THAT EVENING

I'm watching American TV while I eat. Ooh, Baywatch! Huge-breasted lifeguards wiggle and pose. The sound's off, but the dialog's all below the neck.

Now a different kind of porn comes on: a Bruce Willis action flick. The word fuck gets repeatedly bleeped, but not graphic killings. Ironic that Baywatch is at the limit of what's publically acceptable in America, yet hardcore death-porn isn't even seen as pornographic.

This isn't one of those "I can't define it but I know it when I see it" rants. I can define porn. Like any drug, porn over-distills one emotion, and leaves a toxic hangover. After the bodies of Baywatch, my own body feels inadequate; that's my hangover. Others have noticed that, of course. But anger-porn shows, whether or not they provoke violence... also whisper "You need to assert yourself more. Be a lone hero, right wrongs." A group of acitivists would be more effective, but a violent, super-competent loner is what Hollywood preaches. It leaves a hangover, too: I'm left angry, lonely, and feeling inadequate. Even when I write this and catch the lie, the effect lingers.

I switch to a show on the Maya. A bunch of white anthros on camera "deduce" where they "disappeared" to. Yet living Mayans remember it, and talk about it openly! Multiple reasons they rebelled and went back to the woods--deforestation caused drought, suburbs ate the best cropland, wars turned bloodier, the ruling class became aloof, slavery got commoner and crueler--started out like bonded apprenticeship but ended with runaways pursued and punished. Civilization failed them--failed to meet their basic needs. So they ended it--deliberately. They just walked away.

If it fails us, will we have the courage to walk away?

THAT NIGHT

I'm a skinny girl with long black hair, in my early teens. I'm a sex dancer in a rich man's house. I love dance, he chose me for that, so the job's not that bad, as slave jobs go.

I wear a web of necklaces and loops of jewels. Sure, they're fake, but they LOOK great. When I'm still, it's fairly modest, but when I dance, my nipples and pussy peek out as the necklaces swing. Gets guys hot. Well, and girls too. Makes me feel sexy. And powerful!

But I'd like to study the sacred dances too, and I can't. My master says no.

Well, my ex-master. I escaped, I'm on the run! I only have my dance costume, though. It's all I ever owned. It draws attention, and my master's men are after me.

At least our land is warm and wet--I'm not cold, even at night, and there's always shade, fruit and water if I'm patient. Even near-naked and barefoot, I can survive on the run, in the woods and fields.

I walk for days, till the trees grow sparse between the fields, till the fields disappear. Just rocks and sparse trees now. I've crossed the border! But I'm still dressed as a runaway slave, so they might return me. I heard the desert is free, slavery is banned there, but I'm wary.

I sleep in a crack high in the rocks above a small train-station in the desert. When the sun rises, I do my ritual stretches, then sneak down the hill and wait for a train.

A long one stops! I slink round it, trying to sneak on. But there's a shout from the platform--it's my owner and his guards! They came all the way after me! I run round the train and climb on from behind where they can't see. Will they board, or search the desert? I flatten myself on the roof.

But I hear whistles. The local police! They join my owner. It figures, it just figures. He's rich, so they side with him before they've heard my side of the story.

The cops climb up and start to close in on me from both ends of the train. Nowhere to go on this train. So as it starts to move, I jump off--back to the wilderness for me! Though I think they'll catch me. They're everywhere, aren't they. The owners.

Only now, this horrible country becomes a book--a binder, a sort of catalog, with pages and pages of jeweled outfits for sex-slaves to dance in. Such wonderful jewels, such beautiful models... and such horrible text: owner's instructions! How to abuse little slave girls, how to control them. I look through the manual... so many pages of rules on how to dominate and hurt. NO rules, NO training for non-abusive sex. No... love.

So I get my scissors and CUT THE WORDS OUT! Just keep the jeweled costumes. I scan them, and put them in picture files. Maybe I'll use them in paintings! Feel funny about liking these costumes, as if they're contaminated by their cruel origin--even though I was there, and I KNOW that being a sex object wasn't the problem--the admiration felt good. Even being a slave didn't faze me, really. I always knew I was more than my job!

What broke my heart was when I crossed the border to the land of the free, and the local cops still sided with my owner. They hunted me like a thief just for taking back what was mine, what he stole.

My body, my dance, my freedom.

IN THE MORNING

Hmm. So my dreams think Baywatch's sex isn't nearly as sick as the message of Hollywood action flicks: "You're alone and outnumbered, so be brutal. If you can't be brutal, you're doomed."

Oh, yeah--I also saw The Simpsons. Time for that heartwarming annual family holiday, Snake-Bashing Day! In the entire town, only Lisa the sax player says it's wrong. Oh, she prevails in the end. But...

It's hard to snip yourself out of the book of jerks, to use the scissors of separation, to stand naked alone--everyone against you. So tempting to just be meek and cute and accepted.

To be a good little slave... to admiration.

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