Sex: Subtitles Not IncludedBY NYDIA MONOROY
If I could rewrite every telenovela my mother ever watched,
I would make the maiden in distress acknowledge that the script was riddled with macho tendencies as she laughed, staring into the eyes of her next love affair, a wink in his direction. My mother’s favorite started promptly at 6:00 in the evening, and I, being curious, would sit down and watch with her. Watched as the maiden instead seemed to fall in love with a red hued aura, everything that resembled confidence...arrogance, a warning and yet a crave, a reddened background resembling the fire that must have engulfed her every sense kisses running down her neck – the sunrays reflecting off beads of sweat so delicately arranged. This is what love and passion must translate to. This is the only form of brown bodied intimacy that I knew of. A series full of drama and lust, contradicting your Fifty Shades of Tailored White Ideals, yet reflecting the same hesitance I found in myself. Switching channels to find familiarity, yet finding none among whitewashed Spanish speaking actresses, among women who spoke so boldly yet who also agreed to play the same role over and over again. Why was love and sex as foreign to dinner conversations as brown actors were to tv screens? Why did her refusal of a subordinate role make controversial headlines? Alas, I grew accustomed to the scripted sense of love, pulling what I could from an hour, I thought sex wouldn’t be beautiful unless I had plucked and trimmed every inch of my body, until my body was toned and glowed like the fair maidens, until my body was fit for a tv screen, until sex was no longer as much for me as it was for him. If I could rewrite every sex scene in classic American movies, I would add Spanish subtitles so my mother would understand-- this too is what we’ve grown accustomed to. Tell me in what language do either translate to anything like reality? I would write a reality, one where I could look right at society’s unrealistic expectations and laugh. |