--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Duveyoung <no_re...@...> wrote: > > Grate Swan, > > I'll reply to your post. Several others have elbowed me, er, it was me > wasn't it? -- for having some sort of high-hatting snobby attitude about > strip club dancers. And your post seems to meta-talk about the "kind of > folks" into which my detractors would group me, so maybe you and I can have > an actual discussion about this set of issues without getting personal as > Turq did. > > Whenever I left a bar or strip club, believe me, no one inside them thought I > was high hatting. I look into a person's eyes, and they usually look back > and see my heart there. I look at almost all people as being victims of the > world's marauders,
>and a girl in a strip club is almost always someone who has been in some deep >psychological straits. That appears to be based on your speculation and perhaps intuition. Which may over time have been found to be good truth baromoters for yourself. However, there is no reason for me to gauge truth by such. I can think of a number of reasons why the truth may be opposite of what you propose. First, it takes some bit of self-confidence, and non-attachment to get naked in front of strangers. Though most strip clubs appear to be merely topless not fully nude. I imagine (which is only that) there may be a well cultured sense of "I am not the body" developed amongst dancers. And not being much affected by others opinions. Far more healthy traits than many long term meditators display. > > No mother, no father ever says to their newborn infant, "When you grow up, I > hope you'll be a stripper, because you'll meet all kinds of wonderful people, > be a dancing artist, and make a ton of tip money that's in cash, so no taxes!" Is that a valid critera of whether a job is useful at a particular stage in ones life? First, dancing is not a career, its a thing done in ones 20's (early 30's at tops). How many parents are boastfully proud of the jobs their kids do in their 20's? And yur words imply that things not boasted by parents are unworthy. Are construction workers, taxi cab drivers, hotel staffs, day care workers, night watchmen, assistant teachers, clerical workers, car salesmen, all unworthy -- even despicable -- jobs - just because most kids parents don't dream of them doing such? > > Yeah, parents everywhere see that as one fucking great career. um BFD. > When I see the downtrodden cramped in the corners that life has painted them > into, You are talking about homeless shelters and panhandlers right? I hope you are not talking about stylish girls driving Beamers and living in nice condos they own. Which is the lifestyle many dancers can easily afford -- though I believe many are more modest and prudent -- save, save , saving their for their chosen next step in life. >usually it's compassion that instantly spring up in my heart and mind. Compassion is always good. Pity and feelings of superiority are not. I hope you are totally in the compassion camp. > I see myself completely in their shoes. I don't think I've ever refused to > toss some coin to street folks with outstretched hands. And this means you are a good tipper in strip clubs? Or, I pray you are not, are you equating dancers with street folks begging in the streets? Who need your pity and alms, and who need saving -- by a gallant white knight? > My heart simply breaks, and I know that if I'd been raised as they, HUGE presumption on your part -- and says a lot about you, not dancers. > and if I had had their exact choices, I'd be hardly expected to have chosen > anything else but what they'd chosen. Then I guess you would be rational and focused, with eyes on the prize. By choosing to work ones own hours, and make far more than most jobs, including lawyers and MBAs their age, not to work 8-5, allowing them to, in many cases, be with their kids way more, go to school and/or save for the business they want to start, yes, I think many have made rational and good choices. Did you make as wise as these choices when you were in your mid-20's. > I am only a few smacks upside my head away from being a homeless guy sipping > out of a bag on a park bench and hating life forever -- but who isn't? That's a shame -- perhaps you made some poor life choices -- but what does that have to do with most dancers? IF you are equating them with being homeless drunks, you are off in some strange white knight savior complexed world of your one making. > Tell me of someone's life, and I'll imagine up a few things that could happen > to them such that they'd be beaten into a permanent depression. Having a cop > taser their kid to death might do it for most parents, ya see? I think all > folks have a sort of bottom-line sense of entitlement, and when that "rule" > is broken, they are swamped with righteousness or depression -- I assume you are voicing your own experience not projecting such onto dancers. >either way, a destructive all-time-reality psychological dynamic has taken >hold of their minds, and all psychic investiture leads to eventual >disillusionment (a fool and folly) but the price of taking that trip is high: >lost time, lost life, lost health, etc. > Even Turq evokes my compassion. Do you realize how condescending, patronizing and savior-complex a pattern your words are weaving here, and below. I cannot imagine what has happened to him that he has such a hair-trigger cruelty and chicken-hearted cowardice when it comes to toe-to-toe debate. But, give me some details, and I'll bet that I have have had enough happen to me to understand his brokenness. I shudder to think what actually happened to him with, say, Rama, that has him even decades later roiling in such a dark defensiveness when his truth is challenged by another. > I labeled the strippers "whores," and yeah, it's a loaded term. Is it loaded people who use loaded terms? :) > Technically, it's accurate. I have not googled it today, but who here hasn't > read at least one article about the truths about the lives of strippers? Oh wow. is it really your habit to take one sensationalized story of a group and extrapolate it upon the whole group? If so you could have made a killing being a Reagan speech writer. Edg, I am not going on. I know you initiated this as a good hearted exchange of ideas and views. I am honestly giving you my views -- with the intent of not making personal attacks -- but focusing on your ideas. To the extent that I have not been able to separate you personally from your ideas -- I apologize -- but the two appear to me to be fairly tightly woven. Your views appear to me to be simply that -- a view richly nurtured in the nutrients and fertilizer of your mind, but devoid of much truth value based in the reality of the world. You may think the same of me. While I look forward to possible future exchange of views, I fear I will become repetitious if I continue here. My interests are broader than the ones you raise. Dancers as a topic is not that fascinating for me. I am more interested in society's views and laws regarding all sex workers, and sex work. Which more broadly is a market transaction between consenting adults that does not have substantive harm to third parties. (some may argue the latter is substantial -- I am open to those views but don't see them.) I am further interested how far this framework is applicable -- such as drug laws -- and the horribly failed and expensive war on drugs. Spending gargantuion amounts of taxpayers money to restrict the freedoms of consenting adults seems insane to me. I am also interested in the superiority, savior and paternalistic complexes of those who feel that those in such consenting transactions are too immature or stupid to make wise choices about their lives on their own and need paternalistic aid if not control of their decisions and lives by those who feel they know better how to fulfill the needs and objectives of that persons or group of people. I suppose if we ere going to make any free consenting activities illegal it would be allowing those in their 20's to join cults -- in that has constrained and ruined far more lives than drugs or sex work ever have. And don't even get me started on rock'n roll! > Peppering the category, there may be a few gold-nugget hearted Madonnas who > are just trying to finish college, but for the most part, these are > seriously challenged individuals who have made desperate decisions. Nary a > one of them thought that going into stripping was an easy decision. > > Yet, we see someone like Turq trying to glorify these victims as, what?, > fully independent working women who have a pristine clarity about their > decisions who come to work with lightness in their steps and naughty gleams > in their eyes? That's marauder thinking. That a "john" attitude. That's a > defense that a user wields. > > Put a blindfold on me, plug up my ears and nose, and put me in a strip club > and I'll feel the fucking vibe even then. These places reek of dark doings > that stain the very walls with a spiritually vile ichor. If someone can walk > into such a place without immediately feeling the tensions of that industrial > strength karma, I would suspect they already have a life so troubled that the > club's atmosphere is, as if, merely same-ol'-same-ol'. > > To retain one's equanimity in a strip bar is maybe something that an > enlightened person can do, and certainly, the thugs are used to it so they > have a sort of equanimity, but for the most part, most folks cannot do so > without there arising a discomfort -- a discomfort that I would say springs > from compassion. > > A compassion that we all recognize when we see Sally Struthers posing with a > swollen bellied kid in Africa -- we see all too easily that the kid is > "purely a victim," and we cannot high hat that kid for choosing such a lousy > life, but I'm telling you the truth when I say I have this same emotion when > I consider the lives of most folks. Donald Trump for instance. My heart > breaks for the egoic investments in personality functions he's put his shakti > into. What a Gordian Knot of attachments for him to have to unravel. > > And, yeah, the bell tolls for thee -- that is: me. Not that I spend much > time these days on licking my wounds. I have done that, yes, I lost years in > some "poor me" indulging, but these days, I'm more inclined to be doing the > work of mindfully adjusting to the fact that we're all in the same lifeboat. > Call it: my concentration camp resolve. The film, Life Is Beautiful, pretty > much sums up how I see stuff: I can trick my inner child that things are able > to be positively interpreted, but my adult part is the father who's heart is > being fried alive in a Nazi pan. > > Where it is legal, prostitution is framed as "legitimate work," but where, > say, in Nevada, is the high school club called "Future Strippers?" And, it's > not only a religious POV -- find me anyone who's had a fairly good life who > would espouse a stripping career for a young girl. > > To hang out with these girls and their matrix of attending thugs, to try to > veneer this industry with some rationalizations, is exactly the formula for > keeping this meat grinder going. > > Where are the women of FFL on this issue? Calling me a ranting fool may be > my just karma here, but to ignore the victimization of these poor souls is as > anti-feminist as it gets. > > Edg > > > > > > > > > > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, grate.swan <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > > What an utter garbagedump FFL has turned into. > > > > > > > Many in spiritual circles appear attached to the concept of non-attachment > > -- but it appears to me (hardly a strong truth test) they are quite > > attached to aversion. > > > > Just a few of today's posts I have skimmed and aversion seems to be > > blossoming like spring -- deep (and almost trembling) aversion to > > americans, strippers, enhanced breasts, people who are satisfied with TM, > > and on and on. > > > > One thing I have found in exposure to real spiritual people (and the > > categorization is my own, not an epistimologically pristine claim) is that > > they are interested in everyone, everything and anything. Its like they > > start each moment with a blank slate. Everything is new, to be explored. As > > a friend told me once, "Maharishi could (and did) talk for 4 hours on which > > floor tiles to choose." > > > > But enlightenment shalaitzament -- who cares. But a baseline of total > > acceptance, openness, a fresh look at everything, has some appeal to me > > when I see it live, in action. > > > > TM appears not to be a universal technique to enliven such qualities in > > everyone. Perhaps it does in some. I see people who do TM , and other > > methods, who have these non-attached, non-adverse, enthusiastic in each > > moment for everything. But also see a lot of people highly adverse to lots > > of things, and perhaps attached many things similtaneously, to "my > > program", my diet, my so pure lifestyle, my method, my guru, etc. I am not > > sure, but I am guessing St Peter doesn't open the gate to people with a 3' > > stick up their butts. (and man, thats gotta hurt during yogic flying). > > > > If I were King Tony, I would round up all the so holy rajas and obsequious > > hangers-on and take them to the best -- and also the diviest -- strip clubs > > in Amsterdam. Show people how to see and enjoy the bliss in everything. > > Even in silicone breasts. > > > > As Louis said, "Its a wonderful world". Some long term TMers seem too > > bitter and adverse to enjoy much of it. > > >
