Guys Like Gauguin
TW: SA/CSA, please read at your own discretion
When I was twelve I met a man at the park, or rather he tried to meet me. He held a bottle in hand, and smelled as though he’d been soaked in beer. My dog dragged me toward him, innocently chasing that smell, in an act best suited for a dark comedy. I wanted to run away. He asked me questions, which I answered curtly out of deep discomfort. What’s your name? Eliza. How are you? I’m good. He mightn’t of known my age, at least I don’t want him to been correct before approaching me. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. My tall stature put me at his eye level, though mine were definitively pointed away. He asked me what I did. School, I said, hoping to redirect him with a clear pointer of youth. What school, he continued, uncomfortably close. Middle school. I didn’t want him to know where I went, I never wanted to see him again. His speech was slurred; “I could help you study if you like”. He was too close. Finally I broke off, and said I had to be going. I don’t remember what he said next, if he said anything at all. I went home, scared he’d follow me.
“I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you”
But I never loved you. Any of you. The long gazes and the wolf whistles and the shouts from moving cars. But I’m not Lolita. She doesn’t exist, never did. I am instead Delores Haze. Only in moments, voices and memories am I her. Only when the man, the creep, the Humbert makes me.
My brothers and I cross the road a car passes by, and I don’t get a good look. Judging by the size, a snapshot splash of silhouette, there were a few people inside. A man in the car calls out. I didn’t hear what he said. I didn’t need to. We keep walking. None of us said anything. A silence spoke, only releasing itself for a moment before we quickly moved on. I looked at myself and felt dirty, as though my striped T-shirt and long loose jeans had morphed me into something sexual and inviting. I kept walking, smiling, chatting. The feeling lingered.
It’s difficult to be outspoken. I don’t want to be in the moment, I don’t want to participate in my own objectification. When it happens on the street, my pace quickens just so that I can get away, not so much that I seem reactive. I don’t say anything. Sometimes I wish I did, wish I screamed at him and pulled him into that moment with me. But the car has driven past. The drunk man in the park won’t remember me the next day. I block the account that asks if I’m interested in being a sugar baby, and he goes to the next young girl.
Gauguin’s art is brilliant. Humbert Humbert’s prose is beautiful. Richard Kelly’s music is soothing, transcendent. The rape of a child is unforgivable. To be Delores in a moment is terror. To be Aaliyah, Teha’amana, the girls who every day are abused and raped and touched is beyond my own imagination. I’m older now than these mens victims. But be as it is, I’m still a girl. I’m just 17, if you know what I mean. As old is Britney Spears was when she unbuttoned her shirt on the cover of rolling stone. Picasso would, were he alive today, describe me as he did his 17 year old muse. In my prime.
It’s honestly pathetic. Are you so uninteresting, so vile that the only way to feed your whimpering masculinity is to prey on little girls. Or, poor soul, are they the only thing you’re attracted to, you have to be with a child. Well the minor attracted persons out there should probably remember that while I have quite the impulse to break the lightbulb in my house, I’m certainly not gonna do it. The idea of seeking control to that extent that the only “woman” you can find is a child or teenager is disgusting.
I don’t like having to feel scared all the time. How much of that is me, and how much of that is you?
This essay was written halfway through 2022. It was a little too personal for me to give to my English teacher so I thought I'd hold onto it. I don't know how readable this is without textual context, which I'd probably provide now in 2024. However I don't wish to alter this text as it exists now. References are made to Lolita, eg "I was a pentapod monster..." For context on Gauguin, a good place to start might be this article. This article is in conversation with Selina Tusitala Marsh's poem "Guys like Gauguin" for which my essay takes the name.