porn, sex, and the absense of intimacy

Please note this post contains some explicit content.

An ex-boyfriend of mine was addicted to porn. I didn’t like it, but like most women who don’t and get labelled a prude, I didn’t ever say much about it. I shared his computer that he used a lot for freelance work at home; all of our stuff on it was separate and he locked all of his files so I couldn’t see them. One afternoon I went to use it and saw he hadn’t logged off properly, which meant I could see all of his stuff. I was horrified to see that his files were mostly all porn. But the thing that upset me the most was that there was a short video of me in amongst all the other stuff, as if it wasn’t any different. It wasn’t an explicit video of me at all, but I had nevertheless asked him to delete it from the camera not long after he took it and he showed me that he had.

I can’t tell you how denigrated I felt to see he’d kept a copy of it without my consent. It was such a relief to be able to delete it from his computer, but that denigrated and violated feeling not only stayed with me, it grew over the next few weeks. I broke up with him without telling him about it. We became friends again some time after and he asked me if there was anything else I hadn’t told him about why I’d broken up with him. When I told him the truth he was very embarrassed and said he was going to get rid of it all and stop watching porn as it ultimately didn’t make him feel good anyway. I have no idea if he did either of those things, but to this day I can remember how I felt when I realised my sex and what it represented to him was more important to him than my trust.

On Friday night as I sat and listened to anti-porn campaigner and radical feminist Gail Dines speak about her new book Pornland at the Trades Hall in Carlton, that day came straight back to me.

Dines is a fantastic speaker. She’s funny, witty and very passionate about what she does. Dines (and her message) is not anti sex or anti sexually explicit images, it’s about what mainstream porn is doing to our sexuality and the sexual integrity of a whole generation of young men. In her work Dines goes to some lengths to enable people, particularly women, to understand just how violent and denigrating to women mainstream porn has become. On Friday night Dines described ‘Gonzo porn’ (now mainstream) to her mostly female audience and the shock in the room was evident. Dines describes gonzo porn as:

… Present-day gonzo pornography [is] by far the biggest moneymaker for the industry, this type of pornography makes no attempt at a story line, but is just scene after scene of violent penetration, in which the woman’s body is literally stretched to its limit. One of the newer marketing ploys in gonzo is called ATM (ass to mouth), where the male performer anally penetrates a woman and then sticks his penis into her mouth, often joking about her having to eat shit. In this pornography the code of debasement is most stark. There is no apparent increase in male sexual pleasure by moving directly from the anus to the mouth, outside of the humiliation that the woman must endure. To argue that the pleasure of heterosexual pornography for men is not somehow wrapped up in the degradation of women is to ignore the multiple verbal and image-based cues that form the codes and conventions of mainstream pornography…  Read more here.

It’s hard to ignore Dines’ stance when all you have to do is look around you at the endless images of the sexualisation of women. Dines’ statement that as advertising changes consumer behaviour, so too does porn change sexual behaviour, is one of these things I think is impossible to ignore. The porn industry sexualises inequality and violence and gets away with it. And it stands to reason that men are being aroused against their integrity. This Dines calls “a betrayal of their own sexuality”. This is so sad.

I’ve read a bit about the sexual behaviour of young people today and it seems that it’s becoming commonplace that very young women are experiencing health problems such as anal fissures because their boyfriends want to have the same sort of sex they’re seeing in porn.

What on earth is any of this teaching young people at the very beginning of their sexual lives about intimacy and desire? I had trouble enough twenty years ago. I can’t imagine being a young woman now. As Dines’ says “you can’t go to a capitalist industry for creative sex”. We need to find a way to capture young peoples’ imaginations about how to be counter cultural about sex so that young people have a hope in hell of discovering true intimacy and finding their own authentic sexuality. This is a big task and seems incredibly urgent to me…

As Dines’ stated, as a girl “you’re either fuckable or invisible”. I don’t know of a young woman alive who isn’t acutely aware of this. How incredibly sad this is. It should be mandatory that both genders study radical feminism and learn how we got to this point when they’re not much older than 13 or 14. If it’s not in schools by the time I have children I’ll certainly be teaching my own.

Redemption

You are yellow to me
Like sunflower wallpaper
Like lemons and eggs
Like aged skin, tinted with life.
You are purple to me
Like nail polish and violets
Like a bruise, fading but not forgotten.
You are brown to me
Like tree roots and coffee
Like earth and life.
You are green to me
Like the roof of my house
Like sour plums and jealousy.
You are pink to me
Like a soft kiss and things unspeakable
Like dusk.
You are red to me
Like Dr. Seuss and candy
Like blood and spite.
You are black to me
Like leather and licorice
Like things unknowable.
You are white to to me.
Like yoghurt and magnolias
Like redemption
You are.

On Beginnings, Steven King, Butch Lesbians, and Spaghetti…

Beginning a new long work of fiction is hard (for me anyway). I’m there now and attempting to sort of storyboard likely scenes between my characters. I thought I’d rip out a prologue for fun and see if that helps move things along. I doubt it will survive the chopping block, but it’s sort of fun, so here it is!

Prologue

Dear Reader, (didn’t Charlotte Bronte start a book like that? Oh well. I doubt her book was full of wog mama butch lesbians and food sex. Butch lesbian spaghetti sex wins out over an insipid girl in a petticoat running across a moor. Obviously.) I wanted to write a truly beautiful, literary, coming of age novel, dripping in tight, punchy prose – an intelligent expose of Gen X angst, with, you know, lots of big words in it. But this story is literally about butch lesbian mothers who ride Harleys and date women with beards called Pam (the women are called Pam, not their beards) and it doesn’t seem quite like the right story for lashings of lugubrious literary genius. Obviously my next book will take the literary world by storm.

You know everything Stephen King wrote in ‘On Writing’? I’m going to do the opposite. Not to be argumentative, oh no, I adore that book, but because everything he says not to do in good fiction is ALL THE FUN STUFF, like using italics and caps and exclamation marks for emphasis, like using first person narrative and ellipses and too many adjectives. He says one is enough. One adjective! ONE!!!

Reader, I married him! No, only joking, I really didn’t. I got confused, reader. Very, very confused. Here, let me tell you. Sit back, Reader, make yourself a stiff drink and put your feet up.

My name is Angel. It’s a stupid name, but I had stupid parents. That will become abundantly clear. There are ups and downs to having a name like Angel. The main up is that no-one ever sounds like they’re mad at you. So, Once a Upon a Time in the lurid 1970s… Okay, hang on, I just have to say here that in ‘On Writing’ Stephen King also (as does every other writing aficionado that ever graced this earth with their presence) suggests never to write about yourself. Well… fuck THAT!!!

Let there be blogging

There’s no worse sin for a blogger than to disappear unannounced for an extended period. To disappear for 8 months is  unmentionably bad. (So let’s not mention it again.) Offering lame excuses is also not an option. Here are mine:

• We did IVF three times. Unsuccessfully.
•  I started a new job.
• We had a holiday in Tasmania and visited home (Perth) after the new year.

Ok, so, three things… it’s not what you might call an exhaustive list. I guess the main reason is that while doing the IVF I lost myself, particularly my creative self. IVF takes over your psyche. It’s hard to explain, but your life really is boiled down to hormones and timing and visits to the clinic and this insanely crazy hope that leaves you utterly undone when it’s foiled. And I got foiled three times in a row. I know that’s not a lot compared to some women, but it was enough for me to call a time-out so I could catch my breath and try to remember who I am and why I’m here.

When you’re on the IVF road the why you’re here is boiled down to reproductive purposes only. And that’s never a good thing. I did lose myself. I am glad we’re taking a break. I had no idea I wasn’t ok until we stopped. The third fail was very hard. I felt so certain I would be pregnant that time and when I wasn’t I felt so deflated and like such a failure. I haven’t failed at many things in my life, but I was failing spectacularly at getting pregnant.

It feels amazing to have my life back. I’m starting to write again. My body is slowly coming back to me (the spare tyre is a whole other story) and I feel good knowing there are still 5 embryos on ice and I have 7 months left of the 12 we decided to take off from the whole thing. 7 months of no injections, no visits to the specialist, no nasal sprays or pee sticks or implants, just 7 months of normal, fun stuff like movies and dates with friends and late nights and sleep-ins and blogging. I promise there’ll be blogging.

The Surprise

There are good surprises and there are bad surprises. Bad surprises include:

* Getting your first ever period while staying in a one room apartment with your entire family at the beach on day 1 of a 10 day holiday.
* The discovery of your first chin hair.
* The day you realise your pre-booked wedding hairdresser is a bogan surfy chic who has designs to turn you into her clone.
* You turn up to the interview for your dream job and the interviewer is the grade 4 school teacher who humiliated you in front of the entire class for being unable to spell surprise.
* You find out that performing as a dancer in a musical and getting your bellybutton pierced on the same day do not yield the results you expected.
* Your boyfriend turns up at your door at 11pm while you’re studying for an exam dressed in a Shakespearian costume and proceeds to recite (by heart) the entire first act of Romeo and Juliet.
* You learn at 13 that reading Stephen King by flashlight under the covers leads only to terrified insomnia.
* Your cat’s idea of a surprise gift does in no way match your own.

Good surprises are those that make the surpriser and the surprisee feel, well, surprised, but also happy and gooey inside. I surprised my sister last week by turning up at her 40th birthday celebrations unannounced to just the right amount of goo.

(This surprise was brought to you by the incomparable famous Aunt who decided flying me to Canberra was the best birthday present she could think of for my sister. I agreed.)

My plane touched down forty-five minutes before the party started. Incomparable picked me up and my Mum (who was also there as a surprise) and Incomparable’s partner met us outside the venue and proceeded to wrap me in an enormous ribbon and bow (too busy and giggly to get photographic evidence of that unfortunately). Mum, Incomparable and Mrs Incomparable went ahead into the restaurant and my sister got surprise #1 in the form of my Mum. Incomparable then smacked her hand to her forehead (I have no idea if she did this or not, but you have to love an imaginary forehead slap) and announced that she’d left her present in the car.

Can you guess what happened next? I bet you can’t. I walked in with Incomparable! I was the present! I knew you’d be surprised. Needless to say, my sister was most pleasantly surprised and unwrapped her amazingly lifelike present with gusto. And all was well with the world.

Surprisee and Surpriser

Blood

I remember blogging about a new feminist short short story I was working on a while ago and have just discovered it was over a year ago! (Along with my attempts to get knocked up, and here am I still at that too!) That particular story did undergo several drafts and then sat in a drawer for a long time. But it is now in (digital) print at Verity La literary journal and I’m really pleased because it’s rather a heavy piece and certainly wouldn’t be to everyone’s liking, so I think it’s great the folks at Verity decided it give it a home. It’s called Blood.

After twelve years of marriage his fishing hat, which sits forgotten on my armoire, is all that remains. The house creaks and groans, trying to establish a new order. The floorboards still look for his heavy, morning footfalls, while the dip in the mattress defiantly begins to rise up.I have trouble sleeping. I go down okay. I starfish on the bottom sheet, fanning my legs back and forth back and forth across the cotton. But at 3am the novelty of space wears off and I’m a frozen arrow of flesh in the middle of the bed.I walk down the hall and into the living-room. I sit on the couch and let the tears come. They don’t come evenly. They either barrel out of me in great, wracking sobs, or they drip silently down my face and gather at my chin.

I am overcome with a desire to see my vagina. I don’t question this desire. I have not seen my vagina in many years.

I bring the square mirror from the bathroom. Pyjama bottoms off, I sit on the floor with my knees spread open. I hold the mirror, its bottom edge resting on the carpet. For a moment I don’t look. I just sit, naked from the waist down, and realise I have not been this thoroughly alone in a very long time.

Then I look down.
I am Alice looking in the glass.
I am pulled down. Then sucked up, travelling backwards inside myself. A sticky diary of all that has gone before.

To read more click here.

OHSS Pinafore (or Madame Bloatary)

My experience with IVF took an interesting turn down Bloat Road only five days after it all started. After about day five of the hormone injections I couldn’t walk without each heel strike hurting like hell. And what’s a girl to do in these circumstances? I had no choice. I spent four days walking around like the soles of my feet had been burnt off in an horrific house fire and I had something of significant proportions jammed firmly up my derrière. By the time Monday came and I had my scan with my doctor I looked a bit like I’d swallowed a bowling ball. I sat, pantless, legs akimbo in front of her and she asked me how I was. I proceeded to tell her about the house fire, the gerbil and the bowling ball. She looked sceptical. Until she glanced at the screen. And my bulging ovaries.

Shit.

That’s what she said. I kid you not. Shit. I tugged up my jeans and followed her back into her office where she proceeded to tell me that she’d given me such a low dose of hormones she thought I’d be mad at her because I only had one or two follicles. I had 38. Big ones. Anything over 20 and you’re at risk of OHSS (ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome). 38.

She told me I had ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.

Shit.

Two days later I’m sitting in a small waiting room in hospital with nine other women in varying states of boredom and misery, wearing nothing but a flimsy white gown, blue booties and the most unattractive blue hat you’ve ever seen. I had my second ever general anaesthetic and woke up an hour or so later feeling particularly gross with a creeping abdominal pain that decided to hang out with me for the next two weeks. My doctor flashed by me in a whirl of blue and I wondered why she looked so glamorous in the hat and booties and I looked like Smurfette on crack. She grinned at me and told me they got 30 eggs out of me. She seemed extremely happy so I decided to be happy too. The women on either side of me looked at me like I was some sort of Jersey cow and I smiled with pride at the fabulous effort my ovaries had gone to on my behalf. They wouldn’t release me of course, with all that pain, so I watched the recovery room slowly empty and wished they’d let CJ in to see me. Eventually I lied. I said my pain was gone, it was a miracle, and could I please leave now? They’d given me numerous intravenous doses of fentanyl and an unidentified meat sandwich and I guess they wanted rid of me as much I wanted rid of them because they finally let me go.

I don’t recommend you ever board the OHSS Pinafore. It is not a hoot. Over the next few days my belly decided it might like to practice looking 9 months pregnant, except it was full of fluid and not arms and legs, and I basically stopped peeing. Then my lungs decided to get in on the action and I couldn’t breathe for a day or two.

Good times.

I saw my doctor a few days later and she warned me the worst was yet to come. Fabulous. But that we had 15 embryos, 8 of which were of excellent quality and now sitting in a freezer somewhere, nestled in next to the peas and corn, ready for me to get better. According to my doctor that’s a very good result , so suddenly my mega-bloat, nausea and lack of oxygen were much more tolerable.

I’m finally recovered. I wish never to revisit OHSS again for as long as I live. We’re doing a natural cycle this month, so all going well, we should be implanting in around 2 and half weeks. And my expectations are high.

We have so far forked out (with help from our families – THANK you families) around $12,800. You would hope and pray that a bambino isn’t too far away!

The funniest thing to come out of my month of injections, nasal sprays, egg retrievals and exploding ovaries, bladders and lungs is that when I texted my mum after the egg-pick-up when I had my mega-haul of 30 eggs, her friend who was with her asked her if I worked on a farm…

Naked

I am naked, I am.

I am walking in the backyard. I am wondering if the neighbour can see me. See my breasts that are full and round. They don’t hang, my breasts. They jut outwards from my body like two suns cut in half. Radiating heat. Plants swoon and curve toward them when I walk past.

My belly is flat but expecting. Two sinewy ropes snake from the edge of my hip bones to my groin.

A dazzling camellia leans toward me. Presses her white face into my collarbone and tells me she’s about to die.

I walk to the bird bath and plunge my hand in. The water is brackish and cold and I wish for a goldfish to bite my fingers.

My hips are narrow, like a boy’s, but they strain with promise.

The faintest sound behind me. Camellia has thrown herself to the ground. She is dead. My collarbone weeps for her.

My thighs are white. They are muscled and freckly. They don’t tremble when I walk. But soon they will.

Plants strain toward me. Push their lushness at my face.

My hair is short. I keep its wildness in check.

In my womb is a seed that is growing. Queen of an unmanicured garden. I am the lady of the garden. I am naked, I am.

Great Expectations

So. The IVF adventure has begun. I am now snorting and injecting hormones like a crazy woman. The side-effects are minimal. Just, you know, hot flushes, double vision, nausea, fainting, bloating, pain, vomiting… usual stuff for a Tuesday afternoon.

Of course, sticking a needle straight into your stomach comes with the advantage of a highly sympathetic husband, ready to cater to your every whim, as well as… no, that’s the only advantage I can think of.

In my experience so far, as you go through the process, doctors, nurses and counsellors all spend a considerable amount of effort telling you (and your significant other) to keep ‘managing your expectations’. At my last appointment with my IVF doctor, as she had just decided there was no time like the present to jump on in and get started, her very next sentence was: “And you must remember how important it is to manage your expectations.”

I get what these people mean. I really do. I know several women, some of them very close to me, who’ve had IVF and all of them had to give it several goes (one 11 times) before the stork finally couriered in their sparkling new spawn. Thing is, I don’t want to “manage my expectations”. It goes against all of my philosophies about positive thinking and sending out to the ether expectations of what you want rather than what you don’t want. As far as I can work out, what is meant by ‘managing your expectations’ is actually about you avoiding disappointment and trauma as much as possible. But I don’t want to avoid my emotions, I want to experience them. I’ve always been one to feel what I’m feeling, you know? Why would I want to expect to be disappointed and upset? Wouldn’t it be better to expect joy and happiness and what I want to happen and then just let myself experience the disappointment of it not happening if that’s the case?

What’s all this fear of the ‘negative’ emotions about? They are as legitimate as any other emotion, so why be so afraid of them? Better to howl at the moon with the anger and disappointment of a failed attempt, get it out of me with anguish and passion, than store it up, shove it down, avoid it, and let it fester, I say. Much healthier all round, and for everyone involved, I think. I have Italian blood. It comes naturally, all this feeling and expressing.

So, I’ve started IVF. I expect a cute, blonde haired, blue eyed little miracle. If not, I’ll howl and hug and mope and cry and then start over. That’s how I’m planning on managing my expectations.

The Dreaming

I dreamt I was underwater with a big brown dog swimming toward me. The closer it came, the bigger it got. Bigger and bigger and bigger. Its paws like shovels coming at my face. But every time it lifted its head for air it floundered and grew small again. And so it went. Hour after hour.

I dreamt I was eating apples in a haystack. I’ve never been in a haystack. All I know of haystacks I learnt from John Steinbeck.

I dreamt of my feet detaching from my body and floating up to heaven to visit my grandmothers who took them on a grand adventure.

I dreamt I was so famous you could right click on my name to get the correct spelling.

I dreamt I had a tiny baby in my womb. She unzipped my skin and started to climb out, eager to see the world. I coaxed her back in with a Mozart sonata and a cup of tea and hoped she would stay there.

I dreamt of home, of lying in sun so bright it bleached my hair white and turned my bones to dust. I flew across the surface of the hot ground and was swept back to Maman.

(Maman is the Nyoongar word for God or Creator.)