The Ghosts of Main st - 14-11-14

The Ghosts of Main St - 10-11-14

The outcry of woe that followed the Hollaback campaign video of an actress being shouted and leered at by New York men has made most New Yorkers feel embarrassed. How can the world’s most progressive city be so packed full of Neanderthal men? Where is all this shouting going to get them? Not into her good books, that's for sure. So why do it?

All women learn how to deal with the male gaze in their teens. As soon as those boobs arrive men of all ages start to take notice. You are on the radar - an eye-magnet. You best be ready girl. Every time you step out of the door with a bit of slap and decent fitting clothes on, men are going to notice you. The white van men, the taxi drivers, the drivers generally, the motorcyclists, the shop workers, the pedestrians, the others in your vicinity. They notice. What they do depends a lot on them, but also on you, how you look, how you react. The tom cat calling is just trying to provoke a reaction because they themselves feel invisible; they are the ghosts of the High St. "Hey girl, I'm here. Look at me!" It's generally nothing more.

Would the same amount of catcalling happen in London? Or Paris, or any other world capital? No, because the American male is loud & self confident. The London male is a down-trodden, confused person. He has got no idea what he's meant to do or say. All he knows is he is a pathetic, down-trodden and confused person.

Just look at the current output of UK based culture - the films, the art, the fashion, the music. Women are in charge - make no mistake. Notable recent contemporary major art shows have been by women; Sarah Lucas - an endless pee take and power play over the male sex - right down to the Sunday Sport cuttings on the wall of a dwarf sexpot, boasting of her conquest(s). Tracey Emin, another big show with the list of 'conquests' in her tent of glory. What have the men come up with? Judging by the Turner prize, that emblem of the new, the best next gen artists...pitifully little. Three men have each been chosen for video installations of the most mind-numbing tedium you wonder if they should bother giving the prize at all. Two of the men seem obsessed with gynecological pictures and clinical, emotionless examinations of genitalia.

The prize is bound to go to the one female who has bothered to add some colour and life to the room, Ciara Phillips. In the others spaces you have to go into a darkened room. The spectator exists in the shadows, as if to be looking at the material is shameful and one wouldn't want anyone to know you are there. And then you scuttle out, sullied and degraded by these male artists' adolescent preoccupations. And even the two pervs are better than the pure pretention of the third man, Duncan Campbell. His Chris Marker / Alan Resnais tribute ‘It for Others’ is possibly the worst art "piece" I have ever beheld.

That includes Gilbert & George bending over and holding their Y-Fronts apart so we can get a good view of their hideous rear parts...all surrounded by the materials these parts produce. To be worse than that is some achievement. Everything about it made me want to commit violent destruction on my surrounds. Seeing as I was in Tate Britain – one of my most beloved places on earth – again this was going some Duncan. Well done! If you want a personification of UK man 2014 – Duncan maybe it. Pathetic, confused, weedy and so pretentious it makes you feel ill.

Then look at the British male offered to us in films - what do we get? Yet another costume drama in Mr Turner - Tim Spall huffing and snorting whether he is in pursuit of a sunset or a tortured sleazy coupling. And The Imitation Game - more shame. One of the best, most truly adult and thus challenging films dealing with sex is Steve Mcqueen's Shame but I dont think you could say it's British - so firmly does it reside in that 24hr city where we started - NYC. Do you get my point – UK man right now is not a proud confident person, is he?

Hang on a minute - wahtabout Tom Hardy - star of every second of Locke- the film that makes a tense situation out of a man driving a car while trying to organise a mega-conctrete pour. Tom Hardy is the embodiment of the British Alpha male in 2014. If they were casting James Bond now, Daniel Craig - theres another tough nut - would be out, Tom Hardy would be in. so we are not all having a crisis of confidence in the Englishmens b(l)ogs. Its just that most of us are.

The French on the other hand display that incredible confidence when portraying sex in films like 'Welcome To New York', 'Blue is the Warmest Colour' and the not one but two part 'Nymphomania'. None are directed by Frenchmen but it's the fact French money has got them made in French that is significant. It's a permanent wonder to me that I can go to my local library and get these movies out on DVD - how fantastic. They all contain sex scenes which would have been cut in the 70s - think Last Tango and the fuss about the butter scene for example. All three of the above contain far worse, more graphic scenes, as does that Cannes lauded but woeful nonsense Holy Motors by Leos Caraix.

In fashion - why are men put into skin tight shorts and long socks nowadays. It's yet another attempt to desexualise, demachismo the male on the street. At least on the catwalk! Music - it's all women - FKA Twigs, Lorde, Lykke Li, Lana Del Rey...who are the top men dogs...err Plan B ? Professor Green (no)? Actually Plan Bs movie ‘Ill Manors‘about life on the East End streets was fantastic , but sexy it is not, and the women lead dreadful, bullied and abused lives.

But there are worse places to live than Bethnal Green for girls. We could move to Saudi, and not be allowed to drive! We could go to Japan, and behave like little girls or be ostracized from the family. We could go to Pakistan and have our marriages arranged for us at 14 by our 74 year old grandfather. Go anywhere in the third world and you will be a 2^nd class citizen. Or one can revel in one’s sexiness here in Europe. Maybe we get approached by men – sometimes often. Yep, life is tough girls. We put our noses in the air and walk on, we judge the wretch because his clothes are not good enough. We can blank them and move on in the pub, the cafe, the street. If women were nicer to men when they get the courage up to approach them, you wouldn’t find this vengeful tone on the streets . How would you feel girl, if you went up to some guy you thought was dishy and he just turned his back on you, like you were a piece of dirt. It does not feel good, believe me .

So what about those mofos who follow you for ages, won't go away. That kind of stalker-like behaviour is what gives the male sex a bad name. What can be done about them? Dk. Lock em up, pepper spray them, what do you suggest. Deliberate intimidation is not on, ever. Threatening to rape the actress on Twitter? You are a revolting bully...just do one.

There is one fate that awaits the eye-magnets - the supermodels of your peer group - even more horrible than ending up with John McCririck as your beau. It happens to us all. You become a ghost of the high street as well. In your forties the creeping feeling of the ghost pulling at your skin, loosening where it used to be tight, blobs where it was smooth, takes over until no matter what you do, what sky-high heels and figure hugging dresses you don, what haircut you have, you are just not there anymore. Like Bewitched – a wiggle of the nose, a swish of the tale, snap – you are gone! You have become the invisible ghost of Main St.

Then you will feel like shouting at them - "Hey boy - look at me - I'm here on your sidewalk! Now how about a wolf whistle?"

Pete / Petra Budgie for Treedown Gotobed blogspot