"Raindrops"

I have an early day tomorrow, because we're taking our seniors on an all-day field trip. It will be fun. We chartered a bus, and we're spending the day in another city going to a conservatory and an art museum and out for lunch. I'm glad we're getting them out of school and out of the city to do things they've never done before.

But I do have to be up earlier than usual, and it's already after midnight, so I'm not going to stay up writing until 3:00 am. Instead, I'm going to share this heart-wrenching, powerful poem with you.

(Warning: Button Poetry can be addictive.)

Wordless Wednesday: Weenie roast with s'mores

It really is that simple

A little over a week ago, I wrote a post about my brother and my cousin that went viral. Viral for me. Of course, my viral is like the common cold compared to other bloggers, for example Bloggess, whose viral is ebola plus the stomach flu with some herpes thrown in. But still, satisfying. As I watched all the shares on Facebook accumulate and the views on my stat page rise, and as I cringed every time somebody tagged me and that nasty graphic showed up on my feed, I waited ...waited for an email or a call from the one person who really mattered when I wrote that post and published it at 4:00 am on a Monday morning: my brother.

I waited through Monday, checking my email way more often than I usually do. Through Monday night when I wrote another post, but the post about him kept getting the views and the shares. I sent my son Drake a message and said I hoped I hadn't offended him.

Tuesday morning I got up, no email from my brother. I sent my daughter Elvira a message and asked her if she'd read it ... and if she thought I'd written anything that would have offended him. I told her I'd asked him  if I could tell the story before I wrote it. She said, no, nothing offensive. She thought it was powerful and he probably liked it.

Here's the thing about writing about someone else's story: it's awful if you I don't get it right. Especially a story like this that's outside of my experience. Not that I've never been offended, but I'm not a gay man, and although as a woman I do hear and see people talking about me like I'm less than human, I can't assume I understand his experience.

In a way, it's not my story to tell. And yet, if I don't tell it, how do I show I'm standing beside him in this ridiculous battle for his rights? Which, if you understand the concept of rights, can't be taken away, and yet here we are.

So I stewed. I checked my email again and again. After school I talked with Elvira. I told her I still hadn't heard from her uncle, and I was getting really worried. She said I should probably call him. Yes, I said. I'll call him this evening.

Drake called, and I had the same conversation with him. He said, "You should probably call him."

After we got off the phone, I clicked through my phone book and hit the call button. My brother's phone rang several times, and then he said, "Hey. What's up?"

I said, "Hey. Everything OK? Did you read what I wrote the other night?"

He said he had, and that he'd shared it (not on Facebook, of course) with some of his friends. And when they realized I was his sister and I was writing about him, they shared it with other friends. He said several people he hadn't been heard from in a while contacted him about it, and he was feeling really good about that.

"Oh," I said. "That's a relief to hear. I thought maybe you were mad at me. I thought maybe I'd fucked it up, the story. What I said. I was afraid you were offended."

"Oh, no!" he said. "I was going to call you. I was just trying to think of something better to say than 'thank you.' Those two words didn't seem like enough to express what I wanted to say. No, I'm not mad at all. I'm sorry you were worried."

I reassured him that he didn't need to be sorry. I just get paranoid sometimes. The problem with being a writer is that I send my words out into the world, and I don't get to see people's faces when they read them. So it's only my imagination sitting here beside me masturbating and making itself feel important. It's an insecure feeling sometimes.

We talked for a long time, about Indiana and how they fucked that up; about how good it had been to hear from people who wanted to support him; about how his friends wanted him to tell our cousin to fuck off, but we both agreed that wasn't going to be productive; about how I had unfriended our cousin after I gave her 12 hours to see the post on my Facebook; about how our youngest sister had unfriended her too.

Saturday night I talked to our mom, and she said she'd unfriended our cousin, her niece, too. (To be honest, she had my baby sister do it for her on her phone.) She said she didn't need to be friends with anybody who posted shit like that that hurt her son.

And herein lies the solution: We all have to take up the fight. We all have to say enough is enough. This isn't a gay problem or a lesbian problem or a transgender problem or a queer problem. This is a human rights problem. And it will take all of us to push back and fix it.

These are the last words I wrote in that post: "Your dehumanizing hatred is going to cause a backlash like you've never even imagined. A backlash of people loving and supporting and fighting for their gay relatives and friends, and yes, even strangers." The backlash might be something as simple as unfriending someone on Facebook. It might be as simple as telling the story of someone who was hurt by words. It might be as simple as baking a cake for someone, and not even asking whether they're gay or straight ... because it's not your business if they are. It might be as simple as treating everyone with the same respect you'd like to be treated with yourself.

And it really is that simple. Isn't it? It really is that simple. Who are you going to unfriend on Facebook today?

I guess I won't be having sex with a prostitute after all

(Photo from wikipedia)

I've decided not to apply to be a Moonlite Bunny Ranch bunny-tester. No, it's not because of the way they spelled "Moonlite," which is just wrong and doesn't even make sense. OK, it might be a tiny part of my decision .... But let me go back.

I don't remember where I saw it, but this article, "America's most famous brothel is hiring secret shoppers, but for sex," popped up on my computer screen the other day. I got excited! When I skimmed over it, all I saw were the first sentence, "The Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a legal brothel in Nevada featured in the HBO series Cathouse, seeks to hire 'about a dozen' people to have sex with its prostitutes professionally," and this phrase, "then write about it."

I got so excited! Porn is not my thing, but ethnography is and I love to talk about sex, so yessiree! Sign me up. I've seen every episode of Cathouse, some more than twice. If you haven't, let me fill you in. It's a somewhat scripted, cheerful look at life on a ranch of prostitution in Nevada, where such things are legal. It's about hookers who all live together in a big building with rooms and a bar and an office and hot tubs and stuff. The show gives insight into a small, unique culture of happy-go-lucky prostitutes living under the kind, fatherly presence of Dennis (the pimp) ..... I guess you'd have to see it to appreciate it. 

Anyway, I saw those words, and I thought Dennis was going to hire me people to come there and have sex and then write about it. And I thought, Me! I'll do it! I'll do it for my art! I'll do it for my blog! I'll write an ethnographic book. I'll do it because somebody would fucking pay me to write!

But then I thought back on the episodes of Cathouse I've watched, and I started having second thoughts. Deal-breaking second thoughts. And I decided I really don't want to have sex with a prostitute, even one who seems to enjoy her job as much as the "girls" at the Bunny Ranch do.

I don't think the reason I backed away from the idea is because of the numbers of people they have sex with, although it's hard to separate that. I tried to be practical. I don't care how many customers the Kroger checker has checked out before me, do I? Nor do I care how many taxes my tax preparer has prepared, nor how many cars my mechanic has worked on. I'm not queasy about my doctor doing lots of surgeries before mine. In fact, I want him to practice on other people first. So, why should I care how many penises have been in my prostitute's vagina. Or so I told myself. (I'm still not sure.)

I did imagine what it would be like to walk in the door from the hot desert sun and cause all the girls (why are prostitutes always called "girls"?) to drop their vibrators so they could line up and pose in negligees and really tall shoes and hope to catch my attention. Yeah, that sounded a lot too awkward for me. Even though they do it many times a day, I wouldn't want to hurt anybody's feelings, even knowing they probably don't give a shit unless their rent is due. Knowing me, I'd probably choose the one I felt sorriest for though, and that's no fun. Or I'd feel guilty because I didn't choose the one I felt sorriest for. I'd probably stand there a long time and over-think that shit just like my mom always says I do. Maybe they would slowly drift away until I finally had to choose the only one left standing there.

(photo from Gawker)

Having watched all the shows, I know I could refuse to choose and instead go into the bar, buy some drinks, and let some of them try to woo me into the back where the bedrooms are. That could be fun for a while. But then, I'd still have to choose, and by then they probably would have shown me their boobs and I'd want them all --except the tragically enhanced ones. (Oh, admit it. You like boobs too. Everybody likes boobs.) Besides, I'll bet the drinks are expensive. I wonder if Dennis would pick up the tab though, since I'd be writing about it.

The thing that brought me to the biggest screeching halt though is that these women are too young for me to date outside of the Bunny Ranch. They're pretty and sexy in a mainstream way. But whether they're women or men, I don't want to date or have sex with people who are decades younger than I am, or who are younger than my oldest kid. So, I think I'd just feel like a dirty old woman, and who wants that shit? Not me. Well, sometimes ... but not in that context.

Of course, most of the men who come in are older than the women there. Hell, look at Dennis! And an older woman (late 60's) did come in and buy time with a girl in one episode, because her husband couldn't have sex with her or something. And I swear I didn't judge. But that's not me. I'd feel kind of pathetic.

Although there's Air Force Amy, who is older than I am, but also needs a lot of attention. And I wouldn't be there to take care of somebody's fucking ego.

I had to ask myself if I'd feel the same if they were men .... So I imagined a row of a dozen shirtless young men lined up and waiting for me to choose, and it took a lot of imagination, because men don't line up to be chosen like that, do they? But once I got the image going, I ran into the same problem. Too young. Too weird to point to one and be led back to a bedroom. Too awkward knowing they don't really want anything except my money.

On the other hand, I wouldn't have all that baggage about taking advantage of them and am I still a feminist and am I objectifying someone. It would just be a fuck.

So there's that.

It's not that there's anything wrong with paying for sex though. The laws against it cause more problems than legalizing it would. The bald fact of the matter is that some people can't get a hug, much less a fuck, and people need physical intimacy. Or sometimes they want something their partner isn't willing to do. So if they can't get it from people for free, why shouldn't they be able to pay a willing partner? I know it's trickier than that. Sex work is dangerous, and not because men need hugs. But a lot of the men on the show really just need some affection. And to get fucked by a pretty girl, of course.

And then there's the question of whether I, in this case, would be a prostitute too. Because I'd be getting a paycheck for having sex right? Only I'd be getting paid to get laid by a prostitute. How convoluted is that?

Surely, I told myself as I slowly lost my nerve .... surely doing it for the story would be different. Surely I could let loose and just have fun. Play the part. Fake it until I maked it. I mean, it might be nice to have sex with someone who was paid to pleasure me, to do whatever I wanted to do. That could be nice, right? All take, and no give unless I wanted to.

But, no. I'm really not looking for sexual relationships like that. Hell, I don't even accept one-night-stands with people I know and like. I sometimes wish I would just get over it, but I don't find sex without intimacy much fun, so it's not worth the possible complications.

So I talked myself out of it and stopped writing my application in my head, but I still went back and really read the article. And that's when I realized, Dennis is just looking for secret shoppers. He's not looking for an ethnographer at all. I wouldn't have gotten the gig anyway. After all that typical over-thinking, the offer to observe and write about and even fuck a bunny wasn't going to be extended to me.

Damn it! Now I want to fuck a bunny! I want to beg Dennis to please please please please please pay me to fuck a bunny. He wouldn't have to pay me to write about it. I'd do that for free, just like I always do.

Apparently Dennis has already been flooded with applications from all kinds of people. And, although he says he'd like to take a couple of women in the dozen secret shoppers he hires, I doubt he's looking for a middle-aged blogger who's somebody's grandma. So I'm not going to send him an email after all. My dreams of a Bunny Ranch ethnography are crushed, and I'll probably never get this chance again .... such that it was.

At this point I would normally ask what you would do. Trying, you know, to get a conversation going. But I suspect most of you wouldn't go to the Bunny Ranch and have sex (probably multiple times) with prostitutes. I'm probably alone in my purely academic fascination with the Moonlite Bunny Ranch.

Taking a break for station identification...

I'm working on a post tonight for my classroom blog, but never fear. Tomorrow night I'll return to Reticuland with the reasons why I've decided not to have sex with a hooker .... yet.

In the meantime, here's a funny for my karaoke friends, whether we've sung together or not.

Posting this made me wonder if anybody has ever undertaking a karaoke trip and written about it. I think I see my own HGTV show opening up right in front of me! Reticulated Karaoke on the Road. What do you think?

No, seriously! I'm looking for my next life right now. This could be it, right? Because otherwise, my next life might be sex with a hooker .... unless you guys come up with a better idea.