Work in progress
In Nawal El Saadawi’s novel, Woman at Point Zero, the main character, Ferdaus, explains what it felt like when her mother forced her to go through a clitorectomy at a young age. “First she beat me. Then she brought a woman who was carrying a small knife or maybe a razor blade. They cut off a piece of flesh from between my thighs. I cried all night” (El Saadawi 13).
Ferdaus, who survived by becoming a successful prostitute, spent the rest of her life searching for that pleasure she felt before having her clitoris removed.
That is where I feel I am right now in life, and its not [entirely] sexual pleasure I seek.
I feel as if something important has been removed from me, and will never return. It is something I cannot get back, no matter how much I hope or pray or work for it. The loss of it has left me entirely empty.
Whenever Ferdaus was with a client, the man tended to ask her “Does that feel good? Does that feel good?”
And she would lie, saying ‘yes’ to please her customer. In reality, she felt nothing.
One young man asked her, instead, “Does this hurt?”
He was displeased with her honest answer of ‘No’. She felt nothing.
Does it matter that the lying brought satisfaction and the truth brought disappointment, when the source felt nothing inside her in the first place?
Is it possible to recover the pleasure and the happiness from the past when something so damaging leaves so deep a scar?
~*~*~*~
The idea for this is something I thought up a couple nights ago, and I'm glad I remembered it, because I didnt have a pen with the journal by my bed. Its no where near complete, and I'm nowhere near satisfied with it. It feels more like rambling than what I had in mind when I first thought about it. It doesnt help that I dont have the book with me up at school. I might have my mom mail it to me, just so I can work more on this. I'm sure you all get the general idea.
Ferdaus, who survived by becoming a successful prostitute, spent the rest of her life searching for that pleasure she felt before having her clitoris removed.
That is where I feel I am right now in life, and its not [entirely] sexual pleasure I seek.
I feel as if something important has been removed from me, and will never return. It is something I cannot get back, no matter how much I hope or pray or work for it. The loss of it has left me entirely empty.
Whenever Ferdaus was with a client, the man tended to ask her “Does that feel good? Does that feel good?”
And she would lie, saying ‘yes’ to please her customer. In reality, she felt nothing.
One young man asked her, instead, “Does this hurt?”
He was displeased with her honest answer of ‘No’. She felt nothing.
Does it matter that the lying brought satisfaction and the truth brought disappointment, when the source felt nothing inside her in the first place?
Is it possible to recover the pleasure and the happiness from the past when something so damaging leaves so deep a scar?
~*~*~*~
The idea for this is something I thought up a couple nights ago, and I'm glad I remembered it, because I didnt have a pen with the journal by my bed. Its no where near complete, and I'm nowhere near satisfied with it. It feels more like rambling than what I had in mind when I first thought about it. It doesnt help that I dont have the book with me up at school. I might have my mom mail it to me, just so I can work more on this. I'm sure you all get the general idea.