Wednesday 25 February 2015

Fifty Shades of F***kd Up. How Not to be a Woman

                                                   Pornography for Nice Girls.
                                                                                                                                                               "So Godamn and Blast who knew Selma would be so popular" I hiss to the boy on Saturday, having slipped in to the Cinema on the last minute, to be confronted by a tide of folk between us and the  Ticket Office  "I mean at this rate there will be no time to get Ice Cream.  Here, you go get Ice Cream" The boy sniggered irritatingly looking up the long line of  cinema goers.  "Ha, they're for Fifty Shades.  Just released  today.  Dontcha know?"  "So many?" I say in wonder. "I mean who are these people anyway? Why would they want to??" And they were a mixed bag  my friends, young couples, giggling girls,  middle aged girls, mature twosomes.   I wondered had they read the books. Maybe the older ones I decided, the children only curious, open to a bit of titillation, following the herd. Mommy Porn.  A contradiction in terms.  A nauseating notion.

                                                   On the Highway to Hell

All week long and in the week behind it you are bombarded with an endless stream of sensational detail in the Media about tragic Elaine O'Hara,  in a macabre dance with the breathless promotional soundbites for the Release of Fifty Shades of Grey. Reality and Fantasy. The O'Hara case is grim, dark,   with the relentless sensational newsflashes about mental illness,  bondage, domination, sadism, mascochism. The case built by the prosecution was based on circumstancial evidence. There are lots of circumstances.  Bringing us on a trip down BDSM way . Master and submissive, testosterone and estrogen monstrously inflated, bent out of shape into a hellish sexual exchange. The moral clearly being that a tentative flirtation with light kink was a stepping stone on the road to Looser Hell.  Murderous Sex. So, maybe someone should tell the breathless Fifty Shaders to put down the book,  step away from the screen:   ill-conceived squirming  and the fabulous wealth of the Master won't help you down in the woods.

                                                    How to be a Looser.

And remember who get's be the submissive here. Who get's to be the one who's beaten, peed on, humiliated.  The woman, that's who.  And the occasional looser man. You wouldn't actually like it dear heart. And if you would, well you're damaged little head is just good with the dark stuff,  no judgement.

                                                      And How Not.

And I read about the retired politician Liz MacManus in the newspaper, my heart gladdened, my faith in womankind restored at her account of the University creative writing course, the book published, the family reared. Oh, and the love affair, he firmly in place  in his house and she in her's, living her life,  her own woman. You wouldn't catch her at the rope end of someone's fevered fantasy, or the other end either. So, do you have to be sixty plus then, to know how to be a woman. Do you?

                                                   Little Red Dancing Shoes.
                                                
"I'm just going to bring them, in my bag I mean, in case my feet hurt too much like
 later on.  Just like,  in case" the Boss remarks as she shoves her Vans into her shoulder bag  on Wednesday night. The mid term break, the  Teen Disco. Suprevised! Alcohol free! So you shell out fifteen euro and drive the three quarter  hour journey to get her there.   I am the designated driver for six of them  going  and in consequence am asked to take the perfect pictures for Facebook in the Hall on the away out. They line up in their tiny shorts, wisps of skirt,  the boss wearing a whole dress, elongated laughing girls in their vertiginous heels, sharply sloping wedges, cruel stilettos, solemn now for the official Facebook picture.

                            I refuse to be Hobbled, I will not  Bored,  where's my woolly Hat???

Later on I return to find the Beautiful Girl's black suede shoes lying randomly on the kitchen floor. Another girl on Mid Term, leaving the house earlier to party,  precisely balanced on high wedge heels. I find her  lying on the Sofa, legs draped over the arm,  pyjamed,  a book balanced on her chest, her grey woollen hat pulled down snugly over her ears. Her indoors, chillin' uniform. "Back early?" . "Yeah, hey, I 'm reading this.  Have you read this. The Monk".  She is like a deep sea diver with  the college reading list, she emerges with the kind of Books I could never tear her away from the web to read heretofore.  "D'ye like it? It's dark."  I offer.   "Yeah dark, it's cool. I was so you know bored? I came home. I'm not hanging round if I'm bored. Yeah,  love it,  it's great".  Yep, I think she's on course, she's on the road, she'll be  her own woman.

                                                  Not drowning I'm Dancing.
                                                                                                  
"Was it wonderful did ya dance all night were there lots of boys how's the poor feet" I ask the boss in the morning.  "Um, well I actually changed into my Vans in the car on the way there?, I was going to put on my actual shoes when we got there.  But then I just..didn't? Yeah. It  was great, it was laughing, and dancing.."( The boss goes to Discos to dance,  as well as to electrify boys.)  "....and you know all the girls said they like really envied me? later on when you'r  feet really hurt cos you're dancing I was able to I  could.... dance...I like danced....I could dance... all night".  So, right, she's cracked it,  she's nearly sixteen,  she knows how to be a woman.