Making Choices: Getting Naked? Stay in School?

Okay, friends, this one is a mess. In large part, because I am a mess.

I was asked by my professor (the one who told me a few months ago that my experience as a stripper could be an ethical issue) to meet with her before winter break. I practiced deep breathing as I walked into her office, still feeling happy from J and I getting married (this meeting happened about an hour after that). As I sat down, I reminded myself to stay calm and collected.

Basically:

She, as the department chair, along with the other three core faculty and the dean, met at some point during the semester to discuss whether or not my stripping experience is an ethical issue. They filled out some sort of professional evaluation form, and as a group (she maintained), they see my occupation as a serious boundary violation and ethical issue in conflict with the code of ethics for marriage and family therapists. Why? Because of the potential for future clients to have seen me dance, the potential for current clients of mine to see me dance, and the potential for the former clients to see me dance. To her, this constituted a seriously problematic multiple relationship. In addition, for some reason, she sees it as a “conflict of interest” (what? am I going to sell lap dances after a therapy session?). This serious ethical issue was held by her regardless of whether I stop dancing now or not.

I can’t disagree that it would be a multiple relationship to have a concurrent therapist-client and stripper-customer relationship with someone. I also would not do that. I also feel it is paternalistic and arrogant to say that I am responsible for making sure that any potential client of mine never sees me out in public doing something that is not mainstream.

I didn’t go into this program to be a cookie-cutter therapist. I went into it with the explicit goal and intention of serving the queer, kinky, poly, and sex positive community (including sex workers). I’ve been completely open with my cohort and professors about my experiences and motivations, and now the message I receive is: sorry, too much. As my friend said to me today: They are grinding you down.

She said: It’s not about exotic dancing! We want you to dance, we want you to feel empowered and to feel empowered sexually. But this is a serious ethical issue.

Is is possible for me to truly understand the code of ethics and continue to dance? I asked.

No, she replied.

If it was up to me, in my personal opinion, she said, I wouldn’t place you next year [for an internship] if you were still dancing.

Think it over during your winter break, she told me. Then in January, I want to meet with you again. If you agree, then we can move forward. If you disagree that this a serious ethical issue, then we will need to convene an Academic Review Committee and investigate further. You will probably need quite a bit of mentoring to fully understand why this is such a problem. It is possible that the result from the committee process that you won’t be allowed to continue in the program.

I left that half hour meeting boiling. I hardly had a chance to speak, to ask questions, to present my case.

I literally feel stuck. I feel angry, boxed in, aggravated, irritated, helpless, hopeless, disheartened, defeated. Defeated.

Pick my battles, figure out my goals, move forward. Give up stripping? Give up school? I’m sure I’ll be writing about this again when my thoughts are more clear.

And yes, I am writing this from the strip club. (My nice way of saying: Fuck. You.)

Support Your Local Beautiful Losers

I bought this shirt a couple of weeks ago, and it finally arrived yesterday:

beautifulloserstshirt

A bartender at my club was wearing it, and I instantly fell in love with the design, the sentence structure, the many meanings. It feels provocative and powerful to me, disrupting ideas of patriarchy and slut-shaming in subtle and shifty ways. Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.

Does it refer to the service industry? The young and underemployed? Strippers? Who are the losers?

How do I feel identifying as a “beautiful loser”?

How would this shirt be different without the word “beautiful”: Support your local losers ? Why does being beautiful matter in also being a loser? I have some ideas… Do you?

If you want one, search for Bandit Brand on Etsy and email the owner. She made one for me when I messaged her saying I desperately wanted one!! :)

Hickeys

Last night J gave me the most extraordinary hickey. I mean, it’s huge. And super dark. It’s lovely. I love getting hickeys, I like giving them. The process of receiving one is one of the most sexy, sensual, hot, chill-inducing experiences of my life. (And I’m referring to getting hickeys on my neck. My neck is definitely in my top 5 places of erogenous zones on my body).

Hickeys get a bad rap. The most common opposition I hear is: Well I don’t want people to see it!

And of course my mind goes to: Well… why?

Because we are so averse to showing our sexuality. Subtle forms that display we are sexual, through dress, body language, eye contact, tone of voice, are everywhere. But to show off the fact that we were in fact sexual last night or the day before allows the person looking at us to conjure images of us being sexual. What were you doing when you got that hickey? Who gave it to you? What did you look like, sound like? What else do you enjoy?

I remember encountering this during school a couple of years ago. My professor, an amazing trans lesbian, came to class with some serious bruises up and down her arms. While she did not offer an explicit explanation, the conversation that ensued made it clear that she had engaged in some consensual BDSM or other kink play. She seemed to be quite happy and satisfied with her bruises, and delighted in sort of winking at the class with what it meant.

I was so intrigued, and of course, my imagination went to all of those questions I posed above. I was distracted, but it was a bubbly, effusive distraction, inviting me to think about my professor in new ways, and about my own sexuality and desires. Would I ever want  bruises like that, delight in receiving them or giving them?

Hickeys (depending where they are) are a public display of past sexuality, of romance and desire, of heat and passion. They show others that we, too, enjoy and delight in kisses, sucking, licking, biting. That we moan and ache. I don’t think a low-cut shirt or a sultry eye gaze necessarily says quite the same thing, which I think results in the differing resistance people encounter in showing off a hickey versus cleavage or physique. I think our culture of slut-shaming similarly affects women’s resistance to displaying hickeys (we may be freaks in bed, but heaven forbid other people know about that). [Interesting note: during class tonight, I did not take off my scarf. Was I afraid of people's observations and reactions to my huge hickey? Did I not want to make other people uncomfortable with my display of sexuality? I really don't know.]

Long live the hickey. Long live desire and pleasure.

HickieHickie 2

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing by Margaret Atwood

Wanted to share this amazing poem:

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing
by Margaret Atwood

The world is full of women
who’d tell me I should be ashamed of myself
if they had the chance. Quit dancing.
Get some self-respect
and a day job.
Right. And minimum wage,
and varicose veins, just standing
in one place for eight hours
behind a glass counter
bundled up to the neck, instead of
naked as a meat sandwich.
Selling gloves, or something.
Instead of what I do sell.
You have to have talent
to peddle a thing so nebulous
and without material form.
Exploited, they’d say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I’ve a choice
of how, and I’ll take the money.
I do give value.
Like preachers, I sell vision,
like perfume ads, desire
or its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it’s all in the timing.
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything’s for sale,
and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see
a chain-saw murder just before it happens,
when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple
are still connected.
Such hatred leaps in them,
my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary
hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads
and upturned eyes, imploring
but ready to snap at my ankles,
I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge
to step on ants. I keep the beat,
and dance for them because
they can’t. The music smells like foxes,
crisp as heated metal
searing the nostrils
or humid as August, hazy and languorous
as a looted city the day after,
when all the rape’s been done
already, and the killing,
and the survivors wander around
looking for garbage
to eat, and there’s only a bleak exhaustion.
Speaking of which, it’s the smiling
tires me out the most.
This, and the pretence
that I can’t hear them.
And I can’t, because I’m after all
a foreigner to them.
The speech here is all warty gutturals,
obvious as a slab of ham,
but I come from the province of the gods
where meanings are lilting and oblique.
I don’t let on to everyone,
but lean close, and I’ll whisper:
My mother was raped by a holy swan.
You believe that? You can take me out to dinner.
That’s what we tell all the husbands.
There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around.
Not that anyone here
but you would understand.
The rest of them would like to watch me
and feel nothing. Reduce me to components
as in a clock factory or abattoir.
Crush out the mystery.
Wall me up alive
in my own body.
They’d like to see through me,
but nothing is more opaque
than absolute transparency.
Look–my feet don’t hit the marble!
Like breath or a balloon, I’m rising,
I hover six inches in the air
in my blazing swan-egg of light.
You think I’m not a goddess?
Try me.
This is a torch song.
Touch me and you’ll burn

Yes Means Yes: Female Submission Fantasies

I am currently reading Yes Means Yes, and my favorite chapter (and probably most relevant to this blog) is the chapter on female submission fantasies. I actually thumbed to this chapter when I first picked the book up from the library, and I have been excited to write the post on it since.

The title of the chapter said it all to me the first time I read it: “The Fantasy of ‘Non-Consent’: Why the Female Sexual Submissive Scares Us (and Why She Shouldn’t).”

The title captures so many of the feelings I have had since realizing that I love being submissive during sexual encounters. I can definitely be an equal part to sexual decision-making, and can definitely be assertive and enjoy being so, but there is nothing quite like being told what to do or being handled in a way that capitalizes on my submissive side. However, I have felt since realizing all of this that this part of me scares me. What does this mean for how I identify as a feminist? Does this mean I have bought into a culture that says woman are supposed to be submissive and men are supposed to be dominant? Have I internalized a deep sense of sexism, which now turns me on? The last part of the chapter title made me relieved: I shouldn’t be scared of my own desires and fantasies, and I don’t have to be. Thank god.

The central idea of this chapter is similar to Dan Savage’s idea of “suspending disbelief.” I am not really giving up all of my power during a sexual encounter, and I am not really “not consenting” to an encounter. It is more about buying into a fantasy for a short period of time so that I can live out that fantasy in a safe and consensual way. 

Stacey May Fowles (author of the chapter) discusses how, in the BDSM community, a “non-consensual” scene has parameters set before the scene is acted out: there are clear boundaries and rules, each person has a role to play, and safe words are set. In this way, a “non-consensual” scene is quite the opposite, and person acting in a submissive role (the one “giving up” all of his/her power) is actually the one holding the power during the scene. 

Fowles argues that mainstream porn, as part of a larger rape culture, is partly responsible for the belief among many feminists that the image of a female submissive is horrible: you simply cannot be a feminist and believe that rape is wrong while also believing that female submissiveness can be a consensual part of female sexuality. 

I think that if we critically think about our fantasies, accept the fact that our fantasies are influenced the families, schools, religious institutions, and cultures that raised us, and can plan thoughtful fantasies that include clear boundaries and roles for those involved, then those fantasies can be healthy parts of our sexual experience. Which is good news for me, since being submissive is such a turn on for me and a huge part of many of my fantasies. Not only that, but I can still call myself a feminist! :-)

The Purity Myth

I just finished reading Jessica Valenti’s The Purity Myth (thank you L for letting me steal that from you over break!! And here is the post you asked for!). It took me just a few days to finish it; I basically tore through this book. It spoke directly to my experience, growing up in a liberal household and religious community and in a conservative Christian town, while also receiving popular culture messages surrounding sexuality. I received the very message Valenti discusses throughout the book: “good” girls wait to have sex until marriage, “bad” girls don’t wait. I did receive a more nuanced message from my parents (wait to have sex with someone that you love and loves you back), but the overall attitude in school among my peers was pretty black-and-white. Girls are no longer to be admired if they have sex; you are now a slut/whore/easy, etc. Girls who remained in Christian youth group, who attended church, who had the jock boyfriend, but who stopped sexual activity before it reached vaginal intercourse were still “pure” and “good.” I remember hearing about girls who had oral sex or who were fingered in movie theaters or who had sex, or who got pregnant, and they were severely slut-shamed in whispers. However, I recognize I had a somewhat different immediate peer group: band dorks. Tina Fey’s Mean Girls got it right: band dorks are probably some of the most sexually active kids that I knew in high school. My best friends in high school were in band (like I was), and they had sex around the same time I did. It was something that we went through together, although it did take me a while to disclose the information to other close friends for fear of slut-shaming.

I decided to use Valenti’s questions for discussions at the end of her book to talk about the themes I read about. So much of the book was shocking and overwhelming that it will help me give some structure to this post. While I already “knew” much of what she discusses, the clarity of her writing and severity of case examples overwhelmed my initial brainstorming for how I wanted to respond to the book.


Defining virginity is difficult for both J and I. I think I would define it as the period of pre-pubescence, when the idea and/or practice of sexual activity has not become a part of day-to-day mind activity and/or physical activity. I realize this is pretty open and perhaps vague, but it makes so much more sense to me then claiming virginity is somehow linked to the first time one engages in some sexual practice. I would liken virginity and loss of virginity to passing through puberty. I think defining virginity this way takes away a lot of the power that the virignity movement has ascribed to virginity. If virginity was thought of as a similar biological, physiological, mental, emotional process as puberty is, it no longer has some religious, mystical, and powerful hold over a very real and inevitable transition that humans go through. I think before opening up our relationship and critically thinking about so many different aspects of sexuality, I most likely would have answered this question very differently. I probably would have defined virginity as the state before one has vaginal intercourse, even though before I would have thought this was a ridiculous definition. I just didn’t really know how to have a more nuanced and creative definition.


Valenti is big on the idea that women should be brought up to recognize that many other values, besides purity, define them as human beings. Women in our society are seen and judged in terms of their sexuality: virgins are good, sluts are bad. If you have had sex, you are dirty, and that’s that. If you wait to have sex until you are married, you are a pure and moral woman. Being respectful, open-minded, community-minded, optimistic, and hardworking are values that I would hope young women have instilled in them. I would hope that women can grow up to be critical thinkers and reflectors, capable of engaging in thoughtful dialogue and creating meaningful relationships. None of these values or abilities are dependent on sexual activity; sexual activity and one’s sexuality is one part of one’s experience as a human being. And although I would argue, and I think Valenti would argue as well, that sexuality is a hugely important aspect of being alive, it should not be the sole defining factor in judging a person’s worth.


The idea that female sexuality is “dirty” is something that still affects me. Every time I discover a new fantasy of mine, I have to actively work through the validity of that fantasy: is this okay? Is this wrong? Should I be allowed to do this? And every time I go home or talk to my mom, I realize that topics come up that make me feel guilty or ashamed of exploring my sexuality. Most recently, while visiting for the holidays, J and I went to a new sex store. When we came home, my mom asked what we had been up to and I told her. She said, “Oh, oh, I don’t know want to know.” It made me feel like sex is something that polite people don’t talk about, that respectable people don’t talk about, that good girls don’t think about. Critically thinking about this concept of female sexuality as “dirty” has been important for me in my path toward sexual fulfillment and happiness, and being able to understand the need for others to seek out sexual fulfillment.

One really interesting aspect of Valenti’s book is the idea of the virginity fetish (fetishizing young girls and women). According to Valenti, this fetish with young girls and women as “pure” is just as dangerous as the hypersexualization of girls and women. Both fetishes are consumed with female sexuality and controlling and molding it to fit a certain image: virgin or whore.


Creating a more positive vision of women’s sexuality, while not sexualizing youth, means giving youth and young women accurate and sex positive information so that they can decide for themselves whether or not to have sex. It means treating the topic of sex as a normal part of the human experience: it can be positive, negative, mistakes can be made, and lessons learned (although we need to continue to work to dismantle the system of patriarchy that still allows the pairing of violence and sex). It means teaching all youth how to safely have sex, how to prepare for both emotional and physical consequences of having sex (both positive and negative), and how to maturely and appropriately negotiate sex- and not only birth control usage, but learning how to communicate what kinds of sexual activities are wanted and needed to make the experiences enjoyable. Creating this kind of sex positive culture means engaging both men and women, and not only creating a positive image of female sexuality but dismantling the stereotypical image of masculinity. It means getting rid of abstinence-only sex education, which is based on treating female sexuality as dirty and wrong and something to be saved for a husband, and telling legislators that laws should uphold and strengthen the legal and medical rights of women.

The Ethical Slut, by Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt

I recently finished reading The Ethical Slut by Catherine Liszt and Dossie Easton. It seems like one of the standard books one comes across when expanding one’s views on human sexuality and sexual relationships. I had heard of it before, and wanted to read it to expand my knowledge of the books written on the subject of open relationships.
 
The main premise of the book, I think, is that being sexually promiscuous (being a “slut”) is not a “bad thing.” It actually is a positive experience to live as a slut: to have the freedom and ability to express one’s sexuality and to act on (consensual) sexual desires. The authors attempt to reclaim the word slut as a label that positively describes someone’s ability and desire to have a variety of positive sexual encounters, experiences, and partners.
 
While there were a few things I did like about this book, there were also some things I was not as fond of. The writing feels disconnected from my generation. The authors seem to place an emphasis on “free love” which feels out of touch with the way our society is structured and with how most people live right now. This isn’t to say that I don’t think “free love” is a humbling and sort of noble idea; I would actually prefer it, I think, if people had the humility and security to love many people and have sex with many people without it causing anxiety, fear of loss, jealousy, and anger. Overall, though, it doesn’t feel like a practical guide to expanding relationships and sexual experiences. The authors actually admit to having their roots in 1960s San Francisco, and most of the book feels couched in a small, small slice of the American experience and not applicable to mainstream America.
 
I really did like, however, their discussion about how the taboo nature of sex has led to distorted views about the sexual experience and misinformation. If no one can openly talk about sex and ask questions when there is confusion about the real mechanics of sex, then I think people go off of the messages they receive from mass media and porn. Sex is always passionate, right? The woman always squirts, right? The man is always bigger than the woman, right? There is always a lot of grunting and screaming, right? I think if we all talked to all of our friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers, we would find out that the sexual experience is as diverse as people are in general. Because social constraints keep us from talking openly about sex with everyone we might want to, we have no way of knowing that not every man grunts, not every woman orgasms the same way, that sometimes sex is just sex and not some mind-blowing, earth-shattering event. One of their suggestions for breaking yourself out of your own “sex is taboo” box is to write down all sex-related words that you can think of, and then choose the ones you like (cock, dick or penis? Vagina or cunt? Squirting or female ejaculation?). Say them out loud five times in a row so that you actually feel comfortable saying them. It makes it easier to communicate to yourself and others what you want, what you like, and what you want to do.
 
They also lead a thoughtful discussion about body image and how body image distortions and anxieties affect our expectations surrounding sex (body image distortions create and further emphasize our feelings of inadequacy, worry about loss, etc). This part honestly really hit home for me because I have struggled since high school with breast size: why can’t mine be BIGGER dammit?? Don’t all men want their partners to have big boobs? Since I don’t have them, does that mean my partner is unsatisfied? Will he leave me for someone with bigger boobs?? See, I wrote that, and I know it sounds ridiculous! But Liszt and Easton are definitely on to something when they discuss how our culture’s perceptions of beautiful bodies affects our perceptions of what sex should look like and feel like.
 
The chapter on jealousy was also solid, and had some great tips about how to manage and face jealousy. A lot of their suggestions had to do with relaxation techniques, being honest with yourself and your partner, appropriate ways to respond to jealousy, and how to problem solve and manage conflicts peacefully and constructively. The chapters on health and raising children were also informative and helpful. Lastly, I really liked the authors’ ability to talk about the “real-world” constraints of having an open relationship: time, money, and one’s ability to have sex many times a day are all limited! It does take honest negotiation and communication to make an open relationship work.
 

Overall, I am glad I read The Ethical Slut as it seems to be integral in open relationship literature. I definitely think it has some valuable parts in it. Besides the 1960s feel to the book, I would recommend it to anyone looking to expand their views on what relationships can look like and how to ethically create open relationships.