Eat Me

TW: mention of sexual assault & rape. 

There is something, uniquely depressing about being a woman and feeling as if you are constantly about to be devoured. 

It's something about the female body, that seems to have been the cause of countless controversies. Which is interesting because I didn't sign up for this, and I'm sure if a lot of us had known it would be this way we'd have opted out long ago. I think a large portion of my experiences as a woman have been dictated by being raised with brothers, this shone a light on the differences in the ways we socialise women and the many ways our bodies are treated in comparison with men. Being a woman and specifically speaking as a cis woman has meant carrying this weight of shame about my body ever since I was very young, pre-pubescent actually. This shame is almost an embarrassment, a shielding of myself and my modesty to protect other people. It's simultaneously a facet of shame and a feeling of great power, to feel as if my natural body can cause this much unrest. I don't know exactly when I first became aware of my body, outside of the usual awareness (climbing trees, having a bath etc) that you have as a child. I cant pin point the moment I became aware of my body and the implications it projected. I just remember constantly feeling as if my feminine body was not only something I should cover up, but that it was something that could be taken from me. I was catcalled for the first time when I was a child, wearing white shorts and walking to the corner shop. I suppose in that moment, the innocence fades away and suddenly you're a piece of meat on a conveyor belt passing by aimlessly waiting to be consumed. 

From that moment my mum would have lots of little conversations with me warning me that the world was a scary place, fearfully telling me to keep myself covered. Suddenly my body was a weapon in a war I didn't know I was fighting. The comments and the warnings were subtle as well, older women in the family pulling you aside, men staring at your chest and making suggestive comments while you work. It's a helpless feeling, my body was changing into something that wasn't mine anymore, a body ready to be chewed up and spat out. I've wrestled with this for years, trying to understand why women are so sexualised and why our bodies are so often reduced down to mere orifices. Since the dawn of time womens contributions have been perceived purely from a breeding and sexual standpoint, we can only contribute with our sex and our machine like organs. Obviously we're living in a 'liberated' time in which women can and will be anything they want. I'm very aware of the women's liberation movement and its many many successes, its why I was able to get an education and learn to read and write etc. But I find it darkly fascinating and terrifying that whilst these huge steps have been taken in our liberation, the sexualisation of our bodies is still an integral part of our day to day lives. 

News items, overheard conversations, things online constantly remind me that no matter how hard we work to free ourselves from this, we will always be sexualised. I read an article about an actor raping a woman in his trailer on the set of a movie, in her statement of the assault she spoke of him prying her legs open so hard she thought she'd broken them. What is so ferocious, so all encompassing and important within our bodies that such liberties must be taken to obtain us? To consume us? To rip us apart and own us? And even in the less extreme cases, in which rape and sexual assault haven't taken place, why must our bodies be so continuously sexualised? To the point where no amount of clothing or compliance or so called modesty can protect us. In a society in which women in full burqas are sexually assaulted. In that same society in which men claim our appearances and clothing choices are the reasons for these assaults. We 'invite' assault, we entice or intrigue men with our bodies and our feminine charms and so assault and abuse are just inevitable.

No matter how hard we fight or reject this, as much liberation as we can swallow and it doesn't matter because the root of all of this is the male perception of women. While men continue to perceive womens bodies as sexual objects, we will never win. It's all in the perspective and the perception, not just that our orifices have multiple functions besides sexual ones, but that sex as an act isn't supposed to be violent. It doesn't exist as an act of power, violence and thievery. Men don't take anything from us when we have sex, and sex isn't done to a woman. Sex, regardless of how many parties are participating and what genders, is shared and has a symbiosis, a fluidity. It's a conversation, a give and take. Until all men can understand this, I don't think these issues will be solved. 

It's all about power, if the current and past power dynamics are teaching men anything, it's that they have all the power within themselves to win. And that this is some sort of game. Men are being socialised to believe that women are expendable, and can be taken. To control women, to use them, abuse them, to take whatever they want from them. Sex, acting as such a powerful and objectively pleasurable incentive acts as a catalyst for this violence. It seems sex and women go hand in hand and women at the core, are seen as vessels for sex. Their pain is bypassed on the route to obtaining pleasure. Similarly, when we look at it so basically, men are pigeon holed, generalised and put into the box of 'abuser' as the thief stealing womens bodies. When we rely on these outdated, misogynistic and oppressive standards for women we limit their freedoms and allow them to exist only within the arena of their bodies. And we teach young men and women that their roles are already filled. Their power dynamics have been decided and the brutality of sexualising women is merely a smaller side effect of the wider victory that is at play here. 

This power dynamic in society teaches men not only that they have the power to take women but that women in general exist to please. That our general anatomy and bodily functions, our breasts and legs and bums are all exhibitions, they are all menus for your sampling. They exist for your visual pleasure, that we aren't actually full and respected human beings with autonomy, but instead a giant mouth watering feast, a buffet waiting for you to take a bite.

Molly

xoxo