Remittance Girl's Blog, page 24

It Was A Pleasure To Burn – The Tattoo

I’ve always wanted a tattoo. I like the idea of marked flesh – but not casually or without thought, I know many people who see a design they like and go for it. Through the years, I’ve pondered on what, if anything, I’d consider having indelibly marked on my flesh. I’ve never wanted anything terribly intricate or colourful. I’m just not that kind of person. I like stark and simple, and at times I’ve considered a number of bold Polynesian patterns, at others a Thai temple. I’ve played around with some very simple Escher designs. There were times, in love, when I have considered having some token of that bond immortalized on my skin, but I’m glad now that I never did it. People change. Feelings evolve. Walking around with someone’s name on my flesh would never have been appropriate for me, or for them. I was never all that worried that I’d regret it, but they might.

This is one of those very rare non-fictional blog posts. But in a way, it is still about writing. Because of all the other things I do, first, I think I’m a writer and will always be one. I can’t imagine a time when I will walk away from that pursuit and, luckily, you can do it even when your body’s gone to shit and you can hardly move.  So finally, after many many years, I’ve decided what I want as a tattoo and where I want it.

It’s a simple line of text. The opening sentence of Ray Bradury’s novel ‘Fahrenheit 451′.

It was

a pleasure

to burn.

If you’ve never read the novel, you should. It’s probably one of the best pieces of dystopian fiction ever written. Although it was written in response to the rise of McCarthyism in the US in 1953, the themes of the novel – its condemnation of the censorship of the written word, its exploration of the integral humanity of reading and writing, of the individual’s responsibility to do what they know to be right, regardless of the personal costs, of the possibility of personal redemption – these are ideas that resonate deeply for me.

But also, and completely separately, it stands for me in isolation as a statement about life itself and how to live it. I have not always embraced it. I’ve been measured and cautious at times. But I’m not proud of those times in my life when I guarded myself against experience. Because although being measured has been sensible, it has never been a pleasure.

The times in my life when I have had the courage to give of myself and experience the world without my guard up have indeed been like ‘burning’ and they were a pleasure. Not a pleasure in the simple sense of something that felt good, but in the greater sense of being overwhelming, awe-inspiring, and transgressive.

I am just now coming out of a very long period of hibernation – of being measured, of keeping myself very much apart. At the same time, I have embarked on a very exciting journey in taking on a PhD.  But most of all, I want to be ‘flesh’ again. I want to burn again. And so, I think the tattoo is appropriate and that I will reach a ripe old age and not regret its presence. Finally, I think it serves as a bit of a hint as to what to do with my body after death. I don’t want to be buried.

Now, I just have to find a tattoo artist who won’t think it beneath their talent to put it on me, and someone who can centre optically, because the balance of that last full stop makes the precise layout of this a bit of a bitch.

Have you gotten a tattoo or body mod that has lasting meaning for you? Tell me about it.

Why Do We Need a “Best Male Erotica” Anthology

Yesterday, Burning Book Press sent out a call for submissions for a ‘Best Male Erotica Anthology 2013‘ to be edited by Raziel Moore and Will Crimson.

Historically, pornographic (sexually explicit) writing has been almost the exclusive preserve of men, although ironically the etymology of pornography is Greek and means ‘the writing of prostitutes’.  With some notable early exceptions, like the poems of Sappho and the Heptameron, attributed to Queen Marguerite de Navarre, the vast majority of erotic works well into the 20th Century were written by men and for men.  With the publication of female writers of erotic fiction such as Anais Nin, Marguerite Duras and Pauline Réage, erotic fiction took an interesting turn towards being female-focused.  This evolution corresponds historically to the rise in the availability of pornographic magazines, and film and video pornography. Socially, there is evidence that men were increasingly more likely to opt for visual representations of sexuality while women preferred textual ones. There have been interesting discussions as to why that is – ranging from biological differences in sexual responses between the sexes to sociological double-standards when it comes to how publicly ‘sexual’ it has been acceptable for the different genders to be in the eyes of society.

Today, however, both the market and the industry of erotica publishing are undeniably dominated by women. As consumers, writers, publishers and editors. Erotica itself has changed radically in the last 10 years, with Erotic Romance slowly eclipsing the Erotica genre.

At the same time, it is worth noting that many men express an interest in both writing and reading erotic fiction. Many have expressed their dissatisfaction with pornography as the only mediated expression of erotic narrative.  And yet our culture still perpetuates the assertion that ‘real men watch porn’.

It’s fair to say that both men and women watch porn. Visual porn has its place for all genders. But one of the problems with visual porn is that it short-circuits the use of the imagination for many people who consume it. Porn SHOWS us how sex should be and it always only shows an ‘ideal’.

Even when writing is highly descriptive, it cannot tell a reader everything. It depends on the reader to ‘complete the picture’ to a certain extent. Text requires the reader to generate their own mental images and this means that these images will inevitably be more contextual to the reader’s lived experience, more personal, more intimate. Good erotic writing allows the reader space to bring their own erotic nuances to the scenes they hatch in their imaginations, prompted by the words they read on the page.

There will be a lot of men and women who are simply too mentally lazy to do that imagination work themselves. They rather have their sexual spectacle delivered to them on a plate. And the more they depend on that sort of ‘closed’ dose of mediated sex, the less workout their sexual imagination muscles get, the flabbier they become. Well, it’s pretty much like fast food. You know what you’re getting, it’s quick, and in the long run, it probably isn’t very good for you.

However, there are an increasing number of men who do want the opportunity to exercise those erotic imagination muscles, but when they go to read a piece of erotica, many times they find that either a) it’s so badly written, it jars them out of their engagement with the story or b) its so female-focused and female voiced, it is not addressing their experience of sexuality at all.

Let us dispense with the fallacy that only men are visual or that men are ONLY visual. It’s not true. The gender split for sci-fi readers is pretty much 50/50, which is another literary genre that requires a great deal of reader imagination. I think our culture has brainwashed men into believing that are more dependent on the visual when it comes to sex than they really are. And this lie has served the producers of sexually explicit visual products very well.

The erotica genre really needs to address both genders, and I believe that it can. But let us start by acknowledging that there are differences in what we seek in our textual erotic material. That those differences should not be barriers or hurdles but should make us not only feel welcome, as readers, in the work, but also encourage us to take a peek over the wall into foreign territory.

I’m hoping this anthology will do well. I suspect that many women will be keen to take a wander into the textual eroticism of the male mind. Moreover, I’m hoping it will also tempt male readers to do a little fence jumping themselves. It is fine to celebrate the themes, situations, imagery that turns us on, but it is truly both a pleasure and an adventure when we realize that we can find eroticism in what turns ‘the other’ on.

Postscript: Please note that the call for the anthology doesn’t exclude authors of any gender. The editors are looking for erotic stories from a male POV, but female & trans authors are welcome to submit so long as their story fits the bill.

Exhale (Exile)

I have squirmed, wriggled, pushed and begged without success; the world simply won’t welcome me into the order of things. Even as a child, skinny and unkempt, I hovered at the edge of the flickering circle of humanity like a stray dog, patiently vigilant for the morsel carelessly dropped from the table. Eavesdropping on the banquet guests while I waited.

There have been times in my life, I’ve masqueraded inclusion. I’ve pretended to join, I’ve faked communion, I’ve partaken of the flesh, without swallowing. There is almost always a thin membrane, a wrap of impenetrable film that keeps me in exile. Sometimes so close, other times, I’ve hovered near the ceiling and watched someone fuck me and felt guilty for being absent even in the moment of my orgasm. I have become a master in the art of pretending to be present.

I can count on both hands the number of times I’ve really been in the world. Always they were moments of intensity. Of fear or pain or ecstatic joy – which are all very much the same thing when one reaches a certain level of intensity. And I hang onto the memory of those moments with frantic determination. They are my proof of having lived life instead of having simply observed it.

As I’ve gotten older, the determined clawing to get in, the flinging of myself against the barrier, came to seem more and more pointless, and more and more painful. Now I realize I’m an exile and I always will be. Perhaps, had I accepted this sooner, I would have enjoyed the world more.

But I can’t dwell on that. Regret hatches nothing but bitterness, the worst of all sins. It’s time to release the long-held breath, accept, and exhale.

 

 

 

Separate States

There are really two parallel planes of existence; people who were born beautiful inhabit one, the other is for the rest of us.  There is, of course, crossover, in the form of interaction at commercial establishments and the longing looks of the ugly as they jump dimensions and settle on impossible objects of desire. Sometimes, although very rarely, there is crossover in the other direction.

Hollywood is filled with ugly duckling stories of plain looking women who capture the hearts of impossibly handsome men and the reverse. But that’s a fictive opiate to keep us in our place as underdogs, literally. And you’ll notice that, by the end of the movie, it always turns out that the duckling was a swan anyway, which ensures we don’t get too high on the drug of dreams.

Of course, there’s commerce. Paunchy, balding men who sport a ramp model on one arm and a Patek Philippe watch on the other.  I’m not saying this is not true love, I’m just saying it’s unlikely.  Similarly, I’ve seen aged and unattractive women at tropical resorts trailing a lovely, tanned and buff piece of eye candy behind them. Perhaps those young men never quite overcame their Oedipal complexes, but it’s doubtful. The clue in all this is that the ugly person is old and has accumulated a great deal of wealth, or power, or both.

When I was seventeen, the most handsome boy in my class took it upon himself to secretly slip his hand into mine behind the bleachers at a school tennis tournament.  His name was Anthony – Tony to his friends, not to me – and he was very handsome indeed. All sun-bleached blonde hair and azure blue eyes and the sort of bone structure you just knew would last a while.  In truth, I’d never coveted him. The smartest of ugly girls learn early not to bother even looking, and I was part of that secret society of pragmatists. So when I realized what he’d done, I shook my hand free, glared at him, and asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing.

It was a very courtly, tender gesture, and instead of offering any explanation, he simply reached behind the bleacher and caught up my hand again, as if he had a perfect right to claim it and I should be flattered. I sat there perplexed as my palm began to sweat in the afternoon heat and my stomach began to feel vaguely nauseous.

I didn’t even like tennis. I’d come out of loyalty to watch my brother get beaten by someone older and with a far better serve.  So when he was finally and thoroughly put in his place, I stood up, having forgotten the limpet hand attached to mine.

Anthony tugged at it until I had to bend over not to lose it and whispered. “Don’t tell anyone.” Who was I going to tell? Who would actually believe me? And, beyond all that, the whole incident felt strangely dirty, and not in a good way.

Three days later, after a history class on the First World War, he cornered me in an empty corridor and kissed me. Unlike the handholding, it wasn’t sweet at all. It was filled with the sort of feral hunger I learned to identify only much later in life as abject desperation.  It was all teeth and tongue.  The hand he used to hold my head still left bruises on the back of my neck.

“Don’t you fucking tell anyone,” he repeated when he’d finished.

I wasn’t nearly as skilled at the biting retort in those days. I stood there dumbfounded and wiped his saliva off my mouth with the back of my hand.

A week later, he raped me.

I’m fairly sure he felt, somewhere in his handsome twisted heart, that he was doing me the favour of a lifetime. I’m sure he read my swearing, my fighting, my sullen resignation as some feigned and over-dramatic gesture to protest the virtue I’d already lost to someone nicer and uglier than him. Afterwards – after the boyish smile and the wholly inappropriate post-rape kiss – he didn’t even bother warning me not to tell anyone. It was hardly necessary. I was wicked smart even then and knew, with blinding certainty, that doing so would hurt me far more than him. At best no one would believe me. At worst, I’d be an object of pity.

So I didn’t tell anyone – until now. Now I’m telling you. This story has no Hollywood ending; I never blossomed into a swan, despite Anthony’s unwanted magic sperm. I did, however, develop a pathological fear of beautiful people and the parallel but separate state of existence they inhabit.

They have their own rules over there.

Fleshless

There is something

less than you:

something, someone

smaller but sweet

valuable and worthy

momentary satiations

of sundry hungers

the pleasure of

lips that meet

of parts that fit

of skin that sings.

Why isn’t that enough?

As the unattainable

object of my desire

you are infinitely safer

than a good hard fuck,

and the risk that I’d

lose myself in the world

of someone else’s flesh.

That makes me

nothing but

a coward.

No Two Cigarettes…

No two cigarettes evoke the same thought. Afterwards, of course, you might regret them equally, but at the time you pull the cloying, acrid smoke down deep into your lungs where it can do the most damage, it births a different notion.

The one I had when I saw him, leaned up against the wall of the austere granite building was: him, oh, yes, I want him. This was, of course, where the lepers congregate to feed their filthy habit. He was smoking a Djarum; I could smell it from across the courtyard. Dark, sharp, spicy sweet, I could almost taste the burnt brutal tang on his lips, along with the traces of sugar.

He stared off into the distance as he smoked, having his own singular thought. It took me a moment to decide, and then I approached him.

“Can I buy one of your clove cigarettes? I haven’t had one in so long.”

The smokey eyes looked at me from under an embarrassment of dark lashes. “No. You can’t buy one,” he said, pulling the soft pack out of his shirt pocked and tapping a cigarette out. It had the familiar creamy paper, mottled dark where the clove oil had stained it. “But I’ll give you one.”

“That’s very kind of you,” I said, taking it. Even before I put the filter to my lips, the reek of spice enveloped me. And before I’d rummaged successfully in my own pocket for a lighter, he was offering me a flame, touching it to the tip. I drew a first, hard hit and smiled. “Yum.”

“Mm.”

“Where did you get them? They’re hard to find.”

“Jakarta. I brought back a carton.”

I licked my lips, tasting the sweet coating of the Djarum. “Make them last.”

“I always do.”

* * *

Much later that day, once the violence of the sun was a forgotten foe and we’d polished off a bottle of corked Australian Shiraz, I sat on his thighs with the taste of his semen on my tongue. He sat up and pressed another lit, smoldering cigarette against my lips and pulled me onto his spent cock.

“Have you ever smoked opium?”

“No,” I replied, savouring the strange but pleasant blend of human seed and burning spice.

“You should. You’d like it.”

I sucked my bottom lip and then kissed him. “It’s not safe to buy opium here. Too many snitches.”

“I know.” His hand drifted down my bare spine and over the swell of my ass cheek. He gave it a hard squeeze. “Come to Laos with me.”

And so I did.

 

The Exquisite Pleasure of Nakedness

Such a small thing,

a simple pleasure,

that hardly rates

as racy.

True, it is sold,

marketed, packaged,

promoted, bought,

we use cunts and

rate them like

rotting fruit.

We assess

cocks like

so much

prime meat.

I know all that,

but for one moment

let’s pretend we

are wiser than that:

the sensation

of clean linen

against bare skin

is beyond words

or valuation.

No picture will ever

capture the exquisite truth

of its embodied beauty.

It only lacks one thing:

you.

In Traffic

In that moment, I felt the realness of him. The gravity well of his physicality. It arrived bearing undertones of salt and warm hidden skin. It anchored in the complication of his features and the unfamiliar cadence of his voice.

I felt the almost-kiss. The heat of his breath upon my upper lip. The space between us starved of oxygen. The urge transmitted through the tips of fingers after words become too small, too poor, to unfit to bear the weight of want.

And then the pull. The grasp that brooks no refusal.  The distance annihilated in the time it takes to swallow doubt and hold it down in the belly, its vertigo smeared against the walls of touch.

It was the moment of no return. The place where clothes get shed without caution, where fastenings are fumbled, where impediments are torn, because all I want is the terrible proof of the fuck. The abject reduction of everything down to that singular moment of penetration. Only then did I understand that I’d been naked all along, really, and weeping wet forever, too.

A car’s horn broke the spell, and it was gone.  The phantasms of desire sink back into their shadowed corners and their muttered, bitter longings.

Protected: Pain Stained – #NaPoWriMo Day 30

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Filter Feeder – #NaPoWriMo – Day 29

photo: Crow 911

Tonight

my anemone skin

seethes in the boil

of moonlit space,

invisible cilia

ripple and wave

hungry to capture

anything.

Seldom

am I so tightly

wrapped in my flesh.

Seldom so unable

to dismiss it for

the carapace

I have no

use for.

Perhaps

it is exhaustion

or the rare desire

for the unknown:

the scent of

a night flower.