The question that arises every time I make my little foray into the underworld — the hidden, sinful, blatant, brazen world of sex and titillation — is whether this is objectification or the celebration of sex.
In the 1980s I felt liberated when I celebrated Madonna’s blatant sexuality, which challenged the boundaries of womanhood and feminism. It was the beginning of the age of the post-feminist, and it took me out of the grey, bleak world of meetings towards the goal of national democratic revolution.
Now I am all grown up, having acquired a beautiful husband, two children, a damn bond in the heart of the northern suburbs and, lastly, a BMW. I am fully assimilated into the normalcy of middle-class society.
Just before my 35th birthday, three years ago, a close friend and I drew up a list of things we would like to do before we turn 40. I’ve done the parachuting, sky diving, skiing, flirting, dancing lessons and … now number 16: ”visit a strip club”.
There we are, eight of us, more girls than boys. Clammy with tension, we enter the dimly lit night-club in a regular part of Rivonia.
Scantily dressed women walk around displaying outrageously beautiful bodies. They prance down the catwalk, slink sinuously around poles, bodies all sizes, spotless, totally hairless, absolutely no marks or scars. They all seem very young, but one of the dancers tells me that age is not a criteria. ”You have to have a pretty face, a good body and long hair,” she says.
I’m riveted. A woman sticks her naked crotch in some middle-aged man’s face. Then she spread-eagles her legs in the yoga position I have executed so often. I glide into a semi-daze. A particularly stunning woman sits down at our table. The make-up on her face is so thick it looks like it has been laid on with a trowel. She asks: ”Would you like a table dance?” It’s R100 for a table dance and R150 for a lap dance. Strippers can make up to R70 000 a month depending on their marketability.
A song starts up: ”Bounce baby out that door …” The dance routine begins, slowly the clothes come off, she just has her thong on. Then she is on all fours, stroking herself — she has incredibly long false nails. Then it is time for the boob thing. I get two rubbery, hardish boobs in my face. This is really strange for me. But now I know what silicone feels like. She smells of Body Mist oil or forest fern.
From private to public parts; PPPs of a very special type … the vagina-exposing routine begins. She puts her legs on either side of my shoulders. Initial shock courses through my body. What the hell am I doing here? Then curiosity takes over. I might as well have a good look.
I think: ”This is a pretty vagina, it looks like a rose.” I see labia, lots of folds of labia, majora, minora, a bald mound of venus, and a clitoris ring. ”Is that sore?” She shakes her head enigmatically. I had never seen a vagina so close. It is a thing of beauty, albeit having been tucked and trimmed.
Is the stripper a particular type of person, an exhibitionist, intensely deviant, or is she just economically driven? A Romanian stripper tells me: ”Romania is a very poor country. When I came here I was an office worker at a panel-beating shop.” She now earns loads of money. ”My husband will understand once I bring in the money.”
A young South African stripper says: ”I was a waitress, but now I can buy a house.”
It took me all week to unpack what I had seen. Michel Foucault, my new best guru, assisted me in large measure. And my husband sat through hours of my ramblings offering sanguine insights.
According to Foucault, society has since the Victorian age categorised behaviour into ”normal” and ”other” or ”abnormal”; and within that framework how we view sex and sexuality has been key to regulating our behaviour. And anything other than the centrifugal heterosexual movement is regarded as degenerate.
Sex, sanctified by the church, took place behind the closed doors of the married couple. This was a useful activity — after all, it was expected that they would beget, register their offspring, give them a surname, write a will, set up a trust and so on.
Exposing ones ”private parts” for monetary gain is outside of this norm and was, and still is, considered ”disgusting and dodgy”. Feminists and the left hide behind statements such as ”this is objectification of women”. But I believe they can’t think beyond their prudish and repressed mindsets. I indulged my senses, fantasies and the celebration of erotica.
For me it started with curiosity. I went in with an open mind and was bewildered at first. But I have come away believing the rest of you are missing out. Men indulge in forays into the world of sex and fantasy for some ”good, clean fun”. And the ”good girls”, where do they go? And the male strip clubs? Aha, my next foray.