Low Class Stripper? Classism and society’s view of adult entertainment
From the “I like to think I’m this insightful when I’m drunk” files:
So here’s what I want to talk about with class. This guy was all, “I would like to see sex shops zoned into a particular area.” Well that’s how it Already IS, fucker!! That’s how it’;s BEEN for decades now, and guess what, that’s where the PROBLOEMS come from! Just think for one nanosecond about the term “slumming.” That is fucked up. That implies a direct corrolation between porn/sex/dirty stuff and LOW CLASS. And let’s not forget lower class folks are presumed to be “wilder” and all that bullshit… oh and when it comes to sex shops, strip clubs, etc., eben if they DON’T want it in their neighborhood, guess who has the most effect when it comes to NIMBY (not in my back yard) bullshit? It’s not the poor!
Look I was blind to a lot of this stuff (not all of it tho) for a long time but now that I see it? I fucking see it EVERYWHERE, and it pisses me the fuck off!! Because to me it is now so fucking OBVIOUS, that it pisses me off that some people just.don’t.see it.
Okay and this is one of the main things that annoyed me about Pamela Paul’s book Pornified too. She doesn;t want porn to go away. She just wants it to go back to being something confined to the wrong side of the tracks. And she doesn’t see anything wrong with that! She just puts it out there like there’s nothing worth examining. She even used the phrase “low class stripper” a couple times and just didn’t think there was anything wrong with it.
-the fabulous/infamous Amber Rhea, under the influence of a little vodka and a lot of pissed off
(“Drunkblog RANT – classism and other shit,” Being Amber Rhea)
It’s funny – I didn’t see it either for a while, or I saw it and didn’t focus my eyes on what I was seeing.
For a lot of women sex work is a last-ditch option, something we all consider in the back of our minds when we’re growing up; we ask ourselves once or twice, if we needed the money, would we strip? Would we do porn? Turn tricks? And that fallback, that fishnet safety net, is there for every woman when times get tough.
Of course, it’s a valid emergency gig, but it’s not a decent job, let alone a respectable career choice. Once again, nice girls don’t. Well bred girls don’t. It’s beneath them – much like community college and dating outside their background.
So, yeah, it’s a class thing. Sex work is something a woman can turn to when she’s down and then slander once she’s back on her feet. In fact, she’s expected to. That’s part of the ritual of the redemption of the whore: she has to cast off her old life to be reaccepted into society.
It’s funny, the correlation between porn and lower-class neighborhoods. There’s an assumption that sex shops lower property values, so they’re restricted to less desirable areas. Interestingly enough there is no cause and effect there. According to Manhattan lawyer Herald Price Fahringer, “[New York City] did a study a couple of years ago that showed no rise in crime or decline in real property values.” (There’s been more on that issue recently, but I can’t find the link I’m thinking of; if anyone turns up some info, you’ll be duly rewarded with link love.)
Question your assumptions: porn is adult entertainment, and a working-class stiff doesn’t have half the entertainment budget a CEO does…
January 13th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
True and it’s a shame. I am grateful for the strippers, massagers and whores who have shown me a good time over the years. The fact is that many people (usually men) want more sex than they get in their lives and that others (usually women) can provide that service. They are professionals, providing entertainment or a service. There should be nothing wrong with that.
January 16th, 2007 at 4:18 am
Al,
You win a prize for best “should-be-glaringly-obvious (but sadly isn’t)” insight of the month. The world needs more clients like you. Thanks for stopping by.
January 16th, 2007 at 4:23 am
[...] Low Class Stripper? Classism and society’s view of adult entertainment (http://fullfrontalpolitics.com) “For a lot of women sex work is a last-ditch option, something we all consider in the back of our minds when we’re growing up; we ask ourselves once or twice, if we needed the money, would we strip?” [...]
January 16th, 2007 at 4:33 am
[...] Low Class Stripper? Classism and society’s view of adult entertainment (http://fullfrontalpolitics.com) “For a lot of women sex work is a last-ditch option, something we all consider in the back of our minds when we’re growing up; we ask ourselves once or twice, if we needed the money, would we strip?” [...]
January 16th, 2007 at 8:44 am
[...] Low Class Stripper? Classism and society’s view of adult entertainment (http://fullfrontalpolitics.com) “For a lot of women sex work is a last-ditch option, something we all consider in the back of our minds when we’re growing up; we ask ourselves once or twice, if we needed the money, would we strip?” [...]
January 16th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
[...] Low Class Stripper? Classism and society’s view of adult entertainment (http://fullfrontalpolitics.com) “For a lot of women sex work is a last-ditch option, something we all consider in the back of our minds when we’re growing up; we ask ourselves once or twice, if we needed the money, would we strip?” [...]
January 16th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
I like your premise, and it is related to one I’ve made several times about how much of a problem America has with sexual women. Not sexy women, we LOVE the tease, but empowered women who go out and fuck whom they want. But your argument is just getting good when you end the piece, so I’d suggest you put some more thought into this, as you’re on to something.
January 17th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
[...] Low Class Stripper? Classism and society’s view of adult entertainment (http://fullfrontalpolitics.com) “For a lot of women sex work is a last-ditch option, something we all consider in the back of our minds when we’re growing up; we ask ourselves once or twice, if we needed the money, would we strip?” [...]
January 18th, 2007 at 1:35 am
[...] Low Class Stripper? Classism and society’s view of adult entertainment (http://fullfrontalpolitics.com) “For a lot of women sex work is a last-ditch option, something we all consider in the back of our minds when we’re growing up; we ask ourselves once or twice, if we needed the money, would we strip?” [...]
January 21st, 2007 at 9:59 am
The whole ‘low-class’ thing is such utter bullshit.
I’ve worked in the ’sex trade’ for nearly half of my life – I’ll be 38 this year. Mostly prodom work, and I’ve done phones for escort services, worked the bars in strip clubs, done street outreach for underage ’strollers’ with hope of saving them from themselves, and consider the people who – like me – have worked in this underground my soulmates.
Along the way, I earned a Masters in Astronomy, met rock stars, enjoyed being a muse, have lived all over the world, and have laughed a lot – even when it’s the only thing left to do. I wouldn’t trade this life for anything.
A wonderful writer – Terence Sellers – once wrote that sex workers are treated like the clogged drain of society. The debris left in the drain is the use by members of the society. Yet everyone looks at the drain with disgust – as if it is the drain’s fault that the debris is clogging it. Everyone looks at the drain with disgust – even when it is only doing its job.
Any sex business staff – from the lowest hand-job joint in Chinatown to the flashiest strip joint in Miami to the most exclusive dungeon in Berlin – is 50% single moms trying to give their kids a decent life and education.
If fathers were really FORCED to step up and pay for their children’s future? That would cause more damage to the sex industry than any laws or moral police. Throw in socialized childcare and businesses would shut down overnight.
These women took a long hard look at their options. It was never an easy decision. They looked at their child, and looked at their bank balance, took a deep breath, and made a phone call.
That ’society’ is all about “What about the CHILDREN?!…” Oh, spare me. How many Upper West Side moms with their nannies and trust funds and $900 strollers would be willing to body rub strangers at 3 am for their kids?
Lack of education? The last young Mistress I trained passed the NY bar at 20. In the professional dominatrix world, it’s the LACK of a university education that makes a woman stand out. The number of Ivy Leaguers is ridiculous. Do people have any IDEA of the number of female shrinks in Manhattan who paid their way through med school by wearing thigh boots and cracking a whip? And some of them still moonlight for fun.
If ’society’ could get a realistic peek into the reality…like 8 pm on a Friday night at a NYC escort service, while the women are getting ready. They’d be shocked! Not because of raunchy hijinks and revealing lingerie like they are expecting – but because the women look, and act, so NORMAL. They’re the women you see everyday at the post office. Your kids play with her kids after school. She’s a member of the PTA.
While managing one of the top BDSM dungeons in the US, I tutored kids in university prep Calculus and Quantum Mechanics for YEARS. A friend of a friend of a friend referred me to one kid, the parents told other parents. None of them every knew about my ‘real’ job. But I bet they could watch a Law and Order episode and believe the stereotype of a sex worder – usually a victim, a criminal, or brought in for comic relief.
It’s easier for them to think of that rotten drain – to dehumanize, as if they are somehow ‘better’ than us.
For fuck’s sake – the ‘low class’ can’t afford sex workers. Who do you think pays our bills:)!
January 21st, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Whoa, I just saw this post… you linked my drunkblog rant? I’m honored! I don’t think it came off half as coherent and sensible as I would’ve liked, but hey, who am I to argue with praise?
Thanks for the link… and I hope to write more about this issue in the near future.
January 21st, 2007 at 9:42 pm
[...] Low Class Stripper? Classism and society’s view of adult entertainment (http://fullfrontalpolitics.com) “For a lot of women sex work is a last-ditch option, something we all consider in the back of our minds when we’re growing up; we ask ourselves once or twice, if we needed the money, would we strip?” [...]
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:06 pm
It would have been nice to hear more of your own comments about the subject. As I read what you posted, it seems to mostly say what you think society says about sex workers.
But topic is a very interesting one.
April 4th, 2007 at 1:21 am
[...] Low Class Stripper? Classism and society’s view of adult entertainment (http://fullfrontalpolitics.com) “For a lot of women sex work is a last-ditch option, something we all consider in the back of our minds when we’re growing up; we ask ourselves once or twice, if we needed the money, would we strip?” [...]
April 25th, 2007 at 10:56 am
[...] Low Class Stripper? Classism and society’s view of adult entertainment (http://fullfrontalpolitics.com) “For a lot of women sex work is a last-ditch option, something we all consider in the back of our minds when we’re growing up; we ask ourselves once or twice, if we needed the money, would we strip?” [...]
April 26th, 2007 at 6:18 am
[...] Low Class Stripper? Classism and society’s view of adult entertainment (fullfrontalpolitics.com…) “For a lot of women sex work is a last-ditch option, something we all consider in the back of our minds when we’re growing up; we ask ourselves once or twice, if we needed the money, would we strip?” [...]