22/10-17
Vulnerable one:
I have been very angry lately and I haven’t been able to define what exactly I am angry at. Now, I believe everything’s connected somehow and if I am patient enough the universe usually supplies me with answers.
Yesterday, we celebrated my cousins 30th birthday. It was a great night in good company and we ended the night by singing SingStar (karaoke in other words). Shuffling through the list of songs to chose from, I found a song called “Don’t Cha” by Pussycat Dolls, to which I reacted excitedly and yelled out that I wanted to sing that song and be recorded while singing it (because it reminds me of my brother and I wanted to send it to him, who lives in another continent). The song started, and not only did I sing it but I also performed it, somewhat imitating the women in the musicvideo, dancing kind of “dirty”. My idea was that I wanted to be recorded for just 30seconds during the chorus, but the person behind the camera kept filming for pretty much the entire song. Pretty soon, while singing, I felt sick of myself for dancing in this way and singing this song - reciprocating a fucked up image of what a “sexy” woman should be like. I told the person behind the camera that she could stop filming, because I was feeling uncomfortable, to which she responded “No it’s ok, I will continue, I think it’s fun..”
Thinking back at her response, I am not sure if she in a clever and discreet manner wanted to mirror/provoke me in order to experience that reflection of myself, or if she genuinely though it was fun, but it really doesn’t matter because the message was received.
Now, as I was saying, sometimes in life the puzzlepieces fall together and you see the whole picture of a situation;
Earlier this week I wrote a couple of texts trying to respond to the viral “me too” phenomenon; but I didn’t post them. Why? Because somehow I wasn’t being fully honest with myself and obviously that came across in the text.
See, I was getting provoked by so many women claiming to be assaulted and discriminated sexually and my mind doubted the reliability of many of them. I didn’t grow up in Sweden and so (without intending to step on anybody’s toes) sometimes I experience the strong feminism in scandinavia as women overreacting to men’s comments etc..
Well, whether if that is the case or not, I could at least not avoid that I WAS in fact being provoked by something...
Yet another component of this enigma of where my anger was coming from, was that I have recently been “heartbroken”, and in my desperate attempt to comfort myself I seeked physical intimacy with a male friend - who rejected me. Soon after this rejection I went and masturbated by myself, and in the midst of it I started crying... I started crying because I noticed that I was not celebrating pleasure and my sexuality at that moment, but rather seeking to find contact with my heart... Seeking contact with my heart through... my genitals??
I was as confused as I had been so many times before during my adolescence. I was sad that I didn’t find another way to get in touch with grief and, anger.
Now, how is this all linked?
Why anger?
Well, to my discovery it all makes a lot of sense. See behind my anger at my surroundings there was anger towards myself. Anger that really translated as SHAME. That sneaky emotion that I sooo seldom want to admit, yet I can almost drown in it at times.
Shame of the fact that I have not yet learned to EXPRESS MY DESIRES.
Shame of the fact that I have not yet learned to PUT BOUNDARIES.
Shame of how different I am to the idealized version of “me” that I have been conditioned to strive to be like (In psychology terms - the superego).
And, thus I play the victim role being angry at the world. Being angry at friends out of my own ignorance of what their experiences have been.
Angry at guys who reject me sexually and dare to put boundaries where I have not been able.
Angry at the influence of society and partly my upbringing, which dictate how I should view myself as a female, how I should act to please a man and what relationship I should have with my sexuality.
See, this “Me too” movement going on is not only to raise awareness of how many people have been sexually assaulted; but equally as much to raise awareness of how miseducated and misled hundreds of thousands of people are when it comes to INTIMACY, sexuality and equality. Including me.
I wish for more awareness, more respect (both for the self and for others), I wish for more education and communication on these topics. I wish for more people to use the power of their voices to speak up (In my case pen and paper being my weapons of choice).
I wish for more understanding of each other, as humans, not as a sex or a gender or race or anything that brings division and separateness to our communities.
Quoting John Lennon;
“I might be a dreamer, but I am not the only one”