A Reaction to the Body

Chloe wrote two responses


The thing about being a woman is

When she told me she didn’t like being naked I thought it was funny and interesting, but not life changing. Now I wish the questionnaire we sent out was designed for girls and asked them questions like do you ever feel the places in between the sensory fields, what do the soles of your feet feel like or are you completely you whilst fucking?

I never thought of myself as one of those preachy girls with hairy armpits taking pictures of their vaginas and screaming at girls to love being a woman. But sometimes I forget to shave my armpits and it doesn’t bother me and I like being naked, and I liked reading Wetlands. Yeah, also I masturbate; over my boyfriend, in front of my boyfriend, out of boredom. I don’t talk about it, not because I don’t think women should do things like that, but because it isn’t remarkable. It happens, like when I piss or check my breasts for lumps or wake up and kiss my boyfriend on the cheek.

I think there is a particular discourse women adopt when talking about their bodies. It is shy/coy, overtly unrealistically sensuous or angry. They prototype of a woman shouting about her body is not one I want to fit.

I have been cautious of writing about my body because it is a tentative discourse. I will write about sex, about the way some one may make me feel; I am happy to write about environmental interactions and however they may affect me. But I feel nervous to approach the subject of the body alone.

I am not interested in the abject; I want to write about what I expel as little as I want to write about what enters me. I am interested instead in the stationary embodiment of me. What I am as an object alone.

Then come the facts, the height, the ribcage, the hairs on my stomach. Then comes the mush inside, the reds and the pulsing and constant source of liquid for spitting or squelching or cooling me off when I’m too hot. There’s the areas that beg to be touched, the insides of the wrists, the smooth of the back and the indentations of the waist. There are the areas designed for hands, and the zones designed for purposes. There are the matter of fact earlobes, itchy from jewellery. There’s the chipped nail varnish, the too long toe-nails. My knees, my scars from playing too rough when I was young. There’s the vulnerability of the openness of my long neck, a place that shies away from touch relentlessly. In between my legs there is heaven and hell. There is a goldmine dictating puberty, reproduction, old age, attraction. There’s hair that I grew that I used to exterminate. Corse and sweet my pubic hair nestles into me. Once banished now cherished. It stands 30% for my boyfriend’s sexual preference, 10% for my desire not to look like a child, 10% for my laziness and 50% for feeling sexy (in charge and at one with myself).  

The thing about being a lover is

My hands were not designed for holding yours, my feet were definitely not designed to be scratched by yours at night. My hair is not softer when you stroke it (this annoys me), and my lips are not always redder once kissed.

You do not complete me.

We are separate vessels, still beautiful apart. Maybe when I miss you I feel it in the pit of my stomach and when you upset me my eyes cry. But I have given you my trust, my secrets, I have loaned you part of mind forever- if I give you my body I am nothing tangible.

This need for distancing is not born out of my fear of you leaving me. I do not see my body as complete without you because I am scared I will collapse if we part. It is because I have learnt that humans are not physically dependent on emotional love.

During celibacy week I would have argued against this: my skin ached for you. I felt I needed your touch to nurture me, to set me free and engulf me. But like when we are kissing I am equally consuming you and being consumed, my body relies on you but stands without you.

Physical love and affection is an outlet for emotional love. If there is emotional love there must be the physical, it is therefore that only because I love you with my heart that I need you with my body. If we had never met my waist would not pine for you, my back would not feel death through feeling untouched.

I do not need you, I just fucking love having you.

My organs can work without compassion, my legs still walk if nobody thinks I am beautiful. My essence of spirit and standard of living may be lower, but I am an entity without you.

One thing I am conscious of as a woman and as a lover is that the female body by default must be entered, it must be the negative to the male’s positive. Sometimes this is all I want. But I am affectionate to antidote it, putting my arms around a neck in a hug so the gesture is of holding not being held or teasing you so it is understood that the celebration in my body is by invitation only.

As myself, being an amorous girl, I am conscious of the role of the minx. With a previous shy partner I took it upon myself to seduce him. The beginning of us was defined by me getting drunk and falling asleep with him inside me. After that I played every role necessary until sex was a cabaret and I couldn’t tell where the joy of his body ended and the joy of my performance began.

With you we took the time to learn each other tentatively, the full richness of the sensual unfurling at my feet. I am not defined as the aggressor or the passive.

You love my body for its flaws, and the true depths of my self-consciousness uncoil because of this.