Woman as Fruit: The Language of Eating and Female Sexuality
“The fact of sexual need in man and animal is expressed in biology by the assumption of a sexual impulse. This impulse is made analogous to the impulse of taking nourishment, and to hunger.” – Freud, The Sexual Aberrations, 1905 Our language implicitly recognises women as consumable objects.&n
Complaints from the Chinese Boudoir
“At daybreak, I pace idly in the courtyard with a silk fan. Cold autumn is at hand, and I know the fan will soon be discarded. A crow flits by and secures its position on the palace roof. The croaking bird is no match for my complexion, smooth as jade. Yet why is it able […]
Iphigenia in Jaywick / The Aftermath
I grew up under stained-glass windows, learnt their blues and pomegranate-reds before my mouth figured out how to form words – I was never good with names, but the faces stuck. One stood looking over the pew our family always sat in, Eve and Adam, her hair the same russet-gold as the apple she hel
A Boys’ World
“If you’re a woman, you will earn less than a man.” This is what Theresa May had to say about a woman’s position in Britain during her first speech as prime minister. Sexism is a safe, even fashionable issue for party leaders to be seen tackling, but action is harder to come by. Flipping thr
Two women
are wearing high necked jumpers, wrapped up to their chins like coffee cup sleeves. Their spines taut trunks, […]
because my mother’s best friend is catholic
today it seems the missionaries are bound to send their best-disguised recruit – the tickle of hair on your top lip better found at the wheel of a Ford F-150, camo drying on the boot, but filters the word of G-d to a tinny sound a frequency between carrie underwood and orchestral flute, cou
The Lakebed
In a riverless city, the promise of water is enough. My mother and I pin our hopes to each monsoon, and evenings in June that stroll the circumference of our bayou-to-be. Starved of fish, the empty lake harbours cattle, gangs of dogs and cricket games — we see snatches of batsmen thr
Bridging the Gap
For most of us, pharmaceuticals are a product to be consumed like any other. In the rush of everyday life, we are not expected to consider how the drug was developed, how the molecules are interacting, or how the proteins are bound. We experience the physical effects with little thought as to how th
Manchester, the Met, and #MeToo
Just as #MeToo was gaining mainstream attention in late 2017, a petition was launched to remove one of Balthus’ most iconic portraits. The painting, Thérèse Dreaming (1938), depicts a young girl sitting with her underwear and groin area deliberately exposed. Her white underwear contrasts with th
