We are pleased to present Ellaraine Lockie’s “She Reads Virginia Woolf”, the winning entry in the 2008 Skysaje Enterprises Poetry Contest. It is reprinted with permission.
- She Reads Virgina Woolf
by Ellaraine Lockie
As she slept he’d finger-walk
all the way up her underarm
Soft, like snow falling over
the shoulder, ear, lips
Sleep melted into a pool
that he found with postage-stamp licks
delivered the slow boat way until she couldn’t breathe right
That was before he made appointments
with her after x-rated movies
Laid back on an island of entitlement
and measured her worth by the inches he grew
He bought handcuffs, tongue vibrator, Ben Wah balls
told her to exercise with those metal balls until they
played croquet down there
It’s understood she’ll use the $100 bill he leaves on the bedstand afterwards for groceries
She’ll serve rice and beans twice this week though so she can buy Revlon’s Rasin Rage
nail polish turn the numbness into a red purple blur brushing the keyboard late at night
Hard, like Hail hitting the bedrock
Then she waits for the recoil
it comes from fingers on the other end of the airwaves
the concussions of her life absorbed
by the longing in the distance and the science of chemistry
the latent heat that liquefies his words
so they wash over her in a warm river rush
Reason to keep her from filling her pockets with rocks
Copyright 2008 by Ellaraine Lockie
See also:
“The Double Ds of Desire and Despair”, a Poem by Teresa Leo
Young New Yorkers Talk about Porn’s Effect on their
Relationships (explicit language)
Jill was in love. It was the late nineties, she was a sophomore at a
competitive state university, and she found herself smitten with Kyle,
a junior with a confident strut who also happened to be the editor of
the school newspaper, which won him instant parental approval. By the
end of that year, they were a serious couple. Jill knew that she had
discovered not only true love but, to put it bluntly, great sex as
well.
So when, after a year, she learned that Kyle spent quite a bit
of time looking at pornography—first online, then, eventually, on
videos too—she wasn’t immediately put off, despite being a psychology
major who seriously questioned the morality of porn. “I was the kind of
girlfriend who was up for anything sexually,” says Jill, who is 25, has
hazel eyes, and works in PR. “When we were having sex, he’d call me his
porn star, and I thought that was hot.”
In time, this changed. Kyle would sometimes e-mail her links
to sites “he thought were really hot,” which made Jill more than a
little uncomfortable. Sometimes, she’d drop by his house for a surprise
visit and he’d have already “exhausted himself” with the computer…
They have since broken up, and have stopped talking. “He was a lot more
innocent when he was younger,” she says. “He was looking for love and
companionship. Now he just wants a good lay. I’m sure he’s looking for
some huge-breasted, tight-assed bitch…”
These days, she feels “very jaded about love and sex,” but every so
often, she finds her cynicism dissolving… “I think it will be really
rare, and hopefully it will happen, that I can meet a guy who will be
happy with only me.”
The Impact of Internet Pornography on Marriage and the Family: A Review of the Research
…according
to data from the General Social Survey in 2000 (N = 531), people who
report being happily married are 61 percent less likely to report using
Internet pornography compared to those who also used the Internet and
who had completed the General Social Survey in 2000…
…the
following observations were made by [the 350 attendees of the November
2002 meeting of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers] polled
with regard to why the Internet had played a role in divorces that
year…56 percent of the divorce cases involved one party having an
obsessive interest in pornographic websites…
Whitty (2003)
also found that both men and women perceive online sexual activity as
an act of betrayal that is as authentic and real as offline acts and
that Internet pornography use correlated significantly with emotional
infidelity (N = 1,117; 468 males and 649 females)…
“Spousal Use of Pornography and Its Clinical Significance for Asian-American Women”
Many female participants in the study by Bridges et al. (2003) noted a
diminution in their partner’s sexual desire for them and believed that
their partners had come to prefer the pornographic models to them…
They reported a decline in the intimacy of their relationship, a
diminished sense of their partner’s commitment to them, strong feelings
that their partners failed utterly to respect them or understand their
emotional distress concerning the pornography, and lastly, a sense that
they were living a shameful lie by presenting themselves to others as a
loving and committed couple…
Now Showing at Amazing.net: The War on Relationships (explicit)
Amazing.net is jealous of your human relationships.
It wants
your attention and money for itself. With messages subtle or not, its
movies encourage you to neglect and abuse your intimate partners,
especially your female ones. If you must relate to another human,
Amazing.net wants the experience to be exploitative, short and
unstable, to better ensure your swift return to a porn-hungry state…
Pain In The Ass
The bitch has been naggin at you
all fuckin day. Take out the garnage. Do the dirty fuckin dishes. Dont
drink so much beer. Blah Blah Blah. Theres only so much a man can
fuckin take so when its bed time make it your turn to be the major pain
in her ass.
Screw My Wife 40
A
card is cute. Flowers are thoughtful. Dinner is appreciated. Diamonds
are forever. Getting a porn star to fuck your wife will get you a month
without having to cuddle! The 4th Anniversary Edition is here! Enjoy!
Abusive Relationships and Porn: The Similarities (explicit language)