Totally Naked Little Woman.

"Why do I have to clean up a mess that I didn't make," he said while he was trying to mop the floors, taking away all the beer and wine stains from many nights ago, the nights that he had spent at my place, leaving his roomate home alone.
"Because life is a bitch babe" I replied. I couldn't look him in the eye. Actually I was trying to hide between his huge ripped grey sofa and my sense of guilt.

In a way, he wasn't just cleaning up the floors, but also my life, my heart, my past.

For so long I've been crying for an old young love that I had. He has been the reason why I constantly write and why I, all of the sudden, stop doing it.
There are just a few words to describe my pain, and I've used them all.

I met him last week, it's funny, that night i didn't make  an effort to find what to wear.
I picked my sequined 70s blue and red shirt, and my high rise black pants from American Apparel. Again, I had to wear wedges just to feel part of the tall crowd.
He was there, with his messy brown hair, beautiful young smile and very kissable lips. Wearing a tight vest, vintage tie, and an amazing pair of black biker boots, for which my old young lover could have killed for.
I thought he was hot, but what I liked the most was that he radiated some kind of innocence, like if he stills believes in the world.

For me, it was a regular party. Fancy people, hipsters all over the place, going from one way to another, holding cigarettes without a filter and  cheap beer, in a 70s lighted dance floor in which nobody was actually dancing.

"Stop! Don't kiss me, I just put some lipstick on" I was trying to protect my infallible Chanel red lover french complice. 
"I don't care," he said and grabbed me from my shoulders. I had to look up, he is taller than me, and I found a  kind teenage smile.
"I wont kiss you," was my response, even though my eyes were challenging him to do it.
"Then, I will do it". And he gave me a cute warm kiss, that took me far far away from that roof. We made a memory that we have been sharing  in our pillow talks.

That evening, when I chose what to wear that night, I wasn't expecting to take any of my clothes off, at least not in front of someone.
He drove my car, and parked it outside of my building.
I went upstairs with a giggle.  My heart was racing like a teenager about to make out for the first time.

The wowman who wants to see me happy

In this case, my parents weren't sleeping in the other room, instead, my recently "in a relationship" roommate was. I didn't want to wake her up, but also didn't want her to judge me: "How could you say you still love your old young lover if you are going to get a stranger under your sheets?"
Now I know that she wouldn't say something like that to me. She just wants to see me happy, not crying 24/7 in my bed. And right now, I kinda look happy, But I know that sometimes happiness could be mistaken with excitement.

It's been so long since I had sex: I lost my libido since my old young love crossed our front stoop for the last time; leaving me with all those bills, all the furniture, all the memories and empty walls, and the worst part: All the silence from what used to be a noisy love nest.
Getting laid wasn't something in my plans, I have been busy trying not to cry every fucking time that Russell Brand appears on T.V. or in a magazine. He reminds me of my old young love. Sometimes I feel the Mexican version of Katy Perry, and that our destiny will be to be together, just like them, probably without the expensive Indian wedding though.
It seems that  the teenager's logic never disappears, in spite of the age.

I never had to come up with an elaborated conversation that would help me to reveal "my secret" in the future with a stranger.
In a way, I've always expected my old young love to come back, So I didn't have to talk about a secret that we both share.
I've a STD, nothing too serious, nothing mortal, Thank God.
Before I met my Russell Brand, I was perfectly healthy, just a regular free of STD girl. Then, a couple of months after we moved in together, I noticed something strange; he and I went to the doctor and that was it, one of my worst sexual nightmares became true.
I don't blame him, it wasn't his fault. Actually it was nobodies fault. He didn't know he had it, he couldn't warned me.
For the first few weeks I was devastated, then I learned to live with it, I have a new tenant in my body, and I will always will.
The time passed and we started to act normal again, like no tension for the bad news, after all we were going to be together forever. What a joke life and love plays to us. I knew that nothing is forever, but now I truly believe it.

So, there I was, all naked, no pants, no sequined blouse, no shoes, no make up on, just my fearful skin lying on my flowery comforter, and then, I realized I was still "wearing" something that I had to take it off: "my secret".
No designers, no brands, just the truth.

"Look"- I said while I was staring at a phrase I wrote on my window: Live the life you imagined.- "I have to tell you something before we do anything".

I kept talking, I was scared, but I had to do it, even though that could mean:
-not seeing him again.
-not having his company again.
-Losing him before I even had him.

"So..." - and I sighed - "That's my secret".
I felt ashamed, unprotected, exposed. There wasn't my Chanel sunglasses to wear and hide my glossy eyes under the shades.No my Gucci high heels to make me feel taller and strong. Nope, there was nothing but a revealed secret, a naked conscientiousness.

I could never put someone throw the horrible experience of going to the doctor and leaving his office with more than just a prescription.
These are new times, and if we, woman want to become a wowman, and wanna be in control of our lives, we have to be strong and brave enough, not just to dare to wear a super high heels, Eiffel Tower size; or to put on our lips some exotic color; or even wear as many bracelets as we want... No, sometimes we will have to show a clean face, no make up on baby, just the truth, even if that means letting someone else to see a part of us that we dislike.
It's easy to cover up a pimple with foundation; or to make our eyes or lips look bigger or smaller, depending on our complexes.
It's easy to look slimmer wearing the right clothes on, or to look sexier with the help of a  Wonderbra. but there are somethings that you cannot hide, you should not hide, things that you must reveal, no matter what.

We didn't have sex that night, but shortly after I confessed, I felt a warm breeze on my skin, I felt proud of myself. We could see the sunrise through my window, writing on the floor with a courageous shadow the phrase I had written when I moved to this apartment.

My fears were gone, being honest didn't take him away from me. We are just two people excited about what can happen tomorrow, two people smiling.

Today, just like he said, I realized there's gonna be many episodes in this life, and in some of them, someone will have to clean up a mess that he/she, didn't do, didn't cry, didn't enjoy.
He left the mop for a moment, and before he came and silenced me with a kiss, I kept repeating to myself: "Life's a bitch babe, life's a bitch".

The mexican contribuitor kissing Audrey Hepburn, a wowman.

Condoms are The New Black

No joke, Chanel Condoms, $279 for 12

"The tension between sexual danger and sexual pleasure is a powerful one in women's lives. Sexuality is simultaneously a domain of restriction, repression and danger as a well as a domain of exploration, pleasure and agency. To focus on pleasure and gratification alone ignores the patriarchal structure in which women act, yet to speak of...sexual oppression ignores women's experiences with sexual agency and choice and...increases...the sexual despair in which women live."  Carole S. Vance; Pleasure and Danger: Towards a Politics of Sexuality from Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, P.1. Routledge Press, 1993.

Martin Luther King Jr. and  Coretta Scott King, 1953.

This week, the United States marked the twenty-fourth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Dr. King was an eloquent "Baptist minister and leader of the civil-rights movement in America from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968." He was a voice of hope, courage and reason and lead a firmly non-violent campaign to end segregation, racial inequality and racism in an America. While African American males were being treated "as less than men," he acted as a fierce opponent against the oppression of the American Negro at the hands of their Government, the law, the FBI, the CIA, the Police and even the American Military.  (1) In his most famous speech on the steps in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C in 1963 "We hold these truths to be self evident. That all men are created equal. I have a dream."

"I Have a Dream" Speech, 1963

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a brilliant leader and spoke loudly and reasonably against racial hatred and bigotry. He was not silenced in the face of violence directed towards him and his family or the Black Community that he represented. He was known, however, to have what people would call "a weakness for women" was rumored to have several marital infidelities.

Now I say this not to discount the work of  Dr. King  or even to speak to the validity of the rumors. I mean simply to examine the concept that "we find it hard to imagine that ordinary human beings with ordinary flaws might make a critical difference in work of social cause."(2) Despite being a great leader and strong voice for the disenfranchised, Dr. King was human and vulnerable to the same temptation as you and I. He is symbolic not only of human frailty and human greatness but of a general human quality that causes us to view people as black or white, good or bad, and forget that while people may be essentially good, they are capable of doing bad things, even to the people they love.The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote of this duality:

"Man is a rope, tied between beast and [superman]--a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under. I love those who do not know how to live, for they are those who cross over."

Figure A

Figure B

Why am i writing about this in blog that's supposed to be about sex and fashion? Because at the end of the day, i feel that the way we conceptualize icons Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., follows us into our daily lives, into what we choose to wear and into our sexual relationships. Whether we idolize our partners sexually, romantically or both, we have a tendency to paint them as we wish to see them, as an impression. We abstract the fact that although we may love and/or desire them, they are still capable of doing us great harm, not only emotionally but physically. More specifically, men that we trust are capable of being unfaithful, and/or of exposing  us wittingly or unwittingly to STI's. (Sexually Transmitted Infections)

All them men I have been with have been with have somewhere gray,  between dogs and saints. I have had several STIs scares and i question I always ask my self after is why does it take a look back for me to see the mongrel in the angel?

I Cut my Hair to Reveal Myself

The Canadian Blog Contributor, Before.

I hadn't had my hair cut or coloured in awhile.

So I finally went to see John at Axis Salon in Sinclair Center because i heard he did a wicked blond and sat in the chair and declaring exuberantly "make me platinum!''To which he promptly replied in not quite so many words 'Hell no girl! Your hair will fall out, this fucking red will never ever lift. I can make the roots blond but unless you wanna cut it all off..."

He proceeded to shear the red hair down to my nipples into a pixie cut,  revealing my virgin and fledgling, dirty blond locks.

I'm not really sure what made me do it. Maybe it was because my hair dresser was sexy and if he said it was gonna look good, who was i to question it? Maybe i wanted to get rid of my colour damaged hair that was begging to make me look more like Raggedy Andy then a sexy Andrea. Maybe I did because I think Eddie Sedgwick and Jean Seberg are cool ass chicks. I dunno, I went in wanting a change begging the question "when did the break up happen.?"

The Canadian Blog Contributor, After.

Yes. I'm single. For the first time in four year, i have don't have a boyfriend and it's been difficult, I'm not gonna lie. I realized that I've always been the type of girl that needs the reassurance of having a doting man in my life. And in his absence i have had to let myself out of the mind set that even if nobody loves me, i still have worth and i still count. I've done it all, revisited past relationships, made out drunkenly with strangers in dark clubs and even tried to make male friends into lovers. Just as I have hidden coyly behind my come-hither hair, i have hidden in the company of men, denying myself the catharsis of knowing myself.

Samson and Delilah, ca. 1610
Peter Paul Rubens

As my hair fell around me I began to panic. He was cutting away my femininity, my beauty, my identity. I went in with a gorgeous main that flew attractively around a dance floor and fell softly on the pillows of lovers, and left with a short hair seen on mode girls, butch lesbians and business women. I had violent flashbacks to the last time i had my hair cut short, when i was a  ,

me, age two, 1989

geeky three year old kid with coke-bottle glasses, a time when i was often mistaken for a little boy. And I though "Damn, I'll never have another boyfriend." I sat slumped and  defeated like Samson, my great tool of adornment and of the power of attraction, gone to me for now.

But as i left the salon, back to my natural colour that had been hidden for as long as i could remember, my ears and the nape of my neck turning red from the bite of the winter air, I had the most incredible sense of freedom. For the first time in years i was alone, no man and little hair. Free from hair ties and the blow dryer. No one to hold, but also no one to hold me back.

Not so pretty in black.

 "What's the point of wearing lipstick if you are not going share it with some other lips?"

Scarlett Johansson Sporting Black lips for the 2010 Cosmetic Campaign for Dolce and Gabbana

That's what I said to my friend while I was applying my new black lipstick from Make up forever.

The Buchanan's whisky bottle was in the middle of the table, we were getting ready to go out. She wore her new black chamois, which were giving her the usual bad time that a new pair of shoes give the first day you wear them. We were determinated to get drunk that night. We had two different reasons for that, but both had a common denominator: Man.  That was also the reason why we needed to find someone to dance with, and why not? to kiss too. A casual kissing session which gives us the topic to talk about the morning after, while we are wearing pyjamas and making coffee.

I wore an oversized black tshirt as a dress, with black mate tights and my black doc martens boots. I straightened my two-colored hair and wore my vintage black hat. The kind of hat that ladies used to wear in my country during the fifties, whenever they went to the bullfights.
I love wearing hats in this bored city, it's easy to find me, nobody is wearing a hat, but the mariachi musicians.

Erin Wasson sporting Docs

And it's even weirder to find a girl in a club wearing her docs.
After three glasses of whisky, we left home and took a cab down to the club.

As soon as I got in I saw my victim. Young cute guy with the best hair in town I've seen since I got back.
I stoped, and stared at him from far. He took me back in time, when I first met my old young love. He had his hair like that. So, for a moment I thought that he was him, a stupid and romantic thought from a desperate person who wears a mourning black, even on her lips.
My girlfriends and I went directly to the dance floor and ordered some drinks to our favorite waiter.

Two beers after, the cute hair walked infront of me... I grabbed his arm and said: "I like you, I saw you when I came in, and I like you". He said: "I like you too, I guess it was pretty evident that we stared at each other when you crossed the door". Yes, indeed, it was evident, and also awkward.

He asked me what do I do for living, and of course I didn't want to say "mmmmh I write". First of all because I don't think he would understand the implications of being a writer and what was a writer doing in that club, which is everything but a writers place; and also because I don't make my living writing, I'm alive because I write. Anyways, I said "what's the point of knowing what we do? We're only going to be together for a night".
He had a weird look when I said that. So, to break the unconmfortable moment I asked him where was he going before I stopped him. "To the washroom, but suddenly I don't feel like going". We laugh.
Those were our last words, he got closer to me, like trying to kiss me. I moved my face to one side, preventing a black mess. He didn't care, grabbed my face from my chin, and gave me a good reason to smile.
I opened my eyes, and all my black lipstick was on his lips, none in mine. "Perhaps you wanna go to the washroom now, and see your reflection on the mirror", "Perhaps not" he said and kissed me again.
We kissed, and kissed, and kissed again. We kissed until he said "I need to go, my friends are waiting for me". Who leaves the club at 1:30 in the morning when he finally found a cute girl to kiss? That's when I knew that I had became a cougar without knowing it: He was 20 years old! That explained why after kissing me he hugged me, guys who are my age don't do that.
I let him go, we literally kissed each other goodbye.

And there I was, in the middle of the dance floor, drunk and lonely again. All dressed in black, but with nude lips.

I stared at my boots and thought: "What's the point of wearing black lipstick again?"
My old young love is not here, and he won't be in the foreseeable future. And his are the only lips I wanna mark.

At least wearing my docs made my walk home so much easier.