Offense or No Offense

In a new collection of essays, in the stores tomorrow, Henrik List expresses his worries about a virtual “tsunami of new puritanism” in Denmark which “sets freedom of speech under pressure as far as sexually related subjects are concerned”. This point of view makes it hard to comment critically on his work at any level as you tend to come across as just that: a puritan.

Camilla Stockmann agreed to face that challenge this week through an e-mail correspondence with Henrik List which appeared in yesterday’s issue of Politiken. Stockmann immediately accepts Lists’ characterization of the nineties as roaring, at least as far as her own love life was concerned (thus getting it straight from the start that, hey, it’s not that I’m prudish), but asks him then: Is it really over – and is it really that bad?

List answers somewhat drunk after a long day of meeting the press and hanging out at night at the deep end of the streets (which he describes in some detail), if Stockmann isn’t becoming trapped in writing harmless journalism for trendy people like herself? In return Stockmann expresses doubt that ‘a ride in a leather swing with a ladyboy would make her a better journalist’ (List replies that it wouldn’t hurt her either just as a night out with some low life people every once in a while wouldn’t), and she goes on to ask him:

Where would you be without the angry feminists that you claim to be persecuted by? You seem to want to provoke aggression and yet you yearn for recognition from a wider public? Well, asks List, who doesn't? Who can stand playing the part of Jesus in the long run with people getting offended and judging you while never even reading you stuff?

Stockmann closes in on “the difference between you and me” saying that she doesn’t believe in the notion of sex without some emotional involvement or consequences – and asks List whether he really does. She points out that the dialogue always seem to break down right there with List’s romantic idea of prostitution. List replies that mainstream papers including Politiken tend to lose all sense of accuracy and critical edge when it comes to writing about sex, pornography and prostitution and that, by the way, he sees himself as more of a pro-sex person or perhaps a queer-feminist than anything. And by then they’ve crossed their deadline, and Stockmann wraps up by saying that ‘we better stop here before we agree so much that we’re invited to appear side by side in the sofa on national morning television – wouldn’t that be awfully bourgeois’.

The idea of an email correspondence seems a good choice in this case as it allows pause for thought on a regular basis in a dialogue which is bound to become somewhat personal and hostile. The debaters are cast stereotypically as combattants, as Stockmann seems to match List’s official concept of a predictable, politically correct enemy: a young female columnist in the left-of-the-middle mainstream media (he even jokingly addresses her as Nynne [the Danish equivalent of Bridget Jones] at one point). The tone of their exchange is more civil (and thus perhaps really much more sarcastic) than my summary indicates; the debaters address each other “Dear Henrik”, ”Dear Camilla” and uses an abbreviated ‘Love from…’ The brief, written form encourages them to pick their phrases with some care and ask specific questions which seems to help prevent each of them from flying off at a tangent.

Anyway---perhaps not surprisingly, I tend to side with Camilla Stockmann in this discussion (and I base my impression of List's work on my reading mainly his booklength essay Bangkok Ladyboys): The dialogue in my case does indeed break down first on Henrik List’s one-sided romantic celebration of the prostitutes and then on his positioning of his reader as either with him (liberal-minded and honest) or against him (prudish and hypocritical).

List’s rhetorical strategy makes an interesting contrast to Kristian Ditlev Jensen’s recent project that I have discussed earlier: Ditlev Jensen tries out a series of ‘colourful trades’ as an apprentice for a day, involving himself in his field work as a participant, but in his writing, peculiarly, he adopts the view of a detached, professional observer with a radically open mind that explores, but makes no judgments.

List, on the other hand, has his mind set on one particular colourful trade: the sex industry, and is not shy to get personally engaged in his field work or to display that same engagement in his writing. An open mind is his official trade mark too----

Yet List's version of an open mind is a liberal mind which is radically predisposed in favor of the sex business. As a professional reporter, Henrik List, in my (reading) experience, comes across as much more prejudiced and much less explorative than he asks his readers to give him credit for. On the basis of his reporter's essay from Bangkok I'm not at all convinced that a given ladyboy is really or mainly "living out her dream in the spotlight on stage at the Casanova Club". That idea still belongs to Henrik List, I'm not buying it, and no, I won't be buying the new essay collection either.

Oh, and by the way, I do actually find the book cover really offensive.