Jardin Fleuris by Alexandra Sophie
Jardin fleuris is a series of photographs representing the different ages of a woman. The first picture ‘Virgin Soil’ represents virginity, the second ‘Mûres’ which means both “blackberries” and “mature” represents puberty and first periods and the third picture ‘Broken Eggs’ represents the loss of virginity.
“I think at this point in our world, we’ve got a really confused idea of the way gender and sexuality works. I think we’ve created this really superfluous sort of like binary in the way we think about gender. And I guess I identify as queer because I don’t identify with that. I think that makes us less whole as people. I don’t need to be assigned to what it is I can do or who I can love. And it seems like we keep drawing these battle lines which are completely unnecessary. So that’s what I basically mean. When I say I’m queer, I’m saying that I think human beings are amazing. And love is an honor and an opportunity. And a fragile thing. A fragile process in which there’s no room for doubt, or shame, or hatred.” — Ezra Miller
(Source: ttimeturner)
[TW: SEXUAL HARASSMENT, RAPE]
The violations started small. I was 12, fairly tall with brand new boobs. My mother wouldn’t let me buy “real bras” for a long time. It didn’t occur to me that was weird until boys in my class started advising me to “stop wearing sports bras” because I was looking a little “saggy.”
It was a boy who told me I had to start shaving my legs if I wanted anyone to ever like me. I said that wasn’t true. He laughed in my face and called me a dyke.
That night after shaving, my mother asked me why I was so vain.
They started finding reasons to touch me, pinching my butt, snapping my new “real bras,” (“They look a lot better. Did you stuff?”) or straight-up grabbing my breasts. Dropped pencils with awkward leanovers. Staged run-ins.
One time, a popular boy I knew who lived on my street forced his way into my living room while my parents were still working and fought with me over a remote control so that he could cop a feel. I didn’t say anything. Speaking up was not an option—rather, an easy road to being even more ostracized and labelled “crazy.” Besides, who would believe that he’d wanted to touch me?
They named girls one by one, by the flaws of our bodies. What they considered theirs. They would write them on chalkboards to taunt us. Draw crude pictures.
If we showed it hurt us, it only got worse. I would cry in the bathroom and hope for some serious illness to keep me out of school, if only for a day.
When I kissed one boy, he encouraged me to do the same with his friends. Not because he thought I might want to, but because I was a toy he wanted to share. An experience he wanted to give his less “successful” friends. For them, a celebration. For me, certain social suicide.
Even if I wanted it, there was never any winning.
I will never forget how excited I was to be invited to watch a movie with the popular boy I liked. I primped for hours. (I was, after all, a teenager grappling with my own new sexuality.) When I got there, he did not put on the movie we agreed to watch, but a porn film. I had never seen one before. He unzipped his pants, pushed and pulled at me. I cried the whole walk home.
They could pinpoint weaknesses. Worse, they knew they were wrong but there were just never any consequences. They knew this—treating us like objects there for them—was what was expected of them.
I want to say that they stop. But the truth is that some never do.
I have never stopped being reminded of my there-for-men status. I am reminded when I am violated in my sleep, or groped in a bar, or held down by a longtime friend. I am reminded when I refuse conversation with a strange man and he spits in my direction, or calls me a “bitch.” I am reminded when I am asked why I wore such a pretty dress if I wasn’t trying to “pick up.” I am reminded when I am told to be less angry and more agreeable. I am reminded when I talk about my lived experience and am told to “stop being so negative about everything.” I am reminded when young girls are bullied so severely by men who wanted to see their bodies that they commit suicide.
We don’t talk honestly enough about what it’s like being a teen girl. If we did talk about it, what it was like for us, perhaps we wouldn’t be so harsh on them. Perhaps we wouldn’t throw our hands up in the air and exclaim “oh, teen girls, they’re so difficult!” Perhaps they wouldn’t be so scary. Perhaps we’d see their lives for the small and large violations they’re often made up of; and what those violations do.
Perhaps we would have been less surprised today when we learned that a fifteen-year-old boy was arrested on the scene of a sexual assault, in connection with a series of sexual assaults occurring in the Bloor and Christie area of Toronto. Perhaps we would be less shocked by the fact that it’s 12-17 year old boys who are the most likely to commit sexual assault (Statistics Canada, pg. 13). That is, after all, what they were doing to me.
My stories are not uncommon. They’re more common than we want to think. As my friend Panic said: “Ask anyone who is or has been a teenaged girl. 15-yr-old boys assaulting women is common. It’s ‘normal.’” It’s so normal, in fact, that we don’t talk about it until we’re women and we know it doesn’t have to be.
Pretty much everything in North American culture tells men and boys that women and girls are there for them. So please, do us some favours. Stop telling us that we have to take self defence. Stop telling us we shouldn’t drink or go out at night or on dates. Stop telling us that we need to be prepared for whatever “boys-be-boys” violations come our ways, because it’s bullshit. We don’t have to accept this or carry it around in silence.
Start talking with men and boys about the messages they’re getting about women and girls. Tell them that they are not entitled to our bodies, no matter what. Talk to them honestly and comprehensively about sexualization and objectification. Stop being afraid to talk about boundaries, sex, and pleasure—leaving that to schools, the Internet, and peers is simply not cutting it. Show them what consent really looks like.
And this sounds basic, but remind them that we’re, you know, people? We deserve at least that much.
Resources
Addendum: Thank you + notes
Human Sexuality is Complicated… (by vlogbrothers)
“ We live in this society, where in popular culture only young, hot, straight people are allowed to have sex, and that’s really not the way the world works at all. ”
Emily Browning (via emilybrowningfans)
(Source: theyoungsocialist)
“Stop degrading the act of sex by calling it ‘opening your legs.’
I’m so sick of women being degraded all the time. Because women just, you know, lay back and ‘spread their legs’ and let men do whatever they want. They don’t take any active role in the actual sex act or enjoy it. They are just objects that lay there with their legs open. Then they are stupid because through poor judgement or mishap, they became pregnant. The man is never blamed or shamed or degraded for having sex. There are no phrases used to degrade the act of a man participating in a sexual act, at least not a heterosexual one.
I swear if I could punch people in the face for saying ‘they shouldn’t have spread their legs’ I would. I don’t even care if they are someone in my family or my friends. That is how fucking pissed I get when people say hateful shit like that about women.
No issue is black and white. Women have abortions for many reasons. Shit happens. The fetus ends up being deformed and would not live; the woman just ended a previously stable relationship; the woman or couple has children already and cannot afford any more at the moment; The couple may have used birth control but it failed; the woman just found out she has a serious illness and will not be able to carry a pregnancy to term; the woman was raped, etc.
So fuck you and your hatred of women. Negativity about sex is disgusting and harmful.
”
flowersarebetterthanbullets on This Post (I made this a quote, because the original picture with text was visually offensive. These pro-life people need to take a graphic design class.)
(Source: plasticvines)
“ Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you’re alone, if you’re with a stranger, if you’re in a group, if you’re in a group of strangers, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you’re carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you’re wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who’s around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who’s at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn’t follow all the rules it’s your fault. ”
“I refuse to do the happy dance because I was fortunate enough not to be molested as a little girl and have not been violently raped. I refuse to be abjectly grateful for ‘getting off easy’ with the experiences I’ve mentioned here.
Because I deeply resent that they are normal.
Because I can hardly stand the thought of these constant erosions of personhood seeming normal to our daughters and sons.
”
I made these with the intention of turning them into stickers, but since that fell through, they’re going up here instead.
(Source: dumbjerkontheinternet)
“ But I feel like the only thing anyone has ever actually figured out about sex, in all of human existence, has been: “If it makes you happy and doesn’t hurt anyone, that’s probably fine?” And also: “Different things make different people happy?” But if they told you that, the entire relationship self-help industry would collapse overnight. ”
