Demetri Marchessini is a retired Greek business tycoon, living in London, and has been a major donor to the right-wing, anti-immigrant UK Independence Party (UKIP). He also has some, let’s say, eccentric views about gay people, black people, women, and trousers, views so, er, eccentric that the folks in UKIP are a little embarrassed to be associated with him. Given that UKIP is filled with bigots in all varieties, that’s quite something.
In an interview last week with Britain’s Channel 4, Marchessini expounded at length on some of his more colorful views. He told interviewer Michael Crick that marital rape was impossible, because “you can’t have rape if you make love on Friday and make love on Sunday, you can’t say Saturday is rape. Once the woman accepts, she accepts.”
He argued that there is no such thing as homosexual love, only lust, because “they go out at nights and they pick up 5, 10, 15 different partners in one night.” Even gays in committed relationships are basically just roommates who still cruise for anonymous sex partners.
And he suggested that black slaves were better off as slaves in America than they would have been living in Africa, because if they survived the passage they lived longer.
But let’s just talk about the trouser thing. Marchessini thinks women should be banned from wearing trousers, because otherwise they just might bring about the end of western civilization.
No, really.
In a 2003 polemic with the innocent-sounding title Women In Trousers, Marchessini decried female trouser-wearing as “hostile behaviour – they are deliberately dressing in a way that is opposite to what men would like.”
In his interview last week, he explained just how hostile an act trouser-wearing really is. Here’s the whole discussion, from the extended transcript of the interview he posted on his website. I’m putting some of the best bits in bold, but, seriously, the whole thing is pure gold.
Michael Crick: You wrote this book about women wearing trousers. Explain your position there.
Demetri Marchessini: Well this is a very … there are quite a few reasons why women shouldn’t wear trousers. The point of the book, was that photographs of women on the street, they weren’t posed, women walking down the street, and the point of the book is they were all photographed from the rear, because women do not realise what they look like from the rear, they can’t see themselves from the rear. And they don’t realise how terrible they look from the rear. And this was just a series of photographs, of actual photographs of women walking by and a lot of people didn’t like this, because it’s become a political matter.
Michael Crick: So do you think women should be banned from wearing trousers?
Demetri Marchessini: Yes.
Michael Crick: What, by law?
Demetri Marchessini: They used to be, for thousands of years. Did you know that until two or three hundred years ago a woman wearing trousers would be executed? Did you know that?
Michael Crick: Well presumably you’re not advocating returning to that position?
Demetri Marchessini: No, but I am returning to thinking that this is an important matter, something to think about, whereas now they don’t think about it.
Michael Crick: And you think that women are unsuited to certain jobs?
Demetri Marchessini: Wait a minute, let’s just finish this thing.
Michael Crick: Sorry, yeah.
Demetri Marchessini: The first thing is the Bible. If you are a Christian the Bible says anyone who wears the clothes of the opposite sex is an abomination. If you’re a Christian woman you can’t be wearing trousers.
Michael Crick: I would have thought the vast majority of Christians in this country today would say that’s rubbish.
Demetri Marchessini: Well I’m sorry, they’re perfectly free to say the Bible is rubbish, but if you believe in the Bible you can’t wear trousers, it’s up to you to decide. Secondly, for thousands of years after that, it was a crime for both sexes and then eventually when they started wearing trousers, which was after the First War, there were several reasons not to wear trousers. The first is they don’t look as nice as skirts; the second is trousers don’t excite men. Only skirts excite men.
Michael Crick: Why should women dress to excite men?
Demetri Marchessini: Because that’s the only way the world is going to continue. If they don’t, then men are going to stop fucking them, you understand, and may I tell you, with great respect, that the incidence of lovemaking in Western Europe has fallen drastically.
Michael Crick: What, because women wear trousers?
Demetri Marchessini: Well I think that’s one factor. Another factor is because women work. The fact is if men don’t make love to women the Western world is going to disappear.
So Warren Farrell is angry at women for dressing (or undressing) to excite men; Demetri Marchessini is angry at them for not dressing to excite men.
Oh, and in case you’re wondering why women look so terrible from behind, Marchessini helpfully provides a link to another post on his blog which offers this explanation:
[N]ature has shaped women differently from men, and it is women who have curves, and as a result, big bottoms. Men are more straight up and down. It is women who are, therefore, invariably photographed for their bottoms. Furthermore, since women have started wearing trousers, this situation has become worse. Trousers are made for men’s bodies, not for women’s bodies. As a result, they highlight big bottoms. Nevertheless, women go on wearing them.
Evidently, he does not like big butts, and he cannot lie.
Big thanks to the trouser-wearing Titianblue for tipping me off to this important story.
Did trousers even exist in biblical times?
It doesn’t answer the execution claim, but TIL that this Wikipedia page exists.
@Cassandrakitty I believe what got Joan of Arc executed was that whole talking to/receiving visions of the Archangel Michael.
As well as this page.
For some reason, the word “trousers” is striking me as very amusing right now. I think I’m going to make it my new substitute expletive.
“It’s pants” was a way to say that something was ridiculous and/or crap when I was a kid.
“…trying to appease hurting, angry, people was more important than me getting further verbal abuse.”
Fuck you so much.
YOU were verbally abused after the shit you said about kinksters? Did you read any of the horrible crap you wrote?
You came back to appease us?
ap·pease
əˈpēz/Submit
verb
1.
pacify or placate (someone) by acceding to their demands.
“amendments have been added to appease local pressure groups”
synonyms: conciliate, placate, pacify, mollify, propitiate, reconcile, win over More
antonyms: provoke, inflame
2.
relieve or satisfy (a demand or a feeling).
“we give to charity because it appeases our guilt”
synonyms: satisfy, fulfill, gratify, indulge;
Yeah, you can mock misogynists, and we’ll mock your ablist, ignorant, condescending, assfax and your shitty attitude.
@cassandrakitty, we still use “pants” or “complete pants” in that way.
“The Terrible Tyranny of Trousers” is the name of the first album by my emo-rock band Highlight Big Bottoms
The word trauser is mostly use in the UK.
Did he get permission from the women he photographed before putting the photos in his book? Or am I being excessively optimistic here?
It is true that it is rather difficult to have sex of the genital variety while actually wearing pants(in the American sense of “pants”), but that goes for everyone, not only women; at least it goes for everyone who dislikes chafing and zipper injuries.
LBT, I am giggling at “Down with pants!”, mainly because it sounds to me like a command to the synchronized mooning team: “Stand! Attention! Down with pants!”
If I’m reading correctly, he claims he didn’t need to because the subjects were out in public. I have no idea what UK law is on that subject, but ethically it’s pretty shitty IMO.
Last year I had a very tiresome discussion on this blog with a number of regulars to the point I felt demotivated to continue posting, yet when I resumed posting a few weeks ago my past was a non-factor and nobody has ever brought it up. (maybe they secretly despise me, I don’t know, or more likely I wasn’t memorable enough) So I think people forget easily.
Legally, it’s all down to a “reasonable expectation of privacy”. This can apply to public spaces where the subject is just going about her/his private business. Personally, I would think it extremely easy to argue that a woman has a reasonable expectation not to have her bottom photoed and published in a book but I’m not a lawyer.
Retha: “Appease?’ Telling choice of words.
Sent this to Mr C and got “I thought dinosaurs were extinct in the UK” back.
I laughed so much at the very first sentence of this post. Cognitive dissonance, Mr. Marchessini, you’re doing it right.
Does he say “IMMIGRANTS ARE EVIL (except for me)!”?
OK, on to read the real story, now.
What about women in short shorts? What about 50-something women in cutoff short shorts?
Now that you mention it, shouldn’t UKIP be a bit embarrassed about having an OMGFOREIGNER as one of their main donors?
What the hell is this recent fascination with the happiness of Black People during slavery?
I find it hard to believe that white men are suddenly deeply concerned about how happy we are no and that the answer is apparently for them to have power over us again.
I think what it is just them longng for the days when they had power over everybody and they’re what? Fishing to see who wants to go back? Gays?Women?Poc?
It must be galling to them tha the answer to that is a resounding “Go F*** Yourself” . I t must be like trying to herd cats, trying to convince people they should be subjugated again? (Do any of you have a video of herding cats?)
@lkeke35
Actually, you are half right. One of the most damning charges against her was that she wore mens clothing and armor.
I like the bit where the interviewer was trying to change the subject, and Marchessini was all, “Oh no, let me harp on this bit of assholery longer, so that I might fully lay out my sexist absurdity.”
In the “Western world” (yay racism!) women have been wearing trousers for years. See the lovely and talented Ms. Dietrich up top. And AFAIK, sex and babies continue to happen, even into these dark ages of yoga pants and skinny jeans!
Not just a foreigner, but one from Southern Europe, at that. I thought that the racists of UKIP considered them to be not-white.
Ladies, what are we going to do if this guy and Warren Farrell are ever in the same room? Do we dress to please men or not? Either way, someone is going to be pissed.
And yet, and yet, how many times have rape victims been blamed because they wore a skirt? Once upon a time, wearing trousers was considered a form of rape PREVENTION, because it was a leeeeetle bit harder to get to the goods. Not impossible, but, you know, enough harder that it would *totally* make the victim innocent. Because reasons. Except for all those other reasons why she would be guilty, like being well-endowed, especially if those big boobs are NATURAL. Then she’s REALLY asking for it. But really, when the cops say they won’t report it as a rape, because you were wearing a skirt, and you tell your friends what happened to you, and why you are now a “statistic” for “false rape accusations,” because the cops MADE you recant, and all based on “well, you were wearing a skirt, at the time,” it’s no wonder that women want to wear trousers.
You know what? I am currently high on pain pills, because I was hit by a truck, and I just exacerbated the pain watching a movie that triggered a TEEENNNNSSEEE JERK reaction, which makes me really look forward to my physical therapy session next week, and even so, high as I am, I do believe that I can out-think this guy. How did he become some sort of tycoon? My money’s on the old “Behind every great man is a woman” thing. He probably had a “little woman” giving him all his business ideas, but doing it in that “feminine” way to make it think it was all his own brilliance. Because, yeah, this guy is just not very smart on his own.
I loved your line about how he does not like big butts and he cannot lie. LOL. You are smart. You should be the business tycoon.
Why is it that the people who actually deserve wealth are not the ones who have it? Probably because they’re not willing to step on other people to acquire it. Which morality, of course, makes them more deserving.
But life isn’t fair, is it?
Ah, well. Thanks for keeping us informed, David! Well done, again.