feminish

I HAD A DEEP INTERNAL CONFLICT on Friday, barely 4 hours after leaving the Immanent Grove. Should I dress to go out as the Beloved would like me to dress - out of love, and a delight that I can, now I’m no longer in a monastery? Or should I dress as my mood - modest, simple and cloaked?

I got angry and confused.

I wasn’t frustrated (as I used to be) that I’d ‘got nothing to wear’; or that I was the wrong shape for my clothes; or that it was all just too much decision-making. In fact, it was quite fun to suddenly think about colour and form after a month in retreat. The problem was the Beloved’s preference for the skimpier shirt. I felt subjected, in a way, to his desires - and found I couldn’t dress in freedom, caught as I was between my feelings and his (I was annoyed, as an almost-feminist, that I did in fact want to please him).

It’s true that how I dress is an expression from-myself-to-others; it’s not just a private act, but a way of communicating. What-others-think, and what my Lover thinks, does matter. But how can I express myself independently and honestly and bring my Lover joy, without playing to objectifying male fantasies of the female body?

For now, we’ve agreed that I’ll practice dressing-independence by not asking what he thinks, and he’ll practice non-objectifying by not telling me.

But it’s hard, in a house without mirrors, not to say, ‘Does this top really go with the skirt?’