A Selfish Post About Iran

The Iranian election is disturbing for reasons almost anyone mentioning it at all will cover. But to me, almost the worst part of it is the idea that a leader could just shut down the information network. No cellphones. No internet. Nothing. Can't reach out and touch the world in just a moment's thought. To me, that is terrifying. The power of the Internet is used for good and evil all the time, but to have its massive power simply missing is horrible.

It's something I associate with the worst of disasters: hurricanes, earthquakes, things where you don't know if someone isn't online because they are dead or because they simply lost power. And it's exactly the same thing -- we don't know what is going on because they've lost power. But it could also be something worse.

I know it is selfish to think about it like this, but it's so scary that a leader can just throw citizens into darkness like that.

--Lu

Nobody puts Baby on a stage, wrapped around a pole

Or, My First Strip Club.


Sorry I've not posted in a while, I've been busy with work and socializing-- there was a potential thang that probably isn't very potential anymore, so back to my lonely rule-cosseting. Anyway.

I'm friends with a few strippers, retired and active, and had been invited to visit one at work (as well as apply, but that's beside the point). I did not take the opportunity when first proffered, even though I've longed to go to a strip club for years. I lost her number when my phone died, and when I reconnected with Chelsea (her stage name) recently, I finally got up the nerve to actual do it, and visit. That night was last night, and I'm honestly still digesting my opinions on it.

First observation is that, when I don't know the dancers, it seems sad. Bored-looking girls writhing around on a stage, shoving various body parts in the faces of slack-jawed hoodlums and businessmen, hoping for a couple dollars. I was out the door at one point because it was so depressing, before a friend talked me back in-- Chelsea hadn't taken the stage yet.

Second realization is that all of my good-influence friends have left town. Sasha, a retired stripper friend who came with me last night (I was with a few other friends as well), is in particular a bad influence. I admire the way she exudes sexuality-- it is simultaneously classy and lascivious. She is my poster child for society's Madonna-Whore complex. I love her. And I also try to emulate her, apparently, especially when I have a margarita or few in me. So, following her example, I helped work the (somewhat meager) crowd in the dancers' favor-- sidling up to men and suggesting they drop a bit more money than they were planning. Smiling, suggesting without suggesting...

But two things came from that: one, the dancers may/must not have appreciated it, as though we thought they wouldn't do well enough on their own. And two-- I don't like myself like that. It was fun at the time, I don't regret it, but I didn't like the way the men there looked at me as it was, before behaving as though I worked there, or at least had a vested interest in the place. Which made me realize that, although I've toyed with the idea of stripping before, it truly is not something for me.

Live and learn.

The third major point of the night was this: though stripping often falls into the same occupational category as prostitution ("they wouldn't do it if they weren't driven to it", blah blah), when you know a dancer, and you know she truly loves what she's doing-- it is beautiful. I mean it. I'm not particularly hung up on women's bodies-- one of my favorite daydreams involves a line of well-formed men in towels. But to see my friends up there (Sasha came out of retirement for a song or two), and watching the sheer human beauty of their naked bodies as they moved... I wasn't turned on. I was appreciative, because it was art. The human body is a fascinating thing, and my friends helped me remember that. Sure, it was sexy as hell, but they were just so damned good, and loved it so much, you couldn't help but smile and feel happy.

So while part of me still aches at the objectification that most of the people there were participating in, part of me wants to open a strip club for people like me and the friends I brought with me, who want to watch beautiful bodies move without feeling shame or arousal-- or if arousal, then arousal with respect for the individual human people dancing, and not just their bodies. I want to have a place where to be naked is a beautiful thing, a casual thing, an artistic thing.

The former-potential-thang likes to tell what he calls "rockstar stories". I don't have those so much as... I don't know. My experiences aren't any particular type of story, I think, but they make for one hell of an interesting life. I have writer stories, maybe-- I seek out the things that suggest future retellings. I fully believe that part of the fun of living is the re-living, later.

We are beautiful creatures. Take a moment now to appreciate that fact.