INSIDE ROSE
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A long(ish) time ago in a galaxy not that far, far away.
two intrepid women residing on either side of the same globe
happened to bump into each other (thanks to the internet)
…due to their mutual interest in a particular topic…
A fascinating subject, the fuel of myth and legend
of mystery and falsehood
of desire and longing
of fear and loathing
and its name, of course,
was
…VAGINA
It all began with an Email, dated 18 January, 2002.
Hello,
My name is Rose Cooper and I am a freelance journalist/mother of three from Australia.
Proud when perpendicular…and partially purple
Engaging when engorged
Nourishingly naughty
Insistent of intimacy. I’m in lust.
So sweet, your soft, sensual salubriousness.
Yes, well…my alliterative acrostic poetry SUCKS. Sue me. But give a girl a break, poems about penises are hard. Whereas jokes about penises are easy. Too easy. Not that I’d ever joke about them.
OK, so that’s a lie. Who doesn’t love a good dick joke? My mother used to tell me dick jokes when I was a kid. Lots of them, which (besides being wildly inappropriate) was ironic because she wasn’t a huge doodle fan. She thought dicks were ugly and made it her mission to ram this point down my throat. (What did I tell you? Too easy)
So when I first learned about sexual intercourse and then imagined a penis-filled future, I was a little bit intimidated to say the least. What minor self-exploration I indulged in during puberty only served to make me more nervous. I mean, I wasn’t even able to comfortably insert a tampon at age 16. This probably wasn’t helped by the fact that I lost my virginity shortly after I turned 14. I know, dumb thing to do, right? Especially considering the fact that, at the time, I had the body of a 12 year old (and she wasn’t all that keen to get it back. Boom tish!). It was an ordeal.
Mum would have been so smug, had she known. But then I don’t think she ever fully realised that her relentless complaining about sex-related stuff only fired up my contrary nature. I always figured that if she thought it was bad, then it HAD to be good.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”
If you just tuned in, I’ve been waffling on lately about touchy subjects such as love, porn and honesty; and what ménage à trois of tangent-friendly topics they all turned out to be! Consequently, I kept hinting that fragments of these pieces were destined to come together and meet for coffee somewhere…in the shape of this particular article.
Voilà! Welcome to Cafe Jealousy.
Ew! Jealousy. It’s such an ugly-looking word and an equally hideous feeling. It is the bane of all relationships - including friendships and familial relationships. For me, the quest to conquer jealousy has been a life-long struggle. To be clear, I mean jealousy as distinct from envy. I refer specifically to that sickening ‘kick-in-the-guts’ everyone suffers at one time or another when the words or actions of a beloved make us feel insecure, suspicious, devalued or all of the above. Envy is a whole other kettle of piranhas - and it doesn’t affect me nearly as much. Gratitude seldom ever allows envy to slip past the boom-gates; but for most of my life, the J-word had merely to flash a seductive thigh at my low self-esteem and it would bow obediently to let the bitch through.
Welcome to the tenth feature article on my little bloggy-wog. It was my intention to compose at least one big, juicy, chunk of excruciatingly personal truth per month - and I’m happy to say that so far I’ve been true to my word. Admittedly, most of what I’ve blurted out to date has sprung out of me like a vibrator from a ridiculously overstuffed suitcase that you might see in one of those cliché ‘Customs Counter’ scenes in the movies. I have been a woman on a mission. Nevertheless, the lazy, procrastinating side of my nature is now leaping up to high-five my anally-retentive side. Ten articles in eight months - yeah baby - I’m a reasonably regular blogger!
Woot!
While admittedly the first nine topics tumbled from me like a drunk toddler down an escalator, at the completion of each story, I still baulked a little bit just before I’d hit the ‘post’ button. That’s right; even though I’ve been writing in much the same shamelessly honest way for 20 years, I still suffer those moments when the obligatory angel appears (amid a puff of smoke) on my shoulder (clad in a white corset, suspenders and stockings, of course) screaming her teeny-weeny lungs out at me, ‘are you really sure you want to air your dirty laundry for all and sundry?’ I mean, it’s one thing to reveal ones peccadilloes for magazines and other on-line publications, but this really is my own private Idaho. I am here representing ME and no one else and all the figurative (and literal) masturbation that goes along with that, could set me up for vilification and ridicule with every stroke of my finger (on my keyboard).
Q: What’s the difference between Art and Pornography?
Porn.
The word is imbued with ‘connotations’.
Put the word ‘soft’ in front of it and it sounds sexy, alluring and inviting. Hell - these days it sounds downright wholesome and adorable. Stick the words ‘hard-core’ in front of it and it might make you even hotter, or leave you cold. There’s really no telling what will turn some people on. It may shock my readers to discover that I’m not actually a big fan of modern hard-core porn.
There. I said it.
And I’ve tried, believe me. Are you kidding? The Internet was made for people like me - with sex on the brain and way too much time on their hands. But by the time I scroll through all the graphic thumbnails and descriptive hyperlinks in my quest for inspiration, I see so much that perturbs me (either visually or conceptually) that it makes me lose my boner and I give up. To quote Jeff Winger - “you eventually hit a point of diminishing returns on sexiness”.
It’s not fair really. I so wanted to be one of The Cool Kids that was into hard-core porn - really I did.
PREFACE.
Okay, so there’s this scene in the film Monty Python and The Holy Grail, where Sir Lancelot receives a message of distress and sets forth to Swamp Castle - ostensibly to rescue a princess. Cut to the shot of two guards standing (like bouncers) at the castle door, welcoming guests to the wedding being held there that day. A close up of the guards’ faces reveals that they have spied Sir Lancelot on the distant horizon, madly scrambling on foot (accompanied by a low drum roll on the soundtrack). The scene then cuts back and forth from the two-shot of the guards at the door, watching the horizon, to the guards’ POV of the approaching Lancelot. But, every time the camera cuts back to Lancelot, (still running) he never gets closer. It’s actually the same bit of footage. Hilarious. Anyway, the scene cuts back and forth repeatedly (five times) until suddenly, Lancelot is right there at the castle door, running the guards through with his sword…”A-ha!” Two dead guards.
Take note, dear reader, for this is the analogy I will be using henceforth to describe the build up to an orgasm.
You have been warned…
What is your definition of the word ‘love’?
I don’t begrudge the fact that *dictionarians feel obliged to list the literal and figurative intentions behind the (over)use of the word, e.g: “I really love your sweater!” However, categorically citing ‘sexual passion or desire’ as number 3 in the list of definitions is a red herring to rival George Dubya’s utterance of the words ‘weapons of mass destruction’.
Seriously, that’s just messed up. But, more on sex later (of course).
At the risk of making a reckless generalisation, (it’s virtually impossible not to) I believe that people who were raised in healthy, emotionally-supportive environments have less difficulty grappling with the meaning of love than most. For those of us raised in less conducive environments, the subject of love often poses a vexing, blackboard-sized problem, complicated enough to give Will Hunting a woody.
Ahem. Hi. Um…yeah..this isn’t easy, but here goes…
…My name is Rose Cooper and I’m addicted to Facebook. It’s been about five minutes since I last checked my newsfeed.
I don’t know how I got to be here - but I feel stuck. I uploaded my first profile photo to my Facebook in September 2007 - so I guess that’s when (like most people) I got dragged, screaming and kicking into this all-consuming cult. I resisted it for ages. I honestly didn’t want yet another internet THING cluttering up my life. I was already an avid e-mailer, rabid researcher and mad chatter. I was also very content living in Myspace (and I’d finally found a background theme and playlist I was truly happy with) so I didn’t see the point in pitching my ego-tent elsewhere. I turned down umpteen invitations from seemingly sophisticated, mature friends and colleagues who kept insisting that “Facebook was Myspace for grown-ups”. As I already felt like the oldest Myspacer on the block, I took a cursory glance at Ye Olde Facebooke, circa mid-2007 and I have to say I was hideously confronted by what I saw.
Thirty years ago, my first husband took an iconic picture of me at age 20. I was a naive young woman, riddled with insecurities. A few days ago, I asked a friend to take a ‘matching’ picture of me as I am now. I thought would be interesting (albeit confronting) to reflect on how much I’ve changed - outside as well as inside…
THEN
Australian Spring, 1981
Age: I turned 20 in the November.
Marital status: Engaged. (*We met in 1980, married in ‘83; divorced in ‘96)
Occupation: Casual waitress/barmaid, ticket booth attendant at a fun park.
Vital Statistics:
Height: 175cm/5’9”.
Weight: Around 60-61kg/9.5 stone
Bust – 38in/97cm
Waist 26/66cm
Butt: 35in/89cm
Lifestyle
Cigarettes: I started smoking in high school. By then I had a pack-a-day habit. Drugs: I took my last toke on a joint that year, but was only ever a casual smoker - it really knocked me around. I used speed casually between the ages of 18-22. My hyper-sensitivity to pot precluded me from trying any other mind-altering substances.
Alcohol: By age 16 I was a seasoned drinker. I imbibed on weekends, preferring bourbon and coke or still white wine.
Pastimes: I lived at the beach. I was addicted to TV from childhood. Loved movies, listening to music, playing board games and card games with friends. I went to see live bands occasionally .
Diet: I didn’t have a huge appetite due to the fact that I smoked. I didn’t eat much ‘junk’ (bickies with the four or five cups of instant coffee I drank a day). I had coffee and cigarettes for breakfast. I drank a lot of Coca Cola and bottled orange juice. (Water? Why?) We ate the standard ‘meat and three veg’ most nights, fried food and the odd pasta or rice dish. Ate take-away once per week.
Exercise: I walked to and from the beach, which was all of about 50 metres from our front doorstep! Seriously, I didn’t exert myself at all. What you see is courtesy of youth, good genes and the fact that I’d recently ‘blossomed’.
Conscious goals: To one day be a mother, build a home and have a happy family.
Secret desires: To be an actor, or a back up singer in a funky soul band. Or a glamour model. There, I said it.
Self image
Ok, to put my self esteem into proper perspective, we have to back track a bit. You’re looking at ‘the swan’.
Anonymous Asks:
insiderose Said:
Thank you for your question. The short answer is: NO. I am, first and foremost, a journalist. I think the question reflects the general consensus that sex is regarded as a ‘taboo’ topic and that goes double for women. It’s like asking JK Rowling if she’s a closet paedophile because she writes children’s books. I’m a writer. This is my pet topic. Over the years I have covered many topics, but it’s the human condition itself that interests me the most. Sexuality is a fundamental part of that - and something that Western Society is still quite ‘messed up’ about. I’ve never had a problem talking about sex as an academic topic. I personally don’t think anything that qualifies as an ‘addiction’ can be a good thing, because, my understanding of addiction, is that it’s an unhealthy obsession which interferes with your normal day to day living and adversely affects those around you. I would characterise my interest in sex as ‘avid’. I’m just a really REALLY big fan, that’s all :)
I was discussing my new blog with an acquaintance recently. He couldn’t quite come to grips with the point of it.
“What is it exactly?” he groaned.
“It’s a place for me to write, whatever I want to write, whenever I want to write it, without anyone dictating to me what to write about or how to write it,” I breathlessly replied (in that twitchy, wild-eyed way one talks about their artistic passion).
“What do you write about?” he asked, becoming visibly bored already.
“Oh…life, love, sex. It’s a place to share my thoughts and experiences, so that people - women mainly – can feel better about themselves or at the very least feel less crazy by comparison,” I gushed.
“Ok. Fine. But…why?” he asked, incredulously.
The conversation ended there, because the only way to answer that question properly was to tell The Story of Greg. And that story starts here.