I am a Poseur: The Punk Identity

Enjoy Mars Reece's 2025 first place poem from the Boar's Tusk 2024/2025Journal. For more information about Boar's Tusk, click here. 

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Silly Girl 

In Emelye Parker’s thesis paper, OH BONDAGE UP YOURS! Punk, Women, and Feminism in the UK 1976-1984, she states, “I challenge existing male-centric histories of punk by deconstructing perceived notions of male supremacy, sexism, heterosexism and stereotyped gender roles.” (Parker,1). Within the punk culture, women are an overlooked and often misinterpreted founder of the values we are supposed to hold. I’ve always strived to challenge the views of everyone, even myself. I believe that punk culture is about being true to who you see in yourself as a person and fighting for the rights of everyone. I believe that punk culture is the identity, and the identity is ever-changing, therefore, attitudes must change with it. 

My first experience with punk was The Ramones, one of the first ever (male-centric, as was the norm) punk bands to be recognized as purely punk. My first true experience with punk was understanding that while I’m born with privileges, the way I conduct myself can also lead to persecution. I learned that the day I learned about the Stonewall Riots. As I got older, I began to realize that there was an inescapable rage inside of me that grew angrier the more I began to experience bigotry, sexism, and saw firsthand the results of allowing bigots into our government. My father was a Marine, and my mother a therapist. I’ve grown up with mistrust of the government, but it has since grown. 

New Radio 

Punk culture was a direct response to the deeply conservative views of America and the crumbling political climate that was Reagan’s dumpster fire of a presidency, and I found solace in this culture fueled by rage and a call to action. Sure, the music was good, and there was technically a dress-code, but what really hooked me was the unapologetic attitudes. I grew up insecure, anxious, and depressed with undiagnosed mental illness up the wazoo. I wasn’t allowed to bleach my hair till I was eighteen, and I couldn’t say the word fuck till I was sixteen. I remember meeting my first ‘real’ punk, and I’ll remember it till I die. He had bright red hair in liberty spikes and a battle jacket covered in spikes and worn patches and new patches, and piercings in every corner of his face and ears, yet he opened doors for little old ladies and said, "Yes ma’am,” and “No, sir.” He worked the counter at my dad’s old favorite gas station, and he gave me a sucker once. 

Since then, I’ve become that red-haired radical leftist with a chip on his shoulder and a soft spot for cake and kids. I’ve only ever come close to beating up a kid, and that’s because she laid hands on my brother and harassed him for six months. I’ve dyed my hair every color of the rainbow, and I wear knee high boots that I lovingly refer to as my ‘shit-kickers’. I got a tongue piercing two weeks before my nineteenth birthday and my first tattoo was for my sixteenth birthday. I may not have been rebelling against my parents, considering they were letting me do all of this, but I was rebelling against something, and that was what mattered to me in my heart. 

Planet Drool 

In the late 80s to early 90s, there was a resurgence of punk identity and culture through the RIOT GRRRL movement, a movement that saw women all over Washington challenge the male gaze of punk music and political identity and smash it like a bug, smearing guts all over the floor and screaming right in your face. Not only that, but it gave girls all over the country a chance to fight for their rights as human beings and become part of something bigger than themselves that would be willing to fight tooth and nail to get what they needed. They didn’t want equal rights in the music industry and society as a whole, they needed it. And they made damn sure they got it. Though the magazines treated it fairly in the early months, it began to see it as just a ‘girl power’ movement, and the music industry used that to their advantage, creating watered down pop bands and phenomenon's as a way to copy the Riot Grrrls and was part of their downfall. (The majority reason for their downfall was the bigotry existing within the movement despite being activists against bigotry). 

I found my calling in questioning the government, learning all I could about the ins and outs of the criminal justice system (mostly to question it and complain about how corrupt it is), thrifting all of my clothes instead of brand new and donating my clothes when I no longer needed them, providing service to the community by helping out wherever I could. I found companionship in the friends I’ve made in this community, and the concerts I’ve been to have molded me into a person I can be proud of. I’ve been bruised and battered and sucker-punched, I’ve punched neo-nazis and threatened bigots with baseball bats. I may not be as crazy as some other punks, but I don’t pretend my morals are cut and clean, and I fight for my rights. 

I fight for the music, I fight for the people, I fight for the feeling when you’re fifteen years old and discover a band that will change your life forever. Punk culture has always been about fighting and defending the rights of those who are marginalized and disparaged. Punk culture is taking the kid who got kicked out for being gay and letting him couch surf. Punk culture is shaving each other’s heads for the first time while high. Punk culture is helping up people in the pit when they get knocked down. In the immortal words of punks everywhere; “Respect Existence, or Expect Resistance.”