15 june

A great misconception among the “decent” women in society is that dirty girls do not want relationships. This is not true. We do want relationships. We are however incapable of choosing men who are suitable, or sane. I have had many boyfriends since high school, all fitting into some social stereotype of what I was supposed to be into. We’ve all been there. The guy with the v-tech, the guy with the relaxed spikes… and if you hail from the southern suburbs of cape town, the guy with the orange ford focus who just installed a system that is going to “naai” everyone else’s at the Town Centre Annual Sound off. you know him all too well don't you? he only wears Takkies ending in the word "air", never turns down his collar, makes hand signals at every photo op, and refers to everything as "JITS MYBRU".

Throughout all these mundane, somewhat serious relationships, one man stands out. Not because he was an exceptionally great boyfriend, but because I now wonder if I had indeed taken the blue pill. As promised in our first chat, I give you the first installment of the gripping tale of a man I call, “Sperm donor X”.

Ah, the highlight of 2009. You meet a guy. He’s gorgeous, exotic tan, almost foreign.  He was perfect for a long weekend away, and a great sex story to tell your friends. But alas, after banking on my third stage endometriosis, vodka, a "slow boat" and bad decisions in a hotel room away caused me and this beautiful man to procreate.

What’s the problem?

After meeting his family, post coitus, I was informed that he had gone to a remedial school. This didn’t bother me at first, I thought “oh well, can’t be genetic if it’s just him”, then I proceeded to meet his brother and two ADD cousins. All proud graduates of Oude Molen.  I suppose there were clues in the very few conversation I had with him that he wasn’t your everyday Einstein. A devout Muslim, (I see the irony too), he was somehow conflicted between society’s perception of prehistoric life and that of the scriptures. One day on the couch in my lounge, after watching the discovery channel a little too intensely, he turned to me showing sincere concern, almost terror…

 “Shana, dinosaurs is not real ne? It’s then not in the Quran”.

I don’t know why red sirens didn’t immediately go off in my head.

Yes, another issue was that we were from two completely different religions. I am not religious myself, but respect all religions nonetheless. However, one needs to be realistic in the practicalities of dating someone so vastly different. I can take many things. I can look past the fact that our families will never see eye to eye. I can embrace that you don’t understand my western cutlery. I can however not overcome Guilt of sex in Islamic religious attire being overshadowed by the person that you are sleeping with having to lift his skirt slightly higher than yours. Yes, he preferred to keep the top on. Apparently being naked made him feel like we were doing something wrong.

Now, as a woman open to experimentation, I have been asked, as you have to engage in acts that I have condemned to the deepest recesses of my mind.  Among the usual, favorites such as...

“Will you blow me?”

“Yes”

“can I spank you?”

“er, yeah sure”

“whose your daddy?”

“uhm, you are?”

Hip Thrusting During Oral Sex, fine.

…all are socially acceptable. But there are some things that you just don’t do, right up there next to “can I call you my mother’s name?we're really close and i just miss her so much, you know?”

I had to get out. But I didn’t have the courage or exact words to break up the obviously dead-ended relationship. He loved me so much, what would I say? Apparently all it took was “I’m pregnant.”

Now, men have told me many things to get rid of me. And as a dirty girl yourself I know that you’re sitting there, realizing that he didn’t just “need space” away to prove to himself that he actually loves you, he wasn’t working a 36 hour shift last weekend and his family isn’t in the mafia and going to kill you if he sees you again because “you know too much”.

Next time you think that you’re about to lose him, tell him that you’re pregnant.

If he stays, he’s into you.

If not, tell him you need R800 for the abortion and then delete him from your life.

At least that way, you’ll be heartbroken for a while, but you’ll have an awesome new pair of Nine West’s to console you.

Till next time

S

8th June

Lapses of judgment: where does one begin to decipher what the moment was in your life that fucked you up completely/ that fork in the road… the first pull of a cigarette? Your first drink? Your first high school bathroom pregnancy test while your 16year old bf prays outside? Sigh. I guess I’ll start at the cliché. My mother.  Tale as old as time.

Now, don’t misinterpret what I am about to reveal. My mother is awesome. She feeds me, houses me and always tells me when I look fat. The sex talk however, never happened. There were no books on female genitalia. No banana/cucumber demonstrations. Just the occasional random joke about the Chinese virgin named “ho jo kuki tu”.

My earliest memory of any awkward sexual confrontation with her however, did happen when I was five. It was the early 90’s, when people were only just starting to realize that women have sex too.  It was in our old Mitchell’s plain house, when she found me on the floor, watching KTV, rubbing my legs together. Barney must have been really good that day. In my defense, only years later did it dawn on me that I was actually masturbating.

Now, my mother being a conservative catholic robot that swears to have conceived after being visited by Angel Gabriel had no idea how to handle this taboo situation. I remember seeing her, smiling, then continuing project: prepubescent clitoral stimulation. The blood had drawn completely out of her face, leaving her pale, holy-ghost like.  I understand that because of religious guilt, most of you are about to act really offended.  Understand that it’s not god that I have the problem with. I love god. I pray to him and thank him every day. It’s his fan club that pisses me off.  Swarms of people giving you random parables about not having premarital sex, then not aborting the bastard child, then how much Foreskin to cut off, and telling you to love your children unconditionally, unless they’re gay.

Ah. The gays.  Major role-players in my sex life. Every dirty girl has one gay best friend. Usually they’re the last to find out that they are. The guy that approves your outfit.  Dances with you to “loosen up my buttons” from the Pussy cat dolls. The guy that suddenly comes out of the closet after you agree to sleep with him to “see what happens”. Sigh. I wear my shame on my sleeve.  Ah, if us dirty girls had a nickel for straight man we’ve converted. Making us graduate to sleeping with every Tom, dick and dick to validate ourselves and prove that it was them, not us. When you actually sit down to list the knots on your bed post (and count your nickels), you cringed silently as you go from a list of names to:

Guy with billabong sweater in atmosphere.

Guy with red shoes

Guy with no discernable attributes.

And then, the memory of every conversation you've had before intercourse plagues you, making you want to laugh and cry at the same time. Partially because you feel embarrased, and partially because you just realised you dont have to, because the people around you cant actually see what you're thinking. You know the conversation i'm talking about.  The convo men seem to think is the ultimate foreplay: "What if you think it's small?"  warning me about your inadequacies is not motivation.

"uhm baby" Feighning enough angst to make you feel pity.

'yes?"

""uhm nevermind"

"tell me baby, you know you can tel me anything'

"what if you think it's small or something?"

MOOD KILLED

Gifted men know that they are gifted. If you dont think you are. chances i wont either. and i have now just played the entire sex scene out in my head and it wasnt a happy ending. So get off of me, i just remembered, i neeed to wash my hair.

Ringing a bell?

yes. i thought as much.

 Till next time.

S

June1st

Goodmorning. I am Shana..and im a student, single mother and glorified badAss. (cue shades.) It seems fitting that I start our meeting at the crux. i am a well known dirty girl. ( Definition: New age woman prone to to addiction, rumours and one night stands.) I found out i was pregnant in 2009, sitting in my En suite on a Sunday morning, ironically as I was preparing for 10am Mass. (you know how us catholic girls can be…)  staring at my feet, wishing that the two ply would wipe away the HCG. Well, I was actually half staring at my feet, and half at the crystal ball like apparatus that I have just peed on. It has just doomed me to becoming an unwed mother. Oh, let me get you up to speed, I am 20, unemployed and dating an Islamic man/boy that irritates me. I am also an extroverted ex Crescent clinic patient prone to Ally Mac Beal fantasies, but we’ll get there.  You see, this wasn’t the plan. I was supposed to be famous by now. Yes, my plan was a cliché, but whose isn’t? My view is that everything has already been done anyway; the best we can hope for is to be carbon copies of really successful people. I’ve always pictured my name in lights, albeit Vegas, limousines, bodyguards, and telling people I’m from “the block”. Not once, did I picture having kids. I was about to own a mucous oozing, sand eating leach. I was about to experience gestation, gas, heartburn, vomiting, a possible C-section that I’ll have to do at a state hospital, and some intern was going to lose his sponge in my abdomen. Oh God. My Abdomen, and yes, this is worried me most, I was about to become fat.

“I’m leaving at quarter to…” my mother shouts from her room across the hallway. I can’t seem to look up. My head heavy, in its third trimester. Eventually I drag myself into the shower, hoping to drown in a freak domestic accident involving a farfetched scenario about intense water pressure paired with projectile faucets and overtly soapy floor. I suppose I didn't mind my parents finding out I was pregnant from my autopsy. It would certainly appear in whole new light. “If only she’d told us” I can hear my mother sob. “I would have loved another grandchild, if only she was alive” my imaginary father adds, consoling my mother as she sobs. Luther Van Dros playing in the background on the coroner’s Wireless. Fade to Black.  Unfortunately, this isn’t how the reveal goes down in real life. What irks me is that I feel as if they’re half expecting it. For you see, I am the black sheep, the “that child”. I’m the colossal-fuck-up sibling that causes most of the comic relief in many American sitcoms. I’m the fucking Marsha.

I know what you're thinking, how did i tell "him"?

“Hello?” Sperm donor X answers his phone.

“I’m pregnant”

“Ok. No problem, uhm, I a bit busy but….we can chat later.”

“Ok.”

“You ok?”

“Yeah”

“Ok cool. No problem. Cool.”

Because of my jaded past, I feared that no one was going to be surprised. I am somewhat disappointed. What is the purpose of my dramatic lifestyle, if not to shock people? I just feel that after being victimized and embarrassed, I would have atleast enjoyed the element of surprise as consolation.  We all deserve our 15 minutes of publicized shame.

So, what do I blame my continuous lapse in judgment on? Neglect is a good one. Or sexual abuse, any abuse really. Poverty always gets people out of things. But alas, I am not that lucky. I am a fortunate, upper middle class product of suburbia. I have a Degree in Film and Music and have gone through countless Life Orientation Lessons, so I am over qualified in the art of contraception. Imagine this conversation.

Dad: “why didn’t you use the pill or the injection?”

Me: “it makes me fat dad”

Dad: “and condoms?”

Me: “I prefer skin to skin, it feels better. I don’t orgasm with condoms”.

Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to go down well. What I would give for a pedophile uncle right now.  I have no excuse. So, I guess after all of this, you must be aching to know my back-story, right? I suppose I did drop n Hiroshima-esque bombshell.

I promise that next time we will get properly acquinted. what's better than telling your secrets to complete strangers?

Till then...

S