Frida sighed as she sank into her seat.
She had been the first black woman to earn a doctorate in Experimental Psychology from Miskatonic University. The first woman in her family to graduate from college. She'd had to claw for every ounce of respect she'd ever received, subvert multiple attempts to sabotage her career and brush off countless microaggressions.
She'd kept going with the knowledge that by studying the psychology of submission and masochism, she could aid other women in the black community by unpacking centuries of oppression and internalized shame. She'd studied under the most eccentric of experts (all male), developing her very own hypnosis techniques to strip away the layers of social convention and innate inhibitions to allow the brutal truth to be laid bare. She'd fully intended to tear off the shackles which so tightly gripped so many women like her.
Instead, she was doing this.
"Barbara, right?" Frida began, glancing at the clipboard of notes in her hands. "Well, why don't we start with your childhood?"
Barbara giggled. "Oh my god, like, you can totally call me Barbie, doc! Like basically everyone does, OK?"
"I would prefer not to." Frida said very pointedly, starring at her notes and not at Barbara.
"Oh, please! Please!! When you call me Barbara, you make me sound like an old woman!"
Frida cringed as she conceded to her newest patrons' wishes. "Okay, Barbie..."
"Fantastic! Now we have to come up with a nickname for you! Ohhh...how about Cueball since you've got that like, super sexy, frizzy afro?"
Frida struggled not to throw up at the notion. "Let's focus on you for now, okay?"
"Sure thing. So, like, I grew up in the Valley, just like...amazing right? My mom did make-up for all these famous actors so I like, totally got to hang out with them through my whole childhood...all my friends at school were like, so jealous, they could die. So basically, I like, know everyone in Hollywood, I was like destined to be a star!"
Barbara's voice ground against the inside of Frida's skull. She was everything that Frida despised about white women. A busty moron with big obviously fake tits and obviously dyed blonde hair. The kind of vapid whore whose mere existence acted not only to further the Patriarchy, but to make women like Frida hate their bodies. Not only that, but from her designer handbag and rhinestone studded sandals, she was clearly rich as shit. Probably a gold-digger, the kind of woman who didn't realize that blowing someone for a marriage proposal was degrading to her whole gender.
Frida never would been forced to stoop to catering to such women and their ridiculously minute problems, if her own ambition hadn't ended up biting her in the ass. Her first attempt to use her advanced techniques to help someone had backfired so badly that her reputation had been utterly destroyed, forcing her to move west and take this position as a "cosmetic therapist", listening to the banal bullshit of models and actresses with no conception of what difficulty was.
"What about your father?" Frida asked, pressing her nails into her notebook.
"Oh, like he's the best! He's a car salesman and he got me like, my first Maserati. And his mistress...my godmother...she like totes introduced me how to like, flirt and pick-up guys."
"His...mistress?" Frida was suddenly very confused. She raised her eyes from the notes, but her gaze never got high enough to meet Barbara's gaze. Instead, she was drawn instinctively to her client's massive white breasts.
Blushing, she lowered her eyes back to her notebook quickly.
"Oh yeah! She's like, a second mom to me...she like, totes helped me out when I was like, in high school. She's like, totes a girlboss, she just like, takes whatever she wants and like, doesn't worry about it."
"You're friends with your father's mistress..." Frida said, struggling to push the image of Barbara's cleavage out of her mind.
"Of course! It's like, totally like, not that weird, y'know? I mean, my mom and my dad they like...totes couldn't like, had probs with their sex life. They like, needed a third right? I'm trying to get my boyfriend to like, agree to let me like, have someone on the side as well. That's like, why I came to this session with you."
Frida shook her head. "You don't think that might have been humiliating, for your mother, I mean, to have to share the man she loved?"
"Like, only if she was like, super possessive or something. I mean, like, what kind of bitch like, holds onto a man when she knows she can't satisfy him. That like, can't be healthy for your relationship, right?"
Frida shook her head. "Yes, but..."
"What like, you think they should have like, gotten a divorce and like, totally ruined my whole childhood instead?"
Frida, who had grown up in a broken home and experienced much worse than divorce during her formative years took a deep breath. "This isn't about me..."
"Oh, good! Cause like, I'm paying a lot for this session, and I really don't feel comfortable spending that much money if you're going to like, turn into some Karen on me."
Frida stood up. "I'm not...I don't...obviously, I'm not trying to
shame
you..."
"Really? Because it like, kinda sounds like you were. It sounds like you were like, saying that I should be ashamed, and my mom should be ashamed and like, honestly, I expected better from you...I heard you were supposed to be this like, super-big feminist or whatever, and it really just sounds like you hate women from what you just said."
Frida struggled to find her way out of the morass of absurdism into which she had apparently fallen. Deciding that Barbara clearly didn't react well to aggression, she opted to go for a gentler route. "Listen, I asked you the question because I'm trying to get you to reflect on how you view women. Right now, it sounds like you think that just because your mother..." Frida couldn't believe she was having this conversation. "...just because she couldn't sexually satisfy your father, you think it was alright for him to cheat on her, which is a very misogynistic line of reasoning, because it turns women into sexual objects."
"Oh my god, like, I wish, right? I mean, who wouldn't want to be, like, a sexual object?" Barbara said, her cheeks turning pink as she laughed. Frida's gaze was drawn again in that moment to Barbara's chest, as if by some invisible force.
Frida looked away again and struggled to articulate her point so that this airhead would understand it. "No...listen to me. When men treat women like sexual objects, when women treat themselves like sexual objects, they demean all women by making them seem...dumb."
"That like, totes doesn't make any sense." Barbara said. "Like are you saying that like, having sex makes you dumb?"
"No! I just mean...men don't value you for your intelligence or your personality, they value you for your body." Frida said.
"Well, duh, why do you think I like, got implants?" Barbara asked with a toothy grin, shaking her chest for emphasis. "They're like, not as sensitive now, but they are so soft. OMG, my boyfriend like, totes loves to suck on them. He like, never used to do that before. When I get a sidepiece, they like, totes HAVE to be a tit-sucker."
"That's not...listen to me, it's fine that you...chose...to change your body and its fine that you enjoy sex, but when you downplay that other people don't want to be objectified, you make it seem like it's alright for men to treat them like you want to be treated."
"So...just because some frigid bitches don't like, want to have sex, I'm supposed to like, stop showing off my fucking tits?"
Frida struggled to suppress the urge to strangle the bug-eyed bimbo. "No, listen to me...when you're older, you won't be as...sexually attractive as you are now."
"Says you!" Barbara said. "My godmother is over seventy and she's still like, a total smokeshow."
"No but...listen, you're contributing to an unrealistic standard, that women exist to please men. It's called complementarianism."
"I mean like...our bodies do exist to make them happy right? I mean, like, my pussy is designed for a dick to be in it, isn't it? And my tits, they are designed to feed milk to babies...the same thing like, exists for you, right? Like, there isn't part of me which like, doesn't exist to get fucked."
Frida felt like she was going insane. "Okay, but let's imagine that you do get older and your metabolism slows down. You're not as young as you used to be, you're not as athletic, you don't have as much sex. Aren't you going to feel awful when you see some young girl like yourself, strutting around, desperate male attention, knowing that you aren't going to get that attention yourself, because you aren't as sexually attractive anymore? Don't you want men to value you and give you attention for things besides your body?"
Barbara frowned. "Like, why should I? I worked hard on my body, I spent a lot of money to like, make it better. I didn't go to a college like you did...if someone treated you like your body is the only thing that matters, you would like, totes be in the right to be upset because you're like, super smart or whatever."
Sensing they were on the verge of some kind of breakthrough, Frida jumped on those words. "Right! But Barbara, you should value things besides your body. All women should, so that women who aren't as athletic or traditionally attractive don't hate their bodies for being different."
"So, I like, shouldn't be hot, because it'll make less hot girls feel bad?" Babara raised an eyebrow. "That's like, totes not fair! They should just like, be more confident about like, their bodies and junk instead of blaming mine."
"No, but listen, you think that you need male attention to be happy, but you don't...if you work on yourself-"
"So, like, should you like, pretend to be less smart so that dumb people don't like, feel bad?" Barbara asked.
The irony was not lost on Frida, who was beginning to feel like she was going insane. "No! It's about the image you're projecting about women as a whole!" Frida said.
"That's like, total BS. You like, make a ton of money, don't you?" Barbara asked.
Frida paused. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"You like, make a lot of money, right? I mean, like, this session was not cheap." Barbara said.
"Yes! Well, I have student loans, I don't keep most of it..."
"Right! But like, you're better off than most people like you in this country, right?"
Frida's hands tensed. "What do you mean, people like me?"
"I mean like, most black people aren't like, super wealthy right?" Barbara said. "Like because of oppression and stuff."
"Yes, I mean...technically, but that doesn't-"
"So, like, should you like, not be rich because it makes other black people feel bad?" Barbara said. "Should you like, pretend that you're like, poor or something?"
"You don't know what you're talking about." Frida said through her teeth.
Barbara didn't seem to notice her tone. "I think it's like, the same exact same thing...I mean, like, there are more women in the world than black people, right?"
Frida turned away, unable to answer such a bafflingly stupid question without screaming.
"So, like, why should I like, have to represent every woman in the world if you don't like, represent all black women?"
"Look, this isn't about
