When you write a blog called Mistress Manifesto (on Google BlogSpot ) for several years as I've been doing, you wrangle with the question of what it means to be Kept, or what if any difference there is between a Courtesan and a Mistress! When I profile Dally the Tall I have no doubt that she was a Courtesan because of the times that she lived in as well as the high art of her presentation and personality and the limitations of her ambitions.
In other cases I'm not so sure.
Of the three words, I think the one the media overuses and uses incorrectly is Mistress. A woman in any old affair, even if it was just one night, can be called a Mistress in the media if the man she's involved with is married. (For instance, I don't think the once playful Monica Lewinsky was ever President Bill Clinton's mistress and I would never apply that word to Marilyn Monroe, as confused as she was, though I think both women had a high courtesan aspect to their personalities.) Now that there are so many people who consider themselves committed living apart or who never marry legally, the question of ADULTERY as a key to Mistresshood doesn't count so much. Some relationships are so OPEN that Mistressing seems to be downright OLD FASHIONED, what with all that sneaking around!
Mistress is also used to imply that a person is a dominatrix, or at least powerful in the classroom as a teacher or as the owner of independent estate. I'm sure some people have been looking for a dominatrix when they happened upon my blog! I note that in this case the MISTRESS IS POWERFUL and IN CHARGE. Since so many women are not powerful or in charge this mistress can become quite the fantasy for women, especially because she does this and is still feminine though not weak.
So then we look at what it means to be KEPT and that word seems to imply CONCUBINAGE! When we say someone is KEPT there are always financial implications, like that the person does not work for pay at anything and are totally dependent on someone else for their needs. It is the financial evidence that we are looking for and it's the financial evidence that makes the news and pushes previously low key mistresses into the public eye.
This one is tricky too because not so long ago most MARRIED WOMEN WERE KEPT WOMEN. They stayed in the home and were "home-makers" or their work was as mothers and wives but they did not go out and earn any pay. As married women they were respected for this, even honored. These days most women work or if they are living off savings, an inheritance, or unexpected windfall, they write a novel or do volunteer work. These days most women do not want to ask a husband for money to buy everything they want or need. They don't want to go behind his back or be tricky to buy a new dress. They are almost embarrassed to let a man pay for everything on a date. They are trying to prove to a man that they do not need him or that they are not less than him, at least not less than him financially. "I don't need you!" she seems to be saying.
With the financial dependence most often for women that means she is COMMITTED TO HIM and their RELATIONSHIP even if he is not so much to her. Such a woman may decide to not date others or have sex with others even when he has not given her such a commitment. (It is my suspicion that this was the case with poor L'Wren Scott.)
The ability to admit to need and the willingness to allow someone else to help them financially without embarrassment or apology is where today's Kept Woman or Mistress or Courtesan prevails. This is also an old fashioned aspect of relationship with so much opportunity for independence today. It can even be an act of great self esteem and self acceptance to admit to someone that yes you can accept their generosity and no you are not an opportunist or user. You will really appreciate it. And do well with it.
Another way to find meaning in these words is in the personality of a person.
What does it mean to have a High Courtesan Aspect to your personality?
Why are people who have this so appealing to other people?
Well, people with this aspect to their personality know how to have fun. They can be silly or sweet. They can be childlike and have wonder about the world even as they get older and older. They know how to seize the moment or the day. They see the beauty in things and they make themselves and their surroundings beautiful. They are apt to be a little too forgiving and to make excuses for people and to keep things light. This light heartedness is contagious. They are apt to see the glass half full rather than half empty. They can't stay mad for too long. They give perceptive and sincere compliments.
There is a certain happiness to being able to make do, to invent. Even when they can't afford a decorator their pillows are fluffed and there are guest soaps in the bathroom.
When things are going badly they get up and do the next day anyway, because they have faith that change is inevitable but it will all turn out well enough.
Often they are the ones who make things happen for others, the job interviews, the dinner parties, the group to the opera, the event at the museum, or the little gift they picked up for you at a garage sale that is just perfect!
Missy
C Missy Rapport/ Mistress Manifestto.blogspot.com 2014 All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
Back in April of 2011 I elected JERRY HALL as ? Mistress? of the Month. Jerry is known as the woman who had FOUR children with Mick Jagger. She wanted to marry him for years and he finally married her, but when they "divorced" the marriage was "annulled." (I have to ask how so!) Worth at least $300 million (the reports vary) Jerry called him "very generous" over a settlement of about $7 million! (Too bad they didn't have a legal marriage in California - a community property state!)
I also posted about L'WREN SCOTT, who was Mick Jagger's lady for about a decade at that point, and who became his long term "best friend and lover" as he calls her. She died owing about $6 million and Mick is said to have financed her fashion business for years.
The news that L'Wren Scott commit suicide on this first day of spring, when I should be enjoying the uplifting weather, has me thinking about her and feeling rather down myself.
L'Wren was an accomplished stylist to the stars and fashion designer who had been legally married to lesser millionaires than the Rolling Stone's singer twice before. Reports on the Internet are numerous and mostly repetitive, some suggesting that her business had failed and that she was depressed over remaining unmarried and childless and perhaps not being invited on the Rolling Stone's tour of Australia and New Zealand with their large entourage.
One of the reports that touched me the most was that the actress Ellen Barkin, a good friend of L'Wren's, was one of the people who went and sat with L'Wren's dead body until she was taken away. And I keep thinking, when I hear L'Wren tied her neck by a scarf to a door handle and knelt, is how that worked. L'Wren was six foot three or four without the high heels, but I don't get how you kneel and hang!
The act of suicide by one so physically healthy, beautiful, talented, and barely old, is so difficult to understand. Mick Jagger had two previous girlfriends, in the 1960's, who were also so depressed when he broke with them to have attempted it, Chrissie and Marianne.
But if I may, there are lessons to be learned by L'Wren Scott's life...
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National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Phone Number
1-800-273-8255
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First of all, if you are feeling depressed and isolating yourself, be it over a man, a career, a whole bunch of things or just one damn thing, there is so much help out there for you! In recent years it's been said that one woman in four will go through a serious bout of depression in her lifetime. Yes, there are meds and maybe you'll only need them as you talk things out, make some decisions, and go through a rough transition.
Don't be TOO PROUD to get that help!
Secondly, I think L'Wren was in the position of being a mistress, not one hidden away, but a mistress, when she wanted to be a wife. IF YOU WANT TO BE A WIFE, IF YOU WANT LEGAL MARRIAGE, don't get yourself hung up in a relationship with a man who is NOT EXCLUSIVELY AVAILABLE FOR MARRIAGE. This can be because he is married, because he is adverse to marriage, because he is not ready to be married to anyone, or because he doesn't want to marry you! (You could almost say that you can't take that personally!)
If your man sleeps around he's putting you in danger. He can bring home diseases that will wreck your fertility and chances of having children. I have always heard that Mick Jagger is a sex addict. I've heard this from people who say they were close to the camp. I don't know what to think since the man is now 70 and you might think he started slowing down long ago. But whatever your marital status, when you go to the gyne, get checked for everything, and go often if you or your lover have others. (Men should also be checked for STD's frequently!)
CNN: CORONER ON SCOTT SUICIDE
If you are thinking of suicide - thinking about pills, guns, scarves, nooses, or elevators to the top of a skyscraper, believe me, you probably are at least temporarily mentally ill. You may be in such pain that you can't think of others any more but believe it, if you kill yourself, you will HURT other people.
So do you want to HURT THEM or BE OUT OF PAIN YOURSELF? How about you get well, get out of bad relationships?
Your children especially are owed more. You will leave them abandoned and wondering and you'll leave a legacy for your children to cope with. So with that last bit of hope you can spare, for them, you must get help.
DON'T LIE TO YOURSELF. Admitting your weaknesses is as important as admitting your strengths. Don't get sucked into the denial of "positive thinking" about yourself, your life. Speak up when you want more or different! L'Wren is said to have wanted marriage and children but felt that she would loose Mick if she brought it up. Why is it that so many very accomplished women are AFRAID to tell a man what they want in general or what they want with him when they are giving so much of themselves and their lives to him?
If you've been in a relationship that has been long enough to have a history, sentimentality, ageing, finances, and so much more can KEEP YOU THERE, keep you from leaving. I'm sure L'Wren felt overwhelmed with failure, as if nothing was going her way, but even if that were so, her sense of not being valuable on this planet just as a human is heart breaking.*
WHO WAS IT THAT SAID "YOU ARE A HUMAN BEING NOT A HUMAN DOING!"
Note: March 24 - 27 2014 : I have slightly rewritten the original post because when I read it on someone else's computer, I realized it might have been a little confusing. Tomorrow is L'Wren's funeral in Hollywood. She was cremated and her ashes split between the Jagger Family and her Utah family. I do not condemn her to hell eternal for the act of suicide, and I hope she is there in her spirit. I even feel sorry for Mick Jagger.
Missy Rapport/Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot C 2014 All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights.
Bazaar Magazine : L'WREN SCOTT ROCKS by Phoebe Eaton : She's been with him for a decade. She lives with him in London and France. She's in her 40's now and who would know? Six foot three and gorgeous. A dark haired siren. He says they are just dating.
Link to the article here! (Click on title)
And you decide!
Is she really so different than Jerry Hall?
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Missy here! March 24, 2014 Tomorrow is L'Wren's funeral in an old cemetery in Hollywood. She commit suicide last week, leaving Mick Jagger, his daughters, and close friends and family devastated. No note but deliberate, there is plenty of speculation on why. My guess, a lot of this and a little of that just piled up on her.
I do think of L'Wren as Mick's mistress. For years their relationship was a secret before they started stepping out into the public venues with the camera's flashing on them. I put up a more recent post about her and suicide.
