Following on from the revival of the condemnation feature, here’s a resurrection of another irregular feature we haven’t done for a long time – the Casuistry Challenge. This post from Lindsay at Majikthise just popped up in my google reader:
Young goth couple wins attention sweepstakes
In the age of the Internet, something as simple as getting kicked off the bus in costume can attract global attention. Well played, kids.
Now, I wouldn’t have bothered linking if the story was just one about some intolerant bus driver not liking gothy kids. But I looked a bit more closely at the photo, and noticed that they were chained together – which is something that I haven’t seen. Though, as I later discovered, they’re not chained together as I thought, he’s holding a leash and she’s wearing a collar.
So I clicked through to Lindsay’s source and found this at Jezebel:
A young British woman, Tasha Maltby, identifies as the “human pet” of her 25-year-old fiance, even allowing him to lead her around on a leash (which is more of a chain, but yeah). But the “real” reason that Maltby, 19, is in the news is because she and her intended, Dani Graves (a 25-year-old guy) were kicked off a bus by a freaked out driver. Says Maltby: “I am a pet. I generally act animal-like and I lead a really easy life. I don’t cook or clean and I don’t go anywhere without Dani. It might seem strange but it makes us both happy. It’s my culture and my choice. It isn’t hurting anyone.” True ‘dat?
Discuss.
Smile, young people. Things can’t be that bad. I guess it’s their choice but the obvious symbolism is rank.
However, it seems to me that she has the upper hand in some ways (doesn’t clean and doesn’t cook).
Do they not work or study or stuff like we mere non-goth mortals?
Suppose you decided their arrangement was a bad thing that had to be acted upon. What would you do? How would you argue your point of view, if they were both happy with the situation?
To my mind the real issue here is whether the increasingly widespread practice of wearing leashes should affect public liability insurance premiums.
I think being a ‘pet’ means something slightly different in the era of post-humanist ethics than perhaps it once did, but the hierarchy implied here is still disturbing. I’ve seen this scenario with genders reversed, though, within the same set of subcultural parameters.
One question that comes to mind: how much is this just a way of making visible – indeed provocatively so – the kinds of dynamics that are unstated in some superficially ‘ordinary’ relationships?
Who was it, said: masochists always call the shots. It’s a form of eroticism, big deal. She’s not really a slave. As she says: my choice. I know a woman who did this sort of thing in the punk days: the chain, the collar etc. She’s a player in the global film business these days.
I’m not a big banning fan, so the issue of what to do about it doesn’t concern me much. It’s just a bit gross, and he looks like a total dork.
Yes, it does rather make the ‘owner’ look a little silly if they aren’t up to the part.
I think it’s just interesting that they’re brave enough to continue what is usually only contained to the home or to clubs/private parties into the other aspects of the world.
That is true Fiona, though I would think them braver still if they went about on opposite ends of the leash, or were of the same sex.
For my taste it’s a little crass, or something along those lines. A bit too obvious.
I think that’s an excellent point.
Yes, it’s her choice, and we should’nt interfere with this. At the same time, it probably isn’t a healthy choice. Nonetheless, as Klaus so aptly points out, this is probably no more unhealthy than many relationship choices made by young women– it’s just more visible.
Oh, and I want my boyfriend to buy a jacked like that. It’s part of my plan to convince him to dress up as Lucius Malfoy the next time we go to a costume party.
Oh, to be young again!
Seriously, kids, not in public. This is what the upstairs rooms in my guest house are for.
If her commitment runs to weeing and pooing in the streets, I’ll consider being subverted. But only if his runs to cleaning up after her, too.
Suburban gothic intrigues me.
So many angles to explore the image – feminist/post-modern/conceptual art/sexual libertarian/BDSM etc but i can’t now because i’m heading out.
Not a patch on the sanguinarian subculture though.
btw New poligoth up today.
West Yorkshire represent!
he looks like a total dork.
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Of course he does. He’s a goth. 90% wankers the lot of ‘em.
Well in my day, we would have had the whole lot of you decked out in collars and chains, right after the pillage but just before the rapine. And none of these fancy gowns and hair-dye, neither. Them wuz the days, I tell’ee.
The BBC piece makes the direction of the desire clear:
Looks like boyfriends are not always wrong
. Mind you, I do not see that being seen as a “weirdo” is a bad thing.
I just wish the BBC would sort out the page loading on Firefox.
Its just a phase they’re going through. It’ll pass. With all of the attention maybe they’re going through it with a little extra money in his pocket.
Hey Ragnerik Half-tooth, High Warlord of the Ostro-Goths. Reading your post I’m thinking, gee maybe I was wrong when I said 90% of goths are wankers.
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More like 99%
Adrien,
I think Goths are like the rest of us. Most admit to being wankers. The rest lie about it.
Awwwww, wook at the widdle gothlings, they’re so cute!
*pinches cheeks*
Couldn’t you just eat them up with icecream??
Scary thought: has she been vaccinated, microchipped and er, you know..?
Ha ha, naughty Mercurius. That was funny.
It’s all a bit of theatre in a pay attention to me pay attention to me kind of way, they’ll out grow it and become boring old buggers like the rest of us.
Not that they aren’t boring now. Goth is so 2007. Emo kids forever.
I though Emo was a subset of Goth. Emo=The Cure, My Chemical Romance as opposed to The Sisters of Mercy type Goth. Where’s Ragnerik Half-tooth s/he’s obviously the local authority.
R-1/2 tooth is either being tautolgical or sub literate – ‘rapine’ means ‘looting’ or ‘pillage’.
Hnads up who doesn’t think she has the upper hand”
It’s just the kids having fun and, yes, I suspect she’s probably the boss.
I think they need to co-ordinate their blacks better. His is a grey black and hers is a brown black. Ew.
Emo aren’t really goth, their wardrobes are cheaper, their music slightly less pretentious and more vapid (on average), though the same wanktacular angst is there. Goths seem to hate emos for cheapening and mainstreaming their look and morose, self-pitying theatrics.
A lot of emo music is the botched miscarriage of late 4th-wave ‘alternative’ and some obscure East Coast hardcore bands of the mid 90s. Whoever it it was has a lot of explaining to do.
Stuff the curmudgeonly and over-zealous driver. Probably a bleedin’ Taliban sympathiser. Somebody should mention to him that this particular tribe don’t do burqas. The couple are consenting adults; there is no evidence of coercion. Perhaps they were on their way to a Rocky Horror party or simply off to agonise over NIN and bitch about The Man with peers. But so what! Nobody’s gettin’ hurt here.
Vive Addams Family values. Vive la difference!
There’s serious pocket-money in this one if the goths play it right.
Could be just the case for a legal up-and-comer at Oxbridge.
Ragnerik Half-boof, you’re not a proper goth unless you’re wearing Doc Martens, as any fule kno.
Sorry, it was me. Let me explain.
The goths were too into hallucinogen/stimulants because of their punk cross-adherents, I hadda tone the tone down a bit, and aren’t the emos well into depressants nowadays? I’m proud as a thirty-five year-old Kiama granddad with an open UDL.
Nick Cave’s miserable/remarkable renaissance is directly attributable to the same pro-alcoholic factors. I’ve told him to cover Red Red Wine but he won’t listen. Fucking Geelong Grammar boys and their up-themselves independence. Monkeys! Oi! Nick Cave, git!
Enforce contract!
If this was taken recently, she’d be freezing her you know what’s off.
Every picture tells a story. They are probably on their way back after dining at their favourite restaurant, ‘The Dog’s Dinner’. She wolfed her food down, as usual, which meant he had to get a doggy bag. Notice his grim visage and her dark lips. You might think she’s wearing black lipstick. Actually, she has just been indulging one of her favourite pastimes – running after moving cars and trying to suck the soot off their exhaust-pipe. When she took off at a rate of knots (after a Rover car in fact), he was dragged headlong and horizontal behind her. Note what appears to be buttons down the front of his coat. No. In fact they are skid-mark damage combined with huge flecks of saliva. Whether it is her saliva, or his own resulting from his apoplectic attempts to get her to heel, is problematic. To make matters worse, he lost his doggy bag. But maybe things are looking up for him. Notice that provocative side-long glance towards him. You can almost read her mind: ‘don’t be so down, big boy; when we get home, you can be MY doggy’.
Hmmm. While of course as an consenting adult she can get up to whatever she likes…but while I can understand the appeal of this kind of thing as an occasional activity, wouldn’t it start to get, well, a little tedious and dull after a while if you’re doing it 24 hours a day?
Robert Merkel, well known blog activist, admits to…
“understand the appeal of this kind of thing as an occasional activity”
…mmmm.
Many of us who prefer teh chain AND ball are left wondering as to his wimpy lack of fortitude, stamina and moral fibre.
I went down to my local pet store and asked for one of those, but the shopkeeper just gave me a strange look and asked me to leave.
Paulus, but did you give a nod and a wink to the cocky on the way in?
RobertM,
I suspect that this is only a short term thing. Until the marriage. Then the choker is on the other neck.
It’s health and safety issues I’m concerned about. Supposing the bus/plane swerved and rolled ‘cos of a blown tyre, a dickhead traffic controller or a dimwitted Goth blundering into the lights? Do you really want that potentially aisle-spanning and foot-tripping chain/leash interrupting everyone as they scramble for the emergency exits? At least a tongue piercing only gets tangled up with your pubic hair.
Only if they are both switches.
Your pubic hair? My, you are nimble….
They actually look like a Harry Potter movie as directed by Tim Burton. You know, Severus Snape and his severely submissive sex slave..
If Tasha is Dani’s pet, I’m waiting for the bestiality charges any minute now.
woof.
joe2: in the abstract.
What I and my girlfriend *actually* get up to in private is left as an exercise for the imagination of the sufficiently interested reader…and I’d be seriously worried if there were any sufficiently interested readers to bother
What happened to the maxim,try it before you buy it.I think these two are just young enjoying life and what it has to offer,and there is no implication in what has been said by them,that the use of the collar is a control or she or him are being hurt by it.And they are both fashion compliant,rather than fashion being compliant to the humans.So therefore,I think they are making a statement about matters of self,but,not fully conscious,and matters about fashion,as they maybe making about pets and owners..there is no pooper scoop.And I can get jealous of people in photos.No.I dont want a poop scooper !
Do they drink blood?
Hmm, I wouldn’t have pegged Robert M and his girlfriend as the types to go in for blood drinking, but you never can tell what sort of kinkiness people get up to behind closed doors …
OMG! I meant the chained Goths.For the record, there is actually a Goth sect [?} who do really engage in vampiric activities. You can read all about them in the Encyclopedia of Vampires, which I once devoured from cover to cover.
I thought pets were allowed on English public transport. Perhaps she coughed up a furball in the aisle or started scratching the seat when she wanted to get outside.
Does anyone else think that it’s weird that they’re quoted as being fiancées? What kind of marriage ceremony do you want if you’ve already gone for the whole “I’m his human pet” angle?
Is there a miniature breed? My house is too small for one the size of Tasha.
Ken, you’d also want to go for the short-haired variety, because brushing longhairs is such a chore, they moult everywhere in summer, and B-A-T-H day is a complete nightmare.
At lease the owner pictured above takes his for walkies, so I guess it’s teaching him responsibility for something.
While it’s nice to come home everyday to someone who’s happy to see you and who wants their tummy rubbed, they do pine if you leave them couped up by themselves.
And once you factor in the cost of worm and flea treatments, you’d be better off with a goldfish.
But you can’t flagellate a goldfish silly
Nor can you desex the pet…rather defeats the purpose of the ownership
“For the record, there is actually a Goth sect [?} who do really engage in vampiric activities. You can read all about them in the Encyclopedia of Vampires, which I once devoured from cover to cover.”
paul – you are referring to sanguinarianism, as i referred to in my much earlier post above, whose adherents are often, but not exclusively goth. Very few goths, btw, are sanguinarians.
I understand the defendants in the current lesbian vampire murder case in perth have apparently claimed to belong to this subculture.
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=145&ContentID=55906THere are numerous support groups for the emerging sanguinarian on the web, guides to coming out, finding a donor source etc etc. It is one of the more disturbing subcultures i've encountered, after meeting a girl in Bris who identified as such.
They look like their auditioning for another Addam’s Family film or the next edition of BB!!
Maybe Tasha tried sniffing passengers’ crutches or humping their legs.
sublimecowgirl,
The account I read in the Encyclopedia of Vampires was much more benign. It was quite a few years ago now, but apparently they had a club in New York. From memory the author was at pains to stress that the American lot were pretty harmless. Nothing at all like the murder case in Perth which, in the end, seems to have been motivated by jealousy in what was obviously a very unhealthy relationship. Rather it was just a very weird group, whose behaviour arose out of a fascination with vampires. Very small group too. But that was, I think, 15 years or more ago.
wiki’s listing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_lifestyleI mention the murder case, only because its topical atm.
Like all subcultures there are parametres and mores. If you look you'll quickly find the accepted 'ethics for choosing a donor' in Sanguinarianism.
Murder is not one of them.
Like most fringe subcultures, people are attracted to /identify with them for a multiplicity of reasons - acceptance after previous social rejection or alienation, risqueness, curiousity and experimentation, validation of independent experience, rejection of dominant culture, sense of solidarity within the subculture, perception of alternative reality etc.
This includes (as in mainstream society), but importantly tends to attract a number of people with unresolsolved/undiagnosed psychological or mental issues who go on to manifest symptoms or act out trauma in the context of the subculture.
Sometimes the very nature of the subculture will mask, exacerbate or even celebrate what is in fact unhealthy behaviour, perpetuating an individuals disfunction. Think outlaw bikie gangs, terrorist groups or HIV bugchasers.
ANd occassionally you end up with our vampire murderers in Perth.
Facinating area.
There are innumerable paths to human flourishing.
Thanks for that, sublimecowgirl. Have gone quite deeply into vampire lore, literature and film. Renfield’s Syndrome was a new one for me – the name, anyway, had heard of human vampirism as distinct from sanguinearism. Amazing what one learns on LP.
53 Jane
Maybe Tasha tried sniffing passengers’ crutches or humping their legs.
ROTFLMAO!
Ahem…