some statistics on stripper memoirs

I posted this elsewhere previously, but I am putting it here, as the record is easier to access. Also, after a long season I will be re-approaching said memoirs with a fresh new perspective and commentary. W00t.

i finished (nearly) every stripper-memoir in existence. quite unfortunately i discovered very accidentally and belatedly the existence of an entire subcategory of stripper-memoir– the vanity press/self-published/POD category. some of those look pretty interesting, but i think the fact of the self-publishing makes them a separate project for the future (and maybe someone else, heh). i do have a couple that were available easily via amazon or b&n, but they are basically representative samples. in any case, here are preliminary demographics, as follows:

total number of memoirs: 9

number written by blondes: 4; brunettes: 5

ethnicity:
‘white’: 5
(white) Jewish: 2
multi-ethnic (German, Italian, Native American as self-described): 1
Egyptian: 1

class background:
middle class: 6
working class: 2
unclear: 1

educational level:
Bachelor’s: 6
beyond Bachelor’s: 2 (one Phd, one Master’s)
some college: 1

club environment:
worked exclusively in stripclubs: 5
worked in a peepshow: 4
worked in lingerie modeling: 1
worked primarily in stripclubs: 1
worked primarily in peepshow: 2
worked primarily in lingerie modeling: 1

worked mainly or exclusively at one stripclub (if only stripclub work): 3
worked mainly or exclusively at one stripclub (if not only stripclub work): 3
worked at multiple clubs cross-country: 2
worked at multiple clubs locally: 1

locations:
worked in seattle: 3
worked in san francisco (at the mitchell bros theatre): 2
worked in las vegas: 2
worked in nola, aka new orleans: 2
worked in minneapolis: 1
worked in boston: 1
worked in providence, RI: 1
worked in misc locations: 1

sexual orientation:
primarily or exclusively heterosexually identifying: 8
unclear: 1

The yucky Mal/Zoe dynamic in Firefly, or Joss Whedon is a little too Southern

In the short but sweetly lamented series Firefly, Joss Whedon has pretty well indicated that the captain, Mal Reynolds, is supposed to represent a post-Civil War Confederate soldier on the run from carpetbaggers. Using Civil War allegory in a sci-fi western sounds innovative, intriguing and a guarantee of at least a little amusement value.

Oh, but the subtext one finds when clueless white men are left to run loose with story development. The problem with using the Civil War as a subtext is that Joss Whedon’s ancestors weren’t slaves. So he seriously thinks that in Zoe, Mal’s second-in-command and only surviving member of his unit, he’s done a subversive little trick. She’s black! She’s a she! She can fight so good! She’s a soldier just like Mal, etc, etc.

Mr. Whedon must have fallen asleep during the part in class where they discussed how some slaves stayed with their masters even after emancipation.

The bitterness of alluding to a Civil War theme in Firefly is that Zoe is nothing more than a painful and classic cliche– the loyal slave, so loyal she doesn’t accept emancipation, but continues following every order Massa (Mal) gives her, no matter how incompetent or unreasonable.

Even her marriage to the ship’s pilot, Wash, unspools itself in accord with such a narrative. Marrying someone Massa doesn’t like and looks down on, who’s clearly less competent than she is. Yep, Wash could easily be an emancipated slave who knows he can’t compete with Massa. Or a poor white who finds Zoe overwhelming and beautiful, and remains resentful that her truest devotion will ever belong to Massa.

Interestingly, this view of events explains perfectly why Mal has never even made a pass at the Extremely Attractive Zoe better than any other interpretation possibly could. ‘He’s her commanding officer’ simply doesn’t fly as a reason why they never even attempted romance. But master-slave does. Bless Occam and his shiny razor.

Ironically, in trying to be ‘colorblind’ or ’subversive’ or whatever he was thinking was racially ‘nicer’, Whedon did nothing except underline in red ink the very racial and class stereotypes he was presumably trying to sidestep, creating something in the Mal/Zoe dynamic that is quite uncomfortable to watch.

This article asks “Where are Mal’s slaves?”, but there the answer is standing near to Mal in every episode of Firefly.

The Firefly ‘verse is certainly full of interesting possibilities, but there’s a lot of worms under the cushions, squirmy little bits of cluelessness left behind for the viewer to wince at.

Another day, something about the Companions (geisha-like sexworkers) and their Guild.

this is what happens when you write about sexwork

…without talking to a damned sex-worker.

Warning– it’s a pdf.

That ’scholar-fan’ is just– off. I don’t know if it’s the cheeseball academia-speak, or the confused assumptions, or the fact that this child took a blog post’s worth of commentary and streeeeeetched it out into sixteen pdf-pages of quasi-academic goofiness.

There is some interesting stuff going on regarding Inara, Companions, racial issues, gender issues, good old intersectionality of race/gender, and of course sex-selling more generally in the Firefly/Serenity ‘verse, but she failed to cover any of it, pretty much.

I will, hopefully before this holiday.

questions for the citibank coal-mining protesters.

Are the coal miners and other staff working in the eco-unfriendly coal-mine locals from the affected communities, or are they non-local (possibly immigrant) workers? Loretta Lynn probably wouldn’t have been too eager to have the coal mine shut down, unsafe or no. Food and clothing are food and clothing, after all. But if local folks are not even able to be employed because Big Coal would rather ship in people, then it is not surprising they might cosy up to idealistic collegiate activists and get the coal plant shut down. Then they can starve while breathing decent air, at least. It is some comfort.

Many of those college students standing alongside local folks concerned about their air and water quality are distinctly non-local. Coal mining is work taken when there’s nothing else. Will those same activists be back to start businesses and employ the locals, or help the locals keep businesses going and employ each other?

On a related note, many of those non-local activists are also against nuclear power, about the only environmentally friendly energy option that is sustainable over the long term with a minimum of environmental risk. Some day I shall tell you of salt domes and how they can in fact reduce the risk on nuclear waste down to, well, nothing that would harm life on this earth (except maybe a few stray bacteria). I wonder if they’re prepared to live without modern electricity and its wonders (like, oh, the internets) entirely. The college kids, I mean. They are always against the things that allow them the freedom to pursue college education and film protests in real time for posting to the web.

I don’t like Big Coal either, but that coal doesn’t mine itself, and I spare a thought for all parties involved who aren’t super-wealthy white guys.

I always worry when truly poor whites align themselves with truly not poor white liberals. It’s very lamb and lion.

the joys of sex-positive Christianity

Someone more fluent than I can be lately wrote awhile ago about the mysticism of sex in a Christian context. It is quite charming and an insightful read.

But enough prelude: read it– http://prochoros.blogspot.com/2006/07/revisiting-mysticism-of-sex.html.

The longer I live, the more complex and difficult Christianity gets as a faith. There are no easy paths with this gift.

ETA June 2009: This link is dead, alas. That was a lovely and excellent blog. I think I may have an archived copy of the essay, and if I can find one, I will post the full content here.

a month of beer– day nine, Dead Guy Ale

Ah, Oregon, they are so very much fun with their crazy beer-making selves and all. I finally broke down and grabbed up a large-sized 22oz Dead Guy Ale. I liked the picture on the bottle. It’s strong, with a slightly wheaten and sweet start. Alas, the sweet fades as you wander on down to the bottom of the bottle, but I could so easily get to be friends with this beer anyhow. I poured off at intervals into a pint glass rather than chugging from the massive bottle. To my girlie beer-drinking taste buds, it is like a pilsner with beef on the back, strong as an ale, but with a certain lightness you don’t always get with them. I like the allurement of introductory sweetness that remains an elusive memory as one continues sipping.

A fascinating side trip, seven round-bellied monks out of ten.

Smart women oughta have babies, not memes

Some while ago, a commenter to a post of mine made an argument that is surpassing common in the progressive/liberal world. It is in fact so common that as I responded I said it quite warrants its own blog post, so here we are.

The argument took this simple and misleading form– “Women with access to education and economic freedom have fewer children”. It is misleading because what the commenter meant to say was ‘Smart women have one or none as far as kids go, because they are too busy being actualised by a career!’

Up to a point, women will have fewer children with access to the sorts of resources that will keep more of their children alive. However, most women are quite all right with having two to four children once it seems like odds aren’t 1 in 2 of each kid dying before age five. That’s the wicked little titbit you never hear when progressives are repeating their mantra on how ‘intelligence equals failing to copy yourself for the future’. They’ll eat up meme-ology, something with less rational basis than God himself (oh if only I were jesting), but they cannot understand how it baffles folks when they proudly proclaim they are ‘childfree’. As if continuing the human race is a sign of stupidity.

Women not having replacement rates or more of children is historically and logically a sign of a culture declining into decadence and destruction. Memes are quite useless if nobody’s around to pass them along. The underlying classism and racism of the argument that ‘educated women have few or no children’ should be pretty obvious, and yet it is always handwaved aside.

However, the same people saying that it’s a smart woman what abdicates her own fertility are usually talking the loudest about how a country full of such women can simply make up the population through immigration. BUT, these same people want women from other countries to not have kids also. Progressive viewpoints are not always straight lines, but kind of squiggly and confused blurred things.

Either ‘education’ and reduced/nonexistent fertility is only for certain (white) women, and other (black/brown) women can have babies so that a permanent serf class can be shipped across the world to serve the childless PhDs until the inevitable revolution; or one really is advocating a fundamental nihilism and would like all women to not continue the human race.

I think there’s a better way than telling women that economic freedom is only to be found by abandoning fertility. That hasn’t historically been true across the board, and nobody should be making that assumption now. I am not sure what better way would be best, as modern society is both very old and remarkably new and not in the ways that people typically state. But anything that doesn’t involve penalising women for having babies during their fertile years and pursuing careers if they please following would be really really nice. It would potentially also be a lot less classist and racist if babies in themselves were valued as oncoming fellow humans and not obstacles in the way of a marketing degree.

Biology shouldn’t be fought against, but worked with and accepted as ok. And those few women who truly won’t have kids should have their decision respected, with the understanding that it can’t be made lightly. Various childfree women like to complain about how they can’t get their tubes tied at 18, but when 9 times of 10 women change their mind and want to sue in such cases due to simple biology, it should be understood that a woman cannot abdicate her biology idly. No take-backs if she wants to be childfree4lyfe. The uncomfortable truth is that most women would rather have a kid than not, and ideally several.

To me, the human race has so much to offer and provide and share, and I’d like it to keep going until whenever rather than die out because ’smart’ people said it was best to not have kids. And if such people want to claim they aren’t nihilists, then they’d best come clean about the basic racism of their beliefs instead of handwaving the whole thing.

I haven’t properly written this, but I think I’ve covered the basic premises fairly enough for now. It’s an issue I will return to, as fertility and the various feminist and progressive rejections of it are deep issues for me.

If you’re a smart woman and fertile, pump them babies out. Or adopt babies/toddlers/school age children that nobody else will take in your own country (yes I’m looking at you liberal white women adopting from China and Estonia and Eritrea and whatnot) and raise them well. That is very nearly as good. In any case, those are the options I’ll be pursuing.