Nymphomaniac I: Part 1, The Lessons and Formative Years

“As a young nymph, it was imperative for me to get rid of my virginity,”  These are the words of Joe, the protagonist in Lars Von Trier’s oddly controversial Nymphomaniac.   

Nymphomaniac: Vol I and II tell the story of Joe, a self proclaimed nympho/sex addict.  Far from being the seedy low budget smut, one would expect it to be based on the title, it is in fact a rather honest, eye opening depiction of Life through the eyes of an insatiable woman, and the experiences one goes through.

Nymphomaniac I:Joe’s story begins.

She’s found beaten half to death close  to an alley by an elderly man, Seligman.

“Already?” I think. “Shit’s gone bad for her already? Jesus, is this one of those movies that depict the downfall of promiscuous women? Cos I’m not here for that.”

She refuses medical attention and instead  goes to his apartment to lay down and have a cup of tea with milk. [No, really.]

Here, her story unfolds.

 

She is not “just another girl with daddy issues”.  On the contrary, Joe has a rather close and warm relationship with her father, they bond as he tells her stories about trees. Her mother, however, is described as “cold” and often, a “cunt” [You’ll come to find, it’s not a dirty word in the movie] .   She “discovers” her vagina when she’s 2, and as she grows with a female companion known only as B, they discover the different ways in which the female genitalia can provide and feel pleasure.

“Perhaps the only difference between me and other people is that I’ve always wanted more from the sunset. More spectacular colors when the sun hits the horizon. That’s perhaps my only sin,” she muses.  Giving the impression that there is no real shame to the life that she has lived.  She is not burdened by society and religion’s  view of the “Unholy” woman.

“Are you insisting that children are sinful?” asks Seligman.  To which she responds in a childlike voice “Not children, me.” So maybe things aren’t exactly what they seem, for her.  It is not shame that cripples her internally, not at all, but she is fully aware of her own misgivings.

She grows and is drawn to her vagina.

Curious.

Understand that  when you really start taking note of your vagina and it’s workings, appearance, feelings, it’s amazing.  As a child I personally was intrigued by it.  How simply complex it was.  Why it was a secret.  So Joe’s desire to know more, and experience more regarding it resonated with me.

She loses her virginity in a rather inelegant manner, as  most of us have, methinks, but will never admit.  A young Joe considers her target sophisticated because he as a Moped and quite bluntly asks him “If I asked you to take my virginity would that be a problem?”

He doesn’t turn her down, and proceeds to penetrate both her vagina and anus [NO LUBE! Christ, the savagery].  Now, I wouldn’t go so far as agreeing with Asa Akira’s sentiments that it’s really practical to just lose them both at the same time since the first time for both is always rather uncomfortable. But It would make sense to lose them.. close together.  Not on the same day though, unless if you can take both your holes being sore.

He’s clumsy, swift and really, a terrible lover.

He is Shia LaBeouf, playing Jerome.

“It hurt like hell. I swore I’d never sleep with anyone again. But of course that only lasted a short while.” Oh honey, don’t we know it?

Years later, with her friend B, again, she really cums into her own regarding her sexuality, so to speak.  Young, dizzy and eager, they go out dressed provocatively on a quest.  To fuck as many men on a train as possible, winner gets a packet of sweets. No, really.

It’s not shocking, really. Not in the least. When you’re young and sexually active, stuck in that weird place where you think you’re an adult yet still have the urge to act young and stupid, things happen.

Everything up to this point had passed without so much as an eyebrow raise from me.  But when you watch the movie, you note that Joe looks rather young.  Skinny, lanky, simply childlike.  She could be a model if she were taller.  But it’s still evident that she’s a girl. This however, doesn’t hinder the men she manages to “seduce”.  Men twice her age still  fuck her, and this is not an issue for them, in the least.

The fact is a girl who thinks she can act like a woman will be treated as such by those who know better.

“I discovered my power as a woman and used it  to my advantage without any concern for anyone else.”  It’s funny that she would have guilt over this, yet understandable.  Society doesn’t condition us to do so and therefore doesn’t condone it. With that in mind, whether we know it or not, many of us internalize society’s perceptions and opinions and use them to gauge whether or not we are “good” people.

This is a recurring theme  throughout her telling of her story and the subsequent conversations with Seligman.

Is she a good person? 

What IS a good person? 

She’s adamant that she’s a horrible being, but he constantly has a counter argument that suggests that possibly, she is too harsh on herself.  They represent both sides of the conversation when it usually comes to issues dealing with promiscuity, and life really.

Are you bad? Or simply a person who’s reacted to circumstances as your Spirit saw fit?

B and Joe start a club: “The Little Flock”.   A group of sexually emancipated/promiscuous girls who’re seemingly, anti love.

“It was rebellious,” she says. “We were committed to combating the love fixated society”.

But B lets the girls down when she falls in love. It’s a betrayal to the Flock. A betrayal to the inner vixen who vows never to experience true intimacy.

This is the first time that affection, love, attachment taints sex for her.

“You think you know everything about sex.

The secret ingredient to sex, is love.” says B.

“For me love was just lust, with jealousy added,” muses an older Joe.

And this is all before Varsity.

It’s amazing the lessons one learns when they jump headfirst into “maturity” and “adulthood”, blindly.  Having personally lost my virginity at 12, I completely related to Joe’s experiences.  By the time you get to Varsity, you’re weirdly both naive and relatively mature.  I loved how the story was told in a purely matter of fact manner.

She was not a “victim”.

She had no “daddy issues”.

She chose to do as she pleased with her body and faced the consequences and lessons as they played out.

There was no shame to being promiscuous, she simply was.

 

*This is the first in a series of posts to follow.

**Also, something I noted. B and Joe’s initials together is : BJ. Ha.

 

 

Strength of a Woman

Things irk me. I wish it were as simple as saying they annoy me but when it comes to womanhood, the things that make me feel like being a woman is a burden, a curse, something to be ashamed of, hurt me in a rather unique way.

Most days I’m okay with the fact that, going out into the world, logging onto a social network, hell, going on Yahoo, means I need to switch off internally to a certain degree and get ready for hostility. Being a Woman is much like being a warrior, even when you aren’t actively at war, you’re ready to fight.  And sometimes, I wish it wasn’t that way. Some days I get tired of fighting.

You can only ignore so much, I find, til you probably have to break down, then wipe the slate clean and start again. Start registering more hate and more pain and more of what comes with being who you are, where you are, and what you are.

Women aren’t meant to complain. And by “complain” I mean be honest and vocal about what hurts them, or what hurts anyone else. We are everyone’s punching bag. Everyone’s dump site. Everyone’s maid, lover, stress ball..Anyone’s anything.

Facelessly.

Silently.

I wonder, if it weren’t for “radical” friends, books, social media, all the ways women show support to and for other women, how many women would know they actually exist?

As people and not Lesser Beings.

How many would know they need to be their own Everything and not someone’s something?

I realize I’m faceless when I’m harassed on the street. There I’m just another body.

I realize I’m faceless when I’m shamed and stared at for my shorts or cleavage or walking a certain way.  To them, I’m just another [young] woman being nasty and disgusting. Something to hate and judge.

I realize I’m faceless when my parents tell me I’m a disappointment. To them, I’m just a dream gone wrong.

I realize I’m voiceless when I try to explain [myself].

When I come home, dead tired, and have to cook because I’m a woman. When  my brother, who’s 11, does nothing more than fry drumsticks every two months because “he’s still a baby” and I’ve been cooking for all of them since the same age. I realize I am just an able [female] body then.

When I hear the many variations of “dark skinned VS light skinned women” and I’m told I’m alright because I’m light, I know  to some men, we’re just colours with vaginas.

The arguments over what a woman should look like or be. We aren’t people,bodies,women..we’re clay everyone thinks they have the right to mould.

And how do you think it feels to live in a society that only acknowledgeS you exist when either degrading, dismissing or dehumanizing you?

To work at enlightening and emancipating people who think you’re silly?

What it’s like to live when you’re dead in other people’s eyes.

Minute Men

“Women lie. Men lie. Numbers don’t lie.” This may have been thought up with Business in mind but if experience has taught me anything, it’s that the same rule applies when it comes to sex.

We lie. Whether it’s about penis measurements, cup sizes or how long we can last in the sack, we lie.

I understand. You don’t want to seem inadequate. You want her to think you’re the best package there is out there, make her want, need, to be with you, to have you just once, so you add a bit here,omit a bit there and Voila, she’s down to fuck. Like a Peacock you fluff out your feathers and prance about like you’re the biggest cock there is, [Pun intended], giving her sleepless nights as she spends hours experiencing every move she hopes you’ll deliver, in her head. You’re her Mandingo,her James Deen,her Prince Charming from the Nasty side of the tracks.

And then the time comes. You get her slightly tipsy,hoping this will shield the blow that you’re about to deliver, or rather attempt to, and fail at. There’s kissing, there’s groping, breathless moans and tugging at clothes, you SHOULD be turned on, and maybe you are, but nothing stirs, and all too familiar feeling that doesn’t get any easier to handle. Her hands on you do nothing,and you kind of forgot to mention that you really aren’t THAT well endowed actually. You’re just an average guy. The guilt, mixed with the anger at the constant disappointment Little Man shoves your way and the desire that won’t show become all too much and as you try to push it all aside, she discovers your naked secret.
Her face registers a mixture of shock and disappointment that you’ve seen enough times that you’d catch it from a Mile away, flashing for a nano second. The fact that It’s flaccid doesn’t help. And then you start fumbling through an excuse about how this doesn’t happen all the time and you’re probably just too drunk and you’re Sorry. She could try and get it up if she wants to, or you could postpone..The same old routine.

Some men are Minute Men,and some men just can’t maintain an erection. They don’t speak about it. They probably can’t even admit it to themselves, but that’s how things are. This is not a once every six months Whiskey Dick situation.  He cannot get it up,and Ladies, if you find yourself in such a situation, there really is one way I prefer to diffuse the awkwardness. Be compassionate.

It’s quite easy to be an asshole in such a situation. You haven’t had your orgasm yet, it doesn’t seem like you will. He was dishonest, he led you on. You go from shocked, to angry. But I tend to look at it this way, yes, he may have lied, but Sex is one of those we all wanna be good at. You would lie too.

Given the situation,if you had issues with getting aroused and ready, I doubt you would be willing to put that out there. Denial would be your best Defense. Try and be understanding, and leave the rest for later.

Now I’ve come to find of the men who have this issue,there are two kinds: The Angry Macho types, and the Soft, understanding ones.

The angry,macho types are mad at their penises. How dare it not represent him to his satisfaction? He is a Man. He should be getting ass. He deserves it. How dare it? Also, his guilt and self consciousness kick in and he gets angry at all the other men out there. Thrusting to their hearts content. He cannot believe that it’s him. It can’t be. It’s probably you. Yes, every female he meets sucks. And then he might muster enough of an erection to thrust thrice into you,subsequently relieving his anger and all that he felt, and convincing himself he showed you who’s actually Boss.

The soft understanding ones know how things are,have accepted it,and are saddened by the situation. He feels as if he’s not man enough to deliver. His sex life is shrouded in Shame and therefore, he cannot enjoy it. He bares himself to females, hopeful and careful. He would like to please you, but he can’t, so he lets go of things and hopes. For it to go away,for someone to understand,for SOMETHING to happen that’ll make it all better.

I’ve encountered both types of men and will state this. He who seeks understanding will get it. Those who insist on crushing you with their rib cage for about the same amount of time as an interlude lasts, then act like you ain’t shit, get no love.

As someone who has a few sexual insecurities herself I understand the importance of sex being an enriching experience. It’s scary enough baring your Self to someone, baring yourself to someone and having it be a complete disaster is some BS.

So on the matter of Minute Men,I say we try. Communication goes a long way. One might just be nervous, or have issues of inadequacy. Often times you’ll find talking about why things are that they are will get someone to loosen up around you, trust you, and try harder to give.

I figure a bit of time spent cultivating a relationship,[even if it’s one that’ll bloom for a short while and then die],building trust and intimacy,thus leading to better sex,is worth it.

People WILL lie. But as long as we understand Why,we’re free to make the most out of situations despite how things began. Hey,all men can’t be [Insert Favourite Male porn star here] and we can’t all be Jada Fire or Skin Diamond or Rihanna. We don’t always ooze Sex Appeal and shit either ladies. So if we want to experience the Beauty that comes with sex,after the lies and and the self consciousness,we work on it. It’s simple as that. You don’t have to marry him, you don’t even have to see him again, but the whole idea is to make every sexual experience as awesome as possible.

So screw it,the next time you’re faced with a not so enthusiastic member, rather think of it as an opportunity to play and discover new things. Your one minute man who’s been nervous and a tad bit ashamed could end up giving you the best bedding of your life.