1.
touch me. touch my heart. poetry, baby cheeks, curls, smooth bald heads, ideals, principles, tears, pixie dust, deep women of experience, flowers, icy apple juice, smooching, John Cusack and a radio in the front garden. These things might me move. To the shepherd: this nymph would have said yes. I have said yes.
Books and babies and broads and boomboxes. Be still my butterfly heart. But you know what is melting my beeswax these days?
Numbers.
2.
My Gentleman Caller - oh, we go back and forth about the romance thing, but the friendly, loverly calls continue, always, every night, because they’re just so good - suggested something that he thought would rock my business. I was silent. He backpedalled and apologized as if he had stepped over some invisible boundary. You know, by talking about money. My money.
I said, actually that turned me on.
3.
Betty Dodson knows about sex and women and desire and the liberating thereof. She’s the author of “Sex for One” and famous for leading clit-finding group expeditions. I mean workshops. She’s not just a revolutionary, she’s the fucking revolution. Viva la Betty.
Betty Dodson systematically scraped away social, sexual expectations of women and even some feminist conventions to embrace her own desire and stroke her own fire. She talks about sex. She talks about porn. She talks about vibrators. She believe that she deserves pleasure and so do you.
Viva la Betty.
And until recently, Betty Dodson – sexual revolutionary and midwife of female masturbation – was all uptight about money.
4.
She worried. She scraped by. She stayed broke.
She tackled sexual repression and left financial repression right the fuck alone.
5.
So that’s what I’m thinking about this week, because I’m right there with Betty.
Sex: I walk that dog unleashed. Money: errrrrr, how awkward.
6.
This is interesting, because we’re pretty brazen in the blogosphere about why we’re here. To share, to love, to learn, to make some money. Uh huh.
So, good. Excellent. Let’s talk about it. We are and we do. Over and over and over again.
Kinda like sex, yes? Porn is everywhere, our pop stars skirt the porn thing, and sex sex sex sex sex. It is everywhere except in reasonable discussions. No wonder our kids are learning about sex from porn.
We should be really worried that our kids are learning about sex from porn.
It is, Alan Moore put it in his long and gratifying essay about the history of porn and art, titillate and condemn, titillate and condemn, titillate and condemn. Getcha all aroused and then make you feel ashamed. Again and again.
We do that, culturally speaking, with sex, and with money.
Money is everywhere. Money is status. Money gets you laid. You should get some more of that so you can get some more of that.
We’re soaked to the skin with messages about money, and challenges to get more of it. It is okay to talk about getting more of it, because that’s just industrious.
What’s a little less acceptable: to talk about the actual sums involved.
Even less acceptable, it seems: to talk about giving it away. We’re supposed to do our charity work under the cover of dark and never mention it in polite company. Never mind online.
Just like something else.
7.
There is no reason to be shamefaced about giving.
Charity: do it however you need to do it. In private. In public. With the lights on or off and with as many people as necessary. Or not. Solo is okay, too.
8.
Because it is a joy to give.
Sometimes there is clarity in generosity. Sometimes, when I don’t know what to do, when my own inner sanctum is a whirring hamster wheel - and that little rodent can run, I assure you – I take a breath and get out of myself. I give. I offer. I support. I compliment. I love.
9.
I am not going to be shamefaced and shuffling about my joy. any of it.
10.
And so, back to women and money and power and pleasure and Betty Dodson and the lovesexymoney revolution.
Sex and money can be avenues to empowerment. Own your liberation, then share it.
dowhatchalike.
do what feels right.
get hot ‘n bothered – about giving and receiving, money and sex. the numbers. the love. the self. the share.
Ahhh…Truth you are ROCKING at today. My GF’s and I will share every graphic sexual details of our Saturday night but would *NEVER* talk about our Friday paycheck. Or how much our wedding cost (not that I’ve had one)….or that parents paid for it…..
I have a (guy) friend who spoke out loud his amount of debt to me, and I felt…errr….awkward. Are we ready for that? I didn’t ASK, dude!?! I’d have coped much more easily with him taking his clothes off.
Re: giving, I have asked every one of my lefty friends and relatives, ages 30-70 and NONE makes a yearly giving plan, giving budget, nothing. This includes people who work at foundations (they give away money at work!). I’m not saying they don’t give, they do. But there is no goal #, no plan, no budget. You can bet they budget retirement savings. WTH??
[Reply]
Kelly Diels
replied:
on January 25th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
@brooklynchick, two things.
“I’d have coped much more easily with him taking his clothes off.”
In one sentence you summed up my entire piece. My friend, you know ’bout economy.
And I don’t have a giving budget but now I’m going to get one. It goes against my wing-it, ad-hoc nature, but it is a great idea. thanks for that.
[Reply]
Dave Doolin
replied:
on January 25th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
@brooklynchick, girls are so much fun.
[Reply]
Of all the excellent nudges I found in my inbox this morning–this is an incredible shove. When I hear that voice in the back of my head stand up and yell “Oh Yeah!” I know I’m getting rip-off-the-bandaid what I need.
[Reply]
Kelly Diels
replied:
on January 25th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
@Julianne Fuchs-Musgrave, let me know where you push yourself to go…I’m intrigued.
[Reply]
Some people found it reprehensible that bloggers would ask readers to purchase their product/service and then give the proceeds to Haiti.
I don’t get what the hell is wrong with that. What’s wrong with encouraging people to make their money go twice as far by helping Haiti AND purchasing that resource they’ve been wanting to buy but couldn’t justify the expense? What’s wrong with a blogger bringing together more money for Haiti than they could have mustered on their own?
I feel confident in saying that the people that purchased products from bloggers in support of Haiti, gave more than they would have without that opportunity.
but oh hell, now more people know the blogger’s name. I guess it was all for nothing.
We should ask a Haitian what he thinks of it before we start judging.
[Reply]
Kelly Diels
replied:
on January 25th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
@Carlos Velez, your attention to detail is EXCELLENT. I didn’t link to any of those pieces but yes, they – and the reaction to them – were animating some of my points. Thanks for following along and speaking out. I really appreciate it.
[Reply]
I’ve been touched and I liked it!
[Reply]
I read this at 430am, sleepless, and sat stunned (again) by your audacity and insight (who else talks about clits in a post about money?-ok maybe Her Highness The Bloggess-but not like this!).
I have far more garbage about money (like only selfish people have it or it makes you selfish) than sex. Thus, I have little money. I’m trying desperately to change that and it feels good to know I’m not alone.
[Reply]
Kelly Diels
replied:
on January 25th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
@Kelly, me too. me too. And I’m busting out. Let’s go together.
[Reply]
Every time I’ve opened my finances completely it’s been a disaster.
People don’t get that if they can’t talk about money, they are enforcing the cultural demand that we are defined by our income.
On other words, divide and conquer.
There is another, much more insidious aspect to keeping all money matter secret. Mammals bluff. Actually most animals bluff.
Bluffing is getting something for nothing.
Think about it: go $100,000s in debt, get the house, the car, the spouse, all the best that money can buy. And it doesn’t matter whose money.
Reproduce.
You win. Even when you lose, you still win.
The cost to society of easy credit is incalculable. For USA, you can start in the low trillions and revise upward every time some congress critter opens his or her mouth.
But now I’m hijacking, and I have my 1 year Website In A Weekend Happy Anniversary post to finish.
Bye bye.
[Reply]