There is no better month than December to play in this fantasy...
Not limited to women, though in real life it's usually women who lean into it...
See you December 2nd for a Special Edition of Mistress Manifesto!
There is no better month than December to play in this fantasy...
Not limited to women, though in real life it's usually women who lean into it...
See you December 2nd for a Special Edition of Mistress Manifesto!
It's come to my attention that not everyone who lands on this blog knows how to use archives, or how to even get to the most current posts.
If you look to the sidebar you will see that the archives are arranged by year and then month going back in time. If you click on these, it will bring up past posts. The archive goes back many years. You can click to sample, or click to start reading that month that interests you.
The blog is published so that the topic for the month comes up on the 2nd or 3rd of the month, and the entire month continues the exploration of that subject. Sometimes more than one book is reviewed or referenced so reading the entire month can give you more good information.
There is also a search feature. If you type the name of someone I've included here at Mistress Manifesto, such as Roxelana, and click to search, it will bring up all the posts with name or subject.
You can also search for a subject, such as Love and The Rich, using labels. Labels appear under the posts so that you can sort through the entire blog to bring up all posts with the same label. You can go to a post that is about Monica Lewinsky, click on the label that has her name, and it will bring up posts from various dates that include her.
Thanks for reading!
Missy
PAMELA DES BARRES : A WELL KNOWN MUSICAL MUSE BUT A MISTRESS NOT!
From my archives: First posted on Oct 8, 2016
"Every day of my young life, when I looked in the mirror,all I could see were my scars, and I felt like the ugly little girl my mother said I was. I've truly come to believe that had it not been for my childhood accident, I would have never grown into the woman who embraces the strange, the weird, the bizarre. I would never have become The Queen of Halloween.
We all have our own scars. Let them be a blessing and not a curse."
Cassandra Peterson (Elvira)
from the very end of her book Yours Cruelly, Elvira
I listened to this book as an audio e-book and read it as an e-book
QUESTION FOR MISSY
Hi Missy,
I've reached the point in my life where I'm looking back at my dating history, thinking about some men I went out with once or twice or three times who were jerks, men I slept with who were real bad in the sack, and men who broke my heart too. I swore off dating over a decade ago and am not sorry! But, using the internet, I looked some of them up, and they were all married. I can't help but wonder if these men got nicer, or better, or if these women are putting up with the same men I could not stand or had to jettison or who jettisoned me! It feels weird.
Becky
Chicago
ANSWER FROM MISSY
Becky, we have probably all had bad experiences with men, which is why when I get the time I work on the book I'm writing full of advice... And the age-old advice is that we have to "settle" but then the age-old advice was that everyone had to be married and stay married - to just one person - too.
My feeling is that you need more in your life so that you can live in the present or look forwards to whatever plans you might have envisioned for yourself - travel perhaps? For what can you LEARN from these men as they were back in the day NOW? Whatever happened in their lives since you knew them, it has nothing to do with you NOW! Unless you are harboring the pain you experienced knowing them. Try Becky, try to get over it and move on.
Missy
Subtitled Life Lessons From 29 Heroines Who Dared to Break the Rules.
In perhaps the most horrific passage in her book, 'Yours Cuelly, Elvira' is the sexual assault that Cassandra experienced. To comply with the Google requirements for no sexual explicity, I have not changed any words below, but I have stopped at the ...
Excerpt:
"The other episode involved my friend "Unce Wilty' who I'd run into once or twice at the Playboy mansion since moving back to L.A.
In Las Vegas, whenever Wilt was in town, he and Sunny frequently slept over at the house I shared with her and our other roommates, and spent a lot of time hanging around the pool. I got to know him and liked him a lot. He was flirty, although always respectful, but he did have a big ego to go along with his big body and big career. He was smart, interesting, and funny, and damn was he big. He towered over us at seven-one. We took a picture together by our pool one time and in it I look like a munchkin, only coming up a little above his waist. It was crazy how big he was - not just tall like his friend Lou Alcinder (aka Kareem Abdul-Jabber) who I'd met with him on a couple occasions, but huge, weighing in at 300 pounds. My entire outstretched hand just fit into his palm.
Wilt had always flirted and kidded around with me, but he was never pushy or rude. He was rich, good looking, and famous, so he had girls coming out of the woodwork. He hardly needed to force himself on anyone like me. I was somehow always able to deflect his advances by joking around, and he'd always laugh and slough it off. I'd known him for so long, I trusted him and felt comfortable around him. ...
The third time I went to his house for a party, my friend bailed on me at the last minute, so I went alone. An hour or so into the party, he asked if I had seen the closet he'd built for his basketball jerseys from the various teams he'd played with over the years. As I shook my head no, he led me through his bedroom and into his closet, which was roughly the size of my single apartment. I stood marveling at the rows of size fifteen shoes while he pulled jerseys off the rack - the Philadelphia Warriors, the Harlem Globetrotters, the L.A. Lakers - and laid them out on the center island for me to see. "Wow!", I gasped, trying to look impressed even though I didn't know a thing about basketball. Suddenly, with no warning, he grabbed me from behind, gripped my neck with one gigantic hand, and shoved his sweatpants down with the other. ...
"See, that wasn't so bad, was it?" he asked.
I didn't respond. My face burned with anger and humiliation as he chuckled to himself on his way out of the closet. It all happened so fast I was still in shock. Trembling, I made sure he was gone, then ran into his bathroom, locked the door, and puked into his giant-sized toilet. ...
***
She never heard from this predatory narcissist "friend" again. He knew what he was doing. This is the story of a man who a woman had known for some time, at least to the point where he had been welcome in her home and she his. And of a celebrity who bragged about having sex with thousands of women. One wonders how many of these women were raped. Cassandra said who would believe an out of work actress and ex stripper. I wish it were "Who would believe an outsized sports figure."
Well, I believe her.
What is the answer here? To never flirt? To never be friendly? To never go to a party? To never trust a man who is a friend?
****
Please note that I listened to this book as an audio book in which Cassandra Petersen herself reads, and then I got the e-book. My download shows page numbers 252-254 which depends on the size of text one chooses. I do hope you'll want to read this book, just as I hope I've lead you to other books that are worthy of your time reading!
Missy
In Chapter 15 of Cassandra Peterson's book, 'Yours Cruelly, Elvira', she reveals that she was raped. The first rape she reports in this chapter happened after she invited a man who she'd met at a club and had a conversation with back to her place for drinks. I know that some men do think that such an invitation is considered as an invitation to have sex, or to at less mess around a little. Such stories make us women far less likely to invite men on dates.
However, I think we women have to educate men - all men - including our brothers and platonic male friends, what rape is. I agree with Cassandra that even if things are far along, if a woman says stop, a man should comply. There are very many reasons why a woman may want to stop, from concern over contraception to not feeling well to sobering up to - very many reasons.
In this case the man was a rapist. The classic rapist. There is no confusion about it.
When she suggested they get together another evening, before much had happened, he was angry. He threw her to the floor, he balled up his fist and asked her if she wanted her teeth knocked down her throat. He threatened her that he knew where to find her and that she was not to tell. There are times when I do hope there is eternal hell rapists. They are rarely one time offenders. Such men rape and rape again. They hate women. Rape is violence. They love that they are destroying a woman's health, reputation, and sanity.
Cassandra says she knew people would think she had asked for it by inviting him in. Also, she was aware that as an ex showgirl and because of her sexy Elvira character, she was less likely to be believed if she did report the rape.
***
Please note that I listened to this book as an audio book in which Cassandra Petersen herself reads, and then I got the e-book. My download shows page numbers 251-252 for which I took notes.
Excerpts from the book Yours Cruelly, Elvira by Cassandra Peterson
Chapter You'll Never Work In This Town Again
"It fills me with so much hope and pride that women are finally able to speak out about the treatment we've had to endure from men. Women have always had to worry about the damage to their livelihoods, not to mention the loss of their dreams and aspirations, which could result from resisting men's unwanted advances, or God forbid, reporting it. These days men are finally having to think very seriously about the potential damage to their own careers that engaging in this type of sexist behavior may cause. One way or another, it will catch up with them, and karma's a bitch."
(Cassandra goes on to describe some of the experiences she had beginning as a girl when the neighborhood child molester tried to get at her, another at age 12, then in the 7th grade,)
"Miraculously - seriously - miraculously I made it through my teen years without getting raped, although I had some very close calls. I learned over time to never walk alone at night, to never park in dark areas, to always check to see whether anyone was hiding in the back seat of my car before getting in, and to keep an eye in the rear view mirror to make sure no one was following me. It's great to grow up feeling like you're being hunted, right girls?"
(On an interview for a national commercial, a man asked her if she liked performing a certain sexual act and got up from his desk without any clothes on below his shirt.) "Shaken I jumped to my feet and headed for the door as fast as my feet would carry me. As I literally ran down the dark hallway, my commercial aspirations in the dumper, I heard him yell these very words" You'll Never Work In This Town Again."
Please note that I normally cite the page number but the e-book I downloaded does not have page numbers showing.
As I read this, I was reminded of experiences I've had, such as being groped suddenly by a stranger when I sat waiting to get into a restaurant. That man was old and I wondered just how many women had been groped by him, how many got chased around the desk in his office.
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We first must understand what RAPE is! Then we must be sure that our brothers and male friends understand that too. Anyone we go on a date with, anyone we are having a sexual relationship with, should understand that No is No, even when foreplay has gone on. They should know that permission is required every time and permission cannot be given by a woman who is passed out or asleep and that being in a steady relationship or married does not mean that either partner can never say no.
Of course we should also be "careful" but is being "careful" basically limiting, if not ruining, your life?
If you're like me, when I first heard of rape, when I was a teen, I thought it was horrible, almost unimaginable. I thought it was always physically violent and only imagined the scenario of sudden attack by a stranger who was waiting in an alley, in the be with a brute who used his strength, that she had to fight off the man, or try too, or was too scared to and froze and "let it happen." My experience in life was limited and my parents never brought up the possibility.
Was there anything in the book that I thought was over the top? Yes. It was an attack on academic researcher Deborah Tannen * who has written about how men and women seem to differ in their way of communication. To be fair, I have always hated the Men are from Mars, Women are From Venus books, the idea that we cannot escape gender especially because it seems it is always the woman who has to figure it out, change her ways, to get along with the man. I do think that there are genetic differences between those born female and those born male, and lots of variation as well. I personally do not know how much is socializing or cultural when it comes to expectations of gender, how we communicate, and so on. I think Tannen was trying to show us how we talk to each other - not just men and women but mothers and daughters too - so we can recognize ourselves if it fits and communicate better.
My feminism which idealizes equality for women clashed with reality. So sometimes we have to look at what is, how things are, even as we try for our ideals.
I doubt Tannen was ever coming up with apologies for why men rape (and I do face it that men sometimes get raped too, but usually by other men) and I do think her books are worth reading.
As Harding points out, in our culture men get away with it, and that is perhaps the biggest issue, for if there is no punishment, or if a woman's experience is trivialized or she is blamed and the man gets an easy sentence, other men figure they can too. She brings up well known gang rapes; I frankly started thinking castration really is the remedy though it does not take a penis to rape and a violent person who still has arms and legs will use them. My heart is broken for the women who have been, and for those who love them who are also affected. Rape is done by those who hate a woman or women.
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If interested in Deborah Tannen's body of work: Deborah Tannen Her books include "You're Wearing That?" - "You're The Only One I Can Tell" - "I Only Say This Because I Love You" and others.