Riot Boi Manifesto
Posted by grrrlriot on March 20, 2008
This article was written by Joey Van Houten that lives in the state of Louisiana, in the United States. He submitted this article to the old Riot Grrrl Online website and ever since then, It has been up on the Riot Grrrl Online website. He got the idea for writing this article from reading the “riot grrrl manifesto” on a website. Some guys have asked, “Why is this manifesto directed at gay riot boys? There are straight riot boys out there too.” If your a straight riot boy, Feel free to send me your version of a riot boy manifesto, by emailing me. I have not received a riot boy manifesto from a straight guy yet and I hope one day to receive one, so I can post it on my Riot Grrrl Online website. Joey’s manifesto seems to be posted here as well.
Riot Boi Manifesto
We desire music, literature, and zines, but most of all a way of
life that calls out to us, one that us boysinthebackoftheclub group can
feel apart of. We’re the types that don’t fit into the stereotypical
queer lifestyle.
We are artists and musicians, but most of all creative and
intelligent human beings that are fed up and desire a society in which we can
see/hear each others work, so that we can share ideas and
criticize-applaud each other.
We seek to create revolution in our lives everyday by finding new
ways around, and also ideas on how to rise above the bullshit Christian
right wing way of life.
We are unwilling to assimilate to someone else’s ways of conducting
their lives. As if life as we know it is nothing more than the premise
of some big wig television network program only showing the downside
of OUR culture. It seems most of us try to live up to this way of
thinking, and the rest of us simply can’t find the remote!
We are interested in creating non-hierarchical way of being AND making
music, friends, and scenes based on communications + understanding,
instead of competition + good/bad categorizations.
Because doing/reading/seeing/hearing cool things that validate and
challenge us can help us gain the strength and sense of community that we
need in order to figure out how bullshit like racism,able-bodieism,
ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-Semitism and
heterosexism figure in our own lives.
We know that life is much more that physical survival and are patently
aware that the punk rock “you can do anything” idea is crucial to
the coming angry queer rock revolution which seeks to save the psychic
and cultural lives of gays and lesbians everywhere, according to their
own terms, not ours.
We recognize fantasies of Instant Macho Gun Revolution as impractical
lies meant to keep us simply dreaming instead of becoming dreams. And
thus must take over the means of production in order to create our own
moanings!
We are angry at a society that tells us Gay=Moraless, Gay=Wrong,
Gay=Weak!
We are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or
turned against us via the internalization of hate as witnessed in gay/gay
jelousism and self defeating gay type behaviors.
We live in a society that tells us we must pick a way of life and act
this way or that, have such and such morals because we have picked this
way of life and if not than we face social disgrace!
Jigsaw Youth, seeing the world as misshaped pieces that form a big
picture. My life has always been full of contradictions; male feminist,
misanthropic social butterfly. Life doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t
have to.
To go from a manic depressive burnout to the writer of a manifesto
about accepting the not always glamorous, angry, not hormonally oversexed
underbelly of the gay lifestyle says a lot.
It’s all about rising above people’s expectations of your
life/lifestyle and showing them not everything is AS SEEN ON TV.
I believe with my wholeheartbodymind that us boysinthebackoftheclub
constitute a revolutionary soul force that can and will change the world
FOR REAL
Riot Boi said
Hi, I just read your manifesto & it’s good (for the most part) to see that someone is spreading the truth about what a real riot boi is, boysinthebackoftheclub, male feminist, etc. What I don’t understand is where the “Riot Bois are ghey” undercurrent came about. In fact, wouldn’t it be homophobic slander to call all riot grrrls lesbians?
It seems that a couple years after this movement was started (in response to the neo-entitlement that has seeped its way into the Feminist Ideal; i.e. “if a man does it then it’s ok…..”.), it was co-op’d & reinterpreted to fit another agenda. I have nothing against any riot boi, but your sexuality & beliefs have little to do with the true scope of a riot boi.
The Riot Boi is simply someone that believes in EQUAL RIGHTS, culture over homogenization & bettering ones self & society thru learning & teaching.
I wrote a series of pieces about the low level encroachment & the media inundation that was (is) destroying the chance of true equal rights. To address the subject I created a character named Riot Boi & it stuck; this was back in early 2002 & at the time there was nothing on the web about this movement.
There may be a radical sect, but I’ve never heard of Riot Bois going after the system.
So if that’s a straight riot boi manifesto then there you go, but really it’s about Equal Rights, not sexual identity. In fact most of the Riot Bois that I know are A-Sexual bu choice.
T.A.Cooper-aka riot boi
grrrlriot said
Hello T.A.!
This article comes from a riot boi’s version of the “Riot Grrrl Manifesto” and he was writing what riot boi is to him and what it means to him being a gay riot boi. You are right, sexuality and beliefs have nothing to do with what a real riot boi/grrrl is. There is no wrong definition of what a riot boi or riot grrrl is. Everyone has their own definition. It means something different to everyone. To give it a set definition is wrong because it isn’t meant to have a set definition. Also, I like your definition of what a riot boi is to you. Thanks for sharing!
Riot Boi said
You’ll have to excuse my candor, but having someone else redefine the movement that I originated & developed kinda bothers me. Perhaps this is the second wave. I agree that everyone is allowed their own definition of things by proxy, but the simple fact of the matter is that Perception is not reality, no matter how many times Hitler tried to brainwash his country with foul & disturbing idioms, he could not change the fact that dressing an idea in a false dogma eventually leads to failure & reassimilation of common sense.
For example, Im an ARA (anti racist) member; this doesn’t mean that I am going to adopt another established movement & rewrite it’s party program. That would just be rude.
Stay off my lawn,
Riot boi
grrrlriot said
Thanks for the comment. I just sent you an email…to discuss this further. I am interested in hearing more of what you have to say.
cocainelipglossboy said
Memories… Grrrlriot said it perfectly, “There is no wrong definition of what a riot boi or riot grrrl is. Everyone has their own definition. It means something different to everyone”. The manifesto was written by my dear friend Joey, with whom I tried starting this whole indie/queer/punk scene with in Montgomery, AL (not Louisiana btw) by self producing written materials, music, etc… The fact that we are gay was very relevant in our definition of ourselves as riot bois. Sure we like Bikini Kill, L7, and Sylvia Plath but being raised in the south and coming of age not only as a social outcast for being intelligent, different, rebellious, but being oppressed because of where we are and who we fuck… We were rebelling not only against that kind of discrimination, but the stifling effects of the bitchy gay community here that made us feel like outcasts because we’re smart, political, male feminists, poets, artists, etc… I love what Joey wrote because I was the other “boy in the back of the bar” with him and remember that feeling of urgency like, we live in this place so known for the Civil Rights movement, yet we get shit from people everyday for being gay. It’s absurd. And backwards. And shitty… We thought we could do something about it by being loud and abrasive and full of life as we were… Little did we know the kind of cruel, catty, socially distorted reality of the gay scene here… Not only feeling that discrimination at home and church and school, but in the bar with our “people”, you know? For being smart, fat, black, too feminine, a bottom, a punk, whatever… It was bullshit, and still is! That’s what this manifesto means to me… And seeing as how I lived with him when he wrote it, I have a pretty good feeling about that. It was never meant to BE the riotgrrl movement, but riotgrrls like Kathleen Hanna gave Joey and I the courage to speak up and raise some hell in possibly the MOST oppressive and notoriously prejudice city in America.
Adam
P.S. I haven’t seen Joey in a really long time. He was my best friend in the world and partner in crime. He moved to Vegas with his partner in 2006, leaving me here in this shithole town to scratch out my existence among people who JUST DON’T FUCKING GET IT and I miss him terribly… We still talk on facebook and shit. The time when this was written (2003-2007) was the best and worst time of my life. Oh to be young… Lol. If you see this Joe, thanks for always reminding me to speak my mind and create art that represents myself, no matter what anyone else thinks about it. The revolution lives…