Muscles, Mysogyny, Moral Compasses

So it's early on a Saturday morning, I have several hours to kill before breakfast plans materialize, so I finally have some time to think about that post I wanted to write a few weeks ago:

So tonight, a post about gender, appetite, weight-lifting, saying yes, and being alone. Wait for it....

I was reading this article about a 13 year old girl who commit suicide after suffering a year's worth of humiliation for sending a photo of her breasts to a boy she liked, and her story reminded me that I have a post's full of thoughts on 'sluttiness', safety and other random ideas related to female sexuality.

I am not sure where to start with this, it's not like I have a thesis, I just have a set of impressions gleaned from events that occurred in my personal life in the last month or so. Some of those impressions will probably come out in comedy, some are probably going to come out in a change in attitude, some are going to be sheared out in my body. It's been a bit of a harsh month, things are changing.

See, the basic facts are this, I ended up going out again with that fellow who told me I was too heavy for his taste. Don't ask why, I mean you can ask why, but the answer you'll get is a combination of excuse-making and "well I just liked him, I thought he would turn out to be okay". We had a good, no a lovely time, our second night out, and in fact, he did seem to be totally okay. Then I slept with him, on our second date.

Then I never saw him again, oh he texted a few times, in fact for a couple of weeks he texted every other day, which is something I have no comprehension of, texting as a mode of communication is about as annoying as communication gets, so meaningless texts about the weather or a persons day to day minutea, well, if the guy had seemed awesome after date 2 by text number 12 I was beginning to have my fill.

So I called him and left a message to say, "texts are fascinating, but seeing you would be better". All communication stopped cold after that.

In a way it's a good thing, but then I spent 3 weeks wondering what I had done, what mistake I had made, and when I polled my friends their resounding response was " don't sleep with people on a second date" you devalue yourself.

I am not sure how to feel about that advice. I mean, I know it is well-intentioned, especially as it comes from friends to protect me from asswipes like this fellow, and I know my friends mostly hate seeing and hearing me beat up on myself when I make choices that don't result in maximal happiness for yours truly.

But I was a little taken aback by the advice. For a bajillion reasons, most of which sound tinny and false even to my ears. Mostly because *I want to be able to sleep with a person whenever I want* and not necessarily be penalized for it.

This is unrelated to the dirtbag who started this story by the way. I should have seen his crazy and stayed the fuck away. Point taken.

But it makes me super uncomfortable to think that my sexual desire is still a bargaining chip in the world of dating. That to appear desirable, I still need to act as if I have no desire. My friends when I point this out say "no no no" you just need to let the tension build it's fun, it's more fun if you wait and then once you are both ready and really excited about it then you have great sex.

I am sure that is one approach, that is certainly the approach taken by people who espouse virginity before marriage too.

I haven't by any means resolved this issue for myself, there is too much newness to it, I am in a new city as well, maybe things are just different in 'Toronto the Good' and what is normal in Montreal is considered Bad Girl behaviour here. I don't really know.

Once result of this strange dating experience, is that my body for a while became unsafe again. I couldn't trust it, couldn't give in to what it wanted, couldn't assume it was doing a good job representing the me that isn't contained inside my gray matter. So i did what I do when I can't trust my body. I made it work for me, I went to the gym a lot more. Joined a weight-lifting class to be precise.

While I sweat in the studio, incubating a small but significant crush on the instructor who is a beautiful blue-eyed woman with thighs that could crush you like a nut. While I sweat, I think of all these parts of mine some much stronger then others, some coated in a layer of fat, some skinny etc.. I look at all the other women in the class, and watch the different sizes of weights we use, how it is impossible to judge based on the size of a woman's bicep how strong she might be.

Women's bodies are opaque and mysterious, that's one thing about them. They are beautiful, they have a great deal of variance. They scare people, the owners of said bodies, as well as the people who seem to make a habit of trying to possess, control or demean them. I for one struggle to create structures, routines, codes of behaviour that work so I don't become overwhelmed by the uncertainty biology and time create in my embodied self.

Weight lifting is a new structure, a new set of codes, and I like how protected I feel by my new muscles. Ironically the stronger my biceps get the farther I seem to be away from forgiving the fellow for starting all this in the first place. I am less likely to squirm in shame at the thought that I went back a second time, I am more like to imagine running into him on the street balling up a fist and trying a punch with my new set of pipes.

Lola needs to go out and i know I haven't talked about size yet, and how fat plays into all of this, I will get to it. I swear maybe a second post.