Dreamgirls and the Subjection of People Through Strip Clubs Revised and Expanded

For all of you Seattle folks, I imagine you are like me. You are sick and tired of seeing “Dreamgirls” signs atop taxi cabs all around the city. They shine at night, illuminating giant pink letters over the top of a platinum blonde’s open mouth. Or perhaps you see the brunette in leather, reclining seductively on some invisible cushion. Whichever it is, I hope that you, like me, are weary of seeing such blatant eroticism on display. As I move into my critique of this advertising campaign, I want to first be sure that I do not give into a very obvious androcentric temptation. Too quickly, people assault strip clubs as marriage breakers and places that tempt men. Oftentimes, the critique of strip clubs is focused on men and their perversion or infidelity as well as demonizing the women who work at such joints. Instead, I want to look at the women and the men as victims in order to move blame away from the participants and into a sick and demonic society.
Since I have never been to “Dreamgirls” or any strip club for that matter, I will simply launch my critique from the wording on the signs. Each sign reads with this:
“DREAMGIRLS: Seattle’s Newest Gentleman’s Club”
Let us break down this sign bit by bit.
First, to state the obvious, it is an ad for a place where there are nude or scantily clad women on display for men (or women) to observe. This place where women are displayed is immediately identified as a “Dream”. Dreams are places where events occur without any of your control. Anything can happen in a dream, and when you wake up, there are no consequences. It does not matter if you killed someone or if someone killed you; a dream has no real life ramifications. Thus, at first glance, this sign espouses a lie. It implies that your participation and visitation at the place will cause no damage or good. In fact, it separates the confines of the club from everything outside of it. Nothing, not your psyche, not your physical body, not your spirit, not your marriage, not your platonic relationships with women, not your relationship with your female relatives, will experience any ramifications from entering. Men receive a lie in order to tempt them into the club.
Men become the victims of a falsehood. If we ask them to be discerning, then they are truly being deceived. The club promises what it cannot give: nothing. This “nothing” includes sexual pleasure, but more importantly, it grants men a seat of power. As the ones to be entertained, they demand what they want to see. The women who supply it, offer only themselves to fill the demand. While it costs the man nothing more than money, it costs the women to become objectified commodities for male consumption. “Nothing” appears harmless, yet it promises everything! What does it promise? This is where the women come in.
Two contrasting gender titles jump off these signs: “GIRLS” and “man’”. Who is a girl? A girl is young; she is innocent; and she is a female. Who is a man? A man is established; he is older, perhaps 25 at the youngest; and he is a male. Add two adjectives, “DREAM”, which we already discussed, and “gentle” and the contrast goes even higher. While “dream” signifies inconsequential, wonderful mystery, “gentleman” connotes a grounded, pleasant, respectable person who earned such a title based on how he is. The men are flattered while the women are mislabeled. The sign creates an authoritarian relationship. As elder and respected, the “men” grasp power over the “girls”. “DREAMGIRLS” promises the men power at the expense of the women.
At a fundamental level, the men caricature the women. This adds to the lie. “Dream” comes across with a double meaning. Caricatured as a “Dream”, the connotation is one of perfection. The phrase carries the same undertones as one's “dream car”, “dream house”, or even “dream mate”. What does one want beyond all other things? The answer lies in the dream. The title “DREAMGIRLS” equates the women with desire, but the desire brings only external observation and fantasy. Their humanity is removed, and they become an object much like a car, house, or any other possession that sits loftily out of reach. No longer do the women act as humans; the fantasy of desire from “gentleman” has objectified them. Objectification leads to crimes much worse.
The power dynamic reveals itself through the language used: “men” and “girls”. One is subject; the other is object. The subject-object roles dehumanize the women who work there and empowers the men who watch. This brings into question the entire business model of the operation. The owners provide a commodity. These objects are perfect, inconsequential, fulfillment of desire. I believe it pertinent to note at this juncture that the language excludes a relationship between two consenting adults. The women represent the object of the subject's desire thus removing her volition in the exchange. The objectification permits a disparate level of power. Mainly, it removes power from the women (consider the upper-class sex-industry workers who have the freedom to choose their patrons in comparison to a pole-dancer who must endure the general public). The language reveals this removal of power. “Girls” are always subject to the power of “men”. “Gentlemen”, which implies some form of nobility, possess elevated, socially permitted power over “girls”.
In most societies, we forbid sexual encounters between men and girls. The girls are vulnerable and impotent to protect themselves from unwanted sex imposed upon them by men. Therefore, we cannot dance around the honest truth: the linguistic power dynamic of “DREAMGIRLS: Seattle's Newest Gentleman’s Club” encourages rape through the empowering of an already powerful group and the objectifying of women and their bodies. This is why it is tempered with “DREAM”. At “DREAMGIRLS”, one can rape girls without any consequences. The women are turned into young girls, and the men are encouraged to commit sexual acts with them all the while maintaining respectability and the women maintain innocence. Quite obviously, this is impossible. Problems arise when fantasy becomes reality, when men wake up from the dream and realize it was real. How do we solve the problem? How do we end a world with “DREAMGIRLS”?
We require a societal shift. Using the “DREAMGIRLS” signs, we can observe the norms. What strip clubs represent is a form of puritanical sexuality. They indicate what a culture believes sex should be like. Unfortunately, sex requires trust, vulnerability, and emotion. What would sex be like without these things? A strip club shows us. What does society want from sex? First, it wants no consequences. Second, and more importantly, it requires, from women, virginity and innocence. Of course, these women spend their days taking their clothes off. Such an expectation of them is impossible. That proves the point. The fantasy of society is virginal, young women having sex with aged, respectable men. This puts the power into men’s hands. This is the worst expectation of all. Society expects sex to derive from the power of men. It refuses female sexuality as autonomous and requires it to be subject of male sexual desires. At “Dreamgirls”, men are the adults, the strong, and the respected subjecting the young, innocent girls to their sexual fantasies. How do we change this?
Primarily, we need to remove virginity and innocence as the highest value for women. This should not be replaced with eroticism and sexual experience as the ideal. That would only cause the same problem. Instead, we need to equalize women and men. The high virtues for women should be respectability, accomplishment, establishment, etc. The same connotation of gentlemen should come into our minds when we think of great women. In this, we must liberate female sexuality. We cannot accomplish this by encouraging unfettered promiscuity. Instead, encouragement of men and women (this also applies to couple in same-sex relationships) to be in equitable sexual relationships needs to replace the power experienced by men and the submission of women. We must be empowered for each other rather than over one another. Also, we need to change the categories for men. Men who look for young, innocent women, whether it be for dating or for flings, need to be seen as what they are: predators. We can no longer equivocate sexual desire expressed through pure indulgence as anything other than violence against women. Sex cannot be seen as something to exert power in; rather it is an exercise between equals. In order to change male experience of sexuality, we must encourage men to step out from their experience into the sexual experience of women. I do not mean we should pay back men for their historic violence. We should educate men about how women feel and express sexual desire.
Ending the violence will mean men can no longer romanticize about pure, virginal women. That is violence. It gives no respect to women and their sexual desires. Such fantasy accomplishes the opposite of its intent: it rapes rather than respects. Moreover, we need to tell the “DREAMGIRLS” of the world that we do not want their misogyny. They can go fuck themselves. Maybe that will teach them the importance of sex between equals. Peace!

G-d Is Not a Woman, but We Can Call Her One

To all .25 people who might read this post, I am at my parents' house right now taking a much needed weekend from the intensity of Drift Creek Camp.  I hope all is well, and here is a reflection on some good conversations I had with people this past week.

A strange family works at Drift Creek Camp.  They live in a cultish familial community that engages very little with the larger Church and is very skeptical of those outside their own faith circle (imagine Westboro Baptist with less hate speech and funding).  They preach the typical fundamentalist line believing they follow the Bible and no one else does.  They do not cuss or talk about hot button issues. Moreover, they think the Church has "allowed" too many unsavory people into its realm.  What I found out rather quickly at camp is that I fit into their categories of heretical, sinful, and evil, although they might never say as much.  Oddly, we have quite a bit in common (no substances and disbelief in government); nevertheless, their style of belief and ministry has set me off.  I can hardly stand to be in their presence, and I hate that they get the opportunity to be around the campers.  Here is one topic we clashed on this week, and I am sure we will continue to clash on for the rest of the time I am there.

While the camp was at the beach, we were having fun and roasting marshmallows.  I raised my voice and asked, "Who invented Graham Crackers and why did she name them that?"  I saw, out of the corner of my eye, the man from the aforementioned family flinch, and he retorted, "What makes you think it was a woman who invented Graham Crackers?"  To which I responded, "Why would I assume it was a man who invented Graham Crackers?"  Honestly, his overt sexism looked about as assholey as his face since we were the only two males sitting around the fire.  Quickly, the conversation devolved into an argument over gender roles during which time I kicked the shit out of him (intellectually), and proceeded to yell at him and patriarchy in general.

I am no moderate when it comes to these situations.  If anything I am a raging liberal who could give a shit what the moderates have to say.  I am so sick of male-dominated systems.  When we talk of them, one looming problem looks us all straight in the face: everyone almost always refers to G-d with masculine pronouns.  This is an interesting dilemma, and I wish to address it here.

Is G-d a woman?  The obvious answer is "Absolutely not."  G-d does not have a sex.  G-d transcends such basic human definitions.  If G-d did not transcend sex, Genesis 1 would be entirely discredited, and I am not ready to do that.  Why then, do we refer to G-d with the gendered "he"?  Elizabeth Johnson gives an extensive argument concerning this topic in her book "She Who Is", but I do not have the time nor the energy to deal with her arguments.  Instead, I can say this.

For thousands of years, humanity has lived in a patriarchal system.  Women were considered property, sub-human, evil, incompetent, and various others deplorable things.  As such, anytime anything intelligent or important occurred, the credit was given to men.  Any unknown subject was masculinated since clearly a woman could hardly be credited with accomplishing something worthwhile.  Doing this means humans made the masculine normative.  That is to say men became the standard by which everything else was measured.  G-d received masculine titles because maleness was considered to be higher than femaleness.  The masculine was above all else.

This has gone on in our cultural collective consciousness for thousands upon thousands of years.  The effect on us is daunting.  What we now know, however, is that women are not property.  They are as equally as capable as men are at leading churches, corporations, countries, families, non-profits, and other activities.  Physically, they have a different shape but are made up of the same tissue and cells that men are.  If we know that maleness can no longer be normative since we have found women to be equally as capable as men and therefore equally as able to represent the standard by which humans should be measured, what does that tell us about G-d?  No longer are we able to refer to G-d exclusively in the masculine.  What is normative has changed.  Our theology must change as well.  For thousands of years we have called G-d "he".  In order to undo the male-dominance, the belief that the man is the norm, we must begin to refer to G-d as "she".  A gender-neutral phrase is not good enough.  It will only excuse patriarchy rather than confront it.  We need to hold patriarchy accountable.

By beginning to refer to G-d in the feminine, we look patriarchy in the eye and say, "No more."  This practice actively seeks to liberate the female and male consciousness that has, for thousands of years, subsumed the feminie to a status below the masculine.  Hence, even thought G-d is not a woman, we can call Her one as a way to confront and move beyond the pain and sin of patriarchy.  I hope you will join me in this work.  Peace!

-ben adam

Mennonites, Pacifism, and Patriarchy

One of the reasons I decided to join the Mennonite Church was its emphasis on peaceableness.  More than the Evangelical Friends Church which I grew up in who focus on traditional evangelism which relies more on apologetics than action, the Mennonites have created many programs, books, curriculum, and everyday opportunities for its members to actively engage in peaceable and nonviolent activity.  Mennonite Central Committee, Mennonite Conciliation Services, International Conciliation Services, and Christian Peacemaker Teams, to name the major arms of Mennonite peacemaking, can be found all over the world working to disseminate violence, oppression, and injustice in a variety of ways.  I thank G-d for this, and in no way do I want this to end.  Nevertheless, I am dissatisfied with it, and here is why.

When I first learned about the early Anabaptists, they mystified me.  At the time, and still currently, I believed strongly that Christians need external identifying markers which display whose kingdom they belong to.  Logically, these markers would be simple dress, plain living, loving attitude toward all people, operational practices of forgiveness, and dissension toward the state.  The Anabaptists fit this mold perfectly, and the Mennonites are the direct descendants of the Anabaptists.  Naturally, for reasons that just the above, I joined them.  I partook in their practice of adult baptism.  In two days I leave to work with Christian Peacemaker Teams, and I have applied to work as a pastor in the Mennonite Church.  I have become a decent Mennonite in my own estimation, yet the baggage that comes with committing oneself to the Church (and it is the reason why I believe people need to be in Church) is the onus of responsibility for those within the Church.  Thus, for example, whether we like it or not, the Catholic priest scandal effects us, and we are responsible for them.  I am responsible for the Mennonite Church.  This is the problem I see.

The early Anabaptists were killed in droves.  Their martyrdom resulted from the incendiary practices I mentioned above.  They lived in the middle of Christendom where "everyone" was a Christian, yet they claimed with reckless abandon that Christian faith could not be so oppressive, violent, and extravagant.  Following G-d meant forgiveness, peace, and simplicity.  Moreover, it meant G-d and G-d alone is the ruler of the world.  Therefore, in there system of princes, barons, and Holy Roman Emperors, only G-d's rule mattered.  Essentially, Anabaptists declared the state illegitimate, and since the state does not bear the sword for nothing, they were massacred.  Since they believed G-d ruled the whole world, G-d loved even those who put the Anabaptists to death.  Their commitment to nonviolence spawned from their belief in G-d's overarching sovereignty and love.  This came along with simple living, distinctive dress, and many other practices which now seem all but forgotten by all descendants of the Anabaptists except the Amish.  In short, the Mennonite practice of peaceableness was salvaged from Anabaptism and elevated into our consciousness as the distinctive Mennonite and Christian practice.

Why has pacifism become the defining belief of Mennonites?  Why is our insistence on believer's baptism, simple living, radical dissension toward the state, and forgiveness no longer causing the waves they once did?  These are the questions of a somewhat dissatisfied Mennonite who joined the Mennonite Church expecting one thing and finding another.  I am going to attempt to answer the first as a way toward the other.

When the Anabaptists suffered massive amounts of persecution under the hand of German princes and other feudal lords, they became more and more sectarian as they became persecuted out of society.  They kept to themselves and lived in simple ways upon the land.  They earned the nickname "The Quiet in the Land".  They worshiped and lived without much interaction or association with the outside world they found to be sinful and corrupt.  In the early 20th century, with the advent of World War I leading World War II, the question of patriotism and commitment to a government deeply entrenched in conflict was at the tip of everyone's tongue.  Mennonites, who dared not pledge their allegiance to a flag or recite the national anthem, became a scourge in the eyes of the war-driven nation.  The draft ripped "The Quiet in the Land" from their homes and coerced them into serving in various capacities.  Suddenly, the Mennonites were no longer able to keep quiet and to themselves.  Engagement with the violent infant empire became necessary.

Many men returned from their conscripted service changed.  They brought back a new perspective, and the Mennonite emphasis on peaceableness no longer remained under the shackles of inaction.  Pacifism grew into nonviolent direct action against those who oppress others with the sword.  Requisite in this new perspective was a greater interaction with those outside Mennonite circles.  Consequently, Mennonites compromised their own distinctive practices in order to become peacemakers.  The Vietnam War only exacerbated the issue.  As young men faced a draft once more, they came into a head-on collision the possibility of being forced to fight and kill other people in the name of a country attempting to usurp the throne of G-d.  The Mennonite's refusal to do this centralized pacifism as Mennonite distinctiveness.  To be Mennonite meant pacifism. 

The reason Mennonite equaled Christian pacifist did not derive from a holistic Church experience.  It derived from men's fear of being drafted.  In a way, men have been the sole producers of Mennonite belief.  Peacemaking and pacifism came into the forefront from male experience.  Peacemaking is not bad, but we have thus far let it override our original ideals.  I believe if we look closely, it might even infringe on what women would like to see in the Church.  Certainly, many Mennonite women I know affirm peacemaking, but could they in fact have their own experiences to contribute to the discussion that would help us be G-d's people in the world beyond simply peaceable activity?  Perhaps, with a reduced patriarchy we could recuperate some of our original distinctiveness, or perhaps, we could claim new practices rooted out of the controversial belief that G-d is sovereign and loving.  I do not want the end of peacemaking, but I do want the input of female voices.  Up until now, male voices have drowned out all others with a cry for peace.  The cost has been a loss of identity and a confusion as to who peace is made for.  I believe it is possible for us to become the Mennonites, not of old, but of new without forsaking our roots.  Have we forsaken them?  Maybe not yet, but soon, they will be all but forgotten.  I pray we can once again be the persecuted faithful trying to spread G-d's love in the world.  Peace!