MISTRESS MANIFESTO? MISTRESSES! YOU DON'T NEED TO BE A SCHOLAR TO COME TO AN OPINION! COMMENTARY BY MISSY

As my regular readers know, after I'm inspired to cover a mistress, I try to read around her before making a final decision on dedicating a month to her.  Then, because I'm interested in her, I hope what I write about her will interest my readers.

From the posted and unposted commentary that I got when I covered two of the women who openly made claim's in his lifetime to be the wife of rock star - poet Jim Morrison of The Doors, I feared that readers were mistaking MISTRESS MANIFESTO BLOGSPOT as being a Jim Morrison fan site, which it is not.  I had to remind people that the topic of this blog is mistresses, and the unconventional relationships and arrangements some people find themselves in.  Readers seemed to feel that if only I read more, or the book they recommended, then I would change my position, and perhaps not think that Morrison enjoyed pitting women against each other.  Covering a book written by yet another woman Morrison was in a long term relationship with convinced me that he was not one to be married to any one woman.

Clearly a controversial issue, and one of my most popular months here based on the hits, but one I took my stand on after dedicating many weeks over many months to reading around the subject, I had to wonder if some people thought my aim was to be a Jim Morrison and the Doors scholar.

But you know, you don't have to be a scholar, or read every book ever published (or talk to every person who claims to be in the know) to form an opinion.  Sometimes the opinion still comes from innate understanding, empathy, a gut feeling, or even a psychic knowing, about a person or a situation. 

I'm just being practical when I prefer the memoirs of the person themselves.  I know that the person has given a lot of themselves by writing the memoir, and even if they live past it and become an entirely different person, a memoir is a brave act.


Missy

SHOULD HE BREAK WITH HIS BOYFRIEND TO BE KEPT BY A CELEBRITY?

QUESTION FOR MISSY

Hi Hon!

I'm gay.  I'm out.  I've been in a relationship for a few years now.  We both work.  I make three times as much as my significant other.  That's never bothered me.  We've never even fought about money.  I'm happy to pay for whatever he can't afford.  John is a good man but he doesn't make much money as a social worker. 

Now I met someone else, someone who makes even more than me, Reggie.  I met him just a few times for drinks.  Good conversation.  I told him I was with John.  Then before anything could happen, he made me a proposal.  He says that if I will be his, he will make it worth my while.  I can continue at my work and live right where I am now, the difference is that now I would be more on the receiving end. 

This man is a celebrity, up and coming. He says that he would want the relationship to be, not a secret, but not out there in the media until we're both ready to be a media event. So I would be at his house a lot, meet his close friends he trusts, no one that's going to blab to the National Enquirer. I wouldn't be going out with him on the town except maybe in groups.

I think I know what's attracting me to this besides thinking Reggie is hot.  I'm not cheap or greedy but I can't help myself wondering what it's like to be more on the receiving end.  I think I would like the experience of someone else picking up the tabs and buying me a car, as I did for John.

How do I do this?

Phillip
Hollywood


ANSWER FROM MISSY

Hello Phillip from Hollywood,

When one person provides a lot of wonderful perks and that is their role because the other person's income is limited, there is a relationship dynamic there.  So the first expectation I have is that you'll be experiencing an entirely different, probably opposite, dynamic than you have in your relationship with John. 

Reggie will be in charge and in power?  Will you like it?

Since John is a good man, and he may have become a little dependent on your generosity, please, if you're going to do this, have a gentle talk with him, break with him.  Tell John that you want to have an experience and be free to have it.  You don't have to get into all the details. Don't make him feel sorry for being a social worker because those people work hard and deal with a lot of stress to help other people and we need them.  Be a good man yourself and make the break before you get into Reggie's bed.

I'm putting you on notice though.  If and when you move on from John, don't expect him to be waiting for you to circle on back to him.  You have to take a risk to be with this up and coming celebrity.  You may well find being left at home hard going and long to be back with John.  It will never be your place to make the relationship go public.  Think this through.  What if you have a fight and break up?  Can you resist the temptation to write a Tell-All Book about the relationship and possibly hurt his career?  (Think of all the Tell-All books that Mistresses, who never thought they would, have written !)

As for Reggie being cautious about the media and that you'll be somewhere else or at his house when he's out being photographed with those he does want to be seen with - like maybe a starlet?  That's how it was done in Hollywood for years and years and I understand it. 

Why?

When someone wants to make a living as an actor they have to sell themselves to get work and part of that is being perceived as good for a part and most of the parts are for heterosexuals - and men.  When someone makes their sexuality or sexual preference so much a part of their identity that the general public can only think of them as gay, it usually means less work.  Directors want a man and a woman in a relationship that includes sex scenes to have chemistry. If the audience watches this knowing that one of the actors is gay, they're not convinced it's real.  There's something there that's more important than thinking "what great acting."  It's "Wow, they're not acting!"

So being out in the business really can mean less work even if more and more gay people are out in the business.  When actors who are notoriously straight, such as Michael Douglas or Sean Penn, play gay characters, they already have the insurance in place as sexy heterosexuals.

Are you sure you don't really mind the income inequity of your relationship with John?  Is that really what this is about?

Missy

CHINESE MANDALA

DECLARATION FOR MISTRESSES - Persistance and Fortitude

"Stick-with-it-ness is important and necessary to make it through life but dogged determination to do things one way shouldn't blind me to other and better possibilities."

LISA SEE : PEONY IN LOVE : MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK RECOMMENDATION

 

The exclusive world of the Emperor's Concubines that we've been exploring in the dramatic story of EMPRESS DOWAGER CIXI this month, is a world in which women are controlled from birth to death and even those who manage to manipulate their way to the top have to do so within restrictive protocols.

 

Present day mistresses are often assumed to be in wait to be a man's next legal wife, but while reading Peony in Love, one of a few books by author Lisa See that I've read that are based on the old Chinese or Chinese-Americans, I realized that for some Mistresses as was the case for some Chinese Concubines, there was freedom in not being a wife.

 

Did you know that a Chinese man's concubine's were considered to be his property even in the afterworld?

Lisa See's novel is based on the way of life that the Chinese lived in the 17th century and her main character is a the only child and daughter of a wealthy man who's own marriage is arranged. Kept secluded and far from the facts of life, she dreams of romance and passion with a man of her own choosing.

Her own father has concubines and all such girls, when imagining what the man they have been arranged to marry will be like, knows that the concubines are freer than they are.

Page 37

"Since marriages were arranged and neither the bride or the groom had any say in the match, concubines were every wife's fear. Husbands fell in love with concubines. They came together by choice, had no responsibilities, and would delight in each other's company, while marriages were a matter of duty and a way to provide sons who, in time, would perform rites in the ancestral hall."

The story is richly written, and set in a crucial time, about 1644, when the Ming dynasty fell and the Quing, lead by the Manchus, began, and the country is in turmoil. This crisis became an opportunity for some women to lead a freer and more expressive life in China before life became more repressive again and women did take the opportunity.

C 2015 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

GARDENIA

FALL IN LOVE WITH JUST ANYONE? CAN A PSYCHOLOGIST MAKE YOU MAKE IT HAPPEN? IS IT ETHICAL?

NEW YORK TIMES - FALL IN LOVE WITH ANYONE - DO THIS  by MANDY LEN CATRON gives her personal account of trying the experiment!

THIS LINK INCLUDES 26 QUESTIONS and A FREE DOWNLOAD FOR YOUR AP!

EXCERPTS:  ... A heterosexual man and woman enter the lab through separate doors. They sit face to face and answer a series of increasingly personal questions. Then they stare silently into each other’s eyes for four minutes. The most tantalizing detail: Six months later, two participants were married. They invited the entire lab to the ceremony...


\THE 36 QUESTIONS = is NUMBER 37 BIG WEDDING OR SMALL?

BEJING OPERA PERFORMANCE pf THE DRUNKEN CONCUBINE

THE DRUNKEN CONCUBINE

There are many Chinese Opera clips and films on YouTube but I chose this one because of the informative post that comes with it.  "Chinese opera has a history dating some 2,000 years. There are 317 types of opera, of which Peking opera is the most important and well-known. The practitioner of Peking opera is a master athlete -- he must be in top physical shape to accommodate the rigors of this performance art. Most performers begin their training from childhood. A well-known example is Kungfu star Jacky Chan, who started training in Peking opera as a child. Performers wear extensive makeup; their whole faces are painted in bright colors. Colorful masks, inspired from ancient ceremonies and religious symbols, are done by the actors. The color of each character's face is significant as it represents the character's personality and fate.

The Emperors, Empresses, and many others, including Cixi, had Operas performed in their palaces for entertainment, even daily.

CHINESE PHOENIX BIRD EMBRODERIE