ATTRACTIVE SACKS OF FAT OR I AM EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER BEEN
Faye Forever



Scene is: Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras of 2023. We’re parading up Oxford and I’m full delusional mode waving back to the crowds like they’re my fans. I am deeeeply anonymous in a blonde dolly wig and tartan head scarf, impossible to pick. I’m hiding under red umbrellas from ABC cameras cause I know my mum is watching back in my family home. We pass the cameras and then I emerge – skipping in my five inches, brush my fingertips along the woo girls hands; sexy butch, I kiss you. This is whore pride – just like I heard about. I feel: metamorphosized, impossible to silence, immune from humiliation, etc etc. I’m higher than ever and my tits are out. OOTN: this red, see-through lace bodysuit I wore once before. The manager of the strippers made me get changed. He said YOU’RE GIVING IT ALL AWAY LOVE NOBODY WANTS TO PAY FOR TITS THEY CAN ALREADY SEE. At the brothel in 2023 see-through dresses are banned too. I pack one anyway. If the right manager is on, I can wear it, but most of the time it's: nylon, cotton, spandex, polyester – my nipples are rough like little rocks poking through. My G-string is a brail line loaded at my hips (it shoots). Tonight it does matter, I’m not working for anyone, except I’m working for everyone and for a moment there I forgot that. Back to scene: we’re walking down Crown, trying to get to Oxford but it's really packed and it's happened: we’ve ended up with the straights. Fingers on my shoulder – on my back. He literally says; don’t worry little red riding hood, I’m not homeless. I say fuck off which means nothing and soooo much even though I know I’ve made it worse and now he’s angry and it doesn’t really matter what he’s saying but it's loud and his friend is – always embarrassed – looking back with that stale face all awkward and silent like he's reeeeeally drunk tonight… Sometimes it’s worse and when it is I’m following my friend when she tears the shirt right off this guy but I’m not really backing her up not like that I’m pulling her off and pushing him back cause it's never worth it, is it? Now we walk away with a little cotton victory and think in moments of silence for the rest of the night of what could have could have could have. It’s just me and a handful of queer femme sex workers and a group of young Mob trying to make our way to some shelter like a pub with frozen margaritas or something. Someone pulls a shirt out of their bag and puts it on. A rainbow bra and skirt passes us and screams yes bitch happy prideeeee you’re so hot.



Next I’m at work and someone just has to show me an old workers new page. It's a socialist T-shirt Etsy business with white cotton V-necks that say things like yes, I’m at rock bottom and it's hot down here, or one with a line drawing of two breasts that reads attractive sacks of fat. These shirts aren’t see through, they’re thick and white. I’m a femme presenting non-binary person, so I know all about desexualising my chest. In the mirrors of dance classes or in the club. I know all about how if I want to escape the deafening mass of womanhood, I have to turn this weight into meaningless, purposeless sacks of fat. Like rolls on my back or the cheeks I bite when I’m nervous from inside my mouth. It's

like…desexualised…patronized…purified…all the way back to shamed. I’m like GOD do I own my t*ts or do my t*ts own me? Sometimes my protest is a see-through t shirt but always it is existing. Truthfully, bravely, quote me on this – I do not wish to be the owner of two meat sacks of fat. I identify as the affirmed and liberated gender diverse owner of a fantastic set of tits. This is not inherently sexual, but I refuse to give up access to sexual expression as well. I mean, I can have nipple orgasms. New scene: a Wednesday night at the Newtown hotel and I’ve just performed this drag number I’m sooo proud of. I’m buzzing after, walking around the venue in a G-string and heels, my entire body drenched in fake blood. I feel RIDICULOUS, EXQUISITE, BARELY HUMAN. Fast forward: a few days later I find out about a complaint emailed in. Pub patron says they are DEVASTATED about the female nipples and barely there underwear on stage that RUINED her dinner…look at the photo. I’m sitting there on a small carpet floor with a trans flag hung behind me. There’s blood all over me, but you can see-through it. Notice the lining of my notorious nipples. Relish momentarily in the spectacle that is being offensive.



Next check your phone – a little notification with that same photo reads, WE DISABLED YOUR ACCOUNT ON MARCH FIRST TWENTY TWENTY THREE. You have not been following community guidelines on adult sexual solicitation. That spectacle of being offensive dilutes back into the old cocktail of loneliness and shame that reappears with less power over time, but connects to a kind of linage of personal devastation that follows me always. First I say don’t you dare have a tantrum and then I say I don’t care! I don’t care that it's just an app and I don’t care about real life: I grieve…photos of holidays, old lovers, interactions and comments, artist, people I admire, people I crush on, people I cringe at, meme accounts, hinge matches. Evidence of existence not just censored but now erased. Make a new account; see Cristian Ronaldo ten best moments – easy at home Indian meal – top ten spots for your Thailand getaway – something for everyone nothing for me. A clear message in an uninfluenced algorithm not to dare be; your body is not welcome here. I am staring at the search bar – I can’t remember anyone’s usernames. Slowly they come back to me, I find people, or they find me, like I’m lost in the debris of some epic natural disaster feeling out for people in the emptiness. I am joking but I am also dead serious – I grieve. I am a body lost in some bot automated censorship and wonder how I prove now I’ve existed all along. Then I’m almost too drunk again at events and people are touching my shoulder shaking their heads. Everyone agrees and they even apologise like babe, that’s sooooo fucked.



I have given up on maaaaany things. I studied law and then psychology and then I even went to culinary school. I had six ex-girlfriends in 2022. But I AM EVERYTHING I HAVE EVER BEEN. Even if it's nothing, even if it's a giant pair of nipples. Even if I am see through on crown street in a paddy’s market bodysuit. Sometimes I am a whole silhouette, I can block out light. I can be dense, impossible to miss, to hide, to take away. I write on these last few weeks as a body and am afforded the ability to

let go – to do this by choosing the worlds I know. I pick up this tired, heavy body on Sunday night and go dance with a lover. I do my part for the world I know to exist. I dance so it exists. I take my tits out at the Newtown hotel, so it exists. My body is a protest, so I let it exist. I let it see, I let it be seen. I play my part in the theatres of cruelty and adoration, one of many building these little worlds hidden to some, but never us. Wild, exquisite, wonderful folk. I see you; I see you clearly, but never right through. I adore the ways you change my mind, how we’re both right and never wrong. I love you old with all the stories and I love you like a baby who won’t listen to her elders. I love your chronic online battles, the story you have to tell that’s just like mine, that questionable thing you said fucked up on the dancefloor. I love your body spilling out filling up the world. It starts with a room and then a street and now you’re everything I see. I love your see-through tops. Even the assless chaps. Next scene, I’m lying on my back on the living room floor fully naked my legs in the air. Lalita crouches over me with her phone torch on aimed straight at my pussy. Lalita, look closely, I need you to tell me if it's an ingrown or a herpes sore. Do you see it? Can you see?