I recently read Self-Made Man, Norah Vincent’s non-fiction book about passing as a man for a year. It was… okay. Lots of stuff about how men’s lives often suck, men are cut off from their emotional selves, how the pressure to be a man can be crushing, expecting to initiate dating rituals bites, etc.. I agree with that, to a great extent. Patriarchy has always hurt the large majority of men.
I was a bit disturbed by the New York Times review, which said:
But “Self-Made Man” turns out not to be what it threatens to be, a men-are-scum diatribe destined for best-seller status in the more militant alternative bookstores of Berkeley and Ann Arbor. Rather, it’s a thoughtful, diligent, entertaining piece of first-person investigative journalism.
Let’s ignore all the anti-feminist stereotypes in that paragraph. (Remember how “liberal” the Times is supposed to be?) What I can’t figure out is, why would anyone expect Norah Vincent – who is, on most matters, a conservative – to write a “men-are-scum diatribe”? Vincent’s stuff written before this book can hardly be described as anti-masculine (apart from Islamic masculinity, of course).
Some people have questioned the honesty of Vincent’s narrative (in order to protect her subjects’ privacy, Vincent changes names and identifiable details). I don’t think she’s lying about having dressed as a man, or having joined a bowling league, a monastery, a men’s retreat, and so on. But she gives the reader the impression that living as a man caused her to endorse and admire conventional gender roles for men. In reality, her views pre-drag seem pretty much the same as her views post-drag, although you wouldn’t know that from reading Self Made Man.
Plus, Vincent seems to believe that the men she reports on represent all of masculinity. But virtually all the men she describes are White, and all of them are straight. All of them are working-class (except perhaps the monks) and macho. Many of them – the monks, and the men in the men’s retreat – have committed to environments that make sex segregation (and the ideologies that justify sex segregation) a big deal. But nothing in Vincent’s narrative indicates that she has much awareness that this is a book about some men, rather than a book about Men.
I’m not saying the men in Self-Made Man aren’t fascinating characters – they are, and Vincent does a good job fleshing them out. But even though I’m a man, the men Vincent hung out with – men who visit strip clubs regularly and go on John Bly-style male retreats and have Glengarry Glen Ross jobs – are just as foreign to me as they were to Vincent. The gulf between Vincent and these men contains a lot besides the male/female gulf, but Vincent seems unaware of that, and as the book goes on she increasingly chalks up all the differences she sees to biological determinism.
From the Salon review of Self-Made Man:
It’s undoubtedly brave and noble that Vincent tried to cross class as well as gender boundaries, but as aware as she is of that issue on the bowling team, I think the former category is more important than she realizes. Beyond the agonizing dating chapter, she never tries to pass for the kind of straight man she might already know, an urban guy with bobo-style, liberal-arts values and inclinations. (For that matter, she also doesn’t try to be a gay man.) In that context, I don’t think being a man is half as hard as she thinks it is, and whatever one thinks about the biochemical basis of sex and gender, the performance of gender roles is a lot more fluid than she depicts.
My personal experience as a man may have no more general applicability than Ned’s, but, hey, I’ve been a guy much longer than he has. If the legacy of feminism has complicated certain things about being a heterosexual male, I’m pretty happy with that. Maybe men still don’t “open up” as readily as women do, but the intense emotional self-censorship Vincent describes is not ubiquitous or unanimous.
Despite these limits, Vincent’s book is certainly a fun read, and although the male problems she describes aren’t ubiquitous, they’re real for too many men and certainly worth addressing.
Vincent’s description of the emotionless, mean sex played out in strip clubs is particularly affecting, and repulsive. As an aside, before reading this book I had no idea that men are actually supposed to ejaculate inside their pants during lap dances. (At the risk of seeming naive, I really didn’t know what a lap dance was – TV had given me the impression that a lap dance was just like a stage dance, only much closer). Let me just say: ewwww!
But at the same time, because I don’t go to strip clubs, I have no way of judging if Vincent’s depiction of strip clubs is accurate in general, accurate just for some clubs, or wildly off base. The same problem applies for Vincent’s description of male life: what she writes may be accurate for some men, but it’s not what all men experience (certainly not all the time), and I’m not sure that Vincent understands that. By focusing so closely on men who themselves seem to completely buy into and try to live out stereotypical masculinity, while failing to acknowledge any other ways of living are possible for men, Vincent seems to suggest that no other approaches to manhood are biologically possible.
* * *PLEASE NOTE* * *
My threads on “Alas” are heavily moderated. If you’d like to avoid that, you might prefer to leave a comment on the identical post at Creative Destruction.
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I have not read the book, but just reading your comments, this question occurred to me: did the author have access to these manly men when they were alone with women with whom they had intimate and substantive relationships? I suppose by definition, she could not have. In any case, if she did not, then her analysis lacks very strongly there too. My own experience with such men, though they did not fit exaclty the type of man described (I cannot imagine any of them even contemplating going on a men’s retreat, of all things), is that they can be quite different one on one with a woman.
The strip club thing was definitely one of the points at which the book fell down on a journalistic level. Having read and learned extensively about strip club culture, I think she was in Ohio — or one of the other absolute bottom-most worst states for dancers to work. What is involved in a lap dance or table dance DOES vary from location to location, and there are certain cities and states where stripping is very similar to prostitution (it seems to have more to do with local regulations than red-state-blue-state, and in general, the more restrictive the regulations are, the more likely a strip club is to be a prostitution front or similar: people will pay for dances at a distance of six inches, but no one will pay for dances at a distance of four feet, so four-foot rules are often the death knell for safe, sane & consensual moneymaking in the industry, because once the law is being broken, it’s a slippery slope.) But on a major stripper community with dancers reporting from every state and most countries, I recently saw a poll thread asking, “What would you think if a guy got off during a lap dance?” and the vast majority answered things like “Eww!”, “I’d charge a nuisance fee”, or “I sure wouldn’t dance for him again.”
I didn’t get the sense that she was chalking anything up to biological determinism. There was a deterministic aspect to her philosophy, certainly, but at a few points she came right out and said, “I don’t know whether this is due to biology or upbringing, but . . .” to preface an observation. She seemed to have a good grasp on the necessity of noting observations as subjective, too, which rather won me over: it was a very subjective book, and it would have been foolish for her to present it otherwise.
I think it may have something to do with homophobia. A lot of reviews and articles about the book mention that Norah Vincent is a lesbian, and the idea that lesbians are man-haters is unfortunately very common even among people who call themselves liberals.
I like your analysis of ‘Self-Made Man’ and agree that it shows how society’s expectations hurt men as well as women. I haven’t read the entire book, just some excerpts for a lecture about transsexuality. The professor’s views on it were similar to yours. But although there is a lot to object to in this book I hope it will get some people thinking about the disadvantages of strict gender roles and our cultural definitions of masculinity.
I haven’t read the book yet. From a Salon review, however, I gathered Vincent does not consider herself a transsexual, so I’m curious, Jeefie, in what context were the excerpts presented in a lecture on transsexuality? (I’m not affronted, just curious.)
In the early 90’s, when I transitioned from living as a woman to living as a man, insecurity compelled me to initially present as a more stereotypically macho guy. (By SF Bay Area standards.) It didn’t take me long, however, to relax into an effortless presentation which more closely represented my identity. Two factors facilitated this: transitioning among queer-identified ftm’s who made it easy to accept my own queer identity and entering a serious relationship with a gay “bio” man.
Mike, an intelligent, creative, funny, hip, feminist and very manly Latino guy absolutely accepted my masculinity, irrespective of my body. He understood (and appreciated) that my different life-history made me a different sort of man, but never doubted or questioned my identity as a man. This liberated me to just be me, without worrying if my gestures, manner of speaking, walk, likes/dislikes, sexual desires, and so forth were manly enough or too feminine. I came to understand that if I did it, or liked it, or thought it, or said it, that made it masculine because I was a man.
I’m not sure how quickly any of this would have happened had I not been fortunate enough to transition in an area where feminist men predominate and radical queer culture is widely embraced. (And been so lucky as to find Mike!) Thus, I strongly agree that presenting only straight, white men in a study that purports to represent all men is a serious flaw.
Hi brynn,
You’re right, she doesn’t identify as a transsexual. The lecture was (in part) about how gender roles influence our lives. We discussed Judith Butler’s idea that although recognisability makes life livable, for transgender people it may be the case that the terms by which they are recognised make life unlivable for them. The cultural standards of masculinity and feminity in the communities in which we live are so restrictive that many people, especially transsexuals, struggle to find their place in them. Norah Vincent’s experiences, particularly her taking part in an all-male bowling team, were mentioned as examples of ‘local shared practices’ in which masculinity is enforced, which may be harmful to men. Also the fact that men felt compelled to do ‘masculine’ things like getting into fights, even though they didn’t enjoy it at all and didn’t know why they did it in the first place, suggest that men have to learn masculinity. (That’s not Vincent’s conclusion but more or less the consensus in the lecture.) She wasn’t quoted as a transsexual author but rather as an interesting contrast to transsexual writers’ experiences.
I hope this makes sense :). I am not an expert at all, just interested, so it would be nice to hear what you think of it.
I think it is an accurate description based on the time I’ve spent in strip clubs where lap dances are commonly performed and reports such as this one.
The UK had no lap dancing clubs in 1995 and there are now an estimated 150 legal lap dancing clubs in the UK because like A.J. Luxton said, men will get away with whatever they can get away with and full body-rubbing contact is more desired by men than women 4 feet away or 6 inches away.
I also thought everyone knew “lingerie modeling” businesses are commonly called jack shacks and was surprised to hear a strip-club going friend who wanted to open her own sex toy store say she really thought they were for modeling new kinds of lingerie until hearing of police busts revealing rampant prostitution.
I have not read the book, but have read some of the reviews. It sounds like Vincent took an honest attempt at researching the world of men.
Unfortunately none of the reviews point to discussions of real personal relationships with the other sex. Just a few first hand interactions.
It would have been interesting to have her evaluate a marriage from a third party position to help readers understand some of the unique challenges faced by men based upon the sterotypes imposed upon us.
Regarding her review of the strip club. Based upon an ex’s firm insistence that I never step foot in one, I becam fascinated with them as a social study. After the divorce, I’ve befriended quite a few dancers in purely plutonic supportive roles. Unfortunately it seems that Vincent falls short of understanding the male intent when going to these establishments. This may be due to physical and chemical differences.
Simply put, men find themselves randomly aroused. When in relationships with women, sometimes we get overwhelmed with the seemingly unnecessary complexities and seek to find an environment which takes us back to the base nature of what arouses us. Successful strippers learn to create fantasies for their customers. Each customer has their own threshold for how far they need to go.
You can find clubs which entertain with simple air dances and you can find clubs which are mere fronts for prostitution. More and more, women are becoming frequent customers of strip clubs as they too are entertained by fantasy.
I strongly believe that gender is both learned and innate. Teasing out which for particular behaviour or traits is next to impossible because, among other things, it can vary from individual to individual. One man may fight and not know why due to some inner aggression which is linked to his body chemistry, while another my do it to prove to his mates that he’s macho, a third for a combination of both reasons, and a fourth due to learned bigotry or nationalistic reasons. And so on.
I’m glad to hear that Vincent wasn’t wrongly presented as identifying as transsexual. It indicates a level of comprehension and sophistication on the part of the instructor. The class sounds great!
azbballfan wrote:
I so wish I had the time to respond to this in detail because I think it is insulting to men, implying that we are, after all, only at the mercy of our hormones; and it is essentially the same rationale that I have heard some men use to justify pornography–I am thinking specifically of an essay by David Steinberg in Men Confront Pornography, edited by Michael Kimmel–in which pornography, by providing men with a necessary outlet for the sexual frustration we inevitably carry around with us, because we are so often so randomly aroused and unable to satisfy ourselves with the women who arouse us, becomes a thing which reduces the incidence of rape. Since I don’t have time, though, I will content myself with calling this out as the sexist and thinking that it is.
Richard,
Certainly we’ve proven to disagree on things before. While I’ll say that I clearly wasn’t speaking for you, I’m glad you shared your opinion.
And thank you for sharing your post on your own personal experience. While I respect your feelings and your need to consider yourself raped, I also reserve my right to not consider the experience a rape. I’d classify it as boorish behavior that seems to have seriously offended and scarred you, but wouldn’t put it in the same class of behavior I’ve seen others consider rape.
If that is the worst you’ve been treated by a woman, then I am jealous of you.
And I see no problem with allowing either gender accept and express thier gender based urges or desires. Personally, I consider this the opposite of sexist. Using these urges to opress anyone of the other gender is sexist. Finding a willing partner in crime who allows you to enjoy your urges is not sexist. It’s well, just sexy.
“While I respect your feelings and your need to consider yourself raped, I also reserve my right to not consider the experience a rape.”
Huh? He didn’t mention anything about personal experience with rape in his comment. What “experience” are you talking about?
“While I’ll say that I clearly wasn’t speaking for you”
You were generalizing about men, so you were in some small degree.
“And I see no problem with allowing either gender accept and express thier gender based urges or desires.”
He was objecting to your characterization of the nature of those urges, not saying they shouldn’t be expressed. Saying that men get “randomly aroused” is an assertion subject to valid disagreement and empirical validation.
from your first post:
“Unfortunately it seems that Vincent falls short of understanding the male intent when going to these establishments. This may be due to physical and chemical differences.”
As I understand you, you’re saying that due to basic physical differences, Vincent lacks the ability to understand what men’s intent is going to strip clubs. Now, I can also see where you might be intending to say that due to differences in perspective, many of them hormonal, Vincent happened to be unable to understand male intent in this intsance. The latter is plausible, the former sounds ridiculous. Clarification is welcome.
Also, what exactly do you mean when you say “randomly aroused”? And how is it different from female arousal? Do you have any non-anecdotal evidence?
azbballfan: As pdf has already said, you were, very clearly, speaking for men: “Simply put, men find themselves randomly aroused” and so you were, very clearly, speaking for me as well. If you meant to say that you often find yourself “randomly aroused,” then you should have said so in plain English.
More importantly, I am at a loss as to why you have introduced into this thread something I referred to in the thread on why women are so often assumed to be lying when they claim they have been raped. (I am typing very quickly and so I don’t have time to look up the link.) It has nothing to do with this thread and strikes me as a strategy for distracting attention from the critique I was making of your characterization of male heterosexuality.
For those who don’t know what I am talking about, or what azbballfan was referring to, I posted in that other thread a link to an entry on my blog called A Personal Story About Rape. What is most disturbing to me, and what makes your post, azbballfan, feel patronizing in the extreme, is that you have entirely misread the post, because the conclusion I come to there is that I was not raped.
pdf23ds,
I was referring to Richard’s post on his weblog about his encounter with a girlfriend who pushed him too far. Richard is eloquent and I don’t wish to bastardize his tale so I won’t discuss details. He links to his site, but I can’t find the earlier post. He couragously also recounts two stories of sexual assault by males.
Richard is an accomplished writer and poet and may have just sold another book today (to me) with his intriguing post. While I may have disagreements with Richard’s view of rape and sexism, I’d wish my daughter to have him as her teacher.
I was speaking for men who go to strip clubs and don’t assault the workers. I doubt if Richard frequents strip clubs or would enjoy the experience.
Regarding my reference to physical and chemical differences of men and women, yes I was referring to the differences in our hormones and the way we get aroused. I have not yet seen a study refuting the commonly held belief that men on average get aroused quicker than women.
Based on my limited observations and queries directed at relationship partners and friends of both sexes and multiple genders, I’d have to say that people are aroused by various and sundry stimuli which can sometimes occur at random, and while the stereotype is for women’s arousal to be mentally or emotionally driven and men’s arousal to be physically driven, this stereotype is NOT accurate all of the time (and in fact my spouses, and many other people I’ve dated, have it exactly backwards-way-around: but then I also date people who identify as gender-atypical. I seem to get along with them for some reason, ha ha.)
Apart from the generalisation of this statement, I just read it as a rationalisation for men’s objectification of women.
First, “sometimes we get overwhelmed with the seemingly unnecessary complexities and seek to find an environment which takes us back to the base nature of what arouses us,” is a statement which, I believe, applies to both men and women, albeit perhaps with differing frequency.
Having experienced arousal with both female and male testosterone levels, I’d say testosterone definitely intensifies a person’s sex-drive. With female levels of testosterone, I rarely felt >i>driven to pursue sex. For the most part, I could take it or leave it. Now, my desire tends to begin as a mild hankering which builds over time to full-fledge lust, similar to a craving for food which if ignored, doesn’t go away but eventually must be addressed.
That said, how much of the change I feel is due to my happiness now that I’m living as a man? My comfort in my body, my increased willingness to express myself sexually? All the emotional and psychological work I’ve done which has removed barriers that formerly blocked me from self-awareness? Not to mention, my values, experiences, personality, maturity, etc?
Moreover, how I express my desire is within my control. I can objectify and use my partners, or I can respect them as fellow human beings with desires of their own. I think what’s lacking in your assessment of strip clubs is an acknowledgement of the absence of reciprocal desires. Your tone suggests that a mutually satisfying exchange occurs, when in reality, one party offers sexual release (presumably) in exchange for rent money; while the other offers rent money for the privilege to objectify. While both parties may go away “satisfied,” the nature of their satisfaction is far from Interchangeable.
Finally, your statement, “More and more, women are becoming frequent customers of strip clubs as they too are entertained by fantasy,” is a bit disingenuous. “Many women”? “Frequent customers”? I know of women who have gone to male (and occasionally female) strip clubs out of curiosity, but they don’t make a habit of it. When I lived in the Bay Area in the early 90’s, there was a nascent lesbian strip scene; I don’t know if it flourished or disappeared. More importantly, women who go to strip clubs rarely (if ever) pursue the fantasy to the point of sexual release in the club.
azbballfan, I thank you for your kind words about my work and, if you do by the book, I hope it brings you pleasure and fulfillment.
Two things: you have again played the game of redefining what/whom you were talking about after the fact of someone critiquing what you have to say: “I was speaking for men who go to strip clubs and don’t assault the workers.” Which, on the one hand, is fair enough, but I wonder on what basis you can speak for all these men, and even if you can speak for them, and even assuming that what you say about them is descriptively accurate (which I would argue is a tremendous and almost certainly false assumption), that does not mean that the form of arousal/desire you describe should not be examined/critiqued in a political/socio-economic context. That critique seems to be what you want to avoid. To wit:
Were it the case that the women who work in strip clubs were seen by the culture at large (that’s important; I am not talking about how you or any other individual man sees them) as legitimate professionals, practicing a respected trade, as individuals worthy of respect and possessing full human dignity, etcetera and so on, the statement I have quoted might be accurate when applied to them and the men who are their customers. As it is, that is not the case. A story, by way of example:
When I was living in South Korea, a male friend of mine asked me if I had a girlfriend. When I told him that I did, but that she was back in the US, he asked me, full of real concern, how I “endured,” meaning how I managed without a regular sex partner. (I had been in Korea for quite a few months by then.) I was quite touched by his question, actually; it was, at the time, the closest any heterosexual man has ever come to talking to me honestly about the meaning and place of sex and desire in my life.
He then asked me if I wanted him to take me someplace to have sex…by which, of course, he meant a brothel of some sort…and when I said no, that I did not to pay for sex or have anyone pay for me to have sex, he explained to me very patiently, as if I simply did not understand his culture, that for the women who worked in such places, it was their job to satisfy men sexually. Men needed them, he told me, society needed them, because without them there, men would be out trying to have sex with “good” women, women who would eventually want to get married and have children, etc. and so on. (And you have to remember he was telling me this without irony, because he really thought that if I understood this, then I would think it was okay to let him take me where he wanted to take me.)
So I asked him: If men needed these women so much, if these women were so importnat, why was it necessary to kidnap women into the sex trade? Why were these women not respected? Why wouldn’t you let your son marry one of them? And all of the other questions you can imagine. He had no answer.
It’s very easy to talk about allowing people to express their desires as they choose with willing partners; but neither those partners nor that expression takes place in a social vacuum. A strip club and the men who go there, perhaps especially “the men of good intention” whom you say you are speaking for are no different.
“Regarding my reference to physical and chemical differences of men and women, yes I was referring to the differences in our hormones and the way we get aroused. I have not yet seen a study refuting the commonly held belief that men on average get aroused quicker than women.”
I agree that it’s true that men are sexually aroused more easily and more quickly. But what you said, and what I asked about, was “random arousal”, and that sounds like something different. Did you mean anything by that?
Also, I think that people are perfectly capable of understanding the differences between their sex drive and that of the opposite sex (whether in particular or in general). But you say that Vincent was unable to understand because of physical differences. Do you mean to say that women in general can’t understand men’s sex drives, or only that Vincent was unable to?
I’ll try to answer the questions as best I can.
brynn,
You made excellent points on the differences you’ve felt under the influences of different hormones and social pressures. Thank you.
I can also see some of your point about how stripping objectifies the dancers and they don’t get pleasure out of the exchange. However, I know some dancers who wholeheartedly disagree. Some women enjoy dancing seductively and learning how to get into men’s heads to give them a fantasy.
Regarding whether or not more women are going to strip clubs. There is an internet forum dedicated to strippers which allows them to discuss their trade, share secrets on how to make more money and also just rant about personal problems. Here’s a post from one of the moderators yesterday:
Yekhefah, $400 a night ain’t happenin’ in many cities now on a regular basis, let alone in Phoenix where the dances are $10. If you can hit $200 for a 5 hour shift maybe even for 7 or 8 hours, you are doing well. Realistically with all the dancers there, you are looking at a range of about $50-$200 after tip outs when it is slow. Phoenix is about table to table “wanna dance” with about 30 seconds of chit chat with some customers. Clubs there depend on volume. If a dancer can’t sell 7 dances minimum an hour on average, she won’t do well. And with as many girls as customers, and in some clubs more girls than customers, how are you going to sell that many dances ?
Richard,
I once had similar feelings about strip clubs and strippers in general. I was abhorred by them and went so far as to go out of my way not to drive by them. I was raised in a household where is was shameful to acknowledge sexual desires. Later, I married someone who was quite comfortable about discussing her sexual desires and I guess that brought my guard down a bit. She also emphatically insisted I promise to never, never go to a strip club. I thought it was strange that she thought I would ever think to go, since she also joked that I was a prude of sorts.
Later, when going though my divorce my brother asked if I was dating yet. To this I honestly responded that I had no desire to have anything put purely plutonic relations with women and hadn’t felt any sexual urge in quite some time. The following weekend, my brother flew out to spend some time with me. We enjoyed a basketball game, discussing sports, etc. Then he asked again about not having sexual urges and I assured him my libido had disappeared. He then asked me where the best strip club in town was and I told him which one my friends seemed to talk about the most but insisted I didn’t want to go and I would lend him my car.
My brother’s response was to punch me as hard in my shoulder and call me something only brothers can get away calling each other. So I relented and went with him to the club.
Despite being dard outside, I ducked my head as we walked from my car to the front door. Upon entering the establishment, my shock and horror of witnessing this “objectification” of women affronted my senses so much that my brother had to guid me to a table.
Not wanting to be a supporter of such vile behavior, I stared at the television showing the late game. My brother asked me a couple of times who I wanted to get a dance from and I insisted I wasn’t interested.
So my brother disappears for a while and returns with two dancers and tells me he’s already paid up. The dancer/gal/female assigned to me was frustrated as I shied my eyes away from her dance. She asked me if I was married and I explained I was going through a divorce. I realized my body language was insulting her and apologizingly explained that I was an emotional mess and had lost my libido.
This nice gal’s response was to stick her seven inch heel platform on top of my privates and daringly asked: “Are you saying you don’t want a dance from me!” She successfully broke my spell and my privates responded in something akin to a fight or flight response. My libido suddenly returned.
After she was done, she sat with me and explained how her best friend was going through a similar situation as me. She seemed to enjoy our conversation and shared her own personal story.
The 24 year old dancer left home at age fifteen in order to avoid an arranged marriage by her muslim father. She had found a kind old lady who took her in and she worked at a coffee shop when she wasn’t in school. At age 18, she entered the Army and enjoyed the structure it gave her. Unfortunately, she got shipped over to Iraq and despite working in logistics, had experienced gunfire.
So she returned and went back to school. She said she enjoyed dancing because she found it a theraputic way to shed herself of the strict mores imposed by her abusive father. She shared stories of customers who were pigs and others who were incredibly kind. She had a boyfriend and they communicated a lot in order to avoid unwanted jealousies.
A few weeks later I found myself feeling terrible again with confused emotions. It was a slow night so I went back. The dancer who “treated” my confused emotions on that first night was very happy to see me. She told me that our friendship meant she could no longer dance for me (a wisdom I later understood) but she had a friend who was new and could use a couple of dances from a “nice” customer. She came back later and said some of the comments I made about her relationsip with her father helped her with her own personal challenges and asked if I’d like to have lunch someday.
If your comments are meant to imply that strippers in Arizona are somehow assisting with the South Korean sex trade, then my reply is: It’s also easier to condemn people you don’t know or want to know.
pdf23ds,
Thanks for the question. To clarify, yes, I meant that Vincent apparently was unable to understand the nuances of men’s sex drives in her portrayal of her strip club experience.
azbballfan, you wrote:
I happen to believe that the sex trade in Arizona does contribute to the sex trade in South Korea, and in many other places as well, but that is both a whole other discussion and not the point I was trying to make. So let me try it this way: You discovered that the women who work in strip clubs are people and you discovered as well that, when you are in a strip club, part of treating them as people is allowing them to do their job and continuing to see them as people. That you are able to do that–something which many men are not able to do–is admirable, but this does not change the fact that, in the larger view of things, the stripper who became your friend is seen not as someone who performs a valuable social service–which is what your original take on strip clubs implied–but rather as a “slut” or “whore” or whatever epithet you choose. And I am not denying when I say this that she might have found the experience of dancing personally empowering, but consider what it means that a woman would find empowering a profession that requires her to put her body and her sexuality on display and then defines her, precisely because of that display, in cultural terms as among the lowest of women. You are, I think, conflating individual experiences and how people make sense of them with cultural analysis.
I also think it is telling that the woman you talk about would not dance for you once the two of you had become friends. You say you think that was a wise position for her to take, but I wonder what your analysis of it is.
Richard:
You wrote:
but this does not change the fact that, in the larger view of things, the stripper who became your friend is seen not as someone who performs a valuable social service”“is admirable, but this does not change the fact that, in the larger view of things, the stripper who became your friend is seen not as someone who performs a valuable social service”“which is what your original take on strip clubs implied”“but rather as a “slut” or “whore” or whatever epithet you choose.
Actually she did provide a valuable service. During my divorce, I sought the help of a psychologist to help me through some issues. When I told this story to my psychologist, she said my experience certainly helped me work through some issues and laughed as she said she was worried strippers would put psychologists out of work. I may point out that many strippers have left other jobs because they find stripping more rewarding.
Part of the purpose of my sharing this story was to show how preconceived prejudices were planted in me from being raised by puritanical parents. Growing up, these prejudices had also caused me to condemn some of my own feelings and probably damaged my self esteem a bit. Strippers who enjoy getting paid to titilate and tease while expressing their own sexuality are breaking down the barriers of what behavior is mandated to be “normal”. My post was meant to ask readers to reconsider the rather regressive cultural judgment of women who explore or express their sexuality.
Prior to all of these events, I was faced with this issue when raising two teenage stepdaughters. They shared time in two households which made the job of step-parenting a bit more complex with having to consider the mix of signals they were getting between the households.
Again, I was rather prudish and similar to the way I was raised, in my household, mom and dad never discussed the subject with the kids. In the other household, the biological father insisted that the girls remain chaste and demonized sexual expression. Unfortunately for the girls and the rest of us, the same biological father was not very good at hiding his own transgressions. Thus, my wife and I were faced with the issue.
The older daughter identified strongly with her father and chose not to admit or discuss the transgressions. The younger daughter was quite vocal in her questioning the disconnect between father’s words and deeds.
My wife and I discussed this at great length and decided my wife would the topic of sexual feelings with her daughter. What developed was a wonderful open relationship where the daughter openly shared her feelings with the loving support and reinforcement of her mother. I can’t count the times my wife started to share a story only to have me quickly make her stop because I didn’t really need to know. Despite a nasty divorce, I am happy the younger daughter is quite comfortable expressing her desires, acting sexy when she wants and not sexy when she doesn’t. And I hope she doesn’t fall into the trap of conflating sexual urges she feels about a young man with the need to marry him.
And for those who may wonder: No, I haven’t shared any of my strip club stories with her but the topic does come up and she jokes that it would be fun to try.
To answer a couple of other questions which have been raised:
I wouldn’t have a problem if my son married a stripper. I’d have a problem if he married someone who couldn’t or wouldn’t make him happy. If the the stripper in question can’t or won’t make him happy then I’d have a problem.
Regarding the dancing for friends issue. There are many different takes on the subject and one which garners a lot of discussion in the strip club environment. Some strippers are happily married. In this case, she and her boyfriend decided it was important to their relationship that she not dance for friends of hers.
Sorry, but I don’t know why the blockquotes didn’t work in my last two posts.
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azbballfan: I think we could keep going round and round on this and not get anywhere and so I just want to point out that your last post, again, focuses on your individual experience and does not look at the larger social picture. I have no doubt that the stripper provided you with a valuable service; that does not mean that our culture truly values her or the service she provides; nor does your story in any way critique the cultural values that devalue her. The hooker with a heart of gold (or, in this case, the stripper) is still a hooker, with everything that implies about how she is seen by the culture at large. But, as I said, I don’t think there’s anything to be gained by continuing this discussion, since we seem to be going round and round the same circle.
Richard,
True, we do seem to be going round and round on this. What you ignore is that your views about sexuality and what our culture values are regressive. Andy your tone pretending to speak for the culture at large while pompous is not suprising.
I thought teachers were supposed to teach to be inquisitive, not demonizing.
azbballfan,
You’re welcome.
And thanks for sharing your experiences. You gave me some things to think about.
As for the breakdown in communication between Richard and azbballfan, it seems to me there’s no real disagreement. azbballfan, you’re speaking of your individual experiences, while Richard, you’re speaking about society at large. Aren’t you both saying that strippers and women in the sex industry are unfairly devalued by society at large, and that that should change? azbballfan is supporting his argument with personal experiences, specifically using his own transformation on the issue as an example. While Richard is making the point that, despite azbballfan’s personal transformation, society at large remains unchanged.
I think you’re both more or less in agreement… :)
I don’t think it’s fair to call Richard’s views regressive.
brynn,
Thank you for the acknowledgement. Part of the miscommunication may stem from my misreading of Richard’s post on being raped by his girlfriend. He acknowledges that he later felt mistreated by the lady friend who insisted he was raped.
However, I do find the nature of the language he uses to be repugnant. I find his instistence on calling all strippers ‘hoookers’ and ‘sluts’ is repugnant and abusive. However I also find he has hidden agendas in his possts. (read above)
I personally apprecitate your recognition of me since you are trans gender. In my own personal experience, you happen to be the second trans gener person who has interacted with me and I am thrilled at the experience. I find generalized judgements to be abhorrent and personalized enlightenments to be wonderful and special.
I hope to meet more of you personally in the future. Certainly we all can learn from our most vulnerable personal accounts. To wit, I extend an olive branch to Richard if he can accept that not all strippers are whores/sluts/prostitutes. I would require a rather blanket statement before accepting his recant.
brynn,
A second response.
My post questioning Richard’s progressiveness spoke to, well, his lack of progressiveness. To consider any woman (or man) who feels free to express their sexuality as a whore/slut/prostitute is hard to consider progressive. Since he insists on being adamant in his views, I find it hard to classify as neutral. Therefore, the regressive classification.
Also brynn, to the extent you may find this story amusing. My brother married the daughter of a close family friend. My sister-in-law’s brother was a friend of mine and soccer teammate on multiple teams. Through college, we lost touch but strangely were constantly given reasons why we couldn’t reconnect at family gatherings. My brother later ‘leaked’ to me that our brother in law was gay. While I felt comfortable laughing about what a big deal our families made obout the whole ordeal, I also have come to appreciate the complexities of the various interests my brother feels the need to serve. This includes the gay brother in law’s mother who is extremely prudent in her religious beliefs (yes that was a euphamism) and feels the need to protect the “innocent”.
After fourteen years of my brother marrying the sister of an old friend, I finally was allowed by the collective family interests to enjoy his company at a family function again. As you might imagine, it took about ten seconds for us to remind each other of our limitations when it came to soccer, but I’m so happy and relieved that I no longer have to ignore having a personal connection with someone which could later be misconstrued. While neither of us felt comfortable lauging in front of his parents about the whole ordeal, it was pretty clear we could laugh in private.
From time to time, don’t we over complicate things?
Actually, I think Richard’s used respectful language, like “the sex trade.” The references I saw to “sluts” and “whores” were referring to the society’s view of sex workers. And, yes, I think most parts of American society does see sex workers as “sluts” and “whores.”
Maybe I missed the reference you’re talking about, az.
azbballfan,
I agree with Idea regarding Richard’s post. Richard is not referring to sex workers in derogatory terms, but is saying that society does so. In fact, Richard is deploring the fact that society does this.
As for postings on other websites, I believe it’s better not to bring them into this discussion as we haven’t all read them.
I’m curious, azbballfan, is English a second language for you? Perhaps that contributes to the misunderstandings.
OK, back to the main post. And a different tangent.
As brynn was saying earlier, it seems that a lot of more progressive/intellectual people hang out in circles, or are attracted to people, who really are much less attached to strict gender roles than society at large is. And it seems to me that this can lead to an underestimation of exactly how widespread the personality-conforming effect of these roles is. One of your criticisms, Amp, is:
Even the monks are macho? Interesting. Anyway, while it’s true that masculinity differs, even in the US, in many non-white subcultures, and also among out-of-the-closet homosexuals, and in the middle class, and probably considerably in the upper class (but I’m ignorant of upper-class conceptions of masculinity), it remains that the white, het, working class version of masculinity is the most visible and most widespread. So writing about it to the exclusion of others is quite understandable.
First, thank you Idea and brynn for pointing out azbballfan’s inaccurate reading–though I am beginning to think it is a wilful misreading–of what I have written.
Second, azbballfan, I can understand how, if you don’t know that the “hooker with a heart of gold” is a staple female stereotype in certain kinds of movies, stage musicals and novels, you might have thought I was speaking demeaningly about women in the sex trade (though it’s still a bit of a stretch for me, unless, as brynn has already wondered, English is your second language), but I don’t get how you missed the fact that I put the words “slut” and “whore” in scare quotes and attributed them quite explicitly to the culture at large.
More importantly, I am not going to bother defending my views on sexuality and sexual expression against your characterization of them as regressive, and of me as non-progressive, since I have not actually said all that much about what I think and/or feel and/or know about women who work in the sex trade or the men who are the overwhelming majority of their customers. I will, however, say that I do not appreciate the snide personal attack you make on the basis of the fact that I am a teacher; it comes awfully close to ad hominem, and I don’t appreciate it.
Oh, what a tender rendition of the social quagmire men find themselves in. You were fine with your libido, you said so repeatedly; you were against the objectification of women, you said so repeatedly. But one word from your brother, one word that castrated your manhood in a way only brothers can do, opened the door to your sexual release through the purchase of a woman’s body.
He called you a PUSSY, didn’t he?
Irony much?
You were so distraught at thinking that other men would put you in the same sexual category as women (i.e, the fucked, not the fucker), that you went against your organic sexual state (low libido) and your explicitly stated morality. And I can only imagine your innocent wonder when your erection blossomed under the dancer’s stilleto. Ah that sweet tight swelling, freeing you through humiliation and moral castration.
Congratulations!
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Richard,
Now I see you are using a tactic used by the professorial type to talk about an issue without putting yourself into it. However, those professorial types ignore that repeating sterotypes reinforce them, regardless of the ambiguous intentions. You have still not admitted that you don’t consider all strippers to be whores or sluts. You instead try to fall back on ambiguity.
Idea and Bryn, before I knew a stripper, I could understand how you could read Richard’s post and feel what you do.
But try reading his post using a different circumstance you may be closer to:
“but this does not change the fact that, in the larger view of things, the stripper (colored) who became your friend is … a “slut”(“nigger”) or “whore” (“darkie”) or whatever epithet you choose.”
or,
“The hooker (“nigger”) with a heart of gold (or, in this case, the stripper (“colored”) is still a hooker (“nigger”), with everything that implies about how she is seen by the culture at large.”
or,
“The Uncle Tom is still a nigger, with everyting that implies about how he is seen by the culture at large.”
All statements which I find equally abhorrent.
Interesting tactics, teacher. Try to use your profession for better causes. Impudens es leno
Q grrl,
While I like your post and find it funny, in my case it’s not quite accurate.
I was not happy with my vacant libido, but dismayed. I am much happier and productive having it back. An eight year relationship with an abusive spouse had mentally castrated me and having the opportunity to spend time in an environment where women explicitly get paid to be nice to people removed a barrier of fear that my ex-wife had successfully built up.
Ah, but who weeps silently for the ego hits these women take when they strap on their stilletos and improvised libidos? Who builds the women up who coddle the fragile male ego through sultry, paid-for pseudo-sex?
You could have just as easily paid for a therapist — you went for the ball crusher and ensuing tumescence instead. That woman wasn’t paid to be nice; she was paid to get you hard. Which she did.
Do you ever stop to think how many erections that one woman produces per night. And night after night. Dancing. Stepping on crotches. Do you ever stop to wonder if *she* even has a libido anymore? Where does she go when, after seeing or feeling her 50th boner for the night, her libido “flags”? Do you ever wonder about the psychological schism that dancer must go through every night she dances? The divorcing of her own sexuality from her body and from her environment?
But don’t worry. Her body is a commodity; and obviously the money was well spent.
azbballfan,
I have not insulted you personally in anything I have written here. You have now insulted me twice. (For anyone else who is interested, “Impudens es leno” from azb’s post #35, it means “You shameless pimp!” and it is a serious insult.) Nonetheless, I am going to bother to engage you one more time, not because I think it will change your mind…clearly you are deeply, deeply invested in male heterosexual privilege…but because you have made me angry enough that I need to say what I have to say.
You continue, wilfully, to misread what I have written and to take what I have written out of context. If it is not clear to you from my comments that I do not consider sex workers anything other than human beings possessed of full human dignity who should be treated accordingly, then the statement I have just made should suffice. More to the point, it is precisely because I believe this that I have the social/cultural/political analysis that I have. I have not introduced my own experiences knowing strippers, bar girls, hostesses and other sex trade workers into this discussion, and I will continue not to introduce them here, because those experiences are not relevant to the points I have wanted to make; I am not invested in them the way you are invested in your experience…though I will say, just to be clear, since you have assumed otherwise, that the experiences were not negative ones.
You are desperate to justify the existence of the sex trade, to defend the status quo in which it exists…which means, whether you want it to or not, that you are jusitfying a rape culture that creates and is created by male heterosexual privilege…because your experience with the stripper you mention was, for you, therapeutic and liberating. I do not doubt your account of your own experience, as I do not doubt that stripping was in its own way liberating for the woman you talked about above. What I doubt is that either of these personally liberating experiences in any way represents social justice for women; your refusal to look at that question suggests to me that social justice for women is not what you are really interested in anyway.
Finally, you seem to think that I have some moral objection to the sex trade. I want to quote back to you something I wrote at the beginning of this exchange:
Nothing you have written has addressed what I say here; nothing you have written has demonstrated that women in the sex trade are treated by the culture at large as anything other than the less-than-human “sluts” and “whores” male heterosexual privilege defines them as. Address those issues, stop insulting me and maybe we can have a conversation. Otherwise, this is the last response you will get from me.
It’s called social science. Ignoring and failing to discuss the mores and beliefs of society perpetuates those mores and beliefs. Repeating, discussing, and analyzing them, gives tools to those who want to challenge them. Your particular regressive and ignorant strain of anti-intellectualism is abhorrent.
What arrogance! How do you assume I don’t know strippers? How do you assume I’m NOT a stripper? I find you completely offensive.
Richard,
Using pop culture as an indicator of cultural norms, I’ll point to a few indicators that strippers are not considered less than human “whores” and “sluts”.
First, Stan Lee’s television cartoon show Striperella, where the stripper in question is also a superhero saving people.
Second, the final scene in The Full Monty provided an interesting look at the public support garnered by men making money from a strip tease act. In that last scene, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and certainly not considered less than human. The movie actually seemed to glorify some of the men’s transformation from revulsed participants to gleeful teasers to be a genuinely human moment.
The popular female band The Pussycat Dolls is also a burlesque troupe. They are portrayed as being very empowered.
It is becoming more and more popular for women to put stripper poles in their houses. One of the emerging workout trends is to practice stripper moves and pole dancing.
In Thomas Carter’s movie, Save the Last Dance, the lead character is a young lady facing opposition to her inter racial romance. She is accepted to the Julliard ballet school based on a dance tryout which starts off in a traditional ballerina style and transforms into a graceful rendition of popular hip hop and stripper moves. Her use of the chair in that scene is a clear allusion to a striptease.
In her popular book, “Candy Girl, the Life of an Unlikely Stripper”, Diablo Cody recounts her journey from working in the advertising wold to living the life of a stripper. She is now living the life of an author but in a recent appearance on David Letterman, she said as soon as writing stops panning out, she’s headed straight back to the pole. (and suggested Dave should give it a whirl himself) She is funny, smart, and quite witty. Diablo will be featured in an upcoming article in Elle Magazine.
And, the Oscar winning actress Halle Berry performed an extremely provocative mock lap dance for a male burlesque actor when she accepted her Woman of the Year award from Harvard’s Hasty Pudding club. Halle is also a former Miss Ohio USA, Miss World, and happens to be a Harvard graduate. Despite all the foregoing, Halle insists that she is not a sex symbol, but someone who should be appreciated for her brains. She seems to say that it’s okay for women to act sexy from time to time without having to be called a sex object.
Certainly these are signs that the tide of popular culture embracing strippers as acceptable in our society. There, I’ve given personal accounts as well as third party evidence to refute unsupported claims that society condemns all strippers. This is what you asked for, I wonder if you’ll reply as promised.
Your insistence on labelling the dancer as a “hooker with a heart of gold” was as revolting to me as someone using the term “Uncle Tom”. You don’t know her and are not in a position to judge her.
QGrrl,
Probably an honest depiction of how some of the girls feel. However they can also get work waitressing or bartending which may not be as lucrative on an hourly basis, apparently isn’t appealing enough. I suspect they are mostly very tired as dancing can be quite strenuous.
I chose a “no touch” policy which the initial dancer certainly violated. I told her and she then complied. Very visible and aggressive bouncers enforce a strict no touch policy for the men. I later asked about what they do when a customer starts to make them uncomfortable. Apparently at clubs, there are certain pre-arranged moves and signs dancers use to get the attention of said bouncers.
I was also seeing a therapist (as noted in my original tale) but the therapist was not as helpful. For a time, I made weekly trips to the club to mostly sit and watch. I maintained a policy of always offering to buy some water for any dancer who wanted to sit and talk a while. (It’s illegal for dancers to drink alcohol in Arizona, which helps keep things cleaner. And the club in question takes advantage of said dancers by charging them double the customer’s price for water. This way they promote dancers to talk to customers when they rest.) I’d make sure I spent enough in the club to maintain a good reputation. This is what I found to most prevalent in the club. Men who are willing to spend money for some time with a pleasant woman without any of the politics of dating or a relationship outside the club. Some dancers and customers prefer flirting encounters. I don’t. I viewed my encounters as a wonderful random social exploration. I haven’t been back in quite a while, but one woman used to always stop by to swap recipies.
After spending some time and money for a fifteen to thirty minute relationship, I don’t have to worry about hurting her feelings by not calling her or asking her out. As soon as she leaves my table, she just stops at the next one.
I wonder if by exploring my libido through discussion, my therapist’s libido was affected. Interestingly, the dancer with the 7 inch heel (dancers would never wear stilleto’s, they have special shoes) said she chose dancing to help herself explore her own sexuality. She said she enjoyed the sense of freedom and empowerment it gave her to contrast with the pain, shame and submissivness imposed on her by her father.
Yes, I expect the dancer’s libido is affected by all the exposure. Then again, my libido is certainly hampered by a tough day at the office.
And no, that’s not what my brother called me. What he called me was a term that others would find offensive, but commonly used in our relationship as a loving way to say “hey, wake up!” When we were kids, we rough housed a lot and we now use a hard punch on the shoulder to remind each other of our special connection.
It’s called social science. Ignoring and failing to discuss the mores and beliefs of society perpetuates those mores and beliefs. Repeating, discussing, and analyzing them, gives tools to those who want to challenge them. Your particular regressive and ignorant strain of anti-intellectualism is abhorrent.
He didn’t provide any thoughtful analysis of the sterotypes or their impact on women’s issues. He just reapeated the boorish sterotypes as broadly accepted. This is a blog. And if you didn’t notice, it promotes the discussion of opinion.
Richard’s opinion which I still contend are the impetus for promoting the stereotypes was clearly stated in an earlier post:
It’s very easy to talk about allowing people to express their desires as they choose with willing partners; but neither those partners nor that expression takes place in a social vacuum. A strip club and the men who go there, perhaps especially “the men of good intention” whom you say you are speaking for are no different.
Later he runs from his own inference demonizing strip clubs and anyone associated with it in a thinly veiled attempt to promote certain stereotypes. He lays the groundwork to associate strippers as being pro rape and helping kidnappers in South Korea. Yes, this is a solicitor of shameful acts.
Sorry, blockquotes still aren’t working for me.
Commodifying one’s body in one way or another is, as far as I can tell, one of the primary available paths towards supporting oneself in American society. It’s done by massage therapists and physical laborers as well. It’s a trying way to make a living, but there’s no shame in it, any more than there is in commodifying one’s emotional strength (as a social worker, a counselor…) or selling 1/4 to 1/3 of one’s available hours of life — including sleep in the equation, which makes it more like 1/2 — which seems to be required in most jobs here, unlike the EU in which a person working for a salary can take reasonable numbers of vacation and sick days.
Notice the lack of my saying there’s nothing wrong with it.
I’d really like to live somewhere less fucked up.
But there is a difference between a stripper and, say, a construction worker: if a stripper is raped, her occupation is treated as highly relevant; if a construction worker is raped, her occupation is treated as a mere side-note or completely irrelevant.
azbballfan:
I did not judge her, nor have I ever judged sex workers for their profession in the terms you accuse me of. What I have done is talked about how she/they is/are judged by the culture at large and whether you like it or not, that is precisely how she and they are judged. You, on the other hand, by your own admission, did once judge them in precisely the terms you accuse me of using and, by your own admission, that judgment changed not because of any concern you had for women per se, but rather because of the “libido-freeing” experience you had. In the interests of preserving the integrity of that libido-freeing experience, you focus when you talk about the sex trade exclusively on the pleasures and empowerment to be had there by both the men who are the customers and the women who perform there (and I will say this again: please note that I am not denying the reality to the individuals concerned of those pleasures or empowerment). You are unwilling and/or unable to see the sex trade, or, more specifically the club where the woman you have talked about worked, in the context of the sex trade as a world-wide phenomenon in which the bodies of girls and women are commodified and made sexually available to men. It is telling that what started out as my critique of a statement you made about male heterosexual arousal has become an argument in which what is at stake is not male heterosexuality per se, but rather your need to defend the status quo in a sex industry designed to cater to male arousal as you have defined it.
1. I don’t know Striperella and so I will not comment on it.
2. I saw the Full Monty as well, though it was some time ago and since my memory of the movie is foggy, I am going to say only that there is a big difference, culturally, between what it means for a man to work as a stripper and what it means for a woman to do that work. Men, especially heterosexual men, simply do not face the same kind of scrutiny and double standards that women do when it comes to our sexuality.
3. Halle Berry, I should not have to point out, is not an actual stripper and is in a position of sufficient privilege and power that she does not need to worry that the particular expression of female heterosexuality you cite will somehow brand her in the way that, say, being a stripper has been used to brand the victim/accuser in the recent Duke rape case.
4. The scene you cite from Save The Last Dance also makes use of stripping, but the woman in question is not an actual stripper.
In each of thes examples, you conflate stripping as an expression of sexuality with what it means to work as a stripper
5. Diablo Cody is fortunate to be in the privileged position she is in. However, I would say these two things, neither of which denies the reality that stripping has for her as an individual: Were she to be raped…and I of course do not wish this on her…you can be sure that her profession and/or background as a stripper would become an issue in the same way that it is an issue in the Duke case; again, you are conflating individual circumstance and experience with social and cultural reality. More to the point, however, the fact that someone like Diablo Cody can write a book–and there are other women who worked as strippers who have written books as well–and the fact that she has been able to get that book published and insist, thereby, on her respectability as a person (and good for her; like any other human being, she deserves that respect) is also a convenient way for people who want to preserve the sexual status quo not to have look at the underbelly of her profession.
Yet one more wilful misreading of what I wrote and one more insult. This is the last response you will have from me.
Whoa, I’m away for a day and look what happens!
Richard, for what it’s worth I have to agree with you that azbballfan is willfully misreading you. Considering this, and the insults he’s kept heaping, you’ve been way more patient than I would’ve been.
Richard wrote:
“Halle Berry, I should not have to point out, is not an actual stripper…”
Actually Halle Berry did perform in a strip club when researching for a role.
And yes, society is accepting strip clubs as more and more acceptable. And yes, women are frequenting them more.
In Gail Mitchell’s Billboard Magazing article “At Strip Clubs, hip hop is big business” she writes:
“Perhaps most important for the record promotion business, plenty of strip clubs break the stereotype of lecherous men in raunchy, smoke-filled haunts. At Sue’s Rendezvous in Mount Vernon, New York, for example, DJ Carl Blaze … plays the hits to a smartly dressed crowd. And while women — ones not on poles — are a minority, there are still plenty of them.”
Feel free to continue to have your own personal beliefs that strippers are “whores” and “sluts”. But you are ignoring that in the emerging society at large that doesn’t.
Thanks, brynn. I appreciate it!
Richard has made it clear, again and again, that he is describing how he believes society views strippers – not how he himself personally views strippers.
At this point, I can no longer believe that you’re making an honest error; you’re simply lying about what Richard said in order to insult him.
I’ve been allowing you to post on “Alas” because you’re usually polite and I think it’s valuable for me to have posters here whose reflex is to disagree with me and question my views. However, if you’re no longer going to be polite, then I don’t want you here. You’re therefore no longer welcome to post on “Alas.”
Actually Halle Berry did perform in a strip club when researching for a role.
—
Oh, yes, that makes her a stripper, subject to all the derision and power deficits found in that position. Definitely. And I once helped a friend research law in regard to his bankruptcy case; I must be a lawyer.
But there is a difference between a stripper and, say, a construction worker: if a stripper is raped, her occupation is treated as highly relevant; if a construction worker is raped, her occupation is treated as a mere side-note or completely irrelevant.
Hmm. I really, really, really need to nitpick this language.
But there is a difference between a stripper and, say, a construction worker:
That isn’t the difference between a stripper and a construction worker: that’s the difference between societal views of stripping and societal views of construction work.
The framework in which a stripper must do her job, I would agree, is problematic.
The language here seems to ascribe the difference to the qualities of the individual stripper or construction worker who’s suffered and survived a rape. I’d like to avoid making that implication.
Yes, it’s hair-splittingly pedantic of me and I admit it right out! But I’m a pedant because every word has its own subtle meaning, and I find it important to examine the meanings in clear focus.
End nitpick.
From one pedant to another:
Except that, to the degree that the stripper and the construction worker also embody the societal views of their professions (and we all embody those views whether we like it or not and in ways that we realize and don’t), the difference is also between them.
(This is one of those days when this kind of nitpicking gives me great pleasure.)
Quite true, but the idea that every person embodies other people’s views of them (which I’ll agree does take place to a certain extent) can be hugely damaging if taken too far — see under “stereotype”.
Men are not actually supposed to ejaculate from a lap dance. Lap dances aren’t even effective at actually getting a guy off.