The Men In My Life When I Was A Dancer

The men. 

Where to start, describing them, and their various effects on me, from during my dancer years.

When I was in the Air Force, I was really struggling, with how to exist, in a healthy, happy, way, in an environment where men far outnumbered me and the other females there. 99.99% of the time, I felt like I was a pursuit, to them, and not a person. That wasn't a good way to feel to me. To be truly known, and really loved, for who I am, which my heart had always yearned for, was something that the limitations of men's lust didn't allow for. As a dancer in the nightclubs, I was once again in an environment which was populated mostly by men, and, more understandably, at least, given the atmosphere, with that same mindset of men toward me. Although my having been a dancer, and eventually doing prostitution, during this time in my life, seems, at least, by stereotype, to contradict this statement---  I have never actually been into such strictly physical involvements. I have always been someone who does not want or welcome any type of casual sexual relationships; in my body, or my life. I have known plenty of people, that seem eager, to jump into that type of thing, with little if any thought. I find such behavior to be truly concerning. On the deepest, truest, levels, physically, mentally, emotionally, and, even spiritually, I can only connect my sexuality with something that I feel deeply, in my heart, for someone special. Even when I have tried to project the opposite of that outwardly, at times, for whatever reason, it has always only been an act. My 'Stevie' side, I developed for my dancing career, was, also, never turned on, by men asking me, if my pubic hair was shaved into a heart shape, or, if my nipples were large or small, and telling me they would be great in bed if I would just give in to that with them. Honestly, that kind of thing always just grossed me out, even when the guys were good-looking or had other positive attributes aside from these common come-ons that I had to listen to every single shift I worked, as a dancer. >sigh< It was an inevitable and unavoidable part of the job. Maybe, I was the only girl, there, that felt this way, about it. But, what I enjoyed, about this job, was the dancing. Expressing myself!  Albeit, even my sexuality, and passion, to some extent. In reality, I kept all of that locked away, inaccessible, to these men, beneath my normal reserve, and even aversion, to males making advances when they made it clear that love and a real relationship had nothing to do with their attention or intention, toward me. This crap was simply a nuisance to me that I had to put up with, as a trade-off for a real sense of satisfaction and enjoyment, I got, from performing, up on the stage, interpreting the music, with my dance.

Since the stereotype about dancers led me to believe that I would almost certainly not find real love, in any of the Go Go bars that I was working in, despite my constant interactions with men in them, it, therefore, also felt like a relief to me, to be going into such places, where I would no longer even expect that, to happen, in my life. I wouldn't have to feel that it was because I was unlovable, anymore. Now I could attribute not finding it, not having it, to my job, instead of who  I was as a person. Guys did not see dancers as real people. They saw dancers as sex objects and fodder for their fantasies. They pictured us as always wearing sequins, not sweatpants, in their mind. If they wanted to see or get to know 'real' girls, they wouldn't come in those places, to begin with. What these men wanted, when they came into the Go Go bars, was an escape! From reality. I was a very real woman though, with a heart made of flesh not stone, which had been ripped apart, by what too many men had already put me through in my life. I would get a PhD-level education about males, from my becoming a dancer, and logging so many hours of conversations, and interactions, with them, over many years, in those nightclubs. They did not come in there wanting to meet a real human being. I had to learn to play the part, and be their fantasy; but, that didn't just serve the purposes of these men. I created a persona (my dancer alter ego, Stevie), who was protectively positioned in front of the 'real' me, and stood strong. I was already completely brokenhearted, and, could, potentially, be hurt, even more. By any, of these men. Stevie did not let them in, behind the mask, to see Deborah there, vulnerable, and hurting. Curled up, in a fetal position, sobbing her heart out. I had to create, and then develop, Stevie, though. I was dancing as Debby, when I started, my first night at the Razzle Dazzle as a Go Go girl, and that was simply not going to work--- to put someone, still that naive, trusting, and good-hearted into this arena surrounded by people that were completely comfortable in a world that I did not yet understand, or know how to navigate, in a way that protected me, from further physical or emotional harm. I would most definitely have been destroyed in some form or fashion, if I had continued, to expose my 'Debby' side, to this job. As soon as I was able, to comprehend enough about being a dancer, to know, what I needed to do, to survive and even thrive doing it, I brought 'Stevie' to the forefront, of me, and I let, that side, take over, in my life.

I eventually evolved fully into my dancer alias 'Stevie'.  It finally became who I was without my thinking about or trying to become that persona anymore. It was quite a change in many ways from who, and what, 'Debby' had been. In some ways, that was a release, and a relief. Debby was drained by takers and users. Stevie recognized peoples' crap when she saw it and made sure they knew she wasn't having it from them or anyone, even with just one steely-eyed look at them and not a word said*. I had NO time or energy to suffer fools gladly. (I still don't to this day, after living my life that way then! That was just part of the legacy that Stevie left me when she became who I was; and who I still am, to a large extent. All my decisions and movements had a purpose in my life when living as Stevie, supporting my own goals and my own agenda. My sweet, sacrificial, warm-heartedness cooled, down to frost-bite-level, toward gameplayers, assholes, and idiots, which this world apparently has a surplus of, based on how many I have met, and had to deal with, in my own life. While there were always nuances and traces, of the other side of me, no matter which side I was leading with, in my life, at any given time, Stevie was alot more assertive, as far as interacting with other people, because she had to be, to be  a dancer. She, was my stage presence. I could not have done that job, as long, or as well, if I had not created and developed that persona. I am not, by nature, always all that comfortable, being around other people. Especially, in unfamiliar, or stressful, social settings; as 'Deborah'. 'Stevie' was my outgoing side. Going up to strangers or having them come up to me, at work, night after night, was one of the most difficult parts of the job for me. As I said, because I was required, to sit, and talk, with all types of men, who came into these clubs, as part of my job, I eventually obtained, the equivalent of, an unofficial PhD in Male Psychology. It came down to my knowing, almost word for word, what would come out of a guy's mouth before I ever even approached him, simply based on his body language, when he walked in the door of the club. It was foolproof so much of the time that it was almost like a science, it was so certain. It was, also, so disappointing, and discouraging, to me.  All these men, being this predictable in their carnality, and superficiality. Their horniness, and often, misogyny, was always at the forefront.

I admit, that, during my dancer years, especially because I was surrounded by so much of this type of mindset from the males that I had to interact with at work, six nights a week, there was also a certain level of prick-tease payback, I did, toward these men, for all the ways and times they had, and still, continued to, fail me, throughout my life. And, worse, done me actual harm. Some would say, that 'Stevie' was the dark side, of me, and in some ways, and at some times, I would agree, with that. But 'Stevie' also stood up for herself and didn't take crap off of people, and gave herself permission to dismiss someone from her presence with an emphatic, "FUCK OFF!" when she felt that to be necessary. 'Stevie' enjoyed a freedom from the constraints and shackles of others' opinions, and expectations, which, had held me hostage, for my whole life, before that, as Deborah; the good girl, who had no choice, because she had no voice. 'Stevie' was brought to the forefront, from the depths, of me, to run things, much more, on HER terms, for awhile. No, I am not describing a split personality. I simply, ascribed certain characteristics, and permissions, to my alter ego, socially, when I created that, 'Stevie' persona, to work in the nightclubs, in order to survive, this whole, new, world, which I had now become a part of, as a dancer in the Go Go bars of the Omaha area. For better, or for worse, as far as the effect of it on me, and on my life, 'Stevie', was the part of me, that could cope with, living that kind of life. As a case in point of my summoning 'Stevie' to carry that kind of confident vampiness off, one day, several years, after I, finally, had to retire, from dancing, I was walking down the sidewalk alongside one of Omaha's busiest streets (S.72nd Street) headed to a fast food restaurant for my lunch break, from the large book store that I now worked in, as a cashier. As I spotted The Twenties night club, not far down, from there, on a side street, those memories of my dancing there for years came back to me. I was having a crappy workday at the bookstore. I was paid minimum wage there working for people who didn't appear to ether recognize, or respect, my value. I was feeling pretty discouraged. So, when I saw, the nightclub, those memories raised up that feisty, take no crap, 'Stevie' side of me, and I burst into doing my Stevie walk--- a very sleek, and sexy, runway, kind of confident stride--- just to lift my spirits some. I wasn't thinking about anyone actually watching me, until I heard the SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH of a car, trying to brake very abruptly, and then the sound of the car hitting something in the street.  I turned to look behind me, to see where that startling noise was coming from, and saw a guy, still staring at ME, from the driver's seat, of that car, with a look of bewildered disbelief, on his face, as reality, had, literally, come crashing back, into his life, from whatever place of fantasy watching me walk that way had transported him. He had run into the median, in the center of the street, and hit the stop sign, that he didn't even see; until it was too late. Ah, the power, of  a certain type of a woman's walk on a man . . . . It's amazing to me. I hope he had insurance!

Sometimes the club customers 'courted me' romantically, in ways that were somewhat bizarre. I had a regular customer, at the Backdoor Lounge, who was actually a fairly young, unmarried, minister, from Louisville, Nebraska, about a 30 minute drive, from Omaha. He felt fairly secure that none of his parishioners would find him, sitting in a Go Go bar, that distance away, and he was tired of being single, but, equally tired of well-meaning church women trying to set him up with what he saw as their dull and dowdy daughters. Even though he was a 'man of the cloth', he explained to me that he had the normal, male, desire for something that was more exciting in a woman; especially, one he would consider marrying. He was average looking, and a nice enough man, although, not particularly captivating company, for me. But, he made a pleasant and preferred regular, for me, in the nightclub, because I tended to keep the nicer guys as my regulars. I had no desire, to deal with the guys that were just jerks. In there, or anywhere else. Since I am a Christian, and actually fairly well versed in all things 'Christian'--- which, seemed to surprise many, since, I was a dancer, and therefore, bucking their stereotype, of me, in that way--- we had that foundational background in common. However, one night, he offered me a ride home, after work, after I'd known him for some time, and he pulled this hand puppet from the back seat of his car, put in on his hand, explained to me that it was the same one he used every Sunday, to give the Children's Sermon portion of the church service, and then used it to speak to me, for him, about the naughty little things it (he) fantasized about doing to my body!  I cooled, toward him, completely, after that, because, now, I pictured him, using that thing with the preschool age children, at his church, and wondered if he had such thoughts toward them when he had this same puppet on his hand. He AND the PUPPET were now CREEPY to me!

During my dancer years, all things with men and how they are or tend to be, taken as a whole, I became extremely glad that I was single and did not have a husband to wonder about, as far as his whereabouts, when he was not home, with me, or his faithfulness, to the vows, he took, which many men do not seem to be very concerned about staying true to after they say those. My extensive education that I got, about men, especially, during these years, of my life, taught me that, they are not worth it, and are also more trouble than they are worth. Especially, as far as what I gave, for what I got, with them. It was both, funny, and sad, to me, to be shopping in the women's department at a store in the mall, and see one of the club customers, standing 6' tall, or so, desperately trying to shrink themselves down, to try to hide, behind the 5'5" woman they were with, which was clearly their wife. The look on their face was one of silently begging me not to speak to them, or in any way indicate that I even knew them; especially not, where I knew them from! There was one, club customer, that I knew, from the very last nightclub that I worked in, who was a route salesman. He lived in Minnesota, but had to regularly drive down, to Omaha, as part of his travels for his job. He provided embalming supplies to funeral homes. I never did anything sexual with him. Not even a kiss, not an embrace, nothing. He seemed to be a really nice man, and he felt lonely on the road, with only his motel rooms, along his route, the funeral parlors he sold to, and eating alone at the end of each day. That is why he came in to the club, I worked in, both, to watch the exotic dancers, on stage, and because this bar also served food, not just drinks. Otherwise, he simply sat in his motel room, watching TV alone, at night. I don't recall him even drinking alcohol. I felt sorry for him, so I agreed to eat dinner with him out at a restaurant. After that, every time he regularly came to town, on his sales route, he called me and asked me to eat dinner with him. I did, but I am sure I shouldn't have as he was a married man. Eventually, after a few months of this, despite no romantic behaviors, between us, he called me and said that he should not be doing this, and he ended our dinners together. 

The next month, though, he called me up, and was extremely angry with me that I had heartily endorsed that decision of his, and had not made him feel more 'wanted' by begging him not to stop our dinners together! His ego was wounded, because it had not bothered me in the least, or phased me at all. He had apparently gotten emotionally invested in his relationship with me; not a good thing to do. His sales route was so mundane and drab, to him, that, by comparison, I had become the bright spot, in his trip. I had no real involvement with him, though, and, I had thought he had done the right thing, when he said a married man should not be having dinner, in restaurants, with another woman, especially not on a regular basis. Despite our never being romantically involved, with one another, I nevertheless felt very uncomfortable, when he would call his wife--- at their agreed upon time in the evening--- while I was sitting across from him at a restaurant table. It bothered me to hear him tell his wife that he was sitting in his motel room, ordering dinner in for himself or such, and it just wasn't true. I knew his wife likely believed her husband though; and I knew that, more than likely, my second husband had done me like that and more than once, in our relationship; a hunch I have just based on how emotionally distant we became, with one another, and how, he never talked, to me, about, where he went, or was, when he was out, which was fairly often. >sigh<  I knew these same men wouldn't like it, if this behavior was done in reverse, to them, either, which made me even madder, that they thought we deserved no better, than this, from them! Every time this club customer I was having dinner with hung up the phone, after telling his wife those lies, right in front of me, as a witness, to it, I could see that, for him, that was simply a 'courtesy call' he made to her, that he did not feel the least bit guilty about doing. I lost my temper, when this, married, club customer started actually telling me off, when he returned to town next, and tried to renew our get-togethers after he had stopped them, himself, which I had readily approved of and agreed to. It had become a bizarre 'jerking me around', now, due to his own conflicting emotions. I was not having it, and I told him to never contact me again, or I would tell his wife. He lived in a small town, and he had told me where. I actually would not have told her, and hurt her, but he did not know that; and I said that to break his attachment, to me, which needed to happen. We had only eaten dinners, together, in restaurants, but I knew that he had become too emotionally invested in me, for whatever his reasons, when he called me once from Minnesota, where he was home, with his wife and kids, for the weekend. He told me that he had deliberately got out of going to church, with his family, like he usually did, on Sunday mornings, so that, he could call me, 'just to hear my voice'. That made me feel sick, inside, and I regretted ever agreeing, to be his dinner companion, when he came to town on his sales route. He also created an email account just to contact me, he said. 

There was something else, about him, that angered me most of all. Not so much, directly, as it was not aimed at me. But, I was especially upset, with something that he did once, during one of our dinners, because of my own father, failing me, in the same way that this man was doing to his daughter. This man was tall, and thin, just like my father. He looked alot like him too. He actually could have even been my distant relative, I suppose, because, he even had the same last name! He was alot like my father, in many ways. Perhaps, my relationship with him was a way of my trying to vicariously have the attention and affirmation, from him, that my dad never gave me. On this one particular evening, as we were eating dinner at a restaurant, he dutifully made his obligatory phone call to his wife. They talked a bit, as I sat across the table from him feeling awkward about it all, even though we did not have a romantic, or a sexual, relationship with one another. When their conversation was finished, he looked annoyed, and, without any prompting, or prying, from me, about whatever was causing him to look so angry, he began to tell me, with disdain, dripping, from every word that he said, that his daughter, who was in her late teens, or early twenties, was in counseling, and had described, to the counselor, how this man, her father, had ruined her life due to emotionally crippling** her, because of his physical and emotional absence from her life. She felt an aloofness, indifference, and lack of nurturing from him, just as I had felt from my father, for my whole life. He looked across the table at me, with unbridled hostility, displayed in every feature of his face, and said, to me, "She just wants somebody to blame. I couldn't possibly have 'ruined' her life! I am almost never even around!" 

"It is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard--- but, it is so like her," he continued, as I held my temper, outwardly, because we were sitting in a crowded family restaurant, in the mall; but internally, I was livid, listening to this, clueless, father simply shrug off his own daughter's pain, which was caused by his own ignorance of, and impatience with, her needs. My life, had been impacted in this same, very negative way, because of my father's refusing to be affirming, and affectionate, toward me. That, drove me into a marriage, and, out of school, as a freshman, at age 18, because, as soon, as I left home--- where my emotional needs were not being met, at all, I was extremely vulnerable, to any male attention, and nurturance, which I was starving for. That showed up in my life almost as soon as I went away to college in the form of my half-first cousin, who lived in that city, and took advantage of me sexually, causing me to feel that I was forced to marry him then.*** My own father wasn't communicative or loving, toward me. When he would interact with me it was always very short and to the point, in which he almost always communicated his disappointment in, or disdain toward, me, adding insult, to that injury, to my soul, with unhelpful hostility, whenever a situation arose for which I needed his understanding, and support. So, I eloped, rather than explain to him, that I was failing my classes, while away at college, now, and falling apart, emotionally, because my cousin gave me that attention, and affection, that I was starving for, from a male figure in  my life; and that I thought, when he got me drunk, one night, that he had raped me. I flashback to that, here, because my relationship with my dad was my first information and education about men, and affected my relationships, and their outcomes---  especially, those I had with men---  throughout my life. My father would rarely be supportive, helpful, or understanding, toward me, and, the little, that he was, was not enough, to make a positive impact on my life, by counteracting, or undoing, the majority of the times that he failed me, as a father. He would never see, realize, or admit, how much of who I was or what I did happened because he had never really been a dad to me. Just like this club customer, denigrating his daughter, my father, would have reacted this very same way. In that moment, as I was listening to this man, absolutely refuse, to take any blame, or responsibility, for how his daughter was damaged, by his own omissions, and commissions, in his (lack of a healthy, nurturing) relationship, with her, I hated them both. Him, and my father. I saw them as two very ignorant, unseeing, males. I wasn't sure, if they, truly, didn't comprehend their hugely damaging, negative impact, on their daughters, or whether they were so upset, to be accused of it, because they knew, it was true, deep down, that they had failed their daughters; but they really didn't care, or, just didn't know what to do, so, rather than try, to deal with it, they simply shut down, and ignored the issue. Regardless, every little girl, that grew up to be a dancer, or  a prostitute, used to be some man's daughter, who either did, or didn't, affirm her, nurture her, or demonstrate to her that she is worthy of respect, and loving care, and especially from men.

I had met this man I was having dinner with at the last club that I ever danced at, before I was finally forced to retire, from the business. I had put off that, dreaded, day, as long as I possibly could, because I enjoyed doing this job so much! (The dancing, not the dealing with the men.)  I had always looked younger than my age, up until my sixties which I am midway through now and is when the stresses of life have begun to really age me. Rapidly. I was still on stage until the year 2000 when I was 44 years old. People guessed my age at around mid-to-late thirties. The trouble was, by your late thirties--- whether that was a dancer's actual age or the age she appeared to be--- you were considered to be too old to be in the dancing business. Most men wanted to feast their eyes on, and get their hands on, the nubile younger women who weren't yet jaded or cynical toward them, or, they hoped, toward their, inevitable, sexual advances on them. I was in my late twenties, when I started working as a dancer, so I had a late start, at it, as it was. I had seen several other girls grow too old, or ugly, to be able to remain a dancer in any viable way, if only because the ability to get hired, and the income from tips from the club customers, dried up, right along with their estrogen. It left me feeling very uneasy that, for the ones that stayed too long, in the business, the blatant disrespect they started to receive, from bosses who fired them, sometimes actually physically throwing them out of their nightclub, by literally grabbing them off the stage, and from club customers, who wouldn't even set eyes on them when they danced or sit with them so they could sell their drink quota for the shift, could be something that could happen to me, too, someday. It was both sad and scary, to me. I told myself, I would not allow myself to stay until I, too, was asked, or even worse, told, to leave. I realized that day was finally almost upon me, at Lipstix in Council Bluffs, Iowa, which was the last club that I worked at. I quit soon after this happened to me: I got along well with the other dancers and not one of them made me feel like I didn't still belong. I had earned their respect, my years in the business. One night, when I was up on stage, a young man, probably half my age, then, so, in his early twenties, held out his dollar, folded in half, lengthwise, like tips were usually presented to us dancers; and when I knelt down to have him slip it into the side of my costume bottom, he said, to me, observationally, with no disrespect, in his voice, at all, "I give you props, for being up there. You look good, for your age!"  I forced a smile, which was hard, for me, in that moment, as I simultaneously felt a wince, trying to take hold, instead. I felt self-doubt set in, I started dreading my dances, and I knew, that the fun had ended, for me, in this career. The reality, had finally hit me; that I could no longer do this job. THAT day, had COME.

Just, to give you some examples, of why, the guy, at Lipstix, who simply said, sincerely, to me, "You look good, for your age!" was letting me off easy, compared to how the customers speak to, treat, and talk about, some of the dancers in these nightclubs, I just Googled Reviews for a couple of these bars that I actually used to dance in 'back in the day'; decades ago, now. Here is a ONE STAR Review, of Lipstix, that I Googled, just now, to show you what customers have to say, about how the dancers look, through their eyes. It's a tough business. Especially, if you happen to be an aging dancer:

Rick S. Omaha, NE 1/3/2018
Slow paced depressing atmosphere, bikini bar. Variety of girls ranging from the sublime (a couple) to the ridiculous(most). A couple of them were a little scarey to look at. Typical midwest bikini bar with just average girls at best.  

Here is another, One Star, online, Review. This one is about The Twenties nightclub in Omaha, where I also used to work, decades ago. It was the best Go Go bar, in the area, when I worked there:

Dave R. Sioux Falls, SD 8/30/2016
Can't rate lower than a 1. That's yelp's shortcomings. This place is a nightmare. Coming from an out of town guest. Apparently Nebraska has a no, nudity law?? You can't strip below a bra and panties. I can see that shit on Disney. Also, if a girl stands next to to you (hangs with you) you HAVE to buy them drink. IF you want to have a private dance, it's a mandatory drink buy for them..... And 25 per girl per song.. Unless you have two people, then two girls (at 25 per girl/per song).. Then it cost 100 bucks. Cuz they switch in the middle of one song, so one song, two ppl, two girls.. Means they danced 1/2 a song per person. Apparently means they're worth double. Asked their manager and he said the math gets "hard". Maybe for his ignorant ass. Math is pretty easy. When I told him that, he said the math is different in this industry. I know people in "this industry" and they don't need to run scams to make money. Girls take off their clothes (not at your bar) that should be enough. If you can't make money off that without screwing ignorant people. Then, good for you. God bless you and eat shit.

Alot of the guys that came in these bars were not jerks. But, some of them were real assholes. One night I was sitting in the club waiting for the start of the show, when another dancer came and sat by me just to chat. I was feeling really disgusted by men, right about then, because of some of the crap, that they had been doing, which was causing me to lose all my faith in them as decent human beings who could think with their actual head and not their little head in their pants. Because, we girls worked together, in the same room, every night, we knew, who knew which club customers, and which guys were newcomers to the bar, or strangers to us. (In fact, we would even, go back, to the dressing rooms, and let a girl know, when one of her 'regulars' came in the club, so she could get out there, and make her money.) So, this other dancer that was talking with me, then, tried to tell me that it was not as bad, as what I was making it out to be, about men. I looked her in the eyes, and said to her, "I'll bet you, it is! You pick ANY guy in this room, as long as you know it isn't someone that you or I know in here, and just go sit near enough, to them, to be able to hear my conversation with them. Once you get in position, I will come over and say something to the guy. ANY guy, YOU PICK! And I just want you to listen to what he says. She said okay and walked over to the large bar and sat down near a guy sitting on a bar stool there, not speaking with him, at all. Then I walked over to him, never having set eyes on him before, in my life, and tapped him on the shoulder, as she watched from close by. As soon as he swiveled around to face me I stepped in between his manspread**** legs while noticing his wedding ring, on the hand holding his drink, and I said, to him, "Hey, baby! Do you wanna have sex, with me, tonight?" He sat straight up in his chair and, with a voice, filled, with his excitement, and enthusiasm, he replied, right away, to me (nothing else, said, between us), "Heck yeah!" I didn't say another word, to him, at all, but I looked at her then, and said, "That's why." Then I walked off, and sat back down, across the room, where I was before. Point made. 

That predictably.

It was disgusting, to me!

These guys NEVER asked if we could get PREGNANT by them, and even if they didn't CARE about US, or THEIR BABY, they also did not contemplate that we could require paternity tests, and take them to court, for child support. (Guys seem to universally hate wearing condoms so  I sidestepped alot of sexual 'offers' from the men while I was a dancer by saying that I couldn't have sex with them because I wasn't on birth control. I wasn't. I had my tubes tied, when I was 28 years old, so I had been surgically sterilized. But, I wasn't telling them that, because I didn't want ANYTHING like what THEY WERE OFFERING. Or, should I say, TRYING TO GET, from me.) These guys did not ever ASK, whether we had some sexually transmitted disease--- and some of those diseases are not curable! In fact, when HIV Aids was first on the scene it was a DEATH SENTENCE and sleeping with someone even ONE time could INFECT YOU WITH IT if they had it. These men were often MARRIED men, that came in there, too. They could have gone home and given their wives herpes, for life, or spread a deadly disease, like AIDS, to the woman at home in their bed, trusting this husband that they loved, from the faith that they had shared marriage VOWS with one another making a MUTUAL COMMITMENT; even a spiritual COVENANT. It is considered, a SACRED union, in churches, and synagogues; not, just a civil ceremony. In fact these men ALSO usually didn't ask US if we were married, or if they did ask, THEY DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THAT. If they could get SEX, from you, that is ALL, they CARED about. That disgusts me, to the core of my being, about males. I see them as being weak and needy, selfish, unfaithful, untrustworthy, not worth, letting into your life. And, as someone, who clearly does not see women as real people with feelings, rather than simply as sex objects, or they would be much less likely, I would think, to do this crap to their wives or with the dancers. The fact that they see this behavior as harmless, to all parties involved, on any level, or if they don't, they still do it, anyway, leaves me feeling extremely grateful, that I do not have a man in my life, in my bed, or in my body, anymore. Nor do I want one of these low-life creatures. It's a hard thing when you were raised, from the time you were a little girl, to believe you would end up with a principled hero, and 99.99% of the men, you've encountered, are anything BUT that. 

Some of the club customers would just be 'handsy', always trying to 'cop a feel' whenever and wherever they could on whichever dancer they happened to be in proximity to, which was bad enough. Occasionally some asshole would just flat out grab for our crotch. In my entire career, as a dancer, only one pulled that particular move on me, when I had walked up to his table, to introduce myself, since we had never met, and he quickly reached out, and grabbed me there, but on the outside of my costume bottom. I reactively slapped his face, for it, then immediately retreated to the dressing room, to scream, in my fury, and pound on the wall, in there, with my clenched fists, to try to get my rage out from his doing that to me, so I could go back out there and do my job, dancing on stage, and mingling, between sets, with club customers, so I could sell my drink quota for the shift. One trick that men sometimes used, with the dancers that sat with them, was to tell a dancer that their tip was down inside his pant's pocket and she had to reach in there to get it to see 'how big of a tip' it was. Many a dancer learned the hard way, no pun intended, not to fall for that trick, after discovering the guy had cut a hole in the bottom of his pants pocket, and he had no underwear on. He did this so that, when the dancer reached in, she got a handful of his hard-on. Even worse though, was something that happened to me on stage, one time. Two customers, came in, one night, and sat right up by the stage. I didn't know, what was coming, from them, at all, because, I had never seen, any guys, do this, to a dancer, before. One of them stood up, to tip me, during my dance, holding his dollar bill in his hand, and the other also stood, to tip me, simultaneously. As I knelt to allow them to place the two tips into the side of the waistband of my costume bottom, they both suddenly dived down, with their hands, into the interior of my costume. As I realized, with shock and horror, that they were ambushing me (also, no pun intended), I frantically tried to break free and stand back up but, these two men, BOTH had their hands DOWN INSIDE my pants! I felt the one, in front, of me, actually put his fingers on my vulva, and he was trying to shove it into my vaginal opening when I fell over onto the stage floor, while trying to pull myself free of them. Adding insult, they BOTH KEPT THEIR TIPS, which were apparently only offered to me as a ploy, to ambush me, so they could literally touch my, most private, body parts. They knew, I couldn't simultaneously fight off TWO MEN, trying to grab my genitals with their bare hands, at once, so at least one of them would get to sexually assault me, in that way; which these strangers did, to me, on stage.

By the way, AL, the bouncer, there, at the Backdoor Lounge, was a jerk, himself. So he wasn't alot of help. He had defected, from working for Mickey, to come to work for, his buddy, Dick, at the Backdoor. AL didn't even try, to hide his misogyny, toward the very dancers that customers came to see, which made him a nice living, as well. He was irritable and indifferent, and spent most of his time, just sitting on his ass, on a bar stool, by the door, so that he could at least ID people coming in, to be sure that they were of legal age, so the bar didn't get its liquor license pulled. Other than performing that duty, he mostly sat staring at the bar TV in the corner of the room almost all night, every night, rather than ensuring that the customers interacting with the dancers, continually, were not getting out of hand, which, was supposed to be the biggest part of, what he got paid, to do. He never showed any of the dancers any real courtesy. He had an attitude that suggested that he was really bitter toward women. So, when he got really old and had to retire, he had only one friend, in the entire bar. A dancer named Michelle, who took pity, and was kind to him, even after all his hatefulness to all of us, including her, through the years. (I was not so warm-hearted, to him, when he suddenly tried to be friendly, to me, at the end of his career. His negligence had resulted in horrible things, happening, to me, such as when the two strangers, literally, grabbed my female genitalia, unimpeded, sexually assaulting me, right up on the stage, because we did not have a BOUNCER that DID HIS JOB PROTECTING US! Having AL as a bouncer was like NOT HAVING a bouncer and the customers could easily see that, about him.) After AL retired, he got hit by a car crossing the street, as he was walking the few blocks, from his apartment in an old, run down, high-rise, to see Michelle--- his only friend in the world--- because he was so cold, and mean, to everyone else, all the long years that he had worked there, that nobody liked him. Except her. And, that was because of her, generous, heart, toward him. Not because he deserved such a caring friend, as she was, to him, the last year or so of his life. Despite her wild streak that often got her into trouble at work, in this way, at least, she was a better woman, than me, for how she dealt with AL; showing him grace and mercy. I could have, and, probably, should have. But, I didn't. He never really recovered, from that accident, and his health rapidly declined, after that. Ironically, he came to the club, to see her, because, after he retired and left the bar, he didn't want to sit home and watch TV all day. Ultimately, AL was found dead a few blocks down the street from the bar he had worked in for so many years, in the apartment he had lived alone in with his cat; curled up in a fetal position on the floor with rigor mortis already set in before anyone found him. He didn't really have any friends, except, to her credit, not his, big-hearted Michelle. He died all alone. She took his cat.

I did not include, in this post, the two men, whom I met as club customers in one of the Go Go bars that I worked in, that I married. They were both from the Backdoor Lounge. Apparently, it attracted abusers; as did I. Which, is one of the biggest reasons that I finally determined that I would stay single, for the rest of my life. And, I have, and quite happily so, for over 3 decades now. Life is not perfect or probably ever all we hoped it would be. But, I have a good life, now, and I have to say that, for me, the men, that I allowed, into my private life, to any extent, from simply friendship, to physical intimacy, to marital commitment, were such a disappointment to me, for a myriad of reasons, depending on the relationship that we had with each other, that I don't miss having that--- or, having to deal with that--- at all! It works better, FOR ME, if I keep men at arms length, from me. Physically AND emotionally. Men only seemed interested in me for whatever was in it FOR THEM. When it was over, I always felt like, they had, plugged into me, and then, simply sucked the life energy right out of me, for their own nurturance, and just stepped over my drained body and soul, to move on to their next ambition or their next victim as the case may be. I never got anything, in return for my trouble, after allowing them into my life, that was good or good FOR me. I GAVE OUT all I HAD, and BURNED OUT from DOING that. There is nothing else left in me, that I have, or want, to give, to them now, in those ways. The only relationships, that I welcome, or value, with men, now, are those rare ones, that are cherished friends, who are mutually supportive, and don't try to work their agenda on me like most men do constantly, if they are allowed anywhere near my life. Sex may be overrated by men, and underrated by women. But it definitely undercuts the chances of a real relationship developing between two people on the basis of a true friendship when it is always 'rearing its ugly head', and, crowding out, every other option, to interact, with one another, in a, mutually, beneficial way. Many men, do not seem interested, in developing a friendship, with a woman. We would all be better off if that were the very foundation of ANY type of relationship that we share together. Those close friends that I have, that are men, are almost always gay, though.

I also didn't include the men that I did prostitution with, in this post, although there were only a few of them, that I met in the Backdoor Lounge, while I was a dancer, in that club. There were specific, and somewhat odd, reasons, that this happened at all with me, so I need to devote a post entirely to that, independently of the type of description that I am providing now about the men that come into those places in general. How I got to that place, after dancing for so many years, in so many nightclubs, and, never doing that, despite the fact that, almost every man, I ever sat with, came on to me, and tried to get me to have sex with them, is a bit bizarre. A big part of why I finally decided to do that had alot to do with police pushing me in that direction. I know that's the opposite of how this usually goes with a woman who gets involved in that. But my life has NOT been very ordinary, in MANY ways! A friend of mine said to me, not long ago, that I have lived "a very interesting life". I chuckled at that, when she made the observation to me during a phone call, because that is all too true. Living through all these things that I have survived (so far, anyway!), has taken a real toll, on me, too. I, definitely, feel, 'a little the worse for wear', at this point, in my life. Some, of what has happened, certainly underscores the fact that, life can, truly, be stranger than fiction, at times. How I ended up being a prostitute, drives that point home, in a very definite way! How, could my knowing a police officer, ultimately lead to committing acts of prostitution (which, aside from one speeding ticket, I got, on the highway in Missouri, almost 40 years ago, is the only statutory crime that I have ever committed, in my life, unless jaywalking is included)? I was never arrested for or charged with prostitution, but, I came really close, to that happening, a couple of times. If someone had told me, when I was a child, some of these things, I would go through, during my life, I would not have believed them.

I am sure, that my assessment, of males, was skewed, by my years of interacting with them in the Go Go bar nightclub environment that I worked in; because the really solid, stand-up, guys would more than likely not even want to ever come into a place like that. It does seem, though, that there are far too few, of them, in this world, than these other kinds that I usually encounter in my life. But, they are out there. I have been blessed to have known a few of them, in my life. Not in my own personal, romantic, relationships, unfortunately. But, as acquaintances, friends, and some relatives. On the other hand, I have known a discouraging number of, lesser, types, of males, including among acquaintances, (former) friends, and, sadly, some relatives of mine. That has definitely done some serious damage to my view of males. I don't think it could have gone any other way, based on, all the negative data, poisoning my thoughts, and affecting my emotions, where men are concerned. I have always felt, a huge letdown, deep inside me, that there have not been more 'heroes' who are disciplined, willing to stay the course to rise above what these 'lesser mortals' choose, to wallow in, while on this earth. When I was growing up, I was not at all, the type of young lady that would have ever become an exotic dancer. I went to Sunday School. I didn't swear. I had no idea what the punch lines even meant when someone told the occasional dirty joke, around me. I was innocent, naive, sweet, decent, and I believed in the Disney's Happy Ending, for me. Eventually, though, my heart got broken so many times by these guys that were jerks and not heroes, that something in me quit holding out any hope, or holding up my standards. Including, for myself. I had wanted, and waited for, someone that was virtuous; that I simply saw no evidence of even existing on this planet, for me. By age 18,  I was damaged, sexually, by my half-first cousin. I felt broken, used, disrespected, and tainted. That affects a girl. Her self-esteem is shattered, as well as her hope, or belief, that any decent man would, ever, have her now. Even if, he actually, finally, appeared. I sublimated alot of, not only my repressed, and unexpressed, sexuality, as a dancer, but my hurt, my brokenness, my disappointment, and my rage, that I was placed onto a planet, that was too Fallen, too tainted, to seem capable of offering me what I had imagined, as the life, that I would live, while here. It becomes easy, to compromise, even when you never thought you would, when, what you had expected or hoped that life would be like simply seems to be either nonexistent, or impossible. Reasons to hold out, vanish like vapor, when the desire of your heart becomes a dead dream.

* I was around 54 years old in the following photos, which was close to a decade after I finally felt forced to retire from dancing, due to signs of aging, setting in, on my facial features, more than anywhere else on my body. I have gone through alot in my lifetime and it was starting to show. There is a wear and tear, that happens, due to stress, and grief, which, our faces often reflect. I was a dark-haired brunette (my natural hair color) when I was a dancer, but I dyed it blonde, later on, for about 7 years, or so, just to see whether 'Blondes have more fun', as the saying goes (and they don't, in my experience). I can't find any photos of me from my dancer days. I never had very many of them from that period of my life, anyway. However, I included these photos, with this post, because, even though, a decade had passed, since I danced on stage as Stevie, they show something, that you can still see, from my years of becoming and being Stevie, my, dancer, alter ego. It is said, that, "A picture is worth a thousand words." The first 2 photos show me being my Deborah self: Friendly, sincere, sweet, gentle, caring, naive; and broken in ways, because of leading with the heart in a world which will often victimize us for doing that. The latter 2 photos, are of me, during the very same time frame that the first 2 photos were taken, but are summoning my Stevie side, to the forefront, of me, just to let that feisty side out to outwardly show her strength. After so many years of living my life as Stevie she became a big part of me instead of just being my alter ego during my dancer job. I didn't want to lose that part of me, that I developed and drew from, because I needed and admired so many aspects of my Stevie side. You can clearly see a real difference, between these two sides of me, in the photos. My Stevie side is sure of herself, sexy, street smart; with a strong, take no shit, and 'take no prisoners', mentality, accompanied by the 'Don't even THINK about messing with me', dismissive, look. My Deborah side has the heart of gold, that people break. 

These photos clearly reveal the gist of what I have been describing, in my posts, as being the differences, between, who I had always been, as Deborah, and, what I developed into, as my dancer alter ego, Stevie. People sometimes take Deborah's gentle, caring, way as weakness, never comprehending how much strength it truly takes, especially after I could have so easily grown cold and cruel to others, after all the awful ways that others have treated me, in my life, starting, with my own family, while I was growing up. If I allow it, my Stevie side is wonderfully quick to step in, even now, and tell people what they can do with their disrespect toward me! I am so glad that Stevie will always be a big part of me, now. God knows, Deborah has needed a strong, protective, advocate, to stand up for me, for my entire life. Except for Dick McGinnis, my boss at the Backdoor Lounge, I have never really had anyone do that for me very often, in my life. So, it means alot, to me, when they do. Except for those, rare, individuals, which have done that, on my behalf, my Stevie self became the one who always does it for me! There's a lesson, in that, for all of us, I think: We should cultivate that part of ourselves which will take a protective stand, speaking up for our own best interests and not allowing people to disrespect us, disregard us, or destroy us! [Note: I did not actually have dark facial hair, although it looks as though I did, in the 2 Stevie-side-of-me photos. I took all these pictures of myself, using an old flip phone style cell phone; all of them at about the same time in my life. But the darkness, of that one room, caused my face to appear like that, though you can see, from the Deborah-side-of-me photos (the first 2 photos of the 4) that I'm actually not a Bearded Lady! I think my makeup foundation color, and the dark shadows in that room, were causing that appearance.]

** emotional cripple - A person who has been rendered indecisive, alienated, uncaring, confused, or helpless in conjunction with experiencing debilitating emotions, such as worry, fear, panic, despair, etc. 

*** For more background on this, reference my previous blog posts: 

My Father: Almost Always In The Home But Almost Always Absent From My Life https://ascentthroughthedarknightofthesoul.blogspot.com/2019/06/my-father-almost-always-in-home-but.html, 

Nothing Happens In A Vacuum: Why I Dropped Out Of College And Got Married https://ascentthroughthedarknightofthesoul.blogspot.com/2019/05/nothing-happens-in-vacuum-why-i-dropped_29.html, 

My First Marriage: I Grew To Like Him As My Cousin But Not Really As My Husband https://ascentthroughthedarknightofthesoul.blogspot.com/2019/06/my-first-marriage-i-grew-to-like-him-as.html.] 

**** manspread - the act or practice, by a man, of sitting with their legs spread wide apart (as in a public seating area).

My Father: Almost Always In The Home But Almost Always Absent From My Life

In my conversations with men who sadly seem to be absolutely clueless about their intense impact on the lives of their daughters, I have noticed a definite pattern of these men adamantly refusing to accept responsibility for their actions, and inactions, toward these girls that they fathered. Almost anyone can have sex and bring a child into this world, but in the wake of all the damage done by indifferent and uninvolved dads there is a deluge of offspring that can attest to the fact that not being properly parented has had a definite lasting and negative impact on their lives. Because of my own experience with this, as a daughter, and my firsthand knowledge of what the consequences of this have been, for me personally, it disgusts me when these men tell me, very unapologetically, that they are absolutely dismissive about anything that their daughters have ever conveyed to them regarding the various types of harm done because they were not there as fathers in many, or sometimes any, positive ways.

These men simply shrug off their being told these things, often even displaying an obvious annoyance directed toward their child as they describe to me their being confronted by their daughters in such a way, saying that these girls are simply shirking their own responsibility for their own messed up lives, which has nothing whatsoever to do with them as their father. They also devalue both the communication and the daughter doing it, by saying that this type of 'tantrum' solely comes from the emotionalism with which females are often stereotypically branded, to be discredited, thereby conveniently providing these dads with a sort of perceptual permission to simply not take their daughters seriously about this at all. (Somewhere within them, though, I suspect that these men counter these daughterly divulgences in this way only because they feel that they then won't have to change or remedy what they refuse to acknowledge, something which would take real effort on their part, that, already clearly lacking from them, is at the very heart of this matter anyway.)

As it seemed with my father, men often tell themselves that if they stay with the woman they have impregnated, bringing home a paycheck, which contributes to the residence, food, and clothing that their offspring partake of, that they have therefore fulfilled their 'manly' duties within the family. However, any GOOGLE search quickly brings up no shortage of sites describing in detail the pervasive influence that dads have on their daughters, regardless of their level of involvement in their lives, while also documenting the need for these men to be helpfully involved in the lives of their children, and, the many areas of a daughter's life that are damaged if he fails to do so. Men are good at letting themselves off the hook, where this issue is concerned, forcing their daughters to have to live their lives with the consequences of their fathers failing them, while also getting the blame for what comes from that, which in large part should lay at his feet. She pays the price, for this.

I have memories of my father going back to when I was a toddler. The first few years were good memories, about him. He and my mother seemed to be happier together, in those early years of their marriage, than they would ever be in all the years following, up until my father finally divorced my mother late in life. Because they were a happy young couple back then, with my brother and I being the only children in the house at that time, all of our lives were happier. I remember a home life with a lot of shared smiles, in those days. Although I also felt lonely, and ignored, at times, almost invisible, when everyone else would settle in front of the TV in the evenings, while I sometimes chose to play with one of my toys instead, and, my brother was occasionally violent toward me, regarding all that was 'his' before I came along, I would still say that overall I had a happy home life, at the time. This included my having a real feeling of emotional closeness with my dad, which is so important to a little girl who depends on her father to be there for her, both physically and emotionally.

I can recall sitting on his lap, as a toddler, and sitting beside him in his chair (of course, watching TV) in the den, later on. When that suddenly stopped, and was simply gone for good, then, between us, by my dad's decision, I couldn't understand why. It was very confusing to me, as a small child, but also deeply traumatizing because it impacted me as being a rejection by him. My father was the very first person to ever break my heart. Beginning around the time that I was 6 years old, I remember him being a man that began to stop smiling as much, which only intensified, with him, as the years passed. He seemed to become resigned, in a way that left him bitter, resentful, and even cold. He also seemed to become increasingly escapist, within the home, being visible there in physical presence but that was about all. He was shut down, emotionally, most of the time, and when he did speak it was usually to express his displeasure or even anger.

Although 2 more girls were added to the picture, after my brother and I, completing the family, a lot of ongoing stresses and strains, primarily between my parents, but due to other things as well at times, seemed to always be tearing at the marital bond that was tenuously holding my parents together with one another, with us children caught in the middle of that in various ways. Ways which were hard to understand, if not impossible, for a child in the home.

When I was 6, my dad told me that I was too big, now, to sit beside him anymore in his big, cozy chair, where he spent most of his time when he was home. Instead, without further ado, he sat my younger sister there, in my former seat alongside him, and eventually he had both of my younger sisters sitting with him, one on each side. I recall looking down at my waist, pulling the top I was wearing tightly enough around me for me to see my actual girth, and I compared it with my younger sisters. We girls also often bathed together, back then, so I could easily see our size. There was very little difference, and more perplexing to me was the fact that both my younger sister and my baby sister could fit in the chair together, with my dad, and I knew that I wasn't wider than the two of them combined! If he had meant that I was 'too grown up' now, at age 6, to want or need to sit close beside my daddy, he was sadly mistaken, although I was never clear as to exactly what he meant by it since he never explained. I only knew that I had suddenly been replaced, as a skinny 6 year old, by two other bodies.

I felt like I had been literally cast aside, by him, and replaced by my two sisters that I resented as I saw them sitting in my spot while I wistfully looked on from a hard wooden chair across the room, alone. He did nothing to ease the transition, for me. If I had still received some acknowledgement or attention from my dad, despite this change in seating arrangements, I most likely would have felt less alienated from his affections, but he rarely paid me any mind from then on. It almost felt as if I had suddenly been banished to the other side of the world, rather than to the other side of the room, given that I seemed to fall almost completely off his radar from that point on.

However small this incident sounds, it sent an emotionally powerful message to a little girl, who didn't know why her father had no interest in spending time with her, anymore. Around this time, there were other signs that I had somehow gotten on my father's bad side, only I was a good and loving child, so I just couldn't comprehend how this relational nightmare had happened to me! When we were putting up the family Christmas tree one year, my baby sister was there in her bassinet. Wanting to include her in the festivities, as I had acted as a miniature surrogate mother to her ever since her arrival in our household, I placed a few of the silvery strands of tinsel above her, on the handle of the bassinet. My father snapped at me, scowling as he scolded me to "GET THAT OFF OF THERE!" While his concern was likely that the tinsel might fall in to the bassinet, and perhaps become a choking hazard for the baby, I would not have had any awareness of this type of potential danger to her, when I was so small myself. He never explained any of that to me, anyway, or simply directed me to remove it in a more kind or understanding way, which wouldn't come across to me as if I had somehow just committed an inexcusable crime of some sort. My feeling of always walking on eggshells, with him, began.

Once, he was lying on the couch in the living room and playing a made up game with us kids. It was special because my father didn't do a lot of this type of thing with us, and every child wants to interact with their dad, especially in a fun way. He was pretending to be a kind of monster, like a giant octopus, catching us in his clutches and holding us captive briefly by our arms before letting us go. We would then run back to the other side of the room, squealing with delight that we were free, before each of us, in turn, would run toward him another time, and be captured all over again. This went on for several cycles, with my dad as much into the game as we children were, making monster-like noises as he caught us in his grasp once more. After awhile, he apparently got carried away with it, though, because on one of my turns, he held me so tightly by the wrist that it hurt me, and I reacted to that by crying out in pain. Seeing my discomfort from that as being displeasure with him, he let go and flung my arm away from him.

Running back to the other side of the room, as my siblings took their turns, I felt my wrist stinging from the grip he had held me with, that last turn I had with him, and my skin was very red there as well. The next time that I ran up to him, confident that he would simply be more careful about how hard he was holding me, he wouldn't even look at me, and he would no longer play with me at all. He just acted as if I were invisible to him. I tried to continue with the others, in the game with him, but because I had said "Ow!" when I had been genuinely hurt by his roughness with me, he would no longer let me participate. So, I finally quit trying, and left the room, with tears welling up in my eyes, both from the pain I still felt in my wrist and from his shutting me out of the fun with him and my siblings.

I have always remembered that incident, because it sent an extremely strong signal to me, as a little girl. The message that I got, which my father had communicated so clearly to me by how he had treated me, after I spoke out from being hurt by him, was that I had to allow men to hurt me, without speaking up about it, beginning with him, in order for me to receive any attention or affection from them at all. I was also being taught to believe that I was merely treated by a man as I deserved to be, which meant that there was no problem then, unless I made it in to one by using my voice to protest, on my own behalf; something which apparently put me in the wrong.

What my dad taught me that day, when I was 7 years old, would affect my relationships with men for the rest of my life, and be something, deep down inside me, that I would have to consciously and conscientiously counteract. It influenced how men were allowed to treat me, and my remaining in a relationship with them in ways that weren't good for me. It affected whom I would end up marrying, and why, with me always settling for men that in some way or other had not, and were not, treating me very well, from my feeling unworthy of better, based on what I was raised to believe about myself. It left me feeling uncertain about my being entitled to hold men accountable to respect and value me, from my being taught that I had no chance to be loved if I did not go along to get along, as my dad had shown me I had to do, with him, all those years ago.

What I experienced on that day, with my dad, when I was just a little girl, had far-reaching effects on my life, and especially in my relationships with men. What my father had taught me, by his behavior, seemed to come up in every one of my attempts to find and have a loving relationship with a man. Studies have shown that a girl often ends up with a man much like her father, whether for better or worse, because that relationship was the primary one forming her view of what a husband is to be like, and how she is to be treated by a man in that relationship. It is not surprising at all, then, that I was married to 4 different men, and was not treated well by any one of them, in various ways, before I finally gave up trying altogether, realizing that I had been too damaged, especially in my parentally undermined sense of self-esteem, to be able to have that work out for me.

How I had been taught to see myself, due to my upbringing, was not serving me well at all. My parental role models weren't healthy ones, either! I wasn't raised having any idea how to maintain a happy marriage, since my parents were miserable for most of their marriage. A father is a daughter's first relationship, and her learning experience, with a man. That day, during the grabbing game, my dad taught me I must accept it when a man hurts me, and that I was to keep my mouth shut about it, by his demonstrating to me that it was the man, and my maintaining the relationship with the man at any cost, that was important; not me, or how I felt about how I was being treated. Children are always learning from their parents, lessons that are very impactful in their lives. This one certainly was, for me. My father's behavioral threat, that day of the grabbing game, and many, many other times, later on, of withdrawing all his interaction with me, and with that his attention and affection, as well, was scary, and quickly squelched my using my voice on my own behalf, both then and for many years of my life afterward. While this became the main weapon that my father used in his relational arsenal, throughout his life, I did finally find, and use, my voice, to speak my mind, to him and to others, and to stand up for myself, about things affecting me.

When I was a third grader, my parents were frequently fighting with one another that year, and one of those times was even more frightening for me to hear--- and see, some of it--- than usual. It was yet another late night, when I wasn't able to sleep because of it, listening to their voices arguing in their bedroom. Even though their door was closed, I could still hear this going on, with accompanying sounds that seemed to be slams and thuds, and brief silences, in the midst of all that. It was terrifying to me, as an 8 year old!

This particular night had seemed just like all the others, with this, up until the door of their room flew open and dad came rushing out through the den, headed toward the garage, with my mother close behind him, screaming, "Johnny, don't! Stop! Johnny, don't!" They both went out the back door, leaving it ajar. I could still hear their voices, outside now, and the sound of a car engine starting up. I crept out of my bed, getting to the open back door just in time to see dad taking off down the driveway with my mother just barely able to get herself into the passenger seat before he was gone. I could still hear her screaming for him to "Stop! Don't do it! Johnny, don't do it!" (whatever "it" was, which seemed too scary to think about, given the scene I was seeing), as I watched him weaving the car crazily along the driveway, as if he were trying to wreck the vehicle, with them both in it. Standing there in my nightgown, I wondered if I would ever see either of them again, especially alive.

Then, I started wondering what I would do, and how we kids would even survive, if they never came back, and the end had finally come, for them, from all this destructiveness in their relationship with one another. It appeared to me that my father was trying to kill himself, someone else, or both he and my mother now that she had left all her children behind in this house to jump into the car with this out-of-control man. Did they EVER think about US, when they were acting like that? >sigh< I recall still standing there, at the back door of our home, as the taillights from the car zigzagged down that long driveway, and then disappeared onto the road.

They were gone for awhile. I don't think they ever knew I had seen them acting this way; and heard them, that night, and so many others. There seemed to be some strong, unwritten law, within our immediate family, that nothing was to ever be talked about openly. As I stood there for a few minutes more, after they had driven away out of sight, before going back inside and closing the door, I found myself wondering if I would be able to cook anything for my siblings and I, to feed us, if our parents were gone, especially if they were gone for good. I had no idea if I would ever see either one of them again. This is not the kind of thing that any little girl needs in her life, and you better believe that it deeply affected me. Never being allowed to talk about anything, but having to just 'stuff it' all down inside me, continually, added insult to injury, for me, increasing the stress and strain that I felt from these things going on in my life.

My father started working out of town, in Oxford, for awhile, and he lived there during that time, for the most part. It seemed to me, because of that, and other things I saw, that my parents may have been separated from each other at the time. While I saw some things, one stormy night, that caused me to believe my mother was having an affair with someone, in our house, in my parents' bed, my dad's sister, my aunt, once told me that my dad had also developed feelings for some woman where he was living, as well. Mom drove us to Oxford, then, to see dad playing on the summer ball team there, perhaps for his company, parading all 4 of us kids around as if to make some kind of point to whomever. I was never sure whether his move out of town, during that time, was for economic reasons, marital reasons, or both. However, eventually, dad was back home with us again.

Once, mom told me to go out to the garage, where my father had been working on his car, and call him in to lunch, but I found him lying there unconscious, or possibly dead, I thought, on the hard garage floor, near an oil slick, with blood oozing from his head, and mom called an ambulance which took him away on a stretcher. Another time, mom came in the house, after being outside talking to my dad, and she was sobbing in a way that I had never heard her do before then. She began preparing the meal in the kitchen, as she kept crying, and she continually touched her hand to one of her cheeks, causing me to wonder if he had struck her.

I have mentioned, in my Blog post, "More Of My Memories Of My Mother", dated 5/8/19, the escalation of marital tensions between my parents during these years that I am describing here now, and I have spoken about my father in several of my posts as well, all of which is helpful as background information here, as far as filling in some of what exactly was going on. However, much of it always remained a mystery to me as a girl growing up in the midst of all this. Between the parts that I did know and those that I didn't, I was left feeling very uneasy. All of these troubling things had a real effect on me. Just growing up is difficult enough to do, even under far better circumstances than I was caught in.

While we were growing up, we were disciplined by my father in one of several ways. We would be spanked with his belt, or with a rose bush branch, a flyswatter, or his hand. He once broke a flyswatter, from spanking my brother with it so hard as he ran around the room trying to escape the pain of that, due to my brother taking a piece of candy from a store. Sometimes the belt would leave a welt on my leg, or the bush branch a mark, for awhile. I couldn't see my behind to know what the flyswatter did back there. The most interesting punishment, for me, was when my father struck my little leg with his hand as hard as he did, because for several days afterward there would be a big, red, raised welt, exactly in the outline of my father's large hand, that I would often place my small hand into, in the same position as his had been there, until it healed. My mother would rub Vaseline into it, for days, until it finally disappeared. We were not bad kids at all, though. We were very well behaved, most of the time. Apparently the small percentage that we weren't called for this type of 'basic' discipline, by my father, toward us.

Since he often seemed so grouchy, in general, and wasn't a very physically affectionate father, as well as the fact that he stood over 6 feet tall, which was intimidating in itself from where I stood as a little one, it didn't take much on his part to scare me or stress me out. Anything that he said had a huge impact on us, because he appeared silent and sulking, most of the time. This explains why, after him saying nothing directly to me for weeks on end, even though we were in close proximity to one another in the home, I would go from feeling absolutely invisible, to him, to wishing I were, when he would suddenly snap at me, as we all sat around the dinner table together, saying "GET YOUR HAIR OUT OF YOUR FACE!" No one would say a word at the table, usually, with everyone just looking down at their plates, causing this interjection of his into the silence to be even more startling. Being singled out like that, before everyone, in a negative way, felt humiliating to me. 

This type of thing, that he did to me, also eroded my self-esteem, since he didn't ever compliment me for or about anything. He was either silent toward me, or critical of me. There was never any affirmation from him! Needing that so badly from him, though, and only getting this other, negative and hurtful, attention from him, caused me to simply burst into tears when these things would happen. The only sound at the table would then be my uncontrolled sobs and sniffles, coming from my deep heartache, as we all ate our fried chicken and vegetables. It seemed in this family that we were learning to never be there for each other. That, in this type of environment, it was survival mode in the sense of "every man for himself." This atmosphere in that house was primarily due to how my father behaved.

On a family vacation trip, one summer, headed to the beach in the car, we pulled into a gas station to fill up the car, and have a rest stop if we needed to use the bathrooms. Not very long after we got there, I lost sight of any of the other 5 of them, and as I walked out to where our car had been parked, I saw that it was nowhere in sight! I stood there alone, with nothing. No ID, no money, NO FAMILY. Nothing. Several minutes later, they returned, driving up to where I was just standing there, all laughing at how funny they thought it was that I had been left behind by them, there. I just opened my car door, sat down, and stared out the window, showing no reaction to their hilarity except for the annoyance that my firmly set jaw likely gave away. 

I have a great sense of humor! People that interact with me have always said that about me, going back to when I was a child, at summer camp and on church retreats, et cetera. However, I didn't see this stunt or oversight, whichever one it was, as being very funny at all, because I was growing up in this family already truly feeling that I was invisible, to my parents especially, as it was, and feeling disrespected and diminished, by them, due to the ways that I was being treated, some of which I document in my Blog posts about my mother. So, rather than seeming laughable, it simply came across to me as an event which simply accurately depicted, and further underscored, my place, or lack of it, within this family. Sometimes my parents were insensitive, and sometimes they were just ignorant. I didn't even need or want to know which one this was; the result was the same, as far as how it impacted me emotionally.

In this house that we lived in, in Mebane, North Carolina, the most alarming of the sights and sounds, for me, that I, as a child, would ever witness in our home took place. I was ages 5 to 12, there. From my bed, I could see into the den, where dad would sit in his chair, and I could hear my parents talking together, about adult things, once they were alone. One night, they were having a conversation in which my father was describing to my mother that he had gotten into an actual fistfight with a subordinate at work, whom he seemed to be the supervisor over, in some machismo clashing of wills between them. Apparently he lost his job over that incident. For awhile after that, he would be gone most mornings, while my mother was at work, but there became an increasing number of times when he would show up during the afternoon and watch TV with us kids. He seemed out of place there, that time of day. 

I recall he worked very briefly for a headstrong, successful, and well-to-do uncle, who was married to one of my mother's sisters, that seemed to be trying to help him out by giving him this job. But my father didn't look comfortable working as a subordinate himself, especially for someone he spent family reunions socializing with. He appeared to feel awkward and out of place, for many months. We kids were totally shut out of what was actually going on with all this, since things were never talked about openly in our home, and my siblings seemed oblivious to these things, whether they were or not.

Once, relatives dropped by with bags of groceries, which had never happened before. We had vegetable gardens in the summers, and a freezer with the lima beans, corn, and other things we had grown, in it. I don't recall us ever being without the usual meals to eat, during this time, by any means. My dad's job situation strained things, though, apparently. I likely won't be able to get the sequence of events chronologically, here. I can only describe what I did see and know of them. 

During the long weeks that my dad would show up at the house during what used to be work hours for him, sometimes watching cartoons with us kids, there was one day that was very different, and very scary to me. He walked in literally looking and acting like a zombie, staring straight ahead, walking stiffly, and breathing in a very strained, hoarse, gasping way, that was very frightening for me to hear. He walked past us children in the den, into my parents bedroom, and laid on his back across the bed a short while. Then he went back outside, looking and acting the same scary way, walking right past us children, again, without any acknowledgement of whether he saw any of us, or, that my siblings were observing any of this going on with him, at all! I often seemed to be the only one noticing these things, for whatever reason. I was a very aware, and a very concerned, child. My father was gone for awhile after that, days, maybe weeks. It seems to me that one of the relatives told me later that he had a nervous breakdown at that time. It was unnerving, to me.

I came home one day, from high school, after being at choir practice, where those of us in the school Chorus were preparing to present the Christmas Program to our families. I told my mother that one of the boys in the Chorus had a real problem that we could help him with, especially since we lived relatively close to the high school. His family was poor, and lived far away on the other side of our town, where he went home on the school bus each day. I asked my mother if he could come home with me, on the day of our show, so that he could be back at the school in order to participate in our program. He wouldn't be able to get there, that evening, by bus, and, his mother would meet him at school after she got off work, see him in the show, and drive him home with her afterward. Mom agreed, putting some steaks from the freezer into the fridge to thaw for when he came, to honor him as our guest for dinner that upcoming evening. However, as she and I continued to discuss Dale, she soon realized that he was black. Except for housekeepers we had, in years past, all of whom were black, and the little boy of one of them, which she brought with her to work in our home because of no other option, my parents had never had a black in their home; and certainly not as a guest! Telling me that he likely wouldn't be used to steak, and that she didn't want to make him feel uncomfortable, Mom quickly put the steaks back in the freezer and pulled out hamburger, instead. She said that she felt this would be a meal which he would likely be used to having. 

So, Dale came home with me after school, and we ate supper, on the night of our choral presentation, and afterward he and I sat on the living room floor, playing a game of Chess, near the large, brightly lit, Christmas tree, which had presents piled underneath it. Things had gone well, overall, and since he hadn't known, as he ate his burger, that steak had been denied him, he seemed very appreciative of our hospitality to him. The den, where of course my father was sitting watching his TV, was adjacent to the living room, and the door was open between the two rooms. My father called me into the den, to question me for no good reason, since he was already well informed about the situation, and the plan to help Dale be there at school to sing that night. 

It was about a half hour, at that point, until Dale and I would need to leave the house to go over to the school to get ready to perform in our Christmas show. Dad glowered at me, saying loudly, easily within Dale's earshot, "How LONG is THAT BOY going to be in MY house?" Looking back at my father, mortified by his behavior, I replied, staring him right in the eyes, "Dad, you KNOW that we are leaving for the Choral Concert at school in just a few more minutes!" Then, with my dad wearing kind of an arrogant expression of having made his point, by what he did toward Dale, I shot my father a look that said, "Do NOT say ANYTHING else like that while my friend is in this house", and I went back into the living room. Although Dale did the best he could to stay upbeat, it was obvious that he had clearly heard my father. I was so ashamed of my dad for his acting like that, and, for his other bad behaviors over the years. I just did not have a father that I could feel proud of, or good about, although I wished that I had, and that I could!

Not long after, my friend Dan, our high school newspaper editor, stopped me in the hallway one day, saying he needed to speak to me about Dale. He told me that Dale had submitted a very hurt and angry letter, to be published in the school paper, which seemed to directly come from the situation that had happened at my house with my father. We both felt that Dale was entitled to have a forum to have his say, especially since my father had so hurtfully had his. Dan published the letter, and what Dale expressed in it so resonated with our black students, what they were going through and how they were treated, that an actual race riot erupted at our school from that, which was very frightening. Teachers had been scratched, trying to restore order, and the school was closed down briefly due to it. When we went back to classes, ministers from many of the local churches were positioned in the large open area on the main floor of the school, to be accessible and available for any of us to talk to, since everyone at the school was feeling pretty upset at this point, from a variety of perspectives and reasons. All Dale had needed was my family's kindness and a little help, for one short evening, just a few hours, so that he could make it back to school to be able to sing songs about the joy of the Christmas Season, and my dad couldn't even give that to him.

My father could be quite cruel at times, displaying behaviors which absolutely qualify as abusive. This went beyond his trying to control and punish us, the members of his own family, by giving us the silent treatment, as if it were, stupidly, somehow a sign of his honor, to his way of thinking, whenever we were doing or saying anything which wasn't pleasing to him for whatever reason. We always had a cat, or cats, in the home, primarily because my mother was very fond of them. While Dad allowed it, he seemed to have some sort of rivalry with them, and at the very least a real resentment toward these small, sweet creatures, which wouldn't or couldn't harm anyone. Whenever one of the cats would get underfoot at all, or even when they were simply going through the room that my father was sitting in, in order to get to their dishes in the utility room, he would snarl at them, stomp to startle and scare them with that noise, and even take his big foot and literally kick them! It was so hard for me to watch that, and see these animals quickly learn to become, and stay, terrified of him. I lost respect for my father, for several reasons, over the years, and this is on that list. These animals were a comforting and affectionate presence in our home, which God knows we needed there, and which my father certainly wasn't. For him to torment them that way was absolutely inexcusable. I hated it.

In so many ways, and for so many reasons, I am ashamed of my father. His cruelty didn't stop with helpless animals or black boys. He was also callous toward me, his own daughter. When I was in my last marriage, the one that was so pervasively abusive that I felt as if I were literally married to the Son of Satan, it was cycling in a downward spiral, from my husband's abuse toward me, to the point that my counselor was telling me that my life was now in danger. Part of how he controlled and punished me was to make sure he isolated me, and kept me from having access to resources (which could help me escape him) such as the car or any money. I was in a desperate and dangerous situation.

In a phone conversation with my friend, Judi, she naturally asked me if my going home to my family would be an option for me, and she simply couldn't comprehend my saying that it was not, especially given the circumstances that I was in. Shortly afterward, she called me back, and was apologizing to me, for something that I was unclear about, at first. Finally, I understood what she was saying to me. She was the head nurse of my OB/GYN doctor, as well as my friend, having access to my medical record, so she obtained my parents phone number from that. She said to me that she then called my parents, and that she explained the situation I was in to my father, who had answered the phone when she called. She told me that she simply couldn't believe me, or understand that it was true, of a family, when I had told her earlier that they were not an option for me. That they were no help to me. So, she took it upon herself to call them, on my behalf, only, my father said to her, about me, "Well, she can go to a homeless shelter, but SHE IS NOT COMING HERE!" Judi said it took her breath away to hear that. It didn't shock or phase me at all, however. I was used to all the various types of coldness that came from my father at times. I had to console Judi, in her shock and grief, about it, after she heard it firsthand with her own ears, but I wasn't surprised by it at all.

This father, of mine, was the same man that would later tell my relatives not to provide me with a plane ticket they were offering on my behalf, so that I would be able to come home for my brother's funeral, after he had committed suicide, because my dad DIDN'T WANT ME THERE! I told my father, after he did that to me, that I would not be at his funeral, when he died. And, I USED MY VOICE to tell him how he made me feel by treating me the way he has.
       
Sometimes my mother tried to bridge the gap between us kids and my dad's lack of effort to form a real relationship with us for himself. Months would go by without my dad saying a word to me, even though we lived in the same house, and usually on Sundays and Holidays ate at the same table. But Mom made sure that we had a couple of conversations a year, at least, by requiring that he be the parent to sign off on our school Report Cards. So, I would go through the obligatory conversation with him, for that, each time, while knowing full well that it was never going to lead to him suddenly becoming conversational with me on any regular basis, or spark a real relationship between us that nothing else had ever seemed to, at any other time throughout each calendar year that passed. It just felt odd, and incongruous, to me, to have to do that. For 99.99% of the time he didn't want to be bothered, and made no effort at all to interact with me. Now I have to go before this stranger, holding my Report Card in my hand, and a pen, and discuss with him why I got a poor grade in math class, and so forth. It took all I had, many times, to be respectful toward a man who wasn't someone that I had a real high opinion of, as the years and the things that I endured in that household wore on me. I always seemed to be the one that Mom recruited to try to correct the relational lag between dad and his offspring, which he himself created and was to blame for, since I had tried, and been shut out, so many different times.

He always made sure that nothing much was ever required of him, relationally, but then sometimes he, and especially mom, on his behalf, felt bad that he was left with as little emotional closeness as he had between his children and himself. Late one night, after I was already in bed, along with my siblings, Mom woke ME up (not the others) to come downstairs so that Dad could give me a children's bracelet that was too young for me, which he had bought while flying home from somewhere. As she later told me, he had been momentarily inspired to show some affection and appreciation for his own kids, because some man sitting next to him on the flight home had struck up a conversation, and was apparently enthusiastically telling my dad how great his own children were. My having to go through the motions, after being woken up, on this night, while I already knew Dad would never be different (and, he wasn't), felt as hypocritical to me as every Christmas Eve did in that home, when we children were each required to give some kind of a devotional presentation, before presents were opened. Neither of my parents ever led by example with that, themselves, and besides going to church on Sundays nothing religious was ever demonstrated in our home otherwise, except for various ones of us being asked to say grace, when we all sat at the dinner table together.

I developed a real aversion to anything feeling fake in relationships that I involve myself in, as a result of these things. I. Just. Won't. Do. It. Now. 

Dad did make more of an effort to have a relationship with his only son, my older brother who ended up committing suicide at age 40, but even with that, I don't think that my brother truly felt emotionally close with him. It seemed no one really did. Over the years, largely due to these experiences in my family, I lost my taste for my having to go the extra mile to have a relationship with anyone who isn't also expending equal effort. The return on investment, for that, emotionally, just isn't worth it, to me.

There was one afternoon, when we were still living in Mebane, that my mother took all of us children shopping for new clothes, and when we returned home, she sent us to our rooms with our bags, as soon as she saw dad sitting in the living room, with a couple of relatives from his side of the family. It seemed to be a surprise to her to see them there, that day, and it was unusual that dad was in the living room, and not in his chair in the den, watching TV, as he almost always was. The whole situation seemed strained, to me, and strange, including that my mother had brought us into the house through the front door, when she normally drove the car into the garage and entered through a back door of the house. As we came in to the house, that day, dad's voice had a tense tone to it, as he looked directly in my mother's eyes, saying emphatically, "Doris, you are NOT taking MY children out of this house!" It seemed, by the circumstance and conversation, that she must have been on the verge of leaving him, and taking all of us children with her. My parents remained together, following that, and for many more years, but my growing up in the midst of their troubled relationship with one another was not a happy or healthy position for me to be in, as a child.

By the time they were divorcing, dad wrote each of us kids a token letter from him, the only one ever, to me at least, stating how much he cared about our mother, while he and his lawyer argued back and forth with her and her lawyer over the financial arrangements in their final split from one another. Because he was the one divorcing her, I thought that letter to me was rather disingenuous, for that reason and because he also used it to say something negative about me, to me; not surprisingly, given the fact that he had ONLY done that to me for my ENTIRE life! He wrote that he felt I had wasted my life and talents, by not continuing with my artistic abilities, which he also stated in the letter had made him very angry toward me. I was in my late 40s, by the time my parents divorced, and I had long before this grown cynical about my father's behaviors. So, my reaction to what he said was that (1) he was trying to come off like the 'good guy' in their divorce battle, and (2) my "talents" he referred to never took root in my life because I was NEVER ENCOURAGED BY HIM, at ANY time, to EXPRESS MYSELF, through my art, or in any other way! THIS was the ONLY time he had EVER said to ME anything AT ALL about me even HAVING "talents" or "abilities". He had NEVER ONCE said or done ANYTHING to praise me, compliment me, or tell me ANYTHING GOOD ABOUT ME AT ALL! Literally. I felt angry that he was now taking THIS opportunity to say anything, well PAST the YEARS that I had SO NEEDED IT from him, and as the most backhanded compliment, by FINALLY bringing up something that I apparently did that he thought was a GOOD thing, but ONLY for him to state he was also UNHAPPY with my wasting that "talent" that he was only NOW saying he thought I even HAD, making it just ONE MORE THING that he was CRITICIZING ME for! GEEZ!