When I orbited the local poetry slam scene, mostly as observer and occasionally as an open mic mumbler, I earned a permanent gnarl in my neck and shoulders, reacting to the inevitable 'beautiful woman' poem - the short piece detailing the attractiveness of a male poet's affections, usually a co-worker or some poor soul at the bus stop or the Whole Foods, going about her day, unaware of the cosmic tumult her existence inflicted on some random victim, how her winsome gait inspired spirited comparisons to creatures springing across the African plain, or perhaps, soft, slow summer rains.
That stands steady as obstacle-deluxe for the poet. Describing meat in ways meat has never been described before.
I still remember a woman's reaction to a double-header of male-assayed slam pieces. The first - performed by a veritable Baby Huey of a man - alerted the audience to the fact that he was the follow-up to the midnight bootie call man. In the second, a male duo dished a hip-hop description of tag teaming 'fat chicks.' The female audience member finally cried out and pulled the plug on the ever-escalating in aggression piece, arguing that this wasn't clever wordsmanship. Instead "it was all just meat."
Objectification is a handy dandy tool. The Incredible Hulk is a busy guy. He doesn't have time to spout at length about specific feats. "Hulk is strongest there is!" encapsulates the general thrust of complex force-versus-mass calculations Bruce Banner could rattle off to colleagues without breaking a sweat.
Can you penalize a budding Rod McKuen for celebrating the fortunate arrangement of particulate matter by cramming insights into a minimum of saliva-flecked stanzas? The human eye and ear can only take so much. We're all semi-familiar with the realm of perfect forms. We get it fairly quickly when yet another model fresh from that particular production line stands at issue.
While working part-time in college, a full-time male colleague asked if I'd noticed that one of my female co-workers sported 'blowjob lips.' As far as I know, this winning physical feature was never brought to the young woman's attention.
More recently, a co-worker at the bookstore described a former female co-worker as 'inappropriate shirt girl,' a determined-to-be-tactful term that in its very propagation negates tact. The woman in question was big busted. The possession of flesh in such generous quantities is often not the owner's fault. The male co-worker making the remark could easily be deemed 'inappropriate shirt guy,' since he had 'pulled the ripcord' so to speak, and was inflating daily. His propensity for a size too small button down shirts only emphasized enshrinement in the same spilled tar.
No one should trust men who state for the record that all they care about are eyes or a pretty smile. That kind of white-washed line only serves as a front for seething, pulsating animal aggression. Yet, when I think of my wife, more often than not, I picture her smiling face. This might have something to do with the fact that on exit or entrance to the residence, I often end up glancing at the headshot on her work ID.
Thinking of myself, I usually first consider my knuckles or my nose. Both are problematic tissue issues. Regular exposure to heat and now cold only exacerbating that old inconvenience of dried, damaged, psoriatic fun.
Thinking of random comic book characters always inserts a particular penciler's take on the character. I think of Superman, Curt Swan's Superman leaps to mind. I think of Spidey, I think of the Ron Frenz version.
To be fair, to point out the obvious, often thinking of women, I don't think of the soul, the personality, instead my brain slingshots focus towards proportions, hefts, winsome gaits. I don't own the confidence to swap precise preoccupations with any other living soul. Keeping to the shadows is the wiser course.
The human dilemma is the attempt to extricate ourselves from the limits of our bone-and-tissue home. To connect with other souls and slip the dread chamber. The machinations of propagating the species, the drive to create fair copies of those who stir us the deepest, remains priority one. Tabs and slots. Insertions and suffusions. Without avenues for release, with preferred avenues stymied, the fuel begins to bloat or leak.
That's not an explanation or an excuse for harassment or predatorial behavior. But the runway for that behavior is laid down by a slow accretion, toxic environments built one derogatory comment at a time like one of those mosaics created by the clever arrangement of hundreds or thousands of smaller articles.
All the male colleagues mentioned above would fall into the category of 'good guys.' All are married. Two have children. Their wives trust them. Their daughters trust them. Yet, unleashed in trusted environments, they willingly and gleefully reduce women to component parts, objects, targets, meat.
The current cultural climate includes discussion of men - good men - stepping forward and permanently denouncing the culture perpetuated by the Weinsteins of the world. About time. Good for us. Clap-clap-clap. It smacks of window dressing. Harumphing.
Some long-simmering seething with pork piece of legislation about to go up for a vote in Congress.
Meat is what we are and what we have. We can't divorce ourselves from the genetic imperative. And we can't get what we want - who we want - most of the time. So it distorts our interactions. If you can't tell the tech writer her boobs are big for her size, you'll at least inform some colleagues of your discovery. By directing attention to a couple pounds of fat, you now own those breasts. Mark it as a win.
When I think of that tech writer, I don't think of her pleasing proportions. I just picture her as any man or woman reduced to a component part, now licking blood from paws post-revenge. We focus on the pleasing aspects. The tantalizing aspects. Ignoring at our peril that any potential feast almost always bears some kind of claws.
No comments:
Post a Comment