As the music came up, smoke filled the stage, and the curtain parted. I took one last breath and realized this was it: Everyone is waiting for me -- well, "Sofie," the performance name I donned for my role.
I'm not a professional stripper; I just played one in a movie -- "The Days God Slept," a short film about a seedy strip club and the dynamics between the men and women who inhabit it. Back in college, the very idea of this probably would've sent me into a rant about the various ways stripping demeans women. Now I was dancing in a club. And yes, a pole was involved.
It was the end of a long day of shooting, and I'd been nervously anticipating my big scene, a solo dance in which "Sofie," totally blitzed, experiences a moment of existential crisis in front of her patrons. The stage itself, lit in blue neon piping, was long and narrow, flanked by revelers and go-go dancers. In this windowless studio, deep in industrial Brooklyn, the set designers had re-created a strip club with eerie likeness.
Just like in a real strip club: time was money on set. The grips and PA's went about the business of making a film, doing their assigned tasks and getting us out of the set on time. Just like a real club, ours was populated by a team of professionals to whom the stillettoed strut of a go-go girl, a lascivious lap dance or a bare breast didn't elicit a second glance.
Why did I have the urge to take on this role? It's true that having a minor part in a film was on my bucket list. It's also true that despite majoring in sociology at a woman's college, I harbored secret stripper fantasies. But I had reservations.
On one hand, I knew there must be other women out there like me--women who count Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Gloria Steinem, and Hillary Clinton among their heroines, who earn a living off their intellectual prowess, who refuse to let a man determine their happiness -- and simultaneously fantasize about stripping. I didn't feel that my fantasy was problematic when I thought about it in terms of the power that comes with being looked at and adored. True, such adoration is illusory, and no more permanent than the makeshift stage I'm dancing on, but thinking about it from that perspective made me feel okay about it.
What freaked me out was the possibility that the dancer does NOT feel power -- that instead, she feels belittled, monetized, dehumanized. And that there is something in that position that seriously turns me on.
My impulse at first was to censor that arousal, and I understand why. It felt wrong, counter to everything I stand for. But a fantasy is just that -- a fantasy. It's an escape from reality, from our so-called "normal" way of thinking. Rational people can distinguish between fantasy and reality, and that distinction was crucial to me playing this role. In an era of near equality, the idea of being subjugated and objectified is for many women totally hot -- as the popularity of "50 Shades of Grey" has amply demonstrated. If I hadn't acted out this fantasy when the opportunity arose, I think I would have felt like I was limiting my own sexual freedom.
My first move, following the obligatory pole spin -- which, P.S, is exhilarating but also really hard on the body -- was a slow stage crawl. The cast put dollars in the waist of my hot pants, and those playing regulars who develop a "certain rapport" with club dancers whispered sleazy things in my ear that I pretended not to hear. I have to add that another reason I was having so much fun is that I felt completely safe. The director, producer (a woman), and director of photography are friends of mine, and never once did I feel in physical or psychic danger. I'd bonded with my scene partners all day during the shoot. I was especially close to the other dancers and the actors playing the woman and two men I ended up stripping for. After each take, one of the guys, Lenny, politely passed parts of my costume back stage so I could re-dress for the next take.
The camera, guided by a dolly-riding director of photography, extended toward me. Lenny told me not to look directly at the camera, but rather to "look through it." As I continued the choreography of my dance, all eyes on me, I kept telling myself to look through everyone else. My body remembered the moves of my number for me, and all I was thinking about was the gaze of others -- and the incredible, safely dangerous-feeling exuberance I felt from being gawked at.
Before my turn as "Sofie," I felt that being ogled would be demeaning. That's what I was always told. Yet as I lost more and more of my clothing to the cheers and leers of the crowd, I began to soak in an immense feeling of power. Granted, as a post-modern gal, my understanding of power is to see it not so much as a thing, but as a relation, one that is always in flux. But as I was dancing, scantily clad on a dimly lit stage, I doubted anyone was interested in how well I know my Foucault. The best thing about my stage experience was that there just wasn't time to think about how I should've done a couple extra Tracy Anderson workouts before the shoot, or if people watching would know that I have a fellowship at an Ivy League university. It was all about the moment. And in that moment, I experienced a freedom that in my daily life usually evades me.
The thing is, even though we all know strippers are just like the rest of us when not on stage, and that they spend half their earnings keeping up the hair, nails, spray tan, and waxing necessary to look they way they do, men still fall for their seductive smiles, smoky eyes, and glitter dusted bodies. I think there must be a part of us that wants to simply let that turn us on.
My experience stripping in a film reminded me that whatever you do sexually, you have to own it. Ultimately, you're the only one who has to live in your skin. We don't all have to strip to find those moments of freedom from ourselves like I did when I was on stage, but I recommend finding some way to bring your fantasy to life. After two days of shooting, I became a retired dancer, but "Sofie" is an experience I'll always have. And who knows, there may be an occasion -- or encounter -- when I feel like bringing her out again.
Follow Jill Di Donato on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jilldido
Belle de jour
by Joseph Kessel,
the film is about a young woman who decides to spend her midweek afternoons as a prostitute while her husband is at work.[1] The title is the French name of the daylily, meaning "daylight beauty", a flower that blooms only during the day, but also refers to a prostitute whose trade is conducted in daytime.
éverine Serizy (Catherine Deneuve), a young and beautiful housewife, is unable to share physical intimacy with her husband, Dr. Pierre Serizy (Jean Sorel), despite their love for each other.
------>Her sexual life is restricted to elaborate fantasies involving domination, sadomasochism, and bondage. Although frustrated by his wife's frigidity toward him, he respects her wishes.
Do forget> DH Lawrence?
How about Seeking Mr Good BAR?
How The French Movie Romance!
Plot synopsis
When Marie's boyfriend Paul refuses to have sex with her, she is forced to search for intimacy beyond the bounds of traditional sexual limitations, a journey that proves to be both fulfilling and empowering.
OR the hard Hitting the Anatomy of Hell
However (and she admits this) she was able to do this in such safety that the "realness" of it was totally lost. How nice that the extra gave you back your clothes and how wonderful for you that you knew at any moment that you could speak Foucault-ese. In fact, it is your educational and financial privilege that allowed you to experience this and then blog about it. And then throw in Foucault so we all know how smart you are. These things make this experience surreal in its inauthenticity. The freedom here is a false one. So congrats on taking what was for you an important step (and I am not being sarcastic). Just don't give us some shine about it being real. In my humble opinion, it was not.
A not bad film on actual strippers called Live Nude Girls Unite! shows some women happy in their choice to become strippers. It also shows the dangers, daily humiliations and difficulties. That I am ambivalent about their discussions of power is not a bad thing. These questions are tough. I am concerned that Di Donato seems to make it seem so effortless.
But Dance, say the Greeks - if you could not dance you were mentally ill!
Even in uptight Europe in the late 100's you had dance or were an outcast!
Human sexuality is in dance, we dance to show the sexuality and passions and wants: none verbal communication is 90% of all communication by the way!
Ask yourself this: why is dancing in public outlawed? You do you are either nuts, or causing a public indecency act, or disturbing the peace! Think - youth mostly are forbidden to do this - look up why?
Sexual energy in the USA's protestant view is dangerous and perverse and must be controlled - the 1920's the flappers? Then Jazz, then the 1960's and all: then censor and back again!
Women are the masters at inciting a male to lust, for a reason pal, that is how must animals mate, in our species-- the FEMALE: body is fully fitted to shake and jiggle and incite by simple movements implying what is to come in your sexual meal - if you get there and not your hand - that is fine too!
Sex dance, dance is sexual expression in large degree!
Power is there, and all so the human mating practice - !
Yet I can say this to do it for a living -solely sucks and hurts - them:
Why?
You are just staring at men who think of you as nothing but a hole to fill and a zero as a human being- that makes them bitter and hateful of men who abuse them en mass
Go if you dare and talk with the working girls not the adventures who have away out! Sorrow is there and lack of hope!
Many are lesbians for many reasons but one is rape and the hate of men - many who have to prove their heterosexuality in the face of their homosexual ideations!
I believe the courage you displayed in opening your mind and casting away your "victorian" robe has changed you , forever. Please try to keep we who are interested updated on how you have changed.
Sincerely;
Skyseeker1