She tells me she wants to lose fifteen pounds before she gets out. The words I didn’t say lingered in my mind: that I have marveled at her body.
That I thanked God there are still women shaped as ifsex itself designed them: soft curves, hips made for hands,breasts that look like, if pressed, milk would pour—sweetness for the drinking.
I didn’t sayher round face is lunar, a tide-puller,a reminder of cycles and seasons and the invisible power that moves the world.
I didn’t say it because we’re in prison, where admiration is too easily mistaken for a come-on, andreverence for a woman can be misread as a proposition.
But the awe I feel is the same awe I’d feel before a Renoir or any earthly abundance. It’sthe awe our culture learned to distrustduring what I call the Great Impoverishment—when the experience of being a woman became too difficult, too thankless, too dangerous.
The fix was to downsize us:less curve, less voice, less hunger.Become “girl” at best, “boy” at worst.
No breasts. No life-filled belly. No threat. We learned to starve ourselves into pre-pubescence so no one could accuse us of lording power over men with our pendulous breasts and swinging asses.We traded our nobility for a walk-on part.Behind him is the role.
Stay small enough to fit inside his shadow.Starvation or spinsterhood—those were the choices offered.
Burn with hunger in an empty belly, or eat and burn with jealousy while girls—ever smaller, ever more compliant—take our seats. So the priestesses and warriors,the thick-bodied women of Gauguin, the full-throated divas, Gaia herself,were all placed on a caloric deficit.
We didn’t just starve the flesh;we starved the sex, the voice, the vision, the wisdom.We made ourselves into dolls—easier for the male ego to manage.
No need to rise in the presence of a queen if he can project a fantasy onto a vacant face:She loves it. She wants it. She’s desperate for me.
Sometimes he prefers the brat doll or the bossy girl simply forthe thrill of subduing her.Wrestling with a little girl proves he’s strong.
This can only happen in a sexless world where even the sex is projection—her vacancy is what he’s filling.Not an actual woman with actual wants and hungers to interrupt his grim need to “bang one out” and be thanked for it.
It’s a double win:fantasy fulfilled, savior complex satisfied.
Her crankiness from emotional, physical, and spiritual anorexia reads as “cute.” He pats himself on the back for being a good guy who can “handle” her. Anddesperate as only a starving girl can be, she apologizes for her appetite.
Her tiny body becomes a billboard:Please don’t leave me. I’m nothing without you.
It reminds me of that usual scene, sitting on a plane: The man holds the baby for takeoff and earns praise, but within an hour the woman is holding the baby, and the man, whiletrying to look slim and pleasant.
You know the script. I’m asking you not to step into it. You are perfection.You are only looking into funhouse mirrors.
Choose older mirrors. Sacred mirrors. Those from centuries ago,when God wore a woman’s face, and a woman’s body was revered.
Remember the time when it was assumed women wanted sex more than men—because sex was the source of our power. Right now,the world feels upside down, ruled by children of all ages.We need women—adult women—nourished, strong, lucid.
Men cannot grow into honorable equals without the erotic intelligence of women to shape and steady them. We live in an era of war games and international tantrums,boys at podiums (not all), propping themselves up with girl dolls.
We don’t need smaller women. We need you whole. We need you as Woman—fed, fierce, unflinching. We need your dakini warrior heart and the erotic fire that lives between your legs.That raw, radiant power is a compass.It turns us toward life.
