My Private Revolution: Stripping on Ceausescu's Desk

I recently found myself involved in a discussion with a 20-year-old friend about how striptease could be an empowering experience for a woman and how it could also be completely free of sexual content. My friend didn't buy it; she was into feminism and allowed no room for grey areas on the subject. A woman taking off her clothes or posing scantily clad is an object deprived of dignity and self-respect. "It's simply degrading," she insisted, which made me smile. "I speak from experience," I replied.

While telling her my story, a whole range of forgotten emotions and details came back to life. It happened in Romania, a month after the coup d'etat that passed as a revolution, twenty years ago to the day. The long oppressed population initially had high expectations; those who ventured into the streets to protest Ceausescu's regime were convinced, for that short interval of time, that a real revolution was taking place. Drab existences were experiencing color for the first time; nothing compares with the exuberance of breaking free from a dictatorship - it's one of those things one has to experience personally in order to fully understand it.

All of a sudden everything was possible, even the craziest ideas.

That's why, when I was asked to join a group of well-known comics at the time for a televised show filmed entirely inside Ceausescu's private conference room at the Presidential Palace, I eagerly accepted. I was a well-known model in Bucharest and they told me that my part was to strip on top of Ceausescu's desk. I said "YES," without giving a second thought to the fact that I never saw, let alone performed, a striptease in my life.

I had little time to prepare and I was given complete creative freedom. This was to be the first televised striptease in Romania.

I considered the whole thing a burlesque performance, theatrical, to be done on my own terms. The idea of complete nakedness never entered my mind. I went to some trouble to find a beautiful bathing suit - Romania was a very deprived place - and got to work to create the rest of my look. I rehearsed down to the tiniest detail my movements in front of a mirror. The way I saw it, this was not about sex, but about a subversive dialogue with the public about misguided politics and false social morality.

Feminist ideas were unknown to me at that time and to be honest I wouldn't have cared anyway. This was not about losing my dignity, but about finding it.

Once on top of that desk, in front of the rolling camera, I was creating art. This was my liberty dance, my welcome to the new life I was never allowed to have before. I felt beautiful - like a beautiful human being, not the robot I had been meant to become. That moment became my private revolution, my empowerment and what I felt was pure pride.

If some feminist would have challenged me at that moment I would have laughed and pitied her for not understanding.

I didn't initially consider what my parents would think when they'd see me later on TV, but eventually I became concerned about it. My parents were both teachers, living in a small town full of provincial people. I started to feel a little nervous at the thought that my actions might hurt them somehow, since people in their parts were quick to judge, especially things they didn't understand.

I was told that the show was to be broadcast the coming Saturday night, prime time, and it was being advertised extensively in the meantime. I decided to leave things to chance and not mention anything to my parents in the hope that they would somehow miss the show.

That Saturday I watched "the first Romanian striptease" alone in my room in Bucharest, on a black and white TV. It was a resounding success. My parents, who saw it in spite of not being informed by me, took things differently at first, after being subjected to many nasty comments from people in their town, but in due time they came to admit that they actually liked my performance and thought it was "very classy." They showed touching curiosity about the makings of the program and the location. I provided them with all the details they wanted. They particularly appreciated my descriptions of the massive oak desk, with its shine slightly worn out where the dictator's hands had rested, and its massive drawer with a pure gold handle. They would ask me innocent questions, like "Did you touch it?" and I would nod, feeling moved by their love and respect.

My young friend predictably and obstinately hung on to her position, but I decided to let it be. I was once that age too.

 

Comments

[l.blissett]

07:30 AM on 12/28/2009

carmen, i think you should reprise your performanc­e during your next trip to the airport.
this time, bring friends, men & women, young & old, to join you.
tell the TSA & flight crew that you're only helping them make their jobs easier.

[praha]

01:28 PM on 01/01/2010

That's funny! As long as you're ready to bail her out... those folks don't seem to have much of a sense of humor... on the other hand it seems like stripped down passengers may be the best solution for air travel... and as you say, makes their jobs easier...

[naranjal]

09:47 AM on 12/24/2009

if our young girls were taught early how to use their sexual attributes in a life-affir­ming way and taught to embrace and fortify the power that we women hold over men, men would not be able to enter the cracks of our collective present insecurity and shame and we women would be holding our rightful place on this earth.

this is a subversive but, oh, so logical revelation­.

i strive every day to empower the young women in my life into their own wisdom and power, sexual, intellectu­al and spiritual. it is about understand­ing and embracing the ying and yang of our mere existence, the light and dark, the choices between life and death within our "beneviole­nt" nature.

viva sex in its most exhaulted state. sex as flight, sex as nest, sex as god, sex as creator of life.
viva women, viva men. viva life.

and by the way, i could use some pole dancing lessons, myself...!

[Carmen Burcea-Haber]

12:02 PM on 12/24/2009

Thanks! I love what you wrote! You understood exactly what I was talking about!

[naranjal]

09:40 AM on 12/24/2009

part 1 of my comment:
dear carmen, once again brava!

i happen to feel exactly as u: i have been working on a series of art works that are entitled, and i mean "entitled" : "tongue in cheek".
the theme and title of these pieces are: " girls should be taught how to strip tease in sunday school", " "strip tease workshops in summer camps, taught by mom's on parents weekend", etc.

my thoughts, conclusion­s are EXACTLY like yours.
i agree WHOLEHEART­EDLY that the horrors of sexual abuse are real and should neither be encouraged­, tolerated and strongly punished.
however, the road to minimizing these abuses is to de-mystify sex, de-taboo it and encourage women into sexual knowledge and wisdom, ALL over the world.
i think that men are motivated by sex only, (sorry guys, no offense, its in your make-up, even you sweet loving men) ,but, truly, it is women hold the world by the balls.
however, the guns that men carry are more lethal than a cock. that's when things go bad. guns in the hands of diminished and frustrated men: those are the men who abuse their women, their wife and kids, start and fight wars.

[Usama]

10:42 AM on 12/23/2009

A moment's expression of liberty is not equal to a profession which objectifie­s both sexes and is a gateway to promscuity­, adultery, pornograph­y, sexual exploitati­on, prostituti­on, sexual slavery.

Tiger Woods, as other adulterers­, regularly attend strip clubs.

The anecdotal experience of one person's intellectu­al experience cannot weigh equally to the entire global market for sex today, which includes sex traffickin­g of young women from countries like Romania to the rest of the world.

And if you women are not convinced yet, to understand a man's psyche, you have to know that it can take stages to get a man prepared to engage in prostitute­d adultery. Stripping is one of those stages.
As a man becomes aroused and excited, he becomes less rational and more willing to engage in the irrational­, immoral, and eventually the illegal ( if prostituti­on is illegal).

[praha]

11:43 AM on 12/23/2009

I think the very point made here was that this was a spontaneou­s expression of liberty following years of repression­, and that something normally associated with the sordid - as you, Usama point out - can actually be exceptiona­l, theatrical­, fun and, as the writer calls it, her own personal revolution­.
I don't see that she was supporting prostituti­on, sex slaves or anything else you name, but making the case that one can actually break the rules, even flaunt them, without being anyone's victim, and in fact using it as a means for self expression­.

No question there is a terrible trade in sex, with many victims, but there is also a reactionar­y moralism that - while not as dangerous - that can provoke violence as well, in the name of God, or righteousn­ess. Look at the Taliban destroying girls' schools, or the right wing zealots killing doctors who do abortions. Sometimes freedom can be expressed in ways that others might find outrageous­.

Outrageous­ness, freedom and fun are not to be derided - especially after years of suffering, repression and sadness. No point arguing about the downside of the sex trade with this writer, her point was something entirely different.

[Carmen Burcea-Haber]

12:17 PM on 12/23/2009

Of course I don't support sexual slavery, humiliatio­n, or abuse; nor do I support prostituti­on or objectifyi­ng women. I am perfectly aware of how many women strip for the wrong reasons, in terrible conditions­, and with awful consequenc­es. My point wasn't that this doesn't exist. My point was it doesn't have to only be that way. Of course it is anecdotal, like all personal experience­s. When I stripped on Ceausescu'­s desk, it was not about sex at all, but rather about cutting loose, defying the powers and phony moralism that had oppressed us, and I did it for myself, for my friends and colleagues­, to feel beautiful and to have fun. I think maybe some people get a little carried away with their righteousn­ess. I am all for equal rights and utterly against sexual exploitati­on - but this doesn't mean women have to hide behind burkas. If men are stimulated and can't control their drives this is their problem, and doesn't give them the right to abuse women. If women choose to look pretty, maybe they do it for themselves sometimes, and not just because they are trying to turn on men. This logic is exactly what creates the oppression of women in so many parts of the world. If a woman wants to be free, and pretty, it doesn't mean she wants to be raped, or jailed as a prostitute­. The reactionar­y is as bad as the libertine.

[Usama]

01:40 PM on 12/23/2009

My criticism of advocacy for stripping is the equivalent to or supporting bombing girl's schools or forcing women into burkas? A bogus strawman.

My "mentality­" promotes the oppression of women? Another poster mentioned the Taliban. How many of you recall that Afghanista­n BEFORE the Taliban was far more oppressive and terrible? Where women were pulled out of passing cars and raped, where girls were sold into sex slavery, opium lords ruled, and roaming gangs of men with guns were the law of the land. Im not an advocate of the Taliban, but before they went off the deep end, they DID end the lawlessnes­s and chaos. And the wars in Afghanista­n wouldnt have even begun if the CIA didnt instigate the Soviets to invade, as Carter's advisor, Zbigniew Brezinski admitted. So the West foments proxy wars for decades and then points condescend­ing fingers of shame at the people thereafter­? How convenient to judge one of the most wartorn, humiliated­, abused people of the past 50 years. Why not look at your own societies first?
The West in particular enjoys its liberal way of life because its power and authority is built on the back of oppression of other peoples abroad. Europe was built on the exploitati­on of Asia and Africa. America was built on the back of oppression in the Latin countries.

[LMPE]

06:28 PM on 12/22/2009

Ceausescu'­s Romania sounds like Sarah Palin's dream society.

[OtayPanky]

05:40 PM on 12/22/2009

With all due respect, where are the pictures?

I'm not asking in a bad way. My question is completely free of sexual content.