Category Archives: feminism
How to Look Like a Victoria’s Secret Angel
“How to be a Victoria’s Secret Angel” Jezebel’s banner teased. “Not that you can be one. You can’t,” ran the verdict following the hopeful headline.
“What people don’t realize is that they’re rarer by far than superstar athletes,” proclaimed Ed Razek, Limited’s chief marketing officer (they also own VS). “The numbers of people who can do this are probably under 100 in the world.”
After all, angels must be skinny and buxom, but also fit enough looking to believably hold up heavy wings. Hard to do all three at the same time (or even two).
Sometime-angel, Angela Lindvall told the New York Times she jumped rope and ate nothing but spinach, chard and kale to lose 20 pounds, post-pregnancy, to “make weight.” Others hire personal trainers, take many-mile runs, do squats and lunges, and generally “kill ourselves,” as one put it.
This Thanksgiving angel Adriana Lim ate no solid foods — only powdered egg-enriched protein shakes. She then added twice-a-day workouts. Finally, no food at all 12 hours before the show, which helps her lose up to eight pounds.
And the resulting body is what all women are supposed to look like? What sort of completely insane society do we live in?
The models “kill themselves” for a few months to acquire angel status. Yet the message is that all women can look like them by simply dawning VC bras and panties.
Much of advertising works by making people feel inadequate – which comes easily when an unachievable ideal is placed before us. But Victoria’s Secret offers a product to help! Really?
The message must be working. Sales are up.
A little VS can add some fun. But don’t stress if you don’t look like an angel. Most of the time, the angels don’t either.
Originally posted on January 6, 2011 by BroadBlogs
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“Bitches and Dudes,” a.k.a. “Women and Men” on College Campuses
Researchers looking at the most commonly used words to describe women and men on college campuses made some interesting findings.
Labels for college men: guy, dude, boy (as in “one of my boys”), stud/homey
Labels for college women: babe, chick, slut, bitch
See a difference?
The words describing men are fairly neutral. The most negative term may be “boy,” implying immaturity, not manhood. But the phrase “one of my boys” is endearing and inclusive. “Homey” prompts thoughts of ghetto life – low class. But it also suggests streetwise toughness – a positive for men.
Stud is very positive, and was likely used a bit more ten years ago when this study was done. Player and pimp might be more common now, but they all create similar imagery: a sexually active man who is potent and adept at attracting women, getting women to submit sexually — and in so doing conquering them. Powerful imagery.
And words for women? They are all sexualized. “Babe” and “chick” indicate sexual attractiveness, alerting us to how important beauty is for women.
“Babe” infantilizes, but also suggests endearment. The term can also describe men whom women are close to. “Chick” may have come from the word chic, meaning fashionable. But thoughts of a baby bird do suggest immaturity, with the added hint of animal status.
“Slut” is the counterpart to stud, but without the celebratory salute – quite the opposite, in fact. “Bitch” can have a similar meaning as in, “A bitch sleeps with everyone but me.” Of course, “extremely unpleasant personality” can be an alternate meaning.
When men seem so interested in getting sex it seems odd to use words that shame women’s sexuality and contribute to sexual dysfunction. Perhaps it all makes conquest, and the ensuing rise in self-regard, that much sweeter.
On the whole, terms describing women are much more negative than those labeling men.
Language affects our minds, it guides how we see the world and ourselves. For more on this, see my post on how language shapes us.
When words describe women as sexual, secondary, and degraded, both women and men come to see them that way, at least unconsciously. We see the effects when less evolved men easily throw these sticks and stones at women, or when too many women swallow the terms, and without much of a whimper.
Originally posted on February 4, 2011 by BroadBlogs
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From Two Cents a Day to Earning a Living
A Bangladeshi woman who skillfully made beautiful stools lived her life in dire poverty, making only two cents a day. Why? Because she had no money to buy bamboo and was forced to borrow from a money-lender who demanded she sell her finished stools back to him at a price that was so low that two cents profit was all she could manage.
This is what she explained to Muhammad Yunus, a U.S.-trained economist who wandered around the local village asking people what lay behind their plight. He wondered why the economic theories he had studied at Vanderbilt weren’t working in Bangladesh.
When he asked the skilled stool maker if she could earn more if she were freed from the moneylender, she said, “Yes I can.” Finding other villagers in the same dilemma, Professor Yunus gathered 42 people who needed a mere 68 cents each to pay-off their moneylenders, buy materials, and begin selling their wares to the highest bidder.
With this small loan profits soared from two cents to $1.25 a day, which in Bangladesh was enough to pull the villagers out of dire poverty. And so began what we now call microfinance and Grameen or “Village” bank.
Grameen does business the reverse of custom. Most banks lend to the rich but Grameen lends to the poor, most banks lend to men but Grameen lends to women, most banks lend to the literate but Grameen lends to the non-literate, most banks make big loans but Grameen makes small ones, and while most banks require collateral, Grameen does not.
Today Grameen Bank has lifted millions of people out of poverty, serving more than 100 million of the world’s poorest families. And Muhammad Yunus has won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
Check out microfinance and Grameen Bank as a way to aid the worlds poorest. Make a donation with KIVA or volunteer with RESULTS.
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What Do Top Model and Hard Core Porn Have in Common?
What do hard core porn and reality show, Top Model, have in common? Hard core pornography often gets the viewer off on women’s suffering. So does Top Model.
In the first episode the models underwent Brazilian bikini waxes on camera. As Jennifer Pozner described it, “Cameras flitted back and forth from their pained facial expressions to their nearly nude legs spread wide in the air, while the audio lingered at length on the models’ blood-curdling screams as hot wax was spread over their genitals and their pubic hair was ripped off.”
The only thing missing was the close-up.
Pozner went on to describe how contestants have been asked to drop from platforms onto surfaces with little cushioning, or to sit on ice sculptures in freezing temperatures. One model was asked to pose in a pool of icy water – shaking, shivering, and begging for a break – until her body began to shut down from hypothermia and she was rushed to a hospital.
If pain and suffering isn’t imminent, models are asked to act as though it is, coached to look “scared! Something’s chasing you! Something’s coming to get you!” Scared, “but pretty,” that is.
Host, Tyra Banks, has also asked models to act like they are in pain: chest pain, fingers slammed in a door, strangulation… A signature pose was suggested for one model, “Look like you’re getting punched.”
Beautiful, sexy women in fear and pain. All reminiscent of hard-core pornography: In the popular video, “Two in the Seat #3,” an actress is asked by an off-camera interviewer what will happen. She replies, “I’m here to get pounded.” In other pornos women are hit or raped. Too-large objects are inserted as actresses scream out. Sometimes pain is registered in penetration. Even when suffering isn’t purposely placed in the script, directors don’t bother to edited it out, suggesting viewers’ taste. More and more, the new edge in porn involves cruelty.
I worry about a society that develops a taste for women’s torment. Or for anyone’s distress. As pain becomes eroticized, some develop a desire for their own suffering. My students sometimes talk of getting turned on by a little D/s in the bedroom. This is no surprise. We’re so bombarded with eroticized images of dominance that I suspect few in this culture fail to get turned on by it.
Still, depending on how far it goes, violent sex play can lead to broken skin, bruising and infections, even as the point of pain is to warn us away from doing what it is harmful to the body.
We worry about women being battered. Should we worry when women come to crave their own abuse?
And, surrounded by images of eroticized dominance and violence, and sexily submitting to such acts, does male domination, itself, become sexy?
First posted on November 22, 2010 by BroadBlogs
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The War on Women: Gendercide
A Saudi woman is beheaded for “witchcraft.” Girls are disappearing in India.
Women are “disappeared” in so many ways.
Non-witches in Saudi Arabia may still be “honor killed” for being with boys, for being raped, or for adultery.
So women are more expendable than men.
As they were during the witch hunts of Europe which lasted from 1450 to 1750, resulting in tens of thousands of killings. Three-quarters of the executed were women.
Steven Katz, author of The Holocaust in Historical Context, says,
The overall evidence makes plain that the growth — the panic — in the witch craze was inseparable from the stigmatization of women.
Continuing, Katz quotes The Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), published by Catholic Inquisition authorities in 1485-86.
All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman. … What else is woman but a foe to friendship, an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil nature, painted with fair colours…
For the sin of being “woman” so many were killed in two German villages that only one woman per town was left alive at one point of the witch hunt.
Echoing ancient Germany, in some Indian communities few women can be found today. ABC news recently reported:
Fifty thousand girl fetuses are aborted every month in India. It is a staggering number. And it has created whole villages where there are hardly any women. We went to one such village in the province of Haryana. Everywhere we looked, we saw boys, young men, old men, but very, very few women. It was unsettling, especially because we knew this was not some freak of nature, but a result of the deliberate extermination of girls.
As we all know, China faces a deficit of the female sex, too.
In both China and India girls are a drain on family finances. Indian brides require huge dowries which can run their families huge debts. And the eldest son is “Social Security” in China. No son? No one to care for you in old age.
Currently, right-wingers are staging a war on women in the U.S., pushing to block the cancer screenings and tests for HIV that Planned Parenthood provides. They seek to prevent access to birth control and abortion that could save women’s lives. And they want to cut nutrition programs for women and children. Women just aren’t that important.
Patriarchy too often rids the world of women and finds each man smothering the feminine within, whether a stance, a way of walking, a way of talking, an emotion… If he does not he will be accused of being a woman, a girl, girly, girly man, sissy… or he may be called woman-like: fag or gay. Pretty awful, huh?
And so the feminine is “disappeared” in male-dominated societies and within men, themselves, while sexist women and men bolster the cause even as egalitarian men and women fight the good fight.
Where misogyny wins no one is better off.
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Men Who Hate Pretty Women
Let’s say I see a woman and she looks really pretty and really clean and sexy and she’s giving off very feminine, sexy vibes. I think, wow I would love to make love to her, but I know she’s not interested. It’s a tease. A lot of times a woman knows that she’s looking really good and she’ll use that and flaunt it and it makes me feel like she’s laughing at me and I feel degraded…
If I were actually desperate enough to rape somebody it would be from wanting that person, but also it would be a very spiteful thing, just being able to say ‘I have power over you and I can do anything I want with you’ because really I feel that they have power over me just by their presence. Just the fact that they can come up to me and just melt me makes me feel like a dummy, makes me want revenge.
When talking to men about women, Michael Kimmel, one of the nation’s leading researchers on men and masculinity, found that many men’s reactions became surprisingly aggressive. He cites a Men’s Health survey which found that one third of men believed women should be reported for sexual-harassment for their provocative dress. Or, a college chaplain claimed, “The way young women dress in the spring constitutes a sexual assault upon every male within eyesight of them.”
Kimmel says the anger comes from men feeling entitled to women’s bodies. And he says that’s not so surprising given all the “come-on” scantily clad images that surround them, whether in mainstream media or porn. According to Kimmel:
Guys believe that they are entitled to women’s bodies, entitled to sex. Unfortunately for them, a significant number of women don’t see it that way. And when entitlement is thwarted guys seek revenge.
Curiously, while psychologists, feminists and the legal system see male aggression as the initiation of violence, guys describe it not as initiation but as retaliation. What are they retaliating against? The power that women have over them.
All this came as a shock to me. I had known that many men love seeing sexy women on the street, in a bar, at work… I hadn’t known that others found the same visions torturous, as they craved what they couldn’t have. And resented the “rejection.” Maybe some men feel both ways, pleasure and resentment all at once.
The opposing perspectives are striking. Men who enjoy sexy women often feel powerful, believing the women choose to dress alluringly for their pleasure, to please men. Some even think women dress provocatively to feel sexual pleasure in feeling desired. Men who feel this way are turned on, and not angry.
Whether experienced as pleasure or pain, an awful lot of men take women’s appearance personally, thinking it’s about them.
Yet most women dress for their own self-esteem, leading to a double-bind when it comes to dressing sexy: damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Women feel tremendous pressure to be beautiful because society rewards them. Their self-worth often depends on it. But then women can end up objectified — being seen as all about sex and little else, or (now we know) leaving some men angry at them.
What’s a girl to do? What’s a guy to do?
Here are some thoughts. Maybe you have some ideas, too.
Some men learn that they should have power over women so that when it’s the other way around, they may feel angry and resentful. See women as your equals — neither less-than nor better-than — and respect them.
Some men come to feel entitled to women’s bodies. Know that we are all entitled to our own bodies, first and foremost.
To those who think that women flaunt their beauty as they laugh and degrade you, know that that’s not what’s happening. Women are simply trying to do what society tells them to do: look beautiful.
Many women and men unfortunately learn to see women in one-dimensional ways that are based on narrow notions of “beauty.” How about expanded vision? Why not enjoy beauty in its many forms and see women as people rather than sexy objects. And instead of being angry at women who aren’t interested in you, see the beauty of those who are.
A commentor calling himself Ocelot wrote an interesting reaction to this that I published, with permission, as a blog post. “Seeing Women as Magic and Evil” offers help for men struggling with this issue.
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Women’s Sexuality in Islam
By Dania Jafar
Islam represses women’s sexuality, right? Think again.
We all see Muslim women draped in head-to-toe burqas, or read about 10-year-olds being married off to 50-year-old men, or cringe at women being stoned for adultery or knifed to death by family members in “honor killings” for such crimes as fornication or being with a man without a chaperone – or for being raped. (The stain of sexual impurity must be removed from the family, it is thought.) In some parts of North Africa and the Middle East women’s genitals are ritually cut or removed in the name of Islam.
In such a world, whose sexuality wouldn’t be repressed?
But nothing you just read has anything to do with Islam. All of the above are cultural practices that are not approved in the Quran.
Unfortunately, a lack of understanding has created mistaken beliefs about women and sexuality in Islam, says scholar and feminist Pınar İlkkaracan. And the confusion exists among Muslim and non-Muslim, alike. As she explains (paraphrased):
The classical figh texts of early Islam’s legal jurisprudence kept with their patriarchal societies and ignored the gender equality of the Quran. Today, many on the religious right claim that customary practices that subjugate women are Islamic, and use them to control women and their sexuality. This has led to an incorrect portrayal of scripture both in Muslim societies and in the West.
What does the Quran say? Women have the right to consent to marriage. But ten-year-old girls are not old enough to understand and give consent, so they should not be given to older men. Holy Scripture says that adulterers (male and female) should be lashed, not stoned. But there must be four witnesses, otherwise a woman’s word must be accepted. And genital cutting was practiced long before Islam arose. There’s nothing about it in the Quran.
Even veiling is largely misunderstood. The scripture declares, “Say to the believing women that they guard their private parts, and reveal not their outward adornment and let them cast their veils over their bosoms (24:30-31).”
This scripture simply advises modesty. But what is considered modest varies from place to place. That is cultural. There is nothing in the Quran about full body covering. Or even about veiling your hair.
And covering can be viewed as a good thing with women seen as precious gems, shielded from the unpleasant stares of strangers. Covering can also be experienced as a positive affirmation of devotion to God.
Additionally, Islam stresses the equal status of a man and woman and by no means deems one less than the other. The attitude of the Quran and Muslim scholars bear witness to “the fact that woman is, at least, as vital to life as man himself, and that she is not inferior to him nor is she one of the lower species,” according to Hammuda Abdul-Ati, PH.D. This is also demonstrated in the first word of the Quran, “Iqra,” which commands all humans to search for, and equip themselves with knowledge. God doesn’t differentiate between man and woman and tells us that both are of equal importance.
In contradiction to popular belief, Islam takes a positive approach to women’s sexuality. It affirms their sexual desire and right to its fulfillment in a responsible way, after marriage.
Consider these quotes from the great mufti ‘Sheikh Ahmad Kutty’:
Now coming to mutual obligations of spouses, it is lucidly and beautifully expressed in the following verses: And cohabit with them on terms of utmost decency and fairness (An-Nisa’ 4: 19); And they (women) have rights similar to those of men in fairness (Al-Baqarah 2: 228).
According to the Qur’an, the purpose of marriage is to attain sukun (tranquility and peace; see for instance verses 30:21; 7:189), which can never be achieved through impulsive sexual fulfillment unless it is accompanied by mutual love, affection, caring, and sharing, which are all part and parcel of a fulfilling and productive marriage relationship.
In Islam, man and woman in general, as well as husband and wife in particular, are equal partners; just as a husband has needs to which a wife is expected to be responsive, a wife also has needs to which a husband should be responsive. To be successful, marriage must be based on mutual reciprocity and consensual relationship.
Yes, Islam sees women’s sexuality as beautiful, natural, and fulfilling.
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Modesty Objectifies Women Says Nude Egyptian
Posed in nothing but sheer black polkadot stockings, red patent leather shoes and a red hair clip, Egyptian blogger, Aliaa Mahdy struck a blow to the objectification of women.
Strange. We usually hear that nudity objectifies.
Nudity and modesty don’t mean anything in themselves. The question is: what are they creating in any particular situation?
And Mahdy believes that strict modesty expectations in Egypt help to create “a society where women are nothing but sex objects harassed on a daily basis by men who know nothing about sex or the importance of a woman.”
But how could modesty objectify? Consider the most extreme example:
Women who live in Taliban-controlled provinces of Afghanistan are expected to cover themselves head to toe with mesh across their eyes. There, a woman’s ankle is thought incredibly sexual, as are her arms and face and eyes and hair. Every part of her body becomes sexualized through extreme modesty.
But the entire body needn’t be covered for this surprising effect to arise. One young Christian woman found that less radical modesty objectified her, too:
Modesty taught me that what I looked like was what mattered most of all. Not what I thought. Not how I felt. Not what I was capable of doing.
Modesty made me objectify myself. I was so aware of my own potential desirability at all times that I lost all other ways of defining myself.
Supposedly women should be modest to protect themselves from rape or sexual harassment. Yet “immodest dress” does not force men to rape. And sexual-harassment runs rampant in places where women are fully covered.
Rebecca Chiao tracks sexual harassment and assault in Egypt where she says both are ubiquitous, “Every time you walk out of the house, you are under attack – physically and verbally,” she says. “The reports we get are graphic and angry.”
And as reported in The Guardian:
In a 2008 survey, 83% of women reported having been sexually harassed. Almost three-quarters of Egyptian women who said they had been harassed were veiled and 98% of foreigners said they had been intimidated or groped.
Sexual harassment is a huge problem in Afghanistan too, a place where women couldn’t be more covered. Last July Afghan women marched against the widespread harassment women face there. Noorjahan Akbar, who organized the protest said:
Every woman I know, whether she wears a burqa or simply dresses conservatively, has told me stories of being harassed in Afghanistan. The harassment ranges from comments on appearance to groping and pushing. Even my mother, who is a 40-plus teacher always dressed in her school uniform, arrives home upset almost every day because of the disgusting comments she receives.
These women are sexually harassed despite modesty. But then, the puritanical focus seems to actually define women primarily as sexual beings.
Meanwhile, when women work to broaden themselves, punishment may be administered via a convenient – and hypocritical – appeal to the honor of virginity which modesty supposedly guards.
At one point Egypt’s military sought to suppress women’s voices and power by stripping activists of their clothing and performing “virginity tests” by which two fingers were inserted into their vaginas. Sexual assault parading as a test of “honor”! Yet this brutality was really a tactic to humiliate and silence, observed Mona Eltahawy of The Guardian.
Women journalists are clear models of empowerment so it’s no surprise that they are under attack. So much so that Reporters Sans Frontieres recommended media stop sending female journalists to cover Egypt after two high profile sexual assaults.
No wonder nudity and sexuality arise as political protest in this atmosphere. Eltahawy of The Guardian continues:
When a woman is the sum total of her headscarf and hymen – that is, what’s on her head and what is between her legs – then nakedness and sex become weapons of political resistance.
Modesty isn’t itself a problem. Many women choose modesty for reasons they find meaningful and significant. Modesty becomes a problem when an obsessive focus on women as sex lies behind it.
Reposted on Daily Kos (Spotlight)
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Community Bullies Rape Victim
Last month Penn State’s Defensive Coordinator, Jerry Sandusky, was accused of sexually assaulting young boys. After the allegations became public one of the alleged victims became the target of bullying at Central Mountain High School in Mill Hall, Pa., where he had been an all-star athlete.
The young man, called “Victim One” in court records, says fellow students and even the high school football coach (who is also Assistant Principal) made verbal attacks and threats of violence after allegations went public.
When his mother reported the abuse, the school simply advised, “Go home and forget about it.” And in fact, the school’s Principal initially tried to keep Victim One from reporting Sandusky’s alleged assaults in the first place, his mother says.
Victim One’s mother has now pulled her son out of school.
In a similar case, last year fourteen-year-old Samantha Kelly became a victim of bullying which was so intense that she committed suicide. Once again, the bullying arose after her mother reported the rape (it’s unclear whether statutory or forcible) and when it became public after the local Fox News affiliate identified Kelly by name.
So sad that sometimes the community gangs up on rape victims while protecting the perpetrators.
Yet another example of the “entitlement-silence-protection” phenomenon that is all a part of rape culture.
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Past life
by Joy Farber @ littletreefarber
The scene though far removed remains vivid in my mind.
Images pulse in front of me like morse code.
A little girl– afraid– watches mute as acts that will shape her identity, and behavior for much of her life are committed.
The blue, glossy lockers are fixed to the walls outside the classrooms behind, and to the left. A few trees are scattered, and caged– not more than overgrown household plants on the cement to her right– creating the illusion of nature on the dilapidated school campus.
Two older boys– familiar to her only through her few “popular” attractive friends come running up behind her, laughing. At first she doesn’t see their faces– but eleven years later they are clear– burned into her mind.
She had switched from the skimpy tank tops and tight pants– her dress code of the year before– to a more comfortable outfit of oversized sweatshirts, and baggy men’s pants.
Before there was time to react– the sweatshirt was being pulled over her head. He stopped it at her face so she couldn’t see her assailants– looping his arms through hers, he held her there– her flailing no match for his strength.
His partner ran to the front, and reached out his hands. She felt a clumsy, uncomfortable grabbing at her chest. There wasn’t much to hold onto, but he tried his best– as if his failure to find developed breasts encouraged him to dig deeper.
She stood there, frozen as their laughter, and footsteps faded into the distance, and the remainder of the day was spent in silent waiting. How long would it be until people were talking– and what would they say?
The attention filled her with shame, and embarrassment. There was nowhere to escape. An older friend walked her home, stopping half way to kiss her. She had never kissed a boy she liked– just the ones that wanted her– and never asked permission.
Whether or not she attended school the next few days wasn’t important. When she did return, her pants were bigger, her hair was shorter, the sunglasses she wore in the morning didn’t come off, and the people she had associated with the previous week were replaced by the two “outcasts” a grade above her. Together they built a life– it was new, unfamiliar, but it felt safe. Her response now would be a simple “sorry, I’m gay.”
The words became reality for her, and with them she felt protected.
She had assumed that telling all the boys in school when they gathered the courage to make their advances that she was gay would be a deterrent.
For the first little while, she succeeded in deflecting the attention that had made her hate them all. Those stupid, evil people who were only out for themselves, with no regard for the lives they may damage. Rage welled up inside, insulating her– the hot blinding flashes of anger somehow made it all hurt a little less.
To her horror, and dismay she realized soon after, however that this new identity would not do what she wished it would. While the physical attacks had stopped– the words still cut, sharper than knives right through her.
That one who had walked her home, unwilling to admit defeat appeared on the football field. No one else was there. They locked eyes, and there was nowhere to run. “So what if you’re a lesbian. Pretend my dick is a tittie, and suck it” he whispered into her ear. She could feel the heat, and moisture on his breath so close to her face.
She had no choice after trying, and failing time and time again– but to remove herself completely. She changed names, changed schools, and dove further into the new life she made for herself.
Love would fix all her problems, would cure the feeling of self loathing that inhabited her daily, would make her whole. And for two years she proved this. She met Elena at an amusement park. The place full of other people, lost and looking for love. The black boots, and white tube socks were the first things she saw. Walking slowly, slightly drunk through the crowd– the next thing she saw were those eyes. Golden, with a small ring of green around her pupils. They spoke of the pain that she knew all too well, and of the longing for love that they shared.
They were happy in their secret life together for a while– content in knowing that all they needed was each other. When Elena died– all hope for happiness was lost completely. Drugs, booze, one night stands with both women, and men, but nothing would make her feel whole again.
She ran from the truth, and continued to live the life that she had adopted years before. Thinking somehow that it would still fix her, that men would hurt her more than women could. She clung tight to it.
One day she met a man that saw right through her. She loved him, but there was nothing to like. The harshness of his tone, and unwillingness to let her be herself was painful– but he loved her, and that was all she needed.
He saw her for who she was. She felt exposed. It was uncomfortable, and in secret she still claimed her old identity, but from him she had to hide it. He didn’t like it, so she adapted. She made herself in to what he wanted.
Sex was always the interesting part.
She had read about it, listened in on conversations with her friends, seen it on TV, but when it happened in her life– it was much different. She felt the chill of the moist grass on her lower back. She leaned up against the tree, and pulled down her stockings. They were covered, and protected by the darkness around them. Her partner looked at her, but not for too long, and never in the eyes– she had her own reasons for that– and slid her face down between her thighs.
When it was all said and done, she didn’t feel much different. Perhaps she felt more confident, more like a woman– but these feelings didn’t last. It was more out of obligation than anything else. She was in a relationship, and when you’re in a relationship you have sex. That is that.
Years later when she had her first experience with a man it wasn’t much different. The light was dim through the brown floral pattern curtains. There were other people in the house, just outside the door, drinking rum in plastic cups in the kitchen. They all lived there, but the house didn’t belong to them. The sheets were pulled up– it was daytime, and she felt awkward, vulnerable, exposed. She was six feet tall, and way past slender. These two things combined had always made her feel she wasn’t nearly feminine enough– and the situation she had found herself in only made it worse. If he was the man– she was supposed to be the woman, but she didn’t feel like a woman at all. Maybe a scared little girl– but her body resembled that of a pre–pubescent twelve year old boy.
Nothing felt different afterwards, the nervousness she felt before they had sex hadn’t faded at all. She felt strange to lay in bed looking at a man. It was new. It was uncomfortable. But she didn’t say anything. She kept seeing him– but when she was out with her friends, and the liquor had taken hold of her, she would sneak upstairs with attractive women– always the one in power. She was the one in control. Still seeking this life that no longer made sense. Neither of them did, really. Neither one felt authentic, but what else was there to do? Life had become about drinking, and sex. There were worse lives to live, she figured.
It was years before she had her first satisfying sexual experience. Laying in bed afterward, held in his large arms she heard herself say (as if she was watching from outside her body) how anyone could think that sex with a woman measured up to that was insane. She didn’t have to test it anymore– she felt real for the first time. She felt like herself– though to be honest she had never quite known herself. She continued to keep the old part, the false face alive. It had been with her so long, she was afraid to let it go. But with each relationship after that– it faded into the distance and became a shadow, a ghost of the past, as if it were never there at all.
She sat in class– a class she had never imagined taking. If there was one thing she had learned in her life, it was that she didn’t like women. They were all the same. She was bored with their cattiness, their petty jealousies, their cruel behavior– but here she sat.
It may have been reading, it may have been listening, it may have just been a day dream– but she was hit in the gut all of a sudden with a memory so old, and so painful she could barely breathe.
This is where it all made sense. All the running, all the fighting, all the labels, all the language, this way of living she had been going in and out of for years. She thought of the two boys in the hallway at school, when she was much younger. She clenched her jaw when she heard those words in her head, the ones she had fought so hard to forget. She looked at the women in her class– and she thought of the man she had been spending time with the past few weeks. It was all so clear to her then. However necessary she felt it was, this had all been a lie. A lie so intricate that she herself had believed it for years.
There is beauty, and freedom in the pain of breaking down, and being exposed.
The words have changed. “I’m straight.”
These four pieces were originally posted by Joy Farber @ littletreefarber
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