2026 Henna Timanttimetsä
What is a feeling? A physical body constantly receives messages from within—they are experiences that speak through us. The body is always communicating. What these messages tell us is fascinating, and the question is how much we should listen to our feelings. I have a feeling of laying on the sofa all day, not a good idea for many days in a row.
The accuracy and power of feelings in our lives is a central issue. Some people are very passionate and explosive, while others are stoic, in control but feel no less. Whether we show or suppress emotions—whether we talk about them or not—varies greatly. Feelings come and go throughout the day, and now we have the time and resources to monitor, discuss, and act upon them.
They are signals, constantly present and often uncontrollable. That is why self-control has traditionally been seen as a virtue, it still is. At the same time, victimhood is often valued—it demands empathy and can even resemble an industry. By putting oneself out there emotionally, one can provoke reactions and find interest.
Displaying emotions can become a skill: being perceived as emotionally expressive is interesting, more alive. Feelings can be demanding; they seem to call for a response, something others can relate to or hate. Hate and love. But one must be careful about how emotions are expressed—why, and to whom. So far, showing of emotions has been a sign of weakness. Today there is a rebellion against this old way of thinking.
This kind of emotional presentation can also be seen as a form of manipulation, sometimes stereotypically described as a “feminine” skill. “Feeling like a woman,” or living as a woman, can be interpreted as a kind of theater—though, in truth, living as a human being is always, in some sense, performative.
Conversation about womanhood goes round on feeling like a woman, which sounds very hormone-based and makes one wonder about the legitimacy of feelings, which part is feminine and which is manly—what kind of testimony or proof feelings are of anything? Authenticity, emphathetic, approacable, all positive characteristics, human and not a robot. So far, feelings haven’t provided evidence unless they are very extreme, or they simply haven’t mattered—at least mine haven’t. Feelings are belittled; they don’t count, I have learned. Something has changed and we are all in public therapy where recognizing, understanding and showing of feelings is essential. Are there people whose feelings matter more? Of course there are. They are very sensitive.
Thinking about how much shame a female body carries or holds, and must endure to this day. Femininity has been seen as a sign of a slut—and still is for many—so the idea of “feeling like a woman” confuses me: what does it actually feel like? So many people have thought about and discussed what a woman is, and many point to femininity—body parts that must be present, shaped and sized in certain ways. Is that the feeling: round, soft, penetrable, fleshy, with fat in the “right” places? A dress and heels? Hmm, that sounds like a fetish.
There is a plethora of videos on YouTube about how trans people and others undergo a lot of plastic surgery—one procedure after another—to become “perfect dolls.” Often, the desire is to look artificial. But there is a limit to how much the body can endure before things go really wrong: the nose can develop necrosis, silicone can leak, fat can travel into veins, implants leak and move etc. It becomes a horror show and to go big with lips, breasts and behind is a yearning. Some doctors refuse to perform BBLs, but astonishingly, there are plenty of doctors who will operate on every whim a client has, desires, is obsessed with. Obsessed and excited are the hype words that tell of this time: feelings are there, not reason, a constant craving and filling of it. Looksmaxxing https://youtu.be/3YvWfJGb2Qc?is=0hhXvWo5JiC9qr38
The human desire to go as far as one possibly can is something that unites the sexes. Our dreams of being a perfect human—the best of all—and letting everybody see. Is it ambition, innovation, or greed? An easy way is to be able to buy the assumed perfection, image to match. What is the sexed feeling there? Sex that is a feeling. It has been long the thought that women are more emotional. It could be that we are allowed to show feelings more openly. Once one goes for the artificial look and endures a lot of pain and maybe fear, people’s judgments and looks, that bring pleasure, so the process is worth something like a lot of attention, feelings of success or failure happen and the need to do more as perfection doesn’t exist, there is a talking doll to look at. She is happy or sad, which makes a great reality show, all the things in a life that concentrate on looks and what it can bring. Everything. What it feels like, is what one wants, a kind of organized chaos. How I understand, the sentence ”feel like a woman” coming from man’s mouth, is about feeling and touching a woman, because even in science woman’s feelings, pain and fear, have been discarded to this day.
A call for authenticity is a desperate one, isn’t it? For anybody to stick out has been a risk. In attention economy it is monetized, extremes are therefore valued or is it just a large-scale freak show to see how far people go?
Bodies online, Oil pastel, 2026
Majakollektiivi Timanttimetsä 