Being Squashed for Being a Whore, Or…?

There are men to grow to and men to fall on.

When I was little, I read a book that impacted me a lot. I believe it was Doblin’s “Tales of a Long Night” but I am no longer sure. All I remember is a story of a wife who left her normal husband for some kind of romantic love and eventually had to become a prostitute. Not a punk fairy with a blog – but a fallen ex-fairy who was being brave and ended up sucking ugly unwanted dicks. Ugly. Yucky. Smelly. Unwanted dicks. Living in slums. Beaten by an indifferent pimp. Everything against her will. Defeated.

It was a message. A woman who is not afraid to self-express –> dies a prostitute. In-ev-it-able. Somehow, disturbingly, it was a story about me. I was scared, and I was mesmerized. Not by the pain, and not by the career of a street whore – those two images, in fact, made me anxious – but by the freedom of self-expression at any price. I was nine.

Later, Turgenev, Bunin, Remarque, Hesse. They all created very pretty images of female martyrdom, women being consumed by irresponsible males, a wild mix of love, sacrifice and beautiful, beautiful suffering. Like burying somebody alive: once the grave is covered, we no longer see the writhing body, but the soundtrack is real pretty. Like Sirens. Like Dakinis.

With each new book, I was getting more and more influenced by these female unusuals: artisans, seekers, romantic whores. Cinematographic two-dimensional images of capricious women existing in zero-gravity zone of sin and self-issued permissions, caught forever in the moment of an emotional leap. I guess, I was born with a primary identity of an artist. They dominated me and made me envious. I was raised proper but I had a calling. And it didn’t occur to me that my ideas of femininity came from books written by torn, seeking men. Oh, fuck.

Irony: In high school, I fantasized about the existential, timeless beauty of being an Indian temple prostitute out of Siddhartha; a couple of years later, I was sitting in the back of a sex trafficker’s truck in Southern China, looking into his eyes, and his eyes were indescribably awful. On that day, I avoided the path of a linguist / ethnomusicologist turned sex slave by an inch, having jumped out of the kindnapper’s car on autopilot. It was not my bravery, and to this day, I am sending thanks to the universe for saving me. He threw my passport at me and drove away, and there I was, without money, bruised and in complete shock, but free!

I realize what attracted me to these images – those women were alive, they exercised their free will even if it led to pain, they breathed in and out. But they were photoshopped: The screaming, throbbing, lasting, blue-vein loneliness of those women was brushed out.

Not on purpose: Beauty always looks great on paper, even if it is a sketch of a virgin on a death row. When we draw beauty, we pretend that time is not important.

I wrote these lyrics several years ago:

Wake up, misery.
Wake up to the thought
That nobody loves you.

And those who do
Supposedly,
Just want a good wife
And an exemplary mother.
Or may be a dancing partner
For convenience.

But me, don’t you hear?
Me?

With the river,
And the jazz,
And the sky,
And tears of weakness?
Nobody.

Wake up,
Nomadic soul.
Wake up to the new day
And cry
With a smile on your face.

But let’s go back.

Hosea and Gomer: Is she the woman who her spurned lovers and other respectable folk hope will eventually get what she deserves?

See also: Malena. See also: Anna Karenina. See also: no, I am afraid.

Why? Why did she deserve peril? Because one man owned loved her and she (clearly) didn’t love him back? Says who?

And yet, I am witnessing my anger at this woman myself raising, and a crowd with cartoonish angry faces and even angrier fists, and a distinct fear of being squashed for sticking out, just because it is their way. Who the fuck are they?

Being squashed.

My fifth grade. I am a sunny kid, oblivious to the world, always day dreaming or studying, smiling a lot, getting all A’s on autopilot. Tight with the rascal boys and annoyed with the chatty girls, except for this one.

Oksana.

…Everybody in class knew she was Fair. Straight-in-your-face, like a confession before Mao Tse-Tung. She was Fair. Everybody just knew that. One day she told me, in her straightforward manner, that I was no good. It hurt, it motherfucking hurt–I liked her so much–but she clearly didn’t find me worthy.

Time passed, and I developed an infatuation towards  another girl, Violetta. A big girl with sweaty hands.  We became friends.

And then my parents transferred me to a more upscale English class–took a lot of effort and nepotism–but it turned out I stepped on somebody’s turf. The girls. The preexisting royal members of my new class got mad that I became the teacher’s new favorite student. I was fucking oblivious.

I remained oblivious until one day I was presented with a notebook filled with signatures and little obnoxious comments testifying to the fact that I was a bad person. According to the public opinion, I was sticking out too much and it was a sin. I had to….what, apologize? Say I was sorry for….what? I didn’t understand.

But according to the majority, I had crossed the line. The girls invited teachers, it became a big public discussion about me supposedly being inconsiderate, I was smashed. Not because of the whole ordeal–but because of the two signatures in that book – Oksana’s and Violetta’s. All of a sudden I was alone.

Betrayal betrayal betrayal betrayal betrayal.

What did I do wrong?

When I woke up from this memory, I was lying on a warm stone in the park and the tree looked anxious. The faces of the girls, angry ancient bitches, so much of a fable in a typical high school story. It is true – ever since that day, I tried to mellow it out. Trying to pursue my achievements in solitude and feeling guilty whenever I felt like I was shining a little too bright.

Funny.

Bitches.

Me.

Now.

Fuck off.