes through a lot (especially through the acrylic nail scene, ugh, the femme nightmare), but it was very manageable.

I absolutely delighted in this, and was so happy to see it with my long-time witchy pal, K. I can’t wait to watch it again! There is so much to think through regarding girl friendship, trauma, men, control, desire, and magic. And wow wow wow is it absolutely beautiful to watch: femme havoc is always so aesthetic. <3

Listening.

My dear friend Sage recommended Annahstasia, describing her as a mix of Nina Simone and Tracy Chapman. A super accurate description, and an incredible combination!

Joy & Attention.