Reading · I am fine, really

I was with my boys. When I am with the boys, three things always happen. My voice gets deeper, my laugh gets louder, and my back becomes the sweet spot for a lot of hard pats. I love the boys. They are funny in a childish way, and they say I’m one of them. I suspect I got this membership because of my sexual orientation and the size of my biceps. There are times, though, when the size of my biceps is not enough for me to understand them. There’s still this line that even hypertrophy cannot erase. They don’t see it because they think I like women the same way they do. But I know I don’t. I understand the 0-to-10 method for rating my English grammar, but I don’t get the point of using it when talking about boobs. I definitely do not feel this calling to announce that there’s an attractive woman near the group as if we were war messengers. And I certainly don’t possess their ability to bounce a ball on their head more than three times.

When we were done playing with dick-shaped water pistols, I thought we were going home. But suddenly, Marco pulled out his phone to show us a picture. I started holding my breath. Then someone said, “TWINS, BRO! HAHAHA.” And someone else added, “What a dream.” So I took the little air I had left in my lungs and used it to ask, with the seriousness of an adult and the innocence of a child, “So your dream is having twin girls, bro?” He laughed. “Come on, María. You know what I mean.”

I knew exactly what he meant. But in a deeper sense, I don’t. And I never will. Under any circumstances. No matter what, or who, or when. Ever. For any reason whatsoever.

I started thinking about my sister. There are two moments in her life that she will probably never recover from psychologically. The first was watching Game of Thrones when she was ten years old. Not because of the slaughter, but because of the twins having sex. The second was meeting a guy who shared the same dream as my friend. We were in London. Happy, innocent, and teenagers. A guy asked us if we were twins, the way someone asks a waitress whether the salmon is fresh. We smiled and said yes because we thought he was just making conversation. We didn’t realize he was ordering from the menu. We’ve always lied about being twins. Mostly because it’s funny. And honestly, it’s close enough. Sometimes I think the three-year age gap between us is just an unfair advantage life gave me.

I am deeply terrified of two things: the idea of having sex with your twin sister, and the people who think that’s hot. So I kept asking questions. I needed to know what was going on inside his mind. I didn’t discover what was inside it. Instead, I discovered what wasn’t. And I think that’s much more interesting. Empathy. I was standing there, horrified by the idea of two siblings in the same bed. He hadn’t even thought about that. This friend of mine has a brother. So I asked him how he would feel if someone wanted exactly the same thing, but with him and his brother. He immediately made a horrified face. So now we knew something. He didn’t like the idea of incest. So how could incest be his fantasy?

“It isn’t incest,” he said.

Then he stopped.

He described this twin fantasy as having sex not with one attractive partner, but with two identical ones.

He wasn’t thinking about incest. Thinking about the relationship between the sisters would require recognizing them as people. In his fantasy, the twins had gone through a process of depersonalization. They couldn’t be sisters because they weren’t people. And to him, they were nothing.

I am really tired of women being nothing. I am sick of women not existing. We do. Our existence shouldn’t stop at our beauty, the size of our boobs, or having an identical twin. Not at the clothes we wear, the people we have sex with, or the people we don’t. Nor the things we say, or how loudly we say them. Not at our sexual orientation, our intelligence, our innocence, our hair—on our heads, arms, legs, or vagina—and definitely not our damn siblings. Even if they are younger, older, or identical. Even if we share the same face but wear different glasses. Or we don’t look anything alike because I got Dad’s eyes and you got Grandma’s nose. All these things should be irrelevant concepts when placed next to a woman. We can use them to describe a woman, never to define her.

Women, we want to take off our clothes, not our souls. How can symmetry be more important than a woman? I would rather you be a sick man than a man who doesn’t respect women. I would rather you insult yourself than me.

I cannot explain what being a woman is. I am happy if I can simply be one. Because for a really long time, I couldn’t. My grandma taught me how to be a lady because she never wanted me to be a woman. Being a lady is talking quietly and only when it’s required, taking up little space. Being a lady is more about what you cannot be than what you actually can.

Someone said to me the other day, “You have to be happy because now women are being seen.” I said nothing at the moment. Later, in the shower, I drafted this answer: First of all, I don’t have to be happy. I’m not five years old being forced to eat broccoli. Second: who said we wanted to be seen? And who exactly is seeing us?

I don’t want to be seen by you. I don’t want to do what you do. I don’t want you to cut the cake in two and give me one half. I just want to want things I don’t even know about yet. I want everything to be on the table so I can choose, instead of on your plate. Because I’m hungry. I’ve been starving for years. And I definitely do not want to have sex in the same room as my sister. And if you fantasize about that, then I want to call you a pervert.

All this feminist awakening I was having got interrupted in a second.

“Now that I’m thinking about it, it is weird. But the threesome with twins is a classic, right, guys?”

This is the last thing my friend with the identical-twins threesome fantasy said to the group.

It’s not a classic for women. Nor is the hyperfixation on lesbians. You jerk off to two women making out. I’ve never done that with two guys. If I see a gay couple, I assume I’m going to get a laugh with them and, most likely, a proper dance, not a wank.

It honestly doesn’t surprise me that this fantasy is much more common with female twins than male twins. Not because I think men are crueler. I think women are easier to depersonalize. Easier to empty out. And I cannot even begin to understand how something as spectacular as a woman can be so easy to empty out.

Marco got me out of my head and back into reality by hitting me in the eye with water. How do you have that kind of aim? He always hit my eye, and it’s not funny because it hurts. “Practice,” he said. “The more you practice, the easier it gets.”

His answer seemed to explain more than his aim. I know we are not less intelligent, less complicated, or less real. But I also know that people become remarkably good at the things they practice.

This one goes out to every woman who has ever felt depersonalized in any way, at any point. And to all the identical twins out there. Feel free to share your story, your rage, vent, or whatever you need in the comments. I’ll be reading every one closely <3

the twins were never sisters

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