IN WHICH I INADVERTANTLY PULL A FAST ONE

"You are a good girl. You are like traditional Chinese girl." For the umpteenth time in China, I hear these two sentences spilling from the lips of people close to me and for the umpteenth time I feel like a fraud.

Frankly, I have had a lot… a lot of lovers from both genders and I feel neither remorse nor pride about that. I have a libido that controls me more than I control it and I feel neither remorse nor pride about that. I have a mouth that could make a drunken sailor blush and I feel neither pride nor remorse about that. I have a mind far too educated and far too independent to be appropriate and I feel neither remorse nor pride about that. I am, simply put, who I am. I have made peace with my demons as much as possible and find myself to be neither saint nor sinner. I am, most proudly, a human being. I am a ball of contradictions that simply wants to love and be loved and have a few fantastic meals and see some sights along the way.

However, this notion that I am not the "Promiscuous Foreign Girl" everyone thought I would be before they knew me somehow seems dishonest. I am everything they accuse my "kind" of being. I don’t care how many lovers I’ve had. I won’t roll over and accept the status quo simply because it’s the status quo. However, I won’t reflexively reject it on the same basis either. And, I am worried about this idea of me as a "good girl" because, at my core, I’m not. I’m not a "bad girl" either but the idea that the notion of me being embraced as a paragon of virtue by people who embrace without the option of divorce frightens me. I don’t know what the "good girl" answer to all questions and dilemmas are and even if I did, I would only coincidentally choose the "good girl" route. Ultimately, I choose to care for my own mental health before the feelings of others. I worry about hurting the people I care about here because I am always just me. I do the best I can and do what I feel is right in the moment but I can’t be anyone’s paragon.

And I don’t know why I’m consistently thought of like this. The only thing I can think of is that the Chinese value the mellowing of age; the comfort of one’s own skin as paramount. The petty, rash impulsive nature of youth has started to evaporate from me, leaving self-acceptance in its stead and perhaps that is what they respond to. I have no interest in brief, tormented love affairs anymore. I understand that sexuality is overwhelmingly powerful and that everyone possesses it, so I have no desire to toss mine around aimlessly to dash young men across the rocks simply because I can. I get that day-to-day life can be brutal and so people should be more forgiving of transgressions, especially their own. I also get that if you don’t understand why someone is acting crazy, it says more about your ignorance than the other person’s lunacy. Not to mention, said "lunacy" most probably has something to do with "not feeling worthy" either of love and/or respect; very little makes most people more crazy than that. I have a weakness for youth that has the naked courage to need me and very little patience for adults who fool themselves into thinking they need me to fix them. I understand that losing my temper serves only my own rash ego and the more time spent wallowing in my own rage means that I spend more time as a burden to others who have better things to do that babysit. I understand that the efforts of most days are futile, that most of the energy one puts out into the universe will not come back to you but the days that aren’t futile, those days the energy does come back more than makes up for the futility. I love nakedly because full disclosure is the only thing that allows me to sleep at night; what happens between when I’ve seen you last and when I see you next has nothing to do with me and I certainly have no control over it but if I love you as best as I can manage in the moment I am granted then I did all I could.

But I am no one’s Diana. I am no one’s virginal goddess of the hunt, free from blight or blunder. Quite the opposite. I have come to all of these "good girl" conclusions because nothing else works for me. I have broken and rebuilt myself in a multitude of incarnations. I will continue to do so for the rest of my life. This is not the thing of a "good girl." This is the thing of a real girl who fears the inevitable wounding of the people she cares for now that they’ve revealed they have a vested interest in her placid faÁade.

And, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that it makes me a little angry that the perspective of me as "like a traditional Chinese girl" is only a liability. If Z’s parents saw me as "like a traditional Chinese girl" I would be in his gym, laughing it up right now with he and his boys instead of sitting at home, alone on a Friday night (1/19) writing this entry as a way to avoid the raging debate in my head over calling the married, obscenely wealthy Hong Kong banker I met at last night’s West Egg party who offered to take me on a tour of Lanzhou and inner Mongolia because I’m "beautiful" and he does "a lot of business in the area" when I revealed that one of the reasons I came to China was to see Lanzhou and inner Mongolia. Ultimately, I won’t go on that tour without a chaperone (ie. without a large group of fellow West Eggers) but the devil in me really would like to be someone’s kept mistress. I would be lying not to admit I am in dire need of being worshiped by a man, any man, as a fully sexual woman right now.

I need to be touched, kissed and worshiped. I need a man who sees nothing but my nudity and is undone, at least for a moment, by it. I need a reason to close my eyes, toss my head back and gasp. I need to feel beautiful for my specificity, not my iconography. I need warm hands on me and strong arms around me. I need to drown in the scent of another. I need to submit and be undone by a man who wants nothing more than my submission and undoing at his beckoning. I need a man to make me my whole self because he makes me forget myself.

"Good girls" don't suffer from this dilemma.