Project Muse. - King Kong Theory

Table of Contents

For Karen Bach, Raffala Anderson,
and Coralie Trinh Thi

I AM WRITING AS AN UGLY ONE FOR THE UGLY ONES: THE OLD hags, the dykes, the frigid, the unfucked, the unfuckables, the neurotics, the psychos, for all those girls who dont get a look in the universal market of the consumable chick. Im making no excuses for myself. Im not complaining. I would never swap places, because it seems to me that being Virginie Despentes is a more interesting business than anything else going on out there.

I think its wonderful that there are also women who love to seduce, who know how to seduce, others who know how to get a husband, women whose perfume is sex and others who smell of home-baked cakes for the childrens tea. Wonderful that there are very gentle women, women completely at home in their femininity, young, exquisite women, flirtatious women, radiant women. I am delighted, really, for all those women who are happy with the way things are. Im saying this without the slightest irony. Its just that I am not one of them. Of course I wouldnt write what I write if I were beautiful, so beautiful that I turned the head of every man I met. Its as a member of the lower working class of womanhood that I speak, that I spoke yesterday and am speaking again today. When I was on unemployment I was not ashamed of being a social outcast. Just furious. Its the same thing for being a woman: I am not remotely ashamed of not being a hot sexy number but I am livid thatas a girl who doesnt attract menI am constantly made to feel as if I shouldnt even be around. We have always existed. We are just never featured in novels written by men, who only create women they want to have sex with. We have always existed, and never spoken. Even today, when women publish lots of novels, you rarely get female characters that are unattractive or plain, unsuited to loving men or to being loved by them. On the contrary, contemporary heroines adore men, meet them easily, sleep with them after just a couple of chapters, come in four lines, and they all enjoy sex. The character of the loser in the femininity stakes doesnt just appeal to me, shes essential to me, in the same way as the social, economic, or political loser is. I prefer the guys who dont make the cut for the simple reason that I myself often dont make it. And because generally speaking, humor and invention are to be found on our side. When you dont have what it takes to think highly of yourself, you tend to be more creative. As a girl, I am more King Kong than Kate Moss. Im the kind of girl you dont get married to, the kind you dont have babies with. I am writing as a woman who is always too much of everythingtoo aggressive, too noisy, too fat, too rough, too hairy, always too masculine, I am told. And yet its my virile, masculine qualities that make me more than just any old social misfit. I owe to my very masculinity everything I like about my life, everything that has saved me. I am writing therefore as a woman incapable of attracting male attention, satisfying male desire, or being satisfied with a place in the shade. Its from here that I write, as an unattractive but ambitious woman, drawn to money I make myself, drawn to power, the power to do and to say no, drawn to the city rather than the home, excited by experience and not content with just hearing about it from others. Im not into giving a hard-on to men that dont make me dream. It has never seemed obvious to me that good-lookers are having all that great a time. I have always felt ugly. I put up with it and now Im starting to appreciate it for having saved me from a crap life in the company of nice, dull, small-town guys who would have taken me nowhere fast. I like myself as I am, more desiring than desirable.

So I am writing from here, as one of the left-overs, one of those weirdos, the ones who shave their heads, those who dont know how to dress, those who worry that they stink, those who have rotten teeth, those who dont know how to go about things, are never given presents by men, those who will fuck anyone wholl have them, the fat tarts, the skinny sluts, those whose cunts are always dry, those who have big bellies, those who would rather be men, those who behave as if they were men, those who think theyre porn queens, who dont give a damn about guys but who are interested in their girlfriends, the ones with big asses and thick, dark body hair they dont wax, brutish, noisy women, who destroy everything that gets in their way, those who dont like perfume shops, whose red lipstick is too red, who havent got the figure to dress like hookers and yet desperately want to, women who want to wear mens clothes and a beard in the street, those who want to show it all, those whose shyness is due to their hang-ups, those who dont know how to say no, those who are locked up in order to be controlled, women who are scary, pitiful ones, women who dont turn men on, those with flabby skin and a face full of wrinkles, those who dream of plastic surgery, of liposuction, of having their nose broken so it can be reset but cant afford it, women who look like the back of a bus, those who can only rely on themselves for protection, who dont know how to comfort others, who couldnt care less about their kids, those who like to get drunk in bars and collapse on the floor, women who dont behave. And in the same vein, while Im at it, Im writing for men who dont want to protect, men who would like to be protective but dont know where to start, men who dont know how to fight, those who cry easily, those who arent ambitious, competitive, well-hung or aggressive, men who are fearful, timid, vulnerable, men who prefer looking after their home to going out to work, men who are fragile, bald, too poor to be attractive, men whod like to be fucked, men who dont want to be counted on, men who are scared to be alone at night. Because this ideal of the attractive but not whorish white woman, in a good marriage but not self-effacing, with a nice job but not so successful she outshines her man, slim but not neurotic over food, forever young without being disfigured by the surgeons knife, a radiant mother not overwhelmed by diapers and homework, who manages her home beautifully without becoming a slave to housework, who knows a thing or two but less than a man, this happy white woman who is constantly shoved under our noses, this woman we are all supposed to work hard to resemblenever mind that she seems to be running herself ragged for not much rewardI for one have never met her, not anywhere. My hunch is that she doesnt exist.

FOR A WHILE NOW WEVE BEEN REPEATEDLY TOLD ABOUT ALL the mistakes made in the 1970s: how we took a wrong turn, and look at the mess we made with our sexual revolution, and do we think were men or what, and whats happened to good old masculinity with all this shitthe sort of masculinity Dad and Granddad hadmen who knew how to die in a war and run a household with healthy discipline, with the law backing them up. We get an earful because men are afraid. As if it was our fault. Its astonishing, and modern to say the leastthe oppressor whining because the oppressed isnt pulling her weight... But is the white man really having a go at women here, or is he not just expressing his shock at the general downturn facing him? Whatever. The way were being criticized, policed, and generally called to account is unbelievable! One minute were playing too much the victim, the next we dont fuck righttoo bitchy or too much in loveeither way, were not in tunetoo pornographic or not sensual enough... One thing is for sure: the sexual revolution was wasted on us; do not cast your pearls before swine. Whatever we do, someone is going to take the time to say its shit. More or less that things were better before. Oh yeah?