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plus, smoking isn't bad for you and global warming is just an urban legend
2006-06-13 11:56 a.m.

Last week, a student told me she couldn't come to our class because she had to "work the poles". She was so quiet about it - barely whispering and looking around behind her as if she feared someone overhearing, that I thought she meant she was a stripper, rather than an election official who registered people on voting day.

I was mistaken - she was actually working at her local polling place (turns out the "shame" characteristics she was displaying were the result of the guilty feelings associated with missing class and giving the professor an excuse), and I caught on - luckily - before I made the mistake of indicating I thought otherwise.

How interesting it would be, though, to have a stripper in a women's studies class, or any class for that matter, for then I'd actually meet the rare, mythological creature that I've heard so many men speak of: the girl who is "working her way through [med, law, fill-in-your-preference-here] school" by stripping. Because you see, I believe that this population of strippers - girls who are in PhD programs by day and are happily stripping by night, for example - accounts for oh, .005% of sex workers, and that most working girls are either trafficked (kidnapped, taken from their home countries), indentured servants ("I'll pay for your visa and immigration papers if you work it off in my club"), abused, drug addicts, or single mothers who can't get health insurance.

But apparently, this is an incorrect assumption on my part, as the clubs I hear men talking about are just full to the brim of girls who are in school and have lofty aspirations to be politicians, CEOs, and pediatricians. (I'll save the observation that it would also be a sad state of affairs in our current political economy if this were true, and the most practical and accessible way women could support their aspirations for higher ed would be by taking their clothes off and prancing around skanky clubs for sweaty men.) "Oh really?", I always want to say to them when it comes up in conversation or I overhear at a party. Sometimes I do say it, along with the above suggestion about the reality of most strippers' circumstances, and am astonished when I hear the response "well maybe that's the way it is at X club, but I go to Y club, where it's different." To which I can only say, um, "...oh really?".

Boy we'll go to great lengths to assuage our guilt, won't we? It's fascinating when I see otherwise intelligent people who generally are pretty honest and straight up with themselves - even considering themselves progressive and respectful when it comes to equal rights - attempting to convince everyone, themselves most of all, that they are not participating in a cycle of exploitation of women when attending strip clubs; that rather, they're helping out an empowered woman on her path to economic independence and academic achievement.

Maybe this always fascinates me because my male friends, relatives, and acquaintances, for the most part, aren't strip club patrons. In fact, they don't even patronize HOOTERS, that family-friendly, strip-club-in-disguise, where dad can gawk at the young girls in tight shorts and roller skates, mom can stare into her wings for the duration of the evening, everyone can generally just feel awkward, and the kids can learn really important lessons about what their culture values and what traditions are important to uphold: boys must be consumers and exploiters of women, and girls must be consumed and exploited, all the while pouring more beer and keeping those nachos coming with a smile.

I always thought we were smarter than that.

But anyway, as I was saying - the men in my life, relations or no, just don't seem interested in that, er, culture. And I don't mean they actively protest it (wouldn't that be nice?), I mean it's just not their thing. Sure, here and there I hear a faint echo of a bachelor party or something, but for them, it's just not an event or activity on the radar screen. For them, it wasn't odd at all that my husband chose a rafting trip for his bachelor party, or that when he's having a "boys night" it involves poker or some sort of geeky version of the same, or a Lord of the Rings marathon too much bbq.

For "us", generally speaking, it's also not weird that "boys'/girls'" night in the exclusionary sense is a rare occurrence, or that when I say "it's girls' night", I also dial Andrew, Thomas, or John without thinking to see if they, too, would like to come over for middle eastern food and a movie. It's not weird at all that when Thomas or Kris go to Giants/Yankees games and talk about inviting "the boys", they mean, of course, Nicole and Diane are welcome, or whomever else feels like going.

I really don't mean to say this in a look-at-us, aren't-we-exemplary way, I guess I'm just surprised that this whole other world - a nasty, dark world, in my opinion - exists just beyond us, and that this world (and people's delusions about it) surfaces every now and again and leaves me dumbfounded. I am quite naive at times, and the more I know and learn about people, culture, and politics, the more I realize that. It makes me feel like I'm drowning sometimes.

But back to the ol' "she's going to be a doctor soon / she's so happy to be stripping" argument: I, too, would like to believe in a culture where women could say "Well gee, I like animals, so I thought about becoming a Veterinarian, but I like wearing thongs and pasties better, so I became a stripper instead!", but I don't quite think we're there. Wouldn't it be nice if we were, and if stripping was something women did only if they really really wanted to? Then it would be just so lovely.

But since this isn't glitterland and our economy is in the toilet, bankrupting social welfare and government assistance programs, I don't think we can view every sex worker as a woman who has made an informed, empowered choice, no matter how much we'd like to to ease our own troubled consciences (ahem).

I almost wish I did have a whole slew of strippers in a class, so I could consider varying perspectives on the matter (not that I'd expose that if they were unwilling). I could do interviews - hmmm, could make an interesting grad project. Not that that's a new discussion either; fem. theory and sociology have investigated such questions and views of sex work for decades, but I'm weighing this all against the psychological "out" I hear so many giving themselves. Not exactly my field, I guess.

And speaking of, I'm being a big brave girl and taking global political economy in the fall (they canceled the genocide class I was going to take - sad face). I'm very skeeerd, since I have no background in Economic Theory or comparative methods of economic analysis. I got a few books out of the library and am trying to see what I "know" without realizing and what I can digest. I also keep telling myself to have realistic expectations and understandings of the situation. I am a student precisely because I need to learn things I don't know yet, so no one is expecting me to be well versed in much of anything without teaching it to me first. The point is - at least I think this is still how it works - to evaluate how well I absorb, retain, and process information presented, not how much I knew before I even entered the program.

Oh, and I think we might buy a house soon. Hope we can afford it. Should I get an extra job? Maybe SCORES or some other strip club around here is hiring. With all the academics who work there, I could probably form a study group during breaks and get one of the girls to help me out with econ.

xoxo