How To Look at a Woman

I almost posted this picture without any words.  But you know how I like to have to have an opinion on things. 

This picture argues that based on her hemline alone a woman can be judged on her moral character and her sexual nature.  Of course, this kind of thinking is not new.  And while the idea that a rape victim is “asking for it” based on her clothing choice is considered unacceptable by many in the U.S. today, if a woman dresses provocatively and then complains about the attention she receives, most people are less than sympathetic.  Because she was asking for it, right?

It’s complicated.

On the one hand, many women acknowledge that dressing provocatively will almost always result in male attention (if the men are straight).   But men are going to notice a woman no matter what she wears. Whether it's an ankle or wrist underneath a burka or super cleavage, the female body draws attention. The question is, what is that quality of attention? Is it respectful and admiring of a woman's beauty? Does it change depending on how much of her body she is willing to expose? Do we make assumptions about where she loses her rights to be treated with respect based on her level of dress or undress? Because that is not right. Every woman is deserving of protection and respect for her beauty no matter how she is dressed.  And men will always look. 

Personally, I don't think it is problematic that men look at women. It think it is the kind of attention they give a woman and all the assumptions they carry with them about her based on her appearance, occupation, or whatever that is troubling. Women do it to women too.   How many times have you been called a slut by another woman because you pole dance?  Here is the thing: Overt displays of sexuality by a woman do not give you more of a right to judge, touch, shame or violate that woman’s boundaries in any way.  But they also don’t mean that you have to act like they are not happening.  There is a way of turning your gaze towards a sexually provocative woman that is neither demeaning nor dismissive.  There is a way of appreciating a woman’s beauty that acknowledges your own feelings without disrespecting her.

There are women who dress and behave in provocative manner because they are sexually disempowered.  There are women who dress conservatively because they are sexually disempowered.  There are also women who dress provocatively and conservatively because they are sexually empowered and clear in their values, desires and boundaries.  It would be nice if we could acknowledge and honor these choices.  It would also be nice if women felt truly free to make these choices from an authentic place. I cringe at superficial displays of sexual empowerment as much as I cringe at attacks on pole dancing that make it out to be the latest development in raunch culture.  But even if a woman is choosing to put it all out there because she is deeply insecure, needs attention and feels worthless isn’t carefully choosing to ignore her behavior versus shaming her for it the kind and right thing to do?

Another issue that comes into play with the male gaze is that women, because of a their fear of being threatened physically or judged or otherwise bothered, are not receptive at all to male attention and respond to it by becoming angry. At times this is justified. If someone is belittling you, of course you are going to be pissed.  At the same time, I think women are so conditioned to respond negatively to any male attention that they reflexively shut a man down, even when he is simply admiring her beauty.  The opposite side of that coin is that they feel they have to say yes or accept any advances because they don’t know how to set boundaries.

I used to get really angry when men would whistle at me or try to pick me up or say "Dddaaaaaammmnnn" when I walked by them. If I was wearing something revealing I would inevitably feel shame too.  I was sure that I had “asked for it” and that this meant I was a very bad girl.  (Turns out I am, and that’s a good thing, but that’s another blog.)

Today, I smile back at whoever is paying me the compliment (because, yes, I think it's a compliment when a man notices my beauty in a playful way) and say thank you.  I have had men hang out of car windows and yell at me about my beautiful ass, I have had them wave politely from trucks, I have had them smile at me across cafes, I have had them stare unabashedly at me in bars and I have had them stop me in the streets to tell me I’m beautiful and ask me if I have boyfriend.   I always respond with kindness.  If they try to pick me up I politely tell them I am not available.  Most men back off. Most men are grateful that I did not verbally emasculate them for paying me a compliment and taking the initiative to try and introduce themselves. 

I don't find most male attention demeaning or threatening. Even more importantly, because I engage men, I know when it IS truly threatening (versus judgmental, or just playful, or a little rude) and that makes me feel safer in the world.  Maybe I sound completely naïve. But let me tell you, my approach towards men today works far, far better then the shut down, fear-based responses I used to take with them.

And yet, while I think women need to be more open to positive male attention, and recognize that most men do not want to hurt them, it’s my belief that the ultimate responsibility for safety lays not in a woman and her choice in dress and behavior, but in the man who is giving the attention. The idea that it is EVER a woman's fault for any kind of boundary violation - including unwanted, unkind attention - is the same mentality that puts rape squarely on the victim's shoulders. "She was asking for it." Bullshit.  As men, it is your job to learn to control your instincts, learn to respect women in all their states of dress and undress and take responsibility for your reactions to your own arousal, disgust, pleasure or whatever else comes up when you see the female form. And until that happens, not a whole lot is going to change in the world.

I Heart My Nervous System

I have just started reading a book called “Job’s Body: A Handbook for Bodyworkers” by Deane Juhan.  Initially, I picked up the book just so I could geek out over all the mind-body discussions.  I have been a massage therapist for the past six years and this book was on virtually every “recommended reading” list for my graduate studies in psychology.

            Of course, I only got to page 9 of the Introduction before I found something that I could relate back to pole dancing.  And naturally, I needed to share it with the rest of you, immediately.   Ok, here we go.  Deane Juhan says, “It is the touching of the body’s surfaces against external objects and the rubbing of its own parts together which produce the vast majority of sensory information used by the mind to assemble an accurate image of the body…”

Indeed.  So when I am laying on the floor, eyes closed, legs splayed, mid-dance, dragging my hand across the soft skin of my belly, or maybe when I feel the tips of my toes slowly rub against each other while my hips swivel on the floor, I am not focused as much on what my body looks like as I am on what it feels like to me.   And when the sensation experienced is pleasure, I begin to have a positive experience of my body.  This pleasurable touching of my body as expressed to my brain, by my nervous system, suggests to me that my body is very good as it is.  It is good not just because it feels good, but because it responds well.  Clarissa Pinkola Estes discusses this very same idea in her book “Women Who Run With Wolves”.  Says Estes, “What constitutes a healthy body…At the most basic level - thebreast, the belly, anywhere there is skin, anywhere there are neurons to transmit feeling - the issue is not what shape, what size, what color, what age, but does it feel, does it work as it is meant to, can we respond, do we feel a range, a spectrum of feeling?”

So pole dancing, by virtue of the fact that it asks us to have a sensory experience of our bodies that is, ideally, rooted in experiencing pleasure is essentially creating a space for women to accept their bodies as they are, in the moment, and to experience them as something good.  Hooray!

Wait, there’s more.  The nervous system stimulates the body to move in specific ways as a result of specific sensations, says Juhan.  All movements flood the nervous system with sensations regarding the structures and the functions of the body.  In other words, movement is the unifying bond between mind and body and sensations are the substance of that bond.  As we mature, one of the ways in which we develop and maintain a sense of identity is through selecting and maintaining a specific repertoire of “movement habits”, which subsequently generate a specific repertoire of sensations.  We then put ourselves in a stable environment that will not challenge our choices.  The majority of this decision-making, says Juhan, is largely unconscious.  So a habit develops and even if problems arise, parts go numb or forgotten, we rarely question our habitual patterns.  Here Juhan makes the argument for why touch therapies can be so effective and sometimes produce such positive results so quickly:  Because no matter how much I might move myself around, the tendency is almost always to move in the ways I have always moved, guided by the same deeply rooted habits, sensory cues and mental images of my body.  But, says, Juhan, if you can succeed in surrendering to the movements another person imposes on your body, without your own systems interfering, it is possible not just to gain new information about your body from this new sensory input, it is also possible to see your habitual patterns as nothing more than a habit.  This insight, when permitted to arise, gives us the wonderful gift of choice.  Rather than being chained to our habitual movements, we are free to explore new ways of moving.

Do you see where I’m going here?  While pole dancing is not a form of touch therapy, it incorporates some of its elements through sensory awareness.  Not only that, but when you learn how to pole dance you are surrendering to a new form of movement.  This movement creates new and unfamiliar sensations in your body.  All of a sudden, you are aware of places in your body that are numb, in pain or maybe throbbing and alive.  Your habit of keeping your pelvis tight and tucked under is made glaringly clear to you.  The stiffness in your jaw seems so…unnecessary.  Just by bringing these holding patterns into your awareness, just by allowing new sensations to flood through your nervous system and into your brain, you are giving yourself the choice, the permission to move differently.  This new form of movement, through new sensations, creates a new image of your body in your mind.  If your breasts feel beautiful then maybe you begin to believe that they are actually beautiful.  If your hips feel amazing as you push them out into a huge circle around the room, then maybe they are amazing.  Even more profound than that, as your body begins to move in this sensual, erotic way and nothing bad happens – in fact, only good things happen – then maybe your mind will begin to believe that your sexuality is something to be celebrated publicly, that it is something playful and good, rather than something to be shamed, chained and kept hidden.

Juhan says that massage therapists do not operate as interventionists in the body.  Rather, they act as facilitators.  Their hands are like flashlights, illuminating a dark room, and the medicine they offer is self-awareness.  I like to think of my pole dance teachers in the same way.  Only it is their bodies and their movements that illuminate the way, reminding us that we are not a collection of parts, but a unified whole and that pleasure in the body can lead to profound shifts in the perceptions of the mind.