 Appointments Phone Sessions Biography My Life Book Cops & Robbers Photo Album The Artist Dear Dolores Poetry News/Events Politics Articles By Dolores Quotes Excerpts On Film Special Friends Resources Links Home  
|
Problem: Noticed she was not coming home for holidays, full summers, etc. When I asked her younger sister why, I was told she could not tell me. So, I took it on myself to find answers. I went to college and found that she was not on a program to graduate. She only takes morning classes and most not helping to a degree or to graduate. Cindi was not in her dorm so went looking for her. I asked several peers. They sent me to the city to a place called the "Sugar Shack." This is a Bordello for mostly truckers and Interstate traffic. My beautiful daughter is a prostitute from two in the afternoon until midnight and even later on Friday and Saturday nights and holidays. I did not 'confront' her or scold. I just asked why? She shrugged her shoulders. It seems she has been doing this since sometime her freshman year of college. I asked what her goal was and she told me, 'go to Las Vegas and be a prostitute on the strip.' Is there any literature on why girls do this? Any suggestions? I am at a loss. She will be 21 next fall and says she will leave the day after that. The other kids are not involved in that. Only Cindi. I'm at a loss as to where I failed her. She's a very lovely girl, sweet and caring. She has sooo, much potential and wants to chuck it all for this. Why? Any bibliography and most importantly, advice, welcomed. I lay awake at night each night trying to figure it all out. I love my little girl very much and want her to be happy. I am about to go nuts with this. Please help. Crying Father. Dear Crying Father, This is an issue that will be coming up more frequently for parents from now on. For several thousand years women have legally been the property of their fathers' and then the property of their husbands' or brothers'. Your surprise and distress indicates that your "failure" is in not keeping up with modern life. Over the past century or so, women have been taking control of their own bodies and demanding the right to do with them as they please. Yes, those who opposed letting women vote knew it would lead to this - total self-determination. Chances are your most valid concern is regarding her safety. Be glad she didn't decide to be a convenience store clerk. Prostitution is nowhere near as dangerous as movies make it out to be - especially under the circumstances you've described you daughter to be working under. You repeated several times in different ways that your daughter is exceptionally intelligent and could do and have anything she wants. Chances are, this is what she wants - at least for this time in her life. Most of the men and women I know who have chosen sex work as a profession are exceptionally intelligent and their extraordinary ability to reason is what helped them make their career decision. On the other hand, this may not actually be true in your daughter's case. Maybe she's not as smart as you think she is. Certainly, the last thing any profession needs is another disinterested nit-wit in it's ranks, but even the least talented, and down right useless sorts have a right to make a living in the United States. If she's not as intelligent as you make her out to be I hope she will move on to another less intellectually demanding job. If she is truly gifted, spiritually and intellectually, sex work can be one of most rewarding and wonderful of career choices. When I conferred with career sex work star Annie Sprinkle about your problem said, "suggest to "Crying Father" that maybe his daughter really enjoys sex, and lots of it, and that's why she wants to be a prostitute. I honestly think that's why I got into it originally-although after a few years my motivations changed." The Most Important Step To Success Is To Simply Show Up By Dolores French Dear Dolores, My boyfriend just started school to learn computer programming. He wants to be a writer and he's been working on a novel. He's never allowed me to see the novel. But his mom says he's a good writer. He still lives with his mom. He's working in a restaurant now. I'm afraid that him going to computer programming is going to ruin his future as a writer. He says he wants to learn to program computers because it pays so much. He thinks he can go to school, get a job, make a bunch of money and then he thinks he'll retire and write. This sounds crazy to me. I think if he wants to write he should write and not waste time with this computer thing. Can you tell me anything that I can say that might make him reconsider what he's doing? I talked to a friend about this who said she thought that even if he was really talented his chances were only one in a million of success. Do you think that she could be right? Thanks, Gretchen Dear Gretchen, First, I want to remind your boyfriend that we are living in the United Stated of America in the twenty first century. We are not living in the middle ages or even in a present day third world country. Survival here and now is seldom a struggle of everyday desperation. Understand that, it seems it would be an easy call to choose pursuing one's passion over doing something just to make a lot of money. But we are all products of our past and our ancestors' past. I still haven't gotten over growing up in the era of The Bomb or my mother being raised during the depression. I hoard. My husband was horrified once to find in my medicine cabinet a prescription bottle containing a single pill, which had expired the year he entered law school. He had been practicing law about twelve years at the time of his discovery. When he confronted me with this infraction my sister was on hand and she piped up to my defense with, "You never know when there is going to be a catastrophic emergency. That diuretic could be a pretty valuable item when it's the only one left on the planet." Took the words right out of my, she had. This sounds ridiculous, but we were raised not far from Fort Knox. Atomic bomb survival training was part of our everyday education. We were required to participating in fallout shelter drills where we learned to be prepared to live for months or maybe years underground. All of that left an impression. I buy toilet paper in bulk. I have a case of 144 rolls of toilet paper in storage ready for any catastrophic emergency. Evidently something similarly dramatic has left an impression on your boyfriend about survival and money. As for your friend saying your boyfriend's chances for success are one in a million - she's wrong. The long odds are on people not believing such crap. The reason most talented people don't succeed is because they don't try. From my observation, the success rate for people who truly pursue their passion is pretty near 100%. Getting focused, showing up, persistently proceeding with whatever you want to do and enjoying it all along the way is all there is to success. One day several years ago I was walking through Lenox Mall when I ran into my old friend RuPaul. I had just returned from a book tour. I had done dozens of talk shows during the previous few weeks. He said, "Girl, you are everywhere! Tell me how to get so famous." I said, "RuPaul, just keep being you. Just keep doing what you do, exactly the way you are doing it, and you will be a BIG star." You know the rest of that story. But I don't want to mislead you about the necessity to be talented to succeed. The first key to success is simply showing up. I've seen people without a lick of talent become wildly famous and wealthy. Comedian Tom Parks is my favorite example. You may have seen him on one of his HBO Specials, or the Tonight Show, or in Shoney's commercials. Tom Parks is an idiot's inspiration. Several lifetime's ago, during the era of the Atlanta Great Southeast Music Hall, I was a comedy reviewer. One night an act didn't show up at the Music Hall. Tom Parks was a pouty, whiny unemployed dweeb who hung around the club every night. He volunteered to go on stage in place of the absent act. The club manager agreed because what else was she going to do. Tom took an avocado plant from behind the bar and set it on the stage on a bar stole. He proceeded to talk to the plant about his divorce. It was not funny. It was pitiful. As I recall the few audience members that night just complained and left. You would think that that would have ended his stand-up comedy career. But every time an act was late or didn't show up he took to the stage babbling about his divorce. Audiences exercised the usual heckling tactics -- yelling "get off" and "booing" and throwing food items at him. But the really pathetic part was that some audience members would sympathetically walk up to the edge of the stage and try to quietly talk him off as if they were trying to talk a jumper way from a ledge. One night he cornered me in a restaurant booth and enthusiastically asked me to critique his "act". I was infuriated. I told him, "You don't have an ACT! … Get a JOB and get the fuck away from my table!" He left me alone, but he did not otherwise take my advice. A year or so passed and then I saw him again on stage. He still didn't have an "act" but people were more polite - shaking their heads and questioning each other about why this guy was on stage. A couple more years passed and I went to a college audition showcase. There he was -- wearing a suit and presenting an "act." It was horrible, but it had a little bit of structure. And he held the microphone comfortably. He told a few juvenile jokes, the one's children tell, like "What's black and white and read all over?" - I swear they were that bad. Several years had passed when he started showing up on comedy showcase cable programs. His material was still awful, but his presentation was actually pretty good. He used phrasing, tone, mannerisms and emphasis as though what he was saying was funny. A few years later I caught him on the Tonight Show one evening. Shortly I was seeing him every time I turned on the TV because he was doing commercials. The last time I saw him he was hosting his own comedy special that showcased new young talent. I still don't think he's funny, but I watch him fondly, and I feel privileged to have been able to watch this man's life over all these years. And I'm thrilled to be proven wrong. He has given me joyous inspiration about the strength and resilience of human beings. Tom Parks is living proof that anybody can be a professional success if they doggedly pursue their dream. Finally, I want to assure you that it is a myth that all artists are born artists. Many fine artists in all fields do things other than their art as an occupation or serious interest. Some feel that continuing to work in the straight world gives them inspiration. So, maybe your boyfriend will write novels set in the computer industry. Did you know that Senator Barry Goldwater was a highly respected photographer and cinematographer? Hello Dolores, I am a 32 year old woman living in Surrey (England) I wanted to write to you because I first bought your book at an airport in 1992 when I was living in Cairo, Egypt. I was only 19 and was dating a Muslim man. I learnt so much from you that I credit you with making me the sexually adventurous and confident woman that I like to think I am! I thought your book was the best thing I had ever read (and still is to date) and I have not only read it dozens of times since, but made my partner at the time read it to see what he thought. He, despite being a strict Muslim and from a very reserved background, loved your book too and admired your decision and guts. I knew from his reaction that he was a great chap and accepted his proposal of marriage some months later. Although we only stayed married for 4 years, he remains my best friend and we speak on a daily basis. I am now happily married with a son...husband no.2 was also told to read the book!. I think you are fib Dolores and I wish you and your husband a Happy New Year. All the best, Caroline Martin xx 1/5/2006 |
