But I'm a Creep. A lab report.
This text is intended to serve as a warm reminder for you before or after attending our workshop:
ON CREEPY OLD MXN & BEYOND – & playSPACE
Saturday, December 18, 2021 – Workshop 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. – PlaySpace 8:00 p.m. – 1:00 a.m.
serrat(u)s bodywork, Zwinglistrasse 40, 8004 Zurich
Book your tickets >>here
How to Make a Cold Shiver Run Down Your Spine
"How about I follow you around all day tomorrow?" - "But then I'd know that... Maybe you could hire someone I don’t know to follow me around in secret like a stalker?” — “Oh, that’s a good idea!”
Two people are plotting how to achieve that feeling that sends cold shivers down your spine. Because something feels off, even if nothing clearly dangerous is happening. They’re surrounded by a whole group of people who are compiling some sort of curiosity cabinet of such weird ideas. One person is thinking of designing jewelry out of clipped toenails, while another wants to pursue a creepy passion for a private collection: secretly cutting off a lock of hair from each of her lovers and cataloging them. One woman kneads pizza dough to put on her face as a grotesque mask, because she was deemed too young and pretty to trigger this specific sense of horror. Two people agree on a voyeuristic classic: watching the other in the shower through the keyhole. One man requests a special massage in which the masseuses keep losing focus in their technique because they are secretly pleasuring themselves instead of concentrating on providing wellness for their client: touching him “accidentally” with their own genitals or staring lustfully at his crotch while massaging him. Volunteers are happily found to dare to try out this experiment with him and add refinements to it—they could avoid eye contact, mumble, and sneak up unexpectedly from behind before the massage begins…
“Creepy” is the name of the quality so eagerly harvested here in these self-experiments. A word that is hardly translatable into other languages. In German, the metaphorical “Lustmolch” might be an apt term because it epitomizes those slimy, sexualized elements—usually attributed to older men. But a Lustmolch or lecher—similar to a “womanizer”—describes someone who is quite frankly and obviously flirtatious, whereas creepiness is characterized by the fact that nothing is open and clear. It is precisely for this reason that the group examines creepiness with a slightly obsessive interest, in order to uncover the nature of this elusive quality. How does it feel to be the creep ourselves? In what circumstances have we already behaved creepily, perhaps without even realizing it? What thrill can there be in being the object of someone’s creepiness in a safe setting? And more broadly: how do social power dynamics and sensory experiences become intertwined with sexuality?
From annoyance, avoidance, aversion, adjudication to adventure, awareness, amplification, alteration, animation
These questions were explored in *ON CREEPY OLD MXN & BEYOND*, a workshop we offered in various queer-feminist, kink, and sex-positive settings. The idea arose because, in these settings, we encountered the same old ways of dealing with creepiness: annoyance, avoidance, aversion, and judgment. Fair enough! Women* in particular risk dangerous backlash and victim-blaming when defending themselves against unwanted creepy behavior. And even in 2021, despite all attempts at emancipation, girls* are still taught to please others and avoid self-advocacy and conflicts. So we tend to smile off disgusting pick-up attempts, just to avoid making a scene. Expressing outrage about the creep after encountering them and seeking out allies who will listen to us and our indignation is an important recourse. It’s equally advisable to follow the famous closing line from Radiohead’s song “Creep”: “She’s running out the door, she run, run, run!”
And yet, I couldn’t help but wonder how to deal with creepiness in more and different ways—and whether it could even be appropriated as an interesting and creative force to be reckoned with: adventure, awareness, amplification, alteration, animation…. Especially in contexts where sexual motives and nonconformist behavior are explicitly encouraged, where BDSM practices—and thus also the “dark sides” of the human condition—are being explored and played with. Yet, while kinsters manage to eroticize power dynamics to the point of rape play, slave training, and defecation games, I hardly encountered anything resembling “creepy play.” Why not, actually?
Awesome or awful? The sublime vs. ugly feelings
One reason could be that classic BDSM games—the roles of dominance and submission, with their extravagant use of sophisticated instruments such as leather floggers, jute ropes, and latex suits—have something sublime about them that can be placed within the canon of philosophical aesthetics, with its great, awe-inspiring passions. They are about stimulatingly obscene grace, unleashed archaic or animalistic forces, or about confronting distance-dissolving emotions such as disgust, shame, and pain. They are about the positive reevaluation of commonly avoided experiences of loss of control or sadistic excess—at best, in artfully staged scenarios. These exceptional states can have a potentially cathartic effect, which is why so much of the discourse in the BDSM scene revolves around transformation, processing, healing, exposure, breakthroughs, awareness, and so on.
In contrast, creepiness tends to fall into the unglamorous aesthetic categories of “Ugly Feelings,” as described by cultural theorist Sianne Ngai. These evoke a vague sense of discomfort and confusion about what exactly one is actually feeling. There’s something stringy and sticky about them, which makes the confusion linger, with no prospect of emotional relief—catharsis. While strong, clear feelings like anger or sadness can lead to transformative action, ugly feelings (such as envy, paranoia, or, I would add, creepiness) suspend agency. One feels stuck. Stuck in an uncanny valley of ambiguity, between two opposing peaks:
—in the state of being creeped out, caught between invasion and inhibition or curiosity and timidity.
- In “being creeped out”—between inner alarm bells that prepare one for self-protection and simultaneous paralysis, because there is no tangible threat (yet). Incidentally, this distinction seems useful in differentiating creepiness from assault, even if the line between them can be blurry. If a clear assault or harassment occurs, the person is no longer a creep but a perpetrator. By then it’s too late, but before that it’s too early. In between lie debatable gray areas, where several factors determine whether one can confidently handle what is unpleasant and frightening; whether the perceived distress is violent and should be avoided at all costs due to the possibility of (re)traumatization; or whether one is making false assumptions and becomes violently exclusionary, censoriously judgmental, and normative oneself.
Workshops as Artistic Research – Findings, Results, Insights
The challenge of our workshop was to approach the "creepy-crawly" sensation with careful, research-oriented curiosity—to endure the nebulous nature of this in-between twilight zone. It’s hard to pin down the quality of creepiness. It quickly turns into something else: clear disgust, nerve-wracking horror, or silliness. But then it’s not creepy anymore.
Moreover, as in a laboratory, we observed a kind of chemical reaction that could be another reason why there is hardly any kinky, creepy play in BDSM scenes: consent and creepiness cancel each other out. In an effort to create a safer space, our participants were asked to specify precisely how they would like to be "creeped on" by their fellow playmates. However, this proved unsatisfactory for most. To access the exciting and arousing aspects of awkward discomfort, most chose to relinquish control and move toward “consensual nonconsent”: “Just do it, and I’ll say ‘stop’ if it gets to be too much for me!” This brought to light some of the volatility inherent in “creepy” play when blurred boundaries were crossed and crisis interventions had to be initiated. Or when cis-male participants had to take a break and stop the exercises because it became unbearable for them to embody the very masculine archetype they always feel is subliminally projected onto them as a general suspicion.
None of this is to say that creepiness never occurs in kinky play spaces. When I do encounter it, however, it tends to be some form of unplanned collateral damage. For example, when the rather old, male playparty organizer’s pickup routine is fixated on the beautiful, inexperienced, young “fresh meat” among the participants. Or when a person is wandering around suspiciously alone through the play space and then masturbates alone while watching the others who are enjoying each other—somehow too close and yet too distant from them. These creeps fit the stereotypes that many of my male friends want to avoid at all costs. Even if it means denying themselves something they would actually enjoy—and perhaps their play partners might enjoy it, too. After all, some of the young women* can also get a thrill out of being courted by the older players. And it can be tremendously appealing to portray oneself as an unattainable queen who despises the voyeuristic, horny old lechers.
But how exactly can one reach the point of turning creepiness into a perverse pleasure game for everyone involved? Like caviar or mac and cheese: somehow disgusting, too much, too slippery—but awfully awesome!
I’d like to share an anecdote that illustrates one example of how I turned a gross situation—one that needed to be rejected—into an experience I confidently used as an opportunity for personal growth. It happened when I received my first unsolicited sext. “Feel like fucking?” a Facebook user I don’t know—but who, for some reason, is on my friends list—asks me out of the blue. My stomach immediately clenches. I reply, “No thanks,” and call a good friend to ask for help. His advice is so far outside my usual range of possible responses, yet his perspective immediately puts me back in control. “Why don’t you start by asking if his dick is big enough—and anyway, where does he know you from?” I laugh, grateful for the sense of relief that now washes over me, and also for the fact that the recruiter backs off in response to my “no.” Isn’t there actually something refreshingly honest about his directness? In a way, yes. Still, the circumstances make this situation creepy anyway—due to his lack of transparency with a fake profile picture, missing personal details, and the fact that this kind of message is out of place on Facebook.
And yet I liked the idea of making creepiness work for me instead of automatically pushing it away. What if, at those events, I walked right up to the person who was the creepiest and tried to do something productive with their alienating energy? Like my dominant friend Anna, who simply used an insecure-looking guy—who was shunned by everyone because of his needy, greedy aura—as her human chair—no, her throne! It made them both happy. And, as if by magic, he also lost his creepiness after being included.
Underrated misfits who can empower you to care less—or entitled intruders who need to back off and get the hell out of here?
My interest in such processes is not limited to facilitating interesting erotic interactions within subcultural scenes. Just as kinky enactments of domination and submission can reveal insights into power relations in “normal life,” I wanted to approach our workshop as a kind of training or research setting to learn more about creepiness—and life itself—which reaches into diverse areas of everyday life with its long, thin fingers... Thus, on the one hand, I associate the term “creep” with quirky misfits who, according to psychologists Francis T. McAndrew and Sara S. Koehnke, are perceived as creepy even when their only “crime” is not being conventionally attractive: greasy or unkempt hair, pale skin, dark circles under the eyes, advanced age, an extremely thin body, or a peculiar fashion style were cited with significant frequency in their study to characterize creeps. This is where creepiness becomes particularly appealing to me, because it radically opposes the need to be liked in a normative society. The study inspires me to take the promise of BDSM-friendly, sex-positive spaces—which embrace nonconformity (as long as it is consensual)—more seriously, so that the next time I attend a play party, I’ll dare to leave my sexy, slutty outfits at home and see how much more intimate and “naked” the experience will be for me if I show up with unwashed hair and no makeup to cover my imperfect skin. Interestingly, this approach to creepiness seems akin to the feminist-activist project of body neutrality. Or is it just a disrespectful transgression of polite etiquette?
In addition to these outsider figures, who are almost enviably indifferent to certain customs, “creepiness” aims to violate the boundaries of private space. This phenomenon is, in turn, the opposite of outsiderism, since it is, sadly, just as universal as patriarchal sexism and entitlement. Recent creepy everyday experiences have been gathered under the feminist hashtag #MeToo: inappropriate shoulder massages from coworkers; guys who intrusively dance their way into a group of best friends trying to hang out together at a club; the “nice” uncles who celebrate summer as “mini-dress time!” and whose well-meaning pats on the head and sniffing of hair are disturbingly nightmarish...
Both categories share the fact that “creepiness” as a judgment serves to reject it and keep it far away from oneself, to attribute it to others—perhaps also in order to distance oneself from one’s own creepy tendencies? Who hasn’t ever gotten carried away in a high-spirited mood and then shared “too much information”? Who hasn’t ever caught themselves smirking or being overcome by a sudden fit of laughter—out of nowhere or even in an inappropriate situation? Who has never wanted to offer a gesture of sympathy, but then—out of insecurity or self-consciousness—found that the touch doesn’t come naturally; you do it anyway, and it just feels tense, stilted, and awkward, or your hand even ends up in a strange place—touching their ear or breast?
When is it appropriate to dismiss someone as creepy, and when is it based on vicarious embarrassment and knee-jerk prejudice?
It’s also about empathy when asking about the causes of creepiness. Is someone a self-righteous jerk, or are they insecure and lonely? Do they want to fit in, to hide their own shame and inhibitions? Do they try so hard to do everything right—so much so that any attempt not to seem creepy actually ends up making it worse (like the man in a friend’s story who was alone in an elevator with another woman and tried to calm her down by singing a nursery rhyme)?
But it’s not just accidental blunders that make us seem creepy. If you’ve never stalked someone on social media, then cast the first stone. And it’s quite striking that the features on those platforms are even called “Following” or “Watching Stories,”and that some typical social media behavior goes by the eerie name “ghosting”!
At the end of the workshop, one participant comes up with the fantastic idea of ritually paying homage to a creepy deity who embodies all our awkwardness—something that returns anyway when we try to repress it. “Holding all our insecurity, fear of rejection, fear of asking for things, our ‘taker’ energy, and our sense of entitlement.”
It becomes clearer to us that creepiness is not so much an inherent quality as it is a relational one. I cannot be a creep on my own. I need to be perceived as creepy. Others, for example, need to engage in a sort of tiptoeing dance of avoidance and cast disgusted glances my way to make me appear suspicious. There is a space of agency in which I decide and help shape how creepiness affects me when I encounter someone I automatically perceive as a creep. The question is: under what conditions can we enter this space of agency without disconnecting from our intelligent somatic warning systems and without downplaying potential danger? This wiggle room encompasses a variety of actions: direct confrontation with the obnoxious person—which might mean calling them out or giving them a piece of my mind; firmly and clearly rejecting them; or drawing attention to their troublesome behavior in a friendly manner. It can also involve cheekily playing along. Or creeping back—or even over-creeping—such as staring back at the men staring at you on the street... Yes, this can be dangerous. So if you want to try it, please be cautious and at least look around and listen to your gut to see if your immediate surroundings feel safe enough to give it a try. From experience, I can say that marvelous things can happen when trying these other methods of dealing with whoever I perceive as creepy. A kind of alchemical magic can be set in motion. Perhaps what was perceived as creepy turns out to be a delusion, behind which sadness, inexperience, or simply a misunderstanding emerges. Or the creep turns out to be an actual source of danger that now definitely needs to be banished. Maybe this will help prevent harassment or provide the necessary “Snap!” that breaks the freeze response and sends a clear signal that harmful behavior will not be tolerated. Maybe it leads to a clarifying conversation or even empathy. Maybe it leads to embracing one’s own inner creep. To humor and self-irony. To questioning one’s own biases regarding gender, class, race, and age.
Creepiness' long salad fingers are reaching everywhere
Finally, creepiness currently seems to be one of the defining “ugly feelings” of our times, since it appears again and again in public discourse and in the (mis)behaviors of notorious people in power. So it makes sense to pay it more attention and not let it creep up on us unnoticed from behind and catch us off guard when we’re not prepared for its threat. What other grievances does creepiness point to in a broader sense? Where do other things slowly and persistently creep into our lives—things that plague and distress us, yet at the same time don’t seem so bad that we simply shrug them off? But what is actually harmful and should be addressed with a more resolute “NO!”? Think about the tracking of our internet behavior and data collection by creepy companies like Google and others. Think about sneaky advertising. Accepting loud street noise because we prioritize cars over using streets as places to socialize. The normalization of working overtime. Your boss calling the team “family.” Exploiting oneself under the seemingly chic label of “self-fulfillment”…
In summary: You're very welcome to join our workshop :)
Regardless of moral values, however, *ON CREEPY OLD MXN & BEYOND*is, last but not least, a blast! Beyond the realm of good and evil, it’s comparable to riding roller coasters, taking drugs, or watching scary movies. In addition to learning a lot and critically rethinking prejudices, you can also simply enjoy socializing with others in a witty and creative way or have fun with physical sensations like goosebumps or bursts of surprised laughter.
No matter how you choose to deal with creepiness—whether you decide to confront it head-on or even weave it into erotic play—it certainly requires courage, resilience, and self-confidence. These traits don’t come out of nowhere, and it’s okay if they aren’t part of your toolkit yet. Who knows what happened in your life that makes developing them more difficult? So please be kind to yourself. There’s no need to spread yourself too thin if the time isn’t right.
But if you feel a calling and curiosity: In workshops aimed at empowerment, this is exactly what can be practiced. Perhaps like a form of exposure therapy.
This could help not only to have intense, unique, sensory-emotional experiences, to expand your own horizons and scope of action, and to gain insights into yourself and the world, but also to make a difference on a larger scale.
ON CREEPY OLD MXN & BEYOND – & playSPACE
Saturday, December 18, 2021 – Workshop 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. – PlaySpace 8:00 p.m. – 1:00 a.m.
serrat(u)s bodywork, Zwinglistrasse 40, 8004 Zurich
Book your tickets >>here
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*We use the asterisk because we cannot know for sure whether the people in the scenarios described actually identify as women themselves. It is also possible to be subjected to similar misogynistic behavior if one does not identify as female but is perceived as such for any reason.
