DivineDemento

From the sonic terrorism of Throbbing Gristle, through to the playful experimentation of modern acts such as SOPHIE, industrial music has formed a core aspect of the queer musical landscape. Through studying its history, we can see how this most challenging of genres has reflected the lives of queer people perhaps better than any other.  When performance art collective COUM Transmissions unveiled their Prostitution exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1976, the resulting furore was almost inevitable. The show – which included artefacts ranging from used tampons to double ended dildos smeared with blood – led to Conservative MP Nicholas Fairbairn denouncing the troupe, and especially their sole female member Cosey Fanni Tutti, as ‘wreckers of civilization’. However, the show was also notably the moment COUM Transmissions made the full transformation into the equally challenging musical outfit Throbbing Gristle.  Drawing their name from Yorkshire sla...

Few books have proved as controversial as American Psycho, and certainly few have painted such a devastating picture of a nation built upon capitalism. But whilst the book is certainly a ‘black he arted satire on the terrible power of money’, it also highlights the deeply immoral perceptions of sexual and ethnic minorities in Reagan’s America – and how money, toxic masculinity and Reaganomics led to the death of millions. American Psycho is nothing if not infamous – the narrative comprises of the rambling inner-monologue of Patrick Bateman, a Wall Street investment banker who also happens to be a violent, disturbed psychopath. The book is notorious for being so violent, so flagrantly gruesome, that in many parts of the world it can only be sold in shrink-wrapped plastic. But American Psycho is also one of modern literature's most studied and debated works. The novel, on a surface level, is a deeply moralistic criticism of late stage capitalism. Though some critics have dubbe...

Even today, the AID’s epidemic of the 1980’s remains a dark and sombre topic for queer people the world over. At a time when sex between men was made abject, and governments used the disease to push for intrinsically homophobic legislation, director Clive Barker paired horror's recurring theme of sex-based fear with the tragedies of a queer generation. The fear of sex, or the demonization of the sexually promiscuous, is a common and sometimes controversial trope within the horror genre. Many horror directors would argue that their films do not create such a narrative. Though I would argue that this viewpoint is somewhat reductionist, the evidence is certainly there – think of the number of horror films where sexually promiscuous teenagers are brutally murdered (often women killed by hulking, emasculated men) whilst the sole virgin survives. Think of the use of phallic murder weapons such as knives and chainsaws, or perhaps even the entire rape-revenge sub-genre that came to p...