Feminism...my take on the debate about exclusion

My twitter feed has been buzzing recently with discussions about trans-exclusionary feminism. Once upon a time, I studied similar things at University, and this debate has stoked my analytical engine. Unwise as it may be to walk into these shark-infested waters, I want to explain my thinking, not least as a method of clarifying the ideas in my own internal debate.

I am not a feminist. In fact there are very few “ist”  or "ism" words I do subscribe to. That is not to say I disagree with the broad aims of the dictionary definition of feminism, “to define and advance political, economic, personal, and social rights for women.” but that I struggle with identifying with any ill-defined team in society. There is too much scope, too much opportunity for factionalism and misrepresentation of ideas.

Some of the women who speak in the debate, come from a historical and social viewpoint of fighting within the developed world for the ability to soar in whatever intellectual or employment based field they want, when this was not the case. I tend to think of them as glass ceiling feminists. Within the context of their experiences and their fight, I can understand they do not associate their struggle with that of someone who has an established social standing as a man and then transitions to female, without losing, in their perception, status. (In case you've been asleep under a bush I'm alluding to Jenni Murray and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie )

My personal experience of this is a mtf post-surgery family member. Work status was established as a male and was protected by law when they transitioned, and working in a liberally minded field, being trans did to a certain extent give a level of kudos. That they have transitioned has not significantly altered their lives in the areas that these feminists consider to be their struggle. Maternity rights, pension rights, access to training has not been an issue for a late onset transitioner. They have not had physically feminine issues such as feminine cancers and menstruation and avoidance of pregnancy to deal with, nor have they adopted a traditionally feminine role within society as a main care-giver in a family. Perhaps this is the experience trans-exclusionary feminists have in their experience? Yes, they have struggled with their own identity and in many other ways,-access to funding and transition health care, familial and friendship acceptance, legal and societal acceptance, but these are not directly matching the experience of the majority of cis-gendered women of the same age educational and social status (et al). 

Others who speak in this debate have a practical understanding of the difficulties relating to trans individuals and add this experience to their understanding of feminism. In this sense perhaps feminism becomes less about personal experiences of being female and of being perceived to be female and more about all sectors of the community having equal social and political access as men of privilege? Feminism becomes about the potential negative experience of the individual due to the perception of others that they are female: less about your self definition and more about the eye of the beholder.

There are many equality based difficulties in the world today that are key for people with either female physiognomy or female identification. Access to sanitary products and appropriate safe places to toilet as a broad sweep issue is world-wide, from rules on trans-peoples’ bathrooms in schools in the US, to poor girls in major first world cities lacking sanitary products, to girls shut away as unclean during the days of their periods, to women raped when they go out to the fields to defecate. This affects mainly women, so could be seen as a feminist issue, but equally, I think it would be stupid to think there are not boys raped in the fields, and non-continent boys unable to attend school because of a lack of hygiene products around the world.

There are problems in work places, from the boss that thinks it is ok to use derogatory terms or sexist humour, to lack of opportunities for advancement- the traditional glass ceiling elements- that still exist, to the problems caused by the intersection of working women with societal care needs, including children and parents, which still falls overwhelmingly on women. However, men who have to take on this role are also discriminated against. Is a son taking care of his parents not also the potential butt of discrimination at work, or the man who has taken a career break to be with his children going to be seen as having a lack of workplace drive? I am certain a number of female bosses exist who are derogatory about their male employees for perceived male weaknesses,-jokes about inability to multitask being the first thing that comes to mind. 

I am a woman who employs male carers for my male children. This is questioned constantly, with the impression from certain female professionals that men working in care must be paedophiles. Are female carers questioned in this way? And I am a professional who has given up work to raise my children. I identify in my brain as a professional, but society sees me as a stay at home mum. Equally sometimes my carers see the housework as only my domain, yet I am considerably better qualified at the hands-on teaching of my children than they are. I hate having to use gender as a way of judging or explaining these behaviours, but it is used as a defining factor all the time mainly as a pre-conception.

I guess the best definition for me would be intersectional feminist, but I still shy away from that. It is still a way of separating people into boxes and simplifying their experiences. I cannot criticise the role and position of glass ceiling feminists as I did not have to face the difficulties they did in the society and time frame they lived through. Nor can I agree with them that trans-people do not suffer from some or all of the same battles as cis-gendered females who identify as female.

I am fortunate to have autism which is another "ism" which is poorly defined outside the medical community (and sometimes even within it). In this field of reference, for me, it means socially constructed boundaries such as gender and class have less importance and less visibility for me than the definition of people as individuals. I find the ideas perhaps easier to ignore or discount than some more neuro-typical people, but I am not going to hold that against them! Equally, just because someone is autistic, this might not be their experience of gender. 

I choose to be positively non discriminatory. Everyone faces their own personal journey from a starting point they did not choose, or provide reason to deserve. Where I can, given my limited understanding of each person’s situation, I aim to be a positive influence on their life and their personal development and happiness. I hope everyone finds a way to be happy in their own skin and that they are surrounded (not necessarily solely physically) by people who are kind and empathetic about their experience. I aim to make positive contributions to the lives of others to help further equality and social justice regardless of gender, sexuality, colour or beliefs.

Perhaps it is time to ditch "ism" ideology and start to treat other human beings well simply because it is a kind thing to do?

Nature

This week's Wicked Wednesday theme has been blessedly preceded by a solid five days of glorious sunshine and we have been beavering away preparing our little patch of land. We wait impatient through March every year for the night time temperature to rise enough to mean we can fill the spa pool. A massive indulgence a few years ago, it is a lifeline for us as a place of relaxation in the evening, and we often use it nightly into November. It isn't just the warm water, although that is lovely, but it is it's placement. Our Garden.

 

My home is full of messy, exuberant life. The living room is lego filled, the dining room a classroom and office, the kitchen feeds up to eight several times a day. Technology and screens beep and buzz and spew blue light. Despite our best efforts, bedrooms are multipurpose spaces and squeezed out is space for our intimacy. But we do not accept that. We’ve made space. Hidden it in plain sight, just for us.

The British may be a nation of gardeners, but in these first truly warm days of spring we have worked on ours with passion. Trees are pruned and pinned to espalier our boundary fences, sweet peas, honeysuckle, jasmine and roses tended and fed. Pale silver leaves flutter high on airy branches, deceiving the eye without casting shadow. Our bower is created.

Careful gardening has grown leafy walls between us and our neighbours’ windows. Night scented flowers make the twilight world heavy with perfume. The stillness, the utter peace of the garden at night gives us space to relax and safely be ourselves.

Giggling like school children we shed our clothes in the kitchen and then leave the chaos behind for the moon-kissed night, stripped of our expectations of each other we are just us, man and woman, Adam and Eve. Breeze swirls and bats swoop low over the cushions and blankets or steaming water where we lie. We touch.

Here, there is time and space for touch. Skin to skin we apologise and forgive, sustain and affirm, feed and be fed without a word spoken. Brick warmed air kisses our nakedness and ruffles our hair. The blanket of darkness pierced by moon-white brilliance gives tired limbs an ethereal beauty. The peace breathes life and we channel it into each other.

Arousal is slow and easy because here we can be unhurried and unharried. Just us. Bodies and minds re-synchronising internally and with each other. An hour or two or who knows, because time is irrelevant. This is rest and restoration.

Creatures come and go without heeding us. The snuffling hedgehog and screaming foxes give us more freedom, covering for us when pulses pound with heat and need and we shatter our own silence. Mostly though, we are silent, an escape from the noise of life and in deference to the dog-walkers on the pavement feet from our hideaway.

We are not ashamed. Bodies pressed together in our own sliver of the universe, part of its organic synergy. We watch the stars and they watch us and we are all where we need to be.

Creeping up to bed, before the first child wakes and searches out an intimacy of their own between our bodies, we have feasted on the wonder of nature. Replete and whole, we believe we can sustain our family through whatever imperfections and challenges the day brings.

For all the talk about “me” time, we have created a physical and mental space where “us” is the central theme. When we enjoy and tend it in the daytime, we are preparing it for each other, even as it brings joy in other ways. The hub of our home. Our garden.

Disturbance

The lovely Tabitha Rayne suggested the #30DayOrgasmFun about a fortnight ago (although I am refusing to count as I have no intention of finishing) as a way of boosting mental health by taking the time to look after yourself in a way that left a smile behind and excellently burnt calories rather than adding them. And on Thursday evening I massively enjoyed @WatchingDistant with @mistress34F and @_Masterseye with their podcast #PlayingOutLive  again on the topic of playing with ourselves

So I had masturbation on the mind. Not surprising then that when I opened a new document for this week's Wicked Wednesday prompt this is the path I took.

Disturbance

In the middle of a bright afternoon she has come to bed. This house has seen most of life and some beyond, but… I am drawn from the half shadows into her company. She hasn’t drawn the curtains or pulled back the bedclothes and I feel the unfamiliarity of the day, the burning sun illuminating the shade.

Unselfconsciously, she sheds her clothes while I watch from my perch by the window, where the bright light warms and I am invisible, even to myself. There are mirrors, but she doesn’t linger. Hangers, but her clothes rest as relaxed as she, draped over the chair and pooling on the floor.

Bodies fascinate me. I have shed prudery in favour of experience, but not everyone is so comfortable. Corsets and girdles and hose and layers of cotton lawn replaced by jeans and sweaters and onesies, but so often nothing has changed. Glimpses of skin before diving for duvets or covering with nightclothes. Towels held tightly as though they sensed I was watching.

Knee drawn up, back arched, she opens herself with bold fingers and I see her intimately, or would if I could bring myself to look.

Men have bared their cocks before me many times and my innocence is long gone. Have heard the grunting, moaning, wailing disturbance as copulation in all it corporal mess happens before me, creasing the sheets and dripping from their skin. Seed spilling from thick veined rods and slender elegant members and many variants between. Watched them jerk and tug, in a rough game of chase the release.

Words also. Men use more words aloud, although recently it is reading over the shoulders of the women I have learnt more vocabulary. So many words for their bodies, for the acts. And the words never stay still.

The women though have kept themselves private, beneath sheets or bodies of their men. Not her. I don’t even know her name and her legs are spread and a flush rising across her body. Lost in herself, I move closer wanting to savour this new carnality.

Mouth parted and eyes lightly shut, her limbs serene and relaxed, she entices me. Captivated by the subtle changes in her skin, her scent, she is triggering remembrance of a body. Of my body, long dismissed. She makes me want life.

Softly audible, puffs of warm breath tickle my senses and I capture them in my mouth. Such pleasure to be found in her unhurried actions. The fluttering of the pulse in her throat, strongly anchored to life, painfully emphasising our differences, sharpening my excitement at her physicality.

Fingers move purposefully between her legs and moisture glistens like dew. She is slow and I can tell it is a deliberate touch. The air is so heavy with her scent I can taste it, earthy and savoury. I imagine my mouth watering. Her legs lol revealing the slick, shiny folds and it is impossibly beautiful.

The euphemisms had seemed unlikely, but her sure touch makes her lips swell, flushing like a spit-slicked mouth bruised with kisses. Skin, rouged, gaping and yet she is here without her lover. She unfurls, so delicately, so reflective of and yet so different from the men I have experienced. Soft and pliant, their opposite in more than form.

Juice is coaxed from her flesh and fingers dip shallowly into the weeping eye of her sex: the rhythm of fucking created on a solo instrument. Melody played now by her thumb, in swooping circles around a pearl of flesh that winks from beneath a protective blanket. Her need, a ballet of sound and movement, precise practiced exertion to a backdrop of rustling bedlinen and slack-mouthed sighs.

I wonder at the powerful arousal that shimmers from her body, the waves of sensation that whisper past long dead nerves. I want to touch her. Myself. In her I have identity at last. An understanding of what I could have been.

I wait for her orgasm. Will she be noisy, the panting and cursing, calling for God and lovers present and past or silently biting her lips, pillows and willing flesh to stifle the noise? Delicate gasps or animalistic grunts. She waits to, holding herself so close to the edge, her movements building and subsiding like waves on the shore.

Tension. Through limbs that are a vague memory and curling through the core of my thoughts like thunder building. Undulations of need that mirror the movements of her hand. Shimmering reflections of her in a memory of me.

When she falls, I fall with her. My cry breaks free from her lips and I imagine our souls dancing together before she quietly slips back into her body. She sleeps, I think, and I fall away from her presence unsure if I might disturb her. She has disturbed me. 

Autism Awareness

This week is Autism Awareness week, so I thought I would share a little about what goes on in my head. My household is made up of three autistic children, me (diagnosed a couple of years ago and only then able to make sense of myself), my neuro-diverse husband and a string of usually male au pairs who work in teams of at least two. 

Until I was diagnosed, I thought I was a pretty flaky human being. Then I discovered the things that went on in my head, things that consumed my energy, were so little as to not even be "things" to a neuro-typical person. I know now that this concentration on detail and on the accumulation of detail as a way of interpreting life is what (I hope) makes my writing interesting. 

At the same time, life is like a game of minesweeper, full of hidden bombs and guesswork combined with fragments of information. It also feels like the descriptions given by sixties hippies on a trip, where tiny details explode into miracles of colour and sense. And a faulty computer, that reverts to DNA based protocols humans have not needed since we left the cave. 

Then there are jigsaw pieces missing. I can work out from the pieces around what must be there, but the part I craft from this knowledge is never quite going to replace that missing part. Gender and sexual bias for example. At uni I was forever hitting on gay men, or conversely sending out signals that suggested I was gay. I had owned bi-sexual as a label for a while by the time I met my husband but now I have a bigger lexicon I realise pan-sexual would be a better description. But I will never be able to work out your choice of labels from your behaviour. If I hadn't learnt a bigger frame of reference I would be in the same position as my children: if you have a ponytail you are probably a girl. Like football, probably a boy. 

This bit of writing has been triggered by needing to recruit a new team of au pairs for later this year. Inviting a stranger into your household is an intense experience and for me...well I've tried to be honest, but it is perhaps best analogised as explaining letter fonts to someone who has only experienced braille...

Ordinary moments become stretched and distorted, magnified or muted. The warmth from your skin as we work side by side hums through me triggering intruder alerts. Chemical messages rush, asking questions I cannot answer through conscious thought. Trying to establish the meaning of this moment. My body recognises both the warmth and the gentle scent of your skin and bodywash as being something important. A recollection. Excitement. An uncensored awareness of you as male and me as female. Danger. The explosions of adrenaline spike. I should move away. But then, the rational voice takes over. Points out I am fat and old and motherly. This heat is nothing more than when my children hug me. And, fuck, that stings. Little chemical knives to the heart and salt-pricked eyes.

Later, your hand brushes mine as you pass me a glass of water. I am as sensorially aware of you, of these seconds, as I am if you stroked me with a velvet glove whilst I lay blinded and tied. I am scalded by the guilt that washes through.

The unfamiliarity of you in my home makes every single scent and touch more vivid, and those with whom I am familiar fade to ghosts. I hear words they speak, but their meaning is lost as the sound of your breathing steals my focus.  

My body is programmed to respond to you in a way I do not want but cannot change. An organic infatuation that says less about you than it does about me, a remnant of programming from a teenage life, long shed. Lessons learnt twenty years ago mean the surface barely ripples. Rejection, repulsion and ridicule were the most common reactions to this lust, this need to drown in detail. Or it was read for what it wasn’t, an open invitation to a sexual encounter I neither wanted nor could enjoy. But an invitation I knew I had issued, so would honour, because no one likes a tease.

What if this is how you read me? A dirty old woman giving you the come-on. The saggy, wrinkly desperate mother wanting love and attention. Love my children and fall for me. I know how this could look.

I steal myself, don the mask and shield and become as normal as I can for protection. I make my actions appear unselfconscious although every second of this is planned and executed as a military campaign. I don’t want you to run.

Trapped on the page, this overload of inconsequential detail and focus on the tiniest hitch in your breathing becomes a love letter. The briefest second of eye contact becomes loaded with meaning because of the effort it takes. The pattern of your freckles and the way your hair grows into your beard are more familiar than the eyes of my lover, for he takes me with a different familiarity, in the darkness, with my face buried in the sheets. When you really know and love someone these details are not important enough for your day to day narrative.  

Love is the sound he makes when he comes and my contentment in knowing I know how that sounds. Lust is the slick and the softening of my cunt to let him in. However close this feels, however your proximity makes my heart race and my skin ache to touch you, it is a borrowed reaction. Borrowed from memory. This chemical crush is rollercoaster, demanding attention and drowning me in exhilaration, clarity against a confused backdrop. Love is the lens that clears the confusion and returns you to true importance.

So I write, because the words spill from every casual encounter. Words quantify and bind and dismiss the fire that dances across my skin in favour of the banked embers masking the fire beneath. Words have the power to capture the chemistry and place it a safe distance away. To rationalise my irrational reaction to you. 

A World of our Own

This is a story that has been hanging around in my mind for a little while, but crystallised last night watching Comic Relief. Specifically watching the segment from Billy Connolly. 

Now I'm just the right age to have watched all this from the beginning. And whereas Lenny Henry and several of the others seem to defy the ageing process, it is as though it has all fallen on Billy's shoulders. I remember him stripping and chasing round Trafalgar square: I remember the energy. And I am watching it in my own parents who are mid seventies and showing the signs of wear and tear. I see friends and acquaintances struggle with providing care daily. 

And then there are the wonderful Historical Hotties from @whoresofyore 

Anyway...this story could be any of them or any of us.

The song is A World of our Own by the Seekers from 1965.

Martha brought the mugs of tea from the kitchen and placed one in front of her husband. He turned from the window and his face lit up as he looked at her, as though she was, in that moment, quite simply the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

He sipped the tea and made a sound of contentment. “I think this is perhaps the most perfect cup of tea I have ever tasted.” he said, and she tried not to roll her eyes. His disposition was mercurial, although that was nothing new, but when his eyes sparkled as though it was the first time he’d seen her that was the line that followed. Just for a few seconds, she allowed herself to play along.

She looked at him as he looked at her, the salt and pepper of his hair receding as soft brown took dominance. Lines that crinkled deeply washed back to light laughter lines. He’d always laughed when they first met and still, even though nothing ran perfectly smooth in a fifty-year marriage, he found time to make her smile, even when he couldn’t do it himself.

“So, handsome. What does a girl get for making the best cup of tea in the world?”

His voice was low and gentle as he began to croon a song from their dating days. “Close the door, light the light, we’re staying home tonight.”

“Cheeky boy, not going to take me dancing first?”

“Ah, sweetheart. We should go dancing. It’s been a long time since I took a girl dancing.”

“Do you remember those nights?”

“I remember many nights. But you make me think of one special night.”

“Tell me about it?”

“Not sure I should, sweetheart. Not suitable for tender young ears like yours.”

She left the tea at table and cuddled in beside him. Her body felt soft and familiar, as though the shape of her and the shape of him had been designed to fit perfectly together. The scent of her hair with a top note of her perfume took him back to the dance halls, clubs and concerts as though youth was only a blink of his eyes away.

“We danced.”

“The most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, all lithe and curvy, softness and kohl black eyes. Touching her, the edge of her girdle firm and then the cushion of her flesh. Wanton. She pushed her hips against my thighs and tension vibrated through her like a guitar string.”

“I wanted everyone to know she was my woman. I could see other men wanted her, the way she was moving against me giving them all sorts of ideas. I pulled her close not wanting them near enough to become intoxicated by the scent of her powder and the stuff in her hair. She kissed me and then we couldn’t stop, waxy lipstick smearing between us in the darkness of the club. God, she was perfect.”

His hands were wandering with his thoughts, and Martha shivered as sure, familiar fingers curved into her waist, and flicked the edge of her knickers. She let him pull her close and just like that night, he made her small and vulnerable. Thumping pulse still filling his body with life and strength. Such a magnificent figure of a man. Always had been. The way the other girls had cast sly looks in her direction as she danced with him, and women had reacted to him throughout his working life but then he’d never seemed to notice, he’d always been so busy. There was always their retirement, they’d joked while the kids were growing, the work responsibilities growing, the bills growing. And now here they were. Their time. Together alone.

“Later that night, when I saw her home, she invited me in for a cup of tea. Think it might have been the best cup of tea ever. We kissed on the sofa of that tiny little flat and she told me her flat mate was out for the evening.”

Martha felt her voice shake, but she picked up the story. “And she led you to her little bedroom just off the living room. Sat you down and kissed some more, mainly because she didn’t really know what happened next. But then neither did you.”

“None of the things I’d ever seen prepared me for a flesh and blood woman. All that tight, underwear that nipped and pulled and succulent little packages of hot flesh.”

“Chest hair, crisp between my fingers over burning skin. Fresh hot sweat as salty as tears.” As salty as the tears that rolled silently down her cheeks as she remembered the fear and excitement of his weight over her, cradled by her hips. The silent need the had her fingers searching beneath his underwear for answers.

“My first time. Hers. Ours. So tight and wet.”

She didn’t need to look to know he was glassy-eyed with memories, only the stroking of his fingers a connection to the here and now. Letting herself go, she was under him again, and that one new, fresh night was overlaid with the thousands of couplings that followed. Hot and fast, tender and loving, the nights she lay back and planned her shopping list because he needed her more than she needed him. The glue binding them together.

Holding him she let the tears flow, because sometimes that was the only thing to do.

“Hey, sweetheart. Why you crying?”

He wouldn’t understand, so she didn’t tell him. Instead she sang another fragment of their song.

“We'll build a world of our own that no one else can share
All our sorrows we'll leave far behind us there
And I know you will find there'll be peace of mind
When we live in a world of our own"

“I used to know a girl that loved that song.” he murmured, humming along with the tune and carrying it forward a little. “I wonder what happened to her? Martha, I think she was called?”

“Yes, dear.” Martha’s eyes dried with the familiarity of heartbreak.

He hummed a little more of the tune before it disappeared like so many of his memories.

“Is it time for a cup of tea?”

Scissors

I scrape my nails across your scalp and your hair bunches between my fingers. Relaxed into my touch, head lolling, skull heavy in my hands, I hold you, loving the heat of your skin, the coolness of hair, the way it tickles the backs of my hands as scratch into your nape. Burying my face, scent of shampoo and skin.

Hair. Tricky subject for me. Currently blocking two writing projects. I have read and digested the psychology of identity and perception and past trauma and none of it makes any difference. Cutting hair, either in real life or here in this alter ego, is difficult.

It’s not even like mine is some sort of crowning glory. It is dyed improbably red and hangs in a slightly limp almost style down to over my shoulders. In the past, it has been both nearly to my waist and cut so short most of it was done with clippers. 

Colour doesn't bother me like cutting. I love the fun. Stepping out into a new tribe at Eroticon I could see I was not alone with this. I love the bold pinks and blues and purples worn by Emily-Rose and others who I admire and prefer to be anonymous in this community. The discussion of whether red heads have more fun with with Rose (and we do). The fantastic long white hair, the dreads, and all the other combinations I saw in Camden all statements of confidence. Every two months or so I go back to the hairdressers and beg for them to send it royal blue. I make do with extensions because they're reluctant to bleach it, but it makes me feel like some sort of wannabe. If it's ruined, cut it off! 

When it is short, I am relaxed. I like it in a style that is all in the cut, mainly because I don't have time for a hairdryer in my life, let alone straighteners. Especially a style that makes a statement. I think it speaks of confidence and of someone who can make decisions. This is who I need to be in my real life. Last year, I let it get a little longer for an evening out where I wanted to look “ladylike”. Just long enough for a beautiful up-do. Now it has reached the awkward “just long enough to call long” length. It looks nice, but you can tell how I feel about it from the description above. Six or more inches too long yet I can’t bear the thought of it being cut. But this is ridiculous. It grows quickly enough that this is only one year since the last time clippers cut my nape in close and sharp.

It’s not sensory dislike. I think it is purely the social message hair provides. I wanted to be ladylike. I want to look decisive. I want to be sexy. And I want my hair to convey all of those messages, because I am none of those things. When I write about hair, I write the hair I want. The reaction I want.

I'm a man of numbers, spreadsheets, logic, sitting in an office, staring at a computer screen. A geek. A nerd. Aiming for nothing more challenging than to not be alone. I guess I'm a romantic underneath, confused as to just how much to try to say aloud. To be more than an avatar or dismembered voice from the speaker. Channelling my inner James Bond; hoping for Brosnan not Moore. But when I needed him, when I saw a fall of straight dark hair across the office, his voice fell silent. I began to struggle to think anything more than the most basic images and feelings. Want. Need. Fuck.

  And that was was just your hair. Just a fraction of you. I need that voice now, with you, more than ever. Too many things I can't put into words. Things that are just not manly enough to let out of my mouth. Things I'm scared will drive you away. My inner poet is frustrated with the lack of words. So I will start where we started. Your beautiful hair.

I've always been a sucker for hair that trails across my chest, hair I can grab as I thrust into a sweet mouth. This was fantasy hair. Hair that made the world tilt on its axis and changed my chemistry till every hormone focussed on you. My phone rang and I had to turn away, stare back at the screen of my computer and try to convince my dry mouth to function. Reality rushed back as oxygen to suffocating lungs and despite the hum of my body I answered that call, and the next, and the next.

That night I fisted my dick to the imagined softness of that hair between my fingers, the slight resistance of neck muscles matching the tension in my hips, both of us trying to avoid my natural urge to thrust deeply and feel the wet tightness of a throat closing on my sensitive tip.

Anticipating a next glimpse near the coffee machine, perhaps diamond sharp cheekbones or smudgy dark eyes, I thought about the colour, the cut, every detail that could possibly elicit more clues. Smooth hair falling over sharp shoulders in a strictly tailored jacket, dark mocha brown with caramel hints. I've nothing against colour, but there is something in the confidence of leaving it natural that is more appealing to me than bright dye, or worse yet uniform mundanity. I wanted it to be paired with milk white skin and burning, intense eyes. Ice blue, if you can cope with the mixed metaphors, but then I told you I was a frustrated poet. Maybe the caramel hinted at something warmer, but the beauty of dark hair is highlighted in the contrasts and I visualised something virginally pure perhaps spotted with the occasional dark freckle.

Blunt cut and thick, with beautiful movement. Unfussy. No fringe, I thought, one length that would run through my fingers like silk through a loom, weighing heavily against my hands. I closed my eyes and imagined cradling the weight of skull and brain, the fragility and sculpted strength slack and satiated against my belly. No make up, naturally dark lashes I could hope might match the cocoa and caramel hues. A mouth rouged by friction, glistening with my spunk.

Because of my fear, I’m sure, hair cutting has become eroticised for me. I am torn between the sick feeling if I see hair hitting the floor, and the squirm in my stomach that sends me looking for video clips late at night. Cutting the hair of my fantasies. Cutting the hair of characters I create.

I could understand it if I was forcing them, but right now both of the characters are complicit. They want their haircut. It is me that doesn’t.

My first character is a female who wants to shed the confines of expectation she has created for herself with a very traditional femme packaging, ice-queen platinum hair included, which needs to change up to a pixie cut. She is exhausted by shaping herself for others and the hair is part of that. It needs to go, and the scissors that cut it will be sharp, easily shearing through the thin slivers that hang limply from her scalp.

Second character is a man. He’s been rocking androgyny, but now wants something that better reflects new confidence in his sexuality. He’s worried his partner loves his hair more than him, but really knows this is stupid. I know it’s stupid, as I am crafting their ending and the hair that is vital to the plot is unimportant by then. Blunt kitchen scissors wielded by his partner will crunch and saw and pull through his ponytail, just below his shoulders. He may well go to the hairdressers afterwards and have it cut shorter, emphasizing his cheekbones and fantastic eyebrows.

Hair is a fragment of these characters, but at the same time is crucial to their development.

I have armed myself with first-hand knowledge. Clippers wielded, articles read, scissors sharpened, videos watched. I can feel the slightly slippy but at the same time crunchy feeling of scissors cutting through hair. The vibration of clippers. The soft tufts of hair falling away and rolling down a body like tumbleweed. Dead and gone. The feel of cool air on the nape of your neck. The stranger in the mirror…but was that before or after the cut?

It’s not about me though, is it? I just need to detach enough to get on with the writing. 

Pandora visits Fuck.com

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