I always understood (I should
unlearn, but the stern lesson,
less than, remains) that shape
equates worth,
abstained control elusive, earning
no angles and planes to
deflect, instead destined to carry
the weight of flesh, rounded
soft places, a discernment of
knowing; I left
myself open
simply by existing in
my skin.
Did the word evoke something tangible or intangible?
How does your physical world shape your emotions?
What is the nature of your connection to your body?
This prompt felt too specific; when I developed the original word set it didn’t seem to limiting, but maybe that’s just me.
The story I always told myself – the story I still tell myself – is that what he did wasn’t for sexual gratification. It wasn’t secretive; quite the opposite, though it happened when we were alone as well as with others present and watching. He was getting off on power, power over the thing he feared most, power over women. I’ve always framed it that way.
And yet, his fixation, his obsession, with this particular body part. He’d call it out across four generations: my great-grandmother, my grandmother (his wife), my mother, me. The incessant focus on this one attribute, the way we were shaped (and ironic that I actually didn’t inherit my mother’s form, instead caught between two absurd comparisons to fruit). Never the breasts, never the legs. Always the behind, the back of me. It’s a sexualized place, even outside today’s particular problematic cultural fascination. His absurd preoccupation with this body part – if it was sexual, what does that make what he did to me?
It wasn’t sexual, yet I’ve learned all too well that sexual assault and abuse ARE crimes of power, not sexuality. He wasn’t a pedophile (though others should’ve been concerned). I do not believe he did this to my young friends, for example – only to women in his family. And I was the only female child.
I still excuse it away, still (intentionally?) shirk the definition. After all this work, I still struggle with the word for this.
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