Macho Sluts (52 page)

As it turned out, I don't know how much it mattered, because Pat was one of the most articulate and persuasive witnesses in the trial. Pat the person appeared very differently from Pat the writer. And to some extent, this bore out one of our main arguments in the case, which was that there is a world of difference between our imagination (and the work that is the product of it) and who we are and what actually happens in real life.

And yet that is probably too simplistic a dichotomy, since Pat did tell the judge that while
Macho Sluts
was a work of fiction, it did to a large extent tell the truth about her sexuality and those of other lesbians who practiced S/M.

The following exchange took place during her testimony:

Q. Let's move from your non. fiction to your fiction. Perhaps you can tell, in a general way, first of all, the reason why you write the fiction that you do.

A. I think that a great many of my motives for writing fiction are identical to my motives for writing non. fiction. It's my belief that fiction can sometimes be even more useful as an educational tool than non. fiction. It's easier to absorb. It's more entertaining. It's often more accessible. There are people who will read a work of fiction who wouldn't necessarily pick up something that looks more like a textbook. And I think that fiction is also more effective in addressing issues of lesbian visibility and in correcting misperceptions that people might have about how lesbians and masochism functions within the lives of the real women who are members of that community.

Q. To what extent does sexual arousal play a role in your motivation in writing a book such as
Macho Sluts
?

A. Because the work is sexually explicit, it would be ridiculous for me to claim that arousal is not one of the effects that I intended to have upon some readers, but it is by no means the only response that I expect readers to have to the work. I use sexuality in the fiction partly as a way to intrigue the readers and engage their attention. I also attempt, as a writer, to disturb. There are also parts of the work that I would expect to cause a reaction of anger or grief and, in that process of getting the reader very deeply, emotionally engaged with the fiction, I hope to encourage them to think about some of the ideas that are in those pieces.

Q. Why the emphasis on the sexual explicitness in your work?

A. Well, it's partly because I think that if you cannot find any fiction that describes people who are like you, people who have the kind of relationships you would like to have, people that have the kind of sexuality you would like to have, you begin to feel as if you're crazy. You don't exist. You're marginal, you're not important, and it creates a great deal of self. hatred and self. doubt. It also creates, I think, a lot of repression and just human misery. So partly the fiction is written in an attempt to make it easier for others, [for] … women who are sado-masochists, to come to terms with their sexuality and self. acceptance; given … what ignorance there is about my sexuality, it would be very difficult to write a book of fiction about women who were lesbian and were masochists without including some material about their sexuality.

I took Pat through each of the stories in the book so that the Court would understand the book through the eyes of the author. Here is what transpired:

Q. Let's go to some of the short stories in
Macho Sluts
. What was “The Finishing School” about?

A. “The Finishing School” was intended to be a parody of Victorian pornography and a parody of grand opera. I often have been accused of advocating incest or advocating child abuse. That was not my intention when I wrote the piece. I attempted to make it very clear that all of the characters in it were of legal age, and it was intended to be more than a piece of erotica, a piece of humor.

Q. And what about “The Surprise Party”?

A. “The Surprise Party,” like many pieces of fiction I write, has a surprise ending. My intention was to create a fantasy that initially appeared to be nonconsensual and then to make it clear at the end of the piece that all the participants had actually consented to what was happening.

Q. In any of your work, do you advocate non-consensual sex or sex with violence?

A. No.

Q. What about the story called “The Calyx of Isis”?

A. It's a fantasy about what might happen in the women's community if an enormous amount of capital were made available so that women could have access to some of the institutions for public sex or group sex that were available to gay men and to some heterosexuals in the 1970s. It was an attempt to encourage women's sexual image, to think about what the possibility might be in a world like that, where we had access to more economic resources.

Q. There is also a story called “The Vampire” in
Macho
Sluts
. What is that about and your purpose in writing it?

A. Well, it's a love story. It's also a bit of a commentary where there's dialectic with the horror genre which I think is usually rather predictable, in that you have a vampire who is a dead monster that preys on human victims. In that story, I wanted the reader not to be very clear about who was the predator and who was the prey. It was meant to encourage readers to think more about S/M roles and not make assumptions that “tops” or more dominant partners are any more powerful than their putative victim permits them to be. To some extent, it's also a comment on femme roles in the larger lesbian community, because the character in the story who is more feminine in fact has at least as much, if not more, power during the course of the narrative than the female character who is more masculine.

Q. Another story in
Macho Sluts
is “The Spoiler.” Again, can you tell his lordship what that was about and why you wrote it?

A. I'm not sure that anyone who was outside of the S/M community would necessarily understand “The Spoiler,” or what the point of it was … In community dialogue, it's about a man who is sexually dominant who courts other sexually dominant men, and he is sort of an ultimate sexual controller, manipulator. But it's also not clear in the story if he is, in fact, the ultimate form of submissive who is just very dedicated to providing pleasure for men that he admires or worships. It's also a cautionary tale, I think, about the dangers that you hoard when you fulfill other people's fantasies and what some of the consequences might be for giving people what they really want. I think that often, surprisingly enough, people are quite angry when they get what they really want.

Q. The next story is called “A Dash of Vanilla.” What is that about?

A. I put that story at the end of the book because I didn't want the whole thing to be about S/M. I wanted to have at least one story in the book that might hook the interest of other members of the women's community. It's a sort of stream-of-consciousness piece about making love to a partner who has a great deal of trouble reaching orgasm. When I have read this piece in public, I find that gay men and heterosexuals, as well as lesbians, usually find it to be enormously funny. It's a situation that many of us have found ourselves in. The point—one of the points, anyway—was that if so. called vanilla or non. S/M sex could be this much trouble and cause the active partner this much grief, then how different could it be from at least some S/M experience? It was meant to point out commonalities in all sorts of sexualities. So it addresses a common problem in intimate relationships in a way that I hope is compassionate and lighthearted.

Q . The book ends with “A Note on Lesbians, AIDS, and Safer Sex.” Briefly, what was that about?

A. My basic vocation, I feel, is to be a sex educator. At the time when
Macho Sluts
was published, there was almost nothing in print geared toward a lesbian audience about how to take precautions to prevent the transmission of AIDS. And I was aware that some of the pieces of fiction in the book had described acts that were fantasy, that were intended to be for fantasy fulfillment. And, in fact, some probably would not have been safe to do from a medical standpoint if one of the partners were infected with HIV. So I wanted to give the reader a balance to that, give them information they would need to protect their health.

Pat was so good in her testimony that neither counsel for the Government of Canada nor the Government of British Columbia could think of one word to ask her in cross-examination. That in itself says a great deal.

But most importantly, Pat had wowed the trial judge. One has to appreciate that the judge came to the Little Sister's trial with a tabula rasa. I don't pretend to know his background, but I suspect he is very straight and had no experience with gay and lesbian pornography. But the trial was long, which provided us with the opportunity to educate the judge about the importance of gay and lesbian literature, and I believe that for him, like many of us, the trial was a transformative experience.

The following passages from the trial judge's decision were to me quite remarkable, and I credit Pat, perhaps more than anyone else in the trial, for moving Canadian law to the point where depictions or descriptions of S/M sexual practices were simply no longer per se obscene as Canada Customs and the courts had previously held them to be.

The trial judge set the stage as follows:

Considerable evidence and argument was directed to the topic of homosexual sado-masochism. The plaintiffs established that sado-masochism is a theatrical, ritualistic practice in which the consent of the participants is inherent, although they conceded consent is not necessarily always present. Customs officers routinely prohibit depictions and descriptions of sadomasochistic practices on the ground that they involve either explicit sex with violence or sex without violence that subjects persons to degrading or dehumanizing treatment.

He then referred expressly to
Macho Sluts
to support his finding that sado-masochistic works should not be considered per se obscene: “
Macho Sluts
(Boston: Alyson Publications Inc., 1988), by Pat Califia, illustrates this point. The book is concerned with lesbian, sado-masochistic practices … The author's introduction to the work is informative:

“Liberty is the right not to lie.” —Albert Camus

The things that seem beautiful, inspiring, and life-affirming to me seem ugly, hateful, and ludicrous to most other people. This may be the most painful part of being a sado-masochist: this experience of radical difference, separation at the root of perception. Our culture insists on sexual uniformity and does not acknowledge any neutral differences—only crimes, sins, diseases, and mistakes. This smug erotic totalitarianism does hidden violence to dissidents and perverts. It distorts our self-images, ambitions, and dreams. We think we are alone, or crazy, or ridiculous. Our desire learns to curb itself, and we come to depend on the strength of self-repression for our safety. We live in fear of being known, and such fear stifles the nascent erotic wish before the image of what is wished for can be fully formed. We know we are ugly before we have even seen ourselves, and the injustice of this, the falsehood, chokes me.

What, then, are my choices, as a writer and a sadomasochist? I could keep my sexuality private, write about other issues, other sorts of people, and tell myself that these are more important themes, more universal characters, more valid as literature. That involves telling a lie by omission—becoming invisible as a pervert, assuming an undeserved mantle of normalcy and legitimacy.

“Califia here expresses the importance of homosexual sado-masochist literature,” wrote the trial judge, “in furthering the principles and values that underlie freedom of expression as outlined in
Irwin Toy v.
Quebec, supra
. [That is, seeking and attaining truth, participating in social and political decision-making, and cultivating the diversity of forms of individual self-fulfillment and human flourishing in a tolerant or welcoming environment.] She further expresses a dominant theme prevalent in homosexual art and literature, and one that was attested to by many of the plaintiffs' witnesses, that is, the need for self-affirmation and empowerment through expression.”

The Little Sister's case went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. While we were not successful in striking down the Customs legislation that allowed Customs officers to ban books and other expressive material at the border, we were successful in having the Supreme Court of Canada condemn the discriminatory, arbitrary, and irrational decision-making that was so prevalent prior to the Little Sister's case.

The Supreme Court of Canada said this:

There was ample evidence to support the trial judge's conclusion that the adverse treatment meted out by Canada Customs to the appellants and through them to Vancouver's gay and lesbian community violated the appellants' legitimate sense of self-worth and human dignity. The Customs treatment was high-handed and dismissive of the appellants' right to receive lawful expressive material which they had every right to import. When Customs officials prohibit and thereby censor lawful gay and lesbian erotica, they are making a statement about gay and lesbian culture, and the statement was reasonably interpreted by the appellants as demeaning gay and lesbian values. The message was that their concerns were less worthy of attention and respect than those of their heterosexual counterparts.

While here it is the interests of the gay and lesbian community that were targeted, other vulnerable groups may similarly be at risk from overzealous censorship. Little Sister's was targeted because it was considered “different.” On a more general level, it seems to me fundamentally unacceptable that expression which is free within the country can become stigmatized and harassed by government officials simply because it crosses an international boundary, and is thereby brought within the bailiwick of the Customs department. The appellants' constitutional right to receive perfectly lawful gay and lesbian erotica should not be diminished by the fact their suppliers are, for the most part, located in the United States. Their freedom of expression does not stop at the border.