Gesellschaft am Ende

By Tea Hacic-Vlahovic

6 May 2022

Tea Hacic-Vlahovic has written Spike’s society column, “Gesellschaft am Ende”, since the summer of 2021. It’s time it gets from the paper to the World Wide Web. We start from the start, Spike #68, where she explains why femininity is the new masculinity and why sex isn’t sexy, secrets are.

Los Angeles men are vampires again. Richard Hell’s Blank Generation has risen, like cicadas, from underground. They’d been waiting for the brutal reign of Streetwear to fade. No fear, the coast is clear. Strut down Sunset Strip, shed your mask, and let a masc in ….

Italy won the Gay World Cup, also known as Eurovision. Los Angeles is like Europe, in that it’s camp. LA and EU’s campiness, ditziness, and delusions put us ahead , culturally. Ahead, in the way floozies are. Ahead in the way only people who don’t pretend to read books can be. There are intellectuals and there are the enlightened. The latter know they won’t be remembered for spitting acumen at a party, but for how they looked serving it. Pretending otherwise is silly.

“I don’t do coke anymore; it shoots straight into your third eye”, a zoomer boy said to me at a garage party (a party in someone’s garage). He was wearing a teal silk shirt, unbuttoned. Black hair slicked back like gasoline. He smelled like powder. “That makes sense”, I burped. “Got any more Travis Scott White Claw?”

Måneskin, the band that won Eurovision, is the dream for any girl. The hot female bassist is surrounded by hot male musicians wearing the same tight, leather outfits she does. What girl doesn’t fantasise about being gangbanged by boys who “get it”?

It’s comforting to see a man accept femininity. Well, it’s a goddamn miracle. And miracles are sexy, baby.

Why do you think women love our gay boy friends so much? (Yes, many women “accessorise” their gay friends, which is fucked, but this is a 1k word society column, I can’t get into that.) Why does the average “basic bitch” – a woman not involved in the queer scene – squeal with delight when she sees a drag queen at brunch? Because it’s comforting to see a man accept femininity. To see a man celebrate femininity? Well, it’s a goddamn miracle. And miracles are sexy, baby.

What else do you think of when you think of women, in groups, screaming? You think of Beatlemania. You think of Groupies. You think of Rock ’n’ roll.

Måneskin proved Rock ’n’ Roll has returned, and so has the fashion. And so have the men. Real men! That ancient masculinity that makes us weak in the knees. You know which kind. The gay kind! Straight men, at their most masculine, at their most manly, are kind of gay. Isn’t being a gay man the most manly thing a man can do? Isn’t having sex with a man a celebration of masculinity?

Who is the Ideal Man? Lady Gaga in drag, as Joe Calderone. Next up, Iggy Pop, Sid Vicious, David Bowie, Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Keith Richards, the homeless guys who live in Venice Beach, wearing leather pants, no shirts, and probably no underwear. My favourites are Zeus and Joseph. We’re friends, they’re coming to my NFT gallery show this week. I can’t wait to see what they’re wearing and watch my friends – who dropped serious cash on a rushed Farfetch delivery – seethe with jealousy.

You want proof of my thesis? I’ve got proof: Hulu is developing a TV show based on Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson. Machine Gun Kelly and Meghan Fox are showing off retro PDA.

Paradise City , on Amazon Prime, is a Rockstar soap opera. (It almost makes you forget how badly Bella Thorne screwed over sex workers). Lil Nas X on SNL. His music isn’t Rock ’n’ Roll, but he is a Rockstar. And the straights are already copying him. Being cool is a choice but not everyone has it in them to choose …

Nature is healing, so on the arms of the Rockstars hang their Groupies. Once, Groupies were Groupies because they had no choice. Girls who wanted to be Rockstars had to fuck Rockstars. The best we could be was a muse. Now, the Groupies are the artists, the writers, the protagonists. If they seem like “floozies”, it’s performance art. They’re trolling us, they’re parodies of themselves. The Rockstars, meanwhile, don’t know how to play instruments. They’re afraid, rendered useless, post #MeToo. “We can’t say anything anymore”, they slur, smirking.

In LA, they invite you to dinner and it’s actually a sex party. In NYC, they invite you to a sex party and it’s just dinner. In Milan they don’t even invite you.

People who don’t understand fashion, who are stuck in the fuccboi or tech trend, are left behind. My husband and I have been hanging out with industry types. Hollywood name-dropping demons. They accuse us of being “lame” for not participating in their sex parties. I’m no prude. I just can’t screw someone talking crypto currency while wearing Sandro.

Sex isn’t sexy, secrets are. I was a sex columnist for years, only because that was the only type of writing job people wanted to give a “girl like me”. I wasn’t a writer, I was a sex writer. Embarrassing! It took getting married and turning into a sexless clown, having my followers call me “mom”, to get rid of that title. Mystery is powerful. And Rockstars are mysterious, even with a leaked sex tape. (Let’s bring the leaked sex tape back!)

In LA, they invite you to dinner and it’s actually a sex party. In NYC, they invite you to a sex party and it’s just dinner. In Milan they don’t even invite you. The OnlyFans girls (and boys) know this: sex is work. A party shouldn’t be work.

So if the new masculinity is gay, what’s the new femininity? Stone cold. “My emotions are a secret, known only to me”, Allie Rowbottom wrote in her Aura Lift article. Yes, they’ve all got THAT face. They all look related. “All my friends are witches and we live in Hollywood. Mystical bitches, forming our own sisterhood”, Marina sings. Botox and fillers have rendered us all sisters. The doctors are our dads. It’s a city full of actresses who can’t frown. Incest porn has never been bigger.

“Most straight boys are engaging with what gay men like aesthetically, as a way to come off visually. Also, as a way to attract women. It’s not gay-baiting, it’s an understanding and appreciation of gay aesthetics”, BJ Panda Bear, editor and creative director advises.

“Straight men have the ability to gay-bait without facing any true consequences and that is the power of modern day f*ggotry and why femininity is the new masculinity” – Tyler Hollingsworth, LA photographer.

Let’s entertain the notion of what we hear so often, “straight (white) men can’t say anything anymore!” Well, fuckers, you better learn how to dress. When women couldn’t say anything, we let our clothes do the talking.

The faux gay boys are attracting the girls, who aren’t girls anymore. When out of the surgeon’s office, girls are all about fairy wings, angel wings, a smooth brain, and smoother face. I spent my whole life worrying about my weight. The second I stopped worrying about that, I started obsessing about ageing. “Get face in New York, boobs in Miami, ass in Los Angeles”, iconic poet Rachel Rabbit White informed me.

I’m still afraid of fillers, but I’ve begun meditating. It’s lobotomising, smooth-braining yourself. We all do what we can. As I said, being cool is a choice. This weekend, I’m going to Heaven, a gay rave, which Marc Jacobs ripped off for his new line. I’m wearing custom fairy wings. And will keep my eye out for the straight boys, lurking by the porta-potties.

TEA HACIC-VLAHOVIC is a writer, TV host, and filmmaker, and the author of The Life of the Party (2020). She lives in Santa Monica, California.

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