In the world of girl movies, when your protagonist gets new hair or suddenly starts wearing a new color, it’s a sign–the character has changed, cue climax, shit it about to go down.
I am drawn to the idea that changing one’s look could transform other areas. I personally mark time by hairstyle– “was that during the platinum blonde disco phase? Oh no it was the long black hair/gypsy era”. There is something about the new year that has me craving all of this.
My friend Kate and I had a conversation about it. She has been dressing like a pirate-queen and I’d been going for some kind of Courtney Love meets High Priestess thing– draping myself in lace-y items and burning candles all over my apartment.
What did it mean for our lives?! Of course, in film, it is much more clear-cut.
For TheFrisky, I wrote a round-up of my favorite movie make-over moments.
Here are some of my faves:
Jawbreaker: The scene in which Fern is “transformed” into Violette is a little out of place. Why the sudden “Weird Science” setting? She’s spinning around in a laboratory while a creepy voice says things like, “Lashes, thick! Magenta!” But the result is the best of teen movie makeovers — the girl with the believable “before.”
While still beautiful, Judy Greer nailed the “strange girl and not in a cool way” thing in Fern. And post-makeover instead of being owned by popular girls and looking to others for approval, Violette becomes a strong character who owns her new found power. Apparently she was a narcissist all along! “Jawbreaker,” you make me yearn for the days when hot pink plastic skirts and glitter makeup were in.
Prozac Nation: Near the beginning of the film, Christian Ricci’s character, Elizabeth, says to her college roommate, played by Michelle Williams, “We’ll be like these beautiful literary freaks. Brilliant and dark, sexy.” A signal to you, dear viewer, that a makeover is about to happen. And what ensues is the most realistic kind of makeover– the self-makeover. A visual representation of the character’s emotional and psychological transformation. And isn’t that what it is always about?
In “Prozac Nation,” its Elizabeth’s freshman year at Harvard. She goes from living a sheltered life with an over-protective mother, to throwing a “loss of virginity” party for herself while draped in pearls looking very Madonna-goth-chic. Someone, steal that idea!
Thirteen: When we are introduced to a 13-year-old Evan Rachel Wood, she is in pigtails and pastels. Remember that awkward phase between being embarrassed about wearing deodorant to talking loudly about blow jobs in homeroom? No? Okay, that’s who ERW is playing here.
First comes the cool, tight-fitting clothes, then the thong underwear, then the piercings and–climax–the drugs and sex. The whole thing feels so public school, I feel like I know these girls. I know this make-over! I remember distinctly the tube-top I bought at age 14, it was tiny and I wore it with low slung jeans and body-glitter. And then I just get stuck there. I guess the easiest cultural proverb to pull from this film is maybe there was a good reason moms didn’t want us to wear eyeliner in middle school. But not that they could have stopped us anyway.
Ghostworld: Sometimes, makeovers aren’t about going through a powerful transformation. Sometimes a new look just happens because you are bored or confused or want to be someone else for a day. Fashion is a way to play with new personas, to reflect your inner mood, hence why Enid is always inspiring.
This film captures the tenuous moment between teenhood and adulthood, but does becoming an adult have to mean giving up the decision to dress like a granny one day and an “original 1977 punk” the next? Puh-lease, Enid is totally still exploring different looks, wherever she ended up after getting on that bus. Tidbit: the film recently turned 10 years old and the “weird” outfits still look like they could be ripped from any fashion blog.
**Bonus
Me Without You: I didn’t include this one at TheFrisky, but the make-over Marina gives Holly in Me Without You feels significant. Marina (Anna Friel) and Holly (Michelle Williams) are childhood best friends, performing a ritual, promising to be friends forever. Me Without You has major intense girl BFF vibes–this make-over is all about the bending we do for those friends.
Flash-forward from the child-hood montage and the girls are bored teens in 1970′s England, laying in bed, smoking cigarettes with their toes (see above photo for logistics!) And now in order for introverted, bookish Holly to keep up with wild, outgoing Marina, she must dye her “virgin-looking” hair and don a garbage bag as a dress–which I actually feel inspired by, very punk rock.
Read the rest of my 10 picks at TheFrisky!
Do you have any favorite make-over moments– from film or your own life?
All photos by Alicia Vera (and of no one interviewed)
I recently became obsessed with stripper blogs. I was staying up late, reading about “musical theater” strippers, female customers who jump on on the pole and dressing room drama. In order to pretend that this was somehow productive… I decided to interview these bloggers.
I centered our conversation on music. I knew that music in the strip club is an in-depth topic– as a dancer, you choose your song onstage (fun!) But when giving lapdances–the way strippers actually earn money–you dance to whatever the girl onstage chose. This can be painful (imagine giving a lapdance to Adam Sandler singing “play with my balls and tell me how big they are.”)
But of all the strippers I talked to , I was most fascinated by Story, a traveling stripper who drove across the country, dancing club to club. Naturally, I wanted to talk to her about more than music. On Story blog, she chronicled what it was like, stripping in small towns and living out of her car. In one post she writes:
“i spent the night at jeb’s unexpectedly so i didn’t have my magical stripper bag for work tonight. i went to walmart and bought cheap foundation, cheap mascara, cheap eyeshadow, cheap jewelry and cheap body spray. brown sugar and vanilla cheap. one customer said, “i don’t believe you don’t have a boyfriend, what with this you’re wearing…” he fingered the walmart-fake rhinestone necklace i got for ten dollars and eighty-eight cents before tax. i tell him, like it’s a secret, that it’s fake. he says “yeah, but it’s special, someone gave it to you.” i give him a dance and he bucks and moans under me. he’d be a very bad lay, i think. like a fast selfish rabbit.”
In our (e-mail) interview, Story explained that dancers can move from club to club because most strippers are hired as independent contractors–”there is no resume needed and most interviews are done on the spot, requiring nothing more than an audition” she said.
I asked Story about the music in between demographic regions–did strip clubs play different music in different parts of the US?
“I think the most noticeable musical difference across the country is that some clubs play country and some clubs don’t. Rural clubs are obviously more likely to while city clubs aren’t. I’ve heard a lot of country.” We also talked about the no-rap rules a lot of these clubs have, Story says upper management make those, of course, “a lot of people are still racist” she points out.
I found myself absorbed by the small details on Story’s blog. In one post she writes:
FALSE EYELASHES: i save them. it’s a weird tic. when they become unwearable, i throw them in a little cup and now i have a whole pile of false eyelashes with little crusts of old glue and dots of glimmer eyeshadow.
In another she writes about a rare instance, a customer she would later go on a date with:
i asked if he wanted a dance. i really wanted him to say yes so i could get closer to him. instead, he asked to pay me to talk. getting paid to talk is about the nicest compliment a stripper like me can get in the club. we talked until i was called on stage. i was wearing my white lace dress and he watched like i was an angel disrobing. i knew better than to put my tits in his face and shake my shoulders so in exchange for his five dollars, folded into a heart, i slid the length of my body, from shoulder to hip across his face. his nose bumped ever so slowly over my ribs.
here’s the breakdown for this month.
Tuesday $300
Wednesday $126
Friday $278
Saturday $414
Tuesday $202
Wednesday $120
Friday $149
Saturday $258
Tuesday $85
Thursday $56
Friday $148
Saturday $358
Tuesday $96
Wednesday $103
Friday $235
Wednesday $31
Total: $2,959 Days Worked: 16 Daily Average: $184 Hours Worked: 94 Dollars per hour: $31.48. There were less lucrative months– working 11 days in April earned her $1,540– and ones in which she earned more– June brought in $4,868. This inspired other dancers to air their earnings too. Susannah Breslin even wrote about it in her Forbes column.
It is interesting, but also helpful to other dancers. And her writing on travel works the same way. On her blog she writes that the scenery of Walmarts and road signs quickly lose their charm, and warns that homelessness wears down on you, it is the things most people take for granted…where you will sleep, eat, shit.
In the interview, she offers, advice on getting stripper ready on the road:
“I’m a big fan of hostels, campgrounds, couchsurfing.org, and once in a while a hotel. When none of these options came together in the right order, I either snuck into a campground shower or headed to a truckstop to use their showers. I don’t follow the stereotypical stripper regimen. I don’t wax, powder, tan or get mani/pedi’s. I take a shower, shave everything, paint my nails, and put on perfume and lots of make up. General cleanliness, smoothness, and smell-good power are really the basics. Plus a great smile and a good story to tell.”
Oh, wait, and music. This interview was supposed to be about music. What does Story dance to? The first song she requested was Ludacris’ What’s your Fantasy, but now her go-to is to anything by Portishead. Although, in embracing her redneck customers, Story has bent, “my last regular loved watching me move to Kid Rock. The DJ couldn’t believe my constant requests for anything by Mr. Rock but I started to kinda like What I Learned Out on the Road.”
Why isn’t divorce a good thing? When news of any divorce spreads, it is with a certain sadness (even in celebrity marriages, RIP Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon) or sometimes it is with a little smugness (haha, Kim Kardashian). But considering the high divorce rate; or even the fact that divorce was a hard-won feminist victory, shouldn’t the break-up be a celebrated, if not an accepted part of marriage?
The first “marriage counselors” in the US opened their doors in the 1930′s. A couple would come in separately–often it was just the wife who came in at all. Marriages needed to be saved, and apparently the key was in “fixing” the wife. If she was beaten by her husband, the question would be: “what did you do to cause his behavior?”
In her book, More Perfect Unions: The American Search for Marital Bliss, Rebecca Davis Marriage traces how this happened. This counseling spread rapidly after World War II, a time of upheaval for gender-roles. “Mass unemployment created a crisis in masculinity for men who could not find work. Then during World War II with men in the services, many women (even married women) got jobs,” says Davis. When the war ended in 1945, women were pushed out of the workforce and magazines and radio got busy telling women how their domestic roles were most important.
Davis says counselors focused a surprising amount on homosexuality, it was about women who were “too masculine” or men who were “too passive”. And at the time, marriage was actually seen as a way to “cure” homosexuality.
This is the landscape in which Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique was born, a 1963 feminist text about the ennui of middle class wives. As feminism reached the mainstream, divorce rights were granted. Wives soon had a stake in their husband’s earnings with rights to divorce and marital rape was recognized. In turn, the rates of suicide in wives and homicide of husbands declined sharply.
There was almost a virtue to divorcing in the mini-skirted 1960’s and 70’s; the woman who divorced was the stereotype of a woman getting what she wanted out of life. “It was about fulfilling your dreams and ‘personal growth,’” says Pamela Haag author of the book Marriage Confidential.
The way we viewed infidelity also changed. “In the 1950′s, we were somewhat tolerant of covert affairs, more for husbands than wives it was a double standard, though Kinsey found that a fair percentage of wives had affairs as well” says Haag. In part, feminism and divorce-forgoing-taboo changed the view. Why stay if he is cheating?
“Then the family values of the 1980′s arose. This was about regulating behavior and being monogamous instead of having the illusion of monogamy” says Haag.
Today, the altruistic divorce has become a thing of the past. The New York Times devoted two articles to the subject this year. In How Divorce Lost it’s Groove Pamela Paul writes that divorce has become rare among the college educated, liberal set (those same women Friedan was once addressing). She says when these women do divorce, they face judgment and isolation from their communities. Perhaps it is the “family values” effect–those who came of age in the 1980′s are vowing to not divorce like their parents did.
But also fewer people than ever in the Unites States are marrying (poorer people and people of color are especially marrying at lower rates). Yet marriage is everywhere in the news — with the fight for marriage equality for LGBTQ people. And despite the low rates, The United States remains one of the “most marrying” countries.
“Thanks in part to marriage counseling, Americans over the last 80 years have learned to prize marriage as the lynchpin of fulfillment and social cohesion. We end up with a contradiction, a society that both esteems marriage and has an unusually high divorce rate” says Davis.
Perhaps, as we move forward with the institution of marriage, one of the things that might need to change is how we think about divorce. One solution would be to entertain different kinds of marriages– more options.
In the Netherlands, there are multiple types of domestic partnerships. According to Kevin Malliard, a professor of law at Syracruse University who specializes in marriage, those partners even have pet-names like “wife”, a Sardo is a partner you live apart from, a Sambo is a partner you live with. And in Alberta, there is the “Beyond Conjugality” registry in which any two people can apply for benefits–whether romantically involved or not. It is not hard to imagine a domestic registry in which multiple partners apply could be next.
Marriage researchers point out that Americans consider their partner their best friend. Davis traces this back to the 1920′s when people began to describe marriage as a relationship that should meet all of a person’s needs: sexual, emotional, and so on. And the spousal best friend has been helped by feminism, men and women have more of the same opportunities, and experiences, they have more in common.
But the spousal best friend isn’t necessarily a good thing–expecting everything from one person can clearly lead to failure.
So what is the future of marriage, of divorce? Haag hypothesizes we will have more conversations around monogamy, rather than assuming life-long monogamy as the default. Others speculate there will be a return to more of the ‘wink-wink’ approach to cheating. Or maybe the future of marriage holds stronger ties to people outside the relationship in other ways, a return to a more communal style of living.
Perhaps there is room for the idea that marriage can be a limited partnership, rather than a permanent one; divorce then, would be viewed as simple an end to a relationship that has run its course, rather than a breaking of the vow to stay together forever. If we can entertain the idea that marriage has any “sanctity” is ludicrous, so should we entertain the idea that “till death do us part” may likely, not happen. And why should that be a bad thing?
Read Part One of this story here.
What do you think of the future of divorce and marriage– should divorce be seen as a bad thing?
This weekend is my birthday. Also, I will be on my period during my birthday. But that is not what this post is about. This is about another birthday, my twelfth birthday, when I did not get my period.
Entering the fifth grade, I knew I would have sex-education class in the Spring. I heard about this from the kids on the bus, for the last two years.
One girl showed me the puberty pamphlet with photos of various “stages”– at first little hairs grew, then oddly shaped, puffy breasts and more hair–until you reached step fie with a patch of fur underwear and pendulous breasts. When will that happen again?
The boys had their own pamphlet, which was also passed around the bus: “I’m a five” a gingery boy called out.
I loathed talk of sex as a kid. When I was 4 and my sister asked our Mom where babies came from, I covered my ears and screamed, “noooo!’ At 6, when I found crude drawings of sex, I felt guilty inside for years. And at age 9 when my friends started shaving their legs and wearing training bras, I chose to be an outsider. Sex was embarrassing. I hated the way adults talked about it.
In fifth grade I had insomnia. I would lay awake until 1, 2 or 3 a.m, worrying about grades or boys or… sex-ed. It was going to come and I couldn’t stop it.
On a rainy gray day, our fifth grade teacher passed out notes, to give to your parents–your child is going to receive a sex education class next Wednesday. I hid mine in a sock-drawer.
Wednesday came. They broke up the girls and boys. There would be boasting boys who claimed to watch the girl’s film in secret, or vice versa. I now realize, the films were probably the same. They starred Dr. T, a talking letter T, the significance of this was never explained. The film was about “crossing the bridge to puberty” and in the last scene, two children and a cartoon Dr. T jump over a rainbow bridge, laughing.
The school nurse pressed stop on the VHS. She was a large, ruddy woman, with a forced smile she told us to ask her any questions. She told us that men were especially sensitive to the way periods smelled. (What did she mean by this?) She also wrote IBUPROFEN on the chalkboard, telling us to jot this down because, “this would be our period’s best friend.”
At the end of question and answer time, we were made to fill out a form with our name, date of birth and address. They were going to send us some “free gifts” in the mail. I passed the form back, to avoid the “gift”… but when the form ended at my desk and the nurse stood above me, I scrawled my name.
I checked the mail daily in hopes of snatching the package before anyone else found it. Months passed, and awake at night I now ruminated about this package’s arrival– but it didn’t come. Six months passed with no package and I decided they must have lost my name. I talked to other girls at school, lots had already received theirs.
Then, on the morning of my twelfth birthday in December, my Dad brought in a brown parcel with a return address from “Kimberly Clark”. He added the brown paper package to the pile of birthday presents from family members.
That morning, the neighbor kids showed up early for our car-pool with a birthday present for me, I opened it. Then my Mom picked up the brown box–“What is this present? Who is this from?” she asked, then pushed it toward me–“open up this one too.”
I felt myself grow hot and pink. “I don’t know who it is from, are we going to be late for school?” But my Dad, sister and the neighbors protested, “open it, open it!” So, I did.
I pulled the tape and removed an aqua-purple toiletry kit from the box, “what is it?” someone said. I opened the kit, which contained tidy sections of pads, tampons and more brochures about pubic hair growth. “Oh” my mother said. “Well, let’s get to school”.
When I finally did get my period I was 13 –and a half. It came on a sticky day in June. I was the last of my friends to get it. I still didn’t want my period, but I was a bad liar, I felt uncomfortable when friends asked if I had it yet.
I wanted my period to fit in, but I felt uncomfortable and angry when it came. Despite the school thinking it was a good idea to send period kits as birthday presents, and despite adults using flowery language, this was not a gift. But it was nature, it was time passing, it was a new era. Viva La womanhood.
Now, tell me your period stories! When did you get yours? Any horror stories to share?
Consider it a birthday “gift” to me!
photo cred (note, not the interviewed couple in the photo.)
The couple met in L.A. Sebastian, a music producer with long hair and a beard, was immediately taken with Catherine, a brunette musician with and blunt bangs. When Sebastian lost a record deal and needed a fresh start, he invited her to England to make music together. A romance ensued and led to marriage.
The couple describe the moment they decided to camp out at Occupy as pretty amorous. “How many people can turn to their partners and say, ‘You know, I think we should go live in a park for the good of humanity, for months on end’? The entire thing is a wholly romantic exercise,” says Sebastian.
Here, I talk with Sebastian and Catherine about the future of marriage and monogamy. They are monogamous and want children, but have some radical ideas about how marriage might change.
So why marriage instead of just living together?
Sebastian: For me, the two felt very different. The day after I was married I felt totally different. Marriage completely changed my heart.
That’s very sweet and… traditional. But how are you doing marriage differently than your parents generation?
Catherine: They care about having nice stuff. We don’t care about collecting nice stuff, for the sake of having it. I mean we like nice stuff, but its not a goal of ours to have the nicest rug or dining room set. We probably are not going to buy a house.
For some people it seems like that is what makes you a real couple or a real adult—having the fine the china, the real furniture or at least matching items from Ikea. I like the idea of shunning that, because really it is not so important!
Catherine: My real hope for the the future of marriage is that we will move towards a more communal model for living, and the nuclear family would become less of the normal model.
There is this quote by Kurt Vonnegut, it goes something like: every fight you have with your partner could be summed up by saying– you are not enough people! No one can get everything that they need from one person, and I think that nuclear families can be really isolating and really damaging to the people in them.
It is so interesting to hear you say ’you can’t get everything you need from one person’, seeing as you guys are monogamous.
Sebastian: I think village life, where everyone has support for each other is a really important thing that has been killed by our society. One or two people working like slaves because you have to have one car per family, one TV per family, one mealtime per family almost feels like a conspiracy of our culture. It is so isolating.
And even if you do believe in nuclear families it is not totally sustainable anymore, not everyone can survive that way.
Marriage historians like Stephanie Coontz have noted that modern couples are reaching out less to friends and family, and instead expecting their partner to be their best friend, to be their everything. But that this is detrimental to relationships.
Sebastian: I don’t think a man should get into his 60′s and not have a single friend outside the relationship. That is so sad, and yet I’ve seen that happen in my own family.
So then you guys live with other people– other couples as well. It is almost as though you are getting the benefits of being in a poly family while still being monogamous.
Catherine: I am interested, especially after this experience, in an even more communal way of living. Because though we share our house, we don’t share our food supplies or go grocery shopping together. I am interested in having more ground to grow things on–doing more things in the home that we go to outside people for. Having more people, more space makes that easier.
So tell me about being monogamous. I’ve talked to a lot of couples here and monogamy doesn’t necessarily seem to be as much of a norm at Occupy.
Sebastian: Monogamy is a desire in your heart. It is not a law or a rule. We have discussions around what would we do if infidelity occurred? So, if Catherine came to me one day and said she did not want to be monogamous, that would be totally acceptable because whatever decision she makes for herself, if it is a considered decision, it is a good one.
However, we are in a monogamous relationship because that is what we desire. I definitely don’t think that having rules in a relationship is a good idea. A relationship is a living thing that should evolve with feelings.
So do you fully believe in the institution of marriage?
Sebastian: Marriage is a religious institution, it is a civil institution but it is also a religious one. And if you look at who the church is working against now, it is homosexuals. But if Jesus were to come back, which some people believe he will, the people he would be most supportive of would be the homosexual people. He was trying to end the persecution of people who were most persecuted by the church!
For me marriage has been essential to personal, spiritual growth. If a person does not feel that way that is totally fine, everyone is on their own spiritual path. But if there is a homosexual person who wants to get married but can’t– that is appalling . If marriage is going to improve, and if I am going to fully support it, it has to be available for all.
Have you guys had many romantic moments, while camping here?
Sebastian: The moment we looked at each other and decided we were going to do this was romantic. I couldn’t do it without Catherine and I wouldn’t want to. You know, we haven’t had many dinners over wine and candlelight, but this is harder and stronger romance.
We are here, because we think we should fight against a society that makes it impossible for you to live financially unless both partners are working 6 days a week or whatever. We don’t want to disappear into our communes so the top can keep making more money, this is the time to fight back.
For a faster read, check out Catherine and Sebastian in my profile on Occupy dating at Time Out New York!
Caitlin, Robert, Yelle, Leandra, Alex and Kyle sleep together in the same tent at Zuccotti Park. “Everyone is romantically, intimately and sexually involved,” says Robert. They are a polyamorous family (a relationship style meaning, literally, “many loves”). The group share food, finances and plans post-protest: one pair are traveling to Portugal, others will be tree-sitting in Oregon.
Cuddled up in the tent, Robert and Caitlin reminisce. “You totally initiated the first orgy,” says Robert. “No,” Caitlin argues, “wine initiated it!”
Here I talk with Robert and Caitlin about their poly family and the future of relationships as these protesters see it.
So you guys have been here since the beginning?
Robert: We met day two of the protest.
Caitlin: I was talking to someone about hitchiking. And Robert literally turns around and goes, ‘do you wanna hitch-hike to California with me after this is all over?’ Because that is how he had planned on getting home. And from there we starting hanging out and sharing a sleeping space.
Robert: We were the seed that started this family. We have been arrested together. We are gonna go tree sitting together. And now we have 5 or 6 people that sleep here. The guys don’t have sex with each other and the girls do, but there is still an intimacy among everyone.
So all of you guys are young (18-24) what is your generation doing differently in terms of dating?
Robert: Traditional courtship rituals are not financially possible– both for people here and for our generation. I’ve had more girlfriends in the past where we moved in together early on because it was the only thing that was economically feasible.
And here at Occupy there is a general distaste for that entire courtship ritual. When you look at the cultural structuring of how relationships are supposed to be established, you know Disney movies, it is really sexist. It doesn’t breed a great relationship, it breeds a relationship built for specific purpose. *Laughs at my original question* Our generation, we are so much cooler than the other generations.
It is cold out. You guys have tents, you are working on crafty ways of being warm. But how were you having sex for that month before the tents were allowed?
Robert: Sex is easier with the tent, you feel a lot less like a fucking hippie. Before it was: ‘fuck it, cover with a tarp’. When you sleep in one place for a month with multiple partners of course you end up having sex wherever you can.
So are you guys managing to pull off group sex– orgies– in the little tent? (Ed. note this tent is not very big!)
Robert: We usually take turns, but we have. The best was when we went to Leandras moms house with all of our group. We all got in a gigantic, california king size bed with soft sheets, banisters and had sex together, oh my god it was epic. But, yeah, sometimes we go off with one person at a time.
Do you all say “I love you”?
Caitlin: Yeah! I noticed it started happening more after that big evening of group sex. There are a lot of tender moments, taking care of each other when someone is sick. There is an aspect of more than just being intimate with each other. We are each others grounding forces. The kind of love that I have for the people in this family is a combination of so many types of love, familial, romantic, sexual.
Robert: It means something. We have a bank set up, we share our finances, we share food, supplies…
Caitlin: No two relationships in the group are the same, I obviously relate differently to a partner who is 18 and a partner who is more experienced than me. I have individual relationships with each person in the group, you have to or the sense of family gets lost.
How has Occupy Wall Street been a part of coming to polyamory?
Caitlin: I’ve heard people say: ‘I’ve been waiting for something to happen and I didn’t know what it would be… but this is it! I belong’. There are so many relational aspects of protest, there is community, friendship…
Robert: If this is something you are passionate about you are going to find people here who have a lot in common with you. Out in everyday life, you don’t run into as many anarchists, or people who have spent 4 months in a tree in Oregon, you don’t run into people who have been arrested 30 times and every time they’ve gotten out of jail, people have been there cheering. So if you are one of those people you are more likely to find someone here, rather than out at a bar or on e-harmony.
When you engage in something you care about with someone, that builds a deeper connection. And sometimes that blossoms into other ways of connecting.
Do you think we are going to see more relationship styles like polyamory in the future?
Robert: Polyamory does seem to be more common in our generation, in certain areas.
Relationships are changing. Gay marriage speaks to how marriage is shifting in the larger population. Now, we are seeing that marriage is for two people who are in love and dedicated, but we couldn’t we just as easily see that marriage can be for more than two people who are in love with each other? That more than two people can have a relationship that is loving and dedicated?
Currently in the US–and most all over the world–people in group relationships cannot get domestic benefits— much less marriage rights. I find this sad. But for people who might be curious about poly, what would you recommend?
Caitlin: There isn’t just one way to have a relationship. Try things, reflect on those experiences on decide if it works.
Robert: It is a very organic process, adopting something that you read in a book or something that you hear from this interview isn’t necessarily better than figuring out what works for you and your partner or partners. And it is something that takes work. But it works for us.
Caitlin: Since we pretty much have everything we need, we can go days without interacting with other people!
Read Part Two, with surprising insights on Monogamy here!
Hey, did you catch that feature story I wrote for the New York Observer? The one about the future of abortion rights and abortion rights activism in the U.S.? The one about abortion doulas, and other hands-on activism? No? Oh, well I uploaded the clip. Click & click to enlarge and read.
Dear Rabbit, I am dating a 32 year old virgin, but I dunno about being “his first”.
Dear Rabbit, what do you think of the “whats your number” conversation. Is asking how many people someone has slept with rude?
Dear Rabbit, I am a bisexual girl…and I think some of my lady friends are hot, but how do I hit on them?
Dear Rabbit, bisexual women are everywhere, but how do I know if I am one?
Best Sex Writing of 2012: Behind the Scenes of Latina Glitter
“Latina Glitter”, a story of mine was selected for The Best Sex Writing of 2012. This is the story BEHIND that story. The meta best sex writing of 2012. All photos taken at La Cueva by Edmund X White.
Outside the car window, Chicago’s South Side is a-glow.There are lively taquerias, a store with a neon sign that reads “joyeria”, the “i” dotted with a diamond and a series of boutiques named, curiously, “Brazilian Seduction Jeans”. At the center is La Cueva — the only establishment in this neighborhood not listed by the official City of Chicago website, though the place is a landmark. La Cueva is the oldest Latino Drag bar in the United States. Drag bar is a bit of a misnomer though, as all of the performers are trans, Female to Male.
Recently neighbors began protesting the bar– calling it a site for “transgender prostitution and drug deals”. I read this on a citizen journalism blog, community members were lobbying for the bar to close, and there might be some pull. Yet there was nothing in the Chicago Tribune or the Sun Times, or even The Chicago Reader and closing this place would be closing a piece of LGBTQ history.
I led the way into the bar but when the door guy looks at me and says “Hay un precio de portada”, I let Lucia, who I brought to translate, take over . I read online the bar was strictly Spanish speaking only and after ordering a gin and tonic and getting a rum and coke, it sinks in.
The place is dark and dive-y. Crowding the bar are men in cowboy hats and tight jeans, straight men drinking solo. In an adjacent room, the rays of a disco ball mark a stage area. Seated beneath the sparkles are a few groups of gay men and one or two lesbian couples. As Lucia and I find a table, I notice Ketty Teanga at the bar. Teanga started the drag show at La Cueva in the early 80’s and has been performing since the 1960’s. She no longer performs but looks, perhaps, even more glamorous in her retirement, lips red, hair puffed to the Gods.
The lights dimmed and the first performer, Cassandra, took stage. She lip-synced to a Mexican pop ballad wearing a tight bun and glittery blue gown. Next was Vanessa, in a Marilyn Monroe wig with gold leaves decoupaged to her body, ala Garden of Eden. Her style was more strip-club, wrapping a leg around a patron and accepting his dollar bill into cleavage.We spent most of the night talking to bartenders and managers trying to get interviews between the sets. We were finally told to come back next Thursday. But before we left, I pushed Lucia toward Ketty Teanga, and she returned with Teanga’s phone number, and acceptance to do an interview.
The following Thursday we came early, the performers were just arriving, wearing street clothes. Here, with their clean faces and shiny ponytails it was all the more clear this was not drag, the women looked even more beautiful than they had on stage.
Lucia blew through my list of questions, I guessed by facial expression how it was going. But, when the conversation turned to the protesters, I could tell, and worried if things were getting too heated. Lucia was nodding sympathetically.
Later, she would fill me in on everything they said: they were not prostitutes, it was true that this neighborhood had lots of prostitution, but they had jobs, why would they sell themselves in the street? The women described their work in the club with such tenderness– “I have worked here for 10 years,” Vanessa said, who was soft spoken in contrast to the stage persona. “Before, I worked out in the fields in Mexico, but I always dreamed about working in a place doing what I do now.”
Lucia and I stayed post-interview, hanging out and drinking at the bar. I watched the straight cowboys put their arms around the performers, and ask them to have a drink. I didn’t see any prostitution, but regardless, I know that sex work for trans people isn’t always from choice, but rather circumstance because of workplace discrimination. Add to this being Hispanic and not speaking English and it becomes near impossible to find work.
It was afternoon when we went to see Ketty Teanga. Teanga, while retired, still keeps the hours of a showgirl. For her, it was morning. Teanga’s apartment was filled with mahogany foreign furniture which popped against lime colored walls. As we talked, Teanga brought out her gown collection– a white cha-cha dress, a holographic blue one. Of a long satin dress she said, “see, regular dresses, for when I am meeting my public.”
Teanga had grown up in drag shows in Puerto Rico, she started at 15. Back then, the police would arrest anyone they thought were in shows, On, the street, they wiped a handkerchief over Teanga’s face, if there was a trace of make-up she would be arrested. In the 70’s Teanga moved to New York City, where she began transitioning with hormones. “Back then, you could do your transition and take hormones, but you still had to dress like a man. Only on the weekends, could you be a woman — this is in New York, not even Puerto Rico!”
It was in the 80’s that she came to Chicago and started the shows at La Cueva. When I ask Teanga about the claims of prostitution, she says there has always been prostitution in the neighborhood— but mostly among gay males. “I don’t see the girls in La Cueva on the streets. A lot of girls work in nightclubs but will clean offices during the day.”
Teanga says the neighborhood actually used to be a lot rougher, there was more prostitution and the performers had to run from the car to the club, because people would shoot at them with BB guns.
She talked about how the women have it so much easier today with transitioning, the hormones are better and more accessible. So many things had gotten better, but it was now that the neighbors were calling for the bar to close. Perhaps it was best put by one of the performers in the interview, who pointed out that Mexico City may have legalized gay marriage but homophobia within the community remained, maybe it have even made it worse. Teanga blazed a path, but there was still so long to go.
To read the printed story I wrote about La Cueva, order a copy of Best Sex Writing of 2012!