Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff
An emphasis on these colonial divisions is also necessary from another point of view. Many feminists in the United States and Europe have, together with critical scientists and ecologists, begun to criticize the dualistic and destructive paradigm of Western science and technology. Drawing their inspiration from C. G. Jung’s psychology, humanistic psychology, non-dualistic ‘Eastern’ spirituality, particularly Taoism and other oriental philosophies, they propose a new holistic paradigm, the New Age paradigm (Fergusson, 1980; Capra, 1982; Bateson, 1972). This emphasis on the fact that in our world everything is connected with everything and influences everything is definitely an approach which goes along with much of the feminist rebellion and vision of a future society. However, if this desire ‘to become whole’ again, and build bridges across all the cleavages and segmentations White Man has created is not to be frustrated again, it is necessary that the New Age feminists, the eco-feminists and others open their eyes and minds to the real colonies whose exploitation also guarantees them the luxury of indulging in ‘Eastern spirituality’ and ‘therapy.’ In other words, if the holistic paradigm is nothing but an affair of a new spiritualism or consciousness, if it does not identify and fight against the global system of capitalist accumulation and exploitation, it will end up by becoming a pioneering movement of the legitimization of the next round of the destructive production of capitalism. This round will not focus on the production and marketing of such crude material commodities as cars and refrigerators, but on non-material commodities like religion, therapies, friendship, spirituality . . .
However, if this desire ‘to become whole’ again, and build bridges across all the cleavages and segmentations White Man has created is not to be frustrated again, it is necessary that the New Age feminists, the eco-feminists and others open their eyes and minds to the real colonies whose exploitation also guarantees them the luxury of indulging in ‘Eastern spirituality’ and ‘therapy.’ In other words, if the holistic paradigm is nothing but an affair of a new spiritualism or consciousness, if it does not identify and fight against the global system of capitalist accumulation and exploitation, it will end up by becoming a pioneering movement of the legitimization of the next round of the destructive production of capitalism.
3/26/11
The Girlfriend Experience
So in the last entry, I detailed a few “types” of customers and outlined (my perceptions of) their motivations. But I left out a big one, in my haste to publish that post: the girlfriend-seeker. This post isn’t just about that type of customer though, it’s about the myriad of services we sell, namely: the girlfriend experience (GFE).
Girlfriend seekers are the most pitiable class of customer I’ve encountered. I’ve seen variations on this theme, so many times: old rich white dude is lonely. Maybe he got divorced, maybe his latest (usually stripper) girlfriend finally got sick of dealing with his shit, and the money and resources and shelter from having to work was finally not enough. Maybe she just got bored of having to fuck some old dude, and wanted something that actually turned her on. Whatever. So newly-single old rich white dude, what does he do? He comes into the club, looking for the next one.
Seriously, I’ve seen this so many times.
There used to be a regular named Jim, who bared a striking resemblance to a frog (no really. It was WEIRD). He was a sweet old bastard, way too gullible, and lemme tell ya, the phrase “looking for love in all the wrong places” never rang so true for me as it did during the hours I spent with him upstairs. Maybe the second time we sat together (he paid hourly and was respectful, this was long before the economy tanked when hourly was still fairly standard), he goes, “You’re going to make me fall in love with you, aren’t you?” I mean really. How do you respond to that. I don’t even remember what I said. But in his gullibility, I could tell that he REALLY wanted to believe it.
Jim was looking for a girlfriend, straight up. He told stories about the women he’d “taken care of” in the past; this was most definitely a pattern for him. He told me he was lonely. He told me he would take care of me. Now, normally when guys say shit about how they’d like to date me, I generally steal myself and play along, just so I can empty their wallets and get the fuck out of there with them still thinking they have a chance. (Lately that’s not the case; I don’t give anyone the impression this is anything but ephemeral entertainment. I’m getting blunt in my old age). But eventually I had to stop sitting with Jim, because the charade just became too much, and it reached the same old tipping point of “whatever they’re paying me isn’t enough to deal with their bullshit.”
He disappeared for a while, but I’ve seen him a few times in the club in the last couple of years, accompanied by—you guessed it—one of our dancers, who doesn’t work anymore, whom I guess is now his girlfriend. I hope she’s happy, I really do.
Then there’s David, the guy Kendall and I sat with on Sunday. David was my regular wayyyyy back in the day, like after I first started, for about a year, until he disappeared. I figured he got remarried and moved permanently to his house on St. John. He’s got a shitload of money. David’s cool in that I can actually be honest about my relationship status(es) with him. He recently resurfaced; it’d been so long that I actually thought his name was Michael. But whatever, I’m crappy at remembering names. So anyways, here he is out of the blue, a few weeks ago. I sat and ate with him and we caught up, mostly about our love lives and what’s transpired in recent years. He’s recently single, and whaddaya know, back in the fucking strip club. Just bought his ex a house in LA so she’d get out of his hair. Hope that’s worth it...
What is it with these old rich white dudes constantly getting into commodified relationships? Do they lack self confidence, and figure they might as well purchase their companionship in a roundabout kinda way? Is it a power thing, so that they can get rid of whomever rather easily, if she turns out to be batshit crazy? Do commodified relationships automatically attract the batshit crazy? Because it seems to me, and it’s not just the fact that they resurface every couple of years when their latest fling goes tits up, that the commodification just fucks everything up. I mean yeah, there are plenty of perfectly healthy relationships in which one partner takes care of the other financially, this is obviously not uncommon in our culture, and lends itself rather well to breeding. But this is something different. It’s commodified from the get-go. How could they honestly think it could last? How are they not walking around constantly questioning the authenticity of their relationship? Are they even aware of that uncertainty, and if so, does it bother them?
Old white rich dudes aside, there are some guys who just have no clue that hello, this is our job. I’ve been over that here before. You get to the part where they pay you, and all of a sudden they’re clueless. Like, what? You want money for what just happened? But I thought you really liked me! Then there are the guys that want to see you out of the club (and not for cash, either. I’m happy to have dinner with someone for $500, but rare is the person who gets that, sticks to that, and can afford that). They think that, just because you provided a service, which also happens to include fake affection, this means that you want to go out on a date. So fucking annoying. WAKE UP. You're at a STRIP CLUB. We do not ACTUALLY like you.
And yeah, I give my phone number out. Some girls have business cards, others have work phones (those are also tax deductible btw). Here’s the deal: If there’s a chance I’ll get repeat business out of it, it’s almost always worth it. I make it clear that my primary mode of communication is text messages, that I haven’t listened to my voicemail in three years so don’t bother calling and/or leaving one, and that they should text me when they’re coming in next, instead of leaving it up to chance whether I might be working that night or not (especially if they’re travelers. Oh, how I love the travelers). The point is: if they want to sit with me again, I’d rather be there than not. I’d say this strategy works out about 5% of the time, but holy god, the money I’ve made over the years because of it. And yeah, I still get 3AM-attempted-booty-call-drunk-dials from time to time, from the locals. Stupid locals. To be clear, I don’t think this is like, the revelation of the century or anything, but there are some people who take it the wrong way, and are all, “Whoa! That stripper gave me her phone number! She must really like me!” And then they’re texting me with boring shit, day in and day out. I mean, some checking-up is fine, some random volleys here and there are acceptable, sure, this is a business relationship and certain ties need to be maintained. But really? How clueless ARE you?
Like I said in the previous entry, I cannot wait for the moment when I delete all the customer numbers from my phone. I have them saved in the same spot in my contact list; every single one of them has an “L/” before their name (L stands for Lodge), and some sort of descriptor after their name, because I suck at names and generally require mnemonic devices in order to keep my shit straight. Sometimes those don’t even work, and when someone I don’t remember does come back in, I tell him to text me when he’s sitting at the library bar. That way I can usually pick out the face, and save face in the process.
Seriously, I fantasize every day about the moment when I delete all of these numbers, save maybe like, five. There are five people, out of one hundred and seventy two (no really, I just counted. Trust me, I’m JUST as shocked as you are right now, probably more so), that I care about maybe having a drink with the next time they’re in Austin. Five people whose company I would keep even if they weren’t paying me.
Notable mnemonic descriptors include: “Andrew the pervy Canadian” (people’s kinks fucking fascinate the hell out of me) “Bob the nosy New Yorker” (OMG what a dick, but oh, so much money…), “Brad with the weird nose,” (for the record: I don’t remember the nose, but I guess it was weird, LOL), “Brian the SMU douchebag” (nuff said. Def remember him), “Cliff the desperate married guy,” (fuck, that could be ANYONE!), “Ed the submissive” (subby customers are really good outlets for aggression), “Hurricane Steve” (insurance adjustor, crazy stories about Katrina), “James in the chair” (god I miss him. My paraplegic customer. So irreverent, he was. He enjoyed pretending he had cerebral palsy whenever a waiter would ignore him due to that presumption, and missed the days before movie theaters got handicapped seating, because he had to park his chair in the aisle and then got to laugh when people tripped over it and down the stairs. And you know how blind people get insane senses of smell and hearing? Well, his neck was so sensitive, I could barely touch it without him stopping me. He’d had orgasms from neck stimulation. But I digress), “Jim the hot air dude” (Jim from a previous blog, “I got caught being a real person,” the one who kept asking me about my evil ex like months after we’d broken up. He flies hot air balloons), “John the cheapo who thinks art is good” (god, he was so cheap. Why did I save a cheapo number? Who knows) “Reagan octopus tie” (that guy is RAD and I hope he comes in again), “Ron with all the mile points” (can you tell what I was after?), “Scott the spanker” (that was a fun night!), “Tony the ?” (hmm. Don’t remember him. SHOCKING), “Chris with stripes” (he always wore shirts that have what I call “intelligent stripes.” He’s one of the five. And I think he lives in Austin now. I want to be his friend. He’s SUCH a nerd), and “Rob the racer” (has Ferraris, races Porsches, pity I never took a ride in a fucking Enzo, that’s a helluva box to check; fuck, I’d do that for FREE).
Phew, names. So many names. So many forgotten moments of feigned intimacy. So many remembered moments of actual intimacy, so many fears and hopes and dreams spilled out over drinks and flesh. Enough. I’ve had enough.
All that being said, we do the GFE all the time, and it’s great. People need companionship, the same way that babies in Chinese orphanages will die if you don’t touch them. I’ve said it before, but I’m okay with what we sell, even though my time to sell it is done. We provide what certain types of customers lack in their personal lives, we provide love, support, acceptance, acknowledgment, intrigue, adoration. R. Danielle Egan calls this role the “whorish wife.” Her work featured prominently in my thesis. The whorish wife provides all the emotional support of the wife, but the physical (in our case, feigned) availability of the whore. Such a great term.
Some of my coworkers bring a different meaning to the GFE. Many of my friends in there (read: the handful (<10) women I’ll keep in my life post-stripping) pick up dates in the club. Not like, people they fuck for money, but actual guys they date. To this day, I don’t understand it. I’ve tried once. But the guys that come into the club, the locals, the young attractive ones? Not the people I want to date. Generally the men in my life, especially the ones I’m intimate with, don’t enjoy strip clubs (unless they go to party, that’s a different story and motive altogether), and I like to think it’s because they can get pussy on their own. So the ones who come into the club, who are in the right age/attractiveness bracket, those guys just aren’t my speed. They’re boring. But whatever, not judging my girls, just making the point that yeah, sometimes we DO actually like you!
So yeah, GFE. Big can o’ worms, that one. Thanks for reading, ya’ll.
3/25/11
what men want
I’ve said it before, and I will continue to stand behind this statement, no matter how jaded or far removed I become from the biz: everyone comes to the club for different reasons. But there are certain patterns I’ve noticed, and conclusions I can draw therein. Here are a few of them. This list is not complete. It gets ramble-y, but these are some of the most important observations I’ve ever made about what stripping does to relationships and psyches, so fucking pay attention.
Exhibit A: The ideal customer.
The ideal customer knows he’s paying for an entertainment/companionship service, and doesn’t deny this to himself or to others. Last night I was bored and kept following Mazlowe around to her tables, because she picks good ones. We were busy eating and cackling with one of her regulars (this was about the time when we decided that during my last week of work, I should change my name to Pavlov and only dance to “Ring my bell” and “Who let the dogs out”), when he said something really interesting. “How do you explain to your coworkers that you come to the titty bar to hang out with amazingly intelligent beautiful women? Nobody would believe you.” And it’s true, most people don’t get it. But there are exceptional customers out there who get it. They get that we’re at work, they get that they have to pay us for our company, and there’s never a problem with that arrangement. These men must have a combination of some pretty specific qualities: intelligence, empathy, generosity, and loneliness. If they’re local, they have to be dissatisfied with their personal life. If they’re travelling, they have to be bored because they’re on a business trip in Dallas and there’s not anything interesting to do here.
I usually prefer the travelers, because they don’t have any mistaken notions about “what it all means.” Every time I find a local regular, the relationship eventually ends because they realize that they’re not actually dating me. We have awesome times together, but eventually he’ll wake up and be like, “Okay, this feels like a relationship, but I have to pay her to hang out with me. She doesn’t want to be my girlfriend.” That will be that, I’ll take an income hit, and move on. Right now my local regular could become the exception to that rule, because he’s in a romance-less marriage and they’re basically roommates and staying together because it’s cheaper than a divorce. So he’s probably “safe” in that regard. But who knows.
Now, let me be clear. I truly like and appreciate every regular I’ve ever had. I don’t care who you are, customer or not, but you don’t get to be my friend, much less see me once a week or more, if you’re not interesting as hell. Would my regulars be people I could sit down and talk with in an airport bar for six hours while we’re both stranded in, say, Milwaukee? Absolutely. Will I keep in contact with some of them after I’m done? Sure. They’re good buddies, and they have good stories, and I feel that at least a portion of our relationship(s) is/are genuine, despite the commodification. But I won’t keep all of them around. I fantasize about the moment when I get to delete the literally hundreds of phone numbers I have stored. Airport conversation or no, would I be this nice to them if they weren’t paying me? Probably not. I’ve become quite skilled at channeling my affection. But I’m tired. I’m tired of pretending to like people more than I do.
The constant channeling into different outlets can get exhausting. The Aussie and I both prefer to make all our money from one or two sources per evening. As she put it, we tire easily of the “I’m this, I’m that, I’m this, I’m that” game.
Yes, we are selling parts of ourselves. The Aussie said, “This is exploitation on my terms. You think you’re not being exploited in a cubicle? This is on my terms.” It’s true, we’re all whores for our jobs, but we strippers have a little bit more control over where that exploitation comes from, i.e. we can walk away from an abusive situation if we deem it so. The Aussie’s mom said, “We all sell ourselves, in marriage, in life.” And her daughter, my dear friend, extrapolates: “I’m just doing it the way I want to do it. And that’s why I’ve stayed so long. I don’t want a real job until I can do it the way I want.”
Selling ourselves changes the way we interact with “real” people too. I tend to be really social when I go out, relishing in the fact that I’m engaging in real interactions with pure motives. The Aussie expresses something different: “You lose the filter when you’re not getting paid. I don’t want to talk to people when I go out, I want to take ecstasy and dance and lose my shit. I don’t even know how much I’ve given up by [stripping]. I’m not getting laid.”
And it’s true. This job makes it impossible to have a real relationship. You work at night. You’re constantly selling so much of yourself, it changes the way you love. The Aussie says, “I’m so used to manipulating people that I find myself dating people who are beneath me because they’re easy to manipulate.” She’s recognized this, and is trying to break that habit. “I’m excited by people, which is why I’m a good stripper, but my instantaneous connection is sexual, which is why I’ve never had a relationship that grew. Eliza is in her first post-stripping relationship and is having a hard time adjusting to the real. It’s romance, he’s not a customer, she likes him for him, not his money. She’s basically been dating customers and is having a hard time switching back.” Now, my personal experience hasn’t been like this. I’ve had relationships, I don’t manipulate my lovers, I don’t see my patterns with customers spilling over into my intimate life, but most of them were long distance, so I could still control my time (read: work nights and schedule week/ends where I see my bf and fuck off from work). Now that I’m single, and living in a place where I won’t find a mate, and all I could really do is go out on a date here, a date there, and I don’t. I don’t see the point. I don’t want dates, I want love. I’m tired of this. You can’t put a price tag on love. When I’m done here in a few, whatever I lose in income, I will earn back tenfold in authenticity.
Some customers think you can buy love, though. Not all customers are ideal. There are some who are completely deluded, and some who are aware they’re being deluded.
Exhibit B: The Skeptic.
In “Never trust a man with a boat,” I describe how some customers can turn on you once they realize that you’re not dancing naked for them, or laughing at their jokes, or generally being adoring, because you genuinely feel like it. Well, a few weeks ago, I had a really interesting exchange with a guy after I’d done a few dances:
Him: “Wow, you’re really good. I totally think you’re going to go home with me, but you’re not.”
Me: “Um, thanks?”
Him: “No seriously, I feel like I should be giving you my number right now, but that’s pointless, because you don’t actually like me.”
Me: “I do like you. But not in the way you’re thinking. May I be completely honest?” (stealing myself a little here, ahhh fuckit)
Him: “Sure.”
Me: “You’re too short. I need guys who are at least three or four inches taller than me.”
Him: “But I’m five ten.”
Omg. He’s so not five ten.
Me: “No way.”
I take off my shoes (which is considered prostitution in this state btw, still need to figure out the arcane source of that particular blue book law), we stand toe to toe, quite literally. He’s not five ten. Whatever.
The point is: he cut through the crap. He called me out on my game. And he seemed quite put off about it.
Whatever, he deserves it. He clearly didn’t know what he was getting into when he started talking to me.
SELLING SPIRITUALITY
The Silent Takeover of Religion
by Jeremy Carrette and Richard King
(Routledge, 2004, paperback $22.95)
Jeremy Carrette and Richard King, authors of Selling Spirituality: The Silent Takeover of Religion, have developed a theory that is both disturbing and sadly convincing. According to these authors, today it is spirituality, not religion that, as Karl Marx famously wrote in 1844, has become “the opium of the people,” sedating and numbing us to the state of the world and our own souls. As a matter of fact, they argue, spirituality—that which we trust to be the fountainhead of meaning, mystery, and value in life—has undergone nothing short of a “corporate takeover” and has become the latest victim of neoliberal ideology, a modified form of liberalism that values free-market capitalism above all else. “In our view,” Carrette and King write, “this reflects a wider cultural reorientation of life according to a set of values that commodifies human experience and opens up the space for the corporate takeover of all human knowledge and life.”
The confluence of economics and spirituality has produced what the authors call “New Age capitalism,” a “brand name for the meaning of life” that reinterprets religious and spiritual truths to benefit the profoundly individualistic and materialistic postmodern person. According to Carrette and King, New Age capitalism's overriding characteristic is the hawking of “personalised packages of meaning . . . rather than offering recipes for social change and identification with others.” And this popular form of spirituality, lacking any shared definitions or the context of tradition, is too easily co-opted by “the desiring machine of consumerism.” The result is that instead of providing effective paths for social transformation, spirituality is now little more than a balm that soothes us, helping us to cope with and perhaps feel a little better about the harsh realities and existential hurdles of the modern world.
http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j31/reviews.asp
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