-
This is a play called "Sell/Buy/Date."
-
It's my first since "Bridge and Tunnel,"
which I did on Broadway,
-
and this one, I -- thank you --
-
I've excerpted it just for you,
so here we go.
-
Right. Class, let's be absolutely certain
-
all electronic devices are switched off
before we begin.
-
So class, hopefully you'll recognize
what you just heard me say as the -- ?
-
Very good, the cellular
phone announcement.
-
Right? This was also known
as a mobile phone.
-
So you'll remember, people of that era
-
would have had an external
electronic device, right,
-
something like this,
-
and they all would have carried
one of these around with them,
-
and amongst their biggest fears
was the sheer mortification
-
that one of these might ring
at some inopportune moment.
-
Right? So a bit of trivia
about that era for you.
-
(Laughter)
-
So the format of today's class is
-
I will be presenting multiple
BERT modules today
-
from that period in history, right,
-
so starting circa 2016.
-
And remember, this was
the very first year of the BERT program.
-
So we've got quite a few
of these to get through.
-
Bear in mind, I will be living
into various different bodies,
-
different ages,
-
also what were then called races,
or ethnic groups,
-
as you'll remember from Unit 1.
-
And -- (Laughter) -- and along
the gender continuum,
-
I will be living into males as well.
-
It was quite binary at that time.
-
(Laughter)
-
Also, don't forget, we are reading
the book module
-
for next week's focus on gender.
-
Now, I know some of you
have requested the book in pill form.
-
I know people still believe
ingesting it is better for retention,
-
but since we are trying to experience
what our forebears did, right,
-
let's please just consider doing
the actual ocular reading, okay?
-
And also, how many people
have your emotional shunts engaged?
-
Right. Please toggle them off. Okay?
-
I know it's challenging, but I want you
to be able to feel the entire
-
natural emo range, all right?
-
It is essential to this
part of the syllabus.
-
Yes, Macy?
-
All right. I understand.
If you're unwilling to --
-
All right, well, we can discuss
that after class.
-
All right, we will discuss your concerns.
-
Just relax. Nobody's died
and gone to composting.
-
Okay. After class. Okay? After class.
-
Let's just get started, okay.
-
This first subject identified
as a middle-class homemaker.
-
Remember, these early modules
-
in these people's full identities
were protected,
-
and this allowed them to speak
more freely on our topic,
-
which for many of them was taboo.
-
Okay honey, now,
I'm ready when you are.
-
No, sweetheart, I said,
I'm ready when you are.
-
I'm freezing.
-
It's like a meat locker in here
in this recording studio.
-
I should have brought a shmata.
-
All this fancy technology
but they can't afford heat.
-
What is he saying? I can't hear you!
-
I can't hear you
through the glass, honey!
-
There you are in my ear.
-
Oh, you can hear me?
-
The whole time.
-
Oh, yes, I am a little chilly.
-
Yes, oh the cold is for the machines,
the new technology. Okay.
-
Yes, now remind me again, you're recording
not only my voice but my feelings
-
and my memories? Right.
-
Yes, BERT, yes, I read about it.
-
Bio-Empathetic Resonant Technology.
-
Right, right, so people will be able
to feel my experience
-
and my memory? Okay.
-
No, right, I'm ready.
-
I just thought you were going to give me
a test to see how my memory's doing.
-
I was going to tell you you're too late,
it's already bad news.
-
No, no, go ahead, honey.
-
Oh, that's the first question?
-
What do I think of prostitution?
-
Are you soliciting me, young man?
-
I've heard of May-December romances,
but what are you, about 20 years old?
-
Eighteen? Eighteen years.
-
I think I have candies in my purse
older than 18 years old.
-
(Laughter)
-
I'm teasing you, sweetheart.
No, I'm comfortable with any question.
-
Sure. So about the prostitution --
oh, sex worker, sex worker.
-
No, just in my day, they called it
prostitution, not sex work.
-
Oh, because it includes pornography also?
-
Okay.
-
No, well, I guess when I was a girl,
-
we didn't really have
a name for that either.
-
We would have said dirty magazines,
I suppose, or dirty movies.
-
Well, it's not like what you have
with the Internet.
-
No, well, I don't mind sharing.
-
My late husband and I,
we were a very romantic couple.
-
Lots of tenderness, you understand.
-
Well, as you get older, you know,
at one point I thought my husband
-
might be helped by using
some of the pills men can take,
-
but he wasn't interested in those,
-
so I thought, what about maybe
watching an adult movie on the Internet?
-
Just for inspiration, you understand.
-
Well, at the time, neither of us
were very good on the computer,
-
so usually, if we needed help
with the Internet,
-
we would just call our children
or our grandchildren,
-
but obviously, in this case,
that wasn't an option,
-
so I thought, I'll have
a look myself, just to see.
-
How difficult could it be?
-
You search for certain key words
and you look --
-
Oh wow is right, young man.
-
You can't imagine what I saw.
-
Well, first of all, I was just trying
to find, you know, couples,
-
normal couples making love,
-
but this, so many people
together at one time.
-
You couldn't tell which part
belonged to which body.
-
How they even got the cameras to
capture some of this, I couldn't tell you.
-
But the one thing they didn't capture
was making love.
-
There was lots of making of something,
-
but they took the love part
right out of it, you know, the fun.
-
It was all very extreme, you know?
-
Like you would say,
with the extreme sports.
-
Lots of endurance,
-
but never tenderness.
-
So anyway, needless to say,
that was $19.95 I'll never get back again,
-
but it only showed up on the credit card
as "entertainment services,"
-
so my husband was never the wiser,
-
and after all of that,
-
well, you could say it turned out
-
he didn't need the extra
inspiration after all.
-
Right, so next subject is a young woman
-- (Applause) --
-
Next subject, class,
is a young woman called Bella,
-
a university student interviewed in 2016
-
during what was called
an Intro to Feminist Porn class
-
as part of her major in sex work
at a college in the Bay Area.
-
(Laughter)
-
Yeah, I just want to, like,
get a recording of, like,
-
you guys recording me,
-
like a meta recording, or whatever.
-
It's just like this whole experience
is just, like, really amazing,
-
and I'd like to capture that
for, like, Instagram and my Tumblr.
-
So, like, hi guys, it's me, Bella,
-
and I am, like, being
interviewed right now
-
for this, like, really amazing
Bio-Empathetic Resonance Technology,
-
which is, like, basically where they are,
like, recording, as you can see
-
from these, whatever, like, electrodes,
-
the formation of, like, neuropeptides
in my hippocampus, or whatever.
-
They will later be able
to reconstitute these
-
as, like, my own actual memory,
like actual experiences,
-
so other people can, like,
actually feel what I'm feeling right now.
-
Okay. Okay.
-
So, like, hello, BERT person of the future
who is experiencing me.
-
This is what it feels like to be,
like, a college freshman,
-
and also the, like, headache
that you are experiencing through me
-
is the, like, residual effect
of the Jell-O shots which I had last night
-
at the bi-weekly feminist
pole dancing party
-
which I cohost on Wednesdays.
-
It's called "Don't Get All Pole-emical" --
(Laughter) --
-
and it's in Beekman Hall,
-
and, what else, like,
-
non-Jell-O shots are also
available for vegans,
-
and, oh, okay, yeah, totally, yeah, we
should also focus on your questions also.
-
So for your record, I am, like,
a sex work studies major
-
but minoring in social media
-
with a concentration
on notable YouTube memes.
-
(Laughter)
-
Yes, well, of course, like,
I consider myself to be, like,
-
obviously, like, a feminist.
-
I was named for Bella Abzug,
who was, like, a famous, like,
-
feminist from history,
-
and, like, also I feel that it is, like,
important to, like, represent women
-
who are, like, sex-positive feminists.
-
What is sex-negative?
-
Well, like, I guess I would ask,
like, what do you think
-
sex-negative is? (Laughter)
-
Yeah, because, like, the terms that we use
are, like, so important, because, like,
-
we call it sex work because it helps
people understand that, like, it's work,
-
and, like, you know, just like there are,
like, healthcare providers
-
and, like, insurance providers,
-
like, we think of these workers
as, like, sex care providers.
-
Yeah, but like, I don't think of myself
like, providing direct
-
sex care services per se as, like,
being a requirement
-
for me to be, like, an advocate.
-
Like, I support other women's right
to choose it voluntarily, like,
-
if they enjoy it.
-
Yeah, but, like, I see
myself going forward
-
as more likely, like,
protecting sex workers',
-
like, legal freedoms and rights.
-
Yeah, so, like, basically,
I'm planning on becoming a lawyer.
-
Right, class. (Laughter) (Applause)
-
So these next two modules
are also circa 2016.
-
One subject is an Irishwoman
with a particularly noteworthy
-
relationship to this issue,
-
but first will be a West Indian woman,
-
a self-described escort
-
who was recorded at a
sex workers' rights rally and parade.
-
She was interviewed whilst marching
in full carnival headdress
-
and very little else.
-
All right, you want me
to start talking now.
-
Yeah, I told you, you can
put those wires anywhere you want to
-
as long as it don't get in the way.
-
Yeah, no, but, tell me again
what the name of -- BERT? BERT.
-
Yeah, I was telling you, you know,
I think I have on my time
-
I have had at least one client with that
name, so this won't be the first time
-
I had BERT all over me.
-
Oh, I'm sorry,
-
but you got to get into the spirit of it
if you're going to interview me.
-
All right? You can say it.
-
No justice, no piece!
No justice, no piece!
-
But you see the sign? You get it?
P-I-E-C-E. No justice, no piece of us.
-
You understand?
-
Right, so that's the part
where I was telling you
-
is that when I first came to this country,
I worked every job I could find.
-
I was a nanny. I was a home care attendant
for all these different old people,
-
and then I said, child, if I have to touch
another white man's backside,
-
I might as well get paid
a lot more money for it than this,
-
you understand?
-
Pshh, you know how hard it is
being a domestic worker?
-
Some of these men, they're heavy.
-
You have to pick them up
and flip them over.
-
Now, I let them pick me up
and flip me over, you understand?
-
Well, you have to have a sense of humor
about it, that's what I think.
-
No, but see, listen,
-
you find me somebody who don't hate
some part of their job.
-
I mean, there's a lot of things
about this job that I hate,
-
but the money is not one of them,
-
and I will tell you, as long as this
is the best possibility
-
for me to make real money,
-
I am going to be Jamaican No Fakin
if that's what they want to call me.
-
No, I'm not even from Jamaica.
That's how they market me.
-
My family is from Trinidad
and the Virgin Islands.
-
They don't know what I do,
but you know what?
-
My children, they know
that their school fees are paid,
-
they have their books and their computer,
-
and this way, I know
that they have a chance.
-
So I'm not going to tell you
that what I do, it's easy,
-
I'm not going to tell you that I feel
what's that you said, liberated,
-
but I'm going to tell you
that I feel paid.
-
Right. (Applause)
-
Thanks, that's lovely,
and just the cup of tea, love,
-
and just a splash of the whiskey.
-
It's perfect, that's grand.
Just a drop more. A splash. Perfect.
-
What was your name? Peter?
Is that right, so, Peter?
-
Right. So that, that is
the unique part of it for me,
-
right, is that I ended up in both,
-
first in the convent, and then
in the prostitution after. That's right.
-
So one woman at the university
here in Dublin, she wrote about me.
-
She said, Maureen Fitzroy is the living
embodiment of the whore-virgin dichotomy.
-
Right? (Laughter)
-
Doesn't it sound like something
you need to go into hospital?
-
Well, I've got this terrible dichotomy.
-
Doesn't it.
-
Right. Well, for me though, it was,
as a girl, it started with me dad.
-
I mean, half the time, when he
spoke to us, it was just a sort of
-
tell us we were all useless rotten idiots
and we had no morals, that type of thing.
-
And I certainly didn't
do myself any favors.
-
By the time I was 16,
-
I had started messing about
with this older fella,
-
and he wanted it to be
our little secret,
-
and I did as I was told, didn't I,
-
and when that got back to me dad, he
had me sent straightaway to the convent.
-
Well no, that older fella, he would still
come to find me in the convent.
-
Yeah, he'd leave me notes
-
tucked into the holes in the brick
at the back of the charity shop
-
so we could meet.
-
And he'd tell me how
he's leaving his wife,
-
and I believed him, until I got pregnant.
-
I did, Peter, and I left him a note
about it in our special place there,
-
and I never did hear from him again.
-
No, I gave it up for adoption
so it could have a decent life,
-
and then they wouldn't let me
back into the convent.
-
No, my one sister Virginia gave me
a fiver for the coach to Dublin,
-
and that's how I ended up here.
-
Well, surprise, surprise, I fell in love
with another fella much older than me,
-
and I always say I was just so happy
because he didn't drink,
-
I married the bastard.
-
Well, he didn't drink, but he did have
just the wee heroin problem, didn't he,
-
and -- That's right, and before I knew it,
-
he was the one who turned me on
to the prostitution, my own husband.
-
He had me supporting the both of us.
-
I was 18.
-
Well, it wasn't Pretty Woman,
I can tell you that.
-
That Julia Roberts,
-
if she'd ever had to sleep with a man
to put a few pounds in her pocket,
-
I don't think she'd ever
have made that film.
-
Well, for your record,
-
my opinion of the legalization,
I'd say I'm against it.
-
I just, I don't care what
these young girls say.
-
You know, living like that,
you're just lost,
-
and, you know, I'm 63 years old.
-
I'm still trying to find who I am.
-
You know, I never was a wife or a nun,
-
or a prostitute even, really, not really.
-
Nobody ever asked who I wanted to be.
-
They just told me,
-
and if you legalize it,
-
then you're really telling these girls,
"Go on and get lost for a living,"
-
and a lot of them,
they'll do as they're told.
-
All right, so four perspectives
from four quite -- (Applause) --
-
four quite difference voices there, right?
-
One woman saying sex itself is natural
but the sex industry seems to
-
mechanize or industrialize it.
-
Then the second woman considered
sex work to be empowering,
-
liberating, and feminist,
though she, herself, notably,
-
did not seem keen to do it.
-
The third woman, who actually was
a so-called sex worker
-
did not agree that it was liberating
but she wanted the right
-
to the economic empowerment,
-
and then we hear the fourth woman
saying not only prostitution itself
-
but proscribed roles for women in general
-
prevented her from ever
finding who she was. Right?
-
So another fact most people did not know
-
was the average age of an at-risk girl
being introduced to the sex industry
-
was 12 or 13.
-
Also consider that the age
when all girls in that society
-
first became exposed
to sexualized images of women
-
was quite a bit earlier, right?
-
This, this was a doll
called Barbie, right?
-
I initially thought she was an educational
tool for anorexia prevention,
-
but actually she was considered by many
-
to be a wholesome symbol of femininity,
-
and often young girls began
what was called dieting.
-
Remember this? This was
restricting food intake on purpose
-
by the age of six,
-
and defining themselves
based on attractiveness
-
by around that same time. Right?
-
Yes?
-
Right, Bradley, okay, excellent point.
-
So there was a lucrative market
in that society in convincing all people
-
they had to look a certain way
to even have a sex life, right?
-
But girls, especially, were expected
to be sexy while avoiding
-
being perceived as "sluts"
for being sexual. Right?
-
So there's that shame piece
we've heard about.
-
Yes.
-
Valerie, right? Okay, very good.
-
Of course, men were having sex as well,
-
but you'll remember from the reading,
-
what were male sluts called?
-
Very good, they were called men.
-
(Laughter) (Applause)
-
So not easy living in
a world like that, right?
-
So it was not all bad news either.
-
Most women in the early 2000s
considered themselves empowered,
-
and men generally felt they were
also evolved in this area,
-
and, in fact, most people would have
been aware of issues
-
like human trafficking, for example,
-
but they would have seen that
as quite separate
-
from more recreational
adult entertainment.
-
And so we'll just very briefly, class,
we don't have a lot of time,
-
we'll just very briefly hear from a man
-
on our topic at this stage.
-
So this next subject was interviewed
on the night of his bachelor party.
-
Dude, can you, all right,
can you just keep it down?
-
I'm trying to talk to BERT right now.
-
Oh, your name's not BERT.
-
BERT's the name of the, oh, all right.
-
No, no, no, totally, it's totally fine.
I'm mostly sober,
-
so I just want to be helpful.
-
Yeah, and I totally believe in causes,
yeah, like, all that stuff.
-
And actually, I'm wearing Tom's right now.
-
Yeah, Tom's, like, the shoes,
-
like, you buy a pair and then
a kid in Africa gets clean water.
-
Yeah. Totally.
-
But what was the question again? Sorry.
-
Of course I believe in women's rights.
I'm marrying a woman.
-
No, but I mean, like, just because
I'm in a strip club parking lot
-
doesn't mean that I'm, like,
a sexist or whatever.
-
My fiance is totally amazing,
she's totally a strong girl, woman,
-
smart woman, like, the whole thing.
-
Yeah, she knows I'm here. She's probably
at a strip club herself right now,
-
like, as a joke, same as me.
-
My best man, I told him
he could surprise me,
-
and he thought this would be hilarious,
-
but this is not something.
-
Yeah, we all went to B school together.
-
Wharton.
-
Yeah, so, dude, can you guys--
-
All right, but it's my bachelor party,
-
and I can spend it in the parking lot
with Anderson Cooper if I want to.
-
All right, I'll see you in there.
-
All right, okay, so Anderson,
-
so, like, first of all, stripping,
-
but then, like, all the other things
you're talking about,
-
prostitution and all that stuff,
that's, like, not the same thing at all.
-
You know? Like, you keep calling it
"the sex industry" or whatever,
-
but it's like, if the girl wants
to be an exotic dancer
-
and she's 18, like, that's her right.
-
Whoa, whoa, I hear what you're saying,
but I just feel like people,
-
they just want to make it seem
like all dudes are just, like, predators,
-
that we would just automatically
go to a prostitute, or whatever.
-
Even, like, when I pledged, you know,
like when I rushed my fraternity.
-
My brothers who I'm close to,
those guys, they're all like me.
-
We're just normal people, but, like,
there's this myth that you must
-
be that guy who is kind of an asshole,
and like, all bros before ho or whatever.
-
And actually, like, bros before hos,
it doesn't mean like what it sounds like.
-
Like, it's actually just like a joking way
that you care about your brothers
-
and you put them first.
-
Yeah, but, you can't blame
the media, either.
-
I mean, like, if you
go watch "Hangover 2,"
-
and you think that's an instruction manual
-
for your life, like,
I don't know what to tell you.
-
You know? You don't
watch "Bourne Identity"
-
and go drive your car
over a gondola in Venice. (Laughter)
-
Well, yeah, okay, like, if you're
a little kid or whatever,
-
of course it's different, but --
-
Yeah, all right, I remember
one thing like that.
-
I was at this kid's house
one time playing GTA,
-
uh, Grand Theft Auto?
-
Dude, are you from Canada? (Laughter)
-
So, like, whatever, with Grand Theft Auto,
-
you're this kid, like, you're this guy
walking around or whatever,
-
and you can basically, like,
the more cops you kill,
-
the more points you get,
and stuff like that.
-
But also, you can find prostitutes
-
and obviously you can do
sexual stuff with them,
-
but you can, like, kill them
and take your money back.
-
Yeah, this kid, I remember he ran over
a couple of them a few times with his car
-
and he got all these points.
-
We were, like, 10, I think.
-
It felt pretty terrible, actually.
-
No, I don't think I said anything,
I just finished playing and went home.
-
All right class, so then there were men
who had more than just
-
a passing relationship to this issue.
-
The next subject described himself
as a reformed and remorseful pimp
-
turned motivational speaker,
-
life coach, and therapist,
-
but if you want to know more about him,
you'll have to come to the entire play.
-
Thank you so much,
you beautiful TED audience.
-
I will see you for "Sell By Date."
-
(Applause)