i have been struggling. i really have. i have tried not to struggle and the more i try not to struggle, the more i struggle. i do not like this one bit.
i feel the ground changing under my feet faster than light travelling through space, and it is hallucinogenic in all its forms.
yesterday i had an encounter with a colleague that was of the strangest kind. but what is strange? at one point i was muttering to myself that i am indeed the grand-dame of whores. if so, i like it. i love it. i am self-absorbed with it!
one thing is certain about my colleagues, those with whom i share a common discipline or work: they range from the highly underpaid university professor to legal counsel types in high places.
here i am in the midst of putting myself through a lot of self-generated stress working on a project that is absorbing every cell of my body, and this wonderful colleague comes to my office for a coffee. i have a whole world of understanding for his condition, he is single, retired and has a lot of time on his hands and no financial worries. i am single, live alone by choice, can not find the time to do all the projects i want to do, and count every cent three times before i spend it. a bit of conversation is good, and an occasional coffee with a colleague can be refreshing. however with this one case, i am wondering which muscle it is that i am exercising now.
it is a good one, this case. before leaving yesterday my colleague claimed that i should be giving him more warmth. i smiled and remained distant and cold, and told him that he gets hot coffee and the occasional warm meal, but that is it. that part of our interaction does not bend me out of shape in any way. i have almost fifty years of experience of keeping men away from my body, and i am quite sucessful at it. but then i had to start early in protecting my own physical integrity. i experienced a first attempt at rape of the age of seven. i had the reflexes and the presence of spirit at that age to escape the ordeal physically unscathed, psychologically the incident left a deep wound.
when my colleague yesterday went on rambling about what all women secretly deep down really wanted was to be taken by force and be raped, he got a lecture on how very ill informed his opinion was. he backed out and tried to defend his reasoning by citing the german popular children' songs that clearly in his opinion can be interpreted to represent that secret wish. i remained most unconvinced of such reasoning. every part of my being was on alert.
never before in my life have i felt the kind of rage that i felt yesterday. i felt the rage and i remained calm, assertive, and with a smile. if there is at least one woman without that kind of deep desire, then the claim is false. this woman - me - does not have that deep desire. i have looked deep down, i have embraced my own sexuality, and there is no such desire. not here, not with me.
it is however easy to get confused when it comes to sexuality and agression.
i may live alone, claim that my life is that of a monk, and pornographic details of my private life may or may not exist. i am neither asexual nor abstinent. i know moments of lust and play when force is involved. still, those moments have nothing to do with some deep secret desire for rape. those instances when force is involved in the expression of sexuality are moments of extreme clarity and deep desire that can be communicated and shared between consenting adults.
that part had nothing to do with me feeling like the grand-dame of whores. in an exchange with a cousin - an honourable member of the legal profession - we ranted a bit about the kind of life that we live and how we exchange our intellectual services for money. i call this the life of a whore, and he confirmed it by telling me that is exactly how one of his universtiy professors had described the legal profession. then we ranted about the medical doctor's attitude towards money, and decided that we had still much to learn from them if we really wanted to be professional about it. anyhow, if i am sick and my medical quack does not heal me and i die, do i get my money back?
