Tender Points
Playlist by Amy Berkowitz“Tender Points does precisely what people are always saying can’t be done—it combines a moving, distilled, literary journey with advocacy and even pedagogy, here about trauma, chronic pain, patriarchy, and more. Call it “écriture féminine en homme,” if you want (as Berkowitz does, with acid wit)—but whatever you call it, this is firm, high- stakes speech speaking truth to power, radiating beauty and fierceness from its inspiring insistence and persistence.” —Maggie Nelson
FTP
Doctors are copsSelf-select into the profession like a diseaseThat will never be diagnosedBecause its name is healthAnd its smell is soap
Walk around swinging their clubsTalking too loudKilling people all the time(It’s their job so it’s fine)And who can argue with a stethoscope
“Here’s a doctor I remember”
Here’s a doctor I remember:A hero on the message boardsA six-month wait to see himWeill Cornell Medical CenterVulvodynia specialist blah blah blahAnd when I saw him, I took off my clothesAnd he looked at my skin
He had a theoryAbout pigmentationAnd vulvar painAnd I was so much a piece of meatHe scratched my stomachTo see the mark it would leave(This was part of the study)And he said to me, “You have porcelain skin”I wanted to hit himI asked him about the side effectsOf the drug he wanted me to tryExasperated, my good doctor said“You can’t believeEverything you readOn the Internet”
“The police asked if I was lying”
The police asked if I was lying
The police said he was a good boy
The police said I was making it up
The police asked me why I was alone there
The police kept yelling at me
The police denied my request for a female detective, which I later found out wasviolating procedure
The police did nothing
This cruel abuse of power is sickeningly common, and yet there’s this part of me thatwishes my own rape had at least had a chance at something that might pass for justice.But when a ghost rapes you, there’s no event to report. No one to report it to. It’s up toyou to perform your own cruel interrogation.I asked myself if I was lyingI told myself I was making it up
I asked myself why were we alone in the exam roomI asked myself why were we alone in the exam roomI told myself maybe what he did really was normal, and maybe I’m a pervert forremembering it wrongI kept yelling at myselfI did nothing
“Ann Arbor never felt like a safe place”
Ann Arbor never felt like a safe placeThere was a professor in our departmentWho thought he was Ernest HemingwayHe famously touched students’ breastsHe had these signature movesLike these tried and true tricksFor how to surreptitiously touch his students’ titsFor example, The Scarf Move:Compliment a student’s scarfAt a department luncheon, then adjust it for herSo your hands each brush a nippleAnd he taught there, tenure trackAnd everybody knewBut nobody did anything about itHis sexual harassmentWas so well-established and unquestionedThat it was like a favorite school traditionComfortable, cozy, cider & donutsAnd every day I woke up in that townAnd knew that he was touching girlsWho didn’t want to be touchedIt tore a hole in meI talked about it and nobody caredI talked about it and nothing changedI talked about it and Rebecca said Are You Okay?And I said yesBut what I should have said wasThat’s the wrong fucking question, RebeccaWhat the fuck is wrong with everyone elseAnd why is this man still working at our schoolAnd behaving like a monster?
“One of the most persistent lies is that boys are angry”
One of the most persistent lies is that boys are angry.And the shadow lie: that girls aren’t angry.But even though we aren’t formally trained to hate like boys are, every girl is a naturalexpert:We have so much to hate.Listen:A growl that tastes like bloodBlack reservoirOf anger splashingCloser than you thinkBeneath the slimy dock of everything I sayIn my person voiceNice woman voice