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Resurrecting the classics: "The SCUM Manifesto" by Valerie Solanas

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swag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-10-06 11:26 PM
Original message
Resurrecting the classics: "The SCUM Manifesto" by Valerie Solanas
Edited on Mon Apr-10-06 11:57 PM by swag
http://www.womynkind.org/scum.htm

by Valerie Solanas (1968)

Life in this society being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of society being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and destroy the male sex.

It is now technically feasible to reproduce without the aid of males (or, for that matter, females) and to produce only females. We must begin immediately to do so. Retaining the mail has not even the dubious purpose of reproduction. The male is a biological accident: the Y (male) gene is an incomplete X (female) gene, that is, it has an incomplete set of chromosomes. In other words, the male is an incomplete female, a walking abortion, aborted at the gene stage. To be male is to be deficient, emotionally limited; maleness is a deficiency disease and males are emotional cripples.

The male is completely egocentric, trapped inside himself, incapable of empathizing or identifying with others, or love, friendship, affection of tenderness. He is a completely isolated unit, incapable of rapport with anyone. His responses are entirely visceral, not cerebral; his intelligence is a mere tool in the services of his drives and needs; he is incapable of mental passion, mental interaction; he can't relate to anything other than his own physical sensations. He is a half-dead, unresponsive lump, incapable of giving or receiving pleasure or happiness; consequently, he is at best an utter bore, an inoffensive blob, since only those capable of absorption in others can be charming. He is trapped in a twilight zone halfway between humans and apes, and is far worse off than the apes because, unlike the apes, he is capable of a large array of negative feelings -- hate, jealousy, contempt, disgust, guilt, shame, doubt -- and moreover, he is aware of what he is and what he isn't.

Although completely physical, the male is unfit even for stud service. Even assuming mechanical proficiency, which few men have, he is, first of all, incapable of zestfully, lustfully, tearing off a piece, but instead is eaten up with guilt, shame, fear and insecurity, feelings rooted in male nature, which the most enlightened training can only minimize; second, the physical feeling he attains is next to nothing; and third, he is not empathizing with his partner, but is obsessed with how he's doing, turning in an A performance, doing a good plumbing job. To call a man an animal is to flatter him; he's a machine, a walking dildo. It's often said that men use women. Use them for what? Surely not pleasure.

Eaten up with guilt, shame, fears and insecurities and obtaining, if he's lucky, a barely perceptible physical feeling, the male is, nonetheless, obsessed with screwing; he'll swim through a river of snot, wade nostril-deep through a mile of vomit, if he thinks there'll be a friendly pussy awaiting him. He'll screw a woman he despises, any snaggle-toothed hag, and furthermore, pay for the opportunity. Why? Relieving physical tension isn't the answer, as masturbation suffices for that. It's not ego satisfaction; that doesn't explain screwing corpses and babies.

Completely egocentric, unable to relate, empathize or identify, and filled with a vast, pervasive, diffuse sexuality, the male is pyschically passive. He hates his passivity, so he projects it onto women, defines the make as active, then sets out to prove that he is (`prove that he is a Man'). His main means of attempting to prove it is screwing (Big Man with a Big Dick tearing off a Big Piece). Since he's attempting to prove an error, he must `prove' it again and again. Screwing, then, is a desperate compulsive, attempt to prove he's not passive, not a woman; but he is passive and does want to be a woman.

Being an incomplete female, the male spends his life attempting to complete himself, to become female. He attempts to do this by constantly seeking out, fraternizing with and trying to live through an fuse with the female, and by claiming as his own all female characteristics -- emotional strength and independence, forcefulness, dynamism, decisiveness, coolness, objectivity, assertiveness, courage, integrity, vitality, intensity, depth of character, grooviness, etc -- and projecting onto women all male traits -- vanity, frivolity, triviality, weakness, etc. It should be said, though, that the male has one glaring area of superiority over the female -- public relations. (He has done a brilliant job of convincing millions of women that men are women and women are men). The male claim that females find fulfillment through motherhood and sexuality reflects what males think they'd find fulfilling if they were female.

Women, in other words, don't have penis envy; men have pussy envy. When the male accepts his passivity, defines himself as a woman (males as well as females thing men are women and women are men), and becomes a transvestite he loses his desire to screw (or to do anything else, for that matter; he fulfills himself as a drag queen) and gets his dick chopped off. He then achieves a continuous diffuse sexual feeling from `being a woman'. Screwing is, for a man, a defense against his desire to be female.

. . . more
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swag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-10-06 11:28 PM
Response to Original message
1. note to mods: this is public domain
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KitchenWitch Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-10-06 11:30 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. Holy crap, I have not seen that for YEARS!
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swag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-10-06 11:33 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. It's brilliantly written, I think.
I adore that first paragraph. It just pulls you in.

It does make me very sad that she shot (and some say killed) an artist I revere. But that's a great piece of prose.
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Blue_Tires Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-10-06 11:40 PM
Response to Original message
4. CliffsNotes version?
please?

lol
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asthmaticeog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-10-06 11:44 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. Men suck. The end. nt
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Blue_Tires Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-10-06 11:47 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. maybe i won't suck anymore if i have a sex-change operation!
well, maybe i still will....:crazy: :silly:
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swag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-10-06 11:54 PM
Response to Reply #5
8. Jumping the tracks,
did you see that Feral House is planning to publish some Genesis P'Orridge book (yes, him again) about the Process?
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asthmaticeog Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-11-06 12:13 AM
Response to Reply #8
14. I've heard nothing about this.
Sounds like a winner, freak on freak literature always manages to compel.
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swag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-11-06 12:18 AM
Response to Reply #14
15. At the risk of offending Canuck Amok, who sees one GP'O post
and thinks he has seen 20,

http://www.genesisp-orridge.com/index.php?section=news&id=62&album_id=1

BENGALA and GENESIS are in the final stages of a book
related to The Process which will be published by
Feral House.

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swag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-10-06 11:45 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. From wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scum_manifesto

The SCUM Manifesto (Society for Cutting Up Men Manifesto) is a misandrous tract written in 1968 by Valerie Solanas. It justifies and describes a socialist revolution to create an all-female society.

Solanas was indicted for the attempted murder of Andy Warhol on June 28th, 1968 (charges of attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a firearm). In August of that year she was declared incompetent to stand trial was and sent to Ward Island Hospital. At her arraignment for the Warhol shootings, she told the crowd of reporters and police: "Read my manifesto and it will tell you who I am."<1>

Later in life, and after serving a prison sentence for reckless assault with intent to cause bodily harm, Solanas tried to distance herself from it. In a July 25th 1977 interview with theVillage Voice she claimed the manifesto was "Just a literary device . . . women who think a certain way are in SCUM. Men who think a certian way are in the men's auxiliary of SCUM."


. . .

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FuzzySlippers Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-10-06 11:58 PM
Response to Original message
9. Doesn't it tend to have a teensy tiny, itty bitty,
Edited on Mon Apr-10-06 11:58 PM by FuzzySlippers
eeny weeny negative effect on your male self esteem?

:shrug:
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swag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-11-06 12:01 AM
Response to Reply #9
10. What male self-esteem?
"Every man, deep down, knows he's a worthless piece of shit."

- the SCUM Manifesto
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FuzzySlippers Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-11-06 12:02 AM
Response to Reply #10
11. Okey doke! Works for me!
:D
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swag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-11-06 12:12 AM
Response to Reply #11
13. I can acknowledge as much because I'm so self-assured.
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LouisianaLiberal Donating Member (848 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-11-06 12:06 AM
Response to Original message
12. I'm sure she was lots of fun on a date.
Lily Taylor did a great job of portraying her in "I shot Andy Warhol". I think that was the title.
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swag Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-11-06 01:01 AM
Response to Reply #12
16. Lili Taylor's quite a favorite.
I think I'll have to get over my asinine proprietary reverance for the era and finally see that film.
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Moderator DU Moderator Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-11-06 01:14 AM
Response to Original message
17. Locking
Although an "classic," this is still sexist.
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