• Home
  • Releases
  • Blog
  • Design
  • Posters
  • Submission Guidelines
  • About
  • Privacy Policy

Loser City

Multimedia Collective

  • Home
  • Releases
  • Features
  • News
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Art
  • Submissions
You are here: Home / Features / Butt Muscles and Baby Squirts: On Christeene and Cultural Sensitivity

Butt Muscles and Baby Squirts: On Christeene and Cultural Sensitivity

May 25, 2018 By Nick Hanover Leave a Comment

Austin performance artist Christeene in her natural environment– a sweaty, lubed up mass of butts.

As a long time fan of her material, I got a thrill out of seeing a profile on Christeene, a self-described “human pissoir of raw unabashed sexuality,” in the Austin Chronicle this week. There’s no real comparison for Christeene or what she does but a rough description might go something like “if John Waters and Peaches adopted an infant and kept her in the sewer for a couple decades before unleashing her on the world.” In an era where so many white male comics whine about being silenced for their “satire,” Christeene is a beacon of real subversion, an electro-punk monstrosity capable of making people truly uncomfortable as soon as they witness her. And here she was, in the pages of our relatively normal alt-weekly. Why, then, was so much of the focus of the interview on the idea that we’re living in more “sensitive” times and that this was somehow constraining Christeene?

In short, there’s a growing sense from cishet white people that artists are no longer allowed to be as expressive as they used to be. The Chronicle article’s author, Kevin Curtin, himself performs locally in a band called Cunto! that has received flak for its name (though, in fairness, it’s named for member Evan Cunto) and so it’s understandable that he would personally feel that artists are having to self-censor more than they did in the anti-PC ‘90s alt-culture he grew up in. But there is a distinct difference between cishet white artists now running the risk of getting called out for “ironic” bigotry and misogyny and truly subversive queer artists like Christeene purposefully offending cishet white audiences.

Austin in particular has a history of the former concept, with iconic local bands like the Butthole Surfers making an entire career out of saying shocking things and filling their live shows with shocking images. In the ‘80s and ‘90s, calling your band Butthole Surfers was shocking enough, let alone releasing albums with titles like Locust Abortion Technician. You didn’t actually need to say anything— indeed, most Butthole Surfers lyrics, titles and imagery are self-admitted gibberish— you simply had to include a dirty word or two. But by and large, this material was coming from straight white men; it’s certainly not an accident that the Butthole Surfers would eventually find mainstream success and their queer compatriots the Big Boys and the Dicks did not.

So it would seem clear that a culture where radio DJs wouldn’t even say the name Butthole Surfers on air is far more sensitive than a culture where an artist like Christeene, who recently released an acclaimed single called “Butt Muscle” with an extremely NSFW video promoting it, lands an Austin Chronicle profile, receives state and federal grants for her art and works with award winning composers like Graham Reynolds. Christeene is more shocking than the Butthole Surfers ever managed to be and yet in the current era she’s essentially a prestige artist, easily viewed and supported by a worldwide audience. Yet if she had come up in the ‘80s, there’s a very good chance she would have been arrested or physically attacked on a frequent basis. She also would have run the risk of literally dying for her art, something that likely happened last year to gay pop icon Zelimkhan Bakaev in the unquestionably sensitive culture of Russia.

But in contemporary America, the notion that culture in general is too sensitive now almost always seems to come with the caveat of “for cishet white artists.” Christeene is one of a number of artists who are thriving specifically because of their embrace of a hypersexualized aesthetic made explicitly for queer audiences, like Chicago’s Cupcakke, who is currently enjoying hits like “Juicy Coochie” and “Best Dick Sucker” and receiving near universal praise from outlets like Pitchfork, The Fader and even the consistently out of touch Rolling Stone. It’s not that these types of acts don’t piss people off— they absolutely do, that’s the whole point— but that they’ve seized the power of shock from cishet white artists and also weakened the moral majority’s ability to silence true subversives.

As Christeene herself told Curtin when discussing social media blowback, “I’m a collection of all the shit that you’re throwing around in this stratosphere of online media conversation. I am the monster you have made. If you see something in me you relate to or something that scares you, you’ve seen it before and you’ve probably served it to someone.” The idea is that Christeene is the worst nightmare of the cishet white world, every slippery slope argument they uttered when the gay marriage debate was going on made real, every freaky vision they’ve had of what happens behind queer curtains brought to vivid life. This is why Christeene is so effective and necessary, she functions as an antithesis to the gay normalcy arguments some claimed were vital to getting gay marriage legalized and so her gaining popularity shows just how far we’ve come in achieving acceptance rather than merely tolerance as a community.

Warning: NSFW
(but we assume you knew that, since it’s called “Butt Muscle”)

Curtin is correct to point out that Christeene is attacking the notion of sensitivity, it’s just that his framing of it, and his claim that we’re living in “an increasingly sensitive culture,” is flawed. Christeene’s success shows that old guard American sensitivity is dying off and artists enjoy more expressive freedom than ever before, and a big part of that is because marginalized communities have more methods and more power to confront anti-sensitivity art that seeks to hurt or dehumanize non-cishet white people. Or to put it in Christeene’s words, it’s not enough to be some Bill Burr wannabe making shocking humor if you want to make waves anymore, you’ve got to be a “a gender-blending, booty-pounding, perversion of punk.” And thank god for that.

Christeene’s release party for her new album Basura is tomorrow, May 26th at Museum of Human Achievement in Austin, Texas.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com


Nick Hanover got his degree from Disneyland, but he’s the last of the secret agents and he’s your man. Which is to say you can find his particular style of espionage here at Loser City as well as Ovrld, where he contributes music reviews and writes a column on undiscovered Austin bands.  You can also flip through his archives at  Comics Bulletin, which he is formerly the Co-Managing Editor of, and Spectrum Culture, where he contributed literally hundreds of pieces for a few years. Or if you feel particularly adventurous, you can always witness his odd .gif battles with friends and enemies on twitter: @Nick_Hanover 

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Features Tagged With: Austin Chronicle, Big Boys, Butthole Surfers, Christeene, Kevin Curtin, punk, queer art, The Dicks

About Nick Hanover

Nick Hanover got his degree from Disneyland, but he’s the last of the secret agents and he’s your man. Which is to say you can find his particular style of espionage here at Loser City as well as Ovrld, where he contributes music reviews and writes a column on undiscovered Austin bands. You can also flip through his archives at Comics Bulletin, which he is formerly the Co-Managing Editor of, and Spectrum Culture, where he contributed literally hundreds of pieces for a few years. Or if you feel particularly adventurous, you can always witness his odd .gif battles with Dylan Garsee on twitter: @Nick_Hanover

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

SOCIAL

FacebookInstagramTumblrTwitter

Buy Loser City Apparel

loser city T-shirt

Be a Loser

Sign up for Loser City's mailing list to receive weekly updates about the latest articles, shows, and releases.

TRENDZ

Anatomy of a Page art Austin CBS comedy comics Dark Horse DC DC Comics documentary Fantagraphics Film Fossil Records Games HBO hip-hop horror humor IDW Image Comics Indie indie comics jake muncy manga Marvel Marvel Comics Melissa Benoist Music penny dreadful Pete Toms punk Questionable Comics Review Ryan K Lindsay sci-fi Seattle Showtime Supergirl SXSW Television the CW TV video games Video of the Week ymmv

Top Posts & Pages

  • Codeine Crazy
  • Mind the Gap: Nagisa Oshima's Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
  • Lost in My Mind: I Believe in Unicorns is a Gauzy and Inventive Exploration of Girlhood
  • Trophies of Over Indulgence: A Look Inside the World of Gainers
  • All Things Must Change: Silk Rhodes' Debut is Delicious Audio Foreplay
  • Visual Domination: Angelina Jolie's Sexual Power in Mr and Mrs. Smith
  • The Transfiguration of Fiddleford McGucket
  • Fossil Records: Lee Hazlewood's Requiem for an Almost Lady
  • Fluid Exchange: I Roved Out by Rupert Everton
  • Below Her Mouth is Yet Another Disappointing Film About Lesbian Experiences

Follow Loser City

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter
Instagram did not return a 200.

Follow loser_city on the Gram

Loser City is…

Comics, shows, a secret critical network -- we aim to fail big.

Danny Djeljosevic: Co-Founder

Morgan Davis: Co-Founder

Nick Hanover: Glorious Godfrey of LC

David Fairbanks: Creative Writing Editor

Kayleigh Hughes: Film Editor

Julie Muncy: Games Editor

David He: Assisting Consultant*

Contributors: Nate Abernethy, John Bender, AJ Bernardo, CJ Camba, Liam Conlon, Daniel Elkin, David A. French, Rafael Gaitan, Dylan Garsee, Stefanie Gray, Johnson Hagood, Shea Hennum, Zak Kinsella, Austin Lanari, Marissa Louise, Francesca Lyn, Chase Magnett, Justin Martin, Diana Naneva, Claire Napier, Joshua Palmer, James Pound, Mike Prezzato, Lars Russell, David Sackllah, Keith Silva, Nicholas Slayton, Carly Smith, Ray Sonne, Tom Speelman, Mark O. Stack, Dylan Tano, Mason Walker

Art

Why So Angry: Refusing to Forget Stories of Abuse

Poetry: My God, My World

Comic Cinema Club: Sorcerer by Rafael Gaitan and Mike Prezzato

Nonfiction: Progeny in Crisis by Kayleigh Hughes

The Persistence of Synergy: Scenes from the Stock Business Photo Prison Hellscape

More Art

Interviews

Dhani Harrison Plots His Own Path With Solo Debut In///Parallel

Boston Terriers and Desert Vibes: A Conversation with Jay and Sanders Fabares of “The Pale”

Questionable Comics: Becky & Frank and Rachael Stott

More Interviews

Copyright © 2025 · Metro Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in