lechery

A few years ago, a male friend came to my home for a visit.  He had never been there before and he nosed around a bit.  He took a close look at the titles of the few books I had on the one small bookshelf I owned. And he looked closely at the few photographs I had on the wall next to my arm chair, where I did most of my sitting.

I had a photo of my daughter, descending a spiral staircase, dressed for her first fancy high school dance. Homecoming Fall 1996. She was fourteen, a h.s. freshman.  I liked the shot, taken from below, because it displayed her emergent womanliness well. The camera looked upward, scanning her beautiful legs, trim torso, and fairly full bosom. Large bosoms run in my family and my daughter had a shapely one by age fourteen.

The dress was a vintage courture number that I had bought at a garage sale for two bucks. It was a sleeveless white shift from, I think, the fifties. The fabric was a thick texture. The dress was off white, or winter white, a white one could wear after Labor Day back when wearing white after Labor Day was something women thought about carefully. It was a creamy white.

And the dress fit Katie like it had been made for her.

I was surprised, and relieved, that she had agreed to wear it. Katie tended to want expensive new outfits for dances. So one of the things I especially liked about that dress was simply that she had been thrilled to wear a two dollar garage sale bargain.

She also wore above-the-elbow cream-colored gloves. The only ones we could find were extremely cheap, from one of those very cheap accessory stores. Her arms developed a mild rash from wearing those gloves for a few hours. But she thought the look was worth it.

Anyway.  I loved the dress. I loved the kid. I loved the photo, precisely because it displayed her beautiful body. It is not lecherous for a mother to love watching her child emerge into womanhood.  I had loved watching her body change for fourteen years. It was a fine, simple pleasure to see my daughter becoming a woman.

And, to be fair to this male friend, I acknowledge that I loved the photo because it displayed her physical beauty.

When I looked at that photo, though, I did not see a woman. I saw a child who was on the cusp of womanhood. And her first dance!  Her first real date, actually. She had hung out a bit with boys before that dance but this was the first time a boy came into the house, met me, and took her out into the world.

When this male friend saw the photo, he said 'Nice bod'.

I was stung.  Tears stung my eyes.  I loved the photo precisely because it displayed her beautiful figure. Oh, I forgot to mention that my daughter was a serious modern dancer at this time. She was an apprentice to a great modern dance company. She took dance classes several hours every day of the week, as well as working out to rehearse for the endless next shows she was always in. Every muscle in her body was well toned. This photo displayed her exceptional fitness, her perfect curves. In one glance, the viewer noticed a curve for her hip, the curve for her waist, the demure curves of her bosom. Plus her body was turning, because it was a turning, spiral staircase.

It is a gorgeous photo of a very beautiful young woman. The photo does display a nice bod.

I was shocked, however, when this friend said 'Nice bod'. Hurt.  I absolutely do not believe he had a lecherous thought. I am certain that he saw the things that made me love the photo. He saw that she was a beautiful young woman with a very beautiful body. That was exactly why I loved the photo.

So why was I hurt when he said 'Nice bod'?  I think I was hurt because I had idealized this male friend, seeing him as a feminist.  I don't want to live in a world where women are valued based on their physical appeal to males. I don't want a male friend of mine to see a photo of my daughter, at any age but especially while still a child, as a body.

He didn't do anything wrong. The whole reason I love the photo was because it showed off her beautiful body. I think that is what he was responding to.  He is, as we all are, a product of culture. He was responding to exactly what I loved about the photo.

And his comment was inappropriate.  He revealed something about himself, something, I think, that he likes to pretend does not exist within him. He judges women, in large part, by their physical beauty. He was willing to be friends with me, the fat chick, but he would never consider me to be his lover.  A woman's physical appearance matters to him, partly because the beauty of a woman at his side reflects on his value in the world, too. A guy with a fat woman has lower status than a guy with a beautiful woman.

Nice bod.  Life sucks.

Later, by email, I voiced my unhappiness about his comment. He wrote back to say he had felt some shame over his remark. He also defensively reminded me that during the visit, I had played a song from the Black Eyed Peas, "Her Lovely Lady Lumps".   He said I had sent some strange messages when I played that song. At the time, I danced a lot daily, blasting music into my iPod earphones.  I had been amazed to discover the Black Eyed Peas, amazed to discover that women sang songs in popular music that were so overtly sexual. The vocalist  for 'Her Lovely Lady Lumps' is female. The lyrics are the voice of a young woman very openly aware of her sexuality, its power and appeal.  I felt like that guy in the fairy tale who falls asleep for a long time and awaken into a greatly changed world.  I had not listened to any pop music for, geez, decades.  I never listened to music on the radio.  I listened to jazz, Annie Lennox, who I got into back in the eighties, which was the last time I listened to pop music. Rip VanWinkle, that's the guy. When I heard "Her Lovely Lady Lumps", I felt like Rip VanWinkle must have felt when he awoke.

I shared that song with my male friend that day, mixed with a few songs that I really liked to dance to. I chose that one kinda like an anthropologist might reveal something about a culture she was studying. I was fascinated that such a song existed. It was not, certainly not consciously, some kind of come on to this guy.  I was being happy and silly and having fun when I suggested we start out day together with a little dancing, to get ourselves energized. To have fun. And I chose that song because I thought it was fascinating.

Later, when I confronted him for her comment about my fourteen year old daughter having a nice bod, he confronted me about playing that song.

I certainly did not think I had any lovely lady lumps. I am morbidly obese.  I do not see myself as sexually appealing to anyone.

And as far as my daughter's photo, it was taped alongside the drapes. Unless you were sitting down in my arm chair, you could not see the 3 by 5 inch photo. It's not like I had that photo prominently displayed, poster size, in my home. I had it posted in a private corner, where I spent lots of private time, alone, writing and surfing the internet.  If this guy hadn't been closely nosing around my home, looking closely at just about everything, he never would have seen the photo. That photo was definitely not connected to "Her Lovely Lady Lumps".

Nice bod. Lech?