Rule 5 Saturday - As If Africa Doesn't Have Enough Problems Already

Model Cara Delevingne Wants to Export ‘Gender Fluidity’ to Africa

Maybe I expect too much from models and actresses, but if Glamour or any other major women’s magazines is going to take the trouble of doing an extensive interviewwith someone like model Cara Delevingne, I think their subjects should have something interesting to say. Delevingne is instead like a white noise machine spouting a steady, boring stream of “sex-positive” liberal clichés.

While Glamour’s interviewer says Delevingne “isn’t afraid to get real,” the truth is that there is nothing even slightly original about this woman. Hailing from a prominent British family, she started her modeling career at the age of sixteen. In recent years she has also appeared in films such as Anna Karenina, Paper Towns, and Suicide Squad. This summer she’s starring in the sci-fi film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.

I will leave it to others to judge her skills as an actor, but her thoughts on the rest of the world are silly, if not embarrassingly stupid. According to Glamour, “Her motto is ‘Embrace your weirdness.’ She’ll stick out her tongue or cross her eyes in photos—and share them.” How avant-garde! Why do I feel like I’m reliving some kind of after-school special about how odd kids can be cool too? When Delevingne and a friend found a box lying on the sidewalk, she poked two eye-holes in it and put it over her head. “The prank totally killed,” according to Glamour. Maybe you had to be there.

But the reason that Delevingne has been elevated from your typical hilarious celebrity into an icon is, of course, her views about feminism and sexuality. According to the magazine:

Delevingne is also hosting a girl-power docuseries with global sports brand Puma this summer, releasing a ­coming-of-age novel about teenhood this fall, and working with the U.N. Foundation’s Girl Up campaign, recently visiting Uganda to advocate for girls’ education. Shattering barriers? Embracing authenticity? Saying what she thinks? That’s the Delevingne Doctrine.

Move out of the way, James Monroe. This model has a doctrine.

Delevingne enjoys talking about how she is attracted to both men and women, her self-proclaimed “sexual fluidity.” When people get understandably confused and think she might be gay, she responds that she doesn’t think anyone should be “pigeonholed.” Says Delevingne, “A lot of the friends I have who are straight have such an old way of thinking.” Evidently, assuming that you’re gay or bisexual because you want to sleep with members of the same sex is so 2012.

Delevingne especially wants the young girls she works with to know that it’s okay for them to be gender fluid, too. “I know 13- and 15-year-old girls who are like, ‘I don’t know if I like a boy or a girl yet. I haven’t decided.’ And it’s like—[imagine] if I was able to comprehend [that at their age]. I am very happy how sexuality has become easier and freer to talk about, especially for kids.”, , ,

The enterprising exhibitionist Tyra Banks hosts GOODSTUFFs BLOGGING MAGAZINE (300th Issue) along with a colorful assortment of science and other stuff. Wombat-socho chimes in with "Rule 5 Sunday: (Snap-On) Tool Time" and "FMJRA 2.0: Mental Door." Also linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links.