How do you hold your body?

How are you holding it right now?

How do you carry your body in the street?

Among people?

Alone?

“You tie your shoes so tightly, like you’re afraid your feet might escape.”

(A friend once told me this after observing me tighten my shoelaces for five minutes straight.)

I’ve always felt the need to contain myself. 

To hold myself in. 

After a laparoscopy to excise endometriosis from my uterus, my doctor told me I’d need pelvic floor physiotherapy.

“Like Kegel exercises?” 

“No, that’s to tighten your pelvic muscles. You need to loosen yours.”

I’ve been taught that tightness is a quality valued in women:

Taut skin/tight-lipped/toned limbs/calculated movements/clenched jaw/closed legs/sleek locks/no fat/no wrinkles/no high-pitched laughter/no gossip/no pleasure/no mess/no red lips/no second serving/no extravagance/no indulgence/no sobbing/no hysterics…

No one wants a loose woman. 

دي الدنيا تبقى سايبة.

“L o o s e - سايبة” is a celebration of imagination and excess. Of letting your body want what it wants/feel what it wants to feel/desire what it wants to desire/consume what it wants to consume. 

What would the world look like if we could let loose?

- Part of Cocoon Culture's "Conversations with the Women of Cairo: Curiosity Killed the Cat" Exhibition, February 2023.