Always Remember by Rebecca Mott at Spinning Sisters
I want to write about the time in my life when memory was hard to find. I was a time when I lived as if violence was normal. At that time, I handled my life by not handling it. I chose to drink, I try not to sleep, I would not eat healthy food. I had chosen to live reaching out for death.
Thanks Sparkle. It is amazing how my writing is going out into the radical feminist circles. When I was younger, I could never of imagined that what I was living through could be used to help make a change. This is why I write. Rebecca.
You’re welcome Rebecca. I thought the new post above also fitted in well.
The thread running throughout the piece that stands out for me is the anger and hatred of the men for any woman/girl who is abused in this way. Women/girls internalise this hatred and turn it into self hatred and disgust. I think realising this me for was revelatory but also made me angry that I had done this to myself. But something else that occurred to me at the time is that women and girls internalise the hatred because that is the purpose of the abuse. The men are externalising their own self hatred by making the women and girls internalise it – if that makes any sense……
Yes it does make sense.
Psychoanalysts have an interesting take on this and they suggest that men’s gender identity is very fragile because, within typical child-rearing practices, girls can identify with their primary care-taker while boys have to separate themselves from their mother in order to achieve and assert their masculinity. Because of course the patriarchy demands it or they risk being ostracised by the Big Chiefs and called names like ‘mummy’s boys’ ‘faggot’ and other charming epithets.
I can’t remember who said it but it goes along the lines of that we have had the courage to bring our girls up more ‘boyish’ so we need to start bringing boys up more ‘girlish’ striving toward a more gender neutrality. But I guess we know that anyway.
It is only by setting woman apart as Other, by resisting intimacy with her, by treating her with contempt and aggression, that men assert their own independent and fragile masculinity. Some physiotherapists reckon they all need therapy
I would just like to say something about self-hate for me was one way of surviving. If I focus on myself and made myself believe that I was to blame – then I would not see the reality of the violence and hate of the men around me. To see that truth when this is your day-to-day experience can lead to complete despair.
I am not sure that many prostituted women and girls can see or feel their reality. I, like many other prostituted women and girls deadened all emotions. The only time I remember to feel was when I cut myself or other types of self-destructive behaviour. I am not sure if I was doing out of self-hate – or whether it was a way of proving that I was still alive.
Prostitution can make you feel like you are nobody. Self-harm can remind you are a human.
Rebecca – I’ve just been listening to some Dworkin on prostitution – and she talks of how the prostitute is a caricature interpretation of sexuality as they (the john) insists that it be.
In order to do this – She says “Prostitution means going dead inside as best you can…and that to split the heart from the head, aren’t where your body is—-you will live and survive longer”
I hope i’m understanding what you are saying.
I’ve just reread my earlier comment and think I need to clarify one bit which is where I say of myself (re self hatred) that I felt angry that I had done this to myself. That doesn’t sound – and isnt in fact – logical. The woman who internalises hate projected onto her hasn’t of course done this to herself. But I think that a lot of women who have experienced rape/abuse are angry with themselves for ‘letting’ it happen. As if they could stop it….
I think my personal experience was just thinking – why for all those years did I carry round that feeling – and the answer was that I had made it so much a part of myself that I didn’t even realise it was there.
Andrea Dworkin said it so brilliantly. I felt as a prostituted girl/woman, being dead inside help me stay alive. My heart was completly separated from head. I had to lose my intelligence in order to survive. I had to show I could never be hurt. This meant whatever the men did to abuse/torture me, I did not show fear. My heart if it was to have safety could not cry, scream or try to escape. But my reality was Ii could find an exit.
To be a prostitute you do become a cartoon of men’s wet-dreams. To survive you must fake pleasure, smile on demand and in the end, lose your identity. I know that as the men had me , I was not there, only a body where the men place there images of porn into a living person.
I really hope this make sense. All I can say is that I survive by making myself nothing, Now, I will write my truth, to show that I am someone, and can be loud. Love and respect, Rebecca.
Polly styrene and Sparkle, the sad fact is that so many women and girls do internalise men’s hatred and in doing so believe they alone were responsible for men’s hatred and violence committed against them. Men who abuse project their hatred and contempt on the woman or girl and of course we must not ignore the fact our culture continues to be a misogynstic one. One wherein women-hatred is rampant and often passes for what is presumed to be ‘common sense’ or normal human relations. For me, one of the most difficult things was to put accountability where it belonged not with women or girls, but with the men who commit violence against females of whatever age, ethnicity etc.
Given that women learn as girls they are supposed to be passive, not become angry because this is not ‘feminine’ behaviour, plus being constantly told women are either ‘virgins or whores’ whereas men’s sexual actions are excused and justified. It is not surprising so many women blame themselves for what they could not prevent. It also neatly exonerates men of any accountability. I call it indoctrination wherein women learn they are not fully human beings but are always judged and measured by male standards. But these male standards only apply to women they do not apply to men. Having said this, I do not blame women who struggle to get rid of their internal self-hatred because we have all been indoctrinated into hatred or loathing of anything termed ‘feminine.’ It is very hard getting rid of the women-hating poison we daily have to live with and see the real reality – that women like men are fully human and like men must have the right of being seen and treated as human beings not simply men’s sexualised and violent fantasies. Yes, prostitution is the ultimate male sexual fantasy wherein women are dehumanised and reduced to men’s sexual masturbatory commodities. Only problem is women are not ‘masturbatory commodities’ we are human too but seeing women as human is way too frightening for many men because it threatens their fragile masculine identities. Far better to view women with contempt and hate because in that way they can prove to other men they are ‘real men’ and not women.
Yeah, I know Rebecca Mott. She’s a great and courageaous writer! I published three of her pieces on my website and I have still got another one (she sent me) to read.
Yes Maggie, Rebecca is a fine and courageaous writer whom I’ve also had the pleasure to meet in real life.
Thank you again Rebecca, for debunking the so-called Happy Hooker myth that the pro-pornies like to trot out.
The so-called Happy Hookers are traitors to our sex, and are most certainly are NOT feminist. Or delusional. Take your pick. Not looking at anyone “M”.
Hi Stormy Mwwa