{"id":165297,"date":"2023-08-31T10:18:34","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T14:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=165297"},"modified":"2023-08-31T10:18:34","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T14:18:34","slug":"men-not-allowed-beyond-this-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2023\/08\/31\/men-not-allowed-beyond-this-point\/","title":{"rendered":"MEN NOT ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Kenwood Ladies’ Bathing Pond, Hampstead Heath. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons<\/a>, Licensed under CCO 2.0.<\/p><\/div>\n

It was the full-body ache of our hangovers and the cigarette smoke stagnating in our hair that compelled us toward the pond. We were sat in the debris of a house party, on a sofa that had recently doubled as an ashtray, when Janique said we should go for a swim<\/span>. <\/span><\/i>I suggested the Kenwood Ladies\u2019 Pond, which is free of men and harsh chemicals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There are five ponds in a row on the eastern edge of Hampstead Heath. They run (from south to north): the Highgate No. 1 Pond, the Highgate Men\u2019s Pond, the Model Boating Pond, the Bird Sanctuary Pond,<\/span> and, finally, set slightly apart from the others and sheltered by trees, the Kenwood Ladies\u2019 Pond.<\/span> It is accessed by a long path, behind a gate with a sign that reads WOMEN ONLY \/ MEN NOT ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT. There are two holding pens off to the side of the path, one for chaining bicycles, the other for chaining dogs. There is no pen for young children, who are not (unlike dogs and bicycles) allowed past even the first gate. As we walked through the park, I regaled my North American companion with the pond\u2019s lore:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The women\u2019s pond is \u201ca transporting haven\u201d with a \u201cwholesomely escapist quality\u201d (Sharlene Teo)<\/span>. <\/span><\/i>To swim in its \u201cclean, glassy,\u201d (Ava Wong Davies) \u201cvelvety water\u201d (Esther Freud) is to \u201center a new state\u201d (Lou Stoppard)! (All of this comes from the 2019 essay collection <\/span>At the Pond: Swimming at the Hampstead Ladies\u2019 Pond<\/span><\/i>, in which every piece contains the verb <\/span>to glide<\/span><\/i>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

We arrived at the meadow, which, I assured Janique, is a haven of nakedness. On this particular afternoon, as we sat in the sun to change, I noticed that I was the only person who was actually naked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As we made our way to the water in our swimming costumes (the women are forbidden from swimming nude, or in our underwear), we heard the distinct voice of a veteran lifeguard, shouting to a group, changing on the dock: \u201cGIRLS! GIRLS! Don\u2019t change over there! There\u2019s a pervert who hides in the bushes wanking and we don\u2019t want to give him anything else to juice over!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I turned to Janique and offered a nervous smile. I had failed to mention the pervert, but she seemed unfazed. On the dock, the girls had wrapped themselves in their towels and were heading sheepishly into the shower block to finish changing. We lowered ourselves into the murky water.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Ladies\u2019 Pond is meant to be taken in pairs, in breaststroke, at a leisurely pace. This is not true of the Men\u2019s Pond, which seems always to be filled with companionless swimming caps darting about in a splashy front crawl. Our pond is slower, a place to chat and to listen:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s eighteen degrees in the pond today \u2026 it was twenty last week.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHave you got those special swimming shoes for winter?\u201d \u201cNo, not yet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh yeah, you just pop one in and shove it over.\u201d \u201cI didn\u2019t think it was that easy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you know what she was about to fucking do! She was about to leave that beautiful Greek island holiday and fly back to Gatwick, at God knows what hour, to cycle on a FUCKING LIME BIKE to that cunt Simon\u2019s house for a FUCKING HOUSE PARTY and he DOESN\u2019T EVEN FUCKING LIKE HER.\u201d\u00a0 The outraged woman\u2019s companion made various sympathetic mewing sounds. We pushed on.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHave you ever flown somewhere for a man who doesn\u2019t love you?\u201d Janique asked, once we were out of earshot. \u201cYep,\u201d I replied.<\/span><\/p>\n

For a while after that, we swam in silence. Two upturned Band-Aids float past. They were followed by an elderly woman swimming quickly. Her hair was kept dry by a plastic bag from Ryman, the popular chain that sells stationery. The bag was rigid, poking high above the water like a pharaoh\u2019s crown. She had fastened it to her scalp with duct tape.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The girls reemerged as we swam back toward the dock. There were three of them:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve decided I\u2019m going to get my first ever bikini wax when I go back to uni.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo they wax your ass?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a bikini wax, that\u2019s an ass wax, they\u2019re different.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI have such bad body hair.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t have bad body hair.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah you can, I do. I told my mum and she said, \u2018I\u2019ve never had that problem!\u2019 Like, thanks, woman.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019m getting my mustache lasered off.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo you wax your pits?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

One craned her neck to sniff her right armpit. \u201cGod, I stink.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Janique and I added ours to the queue of joggling heads trying to exit the pond\u2014treading water, inching forward, waiting patiently for the woman ahead to disengage completely from the steps before grabbing on to the rope-covered railings. A perfect round bottom whooshed out of the water in front of me. Attached to it was a graying HRT patch, which was just about hanging on.<\/span><\/p>\n

We padded to the shower block to rinse the algae off of our bodies. Tiny dots of it collect in intricate constellations across your breasts; bikini tops catch the stuff like a net. In the showers, postswim conversation was gentle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOoh, I\u2019ve got a ticket to see that lovely Mark Rylance in a play tonight.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBeth, did you pack that thermos full of tea?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were thinking of going away once Ben\u2019s settled into his new school.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A voice interrupted from outside. \u201cMary, did I leave my swimming leg in there?\u201d The showering women hushed. Sure enough, there was a prosthetic leg leaning against the wall, underneath the towel hook.\u00a0 \u201cGot it! It\u2019s right here!\u201d Mary grabbed the leg and the chatter resumed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As we left, the woman at the kiosk called up the path to a group of new arrivals.\u00a0 \u201cALL RIGHT LADIES, JUST TO WARN YOU, WE\u2019VE GOT MAINTENANCE GOING ON\u2014THERE\u2019LL BE SOME MEN COMING IN. THAT\u2019S RIGHT, THERE\u2019LL BE MEN IN OUR POND.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Molly Pepper Steemson\u00a0is a writer, editor and occasional sommelier from London.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHave you ever flown somewhere for a man who doesn\u2019t love you?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2404,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68673],"tags":[67827,31072,1050,23298,8005],"class_list":["post-165297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-overheard","tag-featured","tag-hampstead-heath","tag-london","tag-pond","tag-swimming"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMEN NOT ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT by Molly Pepper Steemson<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"August 31, 2023 \u2013 \u201cHave you ever flown somewhere for a man who doesn\u2019t love you?\u201d\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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