Posts
King of Prussia Mall Rejects Sex-Positive Woman Owned Business
This is admittedly one of those "signal boot" posts that's largely to promote another blogger's post and petition. But...I think it's for a good cause, so I'll inflict it on my small but diligent readership.
People who know me know that I don't tend to knee-jerk on sex discrimination issues. I'm not one of those guys who is out to prove how sensitive he is by endorsing every wild claim of sex-discrimination out there, no matter how stupid or unreasonable. I tend to look with a fairly harsh eye. But this seemed ludicrous to me.
On the other hand, I realize that promoting woman-positive concerns may seem at odds with the sometimes stiflingly phallocentric atmosphere of male Dom-Domdom. That I may be compromising my reputation as a soul-crushing bastard who regards women only as sex objects, suitable to be chattel dominated by the powerful male ego...errr...hmm...what century are we in? I don't even believe in Hell, but I think there must be a special Hell for those who insist on inflicting their personal power dynamics on the structure of Society. Isn't that the problem with organized Religion? And...honestly...we're all clear that that M/s is n't about subjugation of women, but is about than an exchange of power/authority between adults? Right?
...sorry..
/rant off..
I do have personal feelings about the issue...and I'll throw in a funny story below so this post has content. But first...
Petition: http://www.petitiononline.com/fembout/petition.html
Blog: http://sexologist.tumblr.com/ A Day in the Life of a Sexologist
Jill McDevitt is a young and sassy sexologist, sex columnist, public speaker, entertainer, and entrepreneur with a love of pushing the envelope. She has her Bachelor's degree in Sexuality, Marriage, and Family and is a Ph.D. student in Human Sexuality Education. She founded Feminique Boutique, a sexuality shop for women located in West Chester, at just 22 years old.
She is a sex-positivist and believes that sex should be fun and pleasure is good for you!
Begin...funny story..."My Dead Mother's Lingerie"
I have a family interest in the functioning of small boutiques and lingerie stores...and issues with them selling naughty things and local communities not responding well. My mother went broke trying to bring a bit of feminininty to a small southern City that just wasn't ready for it...
A while back when I began dating J., we were also clearing out my mother's house and estate for final sale. My mother was well known and was very friendly with lovers, submissives, etc. One of our last family dinners was me and my submissive of the time, and S. and her submissive.
I toldJ. that she really should go through Mom's lingerie. I did confess it had been picked over, and a number of other people had gone through it.
J. knew a lot about Mom from hearing people talk. She knew that Mom had a bit of a shopping fetish and hit the mall whenever she could afford to, which wasn't all that often. She knew Mom had owned a store that failed.
One particular night at the house, I really pushed this. I pointed out bins that were being amassed for donation or sales. "Take a look at those stockings...they're all still in blister packs."
J. was just what seemed to me unreasonably resistant. It was a new relationship and I let it go. She said she really didn't do lingerie and...I'd known the issue. Girls with previous boyfriends that obsessed about it and gave them a skeevy vibe about it so they just couldn't be okay with it. I stressed that this wasn't Fredericks of Hollywood stuff...this was really nice lingerie, some top name brands. I'd been with Mom when she bought it...
About a week and a half later...in the middle of a conversation either S. or m. mentioned Mom's lingerie business...
J.'s eyes got big...
"You mean Mom owned a...lingerie store?"
I looked at her puzzled. "Of course...you knew that...you were over at the house I was trying to get you to go through the stock to see if there was anything you wanted."
J.'s jaw dropped...
My jaw dropped...
"Uhm....you thought I was trying to get you to take my dead mother's personal...lingerie...and put it on your body...that was the stock of Carolynn's Uptown..."
To say I felt embarrassed and sort of like an idiot would be an understatement. At this point I wasn't clear why she was still dating me. I wouldn't still be dating me. The short story is I seemed like a decent bastardly guy in all other respects, and she'd just sort of written that one quirk out to "weird guy behavior" I think. She may have thought I was deranged by grief on that one thing...or that I was...being a boy.
In any case...we had...a rather hysterical laugh about it. In retrospect it made sense. It is one of those sit-com things where I just hadn't given her enough information to connect the dots. Everyone else knew that lingerie was the family business, but nobody had ever said that to J. Ever...
That when I said "I was with mom when she bought it" I meant "I went with her on the buying trip to New York to the Trade Show," not "I went shopping with my mother for her intimates."
It happened J. didn't know what a "blister pack" was and hadn't really wanted to ask. I wasn't even using the term correctly it really wasn't blister packaging it was just a plastic wrap. But...it wasn't a topic she wanted to think about.
Just last week after piling it in a room for a year or so, we sorted through the Stock. It looks like most of it will go to "classy secondhand boutique" storefront in Baltimore being set up to benefit House of Ruth.
J. helped and took a few nice pieces for herself.
