Review of Chiaroscuro and Catgirls

You have read Chiaroscuro and Catgirls by onehitwanda. How could you not have? She is surely one of the finest writers to grace the pages of literotica, a multiple award winner, a lesbian sex hall-of-famer, and this, a recent story, carries a 4.92 ranking after a mere 12,000 readings.

Oh you haven't read it? Well what are you waiting for? Go on, I'll wait. Then we'll talk. Have some tissues handy.

No! For the tears.

Back? Are you ok? Do you need some time? It's fine - I cried my eyes out reading that, so take a break if you need. It's the dopamine hit we all crave, amped up on steroids. It takes it out of you reading something that good, doesn't it?

There's so much to love. For me, quite apart from the beautifully realised protagonist Ellie/Vivienne, it's the puntastic usernames in the camgirl chat, and all the beautiful, heartwarming subplots going on in there. (I mean, I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering whether Moxie and ElliotP's sister ever hook up? Things we need to know!) Plus, I adore the depth given to Kirsty through subtle touches, like the obvious yet unexplained affection between her and Felix. It's all in the details. They matter.

However, as much as I'd love to take you through the brilliance of this piece of Art, line by line, I suspect that only I (and maybe one or two more Literature geeks) might get much from that. Instead, I want to reflect on what Wanda, consciously or not, is drawing our attention to.

It is a truism that great Literature holds up a mirror to the reader, and this story does this more than most.

Look around this review/webpage. Scroll back to the top; scroll down to the bottom.

What do you see?

Yep. Camgirls. They are beautiful, aren't they? Let's first acknowledge this.

Now, let's think of what Wanda shows us in the character of Ellie. Her "tiny, dingy, shitty," flat; her meals of "honey-and-margarine bread"; her "old" clothes. She is the antonym of glamour, the embodiment of desperation, a bubble of pretence burst by the brutality of Kirsty's question:

"Godiva82> Is this what you want to do with your life, Ellie?"

Look again at those Camgirls. How many of them, do you think, want to cavort naked or semi-clad for strangers online? How many perform sex acts they really don't want to do and fake enjoyment in order to pay bills and put food on the table? Is that what they want to do with their lives, do you think?

Are we not complicit? I know I am: I have never watched a live camgirl stream, but I use Literotica which, I presume, is partly paid for by the advertising charges or commission those girls pay. I am therefore complicit.

As Moxie says, "I'm not going to sugar coat it." Thus, Wanda, through Ellie, and those cute and friendly folk on her feed, holds up a mirror to us, asking us to consider what our online behaviour enables, what it condones, what it helps perpetuate.

Is there an alternative? A society where women are not systemically objectified and can find stable, meaningful employment, and where there is a sufficient tax-funded social safety net to support those who cannot? Sounds like Norway to me. "Ah," I hear you say, "but beer is really expensive there. Let's get our priorities right."

Yeah, maybe not. But capitalism is not the solution. Which brings me back to Chiaroscuro and Catgirls and the morally ambiguous character of Kirsty.

She seems nice. You know, she tries her hardest not to take advantage of Ellie/Vivienne. She's not racist - look, she hugs Felix and thanks him for "being a good friend." She's the lesbian version of the knight in shining armour, every young femme's fantasy. (And no, I haven't forgotten that it's all fantasy - yet my counter-argument is that the stories we tell one another are the foundations of society.)

However, let's just look at where the metal for that armour comes from. Oh, that stable beacon of democracy that is the Democratic Republic of Congo. Sorry, I got my words wrong; I meant that murderous, child-solder infested, borderline-failed state and hotbed of rape-as-a-form-of-crowd-control that is the DRC. Where virgin forest is ripped up, local inhabitants ruthlessly moved on to make way for global mining conglomerates that have paid massive bribes to local authorities to strip mine for precious metals with practically no environmental or health and safety oversight at all. A place where child labourers regularly feature in the supply chain. A place where, as Wanda, tell us, is very much not safe:

"(She didn't go outside, she said. Not unless it was to travel to a supplier site, and when she did that it was in a convoy with armed guards. That detail scared me a bit, but she seemed to view it as normal. "It pays to be prepared", was the way she dismissed it. But I could never settle until she'd let me know she was back at her hotel.)"

Yeah, so normal. No wonder this character wasn't that great at relationships.

Thus, Ellie/Vivienne's saviour Kirsty is on very shaky moral ground. Even if she used her power and position to improve the lives of those lowliest workers in her supply chain (and there's no indication she did), she has massively profited from them, while they remain in poverty. For the record, 70% of Congolese live below the international poverty line, and even those earning the national minimum wage earn a mere $3 a day. I know, it's all relative. But still!

Yet, if you are reading this (still? Thanks for sticking with me) on a mobile, you are probably making use of precious metals mined under such conditions (or they came from China, where slave labour was probably involved).

Is Kirsty not permitted redemption? Are she and Ellie/Vivienne not allowed happiness? Don't be silly, I'm not arguing against that. I'm a sucker for a happy ending too. I just can't read this story and NOT think about all those camgirls and mine workers out there for whom there is no happy ending.

Was this Wanda's intent? Probably not... though why make Kirsty a metal industry executive? It's one of the most exploitative and environmentally damaging industries worldwide. If the plot needed her to travel a lot and be wealthy, why not make her a diplomat or executive with MSF or something? Though perhaps Wanda felt it was important that Kirsty be morally inferior to Ellie/Vivienne. Maybe not: most likely, Wanda probably just wanted us to like the characters, feel good by the end and have a few cries along the way. Three for three I'd say.

Regardless, all close reading is creative act (cf. Michael Hebron), and this critique of the ugly, brutal, exploitative and cold side of capitalism is the meaning I have created out of Chiaroscuro and Catgirls. We're all complicit. We're all damaged and damaging. We are all Ellie/Vivienne, Moxie and Kirsty. Except for those of you who are DaveyBonesesCocker (I'm truly sorry).

Therefore, if you must use them, be extremely generous to your camgirls. Check the provenance of your electronics. Follow onehitwanda.