This piece has existed in many forms for quite some time. I originally wrote a version of it for me I when I was trying my best to untangle some things I kept returning to in those stare out the train window, counting sheep at 3am moments when I fall into myself. The first version was handled with care by my partner and writing community which gave me the confidence to share it with a creative writing class I was in at uni. There is something about this one that feels like I have tapped into a new honesty I always thought I was engaging with, in my work, but was actually still hiding behind some veil of safety. This piece is a long one, so I will be publishing it in three excerpts. I hope my words, in an unveiling of the truths I am ashamed of, gives you that final permission you were waiting for to reveal yours.
Acid dripping from the ceiling splits hair and cook’s flesh. The mirrored doors of the wardrobe grant an obstruction-free view of the show. Naked, barely discernible from pale pink bed sheets, awoken by the yawns of swollen fleshy slugs nurturing homes built beneath lower eyelashes,
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Igive in to her demand for a game.
“Huh! You blinked first,” she exclaims amongst maniacal cackles.
It doesn’t matter how many times she wins. She’s never satiated. A hunger matching that of every daughter raised by the padlocked snack cupboard mothers of the 2000’s drives her. Hair is straightened, collar bones are stuck out, stomach is sucked in, lip corners stretched to cheekbones. Satisfied by my efforts, she gifts me the costume of the day.
Stockings worn three days in a row struggle to contain thighs. Mind ponders the feeling of them. How funny, to spend 12 hours a day in tight itchy socks that climb from toe to belly button. How peculiar to forget their existence and then abruptly remember. How odd to experience an inability to conjure a thought not connected to that synthetic suffocation1
I silence the screams of my pores.
I’ve only recently started wearing stockings again,
the Sydney winter and the echoes of my
mothers proclamation of the importance of
hiding bare legs, (because what an embarrassment
to be found out to have a body), has gotten to
me as I’ve aged. Iwear the same cheap pairs
Iused to wear under my pleated school skirt.
Ithink of Lolita when Iwear them in my twenties.
Iresent how desirable they make me feel, how
desired Ifelt as a little girl. The memory of
that specific itch in my crotch after struggling
to pull them up after P.E has stuck.
Who Iwas then lingers. I’ve tried my best
to stomp her down the shower drain with my
thrown up dinner more times than Iwould
care to admit. She’s still too thick of a
force to slip away with my lavender scented shampoo.
On my birthday two years before the one
Ianticipate now, a glassie Imet working at
the pub asked how attached Iwas to the
particular pair of black stockings Ichose to
wear to my party. The stockings he gripped
under the table while Iblew out candles on
the chocolate mud cake he bought.
“Oh, they were like ten bucks at Priceline, it’s whatever.2
He proceeds to rip the tights from the crotch before shoving his dirty fingers inside of me. It stings like lemon juice in a paper cut and my hips buck asking for more.
Pleasure follows Punishment, Fulfilment of Promise follows Flagellation, Heaven follows Sacrifice.
Ihold this boy in the palm of my hand and the dribble of my cum on his bedsheets affirms a knowing of that.
Ihave a body and I know how to offer it and he knows how to take it.
He asks me to open my mouth.
He asks me to kneel with my back to the wall.
He asks me to look up at him while he bruises the back of my throat.
Ihave been thinking about how Iused
this as another excuse to put off
visiting the family dentist.
Iremember focusing on how far
away the bathroom was from the bedroom,
how far away the towel existed that
I needed to wipe him off me.
Ifell asleep to the lullaby of a 4/4 heartbeat.
My head rose and fell at the whim of the
body of a man entitled to mine.
I made him sleep in the wet patch of me
and the satisfaction of knowing that
still makes me smile.Iwonder if my
blood still colours his mattress.
Tears stick my eyelashes to my face. Comfort in the thought that my body can achieve the function it is made for turns my sweat to WD40.
He is a deferred engineering student, saving to ski in Canada for a season. He likes to scuba dive and collects rocks he keeps displayed on a shelf above his bed. He is teaching himself to DJ. He rolls me cigarettes in lavender scented papers. He tells me he gets hard every time he walks into the staff room because he can smell my perfume.
He is the exact kind of guy my parents would love me to bring home, that being any man at all.
He never lets me take the bins out at work. He carries band aids in his pocket just in case. He peels back the wrapping so delicately, taking time to consider where the perfect place to adhere will be. He administers a kiss upon my forehead post operation, so gently, surprise cox's my chin. ‘Thank you’ escapes me like a fly at a Barbecue lunch, too quick for the resounding smack of my father’s hand on the dining table. Iflinch. Bruises on my hips matching his grip are mere centimetres away from this soft touch.
Marks I asked him to leave in swatches of blue and purple hide underneath high waisted jeans designed to accentuate the smallest part of m3
He loved me,
Ihated him,
he loved me,
Ihated him,
he would hate me,
I wanted to love him.
…
Wait, didn’t She Shoot Andy Warhol? An analysis of the development of the concept of Compulsory Heterosexuality through the ages, from the ‘Scum Manifesto’ to the ‘Lesbian Master Doc’
The forever evolving Historiography of the conceptof Compulsory Heterosexuality offers a rich landscape of analysis for feminists when one considers that each contextually specific iterationprovides insight into the feminist demands of the time period.Compulsory Heterosexuality engages Foucaultian docility and applies a feminist understanding that exposes the complexities of attraction, sexuality and desire experienced by individuals assigned female at birth and the ways they engage in self policing on both corporael and psychological levels in order to be tolerated and survive.This essay will traverse an analysis of three texts that explore Compulsory Heterosexuality from distinct feminist era’s and positionality’sincluding Solanas’ 1967 ‘SCUM Manifesto’, Adrienne Rich’s 1980 essay ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience’ and Anjeli Luz’s 2018 ‘Lesbian Master Doc’.
The above strike throughs show where you have been particularly esoteric and italics show where your long sentences lose their way. It is important for an essay to be easily understandable and succinct.
I can see where you are heading with this thesis and I am concerned that this has already been done before. Quick reminder, originality is a requirement clearly outlined in the rubric.
If you would like to discuss further, my office hours are 3am to 5am every second Thursday in a building a 45 minute walk away from the light rail stop.
Best wishes!
…
1
Sara Blakely, CEO of Spanx, was the first female billionaire, following the creation of the now infamous product. Blakely adored the flat stomach her waist height stockings created underneath the skirts she wore as a door to door saleswoman and wanted a shorter version for summer. Miss Blakely’s story of #GIRLBOSS white feminism is one of many narratives I feel guilty for celebrating as a kid. I still buy them, but at least now Audre Lorde’s ‘you can’t dismantle the master’s house with his tools’ reverberates around my head while I wear them.
2
Opaque Black stockings now sell for $16 at Woolworths. Mr Banducci, former CEO of the supermarket was quoted “You know I do this with good intent” before walking out on an interviewer making enquiries on price gouging. I can’t afford to shop at Woolies. I am anxiously awaiting my tax return so that I can treat myself to a jar of Merideth’s goats cheese. Mr Banducci has since retired.
3
C.S Lewis, in his famous series ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’, revealed Susan’s departure from the magical realm and via metaphor ‘childhood’ in the final book, with the disappointing line “Oh Susan! She’d interested in nothing nowadays except nylons, and lipstick and invitations.” During the second world war, the time setting of the books, women, although rarely interacting with man and experiencing life threatening poverty, continued to prioritise a performance of femineity by painting Gravy browning on their legs to mimic the look of stockings. I know I would have painted that stinky stuff on my legs as well and I care about lipstick, nylons and invitations more than I should. I am absolutely terrified that the amount of time I spend thinking about these things stops me from curing cancer and acquiring world peace.
