Today's Pinup Fashion a Sly Wink to the Past - New York Times

[William Stratford]

As someone who is a bit more out there than you, I find this just as wonderful as if you had 17276478234 partners. What is what I find upsetting about this conversation, is that I don't think myself better or worse than you for your choices, just different. Yet the same courtesy is not being extended to me. I am being contributed to the moral downfall for my choices of lifestyle. Naturally that is a gross dramatization of the conversation, but the underlying point is there. Standards are not better or worse than one another -- just different.

If standards are "not better or worse than one another -- just different", why are you making such a big issue of people expressing their own? Surely if you believed that their doing so was not "worse" you would have no issue with them doing so and not complain...

I've noticed this with all relativists; they think everything is relative except relativism itself...which of course is absolute and you are not to think differently.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The problem is when kids are being forced to define themselves in terms of sex when they're still, basically, children. It has nothing to do with what you do -- I don't imagine your shows admit people under 18, right? The problem is exactly what these girls in Waterville pinpointed it as -- sex being used by corporate entitites to sell stuff to teenagers, and to make them even more susceptible to that marketing by making them as insecure as possible about their bodies and their sense of self. This kind of marketing couldn't care less about the emotional well-being of the girls it's pitching to -- all it wants to do is sell them crap. And it uses sex as the marketing vehicle precisely because it knows that's where adolescent girls are most insecure and vulnerable. *That* is what I consider a vicious, evil business.

As I said, what a grown woman chooses to do is her own business. We probably wouldn't have too much in common to talk about on matters of sex, but I bet we could have a really good conversation about Golden Era burlesque. (My main problem with the modern version of it is that it leaves out the baggy-pants comedians who were as much a part of the show in the Era as the girls. Lou Costello was as much a burlesque star as Margie Hart.)

 

[LolitaHaze]

It's simply this... I don't think it's wrong for you to not want to come to my show. You don't care for stripping. I don't think that is worse than me thinking it's not. Its when you tell me what I do is wrong -- ESPECIALLY when you have no true insight to all that is involved with the processes. You can't get beyond the cover of the book. You don't like romance novels, you won't pick up a book on romance novels, but to say that romance novels are wrong and all romance novelists are somehow a distaste to society (without knowing what it takes to write and publish and sell a romance novel) because you hold yourself to a literally standard of classic novels -- that is the issue.

 

[William Stratford]

It's simply this... I don't think it's wrong for you to not want to come to my show. You don't care for stripping. I don't think that is worse than me thinking it's not. Its when you tell me what I do is wrong -- ESPECIALLY when you have no true insight to all that is involved with the processes. You can't get beyond the cover of the book. You don't like romance novels, you won't pick up a book on romance novels, but to say that romance novels are wrong and all romance novelists are somehow a distaste to society (without knowing what it takes to write and publish and sell a romance novel) because you hold yourself to a literally standard of classic novels -- that is the issue.

Oh, so some standards ARE "worse" and not "just different" then? Might want to make your mind up on that.

When you tell someone one that judging is wrong, you are engaging in judging yourself (and so contradicting yourself). This is the nonsense at the core of relativism. Women who strip are contributing to women being considered sexual objects. If you dont like that it really is tough because reality does not conform to our foot-stamping. If you dont like a man telling you that, go take it up with Object!. If you dont like Object! telling you it...I guess you are just here for arguing sake (or more likely realise deep down what you are doing and so are reacting defensively to cover that up).

Whichever it is, if you want to discuss something please try doing so without reliance on special pleading trump cards like "you're a man".

 

[LolitaHaze]

The problem is when kids are being forced to define themselves in terms of sex when they're still, basically, children. It has nothing to do with what you do -- I don't imagine your shows admit people under 18, right? The problem is exactly what these girls in Waterville pinpointed it as -- sex being used by corporate entitites to sell stuff to teenagers, and to make them even more susceptible to that marketing by making them as insecure as possible about their bodies and their sense of self. This kind of marketing couldn't care less about the emotional well-being of the girls it's pitching to -- all it wants to do is sell them crap.

As I said, what a grown woman chooses to do is her own business. We probably wouldn't have too much in common to talk about on matters of sex, but I bet we could have a really good conversation about Golden Era burlesque. (My main problem with the modern version of it is that it leaves out the baggy-pants comedians who were as much a part of the show in the Era as the girls. Lou Costello was as much a burlesque star as Margie Hart.)

I'll be honest with you, Lizzie, as a general rule shows do not allow people under 18, however... I have done shows where there are younger children in the audience (with parents) but the shows are no more raunchy than a belly dance show. We do not market our shows as family friendly mind you -- and the venues that this has happened in have been art galleries (versus bars and the like) and weddings. People are told when they bring their kids in that it is an adult show, however they are ok with it as the acts are a lot milder than some things seen on network tv. I mention that our shows are not marketed as family friendly because I agree with you that there are some things being marketed towards youth that I wouldn't care my kids to have.

You don't know how much I agree with you about the comedy routines... I miss them so much and when there is great burlesque comedy... I am in tears from laughing so hard! No one else ever gets the jokes and there are many groans from the audience, but I am always that one loud laughing rolling on the floor voice in another wise theatre full of crickets. Believe me -- many of the true show girls want the comedians, but Burlesque/slapstick just isn't around anymore and oh so rare to find!

 

[LolitaHaze]

You're right once again -- How wrong of me to feel insulted when you say I am wrong at what I do. Here is the thing about judgement. If you and I were in a theatre and you were dressed nicely in your suit and I was stripping out of mine, my judgement of you would not keep me from saying hello to you and smiling being cordial and friendly, while yours would keep you from giving me the time of day. (I mean this symbolically -- not literally.)

 

[William Stratford]

You're right once again -- How wrong of me to feel insulted when you say I am wrong at what I do. Here is the thing about judgement. If you and I were in a theatre and you were dressed nicely in your suit and I was stripping out of mine, my judgement of you would not keep me from saying hello to you and smiling being cordial and friendly, while yours would keep you from giving me the time of day. (I mean this symbolically -- not literally.)

And your point here is what? That your standards are "better"? Ooops, there goes that 'contradicting yourself' again...

I can safely say that I would not knowingly be in a theatre where someone was stripping out of their clothes, because I call such behaviour wrong and destructive (because it adds to the idea that women are sex objects - note, I apply the same standard to male strippers as regards men). There is such a thing as better standards, and stripping (and prostitution as well for that matter, considering an earlier post) is not included in them. Does that make me judgemental? Yup, and if you have a problem with that it makes you judgemental too - the difference is that I am not contradicting myself.

 

[Undertow]

As someone who is a bit more out there than you, I find this just as wonderful as if you had 17276478234 partners. What is what I find upsetting about this conversation, is that I don't think myself better or worse than you for your choices, just different. Yet the same courtesy is not being extended to me. I am being contributed to the moral downfall for my choices of lifestyle. Naturally that is a gross dramatization of the conversation, but the underlying point is there. Standards are not better or worse than one another -- just different.

Let me play devil's advocate and ask you, "When does moral relativism go too far?"

I am a staunch freedom of speech supporter. I've had posts removed on this board because I've posted examples like the man in Florida selling books on how paedophiles should operate to avoid detection and better practice their "craft". But I support the book in written form. It's freedom of speech.

How far is too far? Is the Anarchist's Cookbook too far because it teaches you how to make a bomb out of fertilizer, or poison someone with tobacco? When do we draw a line between 'expression' and harm?

 

[LolitaHaze]

And your point here is what? That your standards are "better"? Ooops, there goes that 'contradicting yourself' again...

I can safely say that I would not knowingly be in a theatre where someone was stripping out of their clothes, because I call such behaviour wrong and destructive (because it adds to the idea that women are sex objects - note, I apply the same standard to male strippers as regards men). There is such a thing as better standards, and stripping (and prostitution as well for that matter, considering an earlier post) is not included in them. Does that make me judgemental? Yup, and if you have a problem with that it makes you judgemental too - the difference is that I am not contradicting myself.

You are so entertaining! That is why I said my example is symbolic and not literal. I know you would never go into such a crass place. What is wonderful about you and this whole conversation is that while it started out as me feeling unwelcome is now I feel even more inspired! This conversation had me feeling put off in the beginning has shown me just how comfortable I am in the "destructive" behaviour I choose to do. And how much I love to do what I do. If loving this is wrong -- Than I don't want to be right. I am ok knowing that even though I live in a world that is in war over skin color... I am entertaining and making happy many people for showing all of mine! And if that makes me a contracting poor excuse for a woman... so be it. I would rather have people I interact with leave happy than put down any day.

 

[William Stratford]

You are so entertaining! That is why I said my example is symbolic and not literal. I know you would never go into such a crass place. What is wonderful about you and this whole conversation is that while it started out as me feeling unwelcome is now I feel even more inspired! This conversation had me feeling put off in the beginning has shown me just how comfortable I am in the "destructive" behaviour I choose to do. And how much I love to do what I do. If loving this is wrong -- Than I don't want to be right. I am ok knowing that even though I live in a world that is in war over skin color... I am entertaining and making happy many people for showing all of mine! And if that makes me a contracting poor excuse for a woman... so be it. I would rather have people I interact with leave happy than put down any day.

Then you are, sadly, an example of exactly the same kind of "stuff authority I'm going to do what I want" immature, ignorant and antisocial attitude that has men behaving in the manner that Lizzie describes. But if what you crave is attention, I will give you no more of mine. Goodnight.

 

[LolitaHaze]

I think it goes to far when it destroys individuals. When it becomes forceful and oppressive to others. When the recipient is no longer a willing participant in the result. I also think that it is the individual to take responsibility for themselves. While a book on how to make a bomb may in some eyes hurt the whole, it is the one who choices to impose that bomb onto others that the morals fail. You can't force a book on someone, but you can force a bomb to destroy their life on them. Does that make sense? Same with what some people feel are harmful behaviours and lifestyles...

 

[LizzieMaine]

You don't know how much I agree with you about the comedy routines... I miss them so much and when there is great burlesque comedy... I am in tears from laughing so hard! No one else ever gets the jokes and there are many groans from the audience, but I am always that one loud laughing rolling on the floor voice in another wise theatre full of crickets. Believe me -- many of the true show girls want the comedians, but Burlesque/slapstick just isn't around anymore and oh so rare to find!

One of the things I actually kind of like about burlesque in the Era is that behind the nudging and the leering in the baldheaded row, the whole business was rather innocent. Life magazine did a spread on the industry in 1940 -- about as mainstream, middlebrow a venue for such an article as you'll ever find -- and there was nothing in it that was particularly upsetting or exploitative, there were none of the furtive raincoat-wearing dirtballs in the audience such as were common in the "Combat Zones" in the '70s. The sexuality was implied, rather than overt, and there was even a sincerity about it that seems to have been lost in the modern era. I probably wouldn't have gone to Minsky's, but I wouldn't have been among those badgering Mayor LaGuardia to shut them down, either. And I'd have no problem attending one of your shows, although I might blush a bit.

As far as modern burlesque goes, let me make my views clear -- it's a niche thing, and as such, it has far less influence over the sexualization of culture than the sort of stuff that Cosmopolitan magazine shoves in the faces of people in grocery lines every month, the idea that a woman's place is between her man's legs. That's what I find repugnant about modern culture -- the mainstreaming of that kind of retrograde nonsense.

 

[lolly_loisides]

After reading through the last few page of this thread, I just wanted to say thank you LolitaHaze for contributing. Some of the comments directed towards you went past robust discussion & (at least seemed to me) were just plain bullying. You conducted yourself with a dignity that some others didn't.

 

[LolitaHaze]

And who is "authority"? Who is it that can tell me what I can or cannot do with my life? Believe me, I am also a believer in everything has it's place... I am not going to go to the grocery store in a rhinestoned bra if the store doesn't call for it. But yes, sticks and stones... how immature I am to live my life the way I wish when it doesn't hurt a soul... It's ok, if you don't want to give me any more attention... I got plenty... Your first reply to me was We'll leave it at that, but even after my reply... you kept coming back for more... You love this conversation with me. Wheither or not you agree with what I said or how I feel... it motivated you enough to keep on talking to me.

 

[rue]

Hey Lolita....For what it's worth, I've loved you since Tuesday


Missed you!

 

[LolitaHaze]

After reading through the last few page of this thread, I just wanted to say thank you LolitaHaze for contributing. Some of the comments directed towards you went past robust discussion & (at least seemed to me) were just plain bullying. You conducted yourself with a dignity that some others didn't.

Thank you! That was really sweet. I enjoy conversations that challenge my own thinking and opinions on things. It helps me evolve or strengthen my own beliefs. Even if they get heated or silly or just boring... It keeps my mind free. You really are sweet!

 

[LolitaHaze]

Lizzie... Everything in life is apples. Burlesque is the same -- some love apples and some hate apples. But even with apples some are sweet and some are sour. I am not naive enough to say Burlesque then or now was completely innocent, but I think people have the wrong idea of what it was/is over all. Back then there were scandals that would make today's media blush, but there were also scandals back then that wouldn't even make today blink an eye. But generally you are right, it was an innocent business... it wasn't as grimey as it has been portray as no more than (as you said in another thread) the 30s being lavish art deco every where as it is portrayed. In fact what killed Burlesque was the stag film. While go to the theatre to watch a lady simply undress and bump a grind or two when you can stay at home and watch in close up graphic detail the story of the birds and bees. I tried to put that lightly.

 

[LolitaHaze]

Hey Lolita....For what it's worth, I've loved you since Tuesday


Missed you!

... muwah!

 

[LizzieMaine]

In fact what killed Burlesque was the stag film. While go to the theatre to watch a lady simply undress and bump a grind or two when you can stay at home and watch in close up graphic detail the story of the birds and bees. I tried to put that lightly.

That's exactly right. In one of the great ironies of all time, porn killed burlesque. They weren't -- and aren't -- the same thing.

 

[LolitaHaze]

No more than you are your great aunt! Perhaps the same distant family, but not the same thing. :-D