What is it about the pervert, the peeping Tom, the degenerate that I so desire? And what sparked it off so young? What does my desire say about me? Does it speak of my childhood, my upbringing, my parents, my siblings, my friends, my ex partners, my first time, my fears, my thought processes, my pathology?

Sometimes it seems so sick and predatory, and I am shocked by it. Is it safer because I don’t always enact it out, instead I live it through porn and literature and the art that I make. I obsess and fondle with dirty eyes that penetrate flesh as I stare from across the room.

I feel perverse as I salivate over all of the images before me, trawling the internet for things that stir the throbbing beast of my loins. I feel powerful in my desire, because it is hot, and sticky, heavy because it is my desire and not theirs. Because in my desire I objectify. And all I want to do is satiate my hunger. It feels primal and hard. I am reminded of my childhood, where all I cared about was the pursuit of my delicious golden goal as I gyrated against the upturned rumps of other children.

There is something about the pervert that I am intrinsically attracted to. As a 13 year-old girl I remember hearing a story about one of the older guys (he was 21) in the neighboring village, who had taken photographs of his 12 year-old sister whilst she was sleeping; he pulled up her nightie and stole a snapshot. This small, uninteresting, pale boy all at once became interesting to me. And so I began to pursue him. As I kissed him, I searched for the pervert in his eyes – I got myself into compromising situations, pissed in his bathtub, undid his belt in the darkness of the cinema, as I gnawed at his neck and hungrily accepted his noisy, sloppy kisses. But I never got a glimpse of that pervert, he was nothing but a sweet young guy who couldn’t believe his luck. I was disappointed.

A ‘pervert chaser’, perhaps that is what I am, but what is it exactly that I seek, and why? I have never really been that successful, in that they always disappoint. And I guess they have to be a certain type of pervert. A tender pervert, not just a simple deviant. Someone who will really savour his meat. Perhaps Nabakov described it best:

“You have to be an artist and a madman, a creature of infinite melancholy, with a bubble of hot poison in your loins and a super-voluptuous flame permanently aglow in your subtle spine, in order to discern at once, by ineffable signs—the slightly feline outline of a cheekbone, the slenderness of a downy limb, and other indices which despair and shame and tears of tenderness forbid me to tabulate—the deadly little demon among the wholesome children; she stands unrecognized by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power.” – Lolita

I like the fact that there is something that marks out the ‘nymphet’ (in this instance) from all others, a fragile seed that burns like a small fire that is only recognisable to a certain few. Carefully fetishized and turned over in the palm of a gentle hand. I feel that the degenerate possesses a similar kind of flame that is only discernible to those who are looking for it. And I feel at once as if I am both the hunter and the hunted and I savour meat for meat.