Safe and Sexy

by Sarah Hughes

Griselda Manning,54
Halifax

On the farm, it’s all dirty work, with buckets of water and animal manure. I do think about my clothes, but not in terms of how I look. They have to be comfortable, warm or cool enough, and scruffy, so that I’m relaxed.On Mondays, Wednesdays, and usually Fridays, my belly-dancing classes are in the morning and they’re an hour’s drive away, so I have to get up early, milk cows, feed sheep . . . then jump in the bath, go and teach, and then come back and get the old clothes on again.I’ve always been a dancer — a ballet and modern dancer — and it’s very hard to suddenly stop. When you’re fifty-four, performing doesn’t work as well. What I love about belly-dancing is that it em-braces women of all shapes, sizes, and ages. I work in dirty, old clothes every day, and it adds a bit of glamour to my life. With the exception of my first hus-band, who hated everything about me from the day we got married, I’ve had mature men in my life who have abso-lutely loved the way I dress

Comments (2 comments)

Shannon: Hello,
I'm not sure where or who gets this note, but if
possible, would you tell Griselda that I also love the way she dresses and the scent of Patchouli oil on her neck. Thanks, macyaka@auracom.com May 20, 2008 20:45 EST

Charles Tysoe: How very trendy. Just what we need from Canada's newest, best and most progressive mag for all of who "get it". Artistic license and all, but why don't you grow up, please. Exploiting a 13 year old girl (does this girl have a mom and dad? Or a guardian with some sort of a brain?) to talk about her sexual anxieties in a location any Haligonian will recognize — OK maybe the two or three who can read, and who might chance upon the magazine. In an age of hellishly clever sexual predators (some of them probably classmates or social acquaintances of poor Amelia), what can you be thinking of? Other than "I am ARTIST. Affirm me!"

It's just art, right? No sexual predator would dare take seriously these plaintive musings. I'm sure if that was the case, Mr. Alexander and all the bright lights around him would have thought of it.

A young girl needs adult role models, security and affirmation in a healthy environment, where she can have her femininity nourished and protected.

You have just made her into human graffiti ; I suppose because there just aren't enough women and girls around willing to display themselves in any degrading fashion for a little fame or lots of money and we can never get enough of it.

Or perhaps you think this is real innovation?

What a disgrace to humanity you are for conceiving and carrying out, using your positions of inflence and power as "reputable journalists", this literary and visual grope of a young woman.

- A subscriber - August 06, 2008 11:41 EST

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