More from that Night

Photography was supposed to be part of that train station/trench coat evening. It turned out that Pearl had much more of a planned scenario than I realized and she had put together some props with a bit of "red velvet swagger" mixed with erotic literary references and some other items of mythical meaning that all added up to a few really special photos. Here's one very small cropped corner of one photo which is her foot resting on a copy of "Delta of Venus."

I was feeling a little silly about the posed shots I wanted to take since her theatrical sets had been so creative. Mine was just a typical run of the mill "dominance fantasy." In fact, since Pearl had hinted at what she would be wearing, I had made a sketch of how I would like to pose her for a photo and emailed it to her a couple of days earlier. Here's the sketch followed by the actual photo I took.

Though I'm fond of the enhanced photo, I must remind myself to tread very lightly on the dominant/submissive theme. I can lose myself in places I'd rather not be in that state of mind, like digging a hole I find it very hard to mentally and emotionally climb out of. I'm much more comfortable with the view of Pearl in the drawing I did in the last post, sunny and free, surrounded by flowers and blue skies.

I've always had some suspicion that having dominant sexual leanings, was the refuge of emasculated men... a sort of compensation for a lifetime of non-assertiveness. So, playing these games: blindfolds, bondage, etc make me question my integrity and worth as a man. Still, to photograph a woman in a such vulnerable position and attitude gives me a powerful erotic rush. But, it also scares me and makes me concerned for my character.

But, Ok, sometimes I just want to be bad, and enjoy a little naughty side trip into the netherworld.

She Wore Little More than a Trench Coat

Visiting Pearl has been the most fun I've had in years, but the 2 ½ hour drive was tedious, so I decided to take the train. Pearl was delighted with the plan, and said, "I'll pick you up at the train station wearing my trench coat and very little underneath."

Train stations... trench coats... my film noir dreams come true!

When her car pulled up at the station and I hopped in, to my surprise, the trench coat was red, and very short. Ahh, glad this movie was in color. I couldn't resist pulling out my camera for this shot on the drive to her home. Pearl has no lack for imagination on a Saturday night. It began with her flashing me from red to black lace in her candle lit boudoir. So, the evening was a long narrative dance, slow and seductive.

However late I'm up, I still get up early for coffee, pastry, and reading or meditation. I returned to the bedroom with my camera to find Pearl still comatose from our night's delights, and her cat very impatient with the situation.

All my photos of Pearl have been oblique and discreet to preserve her privacy. But, I've wanted to show her face just to reveal her vibrant approach to living life to the fullest. To do that and preserve her privacy, I've drawn her instead, as I see her, but really, much as she is.

To make clear the personal and meaningful side of all this, I'll remind the reader (and myself) that this blog began in a state of dire deprivation of human touch that I had imposed on myself for several years. This was because, for me, touching and being touched by a woman carried a price of eventual hurt and confusion almost too painful to bear. But, the touch deprivation became unbearable in itself, and I solved that in the most impulsive and unplanned manner. It was a real step forward in personal acceptance and understanding. Now, the desire for touch has been satiated far beyond anything I had hoped, and I'm back to the human situation we all eventually face, "How do we relate to and care for another person?" That's what really matters, and possibly we should throw away the rule book and reinvent the story. Maybe we'll end up back home where we all started but with new rules and a new awareness of and appreciation for those we love.

(PS. A pleasant surprise to me is that Pearl has left a couple of comments on this post, humorously giving the story from her point of view. Of course, I became progressively aware that she had made considerable preparation for this night. That she was thirty minutes late to the train station didn't matter one bit to me. I would have waited hours for the evening that we eventually had. And, her comment that her mother went shopping with her for the exquisite bit of black lace that she wore under the trench coat amused me enormously. We should all have such mothers.)

Mars/Venus: Talk about it.

We go to a small town museum with big surprises. As I said after our visit to the larger museum, "watching Pearl watching art" is as interesting as the art itself. Pearl sees more than I do in a piece. I react quickly and simply, but she knows where it comes from and where it's trying to go.

Near the end, Pearl stands in front of this piece of folk art and says, "Now there's Thomas Hart Benton with soul." In a way, I saw what she meant, but more than that, her comment revealed that she had remembered our conflict over Benton at the other museum. I often think what I say is not heard or held in regard, but she had heard and remembered, for a month.

My mind wandered to the whole issue of sharing thoughts, feelings, interests, who we are, and the sensitivity of being heard and respected or being judged critically. Initial attraction between a man and a woman is so easy, uh, it's genetic. But, where do we go from there? There's a yearning to be validated as a worthwhile person, to be understood and accepted.... whether short term, long term, (friends with benefits) whatever. My communication skills in this arena seem lacking, at least they don't get me where I want to go. The safe thing to do is stay securely isolated, yet lonely. To make the connection, I walk out on a light limb of vulnerability holding myself and the other in positive regard. The risk is, the limb may break.

This Kiss

"Getting laid is bad for blogging," Pearl said... or something like that. When there's a hunger (emotional, physical, or spiritual) there's a need to spill it into words that others might read. When the hunger is satiated, the need to write diminishes. Too bad we don't celebrate in words when real life is going well.

So, I'd like to celebrate here briefly. A couple of months back, on my July 23 blog post, I lamented that some years ago I had spent a weekend in bed with a very responsive female friend only to be disappointed on Sunday by her judgmental comment that we had "done nothing for three days", like it was a waste of time. I got more comments on that post than any I've written, very positive comments praising the notion of an occasional weekend marathon with a willing partner.

Little did I know, mysterious as fortune for fools might be, that one of my readers of that post on that day would greet me in her home some six weeks later for a luxurious weekend in bed. I didn't even know Pearl when she commented on my post. So, it was unimaginable that I might walk in her front door, which I did a couple of weekends ago, and not step outside her home for three days. But, it did happen! We basically followed the very script I had proposed in my July post... sex, cook, eat, talk. Over and over and over. And, Pearl had nothing but nice things to say, as I finally walked out her door to return home.

I've heard it said, but never experienced it so loud and clear, "Careful what you wish for, you may get it." No regrets here on either side. God does sometimes smile on the most undeserving of us. Instead of "wasted time," let's call it "quality time."

Another hooker movie, Night Shift 1982

Well, I didn’t get this one from Netflix in time so it’s worth adding. Night Shift was Ron Howard’s first hit movie as a director, and it shows the promise that he fulfilled two years later in Splash. It’s in the romantic comedy genre, but the entire scenario centers around a group of hookers whose pimp gets murdered and they end up looking for “better management.” As always in these stories, the hookers are loveable, genuine, and beautiful, the kind of girl every guy would want for a girlfriend and even take home to his mom (well, at least his dad). It’s uncanny how this theme has continued from movie to movie since the ‘60’s, in spite of the contradictory public and legal attitude toward prostitution. For instance, you’ll never see a straight news article in the mainstream press that confirms this popular Hollywood attitude. Are we confused in the U.S.? Duh!

And, the typical ending persists: hooker falls in love with guy who rescues her from the trade, and consequently the guy gets the best of both worlds, in and out of bed. It’s well worth seeing for a couple of light-hearted, fun hours with a warm fuzzy conclusion. And, if you ever wondered where the song, “That’s What Friends Are For,” came from, now you know. A few years later, it became a number one hit as a fund raiser theme for AIDS research.

Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, 1748

Written in 1748 by John Cleland, while in a debtor's prison in England, the fictional account of Fanny Hill was never legally published in Britain until 1970, a remarkable 222 years later. Its legal publication in the U.S. occurred three years after that. Of course, prohibited copies of it have circulated in notoriety since Cleland first wrote it. That this rather harmless and celebratory tale of prostitution in Merry Olde England was for so long banned, tells us more about the history of sexual suppression in our culture than it probably informs us about the actual life in brothels of 18^th century England.

Cleland's avoidance of four letter words to describe four letter acts, is reason enough to take a look at his story. His humorous and formal use of language is overwhelming, for instance, as Fanny takes an entire paragraph to describe "a maypole of so enormous standard... it stood an object of terror and delight... and it now fell my lot to stand his first trial of it, if I could resolve to run the risk of its disproportion to that tender part of me, which such an oversized machine was very fit to lay in ruins."

In the story, Fanny does not get into the business of prostitution exactly as a voluntary career choice. She is rather tricked into it (at too young an age) but in Cleland's wishful thinking, she very quickly embraces her work. Her brothel was run by a wise and frugal madam, and the clients were mostly wealthy Londoners. Possibly, Cleland knew of such from first hand experience, possibly such experience is what landed him in debtor's prison.

The sexual encounters eventually assume a consistent pattern telling much about the mythical imagination of men in 1740. All men have enormous erections, all women are both in fear of them, yet desirous of them, and after an initial discomfort, the women have earthshaking orgasms with vaginal intercourse alone, much in contrast to what we understand today. Lesbian encounters are applauded, but male homosexuality is condemned as an abomination. Oral sex is non-existent in this story which was the most puzzling part for me. Was it actually not practiced for some reason, or was it considered too taboo to tell, or was it just Cleland's lack of experience and information? And, typical even of today’s erotica, nothing is ever mentioned of birth control or disease prevention.

At the least this story informs us that sexuality was of interest in an English puritan culture that otherwise forbade its discussion, not only of interest, but partaken with the unique wink, chuckle, and fun that the English seem to have and we in the U.S. do not. Also, it appears to be the beginning of the history of censorship that lasted over 200 years through the era of Lady Chatterley's Lover and Tropic of Cancer till the dam finally broke in the 1970's for better or worse for all of us.

The text and the audio book in .mp3 format are available for free at gutenberg.org. Actually, the audio book is very entertaining listening which I did on my forest walks much to my own amusement as the joggers and dog walkers passed me by.

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, My Hooker Movie Reviews, 1980 to present

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas 1982

A robust musical song and dance tour de force in celebration of the old time, mostly obsolete western brothel, this movie has one of the most entertaining opening 20 minutes of any of hooker movie: pure musical/sexual hilarity. It just goes to show that with a little money, sex, cooperation from the sheriff, and proper supervision, folks can have some "good, clean fun." It's actually a true story of a long term brothel in a country farm house in Texas which made big news in the early 1970's when it was shut down, and an article appeared in Playboy telling the story. You can't beat Dolly Partin as the madam, Mona, and Burt Reynolds as the sheriff, Ed Earl. Though the songs are mostly forgettable and the dialogue is "high school sophomoric" in places, there are moments when either the pure enthusiasm or the personal drama really touch the heart. When you see prostitutes dancing with johns like it was Agnes de Mille choreography and either Oklahoma or the Music Man, it sort of levels the playing field concerning what's "right and wrong."

An unexpectedly poignant scene finds Mona and sheriff Ed Earl having a campfire rendezvous on a lonesome Texas hillside, drinking a six-pack and looking at the stars. Mona and Ed Earl have been lovers for years, and they are talking about life, love, religion, sex, morality, legality, and sin. It's a conversation worth hearing as they snuggled in the firelight. More than a conversation, it's a social/political treatise on the absurdity of the moral self-righteousness of our laws regarding consensual sex between adults.

The story spins on as a Houston TV personality starts a crusade to close Mona and her girls down. The brothel, called the "Chicken Ranch" got it's name from the 1930's depression era when clients had no money and paid in live chickens. It had been a respite for both World War I soldiers, and then their sons during WW II. And, the University of Texas or Texas Aggies senior football players, whichever won the yearly game, always got a visit to the Ranch, presumably paid by wealthy alumni. Mona had built enormous goodwill over the years with her courtesy, her clean and healthy business, and her charitable contributions.

As the drama weaves its tale to the final conclusion, real lives, and wounded hearts are on the line. By this point, sentimental sap that I am, tears are running down my face, and I'm blubbering in piles of kleenex. Mona sings, "And I Will Always Love You" to Ed Earl and I'm a puddle in my chair. Dolly Partin had written the song several years earlier, and though it wasn't in the Broadway version, it was added to the movie (clearly the movie's best song.) Ten years later Whitney Houston sang it in the movie, Bodyguard, and it became one of the top selling single songs of all time.

So this romanticized story, which stays pretty close to the actual events in Texas sort of put an exclamation point for me on what I have been feeling for the last six months. As the year 2009 began, I was the same old Richard I had always been, struggling for personal or romantic fulfillment in any number of frustrating and unproductive ways. The possibility of seeing a prostitute or escort or hooker or whatever you want to call her had never occurred to me. In fact, I probably disapproved of such practice, though I never gave much thought to whether I did or didn't.

My decision to partake of "love for sale" was not a well considered decision. It was more like something kicked me in the butt and said, "Get out and live a life, or you are going to die alone and lonely." Within a couple of hours of hearing that voice, I was withdrawing hundreds of dollars from an ATM machine. Six months later, I found Pearl. Was there a connection? Never had I thought that seeing an escort or two or three was the key to the door that would open me up to living a life with real women rather than sitting at home dying alone with my fantasies. As a good friend of mine always says, "You've got to get out and meet and greet the people!"

This experience has also changed my attitude toward the world's oldest profession. From this point on, I will always make an effort to promote the legalization of prostitution in the U.S. (as this movie does,) and to defend the legal and civil rights of prostitutes. And, it’s changed my attitude toward relationships in general. Go ahead, make mistakes, talk about it, forgive and embrace, respect everyone, and be tolerant of however hapless humans choose to find love.

Risky Business 1983

What can you say? The best feel good hooker movie ever? Tom Cruise dances in his jockey shorts in one of the classic comic scenes of all time (and 26 years later it is still copied as a TV commercial during the NCAA basketball tourney), and the movie just keeps getting better after that scene. A business night of fun in the Chicago suburbs. If ever there were a positive portrayal of the profession, this was it. Then to cap it off, Rebecca de Mornay makes the hottest of hot love on the Chicago elevated train.

Pretty Woman 1990

Really, this is a love story, whose female character happens to be a prostitute. It's more of a rich guy/poor pretty girl story. And, it has a fine twist on the Pygmalion plot, where, rather than try to reform or educate Julia Roberts, the rich guy (Richard Gere) delights in her lack of sophistication, and makes everyone respect her in spite of it. Of course, they fall in love, and it's happiness and money ever after. Again, it hints but barely that Gere is reaping enormous sexual benefits in this arrangement. He gets love, and one hell of a hot woman at the same time.

Mighty Aphrodite 1995

I must be a sucker for a movie, because this one's really stupid, but I liked it anyway. New York plot scenes alternate with a comic Greek chorus which offer farce-like narration from the ruins of some old Greek theater. It's another Woody Allen film (how many has he made? a thousand by now?) and he acts in it. How does such a nerd always get the pretty girls? It proves there's hope for any guy with imagination. The story is that Allen's character, Lenny, and his wife, Amanda, adopt a baby. Lenny finds out that the baby's birth mother is a prostitute/porn star, Linda Ash played by Mira Sorvino, who at 5'10" has legs that make fools of wise men and we see plenty of them. Linda's hooker character is pretty dumb, much in contrast to the usual savvy heroine of hooker movies. But, she has a big heart, moral character, and a refreshingly blunt, unashamed enthusiasm about sex which comes out in constant hilarious one-liners. The plot never has the interpersonal punch that it promises, particularly in reconciling birth mother and child, but it ends with everybody happy, and the Greek chorus singing "When You're Smiling, the Whole World Smiles With You." What's not to like?

Dangerous Beauty 1998

True story of Veronica Franco, a courtesan in Venice in the late 1500's. It portrays prostitution as a product of social structure, it contrasts "love for sale" vs. "true love," and it covers all sides of the issue: boring wives vs. love wise courtesans, men who want both, social and religious hypocrisy, courtesans who influence history, and hookers with hearts of gold. Every character is an idealized, romanticized model. Though, in stark realism it describes the severe syphilis epidemic that plagued Venice during this period. It seems that the Catholic church blamed the syphilis epidemic on prostitution and started executing them as heretics. Sounds like things have not changed much today since escorts are still blamed for STD's though the statistics show that they are a minor source of them. The movie is well worth seeing.

Moulin Rouge 2001

This is one of the silliest movies I've seen in a long time, a slapstick musical that I had difficulty watching all the way through, except for the fact that I have this thing for Nicole Kidman, whom my sister in Nashville is always seeing at the neighborhood pizza parlor with her hubby Keith Urban. (beside the point I know) This is actually the same story as the 1936 movie, Camille, with Greta Garbo, just turned into a farce musical with Elton John songs. But, the classic hooker movie themes are still present, and probably my favorite scene is when Kidman, the Courtesan, is having an encounter with her young suitor on top of a decorative elephant shaped structure. They sing, banter, and dance while debating the issue of "true love" vs. "love for sale." It's a great scene, but to watch the rest of the movie, I'd suggest having a bottle of booze handy. Then it might be fun. I don’t drink, so it was not that much fun.

Memoirs of a Geisha 2005

A curious movie, with spectacular photography and sets. A nine year old Japanese girl is sold by her family to a Geisha house. The girl, Sayuri is physically abused and mistreated in the house, but eventually is rescued by a kind and respected Geisha mentor who trains her in the Geisha talents of art, music, literature, and conversation. When Sayuri comes of age, her virginity is auctioned at her debut, a public performance attended by wealthy invited guests. The Geisha seems to have been much more of a social and entertainment companion first, besides being the obligatory sexual partner. It was of course, primarily a business venture, but historically run by women for women, however tough the women were on each other. The ultimate goal was to find one wealthy man who would become the Geisha's sole patron. World War II changes everything, and a tangled love story mixes with business.

Others of this period:

Sharkey's Machine 1981

Night Shift 1982

Trading Places 1983

The Courtesans of Bombay 1983 (India) Netflix

Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers 1987 use your imagination, mercifully this one is unavailable for rent

Leaving Las Vegas 1995, real downer, more about alcoholism

Devdas 2002 (India)

The Whore's Son (Hurensohn) 2004, Austria, a teenage son wonders why his mother keeps going out at night, then discovers she is a prostitute.

Monster 2003, sad, but true story, very difficult to watch

Sakuran 2006 (Japan)