On the Right to Bare Arms (A Post in Support of Pussy Riot)

The Right to Bare Arms (ffabyrd.deviantart.com)

Lawrence once insisted in a piece of fragmentary writing that he felt no deep hostility towards Christianity. Indeed, on religious fundamentals he maintained there was no breach between himself and the Church of Rome, whose authority he believed in.

Of course, this is slightly disingenuous to say the very least ... But, there is one occasion on which Lawrence leaps to the defense of the Holy Father and affirms Catholic teaching. In his long essay written à propos Lady Chatterley's Lover, Lawrence savages George Bernard Shaw for daring to mock the Pope's attempt to maintain the modesty of women by insisting that they cover-up their bare arms and legs whilst attending Mass and, ideally, when in any public space whatsoever.

Not unreasonably, Shaw points out that the irony of wanting to veil female flesh is that this more often than not leads to its eroticization; that it is clothing that arouses thoughts of sex, not nakedness. For Lawrence, however, this remark is indicative of the flippancy and vulgarity of intellectuals and whilst he agrees that half-naked, modern women fail to stimulate genuine desire in the modern male, this he feels is a reason to despair and to rethink our relationship to the body (the female body in particular).

Ultimately, like the Pope, Lawrence, wants women to keep their limbs and their hair covered. Not because the exposure of such arouses sexual desire, but because it doesn't and that is a sign that something is sadly wrong: with men as well as women; but mostly with women who have lost their natural allure and become as sexually undesirable as plastic dolls. 

If, on the other hand, women have gained their economic and political freedom and the right to participate in society as equals; i.e. to work and to vote as well as to have control over their bodies, this means very little to Lawrence. It's the fact of female flesh being publicly displayed that continues to exercise and deeply trouble him. 

I was reminded of all this - of Lawrence's insistence that the bare arms (legs, necks, and shoulders) of women constitute a dangerous and vulgar form of atheism - whilst watching a film of the trial of Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich. These three courageous young women - members of feminist punk group Pussy Riot - were convicted by a Russian court in 2012 of 'hooliganism motivated by religious hatred' and sentenced to two years in a penal colony, after performing a brief anti-government protest in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

During this performance, they shouted and swore and called on the Virgin Mary to support them. But, as pointed out at the trial, they also did so whilst dressed in an inappropriate and offensive manner to those who subscribe to the Orthodox faith; that is to say, they had bare arms and this seriously compounded their crime. The fact that they had their hair covered (beneath brightly-coloured balaclavas), unfortunately did nothing to redeem the situation and save them from jail ...

There's really not much more I can say on this: Lawrence's position is sincere in its puritanism, but mistaken in its sexism. I prefer Shaw's flippancy to the Pope's misogyny. And I support the right of Pussy Riot and of all women everywhere to expose or cover their bodies, however they choose, wherever and whenever they want to, regardless of men with beards who think them all witches at heart.


See: Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, Produced and Directed by Mike Lerner/Maxim Pozdorovkin (2012)