The latest collection by the poet Hollie McNish is dedicated to anyone who has been “blamed, shamed, pressured, tortured, dehumanised, de-mothered over a man-made concept about your own body”. Virgin is a series of poems and prose stories aimed at busting myths and challenging stereotypes about sex and the body.
McNish tackles the persistently weird and outdated notions of innocence and purity around young women: “Do not tell me which touches have mattered the most / This is your obsession not mine.” In Send Nudes she notes how any shame about those who have sent “a snapshot of your body stripped autumn bare” lies with the person who broke trust by sharing or mocking it, and not with the sender.
McNish narrates and, as you’d expect from a poet and spoken word artist, she brings her entire self to her performance, as though she is in the room. Her reading is expertly paced, withering in places and full of tenderness and humour.
Elsewhere, she takes issue with the idea that men who have had lots of lovers are “Lotharios” who are good at sex, whereas women are “sluts”. And it is with a note of incredulity that McNish examines the expectation in certain communities that women must be virgins when they marry. It is, she notes, “property-related … instilled by those in power during times when a wife was quite literally, legally, a possession passed from father to husband”.
Further listening
Cursed Daughters
Oyinkan Braithwaite, WF Howes, 9hr 25min
Weruche Opia, Diana Yekinni and Nnei Opia Clark are the narrators of this time-hopping tale about a curse passed down through the women in one family that ensures all will be unlucky in love.
Vagabond
Tim Curry, Penguin Audio, 10hr 38min
This bracingly sweary memoir skimps on personal details but reveals much about the actor’s career, which peaked with the part of Frank-N-Furter in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
