Today I find myself in a favorite local Phoenix spot called Changing Hands bookstore which includes a bar called the First Draft in which serves alcohol as well as specialty coffee and drinks. I'm sitting at a bar surrounded by fellow Phoenicians either nose-deep in a book or click clacking away on their laptops. Some with a steaming mug of the house brewed coffee and others with a 6 oz (not a Utah 4oz!) pour of red wine.
These are my kind of peeps. It's not even noon.
After perusing the bookshelves and reading, which seemed like every single book sleeve description,
I settled on two:
Cunt by Inga Muscio
&
The Mindfulness Coloring Book:Anti-Stress Art Therapy for Busy People (which is basically a coloring book for adults; my excitement for this one is a little ridiculous.)
I'm fully prepared for the puzzled stares that I will receive in the airport on Monday with my 400 page book titled with a taboo term for the female genitalia on the cover page sitting next to my precious coloring book.
BRING ON THE JUDGEMENTAL STARES FOLKS.
No but in all honesty, the book Cunt has been on my book wish list, which is constantly being added to on a daily basis, since my declaration of my Gender Studies major.
By just reading the introduction, I can feel the goosebumps spread up my arms and my brain start to tick in anticipation of the brilliance that these pages contain.
The foreword includes comments made by Betty Dodson, author of Sex for One and a well known Ph.D within the women's studies community.
I'm the first to admit that I too cringe the slightest bit when I hear the word cunt thrown around so casually; most likely due to the negative connotation and the reputation of being politically incorrect. But as I further invest myself within the world of social activism, I'm coming across many nouns that hold such power and hurt. It is in this book, that challenges us/feminists/womyn/ allies etc, to reclaim the word Cunt as our own and as a powerful representation of the female pleasure point.
It's these independent, proud, brave, sexually confident, feminist womyn like Inga Muscio, Eve Ensler, Audre Lorde, bell hooks, and all of the magnificent and challenging feminist theorists that shove me out of my comfort zone, demand to be heard and inspire me that much more to follow my dreams of Graduate School; recently with plans of studying Public Health with an emphasis on womyn's and LGBTQ issues.
I dream of becoming an educator of comprehensive sex education and body positivity.
I highly encourage you to put down the tablet, the iphone, the video game; get lost in a world of ink and paper; use your imagination, learn something new, challenge your beliefs and thoughts, learn about Feminism and politics.
Read a Damn Book.
If you need me, I'll be sipping something strong and burying my nose in a book.
namaste,
the 20-something old soul
