Note: to my UK or UK-savvy friends – prepare for “duh” cultural assessment by naive American. Had to do research for this.

I first heard about Lady Sovereign, oddly, on NPR. I was half-listening when I heard the phrase “Lady Sovereign is the female, British Eminem.” In fact she gets pissed off at this comparison, but it did make me look her up and find the song “Love Me or Hate Me.” I immediately fell in love with Britain’s biggest midget, feeling stupid that she pulls up 1.8 million Google hits and I’d never heard of her before. Cheeky little midget, she is. I like how her dead hamster stalks her in the video, too.

Her “I’m awesome but occasionally struggle and by the way, you’re a douchebag” lyrics have become my new mantra. Ok, I wish I was cool enough for that. I’m too sensitive and I can’t spit hot grime rhymes very well.

Soon I realized that I had pretty much missed the boat on Lady Sovereign, breezing happily through her drunk arrest in Australia, breakdown on stage in New York (she said “Fuck America. I’m being serious”), alleged antidepressant overdose and lukewarm reception of her 2009 album, Jigsaw. I discovered a few days ago that she’s joined the cast of Celebrity Big Brother UK. Nooooooo, S.O.V! Don’t do it! And with Sisqo? Really? Ugh.

So then I tour some blogs and hear people calling her a “chav.” Eh, guv’nor? Had to look it up. Wow, people really hate chavs, who defined nicely are working class British kids with questionable fashion sense and an affinity for hip hop. Let’s say, the equivalent of the rather offensive American term “wigger.” Middle and upper class kids have “chav parties” where they dress up like these poor kids (who oddly enough love Burberry? Well, that’s that I guess) and get crunk or something; the guys wear track suits and the girls wear miniskirts and babies.

The debate rages as to whether chav-haters are classist or just basically right. Either way, working class Brits are caught in a cycle of underachievement and low expectations – and look what happens when one breaks the cycle. She ends up on Celebrity Big Brother UK with Sisqo and some other people my American ass has never heard of. Trust me – I am not a fan of “chav culture,” “chav fashion” or “chav names” (all this and more is explained matter-of-factly here).  I am also not a fan of ridiculing an uneducated, destitute underclass relegated to sub-human status by the majority of society.

Not only am I not British, I have never been to the UK or studied its history and politics apart from reading the Bronte sisters and Slammerkin, the main character of which might have been the original chav. However, the US also struggles with this particular set of social issues, but we don’t seem to mock the urban poor as thoroughly as England does – or at least not in public anyway. Why is that? Is the US simply more hell-bent on political correctness, or are we lacking a subset of people to make fun of that won’t make us racist? Wait, I live in the South – why have I never been to a Redneck Party? I don’t know, maybe my friends somehow happen to have a few ounces of class. Or maybe geographic removal is the key – the farther away from a redneck you are, the easier it is to laugh at them.

Chavs are known for their affinity for welfare. Rednecks are known to plant their feet and say “I ain’t never took charity in my whole life” as they’re getting evicted from their home. The comparison here is lacking though, since rural rednecks and urban chavs have little in common other than their economic status and education level.  But as a white person myself, how could I compare chavs to working class African-Americans?  Kristine, throw that potato to the person on your left. Bill Cosby can’t even talk about it.

You know, I’m really pulling for Lady Sovereign. She’s a genuine wordsmith who conquered race, class and gender barriers in her rise to fame. Even if she does end up filing for bankruptcy and having Sisqo’s baby, she’s still made out better than most American starlets – and looked cooler doing it, too.

No related posts.

Chavs, Class, Race and Rednecks – by TickleSpot Magazine.

A town of around 13,000 that claims an 81% rate of Christianity, the London suburb of Upminster has been dubbed “England’s Sexiest Place” by Lovehoney UK. Since Upminsterites spend an average of almost eight times as much as other Brits on sex-related products, are all the heathens just wildly hedonistic – or are regular people realizing that sex is healthy, interesting and worthy of further exploration?

The borough of Havering hosts Upminster and has brought us Imogene Heap, the band Underworld, Cliff Williams from AC/DC and some footballers I’ve never heard of. A list of the most-read blogs in Upminster tells us that local denizens enjoy football and television. They also have windmills (or maybe just one heavily photographed windmill) and a lovely farmers’ market on the first Thursday of every month.

Sounds pretty average. Except for the fact that they spend more than 16 times the national average on porn, over 13 times more on couples’ sex toys and almost 10 times more on bondage gear. What is going on in Upminster? I did find one image that seemed apropos for the subject (image may or may not have been actually taken in Upminster). The artist’s somewhat heavy-handed message that “commuters are dicks” tells me there’s a sad, suburban, button-up culture there, one in need of some release. At least they have a train – most of us are driving SUVs around in circles and complaining about gas prices while we text. However, I suspect Photoshop was somehow involved in the creation of this picture, so I doubt the artist even owns one neon-colored dildo.

I’ve got some theories. For example, my research indicates that Upminster does not have a brick-and-mortar sex shop. Therefore, it might be easier to order sex toys online than to take the train to London and grope around for a scandalous shop. If fact, the citizens of Upminster might be worried about being seen in a London sex shop, so they flock to the internet for their sexual needs, which brings us to Lovehoney. The distinction of “U.K.’s Sexiest Place” is based on their sales figures. Does Upminster have a connection to Lovehoney? Maybe a bunch of people from Upminster work at Lovehoney, and they’ve convinced all their friends to buy from that company? Maybe friends and family discounts are involved?

If the U.S. had a similarly-dubbed town, I think it would be Mobile, Alabama, or Virginia Beach. How did I come to that conclusion? Both are decent cities situated on the coast in states where it’s illegal to sell sex toys. People on the coast tend to be, you know, relaxed, maybe more open to their sexuality. And they can’t go to a (legal) brick and mortar store to purchase sex toys without crossing state lines. Interestingly, Tickle has a pretty large customer base in Texas, where sex toy stores only recently became legal. At first glance this seemed entirely counterintuitive, but some Tickle office talk generated an explanation: Now readily available, Texans are just going crazy for sex toys. And who wouldn’t?

Probably not Provo, Utah, you might think. When I searched for “Provo, Utah sex toys,” Google suggested I might be looking for a Provo cotton shop. Curious what that was, I clicked, only to discover that apparently, quilting is popular in Provo. Why was I even looking in the heart of Mormonism for hedonism? Because Tickle also has a large customer base in Provo, Utah. Local law enforcement seems really worried about sex toys in Spencer’s, and while there are some Christian sex toy outlets nearby, it looks like slim pickings in Provo proper. So really, sex toy-buying in red-state America is a task best performed online. Provo joins Mobile, Virginia Beach and the entire state of Texas as a contender for the Sexiest Place in America.

However, the argument should be made that it’s really not very sexy to hide your sexuality behind your computer. It’s an interesting project that Lovehoney’s undertaken, one that has generated a lot of buzz in the UK. And what’s the least sexiest place? The map says it’s poor little Caledon, Northern Ireland, which is a historic plantation with actual Druids and a population of 389. It’s also in the same locality as the #3 spender – I kid you not – Bangor, North Wales. Maps are fun.

IS Upminster actually sexy? Or Bangor, Texas and Utah? Actually, no. But I do applaud them for their willingness to try new things. Suburbia is stranger than fiction, I say.

Related posts:

1. Matters of the Heart: The Sexiest Symbol of All
2. Ophoria Rapture No. 6 – Reviewed
3. Personal Review of We-Vibe 2

Upminster: the U.K.’s Sexiest Place – by TickleSpot Magazine.