She was wearing suspenders. The character in this monologue I've written. She was wearing suspenders and talking about her sex life and generally trying to work things out. I don't actually own a pair of suspenders, it should be noted. She does, though. For one night only. Her name is Julie. Just Julie. She doesn't have a second name, writes Róisín Ingle
When I was asked to come up with a monologue for Amnesty International, to celebrate women all over the world and to mark its Stop Violence Against Women campaign, my initial instinct, despite the gender-specific nature of the task, was to create a monologue about the violence perpetrated by women against men. It's on the increase, as we all know, even if some of us try to ignore it. In many ways Equality Street isn't a perfect address. Not when verbal rows escalate, delicate hands form well-manicured fists and, behind tasteful curtains and polished brasses, the female of species proves that she can, in fact, be deadlier than the male. Or equally deadly, at any rate.
One man whose story of domestic violence I heard confided what most male victims confide at some point: the shame of letting a woman overpower you, the shame of not hitting back, can be too pronounced ever to risk revealing the truth.
The Amnesty campaign wasn't the right home for this tale, so I looked elsewhere for inspiration. The nine writers involved were given one guideline. The story should be inspired by a piece of clothing. Maeve Binchy's features a modesty vest, an item familiar to any woman who grew up in the 1950s or ever read Circle of Friends. Michael Collins has written a monologue around a "serpent-headed stud". Marian Keyes chose "delicious shoes". Sebastian Barry a green jersey. I didn't choose suspenders myself, being something of a prude in the underwear department. The suspenders presented themselves afterwards. They would not be ignored.
It struck me while writing the piece that violence can insinuate itself into our lives in the most subtle ways. The violence of a Church that takes the money of unsuspecting parishioners to pay for crimes perpetrated by its members against children. The violence of political organisations that, by refusing to speak the truth, condone the unspeakable. The violence of a million magazine photographs holding up an ideal of what we should look like. What we could look like. If only we emulated the likes of Liz Hurley and ate just one meal a day. "I starve myself," she admitted recently. You go, girl. Or something.
Self-harm, no matter how good it looks in a bikini, is still harm. And it got me thinking. About how peer pressure is another kind of violence. At first glance an innocent kind. Are those trainers Nike or No-Name? How many cars are in your parents' drive? How much credit do you have in your phone? And the big one. Have you had sex yet? No? You'd better do it quickly. You'd better do it now.
In her childhood, when a woman like Julie said yes she sometimes meant no. It's a minefield. You'd want to be Superman to hear that word, any word, when it's being screamed inside. It's far easier to spot the bruises on a woman who has a habit of walking into doors than to detect self- inflicted sexual wounds. These wounds are inflicted all the time, though, across society, and do as much damage as more recognisable forms of abuse. In my monologue Julie's life is changed forever by her first sexual experience. That experience spawned a lifetime of sexual misadventure, and it's only as a married woman that she comes even close to understanding that.
Dublin has a roaring trade in alternative sexual remedies and a variety of places you can visit to buy potions designed to put spice back in a spice-free life. I'd heard hilarious stories of furtive trips to Asian medical centres for all kinds of herbal Viagra, and this helped me bring a comic angle to what is essentially a tragic tale. More women than you might expect, women who you'd imagine have healthy libidos, are looking for help in this area, for reasons ranging from stress to self-loathing. Julie is just another one. At the end of the monologue she stands shivering late at night at a window, one step closer to understanding her predicament. She is wearing suspenders. Her bruises are on the inside.