Where is my Igor?

And...I keep dreaming about unavailable men

If you haven’t seen Anora Yet, Stop Reading. The film that just swept the Oscars? Go see it. Now. You’re welcome.

SPOILER ALERT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

The entire film was hilarious, heartbreaking, and enthralling, but it was the final 10 minutes that punched me in the gut. Repeatedly.

It was so obvious to me why Anora does what she does. I could feel, in my own body, every micro-decision she makes after Igor puts that four-carat diamond engagement ring in the palm of her hand. She looks at it. She looks at him, carrying her suitcases up to her front door. And in that micro-instant, a cascade of complex and competing emotions floods her body and brain. She defaults to what she knows best. Her only conceivable currency. Her sexualized, objectified body.

What transpires next sums up my entire sexual history since I was 13, when I had non-consensual sex with a boy much older than me. Wham, bam, thank you, miss. I had no idea what had happened. I still don’t know if it was rape. I was 13, so people tell me it was. But I didn’t fight. So technically, was it? I don’t know. But I do know this: I have carried a mountain of shame and confusion since that day. There was a before and an after. And that feels profoundly significant, no matter what I call it.

A Conversation with a Man Who Didn’t Get It

I was discussing Anora’s final scene with a man—a white, cisgender, heterosexual man who is somewhat oblivious to his privilege. His defensiveness is strong. He has also never been known for his ability to sit in discomfort—a skill I personally practice and teach because I believe it’s paramount to well-being in a world designed to keep us running, numbing, and distracting ourselves from grief, shame, and pain.

But that isn’t the digression I wanted to make.

This man was perplexed as to why Anora lashes out at Igor—not long after she straddles him seductively in the car, pulls down his pants, pulls up her skirt, and allows him to enter her.

"She seems to be enjoying it, no? Why would she get mad?" he asks.

Really?

He’s not the only man who didn’t get it. But I did. Immediately. And I know I’m not the only woman or femme-presenting person in the world who felt this switch in every fiber of her being. It was brutally, tragically, painfully obvious why she lashes out. I felt it in every bone of my body.

I weep every time he stops her—gently restraining her fury—until she crumples into the crook of his shoulder, finally finding enough safety in another person to be vulnerable. To be really full her. To express the suffering and grief that have always been right underneath her rage. The way he holds her head in his hand.

Dear God. If only… if only.

The entire communication between them in that scene is physical and emotional—no words, no explanations. Just a lifetime of relational trauma playing out in real time. The fact that there is no dialogue is pure cinematic and thematic genius. This was the Oscar-worthy moment.

Sean Baker, the writer and director—somehow, for being a man—knew how to show, without telling, the entire relational and sexual history of a majority of women in one scene. That history almost certainly contained, if not direct sexual abuse, then the “complex PTSD” of chronic relational abuse, neglect, and survival mechanisms.

He did his research. He listened to women. He knew he would never truly know—but he could show. And show he did. Brilliantly.

Breaking Down Anora’s Rage

Let’s break it down for anyone still confused about why Anora lashes out—and why Igor, in his deeply empathetic and compassionate way, simply holds her.

We are all raised in a patriarchal culture that teaches women and femmes to appease men. It is the dominant cultural fishbowl we swim in. And appeasement is generally always the safest option with someone bigger, more powerful, and angrier than you are.

I say that with 100% certainty.

I was trained to put men’s feelings ahead of my own. I watched my mother do it—repeatedly—to my stepfather and my older brother. It was all I knew. I was hyper-sexualized growing up—by my stepfather, my older brother, and his friends. I was shown porn at a young age and told I needed to “perform like that” if I wanted to be popular with boys. And I desperately wanted to be popular with boys. With anyone actually. I felt so invisible and that I did not matter. To anyone. I learned that love and desirability were the same thing.

So at 13, I followed a 19-year-old boy—a complete stranger—into a dank, dark back bedroom and let him do whatever he wanted to me. Without consent. Without a fight. I just did what I thought I was supposed to do. Lay there quietly and passively, and that was my first sexual experience, completely dissociated. And in the way that developmental trauma rewires the brain, my pubescent, growing mind made the synaptic connection that:

Love must be sex.

Sex must mean a man experiences the most pleasure possible.

My pleasure is not important.

Performance and performing well was my pleasure.

Checking-out made it bearable.

I didn’t know, until I was this years old (52 FFS), that it was even possible or potential for a man to prioritize my pleasure. I had no concept of that. And on top of that—what even is my pleasure? This is the basis of my deepest work currently and the theme of my emerging memoir, Deprivation Junky and hence why this Substack is called Abundance Whore.

Why Anora’s Final Scene Devastated Me

When I saw the final scene for the first time, I knew exactly what she was doing. My whole body felt every reason why.

After everything Igor had done—Making sure she had the scarf for the cold. Giving her the drink on the plane once she accepted Ivan was a loser. Offering her a cigarette that final night. And ultimately stealing the four-carat diamond ring— And giving it back to her, for her, even after she verbally abused him constantly… She instinctively knew she owed him something. So she turns around in the car. Takes off her coat. Looks at him. And makes the decision to give him what all men want— Her body.

Because she knows she’s good at it. Because she is good at performing. Because it doesn’t cost her anything. The original cost was decades ago if not many ancestors ago.

Igor Sees Her. And It’s Too Much.

For the first time in her life, a man isn’t calling her crazy. Too much. Too wild. He is telling her, with his eyes— You are safe with me. ALL OF YOU.

And that is fucking terrifying. So she lashes out. Because when safety is suddenly offered, every alarm bell in the body goes off. She doesn’t know how to accept that kind of presence. It is simultaneously a comfort and a threat. She hits him because her body doesn’t know what to do with it. And Igor? He doesn’t react defensively. He never loses eye contact. And that right there is the moment she surrenders. That is the moment she collapses into his arms, sobbing, as he pulls her in and places his warm, strong hand on the back of her head.

Where Is My Igor?

Any time I have ever expressed rage, anger, frustration, or disappointment to a man, I have been:

Dismissed.

Avoided.

Called crazy.

Abandoned.

I have lived in hyper-vigilance and appeasement for as long as I can remember. And so I ask—where is my Igor, when all I have known is Ivans? Would I even know an Igor if I met him? And if I did, would I lash out too? And would he stay? I don’t know.

But I do know this: I am instinctually attracted to Ivans, whether I want to be or not. But I am learning.

Ivans are on their own now.

For this Anora, the cycle ends here.

(with fingers crossed, lots of prayers, and a shit load of somatic body work to sit with the discomfort of NOT appeasing, baby steps, but I will get there, eventually and honestly - as I write this in a chic coffee shop I simultaneously am perfectly fine never meeting anyone ever again and being alone. It is truly delightful to be here, in my body, and in my own agency, with my kid, my cats, my writing, my teaching, my facilitating and the dancing I get to do with a host of amazing humans that more than fulfill my need for connection, comfort, and play)