medusa in a stone garden | liner notes
in some versions of the medusa story, she starts as a beautiful woman. sometimes the story says that poseidon "ravished" her in athena's temple. sometimes people say this means she was seduced. sometimes that she "yielded."
either medusa was punished because she consensually had sex with poseidon in a temple, or she was punished because she was raped by poseidon in a temple. ovid wasn't clear. it probably didn't make that much of a difference, to ovid.
in other versions, she's always a monster. she and her sisters. they were born with their snakehair, but medusa was the only one who was killable, and so perseus killed her. i like this version better, not just because i'm out of patience for stories about sexual violence done to women, told by men.
i like this version because there is a real part of me that wants to be monstrous.
it's not what you're supposed to want, as a woman. you're supposed to want to be small. you're supposed to want to be dainty, or maybe "~healthy," but like, the way people say it when what they mean to say is that they think you're fat.
the thing about being a woman in society is that you are never only yourself. i've never learned how to look at myself as if i were me. i've never learned how to look as if i weren't a conglomeration of all the people who look at me, and have opinions. sometimes people i've worked with have said that i'm beautiful, and i'll be honest, in that moment of them saying so, i kind of hate them. i know it comes from a good place, mostly. but every compliment is a reminder that i have a body. that my body exists for people to look at. that my body exists, and people put their own desires, their own projections, their own ideas on it. it feels like i am never the things i am saying, i am always the body that is saying them.
the thing about being a woman in society is you are never carrying only your own thoughts and wants, you are carrying the thoughts and the wants of everyone who looks at you. positive and negative.
(maybe that's true for men too. i don't know. i'm sure it's true for nonbinary folks. i imagine it can be even worse.)
this song is about how medusa was right, but it's also a story about how people look at you, and want things from you, always, always. about how people want you to be things you can't or will not be.
about how it's okay to let those people disappoint themselves. it's not my business what you think about me.
