This year I took my show Ram of God to the Brighton fringe. In a very silly way it looks at the mechanics of patriarchy, gender and sexuality’s fraught relationship with institutions of power and our complicity in perpetuating that. Structured like a religious ceremony that descends into a milky sex cult rave, the audience, as the adoring congregation, are asked at various points to allow and support the charismatic leader’s reign, thereby condoning and enabling the abuse. Drawing on real life religious traditions, women are denigrated for having boobs (God’s punishment for the horrendous sins of womankind) while simultaneously suckling milk from the Holy Teat is held up as a sacred act. This is my satirical take on the contradictions and double standards implicit not only in many religions but in many systems within a patriarchy. One of my favourite bits to perform is a heavy metal track (‘Boobs are Sins, show your sins’) in which I (dressed in drag as Ram, a Russell Brand-esque half man/half sheep) rip off my vest to reveal my female chest painted with a six pack, chest hair and nipples (disguised as male nipples).
Performing this is fun and liberating. But I don’t think of being naked as something that is particularly radical. It is not even illegal in the UK as long as you are not doing anything sexual or doing it to shock. So you could walk down the street naked whenever you want – I hope you do. And if you think about Free The Nipple long enough you can’t logically defend the idea that women’s chests are sexual and men’s are not. Just because something’s socially accepted, doesn’t mean it’s correct or fair. And to me, as a human who happens to have breasts, that’s just my body, just as a man’s is his. But it feels gratifying to be able to pretend I’m a man and therefore ‘allowed’ to bare my chest while at the same time telling the audience women’s chests are bad but also they should be exposed for me to look at.
It is wild to me that we live in a world where a woman can’t for example, buy a swimming costume that covers a woman’s natural hairline, yet it is not generally socially acceptable to show your pubic hair. What would it mean to be able to buy as standard, comfortable, practical clothes that didn’t necessitate you changing your body before you wore them? What different message would that tell young girls?
After the Brighton show a man sat on the same table as us was staring and laughing. We asked what was going on and he apologised and said he recognised me from the show. He’d enjoyed it a lot, he said. ‘How old are you?’ He asked – immediately my friend’s guard went up. I was in post-show mode where you’re still on show and you have to be good natured and grateful for people coming. ‘Late thirties, why?’ ‘Well done’, he said, ‘you have very pert breasts, I thought you were mid twenties. Well done.’ ‘Not the point’ I mumbled, while inside a big pool of shame and disappointment opened up. I’d just come off stage from a show I was proud of: I’d written it, produced it, directed it, made props, costume, sound and video content for it, promoted it, performed it to a crowd that enjoyed it, hoping to spread a message of empowerment and inclusivity, and all I’d given this man was the impression that my greatest achievement was young-looking tits. And worse, that as a woman exposing herself to the world, I had asked for it and his comment was what I wanted. Bleaurgh. Even though I didn’t want to admit it, it took me a couple of days to feel okay about it again.
When you put yourself on stage you are already exposing yourself. Making yourself vulnerable to a world of critics, opinions and interpretations. My brother, who owns his own business sometimes asks if I’m scared of a backlash – from his perspective of wanting to please customers, some of the things I say and do publicly feel dangerous. But that is exactly the point. As artists we’re not here to be pleasing, even though I do want people to have a good time at my shows. And we have to accept that not everyone’s going to have the takeaway we want from it. I can only hope that for every middle aged man who thinks it’s a compliment to tell me ‘nice tits’ there’s a young woman who feels empowered to speak back or make a change, however small.
Ram of God as featured in The Guardian by The Other Richard, 2020
In the moment, I genuinely thought he wanted to give me a compliment, but the more time that passes I notice the affect it had on me and I become less convinced it was accidental. If it felt threatening to him to see a woman owning her sexuality, and making fun of the systems that uphold his power, what better way to keep her in her place by letting her know that the sex was all you saw, and her body just an object for you to appraise? I felt in the moment like I’d failed and was depressed for the world, but maybe I’ll choose to interpret it as a success. Maybe I’ll interpret his reaction as a a scared man, suddenly aware that his world is slipping away from him.
Fuck it: if he can do it so can I.
Ram of God at Brighton fringe 2022 by Gemma Hentsch in Brighton Spiegeltent
So yeah, come and see the show: there’s tits in it! And not just normal ones, ones that look slightly younger than they actually are! Youth is the pinnacle of female achievement! Youth and tits. Come see young tits! <——— new marketing strategy