Tomboyland
Written and Narrated By: Melissa Faliveno
Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
How to Make BDSM Dry: Write essays about it from such a detached perspective… But, hey: That’s my only complaint about this thoughtful series of essays.
Here we were, coming up on the end of Pride Month, a month where my Listening is also packed with my dearest Maman’s Birthday, with Father’s Day, with Animals Picks for each week.
So it was important to me to get aaaalll five audiobooks for at least ONE week to be all in honor of a month celebrating LGBTQ+. I had Trans represented, a history of a tragedy that eVENTually helped prompt a movement, a fun Gay men’s fiction, but to get the 4th for the Listening to Now 4-cover graphic, gosh darn it: I needed to represent Women for crying out loud! So I chose Tomboyland by Melissa Faliveno. And upon starting it? Ooooooh, did I think I was doing a disservice to Pride Month, or what?
Cuz it all starts out with Faliveno very much NOT considering her gender, sexuality. She’s aaaaallll about fitting in in the MidWest, particularly her town in Wisconsin where she goes to great lengths to, yeh play sports, but also yeh, look and act like the expectations for girly girls. She even considers her body as an object to be used to woo her coach, dressing in low-cut blouses, tight short skirts, shaving, exfoliating, and moisturizing the beJESus outta her long legs before slipping into high High HIGH heels to elongate them even more. MUST have her coach.
Sooooo, I was thinking: Huh? And: Oh DRAT!
But AFTER all that, after plenty of frat parties where she gets loaded and drinks to the delight of cheering frat boys, to where she TOTALLY is assaulted (Something that will haunt her and make it difficult to remember those times), then FINALLY we come to essays where she moves awaaaaay from Wisconsin with its Girls Must Be Girls, and Boys Will Be Boys directives.
New York? Oh gosh, BDSM. Faliveno goes from being a self-harmer, a cutter, to allowing others to do it for her. I get the sense that she feels it’s all very empowering as now her injuries come from others, and they do have safe words, and she DEFinitely has sloughed off her MidWest concept of monogamy and monogamy only. I applauded this, but I was sooooo confused by it. EsPECially where she gets to her essay on not wanting children, of not wanting to be pregnant as she views pregnancy as the ULTIMATE VIOLATION that can be done to a body. Uhm, totally with her on the right to NOT want children, but chicklet, you’ve been sliced, diced, hung from the rafters, and a normal biological consequence has you ticked off?
Dunno, and just saying that I s’pose we’re not supposed to get ALL she’s saying; these are, after all, quite simply her thoughts, musings, beliefs, memories.
I should add here that they’re all so very well written. OBVIOUSLY Faliveno shows her gift for writing, her strength in metaphor (Think: Tornadoes), and her skill with the crafting of deep thoughts into appealing prose.
I hear tell she wrote a fair amount of these essays in response to the 2016 election where her beloved MidWest was being spoken of as all illiterate, gun toting, hate-filled people. She does much to humanize the population, does much to promote the concept that Hunting Season, particularly Deer Season, is Religion to all there (But even then, sporting goods stores have pink hunting gear, fitted camo for women), but even tho’ she does offer a feeeeew people who favor smart gun laws/ownership, by and large, she still had me feeling like all involved think all Democrats are out to take every single gun away from them. And there’s plenty of: From my cold dead hands to be found.
Further, I wasn’t impressed with the face she put on Wisconsin re: Alcohol. ‘Twould appear black outs and driving drunk are a rite of passage, and could well go on into adulthood. Dunno about all that either.
My favorite parts were of her respect for life, whether it was a respect for a mother who made her own choices and may’ve given up a dream to become an artist, or a grandmother who raised a large family but is now happy out in her garden, or a matriarch of a plant who sprouted many a “baby” that needs to be cared for, her determination to do right by the plant. I enjoyed how she viewed her plants as connections to much-loved friends who are no longer living, or who live far, far away. Every single plant I have is a “Rescue” so I could totally get that.
I s’pose that, personally having no experience with BDSM (Which she writes in the driest of terms), makes that the least relatable section, which is my lack of experience and not a judgment of her choices (After all, the one TOTAL freak I dated had my Safe Words of: Get the Heck Outta My House NOW snapped out posthaste and early on). As an ex-Cutter m’self, I could understand why she’d do THAT (Sometimes you feel too much/Sometimes you can’t feel anything at all), but I didn’t understand how that’d make someone else doing that TO her enticing. Ah, well.
A confusing start, a decent middle, an ending that left me with mighty Huzzahs for her, and a totality that had me thinking highly of her ability to write made this a good read. And her own delivery/narration? Heartfelt, often wry (EsPECially when she’s relating the sheer womanly power she felt when she used her body to go after her coach), and always spot-on makes this a grand Listen also.
Plus?
Dude! She was a rough and tumble skater for Roller Derby! I LOVE watching those women, and those sections? Worth the listen. …oh… AND… Potlucks after BDSM shindigs… what kinda casserole do you bring for THAT?!
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