This is one of a series of writings that reflect on my journey toward re-making a performance art work called ‘The Butter Piece’. I first made it in 2011 and I’m revisiting it now a decade later.
‘The Butter Piece’ will be shown live at CLAY, Leeds on the 26th November and Colchester Arts Centre on the 1st December. More details here http://www.victoriafirth.co.uk/the-butter-piece-2021/
01 December 2021
I made The Butter Piece because I wanted to confront SHAME.
We don’t talk about how we get to know our bodies as children, about masturbation, about wetness, very little about periods.
I spent a long time thinking my body, how I wanted to explore it and the responses it made, or didn’t, were wrong.
Rude
Messy
Leaky
Dirty
Shameful.
I thought I needed to close up and cover up.
I think this got in the way of my sexual potential as an adult.
Of my pleasure and my presence in my own body and my intimacy with others.
I eventually found a kind of sensual emancipation, probably around the time I made this piece, but personal journeys don’t just stop at the good bits.
My body continues to change and have new experiences – many of which are similarly not talked about and fester as a result.
I wonder what the opposite of shame might be…
I’ve decided on safety.
I realise that for me, it’s the security of trust with another, social validation in community and plain old information that have allowed me to right myself.
To risk being seen.
To revel in being felt.
To uncover
Open…….
Want.
In order to eradicate shame, inhabit my body and pursue pleasure I first need to feel safe. Safe from embarrassment, judgement, ridicule, betrayal, blame. It’s emotional safety.
-If you believe women’s bodies are precious and sacred as I do, then maybe it’s a kind of spiritual safety.
And as I write this I am mindful that, before any of that, there’s the need to be safe from harm. A physical and sexual respect that should be beyond the need to ask for it. Yet one that has not been, and is still not, afforded to so many women.
We need less shame.
We need more safety.
SAFE is the baseline.
Photo credit @CoralieDatta
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