This is a piece on the aging erotic body; it comes perhaps out of my difference feminist stance. It is in the tradition of body writing: the writing of the body of the woman. When I did the
birth paintings nearly 20 years ago people found the red flowing vaginas of some of those paintings shocking and often uncomfortably averted their gaze at the wall of paintings I had up in the dining room of my house; a decade later those paintings took on new life, were used as journal covers, in art shows, copies often requested, and I am working on a poster of them. This writing is perhaps similar in that, like exploring the sensualities of the hiddenesses of the pregnant body, it explores the sexuality of the aging body. It is honest, open, vulnerable, hopefully sensual and erotic writing, but not pornographic. It is hetero. It is not my intention to offend, or shock, but to show the realism of the beauty of the body. This is the final piece in a small series, beginning with
the red flower, an
ethics of sexuality and relationships, the
woman's gaze of her erotic desire. In
Portrait of the Sexuality of a Middle-Aged Woman I want to throw light on her hiddenesses, how she sees herself. There is an element of the rebel, the woman who can be outrageous here too. This writing is a version of a response to a lover who I requested a self portrait naked in a mirror from and who then asked for a portrait in return...
Portrait of the Sexuality of a Middle-Aged WomanWhich sounds so,
middle-aged...
She's never taken naked photographs. O, not true, a lover in her 20s did, but they were so faint, it was too dark; and her ex-husband took polaroids a long time ago. But not since then.
Though one night, when she was alone, she did, in the oak cupboard mirror, first seated, naked, only one breast showing, and she didn't like the photo but played with it, re-creating it through various filters that disguised her.
Then she surprised herself. The rebellion of those passing over the proverbial hill? She opened her legs and took a photograph of her vulva. When she displayed the photograph on screen, what she saw was larger than it is usually shown in medical text books. What she saw was beautiful in its own way, the folds within folds, the way her sex spread opulently from front to end. The white creamy remnants glistening. She had taken it after pleasuring herself, just to see what she looked like. Swollen, full, rich. She liked the photograph, felt it was a coming of age recognition of a sexuality she had never really seen before. She hid it on her computer, and then rushed over to delete it when a friend was looking through her photographs, mumbling about a naked photo that embarrassed her.
She'd never intended to keep it. It was not the sort of self portrait that you keep. Not what you'd want your children to find among your effects after you'd passed away. Or anyone else, not even a lover. It was an elaborate cunt, not something she'd ever seen in a Playboy or Penthouse or at any of the online porno sites she'd stumbled on, the ones with cum all over the woman's face and hard, hot cocks still beaming and glistening. When "holes" were shown, they'd be those small slits that the medical text books show.
It didn't make her feel any better, but maybe you had to be older, not tight anymore, to have this gland with its folds and glistenings and outrageous pearly opulences over which you place panties and forget about, or against which you place pads when you are bleeding with your monthly moon.
She's in her 50s. Hard to believe. She's white, Caucasian. She wears a size 8 comfortably, a bit baggy, a size 6 is more fitted. She is about 5'5", weighs somewhere around 125 lbs to 130 lbs. Her hair is long and curly and ash brown but is coming in with much more grey. Her waist isn't bad, but she doesn't know the circumference. She wears a 34C bra size; usually with an under wire for support. Though she loves bras with no under wire for hanging around the house.
She had a 'sex-goddess' body once, flat stomach, rounded breasts. After the birth of her second child, her thighs were left mapped with cellulite, which she accepts gracefully as a remembrance of the bearing of children, but which her husband found most unappealing. She's not comfortable in a bathing suit because of it. Before kids she wore string bikinis, the less fabric the better. Things change when your body is stretched with a child growing within. It's not that she doesn't love her body, she does, just in a private way. She prefers to be seen in clothes, that's all. When she was younger she preferred to be naked. Things change.
And now the little spider veins on the legs, around the feet, the larger ones that are showing on the hands, that's bothersome. But more in the way she thinks it makes others uncomfortable. The tiny veins remind her how the body is like a tree, with tiny branches or capillaries carrying life blood, and it's a beautiful creation no matter how old or what size one is.
Her breasts do sag a little, but she doesn't mind. She still has an awe of her breasts because of the breastmilk that flowed through them so freely once. And because if they're caressed and squeezed gently and sucked on she becomes very aroused and her vulva responds in ways that...
She's slim enough, not skinny, making the signs of aging both less and more pronounced. If she was heavier, her hands wouldn't be so carved with maps of veins. But she can still bend her body with as much flexibility and freedom as she ever remembers. She just can't fall onto the floor on her knees anymore, or even bend her knees for too long without pain. Her eyes are blue, or perhaps grey, with little brown specks around the pupils. Her skin is good now, but she has rosacea, it runs in her family, and has to wear a hat always. The skin on her face is very sensitive to sunlight. She babies her skin. Her teeth, oooh la. That's maybe getting too personal. Talking about vulvas is easier than talking about teeth! Save teeth for another day... Only one scar on the shin. Her skin is soft.
Orgasms are easier than ever. She believes orgasms are very healthy and would like to have at least one every day. She thinks everyone should agree that orgasms are healthy and that everyone should have at least one a day.
Some photos of the inlet that the Pacific Ocean flows through where I was working - I have brought work home to do, where I don't have a view like that to distract me.
