Welcome to Issue No. 02 – RAGE
In Issue 02 we analyse the pleasure disruption brought by the containment of a woman’s rage and the patriarchal control and propaganda in constant play. We teach ourselves how to smash the programming and embrace our rage as a powerful force for transformation, change and creation.
Words: Lila Theodoros
FEATURING: Riot Grrrls; The 4B Movement; The Peace of Rage; Take Back The Night; How We Learn to be Sad; Rage is a Woman’s Emotion; The Rage Recipe; Where The Fire Hides (Photo Essay); Rage Made Me a Dominatrix; and more. PLEASURE IS: Shame free guidance in The Pleasure Room; determined solo female travel; celebration of Sovereignty; and, Spicy cliterature.
Moi is our digital magazine – ready for immediate download, no postage fees or long delivery waits. Enjoy 198 beautifully designed pages of pleasure right now. Pleasure in your pocket. Designed to be enjoyed on your favourite device in high resolution glory.From the absolute bottom of my heart, welcome to our world of Pleasure – Moi.
Editor’s Letter:
“Why do you do that?” my therapist asks.
I look at her confused, tears streaming down my hot face, breath caught in mild hyperventilation.
“You start crying when you’re expressing. What are you actually feeling?”
“Um … (sniff) … I’m feeling ……,” my voice rises in volume, lowers in tone, “anger.” I am angry. I’m so angry that I’m fearful of how loud I will scream and how long I will rage about all the things I have bottled inside me if I slip and let it all out.
“Then feel angry. Express your rage. Let it out. Don’t crumble and cry and hide behind sadness. Feel your anger.”
We look at each other in silence. She has seen me, called out the emotion-substituted tears and made me feel safe to be angry, finally. She continues. “When you do let yourself express it, how does your anger make you feel?”
My tears have stopped, my eyes narrow and my jaw is clenched. “It makes me feel safe, protected, in control. Like I can actually stand up for myself. I feel powerful … I am so angry.”
“Good. Ok. Your homework is to feel that anger. Don’t melt into sadness. Get angry. Go and scream at the ocean. She can take it.”
Like so many women before me, I am a constructed emotionally-tight vessel (chamber, vase, cauldron?), years in the making, containing the culmination of a lifetime’s rage, buried deep inside, feeling it simmering, bubbling, rumbling, occasionally boiling over the top and spitting out with a searing heat.
When my Rage Cauldron is contained, ‘like a good girl should’, I feel tired, stressed, overwhelmed, not myself. Zero pleasure. But, when I finally taste that cauldron and let it boil over, I am strong, self-possessed and motivated to change the world. Pleasure is mine.
My rage reminds me that I am a Riot Grrrl, ready to create, to scream, to fight, ready for revolution, as I did in the ‘90s: Riot Grrrls, Rage & the ‘90s (p.26) – I forgot who I was, but I won’t again. I admire the women who use their rage as a tool for creativity and evolution, in moving photography, Where the Fire Hides (p.68), or empowered career choices, Rage Made Me a Dominatrix (p.132) or revenge fuelled food, The Rage Recipe (p.110), or delicious cliterature, Buttercream (p.122).
When the Rage Cauldron goes cold and ‘approved’ emotions congeal me into invisibility, I remember the patriarchy is a program that I need to fight in order to break free of the role I was cast as Acceptable Woman. So I light the fire. The Peace of Rage (p.46) teaches me that anger can be a creative and protective force providing women with clarity and direction. And when I find myself pulled back into the patriarchy-approved Sad Girl, weeping in a small beautiful heap, waiting to be seen/saved, I read How We
Learn to be Sad (p.78) and remind myself that “... anger is not the opposite of beauty; it is the opposite of erasure.” Rage is a Woman’s Emotion (p.98) demands visibility for a woman’s true and visceral searing rage in film and television narratives. We will not be hidden.
I honour the women who raged before me and continue to fight for the fundamental human right to exist in safety, without fear of violence, like the women whose radical response to gender-based violence in the 1970s started the protest march Take Back the Night (p.56), and No Boys Allowed (p.38), the patriarchy smashing South Korean 4B feminist rebellion. No One’s Coming. Good (p.156) is a defiant callout of the hypocrisy of the patriarchy’s ‘Dependent Dream’ and The Solo Female Traveller Paradox (p.162) keeps us determined to adventure despite the dangers ever present.
In Issue 02 we analyse the pleasure disruption brought by the containment of a woman’s rage and the patriarchal control and propaganda in constant play. We teach ourselves how to smash the programming and embrace our rage as a powerful force for transformation, change and creation. We witness and marvel at the women before and around us who lead by example and not only find themselves, but enact revolution, embracing their rage, feeling their power and tasting pleasure. As always, we invite you to satisfy your curiosity, embrace your rage and step into a life of pleasure.
Lila Theodoros
Publisher & Managing Editor
xx
P.S. This issue we also proudly introduce a new feature, The Pleasure Room (p.142), a space where you are invited to be curious – curated by trusted experts, captured by creatives and ready to be enjoyed. Feast your eyes on a world of pleasure products ;)
