Samantha Fox is in the country to participate in the latest Countdown potter down memory lane.
Fox was the female who confirmed for a generation of working-class girls that the only way out of the East End was to possess big boobs and a blow wave not unlike Jon Bon Jovi’s.
While Fox’s musical career has mostly been at the bottom of the bargain bin in recent years, she has managed to get some attention for the fact that her lover is a woman.
An article in The Age on 26 August 2007 claimed that Fox identified as a lesbian, but Wikipedia’s list of gay, lesbian or bisexual folk would have its readers believe she bats for both teams rather than just plays with one.
SameSame.com.au managed to give Fox two sexual identities within the space of one paragraph earlier this month:
The publicist for the Countdown tour said not to ask Sam about her private life, but when Sam finally does open up about being a lesbian she talks beautifully about discovering true love with Myra. She also offers advice for other bisexuals who might find themselves loving someone of the same sex.
This dual labelling seems all the more presumptuous because in the same paragraph Fox is cited opposing being, well, labelled.
She is in love and that is all that counts.
Perhaps obeying the dictate not to discuss the blonde one’s personal life, The Sydney Morning Herald cutely described Fox’s partner cum manager as her “very close friend”.
Given the number of tabloid articles that were created when Fox dated blokes like Australia’s favourite conman Peter Foster, it is unsurprising she is not keen on being overly chatty about her current relationship.
Fox’s reticence could also be explained by the limiting nature of labels, and the confusion and antipathy that outs itself when someone like Fox is revealed to have the sort of “very close friend” one has saucy slumber parties with.
The website After Ellen revealed its biases when it made the following declarations:
In her heyday in the 1980s, pop singer Samantha Fox would easily have won the poll for Female Celebrity Least Likely to Come out as a Lesbian.
Like many gay celebrities, Samantha Fox has profited from maintaining a heterosexual public image.
These statements reveal a lot about the sort of famous woman the author thinks is most likely to come out as a lesbian, and what she considers to be an acceptable homosexual image.
As for the woman with the fetching figure, she says:
All I know is that I fell in love with Myra, who happens to be a woman, and for the first time in my life I’m really, really in love.
So what’s the point of this one Darlene? Not one of your usual snipes at men, but perplexing nonetheless.
Oh, good grief Darlene. SF’s reticence could also have something to do with the cheapest trick in the Countdown publicity handbook. Didn’t people stop worrying about this sort of nonsense back when Bowie was the omnisexual de jour?
Who cares about this poor clapped out something who was barely even a pop-star? Oh, right, she had bouncy tits in The Mirror about 20 years ago.
And I can’t wait for Peter Foster to leap onto the bandwagon…’No, Samantha never indicated any attraction to women when I was with her. She always said she was completely satisfied’ etc etc etc
Like the trips down memory lane, Darlene… keep em coming
Tee hee, you can tell I am about to hit a certain age, can’t you? I think I am going to have to listen to some young people music.
Mmmm, well, I don’t have a particular thing for Ms Fox’s talent, of which she doesn’t have any.
However, I stand by my point that labels are constrictive and that both the media and some members of the gay and lesbian (and straight) community feel the need to have people fit into absolute categories or they feel all out of whack.
Christine, if you can give me evidence that this is not the case, I’d like to hear it or read it.
Who decides what is a heterosexual public image?
Fair point Darlene
Sorry.
Myra is her partner, her lover etc
There’s no problem with those sorts of labels surely.
Maybe her parents are still alive, and after already sitting through her topless flaunting and tuneless singing for 20+ years they just don’t want to be confronted with it?
If Samantha Fox had disparaged lesbianism or non-heterosexuality, this might be an issue. Otherwise, not.
I thought she was heterosexual too: clearly I was mistaken, but that isn’t her fault. When the MSM gets badly caught out they are good at blaming those who caught them out.
But the question on everybody’s lips is: is she a lipsniger?
“Maybe her parents are still alive, and after already sitting through her topless flaunting and tuneless singing for 20+ years they just don’t want to be confronted with it?”
Sorry to reduce this to Who Weekly level, but her dad used to be her manager and he ripped her off. Hence Myra became her manager.
“If Samantha Fox had disparaged lesbianism or non-heterosexuality, this might be an issue. Otherwise, not.”
Good point. If she was a raving homophobe in her previous life it might have mattered. She wasn’t. Not just the MSM. I thought that lesbian and (supposedly) bisexual women’s website was snide about her.
Liam, if you can answer that question, please, ummm, do.
I can understand her desire not to be labelled.
Fading female celebrity gets attention via the same/same relationship. (fading male celebrities don’t try this!)
I don’t think it’s the fault of fading female celebrities that people have huge issues with male homsexuality.
At any rate, I don’t think a relationship of a few years standing could be considered a publicity stunt.
And also, homophobia impacts on women as well, so….
The real question is: will she meet Missy Higgins?
As a 40 something, Sam, as I will now affectionately call her, is positively mainstream in her same/same. The down side of being outed has diminished, and this is reflected in a trend that has women resurrecting ‘companionship’ as a social, sexual and economic option. Whilst I would argue her label ‘lesbian’, (for mine that’s as much a cultural as sexual label) with what she’s been through she would possibly qualify as a ‘trauma’ lesbian.
Is Missy Higgins a lesbian?
Yes Samantha is now Sam. Hmmm.
“…for mine that’s as much a cultural as sexual label”.
Absolutely agree with that.
“The down side of being outed has diminished, and this is reflected in a trend that has women resurrecting ‘companionship’ as a social, sexual and economic option.”
Yes, it has diminished but not completely. In other words, I think it depends where you live and who you live with.
I do suspect it’s worse for gay males, but gay males can speak about that.
“Whilst I would argue her label ‘lesbian’, (for mine that’s as much a cultural as sexual label) with what she’s been through she would possibly qualify as a ‘trauma’ lesbian.”
It’d be nice if you could clarify this comment. Not sure what you mean by it.
We can’t choose our sexuality.
But we can choose our stylist.
Sheesh, that photo is terrifying.
Is Missy Higgins a Lesbian?
A woman in a sexual relationship with another woman will sometimes argue ‘I’m not a lesbian, I’m in love with this person who happens to be a woman’. They are avoiding what is for them a negative cultural stereotype. There are women who have never had sex with a woman who would describe themselves as a lesbian, much as a female virgin could describe herself as heterosexual. So the sexual act itself is not the only qualification. Lesbians of a certain age may tie feminism, sexual liberation, and gay liberation together and in that sense, be culturally ‘lesbian’. For other women it may be more of question of personal attraction, coupled with, these days, fewer negative consequences.
Woman seem to be able to consider a relationship with a woman via politics, divorce, tertiary education, trauma, or other rational reasons in a way I have not seen men do. It may reflect the emotional arc of their lives. It may be because they are woman that they can do this.
Are we flirting yet?
Tee hee, it is one scary photo. There’s not many I could find that weren’t terrifying.
“We can’t choose our sexuality.”
Ummm, well, perhaps. I think it’s complicated.
I think the old continuum thing is probably right.
Last article I read about Missy mentioned Missy’s new man friend or was that her current man friend? Don’t remember.
Certainly a certain strand of feminism has in the past has suggested that women’s liberation is impossible without an almost complete separation from menfolk. I’m not sure how helpful that strand of feminism has been for womenfolk. Hmmmm.
“I have not seen men do. It may reflect the emotional arc of their lives.”
I think you’re right about that. Men can have social lives that are dominated by blokes (see previous post about Bra Boys, for example) but never extend that to the sexual realm.
It reminds of David Brent on Red Nose Day wondering whether any of the women in the office (The Office) were going to give Dawn a quid for a kiss. Upon deciding that there weren’t any women in the office like that, he decided that lesbianism is “more lightheaded” than the bloke version of gayness.
“A woman in a sexual relationship with another woman will sometimes argue ‘I’m not a lesbian, I’m in love with this person who happens to be a woman’. They are avoiding what is for them a negative cultural stereotype.”
Well, she might call her something else. Yes, the negative cultural stereotypes are still strong. And there are some in the lesbian community who don’t accept women unless they fit that stereotype or say they are lesbian 100%. See continuum above.
People know for themselves. People also change. I remember reading about an Australian writer/actor/journalist who had been in a lesbian relationship for a decade or so. The relationship ended, and she then fell in love with a bloke.
“Are we flirting yet?”
Only if you don’t look like Sam Fox in the picture above.
Not since 1982.
Well, you’re one up on Sam because she still looks like that.
“Fox was the female who confirmed for a generation of working-class girls that the only way out of the East End was to possess big boobs and a blow wave not unlike Jon Bon Jovi’s.”
Not to mention NATURAL big boobs - I got quite a pleasant shock, on seeing a Sam Fox pic revived in a recent newspaper, to see that they weren’t rock hard and balancing unnaturally somewhere just below her chin, a la Victoria Beckham.
My brother was a big fan - he sent her a long love letter and got an equally long signed reply. Form letter, yes, but it did include details such as her favourite foods and what she wore to bed (nothing very naughty). And yes, the photo is terrifying, but I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t admit that as a 12-year-old I coveted her hair, and was inspired to buy a denim jacket after seeing her music video. The shame!
I just waiting for Peter Foster to come out with:
“Toey as a Roman Sandle Tea”
to try and profit of this news
That’s funny.
Good one. Don’t know how dear old Pete is getting on these days. Wonder if he’s back in the clink.
First Meatloaf … now this.
I’ve already had to live through the 80s once. Please … not again.
Sorry Jobby.
This wasn’t meant to be a post about the 1980s as such, but a rant against the incessant need to label.
Umm, I am just off the bookstore to buy a copy of Andy Summers’s autobiography. Since everyone hates nostalgia I won’t write anything about how great The Police were.
Very strange that anyone would say this womanlooks terrifying. Never heard of her myself but in this photo at least the diva has a classic tender heart-shaped face, the sort of fabulous thick, blonde hair that most women in the world would kill for and she is, sexily, astride a motorcycle.
Is it that which is scary? Or, perhaps, that she is not smiling. Amazing, how often that freaks out so many conventional wussies. I get it all the time too.
Darlene and all,
Sam Fox has had more than one committed relationship with a woman (I think at least three). She was linked to Chris Bonacchi who produced some of her music. They busted up and SFox went onto another relationship (with a woman).
Chris Bonacchi is a guitarist from Melbourne who went over to the old blighty to join Girlschool. In Melbourne she was a member of a band called Sweet Jayne who used to play at Martinis in Carlton. The band was shit-hot, doing the heavy rock thing with the lead guitar, bass, drums and flute, the latter played by the singer Chris Cheri (She still teaches flute in Melbourne). Lead guitarist was Bonacchi and she was absolutely brilliant. Bass player Kathy Zylstra, and I’m sorry drummer, I can’t remember your name (she was replaced by a boy in later gigs, anyway). Except for Scheri (I think), the members were gay - I remember a friend’s sister being scandalised because band breaks in the womens toilets were more graphic than she liked. The nights they played the audience was a mix of the lesbian scene and rock dogs who were there to overdose on the music. They did a mean version of the Zeps “The Rover” and had a good mix of originals. Having no money then, we often used to smiggle our booze in and get a free pastie, ’cause pubs in those days had to serve food to stay open after ten. Aaaah, memories.
Go easy on the Fox - she’s got form. There’s a serious lack of real history in this debate. I don’t care what sexual orientation she is. My attachment to her is not her rubbish music, but once she used to go out with a Rock God!
What is Bonacchi doing now and does she still play?
Hmm, we smuggled our booze in. How one smiggles it, I’m not sure.
On the nostalgia front, one who might utter a regretful sigh at Sam’s current ’status’ is Daily Terror owner Rupert Murdoch. Not that Rupert would give a toss at whether Sam is.. whatever she is, but those with long media memories might recall a rather embarassed Dirty Digger being interviewed somewhere in Oz in the 1980’s about the Daily Telegraph’s continued depiction on page three of a p3 girl. Sam often featured and Rupert mentioned the word ‘bazookas’ in this particular interview.
It spelt the end of the page three girl in the Tele, so Sam has this particular claim to fame. It doesn’t quite match Mandy Rice-Davies as the woman who coined the unforgetable response..”well he would say that wouldn’t he” but I think Sam is up there and she may not even know it.
n00dz?
“Is it that which is scary? Or, perhaps, that she is not smiling. Amazing, how often that freaks out so many conventional wussies. I get it all the time too.”
Let’s just say that it’s a very 1980s look.
Thanks heaps for that history, Roger. I was aware of Sam’s relationship with Chris Bonacci, but I certainly didn’t know anything about Ms Bonacci’s band. Sounds very very cool. Smiggling sounds like fun.
I looked for info about Chris on the Interweb but didn’t find anything up to date. She was in Girlschool from 1983-1999, so a long stint.
Something very cool about these gals who got up and did their thing in such a male-dominated genre.
More interesting history from Pablo. She started doing page 3 stuff at the age of 16 after her mum sent a picture in to The Sun or one of those highly Murdoch rags.
Oh, the hairstyle is much much older than the 1980s.
Its most famous antecedent is probably Early Renaissance portraits of what is widely regarded in the Western world as the epitome of female beauty, such as Botticelli’s Venus: Sam Fox’s hairstyle to a tee, without the hair spray and thus more flowing.
Essentially it’s a hair-metal mullet a la Poison but on a woman.
The look has always been best captured here, IMHO.
Actually, I think The Police are one of those bands that everyone can agree on. Great musicians and performers, intelligent songs, beloved by musicians but still palatable to the layman. I honestly don’t meet many people who don’t like them.
I also put Faith No More and “Kind of Blue”-era Miles Davis in this category (and Aphex Twin on the electronica side of things).
Jobby .. the 80s are here and now. It’s official. Leg-warmers are back.
Oh dear.
Oh, I think the hair is a bit more stylish than the AC/DC mullets, although I might just be being kind. I’m not sure AC/DC even washed their hair.
Sammy has a pretty pretty face, though.
“Its most famous antecedent is probably Early Renaissance portraits of what is widely regarded in the Western world as the epitome of female beauty, such as Botticelli’s Venus: Sam Fox’s hairstyle to a tee, without the hair spray and thus more flowing.”
I’ve just had a look and I can see the comparison. It’s the long flowing thing sans 20th century products.
Never a fan of Faith No More. Really like The Police’s last album. It was when Sting was gazing way into his navel. I haven’t purchased tickets to see them next year because it seems like such a long long way away.
“Jobby .. the 80s are here and now. It’s official. Leg-warmers are back.
Oh dear.”
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo….I think I will start singing the theme song from Fame.
Darlene, you’ve got to watch on till the chick shows up riding the rodeo machine in leather lingerie. Sheesh, doncha know nothin’?
Actually, norg-wise she’s pretty Fox-y too.
Jobby .. the 80s are here and now. It’s official. Leg-warmers are back.
Yep. I work at a uni and I’m seeing more and more leg-warmers pop up around campus, and the ‘Choose Life’ oversized white t-shirts are back too.
Any minute now Fame and Footloose will be big again.
The only sensible, non-sexist, non-derogatory comment on this thread, apart from mine, is Roger Jones’s very interesting, human-specific one.
Darlene, inadvertently perhaps your flippant post has performed as a dog whistle for a quite predictable but no less repugnant sexist response from a range of men who have reacted by either expressing “terror” at the sight of this surrogate goddess and her abundant, archetypal feminine locks, or like FDB, have sought to cut her down to size by the designation “chick”.
You have to be a bit more vigilant than that.
Here I return to my personal outreach mission to demi-monde blondes - of all hair and skin colours really. My personal favourite here is Koo Stark who behaved with far more style than Randy Andy when the Red Tops partied on their arses.
The likes of Sam, Paris and Koo, through no fault of their own, have been hatched into a world where sex, fame and money rule. Tut tutting over them taking advantage of this fact for personal gain and pleasure is a pretty pointless exercise.
As is adopting a high moral tone on a blog thread jinmaro. We all end up in the mud eventually.
Errr, I beg to differ, Jinmaro. There was an interesting discussion about why women choose not to call themselves lesbians (see, for example, the comments by catlick) when they have relationships with women.
“Darlene, inadvertently perhaps your flippant post has performed as a dog whistle for a quite predictable but no less repugnant sexist response from a range of men who have reacted by either expressing “terrorâ€? at the sight of this surrogate goddess and her abundant, archetypal feminine locks, or like FDB, have sought to cut her down to size by the designation “chick”.
I’m not sure whether you’re being flippant or not with this comment (and I’m not feeling well so I’m about to go back to bed). My intent wasn’t to be flippant but to make a statement about the nature of labels and the way people use them against others. One doesn’t have to be ponderous and serious everytime one tries to make a serious point. I can assure you that if I felt that someone was being a sexist tool, I’d say you’re being a sexist tool.
I wasn’t offended by FDB’s comment, and I haven’t been offended by any comment on this thread (mmm, I think my girl hackles are being raised - tee hee). I’d prefer to save it for something really offensive.
“The likes of Sam, Paris and Koo, through no fault of their own, have been hatched into a world where sex, fame and money rule. Tut tutting over them taking advantage of this fact for personal gain and pleasure is a pretty pointless exercise.”
Good point, and if I am here to write about “culture”, I can tell you that I’m going to write about so-called low culture as well as the allegedly high stuff.
“Chick” is merely the corrollary of “bloke” as far as I’m concerned, so I don’t quite know what your problem is Jinmaro. Would it have made that big a difference if I’d linked to the same fimclip and spoken of a “womyn riding a rodeo machine in leather lingerie”?
PC nonsense.
Darlene, yeah my hackles are vertical too, but I still admire your sangfroid.
FDB, language depends on mutually agreed-upon terms, not because they represent truth, but because this is essential for good communication.
If anyone wants to test whether “chick” is a word equivalent to “bloke” as FDB assures himself, then try using it on, to and about your female boss, grandmother, 10 year old niece, etc., and tell us about the reaction.
FDB, I LOUDLY DENOUNCE your politically incorrect terminology.
That said, I do find the involuntary elevation of my esquimaux-hackles disturbingly pleasing.
Depends on the context in which you use words, really.
Come on.
After I looked up “sangfroid”, I thought, that’s nice, that’s a compliment.
Ta.
“That said, I do find the involuntary elevation of my esquimaux-hackles disturbingly pleasing.”
Yes…….
A bit of historical context never goes astray.
“Chick” is a rockers term from the 1950s, preceded by “broad” (1940s), “bird” 1960s.
There are any number of more recent terms to describe women of sexual interest to bogan men, but “chick” appears to have become acceptable again for some and perhaps the least offensive for easy-going women.
Which is a sign of the times really but no less risible for that.
I hate to say it, but I quite like the word broad. For me, it’s connotes a strong women.
There’s also the possibility that one can reclaim words. It doesn’t always work, but…
Yes, but that’s not what the FDB’s of this world mean when they call us chick or broad. Which brings us nicely full circle. Sam Fox’s picture above arouses “terror” as people have revealingly commented because she has made herself in the image of Medusan Venus with her hissing serpent-hair. She who shed’s her lovers’ blood to irrigate the seasons. Like Cadmus sowing dragon’s teeth, she plants her victims’ corpses and harvests fresh crops of men.
No wonder they cower and ridicule, poor paltry things.
LOL
O rly? What DO we mean?
Aah, no. That’s not it…at least I’m reasonably certain blokes aren’t torturing mythological allegories when they call a bird chick. Maybe I’m underestimating my fellow Cowering Ridiculistes but I can also assure you that Ms Fox’s
big bouffant poodle“hissing serpent” hair was one of her less paralysing features.Oh, I know, I know: it’s terrible to live in fear. Patriarchy’s a bitch, innit?
Anyhoo, best two out of three: can you tell me what I’m thinking now?
I’m guessing you’re either admiring your sandals or congratulating yourself on the looking-at-the-reflection-in-the-shield thing, which is of course where JK Rowling got the whole Basilisk plot from in Book 2.
Err, over-interpretation?
Favourite Bowie quote: “I always was a closet heterosexual”.
Ummm… what Kim and Fyodor-of-the-malleable-moniker said. Where the fark do you get off attributing motives to me? I don’t think you’re qualified frankly.
Particularly oddball ravings there, when we’re talking about a page three girl with bad hair - bad hair which I incidentally love in a ‘guilty pleasures’ sort of nostalgic fashion - Greek myths about maneaters? WTF? She’s a lesbian, isn’t she? Why should I bother polishing up my shield?
And Darlene, ‘broad’ is well on the road to reclamation - see here.