Why I Still Dress Goth Despite Harassment

As I have chronicled here before, I, like many Goths get street harassment for my being visibly Goth. This ranges from the mild and annoying (I made a rare foray into the mall today to get a 'new baby' gift for a relative, and in the mall some teenagers decided to make "wooo-oooo" noises at me while waving their hands 'mystically' and then shouting "YER A WIZARD 'ARRY!" at me.) to the terrifying (a gang of thugs threatening to kick my head in and then chasing me down a street), and I've had several close friends violently attacked for being Goth. In the light of the news recently about a young man having his jaw shattered by a gang of thugs in Huthwaite (that is now being treated as an anti-Goth hate crime) as can be read about in this article in the Gainsborough Standard ::here::, several people have asked me this - why do I still dress Goth despite the negative attention I get for it, and despite my dislike of being the centre of attention. You called me 'brave' for doing so, but I don't feel brave; I do what I do because I perceive the alternative as worse, so that to me is not really bravery. It is a trade-off; I deal with the negativity and the attention I unfortunately get because it is less bad than the alternative, and there are far more benefits this way. 

First of all, I think they look beautiful, and that mainstream clothes (and some variations of Goth clothes) are too plain for my tastes. I like details, textures, patterns - hence all the damask pattern jacquards and intricate lace, all the layers of ruffles and frills. Perhaps if I was living 200 or so years ago and had either the skills or the money to wear the more elaborate outfits, I would have worn the mainstream or fashionable clothes of the period, but most mainstream clothes are a lot less fancy - I do sometimes find things I like in mainstream shops (recently, devore velvet tasseled shawls seemed to be a 'thing' so I bought several in the sales at mainstream shops like Blue Inc. and H&M), but for the most part, they're either too plain, or just not my style (or have details, but in poor quality; I saw so many things about 2 years ago that involved black lace that I would have bought if the lace had not been cheap and scratchy). 

Secondly my clothes are sort of a worn extension of my comfort zone; I wear the clothes I do because they make me feel comfortable, make me feel like myself. They remind me of who I really am in the face of everything that has tried to quash that over the years, and also of all the things I love. I dress very much as a stylistic manifestation of my interests and passions, and having those positive reminders worn feels almost talismanic; I do wear a few literal protection charms, but there's something reassuring about wearing my Goth clothes, to have that reminder of all the things that make me happy with me at all times. 

Thirdly, and I feel weird writing this out, as it seems slightly pretentious, but I hope that by being visible, I will give some of the younger and more Goths a little more courage. I'm not the only Goth that walks around where I live, and I'm not the only one that dresses very visibly Gothic - I'm probably the most elaborately Romantic variation of Goth, but I'm not the only one to go out very distinctly Goth and very fully dressed non-mainstream, there are several Goths who do that in my area. I hope that every visible Goth, out in public and proud to be themselves, is an encouragement to other Goths. Also, hopefully by both being Goth and trying to always be polite and friendly to the outside world, I serve as an example of a Goth that isn't all the negative stereotypes. 

Fourthly, there's that dressing Goth immediately filters the people who aren't comfortable with talking to Goths, and wearing a pentacle around my neck filters out people who aren't comfortable talking to Neo-Pagans/witches, and those two things also attract like-minded individuals. Yes, it also means I get hassle from those who wish to add aggression and rudeness to their prejudice, but for the most part, I am quietly left alone by those who presume things. On the other hand, those who have common interests feel a lot more comfortable talking to me because they know I'm another of their kind, and I'm much more comfortable talking to other visibly alternative people for the same reason. I get people who like bats asking me about my bat jewellery, loads of inquiries about how I dye my hair the colours I choose, and plenty of other Goths (quite a few of whom are now my friends) have come up to me because I'm Goth, and I feel more comfortable talking to other Goths I don't know when I'm dressed Goth because I'm less worried that they will think I am a judgemental non-Goth (as I know all too well the sarcastic 'compliments' and inquiries that start polite, but soon turn to mockery). 

Lastly, I am really, really uncomfortable in mainstream clothes. I feel like a fraud, an imposter, a fake - someone pretending to be normal when they're not. I feel like I have to live up to the normal exterior, to the expectations that come with it, plus I feel ugly on top of that. I'm an eccentric by nature, and I couldn't fake normality, even if I wanted to (and believe me, I've tried). If I look strange, a little bit of strangeness is expected. Mainstream people aren't expected to wax lyrical about cemeteries, Goths who look like they're from the graveyard end up giving impromptu cemetery tours to random tourists (this happened a couple of days ago, and then I ran into some history-loving American tourists who got directions to the abbey ruins, plus some free tips for other historical sites in the area...), and I am much happier with the freedom to be myself that comes with looking like myself. Those who judge me for being Goth are usually full of inaccurate assumptions of what Goth is; their judgements don't really touch me because they are not about me; they are founded on errors and presumptions - those who judge me for not being "normal" are judging who I am as a person.

So that is why I make the trade-off, and put up with the stares, the jeers and the aggression, and why I put up with the attention that ends up focused on me. Sure, I would certainly blend in better dressed in the 'costume' of the mainstream, but I would be a lot more miserable, and even more uncomfortable and nervy if I did so. 

It's not brave, it's just taking what seems like the easier option. 

The only thing that really scares me is the increased risk of violence; I keep vigilant for those who might be violent trouble (and have got pretty good at spotting trouble coming; I don't know if it is instinct or perception, but I know when someone gives me a bad feeling, and I vanish, and usually soon after they do something to display that my instinct was right), and I keep to either shops that simply won't attract trouble much, or in open areas of central parts of town - away from the dodgy areas of towns and cities where even a normal person stands a higher risk of violent crime, and where my clothes would mark me out for at least a beating. I do martial arts, and train for self-defence rather than just sport. I know when to run. Several of my friends locally have been violently attacked, and I have been curbing my travels since them. I don't stay in town after dark very often, as that's when the drunks are out and about, and I take the bus to places I would have once walked, and tend to go places in groups or meet up with someone. I can minimise the risks.

Acceptance, Defiance and Difference

Is mainstream acceptance a blessing, or does it mean that we can no longer engage in sartorial protest against the failings of the mainstream?

This post was inspired by my musings after watching the section on not wanting to be acceptable in ::this:: video by Jwlhyfer de Winter.

Personally, most of the long-term Goths I've met have been more about keeping true to their selves, their unusual fascination with the dark, the macabre, the sinister, in the face of opposition of a society that feared and loathed those things than engaging in an active rebellion; wanting to shock and 'be a rebel' always seemed the realm of teenagers for whom Goth was a means to express teenage angst and rail against the world as it is revealed to be deeply unfair, rather than a core motivation of the subculture. I've often argued that no, we're not in it to shock, we're not in it for the attention, we're just here to enjoy our own thing, that it is purely motivated by a desire to express ourselves, our interests and passions and our creativity. 

But Goth evolved from Punk, and Punk involved fashion as a political statement, and Goth as well - it was a deliberate embracing of imagery and symbolism that was provocative; it was making a statement, yet I was not even born yet when people declared "punk is dead", and while the subculture and values will probably never die, I think Punk's viability as a counterculture rather than subculture has wained.  

Partly, times have simply moved on, and actions and fashions that were once capable of being a viable statement of more than just one's sartorial proclivities are now seen as simply being shocking for attention, and possibly ticket and music sales - a publicity stunt, either personal or as an entertainer. Marilyn Manson's criticisms of the church and society are largely ignored as his shock rock is seen as a way to titillate, provoke and make him an awful lot of money. That sort of thing is nothing new! I think it was Paganini who helped propagate rumours that he had sold his soul to the devil for his talents, because it boosted concert attendance - people wanted to hear the devil play - and Marilyn Manson, the "antichrist superstar" can be seen as not that different. This is not to say I don't like Marilyn Manson (or Paganini), but that their very attempts to shock us with a message can get cynically dismissed, and the message becomes lost.

Fashion as a means to shock is loosing it's power too - even Lady GaGa's most ridiculous outfits, while they initially were discussed by the media as so daring, or making a mockery, or even disgusting (the infamous "meat dress"), discussion of her clothes has been relegated to the gossip papers, and she no longer shocks, if she ever really did. Discussions as to whether her whole stage persona was an elaborately self-parodying send-up of the pop-industry became discussion of her as just another pop-star. She's probably one of the few pop musicians whose output I like (at least her earlier tracks) and I appreciated the dark aesthetic of many of her videos, but the question of whether she was really creating a tapestry of thickly woven satire, parody and irony behind her 'poker face' or whether she was simply another person looking for fame and stardom by being as dramatic and weird and shocking as possible is as yet to be resolved - personally, I think the lyric content of her songs points that she is in fact creating her own artistic of protest of the very establishment of popular entertainment that sustains her. 

Neither of the two artists above are Goth, though, and although I think that they have definitely been influenced by the Gothic aesthetic, if not the subculture, and have then themselves, in their prominence in the parent cultural mainstream, fed back into the subculture. This is mostly because the bands and musicians who became famous enough to make a visible musical and political statement and who fit as Punks or Goths (or whom were labeled as such) did so either before I was born, or before I was old enough to understand what was going on, and that contemporary bands are working within an established genre and subculture rather than breaking new ground in terms of their ethos - even if people are certainly continuing to be original musically. 

It does not seem to me that shock tactics are really going to work in a world that has had decades to get used to Punks and Goths, and the only people who will be shocked are those who are comparatively conservative by the standards of the mainstream, and more is being done to change them by time and progress and by their ideology being challenged than by us dressing in the most morbid black and proclaiming our love for what they will find outrageous - that tends to get us vilified more than achieve actual change.

As a teen, I adopted Goth as a means to annoy those around me who tried to force me to conform to a set of values that did not suit me - those who were homophobic, religiously intolerant, those who tried to stifle my creativity, deny my differences, and force me to be something they would accept but was alien to my self. My sartorial defiance of the rules  as a teenager, brought upon me a whole heap of erroneous assumptions, and my power to shock was far outweighed by the power of others to make my life miserable - it only made my immediate situation worse. I might have been defiant and I will still never change who I am to suit others - but I also did not change those around me; I simply outlasted them and moved away and moved on. It taught me a lesson in resilience, but it did nothing to alter those who already disliked me, rather it provoked some into actually despising me and it was confrontational enough to simply further entrench them. All I can be is living proof that the were wrong. 

With the shock value taken away, it means that instead of reacting to something provocative, those who come across us have the emotional distance to listen more carefully to the statements we want to make; I think we can deliver a sartorial message that is more subtle, but no less potent. Our clothes speak of embracing our own mortality, looking unflinchingly at that which can terrify us, of embodying our demons to overcome them, of drawing power from the symbolism of witches, vampires and zombies and using those symbols and concepts as lenses and metaphors for the world around us, we can walk around as dark reversal of the bright colours of the old aristocracy; we can be the portraits of Dorian Grey, and as we are not trying to shout in the face of the world, we can do all this and be listened to - Jillian Venters is onto something with her "subversion through politeness". 

I prefer our being accepted, or at least tolerated by the mainstream, because it's frankly a lot better than the constant harassment and threats of violence (often escalating to actual violence ) that I, and other Goths used to face (and depending on location, still face), and how I got treated as if I was genuinely an evil degenerate, the revulsion, the way people looked down on me. I don't want others to be bullied, harassed or attacked - I don't want them to suffer the same ire and disrespect as I did, that's part of why I write this blog; to educate people and promote a more tolerant atmosphere.

In my consideration, the burgeoning acceptance of Goths also signifies how Gothic values, especially those from the pre-subculture, literary/art movement meaning of the word - the Gothic in terms of the sublime, the dark, the morbid, etc. are being embraced by more people. I think we've had a positive affect in getting people to appreciate the dark! It is becoming mainstream, it is being embraced by the establishment - something of a double-edged sword! What I  really don't like is when the Gothic becomes another trend to latch onto in the eyes of the corporate, consumerist machine - when it becomes just another "fashion" detached from its symbolism, from its roots, from the subculture that spawned it, and its longer past (which the British Library and the BBC have done a valiant and educational effort to avoid in a recent exhibition and documentary - the documentary I will review soon, and the exhibition as soon as I go to England and visit it!).

Let it be clear that I am not advocating our changing to become more acceptable; we are doing nothing wrong, nothing that needs to change - it is those that come at us with hatred, with insults, with judgements and debasement. We do not need to become acceptable; the world needs to become accepting, and at least in my experience over the last 10+ years I've been Goth, the world slowly is, and my thanks goes towards groups like the ::Sophie Lancaster Foundation:: for helping to make it so.  

Stereotyping From Within The Subculture And Inclusivity: Part 3 - Pale Is Not The Only Aesthetic

This one is so basic that I'm really annoyed that I have to even mention this, but you don't have to be as pale as paper to be a Goth. The very fact that there is this sort of notion within the subculture at all makes me irritated. 

I am very much the super-pale Goth stereotype. I am naturally very pale, and in the Goth subculture was very grateful to find a place where the same pallor that made me the object of ridicule ("oi! Vampire!" and that was even before I turned Goth!) and perpetual inquiries after my health ("Are you feeling alright? You look awfully pale...") and suggestions of good fake tans (No thank-you, I am quite happy looking the way I do) it was nice to find somewhere where this was not just accepted but seen as ideal of beauty. As such it can be easy to loose sight that other people within the community with darker skin ranging from more tanned European skin tones to very dark skin from African and Australasian/Pacific ancestry can feel like the community isn't as supportive of them. 

There is a VERY good article on this at Coilhouse which I think all readers of this article should read ::here::

The usual excuse I hear is that pale skin is better for the cool-colours and monochrome aesthetic. Yes, unnaturally pale people are closer to monochrome, even more so if they actually paint their faces white, and thus fit the cool-colours only palette, but since when has this been the only way to achieve a Gothic aesthetic? And this is coming from one of those naturally ridiculously pale people; I have no necessity to think up what sort of colours co-ordinate with warmer and darker skin tones but I can still do so without much effort; all black works with everything, for a start. Goths who say it's impossible for dark skinned and warm-skin-toned people to do Goth properly either have no imagination for makeup or fashion or are just trying disguise their racism or silliness (because more tanned Goths of European ancestry get this nonsense too). Heck, if we can have people who are tattooed rainbow colours being acceptable Goths despite definitely falling out of the 'monochrome and cool colours only' bracket, then we can certainly dismiss the argument of "but warm tones aren't Goth!!". Also -what about all the Goths with red, auburn and other warm-toned hair (red, auburn and copper being particularly Pre-Raphaelite and particularly Steampunk related at the moment). 

Beyond the aesthetic argument, why should not being pale be any barrier to participation in the subculture? Goth is a vast and varied subculture, anyone who likes the music, the culture and the fashion can join - no restrictions on skin tone, race, ethnicity, religion or locale, because none of these things are even vaguely criteria for what Goth is. Go read my article ::What IS Goth?:: and see if I mention on there "must be as pale as Death's bleached skull"  - hint: I don't. 

This may seem like shocking news to some, but the subculture has been world-wide for years and there are even Goths in the Middle East and South America (I've seen the photographs from World Goth Day club nights in Brasilia - there were some awesome outfits going on there, and everyone looks like they had a lot of fun!). The scene has its own local characteristics wherever it sprouts, but it always has the same roots. An appreciation for the macabre is a part of human nature - there have been people with a dark wardrobe and appreciation for macabre beauty for a long time throughout history, long before the Goth subculture ever appeared and there are eccentric and darkly minded people all over the world. In the age of the internet and mass globally-distributed media it's not surprising that the subculture has spread as people find there's an entire subculture for people whose taste for the darker things might get them ostracised from mainstream society, whether that's in England or Turkey or Japan or America or Sweden or South Africa or anywhere else, and connect with like-minded individuals. This is a good thing and the diversity of input into the subculture stops it going stale. 

Talking of stale, I feel like there's a certain staleness in Gothic imagery and photographs (and remember that those photographs are aspirational material for many Goths) and they include an awful lot of very pale people, often women, looking undead in lovely anachronistic outfits, probably in a graveyard, in a creepy forest or in front of a cathedral - it's gorgeous, it's surely beautiful, and I am certainly a fan, but it is not the ONLY way to do Goth; it's not Dracula's wives or bust. I'm sure a lot of this is artistic laziness instead of deliberate racism; it's easier to just recycle the same imagery that's been around since  pre-Raphaelite depictions of Ophelia and probably before than come up with something completely new (they were old by the time of Hammer horror movies and The Addams and Munsters); it is a visual language so often repeated that we all know it like the words to a familiar song, but we can do so much more than that, and it is about time we stepped up to the plate and started embracing a more diverse set of Gothic imagery. 

There is no reason why post-apocalyptic Goths have to be pale; after all I'm sure even the palest people will develop tans after the sunscreen factories get nuked and radioactive killer zombies tear holes in your parasols. There's no good reason why vampires have to be a particularly pale version of European (anyone seen the Blade movies? Ok, just the first one?). Anyone can be the ghost lurking in the shadows of a haunted house or the unfortunate person to find the ghost. Even the Gothic clichés don't have to involve only very pale people. I'm sure Goths of parent cultures other than our own will have their own ghastly folk tales and history to bring to the table of ghoulish delights, and I am fascinated to see what can be done. We've had thousands of permutations of aristocratic European vampires, haunted mostly-wooden American houses with creepy things in the basement, and black clad witches in grim and tangled forests, and while I am sure there's plenty more permutations possible and I will always enjoy these themes, our grim folk mythology isn't the only one. 

If you are a Gothic artist or photographer, or any other form of visual artist in the scene, and you find yourself mostly making images of pale (and often very slender, and often female) people, question why, and question if you can't be a bit more diverse and try something different. Heck, it would be nice to see a greater balance of images between every other gender/sex and Gothic women, as most of the images I see are of women Goths! It will probably go a long way to make Goths with a broader range of skin tones feel a lot more like a valued and equally aspirational sort of Goth. 

There is nothing wrong with being a freckled Goth or a goth with olive, chocolate or walnut skin, or a Goth with inked skin in a variety of colours put there by tattoos, or with being a very pale Goth - I'm hardly saying it's passé and ugly now! We're all Goths, and no value judgement should be put on how Goth someone is because of skin colour, ethnicity or parent culture. I really want everyone within the subculture to feel that they can be comfortable in their own skin and not under any pressure to live up to some beauty standard that expects them to be as pale as the moon (and as thin as a willow leaf.. but that is another topic for another article.) and I especially think Goth should be a haven, especially for those who experience prejudice outside of the subculture, whether that is racism, ableism, homophobia or anything else, not to mention that our unusual tastes and interests can often make us outcasts to a degree at the best of times. 

I do not want to see Goth turn into something with the same rot as mainstream culture, just with a darker aesthetic, and I do sometimes worry that is starting to happen. I get worried when I see Goth adopting narrow standards of beauty, because it is both contrary to what I feel are the principles of Goth and something that causes, or is at least contributory to a lot of body-image and self-esteem issues in mainstream society, especially when these standards of beauty go from being what the fashion media are looking for in models to something the nastier people in society use to measure each other and judge. 

From what I've seen of old photographs from the '80s and '90s, there were quite a few people with a broad range of skin-tones and ethnicities in the scene. I don't want to hear any more reports of Goths with darker skins or from non-European ethnicities not being accepted as "proper Goths" (who put you in charge of deciding that?) or having their Gothic credibility questioned. If they are at the Goth club, wearing the same kind of clothes as you, and dancing to the same music as you, what gives you the right to question the legitimacy of them being there? Chances are they are there for the exact same reasons as everyone else at the Goth club, or spooky picnic, or internet forum about why Siouxsie Sioux is a wonderful singer or any other place where Goths interact socially. 

If you are still not convinced, then go visit some wonderful bloggers like ::Madame Mari Mortem:: and Colour Me Goth who are very damn Goth indeed. If that does not satisfy, have a look around Tumblr too.  

Dear Goth community as a whole, please stop making up excuses to be exclusionary; you are making Goth look bad, giving credence to the terribly mis-informed people who think we're Neo-Nazis, and making people who can contribute to the Goth scene just as much as anyone else feel left out.