Sliding Down the Pole of Empowerment
Burb included this link in a comment on my last post:
http://dancingbrave.typepad.com/db/2005/08/my_birthday_pre.html
It's about a 28-year old who decided to take strip aerobics classes (complete with a pole) as a "gift to herself" for her upcoming 29th birthday. She figures that, since she will soon be a prime number, she "might as well know how to wriggle, remove my shirt correctly, and give a lap dance."
Indeed. Is there any higher measure of a person's self esteem? Now, I'm sure she was being a bit facetious, and she admits in her post's title that it's just as much a present for her male partner, but she came across to one man as somewhat empowered, and that is the fuel for this post.
Burb's inclusion of this link is right-on: There are links between strip classes and the Dove ads. In a nutshell, they both involve women who have a naive, but all-too-present these days, idea of empowerment. Sure, it's an opinion. It's also my blog. ; D
First, let me clarify something. I have no problem with sex--any kind of sex--between consenting adults--as long as all parties feel good about it. Gay? Totally fine. Even hot. Anal sex? Why the hell not! Sex before marriage? Awesome! Hot tubs, whips, leather, butt plugs, swings, blow jobs, toe-sucking, VHS, purple dildoes, two guys and a gal, three gals and a guy, front, back, sideways, upside down, outside, at the OSU library . . . I don't care. In fact, I may have a thing or two to share.
Similarly, I don't have a problem with women who want to strip for their partners, give them lap dances, whatever. If it sparks up your sex life and doesn't feel demeaning to you, go for it. Similarly, if putting your body on display for a world filled with people who tend to look at women as meat and judge them accordingly makes you feel "real", fine.
Just don't confuse what's personally liberating for YOU as somehow liberating for women as a group. Especially when your ideas of "liberation" and "empowerment" are fed to you by corporations and FHM readers, and feed into their motives, which are money and an unhealthy need to dominate women, respectively.
"Lulu, what do you have against strippers!?" I know from previous rants about this topic that some of you may be asking that question. The answer is nothing. I have nothing against strippers. But I have a whole lot against stripping, at least for money.
As it is currently portrayed in strip classes, by actresses on The View and similar idiotic shows plugging their latest role as a stripper, and by the sheer amount of stripping seen in movies and TV shows, stripping is becoming normal--even fun! Disturbingly, though, it's also becoming a parallel of female empowerment as it gets mixed up in the debate involving women using their sexuality as a source of power in the boardroom as well. Remember all the bru-ha-ha about The Apprentice? I don't know, ladeez. I don't think it's gonna work. When Queer Nation took over the word "queer", the word lost a lot of its power when used by homophobes against gays and lesbians. When women use push-up bras to get a raise, or go through the motions of a lap dance on daytime television to show how empowered they are, all it shows is that we are going backward, ever backward. While a pair of firm titties will sucker some guys out of their paycheck, or even their job, for the most part the very same men that the world would be better off without are the ones getting off on all of these empowered chicks.
Isn't the point of female empowerment to move beyond the sole reliance on fleeting and all-too-subjective sexuality as a path to power? Haven't we learned the pitfalls of that stupid program already?
I can say with some authority that the actual world of stripping isn't liberating, or empowering, or even fun. It's not an exhilarating and titillating exercise in exhibitionism and sexual play. On the contrary, it's quite depressing and overwhelmingly all-business. On an SNL episode several years ago, Tina Fey "reported" on Hugh Hefner's 7 or so big boobed, overblown blonde "girlfriends". She made a snarky, hilarious, and dreadfully true remark along the lines of how 'they weren't doing it (exploiting Hef and being exploited) because they want to become famous . . . they do it because they were molested by a family friend." Let me just sum it up by saying that I've never known a completely well-adjusted stripper. And the strippers that I have met, witnessed, and read about don't have a real high opinion of men. Guys, here's a tip: When a stripper sidles up to your newcomer self and pretends to like you, they really don't. They want to soak you for as much money as possible (even the nice ones have to, on orders from management), and they think you're an absolute jackass to pay big money to see what they see in the shower every day.
Stripping is a hard, economics-based (NOT "fantasy-based") reality for a lot of women, many if not most of whom were sexually abused in some way, and they become sometimes shockingly hard people if they're at it for too long. Does anyone really think that strippers, prostitutes, and porn stars feel good about what they're doing, do it because they just love human sexual contact, and come away from the experience with the desire to pass this torch of female empowerment to their daughters? The difference between "play" stripping and actual sex work is as broad as the difference between playing the "ripped bodice" victim during a sexcapade with a trusted "pirate" partner and actually being raped.
So it disturbs me to see women naively (again, my opinion) think of strip classes as a chance for good girls to be bad WHILE thinking that this act somehow empowers women. Sex work and it's darkest relative, sexual slavery, are not a source of power for women. If we really want to empower women, we'll work to make sure that women and girls won't turn to sex work out of a warped sense of self worth brought on and exacerbated by sexual exploitation and abuse, and that they have the economic options needed to avoid it.
http://dancingbrave.typepad.com/db/2005/08/my_birthday_pre.html
It's about a 28-year old who decided to take strip aerobics classes (complete with a pole) as a "gift to herself" for her upcoming 29th birthday. She figures that, since she will soon be a prime number, she "might as well know how to wriggle, remove my shirt correctly, and give a lap dance."
Indeed. Is there any higher measure of a person's self esteem? Now, I'm sure she was being a bit facetious, and she admits in her post's title that it's just as much a present for her male partner, but she came across to one man as somewhat empowered, and that is the fuel for this post.
Burb's inclusion of this link is right-on: There are links between strip classes and the Dove ads. In a nutshell, they both involve women who have a naive, but all-too-present these days, idea of empowerment. Sure, it's an opinion. It's also my blog. ; D
First, let me clarify something. I have no problem with sex--any kind of sex--between consenting adults--as long as all parties feel good about it. Gay? Totally fine. Even hot. Anal sex? Why the hell not! Sex before marriage? Awesome! Hot tubs, whips, leather, butt plugs, swings, blow jobs, toe-sucking, VHS, purple dildoes, two guys and a gal, three gals and a guy, front, back, sideways, upside down, outside, at the OSU library . . . I don't care. In fact, I may have a thing or two to share.
Similarly, I don't have a problem with women who want to strip for their partners, give them lap dances, whatever. If it sparks up your sex life and doesn't feel demeaning to you, go for it. Similarly, if putting your body on display for a world filled with people who tend to look at women as meat and judge them accordingly makes you feel "real", fine.
Just don't confuse what's personally liberating for YOU as somehow liberating for women as a group. Especially when your ideas of "liberation" and "empowerment" are fed to you by corporations and FHM readers, and feed into their motives, which are money and an unhealthy need to dominate women, respectively.
"Lulu, what do you have against strippers!?" I know from previous rants about this topic that some of you may be asking that question. The answer is nothing. I have nothing against strippers. But I have a whole lot against stripping, at least for money.
As it is currently portrayed in strip classes, by actresses on The View and similar idiotic shows plugging their latest role as a stripper, and by the sheer amount of stripping seen in movies and TV shows, stripping is becoming normal--even fun! Disturbingly, though, it's also becoming a parallel of female empowerment as it gets mixed up in the debate involving women using their sexuality as a source of power in the boardroom as well. Remember all the bru-ha-ha about The Apprentice? I don't know, ladeez. I don't think it's gonna work. When Queer Nation took over the word "queer", the word lost a lot of its power when used by homophobes against gays and lesbians. When women use push-up bras to get a raise, or go through the motions of a lap dance on daytime television to show how empowered they are, all it shows is that we are going backward, ever backward. While a pair of firm titties will sucker some guys out of their paycheck, or even their job, for the most part the very same men that the world would be better off without are the ones getting off on all of these empowered chicks.
Isn't the point of female empowerment to move beyond the sole reliance on fleeting and all-too-subjective sexuality as a path to power? Haven't we learned the pitfalls of that stupid program already?
I can say with some authority that the actual world of stripping isn't liberating, or empowering, or even fun. It's not an exhilarating and titillating exercise in exhibitionism and sexual play. On the contrary, it's quite depressing and overwhelmingly all-business. On an SNL episode several years ago, Tina Fey "reported" on Hugh Hefner's 7 or so big boobed, overblown blonde "girlfriends". She made a snarky, hilarious, and dreadfully true remark along the lines of how 'they weren't doing it (exploiting Hef and being exploited) because they want to become famous . . . they do it because they were molested by a family friend." Let me just sum it up by saying that I've never known a completely well-adjusted stripper. And the strippers that I have met, witnessed, and read about don't have a real high opinion of men. Guys, here's a tip: When a stripper sidles up to your newcomer self and pretends to like you, they really don't. They want to soak you for as much money as possible (even the nice ones have to, on orders from management), and they think you're an absolute jackass to pay big money to see what they see in the shower every day.
Stripping is a hard, economics-based (NOT "fantasy-based") reality for a lot of women, many if not most of whom were sexually abused in some way, and they become sometimes shockingly hard people if they're at it for too long. Does anyone really think that strippers, prostitutes, and porn stars feel good about what they're doing, do it because they just love human sexual contact, and come away from the experience with the desire to pass this torch of female empowerment to their daughters? The difference between "play" stripping and actual sex work is as broad as the difference between playing the "ripped bodice" victim during a sexcapade with a trusted "pirate" partner and actually being raped.
So it disturbs me to see women naively (again, my opinion) think of strip classes as a chance for good girls to be bad WHILE thinking that this act somehow empowers women. Sex work and it's darkest relative, sexual slavery, are not a source of power for women. If we really want to empower women, we'll work to make sure that women and girls won't turn to sex work out of a warped sense of self worth brought on and exacerbated by sexual exploitation and abuse, and that they have the economic options needed to avoid it.
posted by lulu | 7:57 AM
3 Comments:
Reminds me of a femiminist's response to the infamous Virginia Slims jingle (You've come a long way, baby, to get where you've got to today, you've got your own cigaret now, baby, you've come a long, long way!): "You haven't come a long way, and you're not a baby."
Is the distinction you're addressing the difference between sex-play and sex-work?
When sex play that imitates sex work becomes an act of "empowerment" for all, I worry that the real problems that are inherent in sex work are forgotten and/or lumped in with the giggly fun of what is really an individual, private act.
I also fret about women buying into the notion that learning how to give their boyfriend a lap dance is the path to body acceptance, sexual awakening, etc.
I think if more women were aware of the realities of sex work and the lives of sex workers, they wouldn't see spending money to take lap and pole dancing classes as such a fun and healthy way to achieve self esteem. Stripping is an industry that, with few exceptions, exists to fulfill the sexual needs of males, and rather base sexual needs at that. It's a stretch in my mind to see these women as empowering even themselves when they imitate this behavior. I lump it in with the many things that some women do to please their partners at their own expense--things like having sex with another woman, giving head without getting it, etc.
If only we lived in a world without sexual baggage!
It's complicated. In lots of unhealthy relationships, power is what it's all about, and empowerment is using what you've got to manipulate your partner and get what you want. Some would claim that's just reality, so live with it. But that's a pretty shallow kind of empowerment, a pretty dead relationship, and a pretty empty reality. I can see how there might be limited therapeutic growth in BEING ABLE to take off one's clothes in front of one's lover as a means toward body acceptance, honesty, and intimacy, but the attitude exhibited by the writer, Bambi or whatever, betrays something else, like using the body a commodity in an exchange (a present for Kevin!) in a very sad, alienated life.
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