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"He thought that every woman should be at one time or another a whore. He thought that all women, deep down, wished to be a whore once in their lives and that it was good for them. It was the best way to retain a sense of being female" (Anais Nin, Delta of Venus 230). I've always secretly wanted to be a whore -- perhaps not so much a prostitute, but an object of desire, an otherworldly, larger-than-life creature of immense sexuality and, therefore, infinite power. Every woman knows that her sex is the key to her power, and I wanted that -- I wanted power and control, to be a figure looked up at and lusted after. I wanted it all, while still remaining safe behind the untouchableness of mystical appeal. In spite of, or perhaps because of, my average middle-class upbringing -- average face behind average glasses framed by average brown hair -- I wanted the thrill reserved only for sex gods and goddesses, the glamour of being judged for my sexual prowess, the allure of being judged not by my intellect (which I felt anyone dedicated to reading the right books could achieve), but of being judged by something far more difficult to accomplish - endless legs, luscious hair, tender breasts, and intoxicating beauty. An inevitable fascination with the adult industry followed. The pages of Playboy magazine seemed far less attainable to me, with my modest cleavage, than the halls of a respectable liberal arts college, and so I coveted them all the more. I stared the way one does when one is forbidden entry, at the stripper I saw showing up for work with a small suitcase one afternoon when I was in Times Square with my mother, at the dark strip bar around the corner from the local bagel shop in my small college town, at the shiny patent leather stiletto heels for sale in the local sex shop, at the shrink-wrapped magazines I knew I'd never buy - I stared and I studied, wondering how I'd ever get inside, desperate to be assimilated into this world which existed on the outskirts of mine. By the time I was a junior in college, I braved my first strip club. It was mid-afternoon, and it seemed like the only non-boring place to get a drink in downtown DC - the timing and location were right for my first real exposure. Once inside, I was astonished. The girls weren't superhuman, their breasts weren't even that big, but the lights, the stage, the music, the air - something about the place catapulted them to another planet. I'd always thought it was something about the girls that made them special. Now I realized it was something far less tangible. I knew those outfits could be purchased easily, I'd seen them hanging cheaply on the racks at many of the stores I peered around illicitly, yet on their bodies they seemed to take on a life of their own. I started to wonder - would my legs look that long in those heels? Would my breasts look as enticing in that bra? Would my figure look as supple and curvaceous framed by the right bit of lace? If I got on that stage, would the right soundtrack turn me into a star under those blinking colored lights? Could I ever be one of those girls? About a year later, my turn finally came. The bar was in my college town, but so seedy I knew none of my classmates would ever enter. The lighting came from below the stage, multi-colored squares straight out of Saturday Night Fever, and the chosen soundtrack for my first dance was Alannah Myles' "Black Velvet." I named myself Karla, and I was on my way to getting hooked on stardom. I stripped for a couple weeks, just long enough to learn I was good at it, good at shaking my hips, at peeling off my bra, at getting the men to think I loved them, and at loving me enough to keep plying the cash in an attempt to keep my big blue eyes from drifting elsewhere. I learned what it was like to be an object of desire, to be up on that stage, unattainable and lusted after, and I loved it. I did it just long enough to learn all that, and just long enough to be disgusted by the sticky stage and the pathetic men with the missing teeth, by the leering drunken gazes and the customers who didn't understand why I wouldn't go home with them, by the conversations that were prefaced and concluded by glimpses of my pussy, and by the fact that my worth was measured in dollar bills. I knew I was worth a lot more, so I took my skills, honed during my several weeks on the job and some newly discovered natural talent, and set off to New York. Once there, I tried to figure out how I could get my fix while avoiding the sticky stage and the missing teeth. I knew New York had clubs that were miles up the social ladder from the dive bar in which I had taken my first steps, but those strip joints were filled with several girls dancing at any one time, on shared or separate stages. I didn't want that. I didn't want to be just another dancer -- I needed to be the only girl at the bar. I found my next stage accidentally. It was in Manhattan's East Village. It wasn't a strip bar, although I wore a short skirt, ripped tight shirt, push-up bra and high heels. I wasn't a dancer, although I was dancing on stage, underneath blinking lights, looking longingly at my patrons while seducing them with my body and eyes. I was still shaking my hips in that slow, tantalizing way, still pulling my skirt up just enough to tease, still running my fingers over my body -- only this time my soundtrack wasn't Alannah Myles, it was me. I was singing, and it was my first show with my band. The connection between stripping and singing isn't commonly made. Or, at least, people don't explicitly compare Britney to Candi, since, after all, one sings in expensive concerts and for MTV, and the other subsists on tips in exchange for wearing barely-there g-strings (if anything at all), elaborately hair-sprayed do's, flashing her privates without even a mark of modesty, and shaking her body in a way which should only happen after dark, in a bedroom, and even then, perhaps best not at all. But read that over - are the two really so different? Singers are often seen as hypersexualized vixens, with skimpy, see-through outfits (sometimes held up by tape, àla Jennifer Lopez), frequently sporting stylishly disheveled hair, and performing thrusting dance moves in front of millions that would make the average woman blush. So what's the difference? One difference, of course, is the payment system, but other than tips vs. royalties, are the two really so far removed? In both the adult and music industries, the woman is seen as an entertainer, judged, at least partly, by her sex appeal. The stripper and the singer are seen as exposers, revealing their bodies, their souls, or both; threatening when they appear too much in control, when the power outweighs the vulnerability quotient. When it becomes apparent how thoughtfully the stripper/singer has constructed her image, it becomes alarmingly obvious that she has dictated her own objectification in a way that a Penthouse model cannot - cue the backlash. The Penthouse model, like the stripper and the singer, is a commodity, a marketable object of sexuality - highly erotic and highly desired. However, the singer/stripper brings this commodification to another, more dangerous level, because she can control it. There is no question that a singer, like a stripper, becomes an object for sale, market worth to be determined quite often by luster of hair, color of eyes, and size of waist. Madonna, on Larry King Live (10/9/02) agreed that, as a singer, "You are selling your own image when you sell records." The stripper/singer sells her image, or the fantasy she is selling, when she performs. She succeeds by creating a feminine ideal, through the ultimate commodification of body and identity, and, in turn, sexuality. It is her job to become what the audience wants and to make them want what she becomes. She sells records and gathers tips (royalties) by becoming a fantasy, a pin-up, their babe. Here enters the importance of fantasy, the elements of theater and mystique. The singer/stripper needs to build an alter-ego, a new identity, in order to become this ultimate babe, this Larger than Life creature of sex and beauty. People are paying to be entertained and seduced, seeking relief from reality and the mundane. The stage, the lights, the smoke and music all combine to elevate the stripper/singer's mystique - creating something that cannot be reproduced elsewhere, and certainly not in the daylight. No one wants the girl next door. Everyone wants what they can't have. Physically, the strip bar and the nightclub, like most things associated with after-hours entertainment, share many similarities - often ending up in the same neighborhoods, featuring minimal windows, dark, unrevealing facades, affiliations with drugs and alcohol, a sense of the forbidden (literally for those under 21), and a definite draw for the non-family oriented crowd. The appeal of the naughty stripper and the sexy singer thrives on the insinuation of the exotic, the lawless, the freaky, transporting the viewer not only into fantasy but also into the shadow world beyond the pale.(1) The thrill of stepping across both a strip bar threshold and that of a divey nightclub stems from the "Shudder of the Bad."(2) This rebellious excitement - so bad, it's good - adds to the singer/stripper's mystique, helping to create a persona which could never be found anywhere else. Both rock shows and strip clubs demand a suspension of the real, a fantasy-based distance from the everyday, in order to succeed - rock stars don't get sick, they don't go to the bathroom or shave their legs, and strippers don't have boyfriends, or children, or the ability to judge their clients. Intimacy is the ultimate image destroyer, to be avoided at all costs. The stripper/singer is desexualized at the very moment when she is stripped naked - at the moment when she reveals too much, she loses her mystique. When the clothes are off, the show is over. Madonna's role as a sex icon began to slip just after the publication of her book, Sex. No one wanted to see her fully naked - it was much more fun to imagine. Once we'd seen it, her show was over. The money is all in the tease. The final blow to Madonna's status as a sex icon came when she became a mother. The ultimate sex icon, both stripper and singer, must remain forever available to all, possessed by none.(3) Just like a stripper can never be married or gay, allowing us to cling to the hope that she may one day be ours, the sexiest singer is one that we secretly yearn to make ours. By immersing herself fully in the role of a "family woman," as mother and wife, she was no longer available for our fantasies. Nothing kills the virgin image (however loosely implied) than being surrounded by babies. We need to believe that no one else has had her. Our fascination with Britney and Justin's sex life had much to do with the fact that we needed her to stay a virgin - as long as she was unclaimed sexually, she was unclaimed physically. During a recent appearance at a New York radio station, the host promised to play Justin Timberlake's new single 30 times a day in exchange for information on his and Britney's sex life.(4) Our pursuit of personal information is driven by the need to feel that she could be ours, that we understand her, that it is only to us that the singer/stripper reveals who she really is. She is elusive, but if she lets us in, she might become ours. It is this tension between the real and the theater, the truth and the mystique, that compels us to watch our favorite stars on stage, searching for a hint of the truth while enjoying the spectacle of the surreal. The best strippers and the most successful singers manage to walk this fine line, carefully balancing their exposure with their charade, teasing the audience with revelations of self while playing up the superstar glamour which brought them there in the first place. The audience enters the club seeking to be entertained while the same curiosity which fuels sales of People searches for glimpses of the real, for the split second of guard-dropping and an improvised smile. We enjoy the glamorous photos of the couture dresses, but we thrill at the rare shot of Pamela Anderson in sweats, sans makeup. We have not come only to watch a perfectly rehearsed act, with scripted dialogue and choreographed moves -- we are entertained by the practiced lines and the professional dances, but we are more compelled and seduced by the possibility of peeking behind the mask, of being let in to the secret world of their fantasies. After all, the entire premise of both the stripper's and the singer's performance is disclosure, not masquerade.(5) The stripper strips, the singer sings - and both acts involve a peeling off, a form of revelation and communication. They are selling a particular version of their selves, a carefully composed mixture of truth and fiction. If it is too fake, it becomes theater and the audience remains detached, if it gets too real, it becomes uncomfortable - no one wants to hear about a stripper's blister or see Britney's ingrown hairs. These people are stars and must further the illusion of living lives that are somehow above ours, that's what brings us to fawn at their feet. If they were just like us, there would be no need. Both the adult and entertainment industries exist by teasing us with just the right doses of glamour and grit. It is this careful balance, of exposure and disguise that keeps us seduced. The primary allure of the stripper over the Penthouse centerfold is that she's there, she's real, she's accessible, and, through dialogue, we may find out who she is really is, and, through that revelation, she might be available to us. We expect and appreciate much the same from our singers, reveling in their couture fashion, stunning good looks, and superhuman bodies, while seeking scraps of gossip and truth to make us feel closer to them. Listeners expect their pop stars' music to be essentially personal, if not outright autobiographical. Even those whose music is strictly interpretive -- Tina Turner, Linda Ronstadt, Whitney Houston -- are lauded for making other people's songs 'theirs.'(6) We constantly analyze our stars' every move, scrutinizing the treasured photos of them relaxing at home, listening to their songs and feeling their pain. We identify with them, we need to connect with them, because as this brings them down to our level, it creates the possibility that we may rise to theirs. But the defining quality of diva pop has been the tendency for the singers (and the music press) to treat every new record as if it were a chapter in the psychobiography of the artist...New releases are routinely accompanied by fawning profiles about how the singer overcame great obstacles to deliver a brave personal statement.(7) Another aspect of this approach is that, by keeping the singer linked to her personal drama, deflecting potential conversation about her music by discussing her fashion and her boyfriends, we are able to marginalize her role as creative businesswoman or artist. Beneath much of the rhetoric of adult entertainment lies a fear of women realizing their sexuality while holding power over it, and therefore over men.(8) The same applies to the music industry -- judging female singers on their looks is a way to make them safer and less threatening. Even though singing and dancing are both traditionally feminine activities, through eroticism they become more powerful and complex. Just as a stripper is a more loaded figure than a chaste classical dancer, Madonna has always been more dangerous than an acoustic folk singer. Sexuality makes these women threatening, more dominant, and more subversive. Public female nudity, flaunted and enjoyed, cannot help but suggest to more rigorous conformers the seed of something perilous to social order. Its immediate implications are the unfettering of male lust, the contamination of commerce with sex (and vice versa)...The stripper personifies the exotic and dangerous outsider...the woman whose sexual aura creates havoc everywhere she goes.(9) After all, sex, and the concept of flesh without intimacy, threatens the precarious structure of social order, challenging that which is ordered and controlled with the demands of the primal and irrational. The very concept of exchanging sex for money, or of using sex to sell a separate product (like record albums), disrupts patriarchal hegemony as money replaces the structure of personal relationships and places woman as beneficiary, in control of her own image and, therefore, her own wallet. By removing her clothes, the stripper/singer disrupts the social structure set up by Adam and Eve,(10) who suppressed the evil realm of sex and desire by clothing themselves. As she defies token female passivity, strutting her sexuality and controlling her own image (even going so far as to use both for financial gain), the singer/stripper takes on masculine attributes. Not only is she is in charge, but dictating the terms of her own objectification and profiting from it, but she is using men to her advantage, seducing them with bedroom eyes, a husky voice, and revealing clothing. Most alarmingly, the relationships she creates are built not only on sex, but on lies -- she isn't really in love with her customers, she is just pretending to be. Hence, the backlash by the moral right at strippers and the backlash at our pop icons when they get a bit too trashy. At the same time, the more seductive the strip, the more delicious the dance, the more the rest of us line up to pay. We want our dancers and our singers to delight us, to entrance us. Just as they seek to be lusted after, we lust after them because we need the fantasy to distract us from our lives. Their bodies are their tools, their products, and we choose the best ones to support. My first night on stage, I learned that my singing abilities, while important, paled in comparison to making the right kind of eye contact. I could be the best singer out there, but if I hid behind glasses and mousy brown hair, no one would pay attention. When I put on my makeup and my short skirt and recycled the moves I'd learned at that dive bar in Connecticut, suddenly it all came together. There may not be much of a difference between flaunting my short skirts at a nightclub or peeling back a G-string in a strip bar from my father's perspective, but for me -- for me I've found the perfect art form. I've found the easiest, most satisfying way to get my junkie fix. Stripping holds little allure for me these days, provided I get at least one gig a month. If I'm guaranteed one night of feeling those eyes upon me, watching their faces draw closer as I reach my hand under my shirt or stretch my skirt up my thigh, then I'm set. I'm powerful. I'm satiated. I'm desired. If too much time goes by, if we're writing songs or someone is out of town, and the memory of the stage starts to recede, then I hunger for more - but I don't hunger for the missing teeth or the sticky platforms. I don't miss the feeling of the dirty bills against my skin. I've scratched that itch, I've lived through it, and since it no longer seems out of reach, I don't crave it. I've discovered my sexuality, and now, when too long passes without a performance, I crave something else - I crave a lover, at home, to watch me put on a solo show. Helen Gurley Brown shot to stardom with the radical notion that sex is good, that sexy is great, and that making the most of your sex life means making the most of you. So many commentators from both sides of the fence (Republicans to feminists) lecture against the virtues of sexuality -- shouting on about how it objectifies and degrades -- but Ms. Brown, Ms. Nin, and my own experiences have taught me the virtues of the short skirt and the thrill of being seen as a woman - which in turn means the thrill of being seen as a sexual being, in control of my sexuality, in control of myself, and in control of those around me. I don't need to see a room full of drunken leers to remind me that I'm desirable and therefore powerful. I have already discovered that I am. Now all I need is one pair of eyes to look at me with love and desire. If I can get that, and a career under the lights - I'll never want anything again. |
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Footnotes (1) David A. Scott, Behind the G-String (North Carolina: McFarland & Co., Inc. 1996) 119. (2) Umberto Eco, "Travels in Hyperreality," in Travels in Hyperreality (Orlando: Harvest/HBJ 1986) 57. (3) M.G. Levine, "From Vanna to Amana." Literature and Psychology 35.4 (1989). (4) Amy Reiter, "Nothing Personal" in Salon, September 27, 2002. (5) Scott 62. (6) J.D. Considine, "A Pop Idol's Survival," in NY Times, February 17, 2002. (7) Charles Taylor, "Arc of Diva," in Salon, March 7, 2002. (8) Stacy Reed, "All Stripped Off," in Whores and Other Feminists, ed. Jill Nagle (New York: Routledge 1997) 183, 184. (9) Scott 134. (10) Murray Davis, Smut: Erotic Reality/Obscene Ideology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1983) 72. |
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12.07.06: Scarlet Letters -- in case it isn't glaringly obvious -- is currently
on an extended hiatus. The web has changed, we've changed, and
we're trying to figure out how we both fit together now, which isn't a process we want to rush. If you're looking for more current SL-related content, you can
have check out upcoming books from editor Heather Corinna and previous co-editor Hanne Blank, check out Heather's current sexuality sites, or explore sites through the femmerotic network. We hope to be back with you soon, as fresh, challenging and
unexpected as ever.
In the meantime, by all means, enjoy our years of past content,
all of which still remain in the public and subscription areas.
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