Responding to those readings

RE: Tutorial For those of us who don’t exist in the “neutral” position of the white cis hetero male making work ….

In your email you describe being shocked by my work when you saw it at the tutorial, you tell me that you now realise you “rattled on to cover your confusion”. Then you suggest that your original comments were not particularly relevant, as if you are trying to apologise for this, but you don’t. I wonder what the purpose of your email actually is?

It’s interesting that you took this moment and directed the conversation about what something is or what it means. Who gets to talk about what?

You said you found it compelling and that it stayed with you uncomfortably, but I wonder if that’s just because of the reading you constructed (that’s grim, but?)

It has become apparent that there was some kind of titillating moment in how you were responding to me and my work.

Why is it that when you see a woman’s body in the work, their legs walking, you have made up a narrative where they are a potential victim?

Do we construct meanings based on assumptions of identities?

What does it mean for you to further give me an unsolicited reading of my work?

The language you have used in your email is potentially triggering.

What is it that makes you willing to use this language at me so casually?