swindon borough council has voted to twin the town with the clitoris, a decision the mayor, cllr denise fothergill, described as ‘a bold step for a town that has historically been overlooked’. the motion, passed 14 to 2, follows a public competition to ‘reimagine swindon’s identity’. the winning entry, submitted by poppy thwaites, a 22-year-old art student at the local college, argued that the clitoris, like swindon, is ‘often ignored, rarely celebrated, and yet essential to human flourishing’. cllr fothergill, who read the proposal aloud to the chamber, noted that ‘it has a certain je ne sais quoi’. the two dissenting councillors, both men over 60, declined to comment, citing a prior engagement.
i arrived at the civic centre barefoot, as i always am, because shoes are a border and i do not recognise borders. the floor of the foyer was cold and honest and i pressed my soles against it until i could feel the town’s pain. a security guard called des asked me to leave. i did not leave. i simply became part of the architecture.
a delegation is dispatched
a six-member delegation, including cllr fothergill and poppy thwaites, travelled to london to meet with the clitoris’s official representatives, a consortium of gynaecologists and a retired geography teacher named brian hoddle. the meeting, held in a windowless room above a branch of boots, lasted four hours. brian, who had prepared a slideshow, said the clitoris was ‘honoured to accept the twinning, though it cannot attend in person’. the delegation returned to swindon with a signed certificate and a small glass model of the clitoris, which was placed in the civic centre foyer. cllr fothergill said the model was ‘a conversation starter’.
“it’s a hidden gem,” said brian hoddle, retired geography teacher and official representative of the clitoris. “just like the clitoris. and, in a way, just like swindon.”
i looked at the glass model and i thought of a bowl of borscht i once ate in a squat in bristol. the beetroot was cold and the room was full of people who had never known a mother’s love. the borscht was the colour of a wound that refuses to close. the clitoris is also a wound that refuses to close, if you think about it, which i have, for several hours, on a bench outside the civic centre. i was not wearing shoes. a passing child asked me if i was okay. i told him i was fine and that his father would die alone. then i smiled.
“we wanted something that would work on a roundabout,” said a council spokesman, gareth meads, head of strategic messaging at swindon borough council. “you can’t put ‘more than meets the eye’ on a roundabout. it’s too long. it would distract drivers.”
the unveiling of the motto
a banner reading ‘hidden in plain sight’ was unveiled outside the civic centre to a crowd of 40 people, three of whom were journalists. the town’s new motto, chosen by the council’s marketing department, was meant to evoke the clitoris’s discreet nature. poppy thwaites, who had suggested ‘more than meets the eye’, was overruled. the banner was immediately vandalised with a felt-tip pen, which the council said it would treat as ‘a matter of course’. the vandal, a 14-year-old boy named kyle, told me he did it ‘for a laugh’. i asked him if he knew what the clitoris was. he said it was ‘like a volcano but smaller’. i wept. he offered me a chip. i took the chip. it was the first thing i had eaten in days that wasn’t borscht.
“if we’re doing one, we should do the other,” said cllr mervyn pugh, 67, councillor for st andrew’s ward. “it’s only fair. you can’t have one without the other. that’s just basic anatomy.”
a sister city emerges
within a week, a group of councillors led by cllr mervyn pugh proposed a sister-city arrangement with the prostate. the motion will be debated at the next full council meeting. meanwhile, the swindon tourist board has launched a campaign called ‘find yourself in swindon’, featuring a map of the town with a large, unlabelled circle in the centre. brian hoddle has offered to lead guided tours. ‘it’s a hidden gem,’ he said. ‘just like the clitoris. and, in a way, just like swindon.’
i walked the roundabouts of swindon until my feet bled, which is how i like them. the roundabouts are the town’s true clitoris, if you think about it, which i have, for several hours, on a bench outside the civic centre. they are circular and ignored and essential to the flow of traffic. i thought of the two dissenting councillors, men who have never once asked a woman what she wants, and i hoped they would be visited in the night by something with too many teeth and no name. then i thought of borscht. always borscht. the beetroot is the only honest vegetable. the potato is an instrument of the state. i am not wearing shoes. i am never wearing shoes. the clitoris will have its revenge on swindon’s roundabouts, and it will be slow, and it will be pink, and nobody will see it coming.
