This word has been in or around my consciousness for many
years, yet today it seems to have permeated me and in combination with some
fairly powerful revelations of my misogynistic rearing I have come to notice
how much I have been ruled by this word or rather its impact on my being.
Girls do and girls do not. I certainly wasn’t raised a
princess, more of a subordinate to my 4 male siblings and father. Now, there is
no way that any of them would feel that I was raised as less; I was loved,
taken care of and played an important role in my family.
What they (my male relations) probably do not or did not
realise is that the undertones, pre suppositions and general demeanour towards
women started me on the back foot; I’m sure my mother didn’t realise this
either being under the same rule set.
You see, I watched a porno for the first time when I was
about 6 or 7. It was a cartoon porno but still portrayed a woman being
penetrated explicitly by not only independent army dicks with walking balls but
monkeys as well. She pretended to like it. I pretended to know what it meant.
I overheard conversations of my brothers and their friends
talking about who they would fuck, why they wouldn’t fuck this chick unless she
had a bag on her head and what “hot” women look like.
I saw it on screens, in magazines, conversations and
observing my male counterparts in public. I saw it and felt it first hand when
I “bloomed” at age 11. I suddenly became interesting to men. I pretended to
like it. I thought I was meant to like it.
For my entire life I have been called beautiful, yet all I
wanted to be was “hot”. I wanted to be leered at the way my brother’s friends
leered at the hot girls at school. I wanted them to want me, not because I had
a great personality or I was beautiful. I wanted their lust, I wanted their
attention. I wanted nothing more than to be fuckable. I thought I was meant to
want it.
I well up as I write this. I’m disgusted to think I grew up
in a world where that was all I thought my value was, to be fucked. For men to
want to fuck me. I dieted so that I could be skinny and more men would want me.
I cut myself when the pain of looking like a grown woman at 15 was too much to
bear compared to the (what I thought) perfect girls who were short, skinny and
with perky boobs. They were fuckable. I was a big, friendly, giant and hated
it. Lucky I had big tits- my saving grace of fuckability. Sigh.
I once thought that my love hate relationship with my body
spawned from media and societal pressures and I guess in some way it has. What I
now know is that I was born a woman and raised to believe that that was somehow
a bear I had to cross. I was to watch the men play sport and laugh along when I
was called a spastic or unco for trying something new- I stopped trying. I was
to accept that men dictated my value. I was to accept that “boys will be boys”
when they spoke of my genitals, teased me while they gawked at my breasts and
treated my friends like sex objects. I secretly wished I was the sex object.
All that, it would seem was my reality. I actually never
knew that I needed or wanted feminism (or equal rights for those of you who
find that word abhorrent) because I was raised to think I was a strong, independent
woman. I could go get a job, I could vote, I could leave the house
unaccompanied and I wasn’t expected to get married right away. I thought that
the bra burners of my foremothers had done all the work and I was set free and
easy. All that “feminist” crap was for women who wanted world domination not
equality. Mm? I wonder where I learnt that one.
Despite identifying as Bi, I have never felt the same need
from a woman. I have never felt the need to be fuckable, yet as this is all I
have known I find dating women an interesting as unusual experience. I don’t
know where my value is anymore. I’m not sure what I’m meant to do if I’m not
trying to solely be the eye candy of my partner.
I reflect on the day I went from long luscious hair to a
shaved head. I instantly went off the “fuckable” radar and it was liberating.
People talked to me because they were curious and the energy of their
conversations were that of respect and curiosity rather than “how long will it
take me to bone her?”
I have enjoyed taking the immediate equation of sex out of
the picture and to be seen as a whole (yes my sexiness included) not as an
object of a man’s (or woman’s for that
matter) pleasure. I used to do pretty well anything to get the attention of a
man and like most women have been treated disgustingly by men willing to take
advantage of that.
Well, in some ways my “fuckability” has gone up. I now say “fuck
you” to those people who try and define me and others as objects. I say “fuck ‘em”
to the haters that assume females deserve less. I say “ fuck your beauty
standards” and dress however it suits me and I say “Fuck yeah” to the
incredible humans who have brought my voice to light on a subject that society
tells us should be in the dark….or back in the kitchen.
P.S A few bits that have inspired me lately. Worth watching.
