1981 The Year of The First Level Zero

[Rebecca Kalamata]

So in organizing I came across some writings from the past that I have hung onto. The following is one of 3 papers that I wrote in Nov. 1981. That was the year that I realized that I was serious about college and also decided to do something about the sex issues that had been plaguing me all my life. After 3 breakups I was finally separated from my first Greek husband. For the first time I sought help from someone from a position of strength. I was not crawling into a psych's office in a helplessly depressed state. I was at Level Zero and determined to get on with it. The assignment for my Woman's History class was to read, 'Fear Of Flying' by Erica Jong and to write a reaction paper to it.

FEAR OF FLYING by Erica Jong November, 1981 26 years old

Erica/Isadora's struggle with men is similar to my own and it is refreshing that she writes so shamelessly and truthfully about her fears, her needs and her desperate attempts to resolve her life. Her problem of, 'How to make feminism jibe with her unappeasable hunger for male bodies is very familiar. In spite of her anger towards men, in spite of her mistrust, she goes on with the great manhunt. Sex, sex, sex makes it all better for a little while. But it is not just sex that's needed, wanted, longed for, craved. She wants a deep, sharing, caring, loving, respecting. honest, open, spontaneous, lustful relationship with a man. Honestly, is that too much to DEMAND? Bennet, her husband was a great lover/lay, but he was a bore and selfish with his feelings.

Perhaps Isadora's problem was that men were central to her existence. It was to men that she turned to to get the feelings that made her feel really alive. Men were her pleasure source and it was up to them to make her feel good. Oh dear, I recognize that one. Father/Daddy, make me feel better. Pay me attention, hold me, protect me, love me. Women like Isadora and myself are like kittens too early weaned from their mothers, forever demanding strokes.

And no wonder! Where was Daddy way back when? Off being a MAN working for his family. And in steps the rest of the world teaching us to be oh so attractive and desirable to men. Catch a man, catch a man, be beautiful, young and catch a man. But Mom says that the boys won't respect me if I don't play hard to get. They won't call more than once if I make myself cheap. Cheap. That makes no sense. I have what they are begging for, that I am dying to give...because it feels good and they don't want me? Once yes but I am doomed forever if I 'give in'. And I'll get a reputation...whore, slut. And no man will love me and by having sex I am ending my chances for finding true love. 

Where is the reality in the world? And I am not talking about the reality that people create. I don't mean social reality, I mean the reality that people feel things deeply, both emotionally and sexually. In this world that we have created for ourselves, half the population is conditioned to repress their emotions. The other half is conditioned to repress their sexuality. I admire ERica/Isadora for refusing to be half alive, for demanding her sexuality and for insisting on finding a person to share her emotions and experiences with.

I have never played the game by the rules. I had the misfortune (misfortune because I wasted a lot of time and caused myself and others a lot of pain) to see through the rules long before most people learned of them. On the other hand I had the fortune to be able to see through the bullshit and to refuse it so I stand a good chance of winning the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That pot of gold is the being a woman who knows what she wants and has it, goes where she wants, does what she wants, is capable of having honest friendships, of unselfishly loving, of having delightful, guilt-free, fun sexual relationships and perhaps has a special loving, sharing, sexual relationship with a man that shares the same basic values of real honesty and integrity and care that I do.

"Fear Of Flying" is abut one woman's reaction to a life that is lacking. It is disturbing that men are so important to Erica/Isadora, and to me. Maybe, maybe in spite of all the conditioning and physical desire it is possible to decentralize men, desexobjectize them, defatherize them and relate to them as people, as friends, and to go on about the business of living. Then maybe Erica and I can sleep with and make love to them, fuck them in every loving sense of the word without all the 'I need/you won't give' push and pull that goes on between most men and women. If we didn't need so badly it wouldn't matter so much that they can't give. Maybe then they could give once the pressure was off and we'd all live happily ever after.

 

So there are 2 more papers for me to include. I might react to this one from my point of view from NOW. The point is that I did get over it all. I got over being me.

There's other really hard stuff going on that raises the ugly co-dependence head. This is killing me. Lol. Now I will get it about co-dependence. I want some really deep learning. I'm down into comprehending it many levels deep. I want more. I want to be done with it. Gordon used to tell me, "Stand Up". That's how hard these changes are. It's just a different view point. Just a tiny tilt of the camera sometimes. That's the way I changed my thinking.