Sinister: rules of the universe

[baker,baker]

dear sinister,


i have begun, in my time on earth, to put together a list of
Rules -- simple, self-evident truths that have presented
themselves to me with enough regularity and consistency as to
seem irreversible, irrefutable, and entirely solid.  i would
like to talk to you a little bit tonight about Rule Number One.

*

i'm in this class, 'subversive verse,' which covers the work of
a few female poets of the last century.  my most recent
assignment was to read Diane DiPrima's Loba.  this excited me --
i remember reading DiPrima's work from New York in the late
50's; there was this poem called "Backyard," which is by far one
of the most beautiful i've ever read.

Loba, however, is a collosal work of shit.  i used to feel
unqualified to read this sort of thing -- this she-goddess,
wolf-woman crap always perplexed me.  i didn't get it, i thought
it must be beyond me.  that was years ago.  i like to think i'm
a bit more well-read these days, but Loba still sets my teeth on
edge.  i don't understand how anyone finds this sort of work at
all appealing, much less EMPOWERING and LIBERATING, as the
blurbs on the back of it proclaim with such vigor.

if i were a woman i would be angry at this book.  i would be
angry at the people writing so many flowery praises about the
whole concept -- this wolf-goddess being portrayed as some
mythical source of female strength...  it's insultingly stupid. 
like a catholic priest hanging around a clinic for rape victims,
trying to tell these terribly wounded women that jesus will heal
them -- i think i would go so far as to claim that DiPrima's
immense success with Loba is a form of exploitation.  she seems
to be taking advantage of that desperate need for hope, any
hope, that a woman feels after she is ravaged, as so many are,
by our culture.

*

i should admit right now that i'm not interested in feminism
anymore.  i used to be very very adamant and forthright and
ambitious when it came to my beliefs concerning feminism;
nowadays, it just tires and frustrates me.  this is not entirely
DiPrima's doing -- it's just i've heard far too many arguments &
endless debates over the merits of feminism vs. female-ism,  
eroticism vs. sexual empowerment, roles of subversion, effects
of gender roles, stereotyping, sexist parenting, and the like. 
feminism today has turned from a steady march of women's
progress into a huge and unholy mess, and frankly, i don't think
much is being accomplished by it anymore.

i guess i'd like to think that we could all just reach some
agreement to move on, reach post-feminism and be done with it. 
i'd like to think that (while we acknowledge that women have
been and continue to be oppressed) we have reached the point at
which distinguishing between gender-based oppression and
oppression in its other forms is simply doing more harm than
good.  i'd like to think gender politics is just another method
of general politics -- another perfectly curable social ill
that's currently being perpetuated by a distinct group of evil
men.

but deep down, i'm very, very scared.  i'm scared that a penis
is inherently a weapon.  i'm scared that sex isn't anything more
than a power struggle.  i'm scared that there's a biological
divide between the oppressed and the oppressors -- a chromosome
that makes men into automatic monsters.

*

there's this girl, see.  a girl i've dated on and off for the
last five years or so -- a girl who breaks my heart over and
over, and whom i love terribly, despite everything.  she's a
beautiful, fragile, and careful person, and it's due to the
damages she's suffered at the hands of other men that her
relationships never work out.  we're not dating now.  we've
never really been able to maintain our relationship for more
than a few months at a time: things always end up falling apart,
it seems, despite our best intentions.

this is mainly because this girl was hurt when she was young. 
she was raped by her boyfriend -- a boy who used to live down
the street from me, in fact, though i never knew him.  a boy,
eerily enough, who was in the music business.

some of you may have some experience with this sort of thing.  i
never did.  despite everything she told me about what had
happened to her, i was very unprepared for the repurcussions of
this girl's rape.  i didn't know then what i know now -- that
these traumas have their ways of echoing again and again in the
heart.  and so, when we we were kissing one night, and touching
each other, and feeling -- god -- wonderful...  i did not expect
this inevitable, rising fear.

now, i have never raped anyone.  i have never hit a girl, and i
have never kissed or had sex with anyone i did not love in some
capacity.  i don't enjoy making other people feel uncomfortable.
 i don't like to hurt people or even animals.  i am admittedly
very defensive and will sometimes behave in a mean way if i feel
i am being threatened or manipulated, but even at those times i
feel terribly guilty if i actually end up hurting anyone.

so it was with terrible surprise that i was first made aware
that this girl had become terrified of me.  she backed away. 
she curled up.  she cried.

it was not my fault, and it was not hers, but when this girl
began to get scared of me -- well, i have never felt so helpless
and horrible in my life.  there is nothing i can say to describe
that feeling: it was as though i had destroyed the person i
loved, simply by loving her.

and of course, i didn't want to be identified with ... him.  i
didn't want her heart to confuse me with that monster, that son
of a bitch, that stain of a human being.  i felt as though i'd
done something terrible to her, that my body contained something
poisonous and evil -- my fingers that had itched to touch her
collarbone, my tongue that wanted to taste her earlobes, my hips
that liked the way hers would bump against them -- all of these
things were as much mine as they were his.  if she could see no
evidence in my eyes that my love for her was different from his,
then perhaps it wasn't any different.  maybe she's right to see
him inside of me.

i back away.  i curl up.  i cry.

this is how i learn Rule Number One.


the First Rule is simple:  sex destroys everything.



*

"Sometimes," says Douglas Coupland, "people get broken in ways
they can't ever be fixed."  if there ever was a way for a boy
and a girl to love each other, without oppression or fear or
sadness, i'm afraid that this girl has been broken.  i'm afraid
that i have been broken.  i'm scared for all of us, but my
footnote is one of hope -- i hope that our kittens and our
children, our poems, our factories,and our brand new shoes are
all bright and shiny and perfect enough to make us happy.  i
hope we can replace one kind of love with another.  i hope we
can find some other way to make ourselves whole, and safe, and
pure. 


love,
baker,baker







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