Cool Women and Poor Things

Lessons of the Body

One of the great joys of launching my book has been the opportunity to connect with amazing women around ideas that matter. (And it has mostly been women, perhaps by a ratio of ten to one.)

For example, last week I talked with the brilliant Maaza Mengiste at a launch event on the Lower East Side. Maaza and I met at college orientation nearly 35 years ago, when we were still teenagers. And just as she used to do—over coffees and scones at Espresso Royale in Ann Arbor, Michigan—Maaza asked me questions that made me think in new ways. One in particular stayed with me.

“I’ve always thought of the body as a barrier between the world outside and the soul within,” said Maaza. “We must get to the soul through the armor of the body. And of course MORE is very much about the self-discovery that came through sex. But I’m curious about another physical pursuit in the book—boxing. Do you think there’s a connection between the two?”

Though I’d never even thought about it before, of course she was right. There was a strong connection. Neither sex nor boxing are the domain of the “good girl.” Because of this, they both gave me access to parts of my being I’d been taught to ignore. The hidden, shadowy corners. The inner voice that needed to scream and grunt. In short, both my sexual explorations and the time I spent boxing taught me what it felt like to inhabit my body fully.

Last night, I went to see Poor Things. I cannot stop thinking about this film. And so—although I’ve had less than 24 hours to process it—I’m going to weave my reactions into this post. (Please forgive any erroneous quotations or half-baked thinking. And if you don’t want any spoilers, you might want to run and see the film and then come back to the next paragraph.)

Emma Stone’s character, Bella, learns about the world and herself through her own physicality. Some of this learning—the joy of sstuffing her mouth with tarts or dancing with abandon, for example—does not involve sex. But nobody could watch Poor Things and miss the idea that sex is of paramount importance. I was reminded of the Audre Lorde quote which serves as an epigraph in MORE: “The erotic is the nurturer… of all our deepest knowledge.” Not some knowledge, says Lorde. All.

Poor Things makes the case that within the human experience, the erotic—and more specifically, the FEMALE erotic (for as Bella surmises, due to “a physiological problem…a weakness,” a man is sexually limited)—is central. Bella’s awakening begins with the discovery of her genitals. Female genitalia serves as the “on” button which sets all the rest in motion.

Unlike Bella’s female companion who cuddles and sings to her after giving her oral sex, the men aren’t nearly as interested in caring for Bella’s full self. (Bella is also resolutely non-monogamous. Have you heard? Polyamory is having a moment.) However, one man after another wants to keep her for himself. The last of these threatens to perform an actual clitorectomy. But Bella (named for beauty, having shed her old name, her “Victorian” legacy) continually asserts herself as a sexual subject rather than a sexual object.

And in doing so, her world expands. She begins to read Emerson and attend Socialist meetings. She earns her own money in the world’s oldest profession. (“We are our own means of production,” Bella jauntily asserts.) In short, she takes control of her own destiny.

Towards the end of MORE, my mother shares some sage wisdom with me: “Nothing that happens,” she says, “is good or bad in and of itself. It’s all just an opportunity to learn and grow.”

The madame in the Parisian brothel where Bella works, gives advice that has an astonishingly similar ring to it: “We must experience everything,” she says. “Not just the good, but degradation, horror, sadness. This makes us whole, Bella, makes us people of substance. Not flighty, untouched children. Then we can know the world. And when we know the world, the world is ours.”

Today, I had a strange experience. Okay, not so strange for me. But strange if you’re not used to me.

When I got out of bed, I felt pins and needles in my right hand, as if it had fallen asleep. I assumed my hand had been squished under my pillow as I slept. But still, I stood at the bathroom sink, holding my hands in front of me and feeling awe at the electric current that pulsed along the fingers on my right side.

But then—suddenly—the current jumped.

Now my left hand, too, felt the electric sensation within.

Perhaps there is a very basic physical explanation for this. But I prefer the metaphysical one.

Our bodies are portals. They are made of the same elements that make up our entire universe, physical matter that binds us to the earth. But they are also mysterious places, inviting us to explore dimensions both within and beyond ourselves. When we keep our bodies under lock and key, afraid to express ourselves in an embodied way, we cannot become our truest selves.

And when we set our bodies free, they can take us anywhere.