Safe and Sexy

by Sarah Hughes

Chandra Mayor, 32
Winnipeg

I fear physical violence more than sexual violence. I’ve been raped a few times, and I know it’s something I can escape in my head more easily than I can escape physical violence. Being hit repeatedly is harder for me. I got the shirt I’m wearing for my safe outfit in LA, when I was doing things that felt really, really dangerous. I flew down there to meet a woman I’d never met before, which is stupid and dangerous. But it worked out okay, so the shirt makes me think of being brave. My current body makes me feel safe. I used to be extremely thin, and when I was in that body I couldn’t go anywhere without someone touching me or yelling something at me. I was hyper-visible and hyper-vulnerable all the time. Then I put this weight on and suddenly I was completely invisible. I was glad, but it was also disconcerting. I think of clothing as costuming to set the mood. If I’m going out to do a reading I want people to be enthralled, so I try to wear something a little more glamorous, even if it’s ironic glamorous, like plastic pearls.

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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