No lie, you need to go alone and sober.
All I’m saying is that it makes me sad to see people where those are pretty much their only options. One can try to say “they made bad choices, so it’s their own fault,” but we seldom know what the conditions are under which those choices are made, and even so, there are few choices that are so bad that this end represents just desserts.
I also feel sad when people die of cancer in the prime of life (or even late in life). That doesn’t make me socialist or anti-american.
If there are ways to improve the situation that don’t involve setting up gulags and the abolition of private property and prison for thought-crimes, then it’s worth considering whether to implement these, but I don’t have an answer to all things that make me sad. That doesn’t mean one shouldn’t feel compassion at times, particularly those who consider themselves Christian.
Not saying that you’re wrong. Not saying that it’s not sad. And not saying that one shouldn’t feel compassion. But really, if you want to show your compassion for a stripper, probably the best thing you can do is buy a dance from her. Then she can use your money to better her life in whatever way seems best to her.
Makes me sad, yes. Because I can think of 20 different places I’d rather be, including at home playing video games lol
I read a short story when I lived in Brazil about a guy who walked the streets of Rio at night, picked up prostitutes, brought them back to his apartnement, and then - instead of sleeping with them - he taught them how to read and write. It was fiction, of course, but it was a different act of compassion than simply buying their services.
There was a great line in that story “ela era capaz de ser bonita,” or “she was (almost) capable of being pretty,” which just sticks in your head as an amazing description for many women like these: almost pretty, but something’s not quite right. In the story, it was a gap in her teeth (maybe like Madonna’s), plus the fact that she was a little bit run down.
A few months back, I was struck by a woman sitting across from me on the subway. One of these women where you couldn’t quite decide whether she was attractive or not. In a quick glance, she would catch your eye, but if you looked closer, something was just not quite right. It actually had that “uncanny valley” sensation, but this really was a human being. She caught me looking at her, and smiled back, and there was that awkward moment of “oh crap, I was not trying to pick up this woman, I was just curious about the vibe she gave off.”
She was reading this magazine, I think it was called Xtreme or something like that. And as she flipped though the pages, it looked like it had either nude or bikini-clad women in them. I was surprised that she was so brazenly flipping through the pages on the subway. It stuck in my mind and I went home and looked up the magazine on Google and it looked like it was a magazine targeted to strippers, where they must buy their costumes or something. In retrospect, it’s not surprising that the stripping industry wouldn’t have it’s own trade magazines, but it was still odd to encounter it.
I was talking to a client a few weeks later and somehow the topic of meth addiction came up. Apparently, large numbers of strippers are meth addicts (difficult to disentangle which is cause and which is effect here). But meth completely destroys your appearence after a while (I have a relative who I believe suffered from this). So I realized that this uncanny valley sensation I got from this woman was very likely the early stages of meth destruction, perhaps well-covered by make-up.
Ironically, I saw this same woman getting into the subway at 72nd street just last week. Perhaps that’s why the story is on my mind.
@BChad - Just FTR, I’m not trying to call you anti-American or socialist or anything else. I was just saying my friend was that way.
And I’m just trying to say that strippers are doing the same thing we’re all doing. This is the best that they can do in their current situation. (Just like me and just like you.) And the best thing to do, if you want to help them, is to buy their services. (Just like me and just like you. If you want to help me out, let me do your tax return and pay me for it.)
By doing this, you enable them to make the most out of their life. Maybe they’ll blow it on meth. Maybe they’ll go to college. Maybe they’ll pay for a house for their kids. And that’s no different than if you pay me to do a tax return. I might blow it on meth, too.
I was pretty sure it wasn’t a personal attack on me, but I do know that some people seem to feel that any twinge of compassion for others is just the first step towards socialism, gulags and all things unamerican.
I don’t think you’re in that camp, necessarily, but I wanted to be clear that feeling sad for someone and wondering if there’s anything one can do (either as an individual or as a society) is not the same as proposing the rollback of all personal freedoms.
Some people make a virtue out of not giving a cr@p about others, particularly in markets, where the ability to be Patrick Bateman-like about other people’s misfortune is highly useful to employers.
I heard you’re supposed to wear basketball shorts.
I do my part to support the industry. Many of these women have a short career span on top (pun intended).
Greenman - I would say the odds of you blowing my tax return money on meth in comparison to the odds of a stripper blowing my champagne room money on meth is pretty sad in itself. Then layer on to that the fact that stripping is slightly more demeaning than doing tax returns…
Sidenote: bchad, you seem like an interesting and thoughtful (as in you think things through) guy.
^ Don’t let the charade fool you. B-ga-chad is a racist bigot who hates on minorities, jews, arabs, blacks, no- top 2 mbas, and all non-cfas.
Sup B-ga-chad,
Can you direct me to a Gauleiter or Grand Dragon accepting CFAs?
Gauleiter: Regional Nazi Party Leader Grand Dragon: Area KKK Leader
Since so many racist posts originate from you, I figure you would know one of these creeps personally.
WTF?
When I said you and I were through, I never thought you’d stoop to this…
^ huh? When did CVM and bchad become enemies?
This is great on so many levels, especially since bchad is secretly black himself.
Link?
^ It was removed by none other than the all powerful almighty b-ga-chad himself. Go figure.
Exactly, the man writes his own history. We on AF are merely serfs supplying Chad, BGAChad, Itera and the other boardmember (whoever that is) with an amount of dopp kits the likes of which has never before been seen.
Are you accusing us of dopping??
I’m not sure what’s going on here, but did I tell you guys the story of my last trip to Portland? So, strip clubs in Portland are allowed to serve booze so everyone needs to be over 21. But, you only have to be 18 to dance. To get around this, there’s an actual law stating the girls under 21 have to be kept in a separate area and barred off from the rest of the crowd.
As you can imagine, this is awesome. The strip club owners put this law into great use. They put the youngest girls in - literally - cages in the corner. This has the effect of being able to zero in on the youngest dancers in the club.
Also, I hate strip clubs. Got dragged there by a coworker with low self-esteeem. I left after viewing the cages.
Don’t worry, CvM’s just stirring the pot a bit (I think!) and I’m playing along with the story about a lovers’ spat gone terribly, terribly wrong.