I was on a low budget holiday, so i looked around and found the perfect accomodation with the right prices of which i could afford. It was ver comfortable with self contained kitchenette, shower, toilet which i shared with other people that were holidaying too.

 Black and White Pictures of My Legs Presentation: Black and White Pictures of My Legs by Sara Pictures or representations of women with body hair (leg hair, armpit hair, pubic hair, facial hair) are hard to find. You will not see them anywhere in the mainstream media, not even in commercials or advertisements that recommend depilation or shaving products for women. The models in those commercials are usually shown shavin Cocks or depilating their already perfectly smooth legs. Even out on the street or in other public places you will have to try hard to find women with visible armpit hair and facial hair (particularly moustaches) and you might have to try even harder to find women with hair on their legs. Body hair for women seems to be a taboo. According to a study conducted by Susan Basow among high school students, body hair on women's underarms and legs is still considered unattractive by both men and women and is linked to radical feminism. 118 college students (74 women and 44 men) watched a video of a woman who was described as being either a feminist or a woman who couldn't shave body hair due to a medical condition. In spite of being aware of the woman's 'medical condition', the students were still turned off by her and negatively associated her with "the feminist ideology that insists that women's bodies are "OK as they are" and do not need to be enhanced with makeup, clothes, plastic surgery or hair removal". Compared to a video (shown to another group of students) of the same woman who did shave, the woman with body hair was seen as "significantly less friendly, moral and relaxed as well as more aggressive, unsociable, strong, nonconformist, dominant, assertive, independent and in better physical condition than the same woman without body hair". The results of this study seem somewhat unreliable because, as I understand it, the woman on the video was described as 'a feminist' to the students, which may have caused an increase in negative attitudes. (And I guess only a feminist could be as arrogant as to come up with the idea that "women's bodies are OK as they are".) Disturbing as these students' reactions may be, it should come as no surprise that norms and ideals pertaining to women's body hair are just as much part of what Naomi Wolf calls 'the beauty myth' as are norms and ideals pertaining to just about every other curve, surface or corner of a woman's body. Next to major 'body-altering behaviors' such as dieting and plastic surgery, body hair removal may seem trivial and has received little research attention. But as Sarah J. Kenyon and Marika Tiggermann argue in their article "The hairlessness norm: the removal of body hair in women", the removal of body hair in women perhaps goes largely unquestioned precisely because it is so socially normative. The percentage of women who shave or depilate is impressive. According to a study carried out in Australia among 129 female university students, the vast majority remove both their leg hair (91.5%) and their underarm hair (93.0%). The same study carried out among 137 female high school students yielded similar results: most remove both their leg (92.0%) and underarm (91.2%) hair. The reasons cited for continuing to remove body hair were: (for the university students) "It makes me feel attractive" and "I like the soft silky feeling"; and (for the high school girls) "Body hair is ugly" and "Men prefer women without body hair". Considering the great scale on which women remove their body hair, and the reasons why they do it, the practice does not appear that trivial to me. As Kenyon and Tiggermann suggest, body hair removal can be seen to "endorse the underlying assumption of any of the body-altering behaviours, namely that a woman's body is not acceptable the way that it is". The checklist of what an ideal woman should look like is endlessly long and elaborate. There are so many (often contradictory) demands that are imposed on a woman's body, that it would even be a difficult task to simply sum them all up. But I think the most important aspect of idealized female beauty can indisputably be said to be youthfulness. In order to be feminine, a woman seems to be expected to hold back all the bodily processes that are associated with adulthood, such as changes in body weight and posture, changes in skin structure and body hair growth. The ideal seems to require that women bring their bodies back to an infantile state, which makes them look innocent, 'pure', naive, dependent and powerless. Quite the opposite of what men are supposed to look like if they are to be considered as 'real' men. Which brings me back to body hair. Whereas men are allowed and even required to have at least some body hair apart from the hair on their head (which is quite a different issue altogether), women are supposed to have none. But this discrepancy does not have much to do with what most people would call 'biology', since I know women (including myself) who 'naturally' have more or as much leg hair than/as a lot of men do. Now what does that say about femininity and masculinity? The cultural 'rules' about what is feminine and what is masculine (one of which is that there can be no overlaps between masculinity and femininity, the binary must be strictly respected) are very well known by people and few seem to have the will or the courage to break them. Most people even go to great lengths in order to comply with the norms and values pertaining to the physical aspects of femininity and masculinity. It just so happens to be that femininity requires a much higher stake and in order to keep crafting themselves as the physical Other of Man, women today diet, fitness, go through surgery, have permanent make up tattooed on them; they spend time and money on clothes, lotions, make-up, haircuts, hairdye; they shave, wax and depilate. In other words: women inflict pain on themselves and spend time, money and energy in order to fit into a Man-made mould that will never really fit them. Trying to reach that ideal of female beauty is an endless struggle that costs women their strength, their energy, their self-esteem (not to speak of their health or their life, in case of eating disorders or surgery). Alternately, the self-esteem of those who go against the grain and who refuse to alter who they are in the face of huge cultural pressures will be put to the test. It is not sure whether they will be able to handle the pressure. It is in this context that I would situate my pictures. The pictures I made are an attempt to come to terms with my own 'hairiness', specifically the hair on my legs. They are also my private protest against the huge amounts of representations of fake women, of idealized women, of smooth, thin and hairless women that I get confronted with every day. Every single one of those representations sends out a signal to women saying that they are not "OK as they are" and that there is no way that they themselves or others can unconditionally love them and their bodies. As Naomi Wolf rightly pointed out in "The Beauty Myth": the beauty myth in fact always dictates behavior, and not so much appearance. That conception of 'the beauty myth' reminds me of a work of Barbara Kruger (see Figure 1), which portrays a female figure who is forced to sit in a certain position by a number of needles that could be seen to either already be in her body or threatening to sting her when she moves. The text on the image says: "we have received orders not to move". The woman is in an uncomfortable position either way, whether she would move or not. I sense myself to be in a similar situation when it comes to the hair on my legs. The hair is thick, black and in any case visible. To go out in public with it would mean rebelling against beauty norms, but it would also mean disapproval. Maybe even open comments and scolding. It would mean having to come to terms with who I am and what I look like in the face of disgust and disapproval (including my own internalized disgust and disapproval) and if I am not up to that it would mean continuing to hide in pants and socks and thus partly denying and restricting myself. To avoid all that I could just depilate or shave, but by doing that I would yield to the norms and expectation patterns that I deeply disapprove of and reject, I would spend time and money to craft myself into someone, or rather something else, I would continue denying myself, I would still be unable to unconditionally accept myself. In that sense I believe that even the most 'trivial' of cultural beauty norms and values, in this case body hair removal, have a profound effect on the way women experience their bodies. And since our bodies mark our place in this world, since our bodies are the space and the realm from which we think, breathe, live, laugh, cry and enjoy, there is no looking past the fact that women who are unhappy in their bodies, are restricted from the inside out. Women who are made to feel that they are trapped in (ugly and repulsive) bodies will put self-imposed restrictions on what they say, do, think, eat, and on how they move, laugh, sit, dance (if it does not keep them from moving, laughing and dancing altogether). They will self-inflict pain and uncomfort on their bodies, be it in the form of operations, high heeled shoes, depilation, dyeing creams, diets, etc., which will prevent them from lifting the very restrictions that makes them inflict that pain and uncomfort in the first place. I am not saying that I - by making these pictures - can make a difference, because beauty norms and idealized images are deeply rooted in all of us. I also realize (and am for that reason utterly critical of what I have tried here) that, by employing photography, I am making use of - as Audre Lorde would term it - the 'master's tools', the restrictions of which I am quite (though still not fully) aware. I believe that, in order to make radically 'different' pictures, I must first be more aware of those restrictions, and at the current moment I am not. But what, then, do I believe makes these pictures at least a little bit different from other representations out there? Firstly, the eye of the camera is (in so far as that is possible: in so far as the gaze of the camera is not always masculine) also my eye: you see things from my (female) perspective. Secondly, the content of these pictures is different from pictures in the mainstream media, since they portray a woman's hairy legs. And thirdly, the form is also different in that I am in no way attempting (at least not consciously) to aestheticize what I see. I see these pictures (and the thinking around it) as a pleasant, but also a rather painful experiment, since it confronted me with my own internalized oppressions. It reminded me that it takes courage and strength to really swim against the stream and it made me painfully aware of the fact that oppression goes as far as to actually have women feel unwanted and inferior on the basis of something as 'trivial' as leg hair. Nevertheless doing this did give me a feeling of empowerment, so much so that I even hope to be able to push this experiment a bit further in the future… Sources: "Body Hair on Women a Turnoff", from: Apples For Health, United Press International,

Passages from The Ebonic Mass
There's been a lot of references to wonderful translations of Britney into Old English and Sir Mix-a-Lot into Latin on other poetry-related blogs, so I thought I would share my own ill-fated translation project.

A couple years ago, I put the Roman Catholic priest's mass -- it's actually, I forget the proper name for it, it's like a book of common prayer, with the entire priestly script for weddings, funerals, etc -- into an online ebonics translator. I forget where it is, there's plenty of them online.

Below are some choice passages. And in case anyone is thinking that I might be making fun of ebonics, please don't. It's not that simple. I'm making fun of Roman Catholicism. If there was an Ebonic Mass, I's surely my un-lapse my religious practice.

may i say....
that my prelims...

Are over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

goodbye to late night mugging, goodbye to three hours of sleep each day, goodbye to weeks without tv and movies, goodbye to worrying about papers and scores, but above all...goodbye to prelims!!!!!!!!!!!!

alot of things to look forward to....graduation's on tuesday, then after that dunno whether we are allowed to skip school or not (fat chance judging by my psychopath principal), then time to mug for o's some more....-________-;;;;;;;;*Bleargh*

dun think i'll do well for prelims......esp amaths. amaths was crap. and lit too. and malay, and physics, and bio.....well, you get wat i mean.

think i'll better stop here before i start to sound like those typical secondary school girl blog.

things to do: buy the sandman vol5/ buy franz ferdinand CD/ rent mystic river/slack till grad.

wanna check out a portrait i did?

This is hard for me to write. You wouldn't think it would be. It's been four years. But I suppose that proves how major it was.

When I was in high school, everyone called me Kathy. I was a different girl then.

Freshman year I had a crush on him. Few people knew this; I never even told him. I sat beside him in English and made small talk, hanging onto his every word about his upcoming track meet or driver's ed course.

Nothing ever happened. Not then.

It wasn't until junior year when we had a mutual friend, Lindsay, who was the kind of person who thrived on organizing huge group gatherings at the movies, mall, or someone's house.

We were forced together and became sort-of friends. Weekend friends who both were getting dragged places at which we only felt semi-comfortable.

It was March when our whole group attended my high school's Moon Dance. He and I spent the whole evening together trying to get Lindsay and this guy she liked to dance. When we finally succeeded during "In Your Eyes," we looked at each other, smiled, held on to each other and danced. It came so naturally.

It was the safest feeling I've ever had. He didn't let go right away, either.

He asked me to junior prom. Within a week of the invitation we were a couple. Best friends, even. We spent every possible moment together. We had the exact same sense of humor. I shared myself with him in so many ways. I wasn't afraid to love him completely. So I did.

I never questioned his love, and he never questioned mine. We were together until the first half of our senior year. I can't really pick one day and say, "This is where it ended." It wasn't like that because we weren't like that.

I couldn't imagine anyone else as my best friend, but the romantic love had faded. In my eyes, at least. Not in his. He was angry, hurt, and confused. By graduation we weren't speaking.

I always missed him. I always loved him.

Freshman year of college he send me a letter wishing me good luck. He called. The magic was still there. For me. But through the 3,000 miles that now separated us he decided we couldn't -- no, shouldn't -- keep in touch.

I always thought it would be Kathy and Chris forever. Or Chris and Kathy. When someone is a part of your life like that, your names are inextricably linked.

People from high school ask me why I now go by Kathleen. If only I could tell them.

Chris will always be the yardstick by which I measure relationships. And a part of me will always want him back.

 

Article ends, Olds
Some talk, probably from way back, about poems' lines ending with an article. Mike Snider talks about it vis a vis that old whipping horse, Sharon Olds, as being an annoying tick. It's valid.

I've always noticed this practice as perhaps running counter to fetishizing the line as a made thing that ends. Many poets, for instance, like to end their lines with hard consonants to give the image of their lines as drum-tight -- the recent talk of Lucie Brock Broido, who I see as far too mannered to read with any kind of enjoyment, comes to mind. Starting a line with a verb or a preposition is an old thing to do -- I mean, it's just a logical linguistic construct.

I see Olds as running counter to that, trying to make things surprising. It's no different than O'Hara or Oppen (looking at my other "O" poets on the shelf. Olds dedicated George Oppen in her first book -- perhaps she knew him in those years before she had her first book (at around 40)? In any case, try as she might in workshops to remain mysterious, I could tell she knew about other poets' devices, experimental things, etc. More often than not, she would talk about it as unnecessary, but how does that differ than, say, James Tate, writing a comment to simplify things on a friend's draft?

Here's an Olds poem, half of which that was on the New York subways:

Primitive

I have heard about the civilized,
the marriages run on talk, elegant and
honest, rational. But you and I are
savages. You come in with a bag,
hold it out to me in silence.
I know Moo Shu Pork when I smell it
and understand the message: I have
pleased you greatly last night. We sit
quietly, side by side, to eat,
the long pancakes dangling and spilling,
fragrant sauce dripping out,
and glance at each other askance, wordless,
the corners of our eyes clear as spear points
laid along the sill to show
a friend sits with a friend here.

The idea of being savages who have Chinese take-away might not be as compelling to poets. Maybe. But hey -- there's the long pancakes with the "sauce dripping out." I love it. The choice of sound of "Moo Shoo." Love it. The ending is a bit murky, but that use of friend to me is Whitman, a "camarado"-type usage. And for poets who like to tighten things up in the end -- as I often do -- this leaves the poem open-ended enough to let the exchange of bodily fliuds echo out.

What I may not like about this poem's project might is not, I'd hazard to guess, isn't the same as other poets or readers. This is what I mean:

What I think poets do not like is the idea that this is, you know, comfortable middle class life, erotic life mythologized, and probably those articles dangling out there. Me, I love all that. Dangle that article, Sharon, give the line the sheen of an indefinite thing, make me want to read more, all that.

What I don't like is the mannered aspect of the language, the lack of contractions in the poem, as if the poem is Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I've written a poem on this -- it's not just Olds. Only if. It's probably half the poetry I read and like I have to overcome this prejudice of poets writing in a ciphered language that comes off as mannered and deliberate and, frankly, boring. So in many ways, Olds is no different than poets as varied Spicer or Graham or Frost or Waldman, poets who have the same manner-tic. A prejudice this big is a problem for myself as a reader, not the poets'.

I think people draw from this mannered language thing for a wide variety of reasons. My number one guess? Aristocratic poets speaking in their native tongue.