At the request of the Flemish-Dutch House deBuren eighteen young Flemish and Dutch authors each brought a painting from the Rijksmuseum back to life. They wrote a new text about an old work from the Gallery of Honour, based on one key question: what do you see when you look at these paintings through gender glasses? A still life with cheese, that’s all Sanne Pieters needs to dissect gender roles. ‘I watch you a lot: you and that favourite cow of yours. When you milk her. When you touch her.’
Sanne Pieters (b. 1993) is a writer and literary programmer. She studied Creative Writing at ArtEZ Institute of the Arts and is studying Sociology at Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam with a special focus on sociological concepts in modern literature. She is a member of the art collective Touchy Studios, who have had their art selected for The Startpoint Prize Europe and MOAM 2019 and shown at Les Recontres d’Arles and in FOAM. Sanne also works at the literary organisation SLAA and has a regular column in Ad Valvas, VU Amsterdam’s newspaper.
© Rijksmuseum / © Marianne Hommersom
Milked Out
At first I thought I’d found the ideal man. Non-masculine, his skin as smooth as butter, his tongue tentative, modest almost. He’s a passionate cheesemaker, I’d tell people with pride. He even has a favourite cow.
During our love-making you’d ask:
Is this okay?
Does this feel all right?
Do you like this?
You see, I thought. There’s another way.
*
More and more often I visit subReddit RedPillWomen. RedPillers believe that traditional male-female roles are the only way of keeping a relationship healthy.
RedPillWomen call their men ‘Captain’. They make them breakfast and advise one another to shut the fuck up in case of relationship problems.
In the thread Where To Find Masculine Men??? someone was worried that her fiancé’s dairy consumption was having an effect on his oestrogen levels.
She said: I feel like he’s growing man boobs, like, mentally. He constantly wants to talk about feelings. I no longer feel attracted to him, the thought of having sex makes me wanna 🤮!
*
I watch you a lot: you and that favourite cow of yours. When you milk her. When you touch her. You don’t ask her if it’s okay, feels all right, or if she likes it. On the contrary.
To her you say:
Stand still.
Do as I say.
Keep quiet.
When she balks, when she doesn’t want to be milked, you roughly push her legs apart. Her udder a full, round breast between her legs. Teats like penises, between thumb and index finger, the other fingers follow, you squeeze and squeeze and do it all over again. Till the very last drop.
I checked on YouTube how to milk a cow. She needs to be completely milked out, according to the farmer’s wife with the check shirt and strong American accent.
You pant, look down on her with pride and wipe your hands. Your eyes are fiery and dangerous. I’m looking at a man. A captain. I knew it.
*
On Reddit they’re saying that I should ask you what your kink is. ‘Allow your Captain to be in control,’ stilettos102 says. ‘Train him how to treat you.’
This morning I prepared you breakfast. Bread and cheese, honey, nuts, apples and grapes. You’ve just been with her, I can smell it. Listen, I say, tonight I want you to grab me by the horns. Force me to do things that will keep me awake for hours. Check me, turn me over, slice me open and sell me.
You look at me and say: ‘Darling, newsflash: those kinds of things are just not done any more in 2019.’
*
I just bought something online. It wasn’t easy to find something suitable. There were so many ridiculous costumes. Unflattering inflatable get-ups with hoops around the hips.
I was looking for a tight outfit with firm teats that look full of fluid. Fleshy jugs, the kind you want to slowly wrap your hands around, that you want to squeeze dry. I obviously don’t want to look like a complete idiot later.
What’s your kink, milkman?
I think I know what’s yours: you like your women completely milked out.