I’m all about The Sex but Las Vegas is making me feel like a prude. And confused.
Sure, sex is a great recreational activity. It can have bows and tassels and feathers and giggles. It can also be a spiritual experience and a source of reverence. It is also an industry. I know this is not news. I knew it. But now I really, really know it.
On the strip there are people in bright coloured hoodies that say “Girls Direct” handing out business cards for escorts. The cards have naked women on them. These cards are everywhere, on every corner and scattered on the sidewalks. These cards freak me out. The whole thing freaks me out. I’m not even talking about the sex work. I’m thinking about the people handling and handing out the cards. There are women, who probably don’t have work papers, and who probably work all day at some low-paying job, who stand on corners at night – cold nights – and hand out sex cards advertising women for sale. This makes me sad.
I’m not sure if sex work, per se, makes me sad. It kind of does, because I exhalt sex. I wish it could be like that for everyone. I wonder about strippers and sex workers and porn stars – male and female – and wonder if all sex becomes a job for them. Off duty, do they still have loving, incandescent, transcendant sex? Or does it become boring and a chore and the thing you do for work? In other words, work.
So the sex cards and the newspaper boxes filled with catalogs of naked women have made the usually invisible sex work visible to me. And the money. The Las Vegas strip is all about the naked hustle. I liked it yesterday but today I’m overwhelmed.
Today has been weird. Today I was by myself which might have made me look like a stray or possibly prey. It brought out the predators. Some were just harmless, awkward, embarassing pick ups. Some were deeply unflattering drunken approaches. The worst was when I was walking just off the strip. A guy slowed down, pulled over, turned on the interior light and rolled down the passenger window. I thought he was going to ask me for directions. But then I realized that he had pulled up his shirt and was twirling his nipple.
What is that? Is that about sex? Is that really a pick up and does he really think that has a chance of success? Or is the thrill in the scary?
I just recently returned from Vegas and totally agree with you on this. I felt bombarded by an industry that is usually so taboo. Similarly to you, it’s not that I necessarily disagree with it, but Vegas just takes everything to the next level; the good, the bad, and the down right ugly!
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Sex. Hmm. Yes, sex IS interesting to say the least. The males you described are essentially functioning on their primal desire and I can’t blame them. Females do the same thing when they see a high status male they would like to mate with. A nice warm tingling down there.
What’s interesting about our species is that we have evolved to a point of relationships, emotions, desires and all of this influences sex. If you live in a small community you’re most likely not going to yell at random women on the street to sleep with. However if you’re on vacation where no one knows you and there’s essentially no recourse you can act as primal as you want.
We are very careful around women in foreplay and such but immediately after orgasm most males go through post coitus and have no interest in the woman next to him, no matter how much he loves her.
I love traveling because I can act like myself. If the gas station clerk says “what’s up chief?” I can be a dick back because I know I will never see this person again. I haven’t gotten to the point of playing with my nipples yet. I should try it maybe I can be so disgusting yet make a large enough impression that I can read about myself on someone’s blog.
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I have a fairly strong dislike of Vegas, for the very reason you mentioned – it is the naked (and desperate) hustle, on every level. But I found myself there recently on a business trip. Five days on the Strip. The only thing that got me through was settling myself in a comfortable chair in a back hallway of the Bellagio – blessed silence (or as close as I could find) – if it was too cold outside and sneaking out to the Bellagio pool area to sit at a picnic table for some jostle-free rays of light. (I wasn’t a guest of the hotel). The casinos, and walking the Strip, are two very successful versions of a nightmare I don’t want to visit.
Good luck.
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It seems sad doesn’t it? I feel like these people, both the workers and those they are working for have this distorted idea about what life is supposed to be. Here they take something that is wonderful, sex, and in an effort to turn it into something titillating, it becomes mundane and sordid.
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Vegas, my dear, is a microcosm of the universe. I’ve been there more times than I can count because, back in my flying days, it seemed all of my passengers wanted a quick trip to Vegas. And what could be better than a night time landing next to The Strip?
But it wasn’t until my sister LIVED there, with her husband and daughter and jobs and “normal” life, that I got to see ALL sides of Vegas.
Like anything else in life, when in Vegas you have to CHOOSE what you are going to focus on. If you want to see glittery lights, the optimistic merriment of bachelorette parties, the celebrations of a job well done or a life well-lived… you’ll see it there.
Or, you could choose to focus on the desperation of those who spend their last dollar (and then some) hoping for an easy break… those who sell their bodies and souls thinking it’s the only choice they have… those who make a living preying on the desperate ones.
Or you could look beyond the strip, and see a totally UNspectacular suburban desert sprawl of people creating a life around the magic and misery of The Strip, out in the middle of nowhere.
Vegas is an exercise in opposites, as is everything else in life. The good is spectacularly good… the bad is unimaginably bad. It is up to YOU to decide what you want to get out of it.
Oh, and don’t forget: What happens in Vegas, ends up on youtube (so, be careful!).
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I love Vegas just because it is so fake, and over the top and sparkly, but I also appreciate its dark, sleazy underside and the idea that selling sex is big business…..and you know it must be big business in order to have so many people involved in it.People go there to live out their fantasy’s on one level…but some end up in their worst nightmares too. I agree with Lisis…..it is all there and you have to choose what it is that you focus on.
As far as the dude playing with his nipple…why do guys do that??I can not imagine anyone responding who was not a prostitute…and I have no doubt it was wishful thinking on his part that prompted him to do it to you. When I used to go out to clubs in the Boston area I would always have at least one or two guys every night who would say “nice rack” or some other ridiculous comment when I walked by. What was that?? It certainly never got them laid that’s for sure.
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Well if you take the whole sex worker thing out of it (which i guess you can’t cause it’s the whole topic of the article) and you look at it like any other job (which it’s not because of the emotional aspect but I guess other jobs have emotional aspects that don’t involve coitis) and look at it like this: Does a web designer that works as a web designer 9-5 enjoy his free lance gigs more than his 9-5. Probably. When you choose to do something because you want to it brings more joy than if you choose to do something because you have to survive (I think). Just my 2 pennies.
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Interesting stuff, as usual. When I first read your previous post about the Vatican making you sick and Vegas not so much, I thought to myself – the Vatican and Vegas are basically the same thing – you know the old flip sides of the same coin idea.
How so?
Like so: Women exist only as sex objects resulting in a completely unhealthy idea of/relationship to sex- in Vegas that translates as “Girls Direct” and nipple twirling dudes, in the Vatican that translates as fear and rules (see celibacy) and underlying beliefs about womens’ sexuality (see “Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven”)
Like so: “The accretion of wealth in the hands of the few” through playing upon human weaknesses like the desire for the big payoff (heaven or the jackpot) See this recent article in the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125996714714577317.html
Like so: a “primal and visceral” desire to be loved underneath the worship – whether the worship is about money or about God, at it’s heart it’s about love
And finally, the fact that always amidst the rubble of the crazy things humanity does on this planet, there arises beauty like the Sistine Chapel or the Cirque du Soleil or a woman scared and alone writing about what touches her soul.
In a world where the Vatican did not exist, I don’t think Vegas would exist, either.
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My first time to Las Vegas made me wonder why anyone would go anywhere else.
Next time with wife and kids and I get the cards on the corner. Made me wonder how many guys with their wife and kids see a card of a naked woman and leave the family right there; or how many hit the piercing parlor later and become nipple twiddlers.
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I’ve read this post twice, Kelly, wondering how to respond. So much comes to mind. I have been provoked by what you’ve written, am aware of my own internal and visceral responses, and love that again and again you say what you want to say.
In fact, that may be the key that unlocks the difference between the two kinds of sex portrayed here: am I free to say what I want to say or do I have to edit – or be controlled – or be harmed? Can I just BE? Passionate. Out-of-control. Wild. And still be totally present and “me?” It matters. It makes all the difference. Maybe it IS the difference.
As always, thank you.
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Incandescent light bulbs will soon be phased out because they waste a lot of energy.*..
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