When you think of great architecture, you probably think of cathedrals, glistening spires of the latest Donald Trump tower or a museum...maybe even an ancient castle.
Below are 20 of the world's most beautiful libraries. I hope you enjoy the tour. I find the architecture to be in many cases, profound.
Each blog entry has 5 photos, so be sure to click the actual blog entry on the right-hand side if scrolling doesn't show you all 20 photos. Click on each photo for an enlarged version.
The first library featured belongs to Jay Walker, the founder of Priceline.com and Walker Digital. Jay and his wife Eileen have two children, Evan and Lindsey, and have made their home in Ridgefield, Connecticut since 1990. Walker's personal library occupies 3,600 square feet and features books, artifacts and models of space exploration, cryptography and James Bond films.
I hope you enjoy the tour!
Veronica Franco
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
The Service Economy
-from Edge Perspectives With John Hagel
The Service Economy Made Tangible
Everyone knows that we now live in a service economy much more than an industrial economy. But sometimes it helps to see some statistics to drive this point home.
Here are some that I came across in a recent article on “Old School Economics” by Christopher Caldwell:
“the U.S. now has more choreographers (16,340) than metal-casters (14,880)”
“more people make their livings shuffling and dealing cards in casinos (82,960) than running lathes (65,840)”
“there are almost three times as many security guards (1,004,130) as machinists (385,690)”
According to a chart accompanying the article, there are also more fashion designers (15,670), landscape architects (22,130) and meeting and convention planners (42,510) than metal-casters (14,880).
We're not in Kansas any more. It will unfortunately take a bit longer for economic analysis and management practices to catch up to all the implications of this transition.
The Service Economy Made Tangible
Everyone knows that we now live in a service economy much more than an industrial economy. But sometimes it helps to see some statistics to drive this point home.
Here are some that I came across in a recent article on “Old School Economics” by Christopher Caldwell:
“the U.S. now has more choreographers (16,340) than metal-casters (14,880)”
“more people make their livings shuffling and dealing cards in casinos (82,960) than running lathes (65,840)”
“there are almost three times as many security guards (1,004,130) as machinists (385,690)”
According to a chart accompanying the article, there are also more fashion designers (15,670), landscape architects (22,130) and meeting and convention planners (42,510) than metal-casters (14,880).
We're not in Kansas any more. It will unfortunately take a bit longer for economic analysis and management practices to catch up to all the implications of this transition.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Weekend Crime Lab
One of my pet peeves has to do with how many CSI spin-offs there are cluttering up the programming schedule. When I grew up, we had one Gunsmoke, not Gunsmoke:Tombstone, Gunsmoke: Dodge City, Gunsmoke: Alaska...its a bit ridiculous and overplayed. Couldn't the writers have come up with a totally different show instead of recycling the same exact premise in different locations, as if a homicide committed in Florida might be any different than one committed in New York?
So last night, I was lying in bed watching television, had just finished off a second glass of Chardonnay when I saw what I thought was a commercial for yet another CSI franchise. I raised my voice and shouted to my Producer friend who was in the bathroom "They've done it again! Those uncreative dorks without a single original idea in their puny heads have created yet another CSI show! Can you believe it?!?!?! Its called CSI Weekends! Sheeesh!!! When is this insanity going to stop?!?!?!?!?!..."
My friend popped his head out of the bathroom and blankly stared at the television for a few seconds and flatly informed me, "Those are reruns."
He continues, "What did you think? That they created an entirely new show about crimes that are committed on the weekend? Since crimes that happen Monday thru Friday aren't as interesting as the ones on the weekend, they had to create a whole new show about it. Saturday, now that is a really interesting crime that is committed on a Saturday." At this point I am giggling furiously. He says, "Sunday might be a slow day, but not for murderers!"
His rant continues on,
"Hey, I know what happens to criminals who commit a crime during the week, but what about the ones that are committed on the weekend? Do they just get away with it??? They better create a show just for the crimes committed on Saturdays and Sundays, so they'll get caught."
Oh well, ridicule me as you will, however, I still don't put it past those uninspired greedy network suits to create a CSI: Weekends show, with an all-new "weekend crew" (cast) to show us what happens when a murder is committed, on the weekend.
Friday, December 5, 2008
One Night Only
If you are in town for a Halloween party, stay at the Chateau Marmont because, believe me, its for one night only.
Today I walked up Sunset on my daily walk and decided to drop by the Chateau Marmont, a hotel with a historic name. Yet, to date, I had never visited.
I was very disappointed. Its old, gothic and musty with a feel of Batman's cave. The entire zeitgeist is depressing as if haunted by the ghosts of the many who have died here, including me, whilst waiting for lunch - a complicated affair, involving as it did mating a burger with a bun. Think Dracula's Castle meets Tim Burton with Helena Bonham Carter as your cocktail waitress. Its the kind of place you expect to see the likes of Marilyn Manson, Dita Von Teese, Ozzy Osbourne so it was no surprise that whilst walking on the side-street I was passed by an obnoxious Russell Brand in a rented lemon-yellow Ferrari.
In the photo is the baroque motif above the colonnade which is surprisingly not the entrance to the hotel, but on a side street. They have a strict No Photography policy enforced throughout the grounds of the hotel, probably a wise idea, given, on any given day, there is nobody actually staying there.
The feel of the hotel is very similar to the Chelsea in New York, like an old meat-packing apartment. Some rooms on the Sunset Blvd side are very long like a 5 room apartment, with massive 60 foot sitting rooms, black and white subway tiled bathrooms, theatrically staged furnishings.
The corner rooms have a small terrace affording good views of the smog. The rooms along the back of the hotel are scuzzy, dank and noisy as are the rooms by the entrance.
The service here is notoriously non-existent. Its a place for people who sleep til 4 in the afternoon because generally thats how long it takes room service to arrive with your breakfast.
--- Veronica
P.S.
I can only imagine what Russell Brand might say should he read this blog. "Look Biaaatch, first, its not a rental and second, its Speed Racer Yellow."
Thursday, December 4, 2008
The Rock Star's Mellow Lounge
If you ever wondered what Anthony Kiedis' living room might look like, step into the Sunset Marquis' Bar 1200, a favorite low-key hangout for Rockers.
Tucked to the left of the hotel's entrance, the dim, cozy bar at the space formerly known as Whisky Bar has just five or so stools. If one of those aren't available, the low leather banquettes and ottomans on either side of the room provide a place for patrons to post in their jeans and T-shirts. Smokers favor a small patio area lined with more low leather seating; oddly enough, the patio is situated right below a hotel room's balcony. (We're guessing that room isn't for early risers.) If the topic of conversation isn't so-and-so's latest hit single, so-and-so's brother's new record deal, or who is recording in the hotel's basement studio, it will likely be about photographer Ross Halfin's dozen portraits of rockers like Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper and Roger Daltrey that line the bar's walls. —Enid Portuguez
Sunset Marquis Hotel - If They Were Any More Hollywood Their Pool Would Be Shallow At Both Ends
I am living it up like Rock Star here at the boutique Sunset Marquis Hotel in West Hollywood, on a discreet cul-de-sac just off the Sunset Plaza section of the Sunset Strip. This hotel is where all the rock stars (and rappers) stay when they are in town. Photos taken here on the premises of Guns & Roses, Billy Bob Thornton, U2, and Steven Tyler (just to name a few) decorate the inside and outside areas.
NightBird, a state-of-the-art recording and film production studio is located downstairs which is why rock stars and film production companies make the Sunset Marquis their home away from home.
An extended 8 day booking has brought me here once again to see a Producer who has booked me before. We hit it off and became dear friends who truly enjoy each other's company aside from things of a more intimate nature. Its so nice to spend quality time with someone you can relate to and love chatting with while relaxing. His hurried lifestyle does not afford him much opportunity to let go so he has to make time for more pleasurable pursuits in the evenings after his day of filming on-set and the requisite business dinners. I'm his "personal assistant" for this trip and he feels I fit in quite well in such a professional situation - I look, act and dress the part.
Last summer when I spent a week here with the same benefactor, I kept running into Kevin Costner because his production company had set up a Press Junket in one of the villas for Swing Vote PR.
During the day, when my friend is working, I take long walks down Sunset Blvd and hike way up into the Hollywood Hills. The narrow windy roads are much more steep than any stairmaster and its so lovely being outside instead of a stuffy gym. Today I walked up Doheny to the "bird streets" so named after avifauna with designations such as Bluejay Lane and Swallow Drive. Most people in LA are trapped in steel and glass cages (cars) and like the song goes "Nobody Walks in L.A."
After my workout, I return to our Villa where our butler attends to my luncheon, assuring that my meal is to my satisfaction. My biggest dilemma is deciding whether to dine-in since the Villa is so magnificent or to dine at the gorgeous indoor/outdoor restaurant. I usually start my meal in the villa and have a dessert of fresh fruit and cappuccino al fresco at the restaurant at a table above the tiled waterfall.
Los Angeles is truly a beautiful and unique city with so many options from the sea to the Hollywood Hills. Few of us get a chance to vacation in their own home city. I am relishing every minute of it.
Website: http://www.sunsetmarquishotel.com
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Letter to President-Elect Obama from Viggo Mortensen
Dear President-Elect Obama,
Please do all that you honestly can to bring to justice Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Yoo, William "Jim" Haynes, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condolezza Rice, Colin Powell, George Tennet, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzalez, Karl Rove, and numerous other members of the Bush administration since the start of 2001 who have either been directly responsible for or complicit in the almost countless acts of treason, human rights violations and other crimes in the United States of America and abroad, including in but not limited to Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, and Lebanon.
There have been many violations of domestic and international law by the Bush/ Cheney regime, but the use of torture by this administration, in blatant disregard of long-accepted international and U.S. standards, is on its own enough to see many U.S. officials prosecuted and jailed. The energetic promotion and white-washing of torture by U.S. interrogators are not only reprehensible and damaging to the reputation of the United States, but have undoubtedly placed all of its citizens - military as well as civilian- in increased danger from reprisals and acts of terrorism for years to come.
The fact that a good part of the torture has been conducted by U.S. citizens not just in Saddam Hussein's former house of cruelties in Abu Ghraib, but also in the lawless confines of Guantánamo's Camp Delta and in numerous secret sites around the world tied to U.S. government use of "rendition", only makes it harder to forgive and forget these acts of savagery.
These and other war crimes and the clearly-impeachable misconduct of the Bush/Cheney administrations cannot go unprosecuted and unpunished if citizens of the United States of America are to move forward with relatively clear consciences and the hoped for restoration of their country's standing in the community of nations. This is about moral responsibility, common decency, and historical legacy. Thank you in advance, Mr. Obama.
Viggo Mortensen
Please do all that you honestly can to bring to justice Dick Cheney, David Addington, John Yoo, William "Jim" Haynes, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condolezza Rice, Colin Powell, George Tennet, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzalez, Karl Rove, and numerous other members of the Bush administration since the start of 2001 who have either been directly responsible for or complicit in the almost countless acts of treason, human rights violations and other crimes in the United States of America and abroad, including in but not limited to Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Pakistan, Syria, Iran, and Lebanon.
There have been many violations of domestic and international law by the Bush/ Cheney regime, but the use of torture by this administration, in blatant disregard of long-accepted international and U.S. standards, is on its own enough to see many U.S. officials prosecuted and jailed. The energetic promotion and white-washing of torture by U.S. interrogators are not only reprehensible and damaging to the reputation of the United States, but have undoubtedly placed all of its citizens - military as well as civilian- in increased danger from reprisals and acts of terrorism for years to come.
The fact that a good part of the torture has been conducted by U.S. citizens not just in Saddam Hussein's former house of cruelties in Abu Ghraib, but also in the lawless confines of Guantánamo's Camp Delta and in numerous secret sites around the world tied to U.S. government use of "rendition", only makes it harder to forgive and forget these acts of savagery.
These and other war crimes and the clearly-impeachable misconduct of the Bush/Cheney administrations cannot go unprosecuted and unpunished if citizens of the United States of America are to move forward with relatively clear consciences and the hoped for restoration of their country's standing in the community of nations. This is about moral responsibility, common decency, and historical legacy. Thank you in advance, Mr. Obama.
Viggo Mortensen
Friday, November 7, 2008
Outlaw Mormon Marriage! Hate Is Not A Family Value!
Today I participated in a protest rally "No More Hate Overturn 8", in Los Angeles, in front of the Mormon Temple.
Unfortunately this awful proposition narrowly passed which amends the California Constitution to define marrage as being between a man and a woman, thereby prohibiting and invalidating same-sex marriages.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) funded 77% of the Proposition's 75 million dollar budget. Just think how many hungry mouths that could feed, worldwide? The problem I have with organized religion is that eventually the church will try to legislate their beliefs thereby forcing those beliefs upon everyone else.
This is the new Civil Rights battle. The issue at hand is no different than the issues of African Americans 50 years ago. There was a time when a black person and a white person could not marry - now the discrimination is based on sexual orientation.
Its not the government's job to define marriage for that is up to adults to define for themselves. For the government to do is a violation of keeping Church and State separate. Civil Rights are non-negotiable and must be restored to all same-sex couples seeking to marry.
The well-funded forces of bigotry and discrimination think they have turned back the clock of history. Wrong! The struggle for full equality will continue until the right to marry is won - in California and under federal law throughout the U.S.
From Stonewall to full equality, the movement is growing as millions of gays and straights say "Yes" to marriage equality. Victory is certain.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Petition for the Immediate Release of Esha Momeni
This blog reflects news about Esha Momeni, the Iranian American artist, student, and Iranian women's rights advocate (in the One Million Signatures Campaign), who was arrested on Oct 15th in Tehran where She was working on her Master's thesis project. We wish to emphasize that Esha Momeni's family, and the One Million Signatures Campaign in liaison with Esha's family, alone have the authority to speak on behalf of the campaign to release Esha. We wholeheartedly thank all of you who have shown an interest in helping to free Esha, and welcome your collaboration and solidarity. We urge you to contact us directly should you desire to contribute to our efforts. We cannot endorse other efforts, however well-meaning, as we cannot guarantee that these efforts will maintain the high level of sensitivity and factual accuracy necessary in order that this campaign is conducted as effectively as possible, without in any way endangering Esha.
We strongly encourage all readers to sign the following petition addressed to senior figures in the Islamic Republic of Iran and demand Esha’s immediate release . Additionally please, forward the link to others.
Petition for the Release of Esha Momeni
We request you not to sign petitions organized by organizations other than the One Million Signatures Campaign. While such petitions may mean well, they often contain inappropriate language and factual errors and as such are more likely to endanger Esha than help bring about her release. We are, however, grateful for the information provided by reputable independent human rights organizations like Amnesty International and OMCT and we are working with such organizations in order to make our efforts as effective as possible.
We strongly encourage all readers to sign the following petition addressed to senior figures in the Islamic Republic of Iran and demand Esha’s immediate release . Additionally please, forward the link to others.
Petition for the Release of Esha Momeni
We request you not to sign petitions organized by organizations other than the One Million Signatures Campaign. While such petitions may mean well, they often contain inappropriate language and factual errors and as such are more likely to endanger Esha than help bring about her release. We are, however, grateful for the information provided by reputable independent human rights organizations like Amnesty International and OMCT and we are working with such organizations in order to make our efforts as effective as possible.
Friday, August 1, 2008
Sex in Glass Bedrooms
By Deepak Chopra
Sex in Glass Bedrooms
The Question: What does the Eliot Spitzer scandal say about our public and private morality? Should he have resigned?
In the barely concealed glee that accompanied Gov. Spitzer's downfall, there's been a consistent theme: hypocrites deserve what they get. There was plenty of fuel for such a judgment, since Spitzer signed into law the nation's toughest penalties against men who solicit prostitutes. He was a zealous moral policeman, now ensnared in his own traps. But we shouldn't miss the prime issue here, which can be stated as a question: How much good have the moral police ever done? A predictable number of hellfire preachers have turned out to be Elmer Gantry, and some sheep-faced politicians who made a show of public piety pursued private sexual shenanigans. The spectacle is sad, laughable, unstoppable, and as old as the id.
Policing morality falls into the same category as demanding public professions of belief in God. It all but forces hypocrisy, sometimes on a grand scale, more often not. Morality, if it's to live up to the name, is based on tolerance and forgiveness. Nobody should have sex in a glass bedroom, open to scrutiny by bluenoses and voyeurs. Nobody should pray in glass churches, for that matter.
As to the specifics of the case, prostitution is a victimless crime as long as minors aren't involved, or sex trafficking of unwilling women, or physical abuse. In a decent moral setting, the federal investigators who accidentally came upon Spitzer's transgressions would have brought their discovery to him privately, informed him of the risk he was running, and then left the next move to him. He might have atoned; he might have sincerely changed. Turning his dalliance into a medieval morality play about the Devil grabbing a sinner by the tail follows a puritanical value system that we would all be better off leaving behind.
What would we exchange it for? Psychiatry, mythology, and spirituality all speak of a "shadow" that underlies the psyche, and society in general. In the shadow we hide all that we are ashamed of, and yet repression never heals the darkness within. The unconscious erupts, either in one man whose sexual appetites drove him with reckless abandon or in a society that wages vengeful war against innocents. Each of us lives within the danger zone of the shadow, and until we learn how to bring its secrets to light and redeem our own suppressed violence and shame, Eliot Spitzer won't be the only one who pays the price.
Sex in Glass Bedrooms
The Question: What does the Eliot Spitzer scandal say about our public and private morality? Should he have resigned?
In the barely concealed glee that accompanied Gov. Spitzer's downfall, there's been a consistent theme: hypocrites deserve what they get. There was plenty of fuel for such a judgment, since Spitzer signed into law the nation's toughest penalties against men who solicit prostitutes. He was a zealous moral policeman, now ensnared in his own traps. But we shouldn't miss the prime issue here, which can be stated as a question: How much good have the moral police ever done? A predictable number of hellfire preachers have turned out to be Elmer Gantry, and some sheep-faced politicians who made a show of public piety pursued private sexual shenanigans. The spectacle is sad, laughable, unstoppable, and as old as the id.
Policing morality falls into the same category as demanding public professions of belief in God. It all but forces hypocrisy, sometimes on a grand scale, more often not. Morality, if it's to live up to the name, is based on tolerance and forgiveness. Nobody should have sex in a glass bedroom, open to scrutiny by bluenoses and voyeurs. Nobody should pray in glass churches, for that matter.
As to the specifics of the case, prostitution is a victimless crime as long as minors aren't involved, or sex trafficking of unwilling women, or physical abuse. In a decent moral setting, the federal investigators who accidentally came upon Spitzer's transgressions would have brought their discovery to him privately, informed him of the risk he was running, and then left the next move to him. He might have atoned; he might have sincerely changed. Turning his dalliance into a medieval morality play about the Devil grabbing a sinner by the tail follows a puritanical value system that we would all be better off leaving behind.
What would we exchange it for? Psychiatry, mythology, and spirituality all speak of a "shadow" that underlies the psyche, and society in general. In the shadow we hide all that we are ashamed of, and yet repression never heals the darkness within. The unconscious erupts, either in one man whose sexual appetites drove him with reckless abandon or in a society that wages vengeful war against innocents. Each of us lives within the danger zone of the shadow, and until we learn how to bring its secrets to light and redeem our own suppressed violence and shame, Eliot Spitzer won't be the only one who pays the price.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
The State Has Its Head (by Megan McArdle - The Atlantic Monthly)
This actually makes me feel physically sick. The DC Madam has killed herself.
Pardon me while I rant a bit.
First, I will just outsource the invidious comparisons to Ezra Klein:
DC Madam who ran a prostitution ring? Shamed, sentence to decades in prison, and now dead by apparent suicide.
David Vitter, Republican Senator who used said prostitution ring? Still a US Senator.
Now onto the fact that this woman was hounded into prison, broken, and driven to take her own life by a state intent upon ruining this woman for . . . arranging a sexual transaction between two consenting adults.
For this, we have law enforcement? Are there no more rapists roaming our streets? Have murders ceased to be a problem in this fair land, this shining city on a hill? Did all the burglars join Criminals Anonymous? Have the drunk drivers decided to binge only in the comfort of their own living room? Has embezzling stopped? Are the human filth who mug old ladies all safely behind bars? Do no boiler room scams still lurk in the nation's seedier industrial parks? Because, you know, even if I thought prostitution should be illegal . . . well, chaps, I'd put it on the goddamn back burner until all the crimes involving thugs attacking, defrauding, or stealing from innocent, non-consenting citizens had been solved.
To be fair, no one's tried to mug me for several months. But I hear that there are still a few small matters right here in our nation's capital that should be cleared up before we can, in good conscience, turn to the important task of preventing women from demanding cash for something other women only do for fun. Love the Madonna, hate the Whore?
Was "saving" women from prostitution so important that we needed to make a woman's life no longer worth living? Do we really need to kill the women in order to save them? Because last time I heard, we thought it was kind of awful when the Taliban did those things
Pardon me while I rant a bit.
First, I will just outsource the invidious comparisons to Ezra Klein:
DC Madam who ran a prostitution ring? Shamed, sentence to decades in prison, and now dead by apparent suicide.
David Vitter, Republican Senator who used said prostitution ring? Still a US Senator.
Now onto the fact that this woman was hounded into prison, broken, and driven to take her own life by a state intent upon ruining this woman for . . . arranging a sexual transaction between two consenting adults.
For this, we have law enforcement? Are there no more rapists roaming our streets? Have murders ceased to be a problem in this fair land, this shining city on a hill? Did all the burglars join Criminals Anonymous? Have the drunk drivers decided to binge only in the comfort of their own living room? Has embezzling stopped? Are the human filth who mug old ladies all safely behind bars? Do no boiler room scams still lurk in the nation's seedier industrial parks? Because, you know, even if I thought prostitution should be illegal . . . well, chaps, I'd put it on the goddamn back burner until all the crimes involving thugs attacking, defrauding, or stealing from innocent, non-consenting citizens had been solved.
To be fair, no one's tried to mug me for several months. But I hear that there are still a few small matters right here in our nation's capital that should be cleared up before we can, in good conscience, turn to the important task of preventing women from demanding cash for something other women only do for fun. Love the Madonna, hate the Whore?
Was "saving" women from prostitution so important that we needed to make a woman's life no longer worth living? Do we really need to kill the women in order to save them? Because last time I heard, we thought it was kind of awful when the Taliban did those things
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Raunch and Its Discontents by Tracy Quan
Recently, on Radio 4, Cosmopolitan magazine was attacked by Carol Sarler for reducing women to the sum of our “rude bits.” Cosmo’s deputy editor Helen Daly was a model of civility, despite the fact that Sarler had called her magazine a “raddled old slapper.” The surprise here is that Sarler isn’t your typical anti-sex crusader. Over the years, she has written thoughtful stuff about women’s issues. She has opposed repressive porn laws which seek to “clean up” our minds and taken a stand against victim-oriented feminism, especially where drinking and sex are concerned. Her recent commentary on Anna Nicole Smith was provocative yet compassionate.
Despite this, Sarler joins the “anti-raunch” chorus. She’s especially ticked off by a question Cosmo posed to readers: is flashing your breasts on a night out empowering?
A transatlanic anti-raunch movement is growing, but today’s finger-wagging scolds are different from the militants who opposed porn in the 1980s. They don’t necessarily hate men or view women as blameless victims: Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, is troubled by the fact that young women are themselves fueling the Girls Gone Wild phenomenon. They’re more mainstream: The jacket of Pamela Paul’s Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families features an American-flag thong panty, and Pamela seems just blonde enough to carry off the look in private. (Dark-haired Ariel might be too earnest for stars-and-stripes underwear but she has her own appeal.) I doubt that either of these camera-ready authors could end up like Andrea Dworkin, who, at the height of her fame, looked as eccentric and tormented as her message. Today’s anti-porn headliners tend to be pretty and presentable. They may be wrong about a few things but they aren’t lunatics — or even wild-eyed visionaries like Dworkin. Nor are they radical thinkers, like Catharine MacKinnon whose outlandish legal theories broke new ground. They are packaged not as hardline feminists, but as voices of sanity in a hyped up, hypersexual wilderness.
But you can’t blame Ariel and company for trying to make sense of this new reality. When MacKinnon and Dworkin hatched their theories, the college students who flash, masturbate and French kiss each other in Girls Gone Wild videos weren’t even born yet. Strippercise wasn’t being hawked by the Washington Post or BBC as the latest way to tone your abs. Back then, MacKinnon, Dworkin and their followers were almost as marginal as the sex industry.
As a former sex worker, I have some questions about “raunch culture” in general and about cardio-striptease in particular. Jenna Jameson, who once worked as a stripper, made it clear in her memoir that exotic dancing is extremely hard on the body – it’s a job, and hardly the ideal path to fitness. In How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Chapter 9 is devoted to shin splints, degenerative muscle tissue and other occupational injuries. The dancers I know are doing Pilates, yoga, kick-boxing and weights to stay fit — not “strippercise.” Some take self-defense classes to protect themselves on the job. The same is true of hookers. Sex industry workers who can afford to do so invest considerable time and money in physical therapy, relaxation treatments and health care because our bodies are, quite literally, our business.
But not all sex workers can afford such antidotes, and sometimes I think women outside the sex trade are being sold a bill of goods about how “empowering” or fun sex work is. While it can be fun, there are dues to be paid, and sexual power extracts a price.
That’s why I never recommend prostitution as a career to anyone, even the most enthusiastic would-be call girls. And it’s why I question the wisdom of appearing in a commercial video, naked and masturbating, in exchange for… a tank top. If someone is making money off your body, you should too. If it would make you feel a bit sleazy to sell your own sex videos or to get paid for that masturbation routine, then perhaps you shouldn’t take your shirt off for the camera. Are you doing it just because you’re drunk? Like Ariel, I can believe that appearing in a Girls Gone Wild video leaves some participants feeling a bit, well, hungover the next day.
There’s nobody more prudish than a former prostitute. When I see the girls I once worked with, we trade quips about how white our cotton undies are. Few of us will watch porn with our boyfriends or husbands. Been there, done that — with our clients — and porn looks too much like work to us. We actually think it’s unromantic for a man to ogle other women — that’s something customers do.
And yet I’m not ready to cast my lot with anti-raunch campaigners. While I’ve arrived at my brand of prudishness honestly, I’m not convinced they have. And, as one who still identifies with the sex industry, I don’t trust them.
In America, for example, the anti-raunch consensus seems to be that society is going to hell in a handbasket — and college girls are getting rowdier — because sex workers aren’t cowering in their shame-filled closets. Recalling that Vanessa Williams lost her Miss America crown because Penthouse photos had resurfaced, Ariel appears to be nostalgic for the good old days when “being exposed in porn was something you needed to come back from.” Now, to her dismay, being in porn is “itself the comeback.” Though she urges her readers to remember that sex workers are, indeed, working, you get the eerie sense that we’re like black people moving into a previously white neighborhood. Perhaps, since she’s deploring our cultural influence on hitherto “nice” girls, a better analogy would be white fans aping black musicians, a trend that’s been around since jazz was invented.
One supporter of Ariel’s alarmist thesis is Jennifer Egan, a New York novelist who looks askance at mainstream books about sex work and, like Ariel, assumes that commercial sex is in league with raunch culture. It’s more complicated than that, for the sex industry is no monolith. Many prostitutes view themselves as traditional beings clinging to a subtler, more feminine, aesthetic than we now see in porn, at lap-dancing clubs — or at hen parties.
Romantic Cinderella fantasies are still alluring to us, but these tend to bubble below the surface, in the private sphere of the prostitute’s mind. A deeply independent streak might render those fantasies moot in the cold light of day but still… prostitution can be a lot less raunchy and brutal than some of the mainstream dating rituals I’ve witnessed. As a former hooker, I’m shocked and puzzled by what young single males get away with — not with sex workers but with civilians. The old-world pre-feminist concept of the gentleman is alive and well in the world of post-feminist prostitution, where respectful admiration is still valued.
From a distance, the sex industry appears larger than life. Close up, you will see that it’s not just a parade of bigger ‘n’ better plastic breasts. Or cosmetically altered sex organs. In the most traditional areas of the sex trade, where people don’t just gawk and stare, there’s room for civilized interaction.
The problem Ariel describes is real: Women outside the industry don’t have much contact with the intimate side of commercial sex. So, they can be conned into embracing the most visible hype — the carnival of the lap dance club, the gymnastics of porn, the superficial sleaziness of “raunch culture.” Prostitution’s a different kind of zone where off-the-record intimacy is uniquely its own thing and quite varied: illicit, awkward, friendly, disturbing, joyful, tense, kind, or even angry and resentful. It’s a very mixed bag of emotions. Men who aren’t in the industry can easily sample these intimate, humanizing secrets. Most men who visit prostitutes are probably aware that internet porn, phone sex and lap-dancing contain a cartoon component. But they don’t tend to discuss their findings with the civilian women in their lives. It’s just not done.
And yet, women in large numbers find aspects of the sex trade rather alluring. The result is, you guessed it, recreational pole-dancing as a form of empowerment.
Or, perhaps, flashing your breasts on a Saturday night. Whether you find it empowering or appalling, this is a trend worth discussing. It tells us much about our cultural mood and reflects some new thinking about the sex industry in relation to society.
In other words, Cosmo has found a way to treat our body parts not as “rude bits” but as, well, talking points.
Tracy Quan
Tue, 20 Feb 2007, 6:36 AM
Despite this, Sarler joins the “anti-raunch” chorus. She’s especially ticked off by a question Cosmo posed to readers: is flashing your breasts on a night out empowering?
A transatlanic anti-raunch movement is growing, but today’s finger-wagging scolds are different from the militants who opposed porn in the 1980s. They don’t necessarily hate men or view women as blameless victims: Ariel Levy, author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, is troubled by the fact that young women are themselves fueling the Girls Gone Wild phenomenon. They’re more mainstream: The jacket of Pamela Paul’s Pornified: How Pornography is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families features an American-flag thong panty, and Pamela seems just blonde enough to carry off the look in private. (Dark-haired Ariel might be too earnest for stars-and-stripes underwear but she has her own appeal.) I doubt that either of these camera-ready authors could end up like Andrea Dworkin, who, at the height of her fame, looked as eccentric and tormented as her message. Today’s anti-porn headliners tend to be pretty and presentable. They may be wrong about a few things but they aren’t lunatics — or even wild-eyed visionaries like Dworkin. Nor are they radical thinkers, like Catharine MacKinnon whose outlandish legal theories broke new ground. They are packaged not as hardline feminists, but as voices of sanity in a hyped up, hypersexual wilderness.
But you can’t blame Ariel and company for trying to make sense of this new reality. When MacKinnon and Dworkin hatched their theories, the college students who flash, masturbate and French kiss each other in Girls Gone Wild videos weren’t even born yet. Strippercise wasn’t being hawked by the Washington Post or BBC as the latest way to tone your abs. Back then, MacKinnon, Dworkin and their followers were almost as marginal as the sex industry.
As a former sex worker, I have some questions about “raunch culture” in general and about cardio-striptease in particular. Jenna Jameson, who once worked as a stripper, made it clear in her memoir that exotic dancing is extremely hard on the body – it’s a job, and hardly the ideal path to fitness. In How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Chapter 9 is devoted to shin splints, degenerative muscle tissue and other occupational injuries. The dancers I know are doing Pilates, yoga, kick-boxing and weights to stay fit — not “strippercise.” Some take self-defense classes to protect themselves on the job. The same is true of hookers. Sex industry workers who can afford to do so invest considerable time and money in physical therapy, relaxation treatments and health care because our bodies are, quite literally, our business.
But not all sex workers can afford such antidotes, and sometimes I think women outside the sex trade are being sold a bill of goods about how “empowering” or fun sex work is. While it can be fun, there are dues to be paid, and sexual power extracts a price.
That’s why I never recommend prostitution as a career to anyone, even the most enthusiastic would-be call girls. And it’s why I question the wisdom of appearing in a commercial video, naked and masturbating, in exchange for… a tank top. If someone is making money off your body, you should too. If it would make you feel a bit sleazy to sell your own sex videos or to get paid for that masturbation routine, then perhaps you shouldn’t take your shirt off for the camera. Are you doing it just because you’re drunk? Like Ariel, I can believe that appearing in a Girls Gone Wild video leaves some participants feeling a bit, well, hungover the next day.
There’s nobody more prudish than a former prostitute. When I see the girls I once worked with, we trade quips about how white our cotton undies are. Few of us will watch porn with our boyfriends or husbands. Been there, done that — with our clients — and porn looks too much like work to us. We actually think it’s unromantic for a man to ogle other women — that’s something customers do.
And yet I’m not ready to cast my lot with anti-raunch campaigners. While I’ve arrived at my brand of prudishness honestly, I’m not convinced they have. And, as one who still identifies with the sex industry, I don’t trust them.
In America, for example, the anti-raunch consensus seems to be that society is going to hell in a handbasket — and college girls are getting rowdier — because sex workers aren’t cowering in their shame-filled closets. Recalling that Vanessa Williams lost her Miss America crown because Penthouse photos had resurfaced, Ariel appears to be nostalgic for the good old days when “being exposed in porn was something you needed to come back from.” Now, to her dismay, being in porn is “itself the comeback.” Though she urges her readers to remember that sex workers are, indeed, working, you get the eerie sense that we’re like black people moving into a previously white neighborhood. Perhaps, since she’s deploring our cultural influence on hitherto “nice” girls, a better analogy would be white fans aping black musicians, a trend that’s been around since jazz was invented.
One supporter of Ariel’s alarmist thesis is Jennifer Egan, a New York novelist who looks askance at mainstream books about sex work and, like Ariel, assumes that commercial sex is in league with raunch culture. It’s more complicated than that, for the sex industry is no monolith. Many prostitutes view themselves as traditional beings clinging to a subtler, more feminine, aesthetic than we now see in porn, at lap-dancing clubs — or at hen parties.
Romantic Cinderella fantasies are still alluring to us, but these tend to bubble below the surface, in the private sphere of the prostitute’s mind. A deeply independent streak might render those fantasies moot in the cold light of day but still… prostitution can be a lot less raunchy and brutal than some of the mainstream dating rituals I’ve witnessed. As a former hooker, I’m shocked and puzzled by what young single males get away with — not with sex workers but with civilians. The old-world pre-feminist concept of the gentleman is alive and well in the world of post-feminist prostitution, where respectful admiration is still valued.
From a distance, the sex industry appears larger than life. Close up, you will see that it’s not just a parade of bigger ‘n’ better plastic breasts. Or cosmetically altered sex organs. In the most traditional areas of the sex trade, where people don’t just gawk and stare, there’s room for civilized interaction.
The problem Ariel describes is real: Women outside the industry don’t have much contact with the intimate side of commercial sex. So, they can be conned into embracing the most visible hype — the carnival of the lap dance club, the gymnastics of porn, the superficial sleaziness of “raunch culture.” Prostitution’s a different kind of zone where off-the-record intimacy is uniquely its own thing and quite varied: illicit, awkward, friendly, disturbing, joyful, tense, kind, or even angry and resentful. It’s a very mixed bag of emotions. Men who aren’t in the industry can easily sample these intimate, humanizing secrets. Most men who visit prostitutes are probably aware that internet porn, phone sex and lap-dancing contain a cartoon component. But they don’t tend to discuss their findings with the civilian women in their lives. It’s just not done.
And yet, women in large numbers find aspects of the sex trade rather alluring. The result is, you guessed it, recreational pole-dancing as a form of empowerment.
Or, perhaps, flashing your breasts on a Saturday night. Whether you find it empowering or appalling, this is a trend worth discussing. It tells us much about our cultural mood and reflects some new thinking about the sex industry in relation to society.
In other words, Cosmo has found a way to treat our body parts not as “rude bits” but as, well, talking points.
Tracy Quan
Tue, 20 Feb 2007, 6:36 AM
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