Fleshdance
Jan. 29 – Feb. 4, 1988 – San
Jose Metro
by Jim Wake
I t’s a bright and clear Saturday afternoon, the kind of day
to walk through the hills or visit the beach, not the kind of day to spend
inside the cinderblock walls of the Bachelor Club. Just the same, five men have
just paid $5 to get inside. I push my way past the curtain that blocks the sun from
the interior of this little room on South First Street. A dozen small square
tables are scattered about, with only a few more chairs than tables. A mirror
ball sends shards of light throughout the darkened club. The low light, though,
cannot conceal its shabbiness. None of the men sitting alone at the tables look
particularly happy or well-adjusted. On a screen above a small stage, triple
X-rated videos are shown. The sound has been turned off and the stereo blasts
R&B and disco. V., an attractive black woman, slides from the dressing room
near the stage and begins dancing.
She's down to the minimum -- the skimpiest of tops and a
triangular patch of satin tied around her crotch. First she dances for a man
near the stage. She passes by me and moves towards an awkward-looking man who
has been sitting against the wall trying to look disinterested.
V. dances for him with labored enthusiasm. She leans over
him so that if either moves, they will touch, and then she backs away. The man
grins and slips a folded bill into her bra. She grabs a chair, raises a leg
onto its seat and shakes her bottom within a few inches of the man`s nose. When
she turns back, she is smiling at him. He folds another greenback and stuffs it
into her G-string.
V. offers up a few pelvic thrusts, approaches the man one
last time and leans over so that his face is between her breasts. She dances
like this for perhaps ten seconds, then backs away. The customer grins a smug,
lecherous smile as he slips one last bill into her bra.
Who is this man? What is he thinking and why is he here? Is
he married? Does he have children? Can he possibly have a normal sex life and
still find enjoyment in this strange game he plays with a nearly naked woman?
These are some questions I don’t dare ask the patrons at the Bachelor Club.
And V.? She's articulate and
bright-a 28-year-old mother of five, with three years of college and several
years of experience in the health care field behind her. She's married to an
unemployed welder, and the family has just recently moved from Los Angeles.
They are completely broke and living in a shelter in Santa Clara. Working at
the Bachelor Club provides quick cash.
But it’s not just the money; after all, she could always
work as a waitress or in health care. And one need only talk with her for a
minute to know that she's capable of holding a different job if she wants.
Before LA, where she danced topless, she performed naked in
San Diego, in a booth with a glass divider to separate her from the patrons.
The two sides were connected by a telephone, which the viewer would use to make
his requests.
“That was the worst," says V. “l learned a lot about
sex -- my own sexuality and what turns guys on. But it made sex seem
disgusting. They would ask me to masturbate or stick things up my ass or act
like a little girl."
Her voice fades off.
“Think about this," says Harriet Koskoff, who has spent
much of the past five years studying the pornography issue and putting together
a documentary film on the subject.
"What passes for entertainment in our society never
ceases to fascinate me, This is legitimate entertainment.
"It intrigues me to no end that this goes on and you
have all this tremendous eruption on all sides about whether or not it’s
legitimate, whether it should be permitted, whether it's protected expression,
whether we should condemn it."
It’s an issue that won't go away -- ever. Earlier in the
century, there was Women in Love. And
Tropic Of Cancer. Then Howl and Lolita. They were banned when they appeared, but are all available
now and seem quite tame by today’s standards.
In the ’60s, there were topless bathing suits, topless
waitresses and Carol Doda at the Condor.
Then came pubic hair, scratch
and sniff and close-ups of aroused male and female genitalia. And in 1970 a
Pornography Commission report virtually recommended against legal restrictions
on pornographic materials (President Nixon rejected its recommendations).
In 1973, both the legality of pornography and the public's
right to regulate it were affirmed in a Supreme Court decision that established
the "community standards" rule. The “Miller Rule”, as it is called,
specified three standards for determining when the censorship or regulation of
obscene materials would be permitted: when a work depicts sexual conduct, specifically
defined by state law, in 2 “patently offensive manner;" when a work lacks
“serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value;" and when the
work as a whole, applying “contemporary community standards. . .apeals to prurient
interests."
Although this rather vague rule was intended to give
communities the authority to exclude pornography it has, in effect, protected
the porn industry from intrusive crusaders. If a community objects to pornography
in its midst, it can take action, but if the community tolerates Debbie Does Dallas, that more or less establishes
the community standard.
Now the controversy is once again becoming a public issue in
San Jose. The city's low-key porn district is in danger of being zoned out of existence
by an “Anti-Skid Row" measure backed by Mayor Tom McEnery and Councilwoman
Susan Hammer. Meanwhile, another political drama is attracting attention and
snickers from the press and the public.
Like many other downtown businesses, the Bachelor Club, two
adult bookstores and the two adult movie houses clustered near the intersection
South First Street and San Salvador have all suffered sharp drops in business
along with the inevitable disruptions of a redeveloping downtown. So, when the
city offered a rent subsidy program to downtown businesses to help them through
lean times, the owners of the Pussycat Theater, the Pink Cat Theater and the
Sex Shop Arcade figured that meant them, too. City leaders don't see it that way.
"l don't care what kinds of books are being sold on the shelves of these
stores," says Mayor McEnery “’‘m just concerned about the crime that
results from these kinds of establishments when they are concentrated in one
place. We’ve already seen what happens -- with crime and prostitution and drug
use and all of that. We managed to clean it up with the help of the people in
the neighborhood. So now we're dealing with it as a land use issue."
McEnery says that his position on the subsidy issue has been
misinterpreted. "I'd like to see these businesses come forward,” he says
with ample sarcasm. "Let them show us what good they are bringing to the
downtown area. If they can demonstrate that they are serving the public, why
we'll consider their applications like any other business."
Perhaps Councilwoman Lu Ryden has taken the most unusual
position. "I'm a vocal opponent of subsidies," she says firmly “I'm
not prepared to give them one red cent. lf it means that we have to go to
court, and possibly lose, I have to leave that up to the council. These
businesses pay taxes like other businesses, but the very prominent difference
between them is the number of arrests.
“I talked with one police officer who has made over 200
arrests in one year. For lewd acts, indecent exposure, things that you don't
mention in a family newspaper. Now, when that many arrests are made at a business,
whether it's a pornographic bookstore or any other, I don't want to subsidize
it.
“My main point in this is why, on the one hand, spend
thousands of dollars in our police department enforcing the laws brought about
by these businesses operating in the city, and then, on the other hand, give
them money to operate? It doesn't make good fiscal sense.
“My personal
opinion is that they don't belong in San Jose or any other town," says
Ryden.
So Ryden must be supporting McEnery and Hammers drive to disperse
the smut peddlers with a new city ordinance, right? Wrong.
"These are adult businesses -- they’re all going to
stay in business. If they’re going to be anywhere, it should be downtown. I
don't want them in the neighborhoods."
Stanley Fleischman, the Los Angeles lawyer representing the
Pussycat Theater, promises a lawsuit if the city takes action against his
client, or if his client’s request for a subsidy is denied.
“There are a lot of adult zoning ordinances around the
country. Some of them have withstood constitutional attack and some have
not," he explains. “But basically it’s my view that, unless they can prove
that the people who attend our theater are anything other than the same kind of
person who would attend the other theaters or attend a bar or anything else,
it’s discriminatory and in violation of First Amendment rights to try and zone
us out and not the others.
"lf they want to zone out all theaters, that's one
thing. But to make a distinction between another theater and an adult theater,
they have to demonstrate that there's something that goes on in the theater or
out of the operation of the theater that creates a substantial problem -- that
these are people who jam the street and keep traffic from flowing or whatever
other zoning consideration you might have. I don't think they can do that. I
think that it's all based on prejudice and dislike for the films, and not based
on fact.”
As for the subsidies, Fleischman says, “lf the city is
acknowledging that it is injuring businesses in the area and, in recognition of
the injury, is making compensation, then it would obviously be in violation of
equal protection to single out somebody they don’t like because of the content
of the film."
The Pink Poodle is just outside the city limits of San Jose
on Bascom Avenue, in the shadow of the huge Western Alliance sign on San
Carlos. It costs $8 to get in the door. In comparison with the spartan Bachelor
Club, this is a classy place. It's clean, and done up in red and black. A
raised stage and a long runway are surrounded by a counter where men sit
drinking coolers and near beer. State and county legislation has prevented the
Poodle from mixing alcohol with nudity.
The men at the counter don't look especially demented -- just
slightly so. They range in age from their early 20s to their mid-50s, but most
are probably in their 30s. Many, probably are married. Most are well-dressed
and well-groomed, and decidedly macho in their projected persona. Among the
crowd are foreign faces; the faces of Middle Eastern students and Far Eastern
businessmen. The counter and the stage are separated from each other by a
Plexiglas barrier which extends to just a little above eye level. "
After a few minutes, the same large black man who has been
working the door announces, “Please welcome back, the very bea-u-tiful … Tiffany!"
Tiffany struts out onto the stage wearing only a flimsy unbuttoned top which
she removes as she bumps and grinds and writhes and rolls her body around the
stage and the runway Her act consists mostly of crawling up and down the
runway, stopping in front of the men and spreading het legs as wide as she can
manage so that she can best expose her crotch.
Some of the men crook their necks at odd angles to get a
better look. At intervals, Tiffany cups one of her breasts, or touches herself
and licks her finger. But she is not smiling and seems genuinely put off by the
entire ritual. Despite the fact that she is manipulating her genitals, she
seems detached and uninvolved in what is happening to her body When the song
ends, the announcer calls out, “Let's hear it for … Tiffany!" She
acknowledges the applause as she gathers in dollar bills offered by the patrons.
Tiffany departs, and a few minutes later the master of
ceremonies is once again announcing, "Let's welcome back the very beautiful
… Felicia!" Felicia is a slim Asian woman with engaging dark eyes. Her
performance differs little from Tiffany's.
Later, when Felicia and Tiffany take a break, the show
continues with the very beautiful Toni -- tall, young, slender and flirtatious --
and the very beautiful Natalie, the crowd favorite who dances to
"California Girls" and has the kind of powerful, well-formed body
that only comes from diligently pumping iron. These two women, at least, seem
to be enjoying themselves.
"When you're hot, you're hot," says the announcer.
“If you don't like that, we're all in trouble," he bellows like a broken
record at the conclusion of each performance.
The spectacle is offensive to many women. “It’s worse than
prostitution," remarks a friend when she hears a description. “At least
there it's a contractual arrangement between one man and one woman. Whatever
they agree to, they can do in private."
But when you talk to Pete Kuzinich, the Pink Poodle’s owner,
he defends his right to run his club the way he wants. “Why shouldn't a man
have the right to come in here and look at a pretty girl if he wants to? And if
you talk about the exploitation of women -- it's all over the place. From the
first soap opera on TV in the morning until Dynasty. It's hypocrisy for them to
single out my club."
He also dismisses the common argument that pornography
incites sexual violence. “It's not proven," he says. About that, Kuzinich
is correct.
Once the Meese Commission's biased finding is dismissed, the
research into a correlation between pornography and violence remains
inconclusive.
Still, many would agree that most pornography degrades and objectifies
women, and reduces the essence of a meaningful relationship between men and
women to the act of anatomical union. That cannot have much of a positive
impact on society. But are women the real victims? After all, they expose
themselves to total strangers voluntarily.
Harriet Koskoff thinks the men suffer at least as much as
the women.
"I’ve interviewed dozens of
men who are self-described porno addicts," she says. “It's easy to see how
it happens. But what's the end result of that?
“Does it really make them happier? We get into a very
delicate issue here, because needs are being met. And yet I'll tell you what a
surprising number have told me.
“It makes them more dissatisfied with what is actually
available to them. It makes them more nervous about their own sexual
performance. It makes them feel more inadequate about themselves and sexual
activities. And they are frequently disappointed in their encounters with women
because they’ve been masturbating -- conditioning themselves to an internalized
movie of how it's going to be -- and it’s very rarely that way. So more
attention should be paid perhaps to that than to whether or not it causes rape,
or these other kinds of issues which you frequently hear from the more orthodox
feminists."
At 15, C., like most normal, healthy teenaged boys,
developed some of those prurient interests referred to by the Supreme Court.
"You had to be 18 to buy Hustler, but we got up the
guts to do it and went in the store. My friend kept talking about college, so
people would think we were older, and we picked up the magazine and then a
bunch of other stuff -- orange soda and all -- so it wouldn’t be so obvious
what we were doing.
“And then we're standing in line waiting to check out and I
heard, ‘Hi son. What are you doing here?' coming from behind me, and turned
around and it was my dad! Well, eventually we did get the magazine, and then
the next week one of my friends offered me a gift, and after all that trouble
that we had gone to, it turned out that he had got the very same issue of
Hustler for me!"
Everybody has a story like this. I remember at age 13 or 14,
when Bruce got a hold of his dad’s copy of Tropic
of Cancer. We sat around on Saturday afternoons giggling as we leafed
through the book trying to find the dirtiest parts. A woman friend confesses
how, as a 20-year-old, she and her companions went to Manhattan’s 42nd Street
after ingesting sufficient quantities of mind-altering chemicals. “I went into
one of those booths with a nude woman -- on a dare -- but I just stared at her.
I was too freaked out to pick up the phone and talk to her."
Pornography to be sure, is almost as firmly entrenched in
society as is sexuality. It's an $8 billion a year industry -- larger than the
legitimate film and record industries combined. Obviously people like it. And
even though the First Amendment has been interpreted over the years to exclude
protection from certain kinds of obscene expression, the controversy still
rages.
Not even the shrewdest legal minds have succeeded in coming
up with the kind of clear standard that could be used to pinpoint which kind of
expression is clearly dangerous; no argument exists like the one restricting
the right of an individual to yell "fire" in a crowded theater. And
in trying to come up with 'some measure of the harm that accrues to
pornography, comparisons are automatically invited.
What about Rambo?
What about Friday the 13th? What
about Wayne Newton or the CBS Evening
News or the State of the Union address?
Everybody is offended by something; and anybody can point to
the harm they've suffered as a result of someone else’s exercise of free
speech.
But that’s a cop-out, too. Women are degraded in the Pink
Poodle. Sexual violence is sometimes inspired by pornographic materials. Crime
rates do rise in the combat zones of American cities.
Women walking alone on South First Street do get harassed
and propositioned regularly by the men who are hanging out at the Sex Shop
Arcade and the Bachelor Club.
In the books, magazines and films that objectify women and
depict sexual activity as a contact sport devoid of emotion, dysfunctional and
maladjusted men get distorted and unhealthy attitudes about sex, sexual roles
and women. And that leads to -- and more significantly results from-very
serious social and cultural problems.
You hear a lot about the evils of pornography. But you don't
hear much from the anti-porn crusaders on any plan to address the social and
cultural conditions that lead to a dependence on pornography as a sexual outlet
for alienated men trying to grapple with their inability to interact “normally”
with a woman.
“I think I’ll spend all day at
the Sex Shop Arcade," says the cartoon balloon over the head of a leering
cat painted on the tackiest exterior on South First Street. Inside, the light
is harsh. Videos are displayed at the front counter, and most of the remaining
walls are covered with glossy magazines more or less arranged by category:
gorgeous young women, gang bangs, bondage, transvestites, S&M and gay.
There are racks filled with books, several displays of
dildos and vibrators --some more comical than profane -- and other sexual aids
ranging from blowup dolls with unconvincing orifices to creams and ointments to
improve sexual performance. A large man with drooping eyelids is parked, as he
has been parked for the past 15 years, on a chair behind a counter next to the
cash register.
A white-haired man in a suit walks through the door and
plunks down two dollars. “Eight quarters, please," he says with a hint of
embarrassment. Then he walks past the book racks, past the magazines on the back
wall, through the doorway to the arcade.
The arcade is lined with tiny doorless booths ("One to
a customer" says a sign) where films and videos are shown on timers -- two
minutes for a quarter. A prominent sign is planted squarely in the middle of
the arcade:
Notice: Masturbation, touching the genitals of others, oral copulation and
soliciting to engage in such conduct are PROHIBITED on these premises.
Violation under authority of California Penal Code 647(a) and 314.1
Please Obey! If caught you ... can and will be arrested by police for any lewd
conduct. SJPD patrol this area on a regular basis. Thank you, Manager.
It's the ultimate irony. Lonely horny men spend their spare
time slipping quarters into these thrill machines. A Woody Allen image comes to
mind-of the 22nd-century "orgasmatron" in Sleeper. But in
the reality of the 1980s one has to wonder. What kind of gratification can
these men get -- and what drives them to return again and again?
If they are functional, then they can feel a few minutes of
physical arousal -- and leave with their loneliness intact and their needs
unfulfilled. If they are dysfunctional, the awareness of it must be even more
painful. These men are not so much loathsome as they are sad. And pornography,
perhaps, is not so much the problem as it is a symptom of a kind of pervasive
alienation that has proved too delicate and too difficult for either the
politicians or the social scientists to handle.