“It was shaped, pinched in under my breasts, narrowing down to a waist, billowing out in a gathered skirt, covering my knees. It was a woman’s dress. I wore it when we went walking in the park the next afternoon, refusing to put on a sweater. I heard little and saw less; aware only of the tucks on my ribs, the sloping seams at my sides, the swing of the skirt as it brushed my knees. I held my naked, collarless neck stiff and high, placed my feet straight before me, step after step, careful to avoid the Charlie Chaplin turned-out foot-slap my father derided. My waist was a golden ring, my sides as I stroked them had the curved perfection of antelope’s horns. My arms below the puffed sleeves were cream-colored velvet. I approved of the taste of all the strokers and pinchers. I understood what they felt, felt it in myself as I continued to stroke my superb sides.”
Kate Simon
“I was ready for all of them and for Rudolph Valentino; to play, to tease, to amorously accept, to confidently reject. Lolita, my twin, was born decades later, yet a twin of the thirteen -and-a-half-year-old striding through Crotona Park, passing the spiky red flowers toward a kingdom of mesmerized men-young, old, skinny, fat, good-looking, ugly, well dressed, shabby, bachelors, fathers, all subjects.” Bronx Primitive by Kate Simon
This is from one of my favorite books. Although usually shelved away in the ethnic literature section because it is a part of the Early American Jewish canon it’s always been a book about sexuality to me. It’s so brutally honest about sex, abortion, molestation, and menstruation. That passage in all of its dated glory resonated with me. I remember the moment when I became aware that I was a sex object and I reveled in it. Even when the attention was unwanted I didn’t experience the fear. I was small, but someone had given me this power that grown men simply didn’t have. The moment I crossed from girlhood into womanhood wasn’t marked by bleeding, a bra, or a birthday party although they happened in a similar time line.
It felt the same as the first moment when I learned to read. I remember that transition from scribbles on a page to the first moment when my brain clicked and I realized it was language. I was one of those kids who memorized every word on the pages of my favorite books and I could “fake” a reading for relatives, but I remember the glee I felt when I was actually comprehending language for the first time. I felt that same cognitive switch when I realized that someone was making a pass at me. Suddenly the world of sex exploded before my eyes. Men were staring at me because my body popped out in certain places. I loved every minute of it and I quickly became an incorrigible flirt.
I haven’t really grown out of it yet. I still love to tilt my head in suggestive ways and use tones that should be reserved for the bedroom. It seems that my quilt rolls past the walls and onto the streets where I walk. How is it that simply running my hands down my thighs can alter someone’s behavior so dramatically? When I catch people looking at my breasts I like to smile. I want people to know that they aren’t getting away with something. I’m not accidentally putting on a show, I’m doing it on purpose. I don’t require something in return because I already got what I wanted.
I don’t think it’s fair to call me a tease. It’s impossible to acquire a monopoly of sexual knowledge. There is something to be learned from everyone and I’m an attentive student. That’s a fancy way of saying that I do put out pretty frequently. I don’t like thinking that I should wait a certain number of dates before sex. If I don’t want to fuck someone by the end of dinner, it’s not likely I even want a second date. I feel no shame in honoring my body by giving it what it wants.
Filed under About me, literature
