To the Guys Who Grabbed at my Crotch: Thank You!
Me at Art! Vancouver. Painting: Lluis Garriga Filip In May I was walking down an aisle of exhibitors at the Art! Vancouver gala, wearing an altered wedding gown from my (dis)robe series . All around the skirt, painted arms reach up from the floor to embrace, protect, or maybe pull the wearer down. That’s me, in this case: T he wearer. It’s an open-fronted wedding dress, now that I’ve altered it, and I wore it with a nude body suit, including false pubic hair, made of a discarded brown wig. Women laughed as I walked along; a couple of them thanked me, without saying why. And one of these, who stopped me in my tracks with a desperate-looking smile and wide eyes, held me tightly by the arm and said, “thank you. Thank you for doing this. Thank you so much,” as her male companion leered at me, then squatted down close beside me and tugged at the false pubic hair, his face only inches from my crotch. You know what I did? Nothing. Because really, it wasn’t all that unexpe...