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The 'erotic capital' that links Marilyn with a punk band

Julia Molony looks at women who use their sexual power to achieve their goals -- political or personal

POOR old Marilyn Monroe, who died 50 years ago today. She had all that power and none of it was any good to her. Marilyn had mankind in her thrall, but she couldn't harness the influence for her own benefit.

Well, OK. She had wealth, and went down in history as an icon. But despite this, she was trapped in passivity. Despite being the careful, and committed designer of her own sex appeal, she never quite owned it. It was, instead, the instrument of her own suffering. Ultimately, she was the victim of it.

Sexual power can't be harnessed, people always say. It belongs to the beholder, not the one who projects it. And I'm sure Marilyn, the night before she was found cold and naked in a modest house in an LA suburb, would have bitterly agreed.

But tell that to Pussy Riot. It was sort of fitting that in the week running up to the anniversary of Marilyn's death, Pussy Riot were all over the news. For they are a first step in finally overturning that notion, and returning the benefit of female "erotic capital" into the hands of the girls.

In case you hadn't heard, this all-female protest-punk troupe with the raunchy name are currently on trial in Russia for "hooliganism". Five months ago, they dressed up in balaclavas and bright colours and took to the stage in a cathedral in central Moscow, where they performed a mock prayer entreating Our Lady to "please chase Putin out".

It was a publicity stunt and it worked. The Russian Orthodox Church is accusing them of a satanic act. They were promptly rounded up and thrown into jail. They've been there for five months, and could be sentenced to a maximum of seven years if found guilty. But along the way, they've become an international cause celebre.

This tiny protest group has developed into a global cult. The embodiment of a democratic concept which rivals the Occupy movement in terms of reach. Their name is everywhere, from serious broadsheets to women's magazines. It might seem like a stretch to compare Monroe and Pussy Riot, but bear with me on this.

Fundamental things about their motivations and methods are the same. At a crucial point in the development of both, they looked around at the conditions surrounding them and decided they had to change. Both decided that a key tool in achieving this was their femininity: the power of their sex.

For Marilyn, that meant adopting a wiggle and a pout, and seducing her way into the history books, via the fantasies and hearts of every man alive.

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Pussy Riot have bigger aims, and an almost opposite modus operandi. Being good feminists, they're not overly concerned with submitting to a construct of femininity that conforms to male desires. They are against all of that and yet their very identity is built on a particular fleshy female power. They subvert the notion of "pussy", sure, but they don't extract the sex from the package. On the contrary, they put it right up front.

And their strategy seems to be working. They have achieved global fame. Choosing an English language name, for a start, was a clever move. "We realised that this country needs a militant, punk-feminist street band that will rip through Moscow's streets and squares, mobilise public energy against the evil crooks of the Putinist junta and enrich the Russian cultural and political opposition," they say.

But would they have got all that attention if they weren't a group of young women? If they didn't have the word pussy in their title? I doubt it.

Over in Ukraine, another group of politically active young women have taken the principle a step further. Femen are a student group who protest about everything from government corruption to the sex industry in Ukraine. They are beautiful, they are young, and they protest topless, breasts bared like warrior women. Naturally, the world is agog. They, too, have become celebrities, photographed in the global press.

Pussy Riot aren't sure they approve. "Our opinion on Femen is a complicated story . . . they exploit a very masculine and sexist rhetoric in their protests -- men want to see aggressive, naked girls attacked by cops," they said.

But they express solidarity with their causes and, ultimately, they have something important in common: these women have decided to harness those powerful tools of their breasts, their bodies and their youth, to serve their own interests in a way that is meaningful.

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