The protruding stem declares itself awkwardly and stubbornly, open for interpretation. It juts off the chin, lengthens, then abruptly ends in a clean break. It is a leaf-mask. It could be leather. Or machine-made in its perfection. But it isn’t. It is green. And soft. In pictures, this leaf covers genitals. This leaf is an accomplice to shame. The protruding stem announces itself. It is an extension of the body both delicate and rude. A symbolic phallus? A tiny trumpet?
The mask both hides and creates identity. The stem is an imagined phallus, a middle finger. What is the inversion of desire? Repulsion. It is a leaf, masking the age and the identity of the woman underneath, who confronts the viewer with a single eye.
The woman is suffocating. Suffocating under the weight of images. There’s no light, no air underneath. An infinity of pages where the only women are the nude subjects in photographs by and for men. So women will see themselves as men see them. And so women admire men for their sensitivity and their brilliance in finding so many ways to look at women.
For women to be reminded to stay on the other side of the door. Women must look at men looking at women and see ourselves as men do. Women must be two at all times: the perceived and the actual. Try to act natural. “Smile”, he says.
It is hard to hold this pose. I picked the fig leaf, snapping the stem, wiping the milky white sap. The leaf makes a curved shape that embraces my face, its tiny hairs scratching my face. It is painful to keep my head tilted, and the leaf in place, but I’m compelled to.
In art, young women are symbols filled with meaning--innocence, grace, fortune. Old women are witches, or gorgons. Skip this version. Smash it. Write an entirely new story. Become feral. Rub sticks together. Become nature, wild and free.