Two Big Teases

I alluded Monday to the fact that one could crudely carve twentieth-century feminism into three phases that were, in rough chronological order, libertarian, leftist, and more or less post-structuralist (that is, refusing to accept any essentialist definitions). One cool move on the part of that third phase, annoying as its amorphousness can be, was the brilliant linguistic ploy of coining the term “sex worker” to cover everything from strippers to prostitutes, thus giving a moral/legal boost to the prostitutes by association, since pretty much everyone loves strippers — not just free-spirited liberals but plenty of Christians and of course our fightin’ men overseas.

Fightin’ men love strippers — strippers are one of the things that make us better than the Taliban (not to mention the Saudis, so uptight and totalitarian that they recently outlawed dog-walking because it might give members of the opposite sex the chance to meet and chat in public — this is the sort of thing that makes one think dog-walking is more universal than religion and stands a better chance of still being with us in a thousand years).

And speaking of the sex worker continuum:

1. In a few days, I’ll post a longer plug for the latest book by prostitute-turned-novelist Tracy Quan — and in the meantime, here’s an article about normal non-prostitute folk engaging in sex-for-goods barter of various kinds.

2. And here’s an alert that tomorrow night, Sept. 11, at 8pm, for $5 you can celebrate America with readings about and from sexually-frank humorist/poet/essayist Dorothy Parker, with one of the readers, Stephanie Sellars — herself now an actress in the online erotic series The Fold — playing Dorothy Parker (that’s at the Billiard Room of the Salmagundi Club, 47 Fifth Ave. between 11th and 12th St., RSVP to 212-255-7740 x4, dinner available at 5:30 before the 8pm reading). She’ll also be one of our combatants on the topic of modern sex at our Sept. 28 Debate at Lolita Bar.

P.S. Did you know Harpo Marx was a member of the Algonquin Roundtable as well? I know he spoke aloud, but it’s hard not to picture him tight-lipped, mugging, and honking a horn at everyone. Why is it only the killer cyborgs who get to master time travel?