“I don’t smoke
Don’t drink
Don’t fuck
At least I can fucking think”

With these lyrics from “Out of Step (With the World)” Ian Mackaye and his band Minor Threat set the guidelines for what would become one of the most popular and influential movements in the punk and hardcore community-Straightedge.  Though the obligatory abstinence from drinking, drugs, and promiscuous sex was by far the most important characteristic of what it meant to be straightedge, the movement also developed a unique philosophy, social structure, and style of dress, complete with a symbol that continues to embody the straightedge movement to this day, the X. 

To understand how the X became synonymous with the straightedge movement, we must go back to the Washington D.C. punk scene in 1980.  As sociologist and long time adherent to the edge Ross Haenfler explains, “Club owners in Washington D.C, like many places, were unwilling to allow underage kids into shows.  Clubs made a significant portion of their profits from alcohol sales and were therefore more inclined to cater to adults.  Owners also wanted to avoid being caught and fined for harboring underage drinkers.  The fact that alcohol prevented minors from experiencing the punk scene was intolerable to many kids.  Luckily, a D.C law barred music establishments from refusing to admit minors.  To accommodate eager underage fans, clubs marked underage D.C. punks’ hands with large X’s as a signal to club workers not to serve them alcohol.  The X, however, quickly became a badge of defiance.  Youth transformed the X from a stigma to a symbol of pride, as if to say, ‘not only can’t we drink, we don’t want to drink.’” (Haenfler, 2006: 7). With their 1981 song “Straight Edge”, Minor Threat provided the moniker for this new form of resistance. Mackaye sings,

“ I'm a person just like you
But I've got better things to do
Than sit around and fuck my head
Hang out with the living dead
Snort white shit up my nose
Pass out at the shows
I don't even think about speed
That's something I just don't need
I've got the straight edge”

Mackaye himself explains the term saying, “OK, fine, you take drugs, you drink, whatever… But obviously I have the edge on you because I’m sober; I’m in control of what I’m doing” (Azerrad, 2001: 136).  Straightedge provided an “edge” over peers, and over society.  With the cover of the Teen Idles’ Minor Disturbance record, getting “X’d up” for shows and being straightedge became one and the same.  In addition, X’ing up at shows marked the first time the X became not simply a symbol for straightedge, but a physical representation of one’s commitment to the movement.  As Peter Pels argues, to understand materiality in social processes, one must treat materiality as a, “quality of relationship rather than of things” (Pels, 1998: 99).  Indeed, it is the X’s relationship to the subject, not its “thingness” which is of paramount important.  With two strokes of a felt marker, the X becomes an object that binds the individual to the straightedge, creating a material contract. Traditionally, if an illiterate individual needs to sign a contract, he or she will sign with an X.  The straightedge community is characterized by much the same practice. 

The materialization of the X whether through dress, X’ing up, or tattoos serves to create a binding contract between the individual and the Edge, as well as the individual and the rest of the straightedge community, showing, “ones commitment and dedication to straightedge philosophy and lifestyles” (Wood, 2006:114).  As Youth of Today sings, “X on your hand, now take the oath/ To positive youth, to positive growth”.  Wearing the X communicates to others ones straightedge values, as well as a reminder of the promise one has made to oneself. 

The X does not have inherent agency; it is only through its material representation by the straightedge individual that agency is garnered.  As Christopher Steiner writes, “The point is not that ‘things’ are any more animated than we used to believe, but rather that they are infinitely malleable to the shifting and contested meanings constructed for them through human agency” (Steiner, 2001: 210).  What is significant about the adoption of an alien object, “is not the fact that they are adopted, but the way they are culturally redefined and put to use” (Kopytoff, 1986: 67).  The straightedge community has constructed a new meaning for X which in turn provides it with a new agency and an ability to influence. 
Michael Taussig defines the fetish as an, “animated entity that can dominate persons” (Taussig, 1980: 25).  Through the X’s contractual characteristics, binding the straightedge adherent to the ideals of the movement, the X becomes a fetishized object to be revered and respected, a sacred object for the individual wearing it, similar to the cross worn around the neck of many Christians.  Indeed, a common phrase for some straightedge youth is that they are, “nailed to the X”, drawing specifically on images of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  Consequently, the fetishized object, X, assumes a certain amount of power over the straightedge subject, separating it from the world of normal ‘things’.  Its materiality is magnified due to its lack of everyday use and exchange values.  As Peter Pels explains, “fetishism says things can be seen to communicate their own messages.  The fetish’s materiality is not transcended by any voice foreign to it: To the fetishist, the thing’s materiality itself is supposed to speak and act” (Pels, 1998: 94).

Eventually, the straightedge community found other ways to represent straightedge and the X besides X’ing up at shows, including straightedge tattoos with X’s, various types of t-shirts proclaiming such slogans as “True til’ Death”, “drug free”, and “its ok not to drink”, as well as other artistic representations of the X as in the crossed gavel logo of the NYHC band Judge.  The X as a material object continued to take new forms, whether through print on a t-shirt, or permanent ink on ones body.  Straightedge tattoos are considered the most profound statement of commitment, with many straightedge youth getting the X’d up design on their hands tattooed permanently, showing their lifelong commitment to the X.  As Aaron Bedard, the singer of popular Boston straightedge band Bane sings, “I’ll be here tomorrow, I’ll be here next year, just like this X on the back of my hand, not going nowhere”. 

The artforms of tattooing and fashion in the straightedge movement all serve a traditional Gellian purpose; that is they are produced in order to act upon the world and to act upon other persons.  Gell writes, “I view art as a system of action, intended to change the world rather than encode symbolic propositions about it” (Gell, 1998, 6).  While the artwork has a particular effect on the subject whose body it is represented on, that of a material contract, the X has its own agency to influence those who view it and understand its meaning.  As sociologist Robert T. Wood explains, “iterations of the X are based upon past subjective expressive human activity.  These iterations take on an objective existence and ultimately may coerce future straightedgers who apprehend the symbol and its meanings” (Wood, 2006: 128).  Thus, the various artforms of the straightedge movement act simultaneously as contracts between the object and subject in addition to being social agents which act upon others.  The X, “embodies complex intentionalities and mediate(s) social agency” (Hoskins, 2006: 75).

The tattoos and clothing which have become part-and-parcel of the straightedge movement act not only on the viewer but also on the individual who is displaying the iconography, whether through ink on the skin, marker on the hand, or clothing on the body.  It is their body which becomes the ‘canvas’.  For the straightedger who uses these artforms to openly express his or her lifestyle choice, the body itself becomes a piece of art.  The subject/object distinction becomes further blurred, producing instead one piece of art - that of the living person.  As Gell explains, “in fact anything whatsoever could, conceivably, be an art object from the anthropological point of view, including living persons, because the anthropology theory of art (which we can roughly define as the ‘social relations in the vicinity of objects mediating social agency’) merges seamlessly with the social anthropology of persons and their bodies” (Gell, 1998: 7). 

Indeed, straightedge has not been a passing phenomenon as bands influenced by Mackaye and Minor Threat continued to adhere to its values, many times on a much larger and intense scale than in the past, as in the cases of Strife and Earth Crisis, both linked to militant forms of the movement that occasionally preached violence against those who were not edge.  Nevertheless, the straightedge movement remains inextricably linked to the hardcore community, as the live shows of bands that are outspoken about their straightedge ideals usually convey the enthusiasm and passion for the beliefs that both band and audience share.  It is these beliefs that are embodied in the physical symbol of the movement, the X.    
                                   
 
works cited

Azzerad, Michael. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991. Boston: Little, Brown, 2001. 

Haenfler, Ross. Straight Edge: Clean-Living Youth, Hardcore Punk, and Social Change. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2006. 

Kopytoff, Igor. "The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process." The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Ed. Arjun Appadurai. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986. 64-94. 

Pels, Peter. "The Spirit of Matter: on Fetish, Rarity, Fact and Fancy." Border Fetishisms: Material Objects in Unstable Spaces. Ed. Patricia Spyer. New York: Routledge, 1998. 91-121. 

Steiner, Christopher. "Rights of Passage: on the Liminal Identity of Art in the Border Zone." The Empire of Things: Regimes of Value and Material Culture. Ed. Fred Myers. Santa Fe: School of American Research P, 2001. 207-231. 

Taussig, Michael. The Devil and Commodity Fetishism in South America. Chapel HIll: University of North Carolina P, 1980. 

Wood, Robert T. Straightedge Youth: Complexity and Contradictions of a Subculture. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2006.