Tonight, I talked about the book I'm reading right now, Shutterbabe: Adventures in Love and War
, by Deborah Copaken Kogan. It's a riveting memoir about Copaken Kogan's experiences as a photojournalist in the late eighties, with equal parts feminism and photography. I haven't finished it yet, but already I can recommend it highly, especially for anyone with an interest in photography.Photojournalism is very much a male-dominated profession, and Copaken Kogan experienced considerable discrimination and harassment, not to mention personal risks in covering mujahideen in Afganistan, junkies in Switzerland, gangs in LA, and anti-poaching efforts in Zimbabwe. The structure of the book is compelling: three parts, titled respectively, "Develop," "Stop," and "Fix," each with two chapters named after different men in her life. Some parts are horrifying, others achingly sad, some embarrassing, others empowering, all of them absolutely engaging.
Anyways, I was telling Sugar D about how much I'm enjoying the book, and how it recounts many of the author's sexual experiences, both good and really bad. At first, I wondered about this retelling of sexual capers, even though I myself have retold my own similar stories. But as her stories get more intimate and disturbing, I realize that this book is another way of attempting to change our culture's sexual double standard (the one that allows men to sleep with many women as normal behaviour but declares women doing the exact same thing as sluts); that just because she has a husband and family doesn't mean she should disown or bury her (hi)story. It is important that she, and others as we're able to, speak up.
Just as I was telling Sugar D about one particularly disturbing experience of hers in Paris, I noticed an enormous amount of flesh and suspicious folds in a window out of the corner of my eye. I saw the biggest c0ck I've ever seen, with the biggest, shiniest red lips I've ever seen wrapped around it. Yep, I busted a neighbour watching p0rn. Not only that, the neighbour was watching it on the biggest screen tv I have EVER seen. It must have been five feet across at least. AND they had all the curtains open. A side window could be an honest oversight, but the front window as well? I don't think so, not with that big of a tv facing it.
We had our little giggle, recognizing how apropos and ironic the p0rn sighting was, given what I'd been talking about, and then I went back to my discussion of the book. I live in a classy neighbourhood.
11 comments:
listen, if you do move to t.o. and miss that kind of thing, i can make you a porn map or something.
Dr Sin, I think you are amazing.
That book sounds really interesting. I might just have to pick up a copy. And LOL at your neighbor.
That really couldn't have been more perfect, the timing!
The book sounds fascinating. Thanks for the (informal) review.
I can't believe the timing of that "vision"--good grief.
damn! he (or she, perhaps) really wanted others to watch him watching, huh?
sounds like and intriguing read.
Oh, it's a good thing that my husband wasn't there, since he's single handledly decided to make the world wholesome enough for his children. Yeah.
i had to go back and read that sentence twice just to make sure i hadn't gotten it wrong...um, wow. i'm sort of surprised there wasn't an entire posse of teenagers standing outside the picture window, pretending to check out the, erm, garden or something.
people. funny.
I've been thinking about this issue a lot lately--the issue about allowing women the freedom to speak and the various ways that freedom is constrained NOT the issue of neighbours watching p0rn. Thanks for writing this post.
I thought for a moment that you were going to say that you were seeing a couple going at it live and in person!
Wow. That is kind of an apropos visual. Sure is a classy neighbourhood :-)
Isn't it nice that life with Swee'pea has settled down enough that you and Sugar D can have grownup talks about ideas? Ahhhh. Nice.
Sounds like a fascinating book. Kinda sad though that 'develop, stop, fix' is becoming more and more arcane a reference, in this age of digital photography.
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