Personas and Vulnerability

John asked why it feels so much scarier to navigate the world without my persona. I needed first to clarify that many people feel the way I feel. But that doesn't answer the question, although I think it does validate that I’m not just a freak. There are various elements in our culture that help create that phenomenon, but I also need to decide which I want to continue and which I want to unravel.

So there are several issues I think are rolled up in this issue. The first is that my persona isn’t fake. I sometimes talk as if my persona is a lie, but she is actually a mix of the aspects of my personality I like the best along with the parts that are sturdiest and the parts that are the most socially acceptable. (In much of the art I love the persona is treated as a lie, so perhaps that has encouraged me to express it that way.) But it isn't just a mask that is fake--she is truly part of who I am and a part I relish. I totally get high off the performing elements of my work and volunteering. I love my engagement in the world. And I love that I can navigate that world competently and confidently.

So, what exactly is in my inner, hidden gal as opposed to my persona? Well, she seems younger and naïve to me. She doesn’t have the sophistication. She has little sense of perspective. She can’t take a joke. While she never wanted to be teased, she was an irresistible target when she got a lot of public time (which she only did when I was much younger--pre-high school). Her earnestness drew taunts and jeers. She is more vulnerable in part because she has had less experience in the world, but also because the more vulnerable parts of myself ended up there as a protection mechanism and because that side of me encountered less of the nitty gritty parts of life, and thus became even softer and more protected.

I don’t think it would be good to parade her to the world, even as I think I must become better about integrating her with a few select people. But I think of what happened at a volunteer gig a couple of months ago when two younger kids tried to lead a revolt against me. Had my private gal been on display, I would have been hurt, and the kids would have smelled blood and this entire group of several months would have been mostly lost (as well as a reputation that would take a couple of years to live down.) But public gal handled it beautifully. “I don’t care if you like me. I care if you make the changes you want to make in your life. You’ll never see me after Christmas.” I can’t imagine private gal ever being able to say such a thing. If she is seen, she wants to be liked.

It’s funny that John sees me as having very poor boundaries, because re-reading our early e-mails, one of the early things that stands out is how guarded I was with him. How fiercely I fought for ground rules, at a cost that seemed tremendous to me at the time. But I suppose that is a result of boundaries based on people, rather than behaviors. (I mean, of course, there are behavior-based boundaries as well--for example Republican face-slapper [although John can clearly take me to that place in a way that makes me bouncier the next day, even it I still don't like the action itself], but aside from the more extremes--just little comments, it really depends on who as much as what.) Perhaps is I had a better defense mechanism based on behaviors I wouldn’t have to screen people so carefully.

Inner gal needs protection from the scrapes and bumps of life. Public persona can laugh stuff off. She knows how to take a joke. Private gal, not so much. And when I protect private gal more carefully, I'm able to be softer with the people I trust the most. When private gal gets too much air-time, I end up trying to prove myself more, I want people to like me more. I can't relax, let go, let fly.

That said, Private Gal wants to come out more. She’s aching for people to be at home with. I have one best friend and John that are the only people she’s really at home with. She’s never been at home with my other best friend. She got to know the ex in an erotic context, but the ex never cared about her enough to want to know her outside of that context. Steven sensed her immediately and bounded with her and adored her and worked to protect her. I’d never really had that experience before. My dad would have loved to know her, but he’s part of the reason that public gal protects her so fiercely. Dad never really had boundaries for her, never let her exist on her own terms. As soon as he saw a sign she was like “I’ve been waiting for you, come, come, come.” Not necessarily in a bad way in a hypothetical world, but in a very, very intrusive way that made private gal feel that she couldn’t be known without spilling her secrets or fiercely defending them. Growing up, she couldn't just be in the moment. If she existed she had to bare all.

It is weird that as a grown-up, private gal is still so vulnerable. I think without the sense of perspective, she takes any criticism, no matter how minute, as an absolute proof she’s unlovable. So it’s damn good that is only a few things I over-react that way on. And being sheltered from the world, she is more able to feel joy, more able to grieve, more in touch with her emotions. Really, private gal is mostly my emotional side that isn’t anger and public gal is my intellectual side, my values, and the emotion of anger. Anger is safe to represent, because it is always focused outward. The rest of the emotions are inward focused.

Alcohol seems to break down my barriers with John, even though that is not the case with most others. But with John, the perceived cost of disclosure seems to recede with booze. It’s like, when I’m tipsy, I assume he already knows all this stuff. Or if he doesn’t, he has some inkling that might not be right. So why not say it so it isn’t like this big, unspoken wall between us. With John, I yearn for more disclosure and alcohol makes me say things the things I'd only type to my blog.

After last weekend, I SO wanted reassurance that I didn’t say or do anything wrong. I remember saying several things I’d never say sober, bordering on crassness and also I don’t remember everything with the clarity I usually have. But, I didn’t want to drive John crazy; more than that, however, I also felt in my bones that it was OK. Private gal knew that John appreciated her and public gal was mother-henning, saying “but, did he really like her? I don’t want to let her get hurt? Did he really?” And private gal said “he saw me and he accepts me.” There are times private gal is stronger than public gal realizes. Steven thought public gal was manipulative and controlling of private gal. Maybe. But maybe she's just a big sister and a little over-protective.

Steven commented (several times) that I had this weird split between being super-protective with my private side in real life, and then rather profligate with her with strangers (ala the blog). I can’t explain why the blog is an OK realm for her to play in, but it feels safe to me. John and Steven are the only two people who know who I am there, and I trust them both. And it is a safe place to claim and explore and own that side of myself. In fact, when I felt weird with the blog with not knowing if John was reading it or not, I really felt the lack of the outlet. Having a diary on my computer just isn’t the same. Private gal likes her moment in the sun.

In the future, I’d like to find a couple more places where private gal can come out. She needs non-erotic outlets (as well as a really fabulous erotic one). But I don’t want to be indiscriminate with her. I like her, and too much exposure would make her more sophisticated and less earnest. If anything, my public side needs a little more of the private gal's willingness to see the best in the world, happiness, joy.

All you've got to do is ask me.

I was writing a post about beauty and aging, and how I'm far more concerned about holding onto the vestiges of my youth than I ever thought I would be. And then I took a break to go to the CD release party for Passing Strange (If you are going to take my advice on anything, run to see Passing Strange before it closes on Sunday, buy the CD on Tuesday and get the Spike Lee DVD that will be coming out in a year or two--the best new American art in the last few years) and I just started to wonder--how did I turn into this? What made me so cynical? So focused on playing the dating game? So willing to buy into a culture that I don't believe in?

There seems to be this giant chasm of regret that I never found someone who loved me. Steven loved me, but not enough to want me. There were several men I've loved. But none loved me back. And I'm scared that there never will be anyone. And I have so much I would love to give someone. I know: a cliche from the 1950s. But true, none the less.

I'm staying with a friend who lives at the end of the line, and taking the subway home (at 1:30 in the morning, by myself--and they say I'm not a New Yorker!), I was listening to one of the songs I'd downloaded from their website:

Now you are knee deep in your head's footnotes.

Is there a better description for me and my blog? Me and my life? I care about other people's head's footnotes too--I just love head's footnotes.

I've been thinking about leaving my fingerprints on your being.

So come down now, remove your mask, see.
All you gotta do is ask me.
I'll give you all the love life allows.

Wow. So I start to tear up on the subway. And then the narrator asks:

What does this feeling mean to you:
Both to be seen and be seen through?

And I start to cry. On the subway. I know the left coast wears its emotions on its sleeves, but that's ridiculous. But I have to take out my ipod and play Klondike to distract myself until I can get to my friend's apartment (who was, blessedly, already asleep).

I'm amazed at the amount of shit I do, like video games, to just try to numb myself out to what I'm feeling sometimes.

More than anything in my life, that's what I yearn for: "Both to be seen and be seen through." Someone to care enough about me, see the real in me and want to pursue the real enough to want to see through me. I honestly have a persona that is kind of impressive. Not like "top 1/10 of 1%" impressive. But probably in the top 1%. But who cares? I'm faking it. All of it. Every single bit. I don't care about that. Well, maybe I do. I love my life, actually. But it isn't fair that this chasm never disappears and I seem to have no control over it. I would trade my job and house and car for someone to love me as much as I'd love him. I really would. No. I wouldn't. Because I couldn't love someone that would ask me to give up my job that I love. But I'd trade my home that is the envy of all my friends with real estate envy. Gladly. More gladly, though, I'd share it with him.

I guess because I never got to be pretty when I was younger, and I knew it from a very, very early age, I just knew no one would ever love me. After all, Daddy told me so. And I built a life for me alone. And it is a good life. Hell, I can got to New York for the weekend just because I wanted to see Passing Strange one more time before it closes. And the feminists say "A woman needs a man life a fish needs a bicycle." Intellectually I'd believe it, but emotionally I'd say "but I need someone to love. I need to curl up next to another being and feel his heart beat. And have him care enough to want to see the flawed, conflicted messed-up girl that lurks, like an alien in Men in Black, under the well-put-together persona. I need that. Not like a fish needs a bicycle. Like a fish needs oxygen.
There's a Sondheim lyric:

In the depths of her interior
Were fears she was inferior
And something even eerier
But no one dared to query her superior exterior.

Probably the most brilliant lyric ever written in the English language. She is scared to make this vulnerable confession, so she uses the amazing rhyme scheme in order to distract from the vulnerability. I've always thought that that, more than anything else, described me. And, crazily enough, I've shared the lyric with tons of people because it is so clever, no one realizes it is vulnerable. People just here the ear ee er and don't realize that I'm sharing something about myself. And I've often wished someone would ignore the rhyme to realize the unguarded, exposed, unprotected girl and say "you don't have to pretend with me. I'll love you no matter what." But that, I suppose, is just a naive wish from a romance novel.

In a way, though, that lyric doesn't describe me. In a way, my inferiority is very much on the surface because of my weight. And I've struggled and struggled and struggled to have someone care about me despite it. And then I lost weight, and now I'm still plump, but in the sort-of normal category. And yet, still alone. All alone. And intellectually, it's all right now. But emotionally...

Meta-blogging

Very interesting article in the NY Times Sunday magazine this coming week, about blogging about your personal life. The author and I are very different in several ways, most notably that her blog was very well read and she was not anonymous. And so of course, those differences lead to other differences.

I no longer had the luxury of writing something and imagining that the only people who might read it would be a handful of funny, supportive friends.

I do have that luxury. I expect maybe 4 people read this blog, if that much, and I assume you are all in my corner, a little. Or at least, I assume you (if any 'yous' exist) mean me no harm. There are no nasty comments on this blog--no one has ever left one. "Attention is my drug," one of the characters in the story confessed. And I get no attention from here--so I don't do it for that reason (although that comment someone left a month ago or so touched me deeply). But I crave the clarity that I sometimes get from exploring a topic.

I had been getting up each morning at 7 a.m., my thoughts jostling in my head, eager to escape.

I'm not a morning person, but that sense of allowing an idea to escape, not just escape, blossom, is a strong compulsion. Somehow, I believe if I can truly understand what makes me feel something, than I can accept it and live peacefully with it. I think for me, this is a sort of therapy. And I'm pulled here when I'm feeling something I can't explain.

The will to blog is a complicated thing, somewhere between inspiration and compulsion. It can feel almost like a biological impulse. You see something, or an idea occurs to you, and you have to share it with the Internet as soon as possible.

For me, it is not so much the sharing as the exploring, but I'm more likely to explore an idea if I put it here, if I think I can tease out the underlying issues, but I crave the idea that I'm not alone in struggling with these issues and that someday, someone out there will say "yes--that's how I feel too." I also believe that women my age have been dealt a very difficult hand and by discussing those contradictory pulls on our lives we can, hopefully, treat ourselves with a little more love. And knowing we're not alone, helps give permission to accept.

I was in the 6th or 7th grade when I snuck into my first "R" rated movie--Fame. And the scene when the Irene Cara took off her shirt--it was so important, because it was the only time I saw a woman who had breasts like mine. I didn't have real nipples till I was older, and I always thought there was something wrong with my breasts. Seeing her's were just like mine made me feel much better about my own. I hope that exploring my neuroses on the little screen can, maybe, help have the same impact.

But there are some similarities.

I’d been clinging to [him] for months in spite of our differences because, in addition to the comfort and stability he gave me, he was my sounding board — someone with whom I could share my unfiltered thoughts, without worrying about being entertaining. In his absence, I was becoming more and more open on Gawker.

I miss John because of the same reason. I don't even know if I miss John, or I miss the idea of John. Do I miss the "John" of the 700 e-mails or the guy who's name isn't John that I can spend 8 hours with and wish for 8 more. Or do I miss the guy who's name really is John that cherished my self-analysis even if he didn't partake? Where does "John" end and John begin? Do I really even know "John?" They were powerful glimpses. I loved knowing him. But did I really?

I've got a date with one of the guys I went out with last week on Friday. He is taking me ballroom dancing. Just about the best date I could ask for from anyone. He is a sweet man, and he seems to like me. But there isn't that restless search for clarity, or that self-awareness. He isn't tantalized by words. Maybe somehow we would start that dance of the 7 veils of self-disclosure, but I don't see how we'd begin. There are no hints that we could go there. The NY Times gal writes:

I wanted him to know everything there was to know about me.

Yes, exactly. But I don't just want a mythical him to know everything about me. I want him to embrace and accept and cherish and adore. Even my horrible sides. The idea that someone could know my most private details. And still say "OK. You're worth it. I'll take the good with the bad."

The Republican wanted to see me naked, physically. And I can name every single one of my physical flaws. If I had done it, it would have made me feel incredibly vulnerable because would he be rejecting me because my stomach isn't flat, or my scar or the stretch marks on my breasts? And if he had looked at me and said "yeah--you're good enough for me" it would have bound me emotionally to him. It really would have. He never would have been enough for me, but it would still have glued me to him for a while. But that physical vulnerability and sharing is nothing compared to the emotional. Lot's of women have stretch marks. They even sell different things for dealing with them. And intellectually, I believe lots of women have the psychic stretch marks from feminism and yearning for acceptance and MTV and high-school popularity contests and being mocked and believing ourselves to be unlovable, if only for a brief, fleeting moment, and all the things that defined us. But it lives in the shadows. Unknown and unembraced. Maybe it is too much to ask to share that with a romantic partner. I don't know.

The Republican and my Body Image

It is always nice when people reconfirm stereotypes I've previously held. It is such hard work to take people out of their little boxes and try to relate to them as individuals, without preconceived caricatures. So, I should be quite grateful to the Republican.

In all honesty, there were several warning signs. When we went out, he had 5 drinks and had no effect at all. And when I said I needed more from him before I was ready to submit, preferably without alcohol, he didn't like that idea. Asked me to think specifically about what I needed, so I sent him a very open, honest e-mail. Explaining about the differences between public woman and private girl, and what the two needed in order for me to be able to submit. I also confided that I thought that while he was quite attracted to public woman, he didn't care for private girl. So asking to see a lot more of her, seemed problematic.

He replied that he wouldn't know if I was good enough till he saw my tits. Once an Ayn Rand fan, always an Ayn Rand fan.

I told him: "I can't imagine a man overlooking flaws in my mind based on my physical attributes. The reverse, perhaps, but not that."

But it brings up a couple of interesting issues; what do I expect men think I'll look like nude? I mean, I'm a size 14 or so (designers are all over the place--sometimes I'm a 12; sometimes I'm a 16, but I hover in the 14 range). In other words, I'm plumper than Kate Winslet is or Marilyn Monroe was. I mean, I thought Botticelli was synonymous with beautiful plump women, but I don't look anything like the Birth of Venus. I don't even think the Birth of Venus looks plump. Renoir is the only one that has come close to painting what I actually look like, and only with some of his paintings. Furthermore, I have a couple of scars. I'm pale white--I look like I soak in Clorox at night. And you simply aren't going to count my ribs. Quite the contrary--my stomach jiggles. I certainly don't look like the Leonard Nimoy nudes; thank God! All my feminist principles say 'but of course they are lovely, but all I can say is Thank God I don't look like that! But I'm not thin by any stretch of any imagination.

I know statistically men look at face, tits and butt. My tits and face are great. I don't know where my butt would be on a scale. But I look at my stomach. Oy, do I look at my stomach. I look at my thighs, which are just too muscular. My inner arms, which jiggle too. But mostly my stomach.

And I have no idea what men would think of me naked. No man has ever said "oh--this isn't what I expected," but I just have no clue there.

Now, the Republican didn't have a problem calling me a 'dumb bitch' at one point. (Why the hell would I overlook something like that? What the hell is wrong with me? I must be a dumb bitch!) When he asked for more and more pictures of me, I assumed it was because he wanted to make sure I really looked like my photos. Every compliment he gave to my looks, based on my photos, I dismissed in my head, because I'm kind of photogenic. I have a smile the camera likes. When we met, he said on several occasions that he thought I was hot. Beautiful. And pretty. Me, being me, I assumed he was being kind because he could pick up that I had an underlying insecurity there. It didn't occur to me that he was quite as selfish as he later proved himself. I don't quite now what I think he expects to see if I were naked. I mean, the man must have some sense of physics and know that the size 14 skirt contains a size 14 body, right? And yet, I cannot intellectualize my way out of believing that a man would be attracted to me despite my body, not because of it.

Needs that Matter

I’m 38 years old. And more than anything, I want someone who would put me first. A man I’ve been flirting with, who seems quite compatible on many realms, but he repeats the line ‘you would come second. Literally.” And I think, no.

My parents never put my needs first. Part of the ‘me’ generation, they figured their needs came first. This imprinted on me time and time again. I’m continually shocked when I see my friends putting their kids’ needs first. Sometimes at great sacrifice, sometimes at mild inconvenience. I never had that. And how does that affect the D/s dynamic?

To me, ideally, we both put each other first. I don’t know that I can be with someone who puts himself before me and also expects me to put him before me. But I naturally put other people’s needs first. That is quite natural to me. I don’t know how to put my own needs first, and I don’t enjoy it. It brings me no joy to put my needs at the top and then fulfill them.

With my ex, I went along with the line that my needs weren’t as important. But I would argue that my needs mattered. I think we literally discussed whether my needs counted for 40% (which I was pushing for) or 20%, which was his view. I somehow believe if I lived that life, I would come to accept it. In fact, just the opposite happened—I came to see why that wouldn’t work for me.

Steven, on the other hand, put my needs first. And that was lovely. An incredible gift. But Steven seemed an anomaly, and he made his decision.

Part of me, a big part of me, doesn’t believe I deserve to have my needs put first. And there are 2 contradicting reasons for it. The first is quite simply that I’m a grown up now. I need to get over the wounds of childhood and take care of myself and in the real world, people do not put other people’s needs first. Except I always do. But aside from that, people don’t/ I put my sister and my parents’ needs ahead of my own in my dealings with them, and I don’t know that they even notice. If they do, they take it for granted. Although, I do think they noticed that I moved to another coast and only see them once a year. But other than that, I don’t do a good job of setting boundaries with them. I never do a good job of setting boundaries with anyone. I always want to take care of the people I love.

The second issue is that I’m not thin. I’m not huge. I can shop for clothes in the regular stores. In the whole D/s world, there are a lot of women that make me look thing. But my tummy isn’t flat. It jiggles. You can’t count my ribs. Who would want to be a with a woman if you can’t count her ribs?

When I saw the pictures of ‘Kristen,” I was surprised because she just didn’t seem like that big a deal. She seemed like the minimum of what you would expect from someone you might love. Never mind that I don’t think the governor loved her. My guess is he couldn’t love anyone who didn’t even know what he did. I doubt he respected her. But he clearly wanted to have sex with her an my little mind has interwoven the issues of who you’d love with who your fantasy chick is.

And then there is the whole D/x issue. Is this endemic to all the D/s relationship? Is it endemic to male female relationships? Is it too much to wish that someone would take care of me, just in a difference way? Someone would want to have that level of control, to thrive off it, to get hard from it, but not to abuse it for his own gain? I truly want someone who would put my needs first.

That said, I wonder how important it would be for someone to acknowledge my needs as mattering? Does that affect the whole D/s dynamic if I force him to acknowledge it? The guy I’m flirting with right now, let’s call him, Greg, I think he would meet my needs. I think he would actually really enjoy my orgasms. But I think he would argue that my needs are secondary to his. Does that abstraction matter?

I want someone who will spoil me rotten. Who will put me on a pedestal and worship me. And grab me by the hair, throw me over the couch and spank me. Is that too much to ask for? Probably. Especially when I throw in all the other things I want (someone I can look up to, respect, admire, who has intelligence and quick wit.) But this is an issue that I think will return to. I’m not sure what it means. Maybe Steven is right and I should just look for eharmony. But I need someone who can actually tame me, and I don’t think any of the men could there.

Silda, Kristen and Camille

The Elliot Spitzer thing really did shock me. When we played "dream cabinet" (I can't be the only one starting to think about cabinet and judicial appointments, now, can I?), he was my pick for AG. I genuinely liked him. And I wonder: what the hell?

Evidently he adores his wife, Silda. Absolutely adores her. Enough that she had the final say over whether he resigned or not. This is a woman who, according to the The Times, "gave up a high-powered career as a corporate lawyer to raise three daughters and support her husband as he sought elective office." And Spitzer supposedly absolutely cherished her:

The only person whose approval he values so much that she has even, at times, been
able to take the edge off his abrasive style. They cite her willingness to quit her job...as
something for which he has always felt especially grateful.... "The fact that she believed
in me enough to put her very promising legal career on hold was a great source of
inspiration," Mr. Spitzer said.

So why would the man risk not only the governorship, but also the woman he loved? I think it comes back to the virgin/whore dichotomy. (I'm totally making this up--I base it on nothing other than my gut feeling and Peter Segal of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me and The Big Book of Vices, had some terrific theories on Talk of the Nation.) We know some part of Spitzer wanted "unsafe" and "dangerous" things. And I'm guessing, he viewed his wife as a truly wonderful and amazing being. She gave up her career. She's the mother of his children! How could her ask her to do that, to go to the dark places of his eroticism that his soul craved? He could never ask that of her, and so he went elsewhere.

Kristen, meanwhile, is 22. And, it seems to me, a rather ditzy 22. There is no way this woman could be a partner, a confidante, a respected equal. She is pretty and sexy in a cold, antiseptic sort of way. Perfect, but generic.

But that seems to be what so many men want. A generic girl with a cute butt and a flat stomach.

And that is the difference between eroticism and sex. Just imagine, for a moment, if Spitzer had had the courage to tell his wife what he wanted, back when she was his girlfriend? And if she had had similar areas she wanted to explore? But how the hell do we have that conversation? You never see a chick flick where the couple discusses what nourishes their erotic lives. It is completely unspoken in our culture. Scary. Dark. Bad. Wrong.

I'm not really a fan of Camille Paglia--in fact, for no reason at all, I've actively disliked her without knowing enough to justify that dislike. However, she raised a really interesting comment yesterday:

I am very concerned by a degeneration of erotic images in American media. It isn't
their mammoth proliferation that disturbs me (as it does many other feminists); it's
their antiseptic quality in this era of Botox and plasticized Barbie boobs. American sex is
all flash and no sizzle.

I think her analysis doesn't go far enough, and her examples, I don't think, do justice to her argument, but she raises something I've been trying to articulate, which I would label the difference between 'sexiness' and 'eroticism.'

Our popular culture has denigrated eroticism to a shocking degree. It is, I believe, a force too scary to be harnessed and impossible to be marketed. Contrary to popular view, advertisements don't sell sex as much as they sell dissatisfaction with your current sex life. If they just sold sex, we'd go have sex and we wouldn't buy their products. But they are feeding us this insiduous idea that our current sex lives aren't good enough (which they often aren't because we, as a culture, are so damn scared to actually talk about what we want and go to those dark places), so we need this product to be fulfilled. Meanwhile, while they are busy trying to sell us products we don't need based on insecurities they've invented.

Meanwhile, in order to sell us products they have to tell the women they aren't pretty enough the way they are, so they will obsess about the fact that their stomachs aren't concave. It is no wonder that Hollywood starlets are discarded by the time they are 40. It is no wonder that Susan Sarandon is an exception to this rule--that woman has eroticism in her bones.

Meanwhile, the men are told they aren't virile enough without a sports car, or a blackberry, or whatever the gadget du jour is. And the woman at his side isn't a partner; she is yet another gadget to show the world his power. She is an item on his list of acquisitions.

And eroticism falls by the wayside. Too dangerous.

Public persona vs. private self

In the depths of her interior

Were fears she was inferior

And something even eerier

But no one dared to query her superior exterior

(Stephen Sondheim "Ah, But Underneath")

Steven pointed out that I'm basically two people. He called them my Public and Private selves (although I tend to think of them as "me" and "that little girl deep down"). Steven is absolutely right, but I had assumed everyone has public and private selves, although the split may not be quite so large with others. But, given that Steven thought it noteworthy to point out my split, it is possible that I am unusual in how utterly bifurcated I am.

Public me is pretty darn competent, maneuvers the world well and can handle most anything. I do what I set my mind to and accomplish a lot. I'm grateful to feminism for opening doors and I walk through them gracefully. Set me down just about anywhere in the world, and as long as I have a Lonely Planet, I'll be fine. (OK, not Baghdad, and I wouldn't want to be a woman, traveling alone in Saudi Arabia, but that isn't a question of competence.) Whatever the world throws my way, I'll deal. I can take care of myself and have some pretty impressive accomplishments on my resume. While I'm not as successful as I had originally hoped, I made a series of compromises on my career that have left me much happier and I have few regrets (aside from my current procrastination & perfectionism that has paralyzed one element of my career for about 7 years now).

I'm strong. I don't need help. I'm generous--and I'm there for people when they need them. I'm smart. And I love fabulous conversations. I get excited by them. Any man that would hope to woo me would have to start with my brain. That is inevitable.

Sex with public woman is boring. Very egalitarian. You stroke my back and I'll stroke yours. I'll analyze intellectually what the other person would like, but I don't even know how to enjoy myself erotically when I'm in that realm. There is no fire there. And frankly, public woman isn't very interested in sex.

Meanwhile, deep under all that, there is this little girl (that Steven called the private me). She always seems younger to me--maybe 15 or something--and innocent. Not that she hasn't had sex, but that she believes the best in people--it wouldn't occur to her that people aren't honorable and decent. And she is vulnerable. She greatly appreciates assistance, because she knows the world can just be a little overwhelming at times. She is uncertain. Loves it when people are generous, loves to be cherished, and even petted. (When I'm freaked out or overwhelmed, a man rubbing my cheek is just about the most wonderful thing in the world.)

Private gal is a 'girlie girl' that missed the women's rights movement. She doesn't do or accomplish; she just is, and that's enough because she doesn't have much to prove.

Sex with private gal is absolutely magical (when it is good). She trusts, she is led, she yearns and she is filled. She is absolutely insatiable.

Ultimately, private girl and public woman want the same thing from the same person: to be loved for who we both are, as we are. Not to dazzle anyone--just for him to enjoy public gal and to see private gal, and have them both be OK. Steven said he could only have fallen in love with private gal (he gave me permission to post his letter, if I wanted to, so an excerpt seems appropriate): "Although I enjoy the public woman, I really only can respect her and superficially enjoy her. It’s really only the private woman who I can love. It’s only the private woman who I safely can be intimate with; to whom I safely can disclose my own vulnerabilities, my own fears, my own shortcomings. My heart draws her to me and me to her. I want to hold her and I want to be held by her. I want to trust her and I treasure her trust in me. I can be absolutely real with her and adore her own realness. I can love her strengths and, also, her vulnerabilities. I can wash away her insecurities and her longings and she can wash away mine. Making love with that private woman is what making love ought to be about." I couldn't ask for anything more.

Both Steven & John might point out that I do a damn good job hiding private gal. I think that is a result of the strong criticism from my dad, and also his attempts to practice therapy on me. I shut down because any vulnerability was pounced upon as a pretense to 'process' all the things I didn't care to process. I had no privacy without hiding my vulnerability. It may also be linked to a long period of time when men didn't find me attractive, so I just froze that part of myself.

With regular people, there might be a brief flash, but public woman is simultaneously very protective of private gal, and also embarrassed by her. She knows private gal wouldn't make it alone in the world. Too many mean people, thoughtless people, evil people. Private gal has enough of a hard time accepting kind people who respect her, but can't make life work with her. Steven saw her, completely. John saw snippets of her. My ex saw very brief snippets of her, but not nearly as much. To subject private gal to the world with no defense mechanisms would just be cruel. And frankly, having her rejected would hurt much, much, much more than having public woman rejected. And yet, Steven pointed out, this blog is private gal. For some reason or other, I can come on-line and let complete strangers see my inner-most vulnerabilities.

I (is that the public I? The private? Both? Who knows?) hope to find a way to be less bifurcated, but I don't know how. To a great extent, D/s is about someone stripping down public woman to get to private gal, and then taking damn good care of private gal. The construct includes an implicit pledge to demand the submissive's vulnerability and simultaneous to protect the person surrendering. The blog also lets private gal out, in a safe, controlled way. John and Steven are the only beings on the planet that know who the author of this is, and I trust you both completely. The rest of you (if anyone else actually reads this thing) you have no idea who I am. And there is safety in anonymity. Private gal can come play, a little (ideas to me are play--writing is play--I don't 'play' in the D/s sense), and public woman can realize there is strength in vulnerability, or at least in learning who you really are, owning it and being at peace with the world.

Maybe, someday, I'll find a way to take Steven's advice: "You know, if I could “fix” you, Constance, I’d do it in my blunt fashion: I’d tell you to “Cut the crap!” What do I mean? It’s that I’d tell you to stop with the public vs the private personas and just be who you are when you’re not in the professional or truly public arena. Just be yourself. Merge the two incomplete women into the one whole, healthy, incredible, beautiful woman who you are. Stop trying to control others’ perceptions of you (again, in personal relationships, I mean; not professional ones). Just be yourself and if that’s good enough for the person you’re with, great; if not, well, the objective truth is that it’s their loss. I literally mean that." Being with Steven for that lovely weekend allowed the two to start to merge, but now private gal is running away again. I don't know how to fully embrace her. Therapy actually makes me worse because therapists come in and start prodding and poking and private gal says ever-further locked away. I'm afraid, the only way I can get the two integrated is with someone I can trust and love, and no one will really be interested in me until I am able to address that issue. The blog, I hope, allows some intellectually integration, but I know, too, that it takes years after an intellectual to have a visceral shift without some visceral envelopment.

I'm Smarter Than Most People.

I can't believe I just said that! What kind of person, no what kind of woman, would believe she was smarter than most people? That is a statement of such hubris. No one could love a person, no a woman, who thought that.

I was put in "Gifted and Talented Education" in the 4th grade. My dad explained it was a program for people with no social skills. He repeated this over and over till I called him on it last month. When I had my first letter to the editor published, at 11, protesting the funding of contra-aid in Nicaragua and comparing the history of our involvement there to our involvement in the Philippines, the head of the journalism department at the local college wrote to tell me I should be a journalist. And my dad said "he thought there would be something wrong, but he wasn't ashamed or anything."

If I'd argue facts. He'd reply: "Is it better to be right than to be loved?" Obviously, no one could love a person, no a woman, who was right. And so I'd try to ignore facts. Giggle and ask a question. Or state something I thought right, but with an ever-escalating pitch. So if I said "well, I think Reaganomics is increasing social stratification" I'd inflect it like "Omigod you guys, want to go to the mall!?" And then I'd say "but that's just my opinion--I'm probably wrong. What do I know? Sorry."

I took an IQ test 2 times--146 & 154. Now, of course those tests are biased. It doesn't measure physical ability, or musical ability or emotional IQ or any of Gardner's multiple intelligences. My father told me, often, and surprisingly common for a man who graduated with a doctorate from one of the top 5 programs in the country, that IQ didn't matter. Over and over. But deep down, I still believed I was smarter than most people, and I also believed that this primarily served to make me unlovable.

By 20, I was a TA for college courses. My GRE scores qualified me for Mensa--I didn't mean to know that--I never tried to get in. I read it accidentally in the back of a magazine. I thought about going to a Mensa thing so that I'd fit in, but I didn't want to be like that.

I spent my 20s trying to hide the fact I was smart. My father explained that numerous post-graduate degrees just showed I didn't know how to navigate in the real world, so I'd dismiss them with a giggle. If someone found out. I actually did a number of job applications where I left off all the letters except my B.A. (Not in my career, just in day jobs, but still.) I studied how to act dumb. I'm also blond, with a relatively high-pitched voice, so that didn't hurt the perception. A problem developed, repeatedly, however: I hated people assuming I was dumb. I hated myself for not being able to be myself and I hated other people for believing it.

Now, I know there are lots of different ways of processing information. I happen to be good at thinking the way our society tends to reward. I have a lousy sense of pitch. I'm not athletic. I let my sense of 'facts' and 'right & wrong' cloud emotional needs of people. But, it is statistically true that I am smarter than most people in the way our society tends to measure. That doesn't mean I'm better. And I honestly would change it if I could. Ideally, I'd like to be in the top 10%, not the top 1%. But it is just who I am. If I had been taller than most people, I wouldn't view it as being superior--just a fact. Why it become so hard to accept this fact, not make it a bigger deal than it is, but also not deny my perception of reality, I don't know. I really believed, for a very long time, that it made me essentially unlovable. And no man will argue with a woman over whether she is worthy of love.

None of my friends understand why I stayed with my ex for as long as I did. But he liked the fact I was smart. He revelled in it. And he thought I was sexy looking. My two greatest flaws (my looks and my mind) and he said "me likey!" We were great friends, even if we weren't compatible on a number of core issues. But that profoundly healed the absolutely certainty inside that I was unlovable. He taught me that I could be myself and be loved. What a gift!

Just to be fair: my dad is actually a wonderful human being, and I hate that I have unresolved issues with him. Part of the reason I do is that he is a really wonderful friend and parent and I idealized him until recently. If I'd started to unravel the few places he sabotaged me (as do all parents, no matter how well-meaning) at a developmentally appropriate time, like as a teenager when most people do, I'd be more balanced here. But he isn't at all the ogre I make him out to be. He would be the first to say "I goofed up there--do you want to go to therapy together and talk about this?" My problem is I hate doing therapy, especially with my parents. If you met him, you'd think he was truly an amazing man.

My Great-Great-Great Grandfather's Granddaughter

So weird--my last name. It is really unusual--the only family with it in my state. And yet, my family has its share of "Smiths" and "Joneses." Why, by accident of birth, do I happen to have my father's father's father's father's father's last name? Or is there a reason for it? Just like my mitochondria are literally the descendants from my mother's mother's mother's mother's mother's--is there something in my soul that is descended only through the male side?

I was 11 when my father told me that no man would ever love me if I didn't lose weight. I told him to fuck off. Men were scum if that was the only way they judged women and why the hell would I want a relationship that was basically based on me being an object, a piece of meat?

And I simultaneously shut down my heart, learned to stop hoping and never, ever let anyone know I wasn't strong and couldn't take care of myself. I never learned to flirt. Never learned I was, or might possibly be seen as attractive. All I knew was that I would fail as a woman, but if I didn't let anyone know I might yearn for connection, I could still succeed as an asexual human being.

I can tell you exactly where I was standing, what the light looked like. My dad probably doesn't remember that moment, that day, but he remembers being unkind to me on a number of occasions, without even knowing where it came from.

He has tried SO hard to make up for it. And yet, telling me I'm beautiful a dozen times in the last year (which he has done) doesn't erase those marks he never meant to leave. Where did that voice come from? None of us really know, but I have my guess.

I don't know the details of when my father's father turned into a tyrant but it happened sometime after my grandfather proposed to my grandmother and before my father was cognizant of his surroundings. My father rebelled against his father's criticism and discipline. Until I was born. At that point, my father was lost and fell into old patterns. He did his VERY best to change those, but it took time, and my soul still bares the traces not of who my dad is now, but who he was then.

My grandfather left the country he grew up in because his father was such a tyrant to him. My grandmother used to comment that she fell in love with a happy loving man and married a dictatorial tyrant. She didn't know how it happened, and I bet he didn't either.

My great-grandfather hated his father for seeing him as a failure. In Germany you take aptitude tests at an early age and my grandfather ended up in trade school. He never forgave his father for the sense of betrayal the father expressed, and his father probably never forgave his son for failing. Or maybe part of his desperately wanted to forgive his son, but he didn't know how. Who knows?

I don't know much about my great-great-grandfather. But his father, my great-great-great grandfather, was fired from his job as a school teacher in Germany for being too cruel and strict with the students. I could be wrong, but I expect that 'too strict' in Germany in the 19th century meant something very different from 'too strict' today. And I expect that generation after generation, good men have tried to let go of their father's influence, and have been unable. They've all rebelled and they've probably promised to try and be different, and then a family happens and they've lost authorship of the details of their lives and they fall into the only patterns they know.

And so, it is fitting that I bear my great-great-great grandfather's name. To this day, I yearn for someone who is strict and sees the world as right and wrong to tell me I'm OK the way I am. I yearn for the love and the approval of someone in charge. I don't like those scars on my soul, but I accept them. And I realize the power they have for me, both in the erotic context and also with love.

My great-great-great grandfather has a great-great-great granddaughter who bears his name, has all the strength he would have wished for his sons and uses it to try and re-inscribe the patriarchal expectations in a way that is a little more loving and humane, truly, intensely and vitally in this moment.