Born into privilege, Gore Vidal lived 5 lives simultaneously. I can barely get to work everyday, raise my son and emotionally participate in my family, while Vidal was a novelist, socialite and periodic politician with an acute sense of American history and culture. Vidal published numerous novels, nearly got punched out by William F. Buckley on national television during the 1968 Democratic convention, got head butted and punched by Norman Mailer after calling him out about his misogyny, ran for office twice and was unapologetic about his promiscuous homosexuality, claiming to have had over 1000 sexual encounters. In this, he was outdone by Wilt Chamberlain, the track star and basketball player, who said that he had 10000 straight ones, but then Wilt wasn't writing all those novels and going to all those parties.

Given all this and more, it is easy to get lost in the dense forestation of Vidal's life and miss some of the obvious things that were important about him. Most importantly, Vidal was a powerful, consistent voice about the violence inherent within American capitalism, popularizing the notion of an American empire long before it became fashionable. He opposed the Vietnam War, spoke out about nuclear proliferation (with, humorously enough, Norman Mailer) and highlighted the cowboy mentality of US covert operations around the world in places like Central and South America. Just as a billboard in Idaho has angered people by stating that President Obama has killed far more people than James Holmes did in Aurora, Vidal blandly observed that Timothy McVeigh was no more of a killer than Eisenhower. In this, Vidal implicitly touched upon our unwillingness to confront the extreme violence of the representatives of the state while condemning the relatively lesser violence of individuals. There was, over the course of his life, an anarchic thread in his thought even if he was no anarchist. As you would have expected, he was an incisive critic of the war on terror in the final years of his life.

Culturally, Vidal was a rebel in the right place at the right time. While refusing to characterize himself in terms of sexual orientation, he was, in the expanding horizons of the immediate post-war era, openly gay, without, oddly enough, drawing a great deal of attention to it. So much so that he polled more votes as a Democratic candidate in a conservative, upstate New York congressional district in 1960 than any other Democratic candidate had done in 50 years. He was matter of fact about his preference for men and his promiscuity, thus demonstrating that it was no longer possible to require people to conform to a public expectation of straight monogamy regardless of how they lived privately, personally foreshadowing the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the gay rights movement of the 1970s.

Of course, Vidal's privileged background provided him with advantages in this regard, but he was still taking risks. He maintained that the New York Times nearly killed his literary career in the 1950s because of a novel that he wrote with an expressly gay protagonist, and Buckley no doubt thought that he was damaging Vidal greatly by calling him queer on national television in 1968. Buckley, perhaps confused by Vidal's evasions about his sexuality, thereafter characterized him as an evangelist for bisexuality and an advocate for the acceptability of homosexuality. Vidal was much better in taking the true measure of Buckley, as he did when asked about how he felt about Buckley's death: I thought hell is bound to be a livelier place, as he joins forever those whom he served in life, applauding their prejudices and fanning their hatred. For people like Buckley, Vidal was a provocation in all aspects of his life, public and private. May he rest in peace.

Labels: Activism, American Culture, American Empire, Gay Rights, Obituaries, Sexuality

Preliminary, I appreciate the kind remarks that many of you have posted about my mother's decision to enter hospice. It is something that is emotionally difficult to deal with in unanticipated ways. Besides the frequent travel between Sacramento and Kingman, Arizona, where my mother lives, there are all those thorny emotional issues that come to the surface when we have to accept that one of parents is about to die. So again, thanks. At some point, I may post about the more concrete aspects of my mother's situation, because some may find it useful, but I am still ambivalent about that, because, as most of you are probably aware, I emphasize ideas over my personal life on this blog, and want to respect my mother's privacy.

In any event, I thought that I might share some of my more sociological impressions gleaned from traveling between Sacramento and Kingman, with an emphasis today upon Las Vegas. To get to Kingman, I fly to McCarron Aiport in Las Vegas, and then go there by way of shuttle or rental car to Kingman, about 100 miles southeast of the airport. McCarron is one of the most inhospitable, unpleasant airports in the United States. Perhaps, I am spoiled by the geniality of the people who work in the small, accessible airport here in Sacramento, but McCarron is bad, even when compared to an overcrowded facility like Hartsfield in Atlanta. At least in Hartsfield, the employees are friendly, even in stressful situations, displaying a self-deprecating humour about the poor performance of Delta Airlines, the airline that uses Hartsfield as a hub.

By contrast, the employees at McCarron, especially the TSA ones, are arrogant and condescending. They order passengers around the way bouncers treat undesirables at a prestigious nightclub. Food service is awful, with a poor selection at ridiculously high prices. Space is at a premium, as passengers for flights are confined in clastrophobia inducing conditions. Paradoxically, there are long distances from terminal to terminal for no apparent reason before one arrives at the absurdly cramped gates. Of course, it takes about 10 minutes to get from the rental car center to the airport.

After my second or third trip through the airport, I finally understood the purpose of subjecting passengers to such treatment. Las Vegas is a resort city, but one in which spontaneity is rigorously suppressed, and the airport, as the port of entry for many people who travel there, is operated so as to convey this to arriving tourists. One may do many things in Las Vegas, but only within the strictly controlled conditions imposed by the gaming industry. Gambling, voyeuristic entertainment, prostitution, one may partake of all of these forbidden pleasures, but only on the terms dictated by the casinos who provide them. Rarely has eroticism been exploited to such profitable effect while simultaneously being rendered so dispassionate and sterile.

Oddly enough, I came to such a conclusion while watching the movie 1984 at my mother's house on one of those few remaining channels that broadcast over the airwaves. Towards the end, there is a scene where Winston Smith, along with many others, goes to a conference room to hear a presentation. During this presentation, he learns that the scientists of Oceania have discovered a way to eliminate the orgasm, which was considered one of the primary sources of the familial bonds that the regime is intent upon eradicating because they constitute a social identity independent of the regime. Relying upon Stalinist methods, the scientists of Oceania cannot pursue methods of social control separate from the destruction of the undesirable behavior or physical attribute in question.

But the capitalists who have created and modified Las Vegas over the decades have been free to do so. For them, sexuality is not something to be erased from human consciousness, but, rather, something to be manipulated and commodified. Central to such an endeavor is the prohibition of any kind of spontaneous expression of sexuality, as everything is typecast according to commonly known stereotypes of male and female desire. For straight women there is the Thunder from Down Under, an Australian beefcake show, while, for straight men, there are numerous strip clubs and shows with busty, athletically built blonds and brunettes. For gays and lesbians, there are apparently nightclubs, but that wasn't so heavily advertised. Subjected to the billboards for these shows while traveling between the rental car center and the airport, I recalled how a middle aged executive, Mr. McGuire, told Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate that there is a great future in plastics. Clearly, although McGuire is presented as a character to be ridiculed, he knew whereof he spoke, as the transformation of human drives and desires into a profitable simulacrum has been one of the defining characteristics of our times.

For capitalists, one of the allures of this process has been that it is profitable while enhancing social control over much of the populace. And, in Las Vegas, it is not limited to sexuality, one finds much the same outcome in regards to gambling, the original reason for the development of this desert resort city. Gambling, historically associated with the challenge of trying to prevail over unequal risk in favor of the house, is now merely a form of entertainment in which the house invariably wins. Here, too, the unpredictabililty, the spontaneity that was a significant part of the psychological motivation for gamblers has been routinized away. People putting coins into slot machines for hours on end, or playing bingo in a casino restaurant, do so with a discipline evocative of a proletarian factory worker. Hence, we can say that, in 1984, Orwell presented a fundamentally flawed vision of the future, because he failed to recognize that Stalinism, with its Calvinist excesses, was already a thing of the past, and, thus, presented a threat to no one, while the commodification of human needs and desires was the real, emergent peril, for it is much easier to modify human behaviour under the guise of libertinism than it is to compel conformity through punishment.

Labels: American Culture, Neoliberalism, Sexuality

Rip Torn may well be one of the most underutilized actors of the last 40 years. His eerie evocation of the banality of the evil through his performance as Richard Nixon in the 1978 TV miniseries, Blind Ambition, has been forgotten, superseded by Anthony Hopkins' subsequent characterization of him for Oliver Stone. Torn searched for the demons within, and often found them, which was not the way to attain stardom.

In Payday, Torn gave a career defining performance as an on the make country music singer, Maury Dann. Dann travels all around the country, performing in front of audiences in small to medium size cities, collecting a share of the gate and record sales. In the pre-MTV, pre-Clear Channel age, performers like Dann could make a good living for themselves and their band members in this way as they assiduously courted local DJs for promotion.

As someone who spent a fair amount of time in the Deep South that forms the backdrop for Dann's ambition to make it to Nashville, so that he can break through to the big time, I can confidently say that the period detail of the movie, filmed on location, is extraordinary. Set in the early 1970s, Dann is performing shows in southern and central Alabama as he heads north towards Tennessee, and the opportunity for national exposure that his manager has worked hard to cultivate. I visited my divorced father around this same time in nearby Macon, Georgia, and I recall a world very similar to the rural motels, restaurants, bars and four lane highways through which Dann explosively circulates. The backup band's use of an International Harvester Travelall to transport themselves and their equipment is a particularly delightful touch.

But Payday is much more than an especially vivid memorialization of time and place within the context of a specific subculture. Nor is it merely a star vehicle for an actor, Torn, who failed to become a star despite his mesmerizing performance. Payday is too merciless in its exposure of the misogyny of male celebrity and the subsequent abuses of the liberatory impulses of the 1960s within the Deep South to work as either nostalgia or hero worship. If anything, it is analoguous to the lack of sentimentality and detached anthropological perspective associated with the 1960s Japanese films of Oshima and Imamura. One can easily imagine Imamura making Payday if he had been hired by a Hollywood studio as Antonioni was for Zabriskie Point.

For Payday has two enduring central themes, the pernicious consequences of the sexual revolution and liberalized drug use within a culture in which patriarchy, and the violence associated with it, are deeply ingrained. In this, it can be truly be said to be a quintessential American film. One gets an immediate sense of this in the film's first scene, where Dann and his band are performing one of his signature songs, Country Girl, at a club. During the performance of the song, the audience consumes alcohol freely and there is an unmistakeable current of eroticism amongst the audience as well as between the audience and the band. The lyrics of the song itself, about a young woman who rejects the city for the country because of her down home values, provides a contrapuntal commentary.

Prior to leaving the parking lot after the show, Dann talks to Sandy, a young groupie, and persuades her to come into his car, where he proceeds to screw her in the backseat. There is really no other way to say it without suggesting some tenderness or affection that is totally absent. Back at the hotel, we are introduced to Dann's apparent girlfriend, Mayleen Travis, a woman with whom he shares a voracious sexual appetite in a relationship that is otherwise calculated and contentious. In the YouTube clip at the top of this post, Dann throws her out of his Cadillac while traveling to his next gig after she has complained one too many times. He replaces her with a ingenue, Rosamond McClintock. She see him as the way out of her small Alabama town.

In Payday, the sexual revolution has come to the Deep South with a vengence. The rapidly spreading libertinism of popular culture, as expressed in Payday through country music, destroys the ability of communities to enforce conservative social mores. Dann and his band strike sparks wherever they go. He summarizes his philosophy as If you can't smoke it, drink it, spend it or love it . . . . forget it, and his material conception of personal satisfaction proves irresistible. Women in the rural South find themselves liberated to be sexually consumed by men like Dann. The prospect of an erotic relationship in which both partners seek to transcend bourgeois constraints and commerce, as in loulou, is beyond the imaginings of anyone in Payday. Sandy, Mayleen and Rosamond may enjoy their sexual encounters with Dann, but Dann dictates the terms of them.

Drug use, so conspicuously a part of the rock scene, is also a major feature of the country music one in Payday. Dann and his band members smoke cigarettes and marijuana joints, drink alcohol and gobble up a frightening amount of prescription drugs, probably methamphetamines, but such consumption primarily serve the purpose of enabling them to travel long distances and perform with as little rest as possible while surviving the tedium of life on the road. There is a duality to Dann's materialism. One the one hand, sex, drugs and money are enjoyable in a transitory way, but they also enable him and his band to participate in a seemingly unending process of cultural production, a process, need it be said, that is invariably controlled by males.

Unfortunately, they, especially the drugs, render Dann emotionally unstable and prone to violent tempermental outbursts, again, as shown in the YouTube clip, while lifting him, and everyone in his orbit, away from the bonds of community and familial support that might otherwise contain them. It is this dialectic between the productive utility of sex, drugs and money and the combustible consequences of their use that constitutes the centerpiece of the film. Dann is, in effect, attempting to bust through social and class boundaries by reducing himself into a pure instrument of production and consumption. As you might expect, he fails much in the same manner of Icarus flying too close to the sun.

Labels: American Culture, Feminism, Film Notes, Marxism, Sexuality, YouTube

Pope Benedict XVI is traveling through Africa, and, as one might expect, hypocrisy and insensitivity are accompanying him on his journey:

Pope Benedict XVI said condoms are not the answer to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and can make the problem worse, setting off criticism Tuesday as he began a weeklong trip to the continent where some 22 million people are living with HIV.

Benedict's first statement on an issue that has divided even Catholic clergy working with AIDS patients came hours before he arrived in Cameroon's capital -- greeted by thousands of flag-waving faithful who stood shoulder-to-shoulder in red dirt fields and jammed downtown streets for a glimpse of the pontiff's motorcade.

In his four years as pope, Benedict had never directly addressed condom use, although his position is not new. His predecessor, Pope John Paul II, often said that sexual abstinence -- not condoms -- was the best way to prevent the spread of the disease.

Benedict also said the Roman Catholic Church was at the forefront of the battle against AIDS.

''You can't resolve it with the distribution of condoms,'' the pope told reporters aboard the Alitalia plane heading to Yaounde. ''On the contrary, it increases the problem.''

The pope said a responsible and moral attitude toward sex would help fight the disease, as he answered questions submitted in advance by reporters traveling on the plane. His response was presumably also prepared in advance.

As noted elsewhere in the article, three-quarters of all AIDS deaths worldwide in 2007 were in sub-Saharan Africa, where some 22 million people are infected with HIV -- accounting for two-thirds of the world's infections.

I could go on and on about this, but that really says it all. People are dying because of this nonsense, dying in large numbers, and it is an ongoing outrage. There should be protests directed against the Church exponentially larger than those ignited by the sexual molestation scandals.

Labels: Africa, AIDS, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, Sexuality

From the Independent:

The owner of the Valle Grande Country House, Ernano Barretta, 63, is in jail in Italy; his accomplice, gigolo par excellence Helg Sgarbi, 41, was arrested in Austria and is in prison in Germany facing trial for extortion. The story of their incredible swindle, and how greed got the better of them, first emerged in Italy in June with Mr Barretta’s arrest. At the time the name of their alleged victim was kept out of the media. But now that she has been revealed as BMW heiress Susanne Klatten, the richest woman in Germany, the story has taken on a new dimension.

And not only because of the stratospheric wealth of Ms Klatten, and the hole the affair has punched in the privacy of one of Germany’s most discreet business dynasties. But also because Helg Sgarbi – if leaks from the interrogation of his partner are to be believed – was much more than just a staggeringly effective extortioner. He is also said to be a man bent on exacting revenge for the crimes of BMW against his father, a Polish Jew and, during the war, a slave labourer in a BMW factory. The group made munitions, aero engines and batteries for U-boats and V2 rockets. If it is true, as alleged, that Mr Sgarbi bedded Ms Klatten in posh hotels in Monte Carlo, Munich and elsewhere, he was sleeping with the enemy, with a cruel vendetta in mind.

Mrs Klatten, 46, is the great grand-daughter of Gunther Quandt, the founder of BMW who died in 1954 and whose first wife, Magda, later married the Nazi propaganda chief, Joseph Goebbels. The heiress has a degree in marketing and management from the University of Buckingham and worked with with Dresdner Bank and McKinsey, the consultants, before she was appointed to the supervisory board of BMW in 1997.

The story is peculiar even by the standards of the tabloids. To victimize someone for money is fairly common, but to victimize them for money in revenge for how their family abused your father is something else entirely.

I couldn't help but recall the vindictiveness of the character of Abner Snopes in Faulkner's famous short story, Barn Burning, but any comparison with Sgarbi is necessarily inexact. As demonstrated by his targeting of the barns of the landed aristocracy, Snopes possessed an inchoate social sensibility that suggested anarchism, especially his insistence upon living a life of pyromanic illegality, but one that was never fully developed because his circumstances did not put him contact with others with whom he could act collectively.

For Sgarbi, it was apparently all personal. Perhaps, a better analogy is the unnamed man, nicknamed Harmonica, played by Charles Bronson in Sergio Leone's epic Marxist western, Once Upon a Time in the West. After having witnessed the death of his older brother as a young boy at the hands of Frank, a ruthless gunfighter hired to clear land for railroad barons, he learns the skills of the trade himself. As an adult, he hunts down Frank, killing him in a showdown just before a dusty proletarian workforce of whites, blacks and Asians spill out of railcars to push the tracks of the railroad forward nearby. Harmonica recognizes that he has no place in the emergent bourgeois society as symbolized by the railroad, and departs on his horse.

It is tempting to relate to Sgarbi in terms of a similar code of honor, absent the fictionalized class context, but, while he may have humiliated his intended victim in an especially psychologically brutal way, and considered himself justified in doing so, he did not forgot to enrich himself along the way. Conversely, it is easy to forget, upon an initial reflexive empathy for Klatten, that, although she was not personally responsible for the horrors perpetrated by her father, she never renounced the incredible wealth that he amassed and subsequently passed to her. And, of course, she did gleefully sleep around with someone in the best hotels in Europe while her husband remained home.

Accordingly, there is an amorality that runs throughout this tawdry story. It cries out for an Bret Easton Ellis to expose the banality of the protagonists within the form of the novel, or an Oshima Nagisa to exploit it cinematically as a means of examining a broader alienation. It is telling that Klatten barely escaped being kidnapped in the late 1970s, and had to frequently adopt an assumed name. Back then, she was imperiled by a violence that was founded upon an ideological belief, however naive and misguided, that the world could be transformed for the better by visiting the sins of the fathers upon their children. Now, she finds herself tragically embarrassed by someone who merely parasitically engorged himself upon the emotional frailties of the rich and powerful.

Labels: Postmodernism, Sexuality

Sexual abstinence, it seems, is always for everyone else, not for the people who insist upon it. Accordingly, it reminds me of those who have attacked others for marital infidelity, while enjoying it themselves. Is it possible that we must practice abstinence because they lack the capacity to do it themselves?

In any event, the most recent participant in the moral hypocrisy parade is Sarah Palin, John McCain's selection as his vice presidential running mate. Palin, a public proponent of abstinence only education in the public schools, is someone who has conformed to the moral constraints that she insists should be taught to others . . . well, not quite:

The Palins eloped on Aug. 29, 1988, and their first son, Track, was born eight months later, a fact that Maria Comella of the McCain campaign, declined to elaborate on. “They were high school sweethearts who got married and ended up having five beautiful children together,” Ms. Comella said.

Perhaps, then, Palin was successful in persuading her 17 year old daughter of the importance of abstinence? Well, again, not quite:

On Monday, Ms. Palin’s announcement of her daughter’s pregnancy was much of what people were murmuring about inside the halls here, at the cocktail hours, even along a route meant for protesters.

“Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned,” read a statement issued on Monday by Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd. “We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows she has our unconditional love and support.”

The Palins said that Bristol, who was named for Bristol Bay, the salmon fishery, would marry a man they identified only as Levi, later confirmed to be Levi Johnston, a Wasilla resident. “Bristol and the young man she will marry are going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child, which is why they will have the love and support of our entire family,” the statement said.

Is is really too much to ask that people like Sarah Palin get their own houses in order before they presume to tell the rest of how to behave?

Back in the day, there was a word for people like Palin: busybodies. It was not complimentary. They were ridiculed, and rightfully so. The classic stereotype was character of Mrs. Kravitz in the 1960s television series, Bewitched. She obssessively looked through the windows of Darrin's house to find proof that his wife, Samantha, was a witch. Her efforts always caused her to look like a buffoon.

Unfortunately, unlike the rest of us, fundamentalists gobble this sort of thing up with a large spoon. Nothing delights them more than someone who has fallen, recovers to see the light of the way of Christ and then insists that our conduct be subjected to a standard to which they have exempted themselves.

Labels: Christian Fundamentalism, John McCain, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Sexuality

For the first post on this subject, see this entry on Friday. Here are a couple of comments, and my further elaboration:

Talking about sex workers as an example of capitalism's ability to market anything -- like cell-phones or SUVs -- misses the point. These affluent, white, middle class, politically sensitive men are all committing adultery. That will really bite you in the ass, in the end.

I'd be more interested if you had said "capitalism's NEED to market anything", or what Debord refers to as "the colonization of individual consciousness."

plato's cave | 05.24.08 - 12:57 pm | #


if they are single, they aren't.

I'm not sure what relevance this really has to do with capitalism per se, since while I can agree that how sexual desire is expressed can be affected to some extent by capitalist modes of production; the basic human desire to have sex is mostly hotwired into human beings as a basic human desire and need.

Challenging and ultimately replacing capitalism with a more egalitarian system certainly would change sexual relations and allow human beings more resources to express themselves sexually....but I'm not so sure that even a socialist society would go so far as to eliminate the need for a sex media or even the desire for sex work. Capitialism didn't create sexual desire, it just exploits it for the gain of the few.

But then again, I happen to be a libertarian socialist who happens to be more of a sexual progressive who defends sex work and sexual expression....so perhaps my views are peculiar. VMMV, as the saying goes.

Anthony
Anthony Kennerson | Homepage | 05.24.08 - 4:55 pm | #


It would seem to me that the fantasies and role playing involved, which seem to have evolved to a very high level in places like the Bay Area, are directly associated with the privileges of success in the region's capitalist, entrepreneurial economy. Wealth engenders an urbane rejection of middle class familial morays, and the ability to pay to gratify the desires of a such a lifestyle.

If Brecht were alive today, he would probably recognize the primacy of entertainment and communications technology in such an economy, a postmodernist view, of course, and how the creativity and imagination required by its participants necessarily crosses the boundary into their erotic lives, not to mention the influence of entertainment products upon consumers. So, it raises a question, could the world described in this article exist in a different kind of society, and, if so, in what form?

The article provides a clue elsewhere in the interview, in an answer not posted here. Reid later talks about how SF is really a small place socially and how you have to deal with the challenge of encountering your customers in more conventional settings. Of course, in a socialist or anarchist society, this would not be an issue, as sex work would be respected, as would be the gratification of sexual desire, and there would no reason to be embarrassed or discomforted by encountering one of your clients.

And, this gets to a more central point: sexuality in such a society would not be transacted through the mechanisms of commodity exchange. As a result, there would not be sex workers and clients, as they are currently understood, because the gratification of sexual desire and the playing out of one's fantasies would not be based upon your ability to pay to do so. Something which requires a lot of money in the society in which we currently live, only a few can afford to do it.

There is a well known dark side to the commodification of sex, and it periodically emerges in the Bay Area. For example, a man was extradited from Mexico a few years ago for having sex with young boys. Prostitution involving minors is common as it is in many places. Sex for money is invariably non-consensual, even for adults, because the number of people who would perform sex work without being paid is probably pretty small compared to the those who do it for money.

And what about the fantasies and role playing? Wouldn't they be different in a non-capitalist economy? Probably, but we can't say to what degree. Dominance and submission would appear to be human universals, but beyond that, who knows?

Richard Estes | Homepage | 05.25.08 - 8:11 am | #

And, what about the fact that the sex workers seem to be women and men serving men? Are there markets with women and men serving women? Are they anywhere near as substantial as the one serving men? If not, what's up with that?

Labels: American Culture, Neoliberalism, Postmodernism, Sexuality

All of you aspiring left sociologists, feminists, postmodernists . . . read this column by Violet Blue and decide:

I asked established escort and professional dominatrix Giselle Reid — who has worked in many regions of the country as well as internationally — what makes San Francisco clients different from clients from anywhere else.

Reid tells me, "My clients here, as anywhere I've ever worked, are primarily white, middle aged, upper middle class to upper class men. In my experience, and in general, the men of San Francisco make delightful clients. They tend to be politically liberal, with at least a rudimentary social/ecological consciousness."

Violet Blue: How does this translate in an everyday sense?

Giselle Reid: They have good and expansive taste in cuisine. They are less obsessed with orgasm than men who, in other parts of the world, cussed at themselves or me if they came too quickly or not at all. Often they are with me to have a good time, not to prove themselves. They are eager to have their asses played with. They are less likely to smoke. They are generally more informed and supportive of sex workers' rights issues and more willing to talk openly and objectively about sex work. They know and use the term "sex work." They are less likely to be homophobic and more open with their sexual curiosity about other men. They are more likely to bring their girlfriend, wife or other favorite sex worker with them. They are less likely to speak ill of their wives. Some of them call or write me on holidays and my birthday. And of course, they, like everyone in this great city, are generally better looking.

Violet Blue: Is there an experience you've had that characterizes the San Francisco client?

Giselle Reid: Here are four experiences that I feel characterize the San Francisco client: I once had a client ask me if it was OK to say hi to me if he ran into me at Pride. One client, as a sweet gesture of perversity, gave me the underwear her Craigslist date had removed in the bathroom and traded with her own over lunch earlier that day. I once asked a client if I could take the sample toiletries from his hotel room for the homeless and he assembled a little baggie for me and praised the act heavily. A first-time client who gave me his ass virginity looked at me meaningfully between moans of pleasure and said, "You have really beautiful eyes."

I'll give you a hint as to my perspective: the ability of a capitalist society to market sexuality and fantasy appears to be boundless. But, of course, as Brecht and Weill demonstrated in the opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, an opera centered around the theme of the marketization of human needs and desire, one has to be able to pay the price of admission or face the consequences.

Labels: American Culture, Neoliberalism, Postmodernism, Sexuality

. . . . Susan Alexander

Labels: American Culture, Film Notes, Sexuality

Sarah Jones got in trouble with the FCC years ago when she recorded this riveting spoken word performance, this humorous, incisive condemnation of misogyny in hip hop, as a song:

For those of you who use Windows, you can listen to the song here.

Labels: African Americans, Feminism, Hip Hop, Sexuality, YouTube