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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by mr_punk
live with them? LOL...a customer doesn't need that high of a threshold to find out his ATF isn't a girl scout..
No shit, Matlock, thanks for stating the obvious. However, sometimes life takes unexpected turns and you discover that fun,bubbly stripper has a dark side and some borderline personality disorders no one knows about. The girl scout idea is not bad though, I'm thinking a short skirt, knee high stockings and some X-rated merit badges. Or not.
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Originally Posted by mr_punk
no, he doesn't view her as human being. it's more like an ethereal temple virgin who is saving her chastity for him.
Well that's your definition, a few minutes in VIP of any Houston strip club would obliterate that notion.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by xdamage
I'm not into the ATF thing myself. I don't really see the point. Seems like variety and freedom to choose is one of the benefits of the SC, so why focus strictly on one? But ya, well it depends on many factors.
True in theory, thats always the plan but junkies do get addicted, after all.
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Originally Posted by xdamage
Is the guy the type that can deal with his woman sucking on another man's (fill in the blank) for a living. By blank I meant "ear" of course. Not every guy can handle that.
Valid point, situations vary however and she could always retire. OTOH, the secretary I just fired was a bigger whore than 99% of the strippers I know. At least they get paid for it, this bitch would blow guys from online dating sites for a happy meal. Seriously, a different dude would pick her up every day at lunchtime and she comes back an hour later with a McDonalds bag. Lots of slutty chicks out there, and not all at the SC.
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Originally Posted by xdamage
Maybe they really click chemically and personality wise in ways that the guy and his SO never have and never will click.
Exactly my point - then what? Do the sensible thing (keep her on the side and hide it from the SO) or throw caution to the wind and go for it?
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by easy_e
Valid point, situations vary however and she could always retire.
Well of course any guy that's banking on her retiring is already being foolish.
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Originally Posted by easy_e
Exactly my point - then what? Do the sensible thing (keep her on the side and hide it from the SO) or throw caution to the wind and go for it?
When it comes to sex, love, and relationships... like I said, there is no way to predict what people will do. Some will leave their SOs, some not.
But...
I would say that if the guy has a problem with his ATF being a stripper or an escort, it probably won't work out. If he's got it in the back of his mind that she is a whore, good enough to fuck, but still a whore, it's just not going to work. That type of guy probably won't leave his SO when it comes down to the wire.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by Jenny
......what would he do if he finds out that she is is actually in love with him and wants to see him for free? I mean, what would one be trying to find out with this charade and why? And you guys wonder why some of the pinkies despise you.
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Originally Posted by xdamage
......if the guy has a problem with his ATF being a stripper or an escort, it probably won't work out. If he's got it in the back of his mind that she is a whore, good enough to fuck, but still a whore, it's just not going to work. That type of guy probably won't leave his SO when it comes down to the wire.
This is the hypocrisy of the PL - wanting something real, yet believing himself superior to the dancer, and if something does develop, she's not good enough for him. No wonder they hate us.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by easy_e
This is the hypocrisy of the PL - wanting something real, yet believing himself superior to the dancer, and if something does develop, she's not good enough for him. No wonder they hate us.
It's also fairly common that you meet dancers who wouldn't date the kind of guy who is a customer (that's a generalization, they might meet a guy they think is the exception, but they think the average customer must be a loser if he has to go to a SC). Ironic isn't it.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by easy_e
No shit, Matlock, thanks for stating the obvious. However, sometimes life takes unexpected turns and you discover that fun,bubbly stripper has a dark side and some borderline personality disorders no one knows about.
<double-take>LOL...well, in keeping with the detective theme and taking into account your continuing problems with metaphors. you just restated the obvious, Inspector Clouseau.
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Originally Posted by easy_e
Well that's your definition, a few minutes in VIP of any Houston strip club would obliterate that notion.
a houston sc? golly gee, i've never been to one of those. ROTFLMAO..usually, i don't see this level of absolute cluelessness down here unless it's Captain Quantum. most of the time, i enjoy the schadenfreude in CC.
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Originally Posted by easy_e
This is the hypocrisy of the PL - wanting something real, yet believing himself superior to the dancer, and if something does develop, she's not good enough for him. No wonder they hate us.
the only hypocrisy on display is yours. "us"? dancers don't hate you. quite the opposite, they love suckers like you. i swear, you "how-do-i-date-this-stripper-cause-i'm-paying-these-biatches-to be-nice-to-me" types are beneath my contempt. one would foolishly think these needy guys would grow a sack, take "no" for an answer and move on. no, these candy-assed, psudeo-pussywhipped customers, who aren't even getting so much as their finger wet, would rather come on SCJ and constantly cry about how these strippers aren't being nice.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by mr_punk
"how-do-i-date-this-stripper-cause-i'm-paying-these-biatches-to be-nice-to-me" types are beneath my contempt. one would foolishly think these needy guys would grow a sack, take "no" for an answer and move on. no, these candy-assed, psudeo-pussywhipped customers, who aren't even getting so much as their finger wet, would rather come on SCJ and constantly cry about how these strippers aren't being nice.
Yes, what are they thinking coming here and comparing themselves with the elite who come here to brag to their e-pals about paying for sex, or paying for slightly less than sex with women who are evidently beneath your contempt too. At least FBR actually likes the chick he is paying to fuck.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by mr_punk
<double-take>the only hypocrisy on display is
yours. "us"? dancers don't hate you. quite the opposite, they love suckers like you. i swear, you "how-do-i-date-this-stripper-cause-i'm-paying-these-biatches-to be-nice-to-me" types are beneath my contempt. one would foolishly think these needy guys would grow a sack, take "no" for an answer and move on. no, these candy-assed, psudeo-pussywhipped customers, who aren't even getting so much as their finger wet, would rather come on SCJ and constantly cry about how these strippers aren't being nice.
Very impressive. You almost figured it out. Except she didn't say no, she said yes.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by xdamage
It's also fairly common that you meet dancers who wouldn't date the kind of guy who is a customer (that's a generalization, they might meet a guy they think is the exception, but they think the average customer must be a loser if he has to go to a SC). Ironic isn't it.
Yes, it's very ironic. Dancers think customers are losers, customers think dancers are losers (generally), yet they are brought together by money and sex.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by easy_e
Yes, it's very ironic. Dancers think customers are losers, customers think dancers are losers (generally), yet they are brought together by money and sex.
Sex workers often go through a state of double-irony where on the one hand they despise their customers, while on the other hand they despise that society looks down on them for working in the sex industry. The double irony is that they need the customers, and they need the stigma associated with sex work else the business wouldn't be profitable. Why?
1) If there were no customers, they'd be out of business.
2) If there was no stigma, anyone and every girl would be in the business, and so with the competition, they'd make rock bottom $$s for the service.
Most sex workers are unable to cope with the contradictions and so cope by projecting negative feelings and thoughts on their customers, which tend to be men, which tends to be easy to get one's head around for someone young, looking for an easy to understand reality ... bottom line, men suck.
The inverse of this is men, who want women to be sexually uninhibited with them at night, angelic mother figures by day, while also being faithful yet slutty, and who are unable to cope with the reality that human (female humans in this case) aren't so simple and polarized.
So thinks the X...
Bottom line, men and women find it very easy to blaim their personal issues coping with reality on the other sex.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by xdamage
1) If there were no customers, they'd be out of business.
I have a pal who is a therapist; she currently specializes in helping pedophiles. Yes, for real. This is not a hypothetical. She drives to prisons to conduct group and private therapy for pedophiles. Is she obliged to like her "customers" qua customers - that is like and enjoy the fact that they are pedophiles because if there were no pedophiles she would be "out of business"? I think all sane people would agree that she is not. I'm not saying that strip club customers are morally reprehensible at all, let alone to the degree of pedophiles, but the rationale is ridiculous.
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2) If there was no stigma, anyone and every girl would be in the business, and so with the competition, they'd make rock bottom $s for the service.
There is no socio-sexual stigma to working at Walmart. Yet not everyone wants to do it. There is no socio-sexual stigma to working at the Department of Health. Yet not everyone wants to do it. There is no socio-sexual stigma to being a hairdresser. Not everyone wants to do it. There is no socio-sexual stigma to being a gardener... etc. Again. Ridiculous rationale. There are all sorts of women - I daresay the majority - who don't want to be dancers because of a whole whack of reasons, ranging from wanting to do something else, to having another job, to personal morality to illness etc. and not because of the social stigma.
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Most sex workers are unable to cope with the contradictions and so cope by projecting negative feelings and thoughts on their customers, which tend to be men, which tends to be easy to get one's head around for someone young, looking for an easy to understand reality ... bottom line, men suck.
Or they might just not like their customers. Believe it or not, some people's experience of you guys is not uniformly delightful. Even the ones who think they are, are frequently condescending, presumptive and inappriopately familiar. Not the above comment, telling all of us how we feel, and how our feelings are just mechanisms because we're unable to "cope" with REAL feelings. How terribly offensive. And you wonder why dancers wouldn't want to date someone who imagines that HER feelings on a subject are necessarily subordinate and, frankly, inferior in quality to feelings that someone else ascribes to her. Maybe (and this will shock you) dancers actually have a variety of experiences and, hence, feelings on the subject, and collapsing them into this already irrational "theory" actually goes beyond condescending into "narrow and condescending". Or, you know. So it seems to me.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by Jenny
I have a pal who is a therapist; she currently specializes in helping pedophiles. Yes, for real.
You're using an extreme to make sense of the norm. It's a great technique to prove or disprove anything you want, but it's not a good way to separate out what is common from what is uncommon.
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Originally Posted by Jenny
There is no socio-sexual stigma to working at Walmart. Yet not everyone wants to do it.
I clipped the rest of this because you proved my point. Most people don't want o to work at Walmart because it pays near minimum wage for a job that requires little skill. It pays minimum wages because it requires no real skills. That's basically the future of dancing if there was no stigma. You're right though, if it paid minimum wages for a no skill job, then you'd see a lot of women actually chasing careers that paid more.
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Originally Posted by Jenny
Or they might just not like their customers.
It's a matter of degree. Most people in most jobs don't like some customers. But that's far different then dancers in a job where they don't like most customers.
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Originally Posted by Jenny
Not the above comment, telling all of us how we feel, and how our feelings are just mechanisms because we're unable to "cope" with REAL feelings. How terribly offensive.
/shrug. You're arguing it's offensive, but that doesn't mean I'm necessarily wrong.
As for having "REAL" feelings. Everyone has REAL feelings. Even pedophiles. But that doesn't mean their feelings aren't misguided, no matter how strong the feelings are, or how real they seem, or how much sense they seem to make.
The strength of one's feelings doesn't make them more or less valid, or more or less an indicator of how well someone copes with reality. And often overly strong feelings can be an indicator of poor coping. But anyway...
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Originally Posted by Jenny
And you wonder why dancers wouldn't want to date someone who imagines that HER feelings on a subject are necessarily subordinate and, frankly, inferior in quality to feelings that someone else ascribes to her.
I never said that. I also never said I wanted to date a dancer. I don't have any time or interest in spending my life with someone who lives in a perpetual state of personal crisis, or hates their job. I encourage my women to use her brains and talents to be happy. But if someone chooses to dance and they go on despisiing their customers, well, to me that's the difference between the kids and the grownups. Too many dancers are just drama queens anyway. Drama queens love being in a never ending state of crisis. They are the star of a never ending show where it's all about them. It's great for them, it makes them feel special and important, but it's a big drain on everyone else.
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Originally Posted by Jenny
Maybe (and this will shock you) dancers actually have a variety of experiences and, hence, feelings on the subject, and collapsing them into this already irrational "theory" actually goes beyond condescending into "narrow and condescending". Or, you know. So it seems to me.
Or maybe you're demonstrating exactly what I'm talking about. An inability to copy with the irony that you make your living off the people that you despise, and because society stimatizes it the job can pay fairly well, and you can't cope with the implications of facing that. You know.
p.s. Your example of the therapist friend, not only was it extreme, it's also a really bad example. In theory your therapist friend is trying to help change this person she does like into a person that people can like. You as a dancer on the other hand do the exact opposite. While you despise male behavior, you encourage it because that kind of behavior is what pays $$. You encourage the customers to keep on behaving like customers and coming back for more. So yea. As I said, there is irony there. I'm sorry you can't see it, but it's crystal clear to me.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by xdamage
You're using an extreme to try to make sense of a norm. It's a wonderful argumentative technique that allows you to prove or disprove anything. However it's not very helpful in revealing or separating out what are common patterns from exceptional ones.
So why does the situation of dancers have to be in that particular common pattern? And the pattern which I explicated is not uncommon - it is a different common pattern. Yes, more than one pattern can exist in the world; if you acknowledge that, then I fail to see why you want to cram us into what you obviously think is the MOST common. I mean, police officers wouldn't have a job if there were no criminals. It doesn't mean that they have to love and be grateful to criminals (or criminal lawyers, for that matter). I would say that an obvious difference is that they (and my pal) is providing what you might call a social service and we are not. However, there is a lot of jobs and positions in which people deal primarily with other people who they are under no moral obligation to like and respect. Why can't we exist in that pattern rather than in the one in which you choose to cast us? Is there a reason for that?
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I clipped the rest of this because you proved my point right here. Yes, not everyone wants to do it, mostly because it pays crappy wages, because it requires no real skills, and anyone can do it, and there is no stigma discouraging anyone other then it's a skill-less job. So as I was saying, you'd barely make minimum wage as a stripper if there was no stigma.
Well, that's why I included a bunch of other jobs that, shock, surprise, not everyone wants to do. Not everyone is running out and swarming the Ministry of Health - and they have tons and myriad of reasons for not doing it, some of which are actually not "Jeez, who the hell would ever want to work there?" So I would say that you clipped my post in order to artificially prove your point. But, whatever.
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Most people in most jobs don't like some customers, but it's a matter of degree though, not a black and white all or nothing.
Then how come it becomes so black and white and all or nothing when you get to tell us how we feel about things? "Most sex workers can't cope" is a far cry from "some sex workers probably sometimes feel..." Just saying. And of course, that is not addressing the fact that you are unlikely to be in a position to have any insight into our feelings, and are hence only projecting your own.
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/shrug
Your comments make me think I'm right though, not that I'm wrong.
Everyone everyone has "REAL" feelings. The reality of ones feelings to oneself though means what? To use your own technique, even Pedophiles have real feelings. That doesn't however mean they are not misguided.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. And I'm not surprised that you think you're right. You've made pretty clear that you think dancers are kind of feeble minded. Which is why I don't generally spend a lot time exchanging ideas with you - I mean, everything I say is kind of pre-dismissed. I have no doubt that pedophiles have feelings and that has no impact all on what I was saying.
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I never wondered that. I wouldn't date someone like that though. If she was that unhappy I'd encourage her to use her brains and talents and find other work, or I'd say she must fundamentally like feeling bad in which case I want nothing to do with it (it's fun for her to be the star in a never ending drama, but it's a drain on everyone else).
You wouldn't date someone who constantly denies that you, perhaps, have a better understanding of yourself that she does? I don't blame you. Me neither. And I have no idea what the rest of this comment is in reference to.
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I didn't say it was easy to swallow, but that's also precisely my point. Some dancers have a fundamental inability to cope with the irony of their situation so they while they have lots of strong feelings and thoughts that dance around the irony, many are just not able to take that final step of realizing hey, I choose this career, and strangely it only pays as well as it does for all the reasons I complain about.
And... there you go. These women don't actually understand their feelings, what they think are their feelings are not really their feelings, but a cover up for what I think are their feelings based on.... MY projected feelings. Yeah, you're right. Not easy to swallow. Not because (as you imagine) none of us are ready to deal with your level of insight but because (and I know this is hard for you to swallow) different people have different feelings on different situations. Although I did notice the modification of "most" to "some", I still think the implication is the same. Strong feelings don't negate the idea off nuance; and, incidentally, just because there are dancers who might be unable to effectively articulate the nuance of their strong feelings, doesn't mean that they are unaware of it. Like, for instance, you can't spell "blame" although you clearly know what it means, and would recognize the word in context.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by xdamage
Or maybe you're demonstrating exactly what I'm talking about. An inability to copy with the irony that you make your living off the people that you despise, and because society stimatizes it the job can pay fairly well, and you can't cope with the implications of facing that. You know.
I'm not going to edit my reply to keep up with your edits. But I fail to see how acknowledging a multiplicity of feeling in a multiplicity of people demonstrates an inability to "cope" with irony.
Actually I think it is a little ironic that you, with all your chat about nuance, spectrums etc., are so rigidly insistent that your feelings must necessarily reflect the feelings of everyone else, and if they don't seem to that all those other people are being, on some level, dishonest, while, simultaneously, your self-knowledge, honesty and agenda are never challenged in any way that meaningfully intersect. But, hey. There's MY sense of irony. Always directed outward. (I'm not sure if I need a full out irony hammer here).
And by the way - I think (although I can ask later) that my therapist friend would object heartily to the expression "change the person into someone that she does like". I don't think, offhand, that is how she would see her role.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by Jenny
So why does the situation of dancers have to be in that particular common pattern?
Well in theory, pedophiles have mental problems and represent a small percentage of the general population, while in theory going to SC is normal entertainment that could be enjoyed by the general populaton.
But as I said, you picked a really bad exteme example anyway.
While your friend is trying to help the pedophile change because his behavior is despisable, as a dancer you encourage your customers to go on acting like customers. Yet you despise them for the behavior, but you want them to keep doing it because it pays you $$.
You need to figure out if the customer has a problem or not, and if you think they do, why as a dancer you encourage it and profit from it. Or at least see the irony of that situation.
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Originally Posted by Jenny
I mean, police officers wouldn't have a job if there were no criminals.
Again, more bad examples. Officers don't encourage criminals to keep on stealing so they can keep on arresting them every weekend. Where as a dancer encourages her customers to keep on being customers.
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Originally Posted by Jenny
Well, that's why I included a bunch of other jobs that, shock, surprise, not everyone wants to do. Not everyone is running out and swarming the Ministry of Health - and they have tons and myriad of reasons for not doing it, some of which are actually not "Jeez, who the hell would ever want to work there?" So I would say that you clipped my post in order to artificially prove your point. But, whatever.
A lot of other jobs are more stressful then dancing, so yes, some people don't want those other jobs.
But my guess is that if there was no social stigma, the market would be flooded with dancers and sex workers and you'd make even less money then you currently make.
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Originally Posted by Jenny
Then how come it becomes so black and white and all or nothing when you get to tell us how we feel about things? "Most sex workers can't cope" is a far cry from "some sex workers probably sometimes feel..." Just saying. And of course, that is not addressing the fact that you are unlikely to be in a position to have any insight into our feelings, and are hence only projecting your own.
You're confused about what black and white thinking means so you're hoping to twist it. I've alread said before, there is a ton of info on the internet about what the concept is. There is no point in my rewriting that.
As for the "Most sex workers..." I should have said, most that I've encountered. Obviously I don't have statistics, not that I care enough to want to prove it so bad that I'd bother.
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Originally Posted by Jenny
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. And I'm not surprised that you think you're right. You've made pretty clear that you think dancers are kind of feeble minded. Which is why I don't generally spend a lot time exchanging ideas with you - I mean, everything I say is kind of pre-dismissed. I have no doubt that pedophiles have feelings and that has no impact all on what I was saying.
You're using the if your not for us you are against us technique now. It's also a very polarized technique, but it's simply that, a technique to try and be right. It's not what I said, nor what I think. Lots of people are very intelligent in a lot of areas, yet can still have blind spots when it comes to some areas of their lives.
But one other comment below...
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Originally Posted by Jenny
You wouldn't date someone who constantly denies that you, perhaps, have a better understanding of yourself that she does? I don't blame you. Me neither.
/shrug. The word "constantly..." so polarized, see a pattern? Really hard to discuss anything when the discussion devolves into using the words always, constantly, never, whatever.
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Originally Posted by Jenny
And... there you go. These women don't actually understand their feelings, what they think are their feelings are not really their feelings, but a cover up for what I think are their feelings based on.... MY projected feelings. Yeah, you're right. Not easy to swallow.
I said nothing about their feelings not being real. I did however say that a lot of sex workers have trouble coping with the irony that they make their money off the people despise, and that the money is good because of the social stigma, and that they project a lot of negative feelings on to their customers and men in general. You don't have to agree. If I'm wrong I'm wrong. But if I'm right (even partially so) there some interesting things to be learned, and your arguments may just be an example of the inability to cope that I'm talking about.
Now as for "I mean, everything I say is kind of pre-dismissed"
Actually no, I think you're very intelligent. I don't necessarily agree with everything you think or say, but nevertheless I still admire that you have strong convictions, that you express yourself well, and as I said, you're obviously very intelligent. Probably even brilliant, which isn't to say that I think that everything you believe is brilliant, but then, we all have our blind spots. I have plenty of my own. Here is what you need to understand. I don't think in black and white terms. My overall impression of you is a mix of many different thoughts, the overall picture being a grey one in which you have a lot of intelligence, and I oculd imagine you becoming very successful in a number of careers. Those areas where I disagree, that doesn't mean I write you off for those things. It just means I disagree. The overall grey picture I have of you though is a mix, but that's they way I enjoy other people. It's the mix that makes them interesting and well, human.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
Okay.
a) I don't know that I would agree that I regularly encourage customers to behave in a way that causes me to dislike them as customers. As for what other women in this industry do - I think they do a lot of things and trying to cram them into the same box is not going to provide any insight at all.
b) I think we've all acknowledged that strip club culture is counter culture, not mainstream culture. Perhaps not AS counter as pedophilia or criminal activity, but out of the mainstream (stigma, remember?)
c) I think I've already said that different dancers have different feelings based on different experiences and behave... differently. You know, from each other.
d) Your assertion that a lot of jobs are more stressful than dancing is i) a value judgement based on little personal knowledge and ii) leaves out the necessary corollory that a lot of jobs are LESS stressful than dancing and iii) that many high stress jobs are in demand for a variety of reasons while many low stress jobs are not.
e) Your focus on my use of "constantly" is sheer semantics. When I said that you constantly harp on something, the colloquial and general understanding would be that you do it frequently or regularly or that you refer to the idea frequently or regularly, or if we wanted to stretch, that your posts and ideas are frequently or regularly based on that premise. No reasonable person interprets the word "constant", used conversationally, as literal. But feel free to be unreasonable if you like.
f) Thank you, X, for educating me.
g) I would say that if you treat the opinions of the sex workers you have encountered in real life with same cavalier dismissiveness with which you treat them here, what you have gleaned is unlikely to be different than your original hypothosis.
h) I would never use such a technique in this type of argument in which I am exactly and explicitly arguing that people can feel different and complicated things. I was saying that i) you misunderstood me to such a degree that I have no idea what you are getting at and ii) that you work on an a priori assumption that dancers are not intelligent. You've said things to this effect many times. However if you would care to disavow that idea it would not offend or bother me in the slightest.
i) how exactly does one "cope" with irony? I mean, I think we all ACKNOWLEDGE that we make money off of customers (although I don't know that I will avow to the "despise"). That's self-evident. There is no coping necessary. But, if I needed to "cope" with irony, how would I do it? Is it like coping with stress? Coping with the loss of a loved one? Do you even realize that you are talking nonsense?
j)I don't know if the money is good BECAUSE of the social stigma, and frankly, the theory seems a little unreflective, simplistic and founded on many assumptions that seem to me, to be far from self-evident.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
And just because I feel the need to make a point, I must now change my avatar back.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by Jenny
how exactly does one "cope" with irony? I mean, I think we all ACKNOWLEDGE that we make money off of customers (although I don't know that I will avow to the "despise"). That's self-evident. There is no coping necessary. But, if I needed to "cope" with irony, how would I do it? Is it like coping with stress? Coping with the loss of a loved one? Do you even realize that you are talking nonsense?
Coping in this case would mean the sex worker coming to accept they profit off the fact that customers (mostly men) are they way the are, and that the sex worker is 1/2 of a symbiotic situation that encourages and profits from the customer's behavior.
That would in turn mean that some of the negative feelings the sex worker has about customers, the sex worker would have to let go of.* That she is as responsible for as the customers she receives money from. And that in turn would mean that a lot of the negative feelings she feels about her customers, she is a contributor too. And that in turn would mean, she'd have to make a choice. A choice to keep on working as a sex worker, maybe even laugh it off as oh, well that's the way the world works, or make a choice to change careers.
What it doesn't leave the sex worker with is the ability to go on feeling angry or despising her customers while also profiting off them and perceiving herself as purely a victim of circumstances beyond her control.
* Part of the problem is, many people actually enjoy being angry. It makes them feel important. Being angry at a large group of people, in this case most of the opposite sex, is a lot easier, and more fun then it is to have a viewpoint in which one is responsible for one's decisions (in this case, the decision to be a sex worker vs deciding to do something else in which you don't despise most of your customers). Drama queens in particular - love being angry at people. It's just another thrilling chapter in a never ending drama that revolves around them as the star of the show.
Now you asked for what I mean by coping, so you lose the right to say I was being condesending by explaining it.
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Originally Posted by Jenny
j)I don't know if the money is good BECAUSE of the social stigma, and frankly, the theory seems a little unreflective, simplistic and founded on many assumptions that seem to me, to be far from self-evident.
I already see the decline happening. It's seems completely self evident to me. I don't think you want to accept it's so because the implications aren't entirely self-postive, but like I said... irony.
Basically people are payed well for:
1) Jobs few else wants to do.
2) Jobs few else can do.
Jobs that many people want to do, and that many people can do, pay poorly. Basic supply and demand. Stripping doesn't meet criteria #2. It still meets criteria #1 to a great degree because of the social stigma. But as that declines, it becomes less and less true, and so the outcome will be more sex workers offering more for less (like I said, that trend is already evident).
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by Jenny
Okay.
b) I think we've all acknowledged that strip club culture is counter culture, not mainstream culture. Perhaps not AS counter as pedophilia or criminal activity, but out of the mainstream (stigma, remember?)
Regarding this. Careful not to mix things. Watching porn, strip clubs, shopping at sex stores, buying playboy, while none of these are mainstream entertainment because of the stigma, they are also considered social legal (with some restriction) activities that adults agree to. By that I mean the sellers and buyers agree.
Pedophilia and criminal activity is not activities that two adults agree too. The pedophiles victims don't agree; the victims are children that really aren't able to choose for themselves The criminals victims don't agree; criminals force their choices on the victims.
That's vastly different from stripping where you choose to work as a stripper, and where your customers choose to pay you.
Now you know that, but mixing those together to make a point seriously derails the conversation and ended up being a great way to dismiss my point using an argument that is basically broken.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by xdamage
Coping in this case would mean the sex worker coming to accept they profit off the fact that customers (mostly men) are they way the are, and that the sex worker is 1/2 of a symbiotic situation that encourages and profits from the customer's behavior.
That customers "are the way they are"? Like what? Men? Paying? That statement is not terribly enlightening. I profit off of paying men (very seldom women) who act in all sorts of ways, and I don't profit off of potentially paying men who act in other ways. This is vague enough to be entirely useless.
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That would in turn mean that some of the negative feelings the sex worker has about customers, the sex worker would have to let go of.* That she is as responsible for as the customers she receives money from.
She is as responsible for the behaviour of her customers as they are? This seems a little skewed and wrong, and I don't see how it follows. See, here is a thing. I assume that if a woman dislikes, as a rule, her customers that she probably has a reason to. You seem to assume that if a woman dislikes her customers she is being irrational and projecting her feelings of inadequacy. Now while neither of these things is likely always true (because very little is always true) one does these women the respect of assuming that they are human beings capable of having, interpreting and projecting their own feelings rather than insisting that how I feel, would feel or think they ought to feel (based on my own agenda) is in fact how they REALLY feel if they would only admit it.
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And that in turn would mean that a lot of the negative feelings she feels about her customers, she is a contributor too.
Again, that is only assuming that her feelings in the first place are not based on anything but self-hatred and frustration. If she actually has a reason to dislike her customers, whether through frequent bad experience, obnoxious local custom, or few hyper-traumatic experiences or something else that I just haven't thought of, she is not a contributor. You can't make her responsible for other people's obnoxious behaviour because they pay her. I pay lots of people.
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And that in turn would mean, she'd have to make a choice. A choice to keep on working as a sex worker, maybe even laugh it off as oh, well that's the way the world works, or make a choice to change careers.
Gosh that's cute. I am, as it happens, in a position to find other means if I really feel like it; I am fortunate enough to have a college degree and come off as moderately clever and competant. Simple fact is that not everyone is. I will refrain from asking if you are at all acquainted with the "real world" to assume that it is so easy for unskilled people in unskilled work to find other unskilled work at a living wage, because I hate it when people say that shit to me; but I mean, really. What you've presented as a simple, comfortable choice that anyone can easily make if they just have the intelligence to be self-reflective does not, to many people, feel like a choice at all.
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What it doesn't leave the sex worker with is the ability to go on feeling angry or despising her customers while also profiting off them and perceiving herself as purely a victim of circumstances beyond her control.
Again, you put these together like they are related. Offhand I see no reason that one cannot despise one's customers, profit off of them and NOT see oneself as a victim. One thing does not equal, imply or necessitate the other, and you leave no room for nuance in this trite little equation.
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* Part of the problem is, many people actually enjoy being angry. It makes them feel important. Being angry at a large group of people, in this case most of the opposite sex, is a lot easier, and more fun then it is to have a viewpoint in which one is responsible for one's decisions (in this case, the decision to be a sex worker vs deciding to do something else in which you don't despise most of your customers). Drama queens in particular - love being angry at people. It's just another thrilling chapter in a never ending drama that revolves around them as the star of the show.
Oh please. You say the same thing about feminists.
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Now you asked for what I mean by coping, so you lose the right to say I was being condesending by explaining it.
I don't know. I still think I could viably criticize for the mode and method with which you explain. I'm not. I'm just pointing out that I have lost no such rights.
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I already see the decline happening. It's seems completely self evident to me. I don't think you want to accept it's so because the implications aren't entirely self-postive, but like I said... irony.
Sigh. And here we are again. You assert, and if I might disagree it's because I have a mental block. It couldn't be that my anecdotal evidence may differ from yours, nor could it be that (if we do assume a decline) this decline of which you speak has a lot to do with a myriad of factors, many of which are more important than what you call "social stigma", or even that "social stigma" has in fact uniformly changed, or that the business has uniformly changed. No. If I reject your assertion it must be because the implications aren't "self-positive", and not because your assertion is a ridiculously simplistic model founded on nothing except your own inexpert conjecture.
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Basically people are payed well for:
1) Jobs few else wants to do.
2) Jobs few else can do.
Jobs that many people want to do, and that many people can do, pay poorly. Basic supply and demand. Stripping doesn't meet criteria #2. It still meets criteria #1 to a great degree because of the social stigma. But as that declines, it becomes less and less true, and so the outcome will be more sex workers offering more for less (like I said, that trend is already evident).
Again, I don't know that that follows. I don't know that if what you call "social stigma" changes (indeed, I don't know that it CAN change in a way that would give your conjecture meaning) significantly more women will be flocking to become strippers. Like I said - there is a lot of money potential in hairdressing, as well as some low money potential (very like stripping), yet some women choose not to do it. Why? Who knows. It's not because hairdressing is so demanding or high stress; it's not because of stigma. It's not because it is terribly high skilled (although it is more so than stripping). Yet. As well, you are making the assumption that stripping is EASY because it is low skilled. As I spend all sorts of time explaining on the pink side - stripping is low skilled insofar as it requires no special training or skill set; it doesn't make it fun, easy, unstressful, undemanding or physically undemanding. Also keep in mind - social stigma is external. There are still internal issues. E.g. there are women who deal with all the social stigma of being a stripper, and yet opt to make less money doing no contact/no full nudity/whatever other arbitrary limitations. They still deal with the external pressure, but there are internal feelings that place limits that may seem arbitrary to other people on their behaviour. We are all sex workers, but opt to tolerate excessive governmental control, bad working environments, long hours and restrictive costumes, and (I hope) less money rather than turn tricks - still have the stigma, in fact worse, since prositution is no licensed or regulated and dancing is (at least in this city). Yet. This is what I choose because the thought of getting random guys spit in my mouth makes me want to vomit. Internal limitation.
BTW - you left out "effective unionization". Full time postal workers. Filers.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by xdamage
Regarding this. Careful not to mix things. Watching porn, strip clubs, shopping at sex stores, buying playboy, while none of these are mainstream entertainment because of the stigma, they are also considered social legal (with some restriction) activities that adults agree to. By that I mean the sellers and buyers agree.
Pedophilia and criminal activity is not activities that two adults agree too. The pedophiles victims don't agree; the victims are children that really aren't able to choose for themselves The criminals victims don't agree; criminals force their choices on the victims.
That's vastly different from stripping where you choose to work as a stripper, and where your customers choose to pay you.
Now you know that, but mixing those together to make a point seriously derails the conversation and ended up being a great way to dismiss my point using an argument that is basically broken.
I agree; these are not the same thing. And I didn't use quotes so perhaps what it was not clear that I was referring to your comparison/contrast of criminal behaviour/pedophilia with attending strip clubs, thus creating a dicotomy in which you have 1) criminal behaviour and 2) normal mainstream behaviour. My point was that these are not the only two behaviours, and indeed aren't even extremes on a spectrum and that (this was the direct point) strip clubs are not, in fact, mainstream culture, but marginalized counter culture. As I said, not as marginal or qualitatively the same as criminal activity, but that hardly makes it mainstream.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
BTW - as I have once again hopeless diverted the Holy Grail thread, perhaps I could prevail upon one of our all-powerful Ozes to splinter this off? So as to not offend all the blue guys who just want jerk off material.
But seriously - am I good, or are you guys easily distracted?
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by Jenny
Gosh that's cute. I am, as it happens, in a position to find other means if I really feel like it; I am fortunate enough to have a college degree and come off as moderately clever and competant. Simple fact is that not everyone is. I will refrain from asking if you are at all acquainted with the "real world" to assume that it is so easy for unskilled people in unskilled work to find other unskilled work at a living wage, because I hate it when people say that shit to me; but I mean, really. What you've presented as a simple, comfortable choice that anyone can easily make if they just have the intelligence to be self-reflective does not, to many people, feel like a choice at all.
Now we are going around in circles so this is becoming pointless.
I've already said, that's one of the ironies. If there was no stigma, the amount of money the job pays would decrease dramatically, precisely because it's filled with "unskilled" workers. Those with little choice now, would have one less choice (or I should say one less choice of higher paying jobs for a non skilled worker).
I just think you don't think you want to, or can accept the implications of that irony.
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Originally Posted by Jenny
Again, you put these together like they are related. Offhand I see no reason that one cannot despise one's customers, profit off of them and NOT see oneself as a victim. One thing does not equal, imply or necessitate the other, and you leave no room for nuance in this trite little equation.
You didn't understand then. Some sex workers do in fact see things in that combination, as well as some see themselves in the combination of "despising one's customers, profit off them, and they see themselves as a victim unable to do anything else", but in any case, yes, in any case, again we go in circles. If it wasn't for those customers you despise, as a victim or not, this choice of work would be unavailable to you. If tomorrow all men woke up and decided that it was wrong to use sex workers, that they should save sex for a commited relationship, be gentlement, be content with one sex partner, and so on, most of the customers you profit from would be gone, and you'd be left with the remaining choices, all those other jobs that you could choose, but haven't. There is irony in that, or at least it's clearly so to me.
Enough of the round in round in circles though. This is now going nowhere.
You may sling mud if you like. However, I don't feel like slinging it back. As I said, I think you're very intelligent, and admire your strong convinctions, but on this we're going to have to remain at a state of disagreement.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
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Originally Posted by Jenny
Yes, what are they thinking coming here and comparing themselves with the elite who come here to brag to their e-pals about paying for sex, or paying for slightly less than sex with women who are evidently beneath your contempt too.
hey, i don't want these cookie-baking PLs down here on SCJ any more than you strippers want them upstairs. however, some of you girls are partly responsible for the birth of these abominations. so, you can deal with these whiney biatches where they belong...in CC. besides, it's has a larger audience and it's the perfect place for you girls to shill.
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Originally Posted by Jenny
At least FBR actually likes the chick he is paying to fuck.
LOL....one would think the money and the logic that if a customer picks a stripper out. it would be proof enough that he must like something about her. oh well, i guess this is hardly enough for the average attention whore these days. now, it seems they're concerned whether or not a customer really, really, really, really likes her enough to commit himself to a mistress type deal like FBR.
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Re: Outside the Club (aka "The Holy Grail")
Jenny, we usually dont split off a thread unless numerous folks are particpating in the conversation and the off topic topic chatter clearly shows enough member interest to warrant a separate discussion forum in an effort to avoid highjacking a thread that wants to stay otherwise busy on the actual section mission. HG is not that active and an occasional highjack is OK by me and I'm sure by Jay as well. So carry on if you want. Or not.
Just a peek into the minds and methods of the great and powerful and how they make their sage moderating decisions. ::)
Can I sneek in an on topic comment real quck? I realized after scanning back through this thread that I didnt close the loop on the money thing with Miss D.
We didnt have further conversations about the money or lack thereof. We did our usual lunch foreplay and as she typically does, she left her purse on the bar under my watchful eye while she went to the bathroom to wash her hands and do those other mysterious things women do in the bathroom. I always put the money in her purse at this time so that money does not change hands in the hotel room. Sort of a way to skirt around the law and besides a money filled envelope marked "gift" left on a hotel room table in plain sight just feels overly dramatic, impersonal and frankly kind of silly to me.
Anyway, I casually dropped the folded up hundreds in her purse and waited for her to return. Miss D came back all freshened up, her previous Lady Godiva hair tied back into a pony tail which is the precursor for her putting it up in a bun in the hotel room to avoid said mane becoming covered in lotion. She's very good at spotting money and saw somehow (I could tell from her facial expression) that the full amount was deposited, not a down payment. Maybe she somehow instantly counted the bill edges like one of these cash counting machines you see at the bank, calculated the number of folds and figured it out, I dunno. But she was right. It was the full 5 small.
She smiled as she said "You couldnt do it, could you?"
"Do what?" I replied, trying to keep a straight face but knowing what she was referring to.
"Just giving me a downpayment... Mr Ego". She gave me a kiss and went on to say "I'm not complaining but you worry too much sometimes".
I started to tell her that hey I dodged the bullet this time due to some customer finagling but who knows what next week will bring. But I didn't. I just walked her out to her car and then drove behind her as we headed up to the RR.
What followed was a most excellent FTB. After her fourth pop, with me still hanging in there, she said breathlessly "Aaaaaa...I cant believe your still not done yet". But she hung on tight for a fifth. I think it was the toe massage that did it :P The lord giveth and taketh away. One thing he does leave us older guys is our wiley ways and staying power ;D
Merry HG to all,
FBR