Health Freak

painted lady by Fabian Perez

“Pleasure is Health.” Dr Saida, Kama 

She did not like him thinking she is gross. 

Gross as an abbreviation for grotesque although the word also means “to profit financially” in the commercial context. 

Why did he think she is gross? 

In her mind, it is because she has a freedom he doesn’t and he’s envious. It triggers his anger because she’s gone deeper into healing base chakra development than he has. 

Tantra describes base chakra as “the seat of sexuality and anger” designed to tame one through the other, for us to evolve. Anthropologist Jared Diamond analysis of primates correlates with this spiritual awareness. 

In his mind, it is because she sells her body for sex and enjoys recreational gang-bangs, while he is looking for a monogamous relationship to partner up with another like-minded devotee in an exclusive relationship. 

She is encouraging him to believe there is something wrong with him for having old-fashioned values and unreal expectancies, especially in the post-post-post-modern world of lgbt+ and sexual liberation, in which the normal attitude is actively derogatory toward old-fashioned “family values”. 

Yet at this time the vast majority of women are in a public image culture where women have to pretend the uphold the same ideals toward which he aspires so as to avoid being slut-shamed and publicly humiliated. 

She does not regard it as humiliation, she regards it as liberation. Her self-image and behaviour is shameless, a dualistic word previously used as a disrespectful insult which now means she is honest and not deceptive, unlike the fake women who secretly desire to live her way. 

Therefore she is a stronger woman than the sort he is searching for. He is unfulfilled, she is easily fulfilled. Which lifestyle is better? 

He interprets her pressuring him toward the idea of hiring her body by her using advanced mental inserts to be a form of narcissistic abuse. This is part of the reason why he believes she is gross. 

She regards it as her attempting to liberate his mindset from a dysfunctional, old-fashioned prison in that it is unrewarding and does not bring him happiness, and toward one from which they could both prosper and enjoy their lives more. 

His retort: the sharing of flesh is a mutually beneficial equality, any financial exploitation on top of that is an abuse. Why should she not pay him for the same privilege? 

She asked him if he can get it for free so easily, and why he doesn’t treat her profession as any other type of massage, food, a book or movie, decorator, cleaner, any other commercially available, skilled, rentable commodity. 

She calls him prejudice and boring, not knowing how to accept a good thing when it crosses his path. That a real man would take what’s on offer gladly. 

He worries about his own reputation for even associating with her, which he does not go out of his way to do. She knocks on his door. She waits outside his house until he returns asking for favours. They pass in the street due to living in close proximity. 

Next time they met she had heard he had gotten himself a steady girlfriend so she turned up and invited herself in to make the girlfriend jealous, or to pressure them both into a threesome. 

They ignored her. She sat on the sofa while they hid in the bathroom until she had gone. Girlfriend gave him a hard time about knowing such people and the disruption to their happiness became an a wedge which grew between them before it split them up. 

After which she was sometimes aloof and sometimes friendly with him, playing him both ways. He contemplated that she was actually treating him now the same way how he had always previously treated her. 

He chose to ignore her.