Owning your body
The power and choice we have as women nowadays is actually thrilling to think of.
(Today’s essay is going to be a bit shorter since I went off in the recs today haha)
I’ve been thinking a lot about owing my actions, my sexuality, my words and my body these days. Last post, I spoke about how I completely lost myself and I have basically no grounding of self because I have been living up this variety of different versions of myself for other people, especially for men. I feel like my body is not mine to control anymore. I interact with men, and I don’t know how to control myself and say, this is how much you can take from me, but after that, it is my choice to decide what I want to do. I have no power of my body anymore. I have an idea of where that kind of changed, but it is so disheartening to feel like that about your own body. However, in the process of learning and growing, and talking with therapists, we do live in an era where women are able to have power and choose to say you can’t take this from me but, I will let you do this if I want to.
When I say women have the power and the choice, I really do believe in this. The amount of dating and sex podcasts we have now, and listening to these women talk freely about decision making is powerful. They decide who they are going to sleep with, they decline because they don’t want to do anything with that person, or they are the ones asking ‘let’s have sex’ and giving permission that they are allowed to touch them. I mean the classic example of ‘back then it was different’ are characters like Samantha from Sex and the City. Now, it’s normal to have a Samantha everywhere (at some degree) but ‘back then’ No it wasn’t. ‘Back then’ it was huge to have a female character who talks about guys balls. Samantha quotes can be thrown at any given time, and will get a laugh as well. The show itself is categorized and won a couple of awards in the category of ‘comedy’. However, I do want to acknowledge that expression means something to certain people and words mean something to people as well. For me, that show meant something, not because it was just funny, but because it captured varieties of layered complexity of women hood. On tv, there’s a women who say’s shit like ‘Fuck me badly once, shame on you. Fuck me badly twice, shame on me’ She owns the fact that she is getting laid, but she also is saying that she chose to have sex with the same guy twice, and not being able to have good sex was her fault. It was her choice to have sex with this man again, but she admits… it was bad the first time, the second time will possibly be bad as well, and for her to make the conscious decision of sleeping with him again for the benefit of the doubt..? Well, she chose to do so, power to her but also she admits that she fucked up.
There is always a reason when people have huge reactions to things. Sex and the City, no one had thought of talking about sex on TV before, but the female writers of Sex and the City will just start chatting up in the writers room and talk about their dates the night before or what’s it like being single in New York City and they start putting those experiences in the scripts! Like how empowering and beautiful is that. (This article about the females writers on the show is so lovely. ) No one else was doing that at the time, and that is why the show had a reaction. Many women in the 90s and early 2000s, still didn’t own vibrators or knew they had a choice to want love and marriage and kids, but also fucking random guys was totally ok too.
Thinking about the power and the choice women have now is empowering and beautiful. However, at the same time, I understand that society is still not build for women to be equal to men, and I must point out that systematically we have no more power than men. I am not trying to be a republican women saying ‘we have a choice as women everyday! What you talking about honey!’ We as women, even at the end the system might stop us because of the glass ceiling still exiting, we do have the initial choice to act and do something far more than we used to. At least, the bare minimum, women can choose to act or not to act. I think it’s very powerful to see in our society now.
One last note. In the topic of owing your body, it’s also totally ok to admit that we fuck up as well. In the vanity fair article I shared above, they say something very important about historical tv/movie female characters. A women can be either good or bad. They can’t be both. Same goes to motherhood. Mom’s are normally portrayed as good or bad, not in between. You can’t have a ‘character’ that dreams about going to live in Paris with her boyfriend while she casually admits that she had an abortion when she was a teenager. You can’t be both. But the twist is, real life is not characters, and this shit actually happens to us. It’s real life. I do think it is very empowering and thrilling to know that we can be both and we have that freedom of choosing to be who we want to be. Also look around! we have so many inspiring women creating so many different art that lights up the female experience.
✨Cultural Recommendations of the week ✨
Reeds 📗
Mr salary- a short story by Sally Rooney
if you are a Sally Rooney fan like I am, let me tell ya, you are in for a treat! (It’s from 2017, so sorry if I’m just late to the game.) It’s such a quick Sally Rooney fix, and it makes you feel like, fuck! I want to read more!!! Her writing I swear, I was a book person for years, but something about her, maybe because I started reading her stuff at an age I understand relationships more, but it just hits home so much. I was listening to this episode with a special guest of Sally Rooney herself, (She rarely does interviews I think) from my favorite podcast, literally friction, she said the characters doesn’t come first to her, but a relationship dynamic comes to mind first and she starts from there. That makes sense to me after reading most of her books, because all her books has the most chaotic dynamics going on. This short story maybe is a classic example of is this dynamic ok??It seems a bit risky? but I can’t wait for her to come up with wild dynamics in the future so she can give us what we want! love her so much!
NEUT magazine: お家デートに行ったらSEXするのは当たり前？ 答えはNO！「楽しくセクシーに性的同意をとるためのHOW TOガイド」 by Moxy Club
This article is from one of my favorite Japanese publication online media, NEUT magazine about consent. I want to do a whole piece about sexual consent next week, because I somehow ended up reading and learning a lot about it this week, including mimosas work with consent around young students. These are all Japan based organizations, but I loved what the article said.
‘最初やるときにそもそも聞かれることがないし、聞くこともあまりない。それをまず改めることが大事だと思っている。性的同意の一番大切なポイントは“対等な関係”かどうか。’ ‘そうだね。主導権がどちらかに握られていると、話し合いされないまま進められてしまうよね
One of the members says, the most important aspect about sexual consent is ‘are you equal to that person’ . Is the relationship a fair relationship? If it’s not, and in most heterosexual relationship cases, the man is the one who will naturally seem to have some type of power already. It’s very important as an ally for a man to not only ask, but level with his partner and say ‘do you feel like having sex now?’ or ‘what kind of sex do you want to have today?’ or ‘If you don’t feel like it, we don’t have to’ etc. That way you can give the women at least the bare minimum power of opting in or out to choose what she wants or what she feels like. いちいちやる前に今日やる？やらない？みたいなことを聞くなんて、めんどくさいしそんなの恥ずかしくない？ナチュラルに起きることじゃない？と思う方も多くいると思うけど、女性（男性ももちろん）で今日はやりたくない日だけど、、家にきたし、、なんかそういうムードな気がするからやらないといけないのかな、、めんどい女に思われるの嫌だし。と思うのすごい分かる。けど、それってギリギリ危ない話で、要は自分の中ではやりたくないのにやってるわけだから、全く相互の同意は得られてないまま。パートナーだし、彼氏だし、彼女だし、って言って「信頼している仲だからこそ」安堵してしまうけど、同意のないセックスは、、、関係値がどうであれ、完全に性被害のくくりに入っていいと思う。さっき英語で述べた通りだけど、なぜ「被害」になるのかというと、これはあくまで男女のストレートなカップルの場合、男性はそもそも圧倒的なパワー（肉体的なパワー、体力、身長、体重、社会的な地位パワーなど）を持っているので、男性側が「自分はそもそもそう言う特権を持ってる立場の人間なんだ、だからちゃんと相手もやりたいかどうかを確認しないとフェアな行為とは言えない。信頼していたとしてもNoということへの重みがより女性の方が難しい立場にいる。」と思う力がないと「対等」ではないし、自分の特権についても理解が得られてないわけなんだよね。残念ながら、社会は多くの人たちが男女平等に、と唱えて戦っている人たちも多いけど、社会のシステムは男女が平等であるように作られてません。なので、作られてないうちは、男性側がその自分の持ってる「パワー」を理解し、うまくそのパワーを「女性の味方」になるために使って欲しいです。とNEUTの記事を読んで深々と思ったな〜。（もちろん性的同意って男同士、女同士でもある話ですが、私は男女の関係の視点から話しました）
Podcasts 🎤
Normal Gossip : Honestly… Any episode is great… but if I have to choose, start with Episode4 ‘Always google your neighbors’
I am so happy I found this podcast. It’s the best pod find of the week for sure. Also, I do have to say, neighbor drama is SO AMERICAN, this ‘google your neighbor shit’ will never occur to anyone in Japan.
It’s about the spiking epidemic in the UK that is explained by Mair Howells, whom herself has been spiked and is now working to reach awareness about the problem and stop the spiking that is dreadfully happening on a daily basis. Spiking culture in Japan, is definitely not a thing. I used to go out at 18 in clubs, and I recklessly was drinking strangers drinks all the time.. it’s shameful to admit this, but it is true. I never felt scared that I would be drugged. Mair also started a movement called #ivebeenspiked, and in the podcast, she tells you the emotional amount of responses she got that so many women, men and all ages have been spiked before. This interview was also good as well, I highly recommend to have a listen especially if you are someone like me who never felt like you should be careful when you are going out and watch an eye out on your drink. 日本にいるとバーでお酒を置いてすぐ戻ってきて、何もなかったかのように普通に飲むけど、海外ではやっぱりほとんどの女性たちがそれをやるのはNGと教わってるから必ず海外に行くときは、お手洗いに行くときは当たり前だけど、一瞬後ろを向いただけでもお酒の中に何かを入れられる可能性はあるので気をつけないといけないね。（podcast内でも話されてるけど、なぜ「被害者側」が気をつけないといけないのか？と言うのも議論にはなっていて、悲しい現実なんだよな。。）
This podcast is from wondery, and it is good. It’s about how wework became to what it is now, and the founder Adam Neumann basically lying and fucking everyone’s business to invest in his business. Even Son Masayoshi, from Softbank was totally hypnotized by his charisma and invested billions in him. I put in my show rec as wecrashed as well, but due to my last post, you can see that I’m currently obsessed with stories that businesses gone wrong. and oh boy… I know people who still work at wework, but talk about toxic work culture… shouting ‘we!work!’ while drinking free beer with your coworkers is just so lame lol (I know they don’t do that now, I think but damn..)
Films 🎥
The HAND of God (Netflix 2021)
I haven’t watched a Paolo Sorrentino film before, but I know his reputation. That is it’s very male gazy, lots of nudes, unnecessary female naked bodies etc. Yes, indeed you will still get that from this film as well. But I have to say, I fully enjoyed the film. (not to mention, a fantastic scene where a women is eating burrata cheese whole <3)
It’s almost a memoir like film that he goes back in time and remember about his parents, and what the city of Naples is for him. In his interview, he says, ‘how a city will make you remind you of things is so powerful’ . I understand this and I get this a lot. I want to escape Tokyo so much, but a city that has shaped me essentially is also very powerful, and wanting to leave a city that formed you could be scary.
Show 📺
WeCrashed (Apple TV)
As I recommended in the podcast line, the show version of it is also great. Jared Leto is fantastic in it, and I think he is one of those guys that takes his acting role in a ‘stoic way’. He becomes that person he’s acting.
Today, my recommendation commentary was a bit long, sorry, I get emotionally invested in things I watch and read. 長くなったけど、一部日本語の記事もあったりしたので日本語で書いてみました。もし日本語も交えながら〜とかが良かったりしたら教えてください <3
Thanks for reading again! Megumi x