You Wear it Well

Am I a Chav

Is it normal to wear white reebok trackies( the ones with reebok down the side, with the red bit with the logo on)? You see I love trackies but people say I'm a chav so I never go out in them. But I love the white Reeboks, Addidas's and umbro's. They give me an erection, Is that normal? I also like ones in black.

That query came from Is it Normal, and the person asking is by no means alone, wrong, right, or abnormal. As Aldous Huxley offered through two of his characters in After Many a Summer: What sort of human sexual behaviour is normal - none. Rats might have the luxury/tedium of instinctive lovemaking, akin to the natural operation of the digestive system, but everything about our sexual behaviour (except our capacity for it) is non-instinctive and operates on the level of self-consciousness, shaped by words, memories, wishes, judgements and imagination [1].

What of the use of the C word then? What of Britain’s ‘young lower-class person[s] typified by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of (real or imitation) designer clothes,’ or the derogatory ‘chav’ for short [2]? Clearly there’s the problem of deciding whether you are talking about a genuine subculture or a media creation here. Another problem is the common refusal to differentiate between the people of many different temperaments and motivations who might appear to dress this way. It’s rather unlikely that the sex tourists (sex staycationers?) who don a pair of tracksuit bottoms have any clear understanding of the culture they covet.

I was looking for a pair of trainers on the eBay wonderland, and had narrowed the search down to my gender and shoe size. Amongst the many listings of new and used shoes I looked through were a tatty pair of trainers. They spoke of greed, of trying to get money for everything you want shot of, no matter what condition the stuff is in - anything rather than throw it away. But then the fit-for-the-bin condition of the shoes was the listing's implicit main attraction; after the design description came the tag words: Scally, ladz, chav, well worn, gay int?

It continues the longstanding eroticisation of class difference, subcultures, clothing and youth (all terms in the abstract). It was once things like slumming, where the broadly termed well-to-do visited the slums for philanthropy/altruism; sexual/spiritual liberation; or sex (hetero or homo) - or a mix of them all. It’s all an interest, sexual or otherwise, in the beguilingly strange, supposedly louche and certainly imagined lifestyle of another subculture, class/income level, or generation. On eBay there are ‘innocent’ clothing items (more M&S than S&M) being sold as sexualised objects. Googling ‘chav fetish’ - blunt but pragmatic online - produced the angst-ridden opening quote and some more confident sounding gay forums tackling the subject. The latter included discussions about getting up close and personal with chavs’ feet and socks, and also noting the approachable chavs at the local gay clubs.

Is it strictly homosexual if it is the clothes that signify the desire? Perhaps a fetish for the clothes is a better understanding. Returning to eBay, clicking on the description offered a little history of the trainers (paraphrasing here):

trainers av been well worn @ footie and just out wiv me matez. I need sum nu 1’s so sellin em to get sum £££. These av had loadsa wear but still plenty of life left. If the biddin goes above £20 I’ll thro in a pair of me sox.

He had added a photo of himself wearing them (taken waist down only), just to prove he was the real deal - trackie bottoms tucked into socks: check.

Of course, these sellers (and there are a hell of a few) will present themselves as chavs - something that no one does. If a person says ‘I’m such a chav’ they are only referring to a habit or two that they like to be self-conscious about. Everyone can be like a chav, but people have too much variety and agency to fit the role properly. Whether it’s the chav that’s recognisable at street-level, embodying either minging daily strife or phallus-lead twattish behaviour, or the media chav of a 24-hour thug whose irredeemable character falls somewhere between constant antisocialism and giggling-in-court manslaughter charges, no one fits it perfectly. Chavs don’t actually exist. A chav is a foul-mouthed mannequin in sportswear misbehaving in the dodgy hours of the day, not a son or daughter who’s lived for a decade or two with or without trackies, ciggies and crime.

The ‘youth’ as a term for a person, a gang of youths, now sets off the same visceral tremors as the word cunt used to. We make them sound more huggable by calling them hoodies (clothing again). Chav meanwhile is used by e-sellers to flog dirty sportswear for more money than it was worth when new. The chav here is the same as any fantasy of politics or the media, where they become the perfect bad boy whose antisocial behaviour fits a nice mould that can be legislated against. The chav eBay seller is proper sub-working class, proper filthy…and willing to sell you his clothes under the pretence that he’s a proper lad needing cash. The item description portrays an embedded heterosexism (ludicrous when he’s tagged the stuff gay interest) that allows this ‘chav’ to sell his clothes to you under his seemingly infallible belief that you’re one of the lads too, just looking for a pair of cheap trainers for footy. Except that our chav e-seller is probably about forty and has never played footy in his life, and can’t misspell authentically.

There is nothing wrong with having a chav fetish (for the poor person who asked ‘is it normal’ to get an erection while wearing tracksuit bottoms). I suppose there’s nothing wrong with masquerading as a sporty young man in the one of the trades to create a story for the clothes you sell on eBay either. But both the people with a chav fetish and those marketing it should consider what it is they think they are eroticising: a person or a clothed sex doll. It’s worth considering how that chav ideal links to the media and political portrayal of Britain in decline.

==============================================================================
[1] Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer, (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1972) pp.184-185.

[2] Chav definition taken from Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson (Eds), Oxford Dictionary of English (Oxford: OUP, 2005) p.293.