Log in

View Full Version : a letter from my friend's mother



Pages : 1 [2]

BrodieLux
06-20-2008, 12:22 AM
I found that letter condescending and intrusive. I agree that the woman had good intentions -- I believe she really lost sleep worrying about you -- but it strikes me as the kind of thing a fundamentalist evangelical Christian would say to a non-believer. You know they mean well, trying to save you from a hellfire they really think you're subject to, but in the end it's just disrespectful.

Personally, I've found that dancing has given me so many benefits -- helped me grow in so many positive ways...and that has led to making me better equipped to contribute to the greater good. For example, my self esteem is much higher, I'm no longer insecure about my body, I'm more aware of my boundaries (not just at work, but in terms of alls kinds of things), I take better care of myself, etc.

I think you should take her concern with a grain of salt, and remember that how it affects you spiritually is not for her to say. It's true that clubs can have negative vibes in them, but you can deal with that a number of ways (smudge yourself with sage after work, or imagine an invisible shield protecting you, etc.) I agree with other posters who pointed out that plenty of jobs have negative vibes involved -- abusive bosses, for example, or abusive customers. If your experience is like mine, dancing may turn out to be one of the best choices you make.

Dixie_Vancouver
07-08-2008, 02:25 PM
That letter sounded EXACTLY like my mom's reaction when she found out what I was doing. (Actually, she found out I was working for an escort agency - NOT as an escort but just working there. If she knew I was escorting, she'd kill me.)

It is nice of her to express concern for you, but it's really not her place. The problem I find with people who have such concerns is that they usually only know one side of the situation - and even then, not very well. I can say for sure that everyone who has openly ragged on me for escorting has never done it, and has probably never called a girl or even known one...the people I've experienced who've had the biggest problems with sex work are those who know nothing more about it than what they see on TV.

madmaxine
07-08-2008, 02:42 PM
Dear Mrs. B,

I had trouble sleeping last night because I was thinking about you after receiving your letter. From the perspective of a younger woman more in tune with the current world environment I feel very sad and concerned about the work you're doing, B. I understand that women your age have lived through so much that they understand that the words and actions of yesterday that cannot be brushed aside create their well-being for tomorrow, and I'd like to share with you my perspective whether you want it not or whether it helps you or not. This is only out of concern for your well-being and because it is obvious to me that you have a lot to offer this world. <--- that's a lie... you and I both know what it really is, but unlike you I at least admit when I'm full of it.

The consequences of your work can be physical, psychological, and spiritual. I think the physical ones are more obvious. I work as an exotic dancer in gentlemens clubs and I am surprised how many of them there are; I see them in every club just as I do everywhere else because there are nuts everywhere. So every day in your job working with parolees and probationers there is at least one, if not more, persons who are criminals, sex offenders, sociopaths or psychopaths (probably most of them unlike my job as a dancer). This work DOES greatly increase the possibility of physical violence for you. The other physical danger is falling into addiction. It is well documented that working with so many criminals, sex offenders, sociopaths and psychopaths as you do creates a depressing state of mind that can lead to alcohol and/or drug abuse (of course, I can't offer any documentation of this alleged well documented evidence since, like you, I just like to think it's well documented in order to convince not only you but me). Also, making crappy money that barely allows you to feed yourself and keep a roof over your head especially at your age is terrifying as well as depressing -- you can start in one place and so easily end up stuck in the dead end you are where you did not intend to go in the beginning (who ever hopes that at your age they'd still be stuck in a nowhere government grind job making peanuts and worrying how in the world they'll ever be able to retire?). Of course, it may be possible to avoid the physical risks (although very difficult to do if you stay very long in the loser social worker trade), the psycho/spiritual risks are nearly impossible to avoid, and may do even more damage to your well-being.

All of those people who are reporting to you do not see you as a person with an intelligent mind, kind heart and a possibility of unlimited consciousness, they see you only as a dork they're forced by the justice system to see and would probably much prefer to either spit in your eye or rip it out as a way to satiate their own desires of despising the system. The negative, dark energy this extreme self-centeredness emanates will affect you; each time you walk into the office you are bathing in that energy. It's like walking from a beautiful sunny day in a garden into a glaringly bright tiny cubicle with government issue crap furniture filled with depression, office jerks you have to suck up to and drowning under piles of useless paper nobody cares about unless you fill them out wrong. It will not help you to feel good about yourself in the long term, even though in the beginning believeing you have the power to "make a difference" by "helping" the losers forced to deal with you (even though you make small change for a paycheck) may be exciting and feel good to your ego. Your psyche is so much more and it will cry out in distress and depression eventually, because it is here to expand and grow, it is here for a purpose; and making crappy money in a loser job you can lose any day is never its purpose. Making money in a way that helps you and other people is a positive thing, but making money in a way that keeps you constantly worried you can't afford your next meal degrades you and eats away at your psyche.

So please do me a favor. Spend 20 minutes in silence every so often. Watch your breath and be aware of your thoughts; let them go as soon as they appear. When you are feeling somewhat peaceful go into your heart and ask it if your work is helping your self-esteem, ask if it is helping other people, ask if it is making you happy. Then don't let your thoughts take over, just FEEL what your heart is telling you. When you feel sadness or pain in your heart, please stop that work immediately. No matter how much you are being paid (and you and I both know it's crap), it is not worth selling your spirit. I think this work has a good possibility of taking away any innocence you have forever. It also can erase hope and the ability to see goodness in yourself and others.

Mrs. B, you once before expressed an interest in becoming a lowly social worker and I wanted to cry. I've had conversations with other dancers about what the things older adults could do that would be the most painful for us, and through this experience I have realized this is one of them. A beautiful older woman like you doing such de-humanizing work is very hard for a more intelligent and marketable adult to accept, because we very much want the best for you, and are quite positive this will not lead to positive consequences in the future.

I love you and your daughter regardless of what choices you make, but I pray they are ones that will be for your highest good.

Alanna

P.S. -- Right about now you are probably enraged that I turned your words of "concern" back on you. Hit you hard, didn't they? Now you're probably pissed that I just demonstrated that not only are you an idiot with a loser crappy paying job your false "concern" that comes from your own pathetic issues and maybe even personal jealousy helps no one least of all yourself -- remember that damaged psyche you're so worried about? Clearly you need to worry more about your own. It's "concerned" people like you that insist on butting their noses into everyone else's business and judging them according to their own views of how the world should be that is the single most damaging thing one can do to the psyche of another... if they allow it. Lady, I'm not allowing it. Take your false concern that I know is only a mask for your own ugly psyche crap that you hate and desperately want to get rid of by throwing it at someone else and place it firmly in that part of your anatomy that receives no solar illumination. In other words, shove it up your ass.




;) I laughed out loud in glee when I read your reworking of the letter.

I have no repentance about what I do now. My values system is just different. I don't fucking apologize for succeeding.

& Like Lena said, sweet, but misguided.

Polekitten
07-08-2008, 05:27 PM
Honestly I think this letter was well meant. This woman obivously has no experience of this industry and is basing her views on what shes been told and heard in the media. Alot of what she says is true for some girls but it doesn't have to be true for you if you don't let it.

I can see why this might piss you off but this woman really does seem to have your best interests at heart and is genuinely concerned for you. If I were you I would be more pissed off at your friend for telling her in the first place.

Alaska
07-10-2008, 04:02 PM
Hey. Did you get or hear of any response?

Dottie Rebel
07-10-2008, 07:04 PM
Yeah, I'm curious, too.

To be honest, a woman who is so "close" to her parents that she cannot honor confidentiality is not a mature adult. That's ridiculous. That's how you act when you're 10.

As for the rest, it's hardly worth addressing to me. She's so misguided, naive, and benignly ignorant I wouldn't even worry about it. How many people that you see on a daily basis are in awe of your potential for infinite consciousness? When someone asks you if you'd like to Supersize it are you thinking to yourself, "Gee, the divinity within me really recognizes the divinity within this cashier"? Fuck no. It's an absurd arguement.

Stop the work if it starts to make you unhappy or break your spirit? Well fucking duh. That's how I ended up stripping full time! The corporate world was destroying my from the inside out.

And finally, this "I'm older and I know things you can't understand right now" is insulting and dismissive. The older I get the LESS I am willing to conform, the MORE I am committed to living a deliberately chosen life. I keep getting weirder. Taking more chances. What, someday I'm going to wake up and realize that I've been living my life wrong all along? Yeah. Um, no.

I know she means well, but these people piss me off even more than the ridiculous radical fundies because they hide behind a friendly, hippie, NPR-listening, Deepak Chopra-reading tied-died wall tapestry. I bet you anything if you asked her to describe herself that "open-minded" would be high up there.

I don't dig it one bit.