GOOD LUCK

WHAT's UP FOR 2020? MISSY SPEAKS

Dear Readers,

This year celebrates a bit more than one decade of blogging on the subject of Mistresses here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT!  My first posts were in April of 2009 but it was a while before I settled on a less spotty and more structured magazine type format that starred a particular Mistress of the Month (or Honorary Mistress of the Month) or particular topic. For some time I was posting affirmations for Mistresses and discontinued that, though the affirmations were tied in with the title Mistress Manifesto, and you can still find them if you search though the archives. In recent years I've sometimes spent more than a month on a subject.  December - Holiday time - my posts are more uniquely topical.

For 2020 I have a list of persons to elect as Mistress (or Mantresses) of the Month, some really good ideas (more than one suggested by readers in Comments) and a growing pile of books I want to read. But... I can't get them at my library.  How could that be?  Is it that the librarians or other staff who actually buy the books don't think there's interest?  Or is it a moral choice not to provide the non-fiction, the memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies of these people who were or are known to the public? 

As a result I did some brain storming while on a vacation and I think you'll find the start of 2020 a little different and interesting.

As I personally learn more and more about Mistresses (and Mantresses) though my reading, research, and writing, if there is anything this blog (and I) stand for, it's CHOICE. We need to explore how much choice we have in this life just as we yearn for experiences and philosophies.

Mistresses have been a hot topic in romance fiction for decades as women as readers especially try on a role that few are suited for or achieve in reality. I encounter hundreds of fiction Mistress books as I search for the nonfiction - the memoirs, biographies, and biopics including at those libraries where I'm a patron. I've come to think that this is partly because readers want to indulge in what is, if not forbidden, an alternative lifestyle via fantasy.

Fiction books make you think. How do you withstand the ardor you feel for someone you can't have completely? Do you really enjoy sneaking around, if you have to, or for how long? Would you stay with him or her if they no longer had the money to Keep you?

While the fantasies of sexual desire, heart pounding love, and living a secret life (at a time when are privacy is so invaded) can sustain some, for others being a Mistress is a reality. It can be a beautiful fulfilling reality for some and for others a harsh and ugly reality: so much depends on the people involved, the personalities, and  if there is love.

Besides love and sex, the monetary rewards of Mistressing are always a question. Today there are more opportunities to have Hook Ups that have Financial Reward of some sort for having a Sugar Daddy/ Momma. Then there is also, overall, less need to be with another person who can afford us. Women are in the workplace almost always now and some are financially supporting families as well as men. (So I'm always interested in learning about women who Keep men and I don't mean the dad who stays at home to care for the children.) Every individual and situation is different, for we all cannot be at the top of the heap, even with college educations, but I feel that the financial motivation for women to be Kept is much less than it once was. In the past even brilliant women were limited by societal norms and expectations and generally unable to obtain education and income producing employment or grow businesses. 

Every situation and person is a bit different.  There are those who have enough, even more than enough, who see being Kept as having even more.  Still, I think love wins out over sex and money.

Looking forward to the New Year,

Missy

LIL' DARLIN' : COUNT BASIE ORCHESTRA

ROSEY CHRISTMAS

MY SPECIAL ANGEL : THE VOGUES

 .

Seems there are angels in MANY WORLD RELIGIONS, so whatever your beliefs or lack of, I want to wish you warm and wonderful holidays.

LAST MINUTE HOLIDAY ACTIVITIES VANQUISH THE BLUES and MAKE OTHERS HAPPY TOO

 

Some of you have busy social lives and others choose to have just one or two close personal friends. Some of you actually prefer to be alone but the holidays alone can lead to a feeling of loneliness and emptiness that can hit you suddenly. 

Do not despair.  Get up and out and involved.

I've learned that many organizations love last minute volunteers to help them with Holiday programs for adults. Serving food to the homeless at a mission dinner is one of the best ways to give of yourself. You'll be surrounded by other people who give of themselves too and those are the kind of people you want to meet.

Another place to offer yourself in service is Assisted Living and Nursing Homes. Get a few people together and go caroling to these places. Just call ahead and talk to an administrator ahead of your visit.  You might just want to go sit in the lobby and talk to people.

Think of your friends who you haven't been in touch with for a while, those who are long distance, those who have lost loved ones in the past year, especially the elderly.  Do some phone calling and catching up. Or go to visit and bring a little something to eat.

If you desire alone time but notice you're feeling blue, get outside.  Take a long walk in nature.  Bring a sketch book along and do some sketching. Go to a choir recital or sit in the back of a church and listen to the service.  Go to see a film that you want to see or to a restaurant you want to try that none of your friends would be into. It's perfectly acceptable to dine alone, even during Holidays.

Many organizations that gift children will take gifts to the last minute though you  might have to take them to a central location rather than a service center. They may need volunteers to sort or gift wrap presents when Santa's elves have too much already to do.

Thinking of you!

Missy

WHAT CAN THE FRENCH TEACH US ABOUT EROTICISM - YOU'RE NEVER TOO OLD!

 

PARIS REVIEW : THE HABITS OF HIGHLY EROTIC PEOPLE  by Susannah Hunnewell

TEASER :  "Love, for the French, is tied up with adultery," explained Marilyn Yalom, a feminist scholar at Stanford.  Marriage in the Middle Ages, at least in the upper classes, was a contract related to the exchange of rank and property. Love was, therefor, to be found outside the marriage, leading to the mythic French threesome: the husband, the wife, the mistress.

Studies show that Americans and French have similar rates of infidelity, but the French, "marathoners," have longer, and therefore fewer, affairs.  Americans are "sprinters," with more frequent but shorter trysts.

Older French women are considered sexual beings. A nonagenarian is to be respected as a repository of sexual history...  When Colette was nearing fifty, pointed out her biographer Judith Thurman, she had an affair with her sixteen year old stepson, among other men- children.*

* Missy here. Today this is no doubt considered to be illegal child abuse and can lead to arrest, trial, and prison.

MILLS BROTHERS I GOT MY LOVE TO KEEP ME WARM

HOW RELATIONSHIPS ARE DIFFERENT IN FRANCE - DATING IS TOO STRONG A WORD

THE EVERY GIRL : HOW RELATIONSHIPS ARE DIFFERENT IN FRANCE

This article compares the United States to France.

TEASER:  But the French make an intriguing point for keeping "life partner" and "best friend" reserved for separate people.  For one, they know that mystery is a good thing in a relationship. They don't go to the bathroom with the door open and they don't feel the need to tell their partner everything (Of course, this is different than keeping secrets, which is never okay, even in the French person's modern relationship.) They don't have to do everything together, and prefer to have at least some separate interests, friends, and routines.

...

The French don't really "date: as we think of it in the US.  In fact, they don't even have a word in the French language for a date. The closest equivalent would be rendez-vouz, which can also describe anything from a doctor's appointment to grabbing a coffee with a friend. A rendez-vouz galant (a romantic encounter) is old fashioned, a little too intense, and rarely used People meet potential partners in groups and social settings, rather than at one on one dinners.

Even when it comes time to spend one on one, they'd opt for a casual stroll or to go to a museum; anything that avoids that awkward first-date experience we all know well, which feels more like an awkward job interview than meeting a potential romantic partner.  Once this "dating" occurs, it's pretty much assumed to be exclusive, no need to have "the talk" because exclusivity is implied.  One on one is a serious step...

BAL DE LA COURTURE PARISIENNE

DO THE FRENCH ACCEPT AFFAIRS and THEN STAY MARRIED TO PRESERVE THE EXTENDED FAMILY?

HELEN FRITH POWELL - WHAT LIVING IN FRANCE TAUGHT ME ABOUT MYSELF - SEX, MARRIAGE AFFAIRS

The author is British and is comparing France and Great Britain.

TEASER: The French notion of liberte is at the very heart of their attitude towards fidelity and marriage.  As Professor Micheal Worton, vice-provost and Fielden Professor of French Language and Literature at UCL, tells me: "The notion of freedom is deeply inscribed in the French psyche. Marrying and then misbehaving is seen as being free." Are they right? After all, their divorce rate is slightly lower than ours is - in Britain it is currently 45 per cent.

"The family is the main issue," says, Delphine, a French friend and mother of three. "The reason we accept the natural human urge to wander is that the family is more important than the individual, and when I talk about the family I mean the extended family; we are talking about 50 to 60 people. So if you break up the couple, you affect all those people. It's just not worth it."

 

ROYAL ORDER OF THE KLONDIKE KATES TAKING APPLICATIONS! WINTER CARNIVALS

WINTER CARNIVAL : ROYAL ORDER OF THE KLONDIKE KATES   a History of the Order!

EXCERPT :  Today the members of the Royal Order of Klondike Kates make well over 100 appearances a year.  The current group of active members will participate in approximately twenty parades over the summer months where they sing live on the award-winning float.  They also perform at many senior citizen's homes, Meals on Wheels, Chamber of Commerce shows, conventions, benefits, the Minnesota State Fair, and many other engagements....  Their statement of purpose for their organization reads "... to promote, enhance, and maintain a positive image, reputation and public perception of the legend of Klondike Kate."

August 2012 was KLONDIKE KATE (Kathleen Eloisa Rockwell) MONTH here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT.  Check out the posts in the archives.  If interested in Gold Rush Mistresses, you might also be interested in LOLA MONTEZ, who was Mistress of the Month, February 2019  

SALON DES CENT

WHAT CAN THE FRENCH TEACH US ABOUT MARRIAGE?

VOGUE : MARRIAGE : WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE FRENCH?  by Christina Perez published April 8, 2017

TEASER: FRANCEINFIDELITY IS OVERRATED -  BE YOUR HUSBAND'S MISTRESS INSTEAD.

As Piazza points out in her book* only 47% of French say infidelity is unacceptable in a marriage, compared to 84% of Americans. Still that doesn't necessarily mean French women are as tolerant to affairs as we've been lead to think.  "That is a silly cliche you Americans believe," one of the writer's French friends tells her before clarifying, "I don't mind if my president has sex with other women, that's not my problem... of course, I hope my man doesn't do that to me." Instead the French believe in working to keep each other interested so that neither person wants to have an affair in the first place. "It's work. He still need to conquer me every day and I need to make him want me every day. I need to put in the effort - and here's what's important: I want to do the work,"  Piazza's friend says....

*  Jo Piazza, author of How to Be Married (What I learned from Real Women on Five Continents About Surviving My First Really Hard Year of Marriage.) 

 

THE MISTRESS : AMELIA CURRAN

ARE THE FRENCH SEXIER? OR IS THAT JUST A STEREOTYPE? ARE THEY REALLY MISTRESS TOLERANT?

December is the month that closes the year, a month that goes fast, especially if you're a social being.  I tend to get more creative in choosing my subjects for this month, knowing that my mistress-interested readers will still check in, but others will be too busy to read MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT and choose to catch up some time in January.

This December I want to devote some time to a stereotype, of France - and the French, that their sensibility is simply sexier than ours, and that the acceptance of Mistresses is part of their more sensible attitudes about sexuality.  Is this true?  Still true?  Are they a bit crazy or do we have a lot to learn from them?

Over the last several years I've featured a number of French Mistresses or Mistressing that happened to take place in France, or French subjects.  The whole time I've been desperate to feature some Spanish Mistresses, some Hispanic Mistresses, and to discuss what happens in Spain, but comparatively little is available to read or research on that subject published in English, in the United States.

As an American I no doubt was effected by "puritanism" as well as the conservatism of my upbringing in which sex was not only expected to happen within marriage, but was not discussed; I and my peers were raised to be ignorant, had to get our own information; some depended upon and were wrongly informed by romance novels. Two of my high school friends shared one prescription of the Pill, each taking it every other day!

Sex was also the way into marriage for many of my peers, especially when after some time with one partner there occurred a pregnancy. Now - no longer does sex mean that a couple is serious and exclusive and on their way to a life time of togetherness. Now there are many more ways to define one's sexuality such as "fluid."

Reading over the acceptance of sex outside marriage in France, as well as men having Mistresses in France, I learned that it's considered to be OK so long as it does not hurt the FAMILY (this meaning the extended family, not just the nuclear family) and it's thought that having affairs - or Mistresses - PRESERVES MARRIAGE. This is something that I've come to believe is true. Is it American (or Protestant?) to choose a separation or divorce over the discovery that at least one partner has been unfaithful?  

Therefore, while I get cozy with music to set the mood and settle in with my cell phone researching articles, magazines, and books, I ask you to contemplate this question with me. I'll feature a series of articles for you to link to with some excerpts to get that going.

As always you can comment, with ideas, suggestions, personal experiences, and the like.  Pkease Read my Comments Policy in Pages!

WARM HOLIDAYS,

Missy