Elaine: it was very fun. Onigiri & I are already plotting a Thursday (35¢ martinis!) evening there. You’re welcome to visit anytime…but a quick internet search may indeed reveal devotees near you. Perhaps not a whole speakeasy…

This is one of the reasons I hate living where I do…nothing like this ever goes on around here. Or, if it does, it is kept awfully quiet.

BTW, your “sexy ankles” comments reminds me of a couple of lines from a song by the Shins:

Just a glimpse of ankle and I
React like it’s 1805

First of all, people on stage are going to be looked at; from “Nathaniel “Two Sheds” Johnstone- Guitar, Violin, Stockroom, Doling Out the Shots (Drinkable and Otherwise)” of the belt-hair and kilt to “Kristina “Angel” Erickson – Keyboards, Vocals, Navigation, Accounting, Skepticism” of the comically large grommets. I think each member of the band chose the method that they were going to be looked at more by their actions than anything else. The keyboardist (in the background of this shot) was actually wearing less than the vocalist/dancer yet the “objectified” was without a doubt “Finn Von Claret – Writhing and Wailing”.

I don’t think anyone was there to hear or to see Finn herself, but she was certainly the focus of a lot of attention. I don’t feel that her “writhing” is a calculated sexist move (which doesn’t make it non-sexist). And ultimately, I don’t feel that it was an action that was insisted upon by the men: it seemed to be completely Finn’s choice. And that? I have no problem with.

There was one song, about a mechanical doll, which included Finn doing the ballet-robot (a la the Nutcrack Suite). That was a little weirder to me. It is, perhaps more even than Airship Pirate, the quintessential steampunk song: about a man creating a clockwork woman to dance for him & for other men who pay him. And it was a great song, and I enjoyed her robot dance, but again, it was a little weird to me. Here is the lead singer pretending to wind up a dancer who is pretending to be his robot; and here is the audience, who has paid both singer & dancer to see the robot dance…there was a definite squik factor there.

The trapeze artists are a slightly different subject. They performed during one song and my first thought was that they were part of the club, not part of the band (in fact, I think I had this exact conversation with John). It was very Cirque du Soleil: amazing acrobatics in tight clothing. What else are you going to wear while doing amazing acrobatics? And yes, the flesh-colored jumpsuits were probably a little more over the top than they needed to be (they got me looking to see what I might be able to see). I don’t know how period-correct that was, perhaps I need to spend more time with the history books (naked acrobats! that’s why I became a historian!), so to me it seemed like a modern thing.

I guess I’m on the fence about the acrobats (and their kiss): is it all just show? Is it indicative of a power imbalance? Or is it just two talented women sharing their talents? (Not those talents, I meant their acrobatics. Really.)

According to Abney Park’s blog, they contracted the trapeze artist for this gig. Still on the fence: she’s certainly talented and how much work can there be for a trapeze artist these days? But there are questions that I cannot answer that would shed more light onto this particular issue.

and finally, Madame Fey. For a while, I didn’t realize that she was pushing a cart & hawking absinthe. I thought the wings were just part of someone’s evening attire (not technically athletic, I didn’t think). And in the dark, despite the photo, you had to stare pretty hard at her ass (which was just at my level while sitting on the bench) to realize that she was wearing a see-through dress. It may well have been calculated to get people to look at her & therefore to buy her alcools, although given the lighting I think that would have been accomplished by the fact that she was wearing green fairy wings. Does she wear the same dress each night? Even if Madame Fey is someone else for that shift? If so, definite issues. Is this just what she pulled out of the closet (or found in that awesome little place on Sunset)? Less issues.

The first thing it reminded me of was my friend who, the first time I met her, confided that this beautiful velvet dress that she was wearing was her favorite dress because it’s so formfitting that she can’t wear underwear when she wears it and she just loves not wearing underwear! Which is a lot of information for poor little me with my hand out-stretch, “hi, my name is…” She, who would love this club, btw, would probably purposely wear such a dress if she were le Fey in question. Partly because she could get away with it (because of the atmosphere and because of the lack of lighting) and partly because it would attract attention, speculation, and customers. Sitting here, however, it reminds me more of the (what I find problematic) sexy nurse who works at the local Howl at the Moon. She, too, works the crowd selling shots (jello shots in novelty syringes) and who, when you buy a shot, will climb into your lap, straddle you, and then shoot the syringe into your waiting an open mouth. (With a chaser of whipped cream.) As much as Howl at the Moon can be a fun place to hang out, I think it needs some major sensitivity training. This being the most egregious but by no means the only offense against women perpetrated on a nightly basis there.

Once again, I will appeal to who chose the action in question. Is her job description “be sexy”? Or just “wear green wings”? Does she feel that she needs to wear see through dresses to sell her quota? (That would be a feminist problem for society at large rather than for her employer.) Does her employer encourage see-through clothes, tacitly or explicitly? Or does she like the dress?

The feminist lens is a hazy one. At the end of the day, I will always bring it down to the woman in question. Does she feel exposed or manipulated? Does she feel free to perform/dress how she wishes?

If she does not feel manipulated, is she nonetheless, by virtue of society, circumstances, and whathaveyou? This is the really hard one for me. I could see how in each of the cases above, an argument could be made that she really had no choice and was forced into it by [insert reason]. But at some point you have to trust that grown women can make their own decisions (and should not be kept out of the workforce “for their own good”, which is a frequent argument by idiots patriarchalists) and can know their own mind.

None of these situations was especially problematic to me because there seemed, to me, to be ample opportunity for each of them not to have happened. Therefore, without interviewing all four of them, I’d be unable to rule them all anything but fine by me.

I, too, wore a low-cut shirt. Many women were in miniskirts, corsets, or strapless gowns. Neo-Victorianism notwithstanding, none of this skin shocked anyone (so far as I could tell). And plenty of women did conceal their sexy sexy ankles and elbows from public view. One of the greatest parts about the club was that I got a feeling of safety and respect from everyone. There were no creepy guys (something I just realized). There were guys looking at me, there were guys who were probably disappointed that I had a chaperone, but there were no guys who I would not have been comfortable being alone with in the dark alley just outside. And since the whole group had that feeling, I’m even more confident that the four women in question were emancipated, if you will.

Lessie: that sounds like so much fun! I did Burning Man, which might count as dress-up camping, but your version sounds quite awesome.

Jana: I missed you–it was quite the awesome event & while I was glad I got to go, I’m sorry you could not make it. My inner feminist was surprisingly unperturbed by both sexualizations.

…I cannot access MySpace right now, which I require to back up my position. More when I get home, promise.

I wonder if you’d be willing to offer some observations about the way that women’s bodies were sexualized by the gymnasts, the absinthe girl, etc. While I realize some of this is in keeping with the period did it seem over-the-top in a 21st century setting? Was your inner feminist okay with it?

I am still deeply impressed with your resourcefulness to bring the entire costume together with barely any notice, and no reliance on external sources (e.g. Goodwill).

Jana challenges the “drunken” descriptor though. When I described our antics, she thinks we were merely “tipsy.”

One last thought–it still intrigues me that there is an alternative, counter-cultural phenomenon based, of all things, on Victorian England when the Industrial Revolution was at *cough* full steam *cough*. We’re still recoiling from the sense environmental entitlement, scientific positivism, and economic and cultural imperialism of the era, and have full-on rebelled against the social stratification and sexual prudence that so characterizes it.

Literary steampunk satirizes the cultural and scientific naivite of the time by contrasting these with the roguish, negative aspects of exploitation of humanity and the environment (that’s partly why the ‘punk’ is in there). And maybe this tension is what it all boils down to: taking the proper gentleman and throwing him into a mosh pit, selectively and willfully exposing one’s bloomers and corsets to the public.