THE STATUE OF HURREM SULTANA IN ROHATYN

"Statue of Nastia Lisovska in downtown Rohatyn.

You'll note that Roxelana's name has variations. 

Her given name may be Alexsandra or some version of Natasia.

According to the Wikipedia site about the town of Rohatyn, in 1520 the region was attacked by Crimean Tatars and she was captured there and then sold to the Ottomon Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.  The region has been part of Poland and is currently in Ukraine.

I find it very interesting that the town acknowledges her birth there.  I wonder what they knew during her lifetime.  Did her family know where she was?  That she was alive? Were they ever able to communicate by letter, perhaps?

PRINCESS HURREM USES HER STATION TO DO GOOD WORKS

Princess Hurrem decided to make a mark on the society in which she lived by starting a tradition that her female lineage would continue, and that was to do good things for the people, to be charitable and to have a duty towards the people. Though she was born into a Christian family as a Ruthenian, she was raised to be a devout Moslem and was a sincere believer. Her husband was blood-thirsty, a man known for slaughter, but she managed to create civilization within their Moslem world. She had mosques built, was behind schools for the children, a hospital, a soup kitchen, and even waterworks such as fountains. Thousands went to work on these projects.

A philanthropic tradition in her name began and it was not just in Istanbul but also in Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem, and other places of pilgrimage. She was behind hotels for those who traveled and made pilgrimages. In doing so, the women of her lineage had much to do besides being mothers. By doing what might have been considered impossible - rising up from harem slavery to being a married woman with more than one child - her daughters were not enslaved and could also marry.

She was exceptional.

When she traveled, her entourage of carriages and servants displayed her wealth and power so the people who saw her could gaze her way but she remained hidden and unseen.

C 2022 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

Empress of the East by Leslie Pierce is the reference for this post.

PRINCESS HURREM IS ACCUSED OF WITCHCRAFT

People could accept that Roxelana, who was called Princess Hurrem, might be a crafty woman, a seductive woman, who Suleyman had come to love, perhaps because she had excellent sexual skills. Or perhaps she had mastered the politics of the harem and was manipulative and conniving.  No doubt this marriage ended the hopes and dreams of some other women. However, that the Sultan had actually married her led some to think it was more, that she was a witch who used magical spells to claim him for herself. (Page 146)

"Perhaps not surprisingly, similar tales of the rustic female witch existed in the Ruthenian land of Roxelana's birth, at least in the eyes of the inhabitant's Polish overlords." (Page 147)

There was no evidence of her guilt.

She had been captured at 13 and had entered the harem at 17.  She had caught his eye. It was his choice. He was not a weak man.

She focused on being a good mother to her children.

She gave him a real, nuclear family.

She wrote him letters when he was in battle, so he did not forget her.

She used her station to do good works.

C 2022 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

Empress of the East by Leslie Pierce is the reference for this post.

THE WEDDING - SULEYMAN THE MAGNIFICENT and THE FORMER SLAVE GIRL SHOCK THEIR WORLD

In 1534, a Venetian envoy reported that there was a marriage between Roxelana and Suleyman that was not affirmed by the court in Istanbul, Turkey, the capital and headquarters of the empire. They reported only that the slave Roxelana's was Suleyman's favorite in the harem. I muse that a royal engagement or agreement to marry might take place long before an actual ceremony, that an engagement period was observed. The marriage was admitted to officially in 1535.

While he was on another campaign to brutalize the Hungarians, Roxelana had written him letters everyday emphasizing how much she missed him.

What is true is that she had given him more than one son. She had given him several children, one of whom was a daughter, so already he had gone against the notion that once a woman in the harem gave a Prince a son, he needed to move on to another woman in the harem. They were in fact a family, a nuclear family, which would be a far more Ruthenian Christian way to live, than a Moslem Turk way to live.

Roxelana had been captured at about 13 year old and she had been converted to the Moslem religion, she was beautiful and intelligent and shrewd, if not manipulative, and had clearly prevailed over other women with her ongoing relationship with the man, even as he spent so much time away on military campaigns. There is real evidence that he loved her.  Suleyman wrote love poetry to Roxelana. 

She wrote to him, "A single hair of your head is worth more to me than one hundred thousand florins." (Page 210)

A typical wedding for a person of such high station as Suleyman usually lasted three weeks and involved throwing a party for the public with entertainment as well as the display of riches and power. The Prince would only appear on the 14th day and just for one day, kind of like the appearance of a celebrity. (Page 102)

In 1535 the two lovers were married. It was totally surprising and controversial. Roxelana was considered to be a seductress. (Page146)

To give some perspective that we Westerners can relate to, at the time, England's King Henry VIII, the King who was also under pressure to have an heir and continue his line, and who had six wives, two whom he had killed, was a contemporary of Suleyman The Magnificent's.

Perhaps the goings on in the personal life of Suleyman was gossiped about or reported but the wedding as a public event confirmed that in fact, Suleyman was so Magnificent he could do whatever he wanted. 

C 2022 Mistress Manifesto Blogspot

Empress of the East by Leslie Pierce is the reference for this post.

ROXELANA THE RUTHENIAN SLAVE GIRL WHO BECAME the QUEEN TO TURKISH SULTAN SULEYNMAN THE MAGNIFICENT

In July 2018 here at Mistress Manifesto, I featured Sally Hemmings, born a slave, who is rumored to have been the long-time mistress to widower Thomas Jefferson, who become President of the United States in 1801 and served till 1809. We wondered if their relationship was consensual and real love, which I think it was. Did you know the word slave comes from the word Slavic? This book tells the story of slavers who captured Slavic people in what is today Ukraine and walked them into Turkey to be bought and sold. Some of them survived this march and adapted to life under the Turks. This version of slavery was perhaps not as bad as what is depicted of slaves brought to the United States because Muslim law was that a man should free his slaves after seven years of service.  Some of them did.

*

PRINCESS HURREM aka ROXELANA

Born about 1515 - 1558

Aleksandra Lisovska

The  Ruthenian woman who would become Princess Hurrem, was born Aleksandra** Lisovska in Rohatyn, Poland which is now in Ukraine, and died in Constantinople, which is now Istanbul, Turkey.  Roxlana was captured as a slave by Turks at thirteen and managed to emerge from the harem to become the beloved wife of a man who actually led tremendous violence, the massacre of the Hungarian people and the ruination of their country, Prince Suleyman The Great. Clearly, this woman tapped into another side to this man and achieved unusual power for a woman and also remarkable achievement. She kept the home fires burning while her partner was out soldiering. She made the very best of her situation, rising in status until she was able to build mosques, hospitals, and schools and that is inspirational.

The Turks got their slaves, girls and boys, women and men, from one of the poorest parts of Europe. There were slavers who included Tatars and even Venetians, from what is now Venice, Italy. Some slaves experienced a better standard of living than they had in their home country which they were not likely to see again. Slaves were used for a variety of activities including being soldiers in the military.

Up to 600 women lived together in a harem. For many women, their life in the harem was to be a servant to other women. The idea of the harem, in this case, was not for sexual pleasure. Women were to live separate of men in this Moslem culture, and so it was not just slave women who lived there.  A woman might live in the harem her entire life and remain a virgin because she had not been chosen by a Prince.  

A Prince could not marry a slave. If she was chosen, a Prince would have sex with her until she gave him a son. Then he would move on to another woman. His duty was to have as many sons as possible. You could say it was a breeding program with rules. Then it was the mother's job to raise this son, to entirely devoting herself to mothering him so that he could have a position of importance in the military or in the administration of the kingdom. Many women who had a son lost him to illness. She was then left to live her life without family.

Although this strategy for having heirs seems cold-hearted, we must realize that at the time there was nothing like modern medicine and even having many children did not guarantee one of them would live to adulthood or be capable. Interestingly, the Moslems did use contraception, had midwives and doctors, and might have been one of the most advanced cultures during this time.

The women in the harem could be competitive in attracting a Prince and becoming a favorite. It's suggested that Roxelana was intelligent and excellent at navigating the culture.

Here was how a woman born a poor peasant and taken out of her culture could be considered a "Royal Mother." I find it interesting that these Turkish princes found Slavic women to be desirable as mothers to their sons.

Because the Venetians (Venice, Italy) were involved in this slave trade and had ambassadors at the Turkish court. They were very interested in Roxelana and much of what we know of her comes from their reports.  

In 1534 a Venetian envoy reported that Roxelana and Suleyman were wed.  In Istanbul, the Turk's headquarters, just that she was a favorite.

C 2022 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

This post also includes information from Encyclopedia Britannica

You may also be interested in reading about :

JILLIAN LAUREN : FROM NEW JERSEY TO THE SULTANS HAREM TO LITERARY SUCCESS : MISTRESS OF THE MONTH June 2013

SALLY HEMINGS - WAS SHE A WILLING MISTRESS of THOMAS JEFFERSON or A RAPED SLAVE?  June 2018

SLAVIC WOMEN : IMPORTED AS BRIDES - MISTRESSES - TURNED OUT AS PROSTITUTES - RUSSIAN - UKRAINIAN - POLISH   July 2014

* The image of Roxelana on the book comes from a portrait by Titian, called La Sultana Rossa circa 1550 and therefore we can hope it is fairly accurate.  She was a red head. 

** Also called Nastia.

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS on GENITAL MUTILATION

This image is a work of an employee of the Government Accountability Office or a predecessor organization, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain in the United States.

COMMONS WIKIMEDIA on GENITAL MUTILATION OF WOMEN IN AFRICA

OSAMA

t

Free to use Public Domain Clip art from ClipArtLord.com 
Osama Bin Laden

MRS. PENELOPE KITSON - DIVORCEE MISTRESS OF J. PAUL GETTY WHO BECAME A FRIEND IN HIS COURT OF "GETTY GIRLS"

It was June of 1955, when J. Paul Getty's wife, Teddy Lynch Getty, showed up in Paris with their son Tim to see if there was any way to get Paul back to Los Angeles, California and their marriage. (marriage #5).  They had not seen each other in FOUR YEARS! When he refused to return with her, in January 1956, Teddy filed for divorce.  She was in her thirties and still interested in being an opera singer.


Paul had met a 29 year old, unhappily married woman and mother of three from a British society background named PENELOPE KITSON. This woman was separated from her husband but as you know if you've been reading MISTRESS MANIFESTO, being a Mistress does not always mean adultery.  As Getty's mistress, Penelope was hired to be his Interior Decorator, beginning with the cabins in his oil tankers!


Over time Penelope Kitson would come to believe the man was amoral, had no interest in marrying him, and was around to see a lot of women come and go.  It was the ones who insisted on sticking around Sutton Place, Getty's lavish home, fighting over him and being part of an unofficial harem, who didn't get it, as she saw it.  While various women went in and out of favor (and Getty's will with many codicils is a testimony to this), Penelope Kitson knew her place and kept it by being a little bit separate by not seeing these women as direct competitors.  If there was anything especially nice that she did for the Getty family, it was to push Paul to try and be a father to his sons.


Getty himself was quite effected when he was outed in 1957 by Fortune Magazine as a billionaire times two and he was no longer a private individual following his whims.  About the same time reporters wrote and published stories about his cheapness.


Sutton Place was the scene of the only extravagant party Getty ever hosted, and Mrs. Kitson did the planning. 2000 guests were invited.  In the chapter called "Good Old Fashioned Vulgar Fun,"  in the book "The House of Getty," by Russel Miller page 20 of the e-book read on Overdrive, ..."a selection of his mistresses, many of whom had never set eyes on each other before" were invited.  According to Miller, Getty began to invite guests over without concern about their unpleasant behavior, enjoying being fought over.  On page 31 of the same, "Within its mellow red-brick walls they schemed and fought, listened at keyholes, poisoned the old man's mind against each other, jockeying for his favors." ... "It was not at all unusual for three or four women to be staying in the house at one time, all of them competing for his affection and attention."  As the staff played an essential role in all the comings and goings, some guests claimed to have been horrified by the scene.


On page 33 of the same, ..."To Getty's credit, he did not necessarily accord preferential treatment to the mistress - of the mistresses of the moment." Getty also shared his bed with women friends or women who he was once lovers with.  And so Mrs. Kitson and he ended their affair and she still spent a great deal of time with him.

Getty's proposals of marriage were not taken seriously.  Who were the leading Mistresses of J. Paul Getty as he became old?

Baroness Marianne von Alvensleben said he suggested they marry but he'd keep his Mistresses and she could have affairs.

Rosabella Burch, a widow of 29 when they were introduced by Claus Von Bulow in 1962, moved into Sutton Place, and that upset Mary Tessier and Lady Ursula d' Abo, contenders. Penelope Kitson witnessed the three fight over Paul. Rosabella thought she was better than the others. D'Abo, when the press caught up with their relationship in the mid 1960's, claimed they were just friends and she acted as a hostess and companion. Rosabella also claimed to the press that she and Paul were friends but perhaps she went a little further than the others to claim his love.

At the end of 1962, when Paul was seventy-two years old, Rosabella Burch went to Switzerland to give birth to a son she named Paul Bernard. She had a daughter a few years later.  Both would be remembered in his will, but Paul Bernard's amount was substantially more.  Rumors were that J. Paul Getty had fathered Paul Bernard.  When Rosabella learned that Paul had purchased a house for an immigrant woman, she demanded a house too.  He gave her a house budget and expected her to stick to it. The house was purchased for a mere 25,000 pounds.  When Paul died, age 83, she said he had promised her support for life and went after the money, expecting a thousand a month plus company shares, but settled at 150,000 pounds.

J. Paul Getty worked long hours until the very end of his life.  He died in June 1976 and a dozen "Getty Girls" were beneficiaries but only one wife was; Teddy Lynch.

I want to say that Russel Miller's book is quite special and covers so much more than the women I have focused on here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO.  Worth a read!


C2018 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved

MARCI SOTO DISCOVERED RAY HAD A HAREM LATE INTO THEIR YEARS LONG RELATIONSHIP

RAY CHARLES' had a harem, but Marci loved him first and found out second.
RIVERFRONTTIMES - MARCI SOTO on MEMOIR RAY and ME by Aimee Levitt


EXCERPT:
One August night in 1968, Charles announced on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson that he would be playing at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles all week. Soto was living in New Orleans then. Her husband, Henry Soto, had turned out to be an alcoholic gangster with an abusive streak. As far as she was concerned, the marriage was over, though the divorce wouldn't come through for five more years. And now she knew exactly how to find the man she considered the love of her life. What did she have to lose? Within minutes, she had Joe Adams, Charles' manager, on the line and told him she wanted to speak to Ray.
"Will I do?" Adams asked.
"No, I'm sorry," she told him. "You sound very nice, but there are no substitutes for Ray."
When Adams asked her to send him a full-length photo of herself, it never occurred to her to ask why a blind man would need to know what she looked like. But it must have pleased somebody, because two weeks later, Charles himself called her up and invited her to meet him the following afternoon at his room in the Fontainebleau Hotel.

WHAT HUGH HEFNER'S GIRLFRIENDS GOT FINANCIALLY as MEMBERS OF HIS TRAVELING HAREM

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE  Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny  by Holly Madison

Notes and Commentary from Missy

Notes from pages  75 and 79:

Holly says in her book that Hugh Hefner (and members of his staff, some of whom had offices in the Mansion), watched what the girlfriends were doing with their $1000 a week allowances. The girlfriends were considered to be part of the marketing and public relations team for Hefner and the Playboy Enterprises business, but they were also expected to have sex with the boss. The $1000 a week was expected to be spent on lingerie and sexy clothing that they could be seen in around town when they went clubbing two nights a week as well at parties at the Mansion. For some time they were expected to go out two nights a week and then return to the Master Bedroom where some or all of them would have sex.

***
There were many rules they had to follow to continue living at the Mansion, including a relatively early 9 PM curfew when not out with Hef - and for years Holly obeyed that, while many of the girls had outside boyfriends and would sneak in and out, she refrained.  Whoever was the "main girlfriend" shared the Master Bedroom with Hef, and most nights might just spend time watching TV or reading side by side, but the others had bedrooms on the same floor.

***
Notes from Page 136

Circa 2008, Playboy Enterprises, not Hef personally, owned the Mansion, and the company had not been profitable for some time, despite so much effort to stay relevant.  He paid the company RENT for the bedrooms, so if no one was occupying a room, no rent for that room was paid.  This many be why he went from six to only three girlfriends.  He paid $25,000 a MONTH for his master suite, at that time $12,000 a month for a room used by Kendra, $10,000 a MONTH for one used by Bridget, with smaller rooms going for $5000 to $7000 a month.


(I'm thinking that the girlfriends were tax deductible!)

***
A common request that was usually granted to a girlfriend was that Hef pay for cosmetic procedures.  Holly had paid for her own breast enlargement as a college student but she asked Hef to pay for a nose job, which he did.

They had their food, shelter, and clothing, as payment for their services.  He paid for their nights out, their dates, and sometimes that included travel.

The girlfriends also had their hair and other beauty services done at the Jose Eber Hair Salon, at least a couple times a week, at no charge to them.

At Christmas time Hef would give each girl money to spend on the others for gifts, about $500 for each girl.  One year Holly had about $3500 to spend on the other girlfriends.  Sometimes they attempted to purchase the same gift for each person, say the same handbags, or the same skirt, so that they would have a unified look when they went out.

HOLLY MADISON : HUGH HEFNER'S HAREM BUNNY FAVORITE : MISTRESS OF THE MONTH

UPDATES
E-ONLINE: DIVORCE HOLLY MADISON FILES with PASQUELLE ROTELLA 

E-ONLINE : DIVORCE FINALIZED HOLLY MADISON and PASQUELLE ROTELLA
NY TIMES OBIT FOR HUGH HEFNER - SEPTEMBER 2017

HOLLY MADISON

SEVEN YEARS  * OF HER LIFE WAS SPENT IN HUGH HEFNER's

 GO NOWHERE - TRAVELING HAREM

Today she's married to Pasquelle Rotella and is a mother and entertainer... I'm just recently familiar with HOLLY MADISON.

You may have heard about HOLLY MADISON's expose memoir, Down the Rabbit Hole, which is about living at the Playboy Mansion as one of Hugh Hefner's live in "girlfriends" since there has been a lot of public relations happening in conjunction with this book that came out last year. You may also know Holly from watching reality television (The Girls Next Door) or perhaps saw her striptease show in Vegas called Peepshow at Crazy Horse Paris.  Since I've never watched a reality television show but just recently heard of the sale of the Playboy Mansion (with a guarantee that Hugh Hefner be able to live there, in the 20,000 plus square foot home, for the rest of his life), it was the real estate deal that brought my interest around to reading  Holly's book.

In her book she makes the case that while she did live to regret living at the Playboy Mansion with Hugh Hefner as one of the girlfriends her biggest fear was that forever more, after she left, she would be made to pay the price. As much as she says she made peace with it, you get the feeling she's still in process. She'd even suffered a severe depression, saw a psychiatrist against Hef's wishes, and went on a psyche med to endure her life there as a very Kept woman (my words not hers.)  Yet, while most girlfriends lasted six months if that, and many more women were brought in for a night of adventure and left, Holly kept on, thinking she loved the man old enough to be her grandfather, Hef.  She wanted to marry him and have children with him, all the while hoping to become a centerfold model.  She says, "Foolishly, I'd long believed that becoming a Playboy Centerfold was the fast track to fame and fortune.  Boy, was I wrong.  There have been more than 720 Playmates in Playboy's history.  How many of them can you name?  (Page 116)

Make no mistake about it though, that is 20 20 hindsight. Holly had the goal of becoming a Playmate of the Month when she was just a teenager. She doesn't seem to have been overly shy, though claiming she was terrified at first about posing nude, or at all concerned about morality, or what it might all mean for her sexually, though she admits early on that the other girlfriends lied to her at first, claiming they did not actually have sex with Hugh Hefner as part of their live-in girlfriend deal. Once she was presented to Hugh, she did have sex with him and, it goes unsaid, some of them, even if they were supposed to be secretive about that. 

This story is about PLAYBOY but don't expect any sex scenes in the book. You'll get the idea that twice a week all the girlfriends went into Hugh's bedroom after going out to clubs, that he proffered Qualudes which he called "thigh openers" (which she didn't take) and that some of them were using Cocaine (which she didn't take) and drinking (which she did).  Then they danced for him, or stripped for him, or whatever, maybe with each other, for his entertainment. Considering that these women were often Mean Girls who otherwise made each other's lives miserable, that must have been some acting!

In Holly's  book she uses the terms harem, traveling harem, Mistress, and Concubine.  She does not use the term Kept, but I will, and later in the month give you a list of the financial incentives or pay, while I wonder if somehow Playboy Enterprises made the Girlfriends tax deductions.

How does a small town girl go from there to here?

Playboy magazines could be found in the home she grew up in, and when the magazine went looking for possible playmates for their "Millennium Playmates" auditions all over the United States, she was one of the young women who showed up when the bus came to Portland.  She bought a silver bikini and had herself photographed.  Nothing came of it.  A whole hell of a lot of young beautiful women had the goal of being a Playmate back in 1999, and many of them had some idea of how to please; look like Pamela Anderson, or maybe Jenny McCarthy, or best - Marilyn Monroe, who had been on the first cover of the magazine in the 1950's.

Holly was so sure that she had to be in Los Angeles, that she changed from an Oregon state to private college so that she could live near Hollywood and Playboy, and double majored, with a strong interest in acting.  She was also so sure that she needed larger breasts that she forked over three charge cards to pay about $7,000 for the cosmetic surgery.  So, with D cups, she easily got a job at the Hooters Restaurant, said to be a great place for a waitress to get tips, what with those tiny shorts riding up. She was also a Hawaiian Tropics Girl as a sort of spokesmodel who showed up at events in swimwear.  She was invited to the Playboy mansion party after a man who was Hugh Hefner's private physician, and familiar with his taste in women, saw her at a Hawaiian Tropic Bikini Contest in Beverly Hills. Hefner's Midsummer Night's Dream Party required sleepwear.  She showed up in a black Frederick's of Hollywood lingerie set.  She was a woman who had the intelligence for college but who seems to be set on making it based on looks.

To her credit, Holly had been working hard - college, extra shifts at Hooters restuarant, and she got an acting agent and went on auditions and had a few bit parts.  She wasn't lazy, and she took risks and had goals.  Still, she needed a lucky break.

In debt, she'd been living in a hotel room with another student who was leaving. She would have been homeless with $100 left in her pocket, and she faced having to go home to her small Oregon town.  Or, she could manage to get invited to live at the Playboy Mansion as a girlfriend.  She was never happy there, she says with hindsight, and maybe the worst of it was learning that not only did other girlfriends manage to have outside boyfriends, but some of them were working as high priced escorts for a local Madam, and one of them tried to recruit her.

Please readers, don't think I'm putting Holly way down. It's just that her book left me so very many questions, and the idea that she had kind of co-signed what we politely call B.S. for so many years, even when she was no longer naïve about what was going on, makes me wonder if she understands how severely abused she let herself be. Is the fact that she is one Playboy Bunny who has managed to get other work, to make a few million on her own, enough to compensate for the years she spent being only a Girlfriend?

You decide! 

 

I was thinking a bit about a previous Mistress of the Month, Jillian Lauren, who became part of the Harem of the Sultan of Brunei.  She was specifically recruited for a harem and while maybe none of us can know for sure ahead of time if we'd like it, she seemed to have known what she was getting into.

UPDATE

Hugh Hefner really did have a harem, as I see it, though the situations are not identical because Hefner didn't have the near unlimited funds that the Sultan of Brunei did.  Man sharing is something we look at here at Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot, and the women in a harem do share a man, and he does the choosing of which women get to stay, and for how long, though the question of leaving when a woman wants to may not be as clear. 

Jillian had been as escort before she got her invitation to travel across the world and stay as the  willing captive who was sometimes rewarded  very well financially, who also felt competitive with the other women and wanted to be the favorite. Today this lifestyle seems to be so much more based on sexuality than a Classic Mistress situation in which a woman is like a second wife to a man, however it seems to me that women, whatever their status, but for those in religious sisterhoods or monasteries or who are self supporting and celibate, are expected to be sexual as a condition of their being in this world, and that certainly includes wives.

If interested in the Harem lifestyle you may want to search herein for

Jillian Lauren - June 2013

Lord Bath and his 75 Wifelets - May 2012

China's Empress Dowager Cixi - September 2015

(* Holly spent time at the Mansion before being invited to be a girlfriend, and continued to have business and friendships that kept her involvement going.  She was a girlfriend from bout 2001 to 2008... Her last party at the Mansion was Halloween 2008.

END OF THE YEAR THOUGHTS ON MISTRESSES and the UPCOMMING DONALD TRUMP PRESIDENCY

Donald Trump is our next President of the United States, our 45th.  I've read around this past years election like no other election year, was not a Trump supporter, and have some serious concerns about what will happen when he and the Republican conservatives he will surround himself with, will do about women's issues, such as the right to get contraception, Choose abortion (which should be affordable), and so much else.

To stay on topic though, let me say that his appeal is in his promise of a new prosperity for the United States, something that I'm all for.  However, I'm not sure if to Republicans this means not only FULL EMPLOYMENT but LIVABLE COST OF LIVING WAGES.

Several people I know who have college educations and once had nice careers have been unemployed for years and are only eating enough because they get SNAP (Food Stamp) benefits.  I suspect that during Trumps administration, this thrice married man and alleged womanizer and sexist (who is a feminist when it comes to his daughters and their education, careers, and businesses), will, with the help of the conservative cast he has assembled around him, manage to create conditions in which there will be more mistresses than ever. And I'm convinced that if ever the truth could be revealed we'd find more Republicans have mistresses than Democrats!

These mistresses won't all be involved with married men but they will be Kept just the same, perhaps not in the Classic Mistress manner, but Kept.  Busy and wealthy,  the men who keep mistresses will delight in having a person and place to come home to that is an escape from all that Washington.

As we enter into renewed prosperity, if the business men who dominate his cabinet reinforce sexism in the workplace and in life in general, the men's income will go up, and women's will go down, creating a perfect scenario for women needing some financial help, some to survive.

May I suggest that in an attempt to deal with these conditions, more women than ever will leave men who do not make good incomes and more women than ever will go back to traditional dating rituals, such as remaining virgins until marriage or celibate between committed, serious, marriage prone relationships, expecting men to ask them out, make all the arrangements and pay for the dates?

You see, some people, including The Rules for Dating Girls, Ellen and Sherry, have long believed that when it comes to romance, it is only right to let gender considerations determine who does what, such as who is the pursuer. If a man cannot afford to impress a woman with his personality, manners, education, income, and potential to rise in life, he cannot date at all.

One of the many benefits of the feminist movement for men is women taking some responsibility for these traditional male roles.

When a man is a millionaire or billionaire (remember Trump's promise to reveal his tax returns?), he can afford a harem, which is what a man like Trump would do if he were in say, Saudi Arabia.  Here in the U.S.A, we expect people to divorce a spouse rather than keep him or her around when things aren't going well.  Trump has Ivana, Marla, and now Melania, all tied to him by children. It's as harem as it's going to get for the U.S.A.
However, it used to be that a divorced man could not expect to win the White House. The American public has wanted married men who stay married and seem to love their one wife and families as their President.  As such, Presidents who did womanize or have affairs or mistresses, kept their wives.

I wish the Clintons had been able to say, "We are dedicated to staying married, but we have an agreement that we can fool around."  That certainly seems to have been the case. I think it hurt Hillary Clinton that she stayed with her cheating husband after they left the White House. The woman has been called a lesbian, hated, cold, and a number of other adjectives that dismiss that she's worked hard in her professional life to make good things happen for average people. Yet it seems the era of the Clintons is over.

At the end of four years I think President Trump will be humbled and the country will be geared up for a revolution that ends the Republicans for good.  Other parties will begin to form and stand on different, more reality-based platforms.

Yours,
Missy

JANNEL BROWN ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN POLYGAMOUS FAMILY AND A MAN HAVING A HAREM

"When people hear the word polygamy, their minds often jump to salacious conclusions.  For some reason, many intelligent Americans cannot differentiate between a healthy polygamous family and a man cheating on his wife - or even a harem!" 

(In the book the reader learns that wives do not discuss their sacred sex life with their common husband.  So they do not answer questions about sexuality with interviewers either.  The book focuses on the family, the children. - Missy)

Janelle Brown on page 228 of SISTER WIVES

JILLIAN LAUREN'S NEW BOOK - A NOVEL

A CLASSICAL WOMAN OF A HAREM

SOME GIRLS MY LIFE IN A HAREM BY JILLIAN LAUREN

SOME GIRLS - MY LIFE IN A HAREM - PROMO

JILLIAN LAUREN : FROM NEW JERSEY TO THE SULTANS HAREM TO LITERARY SUCCESS : MISTRESS OF THE MONTH

I heard JILLIAN LAUREN speak at a literary event, and I knew that one day I would elect her to be Mistress of the Month.  She is the author of "Some Girls" and also "Pretty."

Jillian was 18 years old when she became the first American woman to become a member of the Sultan of Brunei's harem, which was comprised of about 40 women from all over the world at the time.  She was the mistress of Jefri Bolkiah and then his brother Hassanal Bolkaih, one man at a time.  She says she rose up in the ranks to be the #2 Girl.

Although Jillian now identifies herself as having then been a prostitute, she was as far from being a street walker with a pimp, or even a legal prostitute in a Nevada brothel, as can be.  She became the temporary companion to two of the richest men in the world in Brunei, the Sultan and his brother, where rich men having harems is tradition.  She was treated to plane tickets, shopping trips, and a luxury lifestyle which she became a bit addicted to, though she left out of boredom and then returned. She was not paid by the hour.  After about 18 months (with a trip back to New York in there) she came away with about $300,000 dollars.

Jillian was up for an adventure in those days.  She was self supporting in New York City, a very expensive town, and working as an escort and a stripper.  She got to the palace and realized things had changed. 

She was living in the present as she quickly assessed her surroundings which were at first a mystery to her and realized that she had an unusual opportunity and wanted to be the best that she could be.  Eventually, after being with the Sultan, he passed her onto his brother, which in that culture, is considered a compliment to the woman.

It's easy for us to imagine women of the distant past being in a harem.  The present?

By my way of thinking Jillian was one of many mistresses of two of the richest men in the world.  When you see how beautiful she is, you don't wonder why, but it took more than that.  It also took brains and daring. 

Today Jillian is married to a Rocker from the band Weezer and is a mother.  She has published her book, faced the media, and come to terms with her past.  Jillian has an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch and besides books she has published in a number of magazines. She has appeared on The View and a number of other talk shows speaking of her experiences.  She says that, while her family is upset with her, many women do relate to her experiences.

C Mistress Manifesto / Missy Rapport 2013 All Rights Reserved

MISTER AND MISTRESSES OF THE MONTH? WHO KEEPS A HAREM?

There would be no Mistress if it were not for a Mister... Now I'm not saying that it's always a heterosexual relationship between a man and a woman. I personally know there are LOTS of gay men who are having these arrangements. I don't know personally if there are LOTS of gay women who keep other women, though I'm curious.  I've heard of marriages where the straight husband keeps and does not divorce his bisexual wife who has a woman she's involved with that she supports with money from him.


Straight or gay there is something we wonder about : WHAT ABOUT THE MEN WHO KEEP ONE OR MORE MISTRESSES? Is it, as is popularly thought, all about sex? Are they all very wealthy? Are they all married? If so what does their legal wife or wives think?


Through history in many different cultures it has almost always been a heterosexual male who kept one or many women - even a harem.


This month I'll be electing one such man ... maybe you know of others? Missy