Bodies have always fascinated me since society is so uptight about them and since a child, I was taught never to refer to or acknowledge any anatomy including knees (the Catholic side of sex ed).
So I live in a world of breasts and butts (I love saying butt; it makes me feel powerful and liberated: just to say it), shoulders (oh, do I love shoulders), and thighs (oh, thighs are intriguing and so directional).
Elbows, even: fascinating, and un-understood creatures. Wrists, oh I like them. Fingers are so figurative.
Toes are basically ugly, stunted sentries standing on guard for reason to be, well, standing or walking. But they matter and they have feeling, and without them we would be cursed.
Bodies are fun! Bodies are blessed.
Most people hate their own (body), and I think that is so sad.
Why as a society are we so screwed up? Our bodies did not do anything to us (although I have an argument to pick with my small intestine for deciding pasta is past-tense for me, gluten-intolerance be damned. Beer, too, as I lately have had to recognize against my own Irish will.).
We, as a society, are peverse in what we will recognize and admire and what we will care for.
We love to look at good bodies, but the hell if we will take care of our own.
People rate health as their number 1 priority, and yet trash their bodies the first chance they can (Burger King 2-for-1 sales have killed people, seriously!).
Goon that I am, I am fascinated by it all.
The self-hate, the celebrity / porno worship (after all, the Jennifer Aniston kick is not so far removed from the Ginger Lynn fixation).
We hate ourselves. We want to be someone, anyone else.
I am not immune.
I read powerful writers, and I am dismayed I have not progressed as well as I imagined I would have.
I would take Lucia Perillo’s broken body for her captivating mind and for her lashing, hilarious tongue. She can have my legs, arms, and torso if I may just have her head.
Her head alone.
But to communicate like she can…
To say the things she says.
- Mary O. Fumento, 2008
