I'm a fleabit peanut monkey

So, darlings, I've been reading Caroline Knapp's Appetites for the past hour or so, and I'm right smack dab in the middle of the outlining of the book that makes up the first two chapters. A lot of her ideas strike me as compelling, and some of her thoughts contradictory, which leads me to something I don't quite understand..

Knapp introduces the desires for food, sex, and other indulgences like shopping as desires that society suppresses. Guttony, promiscuous sex, compulsive shopping, which all stem from that suppression, are themselves testaments to the eroding property of silenced lust. She maintains that we should indulge, herself having avoided being labeled as a casualty of anorexia [something immediately relatable to me--at the same height, we even had the same LW], in such pleasures freely, and relish in the abundance of opportunity and freedom that has been awarded to us women after a generations-long battle.

Recently, my viewpoints on self-esteem have shifted incomparably. I find myself transcending the false desire I once created, the fictitious need to be loved by a man. I no longer feel that this is something deeply rooted in my being that must be assuaged--I feel I can achieve fulfillment without being desirable to a man, or at least to one for whom I must exert considerable effort to please.

However, recently I feel my sexual desire has been heightened, and the first boy who I've ever believed really deserves all my heart lives in a different state.. and I've found myself, even at the present moment, resisting the temptation to call up my ex-boyfriend to present him with an invitation to a risk-free makeout session! Moreover, in fact, the aforementioned boy who lives in CA told me, less than an hour ago, that he loves me, and rather than reveling in the idea like I would've [and did] two years ago and letting my consciousness slip into dependence on his every word, and searching violently for ways in which I can keep his thoughts that way, I find it simply to be a nice thing for him to say. [Cynical? Apathetic? Who knows?] I've always found the ability to exercise willpower and to contain one's desires endearing, and it's something I find attractive in men. But, presumably because of society's claims and my belief that I need to flip society's constraints upside-down to feel pure empowerment, the same kind of resistance in women, to me, seems pathetic and weak.

It sort of reminds me of the dichotomy that the idea Brigitte Bardot represents brings to me.. and the confusion that comes along, too. Is it wrong [that is, anti-feminist] of her [or at least her movie characters.. bear with me] to utilize her femininity as power? When she stood up and danced on that table in ..And God Created Women, was she succumbing to the expectations about appearance and transcendental beauty brought upon women by universal cultural views of the time, or challenging them? I'm leaning toward the latter, for certainly it wasn't deemed socially "appropriate" or "becoming" for a woman to flaunt her body and allow herself to be the subject of jaunty shouts and whistles and song. On the other hand, though, how FEMINISTIC is it of that character to think objectifying her own body is acceptable? [In my own opinion, feminism goes hand-in-hand with femininity, and I myself ENJOY looking nice and wearing lots of makeup and beautiful clothes and colorful jewelry for myself, not for any man. I think, but I'm not sure, that's what Knapp is advertising.] There isn't the slightest doubt in my mind that when Ronnie Spector chanted "I want a boy," she was simply spewing lyrics which had been fed to her, but what if she really did want a boy? What if she craved not the sense of entitlement or validation being a subeservient trophy girlfriend came with, but a true, quenching Teacake-esque love and sexual satisfaction? Where is the middle ground? Where do we get off? At what precise moment do we simultaneously appease our own sexual desires and sideline the physical groundwork laid out for us on which we are expected to sow and reap an image of bodily perfection? I don't understand. Knapp encourages indulgence, yet puts it to shame.. or is she, perhaps, merely detailing the brewing and boiling of desires within us that, without being properly attended to, could result in lethal explosion?

You know what.. I'm gonna keep reading. ;p