I should have said this…

I should have said this explicitly yesterday, but I say it now:

Please redirect your browsers (and bookmarks) to http://www.mamohanraj.com/Diary/current.html

The regular current.html will soon be only a memory.

The reading last night went very well. About fifteen people showed up (they only had ten chairs set out, and had to get more :-) and were a good audience. Of course, half those people were friends of mine, but it's nice to have friends. :-)

I read, in order: "Feather", "You'll Understand When You're Older, Dear", "Meditation on Human Relations", "Jinsong", "Blind", "Letter From a Suicide", "Dreams of a Lover" and "Fleeing Gods". That's about a half hour of reading; I'm still fine-tuning, trying to decide what stories read best. I'm pretty good at conversational tone stories, not so good at reading dramatic bits (or dramatizing in general). I'd also like to read "Chantal", but a) it's long and b) it's problematic. Have to judge my audience carefully, I think, though I could probably have gotten away with it last night.

I slept late again this morning, and finally feel rested (although I didn't get the dishes done the way I'd planned). I appear to be going through an odd spate of fall cleaning; clearing out various accounts and straightening things. The house is looking lovely these days, with odd autumnal gourds and red and gold flowers scattered about. I'd like my computer accounts to be similarly lovely. :-)

I hope to catch up with my work for the week by tomorrow morning. I *must* practice recorder tonight, or I will deserve to be severely beaten. There's a part I'm having real trouble with, in a baroque piece, and so I find myself avoiding practicing, which is not the solution, let me tell you. On the good side, I've been practicing my guitar regularly, and am now up to over half an hour of practicing a day, without killing my fingertips, and have learned seven chords. I can play "This Land is Your Land" at tempo (it only uses three chords) and can almost manage "Star of the County Down" (I'm having trouble with the transition to the C chord) at tempo. Lots of fun. David's being very patient teaching me, and I'm enjoying teaching piano again (David's a much better student than my father was :-). He actually practices.)

***

I was going to just include a short excerpt from a reader's e-mail here, but looking over it, I think it makes more sense to include it all, and then respond to it.


These are some things that came to mind while reading your journal. If you want to respond to them on your pages, could you leave my name safely anonymous? Thanks very much!

[name deleted]

I actually wanted to write something long and polished on this subject, but I never get around to it. I enjoyed your two recent "Lady Sally" columns, but couldn't suspend my disbelief, or pessimism, about such an attitude filtering into the "sex art" business, let alone mass culture.

My sexual history being almost pure vanilla, the only situation I have seen even approaching "Lady Sally" was the one strip bar I have ever been in, in Charlotte, NC. (W/ some college friends on a pep band trip, one of those "what-the-hell" moments.) Once I got past the initial hormonal rush, beyond which sensory overload led to a sharp reduction in arousal, I started paying attention to facial expressions and, well, the _gestalt_ of the place. Three things stand out in my memory:

A mustached Southerner, with a bill clenched in his teeth, encouraging/daring/challenging the dancer to collect it with her teeth. She refuses, smiling. He grins, and tries again. Neither's eyes are smiling, though. There's hostility, anger behind both smiles. I can almost see him thinking "Slut, come on, if you want the bill." I _know_ she can see him thinking it.

A dancer who just can't stand being there. _I_ think she's attractive, but she apparently doesn't fit the "standards" of the bar patrons. (It was a "classy" establishment as far as these establishments go, but that's probably not saying much.) The patrons ignore her, as she forlornly shifts from foot to foot on the stage keeping vague time to the music. Another dancer takes pity on her and puts a bill in her garter. Then she is alone again, with muted despair on her face.

We're here because it's an acquaintance's ("Barry") birthday. "Jeff" springs for a lap dance for Barry, the anticipated highlight of the evening. Barry's a Nice Guy; he's experiencing the club with genuine smiles, wiping mock sweat off his forehead. The lap dancer seems comfortable with him, wiggling and stretching and responding as he gazes appreciatively. This is a mutual performance. The dance ends; Jeff gives her more money. "I'd like one too." This one is different. Jeff sits like a statue, his fists clenched by his sides. The dancer is getting no feedback from him, just his steady, tense gaze. For the first time since I've met Jeff, I feel like _there's something inside him that makes me nervous._ The dancer goes through the motions, looking at his eyes, more wary and reserved. I can't tell where this sense of _fear_ is coming from -- her, or him? The dance ends; she quickly and steadily retreats.

In our culture, how many supposed sex-positive or "erotic" establishments can really exist? What little exposure I've had suggests that power (or the lack thereof) is the defining dynamic here, not sexuality. And I wonder how much of that power dynamic, if any, might have been lurking at Lady Sally's.


*sigh* I do know what this reader means. There is a lot of unhealthy power play going on in these situations, and it can be extremely difficult to avoid that, even with the best of intentions. A friend of mine recently took a Wall Street job, a job which actually entails being taken out to strip clubs by colleagues. He would like to sit back and enjoy the atmosphere, the beautiful women; he'd like to believe that they're being well paid, and that they like their job. He even assumed that the first time he went, and it was only after a conversation we had on the subject that he took a closer look at these very well-paid women, and realized, to his great discomfort, that they really didn't seem to be enjoying their work, that there was a good chance they actively resented him and his appreciation of their beauty and sexuality. It's making him uncomfortable enough that he's thinking of avoiding the strip clubs from now on.

It's hard. It's hard to avoid the power dynamic inherent in paying for a service. And yet I do believe that it's possible to get around. I believe Carol Queen when she says (in _Real Live Nude Girl_) that she enjoyed her work in the Lusty Lady peep show, and the work she's doing now as a prostitute. (She's also a damn good writer, btw -- I just read a beautiful story by her in the anthology _Once Upon a Time: Erotic Fairy Tales for Women_). I believe Selene and Noelle, who I interviewed for my article on professional dominatrixes, when they say they often consider their work a gift. On the other hand, Selene and I have also talked about how sometimes she finds herself utterly repulsed by men, and has a hard time even going home to her boyfriend. Even with the best of intentions, it's hard to be sex-positive (and man-positive) in that kind of job. It's hard partly because our culture is so twisted about sexuality, partly because sex is inherently a complicated thing, and adding money to it makes it much more complicated.

The columns I wrote were certainly idealistic, and maybe it would take science fiction to carry off a place like Lady Sally's. I hope not, though. I hope that a healthy sex-positive working environment for sex workers is possible; I hope that talking about it and advocating it can help change the culture into a place where it can happen. I remain a raving idealist, I'm afraid...

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