From: Miss Misanthrope
To: embittered@catharticlament.com
Hello.
I am frustrated by my inability to express my disappointment with your website. I want so very badly to convey to you the horror that's washed over me while reading what you've written, but I'm afraid that I'm just at a loss...and ordinarilly, I pride myself in my ability to communicate!!
What HAPPENED to you? How could you have come to have such hateful feelings for women in general? I don't even think that your contempt is limited to strippers...I think it honestly extends to the vast lot of us.
Initially I opened this e-mail so that I could TRY to win you over with plain, intellectual arguments against your case. I was going to bludgeon you with my anger and resentment against what you've said in a cold, shrewish fashion, and I probably would have attacked your entire sex. I've decided against it. You're obviously an intelligent person and you would have either seen through such an attack, or you would have considered it justification from some slut's guilty conscience. Instead I'm just going to tell you that it actually causes me PAIN to read what you've written, and try to make you understand why it hurts to see such things.
I'm sure that because I am a girl, AND because I am a stripper, I am biased in favor of these people. Before ever hoisting myself up on a pole, I had always assumed that to be stripper was the ultimate taboo for a woman. Women are held to to such unrelenting standards by every society on the planet. Our entire existence is carefully crafted to PLEASE men. We must be suited to men in our manner, in our mind, and in our body. We must walk a fine line between propriety and sexuallity. A woman that is unattractive is the object of contempt from men and women alike, and the same is true for a woman that is too attractive. We must appear to be innocent and virginal, while managing to amass enough cynicism to be wary of nearly every man's ulterior motive: to get us in bed. We must also be clever enough to mask that cynicism, lest men consider us jaded, (which every fourteen year old girl is toward men by the time the first boy lies about her letting him cop a feel.) A girl that is genuinely as "pure" as the driven snow is a mark for all male predators, and is sure to suffer a devastating heartbreak at the hands of one of these animalistic monsters. To me, a woman that willingly choses to hurl away these "virtues" that were imposed on her by society was the ultimate Joan of Ark. This woman was brave, unafraid, and quite truly a pioneer. It seemed that if women are compelled to be the unwilling recipients of society's forced objectification, then to turn this plight into a lucrative buisness endeavor is the best way to capitalize on our position.
I am so sorry that you've had so many bad experiences with strippers. In all fairness, I don't doubt that there are a vast amount of less-then-wholesome ladies lurking in dark clubs,
But please remember that there's also a fair share of regular girls just doing a regular old job.
Please don't propagate an ugly prejudice against us any further.
It truly is painful for me to look at.
Please write back to me. Please openly consider what I've said.
I hope that I've expressed myself respectfully and scrupulously, and I hope that you don't resent my taking of such liberties.
I hope to hear from you soon.
First off, that was greatly handled and well-written. Normally when I get E-mail from women it's quick and to the point of me being a piece of shit, but this one deserves some attention.
What's funny is the answer to your question of what's wrong with me was just discussed between D- and I a couple hours ago. I'd told him that I was kinda talking to this new chick, 26, paralegal (non-dancer) who has her shit together and he'd gotten mad at me because I told him I wasn't really interested in her. He then proceeded to take me down memory lane and explain to me that every one of my ex-stripper girlfriends really had nothing going for them and that they were essentially worthless in terms someone to be with forever.
Ya know, either they were drunks, drug addicts, no aspirations of getting off the pole, hadn't finished high-school or nuttier than squirrel shit. Sometimes they were all of those, actually. But, why I develop feelings and try to better these stripping beasts is not your question. Yourself, D-, my mother and many others wonder why I am the way I am, so what better time than now to divulge the entire truth.
This might be shocking to you, but I'm actually one the best mates a woman could possibly have, and I state this without much ego. I rarely, and I mean rarely, lie because I have nothing I'm frightened about people knowing of me. I don't cheat, always put my girl first in terms of being thoughtful, cuddle, give her orgasms up the ass (sometimes literally) and I show her more attention than anyone else on the planet. I hold hands, give massages and even suck toes. If she has a nice ass, I'll absolutely rim her up daily. Plus I make a decent living and probably spend too much money on whoever my girlfriend is at the time. All in all, I kinda kick ass. Christ, I don't even watch sports or have 'guys night out.' Just those two alone make me prime mating material.
Momentarily digressing, I have this belief that everyone in life has a passion; a driving force that makes them awaken to their usually shitty day. Even homeless people have passions and it's why the word 'lazy' exists. Serial killers have passion: they love to kill. Every millionaire on the planet has a passion and it's called a $1 bill they like to collect.
Everyone has a passion in their life, and mine is really simple: I want to fall in love, get married and perhaps create a little person with my love. I've had this passion ever since I was twenty years of age, and my goals would seem very attainable since they're so 1950s, but guess what I've gotten over the last 13 years instead of my passion?
I got screamed at for hugging another dancer goodbye. Coffee mugs thrown into my ribs. Slaps in the face. Kicks in the balls. I got punched in the face while driving 60mph on the freeway. Chased around my apartment by a woman wielding a knife trying to stab me. My knife in my apartment! Suicide attempts; one tried to cut her wrists in front of me, and another swallowed a bunch of pills because I apparently made her feel like she was nothing.
One stripper claimed she loved me and wanted to get married and have a child. Hey, good news for me, right? Wrong! A week after she realized she was pregnant, she scheduled an abortion. I sat there with her while she had a fetus---we'd basically planned---get sucked out of her. I even held her hand and held back my own tears. Two days before the abortion, she'd asked, "When are you going to ask me to marry you?" I don't know if you realize it or not, but that's crazy-people talk.
Another stripper beat the shit out of me for months until I finally started hitting back. Few months later, one night she realized I was leaving her for good, she called the cops on me. I sat in jail for 6 months, of course, the cops/judge didn't want to hear about all the abuse I'd endured, verbal and physical.
One stripper wanted me exclusively. I knew she was crazy because her rape had fucked her up in the head for life, so I couldn't commit. Then she tried fucking my friend to get back at me, then she stalked me and made my life at the club I was working at a living hell . . . and I got through all this without drugs or psychiatric care. All the verbal and physical abuse is shitty, but it's nothing compared to the mental abuse, which is the hardest to shake off.
Here's a good one. A different ex-stripper girlfriend of mine had come home from work fairly intoxicated. I was rather disgusted by her so I'd been distant that evening. She wanted to fuck, I jilted her. I'd leave the room, she'd follow, screaming and slapping me. I'd calm her down, she'd erupt again. For 8 hours straight she fought with me; 8 fucking hours of trying to calm a neurotic, coked-out alcoholic who threw lamps and cell phones at me and beat me up. She wouldn't leave! I tried getting her outta my house, believe me.
At 3 in the morning I'd run out of cigarettes. I managed to get out of the house with enough mental complacency that she wouldn't start a fire or something while I was gone. I got in my car, called D- and started balling my fucking eyes out. I cried to him for what seemed a short eternity because this woman had emotionally tore me down in 8 hours, and that's just a single incident with this particular stripper. I dated her for 10 months. Imagine.
It's important that you understand one thing after I just admitted accurate information about all these women: at one point during the relationships I actually thought I'd get my passion in life. Somewhere between 5 and 7 times this has happened/failed for me. Don't be fooled; they saw 'forever' in my eyes as well; just couldn't handle the responsibility.
So is every stripper in the world a piece of shit? No. I apologize for generalizing when I get off on one of my rants, but if the strippers I'm talking about aren't you, one shouldn't get uppity. I'm just sad that the most important thing in life to me hasn't happened yet when it should have, and the bottom line is that every single one of these strippers had an obligation while in a relationship with me, and that obligation was to not fuck with my heart, time, money, energy, but most importantly my passion.
Don't fuck with my passion. The only solace I take is that I know it's nothing I really did or didn't do; they were fucked before I met them.
One's advice to me at this point would probably be, "Hey, stop dating strippers." Well thanks. I hadn't thought of that, genius. It's hard, though. Women naturally/instinctively have difficulty trusting men because we're all supposed pigs, therefore a woman outside of the industry dating a man who works in it would have to have supernatural faith in a man---good luck finding her, because it's automatically assumed that I'm fucking the dancers/cheat on a non-stripper simply because I work around camel-toed, cock-grinding, swindlers who stigmatically spread their legs for a man without knowing his last name.
I know it's not much defense on text, but some of us don't do that, and I'm fuckin' tired of being treated like a 2-week paperboy by a college girl who doesn't know jack shit about me other than WHERE I work.
Time will sort my problems, though. Right now, I'm fucked, but I don't lose hope and I have faith that one day unadulterated love will enter my life . . . And once it does I'll know she was worth the wait.
Z.
ADDENDUM:
". . . there is no way I would have known but now that I do know, everything you have gone through sucks. When I first found the site, I also wondered why you were so bitter. I confess even though it amused me, it also made me feel like shit. Because deep down somewhere I know there has been a time or two that I fit that general description. Yet I continued to laugh and take part in the forum because I can laugh at myself. However in between laughs it helped me evaluate myself and I didn't like the person that I had become.
So, my point is that while some people think that you suck and your posts suck, I think you rock! As I said before, you amuse me. And if your posts didn't apply to me I would laugh because I know people they do apply to. And if they do I guess I will laugh at myself instead of being in denial and send you emails about how much you suck when in actuality, I am the one that sucks. I am sorry you have endured all that. I see now you are just disappointed. And it's okay to rant. Rant on! I love it! I also admire the way you responded to her email. You do have some sense and you're not a dick ALL the time! You're right, that email was well written and deserved a response. Good job.
And don't make fun of my email and laugh at me. I just want you to know that you've helped me. And in some strange way I thank you for damaging my self esteem. And as clever and as cool as you are you will find someone. But don't be like women who get beat by their boyfriends in the respect that you don't think you deserve better and keep settling for shit. And once I get off the pole if you haven't found anyone to settle down with I will marry you! :0)~"
Thanks, Angeleyes. Very much appreciated.