The scariest species of NW radical, the hardcore "feminist," rears its head with this screed/poem about the horrors of the burlesque revival;
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/03/355819.shtml





The scariest species of NW radical, the hardcore "feminist," rears its head with this screed/poem about the horrors of the burlesque revival;
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2007/03/355819.shtml
Well, the poem sucks; but it's no more one sided than the vast majority of "rah rah" action that goes on here. Of course, at least the "rah rah" that goes on here is not in poem form.
However, is there not maybe SOME tension between what you might call "throwback" and the "revival"?
I have taught that the sky in all its zones is mortal and its substance was formed by a process of birth
Gosh, one would think that feminists would embrace the free sexual expression of women, huh?
I'm no expert to be sure, but since women have been unshackled from sexual repression in the west, we've made a lot of progress. We may even have a female president here in the near future.
Girls are excelling in academics like no other time in history. There are more women in university than men. Girls are getting better grades than boys in math and science in elementary and secondary school. The majority of new doctors are women. Women are holding their own on the front lines of battle.
The idea of feminism is to be wholly human with out having to repress a portion of yourself in order to fit into society. (or that's how I've seen it)
So the author of that poem sees the performers as being forced into a societal ideal by...men? I've not seen a single burlesque group that is run by a man. Have you? The women who are participating in Burlesque are feminists in every sense of the word. Not some false ideal that men are evil and are trying to cause women to feel sexual simply to please men. We like to feel sexual because, well, it's sexy!
All this crap I've been reading about girls are being "over sexualized" by pop culture seems to just that. Crap. The evidence seems to point to the fact that boys are the ones who are being harmed by the "over sexualization" of girls, not the other way around.
Oh, Susan. You hit a hot button with me. I'm seeing red right now.
Promote yourself and earn more money! This is a business that is owned by strippers for strippers. Let's make that money!





What's the difference?
Yes, Paris, as far as I know Ivan Kane is the only man in the country putting on a burlesque show; Tease-O-Rama, Miss Exotic World, the New York Burlesque Festival are all rtun by women.
One of the really interesting things about the burlesque revival is that a lot, and I mean a lot of the women involved express some pretty damn interesting ideas using it as their vehicle -- Jenny, you read up on Julie Atlas Muz, didn't you? No tool of the patriarchy she. It's common for there to be an overt or covert radical political or feminist element in this stuff and it doesn't demand "sexy" at all -- definitely not in the way stripping/lapdancing does.
And as for the idea that hipster boys are getting all hot and bothered at the burlesque revival show -- I find that pretty damn unlikely.
I don't think you need to show your ass to be thought of as sexy, but I also don't think you whould be dismissed because you do show it. Same old same old argument we've been having for years -- we're not allowed to be sexy, naked, intelligent, aware agents of our own destiny.
photos of oppressed asses follow
Last edited by Susan Wayward; 10-10-2008 at 12:47 PM.
Well, "throwback" might be characterized as regressive; "revival" as progressive, or at least not regressive.
I have taught that the sky in all its zones is mortal and its substance was formed by a process of birth



If God would have meant for us to be naked, we would have been born that way.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
http://www.myspace.com/natalielyanh





I don't remember where I read this -- "My IQ doesn't drop when I take off my clothes, but yours might."
Jenny, I would say what's happened is closer to a revival -- there was a panel in Portland last year during the Time-Based Art fest that called it "New" Burlesque. I don't think you could in any way consider it a throwback unless we were doing burlesque in stinky theatres with Lenny Bruce on stage between acts and guys beating it under newspapers in the audience . . . that is what became stripclubs. The burlesque revival is related in a dance/artistic sense, not a business one.



Well, she's no Sandra Cisneros.
If she'd ever actually done burlesque she'd know that its aesthetic often appeals more to gay men, not so much to straight men.
If she'd ever actually taken a pole dance class she'd have a different opinion of that, too.
I think she's spouting off about stuff she doesn't truly know much about. Maybe she read the book about female chauvinists without actually checking things out for herself. And if she's in Seattle or Portland, my experience with the burlesque scenes in those towns has been that there are a lot of queer women in it, not boy-crazy women.
Just because she can't see past the bare breasts doesn't mean anybody else can't.
My impression of this site has been that women here are pretty open about their struggles with the job. Am I wrong?
Blog:
Burlesque classes and info:
Anyone who can't write poetry that scans should not try to hide a ranting editorial as a poem.



Dunno how black face and burlesque can exactly be classified as the same things....
Aequitas VeritasPoster Formerly Known as MulattoKittyn
That was an absolutely crap tastic poem.
I just wish wowsers like this would fuck off and die sometimes.





So pole dancing is ok if you're wearing a snowsuit?
Whatever.
The real entertainment is reading her hate mail. (Ever had an orgasm?)
Because there ain't no tits on the radio





The poem made me laugh. I'm so angry....I'm just gonna...fucking rhyme at you bitches!
I can't believe I wasted a minute of my life reading that craptacular poem.![]()





id just like to say i LOVE the photo of susan's ass that kills facists. makes me lol everytime.
and as far as me not being able to be smart and naked at once.. well, i can rub my belly and pat my head at the same time too! oy.
Love it!
UGH I KNEW it was gonna f-ing rhyme before I read anything.
I love this part:
Burlesque is having a "revival"
And polyfidelity too
It's a wonderful time to be a man
P.C. harem fantasies and pole dancing for you!
Yea, throw in a big bad word like "polyfidelity"! Show what you know!
Most of all, it's A-OK in almost anyone's book to have "harem and pole dancing fantasies", that is fucking as basic human sexual nature as it gets, also, the 90's called and wants the overusage of the phrase "P.C." back...
Are they saying men should not be so politically correct and should try some cool things out with their sex like fire, horses, death, or metal prongs?
Oooh that shit made me angry, and I thought I gave up being angry at dumb ppl long ago...once in awhile ppl just get to you I guess.
Nice!
omg the first 2 lines don't make ANY sense whatsoever!!!!!! I wonder how long it took them to think of the best and most clever way to use "polyfidelity." Using shit like that is as P.C. and Emo Kid as it gets.
Yes, I could not agree more with WHAT DOES BLACKFACE HAVE TO DO WITH IT????
Who is this bitch? Is she of any actual importance? *scared*
P.S. I think there is a lot more "crap" that women in this world go thru that we can "get rid of and be free of" first...like genital mutilation, rape, forced prostitution, and . Here is an excerpt from that, which was written by a Camaroon woman:
People often massage a child's breasts when she develops early. They place banana leaves heated in a fire over the breasts almost every evening when the child washes. When they stick the leaves on, the breasts become smaller. It makes the breasts go away. It works so well that the child can go for three or four more years before she grows breasts again. By then, she'll be the appropriate age. Some mothers massage with a grinding stone. They heat it in the fire and massage each night. My mother did this to me, just until my breasts went away.
When a daughter who is younger than thirteen has started to grow breasts, the mother will call her son and he will come and tap his sister's breasts with a spoon, saying, “Go back home! Go back! It's not time!” Then he'll wait a minute before giving his mom back the spoon. A few years later the girl's breasts will come back normally.
In my hopes.




Susan, I would agree overall; particularly because I don't think, at least at this stage, that burlesque is particularly lucrative. (The Classic Pussycat Dolls being a bit of an exception). I also think that burlesque is, at this point, "quaint" - really it is not as sexual, revealing etc. as an MTV video. You get daytime television that shows more skin. And I agree that stripclubs are filling the more "prurient" role of burlesque.
Also; I really like burlesque. I think it is nice to look at. However, I do still think there are legitimate questions about "expressions of female sexuality" and "catering to repressive sexualization of women". I mean, one of the more popular burlesque artists in Toronto is, bluntly, fat (note that I don't think that is a synonym for "ugly"). I really think both her self-image and the image she project - her popularity etc., would really challenge the poet's idea of male centered sexuality - I mean pudgy sex-symbols seem to me (perhaps not very justifiably) to be very, very woman centered. But I'm not sure if anything happens to that when you get men, or even women, who dismiss her image of herself, and instead make her just a deluded fatso. I mean, in one way it is like "Well, why should such people get to be "in charge" of female depictions of sexuality? Why is she not just as or more potent?" But I think that feeds back, in some way, to her "marginal" status - like, I think most us understand intuitively, "real" standards of beauty and sexuality (socially ingrained and absorbed), and "marginal" standards of beauty and sexuality. And I'm pretty sure that the "real" standards are still based around men judging women; this could be fed by our kind of fucked up lives which are "men judging women to the nth degree" - I mean, we go in every night, or at least regularly in order to convince - with varying degrees of success - a bunch of guys that IN NO WAY measure up to us that we are good enough for them.
Ultimately I do come down on your side; but really, if you can imagine anyone (let’s say on this site) saying that a woman is too fat to be a sex symbol, I do think that we need to re-examine this idea that it is this very empowering depiction of female sexuality. This is not to say that I don’t think it can EVER be empowering, but I do think commodifying these expressions (although, as I said, I think you can really question, in Burlesque, of how much of a commodification is really going on at this point) really complicates them; it allows consumers (and in the case of female sexuality these consumers are traditionally and mostly men) to control the expression; and if (male) consumers are controlling it, I think you can viably question how much of a female-empowered-whatever-expression is really going on. Anyway – I rambled. I hope it made sense.





Jenny, you make sense. While I believe beauty is 1) in the eye of the beholder and 2) encompassing far more than what we see in the club, I would see the 400lb dudes in Wal-Mart as too fat to be sexy. I would not find someone with many open sores sexy. Is this because of societal mores or because I'm looking for healthy people? Fat girls can be sexy to me; morbidly obese ones not so much. However, there is always someone who will want to fuck you -- whether the majority does or not determines your status as a sex symbol, I suppose, and the motivations behind the majority opinion are the standards we have after our long convoluted process of evolution and the effects of marketing.
If that plus-size stripper feels hot, and she has a following that feels likewise, I think that's going to have a bigger (pardon the pun) impact on changing beauty standards than some stupid fat-positive manifesto.
The consumers of modern burlesque are overwhelmingly female and underwhelmingly commodified as it's a hobby that costs you more than it will make you 98% of the time.
The new burlesque tosses the commodification of sexuality and societal standards right out the window. I have seen all types of women who would never dance in a club stick on pasties and go to town. A couple of years ago we put on an all-women's burlesque night in Austin -- no boys anywhere in the building -- and goddammit, if having a group of 100% women get together for a little carnal play free from the eyes of men isn't feminist, then I don't fucking know what is anymore!
Unless of course dancing, makeup, and caring about looks and shiny things at all are inherently antifeminist -- and there certainly are plenty of people who do think so. They, I think, are not so much fun.



I have several problems with the ideology that seems to be behind the poet's post.
Number one, the idea that the female heterosexual's urge to appeal to men, ie, to mate, is somehow only the result of societal conditioning. Whether good or bad, it's natural. It's more complicated than that, but it's certainly not just coming from porn magazines.
Number two, the idea that just because the predominant societal view, for instance, that fat women are undesirable, is unchanged, that it's unchallenged and unaffected. This, to me, allows all power to reside only in the hands of the dominant view, and invalidates the idea that people in alternative lifestyles could possibly lead any kind of valid life, simply because they continue to be minorities.
Number three, that society applauds men who frequent sex workers and watch Girl Gone Wild. Hardly. Most men would prefer to say, "I never paid for it in my life," and George Bush wasn't voted in according to his taste in men's magazines. It's a red herring, in my opinion. All this focus on the sex industry as the source of antifeminism distracts feminists from the real sources of power and the places women are truly undercut in our society. Attributing those power imbalances to adult entertainment, and spending time and money studying that, is often a dangerous waste of time and resources.
Continuing, the idea that the pressures on women to worry about their appearances come only from sources dominated by straight men.
And so on. And I could go on and on and on.
I don't claim that burlesque is feminist. I claim that it's fun for women, and that it helps them to have fun in areas they wanted to enjoy but thought they couldn't because of their age, background, body type, etc. And so far that has been the case.
Last edited by Jo Weldon; 03-19-2007 at 01:33 PM.
Blog:
Burlesque classes and info:
As poetry, that was lousy. As philosophy, childish. In a (more or less) free society like ours, the concept of degradation is mostly subjective and imaginary. Being naked in front of people who like looking at you can make you feel powerful or it can make you feel like a sad, exploited little girl. It's up to you.
On the other hand, I have some sympathy with those who argue that hyper-sexualization and empowerment are hardly the same thing. Sometimes it does make me a little queasy to see the YouTube videos of the 14-year-olds giving lapdances. I mean, if it's a path to their self-discovery as potent sexual beings, then right on. But I have a hunch that for many if not most, it's the same old "being sexy is the best way to get attention so shut up and shake your ass" junk that's been recycled from generation to generation ad nauseum.
I hardly think burlesque and pole-dancing classes are the best targets for these arguments, though. Paris Hilton is a way bigger offender, as are most representations of women in mainstream hip-hop.
Anyway, it was a crap poem.
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