The Condition of the Possibility of Mimesis
Damn that Drum (to whom, many thanks). I wasn’t planning on doing any Swedish swim instructor blogging–my Swedish swim instructor having moved away–but I can’t just leave you all hanging, so…
As my body began to creak more loudly on the basketball court, I decided to take up the more genteel sport of swimming. I hopped onto the magical Craigslist, answered a gender-anonymous ad for swimming lessons and about a week later found myself in the pool with a former member of the Swedish Olympic team. Woot! Actually, she’s married and almost killed me every week but one of the very first instructions I got–as I was trying to learn proper technique–was “look at my butt.” People, it’s harder than you think! We polite liberal men are so used to stealing a quick glance that we can’t help but feel that our eyes will burn up if we keep them glued. But I persevered and I survived. You should try swimming.
Any chance this thread won’t descend into juvenile sexism (or even mature sexism)? If you’re good, in the next post you’ll get wonkery.
