Rumpus Exclusive: An Excerpt from Tessa Fontaine’s The Electric Woman
Sometimes a story suddenly changes.
...moreBecome a Rumpus Member
Join NOW!Sometimes a story suddenly changes.
...moreTessa Fontaine shares a list of books to celebrate her forthcoming debut memoir, The Electric Woman.
...moreKnow that you will be whole only when you run behind the curtain to slide yourself between the wooden planks of the next box, only when nobody is looking at you.
...moreWhat is this body if you take its power over you away? In the torture arts, you are both the creator and recipient of your pain.
...moreWhat does not occur to me at the moment of this bloodlust, will not until much later, is that I am actively seeking the violence. I want to witness the worst.
...moreSideshows themselves are a place where people come to see a public display of their private fears. Fear of deformity, of a disruption of the gender binary, of mutation, of disfigurement, of a crossover with the animal world, of being out of proportion.
...moreWe start by lighting parts of ourselves on fire that are easier to put out than our faces. Hands, to begin.
...more