Tag Archives: boobs

The Complexities of Shame

28 Apr

I learned something about myself this week: I am ashamed of my body. Now this isn’t a fishing expedition. This isn’t to get people to come out of the woodwork with all kinds of positive reinforcements. That isn’t what this is about. And, honestly, it has nothing to do with how I look in a lot of ways. It is, I think, largely about the fact that in my never-ending intellectual quest to understand my role in this world as a female, I have neglected to take care of myself…or, I guess more specifically, to engage in self-care…by which I mean to place importance on my own sense of empowerment, my own autonomy over my sexuality, and, perhaps most importantly, my own definition of it. Let me explain.

Earlier this week I was at a store buying a bra. As you ladies know, buying a bra is no easy task  – especially when it involves procuring support for a pair of boobs that have not been sized in years in advance of wearing a backless dress. Wearing a bra in the right size for you is a life-changer. Believe me. I feel like a brand new woman today. That’s not the point. So there I was at this fancy lingerie store with my good friend. I have never been to a fancy lingerie store as the main event; I’ve always been the sidekick. I have never thought that fancy lingerie was really “my thing,” whatever that means. We were in the changing room and the lovely woman who was helping me kept bringing me in all these different bras to try on. I kept putting on bra after bra and while my friend kept looking and telling me how good this one looked, or how pretty that one was, or how sexy I looked I just stood there, staring, feeling like I was wearing a costume. I felt like a little kid dressing up in her mom’s high heels and lipstick, prancing around the house like an absolute diva. (I never actually did this but I feel like it’s a thing that happens?) I just kept standing, staring at myself in these beautiful things, understanding that if I saw someone else in them I would think how incredibly beautiful and sexy she looked. How in control of her sexuality. But when I looked at myself I just felt…silly. I felt like I was trying to be someone who I am not. It was like, if there was a touch of cleavage showing then I had undone all the hard work I had put in over the years. All the effort of getting people to see me as a human and not a sex object. But part of being human, I think, is sometimes feeling sexy. And understanding that it doesn’t always have a negative connotation.

So obviously I got to thinking about it.

And thinking.

And thinking.

And it dawned on me. All of the years of the wrong people calling me sexy for all the wrong reasons, in all the wrong places, with all the wrong intentions had eroded my ability to understand that being sexy can, in theory, be empowering. I see that other women can do it, and I don’t look at them and think that somehow they are doing something wrong, that they are abandoning the cause, or whatever. I just don’t get how they do it. But this isn’t about women at large. This is about me. This is about me and the ways that I have internalized all the years of being a woman, or, I suppose more accurately, all of the years I’ve spent feeling like a sex object. And this is not to say that I feel like that all the time. That is by no means the case. A lot of times I just feel like a person. But often, not always but often, when my being female is made apparent to me, it is made apparent in a disempowering and hyper-sexualized manner. To the point that sometimes I just want to throw down everything I have, grab a bullhorn, and scream, for everyone to hear,

I AM NOT HERE FOR YOU! I DID NOT WAKE UP FOR YOU! I DID NOT GET DRESSED FOR YOU! AND I AM CERTAINLY NOT WALKING DOWN THIS STREET FOR YOU!

I would love it if my experience, and I can only speak for myself although I imagine there are plenty of other women out there who feel similarly if not the same way, was less like this. I wish I could brush off some of the bullshit and find my sexuality empowering. But I think the thing is that my sexuality has for so long been used as a weapon against me, been used as a way to make me feel small and less whole, that I don’t even know how to trust it. It’s like a separate part of me, almost. Like a lot of times when my sexuality is pointed out, I become less Rebekah the  Woman and more Rebekah the Object. And surprise surprise, I don’t like to be Rebekah the Object.

I mean, okay, so get this. Just now, I decided to look up the word “sexuality” on the Internet to make sure that I was using exactly the word I wanted and this is the definition I was given:

a capacity for sexual feelings

And its use in a sentence:

she began to understand the power of her sexuality

The power of it.

That is what I am talking about. Sexuality as a weapon. Or as something that is not easy to control by its posessor. Something that can, if not properly tended to, control her. Either use it to your advantage or it gets used against you but there is no opting out of the game. You can’t just say

Nah, I’m cool with just being in the world, going through my day and then unleashing my sexuality for the person, or people, I wish to share it with.

And, as I am sure you have all guessed, the significance of the “she” in that sentence was not lost on me. Of course she began to understand. And you know how she figured it out? Probably because someone showed her by using her sexuality to disempower her in some way. She realized the usefulness of it. What she could do with it. And that’s where I get a little bit lost. Somewhere in here, in all of this, to me, reads something of a manipulation. I try to go through life as something of a straight-shooter. People more or less know where they stand with me. I don’t keep my feelings quiet, and when I do manage to keep my mouth shut my facial expressions and body language always out me. So my issue is that there is something slick, something calculating, something unsavory about the way we talk about sexuality.  I know it doesn’t have to be that way. It doesn’t always have to be a con. But sometimes it feels like that’s the way we talk about it to such a degree that it just becomes what it is in practice. And it’s like, sexuality is its own separate being as opposed to a part, with so many other parts, of a complex human.

But back to the dressing room. There I was, in that dressing room, trying to find a bra that wouldn’t draw more attention to my chest. A bra that wouldn’t give me more cleavage. A bra that wouldn’t undo all the hard work I’ve done to prove that I am well rounded. Hard work that has made me everything but. And, it’s like, I know that now we say that

strong is sexy

and

smart is sexy

and somehow sexy is supposed to be empowering, and meanwhile everything about high school dress codes and cat callers on the street and rape victim blaming and sexist comments and rape as a fucking war crime tells us that our sexuality, our sexiness, is something to be hidden and contained and something we should be shamed for, or hurt because of. Except for sometimes. Mostly in private. And how do we balance that? How is it our best friend and our mortal enemy all at the same time and how do we, on so many occasions, not have ownership of it? It’s like this weird, fucked up commodity that we can trade in, but only on occasion and with permission, and people may or may not try to make us feel badly about it. And sometimes that just seeps in. And some of us feel like maybe it’s best to try not to trade in it at all. But we’re not allowed to do that, either. It’s almost like we can’t do anything right.

So I don’t know. Maybe shame is the wrong word. Maybe feeling shame just plays into the whole damn thing. I guess what it is more than anything is that I just want to feel whole and autonomous and in a world where we have control over very little, I would like to be the only one – barring tragedy – with control over my body. And of course, it isn’t that I don’t want people to find me sexy. It’s just that I want the idea of being sexy to feel less unbalanced, less like something I use to get something, I want it to be more holistic. I want the idea of sexy, from the jump, to extend beyond just the physical rather than that having to be an add-on. And I know some of you are saying that it can be, and maybe you have found a way, but I don’t know. I just think it is too complicated, and so many of those complications  don’t stem from us. Rather they are learned behaviors given to us by society at large.

Clearly I’m still working this out.

I remember someone, after watching me do something kind, told me how sexy he thought that was. And for the first time in a while, since my ex was around probably, I felt good about being sexy. I felt like it was because of who I am rather than what I look like. And that’s something I can get behind. It’s about sexiness as a whole being, rather than sexiness as an entity apart. And I guess I wish it was always like that. Because I think my friends are sexy and, while they are all beautiful and handsome in their own ways, it is more because they are caring and smart and giving and funny and complicated and team players and all those other things that make them incredible humans.

I guess, in short, I like it when it feels well-rounded, all-inclusive. Because what I find sexy is someone who is smart, with a big laugh and a bigger heart, who is engaged in the world around them and also in a constant state of self-improvement. Because the physical stuff fades, eventually. Gravity does its work. But the rest of it, that takes longer to erode if you put the work in.

But for me, and as it concerns me, when it is just the physicality of it – that just doesn’t feel like mine anymore. I don’t feel like I own that. It’s been taken from me too many times. And maybe that’s why the shame sneaks in.

(And please, don’t anyone send me text messages saying you think I’m sexy. That’s not the point. And then I’ll feel like a shitty writer and that would ruin my day. Don’t ruin my day. It’s nice out.)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Coney Island Shenanigans

26 Aug

I was going to edit this for Dad-safety, but really, Dad, you should just skip this one entirely.  It’s like that one time I wrote this blog post and warned you about not reading it and you read it anyway and then you regretted it.  Don’t make the same mistake twice, Dad.  Just, yea, close the tab and slowly back away from the computer.  That’s right, ever so slowly…

For the rest of you, there are two very important things that you all must know about me.  First, I love Coney Island.  It is one of my most favorite places in the world.  No matter what time of year, what time of day, that you go to Coney Island, something crazy is always happening.  Good crazy, mostly.  I really believe that Coney Island is one of the only places where people just sort of let their freak flags fly.  Even those people who go about life trying to fit in and be normal, when they get to Coney Island that shit goes right out the window.  People who are still too repressed to let their inner weird-o see the light of day?  Well they steer clear and I feel sorry for them.  Such a boring life they must lead.  Second, I embarrass myself all the time.  Or, well, seemingly embarrassing things happen to me but I think that for the most part being embarrassed is just sort of a waste of energy and so I don’t feel embarrassed.  I just sort of carry on.  Like that one time I ran 10 miles and then worked out at the gym for 45 minutes before realizing that the light blue string hanging out the bottom of my running shorts was not attached to said shorts but was coming from the tampon that was, at that time, shoved inside my body.  I could have been embarrassed but no.  I continued right on stretching until I gathered the energy to make my way down to the ladies locker room to tuck the string back where it belonged.  Life, ya know?

Anyway, normally my love of Coney Island and my tendency to get myself in potentially embarrassing situations don’t really overlap.  Only today they totally did.  So there I was, all by my lonesome on the beach waiting for my friend Kendra.  The sun was strong so I thought to myself, “self, you really ought to put on some sunscreen.”  So I went about putting sunscreen all over, even taking care to get some under the strings of my bikini so that I didn’t end up burning the skin just around the edges of my bathing suit.  I always, always, always burn the area of my butt right where my bikini ends.  Every fucking time.  In fact, I even did it today.  That is not important.  What is important is that in the process of trying to get the sunscreen on around my bikini top I totally managed to, initially unbeknownst to me, flash those sitting around me on the beach.  And, obviously because it is me, rather than just quietly putting my boob back where it belonged I said, to no one in particular, and while tucking it back into its temporary home, “get back in there!”

Sigh.

Sometimes it’s like I have no control.  In all the hubbub happening with the right boob, I didn’t realize that the left one was also exposed.  So there I was, on Coney Island, before noon, boobs out.  Good work, me.  I was almost hoping that, since I had already exposed myself, at least someone could enjoy the show.  But not like a creepy someone.  Just someone who would be like “oh, breasts!  Well isn’t that a nice little surprise for a Tuesday!”  I imagine this person with a British accent.  Perhaps thankfully, now that I am thinking about it, the only people standing near me were a dude in a Speedo standing up and meditating while leaning on his bike and a woman flailing around listening to music and drinking Cannabis Energy Drink.  I fucking love Coney Island.  And so now I am left to ask the age-old question:  if a girl flashes the beach at Coney Island and no one is around (or conscious enough) to see it, did it even happen?  I am not so sure myself.  I guess I’ll find out if a picture of my tits show up on the internet.  God forbid.

But that’s not all!  After Kendra arrived and I told her all about my misadventures in sunscreen application, we decided to go for a swim.  So we went over to the life-guard protected area and hopped in.  There we were, swimming, when all of a sudden I saw what appeared to be, at first glance, either a tentacle-less jelly fish or a very small shark.  Then, upon looking again I realized that it was the biggest condom I have ever seen.  Like so big.  I screamed, obviously, and Kendra and I quickly ran out of the water.  Here’s the thing though. I partially screamed because, ew condom in the water and what if it comes near me and sticks to my leg and then I have some sort of crazy horrible disease because that’s how it works, right?  But also I screamed because that condom was so goddamn big.  I mean, I know there is that thing that people a lot of times think that bigger dicks are better but I’ll tell you what, I would not like to meet the dick that belonged to that condom.  No way Jose.  Once, when I first moved to the city I had sex with this guy with a huge penis and I swear the second I laid eyes on that thing I lost all color in my face.  My lady parts are fucking delicate, you know?  I had trouble walking the next day!  And I think this condom, if memory serves, was even too big for his penis.  If I ever had sex with the penis that fit into that condom I would never be the same.  For real.

By the by, does anyone else think that the sentence construction I just used was really weird?  It’s like, through this whole thing I have not imagined a penis attached to a dude.  I have imagined just like, a free-standing gigantic penis kind of going through life, unattached, waiting to find a similarly unattached vagina or else someone in possession of a vagina who didn’t run the other way when faced with this particular phallus.  I would say poor penis only, judging from the condom which appeared to have been used, it did find someone that wasn’t afraid of it.  I hope she, or he, enjoyed him or herself.  Until that last sentence there this imagination game I had was totally heteronormative.  Not cool, Rebekah, not cool.

So, that’s what happened on Coney Island today.  People may or may not have seen my boobs without a bathing suit covering them, and I definitely saw a condom that was, at that moment, thankfully lacking a penis.  Also, I have learned that I do not have a future in erotic fiction, so that’s a career path to cross off the list.  Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Second Base at the Bar

30 Jul

So you guys.  I know that I should be a smart and responsible person and learn from my mistakes.  Well, “mistakes” is not actually the right word so maybe I should try that sentence again.  I know that I should be a smart and responsible person and try to understand and respect the expectations of others, even though it means keeping my mouth shut in the face of really shitty behavior.  As much as I want to do it, I will not write another bartender tip.  I have a really good one in mind (many, actually) but in an effort to not complicate my life again I will just keep them to myself until the time when I no longer have to tend bar (that one was for you, Ben) for a living which is seeming less and less likely to ever be the case.  I might have to take these tips to my grave.  But just because I can’t write about the absurd things people do from the perspective of a bartender does not mean I cannot write about the absurd things people do from the perspective of a bar customer, right? Right!  Let’s go!

Okay, so, this is funny.  I know we have all done this at some point (I totally have and I still feel awful about it).  We have all made poor choices and made out at a bar.  It is not right but it happens.  As someone who has done this before, I really try to be as understanding about other people’s situations as possible.  Maybe one of them lives with their mom.  Maybe one, or both, of them is in a relationship with someone else who they live with and so neither one can take the other one home and they don’t have enough money, or motivation, for a hotel room.  Maybe one of the people ate something really good and the other person wanted to taste the thing but the first person had already finished it and so the only hope of getting a little sample is to somehow experience the flavor through the remnants of the food that is caught in the other person’s mouth.  I mean, this can involve some very creative uses of the tongue.  Anyway, as I said, I tend to not be bothered too much by making out at the bar.  I mean, it’s not great, but I get it.  We all make mistakes.  There are circumstances.  Hormones.  Also, booze.  It’s cool.  Sometimes, though, people go a little too far.

So the other night I went out for a drink with my friend Ben to try and recap this thing we had done earlier in the day that we were both really excited about.  We did one of those things where one of us was like

“Hey, remember that really awesome thing we did earlier with that thing and the ideas? Wasn’t that great?!”

And the other one was like,

“Totally.  We are basically the best.”

We were doing that for awhile.  Self-congratulation is always a good time, especially when you have teammate to do it with.  Anyway, so there we were, drinking whisky and feeling like the champions that we are when this couple walked in.  It was one of those weird couples where, like, you look at the two people and they don’t really make so much sense together, physically speaking?  So you think that maybe one of them has a really good personality, or the other one is hot but with a not so good personality.  Or maybe the dude has a huge dick.  I don’t know, that’s what I thought.  But maybe that’s just because I haven’t had sex in a while.  Anyway, we went back to doing what we were doing (read: feeling like super heroes) when the two of them started making out hardcore at the bar right behind the taps.  Whatever, I didn’t really care.  I mean, maybe a booth would be a better location but who am I to say.  Also, maybe he had her favorite flavor gum and she just wanted to borrow it for a minute.  I could see that happening.  Ben and I looked at them for a quick second and went back to our conversation.  A few minutes later, and for reasons I cannot really explain, I looked back over at the couple.  I looked back over at exactly the right (actually, wrong) moment.  I saw the girl reaching into her shirt.  I thought at first that maybe she dropped a crumb in there.  Or the piece of gum she had possibly borrowed from her friend minutes prior.  But, no.  There weren’t crumbs.  No gum.  Just her tit.  She pulled her boob out and, in a very graceful movement and before even the dude knew what was happening, she had put her hand on the back of his head and literally shoved him downward, thrusting her now exposed breast into his mouth where he proceeded to suck on it.  At the bar.  Where there were other people.  Watching.  Not so much in a voyeuristic way but more in a “wait a second is what I think I am seeing actually what I am seeing?” sort of a way.  It was exactly what we all thought we were seeing.  Second base at the bar.  At that point Ben turned to me and said,

“What time is it?”

I looked at my watch.  It was not yet 10pm.  We immediately started laughing which caught the attention of the bartender who then looked over, saw what was happening, and also started laughing.  I mean, there really was no other response.  I mean, you couldn’t be mad really.  Or disgusted.  You almost had to respect it.  It was just so damn ballsy!  So the bartender, once he was done cackling, told them that they could kiss a little but to maybe keep it more PG and also that they should probably keep their clothes on.  A few minutes later she started grinding on him.  To Bjork.  It was really very odd.  Anyway, at this point the bartender had had enough and asked them to leave.  They got confused and tried to exit out of literally every door in the place, bathroom included, before they figured out they just had to leave out the same door that had previously come in through.  They remained on the ramp to the bar for some period of time doing I can only imagine what, with the male half taking occasional bathroom breaks.  It was all very strange.  As it turns out, they had been kicked out of two other bars before the one Ben and I saw them in which leads one to wonder, was this a repeat performance or a case of escalation?  Did they get caught before he got a little handy action?  (Do people still call it a handy?)  Was this part of some sort of huge social experiment to see how far thye could take it before getting asked to leave?  Did she ever get to have a chew of the gum he so selfishly had the last piece of?  I have so many questions.

Now today I am left wondering whether they ever ended up finding a place to have sex.  I sort of hope they did because I would imagine the whole experience would leave them both rather frustrated indeed.  Also though right now, having recounted the fact that I thought about the culmination of their very strange and public version of foreplay, I feel like a little bit of a perv.  I am going to cleanse my mind by watching this video on repeat and trying to figure out how to make this song my ringtone:

UPDATE:  Just moments after finishing this post I headed to train at the next stop on Rebekah’s Tour de Bars 2014.  So I walk in and no more than 25 minutes later in walks the same couple that I wrote the blog about, still sort of drunk, maybe coked out, in the same clothes.  I tried so hard to not laugh that, in an effort to hold the laughter inside, tears started pouring out of my eyes.  And this bar was not one of the three bars (that I know of) that this couple got kicked out of for public boob sucking.  Folks, you just can’t make this shit up.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,