Cracker by Damian Christie

Read Post

Cracker: Get it Off

255 Responses

First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 11 Newer→ Last

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    Seriously though, who would've thought "have you ever visited a strip club" would be 2007's answer to "are you now or have you ever been a Communist?"

    Does anyone remember a similar period (possibly in 1999) when suddenly all these politicians confessed to having smoked pot?

    It was mostly stuff like, "Of course I had a wee toke. It was the '60s/'70s and I was at university. It was unavoidable!"

    A flood of confessions came from both sides of the House, and then it was very very quickly forgotten, just as I'm sure this strip club silliness will be.

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • Che Tibby,

    bro. demi moore was in striptease.

    </pendant>

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    I’d hazard a guess that of the half dozen or so times I’ve been to a strip club in the past couple of years, it’s been with a mixed group of males and females.

    If you want to do some further reading on this, I highly recommend Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy. She looks at the modern cultural phenomena of woman are embracing raunch culture and wonders if it's a result of equality or, in fact, the opposite.

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • Graeme Edgeler,

    And while we’re at it, what sort of moral should we take from 'Grease'? If you want to get your man, you should dress like a prostitute?

    Isn't this why everyone loves High School Musical? Insanely positive popular culture - "we're all in this together", "everyone is special in their own way" etc.

    Wellington, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 3215 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    Isn't this why everyone loves High School Musical?

    The redemptive power of home baking...

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    Oh, but you know that Sandy didn't really become a slut-arse ho - she just dressed like one. As soon as she grabbed Danny's attention, her boobs would have disappeared beneath swaths of pastel mohair.

    Pretty Woman, on the other hand, made prostitution seem like a really fun job.

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • Damian Christie,

    Pretty Woman, on the other hand, made prostitution seem like a really fun job.

    Didn't she though! Like all full of sisterly companionship, decent hours and the chance for a ride in a limo.

    I guess the other moral to take from Grease is that you can't go out with someone different than you. Either Danny had to change, or Sandy. Better that you betray your real self in order to look more like the person you want to be with, than just date someone who looks different than you. Or something.

    Whatever, "Stranded at the Drive-in" is genius... "I sit... I wonder... why-ey-ey... ohhh why... you left me.... oh Sandy..."

    And yes thanks Che, said mistake was spotted and corrected well before you posted your comment :)

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1164 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Williams,

    I'd not seen the Barack clip, thanks.

    It does say something about the banality of politics that visiting a strip club is the most salacious gossip. It's all become horribly boring and sanitary. Yawn.

    I don't think Barack will win the nomination, which disappoints me, but I do think the baby-boomers are in their last years... thank god.

    Sydney • Since Nov 2006 • 2273 posts Report Reply

  • Michael Fitzgerald,

    "Pretty Woman, on the other hand, made prostitution seem like a really fun job"

    Which is why Ken Russell wrote & Directed WHORE starring Theresa Russell.

    Elizabeth Berkley was in ShowGirls (& that's the last anyone saw of her).

    Since May 2007 • 631 posts Report Reply

  • andrew llewellyn,

    Pretty woman was originally writen as a tragic drama...

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Woman

    I guess they weren't in vogue with studio bosses that year.

    Since Nov 2006 • 2075 posts Report Reply

  • Jackie Clark,

    She looks at the modern cultural phenomena of woman are embracing raunch culture and wonders if it's a result of equality or, in fact, the opposite.

    Quite, Robyn. Post modernist feminism? Sometimes I wonder what year we're living in, quite frankly. Little girls are wearing highly inappropriate clothing, sex still sells, and strippers are embracing their "power as women". Bollocks to all that. Sexual exploitation is still alive and well - obviously young women are more repressed than ever they were, and have stupidly bought into all the brainwashing.

    Mt Eden, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 3136 posts Report Reply

  • anjum rahman,

    most depressing are music videos, which teenagers are watching all the time. there are hardly any that treat women as human beings - the female singers are as awful as the video clips done by "boybands". i'll lay myself open to charges of racism, but i find videos of black male singers to be some of the worst - all shaking breasts and bums, as if women are nothing but tits & arse...

    i have a strong desire to fight back, but don't even know where to begin! i just think that our girls deserve to have better role models, better images of women as thinking, feeling human beings with dreams & goals that go beyond being the subject of schoolboys' wet dreams.

    hamilton • Since Nov 2006 • 130 posts Report Reply

  • Emma Hart,

    Sexual exploitation is still alive and well - obviously young women are more repressed than ever they were

    This is an argument I really hate to get into, but come on, some perspective? More repressed than before they could vote and own property?

    What bothers me about this argument is that it rapidly becomes women telling other women how women are supposed to dress and behave. That doesn't seem like the opposite of repression to me.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2006 • 4651 posts Report Reply

  • Peter Darlington,

    If you want to do some further reading on this, I highly recommend Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy. She looks at the modern cultural phenomena of woman are embracing raunch culture and wonders if it's a result of equality or, in fact, the opposite.

    The opposite I suspect. Which makes me happy that I've never visited a strip club and never plan to, I find the whole idea dreary beyond measure.

    Nelson • Since Nov 2006 • 949 posts Report Reply

  • Che Tibby,

    Che, said mistake was spotted and corrected well before you posted your comment :)

    no worries. it was primarily an opportunity to describe myself as a pendant again.

    otherwise, this is che keeping mouth shut and listening to teh PASystem fem-blogerati discuss gender equality.

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report Reply

  • Damian Christie,

    Yeah, I have mixed feelings over the whole strip club thing. On the one hand I think it's probably exploitative, on the other hand I quite like looking at naked women, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It's quite the dilemma.

    My friend's wife insists that if he's going to go to the strips, then he has to give the dancers a LOT of money. Otherwise it's exploitation. Don't know whether it's the soundest argument, but he doesn't complain.

    I've spent a bit of time thinking about this post-feminist thing. I suspect it's actually a great con . Young women have been convinced that the best way to be independent modern women is to act like, well, like Sandy at the end of Grease.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1164 posts Report Reply

  • Michael Savidge,

    it was primarily an opportunity to describe myself as a pendant again.

    Now look, I resisted the first time but cannae again.

    Of course you may be just phishing for true pedants and, if so, I'm busted.

    Somewhere near Wellington… • Since Nov 2006 • 324 posts Report Reply

  • Joanna,

    I think in some cases the way things can be less exploitative (but not perfect, I don't claim to have all the answers) is if there is more knowledge about choices available. That you don't have to dress in skanky clothes if you don't want to. Or that if you choose to take off your clothes for money, you don't have to sleep with the clientale even if they're offering to pay you for that as well. And of course it would be nice if there were other opportunities available to people who feel that sex-work is their only choice to earn an income. Etc.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 746 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    What bothers me about this argument is that it rapidly becomes women telling other women how women are supposed to dress and behave. That doesn't seem like the opposite of repression to me.

    Sandra Coney is the expert at this. She periodically bemoans the behaviour and dress sense of young women these days, and it's as if she's disapproving because they don't think, act and dress exactly as she would like.

    And fussing about sexual display or whatever can miss the point. If you go the the Big Day Out, you will see hordes of teenage popsies with bared midriffs or whatever. But they're getting around in girl gangs and having a great time, instead of schlepping around after their boyfriends the way they used to. I think that's better.

    During the single visit to Mermaids that constitutes the whole of my research into the topic, I was fascinated by the young, slighty alternative couple sitting opposite us at the catwalk. They were having a whale of time; grinning, cheering, applauding. It was surprisingly unsleazy.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    My friend's wife insists that if he's going to go to the strips, then he has to give the dancers a LOT of money. Otherwise it's exploitation. Don't know whether it's the soundest argument, but he doesn't complain.

    I recall back when a smart confident young woman of my acquaintance went through an experimental, transgressive period of going to Showgirls with her student girlfriends, she explained to me that you had to buy a lapdance, because that was how the girls got paid.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • merc,

    "During the single visit to Mermaids that constitutes the whole of my research into the topic, I was fascinated by the young, slighty alternative couple sitting opposite us at the catwalk. They were having a whale of time; grinning, cheering, applauding. It was surprisingly unsleazy."
    That's because here on The Island http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Island_%282005_film%29, everyone is filmed, especially young, slightly alternative couples...

    Since Dec 2006 • 2471 posts Report Reply

  • Stephen Judd,

    I was fascinated by the young, slighty alternative couple sitting opposite us at the catwalk. They were having a whale of time; grinning, cheering, applauding. It was surprisingly unsleazy.

    Ah, but perhaps they were enjoying themselves _ironically__. It's so hard to tell these days.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 3122 posts Report Reply

  • Damian Christie,

    There definitely was a period of time when we went to strip clubs to be ironic. I think that was when they were sleazy places, and we weren't. I've never found anything erotic about strip clubs. Aesthetically pleasing yes, erotic no.

    I do recall being at one famous venue on K Road though, when a woman who must've been in her 60s came up and grabbed me inappropriately and said "Buy us a drink, love". The whole place was so dire that it was beyond irony.

    But these days I agree with Russell, I don't think it's ironic, or sleazy per se. It just, um, is?

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1164 posts Report Reply

  • Heather Gaye,

    Sexual exploitation is still alive and well - obviously young women are more repressed than ever they were, and have stupidly bought into all the brainwashing.

    I don't question the ongoing existence of sexual exploitation, but I don't agree with the tabloid alarmism. I think the problems that we have now are a kind of communal maturing - the rebellious teenage years of society, if you like. The existence of sexual exploitation has been acknowledged, but we're still not quite sure how to fix it.

    I think our current media/society saturated with sexualised images/entertainment isn't so much a symptom of sexual oppression any more, but a step in the attempt to resolve it. Society's pendulum swing - we're still trying to find that equilibrium between allowing people of all genders to express themselves as sexual beings, while extending gender equivalence to all the other areas that have previously discriminated.

    I don't know if that makes any sense or not.

    Morningside • Since Nov 2006 • 533 posts Report Reply

  • daleaway,

    I was a teenager in the 60s, a feminist in the 70s, and I'm plain heartsick at the position of women in the 2000s. Seems to me, from first hand experience, that young women command less respect from society now than they did 40 years ago, and are under hugely increased pressure to be consumers and display objects. Taint feminism that did that.

    The sexualised presentation of very young girls is a particularly new and distressing trend. Drat that Pink, writing "Stupid Girls" with the silly sweary bit in the middle so it couldn't be put on school curricula - girls need to hear its message. But then even calling them stupid is victim-blaming, they're just imitative and think this is the way to be successful, because that's what the TV and the mags and the music have told and shown them.

    Seems like for every piece of legal and social discrimination against women that we succeeded in dismantling - with tremendous effort - commercial and media pressures and plain old fashioned male chauvinism worked double hard to keep females seeing themselves as purchasable entertainment objects whose value lay in their ability to please men. And to turn "feminism" into a word to be ashamed of rather than proud of. How did we let some very grubby blokes pull this stunt on us? (I'm not talking about the nice ones, and there are plenty of those.... but not enough where it counts.)

    There's no such thing as post-feminism. Just backlash masculism, and underdogs buying in to the dominant culture.

    Since Jul 2007 • 198 posts Report Reply

First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 11 Newer→ Last

Post your response…

Please sign in using your Public Address credentials…

Login

You may also create an account or retrieve your password.