![]() ![]() I approached Helen Oyeyemi’s short story collection What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours with all of this narrative baggage in my mind. The list goes on, with storytellers moving gracefully between active and passive voices in a kind of dance where consent perhaps lies somewhere in between. These days, my thoughts on consent still filter through canonical bodies: Daphne, desperately fleeing Apollo’s sexual advances, loses ownership of her body in a different way when she transforms into a laurel tree Zeus impregnates Danaë as a sudden shower of gold. ![]() ![]() Before I even learned how to read, the body was the original plot device. This notion of control is about more than just “good and evil”-in core childhood narratives, elements of magic constantly compromise the bodily autonomy of women, from the prick of your finger on an enchanted spinning wheel to the loss of your voice in exchange for legs. When we tell stories about magic, it’s easy to forget that we’re not just exploring the marvelous and mystical, but also illustrating the dynamics of power and control, the dominance of certain forces over others. ![]()
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