On: Restrictions

Restrictions

It has been ages since I felt this way. A throbbing lust, a stark stiffness in my arms, hands, thighs.
It’s has been ages since I felt allured, drawn to and interested in someone like her. The muscles. The strength. Her fringe, her smiles.

It was ages ago since I thought I could tame someone like her. Ages upon ages since I saw someone that strong bow their head for me. I am so used to other things now. Smooth and carrying, warm scoldings, soothing strokes against blushing cheeks.

It has also been ages since I felt so scared. Scared of what I might be able to offer. Scared to be perceived as a freak. Scared to be incompatible with someone else. Scared to be declined, brushed off, put out. Scared to be invalid, undesirable.

- Why would you pursue her? she ask.
- Oh, it’s because I think I could break her. Tame her. Otherwise I wouldn’t try.

I am surprised at my own answer. Sometimes I don’t believe the power I subscribe myself. Sometimes I don’t see it myself. Even if I know it.

I think about that other one. The same muscles. Cameo-pants and sweet smiles. Stubbornness. How we weren’t compatible. How the worst thing she could be was dependent.
How she leaned in one day and said: You know, you could decide for me if you wanted…

How I see her in this new person. There is something. A bashfulness and sweetness, something that contradicts butch-aesthetics and swelling triceps.

What you didn’t think you knew about yourself, I shall find it.

That which you think others don’t see. I will see it.

I am writing this to muster up courage. I am writing this to call up on guardian angels of strong crippled, poor, marginalized femmes.

Angie. Mother of a whole house. Sister in deficiency. Hold my hand. Help me walk the Dating ball.
Grandma, voice unheard, you who’s bobby pins I have inherited. They have been places where you would never have gone. Help me gather strength passed down by hard work and sisterhood. How one is dressed one is perceived, how one speaks one is heard. Help me dress the part.

I look back at old writing. I guess I knew something then I have now come to doubt. Or at least I played the part of knowing it. Nonetheless, then I wrote some things that I cant even think now. That I was entitled. I knew of bloodlines of resistance and power. I knew of a strength and confidence that equaled calm desire. I knew I could do it.

My hands at the back of her neck. I long to lock her arms behind her back. I long to tell her to and see her comply without the use of force.

Another club, another town. I speak of how voice and intent is the only thing that matters. That with good communication and strong will anything can be achieved.

Why is it then that I cannot speak now? That I am so convinced I have nothing to offer her. When I know I have everything to offer others.

That club in the other town. She blushes as she asks me. I don’t understand why anyone would blush in relation to me. The promoter of the club, the purple godmother of an empire tells me:

- You know, if you wanted to you could have anyone here now….

It’s as alien as anything. I am so programed to be the one pining and sighing. Not the one acting.

Her smooth skin. How I want to run my nails across it.

The sex-positive nature of things. The shame in admitting one doesn’t think anyone would want you. The lack of power that it gives.

Don’t pity me, obey me.

I have a feeling this is now or never.

That it has little to do with her, even though it has everything to do with her, and more to do with unlocking the notion of myself as an agent subject. Learning by doing.

I must overcome this hump.

We shall dare the leap, mother Angie and I. If I can take on a system of discrimination I can take on the ideas they have created in me.

The shame, the doubt, the anger.

What you think others wont see in you. I will see it

On hijabies and me, crip-femme meets Islamic Fashion....

I am doing a lot of research today, so inspired by the first real good lecture at University on Islamic Fashion. Got hooked on the hijablog, a Norwegian ‘hijabie’ (veil wearing Muslim woman) who lives in London and blog on Islamic Fashion trends all night.
The slightly paradoxical practice of covering up something that is assumed to be alluring and tempting but replacing it with something that stands out even more in a crowd fascinates me a great deal. For the hijablog blogger it is obviously not only a religious statement but also a very clear fashion statement, that involves and industry that cater to Islamic Fashion and magazines, blogs and fashion shows that project what’s new and trendy.

For me this lecture was especially good since it is the first one on this course that clearly deals with identity not only as being part of a certain, religious, context but also as an identity important to the self and expressed through clothing in as many ways as there are hijabies.
The personal relationship between faith and practice is very real to me as I have grown up in a very religious (by religious referring to Christian spirituality, and not necessarily conservatism) context, and ascribe a lot of my identity and my actions to my faith.

The modern hijabies of today speak about the hijab as something very feminine and something that emphasises strength and personality in its bearer. One of the women that took part in the ‘Islamic Fashion’ show in Stockholm in 2008 said this about her vivid use of fabrics and patterns in her hijab.

“When you go out you know people look at you anyway, so why don’t really give them something to look at, in a way I think that is disempowering to many of the prejudices that comes with “Islam”…”

I really felt I could relate to that, very much as a crip-femme. I know people study me, I know people turn too look at me one extra time when I pass by. And I understand that, I would look too. First off I am tiny, my walker is purple, and I am loud. Secondly, I dress smartly. There is again that contrast that I spoke about in the stone femme post.
What did you see, a little girl or a woman? Can you look at the disabled woman’s cleavage; is that a politically correct action?
If you know they’ll look at you, make them look again…

Yesterday I went to interview two girls who I hope will be my new PA’s when I settled in in this city. I choose my meeting attire with the greatest care. Often I am a bit too much then, I wear very short skirts and my favourite flowery tops for example. I choose jewellery with greater care than I would otherwise, and if my complexion is in a stable place (sadly it hasn’t been recently, more on a make-up free femme appearance later in this blog) I wear make up. The only thing that did fail me yesterday was my nail polish, I still haven’t got to buying a remover and now I just re-polish and re-polish and that gives as somewhat tacky look.

So yesterday, I wore:
-A black, short sleeved top with a small flowery pattern, my absolute favourite although it is giving out a little nowadays…
-The shortest skirt I own, a black jeans skirt that reaches mid-tigh, the most.
- Black cotton stockings, perhaps it’s something rural, I don’t wear nylon all that often.
-Black plastic pearl necklace.

Usually I joke about the reason for me wearing that skirt being that I can do that Basic Instinct thing, but I have never pulled it, and with the cotton stockings I doubt there would be much excitement. I do think though, that that skirt is a very sensual if not sexual statement, to show that I am safe about being sensual in the way I dress, and even a bit more than that. That I have control over my sexuality is shown by my choice of that skirt I hope. And since sex and disability is very rarely connected I think it’s important not only to speak about sexuality as a crip but to be confident about it.

Also, I think my choice of attire is again playing with that contrast of my physical appearance and what I project with the way I dress. Being a short tiny woman often makes for me passing as a girl. So I have learnt to dress in a way girls wouldn’t dress, I wear tight fitting blouses, pencil skirts, and again tops that shows a lot of cleavages.
I distance myself in that way from a physically girlie appearance that I haven’t been able to choose myself.
However, there are also times when I choose to enhance that, and in a way the outfit described above is a kind of combined girlie/sensual outfit. In that it mixes ‘girlie things’ such as cotton stockings and flowery patterns with the colour black and the very short skirt.

Dressing in that way for a meeting gives me confidence, it gives me confidence to know that I accept my body and am willing to show it off in a sense. It also gives me confidence to know that I embrace the fact that my body is frail and tiny, but my mind is not.
In a way I think my way of dressing in these meetings is a kind of reverse to what the modern hijabies do, covering up what is assumed to be alluring but in way becoming much more alluring by doing that in a certain way.

In a way I do cover up, by wearing an all black outfit I do project a certain sense of propriety, as does the cotton stockings. The clear cut top is also a very ‘smart’ garment even though it does show a bit cleavage. I choose to cover mostly, but the short skirt draw attentions to my legs, the part of my body that is most obviously disabled.
What I thrive on in wearing these outfits is just that, to dis-empower my disability by clearly drawing attention to it in a way that I choose myself. But also to raise multiple questions in my observer’s mind apart from my disability. Why is she wearing all black? How does she carry herself in that skirt? (The truth is, I don’t ;) )

To express the disabled body as sexual and the disabled person as self assertive and confident in that way is my biggest asset in coming across as what I ultimately am, so much more than the connotations ascribed to the disabled female body, and mind.
These are just very cursory thoughts that came up just after the lecture. I am planning to return to the Islamic Fashion and my on Pentecostal background and its fashion in a later piece. I just need to look through the archives and pick out nice photos for you all before I write.

Below is a picture taken from the hijablog, the models wear fashionable turkish 'high'-hijabs. I love it, I think it's a bit "If Victorian England had been a Muslim culture..."